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was saying there had been a murder, but I was waiting for Gavin to come down. He sits at the same table and he’s usually pretty cheerful at breakfast. But when he came, he scarcely spoke a word for a long time. Then he told me he had to do some shopping ashore so he wasgoing with the Assistant Purser who knew all the ropes. That was all he said and I watched them going off the ship together. Then you came up and started asking me questions.”
    â€œI’m sorry if I annoyed you.”
    â€œOh, no. You didn’t. It was just that I thought Gavin was going to be a real friend …”
    â€œJust one question more,” Carolus said. “Had you ever heard anyone knock at Mrs Darwin’s door in the night before last night?”
    â€œWell, there may have been. You know what this ship is—”
    â€œBut you hadn’t heard it?”
    â€œNot to be certain of.”
    â€œYou think you may have?”
    â€œOh, I don’t know,” cried Susan, losing all patience. “No one knocked on my door, I know that.”
    Carolus called the steward and ordered two more drinks.
    â€œWho is the young officer who has just come in?” he asked Susan.
    She seemed to recover at once.
    â€œWhich? Where?” she asked.
    â€œI think it’s the Second Engineer.”
    Susan appeared transfixed.
    â€œYes,” she said. “I thought he’d gone ashore, too. Do you mind if I go out on deck? It’s rather stuffy in here.”
    As she left him Carolus caught a glimpse of Leacock with a broad and meaningful grin on his face peering in from the deck. He remembered what the man had said and felt just a little embarrassed.
    Sir Charles Spittals was signalling to him to rejoin him.
    â€œJust time for another,” he said. “They’re coming back for lunch, you see. The ship sails at two. What’s it going to be?”
    Carolus refused, and went out on deck. He was anxious to know whether Mrs Darwin’s, the
late
Mrs Darwin’s, husband had arrived as promised.
    Susan Berry’s mention of the young Dunlearys had reminded him of the fact, so disturbing to Mr Porteous. that the family from County Dublin were very much in evidence at times. Perhaps because they, like most Irish families, had a clutch of children, he had simply put them out of his mind. He admitted this was illogical, but he found it impossible to connect them with anything more sinister than singing “The Wearing of the Green” at a ship’s concert.

Seven
    A FTER LUNCH M RS S TICK called Carolus into the Sun Lounge with an air of urgency.
    â€œYou’ve got your murder all right then, sir,” she whispered, though there seemed to be no one within earshot. “I told you, you would have. That poor thing whose husband died on this very ship last year.”
    â€œAre you sure about it, Mrs Stick?
    â€œSure? Of course I’m sure. The lady at the table where we sit knew all about it at breakfast time this morning, only I couldn’t find you to tell you.”
    â€œI thought perhaps she might. Did she say how she heard?”
    â€œThere’s not much she doesn’t hear, if you ask me,” said Mrs Stick. “She was told it was two of the crew done it, battering the poor lady something cruel. It just shows you, doesn’t it? What can happen when you come on a cruise like this. As I said this morning, I said, ‘They’re all smiles when they see you walking about but you never know what they’re planning among themselves,’ Look at what happened to her, I mean.”
    This was altogether too allusive for Carolus.
    â€œTo whom?” he asked politely.
    â€œThe lady at the table where we sit. I told you how one of the stewards tried to get into her cabin.”
    â€œYou told me nothing of the sort. You expressly said the man who came to her cabin at night was not a steward. He had grey flannel trousers.”
    â€œIt’s all the same