Death in the Andamans (23 page)

‘No,' said Copper in an oddly uncertain voice: ‘That's why I put your name down.'

Nick swung round to face her, his eyes suddenly narrow and angry, but she would not meet his gaze, and after a moment he turned his attention to the notebook in his hand. ‘Fortunately,' he stated curtly, ‘in spite of Copper's theories we can cut this list down by half. Pencil please, Charles.'

‘Why?' inquired Copper indignantly as Charles reached for a pencil from his writing-desk and tossed it across.

‘Because, my dear girl,' said Nick acidly, ‘we have already decided that although there were two murders, there is only one murderer. Therefore, as Ferrers was killed during the time that the sailing party spent in the water on Christmas Eve, it stands to reason that only a member of that party could have done it. Which brings the suspects down by half. We can now eliminate you, Valerie, Charles and the Commissioner as a start. Amabel and George are out of it too, and the padre and Mrs Dobbie and the sentry. Also “X”. The “unknown quantity” I presume, Copper?'

‘Yes,' said Copper defensively: ‘I thought it might have been one of the natives. But there were none on the boats, of course.'

‘That still leaves us with a pretty large list of suspects,' said Valerie despondently.

Charles said: ‘Only five. That's a lot better than fifteen!'

‘Five?' Valerie rose from the bed and went to lean over Nick's shoulder: ‘You mean seven!'

‘Look, darling,' began Charles patiently, ‘we've already agreed that the man who masqueraded as Dan last night was the murderer, and if so
____
'

‘What makes you so sure it was a man?' cut in Valerie quickly.

‘My dear Val!'

‘She's quite right,' said Copper. ‘We can't be sure. It could just as easily have been a woman. Those capes come down well below the knee, and they're so bulky that you couldn't be certain of the size — or the height! — of anybody wearing one, because the peaked hood would give an impression of height. And anyway I'll bet the sentry barely looked at the person who passed. He would have been so sure it was Dan that his eye would have been blind to details.'

Nick said: ‘They're right, of course, Charles. We can't rule out the possibility of its having been a woman.'

‘Have it your own way,' said Charles. ‘Keep 'em on the list. But as it's half past four and I need refreshment, I propose to call a short interval. Or do I mean “adjourn the court”? Val darling, phone your father that you and Copper will be out to tea: then we can carry on these bloodcurdling discussions after we have fortified the inner man.'

He tucked her hand under his arm and they went out to organize tea and telephone Government House.

16

There was a brief interval of curiously strained silence after they had left the room, and then Nick said pleasantly: ‘So you think my name should be included among the suspects, do you, Copper? May I ask why?'

‘Certainly you may,' replied Copper lightly. ‘Always providing you don't expect an answer.'

A spark leapt to life in Nick's grey eyes for a swift unreadable moment, and then he laughed and lay back in his chair. ‘Take it that I'd merely appreciate one, then. Do I get it?'

Copper considered him for a long moment. His dark hair was unusually smooth and the eyes that held hers were once again narrowed and lazy. But she saw too, and with a tremor of disquiet, that in spite of his indolent posture and the suggestion of a smile that curved his mouth, there was something about him — some tenseness of line — that suggested wariness.

‘I've already told you why,' said Copper defensively. ‘Until we can eliminate by proof, we must include everyone.'

Nick said very softly: ‘But that isn't what you meant in my case, is it, Copper?'

‘No,' said Copper after a moment, in an oddly brittle voice: ‘No. You were right when you said we didn't know anything about you. We don't.'

‘And therefore I am probably capable of murder?' suggested Nick ironically. ‘Very instructive!'

Copper stiffened and her eyes were suddenly both reckless and angry. ‘Do you want me to go on?' she inquired crisply.

‘Of course. I'm all for hearing your candid opinion of me.'

‘It's not a question,' said Copper coldly, ‘of my opinion of you, candid or otherwise. I thought we had already decided — I think you were the one to point it out? — that the murderer of Ferrers Shilto and Dan must be one of seven people. And as you are one of those seven I had supposed, from your question, that you'd like a disinterested opinion on the possibility of suspicion resting on you. Apparently you don't.'

‘I accept the correction,' said Nick gravely. ‘I shall be more than grateful for a — disinterested opinion.'

Copper got up abruptly, and moving to the window stood looking out into the mist with her back to him and her fingers playing restlessly with the window-latch. The slow seconds ticked away to the tune of the fog-dew dripping from the roof-edge outside, and at last, and without turning, she said in a deliberately cool and conversational voice: ‘You were the only one who knew Dan Harcourt before he came to the Islands, and for all we know there may have been some quarrel between you that we know nothing about. They — the police — will think of that. You may have had a dozen reasons for hating Dan.'

‘Thanks,' said Nick, without sarcasm. ‘You are right. It's just as well to get a “disinterested” opinion' (once again he stressed the word slightly) ‘on how people are likely to regard one when it's a case of looking for a murderer. Go on.'

Copper said haltingly: ‘I know it sounds rude and – and beastly, but I thought you'd better see
____
'

‘Oh, don't apologize!' interrupted Nick. ‘It's very interesting. What about Ferrers? Where does he fit into my murderous schemes?' Copper turned abruptly to face him. The knuckles of her clenched hands showed white and her voice had a defiant edge to it: ‘I have no idea
____
'

‘You surprise me!' murmured Nick.

‘— why you should murder a man whom you had only met that day. But then it is always possible that you had met him before. Say about a month ago?'

‘Meaning what?' inquired Nick softly.

‘Meaning … just that!'

Copper turned away again and stared blindly out at the drifting mist. Her anger had vanished as suddenly as it had come, but something else had taken its place: an indefinable and disquieting tension. And when at last she spoke, it was without turning her head, and in a voice so low as to be barely audible: ‘Ferrers Shilto,' said Copper, ‘used to go to Calcutta on business once a year, travelling on the
Maharaja.
I know when he was last there, because he was on board with me when I arrived here. And I know that he had stayed at the Grand Hotel because I saw the labels on his luggage; you couldn't miss them. I know, too, that during the time he was there the
Sapphire
was on a visit to Calcutta, and you told me yourself that you had stayed
____
' Her voice failed her and she turned stiffly to face him.

Nick was sitting quite still. A faint curl of smoke drifted from the cigarette between his fingers, but there was no other movement in the quiet room, and Copper saw with a tightening of the heart that a queer little change had come over his face. It was so slight as to be barely perceptible — yet it was there. He had made no motion of surprise or denial, but the lines of his mouth had become fixed and his grey eyes coldly angry, and presently he said: ‘Thank you for defining my position so clearly. Perhaps you'd like to know that your surmise is correct. I did meet Ferrers Shilto in Calcutta.'

He made no attempt to qualify that terse statement, and Copper drew her breath in a small, hard gasp, and feeling her knees suddenly go weak, sat down abruptly on the end of Charles's bed.

Nick came to his feet in one swift unexpected movement, and crossing the space between them in two strides, caught her by the shoulders and jerked her to her feet. She made an instinctive movement to wrench herself away, but the grip of his hard fingers on her shoulders held her rigid, and she abandoned the attempt to free herself as useless and undignified.

Releasing his hold on one shoulder he caught her chin in his free hand, and jerking her head up to meet his gaze, laughed down at her small startled face and wide apprehensive eyes. ‘I should never have given you credit for such a vivid and unpleasant imagination, darling. Seriously, do you think that I may have done it?' His voice sharpened suddenly:
‘Answer me, Copper!'

‘It isn't a question of what I think,' said Copper stiffly. ‘I have only pointed out that you
could
have done it.'

The fingers about her chin tightened convulsively, but he said coolly enough: ‘You haven't answered my question.'

Copper's lips closed in a stubborn line and she stared at him in silence, suddenly as angry as he was. A minute ticked by. Sixty seconds that seemed as long as an hour — or a day. Then, ‘That's all I wanted to know,' said Nick dryly. ‘So you think I might even be a murderer, do you, Copper? Well, has it occurred to you yet that if I were capable of committing two murders, I might be equally capable of committing a third? After all, you appear to be the only one who has spotted any connection between myself and Ferrers Shilto.'

The warm strong fingers about her chin relaxed their grip and slid downwards to close gently about her throat, but Copper did not move. She stood as though frozen between anger and fear. A fear that held no considerations for her own safety, but was nonetheless real for that.

It was, of course, absurd to think of Nick in connection with murder, and it would be a mis-statement to say that she had dismissed the idea. It being impossible to dismiss an idea that has never for a moment been entertained. But it had occurred to her that the authorities might well consider Nick as a possible suspect, and her imagination, stimulated by anxiety for him, had instantly presented her with several uncomfortable lines of thought: including an unfortunate recollection of his late sojourn in Calcutta. She had blurted out the results of her anxious meditations from a vague feeling that she must warn him that he might be regarded with suspicion, and she had expected him to laugh at her. But he had not laughed. He had merely been angry. Couldn't he
see
…?

The fingers about her throat tightened steadily, and suddenly Copper became aware of the blood drumming in her ears. She opened her mouth to cry out, but found that she could make no sound. And in the next instant Nick bent his head and kissed her parted lips, long and deliberately.

A moment later the door was flung open behind them and Charles's voice said: ‘What on earth are you two waiting for? A gong? Come along and have some tea. Val's made enough toast for sixty.'

Nick's hand dropped to his side, and Copper stepped back — both hands to her throat and her heart beating jerkily.

Nick swung round with a laugh: ‘As usual, Charles, you arrive in the nick of time — no pun intended. I was about to commit my third murder.'

‘Don't let me stop you,' said Charles.

‘Copper here,' explained Nick lightly, ‘has just been proving, with a wealth of damnatory detail, that I could easily be the local murderer. What are you going to do about it, Charles?'

‘Nothing!' said Charles firmly. ‘I'm sorry, Coppy: you're probably dead right, but as he is a good deal larger than I am, I shall prudently ignore it and…' He stepped back hurriedly as Copper brushed past him into the ante-room, her chin high and her cheeks scarlet.

‘Hullo!' said Charles, recovering his balance and disentangling his feet from among a collection of carelessly placed fishing-tackle. ‘The lady seems annoyed. Have I put a foot into it somewhere?'

‘Both, I imagine,' said Nick with unexpected bitterness. ‘And practically everywhere. Copper's dead serious about this question of my having committed the local crimes. She almost convinced
me!
' He laughed shortly, and Charles echoed the laugh; and then remembering Copper's face as she had passed him, stopped laughing and frowned. ‘Do you mean to say,' he demanded incredulously, ‘that you think that Copper thinks
____
? Of all the unmitigated drivel! Why, the girl thinks you're
____
Ahem!
'

Charles pulled up abruptly on the brink of betraying certain strictly private confidences imparted to him by Valerie, and Nick said curiously: ‘Thinks I'm what?'

‘Oh, er — I forget. But if you ask me, she's merely been trying to take the mickey out of you. You oughtn't to buy it. Come and have some tea: Val's collected enough to feed a school treat.'

They ate toast and Christmas cake in the ante-room of the Mess, and afterwards, when the cups and plates had been cleared away, Valerie wrote steadily in the notebook and was presently able to announce that she had put down a rough outline of the happenings of the last two days, and that it was time they got back to work. ‘Where were we?' inquired Charles.

‘Narrowing down the suspects. And now I suggest that we give each of the seven members of the sailing party a page apiece and put down any evidence we can think of, for or against, under each name. Here they are:
JOHN SHILTO, RONNIE PURVIS, LEONARD STOCK, HAMISH RATTIGAN, ROSAMUND PURVIS, RUBY STOCK
and
NICHOLAS TARRENT
. And I should think we could cross off at least three of those straight away, wouldn't you?'

Nick said curtly: ‘No, don't cut any of them. Who was the first on the list? John Shilto, wasn't it? Well, what have we got against him?'

‘Easy!' said three voices.

‘All right. One at a time. Come on, Copper. You'd make the best counsel for the prosecution.'