That’s how he can be dead. That’s how anyone can be dead.’
Otto reached out for the bottle of Hine and splashed some brandy into a glass. He didn’t pour it, he literally splashed it, the spreading stain on the white tablecloth as big as my hand: his own hand was shaking as badly as that. He poured out three fingers as compared to my two, which may not sound so very much more but then Otto was using a balloon glass whereas mine was a tulip. Tremblingly, he lifted the glass to his mouth and half of its contents disappeared in one gulp, most of it down his throat but a fair proportion on his shirt-front. It occurred to me, not for the first time, that if ever I found myself in a situation where all seemed lost, and the only faint hope of life depended on having one good man and true standing by my right shoulder, the name of Otto Gerran was not one that would leap automatically to my mind.
‘How did he die?’ The brandy had done some good. Otto’s voice was low just above a whisper, but it was steady.
‘In agony, I would say. If you mean why did he die, I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know? You—you’re supposed to be a doctor.’ Otto was having the greatest difficulty in remaining in his seat: with one hand clutching the brandy glass, the other was barely sufficient to anchor his massive weight against the wild plunging of the Morning Rose. I said nothing so he went on: ‘Was it sea-sickness? Could that have done it?’
‘He was sea-sick, all right.’
‘But you said a man doesn’t die just from that.’
‘He didn’t die just from that.’
‘An ulcerated stomach, you said. Or heart. Or asthma—’
‘He was poisoned.’
Otto stared at me for a moment, his face registering no comprehension, then he set his glass on the table and pushed himself abruptly to his feet, no mean accomplishment for a man of his bulk. The trawler rolled wickedly. I leaned quickly forward, snatched up Otto’s glass just as it began to topple and at the same moment Otto lurched to one side and staggered across to the starboard— the lee—door of the saloon leading to the upper deck. He flung this open and even above the shrieking of the wind and the crash of the seas I could hear him being violently sick. Presently he re-entered, closed the door, staggered across the deck and collapsed into his chair. His face was ashen, I handed him his glass and he drained the contents, reached out for the bottle and re-filled his glass. He drank some more and stared at me.
‘Poison?’
‘Looked like strychnine. Had all—’
‘Strychnine? Strychnine! Great God! Strychnine! You—you’ll have to carry out a post-mortem, an—an autopsy.’
‘Don’t talk rubbish. I’ll carry out no such thing, and for a number of excellent reasons. For one thing, have you any idea what an autopsy is like? It’s a very messy business indeed, I can assure you. I haven’t the facilities. I’m not a specialist in pathology—and you require one for an autopsy. You require the consent of the next of kin—and how are you going to get that in the middle of the Barents Sea? You require a coroner’s order—no coroner. Besides, a coroner only issues an order where there’s a suspicion of foul play. No such suspicion exists here.’
‘No—no foul play? But you said—’
‘I said it looked like strychnine. I didn’t say it was strychnine. I’m sure it’s not. He seemed to show the classical symptoms of having had tetanic spasms and opisthotonos—that’s when the back arches so violently that the body rests on the head and the heels only—and his face showed pure terror: there’s nearly always this conviction of impending death at the onset of strychnine poisoning. But when I straightened him out there were no signs of tetanic contractions. Besides, the timing is all wrong. Strychnine usually shows its first effects within ten minutes and half an hour after taking the stuff you’re gone. Antonio was at least twenty minutes here with us at dinner and there was nothing wrong with him then—well, sea-sickness, that’s all. And he died only minutes ago—far too long. Besides, who on earth would want to do away with a harmless boy like Antonio? Do you have in your employ a raving psycho who kills just for the kicks of it? Does it make any kind of sense to you?’
‘No. No, it doesn’t. But—but poison. You said—’
‘Food poisoning.’
‘Food poisoning! But people don’t die of food poisoning. You mean ptomaine poisoning?’
‘I mean no such thing for there is no such thing. You can eat ptomaines to your heart’s content and you’ll come to no harm. But you can get all sorts of food poisoning—chemically contaminated— mercury in fish, for instance—edible mushrooms that aren’t edible mushrooms, edible mussels that aren’t edible mussels—but the nasty one is salmonella. And that can kill, believe me. Just at the end of the war one variety of it, salmonella enteritidis, laid low about thirty people in Stoke-on-Trent. Six of them died. And there’s an even nastier one called clostridium botulinum—a kind of half-cousin of botulinus, a charming substance that is guaranteed to wipe out a city in a night—the Ministry of Health makes it. This clostidium secretes an exotoxin—a poison—which is probably the most powerful occurring in nature. Between the wars a party of tourists at Loch Maree in Scotland had a picnic lunch—sandwiches filled with potted duck paste. Eight of them had this. All eight died. There was no cure then, there is no cure now. Must have been this or something like this that Antonio ate.’
‘I see, I see.’ He had some more brandy, then looked up at me, his eyes round. ‘Good God! Don’t you see what this means, man! We’re all at risk, all of us. This dostridium or whatever you call it could spread like wildfire—’
‘Rest easy. It’s neither infectious nor contagious.’
‘But the galley—’
‘You think that hadn’t occurred to me? The source of infection can’t be there. If it were, we’d all be gone—I assume that Antonio—before his appetite deserted him, that was—had the same as all of us. I didn’t pay any particular attention but I can find out probably from the people on either side of him—I’m sure they were the Count and Cecil.’
‘Cecil?’
‘Cecil Golightly—your camera focus assistant or something like that.’
‘Ah! The Duke.’ For some odd reason Cecil, a diminutive, shrewd and chirpy little Cockney sparrow was invariably known as the Duke, probably because it was so wildly unsuitable. ‘That little pig see anything! He never lifts his eyes from the table. But Tadeusz—well, now, he doesn’t miss much.’
‘I’ll ask. I’ll also check the galley, the food store and the cold room. Not a chance in ten thousand— I think we’ll find that Antonio had his own little supply of tinned delicacies—but I’ll check anyway. Do you want me to see Captain Imrie for you?’
‘Captain Imrie?’
I was patient. ‘The master must be notified. The death must be logged. A death certificate must be issued—normally, he’d do it himself but not with a doctor aboard—but I’ll have to be authorized. And he’ll have to make preparations for the funeral. Burial at sea. Tomorrow morning, I should imagine.’
He shuddered. ‘Yes, please. Please do that. Of course, of course, burial at sea. I must go and see John at once and tell him about this awful thing.’ By ‘John’ I assumed he meant John Cummings Goin, production accountant, company accountant, senior partner in Olympus Productions and widely recognized as being the financial controller— and so in many ways the virtual controller—of the company. ‘And then I’m going to bed. Yes, yes, to bed. Sounds terrible, I know, poor Antonio lying down there, but I’m dreadfully upset, really dreadfully upset.’ I couldn’t fault him on that one, I’d rarely seen a man look so unhappy.
‘I can bring a sedative to your cabin.’
‘No, no, I’ll be all right.’ Unthinkingly, almost, he picked up