Dead water - Barbara Hambly [71]
“More than that.” The young planter consulted his notes, a nervous tic pulling sharply at the left side of his face. “According to Mr. Souter, the rudder was dragging and pulling shortly before midnight, as it does when it's picked up a branch. Mr. Molloy was just getting ready to come off watch when it happened, and cursed at it, Mr. Souter says. When Souter took over the wheel, he felt it, and whatever it was, it pulled loose in about an hour.”
January shivered. The man might well have ruined him—and hundreds of other investors—walking away without a thought to the lives he was wrecking. . . . But it was still a horrible way to die. Even in the deserts of Algeria, a thief would lose a hand, not his life.
“Mr. Weems left supper early,” Davis went on, glancing at Hannibal, whether for reaction or confirmation January could not guess. “Almost as soon as dessert was served . . .”
“And I stayed on,” pointed out Hannibal, “to entertain the company as usual after supper was over—not wishing to play the despot, I did not demand Ben accompany me after the day he'd had. If you recall, I was continuously in the Saloon from supper until well after midnight, engaged with either music or cards.”
“Yes,” agreed Davis, “yes, of course. As for where Mr. Weems was . . .”
“Begging your pardon, sir.” Thucydides turned from preparation of a pot of tea for the ladies breakfasting in the Parlor, setting the enormous japanned tray down. “I don't know where Mr. Weems was the whole of that time, sir, but I met him on the upper starboard promenade, outside the gentlemen's staterooms, just after ten o'clock. He was standing outside a stateroom, trying to unlock the door, I thought. I spoke to him, not meaning disrespect, but thinking he'd mistaken the room, for his stateroom is the first one at the bow end of the boat, and he was trying to unlock one down at the stern end. But he turned away fast and went off down the promenade to the stern without speaking.”
“You're sure it was he?”
The steward nodded gravely. “I saw his face clear in the light of the lantern he carried, though it was black foggy.”
Davis frowned. “Now, why would he have mistaken which end of the boat his stateroom was on? Unless he was intoxicated, and I have never seen him so—though of course if he was, it might explain his falling accidentally over the rail.”
“A man would have to be more intoxicated than liquor could make him,” mused January, “to go over the railings of either the upper deck or the lower . . . sir,” he remembered to add, hoping Davis wasn't a stickler for servants not speaking unless and until spoken to. And when the planter only furrowed his brow inquiringly, he went on. “Those railings are nearly elbow-high, and the upper-deck promenades are narrow—three feet, I think, from the wall to the railing. A man falling backwards against the rail might flip over it if he hit it with sufficient force, but his feet would almost certainly strike the wall and catch him.
“And the fact is, sir, though I don't know why Weems was trying to get into one of the staterooms at the stern end of the promenade, I think he tried to get into more than one.” And he recounted the attempted intrusion into Hannibal's stateroom, ending with: “That was just about at eleven, because I heard the leadsmen calling out as the boat was coming up to the bar.”
Davis glanced sharply at Thucydides—who very properly kept his eyes lowered from the white man's gaze—then at January. “And where is your master's stateroom in relation to the stern end of the promenade?”
“Third from the end,” said January. “Sir.”
“The last four are Mr. Lundy's, Mr. Sefton's, Mr. Cain's, and Mr. Molloy's, sir,” provided Thu.
“I expect the lock-faces would bear some sign of it,” said Hannibal as the steward left the Saloon with his enormous tea-tray in hand, “if the locks of those staterooms had been picked or forced, unless Mr. Weems was extremely adept at what he was doing.” With