Doctor Who_ Ghost Ship - Keith Topping [4]
Still, at least he did not seem to wish to do me injury or violence, which put him several steps higher up the ladder of civilisation than a nasty green oozy something-or-other.
I withdrew my hand from my pocket and extended it towards him in a gesture of trust and, hopefully, friendship. 'Jelly baby?' I asked.
He waited for a moment, seeming bewildered, and then took a red one.
A man of taste, clearly.
'You, bein' a man of the world, will presumably know what they use for the colouring in the red ones,' he remarked.
'I'm sorry?' Half my mind was still on the scream that had brought me here.
'Jelly babies,' he explained.
'Yes,' I replied flatly, 'cochineal. The dye is made from the crushed bodies of tiny Mexican beetles.' It may seem strange now, from a distance, but at the time this conversation about confectionery seemed to be the most natural thing in the world.
'I always thought that was a right old cock-and-bull story,' the steward replied, 'but they all reckon it's true, don't they?' He smiled. 'Thank you, sir,' he said with the traces of a nasal Scouse accent buried deep within a fine Cockney facade that he had obviously built for the sole purpose of acquiring a job in such surroundings. 'I prefer the little boy babies personally,' he noted. 'You get more jelly that way.'
I returned his knowing smile. 'I'm the Doctor,' I said. 'I don't believe we've met.'
'Simpkins, sir,' he replied by way of introduction. 'You'll see me around.' He paused, and I could tell that he was still trying to make up his mind about my clothes. 'The magician from the ship's cabaret?' he asked, clicking his fingers together. It was less a question and more a statement of fact. I did not reply, so as not to shatter his illusions. 'Doctor Svengali, Master of Mesmerism, Prestidigitation, Chicanery and Sleight-of-hand, right? Go on then, show us a trick ... '
'I thought I heard a scream coming from this direction,' I said, neither confirming nor denying the identity with which he had provided me.
'Yes, I heard it too,' Simpkins confirmed. 'One of the toffs having a nightmare, I expect. I wouldn't worry about it. If they need anything, they'll scream again!'
And, at that moment, they did. This scream was loud enough to open the graves of the dead and persuade them to walk. It was coming from a room three doors further into the corridor.
'It's Miss Lamb's cabin,' Simpkins told me, matter- of-factly.
Finally, I roused myself. 'We should go and see what ... 'And then I stopped. I didn't need to say anything else, because both of us were thinking, simultaneously, the same thing. To see what vile spirit of hell was causing such demented cries.
Courage is not, I reflected then, something that you can buy at the newsagent's. Not even a good one like W.H. Smith & Sons.
Simpkins moved purposefully towards the door, his pass key in his hand.
I followed.
The screaming stopped, suddenly. He looked at me nervously. 'We should probably go in, shouldn't we?' he asked.
There always seem to be more questions than answers in situations such as this. Have you ever noticed that?
I agreed. We should.
'It's all right, Miss,' soothed Simpkins, as he held the terrified woman's shoulders straight and looked into her wildly dilated eyes. 'There's nothing here.'
She was sitting up in bed, the moist cotton sheet still pulled up to her chin, her eyes still as wide and mesmerised as they had been when we had burst through the door moments earlier to find her in a state of high anxiety. She continued to shiver even now, like someone caught outdoors without an overcoat on an unusually inclement day.
'It was,' she sobbed. 'There.' A finger pointed in a direction behind her. A place where she would not look. Towards the cabin wall and the porthole.
I moved to the spot that she had indicated and looked through the porthole. Outside, the night was freezing cold and as black as the moon having vanished behind a thick bank of cloud. A shroud of darkness seemed to press itself against the glass, threatening to