Dead Water

The door was still swinging. Alleyn caught it and was once more engulfed in the storm.

It was raining again, heavily. The force of the gale was such that he leaned against it and drove his way towards the steps in combat with it. Two other lights — Bailey’s and Thompson’s, he supposed — dodged eccentrically across the slanting downpour. He lost them when he reached the steps and found the iron rail. But there was yet another lancet of broken light beneath him. As Alleyn went down after it, he was conscious only of noise and idiot violence. He slipped, fell — and recovered. At one moment, he was hurled against the rail.

“These bloody steps,” he thought. “These bloody steps.”

When he reached the bottom flight he saw his quarry, a dark, foreshortened, anonymous figure, veer through the dull light from Miss Cost’s shop window. “Pender’s got a candle or a torch,” Alleyn thought.

The other’s torch was still going: a thin erratic blade. “Towards the jetty,” Alleyn thought. “He’s making for the jetty.” And down there were the riding lights of the hotel launch, jouncing in the dark.

Here, at last, the end of the steps…Now he was in seawater, sometimes over his feet. The roar of the cha

He had gained ground. The other was moving on again, doubled up like Alleyn himself, and still using a torch. There was no more than thirty feet between them. The riding lights danced near at hand and shuddered when the launch banged against the jetty.

The figure was poised: it waited for the right moment. A torchlight swung through the rain and Alleyn found himself squinting into the direct beam. He ducked and moved on, half-dazzled, but aware that the launch rose and the figure leaped to meet it. Alleyn struggled forward, took his chance, and jumped.

He had landed aft, among the passengers’ benches; had fallen across one of them and struck his head on another. He hung there, while the launch bucketted under him, and then he fell between the benches and lay on the heaving deck, fighting for breath and helpless. His torch had gone and he was in the dark. There must have been a brief rent in the night sky, because a company of stars careened across his vision, wheeled and returned. The deck tilted again and he saw the hotel windows, glowing. They curtsied and tipped. The power’s on, he thought — and a sudden deadly sinking blotted everything out. When he opened his eyes he thought with astonishment: I was out. Then he heard the engine and felt the judder of a propeller racing above water. He laid hold of a bench and dragged himself to his knees. He could see his opponent, faintly haloed by light from the wheelhouse, back towards him, wrestling with the wheel itself. A great sea broke over them. The windows along Portcarrow front lurched up and dived out of sight again.

Alleyn began to crawl down the gangway between rows of fixed seats, clinging to them as he went. His feet slithered. He fell sideways and, propping himself up, managed to drag off his shoes and socks. His head cleared and ached excruciatingly. The launch was now in mid-cha

Did that other, fighting there with the wheel, know Alleyn was aboard? How had the launch been cast off? Were the mooring-lines freed from their cleats, and was she now without them? Or had they been loosed from the bollards while he was unconscious? What should he do? Keep observation! he thought sourly. An exquisite jab of pain shot through his eyeballs.

The launch keeled over and took in a solid weight of sea. He thought, Well, this is it, and was engulfed. The iron legs of the bench bit into his hands. He hung on, almost vertical, and felt the water drag at him like an octopus. It was disgusting. The deck kicked. They wallowed for a suspended moment and then, shuddering, recovered and rose. The first thing he saw was the back of the helmsman. Something rolled against his chest: he unclenched his left hand and felt for it. The torch.

Street lamps along the front came alive and seemed dramatically near-at-hand. At the same time the engine was cut. He struggled to his feet and moved forward. He was close, now, to the figure at the wheel. There was the jetty. Their course had shifted, and the launch pitched violently. His left hand knocked against the back of a seat and a beam of light shot out from the torch and found the figure at the wheel. It turned.

Mayne and Alleyn looked into the other’s face.

Mayne lurched out of the wheelhouse. The launch lifted prodigiously, tilted, and dived, nose down. Alleyn was blinded by a deluge of sea water. When he could see again, Mayne was on the port gunwale. For a fraction of time he was poised, a gigantic figure against the shore lights. Then he flexed his knees and leaped overboard.

The launch went about and crashed into the jetty. The last thing Alleyn heard was somebody yelling high above him.

He was climbing down i

“Fox,” he said, with immense satisfaction.

“There, now!” said Inspector Fox.

Alleyn went to sleep.

When he woke, it was to find Troy nearby. Her hand was against his face. “So, there you are,” he said.

“Hullo,” said Troy, and kissed him.

The wall beyond her was dappled with sunshine and looked familiar. He puzzled over it for a time, and, because he wanted to lie with his face closer to her hand, turned his head and was stabbed through the temples.

“Don’t move,” Troy said, “You’ve taken an awful bash.”

“I see.”

“You’ve been concussed and all.”

“How long?”

“About thirty-four hours.”

“This is Coombe’s cottage?”

“That’s right, but you’re meant not to talk.”

“Ridiculous,” he said and dozed off again.

Troy slid her hand carefully from under his bristled jaw and crept out of the room.

Superintendent Coombe was in his parlour with Sir James Curtis and Fox. “He woke again,” Troy said to Curtis, “just for a moment.”

“Say anything?”

“Yes. He’s…” Her voice trembled. “He’s all right.”

“Of course, he’s all right. I’ll take a look at him.”

She returned with him to the bedroom and stood by the window while Curtis stooped over his patient. It was a brilliant morning. The cha

“You’re doing fine,” Curtis said.

“Where’s Troy?”

“Here, darling.”

“Good. What happened?”

“You were knocked out,” Curtis said. “Coombe and two other chaps managed to fish you up.”

“Coombe?”

“Fox rang him from the hotel as soon as you’d set off on your wild-goose chase. They were on the jetty.”

“Oh, yes. Yelling. Where’s Fox?”

“You’d better keep quiet for a bit, Rory. Everything’s all right. Plenty of time.”

“I want to see Fox, Curtis.”

“Very well, but only for one moment.”

Troy fetched him.

“This is more like it, now,” Fox said.