Five Passengers from Lisbon

Colonel Josh Morgan turned to watch her leave. Captain Svendsen, very thoughtful-looking, returned to his pipe. The door closed behind her and she walked along the narrow, shining, gray passage.

Murder, in that tossing, frantic lifeboat with the crash of wind and waves all around them—while they sat huddled together; while they watched. Only, of course, they hadn't watched, really. Anything could have happened during, say, one of those blinded, frantic forays of wind and waves and terror.

Yet it was still impossible, really, to comprehend it. Who would have wanted to murder Alfred Castiogne? Who cared, just then, about anything in the world but the next wave, the next breath of air, the next pulse of life?

She reached the central passageway with its flights of open, ladderlike stairways going up and down, and Mickey was waiting for her, lounging against a bulkhead, smoking and talking to Luther Cates and a young lieutenant with the golden, spoked wheel of the Army Transport Corps on his sleeve. Mickey sprang forward when she emerged.

"Okay, Marcia? Let's get out on deck. Better put on that coat. It's still cold."

Luther Cates had followed him; the young lieutenant gave them a brief look and disappeared into an office near at hand. Luther looked tired and old, as if the previous night had added years. His face was drawn and gray; there were deep pouches under his pale-blue, rather bewildered eyes, but he was freshly shaved and the thin gray hair over his temples was plastered down neatly. He too wore an army uniform from which the insignia had been removed and managed somehow to look, as he had done in black beret and shabby topcoat on the Portuguese ship, exactly as if he had stepped—although rather wearily—from the pages of Esquire. He took her hand in his own thin and boneless clasp. "How are you, my dear? Better? Daisy Belle said you were sleeping so none of us called you. I suppose they've been questioning you about this man, Castiogne?"

"Yes."

"They've questioned all of us. Daisy Belle was quite annoyed; said the only thing she knew of him was that he smelled of garlic. Well, well, it's a queer thing, of course. I can't understand it myself. I don't remember anything at all that is suggestive; I had no idea he was dead. But obviously one of the two seamen did it. Nobody else would have had a motive."

"How is Daisy Belle?"

"Oh, she's all right. She always says she has the constitution of a horse. More than I've got. . . ." He coughed a little, apologetically. "I think she's in the dining salon now. With— er—Miss Duvrey."

Mickey took her coat and slipped it .over her shoulders. Luther added, smiling: "You make a very beautiful nurse, my dear. Daisy Belle is quite enchanted with her uniform. They seem to have taken up a collection for us in the way of clothing. I believe we are the only civilians aboard. And very lucky to be aboard, I'm sure."

He waved as they turned toward the deck.

The air was fresh and cold, suddenly, on her face. It was night and the sea was very black, but the ship was lighted everywhere. The Red Crosses painted on her sides and on her smokestack were brilliantly outlined with red lights; portholes all along the decks were lighted; floodlights shone down further to illuminate the enormous Red Crosses. Those painted, lighted symbols of mercy had been the ship's protection. The sound of a radio came from an open port near by; somewhere in the distance some men were singing.

The storm was over, although the sea was still so heavy the ship rolled a little. Marcia slipped her arm through Mickey's and they crossed the slippery deck and stopped to lean over the railing. The sky was cloudy with scarcely a star showing, but the radiance of the lighted Red Crosses on the ship touched the black water so they seemed to move in a glittering track of red and gold light. Mickey, his shoulder pressing against hers, said suddenly: "What did the Captain say? What happened? Did you tell him that I am using Andre Messac's name?"

"No. No, but, Mickey ..."

"Andre, darling."

"That's it, Mickey. We've got to tell them your real name."

He sighed and took out a package of cigarettes. He had never got used to having cigarettes, plenty of cigarettes, all he wanted. He said now again, as he had said so many times in the past weeks: "Cigarettes! Think of it! Real cigarettes! Have one?"

She took it and bent to the small flame in his cupped hands. As she did so, she saw the mangled, twisted scar tissue of the fingers. She wanted to put her lips upon them; she mustn't do that and wound his pride, or let him know how terribly that sight wrenched at her heart. He said: "I wanted a chance to talk to you before the Captain did and simply couldn't make one. The first I knew of the murder was when they got me up there in the Captain's quarters and I couldn't get away to warn you not to tell them that I'm using a borrowed passport."

"But, Mickey, we've got to tell the truth."

'Tell them who I really am? Why? The passport is all right. They'll never question it. If that's what you are worried about . . ."

"No, no, it's not that! It's because—oh, there are so many reasons, Mickey. For one thing it's—well, it's the truth."

He smoked for an instant, his fine, sensitive profile clear in the rosy light. "You subscribed to my idea of using that passport when I suggested it," he said finally. "You agreed to it."

"Yes, but . . ." She could not say, but that was so we could leave quickly, so I could get you away from anything and everything that would remind you of all the horror that you must forget. She said, substituting: "Yes, it seemed convenient and much quicker than waiting. It didn't seem important so long as we were not going directly home. I thought that later at Buenos Aires, when we applied for passports home we could simply tell the consul exactly why and what happened. But now we are going directly home; we'll arrive at a home port. The only thing to do, I think, is to tell the truth and make an appeal to the State Department."

"They'll send me back to Europe."

Would they? She wished desperately that she knew more of law. Had they been not only mistaken in attempting something that, at the time had seemed so natural and so right, but had they been criminally wrong as well, offending the law? She said slowly: "We were wrong to do it, Mickey. I shouldn't have let you. You weren't well, you weren't yourself. All that . . ."

"Listen, Marcia," said Mickey suddenly, "that's beside the point. You'd better know right now that I'm Andre Messac from now on. Everybody thinks that Michel Banet, the concert pianist, is dead. Well, then he's going to be dead."

"Mickey ..."

"Andre. I am Andre Messac from now on. Marcia, for God's sake, pride is the only thing left to me. I can't let people know the truth! If you tell them who I am, there'll be nothing but pity and curiosity and failure for me, for the rest of my life. I've got to have my chance at a new life. Some sort of new life . . ." Mickey flung away his cigarette, a tiny red rocket, into the sea. "Pity and curiosity, a man stared at, pointed at, talked about. Michel Baaet, they'll say; he could have been the world's greatest pianist. Look at him now. And look," said Mickey, his voice rough, "at his hands."

He spread them out, pitilessly, as if they had a separate being, subjecting them to the light.