Aground by Charles Williams

Author:Charles Williams
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Published: 2010-07-24T05:00:00+00:00

8

“Is he gone?” she asked.

“Should be about halfway back.”

“No wind that blew dismayed her crew, or troubled the Captain’s miiiiiinnnnd!” she howled. Then she went on quietly, “He woke up while I was trying to get the raft overboard. I started singing again, and said I was going over to the yacht club to see if the bar was still open. I think I fooled him. Anyway, he’d apparently had it as far as the Bahamas Nightingale was concerned, so he brought me over here instead of tying me up.”

“You can kick me now,” Ingram said, “or wait till daylight if it’s more convenient. I thought it was on the level.”

“If you mean you thought I was drunk, you were pretty close to being right. Even with what I managed to ditch, I still had to put away a lot of rum; that Morrison must have been weaned on it.”

“You were after the raft?”

“Principally. I thought we might be able to make it ashore somewhere. But I also wanted to get down in those cabins and see if I could find any of Patrick Ives’ things.”

“You were taking a long chance.”

“It wasn’t quite that bad. They wouldn’t gang up on me; Ruiz isn’t that type of thug. I wasn’t sure whether I could handle Morrison or not, but it was worth the risk. After all, Ingram, I’m not Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. I’m thirty-four, and I’ve been married twice. If I lost the bet, I’d still survive.”

“Did Morrison finally pass out?”

“Yes. Around midnight, I think. By that time I’d used up all the other routines, and didn’t know any judo, so I pretended to be sick and locked myself in the biffy. I beg your pardon, what’s the word?”

Ingram grinned in the darkness. “The head.”

“The head. Anyway, when he quieted down, I came out, and he was asleep in the cockpit. But I wasn’t sure about Ruiz. When he came back from over here and pulled the raft up on deck, he took some bedding and went up forward, so I couldn’t tell whether he was asleep or not. I pretended to pass out on the other side of the cockpit and waited for over half an hour. Then I tiptoed up to where I could see him, and found he was asleep all right. I went below then, and started through the cabins.”

“Did you find what you were looking for?”

“No. It wasn’t a real thorough search, because I was afraid to take very long or turn on too many lights, but I found three suitcases and went through them and there wasn’t anything that would identify Patrick Ives. Two of them belonged to Morrison and Ruiz, because their wallets were in them, but the third one—in one of those staterooms where the ammunition is—didn’t have anything except the usual clothing and shaving gear and so on. It could be his clothing—that is, I think it would fit him—but for some reason they must have thrown his wallet overboard.”

“Unless it was in his dungarees,” Ingram said.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.