Graham clenched his teeth to prevent himself retching and held on to the washing cabinet for support. His first thought was that he must not be sick, that he must pull himself together before he called for help. He did not realise immediately the implications of what had happened. So that he should not look down again he had kept his eyes fixed on the porthole and it was the sight of the funnel of a ship lying beyond a long concrete jetty that reminded him that they were going into harbour. In less than an hour the gangways would be down. And Mr.
Kuvetli had not reached the Turkish Consulate. The shock of the realisation brought him to his senses. He looked down.
It was Banat’s work without a doubt. The little Turk had probably been stunned in his own cabin or in the alleyway outside it, dragged out of sight into this, the nearest empty cabin, and butchered while he was still insensible. Moeller had decided to dispose of a possible threat to the smooth working of his arrangements for dealing with the principal victim. Graham remembered the noise which had awakened him in the night. It might have come from the next cabin. “Do not leave your cabin under any circumstances until eight o’clock the following morning. It might be dangerous.” Mr. Kuvetli had failed to take his own advice and it had been dangerous. He had declared himself ready to die for his country and he had so died. There he was, his chubby fists clenched pitifully, his fringe of grey hair matted with his blood and the mouth which had smiled so much half open and inanimate.
Someone walked along the alleyway outside and Graham jerked his head up. The sound and the movement seemed to clear his brain. He began to think quickly and coolly.
The way the blood had congealed showed that Mr. Kuvetli must have been killed before the ship had stopped. Long before! Before he had made his request for permission to leave by the pilot boat. If he had made the request, a thorough search for him would have been made when the boat came alongside and he would have been found. He had not yet been found. He was not travelling with an ordinary passport but with a diplomatic laisser passer and so had not had to surrender his papers to the Purser. That meant that unless the Purser checked off the passenger list with the passport control officer at Genoa-and Graham knew from past experience that they did not always bother to do that at Italian ports-the fact that Mr. Kuvetli did not land would not be noticed. Moeller and Banat had probably counted on the fact. And if the dead man’s baggage had been packed, the steward would put it in the Customs shed with the rest and assume that its owner was lying low to avoid having to give a tip. It might be hours, days even, before the body were discovered if he, Graham, did not call anyone.
His lips tightened. He became conscious of a slow cold rage mounting in his brain, stifling his sense of self-preservation. If he did call someone he could accuse Moeller and Banat; but would he be able to bring the crime home to them? His accusation by itself would carry no weight. It might well be suggested that the accusation was a ruse to conceal his own guilt. The Purser, for one, would be glad to support that theory. The fact that the two accused were travelling with false passports could, no doubt, be proved, but that alone would take time. In any case, the Italian police would be amply justified in refusing him permission to leave for England. Mr. Kuvetli had died in trying to make it possible for him to reach England safely and in time to fulfil a contract. That Mr. Kuvetli’s dead body should become the very means of preventing the fulfilment of that contract was stupid and grotesque; but if he, Graham, wanted to be sure of saving his own skin, that was what must happen. It was strangely unthinkable. For him, standing there above the dead body of the man whom Moeller had described as a patriot, there seemed to be only one thing of importance in the world-that Mr. Kuvetli’s death should be neither stupid nor grotesque, that it should be useless only to the men who had murdered him.
But if he were not going to raise the alarm and wait for the police, what was he going to do?
Supposing Moeller had planned this. Supposing he or Banat had overheard Mr. Kuvetli’s instructions to him and, believing that he was sufficiently intimidated to do anything to save himself, had thought of this way of delaying his return. Or they might be preparing to “discover” him with the body and so incriminate him. But no: both those suppositions were absurd. If they had known of Mr. Kuvetli’s plan they would have let the Turk go ashore by the pilot boat. It would have been his, Graham’s, body that would have been found and the finder would have been Mr. Kuvetli. Obviously, then, Moeller could neither know of the plan nor suspect that the murder would be discovered. An hour from now he would be standing with Banat and the gunmen who were to meet him, waiting for the victim to walk unsuspectingly …
But the victim would not be unsuspecting. There was a very slender chance …
He turned and, grasping the handle of the door, began to turn it gently. He knew that if he thought twice about what he had decided to do he would change his mind. He must commit himself before he had time to think.