Bodies from the Library: Lost Tales of Mystery and Suspense by Agatha Christie and other Masters of the Golden Age

MACLEAN: Maybe it’s myself. I was captain of the ‘Mary Garside’. Maybe you, Sir James. Maybe he holds one of us responsible for the parting of that lifeboat’s falls, for the ship going down, and—

JAMES: I advise you to be careful, Maclean.

MACLEAN: But we’re agreed it’s just a delusion the poor fellow has. Neither of us could have wanted the ‘Mary Garside’ to founder. Eh, Sir James?

GREER: Well, I’ll be turning in for an hour or two. My watch at midnight. As you’re sleeping alone, Sir James, perhaps you’d like the loan of a revolver. I’ve got a spare one here—

(Sound of drawer being opened, revolver taken out and loaded)

—not that I think you’ll need it. The chances are twenty to one against the chap being on board. And remember there’s a communicating door between your cabin and mine, in case you—(voice drowned by bellow of steam-whistle overhead)

JAMES: Presumably some sort of watch will be kept on the decks?

GREER: Surely. But if this fog thickens, it may not be so easy to—

JAMES: Lot of damned poppycock. You’re all talking like a pack of old women. I’m off to bed. Tell the steward to call me at 7.30 sharp, Strangeways … You and your lunatics!

(Door slams)

NIGEL: I suppose the women have locked their door all right.

GREER: I told them to, Mr Strangeways. Just to be on the safe side.

(Fade in to women’s cabin. Stirring of bunks. Prolonged blast of steam-whistle overhead.)

LAURA: Rocked in the bosom of the deep. What life! (Yawns) I wish I could go to sleep. You did lock the door, darling, didn’t you?

ALICE: Yes, Laura. We’re quite safe in here. I wish Daddy hadn’t to go on the bridge tonight, though.

(Faint sound of telegraph. Steam-whistle again.)

LAURA: These marine noises get in my hair. Why must they keep blowing that hooter? We might as well be sleeping in the Zoo.

ALICE: It’s not that. It’s because we’re afraid. I know Daddy told us they’d searched the ship and couldn’t find anyone: but we don’t really believe it yet. That’s why we can’t go to sleep.

LAURA: You’ve said it, darling … Should we shut the port-hole, do you think? Just to be on the safe side?

ALICE: If you like … No. No, please don’t. I hate feeling as if I was in prison.

LAURA: Snap out of it, duckie—this is sheer claustrophobia.

ALICE: Claustrophobia? (slight laugh) Is that what you call it? (half to herself) You don’t know what it’s like to be in prison. No hope of escape … Ever … But there is a way out—