Bell had heard similar tales, and while he wasn’t too knowledgeable about the lead poisoning, he had to defer to the man suffering its effects. He tried to sound upbeat for Brewster’s sake when he said, “We’ve got fine stores aboard the ship and a first-rate cook. In a few days it’ll pass out of your system and you will all start feeling better.”
“Not so sure about that, Mr. Bell. I’m no doctor, but my insides feel so tore up they ain’t never gonna be right.”
“We’ll reach Aberdeen in a couple of days. I’ll get you and your men to a hospital. And, I’ll see your ore transported to the dock at Southampton.”
Brewster didn’t seem capable of holding his head straight, and yet at Bell’s words, he lunged across the table and grabbed the detective by the collar, holding on so close their faces were only inches apart. The voice he dredged up came from a place deep and dark. “I will not leave that ore to another living soul! Do you understand me?”
Brewster’s breath was foul from months of cheap tobacco and neglect, and his eyes were wide and crazed, but Bell was still able to fight the urge to defend himself and lay the much smaller man out on the deck with a well-placed punch. He didn’t even bother wiping away the foamy spittle that had hit his face. He said calmly, as if to a child, “If that’s what you want, Mr. Brewster, that’s fine with me. No need to get yourself upset. Okay?”
The fiery little man remained tensed, his jaw working wordlessly and his black pupils darting from one of Bell’s eyes to the other, searching for something—betrayal? Reassurance? Bell had no way of knowing. Brewster finally sat back down on the bench opposite. Bell noted that not one of the other miners had shown the slightest reaction.
He shuddered because for a split second he almost believed what Brewster had said on the beach, that the men really were already dead.
23
Not long after, Arn Bjørnson entered the mess to announce there was enough hot water for each of the men to take a five-minute shower. Brewster had been silently glowering at Bell, and the unexpected intrusion broke the spell. Bell stood and left the room without a backward glance. Any doubt he had concerning Brewster’s sanity had evaporated. He didn’t know what madness had driven him to take on and ultimately succeed at mining the byzanium ore, but the price he’d paid was obvious. He wondered what sort of life the man would enjoy once he’d turned the samples over to the Army. None of the options that came to mind seemed agreeable.
He retired to his cabin and didn’t bother removing more than his shoes before rolling into bed and falling into a dead sleep.
Bell woke with a throttled gasp and threw aside his mass of blankets and sheets. He was covered in a sheen of slick sweat. The dream remained vivid for a few more moments before it faded into a vague, unsettled feeling. Something beyond the dream had roused him. He listened for a moment. All seemed as it should be—the ship’s mechanical heart beat down in the engine room, water hissed smoothly along the hull, and at the very stern of the whaling vessel the steel screw whirred like a muted aeroplane propeller.
Then he heard a metal door squeak closed on its rusty hinges. He quickly lit a match to check the time. It was a quarter of two in the morning. Unless someone was visiting the head, there was no reason for any of the miners or crew to be out. A man walking by his cabin door had awoken him. There was no reason that should have roused him unless it piqued Bell’s subconscious.
He swung his legs out of bed and toed into his loose-laced boots.
The dim hallway was deserted. There were six cabins near enough that he would have heard their doors squeal. Most of them had just a single occupant. Brewster and Vern Hall were quartered in another section of the superstructure. Bell ignored them and headed aft to one of the two communal washrooms. It contained a commode and sink, and its walls were a jumble of wires and pipes and conduits. There was no porthole, but there was an electric lamp. Bell left it off and lit a match in the pitch-blackness. The light and sulfur made him squint his eyes. He reached up and touched the glass sconce around the single lightbulb. It was cool to the touch.
A normal person would have concluded that the light hadn’t been used and therefore neither had the bathroom, but Bell was cautious and thorough. He unthreaded a set screw that held the fragile globe in place and lifted it enough to feel the actual bulb. It too was cool. Now he was satisfied and checked the second lavatory. The light there hadn’t been on there either, and in both rooms the seats were up. Neither had been visited by anyone in the past few minutes.
Intrigued, Bell went down to the galley. It was deserted, and its electric lamps were also cold to the touch. But possibly someone had spent some time alone in the dark. His answer wasn’t here. He climbed two decks to the bridge.
Red lamps glowed softly, to preserve the watchstander’s night vision. It gave the space a warm, intimate feeling, while beyond the broad windscreens the ocean’s vastness quickly shattered any illusion of amiability. He recognized the big shape of Arn at the wheel.
“Good morning. How’s the leg?”
“Is good. Thank you. You can’t sleep either?”
“Either?” Bell said. “Someone else up?”
“One of the miners was just here.”
“Do you know which one?”
“No. In this light, everyone looks the same.”
“Did he say anything to you?”
“Not really. He said he just wanted to watch the ocean for a while. He sat in the radio room so he would not be in my way.”
The bridge was big enough for a half dozen men to stand without overcrowding. The fine hairs on the back of Bell’s arms tingled. “How long was he up here?”
“An hour or so.”
“Be right back.”
The radio room was at the very back of the bridge, enclosed and insulated by shelves containing rolled-up charts and reference books on celestial mechanics and navigation. Bell stepped in and closed the door so he could turn on the overhead lights. He rolled up his shirtsleeves and pressed his elbow against the leather swivel seat, it being among the most thermally sensitive parts on a human body besides lips and cheeks, and there was no way he was going to press his mouth to a scabrous chair in a whaling ship’s radio shack.
It was still warm. Body heat had transferred down to the metal frame and was now slowly radiating back out. Bell felt the metal box containing the ship’s crystal wireless radio. It was cool. The keypad for the Morse encoder was cool as well, but that wasn’t a surprise.