The Wreck Of The Mary Deare

‘It was a fisherman from St Helier. He found the motor boat just before the storm broke. There was a man called Burrows on board, too. He was badly injured, but he made a statement to the police — about Higgins.’ And then she said, ‘I must leave you now. I want to see Mr Duncan and then I must be with Gideon when he wakes — to see that he doesn’t talk. It’s the sort of silly thing he might do.’ She smiled wanly. ‘I’m so grateful to you.’

‘Tell Mike to come and see me,’ I said. And as she reached the door, I added, ‘And tell — Gideon — when he wakes that he’s nothing to worry about any more … nothing at all.’

She smiled then — a sudden warmth that lit her whole face up; for an instant she was the girl in the photograph again. And then the door closed and I lay back and went to sleep. When I woke again it was morning and the curtains were drawn back so that the sun streamed in. The police were there and I made a statement. One of them was a plain clothes man from Southampton, but he was uncommunicative. All he would say about Patch was that he’d no instructions at the moment to make any arrest. After that there were reporters, and then Mike arrived. The police had refused to let him see me until I had made my statement.

He was full of news. The stern section of the Mary Deare had gone ashore on Chausey Island. He showed me a newspaper picture of it lying on its side in a litter of rocks at low water. And yesterday Snetterton had been through Peter Port. He’d had a salvage team with him and they had left for Chausey Island in a local fishing boat. ‘And I’ve been on to our insurance people,’ he said. ‘They’re meeting our claim in full. We’ll have enough to build to our own design, if we want to.’

‘That means losing a whole season,’ I said.

He nodded, grinning. ‘As it happens there’s a boat for sale right here in Peter Port would suit us nicely. • I had a look at her last night. Not as pretty as Sea Witch, of course …’ He was full of plans — one of those irrepressible people who bounce back up as soon as they’re knocked down. He was as good a tonic as I could have wished for, and, though he still had a piece of adhesive tape stuck across the side of his jaw where the skin was split, he seemed none the worse for his thirty hours on the waterlogged wreck of that motor boat.

I was discharged from hospital next day and when Mike came up to collect me, he brought a whole pile of London papers with him, ‘Altogether you’ve had a pretty good Press,’ he said, dumping them on my bed. ‘And there’s a newspaper fellow flew in this morning offering you a tidy little sum for a first-hand account of what happened. He’s down at the hotel now.’

Later we went and looked at the boat Mike had discovered. She was cheap and sound and we bought her on the spot. And that night Snetterton turned up at our hotel, still neat, still dapper in his pin-stripe suit, though he’d spent two days on Chausey Island. They had cut into Number Four hold at low water and opened up three of the aero engine cases. The contents consisted of concrete blocks. ‘A satisfactory result, Mr Sands. Most satisfactory. I have sent a full report to Scotland Yard.’

‘But your San Francisco people will still have to pay the insurance, won’t they?’ I asked him.

‘Oh, yes. Yes, of course. But we shall recover it from the Dellimare Company. Very fortunately they have a big sum standing to their credit in a Singapore bank — the proceeds of the sale of the Torre Annunziata and her cargo. We were able to get it frozen pending investigation. I think,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘that Mr Gundersen would have been better advised to have organised the re-sale of the aero engines through another company. But there — the best laid schemes…’ He smiled as he sipped his sherry. ‘It was a clever idea, though. Very clever indeed. That it failed is due entirely to Mr Patch — and to you, sir,’

he added, looking at me over his glass. ‘I have requested the H.B. amp; K.M. … well, we shall see.’

I wasn’t able to see Patch before I left Peter Port. But I saw him three weeks later when we gave evidence before the resumed Court of Enquiry. He was still very weak. The charges against him had already been dropped; Gundersen had slipped out of the country and Burrows and other members of the crew were only too willing to tell the truth now, pleading that they had supported Higgins’s story because they were frightened of him. The Court found the loss of the Mary Deare was due to conspiracy to defraud on the part of the owners, Patch was absolved from all blame and the whole matter was referred to the police for action.