The Wreck Of The Mary Deare

When I gave her my name, she said, ‘Oh, are you the Mr Sands who was on board the Mary Deare? Then perhaps you can help me.’ She took me through into the other office. It was a much brighter room with cream walls and a red carpet and a big green and chromium steel desk that was littered with Press clippings, mostly from French newspapers. ‘I’m trying to find out what really happened to him,’ she said. ‘To Mr Dellimare, that is.’ And she glanced involuntarily at a big photograph in an ornate silver frame that stood beside her on the desk. It was a head and shoulders portrait, showing a rather hard, deeply lined face with a small straight mouth under the thin pencil-line of a moustache.

‘You knew him well?’ I asked.

‘Oh, yes. We formed the Company. Of course, after Mr Gundersen joined, it was all different. Our main office became Singapore. Mr Dellimare and I just looked after the London end.’ There was something entirely personal about the way she said ‘Mr Dellimare and I’, and after that she began asking me questions. Had Captain Patch said anything to me about how Mr Dellimare had been lost? Did I go into his cabin? Had I talked to any of the survivors? ‘He had been in the Navy. He couldn’t just have gone overboard like that?’ Her voice trembled slightly.

But when she realised I could tell her nothing that she didn’t already know, she lost interest in me. I asked her then for Patch’s address, but she hadn’t got it. ‘He came in about three days ago to deliver his report,’ she said. ‘He’s coming back on Friday, when he’ll be able to see Mr Gundersen.’ I gave her the address of the boatyard and asked her to tell Patch to contact me, and then I left. She came with me to the door. ‘I’ll tell Mr Gundersen you’ve been,’ she said with a quick, brittle smile. ‘I’m sure he’ll be interested.’

Mr Gundersen! Perhaps it was the inflection of her voice, but I got the impression that she was a little nervous of him, as though he were entirely remote from the Dellimare Company office that she knew with its silver-framed photograph and its view over the chimneys.

It never occurred to me that I should meet Gundersen, but on Friday afternoon the boy from the yard’s office came down to the slip to say that a Mrs Petrie was calling me from London. I recognised the slightly husky voice at once. Mr Gundersen had just arrived by plane from Singapore and would like to have a talk with me. He was coming down to Southampton tomorrow, would it be convenient for him to call on me at the yard at eleven o’clock?

I couldn’t refuse. The man had come all the way from Singapore and he was entitled to find out all he could about the loss of the Company’s ship. But, remembering the things Snetterton had hinted at, I had a feeling of uneasiness. Also, my time and all my energies were concentrated on the conversion of Sea Witch and I resented anything which took my mind off the work that Mike and I had planned and struggled for over years of wreck-hunting. I was worried, too, about what I was going to tell him. How was I to explain to him that nobody had been notified of the position of the wreck?

And then early next morning Patch came on the phone from London. No, they hadn’t given him any message from me. I thought then that he was ringing me about the package I had brought over for him and which I realised was still on board, locked away in my brief-case. But it wasn’t that. It was about Gundersen. Had Gundersen been to see me? And when I told him that I was expecting him at eleven o’clock, he said, ‘Thank God! I tried to get you last night — to warn you.’ And then he added, ‘You haven’t told anybody where the Mary Deare is lying, have you?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Not yet.’ I hadn’t told anybody, not even Mike.

‘Has a man called Snetterton been to see you — a marine insurance agent?’

‘Yes.’

‘You didn’t tell him?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘He didn’t ask me. He presumed the ship was sunk.’ And then I said, ‘Haven’t you notified the authorities yet? If you haven’t, I think it’s time-’

‘Listen,’ he said. ‘I can’t come down now. I’ve got to see somebody. And on Monday I’ve got to go to the Ministry of Transport. But I’ll be able to come down and see you on Tuesday. Will you promise to say nothing until then?’

‘But why?’ I said. ‘What’s the point in concealing her position?’

‘I’ll explain when I see you.’

‘And what about Gundersen? What am I to say to him?’

‘Say anything you like. But for God’s sake don’t tell him where she is. Don’t tell anybody. I ask you as a favour, Sands.’

‘All right,’ I said doubtfully.

He thanked me then and rang off.