Russian Roulette Read Online Free PDF Page B

stretcher for a moment or two, the doctor came out and climbed back to the gangway platform where the captain had stood impassively all the while.
    There was another rapid discussion, then the captain vanished into the ship. The doctor waved a beckoning hand at the quayside and the stretcher was pulled out again. A slow procession climbed the gangway to the accompaniment of a long blast on the ship’s siren.
    Ten minutes later, the Yuri Dolgorukiy was starting to thread her way between the islands lying off Helsinki harbour. By that time, Simon Smith was bedded down in the sickbay of the vessel. Elizabeth Treasure was having another interview with the doctor and first officer – it was necessary to find out what had happened, for entry in the ship’s log, explained Yutkevich.
    She sat in the purser’s room behind the counter in the ship’s foyer to tell her story. Her normal haughty veneer was badly cracked and she sat nervously twisting her handkerchief as she spoke.
    â€˜I was supposed to have met Mr Smith on the main quay in Helsinki at two thirty – I felt unwell, and only decided to go much later – so as not to disappoint him,’ she added with a trace of her usual condescension.
    â€˜He wasn’t there and, as it began to rain heavily again, I started back. As I came over that little bridge …’ she fluttered a hand vaguely in the direction of Finland, ‘… I saw a little crowd gathered and naturally went to look. Under the bridge supports, a couple of men were pulling something out of the water – it was a man’s body. I thought he had drowned. They started to give him artificial respiration when they got him to the bank, then began shouting – he was obviously alive. I went a little nearer and was shocked to find that it was Simon … Mr Smith!’
    Yutkevich looked at her large brown eyes, the jet-black lashes looking almost stark against the pallor of her face, which even make-up could not disguise.
    â€˜Did anyone tell you how he came to be in the water?’
    â€˜No one seemed to speak English, until a policeman came up. He spoke it well and sent someone to phone for an ambulance, but a police van came along first and they put him in that.’
    â€˜What about Mr. Smith – did he recover quickly?’
    â€˜Oh yes – he suddenly coughed and struggled to sit up – he could hardly speak, though – still can’t, in fact.’
    â€˜He has said nothing about what happened?’
    â€˜No – not to me. The policeman told me that his head had been caught on one of the bridge supports at water level, holding his chin above water – that saved him from being drowned.’
    Yutkevich wrote everything down in a notebook and then she was courteously led back to her cabin by a stewardess who offered to stay with her if she was needed.
    The two officers made their way to the captain’s cabin, where the ship’s doctor was already waiting. He had just come from examining Simon Smith in the sickbay.
    After a short, very serious conference, the radio officer was sent for and he soon was hurrying back to his transmitter, clutching an urgent message for Leningrad Marine Radio.
    The captain, Pokrovsky, and Yutkevich then made their way as unobtrusively as possible to cabin forty-five. For the third time, his belongings were searched, but this time in a tidy, methodical manner. All his cases were opened, the drawers and cupboards checked in an amateur, but efficient way.
    Pokrovsky removed the mattress from the vacant upper bunk and Yutkevich started on the one below, while the captain watched.
    â€˜Ahhh!’ … a triumphant bellow came from the politically minded First Officer. He had found proof indeed of the rascally intentions of the capitalist infiltrators!
    The others pushed forward to look as he dragged the mattress further off the bunk. There, nestling against the bulkhead, was a small black automatic