The Evangeline Read Free Page A

fault.‘The reason you did not postpone the date of departure for the Evangeline is because none of your guests could have waited. Isn’t that the reason, Mr Whitfield? The people you invited to go with you on this voyage were not the kind who could be asked to wait a week or even a few days. Isn’t that true, Mr Whitfield?’
    ‘I didn’t know how long I was going to be away. I couldn’t ask them to wait.’
    ‘Because there was a date by which everyone expected to be back in Nice, and they had other commitments, calendars full of places they had to be.’
    ‘Yes, they all had other things to do.’
    ‘Indeed. The invitations to your guests had gone out nearly six months in advance. I assume that is the kind of notice people who move in these circles require, because of all the other demands on their time?’
    ‘It had been planned well in advance, yes.’
    Darnell nodded and for a moment stared down at the floor.
    ‘That was the reason, then,’ he said, slowly raising his eyes,‘that you could not afford the time it would have taken to have all the welding seams examined—because you had to have everything ready by the date the voyage was scheduled to begin—correct?’
    ‘No, it was because the only repair that was needed had been made! The last thing I would have done is jeopardise the safety of my boat and crew and the passengers on it!’
    Darnell listened intently. The Evangeline had been doomed the day she left port and everyone knew it. ‘You testified that these people you invited knew their way around a sailboat.’ Darnell turned his back to the witness and stared at his own empty chair. ‘Would it not be more accurate to say that they knew their way around a yacht?’
    ‘I’m not sure I know what you mean.’
    Darnell’s gaze lingered on the empty chair, and then on Marlowe, who wore a strange, impassive expression that had become a kind of permanent mask. Darnell looked back over his shoulder. ‘They were used to being taken care of; they were not people who had to do much for themselves.’
    ‘I don’t think I would go that far,’ replied Whitfield with a slightly disconcerted look. ‘They were all successful; they all had money, but—’
    ‘When they showed up that morning, the day the voyage was to begin, how many of them drove their own cars?’ asked Darnell as he turned with a jaundiced look to the witness.
    ‘I don’t imagine any of them did, but I don’t see—’
    ‘How much food and drink was put on board? How many cases of champagne?’
    ‘I don’t know, I—’
    ‘And cases of caviar? There was a chef on board—correct? The chef of a five-star restaurant, hired at a cost of … Well, we can get into that later, perhaps. But no one on that boat was going to have anything to complain about in terms of comfort, were they?’
    ‘I wanted everyone to have a good time.’
    ‘No one on board was going to have to lift a finger; but that was only what they would have expected. That is the life they were used to, wasn’t it, Mr Whitfield? A life of luxury—and what some might call self-indulgence.’
    Roberts was rising from his chair.
    ‘Yes, I have a question,’ said Darnell, smiling, ‘if you’d just be good enough to let me ask it.’
    Roberts’s hands were still on the arms of his chair. Bracing himself, he sat back down.
    ‘Tell us this, Mr Whitfield: of those people you invited on this sailboat cruise around Africa, how many do you think had ever pulled an oar?’
    Whitfield shifted his weight from one side to the other of the witness chair. ‘I don’t know. I assume some of them must at some point have rowed a boat somewhere.’
    ‘“Rowed a boat somewhere,”’ repeated Darnell with a dark look. ‘Let me then ask you the question this way: if you were going to be marooned in a lifeboat, Mr Whitfield—if your survival and the survival of everyone else were at stake—which of those guests of yours would you have chosen to be there with you? Which of