Dead in the Water

woman, who sat, looking tired but somehow radiant, staring serenely at the coroner. She glanced briefly at Sir Winston. Stone wondered if she knew who he was and what was about to happen.
    The coroner spoke again. “Call Mrs. Allison Manning.”
    The woman rose and walked toward a folding chair set next to the coroner’s card table, between him and the jury. The scene resembled a rehearsal of a high school play set in a courtroom.
    “Hold the book,” the coroner said to her, extending a Bible. “Do you swear by Almighty God that the evidence you are about to give will be the truth?”
    “I do,” Allison Manning replied.
    “State your full name and age for the record.”
    “Allison Ames Manning; I am twenty-nine years old.”
    Stone now noticed a stenographer seated near the jury, taking down the proceedings in shorthand.
    Allison Manning gazed evenly at Sir Winston as he rose from his seat to his full height, which was a good six-three, and approached her.
    “Mrs. Manning,” Sir Winston said gently, “may I begin by expressing my condolences on the loss of your husband?”
    “Thank you,” she replied.
    “Mrs. Manning, how long were you married to Paul Phillips Manning?”
    “It would have been four years next month.”
    “And how old was your husband at his death?”
    “Forty-two.”
    “And where did the two of you reside?”
    “In Greenwich, Connecticut.”
    “Would you be kind enough to tell us of your last months with your husband?”
    Allison Manning took a deep breath and spoke in a clear, well-modulated voice. “My husband and I left Newport, Rhode Island, last May and crossed the Atlantic to Plymouth, in England, just the two of us. Paul had had the yacht built in Finland and fitted out with some extra equipment after it was delivered to Newport. From Plymouth, we cruised up the English Channel to Cowes, on the Isle of Wight, then crossed the Channel and cruised the coast of Brittany, in France. We made a long passage to Bilbao, in northern Spain, then went on to Lisbon and Gibraltar. In the Mediterranean, we cruised the Greek islands and the Balearics and then sailed out to Madeira and the Canary Islands. We called at Las Palmas and did some refitting there, then at Puerto Rico, a port on the southernmost island of the Canaries, and our last port of call before starting across the Atlantic, bound for Antigua.” She took a sip of water from a glass poured by the coroner.
    “Please go on,” Sir Winston said.
    Allison Manning looked a little sadder. “We sailed southwest from the Canaries down to the latitude of Antigua, then turned west. We had picked up the trade winds by then, and we were making good time. We were ten days out of Puerto Rico, over halfway to Antigua, when the incident occurred.”
    “Tell us about the incident, with as much detail as you can recall.”
    “It was on the early afternoon of the tenth day,” she said. “We had been in and out of squalls, then the wind dropped, and we were very nearly becalmed. The weather had been very changeable. We had been down to short sail in the squalls, using a roller-reefing headsail, which was like a big window blind, and when Paul began to unroll the sail in the light winds, the top swivel of the roller-reefing gear separated into two parts. The sail fell down with the bottom part, and the top part of the gear remained at the top of the mast, attached to the halyard. I hope I’m making this clear.”
    Sir Winston turned to the jury. “Gentlemen, do you understand?”
    The jury nodded as one man.
    “Please go on, Mrs. Manning,” Sir Winston said.
    “This wasn’t the first time this had happened,” she said, “and it meant that someone had to go up the mast and pull the top part of the swivel down to deck level so that it could be reattached to the bottom part.”
    “And who went up the mast?”
    “I did.”
    “Was this usual? Did your husband often send you up the mast at sea?”
    “No. I had done that a couple of times before, but when we were tied up alongside in port. It was easier for Paul to hoist me up the mast with a winch than for me to hoist him. He is…was a large man. On this occasion he wanted to go himself, but he had woken up not feeling well that morning and was obviously not well. He had a thing about making good time at sea, and hedidn’t want to wait until he felt better, so I said I would go up the mast.”
    “And how did you accomplish that?”
    “Paul lowered the mainsail; I got into the