Murder on the Mary Jane

by Evelyn James

“I wanted to spend New Year’s with my fiancé, when I learned that I was expected to go to the Noble and Sons party and I could not bring her, I was upset. I moaned about it to Henry and I ended up asking him what his family did on New Year’s. He just shrugged at me, ‘pretty much the same as any other night,’ he replied. He would not say anymore.”

  “You don’t know if he had girlfriend then?” Clara asked.

  “No. I had a vague idea his parents were alive and he had moved back to Hove to be near them, but I think I learned that from Mr Noble rather than Henry himself. I really don’t know anything about him outside of work. Sorry, that isn’t very helpful,” Charles looked up and caught Clara’s eye. “But there is other stuff I do know. Henry’s drinking, for instance, it was becoming a problem.”

  “So, tonight was not unusual?” Clara had suspected as much.

  “I can’t be sure when it began,” Charles explained. “I didn’t notice anything when I was first working with him, but as the months passed I detected little changes. He was always on time for work, but some mornings he looked so ill I wanted to suggest he go home. I thought he was catching a cold at first, but then the episodes became more frequent and I realised his symptoms indicated chronic, late-night drinking. I never saw him touch a drop at work, he was always the professional, but I think the second he was home he began to drink and did not stop.”

  Charles paused and his eyes drifted to his champagne flute, perhaps imagining his own potential fate if he continued to work at Noble and Sons. The strain of the job, the long hours and the demands of the Noble family might all conspire to produce a detrimental result in him too. He took a long sip of water.

  “I noticed that a few weeks ago he had taken to having several drinks at lunchtime. We get forty-five minutes for lunch. Some days I take food in, but a couple of times a week I will go to the pub down the road and order something there. I learned about the place from Henry. He used to do the same, then he started spending more and more lunchtimes at the pub, until that was all he ever did. I used to go in for my lunch order and I would see him drinking. It might be whisky, or it might be gin, it was not normally beer. In any case, I realised he was consuming a lot of alcohol when he slipped out at lunch. I also think he had stopped caring if anyone saw him. He didn’t seem to worry that I had noticed him.”

  “It didn’t affect his work, though?” Clara asked.

  “Not yet,” Charles replied. “If he carried on the way he was going, it would have impacted eventually. I don’t like to think about it, but if he hadn’t of been killed, I think he would have started to drink at work and would have lost his place at Noble and Sons. Arthur Noble would not have stood for it.”

  “Did he seem unhappy?” Clara asked, knowing that most people drank excessively to escape the world.

  “It was hard to tell when he was anything,” Charles answered. “He hid himself away.”

  “And was there anyone at Noble and Sons who might have disliked him enough to wish him harm?”

  Charles gave the question a lot of thought and it was apparent he was reluctant to answer. Finally, he coughed and said.

  “Simon Noble. He and Henry had a falling out, but I don’t know what over.”

  Charles fixed his eyes on Clara, for the first time losing his nervousness.

  “Simon Noble might not look it, but he has a nasty streak. If anyone had a grudge against Henry, it was him,” then Charles abruptly grimaced. “Yet, he was in the lifeboat with the rest of us, so it couldn’t have been him, could it?”

  Chapter Ten

  Clara went back on deck with Charles and they found Miss Dodd. She had recently finished her second waltz and she was out of breath and looked a little flushed, but there was a smile on her face. The smile faded when she saw Clara.

  “Miss Dodd, would you spare a moment to talk to Miss Fitzgerald about Mr Kemp?” Charles asked her politely.

  Jane Dodd fanned herself with a hand, despite the cold night air she had become quite heated dancing.

  “I suppose I could do with a little sit-down,” she reflected. “I don’t know how much help I will be, however, Miss Fitzgerald.”

  “We won’t know until we talk,” Clara replied politely.

  Still fanning herself, Miss Dodd followed Clara down below. The music faded as they went down the gangway.

  “I haven’t danced in a while, I forgot how much it takes out of you,” Miss Dodd remarked, excusing her breathlessness.

  “It can be exhausting, especially in new shoes,” Clara pointed out her own feet. “I can feel blisters forming. I should have broken them in a little better.”

  “Mine are not so new,” Miss Dodd smiled shyly. “I have had this dress pair at least five years. I only wear them perhaps three times a year, so no reason to buy new.”

  “Mr Kemp did not seem so sensible with his resources,” Clara noted. “He was wearing some very expensive accessories tonight.”

  “Mr Kemp did not stint on his appearance,” Miss Dodd agreed. “I doubt the man wore the same shirt in a month. Not that I am belittling his desire to look smart. He could afford it, after all.”

  “Senior managers earn a good income at Noble and Sons?”

  “Very much so,” Miss Dodd nodded. “It is a very prestigious role.”

  “Who will replace Mr Kemp? Charles Walsh?”

  They had reached the threshold of the captain’s cabin and Clara stepped back to allow Miss Dodd to enter first. She automatically said thank you and entered, smiling an acknowledgement at Captain O’Harris who still sat at the table. They were seated and the cabin door was shut before she answered.

  “Mr Walsh would seem the logical candidate. He has worked under Mr Kemp since he joined the company and has a strong working knowledge of the business. I doubt Mr Noble would consider hiring someone else, someone who had not worked within the company.”

  “Will that mean a pay increase for Mr Walsh?” Clara asked.

  Miss Dodd considered for a moment.

  “I believe it would mean a sizeable increase. I am not privy to the details of company salaries, but I would have thought it would be a healthy amount,” Miss Dodd dropped her voice almost to a whisper as she realised the implications of all this. “Not that I think Mr Walsh would kill for the job, not at all! He was certainly not poor and he got along with Mr Kemp.”

  “I wasn’t implying anything,” Clara promised. “I was just curious. Can you tell me a little about Mr Kemp? You must have known him for a number of years.”

  The colour slipped from Miss Dodd’s face.

  “I still can’t think of him being dead,” she spoke softly. “I remember Mr Noble hiring him. I was present when he signed his employment contract. He seemed a very bright, but reserved young man. I thought to myself…”

  Miss Dodd hesitated, seemingly uncertain about what she had been about to say.

  “Please Miss Dodd, honesty is vital now,” Clara said gently.

  Miss Dodd winced, and a slight flush returned to her cheeks.

  “It’s a little embarrassing, but I recall thinking when he was hired that such a handsome man as Mr Kemp could not be long without a wife. I was younger then. I still thought about my own prospects of matrimony,” Miss Dodd sighed sadly. A thin smile, more a grimace than a pleasing look, distorted her lips. “I have gone past that now. Seemingly, so did Mr Kemp. He never spoke of a lady friend and, as far as I could tell, he never considered marriage. He seemed dedicated to his work.”

  “What about his drinking?” Clara asked.

  Miss Dodd paused once more, she was clearly having issues, much like Charles, about talking ill of the dead. She sucked in her lower lip and seemed to be contemplating how much to say. Finally, she looked up directly at Clara.

  “Mr Kemp, like all of us at Noble and Sons, knew his wine and liked it. It would be rather impractical to have a teetotaller as a senior manager. Drinking is part of the job, and most of the company employers are certainly not shy about it. However, the last c
ouple of years I grew concerned that Mr Kemp was drinking more than was healthy. It was subtle things at first; looking unwell when he came to work, always asking for aspirin as if he had a perpetual headache and his skin always had this clammy look to it,” Miss Dodd rumpled her forehead as she remembered what had caused her so much worry. “I thought at first he was a consumptive. I had a sister who went that way. Her symptoms were alarmingly similar. I desperately wanted to take him aside and offer him some assistance, there are places that offer treatments these days for tuberculosis, but I never quite found the right moment. And then I realised it was not consumption.”

  “What changed your mind?” Clara asked.

  “Mr Kemp was working late, that was not unusual. What was, was that I had been asked to stay behind with him, to type up some urgent paperwork relating to one of our accounts. That meant I was in Mr Kemp’s office and I noticed he was becoming more and more agitated the longer I sat there working,” Miss Dodd shook her head. “I couldn’t understand it at first. I felt as if my presence was resented. At last, Mr Kemp said something along the lines of ‘I can’t stand it anymore’ and opened the bottom drawer of his desk and took out a bottle of whisky. I pretended not to notice, but I watched him pour out and drink four glasses of whisky before the next hour had passed. I was trying to work as fast as I could, you see, I felt so uncomfortable in that room.

  “I managed to get finished and I placed the report on Mr Kemp’s desk and said I would be off home. He glanced up at me and his eyes looked so miserable and watery, like an old man’s. ‘You won’t tell anyone, will you Miss Dodd?’ he asked me. I really couldn’t say no to him, not when he looked at me that way. I promised I would say nothing, and then I bid him goodnight.”

  “When was this?” Clara enquired.

  “About eight months ago,” Miss Dodd said. “I had no idea what to do, so I kept his secret. In any case, it was not harming his work and therefore it was not anybody’s business, was it?”

  Miss Dodd said the last much more firmly, and with a challenge in her tone, as if defying Clara to tell her she had been in error.

  “Do you think Mr Kemp was becoming a chronic alcoholic?” Clara asked without responding to Miss Dodd’s question.

  “I imagine that is what a doctor would call him,” Miss Dodd shrugged her shoulders. “These last couple of months he really declined. I could smell alcohol on him some days. His complexion became very blotchy and I found errors in his work, nothing serious, just spelling mistakes or poor grammar. He was always very fastidious about that.”

  “There was nothing to indicate why Mr Kemp had started drinking so much?” Clara raised a few possibilities. “Perhaps he was finding himself under a lot of pressure at work? Or there were stresses at home that were troubling him? Most alcoholics start heavily drinking due to an emotional stress they are trying to relieve.”

  “I don’t know,” Miss Dodd smiled wistfully. “He always seemed such a capable man, and rather good at his job. I never thought of him as particularly stressed or anxious. However, Mr Kemp was extremely private and he spoke very little about what he was thinking or feeling. I never really knew him well, if you see what I mean.”

  “Then you cannot tell me anything about his parents? Mr Noble said Kemp had moved down to Hove to be closer to them?”

  “Ah, on that I can assist you!” Miss Dodd said with some relief. “I did know some of Mr Kemp’s family arrangements as they were noted in his employment records, which I typed up. Also, he asked for occasional leave to help with his invalid father, and his request had to be written and I typed that up too.”

  “What can you tell me about his parents?”

  “He is an only child, I know that. His mother and father live in Hove and they are his nearest blood relations. As far as I am aware there are no aunts or uncles, and no grandparents. His father was in an accident before the war and the poor man lost both legs.”

  Captain O’Harris winced. Miss Dodd glanced at him, her look understanding.

  “Yes, it was a terrible thing,” Miss Dodd continued. “Mr Kemp had a job at a prestigious importation firm in London. He had been there some years and he was spoken of highly. Unfortunately, his mother was struggling to cope with her now crippled husband and Mr Kemp felt he needed to move closer to home to be of assistance to them both. He applied for the opening at Noble and Sons in early 1909. Mr Kemp has been with us ever since, apart from the time he spent serving his country in the war. That was a tough time for the company. Mr Noble was not really able to run it all by himself. A retired senior manager had to be called in to help, just for the duration.”

  “Mr Kemp was fortunate, then?” Clara said. “Just at the time he needed to move back to Hove, so Noble and Sons needed someone to assist them.”

  “I suppose so,” Miss Dodd agreed. “I only met his mother once. There was a company picnic arranged last year for the families of employees. Mr Kemp brought his mother. She was a very overbearing woman and she clung to him the whole day, demanding he fetch her this and that. I didn’t really like her.”

  “Do you know of anyone who did not get on with Mr Kemp? Maybe someone in the company he had had cause to complain about?”

  Miss Dodd thought hard, racking her mind for possibilities. Clara sensed that the woman genuinely wanted to help, that, despite Mr Kemp’s reserve, she had been fond of the man. She pulled her lips in tightly, as if she was holding her breath to think. Then her mouth relaxed and she looked up at Clara.

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t know of anyone with a grievance against him,” Miss Dodd was most upset to have been unable to offer more. “He never spoke of someone being angry with him or complained. Then again, Mr Kemp being so private, I doubt he would have said anything. Did you ask Mr Walsh? He might know more.”

  “I asked him, but he did not,” Clara replied.

  Miss Dodd seemed to have expected as much.

  “I wish Mr Kemp had talked to us more. Something was obviously bothering him, that is why he drank so much. Perhaps I should have been more insistent in asking him? I don’t know. He was so private that it felt wrong to push him, but perhaps if I had then he would have stopped?”

  “Alcoholism is a complicated business,” O’Harris interjected. He had not spoken before and Miss Dodd jerked her head to the side to look at him. “Talking to him might have explained the problem, but it is unlikely it would have changed anything. You are not to blame, Miss Dodd.”

  “That is kind of you to say,” Miss Dodd replied. “But I worked with Mr Kemp every day, I saw him every morning. I watched him slipping away from us and I did nothing. I told myself I couldn’t do anything, that he would not want to talk about it. In truth, I was closing my eyes to the matter. It was easier to pretend nothing was wrong and I have to live with the knowledge that I ignored a man in need.”

  Miss Dodd fell quiet, her body seemed to have become rigid.

  “I didn’t want to become involved. I know that to be the truth. Perhaps, if I had made the effort, I could now say to you who had killed him, who hated him so much as to take his life. Only, I didn’t.”

  Clara knew better than to try and correct the woman again. She knew she would have felt the same and it would take time for Miss Dodd to realise she could not have changed the things that had happened, that fate had intervened and everything else was out of her control.

  “Did you know Mr Kemp was afraid of small boats?” She asked instead.

  “No,” Miss Dodd hefted her shoulders. “It was not something that had come up. He was very belligerent about getting in a lifeboat. I have never seen him so irate and aggressive. That was not the man I knew. I am sorry, Miss Fitzgerald, but I really have been of no use to you.”

  “You have been more use than you imagine,” Clara reassured her.

  Miss Dodd seemed unconvinced.

  “One last question. Did you know any of the other guests aboard the Mary Jane tonight?”

  Miss Dodd was surprised at the question, but
she quickly replied.

  “I recognised a few as customers of ours. Naturally, we don’t often have people come to us in person. They send in their orders, but we have special events for our top customers. Tasting evenings and so forth.”

  “Would Mr Kemp have known these same people?”

  “I suppose,” Miss Dodd gave the question her usual careful attention. “Mr Kemp, as senior manager, attended those special events also. But if he was aware that some of the guests here tonight were also customers of ours, he made no indication of it.”

  “He showed no signs of being upset or concerned about someone else’s presence on the ship?”

  “No,” Miss Dodd almost looked exasperated. “Besides, why would one of our customers want to harm him?

  “This all seems so preposterous!”

  Chapter Eleven

  Miss Dodd returned to the sun deck. Clara now faced her toughest challenge, separating and persuading to talk Simon and Elias Noble. While there was no indication that either was an actual suspect – in fact, they had perfect alibis – she hoped they might be able to offer her insight into Henry Kemp’s character and why anyone would wish him harm. So far no one appeared to have a motive to kill him. Clara was struggling to think of this as a spur-of-the-moment crime; the whim of a violent argument, for instance. She was certain someone had been prowling around looking for Henry Kemp, probably they had left a lifeboat after seeing that Henry had refused to leave the ship. If, that is, the person looking for him was a guest.

  Yet, no one appeared to have a reason to harm him, very few people seemed to have known him well enough to harbour a grudge. Considering the ship was effectively a closed crime scene, and all the potential suspects were near-to-hand, Clara was struggling to get a grip on the case.

  “How do you wish to approach Simon and Elias?” Captain O’Harris asked her.

  The two brothers were leaning on the ship’s rail, halfway between the band and the buffet tables. Their father had fallen asleep in his chair, an empty plate in his hand.