A Subtle Murder
Page 13
I crossed the deck to stand by the railing. The metal bars were cold and wet with ocean spray from the ship’s propellers slicing through the water. This close to the railing, the roar of the mechanics below the ship, like a steady white noise, were the only thing I could hear. The water surrounding the boat looked inky black. I thought for a moment about the creatures hiding in its depths, lurking in the ship’s wake, and a chill rolled up my spine.
“You shouldn’t be out here all alone,” a voice slurred behind me.
I spun around, my back pressed against the cold metal railing, to find Colonel Stratton standing behind me.
“Hello, Colonel.” My voice broke around his title. I hadn’t even heard him walk up behind me.
He shifted his weight from side to side, and I could tell it was a struggle for him to stand. Even from ten feet away, I thought I caught a hint of alcohol on the breeze.
“It’s dangerous for a woman to be out here alone,” he said, stumbling over several of the words.
I wanted to tell him it was just as dangerous for a drunk man to be out on the deck alone. If he slipped and fell overboard, there was almost zero chance his body would be recovered. Once again, I thought of the sea creatures hiding in wait beneath the ship and shivered.
“I appreciate your concern, but I am very capable of taking care of myself.” I smiled at him, crossing my arms over my chest to protect myself from the chill.
He took a step towards me. “Ruby was a tough girl. A real fighter.”
His face screwed up as if he were going to cry, but then it smoothed out again. His glassy eyes focused on something over my shoulder.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” I said, even though I didn’t think the Colonel would remember the sentiment in the morning. “Ruby didn’t deserve what happened to her.”
He continued staring for a few seconds, and then shrugged his shoulders, his body nearly tipping sideways from the sudden movement. “We all rather deserve death, don’t we?”
I truly didn’t know what to say. From a religious standpoint, it was true that all mankind deserved death, but I didn’t think Colonel Stratton was looking at the situation from a religious standpoint. Besides, the man was practically saying his wife deserved to be strangled. How could anyone know how to respond to that?
I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”
Colonel Stratton looked into my eyes. He was still built like a walking cube—his forehead and chin were the same width, in the same way his shoulders and hips lined up, as well—but whether it was the alcohol or the trauma, something about him had softened. He looked moments from crumbling.
“I do,” was all he said in return before casting his gaze back out to sea.
I took a step towards him. “Would you like me to escort you back to your room?”
He seemed unsteady and confused, and despite having thought for several days that he was a murderer—and honestly still unsure whether he hadn’t killed his wife—I wanted to help him. I didn’t want to wake up the next day to the news that he had gone missing, and have to spend my life knowing I could have prevented it all.
For a moment, it looked as though the Colonel would accept my offer, however, as I took another step towards him, my hand outstretched, he stumbled away from me and shook his head.
“No. No. I’ll find my way back. I don’t need any help.” He sounded like an independent child, wanting to do everything for himself. Except, this child was drunk and twice my size.
“It’s truly no trouble,” I said. “Your room is next door to mine. It isn’t out of my way at all.”
“No!” Colonel Stratton shouted, swiping a clenched fist towards me. Even though we were still much too far apart for him to make any connection, I jumped backwards on instinct, my back reconnecting once again with the railing.
With that, the Colonel turned and walked away, his feet struggling to stay beneath his body.
Perhaps it wouldn’t be such a shame if he fell overboard after all, I thought for just a second. Then, guilt set in. The man had just lost his wife to murder, and now he was trapped on the ship—the crime scene—without any idea who the murderer was. Assuming he didn’t do the deed himself, of course. The least I could do was be a little forgiving.
Suddenly, the deck plunged into a darkness as deep and unknowable as the ocean below. I spun around, arms outstretched, looking for something, though I didn’t know what. Something to hold onto, perhaps. Something to explain what had happened.
Electric lights dotted the exterior of the ship at night, but the one behind me had gone out. A bad bulb, perhaps? However, it seemed as if every bulb down the right side of the ship had gone out at once.
“Hello?” I called into the darkness, hoping to hear a reassuring voice—the Captain, maybe—tell me that everything would be sorted in a matter of minutes. But there was no sound. Until I heard the footsteps.
“Hello?” This time I called out louder, more urgent, frantic. “Who’s there?”
The footsteps grew closer. I could feel the vibrations move through the wooden deck and up my legs. Before I could call out again, cold hands wrapped around my throat. I tried to scream, but I couldn’t force any sound out. My windpipe was being held firmly closed. I tried to inhale, but it felt as if everything below my eyes had turned to stone.
I’d always imagined that if I were being attacked, I would fight back. I’d kick and scream and fight tooth and nail for my life. In the moment when it finally happened, however, the only thing I could think was that I was dying. I could feel the life slipping from my limbs like a piece of paper fluttering in the wind. I wanted to know who was doing this and why. I wanted to fight them off. But I couldn’t. It felt as though I were watching a stage play of my life, simply observing the scene, but taking no active role in it.
The darkness around me had already turned my vision black, so I didn’t realize I was losing consciousness until I saw colorful spots of light in front of me like twinkling stars. In one last effort at survival, I reached up and grabbed the invisible hands that were clasped around my neck. I pulled on them, but there was no change. My brain needed oxygen desperately. The last thing I remembered was my hands slipping down the arms of my attacker, my fingers catching on something for a moment, before everything floated away, as though caught and washed out in the ocean’s tide.
16
“Is she dead?”
“Oh no, another murder. My nerves can’t handle another death.”
“She isn’t dead, she’s breathing.”
“But she’s so pale. She looks half-dead. I won’t be surprised if she’s full-dead before the minute passes.”
“She’s moving!”
The voices came to me as though through a thick haze. I tried to wade through the fog, but my body felt heavy and far away. Did someone mention murder? Which poor soul had been taken this time?
“Her finger twitched.”
“Thank the heavens.”
“Rose? Rose, can you hear me?”
Did someone say my name? I could hear male and female voices, but they could have belonged to anyone. I couldn’t discern whether I was familiar with any of the speakers.
“Is she unconscious?”
“No, her eyelids are fluttering. Did someone call the doctor?”
“Dr. Rushforth has been sent for.”
Dr. Rushforth? I knew Dr. Rushforth. Slowly, flashes of memory lit up in my mind. Boarding the ship. Ruby Stratton’s death. Mean old Lady Dixon and her niece. Mr. and Mrs. Worthing.
“Thank goodness for that.”
That was Mrs. Worthing. I recognized the frantic tone of her voice now.
“Does anyone know what caused the power outage? Should we be concerned? This ship is meant to be indestructible.”
Mr. Worthing, always going on about the construction of the ship.
“Honestly, dear, we have bigger things to worry about. We took Rose into our care. What will people think if she dies before first port?”
“Did she faint?” Mrs. Worthing asked. “Perhaps the sudden darkness startled her.”
“That doesn’t sound much like Rose. She is a rather hearty girl,” Mr. Worthing said, followed by a quick correction. “I didn’t mean physically hearty, dear. Of course she is quite slim. I meant emotionally hearty.”
It felt like my eyelids had been weighted down with anchors, but I fought to lift them, to see who stood around me. I needed to know who had tried to kill me. The perpetrator would still be nearby, right? Or maybe not. How long had I been lying on the deck?
“Oh, thank heavens. Rose, are you all right?”
The first face I saw was Mrs. Worthing’s. She leaned down in front of me, her hands running up and down my arms, and then readjusting my dress so it covered my legs.
Colonel Stratton had been there on the deck with me just before the power outage. He’d been drinking, and our conversation had left a pit in my stomach. His warning to me, not to be alone on the deck, had felt somewhat normal at the time, but now I wondered whether it hadn’t been meant as a threat. He’d walked away less than a minute before the outage. And now that I thought of it, I hadn’t seen him walk away entirely. He could have been lurking nearby, waiting for his opportunity to strike. The power outage had given him that, if he hadn’t caused the outage himself.
“Give her a few seconds to adjust,” Mr. Worthing said, pulling his wife back.
I didn’t say anything, but I was grateful. An anvil sat on my forehead. My brain pounded against the inside of my skull, and I began to wonder whether I should have woken up after all. Perhaps death would have been better than the pain I was in.
“Dr. Rushforth! Dr. Rushforth!” Mrs. Worthing began waving the doctor down as if there was any way he could possibly miss the large (and ever-growing) crowd of people on the deck.
The group of people parted like the Red Sea before Moses, and Dr. Rushforth emerged from between them, black medical bag clutched in his fist.
“Excuse me,” he said, urging aside the Worthings and a blonde-haired woman I’d never met before who was staring at me, open-mouthed.
Dr. Rushforth was in business mode. He showed no surprise at seeing me lying on the deck; he simply placed his bag on the ground, knelt down next to it and extracted his stethoscope, and then turned to me with a small smile.
“Do you know your name?”
“Rose Beckingham,” I said through a dry, aching throat. My voice sounded raspy, but I didn’t know whether it was only to my own ears or whether it would be obvious to everyone standing around.
The corner of his mouth quirked up slightly, and he nodded. “Year?”
“1926.”
“Do you remember me?” He looked into my eyes, and I looked back into his, wanting to prove to him that I was fine, though I felt undeniably shaky. I’d almost been murdered, but somehow, I’d survived. Or, had the murderer wished for me to live? Had it simply been a warning?
“I do,” I said, nodding my head slowly, ignoring how dizzy I felt. “You are Dr. Rushforth.”
The man I had, until very recently—the last few moments, in fact—wholly believed to be a murderer, I thought. Though, I decided to keep that information to myself.
He pressed the stethoscope to my chest and I took several deep breaths. He examined my head for any sign of a lump or abrasion, shined a light into my eyes, and then, for the briefest of seconds, ran his fingers across my neck.
I tensed, though I tried not to. Would he notice anything strange there? My neck felt sore, but I wouldn’t know if there was any bruising until I could look in the mirror.
His eyebrow quirked up, head tilting to the side. He knew. He could tell.
“You fainted?”
I looked up at him with all the intensity I could muster and nodded. I didn’t want anyone to know I’d been attacked. If Mrs. Worthing found out, she wouldn’t leave me alone for the next two and a half weeks. I’d never be able to finish my investigation. And I didn’t want my attacker to think they could shake me. Whoever it was, whether they stood in the crowd around me now, blending in amongst the concerned passengers, or whether they were hiding in their cabin, waiting for the news of another attack to break and send the ship into terror, I didn’t want to give them the pleasure.
Dr. Rushforth looked at me for a second longer, his hand wrapping around my neck in much the same way my attacker’s had, but then he nodded his head imperceptibly and rose to his feet, extending a hand down to me. I accepted it, and he pulled me to my feet.
“Miss Beckingham seems to be in perfect health,” he said, turning to Mrs. Worthing, though speaking loudly enough that the whole crowd could hear him. “Just a scare from the sudden darkness.”
“I’m so embarrassed,” I said, looking down at the ground, trying to sell the story and hide my neck.
“You aren’t the first woman to fear the dark, Rose,” Dr. Rushforth said.
There was a small laugh from the crowd, and then everyone began to disperse.
“Shall I walk you back to your room, Rose?” Mrs. Worthing asked. “Mr. Worthing and I had plans on deck, but we can skip them to—”
“That won’t be necessary. I don’t wish to ruin your evening.”
“I can escort her to her cabin,” Dr. Rushforth said.
Mr. and Mrs. Worthing exchanged a glance and rather quickly agreed. I waved to them as they scurried down the deck toward whatever evening plans awaited them.
“You really don’t need to walk me back. I’m feeling fine,” I said, though the deck tilted slightly as I stood there. I blinked hard twice and it righted itself again.
“Someone should be there in case you…faint…again,” he said, placing accusatory pauses around the word.
I nodded in agreement and looped my arm around his offered elbow. We walked in relative silence, Dr. Rushforth with his black bag, me with my arms folded tightly across my stomach. He made mention of the chilly evening, and I agreed. I commented on the evening’s dinner, and he complained the potatoes had been too cold. I began to believe he wouldn’t press me on why I’d fallen unconscious on the deck or why large bruises were growing across my neck. As soon as we reached the stairwell, however, he cinched his arm around my arm and leaned down to whisper in my ear.
“What really happened when the lights went out on deck? I do not believe you fainted.”
“It is no concern of mine what you believe. Think as you like,” I said coyly.
“Rose,” he hissed. “This isn’t a joke. If someone wishes you harm, someone ought to know. You could be in danger.”
“You are someone,” I said.
He reared back, eyes wide and wild. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“I mean, you know someone tried to harm me. That is good enough for me.”
His face relaxed instantly. “The Captain should know. The investigation into Ruby Stratton’s murder has stalled. If you have any idea who did this, it is only right you would share that information.”
“If I had any lead into who could have killed Ruby Stratton, I would share it with the Captain immediately. Unfortunately, I know nothing more than anyone else.”
This wasn’t entirely true. I’d been investigating for several days, and I had a small list of suspects, which was already more information than most people had. Plus, as far away from answers as I felt, the attack on the deck only proved I was closer to solving the crime than even I knew. The murderer wouldn’t bother harming me if my investigation was on the wrong course. Of course, my attack could have been entirely unrelated to Ruby Stratton’s murder, but two killers on one ship? That seemed unlikely.
We reached my room,
and I went to grab my key from my pocket, however, at that moment, I felt the small scrap of fabric tucked in my fist. I hadn’t even realized I’d been carrying it. I quickly tried to think back to when I could have acquired it, and the only logical explanation was that I had grabbed it in my final moment of consciousness.
Dr. Rushforth looked at me curiously, his eyebrows pulled together, so I quickly shoved my fist in my pocket, releasing the fabric and grabbing the keys instead. I turned to unlock my door, doing my best to look casual.
“Thank you for the escort, Doctor. I believe I can take it from here,” I said, already stepping into my cabin.
Dr. Rushforth’s hand wrapped around my elbow, and before I even had time to react, he had pulled me back into the hallway and spun me around to face him. He took a step closer to me, closing the already small distance between us. His warm breath hit my skin and I nearly went cross-eyed trying to look into his face. His narrow features looked as pointed as ever, his lips puckered in disapproval.
“I know someone attempted to harm you, Rose.”
“Really, Dr. Rushforth—”
He raised a hand to silence me, his other hand around my elbow clenching more tightly.
“I know someone attempted to harm you, Rose, and I will remain quiet about it for now. However,” he paused, lifting his chin so he could more effectively look down his nose at me, “you should leave the investigation into Ruby Stratton’s murder to someone else.”
My mouth fell open slightly, shock and confusion taking up equal space in my mind. How did he know of my investigation? I hadn’t told anyone.
“You are more conspicuous than you think,” he said.
Aseem had said something similar to me the day I’d met him in the cargo hold. I supposed I should have assumed a grown man would suspect me of doing some amateur detective work if a twelve-year-old had been able to pick up on it. How many others knew?
“I do not wish to see you come to harm,” Dr. Rushforth said. He seemed sincere, and I nodded in thanks. I didn’t in any way intend to accept his advice, but it felt nice to know he cared for my safety.