The Widow's Cruise

by Nicholas Blake

  Mrs Hale flushed at the praise and the implicit, gentle rebuke.

  The dance was due to begin at 9.30 p.m. in the big lounge forward. Jeremy Street’s talk, which would be given on the boat deck aft, was timed for 9.0 to 9.30. The chairs in the lounge had been pushed back against the walls, and the three Greek musicians were warming up with bouzouki songs. Sitting with Clare on a window seat beneath one of the windows which overlooked the fo’c’s’le of the Menelaos, Nigel listened to the virile, infectious tunes and decided he would not attend the lecture. He noticed Melissa Blaydon at the bar, and how the musicians were conscious of her presence there. The Trubodys sat in a group on the opposite side of the lounge. Jeremy Street, for once, was not with them: Peter eyed Melissa Blaydon across the room with an expression which Nigel found disquieting.

  Presently Melissa left the lounge. The music seemed to lose a little of its sparkle. Peter Trubody stared morosely in front of him. About ten minutes later, the lounge cleared a bit as passengers went out to the lecture. The ship was rolling now. A wind had been getting up, and on the exposed boat-deck Jeremy Street would have a job making himself heard. Some of the windows being open, the thump and swish of waves made an accompaniment to the staccato Greek music.

  “Nigel, do shut that window. My hair is being blown all over the place,” said Clare, after they had been listening for a while. The musicians had just finished another song. Nigel knelt on the window-seat. He was winding up the window when, amidst the rushing noise of the sea, he heard a faint scream and a splash. Ten seconds later, perhaps, the sounds were repeated. There were people larking about still in the ship’s swimming-pool. Nigel looked out; but the canopy over the pool prevented him from seeing anything. Late for a bathe, he thought, automatically looking at his watch, which said 9.13. He finished winding up the window.

  About ten minutes later, Nikki came into the lounge. He spoke briefly to the band, looked around to make sure that everything was ready for the dance, flashed his teeth at Clare. But all this was done, Nigel vaguely felt, without his usual brio: Nikki seemed—was it preoccupied? a little unsure of himself? puzzled?

  There was no time to speculate on this. The lounge started to fill up again. Trade at the bar was brisk. The musicians, refreshed with ouzo, took up their position and began re-tuning the violin and guitar to the piano.

  Ivor Bentinck-Jones, who wore a dreadful Palm-Beach shirt, was in his element, fussing to and fro between the musicians, the more distinguished passengers, and Nikki. As Clare remarked, he was one of Nature’s Masters of Ceremonies.

  The dance began soon after 9.30. During the second foxtrot, Melissa Blaydon made her entrance. She was a breathtaking sight, in a gold and crimson sari. Limping to the bar, she ordered brandy and sat on a high stool, smiling remotely and mysteriously around her.

  It was during a lull, while Ivor Bentinck-Jones was trying to organise a highland reel and convey its rhythm to the musicians (“the man’s never been nearer Scotland than the end of a whisky-bottle,” remarked Mrs Hale), that Nigel noticed Mr and Mrs Chalmers enter the lounge, look anxiously round it, then withdraw again. Ten minutes later, they were back. Mr Chalmers took Nikki aside. The cruise-manager, waiting till the musicians had finished their number, went to the public-address system, which broadcast throughout the ship.

  “I have a message for Primrose Chalmers. Will Primrose Chalmers come at once to the main lounge forward. Her parents are waiting for her there.”

  The dance was resumed. Nigel, going across to get a drink for Clare, found Peter Trubody at the bar with Mrs Blaydon.

  “You look absolutely marvellous in that dress,” the boy was saying in a low, intense voice.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “What have you got on your hair?”

  “It’s perfumed oil I spray on it,” said Melissa, rearranging with a delicate gesture the sari, which had slipped back a little on her head, revealing the dark, wet shine of her hair.

  “Jolly bad luck you can’t dance to-night,” said the boy. “I’d have loved a dance with you.”

  “Next time, Peter.”

  Nikki was in earnest conversation with the First Officer, a smart young man in white uniform with blue and gold epaulets. Nigel brought Clare her drink. Nikki took up the microphone and broadcast again the message for Primrose Chalmers. The dancing continued, but it was half-hearted now—some premonition seemed to cast its shadow over the revellers, in spite of Mr Bentinck-Jones’s efforts to whoop things up.

  When, after the second broadcast failed to elicit Primrose, Nigel gravitated towards the little group near the doors of the lounge, he found Bentinck-Jones at his elbow. Nikki was telling the Chalmerses that he would institute a search of the ship. They themselves had looked everywhere for their daughter, who had slipped away before the lecture was over and not been seen by them since. It was long past her bedtime now, said Mrs Chalmers.

  Nikki spoke to the First Officer. As the latter was about to move off, Nigel drew Nikki out of earshot of the parents.

  “Tell them not to omit the swimming-pool in their search.”

  The cruise-manager stared at Nigel with astonishment and a trace of suspicion. However, he spoke again, in rapid, staccato language, to the First Officer.

  Nikki’s anxiety, evident now, was contagious. The dancing petered out, and the passengers stood about uneasily or went on deck. Mrs Blaydon had left the lounge, and so had Bentinck-Jones. Nigel meditated on the impulse which had made him suggest the swimming-pool: a couple of faint screams, a couple of splashes—it was all odds that, as he’d assumed at the time, people had just been larking about there.

  It seemed to take a long time to search a ship. There were, perhaps, 70 cabins: the kitchens: the engine room: the ship’s boats—the child might have gone to sleep in one of them: or she could have fallen overboard, the way the Menelaos had been rolling.

  More than half an hour later, Nikki entered the lounge and beckoned to the red-haired Dr Plunket. Nigel followed them forward along the promenade-deck on to the fo’c’s’le. The First Officer was there; and two sailors—one of them dripping wet; but not, for once, the ubiquitous Ivor Bentinck-Jones. Stretched on the iron deck lay the body of the child Primrose. She was fully clothed, including the sporran.

  “My God, this is terrible,” exclaimed Nikki.“An accident, on the first of our cruises. What will the directors say? Are you sure she’s dead, doctor.”

  On his knees beside the body, Dr Plunket looked up.“She’s dead all right. But it was not an accident.” He pointed to the child’s throat where, in the light of the arc-lamp slung from the fore-stay, hideous bruises were visible. “Strangled, and then flung into the pool, I’d say.”

  The cruise manager was looking half demented. “How am I to tell this poor child’s mother?——”

  “Nikki,” said Nigel sharply. “Go and find Mrs Hale—you know, the Bishop of Solway’s wife. Tell her what has happened. Ask her to break it to the child’s parents.”

  “Yes, yes. Sure thing. A most suitable idea. I go.”

  Nikki went. From the lounge above came sounds of music. The band was trying to get some revelry going again.

  “Ought to be ‘Nearer, my God, to Thee’, eh?” said Dr Plunket dryly.

  “Will you just look in her sporran, doctor,” said Nigel urgently. “Is there a notebook there?”

  “No. A handkerchief, a pencil, a pen, a miniature golliwog,” said the doctor, as he laid these articles on the deck beside the body. “No notebook. What’s the idea? We shouldn’t be touching anything till the police—damn it, I was forgetting where we are.”

  “The police are here, more or less.”

  “What the devil——?”

  Nigel spoke rapidly for a minute or two. The Greek sailors gazed at him curiously: one of them picked up the miniature golliwog, stroked its woolly head, and put it down again.

  “I see,” said Dr Plunket. “So that’s who I’ve been harbouring in my cabin. Well, you’ve got a hell o
f a job before you.”

  How much of a job, Nigel realised ten minutes later. The First Officer had arrived with two more sailors, bearing a stretcher. Primrose’s body had been taken away to her cabin. The rumour had flown round, and passengers were flocking towards the fo’c’s’le. Dr Plunket pushed his way against the tide of them, following the stretcher. Nigel went to look for Clare in the lounge.

  As he entered, he saw Nikki, like a figure in a recurrent nightmare, go to the public-address system. Nikki was sweating: his swarthy complexion had paled to a muddy yellow, and his voice was barely under control. Taking up the microphone, he said,

  “I have a message for Miss Ambrose. Miss Ianthe Ambrose. Will Miss Ambrose go at once to her cabin, where her sister is awaiting her. Will any passenger who has seen Miss Ambrose since the lecture this evening, come to the forward lounge, promenade-deck, and inform me. This is the cruise-manager speaking.”

  Investigation

  * * *

  LISTING HEAVILY TO starboard, the Menelaos turned in her tracks. Her searchlight scythed an arc across the sea: on the bridge and in the bows, sailors were looking out. It had to be done, but the ship’s officers knew the search was futile. Ianthe Ambrose could have gone overboard any time after 9.10, when she was seen to leave the lecture, and on her own statement she had been no swimmer.

  It was now nearly two in the morning. The Captain gestured to the Second Officer, who went out into the wheel-house. The telegraph clanged: the Menelaos, which had steamed some way back towards Kalymnos in the criss-cross search, now put about and at full speed set her course westwards to Athens. The captain had been in communication with his owners by radio-telephone, and they had instructed him to use his own discretion about the length of the search, then to break off the cruise and return to Athens direct. There, it would be a matter for the Greek police and the British Embassy to sort out.

  Nigel Strangeways, who had shown his credentials to the Captain, and been given leave to conduct a preliminary, semi-official investigation, was now sitting in the Captain’s cabin. There were also present the cruise-manager, Dr Plunket and the First Officer. The Captain, a grey-haired man with a hooked nose and a brusque manner, motioned Nigel to begin: he understood a certain amount of English, but now and then asked Nikki to interpret.

  “I’ll give you the facts first, gentlemen,” said Nigel. “Mr Chalmers attended the lecture with his wife and daughter. Miss Ambrose was sitting at the end of the row in front of them. He noticed that she was in a very depressed state of mind: she sat huddled up, her face in her hands, and occasionally she muttered or moaned to herself. Mr Chalmers thought that the muttering and moaning were by way of being a protest against the lecture—she took a dim view of Mr Street’s abilities——”

  “‘Dim view’?” asked the Captain.

  “Sorry. She thought he was a charlatan, no good at his job.”

  “But Mr Street is a most famous—” Nikki began to protest. The grey-haired captain cut him short with a slicing movement of the hand.

  “The lecture began punctually at 9 p.m. About ten minutes after it had started Mr Chalmers heard Miss Ambrose give a loud sigh. Then she got up and walked away. Several other passengers corroborate this. Primrose Chalmers, who was sitting at the end of her row, may have slipped out immediately after Miss Ambrose. Her parents did not notice she was gone till a minute or two later, and I haven’t yet found any eye-witnesses of her departure—it’s pretty dark up on the boat-deck at that time, and the audience were very attentive—Mr Street was in particularly good form, it seems. Well now, Miss Ambrose left the lecture at approximately 9.10, and Primrose between 9.10 and 9.12.”

  “You’re thinking there was some collusion between them?” asked the red-haired Doctor Plunket.

  “‘Collusion’?” said the Captain.

  Nikki translated.

  “Not collusion,” said Nigel. “Some connection between Miss Ambrose’s leaving and Primrose’s leaving. At 9.13, while I was sitting by an open window in the main lounge, above the swimming-pool, I heard a faint cry and a splash. About ten seconds later these sounds were repeated. I looked out, but I couldn’t see anything—the canopy over the swimming-pool was still in position.”

  The Captain spoke rapidly to the First Officer. Nigel guessed he was asking why the hell, in view of the stiff wind that was blowing then, the canopy had not been taken down.

  “I assumed some passengers were playing about down there. However, when I heard Primrose was missing, I advised Nikki to have the swimming-pool searched. Her body, as you know, was found floating a little way below the surface. We have no proof yet that she was killed immediately after leaving the lecture. We must inquire to-morrow if anyone saw her between that time and the time her body was discovered, and if any other passengers were in the swimming-pool at 9.13.”

  The Captain, eyeing Nigel keenly, nodded approval.

  “Let us assume for the moment,” Nigel continued, “that the sounds I heard were made by Primrose and her murderer. How do we interpret them? two cries and two splashes, at an interval of ten seconds?”

  “Until they do an autopsy at Athens,” put in Dr Plunket, “we can’t tell for certain whether she was strangled in the pool or strangled outside it and then thrown in. But the fact that the body was found just below the surface strongly suggests the former. If she screamed as she fell or was thrown into the pool, her mouth would be open and she’d take enough water into her lungs for the body to sink a little: her wet clothing also would tend to pull her down. But if she was strangled outside the pool, and thrown into it dead, one would expect the body to remain on the surface for a day or two.”

  He spoke fast, and Nikki was required by the Captain to translate. While he did so, Nigel saw in his mind’s eye the unsightly body of Primrose, packed among those giant cubes of ice he had watched being taken aboard at the Piraeus, and stored somewhere in the hold, with other meat.

  “You were talking about the sounds,” said the Captain.

  “Yes. Two splashes. Did the murderer strangle Primrose on the edge, throw her in, see she was not quite dead, and jump in himself to finish the job? Did the child manage to scramble out of the pool after the first attack, and have to be thrown back into it? And these are not the only possibilities.”

  “I do not think this is important,” said the Captain.

  “It may be important, in deciding whether the murderer was Miss Ambrose herself.”

  Nikki’s brown eyes bulged. “Oh, but surely she committed suicide—threw herself overboard?”

  “She might have done that after killing Primrose.”

  “Or because she had killed her?” suggested the doctor.

  “The point is this,” said Nigel: “Miss Ambrose could not swim, or always said she couldn’t. The water in the swimming-pool is kept at a level of about five and a half feet. Miss Ambrose was rather less than that in height. So she could hardly strangle the child in the pool. But, if she strangled her on the deck, what was the second splash?”

  “You heard two cries,” said the Captain in his slow English. “Of a man, or a woman?”

  “I can’t be sure. I’d say they were female. Or a boy’s. But the wind was blowing too hard. What is inconceivable is that the child’s death and Miss Ambrose’s disappearance, within an hour of each other, should be unconnected. Miss Ambrose had been in a suicidal frame of mind—there’s plenty of evidence for that. But she has left no suicide-note” (Nikki translated this for the Captain), “and she went to the lecture: you don’t go to a lecture if you’re just about to kill yourself.”

  “Suicides do some damned queer things; but I’m inclined to agree,” said Dr Plunket.

  “You have a theory?” Nikki asked.

  “Several people on board had fairly strong motives for killing Ianthe Ambrose. And, since she was obviously unbalanced, a murderer could calculate that her disappearance, when he pitched her overboard, would be put down as suicide. The obvious theory is that Primrose saw him
throwing Ianthe off the ship, and had to be silenced.”

  “But you do not think it happens so?” said the Captain. He went off into a sten-gun burst of Greek, which Nikki translated——

  “The Captain says, have you ever tried to throw a full-grown woman over the rail of a ship? Also, there were many people on deck.”

  “Tell the Captain I haven’t, but the fo’c’s’le is little used by passengers unless they’re bathing in the pool.”

  When Nikki had translated, Nigel went on, “There is an alternative theory—that the murderer’s object was to kill Primrose, that Ianthe saw him doing it, and so he had to silence her.”

  “But why not strangle Ianthe and push her into the swimming-pool too?” asked Dr Plunket.

  “Why should anyone want to hurt a harmless kid like this Primrose Chalmers?” Nikki said.

  “I don’t know about ‘harmless’. She pried about and eavesdropped among the passengers, and wrote it all down in a notebook. That notebook could be dynamite”—Nigel paused while Nikki translated— “and it has disappeared. She always kept it in her sporran—that leather pouch she wore over her skirt. The notebook was not in the sporran when Dr Plunket examined the body. And Mr Chalmers cannot find it anywhere in their cabin.”

  “But the chap wouldn’t have to murder the kid to get hold of the notebook,” Dr Plunket objected. “He could just take it from her.”

  “That depends. She’d still have the information in her head after the notebook had been taken.”

  “Well then, she would be dangerous to the murderer.”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “I don’t get you,” said Dr Plunket.

  “She’d only be dangerous to him if she realised the importance of her knowledge. Captain, I’d like a word with the sailors who found the body.”

  The Captain rattled out orders. The First Officer left the cabin. A steward entered, carrying cups of Turkish coffee, and the Captain uncorked a bottle of brandy.