The Widow's Cruise

by Nicholas Blake

  Peter was visibly mollified by the status Nigel had given him. “But, you know, it was just something I misinterpreted.”

  “My point is this:—you’re not going the right way about protecting Melissa, if you withold evidence. You don’t want the Athens police to start grilling her about it, surely?”

  “God, no! But they needn’t——”

  “I’m sorry. Either you tell me what it’s all about, or I shall have to tell them it’s a matter they must investigate.”

  So, at last, Peter Trubody yielded up his story. Yesterday afternoon he had been mooching about the island, looking for Melissa. He had tried the two main bathing-beaches, unsuccessfully. He then returned to the harbour; but, not seeing her anywhere on the waterfront, he had walked out at random along the rough road which led westwards. Turning a corner, he saw the Chalmerses and Primrose ahead, sauntering in the same direction. He had no wish for their company, so he clambered up the hillside to his right. Presently, he found himself on a shoulder of hill over-looking a narrow cove. On the west side of this cove he descried two figures, one of which wore a yellow bathing-cap. He had found Melissa; but, as usual, the wretched Ianthe was with her.

  “You’re sure it was Ianthe?”

  “Well, I suppose at that point I just assumed it was. They were quite a long way off—several hundred yards below me, I should think. It was a woman, anyway.”

  “So then?”

  “Well, I thought I’d shove off. But I changed my mind.” Peter was looking extremely shame-faced: his eyes would not meet Nigel’s.

  “You stayed where you were?”

  “Actually, I went a bit closer—I mean, after I’d climbed away from them, up the hill, I sort of changed my mind.”

  “You wanted to feel you were at least near her?”

  “Yes, that’s it,” said Peter gratefully. “I suppose I’m an awful fool about her, but——”

  “I understand.”

  Nigel thought he understood only too well. The boy had hoped to watch Melissa sun-bathing, Melissa naked.

  “I thought it’d be fun to sort of stalk them—you know, see how near I could get without their seeing me. I made a detour. It took quite a time, because I had to be careful they didn’t hear me either—there are so many loose stones on the hillside you could dislodge. Well, I got to where I could see them again, from a different angle.”

  A very curious expression came over the boy’s face: rather like the inward, stilled look on a child’s when it is about to be sick.

  “And you saw?—” Nigel prompted.

  “Oh it’s too ridiculous. Melissa let her head fall on the rock, I thought she was dead of course but it was just a faint or sunstroke or something.” It all came out in a rush. “Melissa told me during the dance——”

  “Oi, oi! Let’s get this in some sort of order. Have a cigarette.”

  The boy was trembling like a foal. Nigel’s calm voice gentled and restrained him. Helped out by Nigel’s questions, the gist of Peter’s evidence was as follows:—

  He had seen the two sisters at the sea’s edge. He was about a hundred yards away, above and to one side of them. Ianthe was lying sprawled on a flat rock half in the water—he recognised her by the dull-coloured skirt and jumper she wore. Melissa, naked except for the yellow bathing-cap, was leaning over Ianthe, in profile to him, and appeared to be doing something to her sister’s neck. Ianthe’s head was raised: then Melissa let it drop back on to the rock. It was this, evidently, which had scared the boy. He had taken to his heels and scrambled up the hillside again, not once looking back. It had preyed on his mind so much that later, at the dance, he blurted out to Melissa what he had seen. The explanation she gave completely reassured him. She had been sun-bathing, had gone to sleep, and woken up to find Ianthe looking queer. She tried to help her sister into a patch of shade. Ianthe fainted, collapsing on to the rock where Peter had seen her. Melissa splashed water over Ianthe’s face; then, with the vague idea that one ‘loosened the patient’s clothing’ under such circumstances, tried to take off a rather tight neck-band Ianthe was wearing. To get at the knot, she had to lift her sister’s head, which slipped in her hand as she removed the neck-band and fell back on the rock.

  “But why did all this give you such a turn?”

  “Frankly, I got the idea—well, Miss Ambrose—I thought she was dead, you see,” Peter slowly and painfully replied.

  And you thought Melissa had killed her, said Nigel to himself. Gazing full at the boy, he said, “But wasn’t it a very curious interpretation to put on what you were seeing? What made you jump to the conclusion she was dead?”

  “Honestly, I haven’t the foggiest. I agree it was quite absurd——”

  “I’ll tell you, then. The wish was father to the thought. You had wanted her dead. You hated her enough, for what you believed she did to your sister, to wish her dead. So, when you saw her lying unconscious, your own unconscious instantly made the assumption.”

  “Do you think that’s the explanation?” the boy rather pathetically asked. “I expect you’re right.”

  “It might be. It might not. How long elapsed between the first and the second occasion you saw the sisters down below in the cove?”

  “I couldn’t tell you. Honestly. I’d sort of lost track of time.”

  “Was it hours later, or minutes?”

  “I’d guess it was twenty minutes or half an hour. I’d gone back up the hill, and sat there for a while, and then I’d made this detour, moving pretty slowly.”

  Peter Trubody was equally unhelpful about the time when these events took place: he didn’t remember much about how he had got back to the harbour. However, Mr Chalmers’s and Mrs Blaydon’s evidence fixed the time with reasonable accuracy.

  “You know that wicker case Melissa carries about. Did you happen to notice it on the rocks?”

  “Yes, now you mention it, I did.”

  “She must have been considerably taken aback when you upped at her later with your suspicions.”

  “Oh, she was marvellous. She didn’t get angry, or laugh at me, or anything—just listened, quite seriously, to what I was saying. Of course, I didn’t let out what I’d really—” The boy broke off sharply.

  “What you’d really thought for a moment—that she had killed her sister?” suggested Nigel.

  “I wish you wouldn’t put words into my mouth,” Peter replied, but wearily, not angrily. Then, after a glance at Nigel, he exclaimed, “My God! You—I believe you think she did! It’s fantastic. Anyone who knows Melissa would know that. Besides, her sister wasn’t—didn’t disappear till last night.”

  Nigel made no comment on this outburst. Instead, he asked Peter if, on his way back to the harbour, he had seen any of the other passengers. It was to avoid the chance of meeting anyone that Peter had returned along the hillside instead of using the track. He had seen nobody, he said, till he reached the outskirts of the town. At one point, passing a ruined cottage, he noticed a haversack and two books lying on the ground outside it, but their owner was not in sight.

  “Did you look at the books?”

  “I did just glance, actually. They were lying open.”

  “What were they?”

  “Oh, one was a Greek text—Homer. And the other looked like a commentary of some kind. It was a new book. Someone mugging up their classics. Now what have I said?”

  Nigel’s eyes were lit up with excitement. “Of course. I should have guessed it. You didn’t recognise the haversack, I suppose?”

  “No . . . They all look alike to me.”

  “It could have been Mr Street’s?”

  “I dare say.”

  “Well, returning to your own Odyssey, when you reached port, you did not return to the ship at once.”

  “No.”

  “You saw a lot of the passengers embark then. Did any of them strike you as looking disturbed, behaving in a peculiar way?”

  “No. But I wasn’t taking much notice.”

  “D
id Miss Ambrose look ill, or had she recovered?”

  “I didn’t see her.”

  “Whom did you see?”

  “Oh, the Chalmerses. And Jeremy Street. And the Bishop and his wife. Lots of people I don’t know by name.”

  “Bentinck-Jones?”

  “I don’t remember him.”

  “Nikki?”

  “Yes. He was there.”

  Nigel gazed non-committally at the boy. “Why did you nearly miss the boat yourself?”

  “Can’t you guess?”

  “You were waiting for Melissa?”

  “Yes. I just wanted to make sure she—she was all right.”

  “And was she?”

  “Well, of course. Oh, you mean her ankle? Yes, she came hobbling along. So I was able to do something for her—you know, help her into the boat, and so forth.”

  A dreamy look came into Peter’s eyes.

  “But you didn’t talk to her then, about what you’d seen?”

  “Well, no. She was in pain. And one of the boatmen might have known some English. Actually, she didn’t seem to want to talk, either.”

  “I’m most grateful to you, Peter.” Nigel studied the boy’s face, thin, lightly tanned, unformed as yet, sullen and defensive no longer. At this moment, the resemblance to Faith was very marked. Brother and sister shared, too, a certain wildness, recklessness of disposition, which in Peter’s case was overlaid by the conventionality of school and class. Overlaid, but not buried. Faith would go all out for what she wanted, with few inhibitions or qualms of conscience, whereas Peter’s idealism, synthetic though it might be, would compel a more devious approach: he was probably capable of being no less ruthless, self-centred, ambitious than his sister, than a good many people of his age, but he would have to fake up moral sanctions for immoral actions. He was a more vulnerable character than Faith, Nigel judged, and one whom certain kinds of hurt could spoil for life.

  “I’m afraid,” Nigel went on, “you may be in for a pretty hard knock before long. Don’t let it make you lose faith in——”

  Nigel was interrupted by the sudden entry of Nikki, who burst out, before Nigel could stop him, with “They’ve found her body! Message just come through from Kalymnos. On the sea shore, near——”

  “Nikki! Pipe down! We have company.”

  But Peter Trubody was staring aghast at the cruise-manager, his lips gone white. “Whose body?” he asked in a stony voice.

  “Why, Miss Ambrose’s, of course. Must have been washed ashore from the ship. Got a wound in the back of the head, they say.”

  “For Christ’s sake will you hold your tongue!” Nigel furiously exclaimed.

  Peter Trubody’s nostrils were pinched: he threw back the lock of hair that fell over his eyes, which were drenched with misery and fear.

  “All right,” he said. “You win. I killed her.”

  Elucidation

  * * *

  HALF AN HOUR later, shortly after midday, the First Officer’s cabin held four people. Faith Trubody sat on the bed, chewing her nails and casting covert glances at Jeremy Street, who stood looking out of the window. Nikki was shuffling through a sheaf of papers he held in his hand. Ivor Bentinck-Jones leant against the wall near Faith, addressing an occasional remark to the girl, who hardly bothered to answer.

  “What on earth does this fellow Strangeways want us here for?” Jeremy asked Nikki.

  “Your guess is as good as mine, Mr Street.”

  “He might at least have the good manners not to keep us waiting.”

  “He’s been acting like Lord God Almighty,” said Ivor.

  “Who moves in a mysterious way his blunders to perform,” Jeremy put in, with his supercilious smile. “Ah, here he is. And Mrs Blaydon.”

  The door opened, the armed sailor outside saluted, and Nigel helped the limping woman into the cabin.

  Bentinck-Jones hastened to offer the one available chair. She inclined her head, its profile piquant in the Indian headscarf, and rather awkwardly sat down. The four glanced at her and Nigel and one another with the uneasy neutrality of children at the start of a party.

  “I’ve asked you here,” said Nigel, “because each of you was involved, in one way or another, with the two victims of the murderer.”

  “Where’s Peter? Why isn’t Peter here?” Faith’s voice was shrill.

  “Peter is under close arrest. He has confessed to the crimes.”

  There was a dead silence, of incredulity and shock. Then Faith, whose face had gone so white that the freckles showed up like old, yellow bruise-marks, cried out,

  “It’s a lie! I don’t believe you! You never told me——”

  “He has written a confession,” Nigel cut in. Taking a paper from his pocket, he offered it to the girl who, without so much as glancing at it, tore it viciously into fragments.

  “Here, steady on, young lady!” said Ivor.

  “She’s quite right,” Nigel coolly remarked. “The confession is worthless.”

  Faith stared at him in amazement. “Then—then, why have you arrested him?”

  “For his own safety. He is in danger from two people.”

  Jeremy Street shot a keen glance at Nigel. “You mean, there were two murderers?”

  “No. Peter is in danger from the murderer, and from himself. He believes he knows who committed these crimes: a person he loved, as they say, not wisely but too well.”

  “Me?” Faith’s voice was a whisper, as she stared at Nigel in horror.

  “Peter is trying to protect this person. He might even kill himself, in his present state of mind, to substantiate his confession.”

  “Well, he’s a fool then,” Faith harshly exclaimed. “I told him I didn’t care a damn any longer about what Miss Ambrose had done.” The girl turned to Mrs Blaydon. “Why don’t you say something?”

  Melissa, chin on hand at the table, shrugged a shoulder helplessly. “Aren’t we talking at cross-purposes? Mr Strangeways has not said it was you your brother is trying to protect.”

  “Quite so. But Peter also knows too much for the murderer’s peace of mind. That’s the other reason why I’ve put him under guard.”

  “Look here, can’t you stop talking in riddles and come to the point?” said Jeremy Street. “How do you know Peter’s confession was worthless, anyway?”

  “You, you——! Oh, how I despise you!” Faith was glaring at the lecturer like a Fury.

  “I’ll give you the gist of it. You can judge for yourselves. Peter says he saw Miss Ambrose and her sister sun-bathing in the cove yesterday afternoon: he was on the hillside above. Presently Miss Ambrose started walking back to the harbour alone. He ran down the hillside and interrupted her. It was only the second opportunity he’d had to talk to her alone, for she was nearly always with her sister—the first, by the way, was on Delos, when he was overheard threatening her.”

  “Threatening Ianthe?” murmured Melissa in an astonished tone.

  “Yes. Peter says—it’s quite different from the story he’d told me just before—that he interrupted Ianthe on the track, and they had a violent quarrel. She again refused to admit any of the charges he made about her treatment of his sister at school—I won’t go into these now—and she said some vile and contemptuous things about Peter and his feelings for Mrs Blaydon.”

  Melissa gave a deep sigh, at this point.

  “It was this, Peter wrote in his confession, that proved the last straw. Later, that evening, when he left the lounge to fetch something for his sister, he saw Ianthe walking along the promenade-deck, forward. He followed her out on to the fo’c’s’le, stunned her with a blow on the jaw, and threw her overboard. Then he noticed Primrose Chalmers watching him from the shadows, lost his head still more, strangled the child and threw her into the swimming pool. It took only a few minutes, he says, to do this, to hurry down to the cabin, fetch his sister’s stole, and return to the forward lounge. The whole thing,” Nigel concluded, “leaks at every joint.”

  “I don’t quit
e see that,” Jeremy said.

  Faith turned on him fiercely. “You wouldn’t! As if Primrose would just stand watching, while Peter——”

  “Exactly. But the revealing thing is the time and place of Peter’s alleged crimes. He should have killed Miss Ambrose on the island, when they were quarrelling and she was saying things that made him see red. If he didn’t do it then, why should he do it later when he’d presumably have calmed down a bit?”

  “Well, you tell us,” Ivor unpleasantly remarked.

  “I will.” Nigel glanced round the cabin. Sitting on the bed, her legs curled beneath her, Faith Trubody was watching him fixedly, a feverish gleam in her green eyes. Jeremy Street leant against the bulkhead on her right, jingling coins in the pocket of his royal-blue linen trousers, with the barely concealed impatience he evinced when pinned down after a lecture by some gushing member of his audience. Against the opposite wall stood Nikki, puzzled, silent, watchful; his mobile features had been responding like an actor’s to each turn of the dialogue. Mrs Blaydon, in profile to Nigel, sat impassively, one elbow on the table, chin in hand, the beautiful head drooping a little, a fatalistic air about her. Ivor Bentinck-Jones had plumped down on the far end of the bed from Faith: his arms were round his knees, and he regarded Nigel with the expression of a poker-player ready to bluff or call a bluff.

  His back to the door, Nigel glanced from one to another of them. “I certainly will,” he said. “The whole, desperate object of Peter’s confession was to try and divert me from the truth—the truth that Miss Ambrose was not murdered on this ship.”

  There were a few seconds of bewildered silence: then they all broke out together:

  “But that’s impossible!”

  “Not on the ship! I don’t understand.”

  “You must be crazy, Mr Strangeways.”

  “When was she murdered, then?”

  “But, when you told me, I assumed—” began Melissa.

  “Yes, Mrs Blaydon?” asked Nigel, looking at her meditatively.

  “Well, that Ianthe’s body had been washed ashore.”

  “That was what the murderer intended us to think.” Nigel spoke to the four others now. “I had just been telling Mrs Blaydon, before we came up here, that a woman’s body has been found on Kalymnos. The clothing and general appearance answer to the description of Miss Ambrose which we gave the authorities on Kalymnos. The body was wedged under a rock in the cove where she and her sister bathed yesterday afternoon. There was a wound on the back of her head. I’m sorry, Mrs Blaydon, to go over all this again.”