The Widow's Cruise

by Nicholas Blake

  Melissa had buried her face in her hands.

  “It seems to me a quite inexcusable proceeding on your part,” said Jeremy, throwing up his head and almost neighing the words. “I cannot conceive what possible object you have in——”

  “You will, in due course.”

  Ivor Bentinck-Jones leant forward, his face both wary and impudent. “And how does the great detective know the body was not washed ashore from the ship?”

  “For one thing, she did not disappear till about 9.15 p.m. The ship left Kalymnos at six. By 9.15 we’d be some sixty miles from the island. Drowned bodies do not rise to the surface again for several days. It is almost impossible, the Captain tells me, that wind and current should drive a submerged body sixty miles between 9.15 p.m., when we were notified of Miss Ambrose’s disappearance, and 11.35 this morning, when her body was found.”

  “Oh, almost impossible?” said Ivor, looking round at the others for applause, as though he had scored a point.

  Melissa passed her hand dazedly over her brow. “I’m very stupid, I wasn’t awfully well last night, but I can’t understand how Ianthe could have been killed anywhere else—I mean, she was on the ship, you’ve said so yourself, till 9.15.”

  “A woman, who was taken to be your sister, was seen for a short while at the lecture. It was pretty dark up there, though. Identities can be mistaken. And people can be impersonated. Nikki has questioned the quartermaster who was receiving the landing-tickets as the passengers re-embarked. The sailor was shown the passport photograph of Miss Ambrose, and he has no recollection of her returning to the ship.”

  “He could easily have missed her,” protested Jeremy. “Have you checked the number of landing-cards handed back?”

  “Of course. The same number were returned as were handed out in the morning.”

  “Well then.”

  “The person who murdered Miss Ambrose must have handed in two cards, one stuck to the other so that the sailor thought he was being given a single one.”

  “Have you any proof of this?” asked Ivor with a sneer.

  “No.”

  Jeremy tossed up his head again. “You’re simply wasting our time, with a lot of grotesque theories that——”

  “I agree, it would save time if the murderer confessed.” Nigel gazed hard at Jeremy Street. “Assuming the murderer is in this cabin,” he added.

  Before anyone else could speak, Melissa turned her head. The lop-sided smile, or a ghost of it, appeared on her face. “I do hope you know what you’re saying, Mr Strangeways. But haven’t you forgotten that I saw Ianthe before the lecture? I took her some fruit just after dinner. I’m quite sure it was she, not someone impersonating her.”

  “We’ve only your word for it that she was in the cabin at all.”

  Melissa’s familiar laugh came bubbling out. “But, my dear Mr Strangeways, why should I say she was there if she wasn’t?”

  “You’d have to say it, if it was you who later impersonated Ianthe at the lecture.”

  Looking round at the others, she made a fluttering, helpless gesture. “I must be dreaming. This is all absolutely mad.”

  “And after all,” Nigel pursued, “who could impersonate your sister so successfully as yourself?”

  “My dear sir,” exclaimed Nikki, “there’s no resemblance between them at all! How can you suggest it? A beautiful creature, a veritable Naiad, and——”

  “Miss Massinger is a sculptor. The first time she saw Mrs Blaydon and her sister, she commented on their likeness to each other—in bone-structure, figure, and so on. None of us has seen Mrs Blaydon without her make-up. And the Bishop of Solway told me how alike the sisters were as small girls.”

  Melissa struck her fist lightly on the table. “This whole conversation seems to me quite unreal. I don’t see why I should go on humouring your extraordinary fancies, Mr Strangeways.”

  “You are perfectly at liberty to leave,” Nigel answered.

  The woman shrugged; then, in her deep, husky voice said, almost on a note of gaiety, “No, I think I’ll stay. I can’t resist the temptation to discover where this nonsense is leading.”

  She spoke for the others, too, whether or no she knew it: it was as though Nigel had presented them with a fantastic cocoon of paradox and unreality, and they must wait to see what emerged when he unwound it.

  “What you seem to be implying, Mr Strangeways, is that I murdered my sister.”

  Nigel said nothing, but watched her averted head.

  “You’re saying,” she persisted, “that she was impersonated. Obviously whoever impersonated her was the murderer—according to your theory.”

  “No. It’s not ‘obviously’. Let us suppose you impersonated her in order to protect somebody else, to give him—the murderer—an alibi.”

  “Who would the murderer be, then, that I’m supposed to have been protecting?” asked Melissa, in the brisk, emotionless tone of a nurse humouring a lunatic.

  “Oh, I can do that one,” put in Bentinck-Jones. “If we’re playing this as a parlour-game, the answer is our respected savant, Mr Jeremy Street.”

  “What the devil do you mean by that?” exclaimed Jeremy.

  “You are the only one of us who has a perfect alibi for the time when Miss Ambrose was supposed to have committed suicide or been murdered. You were lecturing,” said Ivor, beaming at his companions.

  Jeremy Street gave a contemptuous sniff. “This is becoming quite farcical. You seem to be leaving that wretched child out of account altogether—or are you going to tell us that Primrose as well as Miss Ambrose was killed on the island?”

  “I’ll come to her later,” said Nigel. “Mr Street, you told me that, when you went ashore again yesterday afternoon, you spent the whole time reading. On a hillside west of the harbour. You never moved from the spot?”

  “That is so.”

  “Peter Trubody found your books and your haversack there: but you were not in sight. So you did move from the spot.”

  Jeremy Street shook his head, like a horse tormented by flies. “Oh, I dare say I did get up for a minute or two—to stretch my legs.”

  “And it was not a detective novel you were reading.”

  “I fail to see what concern of yours my personal reading is.”

  “What is all this about?” said Faith Trubody. She was watching Jeremy’s discomfiture with curiosity and a kind of covert glee.

  “In a nutshell,” said Nigel, “Mr Street had a strong motive for killing Ianthe Ambrose: he could have seen her, from where he sat, walking along the track—according to Mrs Blaydon’s statement, her sister started back towards the harbour, alone, at about 4.45. He could have run down the hill, intercepted her, struck her on the back of the head and thrown the body into the sea. The body might later have been washed ashore where it was found. Any comments, Mr Street?”

  “One doesn’t comment on a tissue of falsehood, like——”

  “Falsehood? Why did you tell me you were reading a detective novel? and that you never moved from the spot?”

  “I did not kill Miss Ambrose.” The lecturer’s voice went a little high.

  “I know you didn’t. You are not the type to kill on the spur of the moment; and you could not have known before-hand that you would have the opportunity yesterday afternoon. You had a different plan for Miss Ambrose, I suggest.”

  “This is pernicious nonsense.”

  “Connected with what you were reading on the hillside.”

  Jeremy Street gave him a furious look, and made for the door. The armed sailor outside stopped him, but at a sign from Nigel let him go.

  Nigel had little doubt about the reason for Jeremy’s evasions. Earlier yesterday, Faith had refused the man’s offer of marriage. This blow to his vanity, together with the blackmailing attempt of Bentinck-Jones, had determined him to get his own back on Ianthe, the original source of his troubles. He would make sure that, this time, Ianthe should not humiliate him during a lecture: more than this, he might turn th
e tables on her. No doubt he had been mugging up the text and consulting the new commentary which Peter had seen, with the view of laying some trap into which Ianthe could be drawn, if and when she took the offensive at the lecture. A practised lecturer can nearly always make a questioner from the audience look foolish. To humiliate Ianthe in public would be a great satisfaction in itself: to vindicate his own scholarship against Ianthe’s would also re-establish his status with Mr Trubody, whose financial backing Jeremy needed. The whole plan was, of course, childish, petty, undignified,—but just the sort of thing a vain exhibitionist like Jeremy would find appealing, and would hate to have exposed. Hence Jeremy’s discomposure when Nigel first asked him what he had been reading, and the lie about a detective novel: as for his saying he never left the spot, it was probable that Jeremy Street had genuinely forgotten he had done so.

  Nigel had no wish for Street to be further humiliated. Brushing aside a rather avid question from Faith, he said,

  “There is no link between Street and Mrs Blaydon, therefore no reason why she should have impersonated her sister to protect him.”

  Melissa sighed wearily. “I do wish you would get this idea out of your head.”

  “You must bear with me a little longer.” Nigel gave her a veiled look, then addressed the others as if she were not there. “On the theory that it was Mrs Blaydon who did the impersonation, it might have been as a willing accessory or an unwilling one. Which brings us to you, Nikki.”

  The cruise-manager started convulsively. “Me? Have you gone crackers?” He threw away the toothpick he had been at work with, and took two steps towards Nigel.

  “Your alibi for yesterday afternoon——”

  “Now take it easy, Mr Strangeways, take it easy! That was confidential. You know? Top secret.”

  “Will the person you were with confirm your alibi? And how would I know it was not a put-up job between you both?”

  “But say, I thought you believed me!”

  “Will the Athens police believe you? It could look bad for you. You are known to have told Mrs Blaydon privately about a special bathing-place. You tell none of the other passengers. It sounds like an assignation, doesn’t it? You go along there—Miss Massinger and I saw you creeping off in a highly furtive way. But, when you arrive, you find Miss Ambrose there too. There’s a quarrel. Miss Ambrose insults you. You see red and hit her—a little too hard. The body has to be disposed off. Wedge it under a rock: it’s likely that Miss Ambrose was murdered where her body has been found. You and Mrs Blaydon then make a plan, to create the illusion that her sister was killed, or committed suicide, on the ship. You’re in a better position than anyone to fiddle the landing-tickets. Your liaison with Mrs Blaydon——”

  “Please!” Melissa had raised her head, with an expression of disgust. “I find this absolutely indecent.”

  “You are quite at liberty to go,” said Nigel, for the second time.

  “Are you suggesting that I—I became an accomplice in my sister’s murder, because of an—an attachment to this man?”

  “The fun gets fast and furious,” said Ivor with a malicious chuckle.

  “Hold your tongue, you goddam heel!” shouted Nikki.

  “It’s a line the police might work on,” said Nigel coolly.

  “But you know it’s not true.” Melissa spoke in a whisper.

  Nigel turned to the others. “We must have all noticed how attentive and solicitous Mrs Blaydon was towards her sister. Which makes it all the odder that she should have allowed her to walk back alone to the harbour after an attack of sunstroke.”

  “I did explain that to you,” said Melissa. “You’ve no idea how obstinate poor Ianthe could be.”

  “I must admit,” said Nigel, “I cannot see Mrs Blaydon willingly co-operating with her sister’s murderer.”

  “Not for a man she’d fallen for?” Ivor outrageously asked. “The way these two carried on in public——”

  “We know you are a keen student of human behaviour,” said Nigel, raising his voice to quell the outbreak which Bentinck-Jones’s remark produced. “And we know why. If Mrs Blaydon was an unwilling accessory, we don’t have to look far for the murderer.”

  “This time, there are witnesses to what you’re saying. Defamation of character is actionable. Watch your step.”

  “Well, I’ll say it,” cried Faith Trubody. “I don’t care a damn. You tried to blackmail Jeremy. You’re a blackmailer, you fat little reptile. You blackmailed Mrs Blaydon into impersonating her sister. Isn’t that what you mean, Mr Strangeways?”

  “Any comments?” asked Nigel, looking fixedly at Ivor.

  “My solicitor will make all the comments that are necessary.”

  “I really wouldn’t start invoking the Law, if I were you. Mrs Blaydon, what hold did this man have on you?”

  “None. I keep telling you, you’re under a ridiculous misconception—it’s absurd, mad.”

  “Are you a heavy sleeper, may I ask?”

  “I really can’t see—yes, I am rather.”

  “You told me you slept for a while yesterday afternoon in the cove. When you woke up, you found your sister was looking ill. Are you sure she was alive?”

  “Of course she was alive.” Melissa’s eyes opened wide. “Oh, you’re thinking Mr Bentinck-Jones might have killed her while I was asleep? crept up and stunned her from behind before she could cry out and wake me?”

  “Peter Trubody told me he’d seen you both from the hillside and had thought your sister was dead.”

  “Oh, I know. Silly boy. I explained it to him at the dance. Poor Ianthe had fainted, and I clumsily let her head fall back on the rock. But it wasn’t a serious knock she got—not enough to cause a wound—oh, I see, you’re wondering if it was an accident and I lost my head and told lies about it.” Mrs Blaydon, who had talked till now in a slow, almost dragging way, as if still exhausted, brought out these last words with a rush.

  “It’s a pity,” said Nigel. “For, as far as I can see, Bentinck-Jones had an extremely strong motive for murdering Primrose Chalmers.”

  “Oh, it’s Primrose now, is it?” said Ivor.

  “Yes. If one thing in this case is clear, it’s that the murderer believed Primrose had seen the murder being done.”

  “B-but, you said it was not done on the ship,” stammered Nikki.

  “It wasn’t. Primrose was spying on Miss Ambrose while she was sun-bathing in the cove. She wrote down in her notebook what she’d seen. When her body was found, the notebook was not in her sporran, where she always kept it, nor in her cabin. Bentinck-Jones finally admitted to me that he’d stolen the notebook—off the body, he said. The ink had run, he said, and was indecipherable. Only the last entry, written in pencil, was legible.”

  “But I told you,” Ivor broke in, mopping his brow. “I told you what she’d written. It was nothing to do with seeing Miss Ambrose murdered.”

  “You told me, under strong pressure. But how do I know you told me the truth? You admitted you had taken the notebook. You led us to assume you’d taken it off the child’s body. Very clever. But suppose you’d taken it from her while she was alive, and found she’d been an eye-witness of what you did on the island. You had the notebook, but the knowledge was still in the child’s head. So she had to be silenced for good and all. Naturally, when I questioned you this morning, you’d make up a false version of what she wrote.”

  “Perhaps Mr Bentinck-Jones will now tell us what the child really wrote.” Mrs Blaydon, whose back was turned to the bed on which Ivor was still sitting, did not look round. Her face was as cold and emotionless as her voice.

  “You bloody double-crosser!” Ivor muttered, hunched up, glaring at Nigel.

  “Why should anyone murder the child except to suppress evidence? Who knew that this evidence existed, in her notebook, except you? You’re properly dished, aren’t you?”

  “And don’t forget,” Faith broke in excitedly, “I saw him following Primrose out towards the swimming-pool las
t night.”

  “And another witness saw Primrose, just before, moving in the same direction with a woman, the witness took to be Ianthe Ambrose. I must ask you again, Mrs Blaydon, did this man have some hold on you and force you to pose as your sister?”

  Melissa trailed a languid hand across her brow. “And I must tell you again, he didn’t.”

  “Very well,” said Nigel after a pause. “We’ll drop the idea of forced collusion on your part. But I’m afraid this will open up a still less inviting prospect. Let us assume for the moment that Bentinck-Jones did not kill Miss Ambrose, and that his account of what Primrose wrote in her notebook was true.”

  Nigel moved over to the door, cast a glance round the four in the cabin, and took a sheet of paper from his pocket. Melissa’s face was half turned to him, where he now stood, and her eyes met his in a long, naked, challenging look that might have been one of sexual provocation. The other three became aware of an increased tension, though they were mystified by the rapid changes of direction which Nigel had been making. The cabin had grown unpleasantly warm: there was a prickle of sweat on Faith’s forehead, at the roots of her blonde hair, and Ivor was mopping his face again. Nikki’s dark skin gleamed, like polished wood. The three of them looked all at sea, like survivors in an open boat drifting without sails or oars, whither they knew not and were past caring.

  Nigel opened the sheet of paper. “This is what Primrose saw. A wicker case floating out from under the rocks, and the arm and head of a swimmer retrieving it.” He paused. The silence protracted itself. Three pairs of lack-lustre eyes regarded Nigel in a dazed way.

  “So what?” said Faith at last.

  “Do you mean?—” Melissa began. “Is that all she saw?”