20-Inspector's Holiday

by Lockridge, Richard

  “I got to thinking of her being alone,” Susan said. “I couldn’t bear it for her, Merton—the awful waiting.” She drew a breath. “I went up to her cabin. And Miss Farrell had the same thought, I guess—she was already there, and she had Lady Grimes at least half-persuaded to go to tea. So I came back. And I don’t believe for a minute—”

  Heimrich tipped Susan’s face up to his. He smiled down at her. He said, “I’ll just go and make sure.”

  He went above to the promenade deck and stood in the entrance to the lounge—the wide entrance through which they had been ushered to the officers’ cocktail party. (They had fled it through the entrance across the ship.)

  There were a good many people in the lounge having tea—tea and little sandwiches and little cakes. Most of the people were women. At first he did not see Miss Farrell and Ellen Grimes. Then, across the big room, he saw them, at a table wedged among other tables. A steward was pouring into their cups. Lady Grimes was not looking at the steward, or at Emily Farrell. She did not appear to be looking at anyone.

  She was still a very pretty woman, as she sat not looking at anyone. But then, as he watched, she seemed to focus on Miss Farrell. And she smiled and said something. She was dressed in black, but it was not really the black of mourning, because there was a broad red belt around her waist. The ‘little black dress” all women have. The red belt probably was integral to it. After dinner, he thought. But we should dance after dinner; we are on holiday. All right, after dinner.

  He went out on deck and stood looking at the horizon, running things through his mind.

  Whether her husband had told her, or she had learned without being told, that he was gravely sick—that he was close to dying. Whether, in the last few weeks, or few months, he had seemed depressed. Whether being retired, having his career finished, had eaten into him. And whether they had planned to go on in Italia to Trieste, which was so close to Yugoslavia. Whether their passports were visaed for Yugoslavia, if a visa was required there, as he supposed it was. Whether Sir Ronald Grimes, Bart., descendant of a long line of baronets, had planned to defect to the East.

  Those were questions to be asked of Lady Ellen Grimes. (The last, of course, not in so many words.) And whether Grimes had had an attaché case, as would become a diplomat, and whether it was still in the other cabin of their suite. And—

  He went down to the upper deck and to Cabin 82. Susan did not appear to be in it, and for a moment he felt a twinge of alarm. Which was absurd. She was—

  He went to the door of the bathroom and listened. She was having her shower. He went back into the main room and pushed his shoes off and lay down on his bed.

  Susan came from the bathroom into the cabin. She came quietly. She also came naked. She said, “Oh, I didn’t know you were back. I suppose I should have worn a robe.”

  He looked up at her. After a moment he said, “Why?”

  “Come to think of it,” Susan Heimrich said, “I haven’t the least idea.”

  Merton Heimrich took his turn in the shower. They dressed. (Heimrich had less trouble with his black tie; he was getting used to it.) They went up to the veranda belvedere, and Mario said, “Madam, Sir,” with gladness in his voice. (Ten dollars their last night aboard? Heimrich wondered.) Mario brought their drinks. (I’m really drinking too much, Susan thought. I should have ordered a small glass of very dry sherry.) She said, “Thank you, Mario,” for a not especially small glass of very dry martini.

  The room was more nearly filled than it had been on earlier evenings. The four Frenchmen were at their usual table, and their voices were still loud. Mrs. Raymond Powers was in the lounge. She was not, this time, alone at a table. She was sitting on one of the small sofas with the blackhaired girl beside her—Major Whitney’s very pretty blackhaired girl—and the major sat on a chair facing them.

  The silver-white streak through Lucinda Powers’s hair was even more strikingly clear than usual. “The hairdressers are good on this ship,” Susan said. “Mrs. Powers hasn’t worn that dress before. Isn’t the major’s girl pretty?”

  “Sylvia Blake her name is,” Merton told his wife. “She’s in cabin class. He brings her up.”

  “Understandably,” Susan said. “They make a fine-looking couple.” She turned suddenly to Merton. “But then,” she said, “so do we, I think.”

  “Half of one. Your half. I—”

  “If you say that again,” Susan told him, “or anything like that, I’ll—probably throw my drink at you.”

  Ellen Grimes was not in the lounge. Heimrich had not supposed she would be. She had ventured out for tea. Probably she had fled back to lonely refuge. But I don’t know a damn thing about her, he thought. She may be in the main cocktail lounge pouring down Scotches. He glanced at Susan and decided he was probably wrong.

  Music suddenly burst loudly into the room. The men in red jackets—the men with a guitar and a violin and a tenor voice—had arrived. They went from table to table and played and sang at each, and they were, Susan thought, rather loud about it. And, of course, extremely Italian, which was appropriate. They stopped at the Heimrichs’ table, and the man with the voice said, “Signor? Signora?”

  “Can you do ‘Forget Domani?’” Susan asked him. “The way Frank Sinatra does?”

  “Ah,” the tenor said. “The Sinatra. The great Sinatra. But of course, signora.”

  The violin and the guitar went at something with gusto; the tenor sang in Italian, with a yearn in his voice. But it was not “Forget Domani,” and it was not in the least like Frank Sinatra.

  The music moved on to the far side of the room which spanned the breadth of the ship. It became dance music, and Whitney and the black-haired girl and two other couples danced to it on the circular floor. Mario brought another round of drinks. The tenor sang something which Merton Heimrich found faintly operatic, and the dancers left the floor and went back to their tables. After what seemed to Susan a rather long time, and a rather noisy time, the dinner chimes sounded.

  The four Frenchmen rose as one. Merton and Susan finished their drinks and followed the Frenchmen. Lucinda Powers was moving toward the wide doorway. The musicians reverted to dance music, and Whitney and his black-haired girl danced again, but this time they danced alone on the oval floor.

  Half a bottle of Soave Bolla was on the Heimrichs’ table. There was roast prime rib of beef on the menu, which has a homey sound and which could, yes, be served rare. Lorenzo looked at the wine bottle and said, “The wine steward, signor?” and Heimrich, though remembering that reds went with beef, shook his head. “A little pâté,” Susan said. “And the veal pepperoni, please.”

  At the adjacent table, with her three companions of chance, Miss Emily Farrell had reached minestrone, and seemed to be enjoying it. But when Lorenzo had left, she looked at the Heimrichs, and her face suddenly became very sad. “She did come to tea,” she said to Susan. “That’s something the English just naturally do, I guess. But she wasn’t going to want dinner, she said. Poor girl.”

  “I’m glad you were with her,” Susan said. “I’m sure it helped.”

  “I do hope so.” Miss Farrell went back to minestrone.

  “We can sit on the deck,” Susan said. “The enclosed deck. There’s a moon, I think.”

  She looked up at him.

  “No,” she said, “I didn’t think so, really. I’ll write a letter to Michael. I’ll send cards to some other people. I’ll send a card to the vet and ask about our animals.”

  It was a hell of a holiday, Heimrich thought, and went down to the cabin with Susan. There was writing paper—“Aboard S.S. Italia”—in a drawer, and there were postcards with pictures of Italia steaming through unruffled seas. Heimrich used the telephone, and the stewardess answered. Yes, Lady Grimes was in her cabin. But she was just finishing dinner. If Inspector Heimrich—

  There was a momentary pause. Then the voice was Ellen Grimes’s voice. She said, “Inspector?” and for a moment it seemed to Heimrich there was hope in h
er voice.

  “No, Lady Grimes. Just a few things I’d like to ask you.”

  She said, “Oh,” in a voice with no hope in it. She said, “Of course, Inspector. Come when you like.”

  The stewardess was carrying a tray out of Cabin 18 when Heimrich went along the passageway. She drew aside to let him pass. She said, “Signor Inspector. She is waiting for you, the poor lady. Of her dinner she did not eat, except only a little. A very little, the poor lady.”

  Ellen Grimes was sitting where she had sat before when he had gone to the cabin. She wore a robe belted tightly about her waist. Her lips, he thought, were very pale. She had not used lipstick. Her eyes were large, and there were shadows under them. The door which opened on the adjacent—empty—room was closed. She looked up at him, and for a moment there was, he thought, a flicker of hope, of expectancy, in her eyes. But he did not need even to shake his head. She looked at his face, and the flicker died out of her eyes.

  “I went to tea,” she said. “It was so good of Miss Farrell—and of your wife to think of me, too. But I’m all right, really.” Her voice was very steady. “Can I have them bring you something? Coffee? A drink?”

  “No,” Heimrich said. “I won’t bother you long, Lady Grimes. Only one or two things. To clarify a point or two.”

  “You’re still working on it? Haven’t—haven’t found out what happened?”

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “Still working on it, Lady Grimes. I hope we—the captain’s men and I—will find out something before you leave the ship.”

  “At Lisbon,” she said. “Michael—my stepson Michael—is meeting me there. Sir Michael Grimes, ninth baronet. There isn’t any real doubt of that, is there?”

  On her stepson’s name her voice had shaken a little. Then it had become firm again.

  “I shouldn’t have asked that,” she said. “Asked you to answer that. We’re flying to England, Michael and I. They’ve given him leave, of course. Compassionate leave, they call it. Such heavy words, they use. Such formal words. They—”

  Her voice had broken again. She said, “I’m sorry, Inspector. What do you want to ask me?”

  “You and Sir Ronald,” he said. “How far had you planned to go on the ship?”

  “To Venice, we’d decided. We were booked to Trieste. Ronald was once a consul there. Years ago—oh, years ago. But we—” Her voice broke again on the word “we.” It strengthened again at once. “We thought it might be spring in Venice. Something like spring. And Venice can be lovely in the spring. Do you know Venice, Inspector Heimrich?”

  “No. We may—we’ve thought we may—stop there on our way home.”

  “There’s a wonderful old church there,” she said. “Hundreds of years old—a thousand years old, perhaps. As it was a thousand years ago, I expect. Not in the city. On an island quite a way out in the harbor. They take you out in a launch. You arrange it at Harry’s Bar, because the bar owns the restaurant on the island. A good restaurant, we—we always thought. It was rough the first time Ronald and I were there. Just a chop, really, but—but I almost got seasick. Which would have been bad, because it was our first—I’m sorry, Inspector. Only—I was afraid Ronald would be ashamed of me. I was wrong. I found out he was never like that. But—oh, people who are never sick themselves—”

  She put both hands up to cover her face, and she shook her head, slowly. She spoke without moving her hands. “I’m miserably sorry to be like this,” she said. “So ashamed to be like this.”

  “You have every reason to be,” Heimrich said. “I know how you must feel—do feel. I’m the one to be sorry, Lady Grimes. But—well, we have to find out about things like this. We can’t let them just happen. And the more we can learn—”

  She took her hands down. She said, “I’ll be all right. It’s just—oh, things coming back. Actually, I want to help. Desperately want to help.”

  He held a pack of cigarettes out to her and, when she took a cigarette out of it, lighted it for her and lighted one of his own. She said, “I’m all right now. The things you wanted to ask me?”

  “You say your husband was never sick,” Heimrich said. “You mean, when he was younger?”

  “He was always well, Inspector. Why do you ask that?”

  “Recently? The last year or so?”

  “Of course. Inspector, he wasn’t an old man. He was—oh, he was just over sixty. That isn’t old for people nowadays. Not really old. Ronald—Ronald was—do you ask because he was so thin? But he was always thin. Always since I’ve known him.”

  She smiled. It was not much of a smile, but it was a try at a smile.

  “You should have seen him play tennis,” she said. “If you’ve got the notion he was a frail old man.”

  “Recently?”

  “Last summer. Into the early fall. Washington has good autumns, sometimes. He was all right, Inspector. He was never sick. Why do you ask about that?”

  “Because,” Heimrich said, “somebody’s told me he wasn’t well. That he was very sick, actually.”

  “Who told you that? Wait—Mrs. Powers? She didn’t like Ronald. She had some—oh, some mad idea—that he was, somehow, responsible for her husband’s death. She’s—well, she’s rather odd, Inspector. Was it Mrs. Powers?”

  “No. Major Whitney.”

  “Ian? But why would he say a thing like that?”

  “I don’t know. He seemed to think it was true. And that—well, that your husband had never let you know how sick he was.”

  “I don’t know what’s come over Ian. He’s—I wouldn’t have thought he’d say anything like that. He hardly knew Ronald. Oh, they were both at the Embassy. But doing very different things, y’know.”

  “You knew Major Whitney better than your husband did?”

  “Not really. Once or twice, when Ronald was tied up, I had dinner with him. At the club. Oh, I played tennis with him a few times. At the club. When Ronald was tied up with a men’s double match. Once I beat him, too. Took him down a peg, I shouldn’t wonder. And now—now he’s making up these absurd stories.”

  Heimrich waited because he thought she planned to go on. After a few moments she did.

  “He should have lived for years,” she said. “The men in his family always lived for years. Always. And he was looking forward to living back at the old place. And growing roses. Roses, he always said. Or cabbages. Saying that was—was a kind of joke with him. There is a kitchen garden, of course. But he—he so loved flowers. He—I’m getting maudlin, aren’t I? I never thought I would be like this.”

  “Looking forward to retirement,” Heimrich said. “Not—oh, at loose ends because he was retired? Not feeling that his life was ended?”

  She said, “Ended?”

  “Some men who are retired can’t adjust to it,” Heimrich said. “Feel put on a shelf. Or out to pasture. However you’d phrase it.”

  “Not Ronald,” she said. “Never Ronald.” The words came quickly. Then, for some seconds, she looked at him. Her voice was very steady, very level, when she spoke again.

  “What did Ian Whitney tell you?” she said. “What did he make you think—try to make you think? That my husband was an old, sick man? A man come to the end of his tether? Is that what Ian told you?”

  “What he seemed to think,” Heimrich said. “Yes.”

  She moved as if she were about to stand up. But instead she leaned forward and put both hands down flat on the table in front of her.

  “And—and that Ronald might have killed himself? Is that what you’re getting at?”

  “What Whitney was, yes.”

  “I don’t understand. I don’t understand at all. Why would he say things like that?”

  “I don’t know, Lady Grimes. He seemed quite convinced.”

  Again she looked at him for some seconds without speaking. When she spoke, it was in the same level voice.

  “My husband loved being alive,” she said. “Alive with me. I don’t know why Ian Whitney would—” She did not finish the senten
ce. She said, “What time is it, Inspector?”

  It was a little after nine.

  “It’s earlier in Washington, isn’t it,” she said. She did not say it as a question, but Heimrich nodded his head. She said, he thought to herself, “He keeps late hours, sometimes,” and got up and walked across to the telephone. After a moment’s wait she said, “This is Lady Grimes in Cabin Eighteen. I want to make a call to Washington. Washington, D.C. To Dr. Arnold Oliver. The number is—” She gave a number. She said, “Very well, if you will,” and cradled the telephone. She went back to where she had been sitting.

  “He examined Ronald in January,” she said. “We both had checkups in January. He won’t talk to you unless I ask him to, of course. They’ll call back if they can get through to him.”

  When she moved, Heimrich thought, she moved directly, with decision. Whether Dr. Arnold Oliver would discuss a patient even when asked by the patient’s wife—or widow—was an open question. It would be interesting if he would.

  “While we’re waiting,” Heimrich said, “did your husband have an attaché case, do you know?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Flat. Dark green. It’s—”

  Her voice broke for an instant. But then she went on, her voice again steady.

  “It’s in there,” she said, and pointed toward the closed door to the next cabin. “All his things are there. I’ll have to have the steward pack them up before Lisbon, I suppose. I—I waited. I—I knew it wasn’t any good waiting, but I waited. I—it was just putting it off, wasn’t it? Just pushing it away?”

  Heimrich didn’t answer that, because the only answer would be “Yes,” and that wouldn’t be any good either.

  “I’d like to look at his things, Lady Grimes. I might find something that would help.”

  She said, “Of course. The door isn’t locked. It—it was never locked.”

  He went into the next cabin, leaving the door open behind him. It was a little smaller than Cabin 18. There was a closet with two suits hanging in it, both dark suits, and a sports jacket and slacks beside it and a Burberry and a terry-cloth robe. All the clothes were hung neatly on their hangers.