“You think so, do you?”
“It’s my fruit.”
“I don’t follow,” said Richard.
“My banana. At first I thought it was just my banana, you see—”
“Perhaps I should let you consult the doctor confidentially—”
“It’s droopy and a strange, orange color—and my apples—they look like little coconuts without hair, they’ve shriveled so small and brown. As for the—”
“What? Are you nine? This doctor is not on call.”
“In my cabin, you see, the fruit basket—”
“Oh, goody, more little Benchleys.”
“It has this smell, not like your ordinary rotting fruit, but it somehow reminds me of Antonio.”
“Who?” I asked a little too shrilly. “Oh, the rat.”
“Yes. The fruit basket smells like Antonio. You need to see.”
I caught Richard’s eye before he could ask who Antonio was and why he smelled. “Don’t!” I said, and with a frown he remained mute.
As the romantic mood had been broken, I acquiesced, and we followed Mr. Benchley to his stateroom.
As we entered there was a pervasive odor that I couldn’t quite identify.
“Burnt almonds?” asked Richard.
“Yes, that’s it,” Mr. Benchley and I replied in unison, as Richard walked over to the desk atop which sat a sad-looking basket of fruit.
The banana was in a sorry state of decay, as was all the remaining fruit in the basket. Even the oranges Saul had used to juggle for our entertainment last night—although their skins were intact, the pulp within appeared to have collapsed, imploded, making them look like deflated basketballs.
“Cyanide,” said Soledad, appearing at the open door and wriggling her nose.
“Yes,” agreed Richard.
We examined the fruit basket with incredulity.
“They’re full of cyanide,” Soledad concluded with a nod.
“How can that be?” asked Mr. Benchley. “I’d never guess that cyanide could be a by-product of rotting fruit.”
“It isn’t,” said Richard.
“But—how?—why?—I don’t understand.”
“Do you see that peculiar discoloration on the flesh of this pear, Bob?” said Richard. “That’s because there was a hole there. Injection point. The same can be seen on the banana you were talking about. See the hole at the center of that black circle? They’ve all been injected with cyanide. It’s degraded now, but the distinctive smell of the poison has leached through the skins of the fruit.”
“A convenient way to kill someone,” said Soledad. “I’ve used it time and again.”
“What? Oh, in your mysteries, yes, of course,” said Mr. Benchley. “I wouldn’t think you’d be plotting against me. But, why would someone want to kill me?”
Had the matter been less serious I would have said something smart, but aside from ruining a romantic interlude, his life meant more to me than anyone’s. I remained mute on that point, and then it dawned on all of us at once: Saul Gold had not died of a heart attack.
“It’s all my fault,” said Mr. Benchley. “I encouraged him to have something to eat because he hadn’t had any dinner or the desserts brought to the room, so maybe after I fell asleep on the sofa he grabbed a pear. I picked up what was left of one from off the carpet when we found him. It never occurred to me . . . .”
He collapsed into a chair and covered his face with his hands at the horror of Saul’s death.
“I feel so responsible for that poor fellow’s death,” said Mr. Benchley, staring out in space.
Saul died. How it came to be was unintentional. Right now all I cared about was my friend’s peace of mind.
“You’re not responsible,” I said firmly, hugging him to me.
“That’s right, Bob,” said Soledad. “How could you know? The question is who sent the fruit basket?”
“I don’t know. There wasn’t any note.”
“Anybody threaten you? Anyone want you dead?”
He thought for a moment, rifling through an inventory in his head.
“There was this bootlegger, a shady character. I insulted him.”
I interrupted: “All you said was that he cuts his booze with water, and that he’ll make a fortune when he learns how to cut the water. Hardly a reason to kill you.”
“You don’t know the bum. When he threatened to sue for slander, I reminded him the Volstead Act was in effect, so he promised to make me pay another way. Anyway, he didn’t send the basket.”
“How do you know?”
“When I was given the cabin, I was told that it was because another passenger had missed the boat, so they gave me his room. The fruit basket wasn’t sent to me, but to him, I presumed. But as it was in the room, I was told to enjoy it. You know I killed Antonio and Francesca. I gave them the apple that I had popped into my coat pocket when I went down to cargo to find my alarm clock.”
“Good thing, too,” I scolded. “A good trade!”
“Thank you. I’m glad I didn’t bite into it, but all the same, you are a heartless creature.”
“Well, I’d rather have a rat like you for my best friend than—wait! The orange juice at breakfast!”
“What’s this?” asked Soledad.
“At breakfast this morning. Mr. Benchley’s orange juice. It was laced with a big heaping portion of drain cleaner, and the Duchess Sofia thought it had been meant to knock her off. Apparently, there had been past attempts on her life by the Soviet regime. Why they’d bother trying to kill an old lady, I have no idea. The juice was placed before Mr. Benchley, and you, Richard, know the rest of the story.”
“The hole it burned in the tablecloth . . .” Richard explained to Soledad.
“All right, Fred, dear. You still have seven more lives.”
“You fail to include our past confrontations with gun-toting floozies, knife-wielding assassins, and, of course, there’re the four Marx Brothers. I’m running out of lives!”
Mr. Benchley, the voice of reason in my life, if not his own, was coming unhinged, sounding very much like a character from his own brand of humor writing, which had made him a very famous man.
Captain Fried and his chief officer arrived at the room and Richard told him of our discovery. I wasted no time confronting him: “Captain, what was the result of your investigation into the tainted orange juice?”
“Mrs. Parker, I assure you, I looked into the matter personally, and I have to say that it was sheer accident. A sink drain was clogged. A cook measured out the appropriate amount of drain cleaner into one of a dozen newly washed and ready juice glasses, one of which he had taken from a tray for the morning’s service. He was quite contrite when he told me he had begun pouring the cleaner into the sink when the oatmeal he’d been preparing on a stove overflowed its pot and he put the glass back down onto the tray to attend to it. When he returned, the drain had been unclogged, and a helper had taken away the tray with the glass, which he then filled with orange juice for the waiters to serve at table. The helper never saw the drain cleaner in the glass when he filled the dozen or so of them with juice. The cook never had another thought about it until I came to investigate and he retraced his steps. He will be let go upon our return to New York.”
“Please don’t fire him. It was an honest mistake,” said Mr. Benchley.
“I will consider your kindness, Mr. Benchley, but we do have standards.”
“Captain, who was the passenger originally booked in this stateroom?” I asked.
“Yes, well, that is a question,” said the captain with a frown. “The room was reserved for a Mr. Charles Latham; his luggage had been checked and brought aboard, but Mr. Latham had not himself boarded when we sailed. A wireless was sent asking what he wished us to do with his luggage, but the address we had been given for him in the United States did not exist, nor the telephone number.”
“But, George,” said Soledad, “the fruit basket.”
“Yes, well, as you
can see, there is only the stateroom number on the card, no name from whom it was sent.”
“Then it is possible that someone on board right now could have poisoned the fruit, if it hadn’t arrived already tainted,” I said.
“But, why?” asked Mr. Benchley.
“Let’s think this out,” I said. The room contains all of the mysterious Mr. Latham’s luggage, plus a bon-voyage fruit basket. He misses the boat, and the room is locked, is it not? Yes, and then the following evening Mr. Benchley is given the room. I presume only his steward entered here before Mr. Benchley occupied it?”
“Several stewards removed Mr. Latham’s luggage, of course, and brought in Mr. Benchley’s.”
“Look,” said Mr. Benchley, “I was in here with my steward when the men arrived with my trunk and bags and removed Latham’s things. I would have seen it if anybody had injected my fruit. I took an apple from the basket, which turned out to be lethal to a couple of rodents, but I never bit into it. So I say the poison was in the fruit before delivery.”
“Then,” said Soledad, “you were never the intended victim. Mr. Latham was. And we now know the orange juice incident was nothing more than an accident.”
“How do you explain my being trussed, dragged, and dunked? An accident too?”
“That,” said Captain Fried, “I cannot explain. My crew assured me that on the final check before our departure, the winch had been secured. It may ring hollow, but all I can offer you are my profound apologies for all you have been through. Rest assured I will do everything in my power to make the rest of your voyage as pleasant as possible. Please don’t hesitate to call upon me at any time, should you have any concerns. I will wire the proper authorities in France to investigate Mr. Gold’s death. We will be arriving at Cobh the day after tomorrow, before pressing on to Cherbourg.”
Richard asked if both he and the ship’s physician could reexamine Saul Gold’s body for the telltale signs of cyanide poisoning.
Captain Fried shot a wistful look at Soledad before he and the chief officer, carrying out the offensive fruit basket, left the room.
Mr. Benchley may have been momentarily touched by guilt, but he had not forgotten his manners.
“Please,” he said from the chair where he was still sitting, “Please, Richard, would you pour us all a drink?”
“Yes, Fred, we’ll all have a drink with you, and then we have some work to do.”
Captain George Fried
Chapter Seven
“Captain Fried has eyes for you,” I said.
Soledad smiled the smile of vanity, which on her was merely one of confidence with the opposite sex and she wore it most attractively.
“I’d say he is a perfect choice for me.”
“How’s that?”
“He’s married, good-looking, an international hero, runs a tight ship, and is out at sea for twelve months of the year.”
“Ahhh,” I replied, “I see your point.”
“I wouldn’t have to listen to whining, jealous rampages or the demand, Where were you all night? The perfect man.”
“But, Soledad, you are a genius! I should get me one like him.”
“But, Dorothy, you have Woodrow, of course.”
“So I do! And he does so like to cuddle.”
“Richard has eyes for you, my dear. Oh, don’t tell me you haven’t noticed.”
Daphne appeared, walking into the lounge. She spotted us and took a chair, falling into it as if exhausted. She didn’t look at us or speak; it was as if we weren’t even there. Her eyes were red, her mascara smudged, and she appeared to be quite drunk. Her usually sleek short hair was tussled and she looked young and vulnerable and miserable.
“Daphne?” I said, leaning in toward her. There was a dark stain running in a stripe down the front of her silk evening dress.
Looking up at me and then at Soledad and then toward the door from where she had entered a moment before, with a little frown as if trying to remember why she had come, she blurted out: “I liked him, you know? Gold. I liked him.”
The feelings I had been harboring, the desire to scold her for her rude treatment of Saul during the days before his death, seemed to dissolve into pity with the power of her trembling voice. “We liked him, too,” I said.
“He was a nice man. Treated me kindly,” she said, nodding. “But he knew, he knew from the start what we were doing and that I was going to marry Ronnie.”
I threw a glance at Soledad, who sat there watching Daphne with the faintest trace of a smile on her face. Like a python poised to strike.
I said, “Well, I don’t know what to say about the whole affair. And I don’t know if it’s any of my business—”
“Ronnie, you see . . . well, he can’t, you know.”
I wasn’t sure what she was talking about; about what Ronnie could or couldn’t do. And then I figured it out. She must have seen it dawn in my face, and spurred on, she continued: “The War, you see; he was hurt in the war. At first they said he could never even walk again, and then when he did walk there was the hope that someday—well, he just can’t is all.”
“So you . . . ?”
“Yes—wherever I can find it, and . . . and Gold said he understood, but he didn’t really, or he just didn’t want to, I don’t know.”
“And he followed you on the ship.”
“Yes, and I didn’t know—Ronnie didn’t know—that he was on the crossing. Ronnie doesn’t mind, you see; he said he doesn’t mind that I—because he can’t, you understand, so it’s all right for me to—but he doesn’t like to have it thrown in his face,” she rattled on now with an urgency that was more a plea for understanding than an excuse for her behavior. But it wasn’t until she took a breath and spoke again that I truly understood her motive for approaching us.
“He didn’t kill Gold. I can tell you that. He didn’t kill Saul Gold.”
“No one said he did.”
“No, but he thinks you all think he did. And I think you think so, too.”
Soledad broke her silence. “Until now, everybody’s thought that Saul Gold died of a heart attack, you know that. But, you don’t think so, do you? You think that Ronnie killed him, don’t you? Don’t deny your suspicions, Daphne. All this talk has been to defend Ronnie because you believe he actually did kill Saul.”
“No!”
“No, Daphne,” said Soledad with an air of disgust, “rest assured, your precious Ronnie did not kill Saul Gold.”
Soledad got up out of her chair, with a demand in her eyes that silently said it was time for Daphne to leave. Daphne got up and moved in toward her with a plea in her voice.
“Then it was a heart attack, for real?” The relief brought renewed color to her cheeks.
“Oh, no,” said Soledad, “he was murdered all right.”
“But, who . . . ? I said it wasn’t Ronnie who did it, it wasn’t!”
“No, Lady Twinton, it wasn’t your precious Ronnie killed Saul, the rarest of God’s creatures, a truly good man.”
“Do you know who did it? I liked Gold, really I did.”
“Yes, I know who killed him,” said Soledad in a whisper. “I’m looking at her right now.”
Daphne’s expression, bright with redemption, instantly changed into one of hopelessness. She turned to me as if to beg my rebuttal of Soledad’s condemnation, which was harsh. I could think of nothing kind to say, nor did I want to comfort her. She may not have poisoned the pear Saul ate, but she had poisoned the man’s spirit. And when I caught sight of Hemingway entering the lounge, and saw the way he looked at her, so interested, so energized, so enraptured at the sight of her, I could no longer stand to watch their little flirtatious dance, so I followed Soledad out of the room.
“It’s time,” I said, looking at my Cartier watch, a gift from Seward Collins, whom I had been seeing before I left New York. He was going to come to Paris next month, but I was not so sure that I wanted him to. (That is another story for another time.) “Let’s fetch Mr. Bench
ley.”
Soledad and I returned to our rooms to change into more appropriate attire. After all, we could not do our snooping wearing high-heels and silk frocks and fur coats. And so, dressed in skirts and cardigans, we arrived at Mr. Benchley’s door at around two o’clock in the morning.
Mr. Benchley and Richard Hartley met us, each carrying a flashlight.
“Follow me,” Mr. Benchley ordered, and we did so, single file, along the corridor, down two staircases, through several steel doors, and then past a convoluted series of utility-like rooms, built of steel and filled with stores of food and equipment. Another staircase, and we entered the area that stored numerous steamer trunks and other passengers’ belongings.
“Here they are,” said Mr. Benchley after flipping on a light switch.
There were at least a hundred crates stacked atop one another with Irish and French destination labels, and at least two dozen steamer trunks and fifty smaller valises stacked in the room.
“So how the hell are we supposed to find the ones that were in your room?” I asked.
“Check the luggage tags for a match of Bob’s room number,” said Soledad.
“And since the luggage had been sent down here two days after we set sail, it makes sense that they’re on the outside of the stack,” said Mr. Benchley.
“I believe I have found them, Bob. Matches your room number,” said Richard.
“And those, I think, are the valises,” said Mr. Benchley.
“Let’s take a look inside,” said Richard, after he and Mr. Benchley had pulled the trunk out to examine.
“Shit! They’re locked, damn it!” I said.
Mr. Benchley flashed a look of disapproval for my “language.” “We’ll get into it,” he said, removing his trusty Swiss Army knife and pulling out its toothpick.
“Stand aside, everyone,” I announced. “Watch a magician at work.”
“You’ve seen this act before, Dorothy?” asked Richard.
“Oh, yes, on numerous occasions Mr. Benchley has gotten us into, and sometimes out of, sticky situations.”
“Well, said Soledad, “There’s a little larceny in everyone’s heart.”
[Dorothy Parker 05] - A Moveable Feast of Murder Page 10