A Poison of Passengers

by Jack Treby

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Picking up some specialised equipment.’

  ‘What sort of equipment?’

  He smirked and held up his free hand theatrically, forming his fingers and thumb into a small “O”. ‘Sort of round and about this size.’

  I regarded him blankly for a moment, and then the penny dropped. ‘Pearls,’ I said, finally cottoning on. ‘A set of fake pearls.’

  He laughed, dropping his hand. ‘Could be.’

  So that was it. ‘You’ve got hold of some fakes. And you’re planning on switching them for the real thing?’

  ‘That’s the idea.’ His eyes gleamed. ‘Nothing like a bit of paste to fool the eye. A friend of mine’s been working on them through the night. Luckily, all the pearls are the same size. He just needed to get the colouring right.’

  ‘Wait a minute. How on earth could he know...?’

  ‘Oh, he got a good look at them. Last night, at the restaurant.’

  ‘At Leopardi’s?’ My jaw dropped. ‘He was there?’

  ‘Sure. The table just along from me and Mrs O’Neill. Had a perfect view of us in the mirror.’

  ‘Good lord.’ It seemed like an awful lot of people had been dining at Leopardi’s last night. ‘You’re thorough, I’ll give you that.’ I did recall seeing some bearded fellow sitting not too far from them. He had looked the artistic type. Was there anybody dining at that damned restaurant who didn’t have a hidden agenda? But it was too late to worry about that now. I returned my attention to the necklace. ‘How are you intending to make the switch? Does she ever take it off?’ I had never seen Mrs O’Neill without the necklace. It was damned foolish of her to run around in broad daylight with such a valuable set of pearls hanging from her neck, but it was not my place to comment. The necklace had been a gift from her late husband and she liked to keep it close to hand.

  ‘She’s got to take it off some time,’ Harry reckoned. ‘At night or in the bath. The swimming pool perhaps.’ He grinned. There was a full length pool onboard the Galitia, as well as a gymnasium. ‘Don’t worry, old man, I’ll find an opportunity. And I’m not exactly in a hurry. We have six whole days onboard ship.’ He stretched out his arms. ‘And when I bid Mrs O’Neill a tearful farewell in Southampton, she won’t have any idea she’s even lost them.’

  ‘You’re sure these fakes will stand up to close scrutiny?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure. Pierre knows his business.’

  ‘In that case, may I take a look?’ I glanced down at his case.

  ‘I don’t have them with me, old man. Credit me with a little intelligence. I’m not going to waltz through customs carrying a string of fakes. No, they’ll be slipped onboard by the back door.’ He took a look at his wristwatch. ‘Right about now. That’s why I’m running a little late. Making a few arrangements.’

  ‘You mean roping some poor sailor in to help you smuggle them onboard ship?’

  ‘That’s about the size of it.’ He smirked. ‘There’s always some guy hanging around the docks who can do with an extra shot of rum.’

  ‘Harry, you’re incorrigible.’

  ‘I like to think so.’ He grinned again.

  ‘Mind you, I think you missed a trick, turning up late like this. You should have been here to see Mrs O’Neill onboard. If you want access to her boudoir, you’re going to need to keep in her good books.’

  Harry pulled a face. ‘I’m hoping it won’t come to that. Although, now you mention it, she is sharing a room with the delectable Miss Wellesley...’

  I laughed. ‘You keep your mind on the job, you dirty devil! Miss Wellesley is a respectable young girl.’

  ‘No harm in looking, old man.’

  ‘I doubt Mrs O’Neill will take kindly to you making eyes at her paid companion.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll be as good as gold,’ Harry assured me. ‘You know me. Business comes first. Hey, how did Mrs O’Neill manage with the police last night?’ Harry had not hung around for long at the bar after the detectives had arrived.

  ‘She was a little shaken, but she’s fine now.’ She had gone straight to bed after the interview, but Miss Wellesley had knocked on my door and given me an account of what had happened. ‘The bomb was a hoax, so they’re not too concerned about investigating it. Apparently, her late husband was a friend of some bigwig at the Italian embassy, which might explain the name on the envelope. Well, I say friend, a business acquaintance. Mr O’Neill was big in shoes, apparently. Exporting to Europe.’

  ‘Yeah, so I’ve heard.’

  ‘It takes some talent, selling shoes to the Italians, but apparently he managed it. Anyway, the police think the whole thing was down to some fool with a grudge against Mrs O’Neill’s late husband.’

  ‘That figures,’ Harry agreed. ‘How long is it since he died?’

  ‘I’m not sure. A year or two, I think.’

  ‘Well, it couldn’t have been the real bombers, in any case.’

  ‘I suppose not. They’ll have gone to ground by now, I should imagine. Plotting their next atrocity.’ It was appalling that people like that could get away with terrorising people on such a scale. This was meant to be a civilised country.

  ‘You mean you haven’t you heard?’ Harry regarded me with some surprise.

  ‘Heard what?’

  ‘It was in all the papers this morning.’

  ‘I didn’t have time to look.’ I had been too busy soothing Mrs O’Neill’s furrowed brow.

  ‘They caught the bombers yesterday evening. It was in the stop press. They’ve got them under lock and key.’

  ‘Good lord. Yesterday?’

  ‘Yeah. So the cops were right. The business at the restaurant couldn’t have had anything to do with them. Not if the parcel was hand delivered.’

  ‘That’s true.’ I scratched my chin. ‘So who were they? The bombers?’

  Harry shrugged. ‘Communists, like everyone said. Italians, targetting a few prominent friends of Mussolini.’

  ‘Trying to target them.’ I grimaced. It was not the fascists who had been blown to kingdom come, but two postal workers. ‘Those poor men at that post office.’

  ‘Yeah, that was too bad.’ The other bombs had been defused, thankfully. ‘Still, justice will be done, old man. It won’t be long before those guys fry.’

  I screwed up my face. ‘You have a knack for a distasteful phrase. Anyway, we can put all that behind us now, thank goodness. It’ll be plain sailing from today. And you can concentrate all your energies on Mrs O’Neill and her necklace.’

  ‘Yeah, I guess so.’ He nodded, pulling out his ticket and examining it briefly. ‘Hey, look, though, I may need a little help with that.’

  ‘Oh, no.’ I raised my hands. ‘If you want to steal her necklace, that’s your affair. I’m happy to turn a blind eye, but I’m definitely not getting involved.’

  ‘Oh, not involved, old man.’ He looked up. ‘I wouldn’t ask you to do anything illegal. But I may need someone to distract her attention, when I make the switch.’

  ‘And why on earth would I help you?’

  ‘Out of the goodness of your heart?’

  I threw him a look.

  ‘Well, you do owe me a favour, old man.’

  ‘Actually, I think we’re even at the moment.’

  He rolled his eyes. ‘All right, all right. I’ll owe you a favour.’ That was what I wanted to hear. For all his criminal tendencies, Harry would always pay up on a debt. Eventually. ‘I just need someone to make up the foursome. You, me, Mrs O’Neill and Miss Wellesley.’

  ‘Mrs O’Neill does have other friends onboard.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. I’ve met them. But I need someone I can trust. Don’t worry, old man. I’ll make it worth your while.’

  ‘All right, Harry.’ Actually it might be quite fun. It had been a long time since I had been involved in a bit of innocent skulduggery. It would make a nice change from the more serious mayhem of the last few months. ‘Just so long as it’s understood, I want nothing to do with th
e actual theft. I want to slip back into England quietly, not under police escort.’

  ‘Understood.’ He pocketed his ticket and looked at the queue outside the gate. ‘So, shall we head on in?’

  ‘No time like the present,’ I agreed, picking up my luggage.

  ‘You know, I think Mrs O’Neill is really taken with you,’ he said, as we moved towards the gate. ‘Wouldn’t stop talking about you yesterday. I think a little romance might be in the air.’

  ‘Harry, that’s not funny.’

  ‘Hey, you could do a lot worse. She’s drowning in dough. Her husband left her a fortune and I think she may be on the lookout for husband number two.’

  That was the conclusion I had already come to. ‘Well, she can damn well look elsewhere.’

  The bulk of the luggage had been sent on ahead from the hotel. My man Maurice had packed everything up last night and given it over to the staff at the Alderley for conveyance to the docks. He had come on ahead, as there had not been room in the taxicab for all of us.

  An automated conveyor belt on the right-hand side of the pier was ferrying some of the baggage up into the side of the Galitia. A number of crewmen were lifting the bags from a large trolley and dumping them with reasonable care onto the rotating belt. The noise of the machinery, however, was as nothing compared to the general hubbub within the enclosure.

  ‘It’s just as I remember it,’ I said to Harry, as we threaded our way towards the customs post. There were three sets of people queueing, with first class naturally given priority; but hundreds of well wishers were also assembled on the near side of the barrier, making their farewells and clogging up the whole area. Several children were skipping about carelessly in front of us. One woman was saying goodbye to her husband – I presumed it was her husband, since they were canoodling shamelessly in front of everyone – and from the ship itself we heard the cries of the seamen, shouting instructions across the way. ‘Well, perhaps not as many people this time.’ In the old days, when steerage made up the bulk of the passenger list, thousands of people would have been crammed in here, ready to be packed onboard ship. The pier was still busy, but the boarding time had been cut as the passenger numbers had dropped. Even the Cunard people, it seemed, had been affected by the economic downturn.

  Harry handed his passport to a sober looking official. I caught a glimpse of the name as he passed the booklet across. “G Harrington Latimer”. Not quite his real name but close enough. If he was skipping the country – and I had the sneaking suspicion that he might be – then he was only doing it under partial cover of darkness. Whoever had provided the forgery had done a good job. The customs man returned it without a second glance.

  My own passport was genuine, though the name on the cover – Henry Augustus Buxton – was a fake. I gave a quick prayer of thanks to Terrance Greenfield as I handed the document across. Technically speaking, I was not breaking any laws today.

  Ahead of us, the first class passengers were beginning to make their way onto the ship. A covered gangway ran a short distance between the pier and the outer wall of the steamer. A smartly dressed officer at the bottom of the ramp was checking the tickets. Mrs O’Neill and Miss Wellesley were just heading up the gang plank. By the look of it, the passengers with rooms on the port side were being processed first. I pulled up for a moment, as I spotted another figure waiting patiently in line. It was my valet, Maurice, a grim looking Frenchman in his mid fifties. He looked as white as a sheet. I felt a small pang of sympathy. His fear of boats was even greater than my fear of aeroplanes. But the man was steeling himself nonetheless.

  Harry caught my gaze and peered across at the greying figure.‘Who’s that?’ he asked, as we pocketed our passports and shuffled through the gate.

  ‘My valet, Maurice. Just boarding the ship.’

  Harry grinned. ‘You’ve got a new guy, huh?’

  ‘A Frenchman, yes. He’s been with me a while now.’ Over two years, in fact. Maurice had been with me since Gibraltar. ‘Not too keen on ships, though.’ I fumbled for my ticket as we moved to join the back of the queue. In truth, I had not been sure whether he would be coming with me at all. The valet had been prevaricating over the matter for some weeks. It had been simple enough on the way out – we had crossed the Atlantic by Zeppelin – but an ocean liner was an entirely different kettle of fish. Maurice, it transpired, had been on a similar ship during the war, which had been sunk by a German U-boat. Since then he had had a morbid fear of all things nautical. Not that he had bothered to mention this to me until fairly recently. At Christmas, however, he had received a telegram from France informing him that his mother was seriously ill. The doctors had given her just a few months to live. If he wanted to return home to see her before the end, he had no choice but to hop on a steamer; and so he had reluctantly agreed to accompany me back to Europe.

  I had been in two minds whether to buy him a first class ticket. I was not made of money and there was something to be said for banishing the fellow to third class and forgetting about him for the duration of the journey. The last thing I needed was a morose Frenchman cluttering up the place, even if he had good reason to be upset. A cabin steward would be on hand to change the bedsheets and polish the boots, and I would not need any home cooking on a ship like the Galitia. All the same, there were some things that a steward could not take care of. I would still need to dress for dinner and Maurice was one of a very small number of people who knew the truth about my sex. That was something even Harry didn’t know. For all his many faults, Maurice had an attention to detail which far exceeded my own fumbling hands. And so I had booked him a berth on the same deck as my own. A separate cabin, though. There were limits to my consideration.

  It was only after I had shown Maurice the tickets that he confided to me the full truth about his wartime experiences. He had been onboard the Lusitania when it had been torpedoed in 1915. He had been coming back from America with his then employer, a French diplomat. That man had drowned and Maurice had only just escaped with his life. The incident had scarred him terribly. The RMS Galitia, of course, was the Lusitania’s sister ship, the last of the great pre-war Cunard liners. If I had known this a week earlier, I would have booked with another company. That was the trouble with Maurice. He never told me anything unless he absolutely had to. However, having paid through the nose for these tickets, there was no question of returning them; and so here we were, boarding a steamship, the both of us, for the first time in over a decade.

  Harry could not make out anything odd in the man’s manner, as we edged closer to the gangway. ‘He looks okay to me.’

  ‘He doesn’t like to show his feelings,’ I said, as we prepared our tickets for inspection. The valet’s battered face was granite-like in its immobility, but the firmness with which he grabbed the handrail gave a fair indication of his true feelings. ‘Trust me, he’s terrified.’ The Frenchman moved slowly up the gangplank. ‘It’s going to be a long old trip,’ I suggested, looking down at my ticket once again. Unlike my man Maurice, however, I was rather looking forward to it.

  The steam whistle let out a long, low blast, followed by three short toots. The engines were already throbbing and, a few moments later, the ship began its slow reverse out of the docks and away from the pier. I tightened my grip on the window frame as the movement vibrated through my arms and legs and the wooden floorboards began to sway gently beneath my feet. A gaggle of energetic well-wishers were grinning across at us through a selection of square holes in the pier opposite, cheering and waving, and for a brief moment I had the peculiar impression that they were moving and I was standing still; then my stomach turned itself over and my mind quickly reorientated itself. It was always the same when a ship started moving. It would take everyone a few minutes to find their bearings. Around me, the other first class passengers were crowded at the open windows along the entire length of the starboard promenade, watching with varying degrees of enthusiasm as the great steamship slowly pulled back into the Hudson river.<
br />
  The promenade was a long covered way, stretching a good third of the length of the ship. Steps led up into various cabins and other rooms. I caught sight of Harry Latimer, a good fifty feet downwind, conversing with Mrs O’Neill, who he had quickly located. He caught my eye, across that distance, and smiled mischievously. Evidently, he was making up for lost time. Mrs O’Neill was oblivious, waving enthusiastically at the crowds through the open window, though to my knowledge there was no-one here to see her off.

  The American passengers were easily distinguished from their more restrained European cousins, their louder voices and rather manic hands marking them out as reliably as their garish clothing. It was pleasing to reflect, however, looking across the solid, elegantly wrought deck, that this was a British built ship and I was now one step closer to home. I have never been one to succumb to the disease of nostalgia – I am all too aware of the many faults of my fellow countrymen – but, after two years away, just stepping onboard the Galitia – even hearing the loud guttural cries of the crewmen as they went about their business – I felt a warm glow of familiarity. It might take a minute or two to find my sea legs, but it seemed to me that I was now on home turf.

  ‘Look at the tiny boats!’ a little girl gurgled happily, peering over the lip of the window and observing the tugs guiding us out onto the river. She saw me watching her and waved a podgy hand. I am not overly fond of children but, caught up in the moment, I allowed myself to wave back. I took one last look through the windows at the Manhattan skyline – a farewell glimpse of the Empire State Building and the other now familiar landmarks – and then turned and headed back to the foyer.

  I had moved further down the promenade than I had intended and I had to thread my way through the babbling crowds and along a pleasant garden lounge before arriving on the gently carpeted floor of the foyer. The landing here was all marble columns and wrought iron elevators, but an elaborate staircase wound down to the lower decks. I exchanged polite nods with a few other passengers as I contemplated briefly whether to use the lift, but B Deck was only one floor below. The walk so far had already served to inoculate me against the sway of the ship, so I decided to bite the bullet and risk the stairs.