by Jack Treby
‘No idea, I’m afraid,’ Sir Richard huffed. ‘Actually, I asked the steward about them. He said they were from third class. Didn’t know anything more.’ The knight took a sip of wine from his glass and glowered at the memory. ‘“Gatecrashing” that’s what the Americans call it.’ His eyes bulged behind those ridiculously large spectacles of his. ‘Wouldn’t be allowed in my day. People should stick to their own part of the ship.’
‘I suppose they were just paying their respects.’ But it worried me, that there were people onboard who knew Harry well enough to turn up to his funeral but who were strangers to me. Perhaps, though, they were just sightseers; the kind of people who popped up at other people’s weddings, just to have a look, or to sit in the public galleries during court cases. ‘It bumped the numbers up at least.’
‘I’d have had them banned,’ Sir Richard said. ‘A funeral should not be a public occasion. I tell you, Mr Buxton, when I pop my clogs, many years from now, there’ll be no riff-raff at my funeral. Just family and close friends. Perhaps the odd business associate.’
‘And a few servants?’
‘The housekeeper maybe. And my butler, Dawkins, if he’s still with us. But nobody else. They can stand in for the household staff.’
There was a knock at the far door and the captain of the Galitia made his entrance, taking off his peaked cap as he stepped through into the sitting room. Sir Richard and Lady Jocelyn excused themselves and went over to greet him. I slipped around the sofa and headed for the back of the room, filling up my plate from a table of food and peering out onto the verandah.
Mrs O’Neill was sitting at one of the boxy tables there, with Miss Wellesley to her side. ‘Oh, Henry!’ she exclaimed, her eyes lighting up at the sight of me before I had the chance to retreat from view. I was beginning to regret moving onto first name terms with the woman. ‘What a dreadful day.’ Mrs O’Neill was still clasping my handkerchief in her left hand. Her glossy black dress rippled in the sunlight from the port windows.
‘Dreadful,’ I agreed, bowing to the inevitable and coming forward to take my seat. ‘Thank you for your help with the flowers, both of you. They were very nice.’
Mrs O’Neill beamed with pleasure. ‘It was the least we could do.’
‘And how have you been managing, Miss Wellesley?’ I asked, as I settled myself down.
The girl had a sandwich in her hand and another on a plate in front of her. ‘It still hasn’t sunken in,’ she admitted. ‘I feel such a fraud.’
‘A fraud?’ I didn’t follow.
Miss Wellesley dropped the half eaten sandwich onto the plate. ‘Everyone’s been so kind. But the fact is, I didn’t really know Harry that well. I liked him, of course. Very much. But we were only just getting to know each other. I should be grieving but I...I just feel numb.’
I could sympathise with that. ‘We all cope in our different ways. And life goes on. Not just for us,’ I added grimly, reaching a hand into my jacket pocket. ‘You’d think on a day like this our resident poison pen writer would give us a break.’
Mrs O’Neill’s eyes widened. ‘Henry, you don’t mean...another letter?’
I pulled out the envelope. ‘Slipped underneath the door, while I was burying an old friend. Can you credit it? Some people have no respect.’ I had been in two minds whether to broach the matter with the two women, but Mrs O’Neill at least had a right to know, since so much of this affair had been centred around her.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I had no idea things would spread like this.’
‘It’s hardly your fault,’ I assured her, handing the envelope across.
‘But why would they target you?’ Miss Wellesley asked. ‘I assumed it was a family matter.’
‘Evidently, whoever it is has taken a dislike to me as well.’
Mrs O’Neill removed the letter from the envelope and scanned the text in horror. ‘Oh, Henry! How awful for you. And on such a day as this.’
‘You realise what they’re implying? That I’m a money grabbing interloper, and that I’m only talking to you because I’m after your money.’
Miss Wellesley was appalled. ‘That’s preposterous,’ she said.
‘Somebody obviously thinks it.’
‘Well, I certainly do not,’ Mrs O’Neill reassured me, reaching across to place a hand on my knee. ‘Goodness, Henry, you’re one of the kindest, most thoughtful men I’ve ever met. That anyone could suggest such a thing. It’s awful.’
I appreciated the sentiment, if not the hand. ‘I suppose I should be flattered they think I’m worthy of attention. No one likes to be excluded.’
Miss Wellesley smiled at that. ‘Will you inform Mr Griffith?’ The security officer.
‘I don’t think so,’ I said, taking the note back from Mrs O’Neill. ‘It’s pretty thin stuff. If anything, it confirms what Sir Richard said. Whoever writes these letters, they’re just a coward. They’re no threat to anyone. We should ignore them.’
‘You’re quite right, Henry,’ Mrs O’Neill agreed. ‘I wish I had your strength of character.’
I returned the letter to my pocket with apparent indifference; but on the inside, I confess, I was seething. Somebody was playing a nasty game. And the thought that it might be somebody here, in this very apartment, spitting venom at all and sundry from behind a cloak of anonymity, was particularly galling. I was not altogether convinced that anyone in the Reynolds Suite was responsible, but I could not be sure. They were a mixed bunch, after all.
There was, however, one simple way to determine the truth.
Chapter Nine
A trip to the lavatory, I always find, is the perfect pretext for a bit of snooping. I am not a naturally devious woman, but some years spent working for the security services has taught me a few useful tricks. When it comes to ferreting out other people’s secrets, there is nothing quite as helpful as a formal social gathering. With so many people milling about in the main rooms, talking and drinking, it is simplicity itself to slip away and have a poke around. Strictly speaking, it was not my responsibility to investigate these damned letters, but the whole thing had put me in something of a sour mood. It was high time somebody got to the bottom of it. If I could locate Sir Richard’s typewriter and rule that out as the source of the correspondence, then at least I could be assured that nobody here was behind it. I would have to be quick, though. In a big house, if someone is caught snooping, there is always the excuse of having got lost; but in the relatively cramped confines of the Reynolds Suite there would be no such cover.
The hallway was about fifteen feet long, with a water closet at either end and three bedroom doors along one side. The two end bedrooms projected out beyond the confines of the hall, with one at the living room end, the other towards the prow of the ship; and both these doors were shut as I moved into the hallway. Matilda would be locked up somewhere in one of these rooms, so I would have to be careful. The last thing I wanted was the cat getting loose. The middle door, thankfully, was slightly ajar, so I would try that one first. I glanced up and down the corridor, to make sure no-one else was about, and then pushed it open.
It was a twin room, with two beds on the right-hand side, a chair and a dressing table with a large ovoid mirror. There were several small paintings decorating the walls – reproductions of works by Sir Joshua Reynolds, naturally – and a window opposite with a view out onto the promenade. And there, on a small desk next to the closet, was Sir Richard’s typewriter. I smiled with relief. For all my delusions of professionalism, I had not been sure I would be able to find it. These things are often packed away out of sight, when they are not being used. I poked my head out the door, before moving across, to make sure the corridor was still clear. I don’t like to take these things for granted. I have never been much at ease with this kind of activity, though the worst that could happen on this occasion would be a strict telling off; and that I could bear well enough.
The typewriter was a mass market Olivetti, of the type found in countle
ss studies and drawing rooms across the civilised world. My old valet, Hargreaves, had had one similar to this. There was no paper in the drum and nothing lying to the left or right of it on the table. That was unlucky. I could probably find a bit of plain paper, but I couldn’t risk spooling and tapping out anything on the machine itself. There is no such thing as a quiet typewriter. I would just have to dig around the room and see if I could find some old correspondence. It was Sir Richard’s Olivetti, so this had to be his bedroom; which, as I recalled, he shared with his secretary. In all likelihood, therefore, this was where they conducted a lot of their business.
Could either one of them have been behind the letters? I wondered. At first thought, it seemed unlikely. Both men had been victims of the scoundrel, whoever he was, as had everyone else hereabouts, with the possible exception of the maid. But perhaps the perpetrator might have sent a letter or two to themselves, as a cover. It would look suspicious if they were the only person in the group not to receive one. Could Sir Richard Villiers himself be behind them? The man was full of bluster, with an angry heart that might well suit this kind of attack, for all his public displays of contempt for the perpetrator. And the most recent crop of letters had only started when he and his companions had arrived in the Americas.
What about Mr Hopkins? If anyone in the household had reason to be resentful, it might be that young man. A disaffected employee, accused of fiddling the books. He had a bit of thing for the maid too, according to Mrs Hamilton-Baynes. Could that be the main reason for his resentment? The original letters, though – those received by Mrs O’Neill’s husband – had been sent several years ago, and I doubted Hopkins had been in Sir Richard’s employ for that long. He was in his mid twenties, after all. Neither did he strike me as someone bottling up his emotions; tactful, yes, but not resentful, except perhaps where Matilda was concerned. Besides, in my experience, venom spitting was an occupation of the elderly, not of virile young men.
In any case, there were plenty of other residents of the Reynolds Suite who might have had access to this particular typewriter. Lady Jocelyn, for example. Who knew what horrors she was bottling up? The Reverend and Mrs Hamilton-Baynes I had already considered; and much as I might like to dismiss the possibility, I knew for a fact that the vicar had borrowed this machine on at least one occasion.
I moved across to the dressing table and pulled open the top drawer. I was expecting a pile of clothes, but to my surprise found it full of neatly stacked documents. Business papers and such like; just what I was looking for. I glanced back nervously at the door and then picked up the first folder. Inside were a series of letters on headed notepaper. Carbon copies of various correspondence, written and neatly signed by Sir Richard Villiers. The secretary would presumably have typed them out, to be signed by the man himself. I flicked through a couple of these letters, in search of the elusive “W”. This was a little more difficult to find than I had first supposed. Most of the text was in lower case. But at last I found an example, in a column of figures. The misalignment Maurice had identified was subtle and not easy to make out without a close examination. So far as I could tell, however, there was nothing wrong with this particular “W”. It occurred to me, however, that if the upper case was misaligned, then the lower case “w”s must also be out of place, since they were both typed using the same key. I skipped back though the correspondence. There was a fair smattering of smaller “w”s, but not a single one seemed to be out of alignment.
I looked back at the Olivetti, across the room. If these letters were typed on that machine – which they must have been – then it could not possibly be the source of all this poison. I closed my eyes for a moment. That left the secretary off the hook, then; and Sir Richard, and the Reverend Hamilton-Baynes. And, indeed, everyone else in the Reynolds Suite. Our scoundrel was an outsider, somebody looking on enviously from the wings. Unless of course there was another typewriter lying around here somewhere. Or perhaps there was one in Mrs O’Neill’s stateroom. The American woman might well have one of her own. I did not seriously believe she or her companion could be behind any of this, but other people might have had access to her room and it wouldn’t hurt to stick a head around the door and see. But that was a task for another day. I did not wish to push my luck. I closed up the folder and returned it to the drawer.
I was just shutting up the dressing table when I head a noise outside, in the corridor. I stepped back from the bed and was alarmed to see that the door out into the hall had swung slowly open, of its own volition. The Reverend Hamilton-Baynes, still in his dog collar but now divested of his formal gown, was progressing along the hallway outside.
‘Hello!’ he exclaimed, catching sight of me through the open door. ‘Are you lost?’
‘I...was looking for the bathroom,’ I mumbled feebly. ‘Sorry. The door was open. I haven’t seen any of the larger staterooms. I was just being nosey.’ It seemed best to make at least a partial admission of guilt.
‘I don’t blame you!’ The vicar shot me a toothy smile. He pushed back the door, unperturbed at my distinctly dubious behaviour. ‘Absolutely spiffing, aren’t they? Much larger than we’re used to. And so colourful too.’
‘Is this your room?’ I asked, recovering myself somewhat and hoping to deflect his attention in any way I could.
‘No, no. This is Sir Richard’s. My wife and I are at the end of the corridor. I say, would you like to have a look?’
‘Er...well.’ I blinked. ‘If it’s not too much trouble.’
‘Of course not, my dear fellow.’ He gestured for me to follow him. There was no let up in the animation of the man.
I moved out into the hallway. ‘I wanted to thank you, by the way, for the service. It was very well done.’
The vicar’s eyes lit up. ‘That’s exceedingly kind of you. I enjoyed it very much. Always a sad occasion, I know, but it helps to bring a sense of closure, I feel.’
‘Very much so,’ I agreed.
Hamilton-Baynes opened up the door to his own room, just to the left of the far lavatory. ‘Well, this is us!’ he said. ‘Absolutely splendid, don’t you think?’
I peered inside. The layout was similar to Sir Richard’s stateroom, except there was a double bed here rather than two singles. There was more clutter too. An opened suitcase, a pair of boxing gloves on the table, a couple of shuffleboard sticks. On the dressing table stood the polished wooden box containing that flintlock pistol. A small silver crucifix rested to the left of it. There was no sign, however, of a typewriter. Not that I had been expecting one in here.
‘It was exceedingly kind of Richard to pay for all this,’ the reverend gushed. ‘Maggie and I could never have afforded it. He can be a very generous man, when it comes to family.’
‘I’m sure he can,’ I said. I picked up one of the shuffleboard sticks. There was a hefty disk on the floor as well. ‘Did you bring these yourself?’
‘No, no. I borrowed them from the gymnasium. Frightfully helpful chap down there.’
‘What, the one with the moustache?’
‘That’s the fellow.’ The vicar beamed. ‘I’ve promised to give Miss Wellesley a game tomorrow afternoon. Show her what’s what. She’s never played before, can you believe it?’
‘I’m sure she’ll appreciate the lesson,’ I said. ‘Well, I suppose I ought to get back to the throng.’ Hamilton-Baynes nodded agreeably. ‘Thank you once again for the sermon.’ And for helping to answer all my questions, I added silently. I had now seen two out of the three bedrooms. I doubted very much that Lady Jocelyn had her own typewriter; so it appeared that the Reynolds Suite was in the clear.
‘I don’t suppose you stock Piccadillys?’ I asked the short fellow behind the counter. It was the following morning, the fifth day of the voyage. ‘Oh, yes, there they are.’ My eyes had lighted on the familiar packaging before the storekeeper could reply. There was a wall of cigarette cartons behind him, some American and some British. I had just finished the last of my American cigarettes
and was looking for something a bit more homely.
We were now a day and a half out from Southampton. It had been a difficult voyage, but perhaps the worst of it was now behind us. Even Maurice had looked a little less pale this morning, as he had helped me into my suit. I had taken another look at the note before breakfast, but my irritation at receiving it had cooled over the course of the night and I wondered whether it was worth continuing the investigation. It looked like nobody I knew was behind it, and exposing some random stranger was not really my responsibility, even if they had made tangible threats. Besides, he might get angry, whoever he was, and I had no desire to get involved in a fight. Nor did I wish to spend any time lurking about in the writing room, on the off chance that I might spot a misplaced “W”. Better, perhaps, to let the matter go. Everyone would be heading off in their own separate directions soon enough, with no real harm done, so what was the point of poking my nose in? Was I really that upset by some tawdry letter?
‘A pack of twenty, sir?’ The steward turned back to look at the cartons.
‘Better make it two.’ The little shop was adjacent to the main stairs on D Deck, and people would often pop in here on the way to and from the restaurant. It was a useful little place, full of all sorts of knick-knacks.
‘Very good, sir.’ The steward reached up and produced the two packs. That would see me through the next week or so, barring any further disasters.
‘Oh and a copy of the Bulletin too. See what’s happening in the world today.’
The man whipped out the newspaper and folded it for me. ‘Shillings or dollars, sir?’
‘Er...shillings, please.’ I had withdrawn some English currency from the kiosk on the opposite side of the foyer. The London and Midland Bank had its own small branch aboard ship.
‘Then that’s two shillings and sixpence, sir.’
I handed the loot across, grabbed the newspaper and pocketed the two packets of cigarettes. As I was turning to leave the shop, I spotted Miss Wellesley perusing the magazine rack. ‘Good morning,’ I called out, for once not too annoyed at having to greet a fellow passenger. I really had got out of bed on the right side this morning.