A Poison of Passengers

by Jack Treby

  My head was spinning with all these possibilities. I unlocked the door to my room and stepped inside, almost missing the envelope lying on the carpet in front of me. It was only the sudden crunch underfoot as I fumbled for the light switch that alerted me to its presence. I closed the door behind me and bent down to pick it up. Somebody must have slipped the envelope under the door while I had been out at supper. I blenched, not quite believing my eyes. Was Mrs O’Neill sending letters from beyond the grave? That was surely not possible.

  I moved over to the bedside table. There was no name on the envelope and the flap was not glued down. It looked just like the one Miss Wellesley had found at the Alderley hotel. I placed the envelope, unopened, on the table and poured myself a small glass of whisky. To hell with that, I thought, and made it a large one. Only when I had drained the tumbler did I retrieve the envelope and open it up. The note inside was not typed; that was the first thing I noticed. It was hand-written, in capital letters. Doubtless that was to disguise the hand. The notepaper, too, was headed, with the words “RMS GALITIA” appearing at the top. It was the same paper I had seen on sale in the shop on D Deck. Miss Wellesley had bought some this morning, though I had no reason to believe the note came from her.

  The words were short and to the point: “THE SURGERY ON E DECK. 11 O’CLOCK. MAKE SURE YOU COME ALONE.”

  There are times in life when it pays to take a risk. As a gambler, I have on occasion been known to take this maxim far beyond the limits of common sense. When it comes to self-preservation, however, I have always held myself to a much higher standard. A late night rendezvous with a complete stranger in the aftermath of two probable murders was far beyond any risk I was willing to entertain, without taking significant precautions. Firstly, I had no intention of going alone. My man Maurice could accompany me into the depths of the ship. Secondly, I would need to be armed. I couldn’t find anything approaching a cosh in my cabin, but the valet had a penknife with a six inch blade, and that would serve well enough.

  ‘Just hang back in the foyer,’ I whispered to him, as we made our way downstairs. ‘If there’s any trouble, I’ll shout.’

  ‘Yes, Monsieur,’ he said. I was pleasantly surprised that Maurice had agreed to join me, so late in the evening. The man could occasionally dig in his heels at the most inconvenient of times and, given his experiences on the Galitia’s sister ship, he would have been well within his rights to barricade himself into his cabin for the duration. But when it came to matters of life and death, Maurice would always step up to the plate. He had been on the point of retiring for the night when I had knocked on his door. I had showed him the note and explained the situation. It was his idea to take the stairs. If someone was skulking in the shadows down on E Deck, preparing to do me a mischief, it made sense not to give them advance warning of our arrival.

  Our journey into the bowels of the Galitia did not go completely unnoticed. A steward on D Deck caught sight of us as we made our way down the stairs. ‘Just stretching our legs,’ I called out to him cheerfully. The steward smiled in return. It was the fellow who ran the little shop. Hopefully, he would not dwell too much on the improbability of a stroll down to E Deck this late in the evening. Everyone else now would be in the Palladian Ballroom, for a bit of dancing, or – if they were sensible – preparing for bed.

  Neither Maurice nor I had wanted to speculate on the likely author of the note. The fact that its sender had the same capital letter fetish as Mrs O’Neill did not ease my mind in any way. The choice of meeting place – Doctor Armstrong’s surgery – could not help but bring to mind those two thuggish individuals I had seen at Harry’s funeral.

  The valet had done a little digging with regards to the good doctor. The man was well liked among the crew, but was fond of the odd flutter, when on shore leave. In other words, he had something of a gambling habit. This was news to me. Crew members were forbidden from betting while aboard ship and Armstrong had refused to take that wager with me on the first day out. Clearly, therefore, he was not a hopeless case. But if he was in financial difficulty, that might conceivably give someone leverage over him. Had he been leant on, to fake the results of the autopsy? Perhaps that was the reason for the note. Maybe he was having cold feet, now that a second person had died. I crossed my fingers, hoping that was the case. Doctor Armstrong, at least, was a reasonable man.

  We tripped down the last sets of stairs and I held up my hand for Maurice to stop before we reached the bottom. I didn’t want our note writer to get cold feet at the sight of two of us. The lights had been dimmed in the foyer, but I could see that the place was deserted. The gymnasium was closed but the door to the doctor’s waiting room was ajar. There were a couple of other doors, leading off into various unknown parts of the ship, but they were also shut up and were in any case out of bounds to passengers. I stepped forward onto the carpet. A line of chairs were arranged either side of the staircase, which was directly opposite the elevator. I half fancied having a nice sit down. My nerves were beginning to get the better of me. Was this really such a good idea? It might not be Doctor Armstrong lurking down here, waiting to greet me; and what if my counterpart were armed with something more deadly than a penknife?

  I grabbed a nearby armrest to steady myself and heard a sudden loud screech. A small grey shape launched itself at my feet. I felt a thud against my calf and let out a yelp as I saw a small animal careering across the foyer towards the open door.

  ‘Monsieur?’ Maurice stepped towards me in concern.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I breathed. ‘It was that blasted cat.’ Matilda must have been dozing on one of the chairs. ‘She’s got out again.’ I scowled. What was she doing all the way down here? There would be hell to pay when Lady Jocelyn found out. ‘The damn thing should be put down,’ I muttered. But the cat was the least of my concerns.

  I took a moment to recover myself and then held up my fingers. ‘Three minutes,’ I whispered to Maurice. He nodded and I moved towards the door of the surgery. If I didn’t reappear in that time, he would come in after me. I pulled the penknife out from my pocket. It was a modern blade, with a spring and a catch. My hands were trembling slightly as I flicked it open. Why did I allow myself to get into these situations? I could be tucked up now in bed, nestling in the arms of Morpheus. But it was too late for second thoughts. I grabbed the handle of the door and pushed it open.

  The reception area was shrouded in darkness. Whoever I was supposed to be meeting, they had a flare for the theatrical. ‘Hello?’ I called out, nervously. I fumbled for a light switch and found it to the right of the door. A single bulb flickered into life. That was better. No fiends lurking in the shadows in here. The room was exactly as I had left it earlier in the day. A bench, a desk, a few illustrative posters on the walls and a box of children’s toys. But no sign of life. Not even the cat. I was sure I had seen her skip off in this direction.

  There were two internal doors. One was to the consulting room, where I had spoken to Doctor Armstrong earlier on. The second was through to the surgery. This door was lying open, just a crack. Matilda must have got in through there. She at least knew where she was going. Cautiously, I pushed back the door and moved into the surgery. There was a light switch just to my left which I flicked on. Abruptly, the room was bathed in artificial light. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust. Nobody here, thank goodness. The surgery was dominated by a long, functional bed in the middle of the room. There were shelves full of bottles and surgical equipment. Quite a few books too. A screen stood off to one side and, behind it, a cupboard door.

  Matilda had jumped up onto the bed. ‘Oh no you don’t,’ I hissed, smacking the creature on the hide to get her off it. She snarled and jumped down from the top, then bolted across to the screen. At this point, she stopped. Her ears perked up, and then she disappeared out of sight, in the direction of the cupboard.

  I moved forward, my heart beating rapidly, and pulled back the screen. The cupboard door, a little way beyond, was now hangin
g open. The light from the surgery barely penetrated the gloom, but I thought I spotted a movement inside. There was somebody in there.

  I lifted my penknife defensively.

  Matilda had already seen them, whoever they were. She skipped forward, purring, and began to rub up against the leg of the unknown figure.

  ‘Who...who’s there?’ I called out, still unable to make out much more than a shadow. Lady Jocelyn had said her cat rarely took to anyone. And yet here she was, making merry with a stranger.

  The figure stepped forward and a shaft of light cut across his face. Abruptly, I recognised him: the youthful, rounded features and the eyes twinkling in amusement.

  ‘Evening, old man.’ He smiled mischievously.

  ‘Good God!’ I exclaimed.

  It was Harry Latimer.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The great oriental magician Chung Ling Soo once cut a lady in half at the London Hippodrome. I was in the third row, on a cold January afternoon in 1905, and I could make no sense of what I had seen. The woman’s legs were sticking out of one box on one side of the stage and her head was sticking out of the other. For some hours afterwards, I struggled to make sense of it. I knew it was a trick, but I could not fathom how it had been done. My cousin Alice suggested that the great Soo had substituted two dwarves, in place of the girl, but that did not explain anything. We had both seen the woman’s head sticking out of one box, smiling and nodding at the audience, and her feet wiggling out the other. I had left the theatre, emerging into the dim drizzle of Charing Cross, in something of a daze. My grip on reality had taken a severe battering. In fact, such was my disorientation that I almost stepped directly in front of a hansom cab. Only the guiding hand of my cousin had prevented a serious accident.

  Imagine my confusion, then, at the scene which confronted me now. Harry Latimer was standing in the doorway of the cupboard, alive and well, a sly grin spread across his chubby face. It was impossible. It could not be true. And yet there he was.

  ‘Harry!’ I choked, unable to accept the evidence of my own eyes.

  ‘Surprised to see me?’

  I found it difficult even to stutter out a response. Harry Latimer was dead. I knew he was dead. I had seen his body. A doctor had performed a post mortem. For heaven’s sake, I had even attended his funeral. And yet here he was, standing in the shadows, smirking at me as if it were all some big joke. I cannot adequately describe the shock I felt at this moment; the mixture of confusion, disbelief, anger and joy. I have never been a particularly emotional woman, but Harry was the closest thing to a friend I had in the whole world. I had spent the past three days struggling to come to terms with his death, railing against the fates, determined to unmask the fiend who had poisoned him; and now here he was, fit and well, apparently none the worse for his ordeal.

  Finally, I found a voice, and managed to croak out the obvious words. ‘You’re...you’re alive.’

  ‘Oh, just about, old man, just about.’ He smiled again, his eyes flicking down to the penknife in my hand. ‘I don’t think you’ll be needing that.’ Calmly, he stepped forward and took the blade from my hands. The brief touch of his wrist was a shock against my skin.

  ‘But...but...you’re dead,’ I mumbled. ‘You can’t...’

  Harry closed up the knife and handed it back to me. ‘Just breathe, old man,’ he advised me. I was starting to feel light headed. ‘Just breathe.’ I did as I was instructed and took a lungful of air, while Harry glanced down at his feet. ‘Hey little buddy.’ Matilda had followed him out of the closet. ‘You’re a long way from home.’ He reached down and picked her up, tickling her behind the ear. The cat purred happily.

  I had no interest in Matilda. ‘I...I can’t believe it’s really you,’ I said, staring at the man in bewilderment. ‘I can’t believe you’re alive.’

  Harry placed the cat gently down on the floor. ‘You don’t believe in ghosts, do you?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  Matilda had come to rest a short distance from my leg and was regarding me suspiciously.

  ‘Well, then I guess I must be alive.’

  The cat hissed, remembering the earlier blow to her rump, and sprinted for the door.

  ‘But...but...’ I sucked in another heavy breath. Everything I had thought – every single thing I had come to believe over the last two or three days – was completely and utterly mistaken.

  ‘You know me, old man.’ He chuckled. ‘When the grim reaper comes knocking, I make sure I’m on vacation...’ He was enjoying this, that was the really galling thing. Harry was enjoying my discomfort. For the first time, my hackles began to rise.

  ‘But how can you...?’

  A loud clunk sounded from outside, before I could finish the question. Harry froze, his eyes suddenly wide and alert. ‘You did come alone, didn’t you?’

  ‘Ah. Not exactly. I...’

  A voice was calling to me from the outer room. ‘Monsieur?’ It was my man Maurice. The three minutes were up.

  Harry stepped back towards the screen at some speed. It was his turn to be on the back foot.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘It’s just my valet.’

  ‘I told you not to bring anyone.’

  ‘I was hardly going to take any notice of that.’ I snorted. ‘An anonymous bit of paper. I’m not a complete fool. You might have been a murderer.’

  ‘Get rid of him,’ Harry hissed, from behind the screen. The seriousness of his tone jolted me back to my senses.

  ‘All right. Just give me a minute.’ I turned to the door and stepped back out into the waiting room. Maurice was standing at the far end of the room. I raised a hand to him, to reassure him all was well; then I closed the door behind me and moved across.

  The valet was watching me carefully. ‘Monsieur? Are you all right?’ His granite face was unreadable, as it always was, but there was a trace of concern in his voice. ‘I saw the cat running from the room.’

  I laughed abruptly, a sudden release of tension. ‘Believe me, Morris, that animal is the least of my worries.’

  ‘I heard voices, Monsieur. You were speaking to someone? The person who wrote the note?’

  ‘Yes. I...look, I’ll explain later.’ It’s all...it’s all a bit confusing.’ I glanced back at the door. ‘I don’t really understand it myself. But I’m not in any danger. I think...I think it might be best if you pop off to bed and leave me to deal with this.’

  ‘Monsieur? Are you certain?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure. I’ve had a bit of a shock, that’s all. But look, everything is fine. Well, not exactly fine but...I’ll explain later.’

  The valet was dubious. ‘If you insist, Monsieur. You are sure there is nothing I can do to help?’

  ‘No, nothing. Unless you fancy grabbing Matilda and returning her to the Reynolds Suite?’

  That thought provoked the barest flicker of an eyebrow. ‘No, Monsieur,’ he responded firmly. It had not been a serious suggestion. The cat was loitering behind him, out in the foyer. But it was hardly Maurice’s responsibility to retrieve her. And it would scarcely do, sitting at his mother’s bedside in a few days time, to have a dirty great claw mark across his face.

  ‘Very well. But you might at least let them know that she’s down here.’

  ‘Yes, Monsieur.’

  The cat had settled once again on one of the comfy chairs on the near side of the staircase. ‘Oh, maybe wait ten minutes, though.’ I scratched an earhole. ‘Actually, better make it twenty. I might be down here for a while yet.’ Far better if my conversation with Harry Latimer was not interrupted. ‘I don’t think she’s going anywhere.’

  ‘Very good, Monsieur.’

  ‘Right. Well, I’ll speak to you in the morning.’

  ‘Yes, Monsieur.’ The valet peered past me one last time and then dipped his head. ‘Goodnight, Monsieur.’

  ‘Goodnight, Morris.’ And with that he headed for the stairs.

  I lingered for a moment in the doorway, watching him disap
pear. My heartbeat was beginning to slow but my head was still in a whirl. It was baffling, utterly baffling. Everything I had believed had been turned on its head. Even Chung Ling Soo would have struggled to make sense of it. How could Harry Latimer be alive? It wasn’t just that I had seen him lying dead in his bed; I had seen his body being committed to the deep. If ever a man had passed beyond the veil, it was Harry Latimer; and yet there he had been, standing in front of that screen, chuckling away, as if he had been caught out in some schoolboy prank. Any joy I might have felt at his miraculous survival was being slowly subsumed by anger. Harry was playing a devilish game and I for one was not remotely amused.

  I closed up the waiting room door, flicking the lock carefully behind me, and then returned to the operating theatre. I secured the intervening door and stepped over to the bed. Harry was still hovering cautiously behind the screen.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘He’s gone.’

  The American moved back into view. ‘You didn’t tell him anything, did you?’

  ‘No, of course not. What on earth could I tell him? I don’t know anything, Harry.’ The fog was gradually clearing from my mind and a little voice inside my head was pushing for answers. ‘So what is this all about?’ I demanded. ‘Why on earth would you fake your own death? And how the devil did you do it? You were stone cold dead.’

  ‘You saw what you wanted to see, old man.’

  ‘I didn’t imagine you lying there on the bed. You were dead, Harry. No pulse, no respiration. Nothing.’

  ‘That’s what you were supposed to think. But it was all just smoke and mirrors.’

  ‘It was an illusion?’

  ‘A trick of the wrist, that’s all.’

  ‘It was a little more than that, Harry. And why the devil would you go to all that trouble?’

  ‘Believe me, I had my reasons.’ Harry grabbed a chair and pulled it across to the surgical table. ‘Hey, do you want a shot of brandy?’ He jerked his thumb back towards the cupboard. ‘I’ve got a bottle stashed away. You look like you could use a drink.’ He disappeared inside the closet and returned with the bottle and two glasses. He set them down on the bed and poured out two fingers. I pulled up another chair and took the glass gratefully.