Dangerous Sea

by David Roberts

  ‘Terrible wherever it happened,’ Benyon murmured.

  ‘But how do you know that’s what did happen?’ Marcus Fern said, surprisingly.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, Miss Browne, how do you know the killer stripped Barrett after he had killed him and when did he hang him up? Was it some sort of awful joke? The murderer can’t have thought the body would not be found. I’m sorry to sound callous but it may be important. It may tell us why the killer did what he did.’

  ‘As you say, it was just a sick-making joke.’ Despite the cabin being hot and stuffy, Verity shivered.

  ‘Maybe, but perhaps he wanted to distract us from seeing something else,’ Fern said, looking at Edward.

  ‘The horror might blind us to something which could incriminate him?’ Edward mused, interested. ‘That’s true. The doctor will be able to tell us how he died and whether he was dead before he was strung up. I’m sorry . . .’ he said, seeing a look of disgust on Benyon’s face. ‘We must do all we can to catch this man, whoever it is, before he strikes again. Fern is right, we must try and understand him.’

  Forrest said, ‘I suppose his clothes might have been taken off him because they gave something away. Perhaps they had the murderer’s blood on them?’

  ‘But his underclothes? Why take them?’ Verity demanded. ‘That was just too beastly.’

  ‘By taking all his clothes,’ Forrest said gently, ‘he hoped to confuse us.’

  ‘I’m pretty certain he was killed by a blow to the head – or at least knocked unconscious – so he would not have known what else the killer did to him, if that makes it easier, Verity,’ Edward said. ‘There was very little blood but, of course, at such a low temperature that’s hardly surprising. Still, there’s one other thing we have to take into account. We have to assume that, along with his clothes, the killer took his gun.’ Edward surveyed the cabin bleakly. ‘We are up against a man with a .38 automatic.’

  There was a knock on the door and the Purser and Captain appeared, the latter white-faced and clearly badly upset. First the insult to Warren Fairley and now this savage killing of the man charged with protecting Lord Benyon – this crossing was turning into a nightmare.

  ‘I will put out an announcement in the ship’s newspaper that there has been an accident and a man has died,’ the Captain said. ‘We’ll have to hope that scotches any rumours of something worse. The freezer room’s been sealed off and I have alerted the New York Police Department. They will board the ship as soon as we dock. In the meantime, the doctor is examining the body. We’ll have his preliminary report in an hour or two. I suppose we must take it that this was an attack on you, Lord Benyon?’ The tone of his voice was disapproving. ‘I don’t quite know what to do, short of imprisoning you in your cabin. If the storm comes upon us tomorrow, as is forecast, you will have every excuse to keep to your berth.’

  Benyon looked as though he might burst into tears but said stoutly enough, ‘I am not concerned with my own safety, Captain, but with this horrible murder . . . Is there anything we can do to apprehend the man? I suppose it was a man?’

  ‘It must have been a man and a reasonably strong one too. The hooks come down from the rail on a wire and once the carcass is attached, it is winched up until the hook reaches the rail. Even so, one can’t envisage a woman doing it – not without help.’

  ‘We’re up against someone quite ruthless then?’

  ‘I fear so. Mr Fern . . . Lord Edward . . . I rely on you to see that Lord Benyon is never left alone.’

  ‘Of course, Captain,’ Fern said. ‘Lord Edward and I will keep him safe.’

  ‘We’ll do our best, certainly. My man here, Fenton, is going to replace Tom Barrett, Captain Peel. He’s thoroughly trustworthy and worth two of me in a scrap.’

  The Captain looked at Fenton doubtfully. The latter returned his stare but said nothing.

  ‘I promise you, he’s a sound man and with Mr Forrest’s aid – if he’s willing to help . . .’

  ‘Count me in, Corinth.’

  ‘Good! As I was saying, with Mr Forrest’s help and Mr Fern and my nephew Frank, we ought to be all right. By the way, where is that boy? Purser, do you think you could run him to ground for me? I would guess he’s drooling over the Roosevelt girl.’

  ‘Certainly, my lord. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll do that and then go about my duties. It’s important everything should appear normal as far as is possible.’

  ‘Yes,’ the Captain said. ‘I must go to the bridge. We’ll talk again tomorrow morning, gentlemen.’

  ‘Captain. I must get in touch with the authorities in London and report what has happened. Is it safe to use the telephone in my cabin? Is it secure?’

  ‘Secure? Ah, I see what you mean. Perhaps it will be better if you come to the bridge with me. I too must put in my report. The chairman will want to be informed. Dear me, this is a terrible business. Goodnight, all of you, and I hope you are able to sleep tonight. I confess, I am not sure I will.’

  All this time, Frank was blissfully unaware that his employer was in need of his support and assistance. As his uncle had suspected, he was in the Verandah Grill which, after dinner, turned into a nightclub. It had a small, sycamore dance floor surrounded by candlelit tables at which couples could sit out, watch the dancers, drink wine or cocktails and gaze into each other’s eyes. Behind a balustrade there was a raised floor with tables at which one could eatà la carte if one wanted a change from the restaurant. On a fine night, the windows – twenty-two in all – might be thrown open. The sills were heated to maintain the temperature in the room and the views over the darkened sea were guaranteed to engender romance.

  It had been an unexpected but delightful release for Frank when, at the end of dinner, Lord Benyon had decided to go back to his cabin to work and not join the tour of the engine room. Frank had asked permission to ‘go and explore’ and Benyon, who knew what it was like to be infatuated with a girl, told him ‘to make himself scarce.’ Like a puppy let off its lead, he went running off in search of Philly. He found her at last in the bar, perched on a stool, her long legs swinging idly, a cigarette in her mouth. She was practising making smoke rings and flirting with Roger, the bar steward. She wore more of a silver sheath than a dress, by Mainbocher – a name Frank might have been tempted to mention in his prayers had he ever heard it. It was quite unlike anything he had seen on an English girl and showed her boyish figure to perfection. Her shoulders were bare – the dress was strapless – and around her neck was a pearl choker and on her hands, long white gloves.

  ‘Oh there you are, Philly.’ He scowled at the barman who shrugged and started polishing glasses. ‘Come and dance, will you? They say there may be a storm tomorrow so this could be our last chance for a bit.’

  ‘Oughtn’t you to be sitting by your master?’ she said nastily, not liking to be ordered about.

  Frank flushed. ‘I’ve got an hour or two. Please, Philly, don’t be awkward.’

  ‘Shan’t!’

  ‘Please, Philly, don’t tease.’

  ‘Beg my pardon for being a horrid bully.’

  ‘What? Oh, yes, all right. Beg pardon, m’lady.’ He bowed ironically.

  She stubbed out her cigarette. He held out his hand and she put hers in his, waving at Roger with the other. ‘See you,’ she said, as though apologizing.

  When they had left the bar, Frank said, ‘I wish you wouldn’t flirt with the barman. It’s not the done thing, you know.’

  ‘Not the done thing,’ she mimicked. She tugged at him to make him stop. ‘But it is the “done thing” to fool around with me?’

  ‘What do you mean, Philly?’ Frank said, looking at her with surprise.

  ‘Well, I just mean . . . Oh, I don’t know what I mean. Come on then.’

  She kissed him lightly on the lips. ‘Let’s fool around. Why not? As you say, we may not have much time.’

  Frank had no idea what she meant, unless she was referring to the coming storm, but,
with the taste of her lips on his, he wasn’t capable of thinking clearly.

  When they reached the dance floor, Frank saw it as some enchanted place. It was bathed by coloured lights reflecting off a glass ball spinning high above the dancers and leaving pools of darkness, deep enough for lovers to drown in. There were two or three other couples on the floor, each in their own little world, ignoring anything and anyone else. When the girl wrapped her bare arms around his neck and put her cheek against his, Frank found he could float. He knew he ought to be surprised but with this girl nothing surprised him. The scent of her made him almost swoon and, when she raised her head, and invited his kisses, her breath stole his away. They had been dancing for the best part of an hour before Frank realized that one of the other couples consisted of Perry Roosevelt glued to some girl he had never seen before.

  At last they sat down and a waiter brought them champagne. Frank wanted to say something interesting to impress Philly. He wanted to be witty and compliment her on her dress and ask her about herself but he was tongue-tied. She put her hand on his cheek and stroked it. ‘Almost a man,’ she said with a sigh.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Frank said, indignation giving him back the power of speech.

  ‘Nothing, only . . .’

  ‘Only what? I suppose you are going to say I’m too young to know what it means to be in love but that’s poppycock. I know I love you, Philly. You’re the loveliest girl I ever met and . . .’

  She put a finger against his lips. ‘Hush now. We’ve only known each other a few hours. Much too soon to be using big little words like love.’

  ‘Only a few hours but I feel as if I have known you all my life. Please, Philly, don’t –’

  He was interrupted by Perry who dragged up a chair and sat down, demanding a drink.

  ‘You’re bottled already,’ Philly told him.

  ‘No I’m not.’ His elbow slipped off the edge of the table and his head jerked.

  ‘Where’s your girl, anyway?’ she said crossly.

  ‘I ditched her. She bored me. Waiter! Whiskey sour! I can’t drink this muck. It gives me a headache.’

  ‘Perry!’ Frank said in exasperation. ‘Can’t you see, you’re butting in. We don’t want you.’

  ‘Well, you’ve got me, so there. I think you’re being beastly, both of you. I told you, Philly. I found him first. You always take my things. It’s not fair.’

  ‘Oh, do stop bleating, Perry. Be a dear and go and find Mother.’

  ‘She’s lying down with one of her “heads”, so there. I can’t go back to the cabin.’

  ‘I’m not a “thing”, anyway,’ said Frank, annoyed and by now a little drunk himself.

  ‘What are you then? A person? You can’t be a real person. You haven’t even got a name. What do you call yourself? You’re a lord, I know that. But are you Duke something? Or maybe a dukelet – a duke in training.’

  ‘Call me what you like,’ Frank said crossly, taking Philly’s hand. ‘Dance?’

  ‘Not yet, Frank, I’m pooped out. Perry, don’t be a bore. What have you done with that girl of yours?’

  ‘I told you. She bored me. Everything bores me except you and Frank . . . No, I’m serious, Frank. What’s your name? It’s ridiculous not knowing what to call you.’

  Frank sighed. ‘I’m called Lord Corinth, if you must know, until my father dies and then I become the Duke of Mersham. But I don’t want to be a duke. I’m going to give it up – renounce it – if they’ll let me. I’m a Communist and we don’t believe in having an aristocracy.’

  ‘Oh, that’s bullshit, Frank. You love being an aristocrat just like I love being a Roosevelt – even if it’s only a minor one.’ Perry prodded him with the spite of the envious drunk.

  Frank might have had some difficulty replying politely but at this moment the Purser appeared and asked him to go to Lord Benyon’s cabin where he was needed. Guiltily, he sprang to his feet, knocking over his champagne glass, said a perfunctory ‘goodbye’ to the twins and hurried back to his employer. Philly, rather put out at his abrupt departure – she wasn’t used to men leaving her on the dance floor – shrugged and said, ‘I guess, Perry my sweet, if you’re not too drunk to dance, I’ll have to make do with you after all.’

  Appropriately, the band struck up ‘Dancing with Tears in my Eyes’ and, by the time they reached ‘Stormy Weather’, Perry and Philly were entwined like lovers, consoling each other for life’s disappointments as they had done ever since childhood.

  When he was told how Tom Barrett’s corpse had been found hanging from a hook in the cold room, Frank blanched.

  ‘That’s horrible . . . disgusting. These people . . . will they stop at nothing?’ He shuddered. ‘First, they shoot at us – hoping the car will smash and kill us all – and now they kill poor Barrett. But I don’t understand. Why was he naked and why didn’t they just toss his body overboard?’

  ‘To answer your second question first,’ Edward said, returning to the cabin after making his report to London, ‘pushing a body overboard is not so easy. A lifeless body is very heavy to manoeuvre and the Queen Mary isn’t some little tramp steamer. There’s always someone about on deck and the guard-rails are mostly very high. You might be able to jump overboard without anyone noticing, if you were determined to commit suicide, but to throw someone over, dead or alive, would be almost impossible without being seen.’

  ‘But why was he killed?’ Frank persisted. ‘Why not kill Lord Benyon? I’m sorry, sir, but you know what I mean. You were alone in here working and there for the taking.’

  ‘Thank you very much,’ Benyon said with a grimace. ‘That makes me feel very relaxed.’

  ‘But Frank’s right,’ Verity chimed in. ‘Why kill Barrett and put us all on our guard?’

  ‘Well, I can think of three reasons,’ Edward said. ‘First, he was the strong man in our party, trained to deal with trouble and armed, so to have him out of the way must make the murderer feel much safer. Second, as I say, Barrett was armed. His clothes, his wallet, are missing and so is his gun. I’ve searched the cabin – no sign of it.’

  ‘That was so horrible – that he should be naked,’ Verity said. ‘Why did they do that to him? To humiliate him? It is too awful.’

  ‘I don’t know why they did that,’ Edward said sombrely. ‘I’ve been trying to work out what he was wearing. I think he was wearing that blue jacket and blue linen trousers.’

  ‘Yes, and those yachting shoes he liked. Said they gave him grip,’ Forrest added.

  ‘And don’t forget the tie. Was it regimental?’ Verity added.

  ‘No, not regimental. It was bright pink . . . I know, it was a Leander tie! I’m sure, now I think of it, he said he rowed. Well,’ he continued grimly, ‘if we see any of those clothes on somebody, there’s our murderer but I don’t suppose that’s likely. I expect they were thrown over the side.’

  ‘Except the gun,’ Benyon suggested. ‘I can see why the murderer or murderers – there may be more than one – took the gun but why the clothes?’

  ‘I don’t know. Perhaps there was something on them – blood possibly – which the murderer didn’t want us to see.’

  ‘You said there was a third reason, Uncle, why Barrett was killed.’

  ‘He might have recognized his murderer.’

  ‘You mean among the passengers?’ Verity asked.

  ‘Or crew, I suppose.’

  They looked at each other uncomfortably. At last Sam Forrest said, ‘I guess we’ll have to keep a twenty-four-hour watch.’

  Edward looked at him gratefully. ‘Is that an offer to be one of the watchers?’

  ‘Sure is. I guess my President don’t want his guests picked off by some Nazi. There’s five of us –’

  ‘Six,’ Verity insisted, ‘or else I can’t count. Mr Fern, Edward, Fenton, Frank, Sam and me. Do we have a gun among us?’

  They all looked at Verity and then at Edward. ‘If Verity says she’s going to do something, she does it,’ he
said.

  She looked at him and smiled. She couldn’t help thinking that this was a very different man from the one she had met two years before who regarded all women as delicate objects to be kept on a pedestal and worshipped but never allowed to do anything.

  ‘That’s settled then. But no gun?’ she said.

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ Edward said.

  ‘I’ve got this little piece,’ Forrest drawled, sliding a revolver out of his pocket. ‘Never without it. Mine’s a rough world and so I carry this.’

  They all looked at him in amazement and, in Verity’s case, awe.

  ‘Well, that’s comforting,’ Marcus Fern said, ‘though I don’t suppose we can draw a gun on the Queen Mary. Could we ask the Captain to lend us one of the crew to add to our forces?’

  ‘In an emergency,’ Edward said, ‘but I think there’s enough of us. There are only three more days, after all . . .’

  But, early the next morning, the wind began to blow.

  6

  At eight thirty, when Edward and Frank went down to the dining-room for breakfast, they found they were almost alone. It was Sunday so perhaps it was not surprising but, as the movement of the ship grew increasingly unsettling, the late risers became ‘missing, believed seasick’. Uncle and nephew were both good sailors but the roll of the ship was very much greater than they had anticipated. It wasn’t just a normal roll but an alarming, corkscrew motion which made it very difficult to walk.

  The waiter, mopping up the spilled coffee – it was almost impossible to drink from a cup without it spilling – informed them that they had met a fifty-five mile an hour gale and that the next twelve hours were going to be very unpleasant. ‘They’ve reduced speed to fifteen knots,’ he told them, with grim satisfaction. ‘It’s the first real storm the Queen’s had to weather.’

  ‘I thought they’d designed this ship to be the most stable of any great liner. It certainly doesn’t feel like it,’ Frank said fretfully.

  They soon gave up their meal and went on deck but found the absence of hand-rails in the corridors – which were much wider than those in most liners – made even walking dangerous. In the lounge, the unanchored furniture was sliding across the floor and stewards were having to corral armchairs, like heifers, inside rope barriers.