Dangerous Sea

by David Roberts

  ‘If you slander me, Senator Day, I will not rest until you go to gaol.’

  It was not quite what he had meant to say and he felt the weakness of his words but he was too angry to think straight. Then he remembered something from his childhood study of the Bible. ‘The psalmist also says, if I remember rightly, “Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hand to God,” which I interpret as meaning the black man will have justice.’

  As Sam stumbled out of the cabin, he found he was sweating and finding it hard to catch his breath. He decided he must go on deck and get some fresh air. He had forgotten all about the race and was bewildered, when he reached the promenade deck, to find himself coralled behind a rope along with many other passengers. As he raised his eyes, he met Verity’s on the other side of the deck, similarly cordoned off. He half raised his hand but either she did not see or she was ignoring him. He experienced a sinking feeling in his stomach. Was everything about to go wrong?

  Edward was to run first. After discussion with the Purser, he was permitted to remove his jacket and loosen his collar. It was a sprint – and this gave him confidence. He doubted, aged thirty-six, whether he could have run a mile with any credit but four hundred yards he could manage. At Eton, he had once done a mile in four minutes ten but that was twenty-odd years ago. He took up his position and the Purser gave him ready, steady, go. The difficult moment was the sharp turn round the Verandah Grill and, predictably, it was there he slipped. Had his pumps been rubber-soled, no doubt his grip would have held but they weren’t and it didn’t. With a cry of anguish, he fell on the knee which he had damaged in a car accident eighteen months earlier. He was helped to his feet by sympathetic passengers and laid to rest, as it were, on one of the long chairs. The doctor came to minister to him but there was nothing for him to do but rest the leg as much as he could. Fenton brought a cold compress and spread it gently over his knee.

  ‘May I offer my commiserations, my lord. The Purser tells me you were making very good time.’

  ‘Damn and blast! How irresponsible of me. As a cripple, how will I be able to prevent anyone doing their worst to Lord Benyon? What a fool I was to think I was still a boy.’

  At that moment Verity came up with Frank.

  ‘Oh, stuff,’ Verity said firmly. ‘It was just an accident. Could have happened to anyone. I thought it was jolly plucky of you to have a go and the Purser said you were breaking all sorts of records.’

  ‘Yes, that was ripping! I’m most awfully proud of you and all that but, I say, do you think I ought to pull out, Uncle Ned? I mean, would people say I was being heartless if I ran?’

  ‘No, everyone’s expecting you to run. They would be disappointed if you pulled out. Just be careful on the turn.’

  Frank’s run was a very respectable one minute ten seconds and he was fairly mobbed when he reached the finishing post. Edward, left alone but for Fenton, on his chair of suffering, smiled wryly to himself – to the victor, the spoils.

  The Purser called on the stewards to clear the deck. The slim, almost frail figure of Perry Roosevelt was hunched over the start line. At the word ‘go’, he leapt off the mark and was round the Verandah Grill in a flash. As he burst over the finishing line and collapsed on the deck, the Purser declared fifty-nine seconds. Perry had broken Lord Burghley’s one minute spurt and he, of course, was an Olympic sprinter. The first to congratulate him was his sister who appeared from below decks like a jack-in-the-box. She was concerned that he had exhausted himself and insisted he walk slowly up and down, leaning on her shoulder, until the air had returned to his lungs and he could talk.

  Frank came up to his friend and clapped him on the back. ‘That was an amazing feat, old boy. Many congrats. The champagne’s on me tonight – or rather on Uncle Ned.’

  He turned to see Edward waving at him. ‘What is it, Uncle?’ the boy said, seeing how agitated he was.

  ‘Can you see Benyon anywhere? He said he was going to be here. I’ve sent Fenton down to the cabin to make sure he’s all right. I can’t go myself. This damn leg is going to drive me mad.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Uncle. I can’t see Mr Fern either. I expect they are working and forgot to come up on deck.’

  ‘I expect so,’ Edward agreed, but he felt uneasy all the same.

  When Fenton reappeared, he leant over Edward in order not to be heard by anyone nearby.

  ‘What is it, Fenton? Tell me Lord Benyon is all right.’

  ‘He is quite well, my lord. He is working in his cabin.’

  ‘Then what is it? Clearly something’s wrong.’

  ‘It’s Mr Fern, my lord. He wanted me to inform you that he has found Senator Day in the swimming-pool.’

  ‘But he can’t swim. His wife told me so.’

  ‘He was fully dressed, my lord, lying at the bottom of the pool.’

  ‘Good heavens! Are you trying to tell me the Senator’s dead? Drowned?’

  ‘That is correct, my lord.’

  ‘What was it? An accident?’

  ‘Mr Fern informs me that he was knocked unconscious and pushed in the water, my lord. He wondered if you would care to join him at the swimming-pool. He thought you might wish to view the body.’

  9

  ‘Damn my damn knee! Here, get me a stick or something, will you, Fenton? Hey! Frank, come over here a moment.’

  His nephew, who had been laughing at something Philly had said to him, came over, fixing his collar. Edward lowered his voice. ‘Fenton’s just been telling me the most extraordinary thing. Apparently, Fern has found Senator Day drowned . . . in the swimming-bath.’

  ‘Good Lord! An accident?’

  ‘Fenton says not. He says it’s murder.’

  Fenton returned with two sticks. ‘Fenton, why is Mr Fern sure it was murder?’ Frank asked.

  ‘He tells me Senator Day had been hit over the head with what I believe is called a “blunt instrument” before he went into the water.’

  ‘Well, that sounds fairly conclusive,’ Edward said. ‘No sign of the blunt instrument, I suppose?’

  ‘No, my lord, I understand the murder weapon has not yet been located.’

  ‘What a surprise. Come with me, will you, Frank? I might need some help with the stairs.’

  ‘I wouldn’t miss it for the world, Uncle. I suppose I ought to be upset, or at least surprised, but he was such an awful man. I say, there’s Verity. Verity! Come over here. They’ve found –’

  ‘Keep your voice down, Frank. We don’t want the whole world to know.’

  ‘I don’t see how you can stop them. I mean, soon there won’t be any of the ship’s facilities left open. I wouldn’t wonder if Cunard get complaints on that score. And really, even without counting storm injuries, the casualty list is becoming rather long. One spends five hundred pounds, or more, only to risk having one’s head bashed in. I say, Verity, have you heard what has happened?’

  ‘Frank, it’s not a joke. A man has been killed. It might have been Lord Benyon but even Senator Day didn’t deserve this.’

  ‘I think he did,’ Frank said, stubbornly. ‘I’m sorry, Uncle. I didn’t mean to be flippant.’

  ‘Edward! What’s happened?’ Verity demanded, wide-eyed. ‘Has someone else been murdered?’

  ‘Seems like it,’ he said. ‘Ow! Watch it, Frank!’

  On either side of Edward, they made their way, painfully slowly, down the stairs, Frank telling Verity what they knew of Day’s death.

  ‘Gosh, I see what you mean, Frank. The Queen Mary is supposed to be a luxury hotel on water, not a battlefield. There’s poor Tom Barrett – found frozen. Then Jane Barclay –’

  ‘Poached . . .’ Frank added, unnecessarily.

  ‘And now the beastly Senator Day has been drowned. Do you think we are at the mercy of a deranged chef?’

  ‘I don’t know. It might be a mad masseur,’ Frank said, rather wittily he thought.

  ‘Stop it, you two. I mean it. It’s not a joke. Whatever we think . . . thought . . . of Senator Day, he d
idn’t deserve to be murdered.’

  ‘I’m afraid you’ll find that’s a minority view, Uncle Ned. Almost everyone I can think of hated his guts. There’ll be several people only too relieved to discover someone has done the job for them.’

  They met Fern just outside the swimming-pool.

  ‘What’s happened to you?’ Fern asked. ‘Have you hurt your leg?’

  ‘Don’t worry about me,’ Edward said irascibly. ‘Tell us what happened?’

  ‘Well, Benyon and I were working and then he remembered your race. He said he wanted to finish what he was doing but I ought to go up and watch it.’

  ‘But surely,’ Verity said, ‘the swimming-pool wasn’t on your way?’

  ‘No. I made a detour. I had time. I’d never seen the pool so I thought I would give it a look.’

  ‘And . . .?’ Edward prompted.

  ‘There was no one there. I suppose everyone was up on deck for the race. I went to the edge of the bath and peered over. It’s very pretty – cream bricks with green guide lines to keep you straight when you’re swimming. That was when I saw the body. It was face down. At first I thought it was just some old clothes but then I saw what was left of his head. It was disgusting. There was a sort of red scum round it – blood, I suppose.’

  ‘Then what did you do?’

  ‘Well, for a second I thought I ought to dive in and rescue whoever it was but then I thought I wouldn’t. He was so very dead and there was no way I could do anything. I would never have been able to drag the body out of the water. And, to be honest, I didn’t want to go anywhere near it.’

  ‘So what did you do?’ Edward pressed him.

  ‘I’d noticed the emergency telephone. It was red, you see. So I picked it up and two men came very quickly . . . from the gymnasium, I think.’

  ‘What men?’

  ‘They were dressed in white. I think they worked there. They started dragging the body out of the water.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘And then I was sick. Ugh! It’s still on my shoes.’

  Verity said, ‘How soon did you know it was Senator Day?’

  ‘The clothes looked familiar. Then I saw the tie floating beneath him. At first I thought one of the green lines on the bottom of the pool was crooked but then I realized what it was and who it must be. Corinth, you remember that horrible iridescent green tie he wore all the time?’

  ‘I remember.’ A line of Francis Bacon’s came into his mind. ‘A man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green.’ A thin smile shaped his mouth.

  Edward rolled the wine around in his mouth, savouring what was, in his view, the greatest of all red Burgundies – Musigny 1919 from de Vogüé. In a splurge of self-indulgence, he summoned the sommelier and ordered a bottle of 1921 Château d’Yquem to drink with dessert. If he was to die, then he would at least do so with nectar on his lips. It seemed heartless, but what else was there to do? Captain Peel had begged everyone to carry on as though nothing had happened. Of course, they could not do this. Everyone in First Class – and, for all he knew, throughout the ship – could talk of nothing else but Senator Day’s murder.

  In a vain attempt to distract the company, Edward asked the voluble Doris Zinkeisen to tell them about her mural. It wasn’t that he could have missed it but the artist took such delight in having it admired, it would have been a sin not to have let her lecture him.

  ‘I wanted colour and movement, Lord Edward. See how I have captured the carnival atmosphere. The ringmaster with his whip, the monkey dressed in a tutu on the back of the donkey, the lion and the lion tamer . . . Do say you like it.’

  Edward was torn. It was gaudy, rather vulgar, reminding him of the frieze round a child’s bedroom. On the other hand, there was something a little sinister about the cavorting figures. The lion tamer seemed to be whipping his animal unnecessarily viciously and the half-naked black girl was rather embarrassing. However, it had a certain vigour which was welcome after Vanessa Bell’s over-polite garden scenes which decorated the restaurant on C Deck.

  ‘I love it,’ he said firmly, and was rewarded by Doris’s smile of pure pleasure. He knew how brave an artist had to be to take on a commission for a public work of art. The philistine press could be brutal in its jeering incomprehension of ‘modern art’ but, what was worse, most people ignored the art around them. What was ‘wallpaper’ to the average passenger was the work of many weeks of anxious effort on the part of the artist.

  ‘And that horrible man – he was so rude.’

  ‘Which man?’

  ‘Senator Day. He asked me to show him this and then stood in front of it and sneered. He said it was . . . “barbaric”. He said there was too much naked flesh and I should have left out my black girl. And that coming from a man renowned for being a licentious hypocrite. He said . . . well, it doesn’t matter what else he said but it was hurtful. I am not afraid to admit to you, dear Lord Edward, that he made me cry. I’m glad he’s dead.’

  She said this with such vehemence that Edward was startled. ‘No one seemed to have liked him, I’m afraid, except his poor wife.’

  ‘And he treated her abominably,’ Doris said, clutching at his arm. ‘I don’t talk scandal, as you know, but he was so full of “religion”. When he was telling me off, he quoted Scripture at me – I don’t know what exactly but it had to do with the sins of the flesh. And this was a man who could not keep his hands off the girls. His wife was always finding him groping some little actress who couldn’t defend herself.’

  ‘How do you mean: “couldn’t defend herself”?’

  ‘Oh, perhaps you don’t know. He managed to get himself in the Hay’s Office. Do you know what that is?’

  ‘It’s the self-censorship code of the film industry in Hollywood, isn’t it?’

  ‘That’s right. The government thought people were being corrupted by the movies. Three years ago, Joseph Breen was given the job of cleaning out the Augean stables. No more lustful kissing. No more naked flesh on display. Even when a love scene was being filmed and two actors were on a bed, one of them had to keep a foot on the ground so they didn’t go too far and actually start . . . you know . . . enjoying themselves.’

  ‘How did Day get involved with Hollywood? He knew nothing about films, did he?’

  ‘No, of course not. He was a chum of Breen’s. There must have been money involved. There always is but the point is it gave him terrific power over writers, directors, actors and, above all, actresses. If he had an actor or actress put on the black list, they had no chance of getting a job.’

  ‘And Day used this power . . . for his own ends?’

  ‘You bet he did. It was quite a scandal when I was last in Hollywood but what could anyone do?’

  ‘Couldn’t they report him?’

  ‘To whom? He had all the politicians sewn up. Still, I did hear FDR was going to try to do something about it.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, of course, technically the Hay’s Code is operated within the industry. It isn’t a government department but Day was a politician – one of Roosevelt’s bitterest enemies. FDR was determined to get him out. That was one of the reasons Day was doing what he could to become ambassador in London. To get him out of the way, FDR might have pushed him upstairs, so to speak.’

  ‘You’re very well informed, Doris.’

  ‘I am. I have friends throughout the business. I have to know who’s up, who’s down, who’s in, who’s out, who’s sleeping with whom.’

  Frank had been right – the Senator had been universally disliked and his passing went unmourned. There was sympathy for the widow and, rather surprisingly, Mrs Dolmen proved the most sympathetic. She had gone to sit with the poor woman and, in her fractured English, had tried to bring her some little comfort. Perhaps she, too, knew what it was like to be married to a demanding and ambitious husband.

  Edward put down his wine glass and wiped his mouth with the linen napkin. He looked around the table. It was odd, he thou
ght, how quickly cliques were formed – alliances made and enmities shared. Those with whom he had dined at the Captain’s table on that first night were present, with the exception of Mrs Dolmen who was still on duty in the Days’ cabin. There was Lord Benyon, Marcus Fern, Frank, of course, Verity and Sam Forrest, Professor Dolmen, Warren Fairley and Jane Barclay, who seemed to have recovered from her ordeal remarkably quickly.

  In addition there were the Roosevelts – the twins, Philly and Perry, and their mother, a charming, highly nervous woman in her fifties, still beautiful like a rose in September which threatened to be blown away in the next storm. It was a pleasure to see the way the twins treated her – teasing, affectionate and loving but always in control. Edward was inclined to think he agreed with the Duke of Windsor on one thing – but only one – that in America children exercised authority over their parents.

  Idly, he began to view each of them as possible suspects. As soon as he realized what he was doing he felt guilty, but that did not stop him. First, who to exclude? He could hardly suspect Lord Benyon. It was true he was one of the few people not on deck watching the race but it was preposterous to think this distinguished man would murder a fellow passenger even if he had a motive – which, as far as Edward knew, he did not. Frank and Perry had been racing and he was pretty sure Philly had been watching on deck the whole time, but he could not swear to it.

  Much as she disliked the Senator, he could hardly imagine Verity killing him. He smiled and caught her eye. If she knew what he was thinking! On the other hand, Sam Forrest, now looking at her with sheep’s eyes, was a suspect. He had appeared on deck just as the race began, looking pale and rather fuddled, by no means the cheerful young man – seemingly without a care in the world – he had been half an hour earlier. But, as far as Edward was aware, Forrest did not know the Senator and, though he might dislike his political views, that was hardly a motive for murder.

  Professor Dolmen was looking happy. He knew Dolmen had had a conversation with Lord Benyon after which he seemed very much more at his ease and Edward wondered what Benyon had said to him. That left Warren Fairley who, on the face of it, had the best motive for wanting Day out of the way. He had made no secret of his enmity. Day personified all he hated about his country and the South in particular. Day was a bigot and had put every obstacle he could in the way of Fairley as he pursued his career and fought the great fight against racism. Perhaps the Senator had threatened or insulted him once too often. Physically, he was the most powerful man at the table and would have had no problem in knocking Day unconscious. Might it not have been a terrible accident – a moment of madness, not a deliberate attempt at murder? Fairley was calm enough now but, of course, he was an actor by profession.