Crime of Their Life

by Frank Kane

  “Do I have a choice?”

  The captain considered, shook his head. “No.”

  Liddell grinned, shrugged. “Then we understand each other.”

  The captain stared at him for a moment, liked what he saw. He relaxed sufficiently to return a half grin. He motioned Liddell to sit down, dropped back into his chair. “What was Landers looking for?”

  Liddell managed to look startled. “I thought your home office cued you in?”

  The captain took a deep swallow, shook his head. “They told me that he was a private detective, that he was to be replaced by you, and that no one was to know what you were doing aboard.” He leaned his head back against his chair, half closed his eyes. “What are you doing aboard?”

  Liddell considered for a moment. “I’m representing some important diamond dealers. They think Brazilian diamonds are being smuggled in, they think some of them are coming in on cruise ships like this.”

  The captain nodded. “Then we do understand each other. You’ll excuse me for testing you, Liddell, but if you had given me the wrong answer to that one, you and your gear would be back in Bridgeton before the Queen cleared the harbor.” He reached out to a table, picked up a battered old briar, stuck it between his teeth. “Do you have any idea who Landers was after?”

  Liddell shook his head.

  The captain sighed. He scratched a long wooden match on the under part of the table, touched it to the bowl of his pipe. “That’s the hell of it,” he growled. “Neither do I.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Johnny Liddell fumbled through his pockets, came up with a wilted pack of cigarettes. He fitted one into the corner of his mouth, made a fruitless circuit of his pockets for a match. The captain tossed one over to him, waited until Liddell had lit the cigarette with the wooden match, nearly searing his nose in the process.

  “Be easier to light a cigarette with a blowtorch,” he complained.

  Captain Rose shrugged. “You ever try to get a good light for a pipe with those paper things? You use a whole pack and you still can’t get it started.” He removed the pipe from between his teeth, blew out a cloud of blue-gray smoke. “Takes a real flame to light a pipe.”

  “You say you don’t know who Landers was interested in?” Liddell asked. “Wasn’t there anybody in particular he seemed to pay special attention? Some woman, some group he played cards with, somebody whose company he sought out, somebody he asked questions about?”

  The captain sucked at his pipe, rattled the juice in the stem. “We weren’t out very long when he went over the side. Just this side of Hatteras,” the captain reminded him. “Not much time for me to get too clear a picture.”

  “Yet whoever it was he was after had enough time to know that Landers was dangerous to him,” Liddell commented.

  The captain shrugged, considered. “The killer, if there was a killer, might have been warned.” He took the pipe from between his teeth, warmed his palm with the bowl.

  “Maybe Landers had the whole thing worked out and only took the trip to catch the smugglers in the act.”

  Liddell nodded his head gloomily. “That’s pretty much the way I read it. But he didn’t keep any notes or any records that we know about. So that leaves me right where we started.” He looked out the glass side of the room at the white and pastel-colored, one-storied buildings around the harbor. “I’ll appreciate anything you’ve heard or anything you know about the other passengers. It might give me a line to what he had and any help I can get I’ll need. I’ve only nine days to find out what it took Landers over a year to dig up.”

  The captain leaned back, lifted his feet to the ottoman. He stared up at the ceiling. “Landers was on table 48. That’s right next to the captain’s table.” He rolled his eyes down to Liddell’s face. “He claimed to have wanted to sit at my table—” He shrugged. “There are only so many seats. Besides, when the man from the home office brought me the passenger list, he didn’t suggest Landers for my table. If he had wanted it badly enough they would have suggested it. Not that I’d necessarily take the suggestion, but at least they would have tried.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t until he saw who was at your table that he decided that’s where he wanted to be. Mind telling me about the people at your table?”

  “The usual. We’ve got a writer who fancies himself a bit of a character. Got lucky and sold a bestseller a couple of months ago. Name’s Herrick—”

  Liddell nodded. “Lewis Herrick. I’ve heard of him.”

  “A rather gamy character. Been making a play for every unattached woman on board. I have the feeling he’d drop dead if one of them took him seriously. We’ve got to put up with him because he’s persuaded the home office that his next book will be about cruise ships.”

  “And?”

  “Robin Lewis. She is—or rather was—a movie star. You may remember her?” Liddell nodded, the captain continued. “She’s retired now and we’ve had her for a couple of regular crossings as well as these off-season Caribbean runs. Still pretty attractive, you know?”

  “And the others?”

  Captain Rose wrinkled his nose disapprovingly. “Bloody bores. The Conways—eminently respectable Philadelphians. Feuding a little with the other couple at the table, the McDowells. Conways wanted the presidential suite, our de luxe accommodations. The McDowells—he’s in oil in Texas—they pulled some strings with the home office, outbid the Conways. They make a big show of being polite to each other but they hate each other’s guts. That leaves only Carson Eldridge and his daughter, Fran.” He shook his head sadly. “Homely as sin and dull as dishwater. My guess is her father brought her on the cruise hoping she’d land somebody who’d take her off his hands.”

  “Not very promising,” Liddell conceded. “How about the table where Landers was sitting?”

  “I’ve arranged for you to be given his sitting. That way you can look the others over and reach your own conclusions.” He shook his head. “To tell you the truth they don’t look a helluva lot more promising.” He checked off on his fingers. “There’s the newlyweds—the Doyles from Wisconsin. They won the trip in some kind of a contest. So wrapped up in each other they might just as well have stayed in the haystack back home.” He pursed his lips for a moment. “The Sands, uncle and niece in adjoining cabins. Her luggage is initialed H. B. while his is M. R.” He shrugged. “Long as they’re discreet and don’t interfere with the operation of my ship and the enjoyment of my passengers, it’s no concern of mine. Mrs. Phelps, she’s a familiar figure on this run. Has nothing but money and time on her hands and she loves to spend both on young men. She keeps my junior officers on the jump. The other couple, the Keens, he’s some kind of a lawyer, I gather. Doesn’t talk much, doesn’t mix. Jack Allen, our cruise director, is host at that table.”

  “I met Allen on the dock. Seems like a nice guy.”

  “A cruise director is a cruise director.” The captain shrugged. “An over age cheer leader. But Allen’s been with us ever since the Queen went back on the passenger run. Keeps out of my hair and the passengers like him.” He sucked on the stem of his pipe, discovered he had let it go out. He knocked the dottle out of the bowl with the heel of his hand. “You didn’t happen to meet Ingrid, did you?” Liddell shook his head.

  “Ingrid Sorenson, Allen’s assistant. Blonde and Scandinavian. No one will have to point her out to you. When you see her, you’ll know her.”

  “Something special I should know about her?”

  The captain reached for his glass on the table, peered at it owlishly. “Maybe yes, maybe no. Nothing right now that would be of any help to you.” He swirled the liquor around his glass. “To tell you the truth, when word got to me that morning that Landers hadn’t returned to his cabin, and that he had set up some kind of a date for midnight, my first guess was that it was Ingrid. It was the kind of a night when most of the other women on board were in bed— their own beds—because of the weather. But when I checked it out, I found out that Ingrid was helping out in
the dispensary from before eight well past three the next morning because the nurses had their hands full. She couldn’t have seen him that night.”

  “She might be worth looking into anyhow.”

  The captain grinned. “It’s one of the sights you shouldn’t miss.”

  “Anything else that might be helpful?”

  The grin faded off the captain’s face. “I don’t know if you were told about this, but Landers got a call in the bar. When he hung up, he flashed the operator, asked what stateroom it had come from. It came from cabin 126—”

  Liddell frowned. “So?”

  “Cabin 126 was empty until we made our first port of call, Antigua, two days later. I called the steward who handles that cabin, but he was at dinner at the time the call was made.”

  “How could anyone get into the cabin?”

  “The keys are hung in a glass case on the wall in the companionway. Almost anyone could have had access to them.”

  Liddell crushed out his cigarette, drained his glass, sighed. “You make it sound so simple. Did anybody check through Landers’s luggage?”

  “I did, personally. Nothing very interesting.” He leaned over, pushed a button on the table. “There were a few papers, some notes. Nothing I could make heads or tails of. But, just to be on the safe side, I had them put in my strong box.” He looked up as the door opened, his steward walked in. “Emil, bring out the manila envelope with the things I removed from Landers’s room for safekeeping.” When the steward had crossed to the bedroom door and closed it after him, the captain turned back to Liddell. “It didn’t mean anything to me, as I say, but in a case like this where a man has disappeared and there is a possibility of foul play, I always figure the shore authorities might want to have a look. So before I had his bags repacked and stored in the hold, I took out anything that looked like it might be personal or might mean something.” The steward walked out of the bedroom with a manila envelope, handed it to the captain. “When my home office got around to telling me who Landers was, I had Emil check his baggage in the hold.”

  “And?”

  “Someone had broken into it, gone through it.”

  Liddell brightened. “Then what he was looking for may be in here, you think? This could be the break I need.”

  “Don’t expect too much.” The captain sighed at the necessity for movement, pulled himself to his feet. He led the way over to the desk, opened the clasp on the envelope, emptied its contents on the desk. Johnny Liddell stared at the small pile of papers, the key ring and the address book with unconcealed disappointment.

  “That’s all?”

  The captain raised his shoulders in an expressive shrug. “His wallet, his notebook if he had one, his personal belongings—probably went over the side with him.”

  Liddell picked up a chair, pulled it up to the desk. Captain Rose dropped back into his chair, watched as Liddell pored through the small pile of papers, put each aside with a frown. He picked up the address book, flipped through the pages. He was about to toss it aside when a second thought seemed to occur to him. He went through the book again, page by page, stopped at one page, studied the notations on it for a moment. Then continued to the end of the book. He looked up.

  “Something?” the captain wanted to know.

  “Maybe, maybe not.” He held up the book. “All of the addresses in this book are from the mainland. All but one.” He flipped through the address book again, stopped at the page he had studied. “This one.” He held the book out to the captain.

  “Hans Reynders, 25 Vervoort, Willemstad,” the captain read. He rolled his eyes from the book to Liddell’s face. “You think this means something?”

  Liddell shrugged. “It’s the only address in the book that has any remote connection with the Queen’s itinerary.” He studied the address again. “But what the connection is, I don’t have any idea.”

  “Maybe Curaçao is where they bring the diamonds aboard.”

  Liddell considered it, frowned. “Why? If the stuff is coming from South America, we stop at La Guaira. That’s South America, isn’t it? Wouldn’t that be more logical?”

  “Curaçao’s a free port. Getting articles of value into and out of a free port is a lot simpler than getting them into and out of a place like Venezuela with its customs regulations. That’s doubling the risk,” the captain pointed out.

  “And somehow Landers comes across the name of Reynders. In what connection? As an informer, or as one of the ring?”

  The captain shrugged. “We could alert the Antilles police—”

  Liddell shook his head. “That would tip our hand. I’d prefer to talk to Reynders when I have a better idea of what’s going on. If the Antilles police start asking questions, they may scare him off.”

  The captain shrugged. “That’s your department.” Liddell brought an envelope from his breast pocket, scribbled Reynders’ name and address on it, stuck the envelope back in his pocket. He tossed the address book back on the desk, picked up a sheet with a list of names. “How about this?” He passed the list to the captain.

  Captain Rose glanced at the list, shook his head. “Doesn’t look like anything to me. Just a list of the people sitting at my table and the list at Jack Allen’s table. Both our names are on it, for that matter.”

  “How do the people at these tables get selected?”

  The captain shrugged. “Some of them, like Hilda Phelps and Robin Lewis, are old-timers. Made several trips on the Queen.” He glanced at the list. “Carson Eldridge has been with us several times, too. This is his daughter’s first trip, so he asked to be at my table for her sake.”

  Liddell nodded. “And the McDowells and Conways?” The captain made a face. “They’ve been with us before, but never at the same time, thank God. They strike sparks, the men can’t stand the sight of each other and the women loathe each other.”

  Liddell grinned. “How about Allen’s table? The one I’m to sit at?”

  The captain rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. “Outside of Hilda Phelps, Allen drew quite a few first-timers. We’d never had Landers on board before this trip. The Doyles —they’re newlyweds—so they’re getting red-carpet treatment. Martin Sands and his so-called niece have never been with us before and neither have the Keens.”

  Liddell scowled. “Doesn’t look like that list is going to be much good. He might just as well have left me a copy of the Manhattan Directory. The people I’m after wouldn’t be first-timers.”

  “Maybe he had a bad memory for names and wrote them down to remember them,” Captain Rose suggested.

  “I don’t know. That doesn’t sound like the Harry Landers I know. He never wasted any motion. He drew that list up for some reason and it had to do with the smuggling. He wouldn’t have been wasting his time with that group just for the sake of socializing.”

  The captain shrugged. “Every job has its own built-in headaches. Only difference seems to be that yours may be more permanent than others.”

  Liddell nodded lugubriously. “I was hoping for a shortcut from his belongings. But I guess there’s no easy way to tackle this one. What time do the passengers get back on board?”

  “The last tender leaves from shore at 5:30. You’ll be at the first sitting for dinner, 6:30.”

  Liddell bobbed his head absently. “I suppose I’ll be seeing you there? Will it be common knowledge that we had this little talk?”

  “No. You can trust Emil to be completely discreet. The purser need only know that there was some discrepancy in your passage arrangements. I took over handling the situation personally in the event it became advisable for me to return you to shore—” He shrugged. “As far as the purser was concerned, it relieved him of a possibly uncomfortable duty. I will tell him that you straightened things out to my satisfaction and that you will make the rest of the trip with us.”

  “In that case, there is no need for any unduly cordial relationship between us?”

  The captain shook his head. “At dinner, as usual, I
will be devoting most of my attention to my guests. At other times during the cruise, there will be very little occasion for our paths to cross. When they do, it will usually be at cocktail parties or at the farewell dinner. If, for any reason, it becomes necessary for you to see me, try to cash a check for $100 with the purser. He has orders to refuse to cash anything higher than a $50 check for you and to refer you to me if you become insistent.”

  Liddell grinned. “You think of everything, Captain.” “In my position, I have to.” He stuck his hand out at Liddell. “Remembering what happened to Landers, you’d better do the same. Anything else I can do for you?”

  “Yes. How about the boys in the radio shack? Can they be trusted?”

  The captain considered. “What are you planning to do?”

  “I want to have the people on Landers’s list checked out by an agency I use in New York.”

  The captain nodded. “I’ll handle it. Give me the message, the names of the people you want checked out. I’ll send it to my home office in code. They can forward it to your agency.” He wrinkled his brow thoughtfully. “You want the answer sent here?”

  Liddell shook his head. “I’ll pick it up at the American consulate in Curaçao.”

  “That gives them only about seventy-two hours. Think they can do much in that length of time?”

  “Acme has a full staff that works twenty-six hours a day. If there’s anything to find out about any of them, they’ll find it out. And fast.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Johnny Liddell sat at the bar in the French Quarter Salon aft on the promenade deck, stared out through the glassed-in enclosure toward the shore. The last tender had already left the dock, was swinging in a wide arc to pour the last load of tourists up the gangway onto B deck. Half a dozen of the tables in the bar were occupied by early returnees, bedraggled looking and sweat stained.

  Liddell swung back to face the bar, signaled the bartender for a refill. At the far end of the bar, the bartender was polishing his glasses, getting set for the onslaught that invariably followed a shore trip. His cigarette was expertly balanced on the bottom of an upturned glass, a shot glass full of scotch was hidden from sight by the stack of freshly polished glasses. By the time the cocktail hour was over, he knew from experience that he’d need it.