Crime of Their Life

by Frank Kane

  The fat man shook his head. “He didn’t. Gave me orders that the minute the new passenger sets foot on board he’s to see him.” He looked around and dropped his voice. “He also gave orders that we weren’t to stow the passenger’s gear until the captain gave an okay. He’ll never know how close he came to staying in Barbados.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Captain Delmar Rose paced nervously back and forth, puffed nervously on his pipe, exhaled thick clouds of blue-gray smoke. He stopped pacing at the rap on his door, locked his hands behind him.

  “Come in.”

  The door opened, Emil, his personal steward, ushered Johnny Liddell into the room, stepped out and closed the door after him. The captain favored Liddell with a jaundiced look, stalked over to his desk chair, dropped into it.

  “Seems like you’ve been a real busy fellow,” he complained. “I suppose you know that two of our passengers, the Keens, quit the cruise bag and baggage in Grenada?” Liddell sauntered over to a chair, sat down. He dredged his pack of cigarettes from his pocket. “How would I know that?”

  “It was because of you that they left.”

  Liddell stuck a cigarette in the comer of his mouth. “How do you know that?”

  “Because it’s my job to know things. You went into the Keens’s cabin last night after dinner. When you left, there was a big row in there. What about?”

  Liddell lit the cigarette. “His name wasn’t Keen. His name was Maurie Handel. He’s not a very desirable character.”

  The captain leaned forward on his desk, his hands clasped as if in prayer as he visibly controlled his impatience. “I don’t care who he was or what he was. I’m running a cruise ship, not a Sunday School. As long as he doesn’t—”

  “Interfere with the operation of your ship,” Liddell filled in. “But suppose he was getting ready to?”

  The captain broke off, leaned back. He rattled the juice in his pipe-stem, tried to regain his composure. “How?”

  “For one thing he pulled a gun on me. A man could get real narrow-minded at a thing like that and pull a gun of his own.”

  “Do you have a gun?”

  Liddell nodded his head. “And a license for it.”

  “On my ship, I decide who can carry a gun and who can’t. You will turn it in, I’ll return it when we reach New York,” the man behind the desk snapped. He drummed on the edge of his desk with powerful fingers. “That’s understood?”

  Liddell shrugged. “This is your home grounds. You write the rules.” He took the cigarette from between his lips, flicked a thin collar of ash from the glowing end. “But somebody’s going to be awfully disappointed.”

  “Who?”

  Liddell shook his head. “I can’t give you any names yet. But somebody cased my cabin last night, fixed it so the first four slugs in my gun are blanks.”

  The captain leaned back in his chair, his eyes wide. “You’re sure of this?” He accepted Liddell’s nod. “But how?”

  Liddell reached into his pocket, brought out a banana. He tossed it onto the desk top. “Somebody sent me a basket of fruit. Only thing is, they first loaded it with chloral hydrate. Put me out for over twelve hours and even then my steward practically had to give me artificial respiration to get me on my feet.”

  The captain stared at him, reached for the banana. He examined it carefully, peeled it, smelled it. When he looked up at Liddell, his eyes were thoughtful. “How?”

  Liddell shrugged. “It’s only a guess, but I’d say they probably filled a hypodermic full of the stuff, squirted it into the fruit until it wouldn’t take any more. It’s loaded with it.”

  “It takes some people longer to make themselves hated than others. You’re breaking the track record. Somebody feeds you a mickey, one of the passengers pulls a gun on you.” He studied Liddell thoughtfully. “You think the same man could have done both?”

  “Maurie Handel?”

  The captain nodded.

  “I doubt it. Maurie thought the boys in the mob put me on board to finger him for a hit—”

  “Why?”

  Liddell shrugged. “He was a mouthpiece for the mob who turned state’s evidence, and sang like a stage-struck canary. The boys get narrow-minded about things like that. That’s why he pulled the gun. But why should he doctor the fruit? He already knew who I was.”

  “Maybe he wanted to make sure you didn’t get in the way of his getaway.”

  Liddell considered it, shook his head. “I doubt it. I think whoever sent the fruit was suspicious of me and wanted a chance to find out who I was and what I was after. And I think they made it.”

  “Then you think the smugglers are on to you?”

  “Looks like it. They’ve probably suspected it right along. Now they’re sure.”

  The captain looked worried. “There was no leak from this end.”

  Liddell nodded. “It was just a bad break that tipped my hand. There were no empty cabins after the ship left Antigua according to your passenger list. Then I pop up in Barbados knowing that one of the cabins had been emptied by Landers’s disappearance. For the kind of people we’re dealing with, that was a little too pat.”

  The captain discovered he had allowed his pipe to go out. He scratched a wooden match on the underside of his desk, held it to the pipe, sucked the flame down into the bowl. “And we don’t know anything more about them than the day you came aboard.” He shook out the match, dropped it into the ash tray. “Looks like they’re scoring all the points.”

  Liddell scratched at his chin. “Looks like that right now.”

  “But?”

  “I have a couple of ideas. Nothing I could prove or that would stand up without more proof than I have, but something could develop from them.”

  Captain Rose blew a stream of smoke at the ceiling, squinted through it. “You’re thinking that it’s a member of my staff. That it?”

  “Either that, or somebody who makes the trip fairly regularly. It’s not just hit-and-run, that’s for sure.” Liddell scowled thoughtfully. “My guess is that the stones are processed and the smugglers are notified when a shipment is ready. It might not be every trip. They only have to make a half dozen or so good killings a year with a racket like this. You can bring in an awful lot of diamonds in a pretty small space.”

  The captain nodded. “I’m aware that many of the names on Landers’s list have taken several cruises on the Queen. But remember that he listed two tables at which repeaters get first consideration.”

  “This Robin Lewis. What do you know about her?”

  The captain busied himself with his pipe for a moment. “I think you can safely leave her out of your thinking. I’ll vouch for her.”

  Liddell raised his eyebrows. “Like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like that Courvoisier on the bar. Private stock?”

  The captain pulled his pipe from between his teeth, stabbed it at Liddell. “That’s insolent, mister. I don’t take insolence on my ship.”

  Liddell held his hands up, palms out. “What you do and who you do it with is your business. My business is to find out who’s smuggling diamonds into the United States.” He shrugged. “I’ve got to eliminate a few of these suspects. To do it, I have to ask questions.”

  The captain returned the pipe to his mouth. “Robin Lewis has nothing to do with it.”

  “She got all upset when she recognized me as a private detective and tied me in with Landers. If she’s so innocent why should she be worried?”

  The captain got up out of his chair, started pacing back and forth, puffing at his pipe, locking his hands behind him. Finally, as if reaching a decision, he stopped in front of Liddell.

  “Five or six years ago, Robin Lewis took her first cruise on board my ship. You might not believe it, but every unattached female on a ship like this decides to help the captain forget his loneliness. Robin wasn’t like that. She was class, desirable and beautiful.” He rattled the juice in his pipe-stem, took his time selecting the words. �
��She accepted my invitation to have dinner and cocktails up here several times and we found we had a lot in common. Since then, whenever she travels, she travels on my ship.”

  Liddell nodded. “That why she panicked when she recognized me?”

  The captain bobbed his head. “She thought you were hired by my wife to get evidence of some kind against us.” He sucked at his pipe, found it had gone out, walked to the desk and knocked out the dottle. “I was furious the night I found out Landers was a private detective and blurted it out to her. She jumped to the conclusion that he was on board to trip us.” He grinned humorlessly. “I couldn’t tell her he was after diamond smugglers, so I just laughed it off. Then last night she put two and two together and got six. She came tearing in to warn me that you were flown from New York to meet the ship at Barbados. Know why?”

  Liddell shook his head.

  “Because she had it figured that I had Landers killed so he couldn’t report back to my wife. And your job was to nail me for it.” He sighed, shook his head. “Such an imagination, that one. It must be all those bad movies she made.”

  Liddell grinned. “I hope you convinced her you didn’t kill Landers?”

  Captain Rose smiled glumly. “I think she was disappointed. It would be more romantic that way. I finally convinced her that you were sent here by an insurance company to find out if Landers committed suicide. She seemed satisfied.”

  “I had it figured from one look at Herrick that she was too much woman for him.”

  The captain shrugged. “He has been very attentive. And I have been very busy.”

  Liddell nodded. “How about your other repeaters? Carson Eldridge, for instance?”

  The short squat man considered. “Been aboard several times. First time for the girl, though. Not much to know about him. Seems to be well fixed, likes his liquor and his cards.” He brought the tobacco pouch out of his pocket, started loading his pipe. “One of my junior officers has been seeing to it that the kid doesn’t hang around the old man’s neck too much.”

  “You have to be versatile to skipper a cruise ship, don’t you?”

  “Everything from a glorified bar operator to a hotel room clerk and house dick combined. Running the ship is the least of my worries.” The smile dimmed. “I don’t think Eldridge is your man. For that matter, I can’t see any of the others involved.”

  “Landers didn’t die of old age,” Liddell pointed out. “Somebody helped him over the side.”

  The captain tabulated on spatulate fingers. “There’s the Conways. He’s so henpecked, I can’t see him having the nerve. McDowell?” He thought about it for a minute, shook his head. “An old windbag. The honeymooners? Herrick? First trip for both of them. Hilda Phelps?” He shrugged. “She could be a criminal master mind in disguise, but I doubt it. And the Sands couple are too busy wearing a path between the two cabins to have anything else on their minds. That leaves the Keens, and you took real good care of them.”

  “Well, we’ve got to hope that Acme comes up with something on one of them. When do we get to Curaçao?”

  “La Guaira tomorrow morning, then Caracas Bay, Curaçao the next morning.”

  “Then we’ll see what we see.”

  “If you’re in any condition to see anything.” The captain stuck his pipe between his teeth, scratched a wooden match on the sole of his shoe, held it over the bowl of his pipe, sucked the flame down into it. “If I were you, I’d stay off poorly lighted promenades and dark decks. Now that they know who you are, they may try for you like they did for Landers.”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time somebody’s tried for me. Lots of others who did try didn’t stay around long enough to find out how it came out. Anyway, thanks for worrying about me.”

  “Who’s worrying about you?” Captain Rose exhaled a thick cloud of blue-gray smoke, followed it ceilingward with his eyes. “It’s not going to help my reputation to lose two passengers on the same run.” He brought his eyes down to Liddell’s face. “Besides, it doesn’t matter how many times it’s been tried. It only takes the one time that doesn’t miss.”

  “For your sake, I’ll try to see to it that nothing happens to me,” Liddell assured him.

  “Do that,” the captain warned. “And about that gun of yours. I’ve changed my mind. Maybe you’d better hang onto it. You may be needing it worse than we do.” He ground his teeth on the pipe-stem. “Just try not to shoot up a lot of innocent passengers.”

  CHAPTER 13

  The afternoon tea dance beside the swimming pool was already in full swing by the time Johnny Liddell walked out onto the sports deck. He stood in the doorway to the aft veranda, squinted into the slanting sunlight.

  Overhead the sky was studded with lazy, fat, cottony clouds. The white line of the wake arched gracefully behind them in the turquoise water, and with Grenada out of sight there was nothing to mar the perfect circle of the horizon.

  On the postage-stamp-sized dance floor, a dozen or more couples were whirling to the rhythms of the small ensemble. Harry and Belle Doyle were sitting at a table at the side of the pool, they caught his attention, waved him down. He threaded through the tables to where they sat.

  “We missed you at breakfast and on the island,” the raw-boned man greeted him. “Thought maybe you were sick. Had a tough time talking Belle out of sending tea and toast to your cabin.”

  “I guess my first night at sea tired me out more than I realized. I slept right through.” The music stopped, the couples on the floor started drifting back to their tables.

  Jack Allen, the cruise director, crossed the floor to the microphone. “May I have your attention for just one moment, ladies and gentlemen? This will take just a moment.” He waited for them to get seated and for the hum of conversation to die down.

  Liddell slid into a chair at the Doyles’s table.

  “I’m sure we all had a wonderful time on Grenada this afternoon,” the cruise director blasted into the microphone. “Those of you who went up to the Hotel Santa Maria got one of the best views in the islands from its terrace. Those of you who went to Grand Anse Beach saw one of the prettiest beaches anywhere. Let’s hear it. Everybody have a good time?”

  He cupped his ears, listened for the scattered hand clapping and beamed. It reminded Liddell of the captain’s description of a cruise director—an over age cheer leader. Allen raised his hands to cut off the dwindling applause.

  “Tomorrow it’s another port, a great one. We dock around seven, but we can’t debark until we’re cleared by the Venezuelan officials. Please don’t forget to carry your cruise membership card with you when you leave the ship.” There was a low hum of conversation. Allen raised his hands for attention. “This is important, ladies and gentlemen. Very important.” He paused, then, “Ladies and gentlemen are urged not to go ashore in shorts. Ladies are urged not to wear slacks at any time and gentlemen will be required to wear coats and ties while going through churches or public buildings or when having lunch.”

  There was a rumble of annoyed comment. Allen shrugged, held his hands out, palms up. “We don’t make the rules, ladies and gentlemen. The Venezuelans do. I don’t have to remind you that there’s some anti-American feeling around Caracas—”

  “Some anti-American feeling?” McDowell, the oil man from the captain’s table snorted. “Look what they did to Dick Nixon when he came down here!”

  “Maybe they’re critics. They saw him on television,” came the retort from a table in the rear. There was a scattering of applause, some laughter. The oil man’s face turned a murky color, he started to rise in his chair, permitted the cruise director to wave him down.

  “I just want to remind you these people are very sensitive and they don’t like us. Let’s not have any unpleasant incidents if we can help it.” He turned, signaled to the ensemble. “I’ve taken up enough of your time. How about some music, professor?”

  The ensemble broke into a tortured rendition of the “Tea for Two Cha-Cha.” The Arthur Murray alumni p
romptly got to their feet, led their partners out onto the floor. In a moment, hips were swinging, heads were snapping from right to left in time to the music.

  Jack Allen walked across to where McDowell was sputtering indignantly to his wife, punctuating his remarks by pounding on the edge of his table. The cruise director slid into a chair across from him, smilingly attempted to placate him.

  “I don’t blame the Venezuelan people,” Belle Doyle spoke up. “I think it’s disgraceful the way some of these people dress.” She looked around disapprovingly. “I’m sure they wouldn’t think of being seen going around in their home towns dressed like they are when they go on shore.”

  Her husband grinned. “They sure wouldn’t if they lived in Three Rivers.” He turned to Liddell. “That’s where we live mister. Three Rivers, Wisconsin. Got forty acres back there. And to tell you the truth I can’t hardly wait to get back to them.”

  Liddell brought a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, offered them, drew no takers. “The cruise isn’t living up to your expectations?”

  The big-boned farmer scratched his head, considered. “Tell the truth, I don’t know what I expected.” He looked up at the clear blue of the sky, the fluffy white clouds. “The day we left Three Rivers, there was slush and snow underfoot, the sky was gray-black and getting ready to dump a couple more inches on us. Nobody can’t fault the weather. And everybody else seems to be having a good time. So I guess it’s me.”

  “It is not you, Harry, and you know it,” Belle put in.

  “Take a look at them. They’re not enjoying it any more than we are. They’re just working harder at making believe they do.” She turned to Liddell. “I don’t want you to go thinking I don’t like the people or anything like that. It’s just that I make strange with them. I’ve never been more than a couple of hundred miles away from Three Rivers before and this business of going from one island to another, day after day, with all of them looking alike—” She broke off, shrugged. ‘I’d rather stay home.”