by Carola Dunn
“No, I didn’t have a chance to ask Alec if he had found out. I only wish it may turn out to be the beastly bully Lady Brenda appears to be engaged to. But if her mother is incapacitated, perhaps I ought to let him know she isn’t well?”
“I think not, my dear. As she fell asleep, Lady Brenda murmured a few words which I understood as ‘Don’t tell Chester.’”
“That’s the chap. I wish I knew … but as Alec says, it’s none of my business. We can’t leave her here though. I’ll have to get a steward to carry her to her cabin.”
“She can walk,” said Miss Oliphant quite sharply. “It was not a narcotic that I gave her. She will be the better, however, for sleeping a little longer.”
“Right-oh. If you don’t mind staying with her, I’ll deal with Wanda first.” Strong-minded or not, Daisy began to wonder why on earth she had taken on responsibility for two weak-minded females. “Or I’m sure Gloria would take over.”
“Mrs. Petrie is an obliging child, but I assure you, I am perfectly happy here.” She took a book from her handbag.
As she opened it, Daisy glimpsed the title: Poisonous Plants of North America. Assuredly, it would be unwise to get on the wrong side of the witch!
Daisy went to collect Wanda. She found her seated before the wide looking-glass, concentrating earnestly on outlining her mouth with crimson lip-rouge.
Seeing Daisy’s reflection, she said defensively, “Mr. Gotobed likes me to look smart. When you get to be my age, you’ll understand how important it is to always make the best of yourself. Not that I’m that much older than you.”
Daisy hastily powdered her own nose, noting that her hatless hours on deck had already brought out a new crop of freckles. She had given up her fruitless efforts to conceal the little mole by her mouth when Alec told her a face-patch in that position was known as “the Kissing” in the eighteenth century—he had studied the Georgian period at Manchester University.
She delivered Wanda to Gotobed. Tenderly solicitous, he bore her off to their suite to recover from her tribulations.
“Now,” said Arbuckle, “I went along with Mrs. Fletcher and I’ve been telling all and sundry how it was liquor that did the damage. But I heard differently, and I wanna know what’s what.”
“Not here,” said Alec.
“Okay, come along to my suite then.”
“I ought to get Lady Brenda to her cabin first,” said Daisy wearily.
“We’ll see to that, won’t we, Phil?” said Gloria.
“What? Oh, right-ho, if you say so, Glow-worm.”
“Bless you, darling.” Daisy kissed Gloria’s cheek. She was beginning to think that Phillip could not possibly have done better for himself.
As they followed Arbuckle to the suite, Alec said to Daisy, “I assume you have already found out exactly what Lady Brenda claims to have seen.”
“No, actually.”
“Then I’m astonished that you left her in other hands,” he teased.
“I’m tired, darling. Besides, by the time she got over being too upset, she was too sleepy to answer questions. The witch’s potion really seemed to work.”
“You let Miss Oliphant administer a potion? Suppose she’d been in league with the thrower overboard and wanted to silence the only witness?”
“You don’t believe in the thrower overboard,” Daisy pointed out. “Anyway, she couldn’t very well poison her so publicly, and she and I both drank the tisane, too. I’ll talk to Lady Brenda tomorrow.”
“By which time,” Alec said with satisfaction, “she’ll have thought better of her story, if she made it up; or she’ll realize she can’t be sure of what she saw in that shifting moonlight. Too much to drink is a much more likely explanation.”
“We shall see,” said Daisy.
Arbuckle’s suite was even more spacious than the Gotobeds’, having two sleeping cabins and a commensurately larger sitting room. The paintings on the walls were of the Salamanca and the Ciudad Rodrigo. Otherwise, the furnishings and colour scheme were just the same.
“Night-cap?” offered Arbuckle. “I guess you won’t want Scotch whisky, Mrs. Fletcher. How’s about some Horlicks? My little girl always has her Horlicks at bedtime. Ovaltine it’s called in England.”
“Thanks, I’ll wait till Gloria comes. Alec, do you know who it was, the man overboard?”
“No. I waited till they brought him up, but no one there recognized him.”
“He … he didn’t drown, did he?”
“No, love, but he wasn’t capable of speech. Harvey rushed him below to the sick-bay.”
“What’s this about someone pushing him in?” Arbuckle asked.
Alec sipped his whisky while Daisy told Arbuckle about Lady Brenda’s hysterical outburst up on the boat-deck.
“I don’t imagine there’s anything in it,” said Alec. “With the clouds sliding across the moon, every shadow seemed to move. Lady Brenda is not a reliable witness in any case. A decidedly flighty young thing.”
“Her story oughta be investigated though,” said Arbuckle.
“Well, it’s not my pigeon, thank heaven,” Alec pointed out. Arbuckle frowned.
6
“He’s gone and told the Captain I’m a Met detective!” Alec groaned, closing the cabin door. He waved the sheet of paper handed him by the messenger. “Captain Dane wants to see me after breakfast.”
“Mr. Arbuckle gave you away?” Daisy swung round from the tiny mirror above the washstand, where she was brushing her hair. “What a rotten thing to do! Now I’ll be cut out of things altogether.”
“I doubt it, love. I shall tell Dane firmly that I’m sure it’s a storm in a tea-cup. So you’ll be able to investigate away as much as you like.”
“You only say that because you don’t think there’s anything to investigate,” Daisy said resignedly. “Right-oh, I’m ready. And I’m starving.”
As they walked along the passages and up the stairs to the dining room, it became obvious that the Talavera was pitching more than she had the day before. The motion was even a bit more than when the engines had stopped, though not enough to require the use of the handrails on the corridor bulkheads. Up in the enclosed promenade, a small boy with a toy motor car was having a wonderful time letting it race downhill in one direction as the bows went up, and the other when the stern rose.
It was no surprise not to see Wanda in the dining room. She had earlier announced that she was “banting” and never ate breakfast, but this morning she was no doubt prostrate, as Gotobed confirmed.
“T’poor lass doesn’t want anyone but her maid by her,” he said, sounding very Yorkshire in his distress, which did not, however, appear to affect his hearty appetite. “As if I’d care a jot that she’s looking peaky.”
“I fear Mrs. Gotobed was unwilling to try the remedy I suggested last night,” said Miss Oliphant.
“Aye, well, happen she’ll have changed her mind by now. I’ll pass on t’offer again, and thank you kindly.”
Dr. Amboyne was the only other person missing from their table, presumably not suffering from sea-sickness. Other tables had more gaps, Daisy noted, though some were probably first-class passengers breakfasting in their cabins. A majority of the passengers were present and eating with various degrees of heartiness.
After the exertions of the previous day, Daisy had an excellent appetite, but Alec had lost his. In fact, served with a poached egg, he stared at it with loathing and requested its immediate removal.
“I’m not very hungry,” he said. “Tea and toast will do me.”
Daisy looked at him with concern. “Darling, you’re not …”
“I’m perfectly all right,” he snapped, “just not very hungry.”
He toyed with a piece of toast for a couple of minutes, until Arbuckle’s kippers, a taste he had developed in England, were served. The smell wafted down the table, and Alec rose abruptly.
“I might as well go and see the Captain right away,” he said. “Get it over with.” He hurried
out.
“I’ll try to persuade Alec to give your potion a chance, Miss Oliphant,” said Daisy, “but he’ll have to admit, first, that he’s sea-sick.”
As long as Alec kept moving, he was all right. As he mounted the forward companion-way to the boat-deck, he repeated to himself that he just was not hungry. A Chief Detective Inspector of Scotland Yard could not possibly suffer from sea-sickness like any ordinary passenger. After all, he had not been sick on the boat to Jersey. Admittedly the Channel had been unusually calm both ways—like a mill-pond, the boatman had claimed.
Crossing to the bridge, he stood at the door for a moment, wondering whether to knock or walk straight in. The bridge was something of a holy of holies, he gathered, like the Commissioner’s office at the Yard.
But standing and waiting was not a good idea. He was definitely just a touch queasy. All that rich food, he thought; he simply wasn’t used to it.
The door opened. Mr. Harvey’s monkey-face smiled a welcome.
“Chief Inspector Fletcher? Come in, Captain Dane is expecting you.”
His mind on his middle, Alec was not his usual observant self. He was aware of a vast sweep of sea and gun-metal sky beyond the curved window, the gleaming wheel with its protruding spokes, and the man at it, who did not glance round at his entrance. He recognized the Captain in the large man, besprinkled with gold braid, who took a pace forward to meet him.
“Good of you to come, Chief Inspector,” Captain Dane grunted. He wore a beard and moustache reminiscent of the Kaiser, an impression which bellicose eyes of a pale, chilly blue did nothing to dispel. “Mr. Harvey here’s come to me with a lot of stuff and nonsense about skulduggery regarding the fool who fell overboard last night. A cock-and-bull story if ever I heard one! There will have to be some sort of investigation, I suppose, as it seems to have spread among the passengers—among them this fellow Arbuckle, who informed me of your profession.”
“I’m inclined to agree with you, sir, that it’s nonsense.”
“Of course it is,” Dane said angrily. “Murders do not take place on my ship. Sort it out with Harvey. I’ve a storm ahead to keep my eye on.”
A storm ahead? Alec’s stomach lurched.
“If you’ll come into the chart-room, sir,” Harvey invited, “we shan’t be in the way.”
At least he couldn’t see the sea from the chart-room. There was not much floor space, but what there was Alec utilized to pace, in the process backing Harvey into a corner.
“Tell me,” he growled.
“I understand you were on deck when it happened, sir. I expect you heard Lady Brenda cry out? I didn’t, or at least I didn’t hear what she said, being already occupied in lowering the boat.”
“Yes, I heard her claim that she had seen the man pushed.” Alec did his best to concentrate, to take his mind off his own woes. “By the way, I assume he has been identified by now?”
“A Mr. Denton, a tourist-class passenger travelling with his wife. Dr. Amboyne says he’s in pretty poor shape, I’m afraid.”
“I’m sorry. But Lady Brenda was hysterical, you know. I think we can discount what she said last night.”
“I know she was overwrought, but she’s not hysterical this morning. She sent me a note quite early.” He flushed. “We’ve become quite friendly, as it happens. I went to meet her, and she told me she was absolutely certain she saw someone push Denton over the rail. I know she was in a good position to see what happened. You see, we … we were together on deck last night.” His colour deepened.
“As you were there, you know that the moonlight was fitful and the only electric light was a not very bright one by the companion-way. I’m sure Lady Brenda believes what she says,” Alec lied, “but it seems to me probable that she imagined the whole thing or perhaps misinterpreted something she actually saw.”
“Maybe.” Harvey looked troubled.
“There is another difficulty with her story. I should like to discuss it with you, but you must give me your word not to mention it to Lady Brenda until I have seen her.”
“You have my word,” the second mate said stiffly.
“Thank you. What’s her surname, by the way?”
“Ferris. Her mother’s Lady Wilmington.”
Alec nodded. “Now tell me, how easy would it be to push a man over the rail?”
“Not easy,” Harvey conceded. “It’s about waist-high to the average man. You might catch a tall man off balance with a good shove, but Denton’s on the short side.”
“That’s what I thought, watching you bring him up. Unless he was knocked out and pushed before he fell to the deck, the chances of his going over seem to me pretty slim. And we can assume he wasn’t unconscious, since he squawked.”
“A blow might have dazed him just enough to make it easy to push him over.”
“Possibly. Dr. Amboyne will be able to tell me if there’s any contusion. Lady Brenda hasn’t mentioned a blow to the head?”
“No. You know, sir, the best way to do it would be to grab him around the legs and heave.”
“Exactly,” Alec agreed cordially. “And I don’t want you putting that idea into the girl’s head. If that is what she describes to me, then of course I shall have to take a more serious view of the matter.”
“You will talk to her then, sir?”
Alec sighed. “Since Captain Dane has asked me to investigate, yes. I’ll have to see Denton as well, of course. Victims of unanticipated violence not uncommonly forget the details of the attack, but at least he should be able to tell me whether he has any enemies who might be on the Talavera. I’d hate to think we have a homicidal maniac aboard.”
“Ye gods, yes!” Harvey exclaimed, paling. “Don’t even suggest the possibility to the Captain!”
While Alec was concentrating on the interview with Harvey, his stomach seemed to have adjusted somewhat to the ship’s motion. He passed back through the bridge with barely a qualm, acknowledging Dane’s glare with a noncommittal “I’ll see what I can do, sir.”
He crossed the deck with his eyes averted from the swaying horizon, so he did not see Daisy until she said, “What’s going on, darling?”
“Captain Dane doesn’t credit the girl’s story anymore than I do, but he can’t ignore it, of course. I’m elected to investigate, thanks to Arbuckle.”
“I suppose millionaires get used to doing things their own way. What’s first? Do you want me to take notes?”
“Great Scott, no! This isn’t an official enquiry. Here, hang on to the rail going down, Daisy,” he put in as they reached the companion-way, “or you’ll take a tumble. First of all, I’m going down to the sick-bay to have a word with Denton, the chap who fell over. I’ll be surprised if he doesn’t clear up the whole business by admitting he was tiddly and turned giddy.”
“Probably,” Daisy admitted regretfully.
“I believe you’d prefer mayhem!”
“Oh, Alec, not really. I’m delighted that Denton didn’t drown.”
“Yes, thank heaven. At worst it was attempted murder, not murder. Not that I think for a moment it was either.”
“But a drunken accident is simply too dull, too prosaic for words,” Daisy mourned.
She wrinkled her adorable nose at him, so he pulled her into the lee of a ventilation shaft and kissed her. Since she responded with her usual enthusiasm, several minutes passed before they went inside.
This morning there was no squabbling over the port side deck-chairs. Not only was there no sun to make it preferred over starboard, but the number of passengers seeking seats had diminished considerably. Reminded of the reason for the reduction, Alec felt his inner qualms return.
There had been no deck stewards setting up games on the boat-deck, he realized. Quite a few hardy souls were setting out for their usual tramps around the ship’s circumference, but today more of them were down here on the promenade deck than up above in the fresh air.
“I left Phillip and Gloria trying to convince the third officer that t
he sea isn’t too rough for deck tennis,” said Daisy. “Failing that, they’re hoping for a tug-o’-war. I’m coming with you.”
Alec didn’t feel up to a probably fruitless effort to dissuade her. They went down to the cabin-deck and along to the doctor’s quarters amidships.
Here at the comparatively still centre, the pivot of all the complex motion, Alec perked up again.
Below the sign on the door that read DOCTOR was another saying ENTER, so they went in, into a small waiting room. A desk faced them, with what appeared to be an appointment book lying open on it, but no one behind it. On one side was a door labelled SURGERY, opposite another labelled SICK-BAY. The kind of chairs meant to discourage lingering stood stiffly along the walls.
On one of them sat a large, robust woman in a flower-print frock, with grey hair in a bun, rosy cheeks, and red eyes.
“The doctor’s busy,” she said in a strained voice with a marked East Anglian accent. “Nurse, too, in there.” She pointed at the sick-bay. A sob escaped her.
“Mrs. Denton?” Daisy rushed to her side, put an arm around her massive shoulders.
Nodding, Mrs. Denton groped for her handkerchief, a sodden mass in her lap. With an inaudible sigh, Alec took out his and handed it over. The case—if case it turned out to be—was full of weeping women.
He was wondering whether to knock on the sick-bay door or leave a message on the desk for the doctor, when the door opened and Amboyne came out. His face lined with weariness, he went over to Mrs. Denton and said heartily, “We’ll pull him through, never fear. You really must get some rest, or you won’t be able to take care of him when you’re needed.”
“Do let me help you to your cabin,” said Daisy. “You’ll feel much better for a cup of tea, I’m sure, and perhaps something to eat.”
“Oh, I couldn’t,” mumbled Mrs. Denton, but she lumbered off with Daisy.
There she went again, Alec thought resignedly, weaseling herself into the middle of things as usual. In no time she would probably have the woman confiding that her husband was a confirmed drunkard prone to dizzy spells. Trust Daisy!