The Red Zeppelin (Hilary Manningham-Butler Book 2)

by Jack Treby

  Miss Tanner frowned. ‘She’s a very private person. Extraordinarily shy. I think she’s led quite a sheltered life. She hasn’t seen much of the world, the poor dear.’ Miss Tanner smiled sadly. ‘But she really did love Gerhard Schulz. It broke her heart, turning down his proposal. And since he died, she’s become even more withdrawn. You must be very gentle with her, Mr Bland.’

  I pursed my lips together. ‘I will do my very best.’

  The role of policeman was one to which I was particularly ill-suited. I have never been much of a one for detective work, particularly when it comes to the interrogation of suspects. I like to keep my own affairs private and where possible I am happy to extend the same courtesy to other people. Nor do I have a particularly analytical brain. I can stare and stare and stare and still not see a pattern in that damned wallpaper. And, with the death of Finch, I had to throw up my hands and confess: I didn’t have the foggiest idea what was going on. People were dying left, right and centre and – if I was honest – my principal concern now was getting off the damned ship with my own skin intact. The truth could go hang, as far as I was concerned. I just wanted to lock myself in my cabin and stay there until we all arrived safely in Lakehurst. But I knew that the murderer on board the Richthofen was unlikely to allow that to happen. He or she had already demonstrated an uncanny ability to get through closed doors; and as a now publicly acknowledged ally of a Scotland Yard detective I was next in line for the steak knife. Perhaps Maurice had been right, and the poisoned sleeping draught had been intended for me all along. No, if I was to get through this, it was far better for me to throw myself about, play the policeman, and make damned sure I wasn’t left alone with anyone even for a second.

  I moved across to the chair where Miss Hurst was sitting. The steward had thoughtfully laid out a tray of sandwiches for her, as consolation for the interruption of her supper, and the young woman was nibbling disconsolately at the edges of a cucumber sandwich. She looked up at me as I loomed over her. There was no fear in her eyes this time, just an acceptance of the inevitable, like a rabbit that knew it could not escape the pot and had given up trying. ‘Miss Hurst? Shall we go somewhere private?’

  She nodded numbly but did not move.

  ‘The games room?’ I gestured across to the far end of the promenade.

  She nodded again and rose stiffly to her feet. A prisoner being led to the gallows.

  I gesticulated to the steward at the door and he followed us across the promenade, stationing himself politely by the far window. I did not have any fear of Miss Hurst, but there was no harm in being careful. He would be able to see us through the games room window and his presence might serve to reassure the Englishwoman that she was in no danger from me. I would shut the door, however, so that he could not overhear our conversation.

  I ushered Miss Hurst inside the small, square room and we found ourselves a couple of chairs at the larger of the three gaming tables. The steward had sat himself down at the exterior window on the far side of the promenade.

  ‘Do you know what this is about?’ I asked her gently as we settled ourselves in the ugly metal chairs.

  ‘Mr Finch found out the truth about me,’ she mumbled, numbly. ‘And you know it too.’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ I informed her sombrely. ‘But don’t worry. I know you didn’t kill Mr Finch. You were with Miss Tanner down in the smoking room when the murder took place.’ I would have to check up on that at some point, I thought. I only had Miss Tanner’s word for it, though I had seen her arriving at the top of the stairs. But I doubted both ladies would lie about something that would be so easy to check. ‘But there is this matter of your...’ I tried to think how to phrase it delicately. ‘Your double life.’

  Miss Hurst swallowed hard. ‘You’ve known about it for a while, haven’t you?’ she said, meeting my eyes firmly for the first time.

  I wasn’t quite sure what she meant but I nodded sagely. It’s as well, in these situations, to pretend you know everything. Then the other person inevitably fills in any blanks for you, without you having to ask.

  ‘I knew you would work it out,’ she breathed. ‘Every time we bumped into each other, I could see it in your eyes.’ She shuddered. Her hands were shaking on the table top. ‘You saw straight through me. He knows, I thought. He knows the truth.’ She closed her eyes briefly and swallowed again. ‘Have you...have you told Miss Tanner?’

  ‘Not me. Mr Finch informed her, before he....’

  The girl started to sniffle. I reached into my breast pocket and produced a handkerchief, which I handed across.

  ‘She must despise me. The damage I’ve done to her.’ Miss Hurst rubbed her nose with the handkerchief.

  ‘Damage?’ Again, I wasn’t quite sure what she was getting at.

  ‘To her reputation. What will people think, knowing she’s been sharing a cabin with a man?’

  ‘Well, I can’t imagine.’ I blinked. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘And what will Mr McGilton think?’

  The girl was making no sense. What on Earth was she babbling on about? ‘Sorry, you’ve lost me. What man? She’s been sharing her cabin with a man?’

  Miss Hurst regarded me uncertainly. ‘Yes, all this time.’

  I stared at her for a moment. I still hadn’t a clue what she was talking about. ‘I don’t follow. I thought you were sharing the cabin with her.’

  She brought the handkerchief back up to her mouth. ‘You mean, you didn’t know?’

  ‘Know what? What man? What are you talking about...?’ And then the penny dropped. I stared at Miss Hurst in disbelief. For a moment, there was silence. ‘You don’t mean...you?’ The woman swallowed hard and nodded. ‘You mean...you’re a man?’

  She nodded again. Or rather, he nodded.

  I could not think of an appropriate response.

  ‘Good grief,’ I said.

  Chapter Sixteen

  There was a long, embarrassed silence. I don’t know who was more disconcerted, Miss Hurst or myself. Her eyes were rooted to my face, waiting for a reaction. I had seen that same look in my own eyes many times, staring back at me from the bathroom mirror. I gazed across the table at her in an understandable state of confusion. She couldn’t be a man, I thought. It wasn’t possible. Her face was rounded and feminine, her lips a soft pink set against that ghastly pallid complexion. Even allowing for the make up, there was nothing remotely masculine in her appearance. That slender neck, the slim figure. And as for her voice... I shook my head. I had spent my life masquerading as a member of the opposite sex and I felt sure I would have known if anybody else was trying to pull off the same trick, even if it was the other way round. But I had not had a moment’s suspicion of Miss Annabel Hurst. ‘You can’t be a man,’ I said at last. ‘I don’t believe it.’

  ‘It’s true,’ she mumbled, without a hint of duplicity. ‘I thought you knew. I thought that was why you wanted to talk to me. Because you’d found out the truth.’

  ‘We found out you were travelling under a false passport,’ I blustered, ‘but I had no idea about...about this.’ I gestured vaguely towards her lap. Her skirt was brushed neatly over the edge of her knees. Even her legs looked feminine, I thought. ‘You can’t be a man,’ I muttered again.

  ‘I’m afraid I am. I was so sure that you had guessed.’

  ‘But you were...I mean, it’s not possible...’ If anything, when we kept bumping into each other all over the ship, I had thought she had guessed my secret. This was absurd. It couldn’t be true. I had half a mind to shove a hand up her skirt and prove her wrong; but the steward was still watching us carefully through the window and even I could not contemplate such a drastic and ungentlemanly course of action. Miss Hurst saw the idea flash across my face, however, and to my surprise, she placed her hands on her lap and gently pulled up the hem of her skirt. I regarded her dubiously. We were both sitting upright with the circular table between us, our lower halves out of sight through the promenade window. She hitched the skirt as high
as it would go, but I couldn’t exactly get a good view of it from this angle and I wasn’t sure that I wanted to. It didn’t feel right, staring at the woman when her under things were exposed like that. Could it be true? I wondered. Was Miss Hurst really a man? I could see a small section of her undergarments – the plain cotton drawers above the brown stocking tops – but the view was not good enough to draw any conclusion regarding their contents. I shook my head irritably. From this distance, I couldn’t tell one way or the other. If she had been a woman pretending to be a man then she could have just unbuttoned her blouse and that would have been that. But a man pretending to be a woman...there was only one way that could ever be proved.

  An embarrassing memory flashed up in my mind. When I had searched Walter Kendall’s cabin, I had been so desperate to find that Special Branch file that I had slid a hand into his trouser pockets. It had not been a pleasant thing to do – less still the second time around, when I had known he was dead – but I had done it anyway. And now another, equally unpleasant course of action opened itself up to me. Perhaps if I were to slip off one of my shoes...

  Miss Hurst was watching me carefully, her skirt still hitched up at the front. She knew her fate depended on whatever I decided in the next few moments. As far as she was concerned, I was the representative of law and order on board this ship.

  I placed my right foot on the back heel of my left shoe and slipped my foot out of it. Extending my leg underneath the table, I aimed the foot vaguely towards the opposite chair and flicked my eyes down at it. Miss Hurst followed my gaze and saw the leg underneath the table. She swallowed hard and gave her consent with a barely perceptible nod. It was an unchivalrous and down-right depraved thing to suggest but what choice did I have? There was no other way to determine the truth of the matter.

  With a profound sense of embarrassment, I slipped my toes under the hem of her skirt, which had slid back down a little from her waist. At this point, edging forward in my seat, my leg was somewhat over extended. At the last moment, I misjudged the distance involved and my foot leapt forward several inches, my sock smacking solidly against the woman’s crotch. Or rather, against the man’s crotch.

  Miss Hurst flinched and I pulled my foot away in alarm, almost falling off my chair.

  ‘Good God!’ I exclaimed, dropping my leg and pulling myself back up in the chair. ‘You are a man!’ I put my hand to my mouth, worried for a moment about the volume of my voice. The steward, however, was looking out of the far window. I took a moment to collect myself. There was absolutely no doubt about it. Annabel Hurst was a man. Good heavens, I thought. I bent down and slid my foot back into the shoe, to cover my embarrassment. Miss Hurst quickly smoothed down her skirt. Her hands were shaking too. His hands were shaking. I stared at the fellow in astonishment. ‘I would never have believed it.’

  ‘I thought you knew,’ she mumbled again, her face even paler now than before. ‘I would never have said anything if...’ She took a deep breath and lifted her hand, which she held out across the table tentatively. ‘My name’s Andrew,’ he said. ‘Andrew Hurst.’ Numbly, I leaned forward and grabbed the hand. His palms were unpleasantly sweaty but, then again, so were mine just now. I do not know who was more discomforted, Miss Hurst or I.

  Even with the evidence of my own foot, I still could not believe I was looking at a man. I regarded him quietly for some moments. His face was gently made up, his hair shoulder length. If he was a man he couldn’t be much older than twenty-one or twenty-two. There was nothing approaching a stubble that I could see. He had less hair on his chin than I did.

  ‘But you’ve been sharing with Miss Tanner.’

  ‘I know. I didn’t intend to. I had hoped to have a cabin to myself all the way to New York. When I got to Seville and found we were sharing a room, I didn’t know what to do. But there’s been no impropriety. We take it in turns to get changed. She thinks I’m a dreadful prude. I won’t undress when she’s in the room and she gets changed while I’m in the bathroom.’

  At least the cramped cabins were benefiting someone, I thought. ‘And how long have you been living as a woman?’

  She sighed, folding up the handkerchief gently. ‘Not long. A year or so.’

  ‘But...what’s wrong with being a man?’ I asked her. ‘Why would you want to pretend otherwise?’

  ‘You wouldn’t understand.’

  I was probably better placed than anyone else on the planet to understand, but I wasn’t about to tell her that. Perhaps her father had been as deranged as mine.

  ‘It’s not a matter of pretence,’ she insisted. ‘It’s who I am.’

  ‘Did Mr Schulz know?’

  She shook her head sadly. ‘He had no idea. We fell in love. I met him in Berlin last summer. I’d heard there were places in Germany that were...more accepting of people who were different.’

  I narrowed my eyes. ‘You’re attracted to other men?’

  A flash of fear shot across her face. That was an even bigger admission to make. But she nodded sadly. ‘It’s disgusting, I know, but I can’t help myself. I’ve always...I’ve always preferred men.’ She shuddered again, looking down at her lap. ‘You must think me absolutely vile.’

  ‘You are as God made you.’ I shrugged. I was hardly in a position to cast stones. ‘I can’t pretend to understand, but if it brings you some pleasure, then where’s the harm?’ I have never really understood why people take so vehemently against queers. They are a fairly harmless bunch, as a rule, and what people do in the privacy of their own homes is their own affair. There are far greater depravities in the world and some of them are actually worthy of a little scorn. Andrew Hurst was doing no harm to anyone.

  ‘That’s what I told myself. It wasn’t just that I was attracted to men. I never felt like a man myself. It was as if I had always been a woman, at least on the inside.’

  That, I had to confess, I couldn’t quite grasp. My father had beaten me into accepting my own situation but I had never felt like anything other than a woman pretending to be a man. I nodded sympathetically in any case.

  ‘So I went to Berlin,’ she continued, ‘where no one would know me, and I set myself up as Miss Annabel Hurst. I thought I’d see how it went.’ Her face lit up suddenly. ‘I didn’t expect to fall in love. We spent the summer together.’ She flushed happily at the memory. ‘Gerhard was the perfect gentleman. So kind and courteous. But I felt so guilty. I tried to break it off with him when I returned to England. But he wouldn’t take no for an answer. I couldn’t bear being back in England, with my parents, living a lie. So I decided to go and live in the United States. I had some savings. Enough to start anew. I wrote to Gerhard, telling him of my intentions. He begged me not to go, asked me to see him one last time. I met up with him in Germany. The silly fool had bought a ticket on the Richthofen. He could only afford to go as far as Seville. But he proposed to me on the flight. What could I say?’ She sniffled. ‘I had to turn him down. He would never have accepted me if he’d found out the truth. He fell in love with a dream, but it wasn’t really me. I feel so awful. He took his life because of me. It’s all my fault.’

  ‘You’re not to blame,’ I told her firmly. ‘If it wasn’t you, he’d have lost his head over somebody else. These romantic types always do.’

  ‘But if I hadn’t been...if I hadn’t been this way...’ She glanced down again at her skirt in despair. ‘I’m a pervert, Mr Bland. A depraved sinner.’

  ‘Nonsense. You’re nothing of the kind. Believe me, I’ve committed far worse crimes.’

  She looked up in surprise. ‘That can’t be true. You’re a policeman.’

  ‘After a fashion. But in my line of work, things have a habit of getting a little grey.’

  Miss Hurst shook her head. ‘I’m sure that isn’t the case. But if you didn’t know about any of this, then...why was Mr Finch investigating me? Why was he searching my room?’

  Back to the business in hand. ‘He and I were investigating the theft of some important document
s from London. We discovered that you were using a false passport and naturally suspicion fell on you.’

  ‘Documents? I don’t know anything about any documents.’

  I could see at a glance that she was telling the truth. He was telling the truth. Even now, I was finding it difficult to think of Miss Hurst as a man. Dammit, why did people have to make life so complicated? ‘But your passport is false?’

  ‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘I paid a man forty pounds to arrange it. He didn’t know anything about me. I just told him I wanted to start life afresh. I provided a photograph – as Miss Annabel Hurst – and that was that.’

  ‘But this fellow. He didn’t ask you for a favour in return?’

  ‘A favour?’

  ‘Like acting as a courier on that flight you took on Saturday morning. Maybe carrying a small parcel for him from Croydon to Friedrichshafen?’

  ‘No. I got hold of the passport last year. I’ve never been a courier. I don’t know anything about that.’

  ‘Right.’ So despite everything I had learned in the last ten minutes, it looked like I was no further forward with my investigations.

  ‘You’re not going to expose my secret, are you?’

  I shook my head. Why would I? The popular press would tear her to pieces, on both sides of the Atlantic. I couldn’t put the woman through that. Not when it might just as easily have been me in her place. ‘There’s no reason why I should, my dear. So long as you’re telling me the truth. But the thing of it is, we know that these documents were on that flight. And one of the passengers must have been carrying them. If it wasn’t you, then it must have been either Josef Kaufmann, Adelina Koenig or Frederick Gray.’

  ‘Or Captain Rüdiger,’ Miss Hurst added.

  I regarded her blankly. ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Captain Rüdiger. He was the pilot.’