Flora's Secret

by Anita Davison

Flora contributed no more to the conversation but a vague smile and drummed her fingers on the table until the waiter left.

  ‘Well,’ she asked Bunny when the man was finally out of earshot, ‘aren’t you going to ask me about Eloise?’

  ‘What’s to ask?’ He swallowed a mouthful of coffee, setting the cup back into its saucer with a click. ‘She was semi-conscious when I left. I assume you settled her in bed and left her to sleep it off.’

  ‘Not quite, she—’ Flora broke off as the waiter returned with a gleaming silver coffee pot, fidgeting as he fussed with the crockery and inquired if they desired anything further.

  ‘You seem edgy,’ Bunny said when they were alone again. A tiny crease appeared between his brows as he gave her some thought. ‘Did something happen after I left last night?’

  Flora told him, his face turning from mild interest to an incredulous stare as the story progressed.

  ‘Are you serious?’ He demanded when she had finished, his voice dropping to an angry whisper. ‘How could you have been so reckless?’

  Several heads turned in their direction and she shushed him. ‘It all happened so quickly, I didn’t have time to argue. Eloise practically dragged me along.’

  ‘I’m not the one to whom you’ll have to make your excuses if you’re found out.’ He spread a piece of toast with butter, adding after a pause. ‘There was nothing there, you say?’

  ‘No money, but there was a photograph of a man and a woman in amongst his shirts. I didn’t have time to study it closely, because we were interrupted, but—’

  ‘You were discovered?’ The toast froze halfway to his mouth, a drop of melted butter dripped onto the tablecloth.

  ‘Don’t panic.’ She waved him away. ‘It was only a couple who had come to the wrong stateroom. They went away again. No one saw us.’

  He exhaled slowly through pursed lips and relaxed back in his chair. The relief on his face made her want to wrap her arms around him to reassure him he had no reason to worry on her account. It was a strange sensation, similar to the protectiveness she felt towards Eddy, but somehow different.

  ‘Do you have the photograph?’ he asked.

  ‘What?’ She slanted a sardonic look at him beneath her lashes. ‘Add theft to my litany of crime?’

  ‘No, of course not, I simply—’ He dropped the toast back onto his plate. ‘Can you be sure it wasn’t a picture of Eloise and Parnell? They might have been closer than she admitted.’

  ‘I’m positive.’ She hunched closer. ‘The man in the photograph was taller and far more handsome. Oh, and he had a moustache.’

  ‘Like roughly a third of the male population,’ Bunny murmured.

  ‘Here’s another question then. Why does Eloise dye her hair an unflattering black? It dulls her vibrant looks, which as an actress, I imagine is the opposite of what she would want.’

  ‘I expect actresses do it all the time to suit their roles.’ He took another bite of his toast and chewed.

  Flora fiddled with her napkin, mainly to give her something to do with her hands to stop her slapping him. Why did he have to contradict everything she said?

  ‘Flora?’ he said, slowly after a moment. ‘You realize that had Eloise taken the money, and been caught, you would have been an accessory to theft?’

  ‘The money was Eloise’s, so that’s not like—’ she broke off. ‘Oh. I couldn’t prove that, could I?’

  ‘Exactly. And it worries me that you took her word for it.’

  He was right. That was exactly what she had done, believed every word Eloise had told her. And her an actress, who had already fooled her once by convincing her she was drunk. The fact Bunny had also been taken in didn’t make her feel much better either.

  ‘It didn’t sound like a lie at the time.’ Aware her excuse sounded feeble, Flora fell silent as the waiter slid a plate under her nose that contained a triangle of yellow smoked haddock that glistened beneath a layer of melted butter, a perfectly round poached egg on top. Until that moment she hadn’t realized she was hungry, her mind having been too preoccupied with Eloise and their adventure, interspersed with the croaky voice outside the dining room. She had studied the voices of everyone around her closely since it happened, hoping someone would give themselves away, but thus far no one had even made her think twice. She trickled vinegar onto her fish, then caught Bunny’s expression of horror and frowned. ‘What?’

  ‘Are you actually going to eat that?’ He wrinkled his nose and peered at her plate.

  ‘I certainly am.’ She had always loved the piquant taste of vinegar and put it on everything. Well almost. ‘Could we return to our original subject? Eloise couldn’t have known Parnell was going to die.’ She loaded her fork with white flesh and brought it to her lips, trying not to moan with pleasure as she chewed the first mouthful. ‘She’s not convinced it was an accident, either.’

  ‘Then she should take her concerns to the captain. Why do you care if it was murder or not?’ Bunny lowered his voice as passengers filed into the dining room. ‘You didn’t even know the man.’

  ‘Maybe not.’ Flora twirled her empty fork. ‘I simply hate being told what to do by men who think they have all the answers. Officer Martin, the captain, even Dr Fletcher’s dismissive sneer irritated me. They seem to think because I am a girl, I have no common sense or intelligence.’ She stabbed the poached egg viciously with her knife, breaking the yolk that leaked in a pool over her plate.

  ‘Governess, or emancipated woman? Which are you, Flora Maguire?’ Bunny winked at her over the rim of his coffee cup.

  ‘Maybe both.’

  A warm glow spread upwards from her stomach, which she fought down. She refused to let that smouldering look affect her. He probably wasn’t even aware he did smoulder.

  ‘What about the cash Parnell won at cards?’ Flora said, composed again. ‘Eloise didn’t know about that. That money should have been in his stateroom, but there was no sign of it.’ She was about to dip a piece of bread roll into the runny egg yolk on her plate, but thought better of it.

  ‘Or she said she didn’t. Everyone was talking about Parnell and the card game. She might have learned of it at any time during yesterday.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’ Though Eloise’s reaction when Flora had mentioned it seemed genuine.

  ‘His winnings could have been on his body when he was found.’ Bunny chewed a piece of bacon thoughtfully. ‘If so, Captain Gates would have lodged it in the ship’s safe without telling anyone.’

  ‘I suppose that’s possible.’ Flora summoned an image of Dr Fletcher going through the dead man’s pockets and sighed as her theory began to fall apart.

  ‘So where does this take us?’ Bunny asked, when she remained silent. ‘Perhaps Eloise thought he would lose her money at the card table and refused to give it to him. They argued and he ended up at the bottom of those steps?’

  ‘But he didn’t lose,’ Flora said. ‘He won.’

  ‘The other night he did, yes. But gamblers always think they’ll win. That’s why they’re gamblers.’

  ‘I don’t believe Eloise is either a thief or a killer.’ Flora forked more fish into her mouth. ‘She’s a young woman alone who has to make the best of her life because she has no one else to do it for her.’

  ‘How do you know she’s alone in the world? Is that what she told you?’

  ‘No, not in so many words. It was an impression I got.’ Her fork hovered above her plate as she considered the question. ‘Bunny,’ she began, judging this was the right moment to tell him about the incident outside the dining room, ‘something very odd happened last night.’

  ‘I know it did. You became a burglar.’

  ‘No, not that. Last night, I—’ She gasped, and clamped a hand to her mouth as creeping dread crept into her chest. ‘I’ve just remembered! We didn’t lock Parnell’s door after we left.’

  Bunny groaned. ‘Tell me you’re joking.’

  She shook her head, wincing. ‘Do you think anyone w
ill notice?’

  ‘Probably, but there’s nothing you can do about it now.’ His gaze slid past her shoulder, and he cleared his throat in warning.

  Flora turned her head just as Cynthia approached, looking stunning in yellow silk that clung to her slender figure.

  ‘Aren’t you two the early birds,’ she cooed in a fair imitation of one herself. ‘Here, and I thought I was the first.’

  ‘The sea air makes me hungry.’ Bunny stood while Cynthia took her seat.

  Gerald and Monica appeared, squabbling their way from the door, but within five feet of the table, their sour expressions had transformed into identical smiles, as if a switch had been pressed. At times, they were incapable of being more than a handclasp away from each other, while at other times they appeared positively hostile.

  Flora reached for her coffee, frustrated the moment had passed and annoyed with herself that Bunny was bound to find out about the croaky-voiced man at some stage. When he did, he would think she was deliberately keeping secrets from him.

  The dining room filled rapidly for breakfast, with Mr Hersch the next to arrive, followed by the bickering Gilmores and the Cavendishes, who arrived hand in hand, followed by an exuberant Miss Ames, attired in her characteristic mismatch of colours. Mr Crowe sidled in unnoticed, until Flora spotted him helping himself to coffee from a pot at another table, too impatient to wait for their own waiter to arrive with theirs. Soon the steady stream of new arrivals dwindled to ones and twos, but with still no sign of Eloise.

  ‘She’s probably sleeping it off,’ Gerald said when he caught Flora staring at Eloise’s empty chair.

  ‘I suppose so.’ Flora gave him a weak smile, although it wasn’t the condition of Eloise’s head that concerned her.

  The waiter removed Flora’s empty breakfast plate, leaving her to linger over coffee and observe her fellow diners in search of something which might give her some clue as to who might have a nature cold enough to kill a man, and threaten women in corridors.

  Cynthia sat on one side of Mr Hersch and picked at a bowl of fruit, while Miss Ames occupied the other. This morning she wore a lime green blouse under a cobalt blue jacket with mutton leg sleeves. She reminded Flora of a parakeet as she nibbled alternatively at two pastries with slightly protruding teeth. The older woman and the beautiful girl made a strange trio with Mr Hersch, whose penetrating eyes beneath thick, arched silver brows viewed the world with wry amusement. He kept both women entranced with stories about voyages he had been on; his ability to pay attention to a beautiful woman and a plain one with equal charm, a skill Flora could never have guessed at but couldn’t help admiring.

  As with all genuinely clever men, Hersch made no attempt to demonstrate his intellect, giving considered and equal responses to their every remark, no matter how banal. He even managed to coax a genuine laugh from Cynthia.

  Flora tried to imagine his voice reduced to a hiss, but failed. If he wished to hurt someone it would be in face-to-face combat, not shoving a drunken man down a flight of steps in the dark. Which also meant he wasn’t likely to hide behind pillars and whisper threats either. Then she remembered, Hersch was already with Bunny and Cynthia at the dining table when she arrived last night, so it couldn’t have been him, not unless he possessed the gift of being in two places at once. The constant thinking and re-thinking gave her a headache and she was still no wiser.

  ‘Do you happen to be acquainted with Mrs Moreland’s school in Bath, Miss Maguire?’ Monica’s question distracted Flora. ‘We hope to send our girls there in the autumn.’

  ‘Really, Monica,’ her husband said with barely concealed irritation, ‘Flora doesn’t have an intimate knowledge of every educational establishment in the county.’

  ‘I don’t, I’m afraid,’ Flora said gently, softening Gerald’s response. ‘I live at least fifty miles from Bath. Though I may know someone who might. I’d be happy to write and ask them for you.’

  ‘That’s most kind of you, my dear.’ Monica’s gracious smile transformed into a frosty glare she directed at her husband. ‘I’ve heard such good things about it and their fees are higher than anywhere else.’

  Gerald jumped slightly, but whatever he was about to say to this remark, he abandoned, plucked a toothpick from the silver pot on the table and chewed it into shreds.

  ‘Does Gerald seem overly nervous to you this morning?’ she whispered to Bunny once Gerald’s attention turned to a gentleman at a nearby table.

  ‘He does actually.’ Bunny topped up his coffee and offered to do the same for her. ‘Not like him, is it? But then he is married to Monica.’

  ‘Perhaps her character is such because she is married to him,’ Flora retorted, accepting the offer of coffee.

  ‘Hester!’ Mrs Penry-Jones snapped, making Flora jump. ‘You know I don’t like sugar in my coffee.

  ‘I’m dreadfully sorry, Mrs Penry-Jones, I quite forgot.’ Flushing, Hester summoned the waiter, who replaced her employer’s cup with a fresh one.

  Flora tried not to look, her sympathy for Miss Smith almost painful. She wondered if anyone had thought to ask Hester how she felt about Parnell’s death?

  ‘How are you feeling, Miss Smith, after the events of yesterday?’ Mr Hersch’s amiable smile expertly diffused the awkward moment. ‘The death of a fellow passenger?’ His question voiced Flora’s thoughts so closely, she stared, though she had to content herself with his profile as just then, he was not looking her way.

  ‘I-I think it was a dreadful thing to happen.’ Hester pushed her fried egg into mush with her fork. ‘Not that I was acquainted with the gentleman.’

  ‘He wasn’t a gentleman!’ Mrs Penry-Jones snorted. ‘He was a weak, vacillating man with no ambition. Bound to come to a bad end.’

  ‘That’s a somewhat harsh judgement on so short an acquaintance,’ Flora said, impulse overriding her discretion.

  ‘It’s quite obvious!’ The old lady sniffed. ‘I was there when he persuaded a room full of strangers to gamble for high stakes on first meeting. Vulgar man.’

  ‘Indeed he did, much to my cost,’ Gus Crowe broke off from eating to remind them.

  Flora groaned inwardly at his bald admission. Surely if were guilty he wouldn’t be so ready to let everyone think so? Or was it bravado on his part, because most of the table were at the game and knew how much he had lost.

  ‘Still looking for villains, Flora?’ Bunny gave her a playful nudge, breaking her silent contemplation.

  She was about to deliver a pointed retort but thought better of it. He was right and thus far she could detect no guilt among the company, only a few unpleasant character traits.

  ‘Are you sure you didn’t know him, Mrs Penry-Jones?’ Gerald spread a bread roll with butter as he talked. ‘I could have sworn I saw Parnell being admitted to your suite the night he died.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ The old lady’s eyes narrowed with outrage. ‘You must have been mistaken.’

  Hester released a dismayed gasp as she fumbled the glass lid of a jam pot, leaving a smear of apricot conserve on the white tablecloth.

  Gus Crowe smirked and handed her a napkin, leaving her to attempt to clear up the sticky mess, while the old lady fastidiously removed the dish from Hester’s reach with a long-suffering sigh.

  ‘Had anyone knocked at Mrs Penry-Jones’s suite, I would certainly have heard it,’ Hester said, coming to her employer’s defence.

  Mrs Penry-Jones threw Hersch a look of triumph, whilst ignoring Hester’s attempt at support.

  ‘Possibly.’ Gerald wiped his fingers on his napkin. ‘It’s difficult to tell whose stateroom is whose. All the doors look the same.’

  ‘If that is what you saw, Mr Gilmore.’ Mr Hersch fixed Gerald with a hard stare. ‘Why did you not inform the captain?’

  ‘What makes you think I didn’t?’ Gerald held his gaze and the two men stared each other down. Gerald capitulated first, though Hersch appeared to have no answer to this, saved from further questioning by the arrival
of Max.

  ‘Couldn’t find my cufflinks,’ he explained, when Cynthia scolded him for lateness. ‘Looked everywhere, but they aren’t in the suite.’

  ‘Not the ones I gave you for a wedding present?’ Cynthia’s eyes narrowed.

  Max flicked up the back of his jacket and sat. ‘No, not those. The emerald ones.’ He held up one sleeve, which sported a flat, gold oval. ‘Had to wear these instead.’

  ‘You probably packed them in one of the trunks that have been put in the hold. I’m sure they’ll turn up.’ Cynthia waved him away.

  ‘I had them last night in the smoking room. I went to wash my hands so the cards wouldn’t stick, and had to roll up my sleeves, so—’ He broke off and pasted on a smile. ‘You’re probably right, my love. They’ll turn up.’

  ‘Is the meal not to your liking, Miss Smith?’ Mr Hersch asked gently. ‘You’ve hardly touched your breakfast.’

  ‘The eggs are undercooked.’ Hester pushed her plate away with a tiny grimace of distaste.

  ‘My head is pounding this morning.’ Mrs Penry-Jones rose from the table, pausing theatrically until all eyes were on her. ‘I’ll return to my suite and lie down. No, Hester, don’t get up. Finish your breakfast.’

  The gentlemen’s chairs scraped back, and she limped past a steward who scrambled to hold open the door with the hesitant gait of someone with arthritis.

  ‘Your employer appears more upset about a death on board than she would have us believe, Miss Smith,’ Mr Hersch observed as the gentlemen resumed their seats.

  ‘Not at all.’ Hester returned his benign look steadily. ‘She’s notoriously unsentimental.’ Colour returned to her cheeks and her cat-like eyes sparkled. Suddenly she looked, if not pretty, but softer and more animated.

  ‘Does Mrs Penry-Jones have family?’ Monica asked, apparently eager to take advantage of the lady’s absence.

  ‘Her husband was a lawyer in upstate New York,’ Hester replied without hesitation. ‘He died years ago. I believe she was married before, but they lived in Baltimore then.’ She paused to summon the waiter with surprising confidence, demanding her congealed eggs be replaced. ‘She claims acquaintance with everyone,’ she went on when she had everyone’s attention again. ‘But most of the names she mentions are long dead.’