Flora's Secret

by Anita Davison

  ‘What makes you think he’s working for anyone?’

  ‘Something Eloise said, but she’s scared and may have twisted things.’

  ‘It seems Hersch has persuaded you that everyone’s word is suspect in this affair but his own.’

  Flora’s coffee cup froze on its way to her mouth. ‘Are you saying I’m wrong to trust him?’

  ‘Not that exactly. But it could be exactly what he wants.’

  Her stomach did a sickening lurch. Had she accepted everything Mr Hersch had told her too readily? It was possible. After all, what better way to distract her than appearing to be as eager as she to discover the truth? Then again, it wasn’t Hersch who had growled at her outside the dining room. Or was it?

  ‘Flora,’ Bunny spoke her name in the slow, contemplative way he did when putting a thought together, his arm draped across the back of her chair inches from her shoulder. ‘Why did Hersch ask us to bring information to him? Why not the captain?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Flora frowned. ‘He told me he had examined the body as well.’

  ‘Really?’ Bunny shifted his glasses slightly on his nose. ‘Why did he do that? And more interestingly, why did Captain Gates allow it?’

  Chapter 12

  Wednesday

  The next morning, Flora woke to dramatically changed weather where a low leaden sky smothered the sun. A malevolent wind howled round the ship as if seeking a way in, while the deck rose and fell, taking Flora’s stomach with it. Her ablutions took longer than usual, with one foot braced against the basin to steady herself as bottles on the shelf above the sink slid to one side, then changed direction without warning and threatened to topple onto the floor.

  Four days of unsteady floors and flat horizons had made her long for the familiar smells of grass, earth, even manure. The clop of horses’ hooves and the swish of tree branches in the wind were preferable to the stark loneliness in the creak of bulwarks, or the wind’s mournful howl as it sang through the winch lines.

  Struggling into her corset, it occurred to Flora that if she ate any more cream cakes, she would be pounds heavier by the time they reached England. However, the thought of breakfast made her mouth water, so she decided abstemiousness could wait.

  In the sitting room, Eddy greeted her with raised eyebrows and an exaggerated study of his wristwatch.

  ‘I know I’m late,’ Flora forestalled what she assumed was a cryptic remark. ‘I didn’t sleep particularly well.’ Images of being caught in Parnell’s cabin had plagued her sleep, making the night less than restful. The deck did a sharp dip sideways, sloshing Eddy’s tea onto the carpet. ‘Maybe we’re in for a real storm.’

  ‘I do hope not.’ Flora righted herself again, her gaze going to the fine spray that battered the windows, then back to the tray at Eddy’s elbow. ‘And you’ll have no room for breakfast if you eat all those biscuits.’

  ‘Can’t help it.’ He grinned. ‘This sea air makes me ravenous. I’d better not be late either, or Ozzy will snaffle all the sausages.’

  ‘Be careful, Eddy,’ Flora called after him, debating whether she should accompany him.

  ‘Be careful of what? A bit of wind?’ He snatched his jacket from a chair and made for the door.

  Flora hesitated, unwilling to tell him what was really worrying her. ‘The deck will be slippery, make sure you hold onto something.’

  ‘Don’t fuss, Flora. I know my way round this ship quite well now.’ He beamed at her seconds before the door banged shut behind him.

  Almost immediately, a muffled knock announced the arrival of Eloise.

  ‘I thought that boy would never leave.’ She stomped inside the room without an invitation, a shawl wrapped tight round her shoulders. ‘It’s freezing out there. Are you ready?’

  ‘I suppose so.’ Flora tied a scarf round her head and followed Eloise into a salt-tinged wind that plastered her skirt to her legs.

  Her second foray into burglary proved a lot less stressful than her first, in that all she was required to do was to pace the covered deck outside Parnell’s stateroom while Eloise made her search. Guilt made her feel conspicuous, but was offered no more than a polite, ‘good morning,’ or a casually delivered, ‘blustery weather, isn’t it?’ from tightly muffled passengers who hurried past on their way to the dining room.

  ‘Did you find it?’ Flora demanded when Eloise finally emerged.

  ‘It’s not there!’ She grabbed Flora’s arm and dragged her the furthest point beneath the canopy away from the worst of the wind.

  ‘You must have!’ Flora hissed. ‘I didn’t lie to you. It was there.’

  ‘Did I say you had?’ Eloise snapped. ‘Frank’s stateroom has been emptied since we were last there. His clothes are all gone.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Flora asked.

  ‘There’s nothing I can do, but hope no one challenges me before we reach London.’ She glanced past Flora’s shoulder, gripping her upper arm in warning.

  Flora turned her head to where Bunny approached more slowly than normal. He kept close to the suite doors, his shoulders hunched against the wind.

  ‘My, you look handsome today, Mr Harrington,’ Eloise greeted him as he drew level, and peered up at him through her sweeping lashes. ‘But then you always do.’

  Had Bunny not flushed a deep red, Flora might have been jealous. How had such an attractive man not learned to handle compliments with grace, even contrived ones?

  ‘Good morning, Miss Lane, Flora.’ He pushed his glasses further up his nose with a middle finger. ‘I came to see if you were up to breakfast in this rough weather. Not everyone takes it in their stride.’ As he spoke, a gentleman rushed past them, a handkerchief clutched to his mouth.

  Eloise backed away. ‘I don’t mind the wind, but the food on this ship is too rich for my girlish figure, so I’ll make do with coffee in my stateroom.’

  ‘Eloise!’ Flora aimed a pointed glare in her direction, but with a brief wave through the gap in her door, she closed it on Flora’s protests.

  ‘Did I interrupt something?’ Bunny asked.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Flora said through gritted teeth. She slipped her arm through his and drew him in the direction of the dining room. ‘I’ll catch up with her later.’

  *

  ‘Are you sure you want to sit out here?’ Flora asked Bunny for the third time since he had suggested the idea over breakfast.

  With a firm hand in the small of her back, he guided her onto the saloon deck, where passengers scurried past them, their backs to the bulwarks to avoid being showered with salt spray from a choppy sea.

  ‘Why not? Look, the Gilmores are game.’ He nodded to where Monica and Gerald occupied steamer chairs set in the shelter of the main superstructure. ‘Hersch and Gus Crowe are here too. C’mon, Flora, you can’t back out now.’

  ‘All right,’ Flora muttered, grabbing onto a winch line, the metal slick and sharply cold beneath her fingers. ‘But I warn you, if it gets too bad, I’m going back in.’ She flopped into her steamer chair with bad grace, wishing she had remained in her suite.

  A door banged behind them, announcing the arrival of Max, his arm round Cynthia’s waist as they slowly edged towards the line of steamer chairs, wrapped from head to toe in a beige fur coat with a matching hat that could never have been mistaken for anything but real fur.

  ‘How did I let you talk me into this, Max?’ Cynthia tottered across the slick deck, giving small shrieks as the odd wave landed on the edge of the deck.

  ‘Rubbish!’ Max wrapped his overcoat tighter round himself. ‘It’s no worse than a walk on Brighton beach in November. Character-building.’

  Cynthia didn’t look convinced, her cheekbones highlighted with angry colour as she took the chair Max had dragged into line for her.

  In a calf-length mink coat which might have conceivably survived the early half of the last century, Miss Ames bustled to join them, her arms splayed to keep her balance. At the end of the row, Mr Hersch resembled an
amiable polar bear in his white fur coat that reached to the floor, a matching hat pulled down over his ears.

  Eloise ignored the steamer chairs, and braving the wind she stood at the rail, her head thrown back and her long jacket flaps spread behind her like wings. She laughed at the waves that sent a shower of salt spray over her, calling encouragement to other to join her, though no one did. Flora watched her, bemused at her change of mood. She had been frantic to get that photograph back, but now she seemed unconcerned at the thought someone else might have got there before her.

  Or had she had lied about finding it after all, and didn’t want Flora to know?

  She shook her ungracious thoughts away, reluctant to believe Eloise had deceived her – again.

  ‘This Atlantic air is certainly exhilarating.’ Mr Hersch pulled his fur hat down to his eyebrows, a scarf covering the lower part of his face leaving only his eyes visible.

  Gus Crowe huddled on the chair beside him, shivering in his raincoat and thin trousers.

  Taking pity on him, Flora handed him the spare blanket from beneath her chair.

  ‘Thanks, awfully.’ Like a small boy offered a treat, he grabbed it to his chest as if it were a lifebelt. ‘Ankles getting a bit chilled, what?’

  A steward staggered along the line of chairs, a tureen of hot bouillon balanced precariously on a tray. He paused in front of Bunny, one foot hooked round the metal support to prevent him sliding across the deck, and expertly poured the flurry of orders thrown his way.

  Bunny scraped his chair closer to Flora’s with a screech of wood, handed her a full cup from the tray and took one for himself. Accepting it gratefully, she held it briefly below her chin, allowing the savoury-smelling steam to warm her face. The steward moved on and served Monica, whose chocolate-coloured fur coat boasted a fur-lined hood in a lighter colour which made Flora envious. Her own wool coat was heavy, but uncomfortable when wet, so she hoped the sea wouldn’t get any rougher. Even Bunny was wrapped in a sheepskin coat with a wide fur collar and matching trim along the edges. Her gaze swept the line of chairs, and the thought occurred to her that with so many pelts on display, they might have had raided a zoo.

  ‘Now tell me,’ Bunny said from the chair which still bore Eddy’s name. ‘Why do you keep staring at Eloise? Has she annoyed you again?’

  ‘She’s such an enigma, I wish I knew what she was thinking. One minute she’s terrified and the next she doesn’t have a care.’

  ‘Excuse me, I’m going to get my fur muff,’ Monica said, squeezing between their chairs. ‘These gloves aren’t warm enough,’ she explained, though Flora hadn’t asked. ‘Won’t be a moment.’ With a hand clamped to her head, she headed back to her suite, her head bent into the wind.

  ‘Go on, you were saying,’ Bunny prompted when she had gone.

  ‘Eloise told me she was married, but that her husband died.’

  ‘Really?’ His reaction was satisfyingly astonished. ‘She just came out with it?’

  ‘Not at first. She dropped a bracelet and when I saw the inscription, she explained. Well part of it. I got the impression they hadn’t been married long, but I don’t know the details.’

  ‘Flora,’ Bunny lowered his voice in warning, ‘don’t you think you’re taking this investigation business too far? We all have something we don’t wish to world to know. If all Eloise has to hide is a photograph and a bracelet, she’s doing better than most.’

  ‘Eloise said Parnell blackmailed her into giving him the money.’ She chose not to mention their second foray into Parnell’s cabin, unwilling to have that conversation again.

  ‘Money that hasn’t been found,’ Bunny reminded her.

  ‘Granted, but she gave it to him because Parnell claimed to have evidence that Eloise had killed her husband.’

  ‘Did she? Kill him, I mean?’

  ‘Parnell or her husband?’

  ‘Both. Either. Goodness, Flora, are you saying Eloise murdered Parnell to stop him revealing she had killed her own husband?’

  ‘I don’t know what I’m saying. She promised to explain everything, but now she’s avoiding me again,’ Flora muttered into her bouillon. ‘I could help her if she was honest with me. I wouldn’t judge her.’

  ‘If you insist on sympathizing with suspects, you’ll never be a detective,’ Bunny said, his low chuckle making her insides melt, just as a sound to her right brought her attention to where Gerald glared angrily at Gus Crowe across Monica’s still empty chair, his cheeks and nosed flushed an enraged red. ‘What exactly do you mean by that?’

  ‘I thought Parnell was a friend of yours, that’s all I said. If I was wrong, I apologize. No need to get tetchy.’ Crowe’s smirk revealed more triumph than apology.

  ‘If your intention is to get me into strife with the captain, Crowe, you’re out of luck,’ Gerald snapped. ‘Parnell and I met once. It was years ago and under unfortunate circumstances. I hardly recognized the man and he used a different name.’

  ‘What business did you say you’re in, Gilmore?’ Gus Crowe’s hooded eyes were like slits, as if he knew something no one else did.

  ‘I didn’t.’ Gerald’s mouth curved into a superior sneer, and he tossed back the contents of his bouillon cup in one swallow.

  ‘What’s that dear?’ Monica returned, apparently having heard the tail end of their conversation. She eased back into her steamer chair, the muff perched on her lap like a sleeping cat. ‘He’s in shipping now, aren’t you, dear? He stopped dealing in property after that awful scandal—’

  ‘That’s enough, Monica,’ Gerald scowled her into silence. ‘I’m sure everyone here doesn’t want to know our entire history.’

  ‘I was only saying,’ Monica sniffed and buried her nose in the cup Cynthia handed her.

  Embarrassed looks ran along the line, while everyone sipped their bouillon and pretended not to have heard.

  ‘Is anyone going to the dance tomorrow evening?’ Cynthia raised her voice above the howl of the wind in a diplomatic change of subject.

  ‘I haven’t quite decided,’ Miss Ames replied. ‘It strikes me as disrespectful after a death on board.’ She tossed the trailing end of her ancient fur stole over her shoulder, releasing a flurry of tiny hairs.

  ‘Captain Gates thought it would be a good idea to reinstate it,’ Mr Hersch said. ‘He’s more than aware what the death of Parnell has done for morale on board.

  ‘Have you appointed yourself ambassador to the crew, Hersch?’ Crowe asked, a sneer on his face; his nose and cheeks red from the cold, which made him less attractive than ever.

  The German merely smiled, while Flora gave the idea some thought. She would have liked to attend, not least because Bunny would be there, but couldn’t ignore the fact she had nothing suitable in her wardrobe for a dance, despite Amelia Vaughn’s generous contributions.

  ‘Well, I’m going.’ Cynthia waved her bouillon cup in the air. ‘I need something to cheer me up. I’m sure most of the other passengers feel the same.’

  ‘I expect Eloise would agree with you.’ Monica nodded to the lone figure of the actress at the rail. ‘This business has spoiled the voyage for the young people. What about you, Flora?’

  ‘Humph, disrespectful if you ask me,’ Mrs Penry-Jones said before Flora could answer, her mouth puckered in disapproval. She resembled a Russian babushka doll with her scarf hiding her hair and fastened tightly beneath her chin.

  ‘At least the fancy dress theme has been abandoned.’ Gerald’s sanguine nature resurfaced after his brief spat with Crowe. ‘Makes the prospect slightly more welcoming. Monica would have me decked out as a harlequin if I let her. Bobble hat and all.’

  ‘Gerald!’ Monica’s tone conveyed hurt. ‘You look quite dashing in that costume.’ She turned to Flora. ‘Well, dear. Will you be going?’

  A sudden vision of Gerald’s generous, six-foot frame in a diamond-patterned costume complete with pointed hat made Flora’s mouthful of bouillon go down the wrong way. She took a rasping breath, which ended
abruptly when Bunny obligingly slapped her hard between her shoulder blades. Recovering herself, she was about to respond, when Mrs Penry-Jones round tones cut across her again.

  ‘Not if she has any regard for the way things ought to be done. In my day, governesses did not attend the captain's dance.’

  Flora hesitated, torn between acceptance and attracting more censure from that quarter.

  ‘Say you will.’ Bunny nudged her. ‘I was hoping for at least one turn around the floor with you.’

  ‘I don’t have anything suitable to wear,’ Flora said, embarrassed at this admission as much as the plea in Bunny’s voice.

  ‘That’s what every woman says,’ Max muttered with some bitterness.

  ‘Come to our suite after lunch, Flora.’ Cynthia leaned across Max’s lap, her pixie face wreathed in a warm smile. ‘I have heaps of dresses, and we are about the same size. I’m sure to have something which will suit you.’

  ‘Tha-that’s most kind, thank you.’ Flora blinked in surprise, by both the offer and its source, while Bunny delivered a ‘who would have thought it’ look.

  Cynthia gave an elegant little shrug, cast a swift sideways look at Mrs Penry-Jones and winked. ‘Can’t let the old folks have their way every time, can we?’

  ‘Really!’ Mrs Penry-Jones gave a pointed sniff before going back to her bouillon.

  Chapter 13

  The pounding of feet along the deck announced the arrival of Eddy and Ozzy, both dressed for the weather in layers of jumper, overcoats and flapping scarves.

  ‘What have you two being doing this morning?’ Flora asked, reassured by the increased presence of the crewmen, who ushered passengers away from the slippery areas on decks and staircases, offering helpful arms to the less steady on their feet.