Curse of the Purple Pearl

by Adrian Speed

“He was the wrong sort,” Mrs Rothberg said. “It was my Christian duty to…snuff him out. Like a guttering candle, he needed to go before he harmed anyone.”

  Albert and I exchanged a look. We both turned back to Mrs Rothberg.

  “What?”

  “You know what I mean,” Mrs Rothberg shifted uncomfortably. “He was of the other sort. He was disgraced in Edinburgh because of it. I couldn’t allow a man like that to teach children.”

  “Could you...could you outline the events of yesterday evening after you retired from the wardroom?” I said as gears clashed in my brain.

  “Certainly,” Mrs Rothberg said with a certainty she hadn't had at any time on board before. “I went up to get some air and to comfort Mr Peterson. At the time I still thought the ghastly man was an all right sort, of course. We talked for a while and he confessed...the way he is. Then I made my excuses and left at perhaps nine-thirty, or ten o'clock. Then, at around midnight, he knocked on my door and asked to borrow my stole because he was feeling chill. I entered his cabin to give it to him, saw the gun, took my chance and shot him dead.”

  “It was Mr Peterson's gun?”

  “It certainly wasn't mine,” Mrs Rothberg said.

  “I didn't think Mr Peterson was the type to own a gun.” I dropped the matter.

  “Why did you tell us he had committed suicide?” Albert’s eyes narrowed.

  “Thought I might be able to get away with it,” Mrs Rothberg smiled innocently. “But you did see me holding the gun, didn't you?”

  “What did you do with Albert's wooden trunk?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” Mrs Rothberg said sharply.

  “You expect us to believe two high-level crimes happened in the same room on the same night but are entirely unconnected?” I asked.

  “Believe what you like,” Mrs Rothberg sniffed. “I didn't touch the trunk.”

  “Thank you Mrs Rothberg, this has been most enlightening,” I nodded to the woman and made a motion to Albert for them to leave.

  Albert waited until he heard the door click shut before he spoke.

  “Well that's that,” Albert sighed. “Poor old Peterson.”

  “That is most certainly not that,” I said and struggled to contain a laugh.

  “What?”

  “Mrs Rothberg is a very poor actress,” I said. “And that was a much rehearsed speech she just gave.”

  “But...she just confessed to murder,” Albert spluttered. “Why would anyone lie in order to confess?”

  “I don't know,” I laughed and slapped Albert on the shoulder. “Isn't that wonderful?”

  “Interesting definition of wonderful,” Albert frowned.

  “It could be for any number of reasons,” I said. “To protect the real killer, to keep the pearl from being found, to keep a secret hidden. You and I, Albert, have to find it out.”

  “Oh, what joy,” Albert said, rubbing his temple.

  “But I do know one thing,” I said. “No-one changes their story from a completely unbelievable protestation of innocence to absolute unrepentant admission of guilt unless they really are innocent.” I paused in thought, pressing my thumbnail against my lower lip.

  “Come on, let's talk to the suspects in the wardroom. And bring the pistol.”

  *****

  I found a tableau of different attitudes in the wardroom. Major Stoat had fallen asleep without a care. Were it not for his entry into the corridor earlier, I could believe he never left the chair at all. Mrs O'Connor had fallen asleep as well, wrapped under the arm of her husband. Mr O'Connor regarded them with polite but blank attention. Mr Jones sat in a corner with his feet on a table, his expression a thundercloud, while Mr Rothberg agitatedly tapped his foot against the floor and drummed his hand on the table. I would've expected more composure from a businessman like him.

  “Ahem,” I cleared my throat to wake the sleepers. Mr O'Connor kissed his wife on the forehead to wake her up. Mr Jones gave Major Stoat a slap around the back of the head.

  “What the devil?” Major Stoat flustered in his chair, struggling to stand up. “Who's there? Wazzat?”

  “The search of the ship for the missing pearl is on-going,” I announced. “I am confident it will be found soon. My inspection of Mr Peterson suggests that the cause of death was not suicide.” Relief flooded Mr Jones's face. “It looks like murder, by a pistol shot.”

  “Knew it was that woman,” Major Stoat tutted.

  “Silence, please, while Miss Delaronde is talking,” Albert snapped.

  “Hmph,” Major Stoat snorted, making his moustache quiver.

  “Does anyone recognise this pistol?” I asked and waved a hand at Albert, who held up the gun that had killed Mr Peterson.

  “Er, I do,” Mr O'Connor said. All eyes in the room turned to him.

  “It's one of ours,” Mrs O'Connor said. “Mr Peterson came to us last night, well, a few hours ago, just before we went to bed. He was white as a sheet.”

  “He'd worked himself up about that white witch story Mr Jones told,” Mr O'Connor said slowly. “He was a nervous fellow already, of course. But he asked if we had a pistol he could use for self-defence. Something he could take to the mission, you know?”

  “He got worked up about my story?” Mr Jones took his feet off the table and sat forward.

  “We have a lot of pistols, rifles, shotguns. Everything really,” Mrs O'Connor said with an apologetic smile. “It was no trouble to us to give him a colt. Especially staying in Africa, we thought it was rather, er, silly of him not to have brought one himself.”

  “If you saw a man in the rain without an umbrella and you had two, you'd give him one, right? As a gift? Same thing,” Mr O'Connor finished.

  “Or you shot him, left that old woman to take the blame and then rushed in looking all shocked,” Major Stoat growled.

  “Why on earth would we do that?”

  “He's a Scot, you're Irish, I am sure I don't have to draw you a picture,” Major Stoat said.

  Mr O'Connor looked imploringly at me.

  “Right now I am not ruling any of you out as suspects,” I said. “I need to know where you all were between leaving the wardroom and the time of the gunshot.”

  “I never left,” The major grumbled.

  “It's true, he was asleep while Rothberg and I stayed after the bridge game,” Albert nodded.

  “And as Albert will attest,” Mr Rothberg said testily, “I was here with him all evening.”

  “We went to bed,” Mr O'Connor said stroking his wife's shoulder. “I did say we needed to be up at dawn to get a good look at the wildlife. And, well...” he continued in the interest of full disclosure, “it is our pre-honeymoon honeymoon.”

  “I stayed up and worked in my cabin,” said Mr Jones. “A true novelist never sleeps. Not until he's published at least.”

  “Did anyone see you in your cabin?” I asked.

  “No,” Mr Jones said slowly. He looked around at suspicious faces. “Oh come off it, what reason would I have to shoot Peterson?” Mr Jones’s temper snapped. “Sure I'll tease him. I can be beastly when I put my mind to it. But kill a man? Why would I do that?”

  “Calm down Mr Jones,” I raised my hands. “You're not suspected any more than anyone else.”

  “Well it isn't a nice feeling being accused of murder,” Mr Jones fell back into his chair, put his feet up and returned to a thundercloud expression.

  “Either use it as inspiration for a book or put a sock in it,” Mr Rothberg snarled. “This is serious!”

  “Did anyone hear anyone descending from the top deck at any time?” I asked.

  “Afraid not,” Mr and Mrs O'Connor shook their heads.

  “Maybe around half-past ten I heard someone go by my door,” Mr Jones said grudgingly. “But I didn't hear who it was.”

  “Didn't hear a soul,” Mr Rothberg said, followed by similar statements from Major Stoat and Albert.

  “Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen.” I nodded to them, filing this al
l away in my head. “Unfortunately I do not think we can allow you to go back to your rooms until the search is over. And, with your permission, I would like to search your things as well.”

  “Our things?” Mr Jones glared.

  “Inside your bags,” I expounded. “To make sure the pearl has not been put into anything. The Captain can order them opened if need be, but I would rather have permission.”

  “Sure, go ahead,” Mr Jones shrugged and shrank down inside his clothes. The Major and Mr Rothberg also nodded.

  “We'd like to be there when ours are opened, I think,” Mr O'Connor looked to his wife who nodded. “There are a lot of dangerous things in there. A clumsy sailor might, er, end up legless.”

  “I don't see a problem with that,” I said, “provided I am there as well. I shall call for you when we open them up.”

  I turned on my heel and left the room. Albert followed as I headed for the companionway down into the crew's quarters.

  It didn't take long to find Parker, who was overseeing the search.

  “We have permission to search the passengers’ luggage,” I said.

  “Oh, good, I think,” Parker nodded.

  “Any luck so far?”

  “Nothing yet,” Parker gave a half-smile. “But I've got everyone working on it, and we'll find it, won't we lads!” the sailors gave a half-hearted cheer and carried on their search.

  “I'd also like to see everyone's passports, if I may,” I said. “Collect them up when you're searching the luggage, please.”

  “Their passports? But they were checked when they boarded,” Parker began to protest but my glare silenced him. “Very well, collect their passports.”

  “Thank you.” I turned to Albert. “Time to go and do some thinking until we know the results of the search.”

  *****

  “There! Nothing suspicious,” Mr O'Connor said feeling satisfied as the sailors closed the last of his suitcases.

  “Nothing but enough fire power to wipe out a small kingdom,” I said with raised eyebrows.

  “I don't expect you to understand, as a woman,” Mr O'Connor shook his head. “My wife is the only woman I've ever found with the same level of understanding. There is something beautiful about a gun. The perfection of human engineering. The way it fits in the hand, the way it feels to hold.”

  “The way it kills?”

  “Women just don't understand.” Mr O'Connor shook his head and stamped out of the cargo hold. Parker oversaw a few sailors replacing the passengers’ luggage. Albert and I waited patiently for him to finish.

  “No sign of the pearl I am afraid,” Parker rubbed the back of his neck, not meeting Albert's gaze. Albert’s expression didn't change. “Here are the passports.” A sailor handed over a bundle of documents. “We did find one suspicious thing.”

  Parker held out a small glass medicine bottle. I picked it up and brought it close to my eye to read the label in the gloom of the cargo hold.

  “Strychnine!” I gasped. “That's a terrible poison!”

  “One of the worst,” Albert agreed.

  “Found in Mrs Rothberg’s luggage,” Parker said.

  “Mrs Rothberg? You're quite sure? Not her husband?” my eyes narrowed.

  “Unless Mr Rothberg favours floral print carpet bags, it was his wife's,” Parker said. His eyes were incredibly expressive. He could smile, frown, pout or laugh all through his eyes, without any other part of his body moving.

  “That is...” I paused. “Interesting,” I settled on.

  "And another thing," Parker's eyebrows knotted. "It... it is nothing but..." his eyes set hard. "I overheard the kitchen staff talking. Mrs Rothberg ordered a cup of coffee at about midnight last night. I had thought it must be for tomorrow morning but... when we confined her to her quarters..." Parker shrugged. "It was there on the stand. I don't know if it means anything."

  "It means she was out of her room at the time of the murder," Albert's eyes flared, ready to blame her for murder again.

  "I didn't notice a cup of coffee during her interview..." I said, frowning.

  "You were a bit distracted by the dead body in the next room over," Albert said.

  "No, it wasn't there," Parker shook his head. "She drank it the moment we put her in the room."

  "She drank it?"

  "Whole thing," Parker said. "I know it's a silly thing to mention but it seemed so strange..."

  I looked down at the bottle of strychnine. A sad smile spread across my face. “It's all falling into place.” I slipped the bottle into a pocket and flicked through the passports. “With one minor curiosity.” I frowned. “Of course, that doesn't solve...hm.”

  “Are you all right, Hannah?” Albert asked as my face creased with consternation.

  “What time did it stop raining last night?” I asked.

  “About nine, ten o'clock?” Alfred guessed.

  “I've been stupid,” I cursed. “Completely wrong and stupid. I thought there were two crimes, Albert, but there weren't. There were three.” I stamped my foot in irritation. “Parker,” the first officer snapped to attention. “Do we have a bottle of ipecac on board?”

  “Ipecac? In the medicine cabinet I think–”

  “Fetch it please and meet me by the cabins. I think I have it solved.” Without waiting for a response I headed for the stairs, taking them two at a time.

  “Well I don't, can you please explain it?” Albert struggled after me.

  “On the way, Albert! On the way!”

  Chapter XXIII

  I placed the strychnine bottle on the nightstand above the sink. Mrs Rothberg's eyes focused on it. Her face remained expressionless, all the evidence I needed.

  “I know you didn't kill Mr Peterson, Mrs Rothberg,” I said. In the deathly still of the room my words hung in the air like gravestones.

  Mrs Rothberg stayed mute.

  “I think I have some understanding of you,” I continued in the silence. “You're childless, correct? Your marriage is something closer to a business agreement than a true marriage by this point, correct? Not actively unpleasant, I think, there are certainly worse lives. But I imagine, by this time in your life it is...disappointing.” Mrs Rothberg's eyes did not deviate from the bottle of strychnine. “Your husband isn't an unpleasant man, but he doesn't listen to you. You are expected to service his needs, not the other way around, or, in your eyes, not an equal partnership of duty. You're fairly high in London's bourgeoisie, I think. You're on the boards of all the charities worth being on, organising all the functions worth going to. You go to the theatre once a week, and the opera every time a production opens. But it all feels empty, doesn't it?”

  Mrs Rothberg was as impassive as a statue.

  “I don’t know what you wanted when you were younger, perhaps to be a mother. More likely I think you wanted the image of being a mother. Loving wife, doting mother, high society woman, I think that would have been your dream as a little girl,” I said. I looked down on Mrs Rothberg only because I was standing up.

  “He said there would be time enough for children,” Mrs Rothberg said so gently it sounded like the wind from an empty train tunnel. “And when it was time, they wouldn't come.”

  “And that, in its own way, led you to this place I think,” I said. “You embraced the life you had. You sampled all the treasures London could offer. But your husband had his own dreams, and they were often in conflict with yours. You weren't angry when he said no because of money, or because he thought it dangerous. But he often said no out of apathy, didn't he?”

  Mrs Rothberg had gone silent again.

  “This journey is an example, I think, of what your life has been. Ostensibly it is what you want. A river cruise through Africa, lap of luxury in so many ways,” I rapped on the well-designed furniture as proof. “But it's not what you asked for, it's not what you wanted, and crucially it's not what you needed. What you needed was to feel loved, and you haven't felt like that for a long time.”

  Mrs Rothberg's sil
ence was her answer.

  “Children might have filled that hole. A loving husband would have done better. I know your father’s dead, and I imagine your mother has passed away,” I could see the slight tightening around Mrs Rothberg's eyes saying I was right. “Your sisters are alive,” again the tightening, “but when you see them, all they can talk about is children, try as they might to be polite. And that hurts.”

  “So what to do?” I shrugged as if I was genuinely asking the question. “Your husband grows further away from you, or at least that’s how it feels when you talk to him. There seems to be no love for you in the world. Dark thoughts creep in at night. Any fleeting moment of love or kindness is ignored because you don't feel loved, and then, one dark night, a solution presents itself in your mind.”

  Mrs Rothberg shook her head very gently. “It was a summer day, in St James’s Park.”

  I nodded. “You started to complain of heart murmurs. Rarely at first, then regularly, and now you use it whenever you get the least bit stressed. After all, your father had died of a heart attack at a young age. It would not be unusual for such a trait to pass to his daughter.” I smiled without humour and picked up the bottle of poison. Mrs Rothberg's eyes followed it hungrily. “Strychnine’s a nasty poison. Perfect as rat poison. It causes a fatal heart attack. Even those who survive a low dosage suffer very weakened hearts for a long time after. A doctor looking over a strychnine patient will, nine times out of ten, diagnose it as a heart attack, unless the patient died in mysterious circumstances. And what would be mysterious about a woman dying of a heart attack after having a heart complaint for almost a year? When her father had also died in such a way? And out here, in the depths of Nigeria, even if you were seen by a doctor, would he suspect to check for strychnine? It was perfect.”

  “How?” Mrs Rothberg looked up at me for the first time.

  “Strychnine is notoriously bitter,” I said. “A single drop tastes fouler than an orange pith and pepper-grounds cocktail. One of the very few substances on earth that can mask the taste is coffee. You ordered coffee at twelve-thirty last night, a very strange time to drink such a stimulant.”

  Mrs Rothberg's face began to droop as everything around her unravelled.