Chapter 11 #2
Gotobed came to Daisy’s rescue. “Fletcher will be sorry to find out he’s missed the concert. There’s the passengers’ concert yet to come, of course. Have you a turn prepared, Miss Oliphant?”
“Oh dear me, no! Have you, Mr. Gotobed?”
“I’ve been known to sing ‘Ilkley Moor’ when pressed,” he admitted.
“Then we shall press you, shall we not, Mrs. Fletcher?”
“Certainly. The more people we can persuade to perform, the less likely that we shall be coerced into making asses of ourselves.”
They laughed, and Gotobed said something. Daisy did not catch his words because they had reached the door of the Grand Salon and a ship’s boy waiting there approached her.
“Mrs. Fletcher?”
“Yes?”
He stepped aside, so she followed him. “Captain Dane’s compliments, ma’am. He begs the favour of a word with you on the bridge.”
Daisy thought the Captain was more likely to have bellowed something on the lines of “Bring me that Fletcher woman!” Likewise, she doubted he had instructed his messenger to hold the summons until the concert ended.
It probably had not dawned on him that to haul her out in the middle would be bound to cause just the sort of rumour-mongering he deplored.
She wondered how long he had waited already. A few
more minutes could hardly make him much madder, she decided.
“I’ll go up in half a tick,” she told the boy, and turned back to Miss Oliphant.
“You would like some ginger,” said the worthy witch at once. “Shall we go and fetch it now?”
Daisy gratefully accepted.
With the envelope of ginger in her pocket, she headed for the bridge.
It was nearly dark outside. The north wind was biting but it had swept away the clouds, and an awe-inspiring multitude of stars besprinkled the indigo sky.
Daisy stopped for a moment with the companion-way light behind her, gazing up.
She had always thought of the stars as friendly, but now they seemed cold and uncaring.
In the middle of a vast, impersonal emptiness, the Talavera was’a haven of human warmth.
Or would be if there weren’t a murderer, possibly two, aboard her. Shivering, Daisy went to knock on the bridge door.
A subdued Captain Dane had aged ten years since she’d seen him just a couple of hours ago. In fact, everyone on the bridge was grim-faced. Dane motioned Daisy to a chair in a corner and dropped into another.
“It goes against the grain to stop searching,” he said, “but it’s useless. My boats thoroughly quartered the area where we might have hoped to find him. It’s not like a shipwreck where there’s flotsam to hold on to.”
“I heard you found the life-belt.”
“Aye, and a felt hat nearby. If he’d been anywhere near them … and where else could he be?”
“So either he just couldn’t swim, or it looks as if Mr. Gotobed was right and he was badly injured before he fell in.” Daisy made a mental note to ask the doctor about Alec’s theory
of some sort of bubble in the artery. “I take it no one has reported a friend or relative missing?”
“No. That’s what I wanted to consult you about, assuming Scotland Yard is still under the weather?” Captain Dane had recovered his spirits sufficiently to put a trace of sarcasm in the query.
“I’m afraid so. But I don’t think he—or I—can advise you as to how to find out who he was.”
“It’s damned … dashed difficult if we don’t want to start a panic. I can’t send out a general summons to the Grand Salon. Half the passengers are confined to their beds anyway, so it’s no good having the dining-room stewards check by tables at dinner.”
“Wouldn’t the cabin stewards and stewardesses know pretty much who is stuck in bed?”
“Only if they have been asked for assistance. I suppose they will have to go around knocking on doors, unless you have a better idea?” he asked hopefully, as if he expected Scotland Yard’s deputy to pull a rabbit from her hat.
“That sounds like the best way to go about it,” Daisy affirmed.
“They aren’t going to like it in first.” Dane was once more sunk in gloom. He heaved a sigh. “Very well, I’ll give the orders right away and let you know what we find out.”
With ambulant passengers scattered about the ship, a final answer might not arrive until after dinner.
The first order of business was to get Alec moving, Daisy decided, as she once more descended the companion-way from the boat-deck.
She hung on to the rail as tight as ever.
Though for the most part the Talavera had resumed a regular, anticipatable pitch and roll, every now and then she gave a sort of uneasy twitch.
It was easy to compensate for on the level deck, but to lose one’s balance on those steep steps was bound to result in a painful tumble.
Down on the cabin-deck, Daisy went along to the doctor’s offices. The surgery was officially open, but there were no patients in the waiting room. Dr. Amboyne was seated at the desk, talking to the nurse who stood beside him.
He rose when Daisy entered. “Mrs. Fletcher, what can I do for you?”
“I wanted to ask after Mr. Denton.”
“He’s in bad shape, poor chap. Hasn’t come round yet and I’m afraid pleurisy is setting in.
There’s not a great deal a medical practitioner can do beyond making the patient as comfortable as possible.
Mrs. Denton’s sitting with him now and a crewman Captain Dane sent to keep an eye on him. Do you know anything about that?”
“My husband considered it advisable,” Daisy evaded. “I’d like to ask you another question if you don’t mind. Is there a medical condition which consists of a sort of bubble in the wall of an artery?”
Amboyne raised enquiring eyebrows. “One might describe an aneurism thus. They occur in veins as well as in arteries.”
“They sometimes burst?”
“They rupture, yes.”
“And then they bleed?”
“In the case of major blood vessels, there is heavy internal bleeding, generally fatal.”
“Oh, only internal?”
“I’ve never heard of a ruptured aneurism producing sufficient force to rupture the skin. The dermis is an amazingly resilient organ. May I ask the purpose of your questions?”
“Just eliminating an untenable theory,” Daisy said airily.
“With regard to the man who fell overboard today?”
“Yes, actually.”
“I didn’t know there was any question of an effusion of blood,” Dr. Amboyne said with interest.
“It’s a deep, dark secret, and Captain Dane will have my blood if it gets out.”
“You may rely upon my professional reticence. Ours, eh, Nurse?”
“Of course, Doctor,” said the nurse primly.
Daisy escaped before she let any more cats out of bags.
A stewardess kindly carried the tray of ginger tea from the stewards’ station to the cabin.
During the handover at the door, the tea-pot nearly came to grief; but between them they saved it.
Daisy managed to set the tray on the bedside table with its contents intact except for a damp spot on the tray-cloth.
Alec was no longer curled on his side in a ball of misery. He sat propped against the pillows from both berths, his knees pulled up under his chin, looking, if not exactly happy, at least more human.
“What’s that?” he asked suspiciously. “It doesn’t smell like mint.”
“You missed a wonderful concert, darling.”
“Was it good? I’m glad you went, anyway. I didn’t think it would enhance the audience’s enjoyment if I had to rush out in the middle.”
“Spiffing. You must be feeling much better if you even contemplated going.”
“A little,” Alec admitted grudgingly. “Unquiet rather than agitated about the middle. What’s in the pot?”
“Ginger tea. Miss Oliphant says it works even better than mint.”
“Ginger? Great Scott! Not for me, thanks.”
“Coward. If you try it, I will too.” Daisy started to pour. “Remember when you took me to the Cathay? I’d never tried Chinese food before, but you didn’t catch me pulling faces and saying, ‘Not for me, thanks.’ That was the first time you
ever took me out to dinner. Lucy was sure you’d turn up in a lounge suit and take me to a Lyons Corner House. I said I didn’t mind if you did.”
“As I recall, we were celebrating your first American commission.” A faraway look in his eye, Alec sipped the tea.
“Yes, and now here we are, married and going to America! How is it?”
“Marriage? Oh, the tea.” He sipped again, cautiously. “Not bad. Warming. What’s the latest on the second victim? I take it he wasn’t found or you’d have told me at once.”
“No, though they did find his hat and retrieved the life-belt Gotobed threw. Captain Dane seemed pretty sure they would have found him if he hadn’t sunk. The burst blood-vessel theory is out, by the way. I asked Dr. Amboyne.”
“Pity. That leaves us with the same three possibilities we faced with Lady Brenda. With Gotobed, hysteria seems inconceivable.”
“It does, doesn’t it? Though he admits to having been shocked to the extent of not grabbing the man when he bent over the rail. He’s kicking himself for not stopping him falling.”
“It’s easy to be wise after the event, but I dare say he’ll go on blaming himself for quite a while. You’re still referring to ’the man.’ No name yet?”
“Captain Dane has set things in motion to find out who’s missing. What’s your second possibility, that Gotobed made up the whole story? I can’t imagine why on earth he should do such a thing. He has no need to make himself important, and in fact he’s keeping mum about it.”
“There could be other motives for making it up.”
“Such as?”
“Um. I can’t think of any at the moment,” Alec confessed.
“You haven’t been thinking about the case at all, have you?” Daisy accused him. “You’ve been lying here thinking about your beastly stomach, while I’ve been running up and
down stairs, getting shouted at by the Captain, racking my brain to work out what information you need.”
“You seem to have done very well,” Alec said soothingly.
“But I’m not a detective! I have no idea about guns, where the shot could have come from if it did, and all that sort of stuff.”
“Nobody expects you to, love. As I said, you’ve done very well. Tomorrow will be time enough to check where a gun might have been aimed from. I doubt whether any traces of the marksman lasted longer than a few minutes in that wind and rain.”
“You’re taking Gotobed’s report seriously now?”
“I see no alternative. If we eliminate hysteria and self-aggrandizement, we appear to be left with truth.”
Daisy sighed. “Yes, which means we have a murderer aboard. Not a pleasant thought.”
“We’ll find him. Once we know the victim’s identity.”
“Oh, by the way, it looks as if he was one of Wanda’s admirers. At least, the one I thought he looked like was the one I thought I saw with Chester Riddman, and Mr. Gotobed thought he recognized him as someone he had seen with Riddman.”
“Say that again slowly.”
Daisy complied.
“It’s a good job you don’t write sentences like that.”
“Beast! Gotobed suspects he was a card-sharp.”
“I believe there’s one or two on every transatlantic steamer. Often the victims, having ignored all warnings, are too embarrassed to go to the police.”
“Well, this time the card-sharp is the victim,” Daisy pointed out. “Alec, Brenda told me Chester Riddman has lost a lot of money playing poker, and I saw him with the crowd on deck just after you left.”
“Probably sheer coincidence,” Alec said thoughtfully, “but I’ll bear it in mind. By all reports, Americans can get hold of guns a lot more easily than Englishmen.”