Chapter 12
Time or the ginger tea had settled Alec’s stomach to the point where he agreed to accompany Daisy to the library. She hoped to get a little work done before dinner.
“It’s a pity I don’t write for one of the Sunday rags,” she said wistfully, watching him put on his jacket and force a comb through his thick hair. “Just think what I could make of all the goings-on on board!”
He regarded her in the looking-glass. “I expect they would buy it even though you’re not a regular contributor.”
“Probably.” Daisy shook her head. “But it’s simply not my line.”
“There’s bound to be a good bit of publicity when we reach New York,” Alec consoled her. “People will buy the magazine with your impressions of the voyage just because of the notoriety. All right, let’s go, before I lose my nerve.”
“You’ll be perfectly all right if you don’t think about it.”
“I dare say, but don’t expect me to go in to dinner. That would be tempting fate. By the way, when you spoke to Amboyne, I imagine you asked after Denton?”
“He’s no better, maybe even worse. Still unconscious.”
“It’s not easy,” said Alec in tones of strong disapproval,
“to investigate an attempted murder in which one cannot speak to the victim, and a murder in which the victim’s body is unavailable.”
In the library, he settled down with an R.
Austin Freeman novel in which the murder or murders would be solved without fail by the inimitable Dr. Thorndyke, probably with the aid of dust from the murderer’s pockets.
Daisy managed to put aside thoughts of murder and bring some order to her notes on the lighter side of shipboard life.
Absorbed, she found herself with only ten minutes to change for dinner.
She rushed off, leaving Alec steadfastly refusing to contemplate food.
Mr. Arbuckle did turn up to dinner, though he limited himself to clear soup and a dry roll. Horrified to learn of the second man overboard, he exacted a promise from Phillip never to let go of Gloria’s hand or arm while they were on deck.
“My pleasure, sir,” said Phillip, grinning.
“He never does anyway, Poppa,” Gloria said complacently, “unless we’re playing a game, and they haven’t allowed any deck games since this morning. Phil’s been teaching me to play pool—snooker, he calls it. It’s a mighty interesting game when the slope of the table changes from moment to moment.”
Everyone laughed, even Gotobed, who was out of spirits, not at all his usual lively self.
“It’s a hanging table,” Phillip explained, “so it stays level in calm seas, but it can’t cope with what we’ve been having.”
“I’ll have to come and watch you play tomorrow,” said Daisy. “It might make an amusing paragraph for my article.”
“Yes, do come along, old bean,” Phillip urged. “You’ll have to give it a try. Daisy’s not a bad player, Glow-worm.”
“I’ve beaten you more than once,” Daisy reminded him,
adding hastily, “playing on a level table. Do you play, Miss Oliphant?”
“I never have. In my youth, it was considered a game strictly for gentlemen.”
“I’ll teach you,” Phillip offered.
“If you learn on a swinging table, Miss Oliphant,” Arbuckle put in with a chuckle, “you’ll be unbeatable on terra firma. I’d sure like to come and cheer you on, but I guess I’d better not risk it. Just the thought of watching … no, better not. Gotobed, can I depute you as cheer-leader?”
“Aye, I’ll be glad to,” he agreed, smiling at Miss Oliphant, “and mebbe I’ll take a hand meself.”
“Ripping, we’ll have a tournament,” said Phillip. “We’ll have to work out a system of handicaps, Glow-worm. Will Fletcher play, Daisy?”
“No,” Daisy said firmly. Alec was going to be much too busy for games. “He’s up, but I don’t suppose watching a swinging table would be any better for him than for Mr. Arbuckle. How is Wanda, Mr. Gotobed?”
The words were scarcely out of her mouth when it dawned on her that the first person to ask about the second man overboard should have been Wanda Gotobed.
Surely he had introduced himself to her when he approached her to express his admiration.
She might have forgotten his name though.
Anyway, Captain Dane’s cohorts of stewards probably had the answer by now, but if not …
She had missed what Gotobed said, but he didn’t look happy. “I’ll try to pop in again this evening,” she promised.
The other person to ask, of course, would be the other stage-door Johnnie. Unfortunately, all she could remember about him was that he was unmemorable. On the short side for a man, she thought, certainly smaller than the flashy one. Greying? Perhaps.
Not enough to identify him by, even among the ship’s limited population. Daisy turned her full attention to a heavenly apple and almond tart.
“What Alec’s missing!” she sighed.
After dinner, she was going to rejoin him when she was stopped by the Purser, Timmins, a tall, stout man whose professional joviality thinly disguised a perpetually anxious nature.
“Mrs. Fletcher? May I have a word with you?”
The stewards would report to the Purser, of course. “Yes,” she said, “but if you come to the library, my husband is there and you can tell us both at once.”
“If Mr. Fletcher is on his feet again, I need not trouble you, ma’am. I understand he is a policeman.”
He wasn’t getting rid of Daisy so easily. “Alec’s still not well. I’ll be lending him a hand.”
Timmins was accustomed to handling awkward passengers, but in this unprecedented situation he was unsure of his ground. “I suppose it’s for Mr. Fletcher to say,” he conceded.
They proceeded to the library together. Alec was a few pages from the end of his book, and he set it aside reluctantly.
“Not bad,” he said. “At least Freeman doesn’t make the police out to be complete idiots, as most detective novelists seem to. We have an identification?” He reached for the pad of ship’s note-paper on the table beside him, and took his fountain-pen from his pocket.
The Purser cast a significant glance at Daisy, but as Alec failed to shoo her away, he shrugged and said, “Yes, sir. Captain Dane instructed me to inform you. The only passenger not positively located is a Curtis Pertwee.” He spelt the name.
Alec wrote it down. “Curtis Pertwee. What, if anything, do we know about him?”
“Not much. He is … was in a tourist-class cabin, sharing
with another gentleman, a Mr. Welford, who is one of our sufferers, confined to his bunk. When the steward knocked and popped his head in to check who was there, Mr. Welford almost snapped it off. I suppose you’ll want to speak to him, sir?”
“Yes, of course. I need all the information I can get about Pertwee, and his travelling companion is the obvious source.”
“Er, they weren’t necessarily travelling together,” said Timmins uncomfortably.
“That is, they didn’t necessarily know each other before the voyage or book together.
Although at this time of year we generally have a few empty cabins, the company prefers us to double up passengers where possible. It’s a matter of economics.”
“One cabin to clean instead of two,” said Daisy, whom living with Lucy had taught that though two cannot live as cheaply as one, they can live much more cheaply together than apart. “I expect you can shut off some heating ducts, too, and things like that.”
“Exactly, madam, just a few odds and ends of savings. It’s not much but it adds up, and this is a highly competitive business.”
“At any rate,” Alec said impatiently, “this Welford is as likely as anyone aboard to be able to tell me something of Pertwee.”
“Yes, sir, though he did seem pretty chummy with the young American, Mr. Riddman. I suppose there’s no harm mentioning it since the fellow’s dead: I had some suspicion that Pertwee might be one of the professional, none too scrupulous gamblers we sometimes get aboard.
My staff noticed him playing poker with Riddman in the Smoking Room the first night out and going in and out of Riddman’s first-class cabin since. ”
Daisy gave Alec a look of triumph.
“I’ll bear it in mind,” he said.
“However,” Timmins continued, “he’s not a regular, not one of the fellows we watch out for, and I may be maligning him. If you must speak to Riddman, I hope you’ll, er, be tactful.”
“He’s a Detective Chief Inspector of the Metropolitan Police C.I.D., not a village bobby,” Daisy said indignantly.
“Sorry! It’s got us all on edge, two passengers falling overboard.
Suppose it’s something in the food or the ventilation system that’s giving them dizzy turns?
That’s my department, and I don’t mind admitting it’s got me worried.
The last thing I need on top of that is a first-class passenger blaming me for letting him—so to speak—fall among sharks. ”
“It’s the shark who drowned,” Alec pointed out. “If I were you, I’d be more worried about general panic among the passengers. Believe me, I’ll do my best to avoid any move which might have that result. Which cabin is the late Pertwee’s?”
The Purser gave him the number, and the names of the day and night stewards attendant on that cabin.
“They may know something useful to you, though I don’t know quite what it is you’re looking for.
Still, since Captain Dane wants a police officer to investigate this accident, I’m happy to leave the whole wretched business in your hands. ”
Looking more harassed than happy, he shook Alec’s hand, bowed to Daisy, and took himself off.
“I’m surprised the Captain hasn’t told him it wasn’t an accident,” said Daisy.
“Possibly was not an accident,” Alec corrected her.
“Dane’s playing his cards close to his chest, and I can’t say I blame him.
The fewer people who know, the less chance of a leakage.
I hate to think of the result of panic in a closed community like this, where no one can escape.
Well, I’m off to interview Welford. I only hope he doesn’t set me off again. ”
Standing up, he turned pale and had to put a hand on the table to steady himself. Daisy looked at him in alarm.