Chapter 14
Turning back down the wide, first-class passageway, Alec saw Daisy waiting for him at the corner.
“Don’t scowl like that,” she admonished. “I’m being discreet. I didn’t ask to attend that interview, did I? What did Riddman’s steward have to say?”
“That passengers get plenty of warnings about sharps aboard, and it’s not his place to warn silly young chubs who think they know better.
That Pertwee ordered a great deal of whisky but drank little and paid for less, the rest going down Riddman’s throat and on Riddman’s account.
That the third chap was a quiet gentleman who lost more than he won.
The others didn’t pay him much mind, but in his—the steward’s—opinion, he was the brains of the outfit. ”
“And his name?”
“He couldn’t rightly remember.” Alec grinned at her disappointed face. “A name as commonplace as his appearance. Fordham, was it? Or Bidwell?”
“Welford!”
“It seems likely, doesn’t it?”
Daisy did a hop and a skip to compensate for a sudden jolt from the Talavera. Alec caught her arm, pleased by his
own steady stride. “Where are you going?” she asked. “To see Welford?”
“No, to the Purser first, to find out whether there is a Fordham aboard or a Bidwell.” He turned towards the nearest companion-way. “If not, then it looks as if our friend Welford wasn’t altogether frank when he told me he didn’t fraternize with his cabin-mate.”
“In that case, they must have been in league for some fishy purpose. Except that, darling,” she continued with one of her lightning changes of viewpoint, “perhaps he was just too ill to understand your questions properly. You should sympathize.”
Alec thought back to the absurd interview in the dark cabin.
He could not have made notes had he wanted to, and he had had no chance since to write down what he recalled, but his memory was good.
“Mostly he just answered ‘No’ to my questions, which he could quite well have done without understanding them. But he did say something on the lines of not having to associate with Pertwee just because they were stuck in a cabin together.”
“Not quite a lie,” said Daisy thoughtfully, preceding Alec up the stairs as two women came down towards them, “if that’s how he worded it.”
“Something to that effect, I’m sure, but I’m not at all sure he was thinking clearly enough to work out the fine line between a lie and the truth. If he and Pertwee were in league, Pertwee’s death must have rattled him.”
“Gosh, yes! Maybe he wasn’t sick at all. On top of losing his colleague, he’d have to worry that Riddman might come after him next.”
They came to Timmins’s office, where his assistant checked the passenger list for them: neither Fordham nor Bidwell, but a Mr. and Mrs. Fordyce and a Mr. Welbeck. Alec groaned.
“They’ll have to wait till tomorrow. Will you give me their cabin numbers, please, as well as Welford’s Christian name, and his and Pertwee’s home addresses?”
The assistant purser obliged. “That’s off their passports, sir,” he added, as Alec copied down the information, “so there’s no funny business. As you know, we hold them in the safe, so that no one loses theirs and gets refused permission to land.”
“Thanks.” Both addresses in the same part of London, Alec observed, closing his notebook and turning away.
Ernie Piper, his detective constable, would have known exactly how far apart they were.
He had a gift for that sort of thing. Alec wished he had Piper and Tom Tring with him now.
Daisy was keen and did her best, but he could not rely on her as he could on his trained team.
She was too apt to follow the beat of her own drummer.
Perhaps, he thought irrelevantly, that was why she would never be the dancer Joan had been.
“Couldn’t they have false passports?” Daisy asked as they left the Purser’s office.
“Good copies of British passports are expensive and pretty difficult to come by. Only within reach of the highest class of crook, which I suspect our two are not.”
“Where to now?”
“The bridge.”
“I knew it! If I hadn’t come along, you’d have gone out alone. You promised not to.”
“I’d have come to fetch you.” He meant it, not because he was afraid that the murderer might attack, but because he didn’t want Daisy worrying. It warmed him to know she worried about him. On one notable occasion, her concern had saved his life.
Impulsively, he caught her to him for a kiss. She responded enthusiastically.
“No sense of decency, these modern young people,” snapped an acid voice. A large woman in too many diamonds surged past them into the Purser’s office, followed by a small man with an air of permanent apology.
Daisy burst into peals of laughter. “Darling,” she gasped, “how do you like being considered a modern young person with no sense of decency?”
“I suppose it’s better than being an old fogy with antiquated notions,” Alec said wryly. “Let’s go. You’d better get your coat.”
“I left it in the ladies’ lounge earlier, just in case. I shan’t be a minute.”
She dashed off, and returned still buttoning her green tweed.
The years since her father’s death had made her thrifty.
She had refused to buy a new coat just because she was getting married, when the old one was not so very old and perfectly good.
As she had been wearing it when Alec fell in love with her, he had a fondness for it.
Hand-in-hand, heedless of decency, they walked along to the forward door. Alec inched it open. A biting wind whistled through.
Daisy held out her gloveless hand to the blast. “No rain, thank heaven. Let’s hurry.”
They stepped out to the open deck. The wind slammed into them, its icy blasts veering and backing at random, never battering from the same side for more than a moment.
The limitless darkness ahead accentuated the Talavera’s irregular motion.
She seemed to play hopscotch across the waves, now and then skittering sideways. Daisy clung to Alec’s arm.
“They’ve strung a rope across to the companion-way,” he pointed out. He shouldn’t let her go with him, but he didn’t have the strength for the ensuing battle if he tried to make her go back. “You’ll be safer hanging on to that. I’ll be right behind.”
“I feel safer hanging on to you, but then you can’t hang on.”
She moved ahead. He followed, one hand on her shoulder, the other sliding along the rope.
Raising a foot to take a step seemed a venture fraught with peril, so he copied her shuffling gait.
The few lamps left burning in the enclosed promenade shone through the glass to cast a wan light on her honey brown curls, tossing and tangling in every direction.
As they reached the base of the companion-way, a ship’s boy came running down with infuriating ease, not even touching the rail. He glanced at Daisy, now clearly illuminated by the light at the top of the steps, then peered at Alec.
“Ma’am.” He saluted. “Mr. Fletcher, sir?”
“That’s right.”
“Captain’s compliments, sir, and he’d be glad to see you on the bridge at your earliest convenience. I’ll tell him you’re on your way, shall I?”
Effortlessly, he ran back up the ladder-like steps.
“I suppose it’s just a matter of practice,” Daisy sighed, gripping the rail with both hands and plodding upwards.
“And youth,” Alec muttered to himself.
Reaching the boat-deck, Daisy turned. “What I still don’t understand, darling,” she bawled through the booms and shrieks of the wind in the superstructure, “is what connection there can possibly be between Pertwee and Denton.”
“This is not the place to discuss it,” Alec bawled back, as though he had ideas on the subject.
He hadn’t. Denton had no place in any of his theories about Pertwee’s murder.
In fact, unless the poor old fellow recovered consciousness and claimed to have been tipped over, his fall was bound to be written off as an accident, Lady Brenda’s story notwithstanding.
Another rope led them to the bridge. Captain Dane came
eagerly to meet them—to meet Alec, at least. He utterly ignored Daisy.
“Glad to see you on your feet, Fletcher. I hoped you’d be up and about now we’re past that bit of rough weather.”
“Past it, sir? You wouldn’t call this rough?”
“Rough?” The Captain laughed heartily. “There’s a bit of a chop, but nothing to signify. So you’ve come to report that spot of bother’s all cleared up, eh?”
“I’m afraid not, sir. I was on my way to request the use of your wireless facilities. I want to ask Scotland Yard for information about a couple of men. I would not have disturbed you, but since you are here I’ll report the results of my investigations so far.”
“Pshaw! All I want to hear is that there’s a perfectly innocent explanation for both accidents, with no blame accruing to ship, crew, or company.” Gloomily, Dane turned away, with a backwards wave which Alec took as permission to make use of the wireless.
The three doors off the bridge led respectively to the Captain’s quarters, the chart-room, and the wireless room.
The last, Alec found, was little more than a cupboard, filled almost to bursting with equipment and the operator’s chair, now unoccupied.
Alec assumed the narrow door on the other side led to the operator’s quarters.
Daisy was at his elbow. “Sorry, love,” he said, “no room.”
“You mean you’re going to abandon me to Captain Dane’s tender mercies?” she hissed.
“I have no doubt whatever of your ability to survive.” He stepped in and firmly shut the door.
He had to push the chair under the desk to get past. A knock on the far door brought a sleepy “Coming!” A rumpled young man in crimson-striped silk pyjamas appeared, fumbling with his spectacles. The cabin behind him was no wider than his work-room and scarcely long enough for his bunk.
Settling his wire-rimmed glasses on his nose, he looked at Alec in surprise. Presumably he was usually called to duty by a ship’s boy.