Chapter 16
“My dear … chap”—Alec had nearly said “boy,” but decided it would not be well received—“you’re by no means the first young man, and you won’t be the last, to go off on his travels and end up in trouble.
I doubt that the Prodigal Son was the first!
They had the right idea in the eighteenth century.
Any English gentleman sending his son on the Grand Tour of Europe provided a bear-leader to keep him on the straight and narrow. ”
“A bear-leader?” Riddman was momentarily distracted from his woes.
“To lick a rough cub into shape. Usually a clergyman; military men too often led their charges into bad company.”
“Jeez, you’re not like any American cop I ever tangled with!
But it’s all very well talking. My grandfather won’t care a damn that some sap-head boob raised merry hell two hundred years ago.
Stand by to watch the fur fly when little Chester gets home!
” Riddman shivered, reached for the cigarette case lying beside his wallet, and waved it at Alec.
“No, thanks.” Alec considered lighting his pipe. This looked like being a long interview, though for a moment he had thought he had a confession. However, he doubted his
stomach was yet fit to cope with smoking, and a pipe implied a degree of relaxation which he was not ready to concede.
The confession had turned out to be no more than a lament for money lost and retribution expected, but that did not necessarily mean Chester Riddman had not shot Pertwee. Time to stop playing the Dutch uncle and get down to brass tacks.
“Do you own any fire-arms, Mr. Riddman?”
“I have hunting guns and a couple of pistols back home. I heard about your Limey gun laws, though, so I didn’t bring any.” He drew on his cigarette with quick, nervous puffs. “Anyway, I’m not in such a funk I’m gonna shoot myself.”
“I’m less concerned with your shooting yourself than with whether you shot Pertwee.”
Riddman gaped, aghast. “Shot him? Why would I do such a fool thing? I didn’t know he wasn’t on the level till you told me just now. Croaking him’d just’ve wrecked my chances of winning back what I lost.”
“I hope I’ve convinced you that’s a mug’s game, even if you’re playing with honest men.” Finding himself sidetracked yet again, Alec returned to the main point with a blunt question. “You were seen on deck shortly after he fell overboard. Where were you before that?”
“After lunch? I was in the Smoking Room. I had a shot of rye and smoked a cigar. I was chewing the rag with some guys about the mileage auction pool. They’ll remember me,” Riddman said eagerly.
“Someone came in and said a boat had been lowered to fish out another man overboard, and we all went out on deck together. I can give you their names.”
With a deep internal sigh, Alec wrote down the names. If he’d just asked that one question right at the beginning, he’d have averted half an hour of alternating between father confessor and nanny. Still, he might have done the boy some good.
“If these gentlemen confirm your story,” he said, “well and good. If not, I’ll be back with more questions.”
“Yes, sir. I’m gonna stick close as a burr to Birdie now. She’s my only hope of bringing my grandfather around.”
Alec was far from certain that Daisy would approve of a rapprochement between Riddman and Lady Brenda. She favoured Harvey. Still, it was up to the girl to choose between them. Dismissing the matter from his mind, Alec went in search of the two gentlemen named by Riddman.
“So Riddman’s out of it,” Alec told Daisy, neatly catching her fountain-pen as it rolled off the desk.
“Bother.” She wrinkled her nose. “I rather fancied him as the villain. That leaves Welford.”
“And Gotobed. Or someone not yet in the picture,” he added hastily as she frowned at him.
“Welford isn’t in his cabin. The chap watching didn’t have instructions to stop him leaving, as I was then thinking in terms of protecting him.
I set a couple of stewards who know him to hunt for him, but they haven’t spotted him. ”
“He can’t go far, after all. And assuming he killed Pertwee because they quarrelled, he has no reason to attack anyone else.”
“No, but I want to talk to him before I have to tackle Gotobed about his wife’s connection with Pertwee. I’d hate to upset him if there’s nothing in it.”
“Gosh, yes. Or supposing there is something in it, if he doesn’t know, which I’m sure he doesn’t.
” Daisy debated internally whether to tell Alec about Wanda’s pregnancy and decided it was irrelevant.
Wanda would never have informed her husband, and Miss Oliphant would probably rather die than mention it. “Ah, elevenses, spiffing!”
A deck steward entered the library carrying a tray. The
bouillon sloshed about in the half-filled mugs, and the biscuits were served in a bowl, as they might have slid off a plate. The Talavera was dancing a jig across the waves, constant, restless, unpredictable motion with an occasional wild hop, skip, and jump.
Daisy was pleased to see Alec helping himself to a handful of digestive biscuits.
He even held out his mug for more bouillon when the steward returned with a fresh, hot jugful.
Admittedly his mind was not on the food, but that he was concentrating on murder rather than his stomach was—in its way—a great improvement.
At length Daisy interrupted his meditations. “Darling, I went to enquire after Denton earlier. Dr. Amboyne says he’s improving, though he can’t talk yet.”
“Great Scott, I’d forgotten him, I’m afraid. I still can’t for the life of me see where he fits into the puzzle.” Alec sank into his musings again.
Having no useful suggestions to offer, Daisy returned to her writing. The article was beginning to shape nicely, but her thoughts tended to wander, from Gotobed—surely not a murderer!—and his obnoxious wife to the unhappy triangle of Riddman, Brenda, and Harvey.
Alec took out his notebook and started to make lists.
Daisy guessed he missed being able to discuss the case with Tom Tring.
She wished she could supply his lack, but she knew her partisanship limited her usefulness to him.
When she liked someone, as she liked Gotobed, she tended to see the arguments in his favour and to disregard any evidence against him.
“I’m not getting anywhere,” Alec said in disgust. “I think I’ll leave it for the moment and come back to it fresh after lunch. I’m going to go up and take a look at hiding places for sharpshooters up on the boat-deck. Coming?”
“No, I think not, darling. I must get on with this.”
Alec was not gone for very long. “Phew, it’s cold out, in spite of the sun.”
“What did you find?”
“There are at least half a dozen places up there a man could have lurked unseen with a good view of the place where Pertwee and Gotobed were standing,” he told her gloomily. “All scoured clean by wind and rain. No proof of Gotobed’s story, and no disproof either.”
On his way back, he had fetched the stack of information he had to master for his job in Washington. Side by side, they worked steadily until lunchtime.
Arbuckle turned up at lunch, cautious about what he ate, but cheerful. Gotobed reported happily that he had seen Wanda and she was much better, though not yet ready to reappear in public. Miss Oliphant did not join in the general, if not quite sincere, wishes for her rapid recovery.
The wishes for Denton’s recovery were entirely sincere when Dr. Amboyne took his place at the head of the table and announced that his patient was at last out of danger.
Glancing at the second officer’s table, Daisy saw Brenda laughing at something Riddman had said to her. They were seated at the far end of the table from Harvey. The officer was being polite to the ladies next to him, his monkey-face showing nothing of his feelings about the situation.
Again the meal was interrupted by the arrival of a wireless message for Alec, this time delivered by a ship’s boy.
Apologising, Alec read it, then passed it to Daisy.
It was from the Wellington Line: They had gone through their records and found that Pertwee and Welford had booked together just three days before the Talavera sailed.
“It would have been helpful earlier,” Daisy whispered, “before we worked out that they must have been confederates.”
Sighing, Alec nodded. “I wonder if Tom’s coming up with anything useful.”
After lunch, he took Amboyne aside. Daisy, waiting, saw the doctor shake his head. When Alec rejoined her with a long face, she said, “No luck, darling? Let’s go for a brisk walk out on deck to blow the cobwebs away.”
“Good idea.”
A number of passengers were strolling around the promenade, walking off their lunch.
Most of the deck-chairs on the sunny side were filled now.
Arbuckle’s reserved seats were occupied by himself and Miss Oliphant, and Phillip, Gloria, Riddman, and Brenda.
Riddman started to rise as Alec and Daisy approached.
“These here are your chairs, aren’t they?”
“That’s all right,” Daisy assured him. “You and Birdie stay. We’re going out.”
Arbuckle chuckled. “Hang on to her, Fletcher.”
“Phillip and I went out,” said Gloria, “and came back pretty quick. It’s dead calm one minute and a howling gale the next, and mighty cold, too, in spite of the sun.”
“You’ll blow away, old bean,” Phillip confirmed. “Better stay in.”
Being told what to do by Phillip was enough to make Daisy determined on the opposite. “We’ll need our coats, darling,” she said to Alec.
His grin was understanding and sympathetic, but he said, “I’m not sure I’m ready for this. No one else is out there. Hold on a minute, love, while I stick my nose out.”
He opened the nearest door, took several steps outside, and stopped, apparently admiring the sparkling waves and racing clouds. Then suddenly he staggered backwards as if he had been struck on the chest. His trouser legs flapped wildly. He managed to stop and turn, and practically ran back to