Chapter 17 #2
“Someone else saw them and told him then.”
“Maybe.” Daisy sighed.
“Jealousy is a powerful emotion. He wouldn’t need proof that they were lovers to give him a motive for doing away with Pertwee.”
“But what about Welford?”
“Blackmail is the obvious answer,” Alec pointed out, “which would explain their meeting on the boat-deck, too. Welford could have threatened to tell me that Gotobed killed Pertwee because he suspected he was Wanda’s lover.”
“It’s a bit convoluted, but I suppose it’s possible.” Daisy sighed again and wrinkled her nose at him. “Darling, we’re going to have to tell Arbuckle what’s going on.”
“Will you do that, Daisy? Sorry to abandon you, but I’m hoping other acquaintances of Pertwee or Welford have come forward who might shed some light on this affair.”
“Right-oh. Just as well, I expect. We can all sit around and abuse you.”
“At least explain the basis for my actions,” Alec begged.
As she was on the cabin-deck, Daisy went first to Arbuckle’s suite to see if he was there.
He was not, but Gloria and Brenda were, giggling together over their costumes for the Fancy Dress Ball.
They greeted Daisy with cries of joy and made her try on the suit of cardboard armour they had contrived between them and painted with silver paint from the boatswain.
“Because you came to the rescue last summer when I was in trouble,” Gloria explained. “I’ve told Birdie all about it.”
“Here’s your shield,” said Brenda, producing a round teatray
covered with a Union Jack. “The steward gave us a broom-handle for a lance, but we’re still working on it.”
Resignedly, Daisy tried on the armour. There was one good thing about it: encased in cardboard and carrying lance and shield, she could not be expected to tango. She was glad, too, that the two girls were having fun, apparently unaffected by the unpleasant events around them.
“What are you going as, Birdie?” she asked.
“A bird, of course. One of the stewardesses gave us a feather boa a passenger left behind on the last voyage. And Gloria’s going to be a Glow-worm, only we’re having trouble fixing the electric torch inside her caterpillar costume.”
“I rather think glow-worms are actually beetles.” She had learnt that when writing her Natural History Museum article.
They stared at her in dismay. “Gee whiz!” said Gloria. “It’s too late to change. Never mind, I guess not many people know that.”
“Hardly anyone, I should think,” said Daisy, sorry she had spoken.
“But if the torch won’t work, make a hookah and you can be the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland.
I must go. Thanks for my costume—it’s spiffing.
And thanks for not making me be a daisy, which is what I always ended up as when I was little.
Gloria, do you know where your father is? ”
“Poppa and Phil came for their coats; they were talking about going outside for some fresh air. There haven’t been any wild gusts in a while, and the ocean’s calmed some, too. But if you go after them, take care.”
On the way to fetch her coat, Daisy realized that the Talavera was once again forging steadily through regular swells.
Their mischief done, wind and wave had subsided, or the ship had escaped beyond the patch of unruly weather.
The thrumming of the engines held an urgent note.
Captain Dane was doubtless trying to make up for lost time.
It was chilly outside, but the wind had died completely,
and the only white froth on the sea was the wakes.
Quite a few passengers had taken advantage of the improvement to go out on deck.
Daisy found Arbuckle taking a turn around the boat-deck in Miss Oliphant’s company, while Phillip had coerced Riddman into a game of deck tennis.
Chester Riddman actually appeared to be enjoying himself.
As expected, Arbuckle was highly indignant to hear his friend had been confined to his suite. “Gotobed wouldn’t hurt a fly! What in tarnation’s got into Fletcher’s head?”
Miss Oliphant said not a word, but her tightly folded lips expressed her feelings. Daisy hastened to remind them of Gotobed’s proximity to two men now dead.
“But unless he’s a homicidal maniac,” Arbuckle exploded, “why the heck would he wanna bump them off?”
“I would take my oath that Mr. Gotobed is not a maniac of any kind,” said Miss Oliphant quietly.
Daisy looked around. No one seemed to have noticed Arbuckle’s outburst. “If he did it, which I don’t believe any more than you do, he had a reason,” she said.
“I can tell you, but only if you give me your word not to talk about it, even to each other. Because if he doesn’t know, then finding out would at best upset him, at worst just might really lead to murder. ”
“Whatever it is, I do not wish to know,” Miss Oliphant declared. “I am prepared to trust Mr. Fletcher’s judgement that there may be good and sufficient reason. I believe I shall go in now. No doubt I shall see you both later.” With a slight bow, she turned towards the nearest companion-way.
Daisy was quite certain the witch had guessed that the imbroglio in which Mr. Gotobed found himself was at least partly his wife’s fault.
“I honour the lady for not prying,” growled Arbuckle, “but darn it, Gotobed’s my pal and I can’t defend him if I don’t know what’s what. I want you to give me the low-down. You have my word I won’t spill the beans.”
“I saw her talking with Pertwee and Welford the day after we sailed. Maybe flirting a bit, that’s all.
There’s no evidence that there was ever anything more.
But Pertwee was a good-looking chap in a way which might appeal to Wanda.
Gotobed could easily misinterpret the situation.
I never breathed a word to him, of course, nor to anyone but Alec; but as Alec says, other people must have seen them and someone might have mentioned it to him. ”
“Gotobed wouldn’t kill a guy for making sheep’s-eyes at his wife!”
“But you must see that Alec couldn’t just ignore it,” Daisy argued.
“I guess not,” Arbuckle conceded.
“And he’s not resting on his laurels. He’s still investigating, and so is Sergeant Tring at home. There’s no proof Gotobed did in Pertwee and Welford, nor is there likely to be any; but with the circumstantial evidence, he simply can’t be allowed to go about as usual.”
“I guess not. Waal, you’ve given me plenty to think about, Mrs. Fletcher. I can go and see him, can I?”
“Oh yes. But do be careful what you say. And I shouldn’t go just yet if I were you. When we left them, they were being rather lovey-dovey.”
“Don’t sound to me like he thinks she’s been two-timing him!” Arbuckle exclaimed.
“Ah, but he knows he has her all to himself now.”
Daisy left him looking unhappy but thoughtful. She hoped he would come up with a way to exculpate Gotobed. Even if nothing was ever proved, having the suspicion of murder hanging over one for the rest of one’s life would be perfectly beastly.
In spite of the two fatal “accidents” aboard, the Fancy Dress Ball was to proceed as planned. When Daisy met Alec in their
cabin to change for dinner—costume was not to be donned until after the meal—he refused categorically to wear his uniform as a Detective Chief Inspector of the Metropolitan Police, which he had brought in case he needed it in Washington.
“It’s not fancy dress,” he said.
“Most passengers don’t know that,” Daisy argued, working on his collar studs.
“They do now, since I interviewed the three who admitted having met Pertwee and Welford.”
“Oh yes, what did they say?”
“Nothing useful. One had chatted with them in the Smoking Room. The others had each played a game or two in Riddman’s suite and decided the stakes were too high. Ouch! I’ll tell you what, I’ll go as a plumber, in my shirtsleeves and no collar!”
“And the old boots and old trousers we brought for country walks, with string around the knees. Good idea! I bet Gloria will know where to get hold of a plumber’s wrench.”
Gloria did. She came to the ball with a torch hung around her neck and dangling inside her bright green caterpillar costume.
Brenda had feathers sewn all over her frock, with wide feathered sleeves to flap and a cardboard beak protruding from her forehead.
Arbuckle wore chaps, fringed buckskin vest, and what he called a bolo tie, acquired on a trip to the Wild West.
Miss Oliphant turned up in a borrowed ship’s boy’s uniform jacket and cap, worn over matching bloomers, announcing herself as a ship’s girl. She did not win a prize from the master of ceremonies, but Arbuckle awarded her a bottle of ginger wine.
Phillip and Riddman were the official winners of the group. They were a pair of charwomen, wrapped in bright, flowered overalls, with carpet slippers on their feet, flowered
hats on their heads, and mops and buckets in hand. As they returned to their seats after accepting their prizes—a half-bottle of Scotch each—walking tipsily and pretending to swig from the bottles, the fog-horn’s mournful blast boomed out.
There was a sudden silence in the Grand Salon, followed by a collective groan.
“What next?” Arbuckle shook his head. “Storms, gales, people falling overboard and drowning. I’m beginning to think Gotobed’s right and I should invest in airplanes. What next?”
“Icebergs?” Brenda said with a shiver.
“Wrong season,” Arbuckle assured her. “The Titanic sailed in April, when the Arctic ice starts breaking up.”
“Wasn’t it the Republic which collided with another ship in a fog and sank?
” Phillip asked tactlessly. Gloria pinched him, and he added hastily, “All souls on board saved, as I recall. I must have been fourteen or fifteen, and I remember the excitement when the radio operator, Binns, got back to England. He was the hero of the hour.”
“He remained at his post on the sinking ship, guiding the Baltic to the rescue,” Miss Oliphant reminisced.
“I don’t suppose young Kitchener will get his chance to show equal heroism,” Alec said dryly. “The sea is wide and ships are small, and we are outside the usual shipping lanes because of avoiding that storm. Have you seen the wireless apparatus yet, Petrie?”
Phillip had visited Kitchener in his den, but Daisy had not, what with the weather and the events of the day. She resolved to go next morning, come hail, snow, hurricane, or iceberg—not to mention murder or mayhem—or it would be too late to fit it into her article.
The Talavera glided snail-like through a white nothingness. Up on deck, her throttled-back engines were no more than a
whisper of vibration. The tops of the masts were invisible, the funnels wreathed in shifting veils. When Daisy looked over the side, she saw the tops of the swells emerging from the fog, one by one, dark and glassy as obsidian.
Every two minutes, the fog-horn wailed its warning.
It reminded country-bred Daisy of a cow which had lost its calf—a very large cow.
The sound reverberated, seemed to echo back off the all-enveloping fog.
Presumably it penetrated at least far enough to warn off any vessel close enough to pose a danger.
The sound died away into a hushed stillness without a breath of wind, then once again blared forth. The damp cold seeped into Daisy’s bones. She went on to the wireless room.
Kitchener was delighted to see her and pleased to answer her questions, though because of the fog he never doffed his earphones. At intervals he tapped out the ship’s identification and position, but his fingers performed this exercise almost automatically, without interrupting the interview.
Now and then, the young wireless operator fell silent, listening intently for a minute or two. He explained that in bad weather a regular period was left clear of other messages to allow for emergency transmissions.
Daisy asked him about the sinking of the Republic in 1909. He was telling her the story of CQD Binns—CQD being the old emergency call letters, standing for Come Quick, Danger—when suddenly he stopped and held up his hand.
“SOS,” he hissed. He listened a moment longer. “Sorry, miss, you’ll have to go. I think we’re the nearest ship.”