by Evelyn James
“He seemed upset?”
“Belligerent,” Ronnie shrugged again. “Might have been the drink. He absolutely refused to accompany me to a lifeboat, said he wasn’t going to set a foot in one of those things. I explained the situation once more, but he refused to budge. I had the impression he was more scared of the idea of getting in a lifeboat, than of being blown up by a mine.”
“How long did you talk with him?” Clara asked, intrigued that Ronnie might have been the last person, barring Henry’s killer, to see him alive.
“I don’t know, a few minutes. I wanted to get him on a lifeboat, but I couldn’t convince him. I went to find someone to help me, which is when I realised all the lifeboats had been launched anyway.”
“So, you couldn’t evacuate Henry Kemp, even if he had agreed,” O’Harris noted.
“I thought I better keep an eye on him, nonetheless,” Ronnie continued. “If things went badly, we would need to get everyone left on the liner off, including Mr Kemp. I went back to the sun deck and he turned on me and demanded to know where the champagne was kept.”
“What did you say?” Clara asked.
“He startled me. I just blurted out that it was all downstairs, in the kitchens and told him he would have to wait until the emergency was over. I was getting rather cross now,” Ronnie looked abashed, it was the role of the crew to be eternally polite to the passengers, even when they were being unreasonable. Ronnie was ashamed that he had lost his temper, if only by a fraction. “I wanted him to stay where I could see him. The best place for him would be on the sun deck with the musicians. At least then I would know where he was, but there was no reasoning with him. When I asked him to stay put, he started shouting and telling me I could not order him about, he was a free agent, a guest on the ship and could go where he pleased. That was when he marched off, heading below-decks. I really didn’t want him going down, that would be really bad if the mine exploded.”
“You followed him,” Clara guessed.
“I had to. I kept calling to him and asking that he come back on deck, but he wouldn’t listen. He was muttering to himself all the time and wandering about seemingly randomly.”
“How did you lose sight of him?” Captain O’Harris asked, knowing that Ronnie must have, at some point, stopped following Henry Kemp; otherwise he would have also witnessed his murder.
Ronnie flushed bright red.
“Please don’t tell Captain Pevsner this,” he begged, sucking in and chewing on his lower lip. “I neglected my duty, I know, but I was tired with Mr Kemp and I didn’t think I could persuade him to come back up top until he had a drink and…”
Ronnie came to a halt in his dialogue. He pursed his lips like he had just taken some foul medicine.
“And?” Clara pressed him gently.
“As I was passing one of the cupboards on the third deck, I noticed Jack.”
“Jack? Another crewman?”
“The ship’s cat,” Ronnie admitted, hardly able to look up at Clara. “We had all been looking for him from the moment the order to evacuate was given. He has the run of the ship, you see. Well, someone had left the door to the cupboard ajar and Jack must have slipped in. He was nestled up in a pile of old towels. Only reason I spotted him was because I heard him meow. Jack knows when something is up, I think he was curious as to what was going on. He’s a clever cat.”
“Jack distracted you,” Clara elaborated. “What did you do?”
“I wasn’t going to lose track of the cat now I had found him,” Ronnie explained. “I picked him up and I carried him all the way to the captain’s bridge, where I put him in his basket and locked the door. If the worst happened, I would know where to find him at least.”
Ronnie hung his head.
“I lost sight of Henry Kemp because of that. And I didn’t bother to go back and look for him. I should have done, but I… I was so fed up with him…”
“Ronnie, I understand,” Clara promised him. “You had your hands full and a belligerent guest who did not want to cooperate was the last thing you needed. Besides, what harm could he come to?”
“Exactly, that’s what I thought to myself. What harm? By then they had managed to push the mine away from the ship anyway and were planning on sailing round so they could shoot it.”
“Where precisely did you last see Henry Kemp?” Clara asked him.
“Ah, that’s easy. I was on the fourth deck, the kitchens are at that level. I last saw Mr Kemp passing the chart room. I thought he might be doubling back to return to the top deck after all.”
“Did you see anyone else while you were down there? Really think about this Ronnie.”
Ronnie obeyed Clara and gave the question some thought, going over in his mind what he had seen while he was down below. He tapped his fingers on the table as he mentally progressed down into the bowels of the ship.
“I thought we were alone,” he said at last.
Clara frowned.
“You thought? What does that mean?”
“At the time I thought we were alone,” Ronnie clarified. “Now, however…”
He frowned deeply again.
“I might be making it up, I can’t be certain.”
“Tell me what is bothering you,” Clara was leaning forward, keen to hear what Ronnie was about to say.
Ronnie took a deep breath and for a moment it looked as if he was going to change his mind and say he was mistaken, that the corridors were empty and that anything else had been added by his imagination later on.
“You know when you go into a room and someone comes in behind you, and even if they are as silent as a lamb, you sense they are there?”
“Yes,” Clara nodded.
“It was rather like that. When I was retrieving Jack there was this moment when I could have sworn someone was just behind me. I remember thinking to myself that perhaps Mr Kemp had walked back towards me. But he hadn’t,” Ronnie contemplated the question further. “And there was something else, something I barely paid attention to at the time. I might be mistaken, but I think I saw a shadow, as if someone was passing down the bottom corridor at the prow-end of the ship. That couldn’t have been Mr Kemp, he could not have made it there that fast. But if it was someone else, I can’t tell you who they were. As far as I knew, everyone except myself and Mr Kemp were either on deck or in a lifeboat.”
“You are certain all the crew were up on the top deck?” Clara asked him now, trying to jog his memory. People made sweeping statements, such as, ‘everyone was on deck’, when they did not actually know them to be true, it was just something they had assumed. Say the same thing often enough and it tended to become a reality in your mind, but just pause a moment to analyse that assumption and suddenly everything was turned on its head.
This was what Clara was hoping. Ronnie was frowning and trying to put together what he believed had been the case, against what he knew to be true. The two different concepts were failing to align.
“I thought everyone was on top deck,” he said at last. “But I didn’t actually see everyone on the top deck.”
“Then a crewman might have been below, like you?”
“Yes,” Ronnie said reluctantly.
“What about other passengers, are you certain Henry Kemp was the only one to remain behind?”
Ronnie was about to say he was, but the words died on his tongue. He looked miserably at Clara.
“I don’t know. I don’t think anyone knew who was left aboard and who was not,” Ronnie’s face fell. “If only I had kept my eye on Mr Kemp he would have been all right.”
“This wasn’t your fault,” Clara reassured him.
Ronald Long did not look convinced.
Chapter Nine
After Ronald’s confession that he had seen someone else below decks with Henry Kemp, Clara knew she needed to go back to the members of Noble and Sons and learn more about the dead man. So far, she had no motive for his murder and certainly no suspect. Henry Kemp might have been a drunk, but he
did not seem to be the sort of person to purposefully upset people, at least from what little she had learned.
Before going up on deck to pursue her only leads in the matter, she stopped briefly by the cold store – a large refrigerated room which could be used to house huge amounts of meat and produce that benefited from being kept chilled. Once the store would have been filled to capacity to feed the many passengers on the liner. These days it looked largely empty, though an impressive stack of champagne bottles at the rear of the room did at least supply it with a function.
Captain O’Harris walked over to the crates and inspected their label.
“Never heard of the producer,” he declared with some satisfaction.
“You are rather a wine snob,” Clara teased him.
O’Harris put on a hurt look.
“I prefer to call myself a connoisseur.”
Clara didn’t argue with him, merely gave him a wry smile to indicate she was only being silly. Then she crouched down beside what might look, to innocent eyes, to be a pile of blankets tucked under the lower shelf of one of the many metal racks that lined the walls. It was, in fact, a stretcher containing the body of Henry Kemp and covered with thick woollen blankets to disguise its presence. Not that any of the kitchen staff coming into the cold store would have been fooled. Clara pulled out the stretcher and lowered the blanket from Henry Kemp’s face.
He was already looking less ‘alive’. The colour had vanished from his skin and he now had a grey hue, fine blue veins visible in some places, as if his flesh had become translucent. He had stiffened in the first stages of rigour mortis and his jaw had slackened and fallen open, revealing neat upper teeth, but rather twisted and stained lower ones. The doctor had closed Henry’s eyes and he no longer stared out at the world with a slightly incredulous expression.
“What are you looking for?” O’Harris asked as Clara pulled the sheets back further.
She had not said anything when they had left the captain’s cabin, except that she had to visit the cold store again.
“I want to rule out a possible motive,” Clara explained as she rummaged through the pockets of Henry’s dinner jacket.
She pulled out a few shillings, which she laid on the floor beside her. Then she examined his wrists and neck.
“Gold cufflinks, gold watch, silver tie pin, and this ring appears to be quite expensive too,” she pointed out a ring on Henry’s left hand little finger. It looked to also be gold with a large red stone.
“A ruby?” O’Harris postulated.
“I would guess so, considering the quality of the other items he is wearing,” she tried his trouser pockets and produced a wad of pound notes. She counted them quickly. “Twenty quid.”
“Tips for the serving staff!” O’Harris said, mildly astonished. Even he did not carry that sort of money to an evening party.
“I wanted to be sure this was not a simple crime of opportunity. That he had been robbed by someone who happened upon him and saw a drunk, rich man unable to fight back,” Clara returned the money to Henry’s pocket. “If he had just been wearing the cufflinks and watch, I might have still wondered, but the fact he has all this money in his pocket untouched convinces me he was not robbed for his valuables. Someone could have easily taken this money and no one would ever know.”
“Hard to imagine someone on this ship mugging the man,” O’Harris frowned.
“But not impossible. Someone might have slipped aboard with the intention of robbing the guests. It would be easy to do and I imagine many of the cabins have been left unlocked. I had to rule it out, because that also means ruling out that the killer was someone Henry did not know,” Clara stood up and carefully adjusted her skirt which had rumpled when she crouched. “We are back to the idea that someone had a grudge against him and deliberately sought him out.”
“And that brings us all the way around to the same question again – who?”
Clara pushed Henry’s body back under the shelves. Covered with the blankets it was almost possible to forget there was a dead man resting there.
“I want to talk with Charles Walsh. It seems to me he knew a lot more about Henry than he was letting on. He couldn’t say much in front of his employer.”
“Arthur Noble is a certified oaf,” a touch of anger entered O’Harris’ voice. “The sort of man who has earned none of the luxuries he enjoys and yet thinks he is better than anyone else.”
“I meet a lot of those,” Clara said mildly. “They are not worth getting cross about. Mostly they are fools who eventually get their comeuppance.”
“Did he not offend you?” Captain O’Harris had been offended on Clara’s behalf.
“If I spent my time getting offended by all the oafs I confront in this job, I would be perpetually offended,” Clara told him lightly. “He annoyed me, that is certain. But I won’t take it to heart, I have too much to do.”
O’Harris followed Clara out of the cold store.
“I didn’t realise this is the sort of thing you face regularly. Are a lot of men so disrespectful to you when they learn you are a detective?”
Clara smiled at him.
“Oh yes, which makes it all the more satisfying when I solve a case, especially if the man who was rude to me is the culprit,” Clara’s smile shaped into a wicked grin. “Come on, let’s find Mr Walsh.”
Charles Walsh was stood near the band, drinking a flute of champagne in slow, small sips and seemingly thinking of things other than celebrating New Year’s. He was alone. Arthur Noble had asked someone to bring him a chair and was now stationed permanently by the buffet several feet away. His sons were loitering nearby. Miss Dodd had found a dance partner and was now executing a gentle waltz with surprising aplomb. No one appeared to notice Clara approach Charles.
“Mr Walsh? Might we talk a while in private,” she asked as she arrived at the man’s elbow.
He seemed startled by her appearance, he had clearly been deep in thought. He glanced at Clara, then at O’Harris.
“I could do with talking to you,” he said after a moment. “I was debating seeking you out.”
“Why is that?” Clara asked.
Charles Walsh took a deep breath and braced himself, as if he was about to face some unspeakable danger.
“I want to be honest with you about Henry Kemp. Maybe it will help to find his killer. I won’t lie and say I much liked the man, but I wouldn’t see him hurt,” Charles hesitated. “I was always told you don’t speak ill of the dead and Henry was my superior.”
“Let’s make one thing plain,” Clara told him firmly. “In a case of murder, honesty is paramount, even when what you say might be unpalatable. Killers have escaped justice because people were not prepared to speak plainly about the deceased. Now is not the time to be polite. I would like to know all I can about Henry Kemp, as that might point me in the direction of his killer.”
Charles Walsh took this all in with a nod of his head.
“All right then, let’s talk.”
They headed back to Captain Pevsner’s cabin and Clara offered Charles a glass of water before they began. Charles accepted and placed his champagne flute to one side. He hunched forward in his chair, elbows on the table and both hands wrapped around the glass before him.
“Where should I start?” He asked.
“Tell me about your relationship with Henry Kemp,” Clara suggested, it was an easy way to kick off the conversation. Hopefully it would put Charles more at ease. He looked unhappy, despite saying he wished to talk.
“Henry hired me to work for Noble and Sons,” Charles explained. “Mr Noble I see maybe twice a week at the company board meetings. I barely know him. But I worked all week with Henry and I often saw him at weekend functions too. This job eats away at your life, you end up with very little free time. Not that I am complaining, I just want you to understand how much time I spent with Henry.”
“I understand,” Clara assured him. “You must have known Henry well?”
“Ma
ybe,” Charles frowned, the question worrying him. “I knew an aspect of Henry, I think that is the better way of stating things. I am sure there was a lot I didn’t know about him, and probably there was a lot he didn’t know about me. You share only a part of yourself at work, the part that is relevant to what you are doing.”
“That is logical,” Clara agreed. “Tell me what you knew about Henry through your work. Did you get on, for instance?”
The frown was still creasing Charles’ forehead.
“I would say we did. He never complained about my work, at least. Henry was quiet, insular. If he gave you praise or criticism it was always in the same solemn tone, as if he begrudged giving anything at all,” Charles ran one finger up and down the side of the glass of water. “I can’t say I liked him, but I didn’t mind him. He was not bad to work with. He set me tasks and let me get on with them. I appreciated that.”
“Did he speak about his personal life?”
Charles shook his head.
“He was very private. You know how it is, you come into work on a Monday after the weekend and you talk about things, like the roast dinner you ate with the family, or your plans for Christmas. Well, Henry never did that,” Charles was watching the water in his glass, he seemed unable to look away from it. “Sometimes you would forget yourself and ask him outright a question about his home arrangements. For example, the first year I was at Noble and Sons I received my invitation, which is really more of an order, to attend the New Year’s celebrations and I was unhappy. I am seeing this young lady, well, actually we are engaged.”
“Congratulations,” Clara said warmly.
Charles blushed and ducked his head a little further, though the smile on his face seemed to indicate he was delighted with the praise.
