Murder on the Mary Jane

by Evelyn James

  Clara felt there was nothing that was not in the nature of a man who drunk to excess and lost his inhibitions as a result, but she did not say that. The fact of the matter was, there was no real evidence that Henry Kemp had been in a fight or even a struggle, something that could have become violent enough to cause someone to grab up a knife to defend themselves. The more she thought about it, the more Clara was convinced someone had come upon him and deliberately stabbed him.

  “You will search Mr Noble’s room?” Miss Dodd pressed her.

  Clara folded her fingers about the cabin key.

  “I shall. Thank you for your assistance.”

  “It is the least I can do for Mr Kemp,” Miss Dodd’s face twisted in sorrow. “He was a good man who did not deserve to die, and if one of them…”

  She caught herself, but her eyes reached across the deck and glared daggers at Simon Noble and his brother Elias.

  “Poor Henry,” she whispered to herself. “Poor, poor Henry.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Clara and Captain O’Harris slipped away from the sun deck as discreetly as they could. Clara weighed the cabin key Miss Dodd had given her in her hand. She was about to trespass onto someone else’s personal space, she had to wonder if she was doing the right thing. Clara could be quite lenient with herself when it came to solving a case, she would allow herself a fair amount of latitude in the course of catching a killer. She didn’t often, however, sneak into a suspect’s room, especially when that suspect was still wandering around as a free man.

  She toyed over what she was doing as she walked down below. Without searching the cabin she might never prove that Simon Noble had harmed Henry Kemp. She still might not even with searching the cabin. Simon Noble might have been clever enough to throw his bloodied shirt overboard. Then again, if he thought it was safe in his cabin, why dispose of an expensive item unnecessarily? Clara was torn, but the closer she came to Simon Noble’s cabin door, the more she knew that, even with her doubts, she was going to enter his cabin and search it.

  Captain O’Harris had been walking by her side, he paused as they reached the correct cabin.

  “Want me to keep a lookout?” he offered.

  “You read my mind,” Clara smiled at him. “Sorry that this is not quite the evening you were expecting.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” O’Harris grinned back. “I’m enjoying myself. The subterfuge, the sneaking about.”

  He chuckled.

  “It’s rather like an adventure novel!”

  Clara was relieved he was not cross at their evening being interrupted. She tried the key in the cabin door and heard the lock click. She took a breath and paused.

  “What’s the matter?” O’Harris asked.

  “What if I am wrong?” Clara said. “What if I have trespassed into a man’s cabin who is not guilty of murder?”

  “Do you think you are wrong?” O’Harris asked.

  Clara paused, giving the question due thought.

  “No.”

  “Then there is nothing to worry over.”

  Clara tilted her head as she looked at Captain O’Harris’ broad grin. She found herself returning the smile.

  “Right then!”

  She opened the cabin door and stepped inside. The cabins were all fairly uniform, they were of another age and what had been considered luxurious in the 1880s now seemed rather cramped and inconvenient to a modern mind. The beds were fitted against the wall on Clara’s right. There were two bunk beds, one above the other. The top bed was still neatly made, the bed sheets tucked firmly down the sides of the mattress, the lower bed was rumpled, as if someone had sat on it recently. Straight ahead of Clara was a large porthole, firmly bolted in place and with a pair of plain curtains to pull across it. To the left of the porthole was a built-in wardrobe, the doors shut. Just beneath the porthole stood an overnight bag.

  The room had barely been lived in and there was a dearth of personal belongings. A starched collar, the sort of removeable one men sometimes wore with their dress shirts had been discarded on the bed, along with a box that proved to contain a spare pair of cufflinks. Clara examined the cufflinks carefully, in case they had been splattered by blood, but they looked clean. She crouched by the overnight bag next and flicked it open. It proved to be empty, except for a novel about spies in the war and a tooth cleaning set. Clara was not entirely surprised. The natural thing to do would be to hang the clothes in the wardrobe, to prevent them getting unnecessarily creased.

  She opened the doors of the cupboard and found a fresh set of trousers, casual jacket and bowler hat. The trousers and jacket were on a hangar, the bowler on a top shelf. At the base of the wardrobe was a pair of brown leather shoes. These were the clothes Simon Noble would dress in tomorrow when he left the ship. Casual attire, but still smart. However, she instantly noticed one thing that was missing. There was no change of shirt. Clara shut the wardrobe and looked around the room once more. There was no sign of the spare shirt anywhere, but there was one place further to look.

  There was a door next to the wardrobe, it led into an adjoining bathroom. The bathroom itself, as Clara knew from her own cabin, was not large and contained a small sink and a toilet. A cupboard mounted on the wall could be used for storing toiletries. Clara entered the small space and the first thing that caught her eye was that the sink was full of water. Draped over the edge of the basin was what first appeared to be a white cloth. Clara pulled its edge and realised it was a shirt. Her heart started to pound. In the sink the water had a pink hue and was scummy with soap. She pulled the plug and drained the water.

  A sodden shirt, the sleeves deep in the sink, emerged. Simon Noble had tried to scrub clean the shirt. He had used a nail brush and a thick bar of soap that each cabin was supplied with. His attempts had proved in vain; the cuffs of the shirt remained stained with rusty red marks. He had left the shirt to soak, in the hopes of salvaging it.

  Simon Noble had never washed his own shirt in his life, Clara was certain of that. If he had, he might have known that trying to get blood stains out of white fabric was one of the toughest things possible. Blood is remarkably resilient. Any washerwoman would have told him that. It needed vigorous scrubbing and a caustic agent if any attempt was to be made; certainly ordinary soap would not be sufficient. Even with the right materials very often a mark remained, a slight discoloration which revealed where the stain had once been.

  Simon Noble would have been far better off tossing the shirt overboard, but that too would have held risks. On its own, the shirt would not have sunk, but would have drifted and perhaps been spotted by an observant crewman and rescued. It certainly would have aroused attention as being out-of-place. It might even have raised fears that someone had fallen overboard. If he had sufficiently weighted it and tossed it into the sea, then probably it would have sunk and all trace of his crime would have been lost. But Simon was not that clever, and he had clearly thought he could wash the shirt and continue to use it.

  Clara noted that the tailor’s label in the neck of the shirt indicated it was indeed a very expensive piece of clothing, the sort of thing even wealthy men think twice about disposing of. She was delighted to also note that the initials S. N. had been stitched into the bottom edge, just above the hem. Clara guessed that Simon was precious about his shirts and did not want them accidentally being returned to his brother or father. The initials would be for whoever did the Nobles’ washing, ensuring they all received the correct belongings. For Clara, it pinned Simon Noble into a corner, providing her with damning proof that he had stood over Henry Kemp and come close enough to stain his cuffs.

  And there was a lot of blood on the cuffs. Even with Simon’s attempts to wash out the stains the marks were plain. One cuff, the left, was more bloodied than the other, and Clara recalled that Henry Kemp had been stabbed in the left-hand side. She whistled through her teeth. Clara had her killer.

  “Any luck?” O’Harris called from outside.

  Clara emer
ged from the cabin and showed him the shirt. It dripped water onto the floor as she walked into the corridor.

  “Is that it?” O’Harris said, somewhat incredulous. He lifted up the left sleeve and looked at the dull, rusty stains on the cuff. “He can’t deny that he was with Henry Kemp’s body now.”

  “He can still protest that he did not kill him,” Clara hesitated. She was beginning to feel her doubts creeping in. “He could say he came across the body and stained his cuffs while checking to see if Mr Kemp was alive.”

  “Then why lie about it and hide the shirt?”

  Clara shrugged. She did not think Simon Noble innocently stumbled across the dead Henry Kemp, but she knew enough about courts of law to realise the evidence she held was circumstantial only. A clever solicitor – and the Nobles could hire the best and cleverest – could argue that there was too much doubt to convict Simon Noble of murder. They could employ all manner of excuses; Simon had been in shock, he had been scared of being accused, he had been frightened of the killer, etc, etc, to explain why he had not raised the alarm and had hidden the shirt.

  In fact, a good solicitor could even argue that the shirt was not hidden. That he had merely, and quite naturally, changed it as it was soiled. He could hardly return to the party with blood on his cuffs. He had not made real efforts to hide it, other than leaving it in his cabin. The more Clara thought about it, the more she feared that she had very little to use against Simon Noble. Without a witness to the killing, and without a clear motive, Simon Noble could wrangle his way out of any charges brought against him.

  “It’s a start,” O’Harris said, reading her expression accurately.

  “Let’s take it to Captain Pevsner,” Clara said. “And see what he wants to do.”

  Not knowing where Captain Pevsner was at that moment in time, and not wishing to traipse about the ship with the damp shirt on view. Clara went to the captain’s cabin, while O’Harris went to find the good skipper.

  Clara hunted through the cabin and eventually found a large towel in a drawer. She threw this over the table and spread the shirt out on top of it. She took another good look at her find. No one could argue with the blood on the sleeve cuff or suggest it had come from something minor like a shaving accident. But why had Simon Noble slain his employee? No one had hinted at a suitable motive and Miss Dodd seemed certain Henry Kemp would not have become violent enough to suggest they had argued and Noble had raised the knife in self-defence. No, there was something Clara was missing. But a stained shirt was not going to tell her what that was.

  Captain O’Harris returned half an hour after leaving Clara. Captain Pevsner was following him. He looked at the shirt and said nothing. The stained cuffs spoke for themselves.

  “Where did you find it?”

  “In the sink of his cabin,” Clara pulled the spare key for Simon Noble’s cabin from her pocket. “I didn’t break in. I was offered the key.”

  She did not mention who had offered her the key.

  “He was trying to wash the stains out and clearly failed.”

  “So, he did it?” Captain Pevsner breathed sharply, relief and horror mingled on his face. “He killed Henry Kemp.”

  “I think so,” Clara said. “But the evidence is circumstantial. We can present this to the police, however, and I think we ought to confront Simon Noble with what we have found. We might just shake him enough to get a confession.”

  Clara knew that was a real last ditch hope, but she was running out of options. Captain Pevsner did not share her uncertainty, he nodded.

  “I shall fetch him myself,” he said. “Please wait here for me.”

  He departed the cabin. Clara took a seat in a chair and glared at the shirt. Proof, and yet no proof. O’Harris smiled at her sympathetically.

  “He will wriggle out of it, won’t he?” He said.

  “I doubt they will even be able to get him into court, not with such a flimsy case against him. They won’t risk it. The Nobles have money, and you don’t go around charging wealthy men with murder unless you can jolly well prove it without doubt.”

  “Poor Henry Kemp,” O’Harris repeated Miss Dodd’s words. “What could he have done to incur Simon Noble’s wrath?”

  Clara shrugged, that was what was bothering her too.

  The said nothing while they waited for Captain Pevsner, finding it hard to know what to say to each other. The shirt had become the focal point in the room, yet it was also the source of their silence. It starkly reminded them that a man had died and they were battling the odds to bring his killer to justice.

  “Simon Noble is going to get away with murder,” Clara said miserably.

  O’Harris frowned, but he could not offer any consolation. They were distracted from their thoughts by the return of Captain Pevsner. How he had managed to persuade Simon Noble to join him Clara could only guess. But the man walked into the cabin willingly enough, then he saw O’Harris and Clara. He scowled, for a moment not noting the shirt laid out on the table.

  “Hello again,” Clara said. “Apologies for disturbing you once more, but there has been a problem with the laundry.”

  Clara wafted a hand towards the shirt on the table. Simon’s eyes slowly followed. Clara was convinced they widened as he spotted what was laid out before him. But she had to give him credit, he did not crumple, rather he went on the defensive.

  “You’ve been in my cabin! This is a disgrace Pevsner!”

  “I was not responsible,” Captain Pevsner hastily protested. “They were given a key.”

  “Not by me!” Simon Noble snapped and then he realised who must have given them the spare key to the room and he hesitated for just a fraction of an instant. “What lies have you been spinning to Miss Dodd?”

  “Mr Noble,” Clara rose from her seat. “I have spun no lies, I merely have presented the truth to you. Here is your shirt, from your cabin. The initials alone mark it as yours. And the cuffs are stained, I think it likely an expert could verify those marks are blood and a great deal of it. This is the shirt you wore when you killed Henry Kemp. You tried to wash it clean, but it is plain you failed. Do you wish to say anything?”

  Simon Noble glowered at her, then a thin grin crept onto his face. It was a nasty, evil grin, one that indicated that he was clever enough to see through Clara’s bluff.

  “Do I wish to say anything? Yes, tell me Miss Fitzgerald, why would I kill Henry Kemp? What reason could I possibly have?”

  Clara clenched her fists as he sneered at her. There was nothing worse than knowing she had no reply to his question.

  Simon Noble grinned.

  Chapter Sixteen

  There was nothing else for it. Simon Noble was not going to confess to anything and the case against him was becoming flimsier and flimsier. He tried to take back his shirt, but Clara refused. That had to stay with them else they had nothing. Noble argued the discoloration was meaningless, trying to suggest the stains were caused by rusty water in the lifeboat and not by blood. Clara replied that that meant there was no harm in her retaining it to give to the police. There was a potential for the situation to dissolve into an argument, but the presence of Captain Pevsner and Captain O’Harris kept matters from over-boiling. Reluctantly, Simon Noble allowed the captain to lock the shirt in his safe. It was out of all their hands now and could be given to the police in due course.

  “And what will they do with it?” Simon Noble huffed.

  “That is up to them,” Clara answered. “You may think you have won, but things are far from over. If you really did kill Henry Kemp I shall learn why.”

  “You really think a stained shirt will lead to me being arrested?” Simon Noble was amused.

  “I think it is a start,” Clara replied.

  “You really have nothing,” Simon Noble scoffed, he threw back his shoulders and grinned arrogantly.

  Clara wanted to slap him. He thought they had nothing, and he was more than a smidge right.

  “I’m getting back to the party,” Si
mon Noble snorted. “I am bored with your games. I’ll take my spare cabin key, too.”

  He held out a fat hand. Clara hesitated for a moment, but she could not deny his request. She handed over the key.

  “I’ll be having words with Miss Dodd about this,” he said as he clasped his fist about the key.

  “She thought she was helping you,” Clara lied boldly. “She knew we thought you had something to do with the murder of Mr Kemp. She thought by letting us search your cabin we would find nothing and so be forced to reconsider our suspicions.”

  That statement clearly threw Simon Noble. His arrogance faded a fraction and a frown crept onto his forehead. He wasn’t sure what to believe.

  “Miss Dodd has always been very loyal to the family,” he said uneasily.

  “She thought she was doing you a favour,” Clara insisted. “She was convinced you were innocent and wanted to prove it. It is not her fault she was mistaken.”

  Simon Noble’s scowl returned, he puffed out his cheeks and looked ready to explode. Clara had deliberately goaded him, to turn any anger he might have at Miss Dodd onto herself. She did not want the woman losing her job because she had cared about finding the truth.

  “You used Miss Dodd,” Simon snapped. “You tricked her into thinking she was being helpful. Shame on you.”

  Clara did not care if he belittled her, as long as it protected Miss Dodd from his wrath.

  “I’m getting back to the party. I’ve had enough of all this nonsense,” Simon Noble turned on his heel and stormed out.

  Clara felt her shoulders sag as soon as he was gone. She had been standing rigid, like a sentry on duty, her muscles tense with defiance towards Simon Noble. She would not let him see that he had the advantage and that she had… well, a damp shirt with stained cuffs. Once he had gone she could drop the pretence and her shoulders not only sagged with relief, but also with despondency.