Murder in Pastiche

by Marion Mainwaring

  Pason looked up. “What was that?”

  “Oh, they were in the Lounge. Two little old ladies in old-fashioned clothes, very timid and quiet. Everyone was gossiping about the murder, of course, and one of these ladies said they’d heard a funny noise outside their window last night, like something being dragged. But that was on the port side, and Price was found to starboard.”

  “Was one of them Lady Chip-Ebberly?”

  “Oh, no. She is very stately and dignified. These were just two old ladies in rather countrified clothing. Besides, they were Americans. I could tell by the way they spoke. They didn’t have English accents. Why, do you suspect her, Chief?”

  “I wouldn’t say that,” the lawyer told her. “Only I’ve noticed her give Anderson some queer looks. And she seemed interested in Paul Price, too. I wouldn’t put it past her to frame Anderson. Would you know those two old women again if you saw them?”

  “Of course,” Stella Deet said. “But how can they fit in?”

  “Keep an eye out for them,” Pason told her. “When you’ve located them, let me see them. You might—”

  The door opened. Anderson burst in. He was puffing, and his eyes were bulging. He fell onto a chair.

  Stella Deet seized a glass from the table. She went into the bathroom. She turned on the water, filled the glass, and handed it to Homer T. Anderson. He drank it.

  “I knew I was being framed!” he gasped.

  “What has happened?” Jerry Pason was tense but controlled.

  Anderson put his hand into his pocket, came out with a blackjack. He put it dramatically down before Pason.

  Pason leaned forward keenly. He examined the weapon. It showed distinct traces of blood.

  “Where did this come from?” he asked calmly.

  “It’s mine!” Anderson cried. “It was stolen from me before the murder, and now someone has planted it in my cabin!”

  “You didn’t mention owning a blackjack before,” Pason said, significantly.

  “Because I hoped nobody would remember! I only got it as a souvenir. I collect murder weapons. I showed it to some people in the Lounge. I forgot to get it back afterwards. I haven’t seen it since.”

  “You’re a fool,” Pason told him. “We’ve known about your owning it all along. Who stole it from you that night?”

  Anderson shook his head. “I don’t know. I’d had a drink or two—”

  “Well, put your mind to it,” Pason told him. “Who on board this ship wants to get you into trouble?”

  “Why, no one! I don’t know anyone on board!”

  “Someone seems to know you,” Pason said drily. He got up, picking up the weapon. “Now I want to see your cabin.”

  “What are you going to do, Chief?” Stella Deet whispered as they followed Anderson along the passageway.

  “To try and verify his story.”

  “He seems genuinely frightened,” Stella Deet said.

  The lawyer nodded as they entered Anderson’s cabin. He asked, “Where did you find the blackjack, Mr. Anderson?”

  Anderson pointed to the bed. “Between the mattress and the wall.”

  “The window was open as it is now?”

  “Yes.”

  Pason said, “Wait here.” He picked up an ash tray and went out.

  Stella Deet and Homer T. Anderson stood silent as Pason left.

  Three minutes elapsed. Then the ash tray was hurled in through the window. Anderson jumped, wiped his forehead. The tray landed on the bed and slipped down into the space between the mattress and the wall.

  “Nice shot, Chief!” Stella Deet said when Pason returned.

  “Just a little test. That’s how the blackjack got here. Anyone passing along the deck outside the open window could have tossed it in. It must have happened since the berths were made up this morning, or the steward would have noticed it.”

  “Get rid of it!” Anderson demanded. “I would have thrown it overboard only I couldn’t because this window opens on the deck.”

  “It’s lucky you didn’t,” Pason said. “It would have been smarter to leave it right where you found it. Now it has your prints.”

  Pason wiped the blackjack with his handkerchief. He removed the ashtray and put the blackjack in its place. Then he scribbled a note and rang for the steward. He told the steward to take the note to the First Officer.

  Stella Deet raised her eyebrows.

  “We’ll play along with the framer,” Pason said, grinning. “I’m only restaging the plant.”

  “But—” blustered Anderson.

  “You just do as I say.”

  The First Officer came and looked inquiringly at Pason, Anderson, and Stella Deet.

  Pason said: “Mr. Anderson is my client now. He found this blackjack here a little while ago. It is in the exact place where it would be if it had been thrown in by someone walking past the window. Someone threw it in to incriminate him.”

  The First Officer looked at the window and the bed. He nodded. Pason picked up the blackjack in his handkerchief and showed it to him.

  The First Officer asked: “Isn’t that your own cosh, Mr. Anderson? It looks like one you had in the Lounge.”

  Anderson licked his lips. Sweat came out on his forehead. He looked over at Pason.

  Pason said: “My client concedes ownership. But it was stolen from him. He hasn’t seen it since the night he had it in the Lounge.”

  The First Officer asked: “Why didn’t he tell us about it earlier? Why, it must be the murder weapon! And why wasn’t it thrown overboard?”

  “It was kept,” Pason said, “so as to frame my client.”

  “Can we be sure it is the weapon?” Stella Deet asked.

  “We can have it tested,” Pason said.

  “I’ll take it to the Doctor now,” said the First Ofiicer.

  Stella Deet and Jerry Pason accompanied him to the Doctor’s office.

  The First Officer asked, “Can you be certain Mr. Anderson is not pretending to frame himself?”

  Pason smiled, said suavely: “That’s an improper question. But, off the record, I don’t think he’d have the brains to try anything that complicated.”

  The Doctor looked up impatiently from his desk.

  Pason asked, “Is it your opinion that this is the blunt instrument responsible for Paul Price’s death?”

  The Doctor looked at the blackjack. He said, “It might be.”

  “Will you test the blood? and look for hairs?”

  The Doctor said grudgingly: “All right. I’ll let you know the results later. I’m a very busy man.” He bent to his desk.

  Stella Deet asked as they went out, “Do you like poetry, too, Mr. Waggish?”

  “Not my line, Miss Deet. I’m more a man for detective stories— especially the ones with beautiful women assistants,” the First Officer told her smilingly.

  Stella Deet laughed, blushed.

  The First Officer went below. Pason and Stella Deet walked along the passageway.

  “You know, Chief,” Stella Deet said thoughtfully, “there’s something funny about that Doctor. He seems more interested in something else than his medicine. He seems more interested in his poetry. In fact the whole ship is funny. The Captain is said to be a maniac!”

  “And the First Mate?” Pason smiled.

  “Oh, he’s terribly good-looking. And I love his accent!” Stella Deet said gaily.

  “Better than an American one?”

  “Not better than a California accent,” Stella Deet said softly.

  “Stella …” said Jerry Pason. He took her hand.

  A passenger came by. Pason let go Stella Deet’s hand.

  Stella Deet sighed. “I’ll go type up my notes, Chief,” she said.

  Jerry Pason entered the Lounge. Two white-haired women in a corner caught his eye. One wore a brown cardigan and one a blue cardigan. They both wore high buttoned boots. Pason frowned, smiled. He made his way towards them. He fell into conversation with them.

  “You
’re Americans?” he asked.

  “Oh, yes,” said the old lady in the brown cardigan. “We’re on our way home.”

  “I don’t know how the English travel,” marvelled the other old lady. “My goodness, they are only allowed to take fifty pounds out of the country. Don’t you think that’s hard, Mr. Pason?”

  “You know my name?” asked the lawyer.

  “Oh, everyone knows you! It’s so terrible,” quavered the old lady in the brown cardigan. “We’ve never been so close to a crime before. This morning when we heard about this terrible thing I told Lucinda it must have been the noise we heard.”

  “But you know it couldn’t have been, Letty,” the other old lady said firmly.

  “What sort of noise was it?” Pason showed only polite, casual interest.

  “Like something heavy being tugged, and something wooden being rattled a little.”

  “It wasn’t just the creaking of the ship?”

  “Oh, no, Mr. Pason! I was nervous and asked Letty if she heard it too, and did she think someone was trying to get into our cabin through the window. We insisted on a cabin on A-deck, but now I see it has disadvantages!”

  “Did you look out the window?” the lawyer asked.

  “Oh, no,” said the first old lady. “We were both too seasick. That’s why we were awake at such an hour, twelve-fifteen. I remember looking at my watch and wondering if I’d ever feel better. The watch has a luminous dial.”

  Pason said politely, “I hope you’re better now?”

  “Oh, yes. The Doctor came and gave us such wonderful pills!”

  Pason asked sharply: “Who’s that looking in the window on the port side?”

  The two white heads turned promptly to starboard.

  “Why,” said the second old lady, “I don’t see anyone there!”

  “He’s gone, now,” Pason said.

  He rose, bowed, said, “Thank you!”

  In the doorway he met Stella Deet.

  “Those are the old ladies I told you about, Chief!” she told him in a quick, low voice.

  The lawyer smiled. “I know. And they’re the biggest help we’ve had so far. They heard the murderer hiding Price’s body under a tarpaulin outside their window at twelve-fifteen a.m.”

  “But their cabin is on the other side of the ship!”

  “Is it?” the lawyer grinned. “That’s what they think! Try them out, and you’ll find they’re wrong.”

  “Chief, how did you guess?”

  “Well,” Pason told her, “it wasn’t likely that there would be two similar disturbances at the same time of night on exactly opposite sides of the ship. And many people, especially old people, don’t really know port from starboard. It was a psychological probability.”

  Stella Deet gazed at him in wistful adoration. “How does it affect our client?” she asked.

  “I think a little high pressure is in line,” Jerry Pason told her. “Play up to me, Stella!”

  He knocked at the door of Anderson’s cabin.

  Anderson opened the door. He let them in. He was too excited to bother with the formality of asking them to be seated.

  ‘Well?” he asked eagerly.

  “You’ve got to come clean,” Pason told him. “I’m not going to work with a client who doesn’t tell me the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Jerry Pason told Stella Deet, “You can send off that radiogram at once.”

  “Right, Chief!” Stella Deet started for the door.

  Anderson put his back against the door. He demanded, “What radiogram?”

  “To New York. They will be interested in knowing what Price had found out about your business in England.”

  Anderson turned white. He gasped, “You know?”

  “I know plenty,” the lawyer said meaningfully.

  Anderson fell onto a chair. He was panting. After a minute he asked, “If you know, why do you insist on my telling the whole truth?”

  “I want the satisfaction of hearing it from you,” Pason said coldly. “That check wasn’t to pay for advertising, was it?”

  Anderson’s resistance collapsed. He said: “No. Not exactly. I was in England, see, and there was this chance to work a deal with a British firm. It would have meant millions! Only it didn’t go through. That would have been the end of it, no harm done, only somehow or other Paul Price heard about the negotiations. He had spies everywhere! He telephoned me in London to say he was going to run a story about it in his column.”

  “And you didn’t want your associates back home to find out,” Pason nodded.

  “My God! They’d ruin me if they knew!” Anderson wiped perspiration from his face.

  “So you followed Price on this ship to buy him off?”

  “That was what he really wanted,” Anderson said.

  “Blackmail,” the lawyer said significantly.

  “What else could I do?” Anderson asked defensively.

  “Well, what evidence did Price have?” Pason asked. “He must have given you something besides his word, in exchange for fifteen thousand dollars.”

  “No, it was mostly just what he’d heard,” Anderson said. “He didn’t need written proof. He did have a sheet of paper I’d made some notes on, and he made some notes of his own on it. He gave it back to me when I agreed to pay, but it wasn’t vital at all. I had to take his word.”

  ‘Where is it now?” Pason pressed him.

  Anderson said angrily: “The First Mate has it. I don’t know how he got it. Someone must have picked my pocket.”

  Pason looked at him in silence again.

  Anderson shifted uneasily. “But I didn’t kill Price! I was framed!” His voice rose hysterically.

  Jerry Pason rose.

  “You’ll help me?” Anderson gasped.

  “We’ll see,” said Pason.

  Jerry Pason and Stella Deet went out.

  “Gosh, Chief! What a colossal bluff! Whew!” laughed Stella Deet.

  Pason grinned. “He just had a guilty conscience. For a moment, I didn’t know if it would work. It’s a good thing I wasn’t in court! Well, I think we’ve got down to rock bottom with him. I guessed when he mentioned General Metals he was afraid his associates would find out he’d been up to something on his trip abroad.”

  “What comes next, Chief?”

  “A drink,” Pason told her. “We let Anderson stew in his own juice for a while.”

    

  “My advice,” Jerry Pason told Homer T. Anderson, “is that you let me tell Mr. Waggish the whole truth.”

  “What!” Anderson jumped up. He was still pale.

  “Let me explain,” Pason said calmly. “This is not an ordinary case. Nobody on board cares what crooked deal you tried to engineer in England. But if the case is not solved by the time we dock you will be questioned by the New York police, and all the facts will come out. There will be as much publicity as if Price had run his story. In fact, the other detectives on board the Florabunda will find out the facts, as I have, anyway. And since you’re not their client they will have no reason to protect you by remaining silent.”

  “Then what chance do I have?”

  “It’s to your advantage,” Pason told him, “to have the murder solved. If the killer is found before we reach the United States, no one will bother about you. You’d better come clean. Your information may help find the killer.”

  Anderson groaned, “All right!”

    

  Jerry Pason and Stella Deet entered the cabin where the First Officer had assembled the other detectives—Atlas Poireau, Broderick Tourneur, Sir Jon. Nappleby, and Mallory King.

  Mr. Waggish asked eagerly: “Have you solved the murder, Mr. Pason? Is that why you asked for this meeting?”

  “Not yet,” Jerry Pason told him. “But I’ve found out a lot about my client. Enough to clear him!”

  “Did you use poetry to find out?” the First O
fficer asked.

  “Poetry? Hell,” said the lawyer. “None of my cases have anything to do with literature!

  “But then, this case is different from my usual case. In my usual case, I wait till my client is on trial for murder, and till everything is going badly for him, so the prosecuting attorney is pretty sure I’m licked. Then—bang! at the last moment I find some startling new evidence, rush it into court, and save my client’s life!

  “But there is no court aboard ship to try Homer T. Anderson, so I will present his case to you, now.”

  Jerry Pason faced the group with quiet confidence.

  “The case against Homer Anderson,” he began, “is based chiefly on his own lies. He lied about his reasons for talking with Paul Price, about seeing Miss Price with her uncle, and about a check for fifteen thousand dollars. These lies were due to his fear of exposure.

  “But I have discovered that he feared exposure not for murder, but for something else! He was afraid that his business associates in New York would find out that he had tried to betray their interests when he was abroad. Price had found out about this attempt, and blackmailed him. Anderson sailed on the Florabunda in order to buy him off—for fifteen thousand dollars.

  “That check is actually evidence in Anderson’s favor. It means he got what he wanted from Price. He didn’t need to kill him.

  “And had he killed Price after making out the check he would have retrieved it at once. The fact that he waited till this morning to try to get it from Price’s cabin means he did not know about the murder till the general public knew.

  “If he had killed Price he would have faked an alibi. He has none.

  “If he had used his own blackjack, he would not have kept it and produced it as evidence against himself.

  “Someone else stole his blackjack, struck Price with it, and saved it to incriminate Anderson. Someone else found the check and gave it to the First Officer. Someone who wore a red and yellow scarf and had a pipe!”

  “That sounds very impressive, Mr. Pason,” the First Officer said in admiration. “Can you tell us who that person is?”

  “No,” the lawyer told him calmly. “But the killer is one of the few people who saw the blackjack in the Lounge that night. He is someone who wants to endanger my client. And—according to two reliable witnesses I have just turned up—he committed the murder just before twelve-fifteen last night!