Murder in Pastiche

by Marion Mainwaring

  “Find that one of those people who were present when the blackjack was stolen who was on deck at twelve-fifteen, and you will have the murderer!”

  Broderick Tourneur

  Quivering from stem to stern, the Florabunda hung poised on the crest of a heavy sea; pitched; resumed her steady rolling. The passengers in line on the boat-deck staggered. They looked self-conscious and quite amazingly clumsy in their bulky lifejackets. Like so many Tweedledums and Tweedledees armed in rubber tubings and bolsters, thought the tall man. The boat-drill, the foggy day, the murder itself, took on a new dimension of pure nonsense. He thought Lor’, what an extraordinary mess! “A capital ship for an ocean trip was the Walloping Window-Blind.”

  The Florabunda pitched sharply again. Farther down the line, a woman giggled. Some signal was relayed from the bridge where the Captain stood, and the drill was ended. The passengers began to disperse.

  The tall man stood back to let the others go by, top-heavy in their inflated rubber vests. He himself retained his customary air of aloofness, elegance, and breeding; his delicately chiselled head emerged from his life-jacket like the head of a Velásquez nobleman from a ruff. He waited for the First Officer to catch him up. Then he said:

  “You’ve brought me up to date on what Mr. Pason, and M. Poireau and Sir Jon. have done. But you haven’t said what you yourself think of it all.”

  Mr. Waggish’s agreeable, lean face became glum, and he said ruefully: “Mr. Tourneur, I’m out in the fog with no radar. No one admits taking that cosh. No one has an alibi. I’ve never—”

  A thin, high scream was wafted up to them; it was immediately followed by shouts and staccato cries. The First Officer leapt to the rail overlooking the afterdeck and shouted down: “What’s the matter?”

  A crowd of passengers was collected at the foot of the narrow companionway. Two men were helping a woman get up from the deck. Tourneur, looking down with Mr. Waggish, recognized Dolores Despana. Her gleaming hair was dishevelled. Her face was white, her skirt was torn from hem to hip. She began to shake herself gingerly, and leaned over to feel her ankles.

  Someone called up to Mr. Waggish: “Lady tripped and fell coming down, sir!”

  “Fell!” Miss Despana repeated shrilly, straightening herself. “Fell! I got pushed down!”

  The First Officer seized the iron railings of the companion and swung himself down with monkeylike agility. Somewhat more cautiously Tourneur followed him.

  Miss Despana continued: “I ought to know if I was pushed or not! It’s a wonder I wasn’t killed!” Her voice shook uncontrollably. She glared at the Hon. Mrs. Chip-Ebberly, who was standing near by.

  Passengers who had gone on ahead came back, attracted by the clamor. On the outskirts of the crowd someone bleated: “Murder! There’s been another Murder!” and there were a few more shrieks.

  “They’re nervy,” Tourneur diagnosed dispassionately.

  Mrs. Chip-Ebberly cleared her throat. “I was directly behind you coming down, Miss Despana,” she observed, in a composed voice which sliced through the raw fog. She looked incredibly dowdy, respectable, and matter-of-fact. “No one else could have pushed you. And I most assuredly did not do so.” She glanced downwards significantly. “Your fall can be attributed to a very simple cause. If one wears such shoes on shipboard, one can only expect to trip and hurt oneself!”

  Everyone stared at Dolores Despana’s graceful feet. They were encased in black suède trifles, open-toed, with three-inch spiky heels—altogether as appropriate to a lifeboat drill, Tourneur thought, as the silk dress the ripped skirt of which fluttered beneath her short fur jacket.

  “That’s it, Miss Despana,” the First Officer said in relief. “It’s those shoes. Far too pretty for climbing about a ship. And why should anyone want to push you?”

  His gallantry did not appease her. “Why?” Her voice was still high and uneven with shock. “Why? She pushed me because she wanted to kill me!” And Miss Despana’s slim right index finger, marred now by a long red scratch, pointed directly at Mrs. Chip-Ebberly.

  The older woman gave the quasi-regal toss of her head which preceded her more considered utterances. But as her eyes met Tourneur’s she seemed, unaccountably, to flinch. She bit her lip. “Really,” she said almost below her breath, “this is quite distasteful”—and upon this genteel understatement turned and made her way through the crowd.

  Hubbub broke out again and lasted until Miss Despana went off, with a large and zealous escort, to seek the Doctor—who, Tourneur suddenly realized, had not appeared at the drill. The spectators trickled away.

  “Shouldn’t we do something about this business?” asked Mr. Waggish.

  “I think,” Tourneur said, “we might let it simmer for the nonce. Come along to Price’s cabin, and I’ll show you how I’ve been spending my time.”

    

  Price’s cabin was on the starboard side of A-deck, nearly amid- ships—in fact, not far from the spot on the deck outside where he had been killed and his body concealed. A portable typewriter lay open on the table, wedged securely and tied on with stout cord. The bed was turned down.

  “The cabin steward says he has touched nothing since he came in last night to arrange the berth,” Tourneur said. “His story sounded quite all right to me. Would you say he’s reliable?”

  Mr. Waggish shook his head. “Not my department. I expect so.

  “I’ll spare you a complete inventory of Price’s belongings. Everything was here—nothing in the hold; he travelled light. The luggage is frightfully dull. Wardrobe extensive but unimaginative. Hanging over there is a pretty new suit he had himself made in London—best gents’ suiting, export only. Also, by the bye, there’s a Royal Stuart scarf with a Liberty’s price tag still pinned on, and the date; that jibes with what Miss Winifred told us. Have you traced that preposterous red and yellow muffler yet? No—of course not.” Tourneur sighed. “Well, I’ve managed to pick up one or two interesting items here.”

  The First Officer looked up from a rather wistful inspection of the best gents’ suiting, instantly alert. Gratifying, Tourneur thought. He might be my Sergeant at the Yard. What would one do if there were no one to expound to? Turn schizophrenic, I dare say, and deliver lengthy lectures to one’s Beta- or Watson-self. What an appalling idea! Aloud he said: “There are no useful prints. Price’s, the stewards, and some blurs. An expert might do something with them; I’m an awful duffer at it. However, look here!”

  The ashtray on the chest of drawers was filled with cigarette ends. Tourneur lifted one delicately with a pair of tweezers and held it up. “These weren’t here when the steward turned down the bed.”

  “Lipstick marks! Why, that is a clue!” Mr. Waggish was pleased.

  Dropping the butt very carefully back into the tray, Tourneur agreed with some acerbity: “As you say. In fact, there are nine little clues in the tray. It’s almost too good to be true.”

  “Do you mean they may have been put there to incriminate someone, Mr. Tourneur—like the cosh that was thrown into Anderson’s cabin?”

  “Very possibly not. After all, Price did expect to meet someone here after midnight—according to Anderson. He is not, I judge, particularly sensitive to nuances, or he might have been able to tell if Price meant a woman. But it’s likely enough. If so she, at any rate, kept the appointment.”

  The First Officer was discouraged. “It could be any woman on the ship— Do we compare all their lipsticks with this color, now?”

  “Oh, not quite any woman, I fancy,” Tourneur said rather abstractedly. Without explaining himself he continued: “But let me show you my pet discovery—in the typewriter.” He turned the roller carefully. A fragment of paper came into sight, clinging to the platen. “Voilà! Now what do you deduce from that?”

  “I don’t know a great deal about these machines.” Mr. Waggish studied it. “I should say a sheet of paper was pulled out so roughly that it tore.”

  “I should say the same. And the steward
says Price sat here typing before dinner. The question is, what became of that paper? I’ve searched this room for it in vain. And it wasn’t on the body.”

  “Isn’t it one possibility that he threw it away?”

  Tourneur grimaced. “I suppose you’re right, blast you. But the steward swears there were no papers in the wastebasket. Price could have thrown it away outside the cabin, of course. But on the other hand he may have given it to someone. Or, you know, it may not have been he who tore it from the machine: we know someone else was in here, from the lipstick marks, and the fact that the check was taken away.”

  Mr. Waggish touched a leather brief case. “You haven’t said anything about this, Mr. Tourneur.”

  Tourneur groaned. “Because I can hardly bear to think of the damn’ thing. It contains clippings from that newspaper column of Price’s. To that loathsome series of compositions have I devoted untold hours of a perfectly good sea voyage."

  Mr. Waggish said apologetically, “I’m afraid this is no holiday for you.”

  “My dear man, it’s not your fault.” Tourneur looked at the brief case with extreme distaste. “I should not like to figure in that column for praise or blame. Which is preferable, would you say— to be exposed for peculation, or publicly congratulated on divorcing one’s fifth wife? On my word, I think our murderer showed good taste.”

  “Are there any items about people aboard ship?”

  Tourneur screwed his face up. “You do keep a fellow on his toes,” he observed mildly. “No. Of course, I’ve not had time to check the whole passenger list; but none of the people we’re interested in seem to figure. However, I found a few clippings from magazines and newspapers which I take to be raw material for future Price lucubrations. This batch, for instance—reviews of a play. Notice the bits he underlined in red pencil!”

  Mr. Waggish read aloud slowly:

  “Miss Dolores Despana, the supporting player in this offensive jumble of diluted Coward, resuscitated Barrie, and unidentifiable bawdy, with a touching fidelity to the author’s spirit, made not the faintest discernible endeavour to infuse the breath of life into a wooden role. Her performance is comprehensible, indeed, only if one assumes that she mistook the boards of the Old Empire for the stage of a mannequin parade. How long must we tolerate the vulgar and insipid …”

  “The other reviews,” said Tourneur, “are rather less turgid but equally emphatic. Miss Despana was not a critical success.”

  “Poor lass,” the First Officer said unexpectedly. “Do you mean to say that that blighter was going to quote these reviews in his column, back in the States?” His blue eyes shone indignantly; he threw the papers down and examined another clipping. “What’s this?”

  Tourneur said, “That’s what I should like to know, Mr. Waggish.”

  The clipping was a photograph in sepia, on glossy paper. It depicted a row of dullish-looking middle-aged persons, all looking genteelly unaware of the neighborhood of a camera. The label read: “The Bishop’s Baxton Bazaar: Lord Stone, Colonel Putter, Mrs. Putter, Mrs. Fitzhugh Moppet, Lady Stone, and the Hon. Mrs. Chip-Ebberly.”

  “I should like to know,” Tourneur repeated. “Maybe Miss Price can tell us; I’ll stop by and ask her. Meanwhile, perhaps you’d be good enough to have someone track down Miss Despana and ask her if we may have a little talk with her.”

  “In her cabin?” “No,” said Tourneur. “I rather think, in here.”

    

  Winifred Price disclaimed all knowledge of her uncle’s column. He used to type the copy himself, from rough notes, she said; but she had never looked at them. “I never even read it when it was printed,” she insisted, fixing her pretty dark eyes on Tourneur with immense seriousness. “It was just a sadistic, antisocial piece of exhibitionism. I wouldn’t have a thing to do with it!” As Tourneur eyed her gravely, she flushed. “That’s pretty vile, isn’t it?” she said with a sort of melancholy, masochistic pride. “His writing supported me, and I suppose I’m inheriting the profits, and I look down my nose at it. But it isn’t just snobbery, honestly!”

  Tourneur said gently: “I didn’t suppose it was.”

  “But it’s—priggish!” She blushed again. “You think I’m a prig. And a hypocrite!” Tears came to her eyes.

  “Oh, my dear child!” Tourneur protested, his left eyebrow climbing high into his forehead and his mouth stretching to one side. “Don’t torment yourself. Please!” He held out a clean handkerchief with a winning smile. “Do try to help me, instead. I should like most awfully to know anything you can tell me about these clippings.”

  Winifred sniffed, wiped her eyes, and sat up straight. At the picture he extended to her, she cried: “Why—that’s Mrs. Chip-Ebberly!”

  “It is indeed. Did your uncle know her?”

  The girl knit her brow thoughtfully. “I don’t think he ever mentioned her name. But I do remember this picture, though her name and her face meant nothing to me when I saw it before.

  Uncle Paul tore it out of some magazine. I saw him trimming the edges with his scissors.”

  Tourneur asked very quietly: “Was that on the same day, Miss Price, that he told you that you would be sailing on the Florabunda?”

  “I— Why, yes, it was.” She opened her eyes very wide. “How in the world did you know?”

  Tourneur smiled. He said lightly: “You must allow me a few poor mysteries. If I gave my secret away you’d see what a slow-witted chap I really am.”

  Winifred Price gazed up at him and blushed a third time.

  “Oh,” she said fervently. “Oh, Mr. Tourneur; no one would ever think that!”

    

  Dolores Despana bestowed a brilliant smile on Tourneur and the First Officer, and sank onto a chair with languid grace. The damages resulting from her fall had been repaired. She wore a black silk jersey frock, out very low, with a sparkling clip. She looked expensive, dashing, over-made-up, and extremely lovely.

  An expert little piece of goods, Tourneur thought as he lit her cigarette with his unfailing courtesy. Aloud he said: “Thank you for coming, Miss Despana; we—”

  “That’s O.K.," she interrupted. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. When they said your name first, I thought you were just a Mr. Turner. I didn’t know it was spelled T-o-u-r-n-e-u-r! Why, I used to see your picture in the papers in London, ‘Handsome Tourneur,’ only I didn’t know how to pronounce it. I thought you were just terribly good-looking—”

  Tourneur said remotely: “You are very kind. I—”

  “Anyway, I love an English accent. You’re what they call a bobby, aren’t you?”

  Mr. Waggish was scandalized. “Mr. Tourneur is a gentleman,” he said, with an apologetic glance at Tourneur’s superlative tailoring. “Everyone knows that! Why, he went to Oxf—”

  Tourneur lifted a thin hand in deprecation. “If you’d be so good as to help us, Miss Despana,” he said formally. “You have been asked already, I believe, if you know who took Mr. Anderson’s cosh—”

  “I’ve been thinking,” said Dolores Despana. “And now I know who took it. That old biddy. The Hon-or-a-bul Mrs. Something Ebberly.”

  The coarse mockery grated on Tourneur: nothing else in her composition, he thought, quite matched the miraculous finish of her complexion. But he sensed something deep underneath the vulgarity. She is afraid, he told himself. She is truly, pitifully afraid. He asked slowly: “You saw Mrs. Chip-Ebberly take it?”

  “No, but she thinks I saw her. I know, because she tried to kill me after the boat-drill.”

  Tourneur frowned. “You have made that accusation before, I think, Miss Despana. How do you know that Mrs. Chip-Ebberly tried to kill you?”

  “How?” Miss Despana replied simply: “Because she thought I’d seen her take the blackjack.”

  Tourneur was momentarily bereft of speech by this maddening convolution of logic. Then he asked patiently: “Have you any notion why she should have taken it, Miss Despana—that is, why she should have wished to kil
l Price?”

  The actress said readily: “He had something on her, of course.”

  Tourneur shifted ground abruptly. “How long had you known Mr. Price, please?’

  She drew on her cigarette before replying. “Well,” she said at last, with an effect of preternatural frankness, “I was doing a show in London. Hot Legs. He saw it, so he wanted to meet me. He sent flowers, and so on … Then when he found I was sailing home on the same ship he—well, you know how it is. He pursued me.” She looked from Tourneur to the First Officer with a slow, practised smile which would have been called a simper on a plainer woman, but which quite dissolved Mr. Waggish’s critical faculties. He nodded in complete conviction.

  Tourneur wondered: “And can she really expect me to accept this picture of that cynical and scabrous journalist as—as infatuated stage-door Johnny? How exceedingly stupid she must be—or exceedingly sure of herself!” He fixed his eyes on a point just over Miss Despana’s head and murmured: “Quite.”

  “So finally, last night, he offered to give me a plug in his column. So he wrote that piece about how I was a great sensation abroad.”

  Tourneur felt himself go suddenly taut. When he spoke his voice was expressionless. “Ah, yes. You say he offered to write this—‘plug’ last night?”

  “Just before dinner. We were having cocktails. That was the last time I ever saw him.”

  Tourneur looked at her thoughtfully again. He said: “We are trying to identify a woman who came to this cabin last night.” As this venture elicited only a stare of babylike glassiness which achieved the suggestion of an incredible innocence not merely of this particular rendezvous but of unconventional behavior in general, he went on: “She left certain traces of her presence behind.” With a swift, delicate gesture he produced the ashtray, which had been hidden by his chair. “She wore a Corono lipstick; the shade, I think,” he said diffidently, “is ‘Scarlet Ecstasy.’”