The Murder League

by Fish, Robert L. ;

  “Exactly,” Carruthers said, and smiled his forgiveness. “Cut with a razor and a straightedge, of course. Uneven edges would be fatal.” His glance rose and his beaming smile faded a trifle, becoming a bit set. “Well, well, well!” he continued softly. “A small world! Look who we just bought for a shipmate …!”

  His two companions swung about in their deck chairs to see what had caused the sudden change on Billy-boy’s usually cherubic face. Walking down the Promenade Deck with the air of a man who has just bought the ship and was having difficulty deciding which improvements he would inaugurate first, was none other than that famous brain, knight of the realm, and eminent barrister Sir Percival Pugh!

  Briggs was the first to speak, and his words revealed that his memory, while possibly a bit weak where Sir Harry Melton and Lady Wallingford were concerned, was quite up to date on Sir Percival Pugh.

  “Twister!” he said bitterly. “What’s he doing on this ship?”

  “Come, now, Tim,” Simpson said chidingly. “He did save my life, you know.”

  “He didn’t mind charging for it, either,” Briggs retorted hotly.

  “And as for his being aboard, it is a cruise that’s open to the public,” Carruthers reminded him.

  “Then they should be more careful who they include in the public!” He stared with cold eyes as Sir Percival passed them, giving the three a friendly smile and a pleasant nod in turn.

  “Well, now,” Carruthers said with logic, “you’re scarcely being fair. If he hadn’t charged us such an exorbitant fee, we’d never have won that alphabetical award, you know.”

  But Timothy Briggs of Tyneside was not to be placated.

  “My advice to you, Billy-boy,” he said direly, “is that you replace that fiver on top of that fake roll of money. Old Pugh wouldn’t stop at fiddling that off you if he had half a chance!”

  It is true that Sir Percival had a reputation for loving money, and he would have been the first to confirm the truth of that statement. Nor did he see the slightest thing wrong with loving money. On the other hand, there was no doubt that he earned the money he received, being the finest counsel one could have at his side in time of trouble. Sir Percival had never lost a case in his life, and he had no intention of ever doing so, although—as stated—any prospective client seeking his succor was well-advised to have more than a widow’s pittance in his pocket.

  It was therefore that—despite the pleasant smile and friendly nod he had bestowed on the founding members of the Mystery Authors Club and the ex-members of the now defunct Murder League—there was a touch of sadness in his soul as he continued down the deck. Twenty thousand pounds were in the possession of the three old men, and even though Sir Percival was on holiday, he could see no reason why he should not combine business with pleasure and separate them from at least a portion of it. He sighed mightily and put the thought away as being unproductive. Even knowing the trio for what they were, Sir Percival could not imagine how even those three could get into enough trouble aboard a ship to warrant their requiring—or asking for—his assistance.

  Odd as it may seem to those familiar with his giant intellect, Sir Percival Pugh was, possibly for the first time in his long and distinguished career, quite wrong.…

  2

  “Vorny nounand nucks,” said Mrs. Carpenter. She was sitting in a sheer and attractive dressing gown before the mirrored dressing table in their now-vastly-improved stateroom, putting her hair up and speaking through a mouthful of hairpins. It was obvious from the luxury of their accommodations that Mrs. Carpenter had prevailed upon the purser in one manner or another, of which she had many. Her steely eyes watched herself in the mirror carefully, as if to make sure her image didn’t do anything it shouldn’t.

  Mr. Carpenter shoved his head from the bathroom. He was a small, thin, dapper man, a trifle smaller than his wife, with small, sharp eyes, ears that stuck from his head at ninety-degree angles, patent-leather hair, and a hairline mustache which, at the moment, he was attempting to shave around. He held the razor poised above the billows of lather on his sunken cheeks, staring at his wife in bewilderment.

  “What did you say, sweets?”

  “I said, forty thousand bucks. Take the soap out of your ears,” Mrs. Carpenter said in an unkindly fashion. She checked her appearance in the mirror and found it properly satisfying—for despite the hard look about her mouth that she was not even aware of, Mrs. Carpenter was a good-looking woman in the final lap of her twenties, with an excellent figure and a good complexion. She swung about on the small plastic seat, pulling her dressing gown about her, eyeing her husband coldly. “Forty grand, that’s what I said—if a month in Europe made you forget the English language altogether.”

  “Oh.”

  Mr. Carpenter disappeared into the bathroom again; there were several moments of silence before he returned to the stateroom proper, wiping the excess lather from his thin face with a towel. He passed a hand over his cheeks, smiling at their smoothness, tossed the towel carelessly behind him into the bathroom and turned to the tall dresser in one corner, humming slightly to himself. The sound seemed to annoy his spouse.

  “Did you hear what I said, Max?”

  “I heard you, sweets. A couple characters got the luck of a guy with a bicycle in a red-light district with everybody else walking. So?”

  “So?” Mrs. Carpenter had switched from her hair to her nails; she looked up from her new task with a look of disgust. “You got to be getting old, Max! I said forty grand! If we can’t take a chunk of that much dough away from three old cockers the age of my grandfather, we ought to hang up! We ought to switch over to peddling oil stocks in the lobby of the Shamrock in Texas, or selling gold bricks in front of the New York Stock Exchange!”

  “As I recall your old grandfather,” Max Carpenter said absently, searching through a drawer for a shirt, “you couldn’t talk that old tightwad out of a bad cold.”

  “I said the age of my grandfather, stupid!” Mrs. Carpenter blew on her nails, studied them critically and put away her manicure set. She reached for her makeup kit, her dressing gown gaping alarmingly. She pulled it together absently and reached for her rouge. “These three sad sacks have to be tea on toast—”

  “Jam on toast, sweets,” Max said, and pulled a proper-looking shirt free. “That’s the way they say it.”

  “Gravy, then. They look like they should have brought along a baby-sitter, only they forgot.” With that much money in the offing, Mrs. Carpenter wasn’t in the mood, at the moment, to argue.

  Mr. Max Carpenter fumbled with shirt studs. Actually, he didn’t mind dressing for dinner; in a white formal jacket he looked more distinguished than in his usual pullover and slacks; in addition, his patent-leather shoes had three-inch lifts which brought him up to his wife’s height, if no higher.

  “All right, Mazie. What do you suggest?”

  “Well,” Mazie Carpenter said, giving the matter serious thought, “cards is what I suggest.” She put down the rouge and picked up the lipstick. “I doubt if we could get any of them interested in annuities at their age, and mining stocks are a little cornball, even in England—or on a limey boat, which is the same thing. Besides, they don’t look like they’d be around to clip very many coupons, even if somebody ever discovered gold in one of those mines.”

  “True,” said Mr. Carpenter, knotting his bow tie. He tugged it into line and examined it from several angles. As always, it was perfect. He grinned knowingly at himself in the mirror and gave himself a wink for good measure. “Especially since they don’t exist.”

  He tucked his shirttails in place, snapped his suspenders around his thin shoulders and reached for his cummerbund. He wound it about his waist expertly with the skill of a flamenco dancer, tucked the end in decisively, and then flexed his thin but strong fingers with the agility and rippling motion of the professional card manipulator. Suddenly he frowned. He had seen a fly, roughly the size of a pterodactyl, in the ointment.

  “But, Mazie
, sweets—what if they don’t play cards?”

  “Then I’ll teach ’em,” Mrs. Carpenter said with finality and began to apply her lipstick.

  The three elderly gentlemen to whom the Carpenters, Max and Mazie, were at that moment referring were also—oddly enough—discussing the matter of money. They had enjoyed an early meal, although the headwaiter had been disposed to be a bit sticky about the question of formal costume until Mr. Carruthers inadvertently transferred his funds from one pocket to another, being rather careless enough to be seen in the act. After that things went swimmingly. They were now ensconced at a corner table in the bar just outside the main salon, seated in deep leather chairs, where they somehow felt akin to the corner of the Mystery Authors Club which they had long since taken over as their own. True, the wide window of the ship’s bar gave view at the moment to a stunningly beautiful sunset rather than the staid office building that faced them in London, but this was only to the good. Before them a quite creditable brandy stood in properly shaped glasses; a bottle of excellent champagne nestled in an ice bucket at their side.

  “I will admit,” Briggs said grudgingly, “that the drinks aboard this ship are reasonably priced. I’d be lying if I denied that. But, even so, it’s a rather boring way to spend money.”

  Simpson frowned at him in alarm, his eyebrows rising to join his low hairline. “On drinks?”

  “No, no! I mean this travel thing. I mean this sailing pointlessly from here to there. After all, when this cruise bit is over, where will we be? Back in Southampton. We were there just a day ago.” He shifted himself further back in his chair, bringing his feet further from the floor. “Why leave in the first place?”

  Carruthers looked at him with such a glance of hidden amusement that Briggs felt called upon to explain.

  “What I mean is, there isn’t a thing to do on this ship!”

  Simpson carefully clipped the tip from a Corona and nodded his head; with his thinness and excessive height he looked something like a stork bobbing for minnows.

  “Actually,” he said in a thoughtful voice, “I must agree with Tim.” He took time to light his cigar and puff it into activity and then continued. “Possibly we might better have saved the money and invested it with the rest.”

  “Come, come, lads!” Mr. Carruthers appeared disappointed with his friends. “Less than six months ago we all agreed that ten thousand pounds, judiciously invested—as we must all admit the money has been invested—would provide ample funds in dividends for our simple needs. The balance we agreed to splurge. On shipboard travel, for one.” He frowned at them a bit curiously. “So why this sudden parsimony?”

  “It isn’t parsimony,” Briggs protested. “It’s just—well, to be blunt, it was a lot more fun making money than it is spending it. At least aboard this ship,” he added stubbornly.

  “The truth is, we did have fun those three months with the Murder League,” Simpson said reflectively. He removed his cigar from his lips and smiled in an embarrassed fashion, looking at the others. “I say! You don’t suppose that even aboard this ship—?”

  Carruthers’ eyebrows rose in shock. “Cliff!”

  “Oh, I don’t mean killing people,” Simpson said hastily and then added, “although I’m sure there are many aboard who would be as equally deserving as our past victims. I just thought—”

  “He’s right,” Briggs said positively. “What harm could there be in some innocent fun, just to pass the time? And pick up a quid or two on the side? Say in fixing the afternoon Bingo? It wouldn’t be hard at all.” He leaned forward as his mind set the scene. “Those little balls with the numbers on them; I know where the library steward keeps them. I was chatting with him this morning—bloody little else to do—and I noticed where he keeps the games and things locked up. A cupboard and a drawer, and I could open either one of them with a toothpick.”

  “There will be none of that!” Carruthers said, truly scandalized. “You know we’ve given up anything even the slightest bit dishonest! I thought that was abundantly clear!”

  “What about the ship’s pool?” Simpson said, studying the end of his cigar rather than contemplating the look in Billy-boy’s eye. “As I recall, in your book Pigalle Passion—which, if I never mentioned it before, I thought excellent—you had a character named Left-Bank Louis who was able to palm a slip of paper so well that at a crucial moment in the plot, he couldn’t find it himself. I always thought that a beautiful thought, but what I’m getting at is that I also seem to remember your practicing the art for hour after hour.…”

  Carruthers felt his face getting red.

  “That was a long time ago,” he said stiffly, “and arthritis has scarcely aided any manual dexterity I had forty years ago. Besides, we’ve given up anything even the slightest bit shady. I thought that was agreed upon.”

  “But why?” Briggs wailed.

  “For many reasons, but I’ll give you another. Do you know,” Carruthers said, dropping his voice, leaning forward and even putting aside his brandy glass momentarily to lend emphasis to his words, “that an American writer got hold of our adventures of this past year and wrote them up? They were published, all right—he even called the book The Murder League—but one of the book clubs devoted entirely to detective fiction refused to reprint the thing because the three of us were such naughty people? As a result, this writer—a rather good one, I understand—lost a valuable sale. Now, certainly we wouldn’t want this to happen to a person in our field of endeavor—or at least our ex-field—would we?” He leaned back, his point, he was sure, proven.

  “Seems to me the bloody American writer brought it on himself,” Briggs said cruelly. “What bloody business did he have poking his nose into our affairs in the first place? And taking our name—that’s plagiarism and actionable, I wouldn’t be surprised.”

  “I’m not sure about the actionable part of a title, since it can’t be copyrighted,” Simpson said, “but Briggs still has a point.” He rolled his cigar in his fingers, his eyes still avoiding Carruthers’ face. “We all took our chances; this writer took his. He just got caught telling the truth. Can’t be too bright for a fiction writer is all I can say.”

  “Can’t be too bright, period!” Briggs said harshly.

  “Enough!” Carruthers’ tone carried finality. He rose to his feet majestically. “Fiddling is out. I don’t even intend to discuss it further. I believe I saw someone using a backgammon set in the library not long ago. If you must have excitement, try that.” He completed his brandy and turned the glass upside down to make sure he had left nothing for the bar steward. “I’m off to bed. Anyone joining me?”

  “Later,” Briggs said morosely and hunched down in his chair. “I’m not sleepy. I may do cat’s cradles for an hour or so, if my aging heart can stand the excitement.”

  “I think I’ll take a few turns about the deck before turning in,” Simpson said. “Finish my cigar, so to speak. Ta-ta.”

  “Ta,” said Carruthers, and trudged from the room.

  There was a moment’s silence, and then, “They’re setting up for the horse races in the main lounge,” Briggs said, his voice low and his eye cocked warily on the heavy door swinging shut behind their portly companion. Satisfied, he turned, an air of secrecy about him, looking Simpson squarely in the eye. “How about it, Cliff?”

  Simpson returned the steady glance. “Are you suggesting—?”

  “I just thought the two of us might care to take a flyer.”

  There were several moments of silence as Simpson considered the proposition. His eyes came up to the small wizened face beside him; they then moved to the closed door to make sure Billy-boy Carruthers had, indeed, actually disappeared. A faint smile appeared on his lips.

  “I gather it’s the sort of flyer one wouldn’t care to make alone?”

  “You gather correctly.”

  “Well, in that case, I believe I would. A lovely thing, the sport of kings,” he said, and drained the last of the champagne.

&nbs
p; The chairs had been cleared back from the edges of the dance floor of the Main Salon to allow room for a long strip of green felt that served as the track for the traditional shipboard game. Painfully thin wooden horses, each with a number painted brightly on its side, stood waiting patiently at the starting line. Bellboys in uniform shifted weight from foot to foot, ready to move the horses on orders. The library steward, in charge of games, felt the salon had filled with sufficient aficionados. He glanced over at the Captain sitting calmly to one side, saw nothing in the expressionless visage to say him yea or nay and hammered on the table for silence.

  “Ladies and gentlemen. Your attention please.”

  There was the usual shuffling of feet and momentary outbreak of coughing and sneezing at announcements of this sort, but in a few moments they had subsided. The library steward took a deep breath.

  “For those here who have not previously played horse racing,” he intoned, “please allow me to explain the track rules. Those to whom this is old hat, please bear with me. There are six horses, one for each number on a dice. They advance along the strip from square to square in accordance with the number of times their number comes up on the three dice in this small cage. The cage is twirled in each game by a different volunteer from among the passengers—yourselves, that is. This, the first race, is a steeplechase; that is, a barrier has been set four squares from the end. To hurtle this barrier, one must wait for a double in the throw of the dice. One must also await a double in order to go from the final square to the winner’s circle.”

  He paused a moment as if to be sure his audience had not fallen asleep, cleared his throat apologetically and tried not to sound like a man repeating himself for approximately the four-thousandth time.

  “As is customary at the Sunderland Track, the first and last races of the day are played for double the normal stakes. Anyone playing the game may purchase as many tickets on each horse as he or she chooses. Tickets for the other races are priced at ten shillings each; for the first and final games, at one pound. Is it all clear? Any questions? Good-o, then! The pari-mutuel windows are open!”