20-Inspector's Holiday

by Lockridge, Richard

  “But you never have,” Heimrich said.

  “Oh, no,” the captain said. “Moments, you understand. But no, Inspector. Maneuverable ship, Italia. Handy ship. Steward?”

  The steward was there. He said, “Sir?”

  “Empty glasses,” di Scarlotti said.

  The hand which had been tracing a course into the harbor of Málaga traced a course over empty glasses. The steward said, “Sir,” again and began to pick glasses up and put them on a tray. He took Merton Heimrich’s glass, and Lucinda Powers held hers out to him. But Ellen Grimes smiled and shook her head, and Susan put a hand over her half-empty glass. It was the hand with a watch on its wrist, and Susan saw that it was almost eight o’clock; time almost for the low-voiced chimes of dinner.

  Whitney said, “Less soda, what? Said just a splash, y’know.”

  His voice still was hard. He had, Susan thought, a singularly uninflected voice.

  The steward said, “Sir.”

  “No ice,” Whitney said, and the steward said, “Sir,” again.

  “Can’t get used to the way you freeze your drinks,” Whitney said, turned toward Heimrich. “Bad for the liver, eh?”

  “Quite possibly,” Heimrich said. “Our livers get used to it, I suppose. Learn to bear up.”

  “Room temperature doesn’t mean the temperature of most rooms,” Emily Farrell said. “The temperature of the cellar, actually. Isn’t that right, Sir Ronald? Wines, I mean.”

  Grimes had been looking at his wife. He said, “Eh?” and then, “Sorry, Miss Farrell—?”

  “The temperature of wines,” she said. “Reds, of course. Cellar temperature, actually?”

  “Oh, yes,” Ronald Grimes said. “Quite right, Miss Farrell. When people had cellars, of course. Bit gone out now, I’m afraid. In my father’s day. Grandfather’s. Made a thing of it. Remember when I was just a young un my father—”

  The chimes sounded. Sir Ronald’s father faded with the chimes. Sir Ronald stopped speaking and looked across the table at his wife.

  “Yes, dear,” Ellen Grimes said. “I do think so.” She offered a smile around. “He does get so hungry on sea voyages,” she said. “Ravenous, really. But it doesn’t seem to do anything for him. I mean, ten stone. Tall as he is. And people are supposed to gain weight when they quit smoking.”

  She’s nervous, Susan thought. It’s nervousness talking.

  Lady Grimes began to stand up. The men seemed to bounce to their feet, and Comandante di Scarlotti was first to stand. As a host should be, Susan thought. But he’s glad his party’s over. Because it was—what do they say of harbor water? Choppy. It was a choppy party. With undercurrents. With meanings below the surface of words.

  She stood with the others. With the others she said, “Delightful party, Comandante,” and with the others went out of the comandante’s sitting room.

  Di Scarlotti went with them. It was a little, Susan thought, as if he were a country host seeing his guests to their cars. He did not see them to either of the nearby elevators; he saw them down the stairs from deck to deck and, although the ship was moving perceptibly, he did not touch a handrail. Susan Heimrich slid a hand down a rail, but Merton Heimrich, walking down beside her, was as sure-footed, as unconcerned by the ship’s movement, as the ship’s captain.

  Mrs. Powers clung to a rail, and to it for only one flight down. Then she left them and stood, swaying with the ship, in front of the sign which read “Ascensore.”

  Miss Emily Farrell started down the first flight in its center, out of reach of the rails on either side. But she swayed with the ship, or a little more than the ship swayed, and Merton Heimrich took her arm gently and pulled her within reach of the rail.

  “Such a lovely party, wasn’t it,” Emily Farrell said. “I do wish I knew what made the pâté so special.”

  Sir Ronald and Lady Grimes had no trouble with the ship’s movement, but she held his arm. Major Ian Whitney practically tripped down the stairs. Probably, Susan thought, he takes a cold tub every morning and jogs all day. I shouldn’t be surprised if he rides to hounds, too.

  After dinner—and another half bottle of Soave Bolla—they went up to the salone delle feste, which translated “ballroom.” It was Merton Heimrich’s suggestion. “We’re all dressed up,” he said. “You shimmer. I want to show you off. We might even dance, if you don’t mind dancing with a hip—”

  Her smiling look, her shaken head, stopped him. They went by elevator to the promenade deck and forward to the ballroom. It was almost filled, but a captain of stewards found them a table. The table was close to the dance floor, on which there was no dancing—on which cardboard horses with numbers on them were arranged on squares. They were in a single line, so the race was just beginning. A steward came to their table. “Signor, signora, you would care to place a bet?”

  They bought tickets at two dollars each, selecting their numbers. Susan’s was 2; Heimrich’s 4. A man at a microphone on a stage by the dance floor said, “Ladies and gentlemen. The first race will be a steeplechase. When you have made your bets?”

  There was a pause, and everybody looked at the slender young man at the microphone. He said, “Signors, signoras,” in an approving voice. He said, “Guido?”

  It was their Guido. They must make them work very hard, Susan thought. Guido brought a dice box to their table. He put it down in front of Susan and said, “Signora Heimrich? If you will?”

  Susan shook the box and spilled two dice from it. She threw a double six. Guido turned toward the man at the microphone and raised his voice and said, “Six, signor. And six.

  The Number 6 horse was moved forward two squares. Heimrich raised a hand to a waiter and said to Susan, “You threw the boxcars, darling.” She raised her, shoulders in inquiry, and Heimrich said, to the waiter, “Two Martel cognac, please. Not in snifters.” The waiter said, “Sir.”

  When he had gone, Susan said, “Boxcars?”

  “Because they look like them,” Merton said, and Susan said, “Of course, the dice.”

  “Yes,” Merton said. “When I was a young trooper, there was a suicide in my district. A very wealthy one. One worth press coverage. A reporter phoned his story in. He said, ‘Old Nelson—Jonathan J. Nelson—just threw the boxcars.’ He meant Nelson had killed himself.”

  Susan said she didn’t get it. Merton was not sure he did. He thought it might be the reporter’s special argot. He said, “In a crap game, throw a double six and you’re out. I suppose that was it. But why suicide I don’t know. Bad luck is more what it sounds like.”

  Susan said, “Hmmm,” and looked around the room. On the other side of the dance floor, Sir Ronald and Lady Grimes were sitting at a table for four. Lucinda Powers and Emily Farrell were sitting with them. Miss Farrell was eating canapés from a tray in the center of their table.

  “They’re continuing the party,” Susan said. “Only it seemed to me that the Grimeses and Mrs. Powers didn’t quite—”

  She did not finish, because Heimrich’s nod had finished for her.

  “Three, signor,” Guido said, from across the room. “And a deuce.”

  Horses 2 and 3 were each advanced a square, but Horse Number 6 remained ahead.

  Their cognacs came, not in snifters. They also got a small plate of canapés.

  “At this rate,” Susan said, “I’ll begin to weigh in stones too.”

  But she took a canapé to go with a sip from her glass. “One, signor,” Guido called from another part of the spreading room. “And a three.”

  Horses advanced. Horse 3 was now even with Horse 6.

  “At least,” Susan said, “mine’s started. Yours just stands there.”

  “You jinxed him,” Merton said. “You and your boxcars.”

  “Six,” Guido called. “And an ace.”

  A rather heavy woman in a pinkish dinner dress went to the Grimeses’ table and smiled down at those sitting there. And Sir Ronald stood up, and the women stood up. Ellen Grimes said something to her husband, and he
smiled at her and his lips moved. Susan thought he had said, “Of course, darling.” But Susan cannot read lips. She was merely supplying dialogue to go with action.

  The action was that the four women threaded their way among tables and out of the ballroom, and that Ronald Grimes sat down again and finished his tall drink.

  But he finished it in only a minute or two. Then he stood up and went across the room toward an exit, which was not the one the women had taken.

  Detective Inspector Albert Hunt got up out of nowhere, which was apparently where he lived, and went out after Grimes.

  “And double six,” Guido said, from a far side of the big room.

  “What it is,” Susan said, as Horse Number 6 went forward two squares, “the dice are fixed. Your poor Number Four.”

  Horse Number 4, which was a rather drab brown-pink horse, still stood at the starting gate. Number 2 was only one square down the course. Number 6 was a square from the finish line. And the big room had begun to fill with voices. Susan finished her small cognac, making rather a point of it. Merton said, “Yes, I think so. There are going to be six more races before the dancing starts.”

  “Deuce,” Guido said. “And four.”

  “At last,” Susan said, and began to stand up. “While our luck is in.”

  Heimrich put “Cab. 82” on the bar check, and they went out of the room. When he pressed a button for the elevator, its doors opened immediately. “Waiting for us,” Susan said, and went into the elevator.

  When Heimrich reached toward the button marked “PS,” Susan said, “No, I want to see something,” and pressed the button which was marked “PLa.” So they went above instead of below, and Heimrich raised both his shoulders and his eyebrows. He said, “Mario? After cognac?”

  “Curiosity,” Susan said, and the door opened, and they went out into the foyer of the boat deck.

  Susan led them through the starboard passageway, which took them past the open doorway of the card room.

  There were three tables of bridge, and Ellen Grimes and Lucinda Powers and Emily Farrell were at one of them, with the woman in the pinkish dinner dress. Mrs. Powers and Lady Grimes were partners.

  “Four no trump,” Lucinda Powers said, with much firmness in her voice. The woman in the pinkish dress said, “Pass.” Lady Grimes looked at her cards.

  They could not stand outside the card-room door and stare. They went on into the veranda belvedere, which was almost deserted. Which was not quite deserted. Sir Ronald Grimes and Detective Inspector Hunt were sitting together in what would have been a corner, if the room had had corners. A steward was leaning down toward them, his pad ready. Not Mario, who must be off duty at this hour.

  Susan and Merton Heimrich went out of the room through the passageway to port.

  The doors to the library and writing room were open, but the rooms were empty.

  As they waited for the elevator, Susan said, “I thought the woman in the awful pink dress was the fourth for bridge. I just wanted—”

  The elevator door opened, and they got in. This time Merton pressed the “PS” button, and no objection was entered, and the elevator started down toward the ponte superiore, where their cabin was.

  “I do hope they’d established their suit,” Susan said, as they walked toward Cabin 82. “I hate that four-no-trump bid. It’s so—so commanding. And the back of Ellen Grimes’s head looked worried.”

  5

  S.S. Italia still moved easily that fourth morning out. Her bow rose a little and dipped a little. From their chairs on the promenade deck they could see the Atlantic, and the Atlantic was a calm ocean. By raising himself a little in his chair, Heimrich could see the froth of the bow wave. The sliding glass panels were farther open this morning at a little after ten. The air which came through them was soft air.

  “We’ve sailed away from winter,” Susan said.

  Merton Heimrich said, “Hmmm.”

  “We should go up to the boat deck and walk around the ship, breathing deeply,” Susan said. “We should bestir ourselves.”

  Her husband said, “Hmmm,” again. “Hmmm” expressed agreement. It did not indicate imminent action.

  Behind them there were sounds—a thud of something heavy being put down on the deck; the faint chipping sound of china.

  “But we just had breakfast,” Susan said. “They’re setting up for consommé.”

  Heimrich said, “Hmmm.”

  “You sound,” she told him, “as if you were going to sleep.”

  He brought himself to words. He said, “Not quite.”

  “Not,” she said, “that it isn’t fine for you. This is being good for you. No murderers.”

  It is Heimrich’s job to catch murderers. He said, “Hmmm,” and the sound was one of contentment. He closed his eyes. It was, of course, absurd to feel drowsy at a little after ten in the morning, after a long night’s sleep. It was—

  “Inspector Heimrich?”

  He opened his eyes. He looked up at a young ship’s officer, who stood very erect in a white uniform with a single stripe on each of his shoulder-boards. He said, “Signor Inspector?”

  Heimrich said, “Yes?”

  “The captain’s compliments, sir,” the younger officer said. “The captain would appreciate it if you could spare him a few minutes in his quarters, sir. Comandante di Scarlotti, Inspector, sir.”

  Heimrich raised his eyebrows.

  “He would very much appreciate it, signor,” the officer said. “In his quarters, sir. There has been a—an incident, sir.”

  Heimrich put one foot down on the deck. He followed it with the other foot. He turned to Susan and looked down at her, his eyebrows arched.

  “Perhaps,” Susan said, “Horse Number Four really won. At tremendous odds. You are supposed to cash in your ticket.”

  He smiled faintly as he stood up.

  “No,” Susan said, “I don’t believe it either.” Then she said, “And it was so peaceful.”

  Heimrich stood up.

  “I’ll be here,” Susan said. “Drinking consommé. Or, you’ll find me. I won’t get off the ship.”

  Heimrich followed the young officer through a door and up two flights of stairs to the lido deck and forward to the comandante’s quarters. A steward opened the door to the sitting room. Di Scarlotti was sitting at the table around which they had sat the evening before. He had a coffee cup in his hand. He put it down when Heimrich went into the sitting room and stood up. He looked worried, Heimrich thought. He looked a good deal worried.

  “Good morning, Inspector,” di Scarlotti said. “I am sorry to have disturbed you. Mrs. Heimrich? She is well this morning? There was some motion during the night. She—you—were not inconvenienced?”

  “We were fine,” Heimrich said. “And it is quite calm this morning.”

  “The water, yes,” di Scarlotti said. “There is no sea running. A light swell only. You will have coffee, Inspector?” He did not wait for an answer. He said, “Coffee for the inspector, steward.” He motioned toward the chair next his own. Heimrich sat in it. The steward brought coffee. He said, “Sir?” to Comandante di Scarlotti. Di Scarlotti said, “Grazie,” and continued in Italian. The steward said, “Signor,” and went out of the sitting room.

  “I am most sorry to have disturbed you,” di Scarlotti said. “Something has occurred. Something most unfortunate. I—since you are in my ship—I—but it is more than I should ask. That I realize, Inspector. But you are a police official. Have experience in such matters.”

  “A police officer,” Heimrich said. “A cop, Comandante. What matters?”

  Comandante di Scarlotti lifted his coffee cup and shook his head at it and put it down again. He said, “It is most unfortunate, Inspector. It is a matter of great concern.”

  It occurred to Heimrich that di Scarlotti had learned English overabundantly. He looked at the man with the surprisingly deep blue eyes, who sat so erect in his chair—and who was so worried and was taking so many words to tell what worried
him. His intonation was less American, his sentences more formal than in the easy atmosphere of his cocktail party. Only last night in these same quarters.

  “Sir Ronald,” di Scarlotti said. “Sir Ronald Grimes. He has—he seems to have disappeared, Inspector. We fear—Comandante Ferrancci and I both fear—that there has been an accident. But—” He did not immediately go on. He looked at Heimrich, and it seemed to Heimrich that there was a question in his very blue eyes. Heimrich waited.

  “The sea has been calm,” di Scarlotti said. “Last night only a little sea. But even in rough weather Italia is a steady ship. And the rails to which passengers have access—well, they are high, Inspector.”

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “You think Sir Ronald has fallen overboard? Is that it, Captain?”

  “But it would be very difficult,” di Scarlotti said. “It has never happened before, Inspector.”

  “You’ve had the ship searched?” Heimrich said.

  Di Scarlotti’s hands moved. They seemed to brush away the obvious. He said, “Certainly, Inspector. We have a security force which is excellent. It is under Comandante Ferrancci. He supervises the crew, you will understand. He is qualified to command, of course. He is the—what is the term in English?”

  “Staff captain?” Heimrich said.

  Di Scarlotti said, “Sì, Inspector.”

  “All classes? The crew’s quarters? A man could go from one class to another? I mean, there aren’t locked doors or anything?”

  “Only notices. ‘First Class,’ ‘Cabin,’ ‘Tourist.’ In Italian and English. There are no locked doors. That—that would not be safe, Inspector. Yes, my security men have searched everywhere. Sir Ronald is not—I greatly fear, Inspector, that Sir Ronald is not aboard the ship. He is an important man, Inspector. At least, that is what I’ve been told. We are, as you would say, briefed about the passengers. By the head office.”

  By the public relations office, Heimrich assumed. Which would account for the selected cocktail party in the sitting room.

  “What you’re getting at,” Heimrich said, “what you’re afraid of—he may have been pushed overboard. Lifted over the rail and—and dropped.”