by Rhys Bowen
I shook my head.
“Right, let's start with basics,” Captain Hammond said. “The girl's full name.”
“Rose,” I said. “I—uh—don’t know her last name.”
“Don’t know your maid's last name?” the captain asked incredulously.
I took a deep breath. “Look, there is something you should know before we proceed any further. I am not really Oona Sheehan.”
The captain slapped his hands together. “I thought there was something different about you. I sat in the front row of the stalls, you know. Now what the devil is this all about? Out with it.”
“I thought there was something a bit strange too, Captain, if I might be so bold,” Henry said. “I’ve served Miss Sheehan before. There was something that made me uneasy all voyage long. So that's it.”
“I’m sorry for deceiving you, Henry,” I said. “I assure you there was a good reason.”
“Then who the devil are you, and what's happened to Miss Shee-han?” the captain barked.
“My name is Molly Murphy,” I said. “I had booked a passage to sail to Ireland in a second-class cabin on this ship. When I came on board, I received a note from Miss Sheehan, asking me to come straight to her cabin.”
“Do you know Miss Sheehan?”
“We met once recently. She asked me to change places with her.”
“Change places, why the devil would she do that?” The captain was now eyeing me most suspiciously.
“She told me she was tired of being pestered by admirers and she needed a rest. She offered me money to pretend to be her until we docked in Queenstown.”
“And you agreed?”
“I saw no reason not to.”
“Why did she ask you to carry out this unusual assignment if you’d only met her once?”
“Because she thought I looked sufficiently like her to carry it off.”
The captain looked at me critically. “And did you carry it off? Did anyone twig to the fact that you weren’t Oona?”
“I was instructed to keep to my cabin. I only took the occasional turn about the deck, until tonight, when, as you can see from the costume, I went to the fancy dress ball in disguise, wearing a powdered wig and a mask.”
“And what about Miss Sheehan's maid? What did she think?”
“Oh, she was in on the scheme. Miss Sheehan instructed her to treat me as her mistress for the entire trip.” The initial fear and shock had worn off, and I was now growing weary of this interrogation. “Look, why don’t you send someone down to my cabin in second class and have Miss Sheehan brought up here? Then she’ll tell you the truth and maybe you’ll believe me.”
“That makes sense,” the captain said. “Henry, would you go to this young lady's cabin and ask Miss Sheehan if she would kindly join us. Apologize about the ungodly hour but tell her it is a matter of great urgency—only it's probably wise not to mention her maid's death until I can break the news to her.”
“Very good, sir. What number is the cabin?”
“Two thirty-one, E deck,” I said.
Henry departed.
“Why kill a maid?” The captain stroked his beard. “Possibly someone wanted to get into Miss Sheehan's cabin bent on robbery and found the maid in residence, and the maid raised a ruckus and he suffocated her to keep her quiet? Far-fetched, do you think?”
“If you want my opinion,” I said, “I think we have to assume that the intended target of this attack was not the maid, but Miss Sheehan herself. I had ordered some costumes for the ball. I kept the Spanish costume because I couldn’t make up my mind at first. When I found the maid lying on my bed, she was wearing this costume. My guess would be that she had been trying it on for a lark when the intruder came in and thought she was me—or rather that she was Miss Sheehan.”
Even as I said this, thoughts were jelling in my mind. Perhaps Oona Sheehan had an unwanted admirer, one she had previously rejected and who now had reason to turn violent on her. Perhaps she saw a particularman coming on board, knew what he was like, and panicked—and got me to trade places with her so that she could travel in anonymity. Hence the instructions to keep to my cabin.
Well, that's just lovely, I thought angrily. She paid me to get killed instead of her. Only now the final joke's on her—it was her maid who copped it instead. Not very funny for poor Rose.
The door was pushed open and Henry arrived, breathing hard after running up several flights of steps.
“I’ve been down to E deck, Captain,” he said, “and the cabin number the young lady gave me is empty.”
Nine
Istared at the elderly steward as he crossed the reading room, still breathing heavily.
“You mean Miss Sheehan wasn’t in the cabin?” I asked.
“No, I mean that nobody's been in the cabin all voyage. It's empty. Unoccupied.”
“But what about my things?” I demanded. “I left my belongings down there. What's happened to them?” Looking back on it, I suppose my few meager possessions were of little consequence compared to a murder, but they were all I had and I wasn’t about to lose them.
Henry shook his head. “I couldn’t say, Miss. There's nothing in that cabin—that's all I can tell you.”
“Miss Sheehan has to be somewhere,” I said. “Perhaps my cabin proved to be too small for her liking and she found something better. Someone must know where she's hiding out.”
“This is most peculiar,” Captain Hammond said. “What does the steward down there have to say about it? Do we know who is assigned to that part of the ship?”
“I could look it up for you, sir,” Henry said. “Do you want me to go and wake the day steward now?”
“Yes, I think you’d better.”
“He won’t be pleased,” Henry muttered. “The crew had a bit of a shindig tonight, and he’ll only just have gone to sleep.”
“Extraordinary circumstances, my man. He’ll just have to be not pleased. And we’d better have the second-class purser up here too.”
Henry looked even less thrilled about the prospect of waking him. “Very good, sir. If you say so,” he muttered, and left. I felt the captain's eyes on me. It was clear that he was now highly suspicious of me and something awful suddenly occurred to me—I might well be his number-one suspect at this point. Pretending to be someone else, occupying a first-class cabin under false pretences, and then claiming to find the true occupant's maid dead. It didn’t look good, did it? Unless we could produce Oona Sheehan to verify my story, I foresaw trouble ahead.
A few minutes later a rather disheveled and bleary-eyed steward stumbled into the room, still buttoning his white uniform jacket.
“This better be bloody good,” he muttered, “waking me up in the middle of the bleedin’ night.”
“Watch your language, man,” the captain barked. “There is a lady present.”
Those bleary eyes now noticed the captain sitting there. He stood to attention rather rapidly. “Sorry, sir. I didn’t realize. Henry just said I was wanted in a hurry and—” Then he noticed me. I must have presented quite an interesting sight in my Marie Antoinette costume.
“Your name again?” the captain asked him.
“Wally, sir. Wally Henshaw.”
“Right, Wally. What can you tell us about cabin 231 and the person who occupies it on this crossing?”
“Two thirty-one, Captain?” the wiry little man wrinkled his forehead. “Ain’t nobody been in that cabin this crossing.”
“You are saying that the cabin has never been occupied from the time we sailed?”
“That's exactly what I’m saying, sir.”
“But I left my belongings in that cabin,” I said. “It was booked in my name. I have the ticket to prove it in my handbag.”
“I believe there was some luggage delivered to it before we sailed,” Wally said, “but then I was told the young lady received some bad news at the last minute and had to disembark again.”
The truth was finally dawning on me. It appeared tha
t Oona hadnever intended to sail in the first place. Not only had she tricked me, but she had walked off with most of my worldly goods. Obviously I had a closet of lovely dresses in their place, but they were not mine and they were far too grand and extravagant for me to wear when I went ashore. I was reminded again that clothes were the least of my troubles when the captain said, “Well, young lady. You’d better give us the full details of who you are and where you were heading on this ship.”
“My travel documents are in Oona Sheehan's cabin,” I said. “Do you want to send someone to fetch them or are you going to take my word for what I tell you?”
The captain looked at me long and hard. “You give us your version right now. It will be easy enough to verify.”
I gave him my particulars. Henry arrived with a white-faced purser in tow. He could only repeat what Wally had told us. The occupant of cabin 231 had received bad news and disembarked at the last minute. As to whether that person was Oona Sheehan, he couldn’t say. Everything was chaos in the last moments before sailing—people complaining about their cabins, wanting to change them, not being able to find them. He did verify that the cabin was booked in the name of Molly Murphy.
The captain turned back to me. “And for what reason are you traveling to Ireland?” he asked.
“I’m Irish, isn’t that obvious? I’ve a family I haven’t seen for some time, and I’ve finally saved up enough to go home to see them.” The nagging voice of conscience reminded me that this wasn’t exactly the truth, but I saw no reason to reveal that I was an investigator on an assignment until I had to do so. That would be opening yet another can of worms.
“And their address would be?”
Holy Mother, I didn’t want him looking up my family, announcing to the whole of county Mayo that I was back in the land, just waiting for that warrant to catch up with me.
“I’m planning on going to Cork to start with, where I’ve been asked to look up the sister of an old friend. After that I expect I’ll probably be in Dublin, meeting with friends and relatives there,” I said rapidly. “I had no firm plans after that.”
The captain was still glaring at me as if he was trying to bore into my mind.
“Look here,” I said at last. I was tired, upset, angry now too. “I can’t think why you are bent on attacking me like this. Anyone would think you were accusing me of being party to this poor girl's death. Why on earth should I want to kill someone's maid, I’d like to know?”
The captain couldn’t answer this one, but Henry leaned toward him. “Maybe she's done in the real Miss Sheehan, Captain, sir,” he hissed in an excited stage whisper. “Maybe she shoved her over the side when no one was looking and decided to take her place, only the maid found out and she had to silence her.”
I looked at him and had to laugh in spite of everything. “You should be writing penny dreadfuls, Henry, really you should. What on earth could I possibly gain from pretending to be Oona Sheehan?”
“Well, for one thing, sleeping in a first-class cabin. Then maybe you planned on impersonating Miss Sheehan when you landed and taking in the local people.”
“Absolute rubbish,” I said. “Anyway, this whole thing can be solved as soon as we dock. You’ll no doubt be sending a cable telegraph communication to Miss Sheehan to tell her what's happened to her maid. Ask her to verify her little scheme with me at the same time.”
I got to my feet. “Look, it's the middle of the night and all this is getting us nowhere. If you want to conduct a proper investigation, you should start with the young man who dressed up as a steward and took Henry's place.”
“What's this?” The captain turned to Henry, who blushed.
“It's as she says, sir. A man I took to be another steward showed up with a big display of flowers for Miss Sheehan. This wasn’t at all unusual. In fact, it has been happening the whole voyage—flowers, chocolates, champagne—aren’t I right, Miss Sheehan—I mean, miss?”
I nodded. “All the time,” I echoed. “Miss Sheehan obviously has lots of admirers. I could well understand that she wanted to be free of them for a while.”
“Go on about the steward,” the captain said.
“Well, he told me he’d cover for me if I wanted to join the party going on in the crew's quarters. You know there's always a bit of a celebration on the last night at sea. I was only gone a few minutes, sir. I meant no harm by it.”
“And you didn’t recognize this man?” the first officer asked sharply.
“No, sir. His face was hidden behind the flowers.”
“We’ve ascertained that he was taller than Henry, younger, and spoke with a more refined accent,” I said. “From which I think we might deduce that he could have been one of the passengers in disguise.”
They all looked at me.
“I suppose I should tell you that I am an investigator by profession,” I said, and instantly wished that I hadn’t. When would I ever learn to keep my mouth shut? It would have been simpler had I remained the simple Irish lass returning home to the bosom of her family. But it was gratifying to see their startled faces, I have to admit.
“Good God,” the captain said. “A female investigator. What is the world coming to? Then is it possible that this murder could have something to do with your profession and nothing at all to do with Miss Sheehan? Are you hot on the trail of some criminal?”
I shook my head, smiling. “First, this changing cabins was a last-minute occurrence. Nobody could have known that I was pretending to be Miss Sheehan, except for her maid—”
“Who could have blabbed,” Henry pointed out. “They often do.”
I shook my head again. “Like I told you, I’m only going to Ireland to look up the sister of a friend. Nothing of a criminal nature, I assure you. No, I’m sure somebody wanted to kill Miss Sheehan—some unbalanced young man, mad with unrequited love, I shouldn’t wonder.”
The captain turned to the other officers. “Then where the deuce do we start? We can’t line up all the younger men on this ship and see if Henry recognizes any of them by their hair or their voices.”
“You could find out who ordered a large display of flowers this evening,” I said, “although I shouldn’t think the murderer would have been stupid enough to order them in his own name.”
“Worth a try, I suppose,” the captain said.
“If you want my advice, sir,” the doctor said, looking up from his seat at the desk, “we should make sure nobody goes ashore and then turn this over to the Irish police. We may well bungle the whole thing ifwe try to conduct our own investigation. These things have to be done with a great deal of subtlety.”
“Are you insinuating that I don’t know what the hell I am doing?” the captain demanded.
“You said yourself that you’d never conducted a murder investigation before, sir,” the doctor said calmly. “It may be wiser, in the circumstances, to put the whole thing into the hands of trained professional detectives.”
“Oh, very well, blast it,” the captain grunted. “I don’t know how we’re going to prevent the passengers from going ashore without a full-scale mutiny on our hands.”
“Tell them it's a health scare, sir,” the doctor said. “A passenger has come down with a suspected infectious disease and nobody is allowed ashore until they’ve passed a medical inspection.”
“Brilliant, man.” For once the captain looked pleased. “That way we can take a good look at all of them. A medical inspection. That's the ticket.” He clapped his hands. “Right. Make sure you stand guard outside Miss Sheehan's cabin all night, Henry. Nobody is to go anywhere near it. And the rest of us will try for a couple of hours of shut-eye. We’ll all need our wits about us in the morning.”
“What about me?” I asked. “Where am I to sleep?”
“In your own cabin on E deck, I suppose,” the captain said.
“I’ll need to collect my few possessions from Oona Sheehan's cabin first,” I said. “I can hardly go to sleep dressed like this, and I have to return t
he costume to your store.”
The captain sighed. “Very well. Go with her, man, and make sure she doesn’t touch anything she doesn’t have to. They can take fingerprints these days, so I understand.”
“My fingerprints would already be all over the cabin, since I’ve lived in it for a week,” I said. “And don’t worry, I’ll not disturb anything.”
With that I left the room.
Ten
Of course I found it impossible to sleep. The narrow bunk was cold and hard and the deep dull thunk, thunk, thunk of the engine noise seemed to resonate through my skull. I suppose that delayed shock was setting in too, because I couldn’t get warm. My horror until now had been for poor Rose. Now it was just beginning to sink in that had I returned from the party earlier and dismissed the maid, it might have been me lying covered in that bed, staring out with dead eyes. I pulled the coverlet up around me and hugged my knees to my chest. I didn’t like to think what tomorrow might bring. So much for slipping into Ireland quietly without anybody noticing me, I thought, before I finally drifted into an uneasy sleep.
I awoke to loud sounds of clanking and grinding and sat up, with heart pounding, only to hit my head against the upper bunk. This, of course, reminded me where I was and the full horror of the night before came flooding back into my memory. It appeared that we had come into Queenstown harbor during the night and were now docking. I got up and peered out under the lifeboat. It was still early—a gray dawn, streaked with rose in the east, the sort of day we Irish would know meant no good would come of the weather. Seagulls wheeled around mewing plaintively, and with that sound came the realization that I was truly home again. There were seagulls in New York, of course, but somehow they weren’t the same. These were the cries that had accompanied my childhood outings into Westport or to meet the fishing boats when they delivered their catch to a dock near our cottage.
Another loud clanking noise, accompanied by shouts from below. I suspected that gangways were being raised to the ship. By tilting my head to one side, I could see the little town beyond the docks, rising in tiers up a steep hillside, with a fine-looking church spire right in the middle. So this was Queenstown, the port from which so many of my countrymen had sailed to a new life during the Great Famine.
