The Big Book of Reel Murders

by Stories That Inspired Great Crime Films (epub)

  • Edwin Maxwell (Major Pope)

  • Gustav von Seyffertitz (Inspector Von Kessling)

  The plot of Mystery Liner bears virtually no relation to the short story. A new process allowing the ocean liner to be controlled from a laboratory on land is being tested. A rival company attempts to steal the plans, killing the inventor of the process, so the police come aboard to solve the murder.

  THE GHOST OF JOHN HOLLING

  Edgar Wallace

  “THERE ARE THINGS ABOUT THE SEA that never alter,” said Felix Jenks, the steward. “I had a writing gentleman in one of my suites last voyage who said the same thing, and when writing people say anything original, it’s worth jotting down. Not that it often happens.

  “ ‘Felix,’ he said, ‘the sea has got a mystery that can never be solved—a magic that has never been and never will be something-or-other to the tests of science.’ (I’m sure it was ‘tests of science,’ though the other word has slipped overboard.)

  “Magic—that’s the word. Something we don’t understand, like the mirror in the bridal suite of the Canothic. Two men cut their throats before that mirror. One of ’em died right off, and one lived long enough to tell the steward who found him that he’d seen a shadowy sort of face looking over his shoulder and heard a voice telling him that death was only another word for sleep.

  “That last fellow was Holling—the coolest cabin thief that ever traveled the Western Ocean. And what Holling did to us when he was alive was nothing to what he’s done since, according to certain stories I’ve heard.

  “Spooky told me that when the mirror was taken out of the ship and put in the stores at Liverpool, first the storekeeper and then a clerk in his office were found dead in the storeroom. After that it was carried out to sea and dropped into fifty fathoms of water. But that didn’t get rid of Holling’s ghost.

  “The principal authority on Holling was the steward who worked with me. Spooky Simms his name was, and Spooky was so called because he believed in ghosts. There wasn’t anything in the supernatural line that he didn’t keep tag on, and when he wasn’t making tables rap he was casting horror-scopes—is that the way you pronounce it?

  “ ‘I certainly believe in Holling’s ghost,’ said Spooky on this voyage I’m talking about now, ‘and if he’s not on this packet at this minute, I’m no clairvoyager. We passed right over the spot where he died at three-seven this morning, and I woke up with the creeps. He’s come aboard—he always does when we go near the place he committed suicide.’

  “There was no doubt that Spooky believed this, and he was a man with only one delusion: that he’d die in the poorhouse and his children would sell matches on the street. That accounts for the fact that he hoarded every cent he made.

  “Personally, I don’t believe in spooks, but I do admit that there is one magical thing about the sea—the way it affects men and women. Take any girl and any man, perfect strangers and not wanting to be anything else, put them on the same ship and give them a chance of talking to one another, and before you know where you are his wastepaper basket is full of poetry that he’s torn up because he can’t find a rhyme for ‘love,’ and her wastepaper basket’s top-high with bits of letters she’s written to the man she was going to marry, explaining that they are unsuitable for one another and that now she sees in a great white light the path that love has opened for her.

  “I know, because I’ve read ’em. And the man hasn’t got to be handsome or the girl a doll for this to happen.

  “There was a gang working the Mesopotamia when I served in her a few years ago that was no better and no worse than any other crowd that travels for business. They used to call this crowd ‘Charley’s,’ Charley Pole being the leader. He was a nice young fellow with fair, curly hair, and he spoke London English, wore London clothes, and had a London eyeglass in his left eye.

  “Charley had to work very carefully, and he was handicapped, just as all the other gangs were handicapped, by the Pure Ocean Movement, which our company started. Known cardsharps were stopped at the quayside by the company police and sent back home again—to America if they were American, to England if they were English. About thirty of our stewards were suspended, and almost every bar steward in the line, and it looked as if the Western Ocean was going to be a dull place. Some of the crowds worked the French ships—and nearly starved to death, for though the French are, by all accounts, a romantic race, they’re very practical when it comes to money.

  “So the boys began to drift back to the English and American lines, but they had to watch out, and it was as much as a steward’s place was worth to tip them off. Charley was luckier than most people, for he hadn’t got the name that others had got, and though the company officials loked down their noses every time he went ashore at Southampton, they let him through.

  “Now the Barons of the Pack (as our old skipper used to call them) are plain businessmen. They go traveling to earn a living, and have the same responsibilities as other people. They’ve got wives and families and girls at high school and boys at college, and when they’re not cutting up human lamb they’re discussing the high cost of living and the speculation in the stock market and how something ought to be done about it.

  “But on one point they’re inhuman: they have no shipboard friendships that can’t pay dividends. Women—young, old, beautiful, or just women—mean nothing in their lives. So far as they are concerned, women passengers are in the same category as table decorations—they look nice, but they mean nothing. Naturally, they meet them, but beyond a ‘Glad to meet you, Mrs. So-and-so,’ the big men never bother with women.

  “That was why I was surprised when I saw Charley Pole walking the boat deck with Miss Lydia Penn for two nights in succession. I wasn’t surprised at her, because I’ve given up being surprised at women.

  “She had Suite 107 on C deck, and Spooky Simms and I were her room stewards—we shared that series—so that I knew as much about her as anybody. She was a gold-and-tortoiseshell lady and had more junk on her dressing-table than anybody I’ve known. Silver and glass and framed photographs and manicure sets, and all her things were in silk, embroidered with rosebuds. A real lady.

  “From what she told me, she was traveling for a big women’s outfitters in Chicago. She had to go backward and forward to London and Paris to see new designs, and by the way she traveled it looked as if no expenses were spared.

  “As a looker, Miss Lydia Penn was in the deluxe class. She had golden hair, just dull enough to be genuine, and a complexion like a baby’s. Her eyebrows were dark and so were her eyelashes.

  “I admire pretty girls. I don’t mean that I fall in love with them. Stewards don’t fall in love—they get married between trips and better acquainted when the ship’s in dry dock. But if I was a young man with plenty of money and enough education to pass across the line of talk she’d require, I shouldn’t have gone further than Miss Penn.

  “But she wasn’t everybody’s woman—being a little too clever to suit the average young businessman.

  “The day before we made Nantucket Lightship, Spooky Simms came to me as I was going off watch. ‘Remember me telling you about Holling?’ he said.

  “As a matter of fact, I’d forgotten all about the matter.

  “ ‘He’s on board—saw him last night as plain as you—if it’s possible, plainer. He was leaning up against Number Seven boat, looking white and ill. Plain! Why, I can see him now. There will be trouble!’

  “And he was right. Mr. Alex McLeod of Los Angeles took his bag from the purser’s safe that night to save himself trouble first thing in the morning. He locked the bag in a big trunk and locked the door of his cabin, and wanted to give the key to Spooky, who was his steward. But Spooky was dead-scared.

  “ ‘No, sir, you’d better keep it. And if you’ll allow me to say so, sir, I shouldn’t leave any valuables lying about tonight if I was you.’
<
br />   “When Mr. McLeod went to his bag the next morning, three thousand dollars and a gold watch and chain were gone.

  “ ‘Holling,’ said Spooky, and you couldn’t budge him. He was one of those thin, bald men that never change their opinions.

  “The Central Office people investigated the case, but that’s where it ended.

  “It wasn’t much of a coincidence that Miss Penn and Charley were on the ship when it turned round. Charley was on business, and so was she. I saw them together lots of times, and once he came down with her and stood outside her cabin while she dug up some photographs of the South Sea Islands.

  “Charley’s partner was a fellow named Cowan, a little fellow with the biggest hands I’ve ever seen. They say he could palm a whole pack and light a cigarette with the same hand without the sharpest pair of eyes spotting it.

  “One morning I took Cowan in his coffee and fruit, and I thought he was sleeping, but just as I was going away he turned round.

  “ ‘Felix,’ he said, ‘who is that dame in the private suite?’

  “I told him about Miss Penn.

  “ ‘She’s got Charley going down for the third time,’ he said, worried, ‘and he’s sidestepping business. We’re eight hundred dollars bad this trip unless somebody comes and pushes it into my hand—and that only happens in dreams.’

  “ ‘Well, it’s your funeral, Mr. Cowan,’ I said.

  “ ‘And I’ll be buried at sea,’ he groaned.

  “Cowan must have talked straight to Charley, because that same night the smoke-room waiter told me that Charley had caught an English Member of Parliament for a thousand dollars over a two-handed game this bird was trying to teach him.

  “We got to Cherbourg that trip early in the morning, and I had to go down to lock up the lady’s baggage, because she was bound for Paris. She was kneeling on the sofa looking out of the porthole at Cherbourg, which is about the same thing as saying she was looking at nothing, for Cherbourg is just a place where the sea stops and land begins.

  “ ‘Oh, steward,’ she said, turning round, ‘do you know if Mr. Pole is going ashore?’

  “ ‘No, Miss,’ I said, ‘not unless he’s going ashore in his pajamas. The tender is coming alongside, and when I went into his cabin just now he was still asleep.’

  “ ‘Thank you,’ she said, and that was all.

  “She went off in the tender and left me the usual souvenir. She was the only woman I’ve met that tipped honest.

  “There was some delay after the tender left, and I wondered why, till I heard that a certain English marquis who was traveling with us discovered that his wife’s jewel-case had been lifted in the night, and about twenty thousand pounds’ worth of pearls had been taken.

  “It is very unpleasant for everybody when a thing like that happens, because the first person to be suspected is the bedroom steward. After that, suspicion goes over to the deck hands, and works its way round to the passengers.

  “The chief steward sent for all the room-men, and he talked straight.

  “ ‘What’s all this talk of Holling’s ghost?’ he said, extremely unpleasant. ‘I am here to tell you that the place where Holling’s gone, money—especially paper money—would be no sort of use at all, so we can rule spirits out entirely. Now, Spooky, let’s hear what you saw.’

  “ ‘I saw a man go down the alleyway toward Lord Crethborough’s suite,’ he said, ‘and I turned back and followed him. When I got into the alleyway, there was nobody there. I tried the door of his cabin and it was locked. So I knocked, and his lordship opened the door and asked me what I wanted. This was at two o’clock this morning—and his lordship will bear me out.’

  “ ‘What made you think it was a ghost?’ asked the chief steward.

  “ ‘Because I saw his face—it was Holling.’

  “The chief steward thought for a long time.

  “ ‘There’s one thing you can bet on—he’s gone ashore at Cherbourg. That town was certainly made for ghosts. Go to your stations and give the police all the information you can when they arrive.’

  “On the trip out, Miss Penn was not on the passenger list, and the only person who was really glad was Cowan. When he wasn’t working, I used to see Charley moping about the alleyway where her cabin had been, looking sort of miserable, and I guessed that she’d made a hit. We had no robberies, either; in fact, what with the weather being calm and the passengers generous, it was one of the best trips I’ve ever had.

  “We were in dock for a fortnight replacing a propeller, and just before we sailed I had a look at the chief steward’s list and found I’d got Miss Penn again, and to tell you the truth I wasn’t sorry, although she was really Spooky’s passenger.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a man who looked happier than Charley Pole when she came on board. He sort of fussed round her like a pet dog, and for the rest of the voyage he went out of business. Cowan felt it terribly.

  “ ‘I’ve never seen anything more unprofessional in my life, Felix,’ he said bitterly to me one day. ‘I’m going to quit at the end of this trip and take up scientific farming.’

  “He was playing patience in his room—the kind of patience that gentlemen of Mr. Cowan’s profession play when they want to get the cards in a certain order.

  “ ‘What poor old Holling said about Charley is right—a college education is always liable to break through the skin.’

  “ ‘Did you know Holling?’ I asked.

  “ ‘Did I know him? I was the second man in the cabin after Spooky found him. In fact, I helped Spooky get together his belongings to send to his widow.’ He sighed heavily. ‘Holling did some foolish things in his time, but he never fell in love except with his wife.’

  “ ‘Have you heard about his ghost?’ I asked.

  “Cowan smiled.

  “ ‘Let us be intelligent,’ he said. ‘Though I admit that the way Charley goes on is enough to make any self-respecting cardman turn in his watery tomb.’

  “Two days out of New York we struck a real ripsnorting southwester—the last weather in the world you’d expect Holling to choose for a visit. At about four o’clock in the morning, Spooky, who slept in the next bunk to me, woke up with a yell and tumbled out onto the deck.

  “ ‘He’s aboard!’ he gasped.

  “There were thirty stewards in our quarters, and the things they said to Spooky about Holling and him were shocking to hear.

  “ ‘He’s come on board,’ said Spooky, very solemn.

  “He sat on the edge of his bunk, his bald head shining in the bulkhead light, his hands trembling.

  “ ‘You fellows don’t think as I think,’ he said. ‘You haven’t got my spiritual eyesight. You laugh at me when I tell you that I shall end my days in the poorhouse and my children will be selling matches, and you laugh at me when I tell you that Holling’s come aboard—but I know. I absolutely know!’ ”

  * * *

  —

  “When we got to New York, the ship was held up for two hours while the police were at work, for a lady passenger’s diamond sunburst had disappeared between seven o’clock in the evening and five o’clock in the morning, and it was not discovered.

  “Miss Penn was a passenger on the home trip, and this time Charley wasn’t as attentive. He didn’t work, either, and Cowan, who was giving him his last chance, threw in his hand and spent his days counting the bits of gulf weed we passed.

  “As I’ve said before, there’s one place on a ship for getting information and that’s the boat deck after dark. Not that I ever spy on passengers—I’d scorn the action. But when a man’s having a smoke between the boats, information naturally comes to him.

  “It was the night we sighted England, and the Start Light was winking and blinking on the port bow, and I was up there having a few short pulls at a pipe,
when I heard Charley’s voice. It wasn’t a pleasant kind of night—it was cold and drizzling—and they had the deck to themselves, he and Miss Penn.

  “ ‘You’re landing at Cherbourg?’ said Charley.

  “ ‘Yes,’ said Miss Penn, and then: ‘What has been the matter with you all this voyage?’

  “He didn’t answer at once. I could smell the scent of his Havana. He was thinking things over before he spoke.

  “ ‘You generally get off a boat pretty quick, don’t you?’ he asked in his drawling voice.

  “ ‘Why, yes,’ she said. ‘I’m naturally in a hurry to get ashore. Why do you say that?’

  “ ‘I hope Holling’s ghost isn’t walking this trip,’ he said.

  “ ‘What do you mean?’ she asked.

  “And then he said in a low voice, ‘I hope there’ll be no sunbursts missing tomorrow. If there are, there’s a tugful of police meeting us twenty miles out of Cherbourg. I heard it coming through on the wireless tonight—I can read Morse code—and you’ll have to be pretty quick to jump the boat this time.’

  “It was such a long while before she answered that I wondered what had happened, and then I heard her say, ‘I think we’ll go down, shall we?’ ”

  * * *

  —

  “It was six o’clock the next morning and I was taking round the early coffee when I heard the squeal. There was a Russian count, or prince or something, traveling on C deck, and he was one of the clever people who never put their valuables in the purser’s safe. Under his pillow he had a packet of loose diamonds that he’d been trying to sell in New York. I believe that he couldn’t comply with some Customs regulations and had to bring them back. At any rate, the pocketbook that held them was found empty in the alleyway, and the diamonds were gone. I had to go to the purser’s office for something and I saw him writing out a radiogram, and I knew that this time nothing was being left to chance and that the ship would be searched from the keel upwards.