S.S. Murder

by Q. Patrick

  But surely someone is absent? Mentally I count noses as Daniels goes off to get what he calls a good stiff double Scotch. Of course—Mrs. Clapp! But she is coming: make no mistake about that.

  There is rustle in the doorway. The rustling grows to a rumbling and the rumbling grows to a miniature whirlwind. The great actress is not to be done out of her entrance. It is dramatic. There is a pause while the press takes note. “Enter Marcia Manners in a trailing gown of black taffeta with which she wore her famous pearls.” It is effective, but it is soon over. The party goes on, now a little livelier, a little more scintillating, thanks to the devastating arrival from the world of fashion.

  And so, Davy, we eat, drink and flirt. As a matter of fact, Marcia has the monopoly of this latter activity. She gives all the men a break. She flirts with the captain; she does everything but kiss the purser; she darts amorous glances at Earnshaw; she stirs Silvera to the depths of his sombre soul; she even flings some playful badinage at Adam, which causes him to puff out his chest and look like a pouter pigeon. She is the life of the party on nothing stronger than tea. But the rest of us aren’t so utterly lacking in social amenities either. Indeed, even our guardian angels, taking a bird’s-eye-view of the situation, would never dream that we were gathered together for anything more sinister than cakes and chatter.

  But even the cakes and chatter cannot go on for ever. There is a break and Mrs. Clapp rises from her seat—one small ringed hand stretched out in abortive valediction. It is ignored. The captain has also risen to his feet. There is no sound in the room but the tinkling of ice in the tumblers and the velvet pad-pad of the stewards as they clear away the tea things.

  “Would you all be so kind as to remain seated?”

  Captain Fortescue’s voice sounds like a foghorn across the misty sea of our babble.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I am sorry to detain you, but I have a favor to ask. There is no need for me to tell you that there have been two terrible tragedies on board this ship. Directly or indirectly all of you have been involved. That is why I have invited you here today. It is my duty to tell you some more details about the sad deaths of Mr. Lambert and his niece. Mrs. Lambert will, I am sure, forgive me for bringing up this distressing subject at such a time. She is—as indeed we all are—anxious to get to the bottom of what has seemed like an insoluble mystery. Well, certain facts have now come to light which I think you should all hear. My friend and—er—colleague, Mr. Daniels, will present them to you. I am sorry to say that they bring accusations against a certain person in this room. That person will be given a chance for self-defense. The rest of you will be good enough to act as jury.”

  There was a long moment of silence. A dropped hairpin would have reverberated through the room like a pistol shot. Then Mrs. Clapp bent towards me and said in a stage whisper: “I’ve always wanted to be on a jury. When I think, my dear, of what Mrs. Fiske got away with—”

  But Daniels had risen to his feet and all eyes were fixed on him. There was a nervous smile on his lips as he picked at a

  bunch of papers in his hands. I noticed that a steward had placed my journal on a small table at his side. Trubshaw and the other stewards were standing respectfully at attention in various corners of the room. At length the little man spoke, a trifle jerkily, reading from a paper which had obviously been prepared beforehand.

  “I have been asked by the captain to put certain things before you. As some of you. know, I am employed by this line in the capacity of detective or inquiry agent—and, although I was going to Rio on other business, throughout this voyage I have done little but try to solve the mystery of Mr. Lambert’s death and the tragic disappearance of his niece. Let me confine myself for a moment to the case of Mr. Lambert. He was, as you know, poisoned during a game of bridge on the first night out from New York. Involved in his death there was a man who called himself Robinson. This man played bridge with myself, Mr. Burr, and Mr. Lambert, and then walked out of the smoking room and disappeared almost, as one might say, into thin air. Subsequently the ship was searched from bow to stern, but no trace was found of the missing fourth. At length there was only one conclusion to be reached. Mr. Robinson must have been—someone else in disguise.

  “But he had done two very clever things with this disguise of his. In the first place he had assumed it on the first night—a time when everyone is a stranger to everyone else—the one evening when people hardly notice each other; and in the second place he had chosen a disguise which made him entirely inconspicuous. Although he sat opposite me as my partner during the better part of the evening—and although detection is supposed to be my business—I found I could remember nothing about him except the broadest outlines of his appearance. Nor could anyone else help me in this particular. Robinson was a clever actor-and he knew how to avoid being noticed, but there was one thing about him that made him noticeable—one thing that he could not conceal. This was the badness of his bridge. He was an awfully rotten player—if he’ll excuse my saying so. Far worse even than me and I’m pretty bad.”

  Here Daniels paused and smiled at his audience apologetically. Then he picked up my journal and shuffled the leaves, as he continued extemporaneously.

  “Now, it so happens,” he went on, “that Miss Llewellyn, who occasionally writes bridge problems for her paper, noted down two of the hands which Robinson played that night, and drew attention to the fact that he made certain mistakes which were of a rather extraordinary nature. I decided that if I could possibly get him to play them over again he might perhaps repeat his errors. By good fortune I was able to arrange for these particular hands to be repeated during the bridge tournament last night. How I did it does not matter, but almost everyone who took part in the tournament played those same two hands. But one—only one person made the same mistake as Robinson made. That person is in this room now.”

  Everyone was staring at Daniels with the strained, uneasy expression with which people used to watch the ticker ’way back in 1929-30. It was Mrs. Clapp who broke the silence.

  “Good heavens! Mr. Daniels. You surely aren’t going to take that as conclusive evidence against anyone. My bridge game has always been appalling—I’m perfectly capable of making the most impossible mistakes; I revoke, I—”

  Daniels smiled. “I’m no Culbertson myself, Mrs. Clapp, and you’re quite right in saying there’s nothing final about an error in bridge. But it’s going to be very easy for everyone to clear himself. If you weren’t acting as Robinson in the smoking room that night, presumably you were all somewhere else. If you have alibis for, say, between the hours of nine and ten last Friday week, well, obviously—”

  A little buzz of conversation had sprung up. Daniels’ voice was like a reedy pipe above the tumult.

  “Come, it was the first night out. Surely you can remember what you were doing with yourselves?”

  “If you demand the truth,” snapped Mrs. Clapp, again acting as spokesman, ‘T will tell you that I was doing what I always do every first night out—on principle. I was in my stateroom being violently seasick. Forgive the indelicacy, but you asked for it.”

  “And I was with her,” said Daphne. “After I’d seen she was sleeping soundly, I came up and joined the bridge party, as you know.”

  No one else spoke for a moment. Daniels looked around encouragingly. “I know about you, Mr. Burr, and you, Mr. Wolcott, and Miss Llewellyn and Mrs. Lambert, we were all together in the smoking room. But what about you, Mr. Silvera?”

  “Cabin—sick—ask steward,” grunted the Brazilian and then turned his back as though he never expected to speak again.

  “I was on deck with Miss Lambert,” said Earnshaw. “Mrs. Lambert came out to fetch us somewhere around ten o’clock.”

  The widow nodded.

  “And I was all over the ship,” said Jennings. “Trubshaw must have seen me several times if you want to check on my movements.”

  “And you, Trubshaw ?”

  “I was taking care of me passengers, sir
. There was some of ’em as needed me bad. I do remember going in once to Mr. Silvera, sir, but it wasn’t till after ten o’clock.”

  You will say that none of this sounded very promising, Davy, but as a matter of fact, Daniels looked perfectly satisfied.

  “Thank you, thank you,” he said. “That is very satisfactory. Now, with your permission, I want to talk about the disappearance of Miss Lambert for a moment. No—I am not going to ask you for your movements last Sunday night. I have your statements, made at the time, that most of you were in your cabins. It was fairly late at night and there had been a nasty storm. The idea is that Miss Lambert was thrown overboard by Robinson at about 11:15. Miss Llewellyn was talking to Mr. Earnshaw in the smoking room at the time. These two—and Mrs. Lambert—heard the scream and were the first to run to the scene of action. Those three people—of us all—are the only ones that can be said to have alibis. Now, as I feel certain that the person who killed Mr. Lambert also killed his niece—”

  “Oh, Mr. Daniels, please—please be brief,” murmured Mrs. Lambert, with her hand on her forehead. “I can’t bear much more of this.”

  “Excuse me, Mrs. Lambert, but I’m coming to the point now. I believe that Miss Betty’s death is the keynote—the crux, as you might say, of the whole problem. Who would want to kill such a nice, innocent young lady—and why? She had not been in the room during that first bridge game when—so we think—Mr. Lambert was poisoned. She could not have seen anything then that would have aroused her suspicions. And yet—and yet this man—this Robinson thought she should be destroyed—and destroyed her in a brutal, cold-blooded manner. He did a thing which—”

  The voice of the captain cut across this monologue. “I think we’d better stick to the facts, Mr. Daniels.”

  “All right, sir. Such as they are—such as they are. But motives aren’t facts and it was the motive that worried me in the case of poor Miss Betty. Then suddenly it came to me from an entirely outside source. It was given me by Miss Llewellyn here. She has, as you know, been keeping a journal of everything that’s happened during this trip. Last night, she was kind enough to let me read it. Have I your permission now, Miss Llewellyn?”

  I lowered my head in order to avoid the battery of eyes that were fixed on me. Mrs. Clapp was peering at me through a lorgnette as though Daniels had just denounced me as a scarlet woman. Silvera’s keen glance was like a gimlet. Daniels continued:

  “I am going to read an extract from Miss Llewellyn’s diary, just to see if you catch the significance of the point I’m trying to make.”

  Here he read the passage on page 19 beginning, “Mr. Daniels left the room with a grunt” (this caused a laugh) and ending with, “Mr. Daniels’ nckey was positively poisonous.”

  The detective paused after reading and looked around him. The faces were blank and expressionless.

  “Well, Daniels,” said Adam Burr with a fatuous smile, “if you’re trying to work out an elaborate case against yourself, that’s very interesting and original, but—”

  “Oh, doesn’t anyone see it? cried Daniels impatiently. “That one word—one little word of four letters which explains the whole thing. I mean the word back.”

  The faces were still vague. People were staring at one another with bewildered, half-pitying expressions. Mrs. Clapp went so far as to tap her forehead with an I-told-you-so look at Daphne.

  “All right, let me read again what poor Miss Betty said that night when her uncle suggested that she should join the game. She replied and these were the very words according to Miss Llewellyn:

  ‘I’m far too sleepy to play bridge; just one more turn on the deck with Jimmie, then I’m going back to my stateroom.’

  “Now, ladies and gentlemen, does one say one’s going back to a place unless one has just come from there? And if Miss Lambert said she was going back to her stateroom, that means she hadn’t been spending the evening on deck with Mr. Earnshaw at all; and that means that his alibi falls entirely to the ground.”

  All eyes were now riveted on Earnshaw, who was sitting perfectly still with his legs stuck out in front of him.

  “Daniels,” he said, as an angry flush colored his cheek, “I don’t know if you’re accusing me of anything or not. I don’t even care. The whole thing is so utterly absurd and preposterous. Miss Llewellyn is capable of inaccuracies like anyone else. Betty Lambert was on deck with me, but she did not choose to have it known. We were secretly engaged, if you must have the truth. And if you are making the ridiculous assumption that I am—or was—Robinson, let me remind you that I was the loser by Mr. Lambert’s death in every way. I lost my position, the money he promised me—”

  “Of course, of course, Mr. Earnshaw,” said Daniels apologetically, “You must forgive me, but I wanted to show you—and everyone else—how easy it is to destroy an alibi. Miss Llewellyn’s journal—”

  “Well, even the omniscient Miss Llewellyn is bound to acknowledge my alibi in the case of Betty’s murder,” said Earnshaw indignantly. “I was talking to her when that devil threw her overboard. We had been talking together for the past hour—”

  Daniels turned towards the speaker with a calm, level gaze. “Mr. Earnshaw,” he said slowly, “I have already tried to show you that in this business we can attach no importance either to times or to alibis. If this statement holds good in Mr. Lambert’s death it is doubly true in the case of his niece. I repeat—” here he paused and looked searchingly around the room “—I repeat that nobody had an alibi for the time when Miss Betty was killed, for the simple reason that no one—at least, no one except her murderer—knows … exactly … when … she was … killed. My own opinion is that it was sometime earlier in the evening—probably during the storm.”

  Mrs. Lambert was staring at Daniels in horror. “But, but,” she mumbled, “I saw him—Robinson—they were talking together—and then that scream—and the shawl—”

  “Yes, yes, Mrs. Lambert.” The detective’s tone was mollifying and polite. “I heard your story at the time. But did you actually see Miss Lambert thrown overboard? No. Did anyone see the crime, committed? No. You said that you saw two people talking together. There was a scream and a scarf floating out over the water. The scarf was seen by several people, including Miss Llewellyn—but did it necessarily prove that the owner of the scarf had—er—just been thrown overboard?”

  Earnshaw had jumped to his feet. “Good God, man,” he cried, “do you mean that there’s a chance of Betty’s still being alive?”

  Daniels was shaking his head sadly. “No, Mr. Earnshaw. I’m afraid there’s no chance at all—none whatsoever. Miss Lambert is dead. I am merely pointing out that the exact time of her death is unknown. Only Robinson can tell us that.”

  I think it was at this point that a steward came in and whispered in Daniels’ ear. I noticed a gleam of satisfaction in his eyes as he replied, “All right. Let them wait outside.” Then he continued:

  “I say that only Robinson can supply the details. Well, in a very few minutes I think I shall be able to introduce you to Robinson—brown hair, spectacles, tanned face and everything.”

  There was another long moment of silence following this extraordinary announcement. Then Adam burst out with: “Daniels, I have been given to understand that Mr. Lambert had a son called Alfred who may or may not benefit by his father’s will. Is there any truth in the assumption that he might be involved in all this—that he might actually be on this ship—that he himself might be Robinson?”

  But Mrs. Clapp had now risen, stately and majestic. The look she gave Adam would have withered a rhinoceros. “Mr. Burr,” she declaimed, “kindly remember that Alfred Lambert is my nephew. He is a fine, noble young man—a young man of the highest principles. He does not smoke; he does not drink; and he certainly does not commit—murder!”

  Adam wilted and Daniels rushed to the rescue. “I was coming to that point, Mr. Burr. And I’m sure Mrs. Clapp will forgive me if I settled it once and for all. Alfred Lambert is not on board
the Moderna, although the possibility that he might be had occurred to me—and to several other people. This morning I received a wireless message from the Chief of Police at Buenos Aires. He tells me that he interviewed young Lambert himself last night. He’s running a cattle ranch out there and doing pretty well. The theory of his implication may have been likely, but I think we may now dismiss it altogether.”

  “I should hope so,” snorted Aunt Marcia.

  “Well, then, as far as I can see,” rejoined Adam, meekly, “we cannot produce anyone who has any possible motive.”

  “Oh, there’s a motive all right,” replied Daniels grimly, “but before I come to that I want to make good to you my promise and introduce you to our old friend—Mr. Robinson.”

  He nodded to the steward who had entered last: “All right, Collins.”

  The man went out of the room and returned immediately with a small Gladstone bag. There was a whispered conversation during which I stole a glance around the room. The captain was sitting at his desk tapping a silver pencil against his writing pad. Jennings and Daphne were standing together, tall and aloof in the corner furthest from me. Mrs. Lambert and Silvera occupied the couch; the one looking tense and drawn, the other still bored and indifferent. Earnshaw was sitting with his back to the purple curtains, tilting his chair and whispering occasionally to Adam, who was his neighbor. Mrs. Clapp was magnificent in a solitary arm chair. Everyone was waiting. It was all ridiculously like a stage setting.

  Daniels had taken certain articles from what appeared to be a false bottom of the Gladstone bag. He spread them out neatly on the table in front of him.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, smiling like a hired entertainer at a children’s party, “allow me to present Mr. Robinson. Here we are, all complete. A brown wig—excellent workmanship. A pair of steel-rimmed spectacles—plain glass, I imagine. A box of Aubrey’s Invisible Suntan. And here—here are two funny looking things.”