Murder on the Orient (SS): The Agatha Christie Book Club 2

by C. A. Larmer

  “Okay, we’ll talk properly tomorrow, but don’t forget: not a word to anyone, hey? We have to keep this between us.”

  Alicia swivelled around, anger fuelling her energy levels again. She had loathed being left out of the loop and was not about to treat her book club friends with the same disregard.

  “For goodness’ sake, Anders. You know very well that you can trust them.”

  “Sorry but Liam Jackson doesn’t, and neither does the captain. That’s who I’m working for.”

  “Well, too bad, because I’m working for Corrie. And maybe if you had taken her job offer a little more seriously, none of this would have happened.”

  “Hey, that’s not fair.”

  “Really? Tell that to the woman who’s currently shark bait in the Tasman!”

  She knew that comment wasn’t fair either, but she was too exhausted to be rational. So she simply opened the door and left, leaving Anders sitting on his bed, looking like he’d just been sideswiped by a great white.

  Part 3—The Book Club Sits Back and Thinks

  Chapter 1

  The morning dawned insensitively bright, the sky a perfect blue, just a few silvery grey clouds in the far distance to suggest anything other than serenity might be in order.

  Alicia pulled her oversized sunglasses into place and scowled anyway.

  “Oh, possum, are you still thinking about dear Corrie?” asked Missy sympathetically, and Alicia nodded, lying.

  It was actually Anders she had been thinking about. Anders who had made her toss and turn again last night despite her exhaustion and despite the more pressing mystery on board the ship now.

  Mysteries she should say, because it seemed to Alicia that the good ship Orient was awash with more than its fair share of puzzles. First there was the mysterious disappearance of Corrie’s clothes. At first glance it had seemed so trivial, but now she had to wonder whether there was more to it than they all realised.

  Then there was the mystery of the missing jewellery, a much more serious matter, especially if the victims were being drugged and, in one case, killed in the process.

  And then, of course, there was the most horrific mystery of all—Corrie’s tumble into the sea. Was that connected to the missing kaftans or the missing jewellery? How did it fit in with the suspicious death of Cecilia Jollson? And did any of it have anything to do with a secret lover?

  Alicia’s scowl vanished. She wondered now if they had all been looking in the wrong place. “You know, maybe Corrie’s disappearance is completely unrelated to whether she was sleeping around or not,” she told her friends as they sat, sprawled across several deck chairs looking out at the bow.

  They had agreed to have a light breakfast this morning and were all nursing cups of coffee and fresh almond friands they’d pinched from the bistro by the pool, no one in the mood for formalities today.

  “You’ve had a change of tune,” said Lynette, lifting her sunglasses to peer at her sister suspiciously. “What do you think it’s about then? Surely not some silly kaftans?”

  Alicia wanted to tell them, more than anything, but she remembered Anders’s warning, his pleas to her to remain quiet for the captain’s sake.

  Then she remembered how she had felt when she’d been left out of the loop and the anger she still felt towards the man who was supposed to be her partner.

  She sat up, gathered them closer, and told them everything.

  By the time Alicia had squared away their questions—or as many of them as she could, considering how little she really knew—they were all furious with Anders, and she felt a wicked, satisfied glow.

  “He really should have told us,” said Claire.

  “He should have trusted us!” spat Perry. “We’re not some Johnny-come-latelies with no track record. We all worked together so beautifully last time; we were the ones who solved the mystery of that missing housewife. Not just Anders, even if he does have an undercover cop on his side this time.” He made a pft! sound to show them what he thought of that.

  Missy just looked glum.

  “You okay?” Alicia asked her, and she shrugged.

  “Corrie’s still missing. Mrs Jollson’s still dead. Seems to me we should forget Anders and just get on with investigating.”

  Alicia gave the younger woman’s hand a squeeze. “You’re right as always, Missy. Spot on. This isn’t about us, or Anders, or whether he lied. So, what do we do now? Any ideas?”

  Lynette said, “Sorry, but I’m really confused. What exactly are we investigating? Corrie? Mrs Jollson? Missing jewels? Kaftans?”

  “All of the above,” said Missy. “They must all be connected.”

  “But how?” said Alicia, biting down on her lip. “You know, maybe we should start small, maybe we should start with the kaftans.”

  “Pft!” Perry said again, but she held a hand to stall him.

  “No, seriously. Miss Marple always looks at the small, seemingly insignificant things. Sometimes they speak the loudest. Think about it: why would someone want to pinch a future victim’s clothes?”

  “Were these kaftans worth anything?” Missy asked Claire.

  “Several hundred dollars each I’d imagine,” she replied. “Not my style of course, but de rigueur with wealthy ladies of leisure. Corrie’s, I hear, were designer label.”

  “Still,” said Alicia, “there’s women on this ship dripping with jewels worth many thousands of dollars. Just look at Dame Dinnegan. Why pinch a $300 dress? Nope, I think it’s something else.”

  “A distraction!” said Perry. “To throw us off the scent.”

  “Or maybe,” said Alicia, “to put us on the wrong scent.” She looked to Lynette. “Remember that first night when Mrs Jollson died? We saw her staggering to her cabin with that other woman. The one in the green dress.”

  “Yeah, the tall woman in a flowing outfit…” She stopped, smiled. “Of course! They even threw on a tacky captain’s hat to ram home the point.”

  Claire held a hand up. “Sorry, I’m not following.”

  Alicia explained: “Someone really wanted to give the impression that the person last seen with Mrs Jollson that night was Corrie Van Tussi. That green flowing dress, it could have been one of her missing kaftans. I think they were trying to pin it on Corrie. They must have stolen her kaftans for that purpose.”

  “Exactly,” said Lynette, “but who? Apart from the staff—and I can’t see any of them impersonating Corrie—what woman had access to her clothes?”

  “Forget the staff,” said Alicia. “Jackson says they’ve all been searched. So unless they’re very good at hiding stuff, I suggest we focus on the passengers for now. Besides, most of the staff is Indonesian or Filipino, and they’re generally quite small. They couldn’t have pulled off a ‘Corrie’ either. Jackson seems to think it’s a passenger, and so do I. But who?”

  Her eyes lit up momentarily, but it was short-lived. “It’s a pity Anita only joined the ship in Sydney after the thefts had already started, as she’s the perfect candidate. She seems to have a love-hate relationship with Corrie and a serious crush on the captain if you ask me. She might have done it just to teach her bestie a thing or two. But the timing’s all wrong.”

  “What about the Solarno sisters?” said Missy, and they all frowned.

  “They’re heirs to some mega meat fortune, so why would they want to steal a few thousand dollars worth of jewels?” said Lynette. “Plus, they’re too old. The woman we saw was younger.”

  “Still, with the right makeup, long dress, a blond wig…” Missy tried again.

  “They’re also way too short,” said Alicia. “Our woman was taller.”

  “And she wasn’t as large,” added Lynette. “Sorry, no amount of designer clothes and killer heels are going to help them pull off ‘tall and Amazonian’.”

  Alicia thought of Nurse Dee and wished the woman was a good foot taller, she would have liked to have planted it on that one. She pushed her sunglasses on top of her head and groaned.


  “You know, yet again, we have to consider that it could be someone we haven’t even met yet. There are at least two hundred female passengers on board. I’m sure several dozen could pull off ‘Amazonian’.”

  Perry sat up with a gasp. “I know who can pull off Amazonian! My God, I can’t believe I didn’t think of it sooner! It could be a man.”

  They all looked bewildered for several minutes.

  “Really?” said Alicia eventually. “Our woman seemed pretty feminine.”

  “Honey, ever seen a drag show? There’s your three main ingredients right there: a flowing dress to hide the hairy legs, and a long wig and hat to hide the fact that you’re half-bald and have a three-day growth. Think about it, people. Corrie was taller than me with a set of shoulders that would put a footballer to shame.”

  Missy giggled, but Alicia and Lynette were not laughing. He was right. It could well have been a man in drag. They hadn’t been close enough to get a good look, but it was a possibility. Suddenly the suspect list had blown wide open. Now they began thinking of male passengers, grateful, at least, that there weren’t as many of those.

  “Pity the captain’s got a beard,” said Lynette, and Perry lobbed a deck cushion at her head.

  “As if the captain would rob his own passengers! Goodness, when you get stuck on a suspect you really get stuck. Nope, I’ve got my money on the sleazy gigolo. He’s certainly pretty enough to pull off a chick.”

  “Pity about the goatee,” retorted Lynette, chucking the cushion back at him.

  They all groaned.

  “Plus he has no reason to steal gems,” said Alicia. “He’s married to wealth, or have we forgotten about Dame Dinnegan again?”

  “What about Dermott?” suggested Lynette. “He’s clearly not wealthy or he wouldn’t be dancing for his supper. Plus he’s the perfect person to pull it off. He has an excuse to dance with every woman, get up close and personal to check out their earrings and necklaces.”

  “Yeah but he never leaves with any of them,” said Perry. “Even the Salami Sisters attest to that.”

  Lynette scoffed. “He’s hardly going to tell them, is he? They’re such goody-two-shoes about all that stuff. But think about it. He must get lots of propositions. Maybe he organises to meet them later or just knocks on their door and tries his luck in the dead of night. Brings a bottle of drugged champagne, waits till they’ve passed out, then pinches the jewels and leaves again, this time disguised in one of Corrie’s frocks, which he’s hidden in his jacket or something.”

  “Surely they’d remember his visit?” said Perry.

  “Not necessarily,” said Alicia. “Anders says victims of Rohypnol remember almost nothing. Even if they do have fleeting memories of Dermott offering them a drink, they could easily be convinced it was from the bar, not inside their cabin.” She stalled. “I don’t know though. I can’t see him doing it myself…”

  Claire coughed. “You’re all forgetting the most obvious candidate for the Corrie look-alike.” She had been largely silent until now and they looked at her, eyebrows raised.

  “Who?” said Perry.

  “Corrie, of course.” She lifted her vintage Gucci sunglasses and stared down towards the dazzling blue sea. “I know it’s a dreadful thing to say now, but maybe Corrie was the jewel thief. Maybe that’s why she blabbed to everyone, including us—complete strangers, I might add—that her clothes had been pinched. That way, if anyone spotted her in action or near the crime scene, she could bat her eyelids and say, ‘It must have been someone dressed to look like me!’”

  They all stared at her as if the idea was ludicrous, and so she quickly added, “I know she’s well-off, but maybe she does it for a lark. She’s the one who first mentioned the idea of a kleptomaniac, remember? Maybe she’s got a problem, maybe it went too far and she accidentally slipped too much of the drug into Mrs Jollson’s drink. She wouldn’t have meant for her to die. I can’t see her murdering in cold blood, but maybe it was a terrible accident. Maybe she couldn’t live with herself, felt such remorse the next day that she threw herself overboard.”

  It really was a ludicrous idea, but it did provide a very neat solution to several of the mysteries.

  Perry was scowling. “I heard that scream, Claire. She wasn’t falling over willingly. Plus why come to Anders with a tale about her life being threatened? What was that note all about? Speaking of which, if she was racked with remorse and going to kill herself, wouldn’t she leave a suicide note behind?”

  Now they all looked at Alicia, and she shrank under their gaze.

  “Don’t ask me! Anders inspected the cabin, remember, and he’s clearly not confiding in me these days. But if I decide I’m ever going to talk to him again, I might just ask him.”

  “Forget Anders,” Perry whispered. “Here’s someone who might be more forthcoming; he’s usually on top of the goss.”

  They followed Perry’s eyes down the deck towards the man in a straw fedora who was stumbling in their direction. It was Dermott Killarney, and he did have some gossip to share, but it wasn’t at all what they were expecting.

  Not his usual bubbly self, he looked pale and shaken as he slowed down upon approach. Alicia wasn’t sure where he was headed, but when he spotted the book club, he seemed relieved and almost fell into a chair beside them. He took the hat off his head and began fanning himself with it.

  “Are you okay?” Alicia asked, and he nodded.

  Then he shook his head and said, “Actually, no… not really.” He swallowed hard as if trying to collect his thoughts.

  “What’s happened?” Perry asked, sitting up straight.

  He seemed to pale even further as they all stared at him expectantly. Eventually he muttered, “I’ve… I’ve just heard the most… the most dreadful news.”

  Alicia’s heart sank. Now what?

  “I can’t believe I’m saying this but, well…” He stopped fanning himself. “There’s been another murder!”

  Chapter 2

  Dame Dinnegan looked eerily like one of her husband’s photos, slumped across an exercise bike, her arms dangling from the handlebars, her head resting on the LCD computer display, a dazed look on her face. Fortunately she was fully clothed, and Chief Officer Pane thanked the Lord for that as he snuck horrified glances at her from the doorway to the small gymnasium where her lifeless body had been located about an hour earlier.

  Why a woman in a wheelchair should be found balanced precariously—grotesquely—on an exercise bike was a question for later. For now he just needed to get his head around the fact that another catastrophe had befallen the ship.

  The Dame’s eyes were still open, and she looked more stunned than anything else, her watery grey irises staring into nothingness, her mouth gaping wide as though caught by surprise. And the six-inch blade in her back suggested that’s exactly what had happened.

  Although how someone managed to stab a wheelchair-bound woman in the back before positioning her on an exercise bike was beyond Detective Jackson who inspected the classic Wüsthof knife more closely now. He was still in his barman’s uniform but knew it would be the last time he bothered wearing it. It was time to come out from undercover. He was not only a hopeless barman, he decided, his policing skills weren’t up to scratch judging by the body count.

  Trying hard not to beat himself up, he swapped frowns with Packer, the head of security who was also in attendance, along with Pane, Dr Anders and the captain who had just walked in, as pale as his beard, uncomprehending any of it.

  “Who… who would do such a thing?” he stammered. “Why?”

  Jackson already had a pretty good idea of the answer to both questions and said, “We’ve got the husband in custody now, sir. It’s not looking good for him.”

  As for when and how? Those, too, seemed pretty straightforward.

  He glanced at his watch. It was just on 8:20 a.m., and while Dr Anders was now inspecting the body, they didn’t need a medical expert to tell them she had been murdered sometime tha
t morning between 7:00 a.m., when Cheyne Smith had wheeled his wife into the gym (alive and well), and 7:35 a.m. when Dame Dinnegan had been found with the knife wedged neatly in her back (well and truly dead).

  All that remained was to have a little chat with Mr Smith.

  “Packer, I’d like you with me when I question Cheyne Smith, but first I need to talk to the witness, Gunter Groot is it? Where have we got him?”

  “Up at the bridge, in my office,” Packer replied. “He is quite calm, considering what he’s just gone through. I’ve got a nurse with him just in case.”

  “And Cheyne Smith?”

  “He’s in the brig.”

  The ship had a small jail cell, which no one had anticipated using when the voyage first started some forty-eight days ago. Eventually they had hoped to fill it with a thief or two, but a murderer? That left them scratching their heads, including the captain who had his cap off and was doing just that, still trying to comprehend the horrendous scene before him.

  “Do we know what happened?” he said. “Was there a fight? Did things get out of control?”

  “Still working it all out, sir,” said Packer. “Smith hasn’t said anything for now. I think the man’s in shock.”

  “You’d be in shock, too, if you’d just stabbed your wife!” Pane declared, but Packer held a hand up.

  “We still need to ascertain the facts, but according to Groot, Smith wheeled his wife past the library next door at around seven this morning and then returned to the library about five minutes after that—without his wife. Groot didn’t think too much of it, but he did say Smith looked ‘a little anxious’. Groot said Smith muttered hello, then pulled out a magazine and started to read. He was checking his watch a lot, apparently, and after about twenty minutes Groot began to grow suspicious. He asked about Dame Dinnegan and was told she was in the gym and to mind his own business—or words to that effect. Well, he thought that was a bit strange.”

  “And it is!” said Pane again. “What was an old biddy in a wheelchair doing in a gymnasium, I ask you? Especially when the gym is not even open to the public in the mornings! The early birds do their program up on deck with Steve.”