The Illusion of Murder

by McCleary, Carol

  “That’s what Miss Bly claimed when we got her untangled from the mess she created,” the man responds.

  “What secret was she talking about?” the captain asks Lord Warton.

  “It is a matter of national security to which you do not have privity.”

  The captain looks to his officers. “Well, gentlemen, then I suggest none of us lose any more sleep about a matter to which we don’t have privity.”

  * * *

  “YOU!”

  I let go of the handle to my cabin door as if it is a hot poker and whip around in surprise.

  Lord Warton is the source of the exclamation.

  “You are in deep trouble, young woman; more than you can imagine.”

  “I beg your pardon.”

  “Name your coconspirator, the one who took Cleveland’s books, or I shall have you arrested.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You know exactly what I am talking about. You told the assistant purser that those books contained a code. I demand you turn them over to me so they can be given to the proper authorities at Colombo.”

  I’m speechless, not because of his demand but because it means he was unaware of the secret writing. I’m also not going to be bullied.

  “I don’t have the books and didn’t even know they are missing. But now that you’ve explained the matter, I can see your problem.”

  “Your problem, you mean.”

  “No, sir, I’m not the one who appointed myself custodian of Mr. Cleveland’s possessions. I’ll leave it to you to explain to the authorities how you stored them in a public place and now cannot find them.”

  I slip into my room, throw the latch, and lean back against the door, breathless.

  I can’t believe Warton didn’t know the numbers were a code. So why did he have the contents of Cleveland’s luggage repacked into boxes and go through the charade of having the cases sent ashore?

  In a strange way, I am greatly relieved, even elated to hear that someone has nicked the books. It validates my contention that they contain a secret.

  I don’t think the captain and his chumps will be laughing so hard now that they know I was on a serious quest. But I also find it strange that the captain had been amused rather than angry.

  Completely exhausted and worn to the bone, my knees are wobbly as I shuffle to my bunk. I had talked with Sarah for over an hour and she had set me right about myself by telling me what she had gone through early in her own quest to establish a career.

  When she was still a teenager and had ambitions to be an actress, her mother had pushed her into being a courtesan, literally providing “favors” to wealthy men in order to get acting roles.

  She acquired roles, but they came with contempt from other stage players who were less fortunate. “And less talented,” Sarah said. Ultimately, her God-given talent had won the day and the path she took for her first steps has been overshadowed by the universal proclaim of her talent.

  “But along with success comes challenge,” she told me. “You will never stop having to prove yourself.”

  Her story is a good reminder to me. I have always believed that the only course to be taken when I’m knocked to the ground is to get back up and fight. Perhaps Frederick is right, I don’t know how to duck, I only know how to throw punches, but some of those punches land as one did tonight.

  I had assumed that my adversary aboard is the British lord, who I now discover is in fact as inept at being a spymaster as he no doubt was instructing Moroccan farmers on how to grow wheat. Frederick basically told me that was his take on Warton, too.

  The same person who searched my room for the key had taken the books, and it is someone who knows enough about my movements to allow them to slip in and steal the books in the wake of the chaos I have left behind.

  A person hidden in shadows, one diabolical step ahead of me, all the way.

  Someone I know and trust?

  PART IV

  Day 22

  COLOMBO, CEYLON [SRI LANKA]

  33

  We steam into the bay at Colombo, Ceylon, on a bright day.

  The large island of Ceylon is close to the southern tip of India, with the Indian Ocean stretching landless for thousands of miles to Australia and the Antarctic in the south.

  I have to stay in the city for several days before I board the ship that will take me to the Far East. After checking into a hotel, my plan is to find the cable office and send a story back to my editor in New York. That cablegram won’t contain anything about the incident in Port Said or my trials and tribulations since that will be written when I have the full story, but a second cable I send will concern the matter—a query to the paper’s London correspondents for information about a cutlery salesman named John Cleveland.

  Standing by with other passengers, I wait patiently for the ship to drop anchor. Once again, the bay is too shallow for our ship to reach the dock and we must be ferried ashore. A number of steam launches are already coming out to meet us.

  With its abundance of green trees, the island appears restful and pleasing to my eyes after the spell of sweltering heat we had passed through on the Arabian Sea coming from Aden. The shoreline is dotted with low, arcaded buildings, which look, in the glare of the sun, like marble palaces.

  Forming the background to the town is a high mountain called Adam’s Peak. A man standing beside me explains there is a tradition in Ceylon that Adam and Eve were banished to the island paradise after they were cast out of Eden, and are buried here.

  “The beautiful blue sapphires found on the island are the tears of Adam and Eve that crystallized as they wept after being banished from the garden.”

  A charming anecdote and I make a note, as I did the link of Cain and Abel to Aden.

  The beach, with a forest of tropical trees, looks as if it starts in a point out in the sea, curving around until it forms into a blunt point near the harbor, the line of which is carried out to sea by a magnificent breakwater surmounted by a lighthouse.

  The land curves back again to a point where a signal station stands, and beyond that a wide road runs along the water’s edge until it is lost at the base of a high green eminence that stands well out over the sea, crowned with a castlelike building glistening in the sunlight.

  When I looked in on Sarah earlier to see if she wanted to accompany me to shore, her door was half open and she was pacing furiously, cold cream on her face, a cablegram in hand while her steward was packing a steamer trunk.

  The pilot boat had delivered cables to the ship before the ship entered the bay.

  She angrily waved the cablegram at me. “They will not force me to run for cover with their stupid threat!”

  “What threat?”

  She immediately drew back, tucking the message into a pocket of her dressing gown. “It’s nothing, a small problem with a role I am to play.” She whipped around and glared at the steward. “Much more important is what I shall do with this cretin. He has damaged my best hat with his sloppy packing.”

  “I dropped by to see if you wanted to go to the hotel together.”

  “I’ll meet you at the hotel. If I am able to get off this ship with my possessions and mind intact.”

  I wondered about the cablegram as I went back out onto the deck and got in line to go ashore. A threat from her lover’s family? What sort of threat would one send by cablegram?

  Besides the cable and damage to her hat, it seems Sarah has another good reason for having a black day. Because we have to stay ashore, she must leave the sanctuary of her stateroom for a hotel—not a significant problem for most travelers, but no doubt fraught with complications for a woman who travels with a coffin.

  I consider myself a well-seasoned traveler, but I would be hard-pressed to check into a hotel with a coffin, in Colombo or anywhere else in the world, yet Sarah appears more daunted by the condition of her favorite hat than the reaction that can be anticipated from hotel staff. Then again, there is a great dea
l of sheer drama in the mere notion of checking into a hotel with a coffin, and as the greatest actress in the world, she is a master of melodrama.

  I will leave the Victoria with the only regret that the steamship Oriental, which will take me to China, is not prepared to sail yet because it awaits the arrival of a ship from Australia with passengers. Getting away from the bad service, poor food, and the looks I get from officers and crew will be a relief.

  Colombo is a jumping-off point for ports in India, Australia, and New Zealand, besides the Far East. Thank God, most Victoria passengers will not be joining me to China.

  However, I will not leave behind my reputation as an agent provocateur when I transfer ships: From prior conversations, I already know that the Wartons, Herr Von Reich, Frederick Selous, and many others will also be on the Oriental, and on the same ship as I am crossing the Pacific to San Francisco.

  Each day of delay in Colombo will weigh heavily on me, but at least it will be spent in what I am told is one of the most beautiful places on Earth.

  I am mulling over Sarah’s reaction to the cablegram and wishing the slow-moving steam launches would move faster because the line to get ashore is a long one, when Frederick is suddenly beside me.

  “If you’re game for a little adventure, I can get you to the hotel while most of the passengers are still waiting to get ashore.”

  He catches me by surprise. He no doubt believes that I have deliberately avoided him since the fiasco over my search of the luggage hold, but it had come before that, in Aden when Lady Warton told me that he was married.

  I am still contemplating my reply when he takes my arm and pulls me along.

  “You’ll have plenty of time to tell me what a cad I am on our way to shore. Your other option is to let everyone get ahead of you and book the best rooms at the hotel before you get there.”

  “You treated me callously by not rising to my defense,” I tell him, as he leads me by the arm to a gangplank the crew is utilizing to unload luggage.

  “I kept you out of the brig.”

  “I’m certain there is no brig on board this ship.”

  “True, but the captain had planned to lock you in your cabin.”

  “What!” I try to stop but he pulls my arm to keep me moving. “He wouldn’t have dared.”

  “Perfectly within his right after the books went missing.”

  He gives me another pull along as I try to pause and defend myself. “The captain thought the whole matter was a joke.”

  “Only after I spoke to him and pointed out it would be wiser to laugh about it than have it appear a serious matter in his report to his home office.”

  “So you told him I was a clown?”

  “Would you rather I told him you were a felon?”

  “I’d rather you go to hell.”

  He gives me a sharp look. “Is that any way for a lady to talk?”

  “If I wasn’t a lady, I’d tell you what I really think of you, Mr. Selous.”

  “Frankly, Miss Bly, you should be thanking me. My biggest fear was not what the captain would do, but what would be told to the authorities after we docked. I’m sure you realize you could be arrested.”

  “Nonsense.” But I suspect he’s right.

  “Don’t worry,” he says, “I’ve spoken to both the captain and Warton. Neither wants to have a chat with the authorities that will expose them as having been bested by a woman reporter, and having lost valuable materials.”

  I find myself once again vacillating between having warm feelings for this man—and deep distrust. I don’t know what to expect from him. He lies to me, then protects me. Slams me down and lifts me up. Makes me grit my teeth one moment, then makes me want to snuggle up to him the next.

  We pause at the top of the gangplank and I stare down at the cluster of odd-looking boats below.

  “We are going ashore … in one of those?”

  “We will if we don’t drown.”

  The boats are awkwardly shaped, rudely constructed things, with a sitting area probably five feet in length and two feet in width across the widest part, narrowing down to the keel, until it is not wide enough to allow one’s feet to rest side by side in the bottom. There are two seats in the middle, facing one another. The seats are shaded by a bit of coffee sack that must be removed to give room for passengers to get in.

  A native sits with a paddle at each end of the peculiar boat. The paddle is a straight pole, with a board the shape and size of a cheese-box head tied to the end of it.

  Too narrow to sit upright in the water without support, the little vessels are balanced by a log the length of the boat that is fastened by two curved poles that extend out three feet from the boat.

  At the bottom of the gangplank, I step into one of these boats as gracefully as an elephant climbing into a bathtub, certain that I will end up swimming to shore.

  When we are settled in, the oarsmen paddle rapidly. Unlike rowing a canoe, both paddles are used on the same side. We cut through the water at an amazing pace, passing steam launches that chug along.

  “What do they call these things?” I ask Frederick.

  “The locals call them catamarans, though tourists call them outriggers. Native fishermen consider them so seaworthy, they take them out to sea. I’m told that they are so secure against capsizing, no sinking has ever been reported.”

  On the dock, he guides me past the line of carriages awaiting passengers still to be deposited from the slow-moving steam launches.

  “Carriages are slow on the crowded streets,” he says.

  He takes me to a line of two-wheeled carts with tops that can be raised to protect against rain. The carts resemble sulkies, the light, one-horse carriages designed to carry a single person, only the horsepower for these carts are human—short, small-built men.

  With a little rough English and sign language, the first driver in line insists he can carry both of us. I’m not disagreeable about the notion of being pressed up against a handsome man with startling blue eyes, but I don’t want the poor laborer injured.

  “Are you sure he can pull us both?”

  “The wiry build of Sinhalese men is deceiving. They’re all muscle. They call these carts jinrikisha, shortened to ‘rickshaw’ by the rest of us.”

  As in all these hot countries, the men wear very little clothing and the jinrikisha men are no different—they wear little else than a groin sash, though their hats are broad affairs that remind me of big mushrooms.

  The lovely castlelike structure I had seen from the ship was the Grand Oriental Hotel. Seeing it close up did not lessen its elegance.

  After we step out of the rickshaw, Frederick asks, “Will you join me for a cool drink after we check in?”

  I hesitate but give him a “Yes.”

  “Followed by lunch?”

  “If I am still speaking to you. I don’t think I like you very much.”

  “I don’t blame you. I don’t like myself much, either.”

  I wave away his attempt at humor with my hand. “Why didn’t you tell me you were married?”

  “Ah, yes, I see, a little gossip from her ladyship?”

  “The source is not important. The fact that you are a barefaced liar is.”

  “You asked if I was married, I told you truthfully that I am not. Had you asked whether I had ever been married, I would have told you the truth, that yes, I had been. My wife passed away. She was African and was taken by one of those fevers that seem to come suddenly out of nowhere and leave a path of death behind it. I have a son in school from that union.”

  “I’m sorry. For your loss and for my rudeness.”

  Two things weigh heavily on my mind as I make my way to the front desk. Will Frederick change his mind and put the police on me if he finds out about the Cleveland cablegram I plan to send? That thought is coupled with an insight about the disappearance of Cleveland’s books and code.

  Frederick proved to me that he knew the importance of the handbook when he showed concern an
d ransomed one in Aden. But Cleveland had gone far beyond just a handbook. Yet Frederick showed little concern when he talked about the missing books.

  He must have stolen the books.

  Now he has gone out of his way to keep me from of the hands of the police.

  Why? Is he trying to help me? Or does he have something worse up his sleeve?

  34

  I check in first before Frederick and wander a bit, looking over the hotel as I wait for him.

  The Grand Oriental is a fine, large hotel, with tiled arcades and airy and comfortable corridors, furnished with easy chairs and small marble-topped tables which stand close enough to the broad armrests for one to sip the cooling lime squashes or the exquisite native tea or to enjoy the delicious fruit while resting in an attitude of ease and laziness.

  I have found no place away from America where smoking is prohibited, and in this lovely promenade the men smoke, consume gallons of whiskey and soda, and peruse the newspapers, while the women read their novels or bargain with the pretty little copper-colored women who come to sell dainty handmade lace, or with the clever, high-turbaned merchants who snap open little velvet boxes and expose, to the admiring gaze of the charmed tourists, the most bewildering gems.

  My wide eyes see deeply dark emeralds, fire-lit diamonds, exquisite pearls, rubies like pure drops of blood, the lucky cat’s-eye with its moving line, and all set in such beautiful shapes that even the men, who would begin by telling the vendors, “I have been sold before by some of your kind,” would end by laying down their cigars and papers and examining the glittering ornaments that tempt all alike.

  “I could take up permanent residence here,” I tell Frederick when he joins me in the lobby.

  I immediately plop down on a large lounge chair, feeling wonderfully lazy, sipping a lime squash, while Frederick enjoys a cold beer and a fine cigar.

  He is both intriguing and attractive, when I’m not annoyed at him. I have met men like him before, men of the West who live by the gun—shooting buffalo and bears of course, not lions and elephants. Generally, they are hardened, solitary souls, rough-hewed in all aspects, who prefer the companion of prairie dogs over humans.