“Now it’s our turn to be insulted,” said Penny. “You mean you really don’t recognize us?”
“Should I?”
“Oh, gee! Oh, my!” Penny began to sing softly. “Oh, mama! Oh, sugar pie!”
“Say you’ll be my baby,” Nick joined in.
Then they finished together, “To-o-ni-i-ght.”
“Why of all that’s wonderful!” said Bert, looking from Penny to Nick with new amazement. “The Two Garnetts!”
“In person,” said Penny, laughing.
“But you were just kids. Has so much time really passed?”
“I’m afraid so, Mr. Ayres.”
“Please, Nick, call me Bert. You too, Penny. ‘Mr. Ayres’ makes me feel like an old man.”
Now that it had been established they were just three hoofers gathered around one table, the tone considerably lightened. Their reminiscences about vaudeville and touring throughout the country—Honey and Ayres had gotten top billing, while The Two Garnetts juvenile act was usually sandwiched between the comedian and the juggler—were punctuated by many bursts of laughter.
This mirth was not appreciated by Mrs. Hardwick, who was seated at a table nearby. Raising her lorgnette to her eyes, she said, “Who on earth can those awful people be?”
Her two table companions, Mr. Jeffrey Baird and Mr. Cecil Arden, had only partial views of the offending table and so they could only make discrete glances over their shoulders. Miss Watson, the paid companion who made the fourth of the party, of course didn’t count.
Cecil Arden, close to forty but a still dashing English gentleman with wavy black hair and dark bushy eyebrows, said, “Theatre people, I am afraid, Mrs. Hardwick.”
“In my day, they would have been accommodated in third class, if at all.”
“In your day, madam, there were enough people with money to fill first class cabins on a dozen ships,” replied Cecil. “Today, those lines that haven’t already floundered must do what they can to stay afloat.”
He then lowered his voice and said, in a conspiratorial tone, “I’ve been told this dining room is a third of the size of what it used to be. See that wall at the end of the room? It’s fake. One the other side is room to seat another two hundred people. And this dance floor they’ve set up in the middle of the room? They never would have done that even a few years ago.”
“Dancing was always in the ballroom,” agreed Mrs. Hardwick. “Where it belonged.”
“Yes, this crossing is but a pale ghost of what was.” Cecil then turned to the man seated beside him and said, “I suppose you’re too young to remember the glory days of transatlantic sailing.”
Jeffrey Baird was actually in his mid-thirties. But his regular features and lean, muscular build made him look younger than his years. “My travels take me mainly to Africa and the Far East,” he said.
Mrs. Hardwick visibly shuddered at the mention of these heathen places. Cecil thoughtfully turned the conversation to a less offensive topic, and Jeffrey Baird returned to his plate of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.
Indeed, Baird had said little throughout the meal—only enough to be politely sociable. He had smiled once or twice in the direction of the equally silent Miss Watson, again to be polite. To his surprise, that person had barely paid him any attention during the meal. He wasn’t offended; Miss Watson was too humble a prize to attract a man like him. After all, he was considered attractive by women. Or so he had been told by the women he had encountered throughout his career.
What exactly that career entailed was known only to him and his superiors at the Foreign Office. For this voyage, he was simply Jeffrey Baird, businessman employed by a British communications company that provided services in the Far East. He was on his way home, via the United States, for a short holiday. Then there would be a new posting, still to be determined.
Yet even though Baird was outwardly engrossed in nothing more pressing than eating the last of his roast beef, and even though his back was turned to the dining room’s entrance, even he was aware something had changed in the room. A silence had gradually descended as chatter ceased and cutlery was replaced on the table. All eyes, including his, turned toward the room’s entrance, as though attracted by a magnetic pull that could not be ignored or disobeyed. Even breath seemed to be suspended.
The Duchess of Tarrington had entered the room.
CHAPTER 3
THE DUCHESS, AWARE of the effect she had made, nonchalantly undid the ties of her fur cape and let it slide off her shoulders. The honey-colored beaded dress she was wearing, which matched the honey tones of her hair, was deceptively simple: sleeveless, a plunging neckline that descended to the gathered waist, a straight skirt that ended with a small train at the back. Of course, it fitted her perfectly. More importantly, it was the perfect background for the nine-strand, perfectly matched pearl necklace that began as a choker around the duchess’s neck and followed her décolletage down to her waist.
She looked at no one as she made her way to her table. She had no need to, thought Inspector Travers, as he followed her progress with his eyes. Even without the pearls, or the daring dress, she was a beautiful woman—and she knew it.
Travers also took care to observe the reactions of the other people in the room. Was anyone a bit too interested? Or, even more suspicious, trying to appear not interested at all? But no, all eyes were on the duchess, in a perfectly natural show of appreciation. It was only after she had sat down at her table that the spell was slowly broken and talk resumed.
“Isn’t she lovely?” said Penny. “That must be some duke she’s married.”
“I’ll bet he’s eighty-five, has gout, and wears a toupee,” said Nick. “Either that or he got those pearls at the rummage sale of some broken-down Russian princess. What do you say, Bert?”
Bert still had his eyes on the duchess, whose profile could be seen from their table.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” said Nick.
“Maybe I have.” Bert continued to stare. “By golly, it is her. It’s Honey!”
Both Nick and Penny turned to stare at the Duchess of Tarrington. It had been at least ten years since they had seen the Honey and Ayres duo perform, and so they were less certain this was the same person.
“I heard she had married some Englishman with a title and one of those old houses,” said Bert. “I never dreamed I would ever see her again.”
“Why don’t you go over to her table and say hello?” asked Penny.
Bert shook his head. “I don’t know if she’d want to renew the acquaintance, now she’s become so grand.”
“You were partners,” Penny persisted. “Think of all you’ve been through together.”
“That’s right,” said Nick. “The dressing rooms you had to share with the mice, the run-down hotels that even the fleas wouldn’t sleep in, the food that—”
“I was referring to their popularity on the stage,” said Penny, giving her brother her best withering look, before turning back to the former vaudevillian. “Bert, you and Honey had a great act. The audiences always called you back for a second bow.”
“You mean they always wanted Honey. She made the act.”
There was an awkward silence. What Bert had said was true. While he had been an adequate performer, it was Honey who stole the show with her dazzling smile, beautiful costumes, and elegant dancing.
“There’s no use pretending otherwise,” Bert continued. “That’s why I let her go her own way. After that she went straight to the top. And when she had done that, I guess she set her sights on new territory to conquer. A duchess!” Bert shook his head, still dazed.
“You seem to have done pretty well for yourself too,” said Nick, gesturing toward the first class dining room.
“I’ve done all right,” Bert admitted. “I work in air transportation now. It’s the future I’m interested in, not the past. And airplanes are the future.”
“You’re a pilot?” asked Penny.
“No, I work in fo
od service. It doesn’t sound glamorous, I know. But think of all the employees on board this ship who are working night and day to serve you your meals and make you as comfortable as if you were in your own home. There are hundreds of them! Now, you can’t have that large a staff on board an aircraft, yet people—the rich people, I mean—still want the same standards of luxury and service they’re used to on a first-class train and boat. So part of my job is to figure out how to make that happen, how to design a kitchen on board a plane that can cook a meal like this one.”
“If you ever need someone to try out the meals on one of your flights, I’m sure Penny and I would be happy to volunteer,” said Nick.
“We’ve never been on an airplane,” Penny added.
“But I’ve talked too much about me,” said Bert. “What about you two? How did you make the switch from eating warmed over beef stew on third-class railway cars to nibbling caviar on the high seas? Are you still in show business?”
“We sure are,” said Penny. “We’re on our way to London to star in Fred Baker’s newest show.”
“You don’t say.”
“We played 493 performances in New York,” said Nick. “Stepping Out. Music and lyrics by Irwin Hamburg.”
“Irwin Hamburg? You kids really have made the big time. I wish I could have seen it, but I don’t get to New York much anymore.”
“If you’ll be in London, you can see it there,” said Penny.
“Dinner after the show is on us,” said Nick.
“It’s a deal,” said Bert.
“I think it’s disgusting.” The Lady Margaret Carroll, only surviving child of Gerald Holdendale, the Duke of Tarrington, poked angrily at her dinner plate with her fork. “It’s bad enough when a poor woman is forced to sell her body. But that woman ...” She gave an angry jerk of her head in the direction of the Duchess of Tarrington. “That woman has no excuse for making such an obscene display of her ... charms.”
“Let’s not talk about her, darling,” said Peter Carroll, placing a hand on his young wife’s arm. “We’ve had such a wonderful honeymoon. Let’s not let anyone spoil these last few days.”
“Wonderful!” Lady Margaret laughed bitterly. “Perhaps you had a wonderful time in New York.”
“Must we go over all that again?”
“Did you know she would be on this ship? Well, did you?”
Peter glanced over at the orchestra, which had started to play a foxtrot. “Shall we dance?”
“Of course not. You know I despise that sort of music.”
“Be reasonable, darling. You can’t expect them to play Beethoven’s Ninth.”
“There could be a lecture instead.”
“Join the revolution! Cast off your pearls and become one of the proletariats, before we slit your throats!”
“Are you mocking me, Peter?”
Peter shook his head. “I think it’s marvelous the way you care about the poor and the common workers, considering you were born into one of the oldest and wealthiest families in England. But there is a time and a place for everything, darling, and this is most certainly not the place for a soapbox.”
“I would have gladly traveled third class.”
“Yes, but neither one of us has money of our own. So, if your father, the extremely wealthy and extremely class conscious Duke of Tarrington, insists we travel first class, we may as well enjoy the ride.”
“You didn’t talk like this before we were married. I thought you shared my principles.”
Peter shrugged. “Oh, I’m all for the working man getting paid a decent wage. Women, too. But traveling third class and sharing the poor man’s burdenhas no allure for me. If you will recall, I grew up poor. I know what it’s really like, unlike—”
He stopped in mid-sentence, aware he had approached too close to a dangerous red line. “Have some more champagne, darling.”
Lady Margaret angrily cast aside her glass, which fell to the floor and shattered. There was a momentary silence at the tables nearby. Of course, the people sitting at those tables were too well bred to turn and stare.
A waiter appeared and, after expressing his million pardons for the mishap, quickly swept up the glass splinters, while a different waiter put a new glass on the table.
When they had gone, Peter picked up the champagne bottle a second time. “Shall I pour you a glass?”
“I’m going to my cabin. I have a headache.”
He put the bottle back in the bucket of ice. “As you wish.”
Lady Margaret made a movement to rise, but sank back into her chair. Her face, which would have been a very attractive one if her features weren’t a shade too pinched, was unusually pale. “You married me for my money, didn’t you?”
“You’re talking nonsense, Margaret. You know I adore you.”
“I know you adore someone!”
This time, she sprang from her seat and rushed out of the room.
Bert had asked Penny to dance, and so they had a “ringside seat” for viewing Lady Margaret’s abrupt departure, including the tears streaming down the young woman’s face.
“Looks like a lovers’ quarrel,” said Penny.
“It’s tough to be young,” said Bert. “Although a pretty girl like you has probably discovered that for yourself. How many hearts have you broken so far, Penny?”
“Not counting my cousin Andy, who swore he’d always love me at six and left me for a baseball bat at seven, I’d say there have been at least two and a half.”
“Who was the half?”
“A stockbroker named George. He couldn’t decide if he preferred me or Ruby Keeler.”
“If he let you go, he must have been a foolish man.”
“How about you? Is there a Mrs. Ayres?”
“Not yet. Although there is a woman back in Indianapolis that I’d like to make my wife.”
“So, what’s stopping you?”
“This Depression, for one. I have a good job for now. But I know too many men who had a good job last month and are on the dole today.”
Inspector Travers quietly slipped into the seat that had been vacated by Lady Margaret. He and Peter Carroll looked in silence at the dance floor in the center of the room, where six or seven couples were dancing.
“I personally think whoever invented the idea of the long honeymoon deserves a special place in hell,” he said to the younger man.
“You speak like a man of experience.”
“No, I’m not married myself. But this isn’t my first time on a transatlantic crossing. You can always tell which are the newlyweds just starting their honeymoon and which are making the return trip home. A month is a long time for a man to bill and coo.”
“My wife is a wonderful girl,” said Peter.
“I’m sure she is. Did she know her stepmother would be on the ship?”
Peter studied his new companion more closely. “You seem to know a great deal about our private business.”
Travers took out his card of identification from Scotland Yard and showed it to Carroll. “I’m in the duchess’s retinue, in a manner of speaking, for her return trip home. I’m not personally acquainted with the Lady Margaret, but I am aware of the family and at least some of its ‘business,’ as I assume most Englishmen are.”
“I suppose our marriage did make all the headlines. ‘Socialist Socialite Marries Struggling American Songwriter.’ ‘Proletariats’ Peeress Weds Poor Composer.’ Margaret hated all the publicity, of course. She’s really very serious about workers’ rights and all that. She hates it when people don’t take her seriously.”
“Then don’t you think you’d better go to her? You can ask the steward on duty to send dinner round to your cabin, you know.”
Peter looked lingeringly at the dancers and the orchestra. Then he said, “Yes, I suppose I must.”
Inspector Travers went back to his own table, where Countess Scharwenka was seated, as well as a well-preserved middle-aged fashion designer from Paris named Roberto.
“Done your good deed for the day, I see,” said the countess, as she watched Peter Carroll exit the dining room.
“Ah, these young lovers,” enthused Roberto. “To start a quarrel—that they know how to do easily enough. But to end this quarrel with elegance and finesse, that takes a more experienced lover. Eh, Madame la Comtesse?”
The countess, who never liked a reference to her experience or her age, ignored the comment. Instead, she turned her gaze upon the Duchess of Tarrington, who was dancing with a young man, a member of her party.
When the duchess and her dance partner drew near their table, she stopped dancing and said, “Roberto, my darling genius. Everyone adores your dress.”
Roberto, who had risen from his seat, gallantly kissed her outstretched hand. “It is not the dress, Your Grace. It is you that everyone admires.”
The duchess laughed and acknowledged the compliment with a graceful nod of her head. Then she danced off with her partner.
Travers had been watching the countess’s face during the short exchange. But if he had expected to see a twinge of jealousy or greedy desire, he was disappointed. Countess Scharwenka’s face was a perfect mask, devoid of all expression.
The orchestra had begun to play a tango. Roberto, who was still flushed from his couturial triumph, gushed, “Ah, the tango! How many memories does this melody bring with it! How many nights of pleasure and romance! Madame la Comtesse, this is our dance!”
The countess ignored the dressmaker’s outstretched hand. Still staring into some vacant space only she could see, she said, with a voice devoid of all emotion, “No. This is not my dance.”
Roberto shrugged and sat down. “Les femmes!” he mouthed in the direction of Inspector Travers. The Scotland Yard inspector glanced over at the countess. He hoped she was just tired. He didn’t want an attempted suicide on his hands. Women of her profession, when they reached a certain age and their bank account reached a dangerously low level of money, were often tempted to end their cares by putting an end to their lives. Throwing oneself overboard, into the ready embrace of the cold Atlantic waters, was a favorite method.
Set For Murder (Showbiz Is Murder Book 1) Page 2
