Murder on the Caronia

by Conrad Allen

  “Theo,” said Isadora. “Theo Wright.”

  “Speak to him, Waldo. Speak to him sternly. Let him know how appalled we are at his behavior. I’ve a good mind to report him to the purser.”

  “But he’s done nothing wrong, Mother,” argued Isadora.

  “Of course he has.”

  “Why don’t you meet him?”

  Maria grimaced. “The very idea is revolting!”

  “But you’d see what a wonderful person he is. Please, Mother.”

  “No!”

  “Father?” said Isadora, hoping for support from him.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, “but your mother and I speak with one voice here. We’ve spent our whole lives bringing you up so that you can enter society at the highest level. You’ve been given privileges few young ladies of your age enjoy. We are not going to throw all that away because you befriend some stray cyclist on a Cunard liner.”

  “Theo is the American champion.”

  “That may impress you,” said Maria, “but it only horrifies us. What sort of person makes a living by riding a bicycle? It’s no better than performing in a circus.”

  “Don’t be such a snob, Mother.”

  “Standards are standards.”

  “And that’s the last word on the subject,” added Singleton, exerting his paternal authority. “The matter is closed, Isadora. I will speak to this person in the most forthright terms, and make sure he never bothers you again.

  “But Theo isn’t bothering me,” Isadora wailed. “I love him!”

  Waldo stared in absolute dismay. Maria Singleton began to gurgle.

  It took Ramsey Leach a long time to pluck up the courage to tell the truth. They waited patiently. Taggart felt certain they had just unmasked the drug smuggler. Dillman, however, was beginning to have doubts.

  “We’re still waiting,” said the purser. “Does this weapon belong to you, sir?”

  “Yes,” Leach confessed.

  “How long have you owned it?”

  “A matter of weeks, Mr. Taggart.”

  “Where did you get it?” asked Dillman.

  “It was bought it in New York as a souvenir. I know it was wrong of me to bring it on board without declaring it, but I grew attached to it. I was afraid someone would take it away from me and I couldn’t bear that.”

  “You mean, that you felt you might need it?”

  “Not to shoot, Mr. Dillman,” said Leach, upset at the implication. “You may have found the gun but there was no ammunition in my cabin, was there? I suppose that I’ve always had a fascination with firearms,” he explained. “I’ve collected muskets that go back to the Crimean War and I even have a Martini-Henry rifle from the battle of Rorke’s Drift.” He licked his lips anxiously. “This was going to join my collection, you see. And the reason I don’t want to part with it is that I didn’t buy it myself. It was a gift.”

  “From whom?” asked Dillman. “Miss Pamela Clyne, by any chance?”

  “No.”

  “But from somebody rather special, I suspect.”

  “Extremely special, Mr. Dillman.”

  “Is that person on board this vessel?”

  Leach looked hunted. “Yes. She is.”

  “Will she confirm that she purchased this weapon for you as a gift?”

  “I hope it won’t come to that,” pleaded Leach.

  “Why not?” asked Taggart.

  “Because I don’t want any of this to come out. If she realized I was here, talking about her, she’d be terribly distressed. I must ask you to respect her feelings.”

  “We’re involved in a criminal investigation, sir. Feelings are not relevant.”

  “I believe they are,” said Dillman, putting the gun down on the desk. “I don’t think we need detain him any longer, Mr. Taggart. He’s not guilty.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I searched the two cabins. Apart from the gun, there was nothing to indicate that either might be occupied by the person we’re seeking. We’ve pursued a false trail and we owe Mr. Leach an apology.”

  Taggart was surprised. “Do we?”

  “Yes,” said Dillman. “When I asked him if Miss Pamela Clyne bought this revolver for him, Mr. Leach gave an honest answer. She did not. The lady who did purchase it was Mrs. Pamela Leach. She’s his wife.”

  “Is this correct?” asked the purser, turning to the other man.

  Leach squirmed on his chair with embarrassment before forcing the words out.

  “Yes, Mr. Taggart,” he said. “Pamela and I are on our honeymoon.”

  FOURTEEN

  When he was let out of his cell and taken to the office belonging to the master-at-arms, Daniel Webb thought he was being released. Instead, he discovered, he was only being summoned for interview by Inspector Redfern. Webb began his defense as soon as he walked through the door.

  “It was their fault, Inspector,” he whined. “Those three blokes in the same cabin as me. Yankee thugs, they were. They tried to take my bottle of whiskey away from me and I couldn’t let them do that. I earned it.”

  “Be quiet, Mr. Webb.”

  “Not fair to keep me locked up like this.”

  “That’s nothing to do with me.”

  “Speak to the master-at-arms, sir. Get me released.”

  “Shut up!” ordered Redfern, tiring of the old man’s obsequious grin. “I brought you here to answer a few questions. Now, sit down and do as you’re told.” Webb nodded and took the chair opposite him. “Tell me what you saw the other night.”

  “What night?”

  “The night you slept on the main deck.”

  “Oh, that,” Webb said slowly, thinking he might have a bargaining tool. “I don’t suppose you have a cigarette about you, do you, Inspector? My memory’s so much better when I have a fag in my mouth.”

  “I smoke a pipe.”

  “Then lend me some of your tobacco, sir. I’ve got some fag papers somewhere,” he went on, groping in his pockets. They were empty. “Ah, I remember now. They took all my possessions when they banged me away.”

  “Quite rightly.”

  “A man is entitled to some comforts.”

  “You’re not getting any tobacco from me.”

  “But I’m desperate for it.”

  “Who cares?”

  “I do. Listen,” said Webb, smirking hopefully, “why don’t you ask the master-at-arms to give you a fag for me? I know he smokes. Then we can talk. See what I mean? You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.”

  Redfern was riled. “I didn’t come here to offer you a deal, Mr. Webb,” he said harshly. “At the moment, you’re under arrest for being drunk and disorderly. There’s also the charge of grievous bodily harm against a Mr. Miller. If you deliberately withhold evidence from a murder inquiry, you’ll find that you stay behind bars even longer. Now, let’s have no more of this nonsense. Tell me what you saw.”

  “Can I at least have a cup of tea?”

  “No!”

  “All right, all right,” said Webb, seeing the anger in Redfern’s face. “No need to threaten me like that. I’ve already been through it a couple of times, but I don’t mind telling my tale again.”

  “Thank you!”

  “It all began when I went out onto the main deck….”

  Webb’s account was rambling and interspersed with all manner of digressions. Yet the essential facts remained the same. He had witnessed the murder of Sergeant Mulcaster by someone who seemed to be holding a gun to the back of the detective’s head. Redfern made him go through it twice, to be absolutely sure no detail was missing. Having heard all the old man had to say about one murder, he turned his attention to another.

  “I’m told that you spoke to Mr. Heritage yesterday,” he said.

  “Yes, Inspector. He was in the next cell to me.”

  “That was when they brought you in rolling drunk.”

  “I wasn’t drunk,” insisted Webb. “I never gets drunk, only merry.”

 
“Too merry. You caused mayhem down in your cabin.”

  Webb smirked. “I like a good scrap.”

  “So it seems.”

  “They’ll have more sense than to pick on me again.”

  “They won’t get a chance while you’re locked away,” said Redfern. “Forget about the fight. Tell me about Mr. Heritage.”

  “Novice, isn’t he? Never been arrested before.”

  “No, he hasn’t.”

  “Doesn’t know how to play the game.”

  “Unlike you,” Redfern observed coldly. “Do you remember what you said to Mr. Dillman about him?”

  “I liked Mr. Dillman. A real gent, he was. Bought me the whisky.”

  “You told him something about Mr. Heritage.”

  “Yes,” said Webb. “He’s guilty.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  Webb tapped his head. “Brains. Experience.”

  “Did Mr. Heritage say anything that led you to believe he was guilty?”

  “It’s what he didn’t say, Inspector. I mean, he wouldn’t even tell me what he was in for. Couldn’t see him, of course, but I could tell from his voice what he looked like. And I knew that he was lying.”

  “How?”

  “Too sorry for himself.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Hey, look,” protested Webb, “I’m not going to rat on a fellow prisoner!”

  “You’ve already done that.”

  “All I did was to give my opinion.”

  “Based on a talk you had with him. Now, stop being so obstructive. What else convinced you John Heritage was lying?”

  Webb wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “He’s in love, Inspector.”

  “Go on.”

  “There’s a woman in the case. He mentioned her name half a dozen times. That’s why he’s pleading his innocence. If you had him on his own, I think he’d own up just to clear his conscience. But he has to think of this woman.”

  “Miss Peterson.”

  “She on board as well?”

  “Yes, Mr. Webb.”

  “There you are, then. Mr. Heritage got her into whatever it is that he’s supposed to have done, and he feels bad about it. That was his mistake, see? Getting a woman involved. It never works. You always end up feeling responsible for them.”

  Redfern became pensive, stroking his chin as he reflected on what he had heard from the old man.

  Webb made one last bid for a favor. “I suppose there’s no chance of a tot of rum, is there?” he said.

  Genevieve Masefield was dumbfounded. When she received a visit in her cabin from Dillman that evening, the news he gave her made her eyes widen in disbelief.

  “Miss Clyne is married?” she said.

  “Apparently.”

  “Then why doesn’t she share a cabin with her husband?”

  “She does at night, Genevieve.”

  “What happens during the day?”

  “She and Mr. Leach carry on as if they’re traveling independently.”

  “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “It does when you know the full story,” said Dillman. “Ramsey Leach is a rather shy man and I gather that his wife is even more bashful.”

  “She’s extremely timid, George.”

  “That was the very word he used. ‘Timid.’ It took him six years to persuade her to marry him and another two years of waiting while she kept putting off the day. It wasn’t that Miss Clyne—or Mrs. Leach, as she is now—didn’t love him. He was keen to stress that point. It was simply that she was terrified about what people would say.”

  “Why?”

  “All sorts of reasons,” said Dillman. “To begin with, she’s the sort of woman who’s utterly self-effacing. She prefers to fade into the background and that’s tricky when you have to walk down the aisle in a wedding dress. Add to that the fact that she was a confirmed spinster. She’d given up all hope of ever getting married. But the thing that worried her most, according to Mr. Leach, was the fact that she’s five years older than he is. That was a huge barrier for her.”

  “I don’t see why. Age difference is not a crime.”

  “Pamela Clyne felt that it would set tongues wagging.”

  “Then she should have ignored them.”

  “She isn’t robust enough for that, Genevieve.”

  “Has Mr. Leach been married before?”

  “No, he’s almost as tentative about their relationship as she is.”

  Genevieve arched an eyebrow. “Are you sure he spends the night with her?”

  “There’s no question of that,” said Dillman. “Mrs. Anstruther, the lady in the next cabin, complained to the purser that Miss Clyne entertained a man every night and they kept her awake with their antics. The trouble is, Mrs. Anstruther caught me leaving the cabin this afternoon and thought that I was the demon lover.”

  “How did you talk your way out of that?” said Genevieve, laughing.

  “With difficulty.”

  “So why all this secrecy about being on honeymoon?”

  “Mr. Leach explained that. On the crossing to New York, they traveled as man and wife and everyone knew they’d just married. Whenever they went into a public room, it was agony for them. People would watch, whisper, and nudge each other. They vowed they’d never go through that again.”

  “So they occupied separate cabins.”

  “Until midnight.” Dillman’s smile was sympathetic. “I feel sorry for them. All they wanted to do was to sail back home without causing any fuss. Mr. Leach was shaken when he was asked to come to the purser’s office. He thought Mrs. Anstruther had complained about the noise in the next cabin and that he’d be reprimanded.”

  Genevieve laughed again. “For sleeping with his own wife?”

  “Silly, I know, but the pair of them are so sensitive….”

  “What about that coffin you mentioned?”

  “I was misled there,” Dillman admitted. “Because he denied having bought anything during his stay, I assumed he was trying to throw me off the track. In fact, it was his wife he felt the need to deceive. His hobby is collecting firearms. When his wife got him the revolver I found in his cabin, he bought her an eternity ring. She wears it under her glove along with her wedding ring.”

  “Yes, I noticed that her hands were always covered.”

  “One afternoon in New York, while his wife was taking a nap at the hotel, Mr. Leach called on a mortician whose advertisements he’d seen in the paper. He was so impressed with the funeral caskets he saw that he promptly bought one and arranged to have it shipped back home. But he didn’t feel able to tell Mrs. Leach,” said Dillman, “and I see his point. What wife would be pleased to hear that the most important souvenir her husband acquired on their honeymoon was a new funeral casket?”

  “This is very amusing,” said Genevieve, “and rather sweet in its own way, but it does mean that the people we want are still at large.”

  “Yes,” Dillman confessed. “I was completely wrong about Ramsey Leach. He wasn’t responsible for Sergeant Mulcaster’s funeral arrangements, after all. We can’t afford another mistake like that. It was very embarrassing.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “Keep looking, Genevieve. I’m certain those drugs are on board.”

  “Do you still believe they’re linked to the murder?”

  “Unquestionably.”

  “Sergeant Mulcaster’s reputation caught up with him.”

  “I’m afraid so,” said Dillman. “What puzzles me is how anyone knew that he was on board the Caronia.”

  “They did cause something of a stir when they arrived, George.”

  “I know. I saw them.”

  “So did lots of other passengers. The word got around.”

  “What spread was the rumor that two murderers were in custody, being taken back to face justice. Nobody knew their names or those of the two detectives.”

  “Somebody must have recognized the sergeant.”

  “That�
��s what I thought, at first. But it would be a remarkable coincidence if they had. What are the chances of someone who was arrested by Sergeant Mulcaster in the past, traveling on the same liner?”

  “Pretty slim.”

  “It wasn’t the man who was recognized, Genevieve, it was his name.”

  “I see what you mean.”

  “How it got out,” said Dillman, “I don’t know. The two of them took great care to keep out of any public rooms. Apart from an occasional walk on deck to stretch their legs, they hardly ever left the area of their cabin. Throughout the day, they were too busy questioning Mr. Heritage and Miss Peterson. Do you take my point?” he asked, running a hand through his hair. “Someone not only discovered their names, they also found out that Inspector Redfern and Sergeant Mulcaster were in second class. Who told them?”

  Genevieve’s mind was racing. Guilt brought a slight flush to her cheeks.

  “I hate to say this, George,” she admitted. “But I may be to blame.”

  Theodore Wright and Wes Odell were in a state of armed truce. The coach was furious because the cyclist had refused to explain why he had taken a bicycle from the storeroom that afternoon. For his part, Wright was simmering with anger because he was being treated like an errant child. Knowing what the consequences might be, neither man wanted to engage in pitched battle in case it would lead to a complete rift. They needed each other. As a team, their success had been uninterrupted. If they split up, their individual futures were uncertain. The atmosphere in their cabin was strained so they dressed early for dinner and went up into the lounge, hoping that greater space would ease the tension. They had just reached the point of being able to exchange civil remarks when Waldo Singleton came over to them.

  “Mr. Wright?” he asked.

  “That’s me,” said Wright, offering his hand. “You’re Mr. Singleton, aren’t you?”

  Waldo ignored the handshake. “May I have a private word, please?”

  “What about?” asked Odell, sensing trouble.

  “This is a confidential matter, I’m afraid.”

  “I’m Theo’s coach. If it concerns him, it concerns me.”

  “Not this time, Wes,” said Wright.

  “Why not?”

  “You stay here while I speak to Mr. Singleton. I won’t be long.” Wright led the older man to the far corner of the room where they could talk without being overheard.