It was not entirely clear where they were. Bill Weigand is a man who likes things clear: Pam could see the desire for clarity flicker briefly in his eyes.
“Vacation, darling,” Dorian said from the deep chair in which she was sitting, a foot tucked under her. “Remember?”
“Right,” Bill said.
“It’ll turn up,” Folsom said. “Always does. About this private detective, does—”
Somebody knocked rather loudly at the door of the captain’s quarters. Cholly came out of the captain’s sleeping cabin, in temporary use as a serving pantry, and went to the door and opened it. Mrs. Macklin, her red hair neat again, but wearing a green dress, came in at once, brushing past the steward.
“I am Mrs. Macklin,” she said, speaking to Captain Cunningham; ignoring the others. “I am seated at your table.”
She spoke loudly, in her high voice, and the voice cracked. There was a kind of violence in the elderly woman, with the skin drawn to such unnatural tightness over the bones of her face.
“I demand you do something,” she said.
She was not a large woman and was of what Pam always thought of as the top-heavy type, believing that almost all women incline either to top- or bottom-heaviness. But, standing in the middle of the room, looking up at the tall ship’s captain, Mrs. Macklin seemed to fill the room.
“Certainly,” Captain Cunningham said. “Whatever I can. But—about what?”
“I supposed,” she said, “that this would be a well-run ship. I was assured it would prove a well-run ship.”
She spoke distinctly; although the ship moved a little on the quiet sea, she did not sway. And yet it was evident that, again, she had drunk more than she had been wise to drink.
“It is,” Captain Cunningham said, simply, with patience. “You have something to complain of?”
“Complain of?” she said. “Complain of indeed! Somebody in my room last night. After dinner. Went over everything. Your well-run ship! A thieving steward.”
“Our people are carefully selected,” Captain Cunningham said, and was entirely formal, although there was frost on his voice. “You make a serious charge, Mrs. Macklin. What was stolen?”
“Stolen?” she said. “Nothing stolen. Probably heard me coming. Nosing around. Looking.”
“Probably,” Cunningham said, “the stewardess straightened up. That’s her job.”
“You think I don’t know?” Mrs. Macklin said, and her voice was higher than before. “Think I can’t tell?”
Quite clearly, the captain did.
“Precisely what—” he began, and she interrupted.
“As bad as the rest,” she said. “This purser of yours. This other captain.”
“Oh,” Cunningham said. “You’ve seen the purser? Captain Smythe-Hornsby? I’m sure they’re doing everything that can be done, Mrs. Macklin.”
Captain Cunningham spoke calmly, seriously; standing tall and competent, he epitomized reassurance. Nor was there anything in his manner to indicate that he did not take Mrs. Macklin as seriously as she could wish. And yet it was as if his quiet words had touched a trigger.
Violence in the aging woman had been evident until then, but it had been restrained. But then all restraint vanished—then as if there had been some explosion inside her, Mrs. Macklin began to scream—at the captain, at all of them. Her words—her screamed words—lost coherence; the tightly stretched skin of her face became red and mottled.
Captain Cunningham was against her, like the rest. She screamed at him—“You don’t care. Nobody—” She had a right to protection—she—“Kill me in my bed,” she screamed at him, and turned to the others. “All of you!” she said. “Laughing—laughing—they’ll kill me.” She became momentarily obscene. She seemed to hear her own words. “Don’t say those things,” she said. “You hear me? Don’t—” She moved toward the captain, as if to claw at his unchanging face.
It was something—it was a drunken outburst—from which one wanted to get away—something from which one wanted to run away. At first no one moved. Then Peter Cunningham moved. He stretched out strong hands and grasped the woman’s shoulders. He held her, for a moment, saying nothing.
And, held so, she at once stopped her screamed, inarticulate tirade. She stood quietly; then she said, “What did you say?”
Captain Cunningham said nothing. He merely looked at her.
“I’m afraid,” Mrs. Macklin said, quite calmly, “that I allowed myself to get a little excited.”
You could have laughed at that. Nobody laughed.
“Can’t I offer you a drink?” Captain Cunningham asked her, as a host asks a guest.
“Why, thank you,” she said. “Thank you. A little bourbon and water, perhaps. But, very little bourbon, please.”
“Cholly,” Captain Cunningham said, and Cholly hurried. He was back almost at once, with a glass. He no longer looked beamish. He looked embarrassed.
“Thank you so much,” Mrs. Macklin said, and took the glass, and held it daintily and raised it to her lips—and without pause drank half of it. “As to the little matter I bothered you with—” she said, and raised the glass to her lips again.
There were melodious chimes; a gently spoken, if metallically spoken, announcement from everywhere that the second luncheon sitting was prepared.
They went. It was by the exercise of considerable restraint that they did not jostle one another at the door. Mrs. Macklin did, indeed, dampen gaiety. She was almost, Pam thought, enough to make one give up alcohol.
3
Aboard the Carib Queen, cruising south in smooth seas, there were many things that one could do to pass the pleasant time. As Miss Springer said, there was always something going on. (But on the other hand, there was certainly no compulsion.) One could swim in the sparkling pool; one could attend a movie in the air-conditioned theater forward. One could walk around the decks; in the air-conditioned smoking room, one could participate in a bridge tournament. In the forward lounge one could, at the appropriate time, partake of tea. If one were a member of the Ancient and Respectable Riflemen, one could attend a special cocktail party which the Ancient and Respectables were giving themselves. There would be—and indeed there was—horseracing by the swimming pool. On the boat deck, one might play shuffleboard or deck tennis. And all this was only during the afternoon; after dinner there would be further enticements, including dancing, including the antics of “famous Broadway entertainers.”
But it is one of the other pleasures of a cruise, during which one relaxes like a jelly in the sun, that none of these things need be done. It is agreeable to think that so many presumably pleasant activities are available; that perhaps tomorrow they will be availed of. But there is no hurry. As Pamela North summed it up, at luncheon, nobody was going anywhere and, although the Carib Queen herself clearly was, if in no great hurry, Pam’s statement was unchallenged. Also, the lunch was ample, and they found themselves hungry. The sea air as Miss Springer was accustomed to say.
They could eat and look about them idly, and this they did. Mrs. Macklin and Miss Macklin appeared, somewhat late, at the captain’s table. Miss Macklin was back in her colorless suit; Mrs. Macklin seemed to have made a quick, if perhaps partial, recovery. She ate her luncheon like a lady. Respected Captain Folsom ate his like a rifleman. J. Orville Marsh was even later than the Macklins, and smiled affably at the Norths and the Weigands as he passed their table. Captain Peter Cunningham did not appear to preside. The first officer substituted, from the foot of the table. Mr. and Mrs. Oscar Peterson, who before had been only blurs, were discovered at the staff captain’s table, and smiled and nodded across it as eyes were caught.
Not so many of the Old Respectables were now in uniform. Some seemed to be shedding it gradually—a jacket replacing tunic, but the uniform trousers remaining in their place. (One of them did, to be sure, wear his tunic, with Bermuda shorts.) Not nearly so many wore their caps to lunch; it was possible that word had been passed. The officer of the day made
two appearances on his rounds, and wore no sword. He did, however, wear white gloves as compensation. The apple tart looked naice today and, within reason, was. Having tried coffee the night before, Pam essayed the tea. Jerry was of sterner stuff and said so; he would fight on the coffee line if it took all cruise.
The four drifted apart after luncheon. Confronted by entertainment unlimited, Bill Weigand decided to take a nap. Dorian went to the boat deck, with drawing pad and pencils, since the holidays of commercial artists are likely to be a little like those of busmen.
Jerry North, after having changed his shirt again, and resumed the slacks which did not need pressing, made one circuit of the promenade deck—but at not over two knots—and joined Pamela, who was merely sitting. She had changed back to a bathing suit, but this time only for tanning purposes. They sat contentedly, saying little, toasting slowly. The bow of the ship rose lazily; it subsided dreamily and the stern apathetically arose. “It’s wonderful to have nothing—nothing at all—to do,” Pam said, at one point, and Jerry said, “M-mm” in agreement, since a sound was simpler to come by than a word. “I suppose,” Pam said, some time later, “I really ought to go into the pool.” Jerry said, “M-mm” again. “Probably you’re right,” Pam said. “Take things easy to start with.”
Respected Captain Folsom was, presumably, at the Respectables’ cocktail party; Mrs. Macklin did not appear—it could, by one with that kind of mind, be assumed that she was drinking in her cabin. (And that’s the kind of mind I’ve got, Pam admitted to herself.) Hilda Macklin did not appear; possibly she was also in the cabin, pouring. Captain Cunningham probably was at the wheel, peering from it into the distance. It was comforting to know that they were in strong hands. Nothing untoward could happen; ahead stretched days of peace. Pam North dozed in the sun.
Aboard a cruise ship one can attend a movie, or play shuffleboard or doze in the sun. But it is inevitable that, as time goes on, one will sit at a table in the smoking lounge, and there prepare, in the only proper fashion, for the subsequent consumption of further food. The Norths do not contend against the inevitable.
At a quarter of six, when the inevitable caught up with them, Pam wore a white dinner dress—and wished, mildly, that its décolletage coincided more exactly with that of her bathing suit. Even with oil, one reddens in the sun. Jerry had changed his shirt again—he wore a white dinner jacket and black trousers and even a cummerbund, and a dress shirt which would dry overnight and did not need pressing. They sat, at a table which would accommodate four, and was expected to, and began to prepare for dinner. The bartender made admirable martinis; it was clear he was American trained.
Bill Weigand and Dorian were tardy. But the Norths were only started on their drinks when J. Orville Marsh appeared, also wearing a white dinner jacket, tall and heavily handsome—a man of distinction, bound toward a drink before dinner. He nodded his gray head, and smiled pleasantly and said, “Good evening,” and was about to pass on.
“Join us,” Jerry said, to Pam’s surprise.
Mr. Marsh said, “Why, thank you,” and that he didn’t mind if he did. He did.
“Talking about you before lunch,” Jerry said, when Marsh had ordered. “Seems the Old Respectables have lost their sword. Case of the missing weapon.”
“Oh,” Marsh said. “Of me?” His drink came. He had ordered a daiquiri. He sipped it. “Oh,” he said. “I see.” He was, Pam thought, content to let it lie there. But Jerry was not—
Talk about busmen’s holidays, Pam thought, although nobody had been. Publishers are just the same, the dears. Looking for books in the oddest places.
But as J. Orville Marsh was led on—and once started he led easily—and as Bill and Dorian still tarried (gone to sleep, probably) Pam began to doubt whether Mr. Marsh was really the oddest place. Mr. Marsh told stories, and he told them well. He had never, to be sure, carried a gun. He had never shot a man, or been shot at. Murder was, naturally, not his line. He had never happened to run into a private investigator whose line it was. But people disappeared under odd circumstances, and sometimes with odd completeness. There was the man who, three years before, had taken his own two children, after a quarrel with his wife, got with them onto a bus and vanished from the face of the earth. “Difficult with kids,” Mr. Marsh said. And there was the wealthy woman who had turned somewhat peculiar and similarly vanished, leaving worried children. There was—there was always—Judge Crater who had been, Marsh was almost certain, alive several years after he had vanished, although there was another theory about that. There was the man found, after an absence of two years, during an afternoon when Marsh had not left his office, and had made not quite a hundred telephone calls.
Mr. Marsh was by no means boastful, or so it seemed to Pam. When he said, “Edgar called me about that,” it was unnecessary to believe that Edgar had not. Led to it—yes, there was a good deal of wiretapping; not so much as some people said, probably more than there should be. One trouble with wiretapping was that, in getting what you wanted—and not always getting that—you got, in addition, a great deal of information which was none of your business—which wasn’t too bad, if you were scrupulous, which it could not be argued everybody was.
But, although he had carried on—“before I retired,” Mr. Marsh made a point of saying; several times made a point of saying—a variety of investigations, he had been concerned mostly with those people who vanished. A former actress, for example—now here, now nowhere; traced finally to a hotel room where she seemed to be under the rather strange control of a lawyer and a practical nurse. And where, which was the trouble, she was firm she would remain. Mr. Marsh, who didn’t like the situation—the former actress had had a good deal of money once—had thought of going to the authorities on that one but—He shrugged. There was nothing to pin on anyone, nothing tangible to get hold of. No law had been openly transgressed, and there was no one to make complaint.
“Of course,” he said, “that is our only excuse for existence. To investigate—” He apparently sought a word. “Oddities,” he said. “Matters which concern individuals, not society. Matters which need a kind of discretion the authorities can’t, of course, promise. And—negotiations, of course. For the—well, the return of money, say. Amicable settlements. Not against the law, of course. But, say, beside the law. And—”
Dorian and Bill Weigand arrived, then. Dorian wore a gray dinner dress; she moved down the room, ahead of Bill, with that singular grace which always made Pam think of a cat’s grace. The cat named Gin, for example, walked in much the same fashion, if one took additional legs into account. It must, Pam thought, be something about the way Dorian’s put together. Bill, who looked rested, finally, wore a white dinner jacket. (I wish they’d wear them all the time, Pam thought.) “We’re ahead of you,” Pam said, as Jerry and Marsh stood up.
The dignified licensed investigator—it was flatly impossible to think of him as a “private eye,” although Pam tried to—remained for another drink; insisted, indeed, on buying drinks around. Then, unhurriedly, he got up, said it had been very pleasant, and went toward the bar.
“Jerry’s been looking for a book,” Pam said, to Dorian and Bill. “You think he is?” she said to Jerry, who shrugged, who said, “Could be.”
The big lounge filled with second sitters, preparing themselves. The bar, which ran along one bulkhead, became lined with Old Respectables, who were he-men and drank standing. They were not, now, in all cases distinguishable by uniforms, or even parts of uniforms. A few retained regalia, complete to cap. But others, in dinner jackets, in business suits, were recognizable only by what Pam, reverting to the nautical, called “the cut of their jib.”
“In other words,” Jerry said, “middle-aged businessmen on convention.”
Pam supposed so. If one wanted to make things easy. “Although,” she said, “with rifles.”
The steward who had been serving them approached, although he had not been summoned. He said, “Captain Folsom’s compliments, and he wo
uld be ’appy to buy you drinks.”
They looked toward the bar. J. Orville Marsh and Respected Captain Folsom stood there side by side. Folsom, who remained in uniform, but wore a white shirt and a black bow tie, smiled at them, and nodded vigorously.
“Thank Captain Folsom very much for us,” Jerry said, and they all beamed in the respected captain’s direction.
“In Nassau,” Bill said, “they’re going to parade. Hence the armament. They are going to present something to the governor general—a plaque of some kind—as a token of international friendship.”
They looked at him.
“That’s all I know,” Bill said.
“In this form,” Dorian told him, “it is a somewhat barren bit of knowledge.”
Bill grinned at her. He said he was sorry. He told her it was all he had to offer.
“And you a detective,” Dorian said, sadly, and the steward brought their complimentary drinks. They raised glasses toward the respected captain, who raised his in return.
They sipped, and awaited summoning chimes. The chimes sounded and, after a decent interval—they preferred not to clamor at the doors—they left the pleasant air-cooled place and went aft through passageways. It was only then that they noticed increased motion in the ship. She still rocked gently fore and aft; now also she rolled amiably port to starboard. The corridor bulkheads had a mild tendency to push at those who walked between them. It would, Pam said, give the Old Reliables, or such as needed it, an excuse for any untoward movements.
Captain Cunningham, in a white mess jacket, for the first time presided at his table—a table for the captain, the first officer and eight selected passengers. How selected? Pam wondered, and decided that for them, also, there must be a list. Possibly the pleasant young couple—perhaps from Kansas—on the captain’s right were starting their married life on the Carib Queen. They looked as if they might be. She hoped the young man would continue to like his wife in that particular shade of blue. The couple on the captain’s left were, almost certainly, retired—now that all their children were married, their grandchildren clustering—and taking their ease in a ship. They had had, Pam thought, at least three children—two boys and a girl. The woman wore a soft gray dress and orchids were pinned to it—of course! A wedding anniversary trip. How nice—how nice, indeed, everything was.
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