Risky Way to Kill

by RICHARD LOCKRIDGE

  A steward in a yellow jacket came to their table. He did not have the sommelier’s dangling keys. But he had a plaque on the left-hand pocket of his jacket, and the disk was embossed with wine bottles, their necks crossed. He said, “The wine list, signor,” and gave a long, stiff sheet to Merton Heimrich.

  There were a great many wines listed on it—a confusingly great many wines.

  The wine steward was gentle. He said, “The lady and gentleman have ordered?”

  They had ordered. Heimrich told him what.

  “A white I would recommend,” the steward said. “By all means a white, signor.”

  He is used to guiding the innocent, Susan thought. The bewildered.

  “If I may suggest,” the steward said. “The Soave Bolla is an excellent wine. A very good year, if I may say so, signor.”

  “If it isn’t sweet,” Susan said.

  The steward shrugged, apparently in horror. He spread his hands. “Soft,” he said. “But dry. An admirable wine. The late Somerset Maugham always ordered it.”

  Something, Merton Heimrich thought, seemed to have been jumped. He said, “Here? On this ship?”

  “I do not know, signor. At the Gritti Palace. In Venezia.” He raised his hands again and, of each, coupled index finger and thumb. “He wrote about it in their brochure. About the Soave Bolla. About the hotel, also.”

  “You met him there?” Susan asked. “Waited on him?”

  The wine steward shook his head, sadly. “He was before my time at the Gritti,” he said. “It is a magnificent hotel. On the Canal. The Soave Bolla, signor?”

  “A half bottle?”

  “I regret, signor. We have no half bottles. But if you do not finish the bottle, it will be reserved for you, signor. It will be on your table tomorrow.”

  The food was delicious. The Soave Bolla all that had been promised. “Ah,” Heimrich said. “The bouquet, n’est ce pas?” They laughed softly across the table. Crêpes suzette were not on the menu, but a man in dinner jacket was making them within sight. Lorenzo, consulted, said, “But certainly, madame.”

  The crêpes were good. The espresso was sharp and bitter, and there were strips of lemon rind to twist and drop into it.

  For a time they sat in their deck chairs, but there was no sun now, and the sea which stretched around the ship was a dark sea. Music came from somewhere, and they went toward the music. They came to double doors with “Salone delle Feste” on a softly illuminated sign above them. An orchestra was playing, a little loudly, and a few couples were dancing on a circular floor in the middle of a large room. There were many chairs around many tables. Stewards moved, carrying trays. A man in a dinner jacket said, “Signor? Signora?”

  Heimrich looked down at his wife. She looked fine. But still—

  “It’s been a long day,” Susan said. “A holiday, but a long day. Tomorrow?”

  They went down to Cabin 82. The beds had been turned down. Water poured from carafes set in restraining hoops was cold.

  “A beautiful holiday,” Susan said, in a sleepy voice as Merton leaned down to kiss her good night. “A most won—”

  But sleep overtook the word.

  Heimrich wakened first. He went across the cabin and leaned over Susan’s bed so he could look through one of the portholes. The sun glinted on quiet water. Now the ship seemed, as it had at first, almost stationary in the water. But by craning his neck a little, Merton Heimrich could see the froth of her bow wave.

  “Is it a nice day, darling?” Susan said up to him.

  “A fine day,” Heimrich said. “I tried to be quiet.”

  “You were very quiet,” Susan told him. “They’ll bring us breakfast here, won’t they?”

  Heimrich pressed a button marked “Steward.” On second thought, he also pressed one marked “Stewardess.” He saw paper under the cabin door and collected the passenger list and a square white envelope addressed, “Inspector and Mrs. M. L. Heimrich.”

  Comandante Antonio di Scarlotti and the Officers of S.S. Italia requested the pleasure of the company of Inspector and Mrs. M. L. Heimrich for cocktails in the main lounge at seven P.M.

  Their names were written in where a suitable blank occurred. The rest of the invitation was, Merton discovered by running a finger over it, engraved.

  On the passenger list, their names were correctly spelled. But it was, as Heimrich had been uneasily certain it would be, “Inspector and Mrs.” Not, as he had asked Miss Snell, “Mr. and Mrs.” So.

  It was Sir Ronald Grimes, Bart., and Lady Grimes. There were no other names either recognized. “I knew an Elsie Singleton once,” Susan said. “But I’m almost sure she’s dead.” “I arrested a George Larsen once,” Heimrich said. “But he’s still in prison, far as I know.”

  It was the steward who knocked at the door and, being invited, came into the cabin. He said, “I am Guido, signorsignora. It is a fine morning. I may bring you breakfast, sì?”

  They ordered. When breakfast came, in a surprisingly short time, it was Angela who came first into the room, balancing a tray on upheld fingers. Guido came after her. The coffee was hot and strong, Heimrich’s bacon crisp and his scrambled eggs soft. Croissants came with Susan’s coffee. They were warm and buttery and crunched between the teeth.

  “This is a lovely ship,” Susan said. “We’ve landed on our feet, haven’t we?”

  Merton Heimrich agreed they had landed on their feet. He added that it was a habit they must cultivate.

  3

  It was a day for lolling. Sunshine had not reached their deck chairs when they went to them, but it shone on the ocean. The sliding glass panel forward of where they sat was a little open, and the air which came through it was balmy. “It’s so soon for it to be spring,” Susan said, and was told it had been spring for almost two weeks. She said, “Where we live it’s sometimes spring by the middle of May,” a statement which could not be argued with. At eleven, stewards brought consommé and small, neat sandwiches. In the veranda belvedere before lunch, Mario knew what they wanted before they ordered it. On their table in the dining room, the newly chilled remainder of a bottle of Soave Bolla waited them. At the table next theirs all four of the stalwart women had two desserts.

  The sun was warm on the chairs in the afternoon. They avoided Italian lessons and bridge lessons and shuffleboard and deck tennis. “I ought to write letters to people,” Susan said, and did not move. She was told, sleepily, that letters would go nowhere until they reached Lisbon. Susan agreed that there was that. She said, “We ought to walk around the deck or something. There’s a gymnasium or something, isn’t there? I’ll get fat, won’t I?”

  “No,” Merton told her. “You’ll never get fat. And just now you could do—”

  “I’m fine,” Susan said. “I think I’ll go to the cabin and take a nap.” They both went to the cabin and took naps. Some time during the naps bells rang, and there were footsteps in the corridor outside Cabin 82, but they did not really waken. Merton was showering when he remembered that Boat Drill had been scheduled for four, and that all passengers were urged—resolutely urged—to attend, wearing life preservers. They were to follow arrows to their rallying points. So that was what the bells had been about.

  At seven, Susan said, “You look fine. We ought to dress for dinner every night.”

  “Well,” Merton said, “we do light candles most nights.”

  “Not most,” she said. “Most nights you are chasing murderers. Stand still and I’ll straighten your tie. It lists a little. To starboard, I think it is.”

  She reached up and straightened his black bow tie. She said, “Of course it will stay. We’re on holiday.”

  “We’ll be the first to arrive,” Merton said, as they went up in an elevator because Susan’s dress was long and not designed for the climbing of stairs. “It’s only ten after.”

  They were not the first to arrive. They were not even, at a guess, the hundredth. Inside the lounge a row of officers stood, in white uniforms with shoulder boards
. The two officers at the head of the line had four stripes across their shoulder boards. From there on the number of stripes diminished. The last in the line had only a single stripe, and it was narrower.

  Beyond the officers, the lounge seethed with people. Beyond the people was a long bar. There was not, it was at once apparent, going to be any place to sit down.

  The maître d’ was just inside the entrance. He said, “Signor Inspector. Signora,” and stepped aside, and a man with a camera flashed at them. “If you will, please,” the maître d’ said. “This way, please.” They moved a few steps to the reception line of officers. “Signora—” the maître d’ said and stopped. Everything cannot be perfect, even on a holiday. “Heimrich,” Susan said. “Comandante di Scarlotti,” the maître d’ said. “Inspector Heimling, Comandante.”

  “Pleasure, signora,” Comandante di Scarlotti said. “Pleasure, Inspector.”

  He bowed over Susan’s hand. His hand was firm in Merton’s.

  He was tall and dark-haired and stood erect. And he had eyes as blue as Heimrich’s own. Somewhat unexpectedly, he said, “Welcome aboard, signora, signor.” And his hand propelled them on. “Comandante Ferrancci,” the maître d’ said. “Signora Heimberg. Inspector Heimberg.”

  Perfection is unlikely even on a lovely ship.

  Comandante Ferrancci was even taller than Comandante di Scarlotti. His eyes were level with Heimrich’s own. He was younger than the other comandante. He was a very handsome man, and he had a crisp blond mustache and blond hair, cut short but with a ripple in it. He bowed over Susan’s hand; he grasped Heimrich’s firmly. He said, “But it’s Heimrich, isn’t it, Inspector? Not—what did Lucien call you?”

  “Heimrich,” Heimrich said. “It doesn’t matter, Captain.”

  Ferrancci said, “Welcome aboard, Inspector.”

  They came to the end of the line of officers—came, at any rate, near the end before the maître d’ said, “Excuse me, signora-signor,” and went back to welcome more guests to a party which already had more than enough guests.

  Susan and Merton Heimrich were jostled into the crowd, through which waiters with trays sorted their way. A round, red-faced man with a glass swaying in his hand confronted Heimrich. He said, “If it isn’t old Ned Farmer. Good old Ned way off here on—”

  “No,” Heimrich said. “I’m not good old Ned Farmer.”

  He was looked at blankly.

  “Got to be,” the round man said. “Pretending to be good old Ned Farmer. Not a damn bit like him and you know it.”

  “Heimling, his name is,” Susan said. “Come on, Mr. Heimling. Good-by, Mr. Farmer.”

  Words and sentences come out of a crowd—come out lonely and with no context. “On the way back from Nassau—” came out of the crowd, on a male voice. They did not wait to hear about the way back from Nassau. “It was our fifth,” rode out of the crowd on a woman’s carrying voice. “I gave him a one-way ticket to Europe as an anniversary present.”

  Susan looked up at Merton Heimrich, and he looked down at her. Both raised their eyebrows; both shook their heads.

  The nearest exit now was across the room and through a multitude. They made it.

  “I don’t think there’s anybody we know here,” Susan said. “Let’s go up and see Mario. And sit down and have a quiet drink.”

  The veranda belvedere was not empty. There were, it was evident, others who preferred to drink sitting down. Mario was everywhere, as he had been before. But he was free to greet the Heimrichs, to say, “Madam-sir,” being in an American mood, and to lead them to a small sofa behind a table and facing the dance floor, on which nobody was dancing. He said, “I remember, sir. As before, sir?”

  “As before,” Heimrich said, and Mario said, “O.K., Inspector,” and went away.

  And the tall, very thin man with gray hair on the sofa next theirs, with the pretty blond woman who wore evening pajamas with blue in them which matched her eyes, turned to Heimrich and said, “Inspector Heimrich? Thought it might be, y’know.”

  “Yes, Sir Ronald,” Heimrich said.

  “Heard of you,” Ronald Grimes said. “Try to sort people out. You do too, apparently. This is my wife, Inspector.”

  Heimrich said, “Lady Grimes.” He said, “Mrs. Heimrich.”

  “Bit of a brawl down below,” Sir Ronald said. “Always is, come to that. Ellen and I give them a miss. Won’t be another this voyage, y’know. There’s always that.”

  There had not been time for it, but Mario arrived with drinks.

  “Something of a miracle, our Mario,” Sir Ronald said. “Always has been. Cheers. Or do you Americans say, ‘Down the hatch’?”

  “None I’ve ever known,” Susan said. “Do the English say, ‘What-what’?”

  Ellen Grimes laughed. She had light, clear laughter. She said, “Only in Wodehouse. I think. Oh, perhaps a generation ago. A restful voyage so far, Mrs. Heimrich? Italia’s a pleasant ship, we think.”

  “Very restful,” Susan said, and thought it chitchat. But, on the whole, the Grimeses’ chitchat. “You’ve been on this ship before, I gather?”

  “From time to time,” Sir Ronald said. “When there was time to spare.” He spoke lightly, and smiled at them. But then he said, “Now there’s all the time in the world, y’know.” His voice was different on the last words. The lightness had gone out of it. “Flew back and forth a bit in the old days.”

  “When you were in Washington,” Susan said. “Or at the U.N.” She paused for a moment. Then she said, “You see, we’ve heard of you too, Sir Ronald.”

  “Can’t imagine how,” Ronald Grimes said. “No top jobs. Nothing like that. On my way to pasture now. Mandatory in the service. End up growing roses, shouldn’t wonder. Or, come to that, cabbages.” His voice was light again. Then he raised it. He said, “Oh, Bert. Colleague of yours here.”

  A slight, middle-aged man was following Mario across the dance floor, toward a small table with a single chair. He stopped and turned. He was the man they had seen leave a similar small table the evening before, just after the Grimeses had left the younger couple at the table they had shared. “Bert” was the man who was invisible until he moved.

  He stopped his progress toward the table and turned to them and said, “Evening.”

  “Detective Inspector Albert Hunt, Heimrich,” Grimes said. “Inspector Heimrich, Hunt. New York State Police. That right, Heimrich?”

  “That’s right,” Heimrich said and reached across the table to take Hunt’s reticently extended hand. “Evening, Inspector.”

  “After malefactors, Bert?” Grimes said. “Or just—”

  He left it hang.

  “Man in New York we wanted a word with,” Hunt said. “Nothing important, Sir Ronald.”

  “Join us?” Grimes said.

  Hunt shook his head. “Just time for a quick one, sir,” he said. “Working on a report. Better get on with it. Pleasure to meet you, Inspector.” He half bowed to Susan. He went on to the table by which Mario waited.

  “Good chap, from all I hear,” Grimes said. “Ran into him in London last time I was there. Little matter came up. Trivial, really. Hunt straightened it out in no time.”

  The dinner chimes sounded. Ronald Grimes turned to his wife. He said, “What say, m’dear?”

  Lady Grimes’s glass was still half full. She emptied it and said, “Of course, Ronald.” Her voice was as light and clear as her laughter had been. Grimes stood up and pushed back the little sofa, and the two of them stood for a moment looking down at the Heimrichs.

  “Been a pleasure, y’know,” Grimes said. “See you about, probably.”

  Heimrich stood up. He made agreeing sounds. Sir Ronald Grimes, Bart., followed Lady Grimes out of the veranda belvedere. Heimrich sat down again to his barely touched martini.

  “Supposed to be stand-offish,” Susan said. “Reserved and all that sort of thing. She’s very pretty, isn’t she?”

  “Very,” Heimrich said.

  “And,” Susan said, �
�about twenty years younger than he is, wouldn’t you say?”

  “That would be putting her at forty, since he’s probably sixty. She’s more like thirty-five, I’d say.”

  “And he’s retired, I gather. Going home to grow roses. Or perhaps cabbages. On the ancestral acres.”

  “It any.”

  “He’s a baronet,” Susan said. “Baronets always have ancestral acres. They just missed their friends.”

  Heimrich raised his eyebrows.

  “The couple they were with last night,” Susan said. “A big man with a mustache. A girl with black hair. He looked like—”

  “I remember,” Heimrich said. “Missed them?”

  “They just came in,” Susan said. “Through the other entrance. I mean, the one the Grimeses didn’t go out through. If one can go out through an entrance.”

  “Quite possible, I’d think,” Heimrich said, and looked the way Susan was looking. The girl’s hair still fitted like a black cap. Mario met them. He took them to a small sofa on the other side of the dance floor.

  “Lady Grimes hadn’t finished her drink,” Susan said. “Hadn’t nearly finished. He—did he hurry them off, Merton?”

  “Possibly,” Merton Heimrich said. “Probably he was just hungry.”

  Mario paused in front of them.

  “Please,” Heimrich said and circled a finger over empty glasses.

  Mario said, “Sir-madam,” and took the empty glasses away.

  “Isn’t he small to be a policeman?” Susan said.

  “Hunt? A little, perhaps. I don’t know the English standards. You’re very observant tonight, Susan.”

  “Oh,” she said, “new people. I make up stories about new people. You know that. As you—as you find out old stories about them. The Grimses go away rather suddenly. To avoid the people they were with last night and—”