Murder on the Mauretania

by Conrad Allen

  Her presence did not go unnoticed for long. A graceful figure materialized. “Good morning!” said Katherine Wymark cheerfully.

  “Good morning,” replied Genevieve. “Would you care to join me?”

  “As long as your friends don’t mind. They seem very territorial.”

  “They were also very tired when I left them last night. My guess is that they’re all still snoring peacefully in bed. Besides,” she went on, “I’m not their exclusive property.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.”

  Katherine lowered herself into a seat and reached for the menu. Even at this time of the morning, she looked her best: sleek, well-groomed, and immaculately dressed. Genevieve estimated that she must have spent far longer in front of a mirror than she herself had been prepared to do. A waiter took Katherine’s order, freeing her to concentrate on her companion.

  “What has you up so bright and early?” she asked.

  “I like to make full use of the day,” said Genevieve. “Somehow, I just can’t lie in bed of a morning for hours on end.”

  “My husband can. Walter rarely gets up before ten.”

  “Isn’t that rather unfair to you?”

  “Not at all,” said Katherine airily. “I just begin the day quietly on my own. Being apart from time to time is an important part of marriage. Our marriage, in any case. You have to give each other space in which to grow and blossom.” She gave a smile. “But I’m quite certain that you’ve already found that out.”

  “I’ve never been married, Mrs. Wymark.”

  “A wedding ring is not always necessary. You understand men.”

  “Do I?”

  “Oh, I think so, Miss Masefield.”

  There was a pause. “Do you play chess yourself?” asked Genevieve.

  “Chess? No, it’s far too complicated for me.”

  “But your husband seems to enjoy it.”

  “Walter will play anything when there’s a chance of winning money at it.”

  Genevieve was shocked. “There’s cash involved?”

  “Of course,” said the other. “Orvill Delaney is something of a gambler as well. He and my husband talk the same language. Instead of playing cards in the smoking room, they prefer to have a quiet game of chess. No law against that, is there?”

  “None at all, Mrs. Wymark.”

  “Good.” A thought nudged her. “Oh, I meant to ask you about that friend of yours.”

  “What friend?”

  “You may well ask, Miss Masefield. You’ve made so many in such a short time, and I’m pleased to be among them. But the lady I have in mind is the one who managed to lose her watch.”

  “Ah, yes. Mrs. Dalkeith.”

  “That was the name. Did she ever find the watch?”

  “Fortunately, she did.”

  “I’m pleased to hear that.”

  “Mrs. Dalkeith had simply mislaid it,” said Genevieve, making no reference to the way in which the watch had been returned. “She was thrilled to have it back.”

  “Then it was in vain, was it?”

  “What was?”

  “Your detective work,” said Katherine with the tiniest hint of mockery.

  “The watch is back where it should be, Mrs. Wymark. That’s all that concerns me.”

  “Quite so.”

  There was another pause as their breakfast arrived. The two waiters unloaded it onto the table, then quietly withdrew. Katherine reached for her grapefruit juice.

  “What does the day hold for you?” she asked, taking a first taste.

  “Oh, I have a number of people to see and things to pack in.”

  “I’m in the same position myself. I just hope that the weather is a little less menacing today. It takes the edge off one’s enjoyment.”

  At that moment, a middle-aged man strolled up to their table and stopped to give a polite bow. Tall, stiff, and rather formal, he had a faintly old-fashioned air about him.

  “Oh, good morning, Mr. Fenby,” said Katherine smoothly. She indicated her friend. “Have you met Genevieve Masefield?”

  “I’ve not had that pleasure.” He gave another bow. “Edgar Fenby.”

  “How do you do, Mr. Fenby?” said Genevieve, recognizing him as the bearded man whom she had seen talking with Katherine Wymark on an earlier occasion. “Are you enjoying the voyage?”

  “Very much. One meets such interesting people.”

  After a third bow, he went off to join friends at a table on the other side of the saloon. Genevieve found his manner a little strained, but Katherine looked after him with an indulgent smile.

  “We met Edgar in London,” she explained. “He’s so irredeemably English, isn’t he? Walter likes him, and that’s not always the case with his business associates.”

  “Business associates?”

  “He and Edgar have done a few deals in the past.”

  “I see.”

  “My husband buys and sells, Miss Masefield. He uses a more polite word for it, but that’s what it comes down to, and it’s certainly lucrative enough. Also,” she said, taking another sip of her grapefruit juice, “it does bring characters like Edgar Fenby into our social circle. I think he’s rather sweet in a subdued kind of way.”

  “Yes,” said Genevieve without conviction.

  “Do I hear a note of disapproval?”

  “No, Mrs. Wymark. I’ve only just met him. I haven’t formed a judgment one way or the other. Mr. Fenby seems like an extremely nice man, but you know him much better than I do. He is, as you say, a typical Englishman.”

  “I find that refreshing.”

  They addressed themselves to their breakfast and confined themselves to more neutral topics of conversation. Genevieve was not relishing her company as much as she had in the past, and she could not understand why. For her part, Katherine Wymark was as relaxed and urbane as ever. They were eating their toast before the American woman dropped a casual remark.

  “What do you think of your new admirer?” she asked.

  “Admirer?”

  “You must’ve spotted him, Miss Masefield. He hasn’t taken his eyes off you for the last ten minutes. I ought to be jealous, I suppose,” she teased, “because at first I thought he was looking at me, but you’re the one who has caught his eye.”

  “Am I?”

  “No question of that. Look to your left. Orvill Delaney’s table.”

  Genevieve tensed. She had deliberately taken up a position with her back to Delaney so that she would not have to meet his glances. The thought that he might have sent the anonymous note worried her, and she wanted to be spared any meaningful looks he might send her way. When she glanced around now, she saw that Delaney had already left the room. Four people were still at the table he had vacated, but only one was gazing in her direction. He was the last person whose interest she expected to arouse. Staring at her with a quiet intensity was the young Englishman whom she had met briefly on the previous day. Patrick Skelton was not as reserved and preoccupied as he had been on that occasion. His gaze was polite, but unrelenting. Genevieve thought about the note that had been pushed under her door, and her stomach lurched.

  The search began at once. As soon as Dillman reported the disappearance of Max Hirsch, the purser summoned four men and put them under the direction of the American. They were thorough. Beginning on the boat deck, they worked their way slowly down through the whole vessel, looking, questioning, searching every corner, using an array of master keys to let themselves into unoccupied cabins, even scouring the boiler rooms in an attempt to find the missing man.

  Dillman had a growing sense of unease. A man as cunning and experienced as Max Hirsch was unlikely to have gone astray. Nor would he have taken up with another woman when he and Agnes Cameron had become so close. As they worked their way through steerage, then shifted their search to the lower decks, Dillman’s fears began to harden. Something had happened to the thief with the penchant for silver. Three patient hours failed to turn up the slightest clue as to his wh
ereabouts. When he returned to the purser’s office, Dillman was pessimistic.

  “No sign of him, Mr. Buxton,” he announced.

  “The man must be on the ship somewhere.”

  “Well, we couldn’t find him and we left no stone unturned, I promise you.”

  “What on earth could have happened to the fellow?”

  “I’m wondering if he may have chanced his arm once too often.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Buxton.

  “Hirsch has been very lucky so far,” explained Dillman. “He was my prime suspect for all those thefts, but I just didn’t have any firm evidence. He made sure of that. At one point he almost laughed in my face. I think he may have become overconfident and chosen the wrong victim.”

  “Someone caught him and gave him a good hiding?”

  “It could be even worse than that, Mr. Buxton.”

  “Worse?”

  “Yes,” said Dillman solemnly. “There’s only one conclusion that we can reach. For reasons unknown, Max Hirsch is no longer on board the Mauretania.”

  TWELVE

  Hester Littlejohn was tireless. While taking part in all the tours, lectures, and other events specifically set up for the large press corps aboard, she also found time to explore the vessel on her own, interview passengers and crew, keep a careful record of the speed and distance achieved each day, compare the food served in first-, second-, and third-class saloons, collect some of the more disturbing tales of woe from immigrants in steerage, and investigate what she perceived as the gross exploitation of some of those employed on the Mauretania. She was a highly visible crusader. Even in a ship of that size, she was somehow never out of sight. Dillman had lost track of the number of times she flitted across his vision. He would gladly have done without their latest encounter.

  “Good morning, Mr. Dillman!” she said affably.

  “Oh. Hello, Mrs. Littlejohn.”

  “The weather is still quite dreadful out there.”

  “You’ve been out on deck?” he asked in surprise.

  “Of course. Only for a few minutes, mind you. But I wanted to get some fresh air into my lungs. It’s very windy out there, but a big improvement on yesterday.”

  “Yes. We ran head-on into a November gale, unfortunately. They can be lethal.”

  “That was almost the case, I understand.”

  “Do you?”

  “According to the reports I heard, the spare anchor came adrift and there was a three-hour struggle to secure it again. During that time, it shot across the heaving deck and could easily have crushed someone to death.”

  “It’s an enormous weight, Mrs. Littlejohn.”

  “Do you know what one of the men told me?”

  “What, Mrs. Littlejohn?”

  “They had a mystery helper. Someone who wasn’t even a member of the crew joined in to lend them an extra pair of hands. They were very grateful even though they have no idea who the passenger was.” She moved in closer. “I wish that I did. The man’s a hero. He was impelled to help in an emergency. I’d give anything for an exclusive interview with him.”

  “He might not think that appropriate.”

  “But I could feature him in my article, Mr. Dillman. At least the crew were getting paid for what they did, albeit inadequately. But this passenger won’t get a penny. It was a remarkable display of courage,” she insisted. “Quite selfless. Most of us wouldn’t have dared to even venture out on deck in that gale, yet he was prepared to wrestle with that spare anchor alongside the others.”

  “It was his decision,” he said modestly. “I suggest that you leave it at that.”

  Mrs. Littlejohn was not easy to shake off. “I found out something else,” she said in a confiding whisper.

  “Did you?”

  “There’s been an outbreak of theft aboard.”

  “Oh?” said Dillman, masking his concern that she had heard the news. “Where did you learn that?”

  “In the third-class kitchens. I was trying to find out how much the chefs are paid, when I overhead someone complaining about tools being stolen. Crowbars, I think he said. Then,” she continued, “I went into the first-class kitchens and discovered that they’d had a trolley taken.”

  “A trolley?”

  “The one they use to wheel the boxes of food up from the storage areas.”

  “I see.”

  “Needless to say, the chefs in first class have a higher wage than those in second, and the ones in steerage are at the very bottom of the wage ladder. It’s the British class system all over again,” she argued, a glint in her eye. “The crew is a sort of microcosm of it.”

  “There has to be a hierarchy aboard ship, Mrs. Littlejohn.”

  “You’re a seafaring man yourself. You’re bound to defend it.”

  “I don’t really have time to defend anything just now,” he said, trying to get away.

  “But I haven’t told you about the worst theft, Mr. Dillman.”

  “The worst one?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I caught wind of it by accident, and I’m on my way to the purser now to see if the rumor is true or not.”

  “What rumor?”

  “Someone in first class had a complete set of solid silver cutlery stolen.”

  “Indeed?”

  “I’m wondering if the crimes might be related.”

  “Related? I’m not sure that I follow, Mrs. Littlejohn.”

  “Then you’d never make a detective,” she teased, giving him a playful nudge. “Think of what was taken. Crowbars, a trolley, and presumably a large box in which the cutlery was kept. What if the crowbar was used to get into the cabin and the trolley to wheel away the stolen property? It might have been concealed in some way. I mean, a man with a box of cutlery under his arm would be rather conspicuous. But someone wheeling a trolley that was loaded with other items would pass unnoticed.” She touched his arm. “Do you see what I’m getting at, Mr. Dillman?”

  “You think a member of the crew is involved?”

  “He must be. Who else would know where to find those things? Besides, if you or I or any other passenger were seen with a trolley, we’d arouse immediate suspicion. But it would look quite normal for a steward to be delivering a load of boxes somewhere.”

  “That’s true,” he conceded.

  “I’m going to mention my theory to the purser,” she said smugly. “Yes, and I want to ask him about that black cat as well. Wherever I go, I keep seeing it.”

  “That’s Bobo.”

  “Who?”

  “The ship’s mascot. Bobo has the run of the ship.”

  “That’s certainly true. He’s ubiquitous.”

  “Just like you, Mrs. Littlejohn,” he said with a smile.

  Before she could detain him any longer, he made an excuse and withdrew.

  Dillman was irritated by the conversation with the journalist. Much as he liked the woman herself, he was annoyed that she had heard about the theft of the tools from the third-class kitchens, and perplexed that she knew about the disappearance of a trolley when that crime had not even been reported to the purser.

  What really peeved him was the fact that she had somehow become aware of the theft of the silverware from the Goldblatts’ cabin, though her assumption that it was taken in its box showed that she had no knowledge of the details. Maurice Buxton, he knew, would not provide those details to her or to anyone else. Like Dillman, the purser had impressed upon the Goldblatts the need to keep the news about their loss from the other passengers because it would cause unnecessary fears and might, in practical terms, hamper the investigation carried out by the detectives. If rumors of the theft had reached Hester Littlejohn’s ears, they might also have spread farther afield, and that was a source of worry.

  There was one consolation to be drawn from the chat. Bobo had been sighted. In her ceaseless movement about the ship, the inquisitive Mrs. Littlejohn had seen the black cat a number of times. Dillman would speak to Alexandra Jarvis on the subject, gratef
ul that there was at least one person aboard to whom he could give good news.

  _______

  It was her third visit to a distraught passenger that morning. After spending an hour with Ralph Goldblatt, trying to offer sympathy and comfort, Genevieve Masefield had gone on to Clifford Tavistock’s cabin to repeat the process. The Englishman was still mortified at the loss of his eyeglass case, baffled that someone should take an item that only a collector like himself would truly appreciate. It took even longer for Genevieve to placate him, and she was forced to listen to an instructive, if meandering, lecture on his hobby while she did so. Dillman caught up with her outside the first-class lounge. After passing on the tidings about Max Hirsch’s strange and inexplicable disappearance, he gave her another assignment.

  It proved to be the most difficult of the three. Agnes Cameron was in torment. “What can have happened to him, Miss Masefield?” she wailed.

  “We’ll soon find out, Mrs. Cameron.”

  “But I reported him missing hours ago. The purser promised me faithfully that he’d instigate a search at once. Hasn’t he done that?”

  “I believe that it’s still under way,” said Genevieve.

  “After all this time?”

  “Mr. Hirsch is proving rather elusive.”

  They were in Mrs. Cameron’s cabin, and it looked as if the woman would not be stirring from it for some time. It was almost as though she were in mourning. Eyes red-rimmed from continuous weeping, she sat on the edge of her chair with her body contorted, her hands clasped tightly, and her face lacerated with anxiety. Genevieve was patient. Whatever she and Dillman might suspect about the man, Mrs. Cameron obviously loved him and that fact had to be respected. It would be cruel to even hint that she had given her affection to a man who was a compulsive thief. Pencil poised, Genevieve sat with her notebook on her knee.