by Conrad Allen
Genevieve was relieved to see that one of her other suspects, Patrick Skelton, was not even in the dining saloon, but she could not decide if his absence ruled him out or if he was merely lurking in readiness to ambush her elsewhere. Orvill Delaney was at a table nearby, chatting happily with a group of people as if they were lifelong friends instead of acquaintances he had made on the voyage. Genevieve was interested to see that Edgar Fenby was in the party, pushing each topic of conversation around as if passing the salt with excessive care. Walter Wymark, his business associate, was at a table in an alcove with his wife. In an almost exclusively male party, Katherine Wymark was in no way abashed, and Genevieve admired the way in which she was palpably holding her own. Her husband seemed more animated and gregarious than hitherto.
“Where’ve you been all morning, Genevieve?” asked Susan.
“Here and there,” she replied.
“I looked for you all over the place.”
“I had someone to visit, Susan.”
“Donald and I had breakfast in bed,” announced Theodora.
“Is that what they call it these days?” said Denning archly. “There was a time when ‘connubial bliss’ was the accepted phrase. I always regretted that I never experienced it myself.”
“Not with a wife of your own, anyway,” observed Ruth.
Brittle laughter greeted the comment. Denning did not mind that it was at his expense. He blew a kiss across the table at Ruth and got a cool stare in return. The laughter was just dying away when Orvill Delaney came over to the table.
“I didn’t think that the menu was all that funny,” he said amiably. “How do you do, Miss Masefield? Oh, and I believe that we’ve met as well, Miss Constantine.”
“We have indeed, Mr. Delaney.”
Ruth took charge of the introductions, and the newcomer could soon put names to all the faces. He made a few neutral comments about the weather, then started to move off. Genevieve put up a hand to catch his attention.
“I must let you have that magazine back, Mr. Delaney,” she said.
“Please keep it, Miss Masefield.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m always looking for converts to the joys of O. Henry.”
“Well, you’ve certainly found one in me.”
He gave her a gracious bow, then strode out of the room. Genevieve was puzzled. His manner toward her had undergone a subtle change. He was still very courteous, but there was a wariness that had not been there before. She wondered if he might be having second thoughts about an anonymous note he had dashed off. Her companions were uniformly impressed by Orvill Delaney.
“He was almost human,” said Belfrage grudgingly.
“Unlike you,” murmured Ruth.
“Do you suppose he plays bridge?” asked Denning.
“Mr. Delaney prefers chess, actually,” said Genevieve.
“You’re obviously on intimate terms with him.”
“I hardly know the man.”
“Accepting presents from him. Taking his advice about what to read. Knowing his habits and preferences.” He gave her a shrewd look. “You’ve obviously been improving Anglo–American relations, Genevieve.”
“I’m glad that somebody has,” said Ruth sharply. “If it was left to Donald, we’d be sailing to America in order to declare war on the country.”
“Colonials must be kept in their place.”
“They’re not in the Empire any longer, Donald.”
“More’s the pity!”
On that slightly sour note, the meal came to an end. As they got up from the table, Genevieve refused the invitation to join them in the lounge, saying she had an appointment. Denning clutched his hands against his heart in a gesture of despair, but Donald Belfrage was even more expressive. Touching her lightly on the elbow, he gave Genevieve a kiss on the cheek and whispered something in her ear that she did not quite catch. She responded to the communal farewell and made for the grand staircase, more confused than ever about the authorship of her nocturnal missive. Three men had spoken to her in the dining saloon, and each one of them was a potential correspondent.
As she descended the stairs, a fourth name resurfaced. Standing at the bottom of the first flight, Patrick Skelton looked up at her with the same intensity he had shown before. It was almost as if he were waiting for her. Genevieve was determined not to stop.
“Hello, Mr. Skelton,” she said.
“Good day to you, Miss Masefield,” he replied civilly.
Skelton stepped aside so that she could move past him. Genevieve went on down the next flight without daring to look behind her, feeling his gaze follow her all the way.
Alone in his cabin, George Porter Dillman unrolled the map on his table and held its curling edges in place with a tooth mug, a bunch of keys, and two bars of soap. A detailed plan of the Mauretania lay before him, showing him all that he needed to see of her interior. To Dillman’s practiced eye, the ship was a true marvel, but he did not allow himself to savor the finer points of naval architecture. What he was looking for were places where Max Hirsch could conceivably be hiding, held against his will, or—the possibility had to be considered—lying dead from natural or foul means. There were nine decks in all, seven above the load line. Each offered an array of potential refuges. The orlop deck was given over exclusively to machinery, with the exception of the forward holds, where insulated space was provided for the storage of food and perishable cargo. The lower orlop deck could also be discounted.
Passenger and crew accommodations accounted for large areas of the vessel. The missing man could be in any one of several hundred cabins. The more Dillman studied the plan, the more difficult the problem became. It would take days for him to search every last corner of the vessel, and instinct was telling him that his efforts would be futile. By the time Genevieve arrived, he was starting to accept the inevitable conclusion.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” she said, accepting his kiss of welcome as he admitted her to the cabin. “It was tricky getting away from the luncheon table.”
“At least you sat down at one, Genevieve. I missed out on food altogether.”
“An upset tummy, or a devotion to duty?”
“I simply want to find Max Hirsch.”
“I can endorse that wish, George. So can Mrs. Cameron.” She saw the map. “That’s a novel use for a couple of bars of soap.”
“I had to improvise.”
“So did I,” sighed Genevieve. “All the way through the meal.”
“How did you get on with Mrs. Cameron?”
“She was on the verge of collapse, poor thing. I did all I could to be supportive, but she’s starting to fear the worst. It’s now over twenty-four hours since she last saw him.”
“Did she have no idea of where he might be?”
“None at all. She was very grateful for the way you consoled her earlier, but rather ashamed that she’d broken down in front of you like that.”
“I didn’t mind, Genevieve.”
“I don’t think she realized just how much she cared for Max Hirsch.”
“How did he do it?” asked Dillman skeptically. “Hypnosis?”
Genevieve sat down and took out her notebook to refresh her memory before giving him a concise account of her interview with Agnes Cameron. Dillman heard nothing he did not expect. He ran a meditative hand through his hair.
“As I see it,” he decided, “there are three possibilities. Suicide can be excluded because Hirsch just wasn’t the type. Besides, he had far too much to live for. That leaves us with the possibility that he’s on board somewhere, alive or dead. The second option is that he went up on the deck during that storm yesterday and was washed overboard.”
“Only a maniac would have gone out in that tempest.”
“You’re looking at one,” said Dillman with a smile. “We now come to the third and most serious possibility. Max Hirsch is no longer on the vessel because somebody deliberately helped him off it.”
“Why
would anyone do that, George?”
“Ask the Goldblatts. Ask Clifford Tavistock. Ask any of the people he robbed.” He raised a finger. “Apart from the Rosenwalds, that is. If Hirsch went into the water, they’d be more likely to raise the alarm and man a lifeboat. Stanley and Miriam Rosenwald don’t have a vengeful bone in their bodies.”
“What about his other victims? Would they hate him enough to kill him?”
“To want to kill him perhaps,” said Dillman, “but I can’t see any of them actually going through with it. Besides, they don’t even know that Max Hirsch is the man who stole their property. They simply couldn’t strike out at him.”
“So who did?”
“We don’t know that anyone did, Genevieve,” he cautioned. “All we can do is to make educated guesses, based on our knowledge of Max Hirsch and his movements.”
“Most of those seem to have been in the direction of Mrs. Cameron.”
Dillman nodded and walked across to the porthole. He gazed out at the sea, which was still turbulent but causing none of the havoc of the previous day. After again sifting through all the unanswered questions in his mind, he turned to face Genevieve.
“Where’s that briefcase?” he asked.
“Briefcase?”
“According to those two Welshmen who saw him on the prowl, Hirsch was carrying a briefcase. He’d needed something to put his loot in, and a briefcase would attract less notice than a large bundle marked ‘Swag.’ Where is it?” he asked, moving across to her. “Yesterday afternoon it must have contained a silver-and-ivory eyeglass case and sixty-four pieces of solid silver cutlery. Nobody would throw that kind of haul overboard, surely?”
“It must still be on the ship, George.”
“And so must all the other stuff he stole. There was no sign of it in his cabin, nor of that briefcase. I was very thorough in my search. In fact,” he recalled, “when I first began to put pressure on Hirsch, he offered me the key to his cabin. That meant he had nothing incriminating stowed away in it.”
“So where did he hide his loot?”
“With an accomplice. Except that he gave every indication of being a lone wolf.”
“Wait a moment,” said Genevieve, getting to her feet. “Perhaps he did have an accomplice. An unwitting one maybe, but she might have provided a hiding place for him.”
“She?”
“Mrs. Cameron. I sensed that she was holding something back from me. Now I know what it was, George. Ridiculous as this may sound, I believe that Hirsch spent Sunday night in her cabin.”
“They slept together?” he exclaimed in astonishment.
“That’s their business. I’m not their moral guardian. What I can say is that their relationship had reached a very critical point. Mrs. Cameron more or less admitted it.”
“But they only met on the boat train.”
“Passion can bubble very quickly at times,” she said with a twinkle in her eye. “It has to be the explanation, don’t you see? Hirsch wooed her in order to have somewhere safe to hide whatever he stole. He spent the night with her on Sunday.”
“Are you certain about that?”
“Yes, George, and I’m certain about something else as well.”
“What’s that?”
“Hirsch took a lot more into that cabin than a pair of pajamas.”
THIRTEEN
Alexandra Jarvis was young enough to look disarmingly innocent, but old enough to have mastered the arts of manipulation. When she wanted something enough, there were usually ways to secure it. After displaying ten minutes of sincere but calculated affection for her grandmother, she nestled into the old woman’s shoulder.
“Can I go for a walk, please, Granny?” she asked.
“No, Ally. You’re to stay in here with me.”
“But I’ve finished my book and there’s nothing else to read.”
“You heard what your parents said.”
“All they told me to do was to look after you,” said the girl artlessly.
Lily Pomeroy grinned. “I thought it was the other way around,” she remarked, “but I suppose that it’s a bit of both, really. Anyway, you’re staying put, young lady.”
“Not if you come for a walk with me.”
“What?”
“You must be as bored as I am with looking at the same walls. Let’s go for a stroll. That’s where Mummy and Daddy have gone.”
“Then you should have tagged along with them.”
“But I’d much rather be with you, Granny,” said Alexandra, leaning over to give her a kiss. “You’re kind to me. And I didn’t want to have another row with Noel.”
Mrs. Pomeroy sighed and hauled herself out of her seat. “I suppose it won’t do me any harm to stretch my legs, though we’re not going out on deck. It’s far too cold. Hold my hand,” she ordered, grasping the girl’s palm. “I don’t want you running off.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it, Granny.”
“Yes you would.” They headed for the door. “Where shall we go?”
“It doesn’t matter. We’ll just walk and be together.”
But she knew exactly where she wanted to take her grandmother. For her part, Lily Pomeroy had the feeling that the casual stroll had a fixed destination. She did not mind. Though she had been maneuvered into the situation, she was prepared to indulge Alexandra. She remembered the warnings that Oliver Jarvis had given his daughter, but for the moment, her son-in-law’s strictures could be quietly forgotten.
Delighted to have her own way, Alexandra led her grandmother toward the officers’ quarters at a gentle pace. When she saw the door of Reynolds’ cabin ajar, her hopes were raised and she broke clear of the old woman to run forward. She tapped on the door, then opened it, expecting to see Bobo munching his way through his afternoon meal. But there was no sign of the black cat. The scraps of meat in his feeding bowl were untouched. She looked up in despair at the officer.
“Where is he, Mr. Reynolds?” she whimpered.
“I don’t know, Alexandra,” he admitted. “Bobo will turn up soon, I’m sure.”
His smile was confident, but she saw the lingering doubt in his eyes.
Agnes Cameron was both surprised and alarmed when the two of them called on her. It was only when Dillman introduced himself properly and explained that he was leading the search for her erstwhile friend that she agreed to let them both into the cabin.
“Is there any news, Mr. Dillman?” she asked.
“I’m afraid not, Mrs. Cameron,” he said, “but the search continues.”
“Why on earth can’t you find him?”
“The Mauretania is the largest ship in the world. It takes time to work our way through it. After I reported Mr. Hirsch’s disappearance this morning, I led a team of men on an immediate sweep of the vessel. We looked everywhere but saw no trace of him.”
“Something has happened to him,” she said, sinking into a chair.
“Don’t jump to conclusions, Mrs. Cameron,” advised Genevieve softly.
“Max has had an accident of some sort.”
“We don’t know that.”
“I do, Miss Masefield,” said the other wearily. “I sensed it as soon as I woke up this morning. Max just wouldn’t let me down this way. He’s far too considerate.” She turned to Dillman. “Tell me the truth, Mr. Dillman. Please. Don’t hide it from me.”
“Very well,” he said, lowering his voice. “Until we learn otherwise, Max Hirsch is missing, presumed dead.”
Agnes Cameron gasped. Genevieve touched her shoulder in a gesture of sympathy then sat beside her. Dillman remained on his feet. The older woman was in a delicate condition. Her hands tightly bunched, she was trembling with apprehension. Dillman knew that he would have to proceed with great care. Not wishing to cause her more pain, he foresaw that some distress was inevitable. Tact and discretion might help to alleviate it. Genevieve’s presence was another valuable factor. They had rehearsed their approach.
“Mr. Dillman would like to ask you a f
ew questions, Mrs. Cameron.”
“But I’ve told you all I can,” protested Mrs. Cameron.
“You were extremely helpful,” said Genevieve, “and we’re very grateful. But there are one or two things that I didn’t touch on.”
“What sort of things?”
“I’ll let Mr. Dillman explain.”
“Mrs. Cameron,” he said gently, “I’m sorry that we have to intrude into your private life, but we need to build up a clear picture of Mr. Hirsch.”
“But you knew him yourself, Mr. Dillman,” said Mrs. Cameron. “That’s how we first met. You were talking to Max on Sunday night.” She sounded faintly betrayed. “Of course I didn’t know then that you were a detective.”
“I need to ask you about Mr. Hirsch’s briefcase.”
“His briefcase?”
“Were you aware that he had one?”
“Well, yes. He came in here with it, as it happens.”
“How many times? Once? Twice?”
“I don’t think that’s any business of yours, Mr. Dillman,” she said, bridling.
“It’s important for us to know,” explained Genevieve, leaning over to her. “We believe that the briefcase may give us some important clues.”
“I don’t see how, Miss Masefield.”
“You admit that he did bring it in here?” asked Dillman, taking over again.
“Yes,” conceded Mrs. Cameron.
“And is it in here now, by any chance?”
“No,” she denied hotly. “It’s not, Mr. Dillman. And I fail to see that Max’s briefcase has anything to do with his disappearance. The most likely place you’ll find it is where it should be—in his cabin.”
“I’ve already searched that, Mrs. Cameron. The briefcase is not there.”
“Oh. I see.”
“So Mr. Hirsch must have had it with him when he disappeared. However,” he went on, “since he did bring it into your cabin, there’s a possibility that he might have left some of its contents here.”
Mrs. Cameron jumped to her feet. “He left nothing here!” she insisted.
