by Conrad Allen
“That trolley was returned, Mrs. Littlejohn.”
“I know,” she said. “Mr. Buxton told me. But those other items haven’t come back yet, have they? There were those tools taken from the third-class kitchen. That’s a crime that needs to be solved very quickly.”
“I’m sure there’s an investigation in progress.”
“Well, I hope the villain is caught soon. It’s rather frightening to think of someone wandering around with a crowbar in his hand. While he’s at liberty, no woman is safe,” she said anxiously. “He could break into any of our cabins.”
“That would give you a good story for your readers.”
“I’m serious, Mr. Dillman!”
“I know,” he said, soothing her with a kind smile. “But I can guarantee that you’re not in any danger. The chances of the thief having a grudge against the Ladies’ Weekly Journal are very slight. You can sleep safe in your bed, Mrs. Littlejohn.”
“Why would anyone steal those tools?” she pressed.
“I’ve no idea. I’m not even certain they were stolen. After all, that trolley was returned in due course. Maybe the tools are already back where they should be by now,” he said easily. “I wouldn’t have thought it was worth missing your sleep over.”
“You’re probably right, Mr. Dillman.”
“If you’re still worried about being accosted by a homicidal maniac wielding a crowbar, I’d be happy to escort you to your cabin.”
“How kind!” she said, taking his arm. “I accept your offer, sir. I knew that my nocturnal wanderings would bring some reward.” She beamed happily as they walked along. “Tell me more about this missing cat, Mr. Dillman.”
With his food supply restored, Bobo was enjoying the freedom of the ship, padding along silently until he met anything that aroused his curiosity. Apart from an occasional steward on patrol, he encountered nobody in the floating maze that was the Mauretania. When he turned into the passageway that led to the security room, however, he saw something that made him stop, watch, and marvel. Shirt stained with sweat and face glistening, a muscular young man was inserting something under the door before using his foot to press down hard. Bobo began to groom himself. One eye on the man, he licked a paw and used it like a loofah on the back of his head.
It was at that point that Glyn Bowen saw him. He gave a grunt of surprise that caused Mansell Price to abandon his work and swing around with sudden fear. The two men spoke in hoarse whispers.
“It’s that cat again,” said Bowen, pointing.
Price relaxed. “Is that all? I thought someone was coming.”
“They will before long, Mansell. Stewards patrol past here on the hour.”
“But they’re not always on time, as we found out last night when we kept watch down here. Anyway,” said Price, “I’m almost there. I can feel it.”
Breaking into the security room was taking longer than he had anticipated. He was having to call on all the power and experience developed during his years down a coal mine. Leverage was the secret. He used the bolster chisel as a wedge, tapping it in position with the lump hammer and muffling the noise with strips of sacking. His aim was to weaken the hinges of the door so he could twist it slightly out of shape and burst the locks one by one. It required strength, patience, and experimentation. Bowen was there as a lookout, moving between the two ends of the passageway to check that nobody was coming in their direction. His friend might be doing the hard physical work, but Bowen himself was also dripping with sweat and troubled by prickly heat. Certain that somebody might come any minute, he was on tenterhooks.
When he walked toward Bobo, the animal fled around the corner. Bowen reached the turn, saw the cat disappear up a companionway, waited for half a minute, then went swiftly back past the security room to keep vigil at the other end of the passageway. The sound of a metallic click made him jump. In the confined space, it seemed much louder than it really was. He hurried back to his friend, who was now straining with all his might, one foot on the crowbar wedged under the door and both hands heaving on the second crowbar, worked into the side of the door close to another lock.
“Give us a hand here, Glyn,” ordered Price.
“Someone is bound to hear that noise.”
“One more heave is all it needs. Take this,” he said, giving Bowen the crowbar that was positioned by the lock. “When I tell you, pull as if your life depended on it.”
“I will, Mansell,” agreed the other, trembling.
Price adjusted the crowbar under his foot; then he tapped the chisel into the narrow slit at the side of the door, directly below another lock.
“Two birds with one stone, Glyn.”
“What if it doesn’t work?”
“Then we’re not pulling hard enough. Ready? Now!”
Bowen obeyed the hissed command and heaved on his crowbar until his muscles went taut. Price was using his foot and hands to apply pressure elsewhere. Nothing seemed to happen at first, and Bowen felt the flames of panic starting to lick him all over. The defects of his friend’s plan became apparent with a new immediacy. What if they could not spring the door open? How would they cope if there was a second door to negotiate behind the first, or some kind of security devices? Would they have any strength left to carry off some of the gold bullion? Where would they take it? Price had talked about rousing the purser with tales of having foiled the robbers, but how could he do that when he was running with sweat and panting stertorously? His appearance would arouse suspicion at once. Bowen was more terrified than ever. The plan could not possibly succeed.
“Harder, mun!” urged Price.
“I’m trying my best.”
“Harder!”
They both gave a final heave and the locks were jerked clear of their sockets simultaneously. The door swung back on its weakened hinges, and Bowen almost fell through it, grabbing at the wall to steady himself. Price let out a wheeze of triumph and dived into the security room. Sufficient light spilled in from the passageway to reveal the wooden boxes, stacked neatly in rows, each box containing gold bars for delivery to New York. Price did not hesitate. Still grinning wildly, he used a crowbar to pry the lock off one of the boxes, then lever it open. His joy suddenly turned to anguish.
“Bloody hell!” he exclaimed.
Instead of containing gold bars, the box was filled with house bricks.
FIFTEEN
George Porter Dillman had just drifted off to sleep when he was awakened by a loud noise. Somebody was rapping hard on his cabin door. Climbing out of his bunk, he pulled on his dressing gown and opened the door. A steward gabbled the message at him.
“Mr. Buxton’s compliments, sir, and would you please meet him outside the security room as soon as possible?”
Dillman was surprised. “The security room?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you know what the problem is?”
“The purser will explain.”
Dillman closed the door, dressed quickly, then hurried off to the security room. The light was on and the purser was inside with four members of the crew. Dillman noticed that the men had all been issued side arms. They were sealing up the last of the boxes. Maurice Buxton turned to give the newcomer a baleful smile.
“We’ve been robbed, Mr. Dillman,” he said.
“But how?”
“See for yourself.” He indicated the door. “They used crowbars to weaken the hinges and spring the locks. There’s the evidence,” he said, pointing to the tools that had been abandoned on the floor. “They took the gold bars out of two boxes and filled them with bricks laid over a lining of lead so they weighed exactly the same as all the other boxes. My guess is that they were interrupted. If they’d had time to reseal the lids and lock the door again, we might never have known the stuff had been taken.”
Dillman examined the door. “They’d have had a job closing this from outside,” he surmised. “Are you sure that’s what they were going to do?”
“What other explanation is
there?”
“I don’t know, but I’m sure there is one. Have you checked all the boxes?”
“Yes,” sighed the other. “Every one of them is accounted for.”
“And these two open boxes had gold bullion in them when we left Liverpool?”
“No question about that. We checked each box as it was handed over by the railway police.” He spread his arms. “This is a disaster, Mr. Dillman. If we arrive in New York with a big chunk of the gold missing, there’ll be an unholy rumpus. We can’t solve a financial crisis with a set of house bricks. The press will crucify us. Cunard will probably make me walk the plank,” he said with a grimace, “or set me adrift in an open boat. What are we going to do?”
“Keep the whole incident to ourselves,” said Dillman decisively. “Have you impressed the need for secrecy on your men?”
“Oh, yes!”
“Captain Pritchard will have to be told.”
“He already has been, Mr. Dillman. After roasting my ears off, he ordered me to find the missing gold before we dock in New York. I assured him that we would. If worse comes to worst, we simply search every passenger before they disembark.”
“That won’t be very popular, Mr. Buxton. The last thing the Cunard Line wants you to do is to upset the passengers. If you institute a search when we dock, you simply advertise the fact that the gold was taken.”
“What’s the alternative?”
“Recover it before we get anywhere near New York.”
“But that will involve a cabin-by-cabin search, surely?”
“Not necessarily,” said Dillman. “That would give the game away. Besides, it would take ages to go through the entire ship. The thieves would see us coming and simply move the loot ahead of us each time.”
“How, Mr. Dillman? Those gold bars are extremely heavy.”
The detective pondered. “The trolley!” he said at length, snapping his fingers. “That’s why it was borrowed from the first-class galley. To wheel the bullion away.”
“But it was returned yesterday morning.”
“Check to see if it went missing tonight.”
“I will.”
“And find out the exact time when it went astray on Monday night.”
“One problem is solved, anyway,” observed the purser, pointing to the tools on the floor. “We know why they were taken.”
“But why steal them from third class when the trolley was taken from first class? It doesn’t make sense,” said Dillman. “There’s a supply of tools in the first-class galley. Why not take everything from there?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
“When was the theft discovered?”
“About half an hour ago,” said Buxton, running a hand across his brow. “One of the stewards walked past here on patrol. He thought he heard the sound of running feet as he approached, but he saw nobody when he turned the corner. What he did see,” he went on, waving an arm to include the entire room, “was this little bombshell.”
The men had completed their search. One of them collected the tools, then they all stepped outside. After switching off the light, the purser used his keys to shift back the levers in the locks before closing the door with care. It sank back down on its hinges with a squeal, allowing him to lock it properly again. He gave a grunt of satisfaction.
“I’ll have a man on patrol outside here every fifteen minutes of the day and night.”
“Too late for that,” said Dillman. “They’ve already got what they wanted.”
“But they didn’t. The object of the exercise was to commit a crime that was not even discovered on board. The first we would have known about it was when some treasury official opened those boxes in New York.”
The man with the crowbars, chisel, and lump hammer came forward. “What shall I do with these, Mr. Buxton?” he asked.
“Take them back to the third-class galley,” said the purser. “It’s unlikely there’ll be anybody there in the middle of the night. But if there is, don’t say where we found them.” He looked at the other men. “That goes for all of you.”
They nodded. The man with the tools walked off, and at a signal from Buxton, two of the others disappeared as well. The last man was left to patrol the passageway. The purser led Dillman off to his cabin. When they got there, Buxton went straight to a cabinet and took out a bottle of rum.
“This is what I need!” he sighed. “Will you join me, Mr. Dillman?”
“No thanks.”
“I just never thought it was possible.”
“What?”
“Stealing that gold,” said the other, pouring a tot of rum into a glass. “We took such precautions. They wouldn’t have entrusted that amount of gold bullion to us if they hadn’t been a hundred-percent certain we’d deliver the lot in one piece.” He drank some of the rum and licked his lips. “That’s better! You’ve got to hand it to them,” he said bitterly. “It was a cunning scheme. Pinching those tools to force their way into the security room, then substituting those house bricks for the gold bars.”
“But that isn’t what happened, Mr. Buxton.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No,” said Dillman, thinking it through. “There are too many contradictions. This robbery was planned before we even set sail. Someone clever enough to devise the scheme would never resort to such a crude means of getting into the security room. It would have taken a long time, and there was no guarantee of success. In any case,” he argued, “if they managed to smuggle those house bricks aboard, surely they would have brought their own tools with them as well.”
“I never thought of that.”
“We may be dealing with two different crimes here, Mr. Buxton.”
“Two?”
“Yes. Suppose that somebody gained entry on Monday night, removed the gold, inserted the bricks, and left everything appearing exactly as it should? I’m sure they used the trolley that went astray. Then,” he speculated, “another robbery is planned for tonight by the villains who stole those tools. Suppose they went to all the trouble of getting into that security room, opened the first box and saw that it was filled with house bricks.” He turned to the purser. “What would you do under the circumstances?”
“Swear till my tongue turned blue!”
“I think most people would get out of there fast.”
“They had to make a run for it. They heard the steward coming.”
“And what did he find when he got there?”
“The door wide open and the lid of one box off.”
“Just one?”
“They didn’t have time to seal it like the other.”
“But they weren’t trying to close it,” insisted Dillman. “Didn’t you see the way it had been forced off with a crowbar? The wood was split. If they’d wanted to cover their tracks, they’d have been more careful when they opened that lid to take out the gold and put in the bricks. No, Mr. Buxton. I’m sorry, but I don’t accept your theory. It simply doesn’t hold water.”
“Hang on for a moment,” said the other, finishing the rum in one gulp. “There’s something you haven’t explained, Mr. Dillman. Assuming that we are looking for two sets of thieves, how did the first ones gain access to the security room? We’ve seen how they forced the door open tonight, but how was it done last night?”
“With keys, Mr. Buxton.”
“But that’s impossible.”
“Why?”
“I’m the only person who has a set.”
“And where are they kept?”
“In a locked cabinet in my office. When I’m not there, the office is locked all the time. Besides,” he said, taking a bunch of keys from his pocket, “they never went missing at any point. Here they are, safe and sound.”
“May I take a closer look at them, please?”
“Of course.”
Dillman took the keys to inspect them. “When did you last use them, Mr. Buxton?”
“When I showed you around the security room.”
“And you haven’t touched them since then?”
“Not until now.”
“Well, someone else did,” said Dillman, licking the tip of a finger to remove a speck from the end of one key. “This is wax. Copies have been made of these keys.”
“Copies?”
“An imprint was taken in wax so that a duplicate could be fashioned.”
Buxton was horrified. “They broke into my office?”
“They used a skeleton key probably. If they have the equipment to make keys, then one of them has had experience as a locksmith. No wonder the robbery went unnoticed,” he said, handing the keys back. “They were able to let themselves into the security room in a matter of seconds. And because the crime was unreported, they’d have got away with the gold and nobody would have been any the wiser. We ought to be grateful to the thieves who made their bid tonight. They uncovered the truth for us.”
“There’s wax on this one as well,” said the purser, scrutinizing another key. “The clever devils! It never crossed my mind that anyone had invaded my office.”
“That’s because they’re professionals,” said Dillman. “Just like Max Hirsch. He went in through locked doors at will. So did these people. I’m absolutely certain that we’re investigating two separate crimes here. One was committed by professionals and the other by amateurs.”
“Amateurs?”
“They came unprepared. No tools, no careful planning. They took a huge risk, forcing their way in like that. Think of the noise they might have made. Somebody could easily have caught them in the act. I mean, it must have taken a fair amount of time for them to break in.”
“And a lot of strength,” noted the purser. “Whoever got in through that door tonight must have muscles the size of coconuts. Do we have any prizefighters aboard?”
Dillman went silent as two faces suddenly popped into his mind.
_____
Genevieve Masefield slept soundly, relieved that no anonymous note had welcomed her back to her cabin on the previous night. As she lay in bed, she reflected on the events of the day before and on the characters into whose lives she was getting so many new insights. Ruth Constantine remained the most engaging companion, but the one who occupied her thoughts most was Katherine Wymark. She was an enigma. The woman was astute enough to work out Genevieve’s true role on board, and articulate enough to dominate the conversation at any table, yet she had married the unprepossessing Walter Wymark, linking herself for life to a man who so obviously lacked grace, dignity, and good looks. The difference in their ages did not worry Genevieve. Happy marriages could make light of a gap of twenty years or more. In the case of the Wymarks, however, there seemed to be a much bigger gap between husband and wife in terms of their outlook and social behavior. It was perplexing. It was not happiness that Katherine Wymark exuded, but a kind of deep satisfaction over a favorable business deal.
