“Perhaps her Latin blood is what has driven her into such a mania,” I suggested. “The Spanish are nothing if not hot-headed, their women most of all.”
“Is that enough, though? I am not sure. Even among the more emotional races, there has to be something to give impetus to their passions. A vindictive rage like Mrs Stapleton’s does not arise from nowhere. Well, at any rate,” Holmes concluded, resting his elbows on the rail and setting his face to the marine vista before us, like some living figurehead, “we have a week and a half at sea to ponder the matter. Let us hope it is plain sailing all the way.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
NOT PLAIN SAILING
Would that I could report that our voyage was uneventful. For the first three or four days, shipboard life was agreeable enough. Our cabins were staterooms, with facilities that would put many of London’s grander hotels to shame. There was a smoking room shared among the First-Class passengers which, with its leather-upholstered chairs, ornate electric candelabras and book-filled shelves, had something of the atmosphere of a Pall Mall club. A promenade deck for the exclusive use of us elite travellers offered deckchairs to lounge in and games of quoits and shuffleboard. The restaurant was run by a Parisian chef who had studied under Escoffier. The sea was smooth. Things really could not have been nicer.
When it became widely known that Sherlock Holmes, no less, was aboard the Aegean, his celebrity drew attention. Fellow passengers came up, introduced themselves, and asked him about his past cases. Mostly he dealt with these unsolicited intrusions with courtesy, although on one or two occasions, if somebody started to bore him, he or she was steered towards me. “As my chronicler,” Holmes would say to this person, “my very own Boswell, Dr Watson, is far better suited to answer your queries than I.” Invariably the disappointed suitor would engage me in desultory conversation for a minute or so, find that I was far less interesting than my friend, and drift off.
A few people had mysteries they wished Holmes to clear up. They would regale him with a lengthy account of some baffling crime which they or someone they knew had been the victim of, and expect him to supply a solution magically like a conjuror producing a rabbit from a hat. They did this in a purely social manner, without mention of recompense, and the irritation it caused Holmes was palpable. In every instance, even if he was perfectly able to unravel the problem based on the information given, he professed himself at a loss. “It could be,” he said, with a show of pained apology, “that my reputation is overrated.” Privately to me he said, “The nerve of these folk! Because I am not at my place of business, but rather seemingly at leisure, they treat me as though I am some kind of public pump from which they can draw advice, like water, at will. Would I ask a paperer to paper my wall for free? A cobbler to repair my shoes out of the goodness of his heart? No! So why do they believe a consulting detective should be any different?”
These were relatively petty annoyances, however, and could easily be dismissed. More worrisome was Sir Henry’s behaviour. With time on his hands and little to do but agonise and fret, he drank. He drank at breakfast, he drank at lunch, and by the day’s end he was thoroughly soused and yet still would drink more. The sideboard in the smoking room was well stocked with wines and spirits, to which passengers were free to help themselves, and the baronet made the most of it. One evening, as he staggered up to the sideboard yet again to refill his glass, a steward politely suggested that rather than enjoy his umpteenth cognac, he should instead go to bed. At this, Sir Henry bristled and growled some shocking oaths at the man. The steward stood his ground, and an altercation seemed in the offing, until Benjamin Grier intervened. He put an arm around his friend’s shoulders in a way that was as much a means of restraint as a gesture of comradeship, and, speaking to him softly as one might to a skittish horse, guided him out of the room to his cabin.
As if this were not bad enough, Grier himself was subjected to more than a few barbed comments based upon the colour of his skin. It seemed that among the other First-Class passengers, for one of his race to share the same amenities and privileges as them was not simply an abnormality but an abomination. I distinctly recall a very rotund northern industrialist – a man so fat, he was practically spherical – speaking loudly from an adjacent table at dinner, saying that he had not paid all that money for his ticket only to have to consort with “members of an inferior species”. Another time, a woman who was some kind of Italian aristocrat, a marchesa or contessa, made pointed comments about those who belonged on the upper decks and those who belonged in the bowels of the ship, a system of ranking she appeared to think should be based not only upon means but upon complexion.
Worst of all was a coffee magnate, on his way with his wife and eldest son to visit his plantations in Jamaica and Trinidad. Here was a man for whom his Caribbean-native employees, to judge by how he spoke of them, were little better than machines for watering and gathering his crops, and who openly expressed a yearning for the bygone era when they could have been put to work from dawn to dusk for no pay. He was rude about Grier behind his back and just as rude to his face, addressing him as “monkey” and using other racial slurs that I shall not repeat. I asked him to desist from such talk, but all I got in return was a sneer, as if to say, “I refuse, and what are you going to do about it?”
One afternoon, Grier and I were playing chess when this impudent fellow came swaggering over. He made a pretence of studying the state of the game, whereas in fact he was obviously working himself up to deliver another verbal broadside.
“Ah, the eternal conflict of white against black,” said he eventually, motioning at the board. “But white has the advantage. White always goes first. For that reason, white should always win.”
It so happened that I was playing white, and I was losing badly. I made this point to the coffee magnate. “It isn’t the colour of the pieces that matters, it is the mind of the man who’s moving them,” I said, “and right now, Corporal Grier’s mind is running rings around mine.” I thought it worthwhile referring to Grier by his military rank, to show the coffee magnate that he was not just a man but a soldier who had served his country, and was thus all the more deserving of respect. “Indeed,” I added, “he is trouncing me.”
“So I see,” said the other. “Does that not fill you with shame, sir?”
“Shame that I do not play better chess? Yes. Shame that I am on the verge of being checkmated by a worthy opponent? Again, yes, not least because I have made several unforced errors during this game. But do I feel shame of any other description? None whatsoever.”
I thought I had spiked his guns, but I thought wrong.
“Were I to lose at chess to an ape,” the coffee magnate said, “I would hang my head. Indeed, I would hang myself.”
At that, I sprang to my feet. “That is enough!” I declared hotly. My fists were clenched. “You will apologise to Corporal Grier this instant.”
“It is fine, Watson,” said Grier. “Let’s not make a fuss.”
“You may not wish to, Grier, but I do. I have listened to this insolent jackanapes long enough. Even if you can put up with it, I cannot. Sir,” I said to the coffee magnate, “I give you one last chance to make amends. You will say sorry, and you will shake my friend’s hand, and you will walk away and never speak to him in that atrocious manner again. I’ll have you know that Grier is as courageous and noble a human being as I have met. He is worth a dozen of you.”
The coffee magnate looked aghast. It wasn’t my impassioned tirade that shocked him so much as the very notion that he should ever apologise to anyone for anything, least of all to someone he considered subhuman.
“You’re not serious, are you?” said he. “You are? Then it is clear that proximity to this jungle creature has infected you. His stink has got all over you. Next thing you know, you’ll be—”
I never found out how that sentence would have finished, for at that moment the red mist descended and I could hold myself back no longer. I lunged for the
coffee magnate, fully intent on knocking him to the floor.
Grier must have known what was going to happen, for he was out of his chair and had his arms about me before I got in a single blow. He hoisted me bodily off the floor, swung me about and deposited me back down so that he now stood between me and the coffee magnate. I attempted repeatedly to get past him, in order to reach the object of my ire, but it was useless. Grier blocked me every time. I might as well have been trying to get past the Colossus of Rhodes.
The coffee magnate jeered at me from behind Grier. “A proper Englishman would not stoop to fisticuffs so readily. Some of this savage’s coarser habits must have rubbed off on you.”
Grier rounded on him. Coolly, almost amiably, but with teeth nonetheless gritted, he said, “I would advise you, sir, to leave us. Now. If you do not, I shall let my friend have his violent way with you. In fact, there is a very good chance that I shall join in myself.”
The coffee magnate spluttered, but he was markedly more intimidated by Grier than he was by me. He backed away, murmuring about people who did not know their place and threatening some kind of legal redress. He was cowed but not, I thought, repentant.
Incidentally, some of my readers may be wondering why I am leaving this fine personage anonymous in these pages. They may feel, as I do, that someone who holds a certain stratum of his fellow men in such contempt, for no other reason than a misplaced sense of his own superiority, deserves to be exposed for the model of arrogant, smirking bigotry that he is; and naming him would undoubtedly do that.
However, I have before me on my writing desk a letter from Messrs Chalfont, Pettit and Quirke, the prestigious firm of Chancery Lane lawyers. Dated a month after the events I am chronicling, this sternly worded missive compels me to desist from ever mentioning the coffee magnate by his proper name, on pain of a libel suit that could prove quite ruinous. It seems that the fellow concerned had realised he might crop up in one of my narratives, feared the condemnation that might result, and took preventative measures. Hence I am under constraint to refer to him only by a generic descriptor. The more astute among you, though, may infer his identity from the few hints given.
“You shouldn’t have interfered, Grier,” I said, adjusting my jacket and straightening my tie. “The man deserves a good pasting.”
“And where would that get us, Doctor? I have learned that, with people like him, you can achieve more through civility than you can through being provoked. If you show anger, it only affirms what he already thinks. If you are calm, it removes a central plank of his prejudice. You take away fuel from his fire rather than giving it. Now, shall we resume our game?”
“No,” I said. I had bumped the table when standing up and the chessboard had been disturbed, with several of the pieces having fallen over or been dislodged from their squares. Even if we could have restored them all to where they belonged, there seemed no point. I was no longer in the mood. “No, I am going outside to take the air. I concede. Victory is yours.”
In truth, I was jealous of how much of his dignity Grier had managed to retain during the confrontation, and how much of mine I had thrown away. That was his real victory and my real defeat.
The last straw came when, on the fourth day, our group received an invitation from the captain of the Aegean to dine with him in his quarters that evening. It turned out that the invitation, delivered in person to each of us by the first mate, was for Sir Henry, Holmes, Dr Mortimer and me only.
I summoned those other three to my cabin.
“I shan’t be going unless Grier is going too,” I said.
“I agree,” said Holmes. “It would be unconscionable.”
“Whether or not the snub was deliberate,” said Mortimer, “we must take it as such.”
“It must have been deliberate,” I said. “The captain clearly knows that we are all travelling together. Why else ask the four of us jointly?”
“Perhaps he is under the impression that Grier is a servant,” Mortimer said.
“Then we should disabuse him of the notion,” I said. “Don’t you agree, Sir Henry?”
Sir Henry merely nodded. He was in the middle stages of his daily round of drunkenness, whereby he was cogent, just about, but loath to communicate beyond the bare minimum required. The rest of us had decided collectively to allow him his inebriation for the duration of the voyage. It kept him pacified, for the most part, and should he breach the bounds of good conduct – as with the steward, for example – we could always intercede. It seemed fairer to take this approach than forbid him the bottle. Once we got to Costa Rica, we would oblige him to sober up. He would have renewed purpose – the search for Mrs Stapleton and Harry – and would want, and need, a clear head. While we were on the rolling emptiness of the Atlantic, however, there was nothing to occupy him save thoughts of his son and his own impotence. If drink afforded him release from that, so be it.
I sought out the first mate and advised him that unless the fifth member of our party could dine with the captain as well, then none of us would.
The fellow went off to discuss the matter with his superior officer, and returned to inform me that the invitation had been rescinded. Captain McCandless, he said, had been looking forward to our company at his table, especially that of the noted Mr Sherlock Holmes; but if we wished to decline, that was our prerogative.
Later, the coffee magnate sidled up to me while I was out on the promenade deck.
“Captain McCandless is a friend of mine,” said he. “I travel aboard the Aegean on this route regularly, and over the years he and I have become close. He told me that he wished to extend a dinner invitation to you and all your colleagues. I put him straight on a thing or two.”
There was no Grier around this time to hinder me; nor, it so happened, were there any witnesses. I left the coffee magnate sprawled on his back, clutching a bloodied nose.
“There’s plenty more where that came from,” I told him, and departed to the sound of oaths and curses, feeling both pleased with myself and a little ashamed.
That night, the RMS Aegean sailed into a mid-Atlantic squall.
That night, too, Benjamin Grier narrowly escaped death.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
A TRAGIC CONCATENATION OF DISASTERS
It began around teatime with a slow, steady deepening of the Aegean’s sway through the water. The skies darkened prematurely. The wind rose.
By evening the ship was seesawing up and down, such that the simple act of walking became a trial. It was hard putting one foot in front of the other when the floor would not stay flat.
The crew retained a blithe attitude, but among the passengers, less accustomed to the moods of the ocean, tension prevailed. Outside it was blowing a gale, and the crash of the waves over the bow boomed through the hull like beats on some enormous gong. Dinner was served as usual, with the waiters compensating for the movement of the ship by leaning deftly from side to side as they threaded their way between tables with dishes and trays held aloft. Soup slopped in bowls, and wine swirled about in glasses.
Afterwards, going to bed was the sensible option. I wasn’t feeling as seasick as some, if their stifled groans and green faces were anything to go by. However, lying down seemed definitely preferable to being upright.
Grier alone found the whole situation terrifically entertaining. “Nature in the raw,” he said. “The elements at their tumultuous best. I’m going outside to enjoy it. Coming with me, Watson?”
“Are you mad?” I said.
“That will be a no, then.” He looked around our table. “Henry? How about you? Mortimer? Holmes? Anyone?”
Heads were shaken.
“I am an arch urbanite,” said Holmes. Even he, with his iron constitution, was looking somewhat queasy. “I like the city because everything is contained and orderly there and, more than that, stays put. If you want to go out into the teeth of a storm, Grier, then I wish you well. Try not to get swept overboard.”
“I shall do my best.”<
br />
An hour later, I was supine in my cabin, wide awake. Sleep had no intention of coming, it seemed. The squall was worsening, I was sure of it. Now the Aegean was rolling from side to side as well as tilting fore and aft. All about me, things rattled and shuddered. The wind hissed like a demon about the ship’s superstructure, and rain hammered on the portholes as though seeking entry.
Then came a violent knocking at the door.
I crawled out of bed and staggered over to answer it.
Before me stood Grier. He was clutching his head. Blood flowed out freely between his fingers.
“Good heavens, man!” I exclaimed. “What on earth has happened?”
Without answering, he stumbled in. I shut the door behind him. He fell into the chair by the dressing table with a heavy moan. His clothes were wringing wet.
I drew his hand away from his head. A very nasty gash ran down his temple from the hairline almost to the ear. It was deep and would require stitching.
“Did someone hit you?” I said.
Grier mumbled what I thought was “No”.
“Then what did this?”
But the American appeared half-concussed, and at that moment was barely capable of coherent speech.
I set about cleaning the affected area with a wet washcloth, then swabbed the wound with cotton wool soaked in surgical spirit. Grier hissed with pain.
“I will need to suture the laceration shut,” I said. “I have a needle and thread to hand. I warn you, it is going to smart.”
Grier made a grunt of resignation. I took this as consent.
He kept his cool throughout the procedure. It must have hurt like blazes, but aside from the occasional contortion of the lips, he gave no outward indication of distress.
Sherlock Holmes and the Beast of the Stapletons Page 19
