The Traces of Merrilee

by Herbert Brean

  “There are other sides. I’m serious. I couldn’t be more so. I think Merrilee will be on the ship. If she isn’t, God help everyone. Shooting starts north of Athens in less than two weeks. But I think she will be. And I would just feel our investment was more secure if someone like yourself was aboard, just standing by in the wings, so to speak.”

  “Why me? I’m no professional bodyguard. And ships have their own security systems, you know.”

  “Sure. The fact is, we have alerted the first officer, and well, frankly—paid him a little money. So, she’ll be watched all right. And I doubt whether there can be any real threat at all, once she’s aboard.”

  “She’ll have Jones, or whatever his name is.”

  “I question his responsibility. He’s just a press agent who was assigned to her a day or so ago. But having you there, just keeping an eye on her—well, you’ve been around and covered crime stories, and so on. To have someone with your savvy on hand—you wouldn’t even have to spend any time with her—if you didn’t want to.”

  “What do you mean, not want to?”

  “Then why don’t you do it? If a few thousand bucks over and above all expenses would—”

  “Newt, for the love of God! I’m no private detective. I’ll bet your girl is safer than a—a government bond. So’s your investment.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Then hire the Pinkertons.”

  I punched his shoulder, and we headed for the shower room.

  * * * *

  That’s how it was until later that night when we had dinner at Twit-Twit’s, and it turned out everyone wanted to go to Paris on the Montmartre.

  I couldn’t resist the temptation. For once in my life I could make a grand gesture.

  So I made it.

  * * * *

  The evening before we sailed, Newt rang me and said he had finally heard from Merrilee—by phone, at least. She had at long last returned his many calls and, sounding very agitated and flighty, again promised she would make the trip. Newt had given her my name, told her I would be her general overseer, and said that I would contact her.

  “Just as a precaution,” he said, “I am going to send a wire to her on the ship, establishing a recognition code. You will be ABC, and the code words, when you first meet, will be ‘procedural meeting.’ Can you remember that?”

  I said I could and privately concluded that Newt, the conservative banker, was letting theatricalism go to his head.

  “I’m sure now that she’ll be there, and I must say that I feel more relaxed,” he went on. “Once she’s aboard ship, I think we’re safe. If you like, you could even see how the land lies before contacting her. But you should presently let her know you are there.”

  “I see. What about Kane? Might he be on board the ship?”

  “I doubt it. To begin with, if he’d planned anything, I’d bet he’d get someone else to do it. I don’t think he personally has the intestinal fortitude for any rough stuff. As I read it, it is her own fears that we mainly have to worry about. Well, bon voyage.”

  * * * *

  Obviously she had received Newt’s wire long after boarding the ship this noon or else had read it late. But now we were in communication.

  Ten o’clock tonight.

  I’d seen a lot of her films. I wondered what she would be like in real life.

  And what she really had to be afraid of.

  Chapter 4

  Procedural Meeting

  That evening there was a little subdued dancing in the main salon after dinner, but only a little. As usual on the first night out, everyone was feeling quiet and receptive to an early bed and long sleep.

  So we went into the smoking room, and the first thing I noticed was Pennypacker immersed in a bridge game with his wife and another couple. It gave me a dangerous idea.

  Tom noticed something which gave him a dangerous idea, too. It was the ship’s pool that had been just set up, a double one as a matter of fact, and most of the numbers had not been taken.

  “That’s for me,” he said. “How about it, Deac?”

  “I’m with you. What number do you like, Twit-Twit?”

  She counted on her fingers. “Three. I do it by numerology.”

  The hovering steward came over, smiling, and I gave him a five-dollar bill.

  “I like nine,” said Tom. “What do you say, Bets?”

  “I say you’re wasting your money, you unlucky bum,” said Betsy. “But if you want to lose it on nine, that’s as good a number as any.”

  “The witch’s curse,” said Tom. “That’ll win for me if anything will.” He handed the steward another five and wrote Dolan after the “nine.”

  “You should have picked eight,” Twit-Twit told him seriously.

  “Why?” I asked. “Numerology?” Twit-Twit has a doctorate in chemistry and is about as superstitious as a theoretical physicist.

  “There are eight letters in ‘Tom Dolan.’”

  I counted up. “And thirteen in ‘William Deacon.’” I had never realized it before. “God, I’m cooked.”

  “I think you can get out of it,” said Tom, “if you regard the thirteen as one-three and add them together. That gives you four. Then you’re safe.”

  “And it doesn’t hurt to take a little eye of newt and toe of frog just before bedtime, either,” said Betsy. “You sleep all the better for it.”

  “Speaking of which,” said Twit-Twit. “I was up at seven this morning. Shall we?”

  As we walked out, I noticed Pennypacker chuckling over his hand and folding up a trick he had just taken. I wondered. I was being too intensive an amateur private eye, I thought, but still, I was supposed to be alert. And if Kane was planning anything, who was a likelier agent than Pennypacker?

  We took the elevator up to our opulent suite. Walking in, Betsy said, “What a shambles this Deac got us into. But I suppose we can make do.”

  I grinned. I was a little proud of what we had. The living room, where I would sleep, had a French sort of mural along one wall, plenty of lamps, all sensible, and the furniture and carpeting were comfortable and deep. After some years of traveling on stories, my idea of comfort away from home is just good plumbing, a good bed, and prompt room service. We had a little better than that.

  The Dolans waved good night, even though it was only nine-thirty, and went into their bedroom. Twit-Twit stood at the door of hers. My bed had been made up and turned down, and my pajamas lay across the foot of it. The light was on in the lavatory, and the window in the deck door at the end of the little hall that separated the bedrooms was half open. There was the comfortable feeling of vibrant forward movement which is one of the nicest things about being aboard ship.

  “I’m surprised you didn’t want a nightcap.”

  “A man doesn’t always need a nightcap. I’m as tired as anybody.”

  She made a kiss with puckered lips.

  “Good night.”

  “Good night, Twit.”

  I wasn’t really sure what I was supposed to do, or supposed not to do. But, considering what lay in store, I had an idea that for the moment the best thing was to do nothing.

  Her door closed.

  I looked around the cabin. Fresh ice had been added to the bucket containing our last bottle of champagne. The wastebaskets had been emptied and my toilet articles arranged in the lavatory. My shirts had been hung in the closet with care, like children’s’ Christmas stockings.

  Nothing beats traveling first-class super deluxe, I thought. Especially when a bank is footing the bill.

  I thought of Pennypacker. It was still early.

  I opened the door to the passageway softly and closed it softly. I walked downstairs one flight and glanced cautiously into the smoking room. Pennypacker was still there. I looked at my watch. It was twenty minutes to ten.

/>   I didn’t dare be late. Still—

  I went on down to the main deck. There was a freshly mimeoed list posted next to the door of the maître d’s office. I scanned it quickly and saw “Pennypacker, M-432.”

  I got out of sight and looked at my watch.

  Nine-forty-five. I didn’t have much time. What did I expect to do, anyway? At least, I’d see where he lived. And maybe a little more.

  I walked along the narrow corridor on the port side of the main deck. I passed the little station where the stewards and maids stay. It was empty. Next to it was the little glass-doored case where you can, if you like, deposit your key when you leave your cabin, since it is always under the supervision of a maid or steward.

  Technically, that is.

  The key to M-432 was there. And no one was in sight, maid, passenger, or steward. I took the key.

  I went to the door of M-432. I looked up and down the hall. No one.

  I slipped the big key into the lock. It made a little noise. I tried to turn it. It made a lot of noise. A voice from within, rather hoarse, spoke out.

  “Who’s there?”

  “Pardon, m’sieu,” I muttered and hoped it sounded French. I pulled the key out, went down the hall, and turned a corner.

  I couldn’t tell whether it had been a man’s voice or a hoarse woman’s.

  But I didn’t hear a door open.

  After a minute I walked back down the hall. No one was in sight still. I returned the key to its place and thought what a lousy thief I would make if I ever tried to become one.

  I walked up to the boat deck and found the spot near her stateroom where I figured the meeting was to occur. Except for lifeboats, it was empty. My watch said one minute to ten. Our suite was on the other side of the deck and well out of sight, for which I thanked heaven. I started walking around the deck; she might have planned on another place.

  It was a nice night. The sea was a little rough and especially up here you could feel the motion and roll, but it felt good. I’d not been on a ship for two years, and I suddenly realized that I had missed it, the strong steady press of the wind against your clothes and face and hair, the wet-salt smell, and the awareness that you were crossing the ocean as it should be crossed and had been for centuries, by lots of people more courageous than you—you with your pajamas carefully laid out on your bunk, and your well-ventilated suite, and meticulously served food.

  I’d gone completely around the boat deck, moving quickly past our shuttered windows.

  No Merrilee.

  I stopped and waited, near her cabin door, and felt the wind’s tug, and looked up at the night’s stars.

  Suddenly I liked where I was and what I was doing, and I realized that I had felt that way about what I had been doing for a good part of my life.

  It’s a nice thing to realize.

  A shadowy figure brushed past me.

  I turned. It was a bulky shadow, with a hooded head. But the ankles weren’t bulky.

  The hood turned slightly, and I knew I was being looked at.

  “Procedural meeting,” I said.

  She came back slowly, like a dark wisp of fog on little cat feet.

  I still couldn’t see her face. Or anything else but the silhouette.

  “Do you have initials?” she said in the husky voice that everybody in the world knew, and came closer. The hood fell back.

  In that vague starlight, reflected by the ship’s wall and lifeboat, the hair of dyed old-woman white became the pale silvery blond that has shone from ten thousand movie screens. The large blue eyes were still blue, but pale with anxiety. The profile could never change. Her little-girl’s voice came breathlessly from lips always half-parted as though to drink in everything the world could offer.

  “ABC,” I said. “I’m also Procedural Meeting. I suppose you could call me PM for short. But my real name is Deacon.”

  “Oh, yes. That’s what he said. The trouble was, I’d forgotten. Do you have a cigarette?”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t smoke. Should I get you some?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’m better off without them. I smoke too much. It makes my voice husky.”

  Vive le huskiness, I thought. I’d never heard a voice quite so intimately provocative.

  “So you are ABC.”

  “Yes. Really a guy named Bill Deacon. Magazine writer.”

  “Yes. That’s what he said.”

  “Who said?”

  “Mr.—that man. You know. The banker. I don’t remember his name. Could I have a cigarette?”

  For the first time I realized how nervous she was.

  “I’ll get some right away. What brand?”

  “I’m sorry. I forgot. I don’t really want one.”

  “Of course you do.”

  She had turned, and the faint light from the doorway showed her face, wide-eyed with chagrin and apology. At that moment I would have dived overboard to get one puff of smoke for her. But she put a restraining hand on my arm and so, I suppose, saved my life.

  “No—I’m sorry. I’m a little rattled, I guess. I’m really better off without them, as I said. You’re Mr.—Deacon, did you say?”

  “Usually called Deac.”

  “I didn’t think—you don’t look like I thought you would. I’m Merrilee.”

  You sure are. “How did you think I would look?”

  “Like Tony Quinn maybe. Or James Mason. Especially Jimmy.”

  “Sorry. I guess Eve always looked like this. By now I can’t help it.”

  “I didn’t mean that. You look lovely. A magazine writer?”

  “Yes.”

  “I—I thought you’d be a private detective.”

  “I could learn to be a private detective. If it would help.” It was the voice, I suppose, and eyes, and the little-girl’s air of naivety. Anyway, I wasn’t kidding.

  “I opened the telegram late. I guess we met earlier but I didn’t know what you were saying. Procedural meeting. I thought you were speaking French. Then after lunch I read the message that had come, and looked you up in the list of passengers. And now—here we are.”

  “Yes. What can I do for you? Get some cigarettes, I know.”

  “No. Don’t. They make my voice hus—I said that, didn’t I?”

  “That’s all right.”

  She studied me; she not only talked abruptly but acted that way. God knows what she saw. As for me, I saw the most beautiful face this side of heaven, trying to look old, which was impossible.

  “Newt Harlow told me you were afraid of crossing the ocean. I’m here to help you. What can I do?”

  “That’s sweet. But nothing, really.”

  “What are you afraid of?”

  “Nothing, really.”

  “Look, Miss Moore. I want to help. That’s why I’m here. I know we just met. But—I want you to get to know me a little so you will trust me. That will make it possible for me to help you.”

  “You’re sweet.”

  “Please stop saying I’m sweet. I’m not. I’m—I can be a fairly tough—tough guy.”

  “No. You’re nice and you’re not a tough bastard. That’s what you were going to say, isn’t it?”

  Inwardly, I melted. I suppose I’m an easy melt. Outwardly, I tried not to.

  “If you’re not afraid of anything, why the disguise?”

  She looked away, through an opening beyond the tarpaulined lifeboat, and watched the darkling sea.

  I said, “Newt Harlow told me something of your problems. About the competition, I mean. But you’re aboard ship now. Not much can happen here, can it? Who else is traveling with you?”

  “Oh, plenty of people.”

  “Who?”

  “My maid.”

  “Do you know her very well?”

  “Klára has been w
ith me for twelve years. Many years ago, when my mother was with a circus, Klára and mother were good friends and performed in a Viennese horse troop. Now she’s the closest thing I have to a mother. Or any relative, for that matter. My mother died when I was sixteen.”

  And now you’re thirty-three, although the publicity releases say twenty-nine.

  “Anyone else with you?”

  “Sad Sam. Jones, that is. My press agent, at the moment.”

  “I see. And why do you feel they can’t protect you from what you’re afraid of?”

  “I’m not afraid! After all, I don’t—I have nothing to worry about.”

  “Of course.” I took her arm. “A turn around the deck?” I’d decided to take a chance.

  “I’d love it.” She stepped forward happily.

  I waited for us to walk a few steps. Then, “What are you afraid of?”

  I waited a couple dozen steps.

  “You’re nice.”

  “So you keep saying.”

  “It’s something I don’t like to talk about. Even with friends.”

  “Then you can tell me, because I’m a stranger.”

  She giggled. I don’t admire girls who giggle. She giggled gracefully.

  “It’s something my mother told me,” she said. “You see—I had an odd childhood. My father died when I was small. He and my mother were in show business. He was a magician, and she was his assistant. They were in vaudeville, or what was left of it. Movie houses, mostly neighborhoods, night clubs, even carnivals sometimes. After my father died, my mother worked up a mind-reading act with another man.”

  “And you traveled with them.”

  “Part of the time. The rest I lived with an aunt. But the mind-reading act was pretty successful. First they used simple word signals—you know the type. But after a while they learned to work silent.”

  “What do you mean?” She was beginning to talk spontaneously, forgetting herself.

  “The silent code. My mother was the mind-reader up on the stage, and she was blindfolded, or so it seemed. The man she worked with—his name was Ferdie—would go through the audience, saying practically nothing. He’d take things from the audience like billfolds, hats, watches, possessions, and say just, ‘What’s this?’ and make her describe it. Then, ‘This?’ and ‘This?’ And so on. Sometimes even his back was to her. Sometimes he said nothing at all. There seemed no way they could communicate.”