The Traces of Merrilee

by Herbert Brean

  I was trying to relax. And making progress because I’d come to a decision a while before, and was only waiting for the opportune moment to put it into effect. Betsy was lying back, eyes closed, in her new deck chair—new because the first had turned up missing somehow, although of course her name was on it. Someone else had taken it and the steward had brought another. Twit-Twit was brushing up on her French with a volume of Malraux, Tom was dozing, probably with the help of the champagne.

  Where my charge was, I did not know, but it had occurred to me that the captain and others must have wanted to break the news and then question her about the death of the maid.

  The problem was solved by the deck steward, who came up with an envelope on a tray and touched his cap.

  I thumbed the envelope open. The scrawl inside said:

  “I’m sort of lonesome. Can I have lunch at your table?”

  I took the steward’s pencil and wrote:

  “Of course. One o’clock at the smoking room bar first. Where have you been?”

  I handed it back to him.

  “Where did you get this?”

  “Mademoiselle Moore. In her room, m’sieu. She gave it to me.”

  “Personally?”

  “Personally, m’sieu.” His eyes lit up. He’d seen her all right. “A moment ago.”

  I said, “Fine. Tell her to stay there,” and tipped him, although it wasn’t necessary, but just to make sure he would deliver the message.

  I felt lighthearted.

  “Fan mail?” asked Tom.

  “Another autograph hound. You know how it is.”

  “Who was it, really?” said Twit-Twit.

  This was as good a time as any.

  So I told them the whole story of Merrilee’s fears, and Kane and Compton and the two murders, and what I was up to, and how they happened to be aboard. It took some time.

  Then Twit-Twit said, “Do you really think she has ESP powers?”

  “I doubt it, on the basis of present evidence. That business about the falling ceiling and the red skirt might well be coincidence. But her mother may have been another cup of tea. If the mother did show occasional flashes of supranormal gifts, it might well have made Merrilee think she herself had some too. And it would certainly lend a lot of weight to her mother’s prophecy about crossing the ocean.”

  “You think someone’s really after her,” Tom said.

  “I know it.”

  “Who?”

  A tall, dark-haired woman in a flame-colored coat dropped into the deck chair next to me. It was the chair that Merrilee had occupied yesterday, but had no name on it. Because of the weather, not too many people had taken deck chairs.

  “Mawnin’,” she said to me, or to no one in particular, in a southern sorghum accent you could have cut with a cookie cutter.

  “Good morning.”

  “It’s bettuh than last ni-yut,” she said.

  I recognized her. She looked younger and prettier and more natural than she had when she first came aboard with the college girls. She was their chaperone.

  She smiled, curled up in a blanket, closed her eyes, and, as far as I could tell, went instantly to sleep.

  I went back to what Tom had asked, leaned over to them, and spoke in a low voice. “I don’t know who. But I can tell you who are on board and I think look screwy. Or odd. There’s this guy Pennypacker.”

  “The old man with the white hair who wants to play bridge?” asked Betsy, awed.

  “The other one. Although, maybe—but there are others.”

  “Like who?”

  “There’s an old Indian who’s always around. And a joker with a bad eye who seems interested in my phone calls.”

  Oddly, I thought of the girl who had just sat down near me and was presumably sound asleep. But I turned my back on her to make sure she couldn’t near my low mumble. That’s what suspicion does for you.

  No one said anything for a while. “If I were going to try to do what you have suggested is being done to your—your girlfriend,” said Tom, “I’d think about the ship’s personnel.”

  “Yes. Maybe. Like who?”

  “Like a steward. Or maid.”

  “Or an officer?”

  “Yes. Maybe. As you like to say.”

  “How much is really at stake?” said Twit-Twit.

  “The picture is worth at least twenty-five million dollars, if it turns out to be worth anything, and quite possibly triple that if it comes off. Think of Gone With the Wind.”

  A brightly buttoned page came up to me.

  “M’sieu Deacon? There is a message for you in the radio room.”

  “I’m impressed,” said Betsy.

  “Another phone call,” I said.

  “Not a telephone, m’sieu,” the steward said. “A cable. They tried to deliver it to your room.”

  Tom got up too. “Then deliver it to him in the bar,” he said. “The aft bar. If it’s bad news that’s the best place to receive it.”

  “You’re right. Also if it’s good news.”

  “The aft bar, m’sieu?” said the steward uncertainly.

  “Well, maybe it’s sort of half-aft,” said Tom, and led the way before his wife could reprimand him.

  As we walked down the deck, we saw our deck steward bending over two blanketed figures.

  “But these are not your chairs, m’sieu,” he was saying.

  “Whose are they, for Chris’sake?” demanded a familiar voice, and I recognized our neighbor, the steak-lover.

  “Le nom c’est sur la carte, m’sieu.”

  “Say it in English!”

  “Be’ind you.”

  He twisted around in the chair. “Mrs. Dolan! Who the hell is that?”

  Tom and I swung around. The mystery of Betsy’s missing deck chair was solved.

  The steward began, “M’sieu the chairs are rented. There is une carte—a card, telling the name of whom ’as the chair.”

  Tom moved the steward out of the way, gently. “Mrs. Dolan happens to be my wife,” he said sweetly. “You obviously stole her chair. So suppose you obviously return it, with an apology. Right now. The steward will show you where to carry it. And if you don’t, I’m going to beat you up when I come back, and throw you in the sea. As you may notice, I’m saying it in English.”

  We went on to the bar.

  “I shouldn’t lose my temper like that.”

  “I thought you did well.”

  “A Martini?”

  “A Martini.”

  The boy brought the little tissue-paper envelope containing the cable just as the drinks were placed in front of us. I sipped a cold clean dryness, slit the envelope, and read the message. It was terse and meaningful:

  Five nine and half. Hundred fifty eight pounds. Forty seven. Lean build. Brown and brown, little gray. Thin face, widow’s peak, mastoid scar left, scraggly teeth. Careful dresser, mother’s wedding ring on left hand always. Probably fag. Carries. Love, doll.

  I read it twice and passed it over to Tom. Madelyn had done well. That was the second Pennypacker to the teeth—literally. He was the industrial spy.

  Tom said, “An identification, I take it.”

  “Of the guy whose cabin I tried to prowl. He’s the spy, all right.”

  “One word I don’t get. ‘Carries.’”

  “A weapon. Underworld lingo. It means he packs a gun all the time.”

  “That’s nice.” He studied the cable. “‘Love doll,’ eh? I won’t ask who that is.”

  “It’s from a researcher at the office named Madelyn who looked all this up for me. You just didn’t read it right. If you had, you’d see it’s love comma doll. In other words, she’s sending me love.”

  “And she’s calling you doll.”

  “Why the hell not?”

&nb
sp; “She’s calling you comma doll, actually. Mama doll and comma doll.”

  “That’s pretty funny. Who writes your material?”

  “Bob Hope.”

  “Bob Hope and Gordon’s gin. I think the gin works faster. Actually, she’s a hell of a nice girl.”

  “From where I sit you know nothing but nice girls. Does Merrilee have a friend?”

  He waved for two more drinks and thought a little while. Finally he spoke in a low voice, almost out of the side of his mouth. There were others at the bar now.

  “Where I sit, you’re into something kind of deep.”

  “From where I sit, too.”

  “You think this Pennypacker is the guy? I mean who killed these two people?”

  “I don’t know that much yet. I now know for sure that he is who I suspected he was. But I have never known of his doing any killing at all. And two deaths on one job is kind of a lot.”

  “Maybe he has an assistant.”

  “That’s an idea. The share-the-work principle. And, of course, there’s always the possibility that Roger Kane, the producer, is himself aboard and doing the dirty work. But Newt, at least, doesn’t think so. He feels that Kane would engineer just about anything but that he’d delegate the actual work to someone else.”

  “What the hell are you going to do about it?”

  “Check some alibis. We know more or less how the maid died and when. The press agent hasn’t been found yet, but we can figure to a certain extent on the time of his killing. Moving that body into the suite and rigging it up took time, certainly. The killer must be wondering where it is.”

  “It’s a real dance-in-the-dark.”

  “Sure. But if I can find out who was where at the time each of these people was killed—”

  “What do you mean by who?”

  “As I said, there are quite a few people I wonder about.”

  “Like?”

  “I mentioned the Indian and the man with the bad eye. Then there’s an odd-ball who wears gloves all the time and escorts a kind of harem queen. Sat near us last night.”

  “I remember.”

  “Who else? Maybe the other Pennypacker—Old Granddad. That coincidence of names—well, may be just coincidence. Or as you said, a ship’s officer. There’s really enough at stake to justify bribing all kinds of people.”

  “Drink your drink,” said Tom. “I think you’re getting hysterical.” Then, getting up, “You’ll need help checking those alibis.”

  As we passed a table where people were having drinks before lunch, I heard a woman say, “Our steward tells us absolutely it was Merrilee Moore’s maid, and that they had been fighting like mad. Merrilee had fired her for stealing or something.”

  * * * *

  “What number did you pick today?” Betsy asked as we walked up to the deck chairs.

  Tom shook his head. “I’m busy today. No time to dope hunches. And besides, I don’t feel lucky.”

  Betsy got up. “Well, I do. I just got my right chair back, not that it mattered. From some rather nasty, mumbling man. But I’m going down and play the pool again. Come on.” She took his arm.

  I dropped down into the chair and pulled the blanket up.

  “Big morning?” asked Twit-Twit.

  “Fairly big.”

  “You’re getting to be quite the detective.”

  “I’m no detective.”

  “You do fairly well. Or is it just the clients that attract you?”

  “Stop it. If you think there’s anything between me and Merrilee, you’re nutty as a fruitcake. You know who really mixed me up in this? You, you clothes-crazy bitch. You wanted to go to Paris.”

  She laughed, a gay little laugh, and she can laugh nastily when she feels like it.

  “I know. I found out your intentions quite early.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You said that when you first met Merrilee on the boat deck you thought someone was spying on you.”

  “I still think so.”

  “You’re right.”

  “Who?”

  “I can play detective, too.”

  “You?”

  “You can’t get away from me that easily, Beady-eyes.”

  I patted her under the blanket. “I’ve never wanted to. But how did you know where to be?”

  “The steward came to the suite that evening, when you were out.”

  “Yes.”

  “He asked if you had received your message all right, because he had been told to slip it under the door. I said I guessed you had. But I wondered. Then I saw a little balled-up piece of paper in the wastebasket, and I read it. So I just took a stroll at the appointed time.”

  “Okay, detective.”

  “Mind if I say something else?”

  I patted again for an answer.

  “Speaking of suspects, how about Merrilee? It was her maid and her press agent.”

  “Yes. But I don’t think so.”

  “Had you considered her at all?”

  “To tell the truth, no. After all, as we private eyes say, she’s the client.”

  “And she is attractive.”

  “Bitch!”

  Chapter 15

  A Little Further Knowledge of the Score

  But after establishing Twit-Twit at the bar with the Dolans, I left and went to the library. I got out the Who’s Who and this time read all there was to read about the other Pennypacker that the book listed.

  Besides being a retired professor of psychology, he had been born in Long Beach sixty-four years ago, I learned, had married Edith Sweet, was evidently childless, had an M.A from Ohio State University, a Viennese doctorate, and had published in professional journals: “The Psychic Bases of Sadism,” “Compulsive Transvestitism,” “Detecting Pathological Lying, So-Called.” He was associated with a psychological testing laboratory and his home was in Long Beach.

  I went back to the bar, so thoughtfully that for a time I ignored my drink, and Merrilee even slipped onto the bar stool next to me without my immediately knowing she was there. A lot of other people did, though; every eye in the place was on her.

  I performed introductions, and it was nice to notice how everyone accepted everyone without the self-conscious effluvia that often accompanies the introduction of a celebrity. She said she’d have a Dubonnet on the rocks, and the bartender practically sprinted for the bottle. She looked palely in need of it.

  When I got a chance I said sotto voce, “Are you all right?”

  “Of course. I guess. I don’t know. I’ve—I’ve been crying. Klára was...was...I don’t have any real friends, you know. She—I depended on her. And I have no one now.”

  “Yes, you do. Drink your drink.”

  She barely sipped it. “Drinks don’t help. When you’re really alone.”

  “Where were you this morning?”

  “In my cabin.”

  “Like hell you were. I dropped by, knocked several times, and the maid went in. She said your bed hadn’t been slept in.”

  “The maid was right. I slept in the tub.”

  “The tub!”

  “Yes. I got in awfully late from the party, and Klára wasn’t—that’s why I wanted to have lunch with you. Because I feel so alone. I don’t know anyone on the ship, really. I hope your friends don’t mind too much.”

  “Don’t be silly. They’ll love you.”

  She gave me a sudden child-smile of appreciation. She wanted to be loved, and she needed to be. It was so ironic. She needed plain, simple affection far more than the average, plain, simple girl.

  She went on. “When I got in last night I didn’t know about Klára, of course. It was nice, their keeping it from me. I guess. But I couldn’t sleep, and she wasn’t there, so I finally drew a bath myself and got into the tub and
let the warm water run slowly. It’s a way I have of getting to sleep. Just lie in the tub with the warm water running slowly. Try it some time.”

  “I will.”

  “You probably don’t have trouble getting to sleep. You look like that. You’re lucky.”

  “Yes. So that’s where you were this morning?”

  “Until almost ten. Then I woke up. A little waterlogged. Someone was pounding on my door.”

  “One of the officers?”

  “Two of them. They—they broke the news. And then took me to the captain, who wanted to ask me some questions. They were all really very nice. Sympathetic. Everyone has been so nice.”

  “I’m sure they were.” Twit-Twit, next to me, was listening with more than half an ear. I leaned back to include her in the conversation; after all, I didn’t want another civil war. “They wanted to know when you last saw Klára, no doubt.”

  “Yes.”

  “When did you?”

  “I can’t bear to think about it. When I left my stateroom to go to the party, about ten-thirty. We’d been—been arguing.”

  “What about?”

  “Oh, she meant well, poor thing. But she began giving me this hard sell again about going back to New York as soon as we landed. I finally had to shut her up. I hate myself now.”

  “How could you know what would happen? What else did they ask you?”

  “Where I was before and around midnight.”

  That was about when she and I had gone for a walk on the deck. Who were they checking on, her or me?

  “Why? That’s when they figure Klára was attacked.”

  “Yes. It has something to do with the blood coagu—you know what I mean. Anyway, the doctor figures it happened between 11 and 11:30.”

  I began trying to remember who had been in the salon at that particular time. Everybody, it seemed. Mesh-Gloves for sure, although exactly when he had come in I was not sure. The first officer, yes. Widow’s-Peak Pennypacker? I thought he was. With the college girls. I couldn’t remember. Old Cotton-Hair Pennypacker? No, definitely. The Indian? Dr. Cyclops? I couldn’t remember. Maybe Tom could.

  “How about lunch?” Betsy was saying. “Lunch anyone? I’m starved.”

  “So am I,” I said. Merrilee had hardly touched her drink. “What do you say, Twit?”