The Traces of Merrilee

by Herbert Brean

  “I am half-asleep,” said Giorgione. “Last night the party kept me awake. The night before I was awakened by some drunken lout arguing with his wife in a cabin nearby. Then they went out. I go back to sleep. They come back, and he is loudly complaining about the ship and its food and bumped into my door as he passed.”

  “You must be on the boat deck,” I said.

  “The boat deck,” said Giorgione.

  “I heard them roll in, too.”

  He and Pennypacker shook hands. Then he and I did. Then Pennypacker and I did. It was as formal as the preliminaries to a duel. Mesh-Gloves—Mr. Bu, I should call him now—did not. He bowed formally to all of us and left.

  Anxious to get to his girlfriend, I thought. I went topside to the suite.

  * * * *

  A note on the table in Twit-Twit’s handwriting said all three of them were at the movie. A snore from a bedroom told me Tom was making up for last night. I dropped down on my bed and thought that tonight Merrilee would be sleeping in it, and that made it difficult to even doze off.

  But I did. Some time later, something was touching my hand. I awoke slowly, in darkness. My arm hung over the side of the bed, and something cold and wet was moving against my lingers. I thought of Giorgione’s handshake.

  It stopped and, at the same moment, it hit my chest with all four feet.

  Stowaway, somewhere on the floor, had scented the food smells on my hand, started to lick it, and then leaped up and landed on my chest. Now she began walking up and down on me, like Captain Bligh striding the bridge, occasionally switching her tail in my face, and sometimes breathing sardine fumes at me.

  “Lie down,” I said. When I stroked her, she began to purr. She only purred when somebody stroked her. We both went to sleep.

  The phone’s jangle made both the cat and me jump; I found the phone in darkness.

  A woman’s voice said, “M’sieu Day-ah-cawn?” and I recognized the French pronunciation of my name.

  “Oui.”

  “You should come, please, to le chambre de Mademoiselle Moore. Something wrong.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Please come.”

  “Who is this?”

  “The maid, m’sieu. After last night, the captain issue orders we are to pay special attention with Mademoiselle Moore. I come to check phone ringing. And she is not here. But I see something. There is something—”

  “Something what?”

  “There is a knock now at the door—it is the officer, I think. Please come, m’sieu. Mademoiselle told me you were the first to call if she had the trouble.”

  “She’s not in the bathtub?”

  “No, m’sieu.”

  When I got to Merrilee’s cabin, the first officer was also there. He looked worried.

  “What’s the problem?”

  “The maid heard the phone ringing in here,” he said. “Repeatedly. So she came in, after knocking several times.”

  “All right. But what’s the trouble?”

  “The trouble is Mademoiselle Moore is missing. The phone was the hairdresser. She had an appointment and did not arrive. She is not here, either. I ordered a check of the public rooms. She was paged. She is nowhere.”

  “She was going to the movie.”

  “She is definitely not in the movie.”

  “She is not in the bathroom?”

  “No.”

  “How about the bedroom?”

  “Marie knocked, then looked in.”

  I didn’t knock, or look in. I opened the door and walked in. There was no one on the bed or in the room. It was very dark; the curtains had been drawn. But that is not what I first became aware of. There was a dressing table with a big mirror over it, partly behind the door. Just in front of the mirror, a candle was burning. Behind the candle on the mirror was Merrilee’s face.

  But it wasn’t her face. It had been once. Now it was scarred and slashed, the sunken, dark-ringed eyes weirdly askew, the golden neck twisted and mutilated.

  Then I recognized what I was looking at—a life-sized photograph of her face that had been cut out, retouched, and pasted on the mirror in horrid, sadistic caricature. In the candle’s flickering, it was the first thing she would see when she walked into the room and closed the door. She would think she was seeing herself.

  The first officer had not followed me into the bedroom. He said from the parlor, “I want to show you what alarmed the maid.”

  I went back out, closing the door behind me.

  He was pointing to a place on the floor under a window. There was a little dark clot on the carpet. I leaned over it. It was blood. It was fresh.

  I have never been so frightened.

  What in God’s name had they done?

  Had they killed her? I couldn’t believe it. But what was a girl’s life against twenty-five or fifty million dollars, and a psychopath’s enormous, revengeful bitterness?

  “And if this is not enough,” said the first officer, “the m’sieu Jones—her publicity man, yes?—he also ’as not been seen. His bed was not slept in. His steward reported it. And a passenger reported that a meat slicer—”

  “Never mind the meat slicer. She is the important thing to find.”

  “But the meat slicer ’as been found, m’sieu. Outside a passenger’s door. A M’sieu Pennypackair. He reported it to us. With a piece of rope—all sticky with green paint—someone left in his room. M’sieu Pennypackair was most indignant.”

  “You’d better search the ship. Right away.” I think my voice sounded odd. “Completely. If she is not on it—I don’t know where we go from there.”

  I thought of something else. They obviously did not know what was in the bedroom; the maid had only glanced in and not looked behind the door. It was better if they did not know. And Merrilee surely must not see it.

  “I’ll start the search right now,” I said. “I didn’t look in her closet.”

  I went back into the bedroom, snuffed out the candle, and stripped the photo from the mirror, trying not to handle it any more than necessary for the sake of fingerprints. The rubber cement that held it was still fresh-smelling. I folded it and put it in my pocket. Then I looked in the closet, saw only clothes, came out, and said, “Nothing doing.”

  The maid looked terrified.

  The first officer and I stepped out into the corridor.

  “You are right,” he said. “We must search every part of the ship. At once.”

  “At once.”

  The maid came out into the corridor. “I called the coiffeur again,” she said. “She has non arrive.”

  “Let’s get going,” I told the officer. “What can I do to help?”

  “Nothing, m’sieu. The search is for the crew. I will call you within thirty minutes in your cabin.”

  He looked frightened. I suppose I did, too. Things were coming to a climax, and I had a feeling I wouldn’t like the climax.

  In the suite, I heard Tom’s snores and saw our whiskey bottle. But I didn’t want a drink. I didn’t want anything except the knowledge that Merrilee was somewhere aboard and somehow okay.

  I began pacing the floor.

  Chapter 18

  The Corpse

  As I paced, I swayed a little, and at first I figured that my footing was uncertain because I was nervous. And I was. In a crisis inaction is the crudest torture.

  But after a few minutes I realized the reason I was swaying was not nervousness. It was the ship.

  Outside, the wind was beginning to growl and howl alternately. The forward rises and plunges were perhaps a little heavier than before, but they were not so noticeable because she was rolling so deeply from side to side. Things moved and slid by themselves on the bureaus and desk, and water slopped out of the carafe by my bed. In the closets, clothes on hangers made brushing sounds and c
linking noises.

  This was heavy weather.

  I looked out a window. All you saw was flying gray water and watery-gray light, and you could not tell where the sea stopped and the sky began.

  The door to the suite swung suddenly open, and I thought the storm had done that, too, but Twit-Twit lurched in and slammed it shut.

  “God help the poor sailor on a night like this,” she said.

  “Have you seen Merrilee?”

  “Why are you so anxious about Merrilee? I almost broke my ankle on the—”

  “Haven’t you heard the news?”

  “What news? I damn near break my neck going up the stairs to get up here—they’ve got ropes all over the place, but they don’t help much—and the first thing I hear—”

  “God damn it, Twit, tell me. Where did you last see her?” She surveyed me.

  “Why is it so important at this moment?”

  “Because the whole ship is being hunted for her. She may have gone overboard.”

  Twit-Twit looked at me searchingly. “You mean it. Something’s really wrong.”

  “Something is God-damned wrong. She may have been killed. There’s a bloodstain in her cabin. She may—please tell me when you last saw her.”

  She said, “I’m sorry. I last saw her at the movie.”

  “Which just let out?”

  “Yes.”

  “But they’ve been hunting her for half an hour. All over the ship.”

  “That must be what the paging meant.”

  “What paging?”

  “She and I and Bets met at the movie. Marlon Brando in—”

  “Screw Marlon Brando.”

  “We’d hardly sat down when they paged her. You know. Over the PA system.”

  “And?”

  “She sort of scrounged up next to me and said, ‘Now what do they want?’ I said that maybe it was a cable or something. She said she didn’t want any cables. She seemed scared.”

  “It figures.”

  “I guess so. Anyway, she said, ‘I just want to stay here and see the picture.’ But after a little while they paged her again, and in a few moments she whispered she had a date at the hairdresser, and got up and left. Quite suddenly. Bets and I stayed until the end.”

  Was she back in her cabin?

  I picked up the phone and dialed Cabin B-78. It didn’t answer.

  I found the coiffeur in the ship’s telephone list and dialed that.

  “Did Miss Moore get in yet?”

  “Who is calling, m’sieu?”

  “This is the bridge,” I lied. “M’sieu Deacon. I am calling for the captain, who is alarmed.”

  “Oui, m’sieu. J’ai compris. Mademoiselle Moore n’a pas apparue.”

  “Merci.” I rang off. “No dice. Twit—I’m scared.”

  She patted my arm. Through the wall from the cabin next to us, there came the bull-like bellowing of Mr. Steak-Lover, roaring angrily at his wife. Twit-Twit said, “Don’t panic yet. They’ll turn her up. Just wait until all the returns are in.” The telephone rang in my hand; I’d never released my grip on it.

  “Yes?”

  “Mr. Deacon?” It was a woman’s voice. But not the right one.

  “Yes?”

  “I have a transatlantic call for you. One moment.”

  It was several moments. Then Newt’s voice broke in. “Hello? Hello? Deac?”

  “Yes. What’s up?”

  “Well, I’ll tell you. I am definitely going to buzz over to London and meet all of you when you land at Southampton.”

  “That may be a good idea.” I wondered how to break the news. “In fact, it is a good idea. I just hope we’re all there to meet you.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Merrilee is missing,” I said. I couldn’t think of any kinder way to say it.

  “What do you mean, missing?” Fear raised his voice half an octave.

  “She went to the movie this afternoon. Left early to go to the hairdresser. She never got there. The entire ship is being searched right now. So far, no dice.”

  I have never heard so long a silence.

  “You think they got her some way?”

  “Somebody’s hid her away, at least.”

  “But on a ship—there are only so many places.”

  “On a ship there is always the ocean.”

  There was another long silence.

  “Blame me for it. But God, Newt, she was even at a movie with friends of mine. Before that, we had all lunched together. And she’d been thoroughly put on guard.”

  “Stop it. I blame myself. We should have shipped her to Europe in a lead container, like uranium, surrounded by twenty-five uniformed cops. But where—? Do you have any ideas about who ‘they’ are—the ones on the ship?”

  “Oh, yes. But revenge or punishment won’t—if they’ve—if they’ve hurt her.”

  “You sound in a bad way.”

  “I may kill somebody before I get off this boat.”

  Twit-Twit’s eyes widened.

  Newt said, “Now for Almighty God’s sake, Deac, don’t get Irish and crazy.”

  “I won’t,” I said, “because I have no real proof right now. This is a hell of a clever operator, and he has good help. Tell you one thing you can do.”

  “Right.”

  “Do you have this morning’s paper handy?”

  “Sure.”

  “Look in the sports pages and tell me who won yesterday’s ball game between the Mets and the Dodgers.”

  “For the love of heaven! Is this a time to worry about baseball?”

  “Do what I said. I just want the final score.”

  “Just a minute.” A pause. Then, “The Dodgers won, four to one.”

  “Are you sure you’ve got the right paper? And the right date and game? It was yesterday’s game. The opener.”

  “Sure. Right here in the New York Times.”

  “Four to one.”

  “That was the score.”

  “That may help quite a lot.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Never mind now.”

  “Call me as soon as you get a report—no matter how bad it is. You have my home number.”

  We hung up.

  Twit-Twit and I exchanged looks. I suppose how I felt showed in my face. She came forward and put her arms around me. She didn’t kiss me or anything. It’s the sort of thing that made me fall in love with Twit-Twit.

  “Relax a minute,” she said. “Then we’ll figure what to do next. And what I can do to help.”

  “You’ll stay here and answer the phone.”

  “While you—?”

  “While I communicate with these bastards.”

  “You mean, the people who—?”

  “Yes. I can send them a message. It may help. It can’t do any harm.”

  “Where’s Tom?”

  “In his room, asleep. Call on him if you need anything. Where’s Betsy?”

  “She was going to do a little shopping in the boutique, then come right up here.”

  “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  “Do I have time to change and get into something loose?”

  “Of course. All you have to do is listen for the phone. Or a knock at the door.”

  “I’ll even leave the john door open.”

  “You don’t have to be indelicate.”

  But I kissed her and left.

  * * * *

  Walking around the passageway to Merrilee’s suite, I thought about what I would say. I could not risk overstating my case, because my case wasn’t that strong, even though it was shaping up. But if it was going to help her—if, indeed, it could help her—I had to make it convincing.

  No one was on guard in fr
ont of her cabin. I used the key and stepped inside and, as I did, a silly, wistful hope flashed across my mind—that somehow she would be there, dressed or undressed, or maybe making splashing noises in the tub. But there was no sound at all. I closed the door carefully and went directly to the day bed.

  All I had to do was switch the bug on, perhaps give it a minute to warm up, and then talk into it. They’d get the message, all right. Immediately, or by tape, or however they worked it.

  I pulled the covers back and reached. And that was all.

  The bug was not there.

  I took the elevator back up to the suite. As I swung into our corridor, I saw the first officer standing at our door. He pushed the button.

  Twit-Twit opened the door promptly.

  “M’sieu Deacon. Is he in?” the first officer asked.

  “I guess he is now,” said Twit-Twit.

  I said, “Hi.” We went inside.

  Tom was sitting in a chair in shirt-sleeves and slacks, looking deliberately sleepy, from which I knew he was very much awake.

  “What’s the news?” I said.

  “It is not good, m’sieu,” the first officer said. He held his cap in his hands apologetically. “It is—it is not at all good.” He was excessively polite, as though he felt he were to blame.

  “Then what is it?”

  The deep-pile carpeting we stood on rose and sank beneath us as the ship plowed and rolled. The parlor’s subdued lighting was oppressive, like that in a funeral home. Suddenly I wanted a strong, heady drink, or a cigarette (I don’t smoke), or a change of scene—like an English moor. Illogical, but real.

  “It is—we’ve found something, m’sieu.”

  “Well, Christ! What?”

  “The search is not complete. The men—we even brought out the night crews to—how you say?—expedite l’affaire. The men ’ave gone over the ship, except for the lowest part, where is the propeller shaft. They are going through that now.”

  “But you said—”

  From the wall behind me came a loud bumping sound in the next cabin. It was the storm, moving furniture around, or Steak-Lover bouncing his wife off the wall.

  “M’sieu, you are a friend of Mademoiselle Moore. You are associated with her.”