The Pleasure Cruise Mystery Page 5

  “Yes,” thought Vereker, “Ricky will be indispensable; he always was a first-rate mixer, and on this occasion the circumstances will be peculiarly suited to his penchant for living like a millionaire. A costly stalking horse at times, but the game’s worth it and one must always pay for one’s hobbies…”

  His reverie was at this point suddenly shattered by a sharp rapping on his cabin window, and kneeling with one knee on his bed Vereker swiftly drew aside the gaily coloured cretonne curtain which screened his cabin interior from the publicity of the deck and peered out. Looking from this brightly lit chamber into the outer gloom, he could only discern the vague silhouette of a head and shoulders. He switched off the light and looked again. Now he could see clearly that the head and shoulders belonged to Ricardo, and that Ricardo was beckoning him frantically to come out and join him. Vereker was seized with a swift spasm of annoyance. Was Ricky indulging in one of the idiotic pranks to which his mercurial temperament was addicted? He was not going to encourage him in any of his freakish practical jokes.

  “Some tomfool game or other, I’ll bet,” he exclaimed petulantly. “I’m not joining in at this godless hour!”

  At that moment he heard the ship’s bell strike four. It was four bells of the middle watch and two o’clock in the morning. He switched on his light once more and was about to draw the curtain of his cabin window when he noticed that Ricardo’s short thick nose was flattened against the pane. His eyes were wide and startled, and his lips kept framing the words “Come out here, Algernon. Quick! Quick!”

  Without further hesitation Vereker pulled on trousers, socks and shoes and, enveloping himself in an overcoat, quietly let himself out of his cabin. A few minutes later he was out on the starboard sweep of D deck and, glancing towards the stern, noticed in the half light that Ricardo was still standing outside the window of his cabin. He was bending down over some dark mass lying prone at his feet. On hearing his friend, Manuel stood erect and gesticulated wildly, urging haste and pointing to the object over which he was standing guard. In a flash Vereker saw that Ricardo was in no joking mood and at once hurried along the deck to his assistance.

  “What’s the matter, Ricky?” he asked breathlessly, and at the same moment realised that the mass lying at Ricardo’s feet was the body of a woman. “Good Lord, who is it? Has she fainted?”

  “It’s Mrs. Mesado, Algernon,” replied Ricardo in a strained whisper, “and if I’m not mistaken she’s dead. I can’t rouse her.”

  “Impossible!” exclaimed Vereker and, stooping down, caught hold of the recumbent figure’s hand. To his surprise it was encased in a chamois leather glove. Quickly pushing down the soft gauntlet of the glove, he laid his finger on her wrist. Delicate as was his sense of touch he could feel no throbbing of her pulse, and the flesh of the forearm was unpleasantly cold.

  “By Jove, I’m afraid you’re right, Ricky!” he said. “Run and get the ship’s doctor while I stay here and keep an eye on things.”

  “Where on earth does he hang out?” asked Ricardo.

  “I don’t know, but hunt up one of the night stewards and he’ll dig him out. There’s no time to lose!”

  Ricardo promptly disappeared, and Vereker, pulling out a small pocket torch which he always carried on him, made a swift examination of the body. Mrs. Mesado was dressed in the pale blue georgette dress which she had worn at dinner the previous evening, and the fact reminded him that he had not seen her at dinner that night. Strange that he should have missed her, for he had been particularly anxious to get a good look at her. He at once observed that she was not wearing her valuable diamond necklace. Flashing his torch from one point to another, his sharp eye took in every detail of the figure as it lay in an ungainly sprawl on the deck. Again he experienced a sharp sense of surprise on noticing that Mrs. Mesado was wearing a pair of ordinary chamois leather gloves with her evening gown. This fact struck him as so unusual that, in spite of his ingrained scruples to leave the body untouched, he quickly removed the glove of the left hand in order to examine it, and in doing so found that the material of the glove stuck to the fingers. Flashing his torch on the bare hand he discovered that the flesh of all the knuckles was cut and bruised, and that the adhesion of the fingers to the leather of the glove had been caused by the blood that had flowed from the wounds and dried. A swift inspection of the right hand showed that it too was cut and bruised in a manner similar to the left. Before replacing the gloves on Mrs. Mesado’s hands he noticed that the letters C. C. had been written in purple indelible pencil on the inside of the gauntlets.

  “An interesting point,” he murmured, and as he replaced the right-hand glove Vereker began to whistle to himself a mournful little air from a forgotten Viennese opera, a sure indication that he was beginning to get excited. Then as he was about to slip on the left-hand glove he suddenly dropped it and switched the light of the torch on to that badly injured hand.

  “More and more interesting!” he exclaimed as he saw on the index finger an emerald and ruby marquise ring, two of the stones of which were missing. Without further delay he pulled the glove on to the apparently lifeless hand and made another examination of the body. The extreme pallor of the face struck him as remarkable, and then his quick, restless glance settled for a moment on the high-heeled blue satin shoes that Mrs. Mesado was wearing. At once his hands caught hold of her feet and felt them all over with great care. The action imparted some recondite information which elicited a slight grunt of satisfaction, and, hearing footsteps approaching, Vereker straightened himself, extinguished his torch and thrust it into the pocket of his overcoat. Next moment three figures appeared from the door leading into the cabins situated on the starboard side of the upper promenade deck and hurried up to where Vereker stood beside Mrs. Mesado’s body. As they came within the radius of light flung from the window of Vereker’s cabin he saw that the men were Ricardo; the ship’s doctor, Macpherson; and Fuller, one of the night stewards for the range of cabins on D deck. The doctor, without speaking a word, pressed the button of an electric lamp which he was carrying in his hand and flung a wide circle of light over the body lying on the deck. Thence he swung the lamp upwards and enveloped Vereker in its rays.

  “Oh, it’s you, Mr. Vereker,” he said, and added quietly, “I’ll be glad if one of you gentlemen would give Fuller a hand to carry the lady back to her cabin. Mr. Ricardo has told me she’s a Mrs. Mesado and her cabin is No. 89 on this deck.”

  At once Vereker stooped and lifted the recumbent body by placing his hands under her arms. Fuller raised her lower limbs by embracing her round the knees, and the party made its way carefully along the deck.

  “Not any more noise than you can help, gentlemen,” warned the doctor as they proceeded along the alleyway; “the less the other passengers know about this matter the better.”

  A few minutes later they had entered Mrs. Mesado’s cabin and deposited the body gently on the bed. The doctor then made a swift examination and grunted ominously.

  “Is she dead, doctor?” asked Ricardo impatiently.

  “I’m afraid so. Just passed away,” he replied without looking to see who had addressed the question.

  For a brief period the four men stood in silence, and Doctor Macpherson, who was quietly reviewing the matter from a wider angle than the particular death of a human being, silently produced a loose cigarette from one of his pockets and lit it. Turning slowly to Fuller he asked:

  “Is Mrs. Mesado travelling alone, or has she her husband or friends on board?”

  “She has her maid with her, sir—a Miss Gautier—and Mr. and Mrs. Colvin, in the next suite of cabins, are relatives if I’m not mistaken.”

  “Mrs. Colvin is Mrs. Mesado’s sister, I believe,” added Ricardo.

  “Oh, that so!” commented the doctor, and after a pause, “You might tell Mr. and Mrs. Colvin to come here quietly, Fuller. Never mind the maid for the present. Tell the Colvins that Mrs. Mesado has taken suddenly ill and that I’d like to see them as soon as p
ossible.”

  Fuller departed and Doctor Macpherson, puffing unconcernedly at his cigarette, turned to Vereker and Ricardo.

  “Thank you very much, gentlemen, for your assistance and the trouble you’ve taken. I won’t detain you any longer; I’m sure you must be tired. Captain Partridge may want to see you to-morrow. If so he’ll send for you. In the meantime I must ask you as a great favour not to let this matter go beyond yourselves. I’m sure you’ll see the necessity for keeping the other passengers in the dark. The matter doesn’t concern them, and a sudden death isn’t a particularly happy occurrence at the beginning of a pleasure cruise. May I rely on you?”

  “Certainly, doctor,” replied Vereker and Ricardo together.

  “Thanks very much,” replied the doctor, and, wishing him good night, Vereker and Ricardo left Mrs. Mesado’s cabin and returned along the alleyway to Vereker’s quarters.

  Chapter Four

  The pontifical manner leeches assume always gets my goat,” remarked Ricardo with heat as soon as Vereker and he were alone in the latter’s cabin. “I suppose Hippocrates started the stunt to cover his deficiencies, and his disciples have made it part of the ritual of medicine ever since.”

  “Sound psychology, my dear Ricky. The public demands omniscience from the hierarchs of healing. The only way you can prevent the public from discovering that a certain amount of knowledge is not omniscience is to be mysterious and authoritative. Assurance is the greater part of suggestion, and suggestion the greater part of most cures.”

  “So that’s the simple explanation, is it? Well, I wish Macpherson wouldn’t try to work the spoof off on me. Any fool could twig that he hadn’t the haziest notion of what had happened to Mrs. Mesado, and he didn’t take the slightest trouble to ask us anything about the business. Promptly took the attitude that the matter didn’t concern us at all, and told us to run away and play. Ergo, Macpherson’s an ass, and a Scots ass at that. He ought to have been brought up on carrots instead of oats.”

  “You’re annoyed because you didn’t get more of the spotlight, Ricky. After all, the matter doesn’t really concern you. You were an accident.”

  “I never was an accident, Algernon. My parents considered even my birth an answer to prayer. I claim to be a protagonist in this drama. Didn’t I find Mrs. Mesado’s body?”

  “Yes, and your vanity’s hurt because Macpherson ignored that minor fact in his general concern about major things. A death’s a pretty serious business on a pleasure cruise when you come to think of it.”

  “I suppose it is. When they find out, half the company, with smug hypocrisy, will go about with long faces as if they were deeply grieved. They’ll discuss it eagerly and pretend it has cast the inevitable gloom—yes, gloom’s the word—over the ship. They’ll have a high old time with condolences, and after fairly wallowing in a burial at sea they’ll forget all about it. In any case, that doesn’t justify Macpherson’s heavyweight manner with us. If I hadn’t given him my word I’d chastise him by blowing the gaff to all the passengers tomorrow morning. That’d cook his goose—I mean his porridge—for him!”

  “Forget your grouch against Macpherson for the moment, Ricky, and tell me just how you came to discover Mrs. Mesado’s body lying on the deck,” asked Vereker calmly.

  Ricardo promptly opened Vereker’s cupboard and produced a bottle of whisky and glasses. Having poured out a liberal dram for his friend and himself, he flung off his cap, muffler and overcoat and sat down.

  “Phew! I feel as if I were disrupting. This business has shaken me badly,” he exclaimed and drained his glass. Replacing the glass on the small cabin table, he once more sat down, thrust his hands into his pockets and stretched his legs out in front of him.

  “Let’s begin at the beginning,” he said. “Do you remember the exact time I left your cabin for a stroll round the deck, Algernon?”

  “Well, not the exact time, Ricky, but it must have been about quarter to one; perhaps a few minutes before.”

  “Very good. I immediately got out on deck and began to pace round the usual course. There’s a brass plate fixed up somewhere which tells you that so many times round the deck is one mile, but I never compute distance by such an abstract thing as measurement. Mathematical abstractions are the bane of modern thinking because they’re so illusorily concrete. I measure distance by feeling and know that I’ve walked far enough when I’m tired. My intention was to get thoroughly tired and then go to bed and fall asleep in spite of the ship’s siren. Well, I began to pace round the course, and around me was a globous world of mist, eerie and wonderful but damned cold. I don’t know how long I’d been tramping when I ran into one of the ship’s officers. I think it must have been the chief officer from the number of gold stripes on his sleeve. He looked a perfect zebra. He had evidently come down from the bridge, and after a cheery word disappeared into the officers’ quarters, which are, as you know, situated on this deck some distance nearer ‘the neb of the ship’ as Macpherson would probably say. There were no further interruptions to my pensive circumambulation until about one-thirty or perhaps a little later. As I came along the starboard deck, which is the right side looking forrard, in case you’re not sea-minded, I was surprised to see a man and woman locked in one another’s arms standing against the outer wall of our cabins not six paces from the door leading on to the deck. I couldn’t see them very clearly in the gloom, and with my customary delicacy I naturally didn’t go up and ask them what they thought of the political situation in Europe as a conversational gambit. I soon recovered from my surprise because it’s quite irrational to be surprised at anything lovers may do under divine impulse…”

  “I wish you’d cut out the embroidery, Ricky; I want to get at the facts,” interrupted Vereker impatiently.

  “Sorry you object to my narrative style, Algernon, but you must remember it’s my profession to make dull facts interesting. A gripping serial isn’t a bald statement of facts; it wouldn’t pay at two guineas a thousand. Half the fun of eating a nut is cracking the shell.”

  “Well, get along and don’t make the shell too thick. What did you do after finding the couple—interlocked, so to speak?”

  “I proceeded on my way. I remember thinking that I might dig out Rosaura and ask her to come up and admire the fog. Concluded it was out of the question, so I wandered round to the port deck. Not wishing to embarrass the lovers on the starboard deck, I began a kind of sentry-go instead of completing the usual lap. I got tired of sentry-go, had enough of it during the war, so I glanced at my watch and found it was nearly two o’clock. I know half an hour’s a very short time to tell a girl you love her and persuade her you’re a superman, but I wasn’t going to let the couple make a golden age of it. Thought I’d reappear as a memory tickler. Remind them that life’s brief and one side of the promenade not long enough for exercise. When I turned on to the starboard deck I was surprised to see that the lovers had gone, and promptly quickened my pace. Then came a painful shock. I caught my foot in something soft but inert and found myself full length on the deck. Picked myself up quickly, almost apologised and investigated. Struck a match and discovered that I’d tripped over the body of Mrs. Mesado. Even then I didn’t realise the seriousness of the affair. I thought at once that she had fainted and that her companion had vanished in search of a restorative. I automatically stooped and felt her heart. It was not beating, or rather I couldn’t feel it beating. I listened for her breathing: there was not the faintest sound. I experienced a quick start of fear. Death in any circumstances has a tendency to put the wind up you, but when you stumble over it on a pleasure cruiser’s deck you get panicky. Comparable to meeting the devil in Paradise. My first thought was to spring up to the bridge and bring down the skipper or shout for help. Then I noticed I was standing exactly opposite your lighted cabin window. I could just see your mug through a chink in the curtain. I hammered on the pane, and it seemed ages before you deigned to take the slightest notice.”