Murder on the Caronia (12 page)

“It might have been here,” Webb decided, pointing a gnarled finger. He changed his mind instantly. “Or perhaps it was a bit farther along.”

“Which door did you come out of?”

“I thought it was the one we used ourselves.”

“That was on the wrong side of the ship,” Dillman reminded him. “We’ve just passed the exit directly opposite on this side and you ignored it. Why was that?”

“The rope, Mr. Dillman. There was no rope.”

“This is the first I’ve heard of any rope.”

“That’s what I sat down on. A coil of rope.”

“Why didn’t you say so?”

“I’ve only just remembered.”

“That gives us something to look for,” said Dillman. “A coil of rope near one of the exits. When those men came through the door, they wouldn’t have strolled along the deck together. They’d have gone straight to the rail.”

“That’s what happened.”

“
Where?
”

“Let’s find out.”

They walked toward the prow of the ship until they reached the next door that gave access to the cabin area. Immediately beyond it, tucked a little way back, was a coil of thick rope. A smile of recognition spread over Webb’s face.

“That’s it, Mr. Dillman.”

“You must have been uncomfortable if you slept on that.”

“I was too drunk to care.”

“And you’re quite definite?”

Webb was decisive. “Yes.” He scratched his head. “At least, I think so.”

“Let’s assume that you’re right,” said Dillman, moving to sit on the coil of rope. “Yes, you’d have had a good view from here of anyone coming through that door. If they went straight to the rail,” he went on, getting up to cross to the bulwark, “they’d have ended up about here.”

“A bit to the left,” recalled Webb. “I could see them from an angle.”

Dillman shifted his position. “About here?”

“Even farther over.”

“Here, then?”

Dillman moved across to the designated area and earned a nod of approval. He crouched down to examine the deck. Steady rain had blown in for hours to clean the deck and obliterate any sign of blood, but it had not washed away a small, sodden object that Dillman picked up carefully between a finger and thumb.

“What is it?” asked Webb.

“Exactly what I was hoping to find.”

He showed the abandoned cigarette to the old man.

Genevieve Masefield had some difficulty freeing herself from the attentions of Isadora Singleton without wounding the girl’s feelings. Hoping to get back to her duties, she was met with a further delay. As she was leaving the first-class lounge, two men were coming toward it. When he saw her, the younger of them raised a hand. Stanley Chase gave her a warm greeting and introduced Frank Openshaw to her. The Yorkshireman’s eyes lit up when he heard her name.

“Genevieve Masefield, eh?” he said. “You were mentioned in dispatches.”

“Was I?” replied Genevieve. “By whom?”

“A charming young lady called Isadora Singleton. You might call her a belle from Boston. Never stopped singing your praises.”

“I shouldn’t pay too much attention to her, Mr. Openshaw.”

“But I do, I do.”

“Isadora tends to exaggerate.”

“I disagree,” said Openshaw. “If anything, she did the opposite. According to her, you’re one of the most attractive ladies on the ship. I’d say that was being a trifle unfair to you. What do you think, Mr. Chase?”

“Miss Masefield already knows my opinion,” Chase said gallantly. “I don’t believe that there’s anyone on the
Caronia
to compare with her.”

“There you are, my dear. That’s the opinion of a connoisseur.
Mr. Chase is an antiques dealer. He has an eye for quality.”

Genevieve smiled. “I hope that he doesn’t plan to sell me in his shop.”

“It would be impossible to put a price on you,” Chase said courteously. “Do you know, I’ve been so lucky on this voyage. First of all, I meet you, Miss Masefield. Then, today, I had the good fortune to sit opposite Mr. Openshaw and his wife. It was a meeting of true minds.”

Openshaw chuckled. “What he means is that we’re both interested in money.”

“Making it or giving it away?” she asked.

“Both, in my case.”

Chase was circumspect. “I’m no philanthropist, I’m afraid.”

“It’s not philanthropy, my friend,” said Openshaw. “It’s a form of advertisement. You have the satisfaction of helping those less fortunate than yourself, and the knowledge that you’ll get beneficial publicity. Look what happened to the Openshaw Trust, for example. It provides accommodation for homeless people but it also broadcasts my name to the thousands who pass the building every day. Philanthropy is an investment.”

“That’s rather a cynical way of putting it, isn’t it?” said Genevieve.

“I’m simply being honest.”

“ ‘Frank by name and frank by nature,’ ” said Chase, quoting his friend’s motto.

“That’s me,” Openshaw agreed with a chuckle. “But I’m so glad I finally met you, Miss Masefield. Isadora seemed bereft without you when she and her parents joined us for drinks yesterday evening.”

“I’m surprised you remember either of our names,” said Genevieve. “I hear that there were dozens of people invited.”

“You’ll be among them next time, and so will Mr. Chase,” said Openshaw, turning to his companion. “But you’ve just put your finger on one of my secret weapons. I never forget a name. It’s a gift that always impresses people. I may not see them for
twenty years but I can always put a name to a face when I meet it again.”

“That’s a useful asset in business,” noted Chase.

“Aye, it’s a form of flattery.”

Genevieve smiled. “I don’t think I’ll ever be in danger of forgetting
your
name, Mr. Openshaw. You’re such a memorable person.”

“I try to be, Miss Masefield. I sell myself, you see.”

“We all do that to some degree or other,” argued Chase. “Put it this way. I don’t think I’d shift many antiques if I dressed in a cloth cap and a pair of dungarees.”

“Now that’s how I started my career,” said Openshaw.

“You told me,” Genevieve said politely. “I’ll get out of the way so that you can astound Mr. Chase in the same way.”

“Oh, he’s already done that,” explained Chase.

“Now I move on to the next stage,” said Openshaw, slipping an arm around the other man’s shoulders. “Having softened him up with the story of my life, I’m going to see if he’d like to invest in one of my companies.”

The two men went off together. They hardly seemed kindred spirits, but Genevieve had seen less likely partnerships on board. Stanley Chase was an educated man with refined tastes. He might be expected to steer clear of such an unashamed vulgarian as Frank Openshaw. The same could be said of the Singletons yet they had been won over by the promise of an introduction to representatives of the British aristocracy. Such a promise would be unlikely to lure Chase. As she strolled toward the purser’s office, Genevieve wondered what it was that had interested the quiet antiques dealer in the gregarious financier.

Inspector Redfern examined the cigarette butt with great solemnity. He gave a nod.

“Are you sure?” asked Dillman.

“This is the brand that he smoked.”

“It could have been dropped by someone else.”

“How many people on the main deck last night were smoking an expensive Balkan cigarette?” said Redfern, putting the butt in the ashtray on the table. “It was Ronnie’s one indulgence. No wife and children to support, you see. He could afford it. I’m a pipe man myself. Ronnie—Sergeant Mulcaster—swore by these.”

“Then I’m afraid that he’s smoked his last one.”

“Where did you find it?”

Dillman had called at the inspector’s cabin to report the find. He had hoped the cigarette might be a brand that Mulcaster never touched, but it was not the case. He gave Redfern a concise account of how he came to pick up the discarded butt. For the sake of brevity, he omitted details of the early blundering efforts of Daniel Webb to locate the spot where he had witnessed the murder.

“Where is this fellow now, Mr. Dillman?” asked Redfern.

“He’s gone back to his cabin.”

“I’d like to speak to him myself.”

“You’ll have to wait before you can do that.”

“Why?”

“Mr. Webb was not alone when he went back to his bunk.”

Redfern was shocked. “He’s taken a woman there at
his
age?”

“Not a woman,” said Dillman. “A bottle of whisky. I promised to buy it for him if he gave us crucial evidence—and he certainly did that. We can forget about him for the rest of the day. He’ll be drunk already.”

“Is that all we have? The word of an old soak?”

“It’s given us our one definite clue, Inspector.”

“Yes,” sighed the other, looking at the cigarette butt. “Poor Ronnie!”

“My guess is that it dropped from his lips when he was hit from behind. I know that he enjoyed a smoke,” said Dillman. “I bumped into him on the main deck myself on our first night at sea. He barely took the cigarette out of his mouth.”

“He got through twenty a day. You can imagine how many
packets we brought with us. We were lucky not to be arrested for tobacco smuggling.”

“There is one consolation, Inspector.”

“Is there?”

“I don’t think he’d have suffered for long. According to Mr. Webb, the attacker knocked him out with a series of savage blows. It took much less than a minute. After he hit the water, Sergeant Mulcaster probably never even regained consciousness.”

“I don’t find much consolation in that, Mr. Dillman. The stark fact is—if our supposition is correct—that a serving detective was bludgeoned to death before being tossed over the side of the ship. We don’t even have a body as visible proof of the crime.”

“We have Daniel Webb.”

“It’s not the same. We’re severely handicapped.”

“No body, no case.”

“Oh, we have a case,” said Redfern, “but it’s been made that much more difficult. I’ve already got two murder suspects in custody. I never thought I’d be investigating the killing of my sergeant as well.”

“Count on me for whatever help you need.”

“Thanks. This time, I won’t be too churlish to accept.”

“Do you have any theories?”

“None, Mr. Dillman. I’m trying to get used to the idea that Ronnie is dead.” He walked around the cabin. “He was such a presence here. Full of life.”

“Perhaps that was his downfall, Inspector.”

“In what way?”

“I was standing by the gangway when you came aboard,” said Dillman. “Sergeant Mulcaster did go out of his way to be seen. There was no need to tote that shotgun.”

“It wasn’t our idea. The newspapers wanted photographs of the prisoners being escorted aboard. They begged us to have a weapon in sight. The New York Police Department didn’t wish
to miss out on publicity, either, so they assigned those two officers you saw. It was all done for the camera.”

“I thought it looked staged.”

“We deliberately left it until the last moment to board the ship so that we wouldn’t cause too much disruption.”

“You were still seen,” Dillman reminded him. “That’s what I keep coming back to. Someone may have recognized you. Someone with a reason to dislike Scotland Yard detectives.”

“British prisons are full of people like that.”

“We may have one or two aboard, Inspector.”

“But we took care to keep our heads down, Mr. Dillman. Neither of us went anywhere near the public rooms. I made sure of that.”

“Someone found out about this cabin.”

“But why kill Sergeant Mulcaster and not me?” wondered Redfern. “That man had me at his mercy. He could easily have smashed my head in. Instead of that, he knocks me out and ties me up.”

“Leaving the field clear for the attack on your colleague.”

“But I had no intention of going up on deck.”

“The attacker didn’t know that,” reasoned Dillman. “What was certain was that you’d soon have started to worry about the sergeant’s absence. You knew precisely how much time it took him to smoke a cigarette. Before long, you’d have gone looking for him.”

“True.”

“The villain was taking no chance. He was a belt-and-suspenders man. With you out of action, it would be a whole night before Sergeant Mulcaster’s disappearance was reported. By that time, the killer had merged back into our passenger list.”

“It’s frightening,” confessed Redfern.

“We won’t let him get away with it.”

“Look at the size of the ship, Mr. Dillman.”

“I know, sir. It won’t be easy to track our man down.”

“Where do we look?”

“Everywhere.”

There was no rest from the training schedule. While other passengers relaxed or spent the afternoon in various leisure pursuits, Theodore Wright was pounding his way around the boat deck, grateful the rain had stopped but wishing he could catch a glimpse of either Genevieve Masefield or Isadora Singleton to relieve the boredom of his run. His routine was well known by now and other passengers waved to him as he passed. Some even gave him a round of applause to encourage him. Wright acknowledged them with a wave but he was disappointed not to see a sign of the two passengers he liked most. As he made his final circuit, a tall, graceful woman stepped out on deck some thirty yards ahead of him, wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat covered in flowers. Thinking it was Genevieve, he accelerated at once then saw he was mistaken. Lifting her head, the woman gave him an unfriendly glare but Wright did not even see it. His eyes were fixed on her hat.

Five minutes later, he was lying facedown on his bunk while his coach massaged his legs. Wes Odell worked slowly, using his fingers to explore any tightening in the calf and thigh muscles. He was a skilled masseur whose preparation of the cyclist enabled Wright to win a sequence of races without once suffering from cramp. The coach took the opportunity to raise a delicate subject.

“Wait until after the race, Theo,” he advised.

“What do you mean?”

“That’s the time to celebrate. When you’ve taught Gaston Vannier that he ought to keep his mouth shut. Win the race first and then start worrying about finding yourself a girlfriend to take out for dinner.”

“It’s not a girlfriend I’m looking for, Wes.”