The Pleasure Cruise Mystery (25 page)

“Naturally the costume went with the lady when she vanished,” remarked Heather.

“I agree, but where had the lady vanished to?” asked Vereker pertinently.

“Overboard, of course. She committed suicide, I should say, but why, Mr. Vereker, why? That's what I want to know.”

“Now, Heather, you're looking at the answer before working out the sum. We'll get at the answer by a logical process, please. The next step in the direction of a solution came from my discovery in my cabin of a very valuable diamond necklace which, as I've suggested to you, must have been flung in at my window. I could think of no person as the thrower of that necklace except the owner. At this juncture Colvin drew a nasty red herring across the scent by telling me that Mrs. Mesado's necklace of alternate cinnamon and white diamonds was missing. Now Ricky satisfactorily identified the necklace which had so unexpectedly come into my possession as the one Mrs. Mesado had worn at dinner one night. He even distinctly remembered the emerald butterfly clasp, a point which was firmly imbedded in my own mind. I was temporarily bewildered but, to fit the circumstances together in a rational scheme, assumed that there must be two necklaces. I had heard of ‘Maureen's' necklace and for the sake of a working hypothesis called the cinnamon and white diamond one ‘Maureen's' necklace without knowing who this mysterious Maureen might be. By a curious association of ideas I now began to think not only of two distinct necklaces, but two distinct owners. It was a happy psychological accident. I tried hard through my friend Ricky to discover the identity of Maureen. Miss Renée Gautier, whom he questioned, denied all knowledge of a Maureen, but made the fatal mistake of saying that the necklace which Colvin was searching for was one of pure white diamonds. At once I jumped to the conclusion that there was a conspiracy among Colvin, Mrs. Colvin and Gautier and that they had not definitely agreed on the minor details of their story for public consumption. Once I had firmly grasped the idea of conspiracy things began to assume a clearer shape. My mind travelled backwards and the discrepancy in the story of where the car smash had occurred became significant. I soon proved to my satisfaction that there had been no car smash; ergo, Mrs. Mesado could not have injured her hands in a car smash, and yet from the state of the wounds they had certainly been injured prior to her arrival on board. As I was now convinced that Mrs. Mesado's hands had not been injured at all it was conclusive that the body with the injured hands was not that of Beryl Mesado. The fog was beginning to clear, Heather, but it was still pretty thick, I returned to the circumstances of the fatal night. I had positively heard Mrs. Mesado's voice talking to Colvin at one-thirty, or between that time and one-forty-five a.m. She was dead on deck at two o'clock. This was rather difficult to swallow easily, and I questioned the night steward, Fuller. Now Fuller, as I've told you before, made the remarkable statement that he had seen Colvin carry up Mrs. Mesado on deck at one-thirty a.m. in a dead faint and return almost immediately to his cabin. He was very precise about the time. Dyson, the day steward, told me that Martin, the night stewardess, saw Mrs. Mesado run up the companion on to D deck about two o'clock. She was sure that it was Mrs. Mesado because she was wearing her diamond necklace and her black and white check morning costume. It was of course possible that Martin had taken Mrs. Colvin for Mrs. Mesado, but she would hardly make a mistake about a diamond necklace. She would almost certainly know the difference between it and the string of crystal beads that Mrs. Colvin wore. I took it for proven that Martin was right and that Mrs. Mesado was alive just before two o'clock. There was now no doubt in my mind that the body found by Ricardo at two o'clock on the starboard side of D deck was not that of Mrs. Mesado. As I have said it's difficult to remove a fixed idea, but I had at last managed to do so. Being now positive that the body was not that of Mrs. Mesado, I had to find out whose it was and how it had come there.”

“I might have done the job quicker, but I couldn't have done it better, Mr. Vereker,” said Heather, reaching for his glass. There followed a silence broken only by a grunt of satisfaction emitted by the inspector as he stuffed his handkerchief up his sleeve after wiping his mouth.

“This astounding discovery forced me to alter my whole mental attitude to the case. It was as disturbing as removing from one flat to another. I was so obsessed with the idea of Mrs. Mesado being murdered on account of her wealth that I felt quite depressed. There were so many lovely motives for murdering Mrs. Mesado. Her necklace was worth several thousand pounds. Her sister Constance benefited to the tune of £100,000 and the mansion at Jevington. Colvin was always hard up through his drunkenness. Renée Gautier was left £500 under the will. Mrs. Mesado's husband had quarrelled with her and might be glad to get rid of her. Miss Penteado was in love with her husband and would certainly marry him if he were free. She was such a likely subject for murder that I could almost have done the job myself!”

“The next step was to find out who the murdered lady was,” suggested Heather.

“No, strangely enough, I was at first more concerned about how the body had got there. It was at once fairly clear that Colvin had carried it up from Mrs. Mesado's cabin with the intention of disposing of it by an unorthodox burial at sea. It was the body that the steward had mistaken for Mrs. Mesado in a dead faint, being taken up on deck by her brother-in-law at one-thirty a.m. The next question was how had it come aboard, and why. After very little reflection it was evident that it must have been packed in a large trunk, and both the Colvins and Mrs. Mesado came on the ‘Mars' with identically similar Saratoga trunks of unusual dimensions. A dismembered human body can be packed into a small compass as you know, Heather.”

“Yes, the dimensions of the Charing Cross Murder trunk were only 31 inches by 19 inches by 23 inches.”

“Dismemberment was impossible in this case, probably due to a vital matter of time, but we'll get to that point later. I was sure that the body had been packed in one of those trunks, and from the conversation I'd overheard between Colvin and Mrs. Mesado, when she said, ‘You'll have to do the job as soon as possible, Dick,' I inferred that it was Mrs. Mesado's trunk. I have a theory why there were two trunks, but it's unimportant at the moment.”

“I see the reason for the chamois leather gloves, Mr. Vereker.”

“Good, Heather; let's have it!”

“To prevent her injured hands from leaving incriminating traces of blood on the interior lining of the Saratoga.”

“I agree. Now, working backwards once more we come to the question of conspiracy. From the facts I've already enumerated it's evident that the Colvins and Mrs. Mesado were involved in the business, and as Gautier was more a companion than a maid to her mistress it's reasonable to assume that she was in the know. But here's an important point: she was also in league with Dias. It was under Dias's impulsion that she managed to filch Maureen's necklace or, to be explicit, the necklace of cinnamon and white diamonds. Dias, whose lover, perhaps mistress, Maureen had been, had long coveted that necklace, which we know was given to her by Guillermo Mesado. Gautier stole that necklace from Maureen's body when it was in Beryl's trunk on the ‘Mars'; this fact accounted for Mrs. Mesado's most significant remark, ‘Maureen's necklace has gone!' Gautier was fairly safe in stealing the jewel, because she had the Colvins and Mrs. Mesado in her power through her share in the conspiracy. She could blackmail them if necessary. I saw her pass a package to Dias during a cinema performance on board, and I had an idea what that package contained. Later on, at Estoril, I saw Dias hand a cinnamon and white diamond necklace to his confederate, Ribeiro, probably for the purpose of sale, and was at last sure of my facts. I nearly lost my life through my eagerness in the pursuit. Dias had discovered that I was on his tracks and tried to bump me off.”

“Now, Mr. Vereker, we're clear upon some points. First and most important, that the murdered lady whose body has caused all the trouble was Maureen O'Connor. Before we discuss who murdered her, and how, I'm going to ask you a very nasty question.”

“I can guess the question, Heather, but fire away.”

“Let us assume that the lady was murdered on land and her body put in a trunk and brought on board the ‘Mars'.”

“You must assume it, Heather,” interrupted Vereker. “You know that the one great difficulty in a case of murder is for the murderer to dispose of the body. It's the crucial thing that has brought every other murderer who has been caught to the gallows. Crippen, Landru, Wainwright, Mahon—I could go on enumerating them, but you know them all better than I do. Now in this Mesado mystery whoever committed the murder had the bright idea of disposing of the body by throwing it in the sea. However badly the thing was bungled the conception was original and brilliant. To get rid of the incriminating carcase from a liner making a pleasure cruise seems at first sight a plan bold to the point of madness. But you've only to look at the matter calmly for a few minutes and you see there was more method than madness. The very idea of carrying out the job on a pleasure cruise is so unorthodox that it at once becomes a bulwark against suspicion. Anyone who has travelled on board a liner knows how absolutely deserted a ship's decks can be at certain hours, and instances of travellers having vanished from vessels carrying hundreds of passengers without anyone having seen them disappear or knowing how they went are innumerable. In my journey to Lisbon on the ‘Mars' I could easily have jumped overboard at night without the remotest fear of being seen. Correspondingly easy would it be to heave a body overboard. Once the body of the murdered person is in the sea the chances of it being recovered are extremely small, and I'm surprised that this method of disposing of a murdered body has not been tried frequently. At the moment I cannot recall a single case. Doubtless there have been innumerable instances, and they have all proved successful!”

“All very true, Mr. Vereker, but now for my nasty question. If the lady in our case was murdered on land and carried in a trunk for so many hours, say forty-eight, how is it that rigor mortis did not set in before. It usually sets in from five to six hours after death. You have led me to believe that Doctor Macpherson was of the opinion that life had just petered out when he was called on the scene.”

“That's so, and as I've said before Macpherson is an accurate and thorough Scot. I couldn't very well satisfy myself that he was wrong, Heather. Rigor mortis is not a thing you can be positive about, but it's a fairly good basis to work on with regard to the time of death. I found this point an almost insuperable stumbling block, for Macpherson said that rigor mortis had set in before the body was moved from Mrs. Mesado's cabin to the sick bay. This was quite normal if we assume that the lady died at two o'clock in the morning and was removed just before breakfast.”

“As far as Macpherson was concerned she died of heart disease?” asked Heather.

“Yes, he accepted the statement of her relatives, whatever doubts he may have had in his own mind. By a piece of finesse I managed to get the Colvins to bury the body in Lisbon, so that if it becomes necessary we can subsequently get an exhumation.”

“A wise precaution, Mr. Vereker, but I don't think it'll be necessary now,” said Heather, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

“I'm not out of the wood yet, Heather, but to revert to this question of rigor mortis, the only explanation I could offer myself was that the lady died from the effects of some hypnotic drug which caused prolonged unconsciousness prior to death. I conjectured that she had been poisoned and was really in a comatose state during transit in the trunk. She only expired after she had been taken out and carried up on deck. Yet those injured hands had to be accounted for. Poisoning and violence rarely go together. It was a peculiarly puzzling obstacle to my theoretical reasoning. But in conversation with Miss Marchant I made another extraordinary discovery. I found that Maureen O'Connor suffered from hysteria, and as you know hysterical subjects are liable to go into trances or cataleptic states which to an ordinary man are difficult to distinguish from death.”

“By heck, but I never knew that!” exclaimed Heather.

“I knew of it all right, but until Miss Marchant told me Maureen O'Connor had had one of these trances during the time she had been in her service I never thought of considering such a phenomenon applicable to my case.”

“How did you make it fit in?” asked Heather eagerly.

“I haven't been able to make it fit in yet, Heather, and that's the rub. With regard to the manner of death, I want a few more facts before I can feel I'm on a sure thing. Those finger-prints you've just photographed and a test of the blood on the refrigerator door are two things I'd like to know a little more about. Is it human blood and whose are the finger-prints?”

“But you'll want other finger-prints in order to make a comparison, Mr. Vereker. Aha! there's something you've been hiding from your old colleague all the time!”

“You're so damned smart, Heather, that I had to do something to make the problem interesting and worthy of your talent,” laughed Vereker and, opening a large attaché case he had with him, produced the photo-micrographs made for him by Mascarenhas of the Portuguese police. “Here are some nice little pictures for you, Heather. Number one is a finger-print of the man Dias taken from a glossy-surfaced snap belonging to Miss Gautier. His real name is Cardozo and he is wanted in France, Spain, Portugal and the Argentine for daring jewel robberies.”

“I'm sure we've got a dossier concerning that gentleman filed away in our archives, but I'll have it looked up and refresh my memory,” said Heather, puckering his brow in an effort to recollect.