The Pleasure Cruise Mystery (29 page)

“Most important, Heather. I too want to know his motive in spinning such a yarn. I'm certain there is one,” interrupted Vereker.

“Possibly, but let me continue. I'll take Mrs. Colvin next. According to your account she's a very religious woman, but I consider she's out of the running unless she has the spirit of the early Christians in her and made herself the instrument of the Lord in destroying a relative who had become a scarlet woman. It's difficult nowadays to understand the ardour which drove people to burn heretics at the stake, but those burnings definitely establish the possible revival of such ferocity in a human being. We now come to Mrs. Mesado. If she was the murderess her motive was a terrible jealousy, and as we know jealousy is a common motive in murder cases. It seems clear that her husband entered into guilty relations with his sister-in-law, and if Colvin's story is true the maid blew the gaff to the mistress. I also think it was a premeditated and carefully planned crime. The conspiracy to get rid of the body is easily imagined and to me Colvin's story appears true. I therefore put down Mrs. Mesado as the murderess of Maureen O'Connor. I think we can leave Gautier out of our reckoning. We know she's passionately in love with Dias, but again she knew that Dias had tired of Maureen, if indeed he had ever loved her. A woman doesn't murder a woman whom her lover once loved. She lets her live as a perpetual reminder of her own superior personal charms—a bit of flattery incarnate, so to speak.”

“Heather you've put your case very clearly—I mean very clearly for you. I'm inclined to agree with your findings, but there's one big obstacle that sticks in my way. Let me explain myself. We'll take it for granted that Mrs. Mesado, having found out her husband's guilty relations with Maureen O'Connor, decides to murder the thief of her husband's affection. Mrs. Mesado is a clever woman with a most violent temper and resolute will. She thinks out the safest way to do the killing without being discovered and hits upon the plan of practically freezing her victim to death. I consider her idea a brilliant one if practicable. The temperature in that refrigerating chamber can be lowered to intense cold, and Maureen, physically none too strong and dressed in a flimsy evening gown, would soon succumb to exposure. The medical profession, in this country in any case, are none too well acquainted with the various factors connected with death by freezing for the simple reason that such cases seldom if ever come within their observation. One authority, however, says that exposure to great cold will kill an unsuitably clad person of average health within an hour. A night of such exposure would almost make death a certainty in our case. To my knowledge there is one authentic instance of an employee in a cold storage warehouse having been accidentally locked in a refrigerating room in the evening and been found dead from the effects in the morning. Having struck on this diabolical method of committing the murder, Beryl Mesado must have considered it carefully in all its aspects. Firstly, Maureen's death could be ascribed to an accident. The lady might have wandered by herself into the refrigerator in an idly inquisitive mood and shut herself in. Even a search party might overlook a refrigerator when hunting for a missing guest. The door of the refrigerator in Firle House can only be opened from outside, though the latest insulated doors to large refrigerators are fitted with an opening mechanism workable from within to obviate this very type of mishap. In passing, my deduction that the finger-prints on that door were made by a stranger arose from the fact that they were near the hinges and that the prisoner was ignorant of where the lock was. To resume, Mrs. Mesado in contemplating the crime must surely have thought of the possibility of removing the body to a wood in the grounds of Firle House and leaving it there. This would have been the plan I'd have adopted. A subsequent post-mortem could only have revealed that death had been caused by exposure. It was a bitterly cold week-end if you remember, Heather. Even the cut hands were not a factor contributing to her death and could have been explained away easily enough. Now, having committed the crime and being fairly confident that there was little risk of discovery, why did Mrs. Mesado suddenly alter her plans and under Gautier's suggestion decide that the safest way of avoiding detection was to dispose of the body in the sea? The scheme was not only bold, it was fantastic in its risk of falling to pieces. On the one hand we have an imaginary accident and no risks worth considering of it being construed as murder, and on the other an intricate if clever scheme that with the slightest hitch would break down and prove disastrous. Colvin's story is that Renée Gautier refused to enter into the conspiracy to declare Maureen's death as due to an accident. She is supposed to have got the wind up over the idea of being interrogated by the police or at a coroner's inquest. Yet she suggests this dangerous scheme of getting rid of the body at sea and is willing to become an accomplice. No, Heather, there's something radically wrong here, and it has been intriguing me for some time. Who discovered Maureen's body and heard the statement that Beryl had locked her up in the refrigerator? Renée Gautier. Who was the only other person in the house when Beryl locked up her sister-in-law? Renée Gautier. She is supposed to have retired after laying the evening meal for the two sisters, and knew nothing of the crime till she heard it from the dying woman's lips. This may be true, but I simply can't believe it. I'm almost certain that Gautier knew that Beryl had shut Maureen in the refrigerator and came down in the early hours of the morning to see if her mistress's plan for killing had proved effectual. You say Gautier had no motive for desiring Maureen's death. She too had the all-powerful motive of jealousy. Maureen as far as we know had still got Dias in her thrall. Dias himself confessed this to me. Maureen, moreover, had the advantage over Renée of being extraordinarily beautiful and capable of laying her hands on large sums of money for her lover's use. Again, she may have been instigated to murder by Dias himself, who may have had no further use for Maureen. You see clearly that I suspect Renée Gautier of having some hand in the crime. Let us return to our old difficulty of rigor mortis in connection with Maureen's body after it was discovered on the deck of the liner ‘Mars'. I had a theory that she must have fallen into a cataleptic fit due to hysteria on finding herself locked up in the refrigerator, especially after Miss Marchant told me that she was subject to such fits. The only alternative to this was an overdose of some hypnotic drug. Now, as you know, I discovered a phial of nembutal capsules among Mrs. Mesado's belongings on the ‘Mars'. The drug had doubtless been prescribed for her by a specialist. It's a drug fairly new to medicine and would hardly be prescribed by a general practitioner except under the guidance of an expert. Quite recently there was a case of nembutol having proved fatal, and in an overdose it would almost certainly produce prolonged unconsciousness prior to death. Now Ricardo, who has been invaluable to me in this investigation, saw an empty phial labelled ‘Nembutol' among Miss Gautier's things in her cabin. She hastily flung it out of the porthole on discovering it there. It seems likely that she had secreted the phial in her attaché case among some photographs and in the stress of that last morning at Firle House had forgotten where she had hidden it. Revert once more to the story of her coming downstairs in the early hours for a glass of hot milk to drive away sleeplessness and going to the refrigerator for the milk. She found Maureen unconscious in the chamber and made her some hot tea to warm and revive her. This is a tall story. On finding an unconscious person in the refrigerator she would hardly start calmly to boil water and make tea. She would have rushed for spirits. She knew where the decanters were kept. No, Heather, when Renée Gautier went to the cold storage chamber she found Maureen alive though probably chilled to the bone. She was terribly disappointed with the failure of Beryl's plan to kill her sister and decided to take the job into her own hands. She made Maureen a cup of tea and put an overdose of nembutol, the only poison she could lay her hands on, into it. Maureen, half frozen, greedily drank the tea and fell into a coma fairly rapidly in her exhausted condition. Convinced that Maureen was dead, Renée ran upstairs and wakened her mistress and the Colvins. To fix the guilt of murder on her mistress she concocted the story of a dying statement by Maureen, whereas Maureen was probably well on the way to recovery when she told Gautier how she had come to be imprisoned in the refrigerator. There then followed, as we know from Colvin, a dramatic council of four people, who discussed what had to be done in the circumstances. Colvin and his wife favoured the story of an accident and suggested letting matters take the course consequent on such. Beryl seems to have agreed with them at first. At this point Gautier appears to have taken an extraordinary stand against such a natural and plausible story through fear of the police and a coroner's inquiry. She persuaded Beryl and then the Colvins to dispose of the body at sea during their pleasure cruise on the ‘Mars'. Her suggestion had the deadly quality of being unusual and feasible in spite of its risks, but its cardinal asset as far as Gautier was concerned was that it obviated a post-mortem examination and the discovery that Maureen had been deliberately poisoned. She carried her point, but I have still the pleasure of knowing that I frustrated Maureen's burial at sea and that the body still lies in the Os Cyprestes, the English cemetery at Lisbon, in case we need an exhumation.”

“So you have finally decided that Renée Gautier murdered Maureen O'Connor by poisoning her with nembutol!”

“That's my verdict, and as the ‘Mars' arrived at Tilbury this morning the hour for action is at hand. Gautier will return to Firle House, where she'll get a chilly reception, and I expect Ricardo to turn up here any moment and let us know all the news of his pleasure cruise.”

A few minutes after Vereker had spoken these words the electric bell of his front door began to ring, and continued to do so incessantly.

“That's that devil Ricky. I know his irritating trick of keeping his thumb on the bell-push until some one arrives to let him in!” exclaimed Vereker.

There followed the sound of Albert's measured tread to the front door, and a few seconds later Ricardo burst unceremoniously into the room.

“Hello, hello! What's all this, what's all this?” he asked boisterously. “A secret meeting of the Big Two? Perhaps I ought to say the Big One and a Bit considering your bulk, Heather. Please ring that bell for another glass, Algernon. I'm feeling a perfect hart for cooling streams at the moment. You've got to congratulate me, Algernon!”

“You've solved the pleasure cruise murder?” asked Vereker eagerly.

“Murders be damned! I'm engaged to Rosaura Penteado!”

“Engaged?” asked Vereker, looking at his friend incredulously.

“That's the word, Algernon. It has a finite sound about it that's not very pleasant, but there you are!”

“When are you going to be married?” asked Heather slowly.

“An altogether irrelevant question, Heather. An engagement's a major phenomenon with me because I seldom get so far in my relations with the fair sex. The lady in the case is an heiress, which is a desideratum, if I may say so. Altogether I'm blissfully happy—I think that's the correct expression.”

“But tell us about your work, the results of your investigations, Ricky. We can talk about your footling engagement later,” said Vereker impatiently.

“Haven't got much time, I'm afraid,” said Ricardo, glancing at his watch. “I have a date with a peach, as the Americans say. Sounds like a fruit salad, but you'll understand.”

“God bless my soul, but you haven't left the lady more than an hour ago!” said Vereker.

“My dear Algernon, you don't understand. It's not Rosaura. There are other peaches as well as pebbles. The date was fixed prior to my starting on the ‘Mars' cruise. It's therefore ancient and must be respected. I keep my engagements at the risk of breaking my engagements. It's moderately safe, because the Penteados left us at Bordeaux, where the plums come from, and are now on their way to Buenos Aires.”

“Can't this other lady wait?” asked Vereker irritably.

“She does as a matter of fact—in a West End tea-shop. Still, if there's anything colossally important you want to know I might stretch a point by telling her the ‘Mars' had to wait for the tide.”

“Then sit down and let us hear the result of your investigations,” urged Vereker.

“Well, I haven't made any since we left Barcelona.”

“Great heavens, didn't I predict it!” exclaimed Vereker. “You've simply wasted your time and my money for a passing love affair. Ricky, you're unspeakable!”

“Don't be peevish, Algernon. There was no need for further investigation after we left Barcelona, and by that time I was glad because I'd reached a very critical point in my relations with Rosaura. I had a slight difference with her about her mother. She insists on her mother living with us, and as you know the mother is a futurist portrait of Rosaura…”

“Damn her mother! Why was there no need for investigation after your leaving Barcelona?”

“Because I had learned all there was to be known of the murder of Maureen O'Connor—not Beryl Mesado, mark you, Algernon—shortly after leaving the Spanish port.”

“Renée Gautier told you?” asked Vereker eagerly.

“Yes, poor girl. I was very sorry for her. It was a dirty trick!”

“More of your love affairs?” remarked Vereker, fearing that Ricardo was once more about to diverge from the main subject.

“No, no, Renée and I became great pals on board. She very kindly aided and abetted me in making Rosaura as jealous as the devil, and this brought my affair with the heiress to fruition. Competition is a powerful fertiliser. It was Dias, whom she loved madly, that played Renée the dirty trick. He was to have met her at Barcelona and taken her to Paris for her marriage. He never turned up, but wrote her a letter saying it was all over between them and that he was going to America. I had been very friendly with her—no nonsense, you understand, simply friends—and I was the only person she could confide in. She wrote me a long letter telling me the unhappy story of her love affair with Dias, of her jealousy of Maureen O'Connor, of Maureen's death, and of how she stole the necklace from the dead woman's neck for that noxious vermin Cardozo, alias Miguel Dias.”