To Davy Jones Below Read online

  “And I’ll take it kindly,” said Daisy, “if you’ll spare me a spot of ginger, which I have every intention of forcing down Alec’s throat. He simply must pull himself together and get up to find out what’s going on.”

  Miss Oliphant looked rather surprised. “What is it you expect Mr. Fletcher to discover?” she asked.

  Oh blast! Daisy thought. She had momentarily forgotten that the witch did not know Alec was a police detective. In fact, Miss Oliphant didn’t even know there was anything for a police detective to detect.

  Gotobed came to Daisy’s rescue. “Fletcher will be sorry to find out he’s missed the concert. There’s the passengers’ concert yet to come, of course. Have you a turn prepared, Miss Oliphant?”

  “Oh dear me, no! Have you, Mr. Gotobed?”

  “I’ve been known to sing ‘Ilkley Moor’ when pressed,” he admitted.

  “Then we shall press you, shall we not, Mrs. Fletcher?”

  “Certainly. The more people we can persuade to perform, the less likely that we shall be coerced into making asses of ourselves.”

  They laughed, and Gotobed said something. Daisy did not catch his words because they had reached the door of the Grand Salon and a ship’s boy waiting there approached her.

  “Mrs. Fletcher?”

  “Yes?”

  He stepped aside, so she followed him. “Captain Dane’s compliments, ma’am. He begs the favour of a word with you on the bridge.”

  Daisy thought the Captain was more likely to have bellowed something on the lines of “Bring me that Fletcher woman!” Likewise, she doubted he had instructed his messenger to hold the summons until the concert ended. It probably had not dawned on him that to haul her out in the middle would be bound to cause just the sort of rumour-mongering he deplored.

  She wondered how long he had waited already. A few more minutes could hardly make him much madder, she decided.

  “I’ll go up in half a tick,” she told the boy, and turned back to Miss Oliphant.

  “You would like some ginger,” said the worthy witch at once. “Shall we go and fetch it now?”

  Daisy gratefully accepted.

  With the envelope of ginger in her pocket, she headed for the bridge. It was nearly dark outside. The north wind was biting but it had swept away the clouds, and an awe-inspiring multitude of stars besprinkled the indigo sky. Daisy stopped for a moment with the companion-way light behind her, gazing up. She had always thought of the stars as friendly, but now they seemed cold and uncaring. In the middle of a vast, impersonal emptiness, the Talavera was’a haven of human warmth.

  Or would be if there weren’t a murderer, possibly two, aboard her. Shivering, Daisy went to knock on the bridge door.

  A subdued Captain Dane had aged ten years since she’d seen him just a couple of hours ago. In fact, everyone on the bridge was grim-faced. Dane motioned Daisy to a chair in a corner and dropped into another.

  “It goes against the grain to stop searching,” he said, “but it’s useless. My boats thoroughly quartered the area where we might have hoped to find him. It’s not like a shipwreck where there’s flotsam to hold on to.”

  “I heard you found the life-belt.”

  “Aye, and a felt hat nearby. If he’d been anywhere near them … and where else could he be?”

  “So either he just couldn’t swim, or it looks as if Mr. Gotobed was right and he was badly injured before he fell in.” Daisy made a mental note to ask the doctor about Alec’s theory of some sort of bubble in the artery. “I take it no one has reported a friend or relative missing?”

  “No. That’s what I wanted to consult you about, assuming Scotland Yard is still under the weather?” Captain Dane had recovered his spirits sufficiently to put a trace of sarcasm in the query.

  “I’m afraid so. But I don’t think he—or I—can advise you as to how to find out who he was.”

  “It’s damned … dashed difficult if we don’t want to start a panic. I can’t send out a general summons to the Grand Salon. Half the passengers are confined to their beds anyway, so it’s no good having the dining-room stewards check by tables at dinner.”

  “Wouldn’t the cabin stewards and stewardesses know pretty much who is stuck in bed?”

  “Only if they have been asked for assistance. I suppose they will have to go around knocking on doors, unless you have a better idea?” he asked hopefully, as if he expected Scotland Yard’s deputy to pull a rabbit from her hat.

  “That sounds like the best way to go about it,” Daisy affirmed.

  “They aren’t going to like it in first.” Dane was once more sunk in gloom. He heaved a sigh. “Very well, I’ll give the orders right away and let you know what we find out.”

  With ambulant passengers scattered about the ship, a final answer might not arrive until after dinner. The first order of business was to get Alec moving, Daisy decided, as she once more descended the companion-way from the boat-deck. She hung on to the rail as tight as ever. Though for the most part the Talavera had resumed a regular, anticipatable pitch and roll, every now and then she gave a sort of uneasy twitch. It was easy to compensate for on the level deck, but to lose one’s balance on those steep steps was bound to result in a painful tumble.

  Down on the cabin-deck, Daisy went along to the doctor’s offices. The surgery was officially open, but there were no patients in the waiting room. Dr. Amboyne was seated at the desk, talking to the nurse who stood beside him.

  He rose when Daisy entered. “Mrs. Fletcher, what can I do for you?”

  “I wanted to ask after Mr. Denton.”

  “He’s in bad shape, poor chap. Hasn’t come round yet and I’m afraid pleurisy is setting in. There’s not a great deal a medical practitioner can do beyond making the patient as comfortable as possible. Mrs. Denton’s sitting with him now and a crewman Captain Dane sent to keep an eye on him. Do you know anything about that?”

  “My husband considered it advisable,” Daisy evaded. “I’d like to ask you another question if you don’t mind. Is there a medical condition which consists of a sort of bubble in the wall of an artery?”

  Amboyne raised enquiring eyebrows. “One might describe an aneurism thus. They occur in veins as well as in arteries.”

  “They sometimes burst?”

  “They rupture, yes.”

  “And then they bleed?”

  “In the case of major blood vessels, there is heavy internal bleeding, generally fatal.”

  “Oh, only internal?”

  “I’ve never heard of a ruptured aneurism producing sufficient force to rupture the skin. The dermis is an amazingly resilient organ. May I ask the purpose of your questions?”

  “Just eliminating an untenable theory,” Daisy said airily.

  “With regard to the man who fell overboard today?”

  “Yes, actually.”

  “I didn’t know there was any question of an effusion of blood,” Dr. Amboyne said with interest.

  “It’s a deep, dark secret, and Captain Dane will have my blood if it gets out.”

  “You may rely upon my professional reticence. Ours, eh, Nurse?”

  “Of course, Doctor,” said the nurse primly.

  Daisy escaped before she let any more cats out of bags.

  A stewardess kindly carried the tray of ginger tea from the stewards’ station to the cabin. During the handover at the door, the tea-pot nearly came to grief; but between them they saved it. Daisy managed to set the tray on the bedside table with its contents intact except for a damp spot on the tray-cloth.

  Alec was no longer curled on his side in a ball of misery. He sat propped against the pillows from both berths, his knees pulled up under his chin, looking, if not exactly happy, at least more human.

  “What’s that?” he asked suspiciously. “It doesn’t smell like mint.”

  “You missed a wonderful concert, darling.”

  “Was it good? I’m glad you went, anyway. I didn’t think it would enhance the audience’s enjoyment if I h
ad to rush out in the middle.”

  “Spiffing. You must be feeling much better if you even contemplated going.”

  “A little,” Alec admitted grudgingly. “Unquiet rather than agitated about the middle. What’s in the pot?”

  “Ginger tea. Miss Oliphant says it works even better than mint.”

  “Ginger? Great Scott! Not for me, thanks.”

  “Coward. If you try it, I will too.” Daisy started to pour. “Remember when you took me to the Cathay? I’d never tried Chinese food before, but you didn’t catch me pulling faces and saying, ‘Not for me, thanks.’ That was the first time you ever took me out to dinner. Lucy was sure you’d turn up in a lounge suit and take me to a Lyons Corner House. I said I didn’t mind if you did.”

  “As I recall, we were celebrating your first American commission.” A faraway look in his eye, Alec sipped the tea.

  “Yes, and now here we are, married and going to America! How is it?”

  “Marriage? Oh, the tea.” He sipped again, cautiously. “Not bad. Warming. What’s the latest on the second victim? I take it he wasn’t found or you’d have told me at once.”

  “No, though they did find his hat and retrieved the life-belt Gotobed threw. Captain Dane seemed pretty sure they would have found him if he hadn’t sunk. The burst blood-vessel theory is out, by the way. I asked Dr. Amboyne.”

  “Pity. That leaves us with the same three possibilities we faced with Lady Brenda. With Gotobed, hysteria seems inconceivable.”

  “It does, doesn’t it? Though he admits to having been shocked to the extent of not grabbing the man when he bent over the rail. He’s kicking himself for not stopping him falling.”

  “It’s easy to be wise after the event, but I dare say he’ll go on blaming himself for quite a while. You’re still referring to ’the man.’ No name yet?”

  “Captain Dane has set things in motion to find out who’s missing. What’s your second possibility, that Gotobed made up the whole story? I can’t imagine why on earth he should do such a thing. He has no need to make himself important, and in fact he’s keeping mum about it.”

  “There could be other motives for making it up.”

  “Such as?”

  “Um. I can’t think of any at the moment,” Alec confessed.

  “You haven’t been thinking about the case at all, have you?” Daisy accused him. “You’ve been lying here thinking about your beastly stomach, while I’ve been running up and down stairs, getting shouted at by the Captain, racking my brain to work out what information you need.”

  “You seem to have done very well,” Alec said soothingly.

  “But I’m not a detective! I have no idea about guns, where the shot could have come from if it did, and all that sort of stuff.”

  “Nobody expects you to, love. As I said, you’ve done very well. Tomorrow will be time enough to check where a gun might have been aimed from. I doubt whether any traces of the marksman lasted longer than a few minutes in that wind and rain.”

  “You’re taking Gotobed’s report seriously now?”

  “I see no alternative. If we eliminate hysteria and self-aggrandizement, we appear to be left with truth.”

  Daisy sighed. “Yes, which means we have a murderer aboard. Not a pleasant thought.”

  “We’ll find him. Once we know the victim’s identity.”

  “Oh, by the way, it looks as if he was one of Wanda’s admirers. At least, the one I thought he looked like was the one I thought I saw with Chester Riddman, and Mr. Gotobed thought he recognized him as someone he had seen with Riddman.”

  “Say that again slowly.”

  Daisy complied.

  “It’s a good job you don’t write sentences like that.”

  “Beast! Gotobed suspects he was a card-sharp.”

  “I believe there’s one or two on every transatlantic steamer. Often the victims, having ignored all warnings, are too embarrassed to go to the police.”

  “Well, this time the card-sharp is the victim,” Daisy pointed out. “Alec, Brenda told me Chester Riddman has lost a lot of money playing poker, and I saw him with the crowd on deck just after you left.”

  “Probably sheer coincidence,” Alec said thoughtfully, “but I’ll bear it in mind. By all reports, Americans can get hold of guns a lot more easily than Englishmen.”

  12

  Time or the ginger tea had settled Alec’s stomach to the point where he agreed to accompany Daisy to the library. She hoped to get a little work done before dinner.

  “It’s a pity I don’t write for one of the Sunday rags,” she said wistfully, watching him put on his jacket and force a comb through his thick hair. “Just think what I could make of all the goings-on on board!”

  He regarded her in the looking-glass. “I expect they would buy it even though you’re not a regular contributor.”

  “Probably.” Daisy shook her head. “But it’s simply not my line.”

  “There’s bound to be a good bit of publicity when we reach New York,” Alec consoled her. “People will buy the magazine with your impressions of the voyage just because of the notoriety. All right, let’s go, before I lose my nerve.”

  “You’ll be perfectly all right if you don’t think about it.”

  “I dare say, but don’t expect me to go in to dinner. That would be tempting fate. By the way, when you spoke to Amboyne, I imagine you asked after Denton?”

  “He’s no better, maybe even worse. Still unconscious.”

  “It’s not easy,” said Alec in tones of strong disapproval, “to investigate an attempted murder in which one cannot speak to the victim, and a murder in which the victim’s body is unavailable.”

  In the library, he settled down with an R. Austin Freeman novel in which the murder or murders would be solved without fail by the inimitable Dr. Thorndyke, probably with the aid of dust from the murderer’s pockets. Daisy managed to put aside thoughts of murder and bring some order to her notes on the lighter side of shipboard life. Absorbed, she found herself with only ten minutes to change for dinner. She rushed off, leaving Alec steadfastly refusing to contemplate food.

  Mr. Arbuckle did turn up to dinner, though he limited himself to clear soup and a dry roll. Horrified to learn of the second man overboard, he exacted a promise from Phillip never to let go of Gloria’s hand or arm while they were on deck.

  “My pleasure, sir,” said Phillip, grinning.

  “He never does anyway, Poppa,” Gloria said complacently, “unless we’re playing a game, and they haven’t allowed any deck games since this morning. Phil’s been teaching me to play pool—snooker, he calls it. It’s a mighty interesting game when the slope of the table changes from moment to moment.”

  Everyone laughed, even Gotobed, who was out of spirits, not at all his usual lively self.

  “It’s a hanging table,” Phillip explained, “so it stays level in calm seas, but it can’t cope with what we’ve been having.”

  “I’ll have to come and watch you play tomorrow,” said Daisy. “It might make an amusing paragraph for my article.”

  “Yes, do come along, old bean,” Phillip urged. “You’ll have to give it a try. Daisy’s not a bad player, Glow-worm.”

  “I’ve beaten you more than once,” Daisy reminded him, adding hastily, “playing on a level table. Do you play, Miss Oliphant?”

  “I never have. In my youth, it was considered a game strictly for gentlemen.”

  “I’ll teach you,” Phillip offered.

  “If you learn on a swinging table, Miss Oliphant,” Arbuckle put in with a chuckle, “you’ll be unbeatable on terra firma. I’d sure like to come and cheer you on, but I guess I’d better not risk it. Just the thought of watching … no, better not. Gotobed, can I depute you as cheer-leader?”

  “Aye, I’ll be glad to,” he agreed, smiling at Miss Oliphant, “and mebbe I’ll take a hand meself.”

  “Ripping, we’ll have a tournament,” said Phillip. “We’ll have to work out a system of handicaps, Glow-wo
rm. Will Fletcher play, Daisy?”

  “No,” Daisy said firmly. Alec was going to be much too busy for games. “He’s up, but I don’t suppose watching a swinging table would be any better for him than for Mr. Arbuckle. How is Wanda, Mr. Gotobed?”

  The words were scarcely out of her mouth when it dawned on her that the first person to ask about the second man overboard should have been Wanda Gotobed. Surely he had introduced himself to her when he approached her to express his admiration. She might have forgotten his name though. Anyway, Captain Dane’s cohorts of stewards probably had the answer by now, but if not …

  She had missed what Gotobed said, but he didn’t look happy. “I’ll try to pop in again this evening,” she promised.

  The other person to ask, of course, would be the other stage-door Johnnie. Unfortunately, all she could remember about him was that he was unmemorable. On the short side for a man, she thought, certainly smaller than the flashy one. Greying? Perhaps.

  Not enough to identify him by, even among the ship’s limited population. Daisy turned her full attention to a heavenly apple and almond tart.

  “What Alec’s missing!” she sighed.

  After dinner, she was going to rejoin him when she was stopped by the Purser, Timmins, a tall, stout man whose professional joviality thinly disguised a perpetually anxious nature.

  “Mrs. Fletcher? May I have a word with you?”

  The stewards would report to the Purser, of course. “Yes,” she said, “but if you come to the library, my husband is there and you can tell us both at once.”

  “If Mr. Fletcher is on his feet again, I need not trouble you, ma’am. I understand he is a policeman.”

  He wasn’t getting rid of Daisy so easily. “Alec’s still not well. I’ll be lending him a hand.”

  Timmins was accustomed to handling awkward passengers, but in this unprecedented situation he was unsure of his ground. “I suppose it’s for Mr. Fletcher to say,” he conceded.

  They proceeded to the library together. Alec was a few pages from the end of his book, and he set it aside reluctantly.

  “Not bad,” he said. “At least Freeman doesn’t make the police out to be complete idiots, as most detective novelists seem to. We have an identification?” He reached for the pad of ship’s note-paper on the table beside him, and took his fountain-pen from his pocket.