Crime of Their Life (3 page)

The man in the white uniform signaled for one of the crewmen to transfer Liddell’s luggage onto the
Queen.
Liddell climbed the gangplank, ducked his head as he stepped aboard. The long line waiting to board the tender looked at him curiously. Some of the women stared and whispered. The men just stared.

The cruise director brought over a plump, sweating little man in an officer’s uniform. “This is Andy Gartner from the purser’s office, Mr. Liddell. He’ll take care of you from here in.” He signaled to the steward at the head of the line to start loading the tender. “I’ll see you around.”

Liddell turned to the short, fat man. “My name’s Liddell. I’m joining the cruise here, booked through to New York.”

The assistant purser stuck out a damp, pudgy hand, gave Liddell’s a wet squeeze. “Glad to have you with us.” He reached for a clip board that hung from a hook on the wall, ran a sausage-shaped forefinger down a list of names, underscored with his nail one that had been written in longhand. “Liddell. You’ll have stateroom 321 on this deck. Will that be satisfactory?” he asked anxiously.

Liddell nodded. “Any accommodations will do. I’m not planning to spend much time in my cabin.”

“Hardly anyone does,” the purser agreed sadly. He consulted his watch. “The captain would like to meet you as soon as it’s convenient. He was on the bridge until almost five this morning so he’s still resting. Would noon be satisfactory?”

Liddell nodded. “Gives me a chance to wash up and get settled.”

The purser chewed on his lower lip. “Of course. I’ll have your baggage sent up directly.” He snapped his fingers, a uniformed page boy stepped up. “Take Mr. Liddell to cabin 321. See that he meets his steward.”

The page boy bobbed his head, turned and led the way into the companionway. They skirted the staircase leading to the upper decks, headed down a narrow passageway. He stopped outside a door on which the numerals 321 were painted in gilt.

A doorway marked
Beauty Salon
opened at the end of the corridor. A tall, well-stacked redhead in a white nylon uniform that clung to curves that showed signs of being worth clinging to stepped out, locked the door behind her. She wasted an incurious glance on Liddell and the page boy, headed for a stateroom a few doors from the salon. She opened it with a key, disappeared through the door without a backward glance.

Liddell grinned his approval. “Well, I can see I’m going to be real comfortable. Especially with such nice neighbors.”

The page boy managed a lewd grin. “That’s Meg. She runs the beauty shop. She tops a lot of the boys’ lists, mister. But you got to sport some real gold braid on your sleeve to rate.”

A wizened little man in a white jacket and dark trousers materialized at the head of the corridor, hustled down to where they stood. He stopped in front of them, rubbing his hands.

“This is the new passenger, Henrik,” the page boy told him. “Purser says make him comfortable.” He turned to Liddell. “Anything else I can do for you, sir?”

Liddell shook his head, held out his hand. The folded bill changed hands, the page grinned his thanks, turned and headed back toward the loading ramp.

“Welcome on board, mister.” Henrik grinned. Even when he was showing the brown stumps of his teeth, the steward had a worried expression by the V etched between his heavy brows. “Your baggage is coming?”

“They’re sending it up.”

The steward unlocked the door, pushed it open. “I bring it in and hang your things up as soon as it arrives.” He flicked on the light in the lavatory, walked over to check on the air conditioning. “Something else I can do for you?”

Liddell shook his head. “Not right now, Henrik. Give me a little time and I’ll think up something.”

The captain’s cabin was in actuality a two-room suite high above the foredeck. It was a suite that spoke volumes of its owner’s love of comfort and good living.

The walls of the outer room, a combination office and den, were paneled in a dark wood that had been polished to a soft patina. The front wall consisted of huge panes of glass which gave an uninterrupted view of the blue-green water stretching between the vessel and the tiers of pastel-colored houses that were tiered around the harbor at Bridgeton. The pull drapes that could be drawn over the glass were obviously hand loomed, of exotic Oriental colors. The floor was covered wall-to-wall with thick-pile wheat-colored carpeting.

A large desk set catty-cornered was the room’s main concession to its function as the captain’s office. Here, Captain Delmar Rose, master of the
Queen Alexandra,
did the minimum amount of paper work required of him. Even that minimum he considered of staggering proportions. The loss of the passenger Landers during the storm had been a considerable inconvenience with the mounds of reports and forms to be filled out for his home office and for the officials at his first port of call.

Set against the glass wall, a large library table groaned under an assortment of choice liquors, brandies and liqueurs. It was here that the captain did most of his VIP entertaining, the guests of his choosing. Others, he greeted and endured at the periodical captain’s cocktail parties, which were penciled in at appropriate intervals during the cruise by the cruise director’s staff.

The rest of the room was given over to comfortable armchairs, low tables and lamps. On the walls, photographs of celebrities who had sailed with Captain Rose were recessed in indirectly lighted frames.

The other room of the suite was a bedroom with one huge king-sized bed. It was furnished in strictly functional male style—heavy pieces, comfortable chairs, a personal bar and direct communications to the bridge. Here, too, the captain did some VIP entertaining and again it was guests of his own choosing. On every crossing there was always one or more women whose heels turned to rockers at the sight of the man who held the whole ship’s destiny in his calloused hands and of the uniform that represented power, authority and dauntless heroism. It was the duty of his personal steward to convoy the chosen ones among this group to and from the captain’s quarters with a minimum of exposure.

Captain Delmar Rose was sitting in one of the easy chairs in the outer room, his feet comfortable on a small ottoman, a glass in his hand, when his personal steward knocked at the door to announce Liddell. The captain waved for the steward to bring him in, dropped his feet to the floor, stood up. He waited until the steward had closed the door behind him, offered Liddell his hand. His grip was firm, sincere.

“Glad to have you aboard, Mr. Liddell.”

Johnny frowned. “I thought this was all hush-hush, that no one was supposed to know who I am?”

The captain shook his head. “No one does. Except me, of course.” He walked over to the table of liquor, reached for a glass, dumped some ice into it. “On board this ship, Liddell, I am the last word. Right or wrong, my decisions stand.” He turned, looked at Liddell. “My home office made a mistake when they did not tell me from the beginning that Landers was a private detective. They are not likely to make that same mistake twice.”

Liddell rubbed the heel of his hand along his jaw. “Then the radio shack knows who I am and what I’m here for?”

The captain shook his head. “In matters of this kind, my home office communicates with me only through code. No one has the code book to decipher it but me.” He indicated the bottles. “What’ll it be?”

“Scotch on the rocks.”

Liddell watched the back of the captain as he poured the drink.

Captain Rose was short, squat. His skin was horny, weather-beaten by the gales in winter, burned to a mahogany by the suns of summer. He had the slightly bowlegged stance of a man used to walking a pitching deck. His every movement gave the impression that he was used to giving orders and used to having them obeyed. When he had built Liddell’s drink, he held it out to him with a hand that dwarfed the glass.

“If I had known Landers was what he was, I might have been able to prevent what happened.” He shrugged, turned back to the table to freshen his drink. “Everything that happens on my ship while I am in command is my business, Liddell. It has to be, because I alone am responsible not only for the ship but for everybody on board.” He turned, walked back to his chair. “Do we understand each other?”

“Do I have a choice?”

The captain considered, shook his head. “No.”

Liddell grinned, shrugged. “Then we understand each other.”

The captain stared at him for a moment, liked what he saw. He relaxed sufficiently to return a half grin. He motioned Liddell to sit down, dropped back into his chair. “What was Landers looking for?”

Liddell managed to look startled. “I thought your home office cued you in?”

The captain took a deep swallow, shook his head. “They told me that he was a private detective, that he was to be replaced by you, and that no one was to know what you were doing aboard.” He leaned his head back against his chair, half closed his eyes. “What are you doing aboard?”

Liddell considered for a moment. “I’m representing some important diamond dealers. They think Brazilian diamonds are being smuggled in, they think some of them are coming in on cruise ships like this.”

The captain nodded. “Then we do understand each other. You’ll excuse me for testing you, Liddell, but if you had given me the wrong answer to that one, you and your gear would be back in Bridgeton before the
Queen
cleared the harbor.” He reached out to a table, picked up a battered old briar, stuck it between his teeth. “Do you have any idea who Landers was after?”

Liddell shook his head.

The captain sighed. He scratched a long wooden match on the under part of the table, touched it to the bowl of his pipe. “That’s the hell of it,” he growled. “Neither do I.”

CHAPTER 4

Johnny Liddell fumbled through his pockets, came up with a wilted pack of cigarettes. He fitted one into the corner of his mouth, made a fruitless circuit of his pockets for a match. The captain tossed one over to him, waited until Liddell had lit the cigarette with the wooden match, nearly searing his nose in the process.

“Be easier to light a cigarette with a blowtorch,” he complained.

Captain Rose shrugged. “You ever try to get a good light for a pipe with those paper things? You use a whole pack and you still can’t get it started.” He removed the pipe from between his teeth, blew out a cloud of blue-gray smoke. “Takes a real flame to light a pipe.”

“You say you don’t know who Landers was interested in?” Liddell asked. “Wasn’t there anybody in particular he seemed to pay special attention? Some woman, some group he played cards with, somebody whose company he sought out, somebody he asked questions about?”

The captain sucked at his pipe, rattled the juice in the stem. “We weren’t out very long when he went over the side. Just this side of Hatteras,” the captain reminded him. “Not much time for me to get too clear a picture.”

“Yet whoever it was he was after had enough time to know that Landers was dangerous to him,” Liddell commented.

The captain shrugged, considered. “The killer, if there was a killer, might have been warned.” He took the pipe from between his teeth, warmed his palm with the bowl.

“Maybe Landers had the whole thing worked out and only took the trip to catch the smugglers in the act.”

Liddell nodded his head gloomily. “That’s pretty much the way I read it. But he didn’t keep any notes or any records that we know about. So that leaves me right where we started.” He looked out the glass side of the room at the white and pastel-colored, one-storied buildings around the harbor. “I’ll appreciate anything you’ve heard or anything you know about the other passengers. It might give me a line to what he had and any help I can get I’ll need. I’ve only nine days to find out what it took Landers over a year to dig up.”

The captain leaned back, lifted his feet to the ottoman. He stared up at the ceiling. “Landers was on table 48. That’s right next to the captain’s table.” He rolled his eyes down to Liddell’s face. “He claimed to have wanted to sit at my table—” He shrugged. “There are only so many seats. Besides, when the man from the home office brought me the passenger list, he didn’t suggest Landers for my table. If he had wanted it badly enough they would have suggested it. Not that I’d necessarily take the suggestion, but at least they would have tried.”

“Maybe it wasn’t until he saw who was at your table that he decided that’s where he wanted to be. Mind telling me about the people at your table?”

“The usual. We’ve got a writer who fancies himself a bit of a character. Got lucky and sold a bestseller a couple of months ago. Name’s Herrick—”

Liddell nodded. “Lewis Herrick. I’ve heard of him.”

“A rather gamy character. Been making a play for every unattached woman on board. I have the feeling he’d drop dead if one of them took him seriously. We’ve got to put up with him because he’s persuaded the home office that his next book will be about cruise ships.”

“And?”

“Robin Lewis. She is—or rather was—a movie star. You may remember her?” Liddell nodded, the captain continued. “She’s retired now and we’ve had her for a couple of regular crossings as well as these off-season Caribbean runs. Still pretty attractive, you know?”

“And the others?”

Captain Rose wrinkled his nose disapprovingly. “Bloody bores. The Conways—eminently respectable Philadelphians. Feuding a little with the other couple at the table, the McDowells. Conways wanted the presidential suite, our de luxe accommodations. The McDowells—he’s in oil in Texas—they pulled some strings with the home office, outbid the Conways. They make a big show of being polite to each other but they hate each other’s guts. That leaves only Carson Eldridge and his daughter, Fran.” He shook his head sadly. “Homely as sin and dull as dishwater. My guess is her father brought her on the cruise hoping she’d land somebody who’d take her off his hands.”

“Not very promising,” Liddell conceded. “How about the table where Landers was sitting?”

“I’ve arranged for you to be given his sitting. That way you can look the others over and reach your own conclusions.” He shook his head. “To tell you the truth they don’t look a helluva lot more promising.” He checked off on his fingers. “There’s the newlyweds—the Doyles from Wisconsin. They won the trip in some kind of a contest. So wrapped up in each other they might just as well have stayed in the haystack back home.” He pursed his lips for a moment. “The Sands, uncle and niece in adjoining cabins. Her luggage is initialed H. B. while his is M. R.” He shrugged. “Long as they’re discreet and don’t interfere with the operation of my ship and the enjoyment of my passengers, it’s no concern of mine. Mrs. Phelps, she’s a familiar figure on this run. Has nothing but money and time on her hands and she loves to spend both on young men. She keeps my junior officers on the jump. The other couple, the Keens, he’s some kind of a lawyer, I gather. Doesn’t talk much, doesn’t mix. Jack Allen, our cruise director, is host at that table.”