Murder on the Caronia (22 page)

“Mrs. Heritage was poisoned by somebody. That’s incontrovertible. If you and her husband were not responsible—then who was?”

“I’ve been thinking about that myself, Miss Masefield.”

“And?”

“There’s only one explanation.”

“Go on.”

“Winifred Heritage was the most wicked human being I’ve ever met,” Carrie said with venom. “She never forgave John and me for finding some happiness together. He certainly had none inside that house. I can imagine how furious she would have been when she discovered we’d escaped her clutches at last. There’s your answer,” she said with unshakable certainty. “It was her only way of getting back at us. I believe that she poisoned herself and made it look as if it was a case of murder.”

THIRTEEN

G
eorge Porter Dillman was pleased to be able to give the purser some good news at last. After all the setbacks they had suffered on the
Caronia
, Paul Taggart was delighted to hear of the successful capture of the pickpocket and his accomplice. It was a good omen. Taggart reached across his desk to shake Dillman’s hand.

“Congratulations!” he said. “How did you do it?”

“I posed as a steward in the lounge and kept my eyes open.”

“And you say there were two of them?”

“Pickpockets often work in tandem,” explained Dillman. “One diverts attention while the other goes to work. The couple I arrested on the
Saxonia
were husband and wife. The lady was very attractive and she certainly knew how to distract someone. In this case, of course, we had two men.”

Taggart picked up a pen. “What are their names?”

“Hugo Drew and Peter Harrendorf. An Anglo-American partnership.”

“Just like you and Genevieve Masefield.”

“Except that our job is to safeguard people’s pockets,” said Dillman, “not to empty them. Drew is a suave young Englishman
who looks completely above suspicion and Harrendorf is one of those gregarious characters who gathers people around him.”

“Where are they now?” asked Taggart, writing their names into his book.

“Keeping company with Daniel Webb.”

“Did they admit their guilt?”

Dillman smiled. “Eventually,” he said. “I had to use a little persuasion. Anyway, I marched them off to the master-at-arms and he’s keeping them out of harm’s way.”

“Did you speak to Webb while you were there?”

“Yes, Mr. Taggart. He begged me to let him out.”

“No chance of that. He’s too dangerous on the loose.”

“He told me he’d finally seen the error of his ways.”

“I wonder how many times he’s said that?” the purser asked cynically.

“Too many.”

“I’ll peep in on the old reprobate when I visit the cells. I want to take a look at Drew and Harrendorf in case I recognize them. They may have worked undetected on the
Caronia
before. I’ll make sure they never set foot on the ship again.”

“They’ll be relieved to see you, Mr. Taggart,” said Dillman. “By now, I suspect, they’ll have grown weary of listening to Daniel Webb. We put them into cells on either side of him so they could both enjoy the benefit of his conversation.”

Taggart laughed. “You should have put all three in together.” He became serious. “Thanks again. This has cheered me up. What we really need to do, of course, is to make progress in solving the other crimes. The murder of Sergeant Mulcaster must obviously take precedence. It’s an established fact. The drug smuggling is an alleged crime. We can’t be absolutely certain that it’s taking place.”

“I believe we can.”

“Oh?”

“In fact,” said Dillman, “we may well find that it’s linked to the murder. I have this feeling that the sergeant’s heavy-handed
treatment of offenders was his downfall. One man he arrested, Sidney Nicholls, ended up in hospital for a fortnight. Inspector Redfern admitted the sergeant had a short temper. Nicholls was not the only prisoner to feel his punches, it seems.”

“Offenders have to be restrained at times.”

“This went well beyond restraint, Mr. Taggart. According to John Heritage, the sergeant boasted about the way he’d beaten Nicholls up. Arrest is one thing. Gratuitous violence is another.”

“Oh, I agree.”

“You only have to look at Webb’s case. It took three members of the crew to overpower him but that’s all they did. When he was swearing at them like that, they must have been tempted to knock him senseless. Instead, they acted responsibly.”

“That’s what they’re trained to do, Mr. Dillman.”

“So was Sergeant Mulcaster.”

Taggart nodded in consent. “What was Sidney Nicholls’s offense?”

“He was involved in drugs and prostitution.”

“That might explain it, then.”

“What?”

“The reason the sergeant got too violent,” said Taggart. “When I talked to Inspector Redfern yesterday, he told me that Sergeant Mulcaster had an obsessive hatred of drug peddlers. He’d seen the effects of addiction on the son of a friend, a young man in his twenties, who died of an overdose. It made him determined to strike back at anyone involved in the trade.”

“The best way to do that is to lock up the dealers in prison, not to take the law into your own hands. But it supports my theory,” Dillman said thoughtfully. “Nicholls might be the worst case, but there were other drug peddlers who doubtless felt the wrath of Sergeant Mulcaster. Word spreads quickly in the criminal underworld.”

“You feel the sergeant was a marked man?”

“Let’s just say, his reputation did not endear him to anyone involved in smuggling or selling drugs. That’s what makes me certain that the tip-off you received was genuine. We have
someone aboard who’s trying to take drugs into England. And that same person,” Dillman concluded, “may well be the man who killed Sergeant Mulcaster and tossed his body overboard.”

“It would simplify matters, Mr. Dillman.”

“Exactly. If we catch the smuggler, we arrest the murderer as well.”

Taggart sighed. “It’s going to be more difficult than catching pickpockets.”

“I know,” said Dillman, “but we do have one possible lead.”

“Do we?”

“I think so, Mr. Taggart. It concerns that funeral casket.”

“Oh, yes. It belonged to a Mr. Leach, as I recall.”

“Ramsey Leach,” explained Dillman. “He’s a mortician from England. Yet when I asked him if he had bought anything during his vacation in the States, he denied it. I don’t think something as large as a funeral casket could slip his mind.”

“Why did he lie to you?”

“I don’t know, but it wasn’t his only lie. Mr. Leach insisted that he always went to bed early yet I’ve twice seen him leave his cabin around midnight. In fact, he was behaving so furtively last night that I followed him.”

“And?”

“He made his way to another cabin and was let in by someone.”

“You think Ramsey Leach may be our man?”

“I’m not sure,” Dillman confessed. “I’ve been biding my time until I can get more evidence. On the face of it, he’s a most unlikely person. Quiet, refined, and very reserved. With a gun in his hand, he might be a very different proposition.”

“Would he be strong enough to push the sergeant over the rail?”

“He’s wiry rather than muscular but he’s used to handling dead bodies in his profession. He would have had no problem. Mr. Leach is an odd character. He has an expression of professional solemnity most of the time. When I bumped into him in second class, however,” recalled Dillman, “he was almost
jaunty. It was not the face he wears at funerals, Mr. Taggart.”

“If he is the man we’re after, he obviously has an accomplice.”

“That was my belief all along.”

“What do you think we should do?”

“If you can loan me the master key again, I’d like to take a look in his cabin when he’s not around. The stewards would have peeped in there when we did our earlier search but they were really looking for the stolen firearms. I’ll conduct a more thorough search.”

“When?”

“As soon as possible.”

“What about the cabin he went to last night?”

“I’ll check that out as well, Mr. Taggart,” said Dillman. “I got the number. Nobody has searched in there properly before.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s a single cabin occupied by a middle-aged woman. When we did our sweep of the ship, we concentrated on able-bodied men of a certain age. That may turn out to have been a mistake.”

“Take the key with my blessing, Mr. Dillman,” said the purser, extracting it from a drawer. “We’ll have to make sure neither of them returns to their cabin while you’re there. They may turn out to be completely innocent and that could leave us both with red faces.” He handed the key over then reached for the passenger list. “We must avoid that.”

“We will,” Dillman assured him. “I’ll identify the pair of them to Genevieve and she can keep an eye on each of them in turn.”

“What’s the number of the cabin Leach visited last night?”

“Thirty-three.”

Taggart studied his list. “And the lady’s name?”

“Miss Pamela Clyne.”

“Yes, here she is,” said the purser, pointing. His eyes bulged. “Good Lord!”

“What the trouble?”

“She occupies the cabin next to Mrs. Anstruther!”

______

Theodore Wright fulfilled his promise. Having agreed to teach Isadora Singleton how to ride a bicycle, he found a place where they would be unobserved. The long passageway ran between cabins occupied by stewards and cooking staff. Since all of them would be working that afternoon, Wright could begin his instruction in peace. The passageway was wide enough for him to stand beside the bicycle, yet narrow enough for the rider to steady herself with a hand on the wall. Isadora was filled with glee. She not only would learn to do something that had always been denied her, she would be brushing up against the remarkable young man with whom she had become infatuated.

“How do we start, Theo?” she asked.

“It helps if you sit in the saddle,” he joked.

“Turn around, then.” When his back was turned, she hitched up her skirt and mounted the bicycle. “You can look now.”

He swung round. “Okay Izzy.”

“Nobody’s ever called me that before,” she said with a giggle.

“Don’t you like it?”

“I love it.”

“Then it’ll be my special name for you,” he said affably. “Okay. This is what we do,” he went on, gripping the machine by the saddle and the handlebars. “Put your feet on the pedals and turn them very slowly.”

“Is it safe?”

“Try it, Izzy.”

She obeyed his instructions and the bicycle inched forward. He held it steady.

“We’re moving,” she cried. “We’re doing it!”

“We’ll do it time and again to build up your confidence, getting a little faster each time. Then,” he said, “when you feel good and ready, I’ll let go.”

“Don’t do that, Theo. Please.”

“I can’t keep doing this forever.”

“But I like it.”

When they got to the end of the passageway, she was quivering with excitement. It was not simply the fact that she had
cycled—albeit with assistance—a distance of several yards. She had also felt Wright’s shoulder pressing gently against her. They turned the machine around and went back in the opposite direction, picking up more speed this time. On their third run, Isadora felt able to push even harder on the pedals.

“Well done, Izzy,” he said. “You’ve gotten the hang of it.”

“I
knew
that I could do it.”

“Keep moving and you won’t fall off.”

“Not when you’re holding me, Theo.”

“Enjoying it?”

“I could do this all day.”

“By the end of the voyage, you’ll be riding around the deck with me.”

“Oh, I could never go that fast.”

“That’s nothing, Izzy,” he said. “When I race in France, I’ll have to go ten times faster than that. It’s not as bad as it sounds. If you stay on the pack, the other riders help you along.”

“Not the way that you’re helping me along,” she said with a grin.

It was on the seventh journey down the passageway that he decided to let go of the handlebars, supporting her only by the saddle. Isadora was amazed she still kept going. She had a wonderful sense of achievement. It was only momentary. Losing her confidence, she let out a cry of fear. The machine began to wobble badly. Wright was equal to the emergency. Running along beside her, he grabbed the handlebars and slowed the bicycle down, but Isadora was not only interested in learning to ride now. With her beloved right alongside her, she pretended to lose control completely and fell off the saddle toward him. Wright used one arm to catch her and brought the machine to a halt with the other. He gave her a friendly smile.

“I guess that’s as far as we can go for now, Izzy,” he said. “Are you okay?

“Oh, yes, Theo,” she replied. “It’s been amazing.”

______

The search of Ramsey Leach’s cabin revealed nothing unusual. Dillman was swift but thorough. He looked in every corner of the cabin and the bedroom, kneeling down to look under the bunk and using a long arm to explore the top of the wardrobe. Leach’s clothing was sober and conventional. All Dillman found by way of proof that the man had lied to him were some souvenir photographs of Niagara Falls. He could not imagine why the mortician had visited such a place. Before he left, Dillman picked up the small case he had seen Leach carrying the previous night. It was locked and felt strangely heavy. The detective used the blade of his penknife to jiggle away until the catches eventually flicked open. Inside the case were some flannel pajamas and a striped dressing gown but it was the object underneath them that interested Dillman. It explained why the case had been so heavy.

Ramsey Leach owned a large revolver.

After a good night’s sleep, Inspector Redfern felt markedly better. Though he was still exercised by the murder of his colleague, he did not neglect the prisoners. He allotted two whole hours to Carrie Peterson in the morning, going through the details once again with painstaking care. In the afternoon, he turned his attention to John Heritage. Contrary to what the inspector had predicted, the prisoner did not gloat over Mulcaster’s death.

“Do you have any idea who the killer may be?” asked Heritage.

“Not as yet.”

“Daniel Webb claims that he was a witness.”

“Pay no attention to what he told you,” Redfern said irritably. “Mr. Webb is something of a menace. I can see why the immigration authorities turned him down. And forget about Sergeant Mulcaster. You have a murder charge of your own to answer.”

“Granted, Inspector. I just wanted you to know that, although
I didn’t like the man in any way, I’m profoundly sorry to hear what happened to him.”

“Thank you, Mr. Heritage.”

“I’m also grateful that you rescued me from the foul cell.”

“You can always be sent back there,” warned Redfern. “So can Miss Peterson.”

“Have you spoken to her today?”