The Wheel of Darkness (8 page)

But the shadow was moving. The horns were blasting. The dockworkers had slipped the hawsers and retracted the boarding gantry. High overhead, hundreds of people stood at its railing or on the countless balconies, taking pictures, throwing streamers, and waving good-bye to the crowd. With a final ground-shaking blast of its horn, the
Britannia
slowly, ponderously, inexorably began to move away from the dock.

“Ever so sorry, guv,” the driver said. “I did my best, but—”

“Bring the bags,” Pendergast interrupted. Then he dashed off through the crush of onlookers toward a security checkpoint. As Constance watched, he stopped only long enough to flash his badge at the police, then he was off again, heading past the band and the camera crews toward a scaffold covered with bunting, on which stood a thick press of dignitaries and—Constance assumed—North Star corporate officers. Already the group was beginning to break up; men in dark suits were shaking each other’s hands and stepping down off the scaffold.

Pendergast darted through a sea of lesser functionaries that surrounded the scaffold and singled out one man standing at its center: a portly gentleman with an ebony walking stick and a white carnation on his dove-gray vest. He was being congratulated by those around him, and he was clearly surprised and taken aback when Pendergast inserted himself into the little group, uninvited. The man listened to Pendergast for a moment, a mixture of impatience and irritation on his face. Then, abruptly, he frowned and began to shake his head furiously. When Pendergast continued to talk urgently, the man drew himself up and began to gesticulate, poking his finger first at the ship, then at Pendergast, his face flushing a deep red. Security personnel began to crowd around them and they were lost from sight.

Constance waited by the taxi, the driver at her side. He had not bothered to retrieve the luggage, and she was not surprised; the huge bulk of the
Britannia
was still gliding along the dock, moving slowly but picking up speed. There would be no more stops until it reached New York after a crossing of seven days and six nights.

As she watched, the ship’s horn let out another blast. Abruptly, large jets of water began to boil around the bows. Constance frowned: it almost seemed as if the vessel was slowing down. She glanced back in Pendergast’s direction. He was visible again now, standing beside the man with the carnation, who was talking into a cell phone. The man’s face had gone from red to purple.

Constance returned her attention to the ship. It was no illusion: the ship’s bow thrusters had reversed, and the
Britannia
was creeping backward toward the dock. The earsplitting cheering around her seemed to falter as the crowds looked on with increasing perplexity.

“Blimey,” the driver muttered. Then, walking around to the rear of the taxi, he opened the boot and began to pull out their baggage.

Pendergast gestured to Constance, indicating that she should meet him at the security checkpoint. She made her way through the buzzing crowds, the driver at her heels. On the dock itself, workers were hastily extending the lower boarding gantry again. The band faltered, then gamely started up again.

The horn gave yet another blast as the gangway was maneuvered into position against the ship’s black flanks. Pendergast ushered her through the checkpoint and together they walked quickly down the dock.

“No need to make haste, Constance,” he said, taking her arm lightly and slowing her down to a leisurely stroll. “We might as well enjoy the moment—of keeping the world’s largest ocean liner waiting, that is—not to mention its more than four thousand passengers and crew.”

“How did you manage it?” she asked as they stepped onto the gantry.

“Mr. Elliott, principal director of the North Star Line, is a warm acquaintance of mine.”

“He is?” she asked dubiously.

“Well, even if he wasn’t ten minutes ago, he certainly is now. The gentleman and I are recently acquainted, and he is warm now—
very
warm.”

“But delaying departure? Getting the ship to return to the dock?”

“When I explained just how much it would be to his advantage to accommodate us—and how much to his
personal disadvantage
not to—Mr. Elliott was most eager to be of assistance.” Pendergast glanced up at the ship, then smiled once again. “You know, Constance, under the circumstances I think I’m going to find this voyage tolerable—perhaps even agreeable.”

F
OR
R
OGER
M
AYLES, CRUISE DIRECTOR OF THE
B
RITANNIA
, ONE OF THE
earliest and most important decisions of the voyage had been at which table to dine on First Night. It was always a prickly question, very prickly, made all the more so by the fact that this was First Night on the maiden voyage of the world’s largest ocean liner.

A difficult question indeed.

As cruise director, his job was not only to know the names and needs of all the passengers, but to mingle with them as well. At all times. If he disappeared during dinner, it would send a message to them that he didn’t love them, that his was just a job.

It wasn’t just a job.

But then, what do you do with a passenger list that is almost three thousand names long, spread over eight dining rooms and three seatings?

Mayles had fussed and fussed. First he had decided on the restaurant: it would be Oscar’s, the movie-themed dining room. It was a spectacular art deco room, one wall a single curtain of Venetian cut crystal, with a waterfall behind, the whole thing backlit. The whisper of water was designed to raise the ambient white noise, which had the curious effect of lowering the apparent volume of sound. Two other walls were of real gold leaf, and the final one was of glass, looking out into the darkness of the ocean. It wasn’t the biggest restaurant on the ship—that was the King’s Arms, with its three opulent levels—but it had the smartest decor.

Yes, Oscar’s it would be. Second seating, naturally. The first seaters were to be avoided at all costs; they were generally cretins who, no matter how rich they were, had never managed to shed the barbaric habit of eating before seven.

Then came the question of the table itself. It would, of course, be one of the “formal” tables—the large ones where guests could, on request, still observe the old-fashioned tradition of assigned seating, in which they would be mingled with strangers, as in the glory days of ocean liners. Formal dress, of course. To most, this meant black tie. But Mayles was very fussy about such things and he always dressed in a white dinner jacket.

Next, he’d had to choose the guests at his table. Roger Mayles was particular and he had many private, admittedly vicious prejudices to satisfy. His list of guests to avoid was a long one: topping it were CEOs, anyone involved in the stock markets, Texans, fat people, dentists, and surgeons. His preferred list included actresses, titled nobility, heiresses, television talk show hosts, airline stewards, mobsters, and what he called “mysteries”—people who defied placing—as long as they were intriguing, very rich, and X-class.

After hours of poring over the guest lists he had come up with what he considered to be a brilliant party for First Night. He would put together tables for himself every night of the voyage, of course, but this one was special. This would be a dinner to remember. It was certain to prove an excellent diversion. And Mayles was always in need of diversion at sea, because—and this was his biggest secret among many—he had never learned to swim and was deathly afraid of the open ocean.

And so it was with great anticipation and not a little trepidation that he arrived at the gold-leafed entrance to Oscar’s, dressed in a thousand-dollar Hickey Freeman dinner jacket purchased especially for the voyage. He paused at the door, letting all eyes fall on his impeccably tailored form. He beamed a gracious smile at the room and made his way to the head formal table.

As the guests arrived he seated them with handshakes, warm words, and various gestures and flourishes. Last to arrive were the two “mysteries”—a gentleman named Aloysius Pendergast and his “ward,” a designation that in Mayles’s mind conjured up all sorts of deliciously salacious ideas. Pendergast’s file had intrigued him because it was so utterly devoid of information, and the fellow had managed to book himself into one of the aft duplex suites—the Tudor, at a cost of fifty-thousand pounds—at the last minute, even though the entire ship had been fully booked for months. On top of that, he had delayed the “sailaway” by nearly half an hour. How had he done it?

Most intriguing.

As the man approached, Mayles took a second, longer look. He liked what he saw. The man was refined, aristocratic, and strikingly handsome; he was dressed in a splendid cutaway with an orchid boutonniere on his lapel. His face was shockingly pale, as if he were recovering from a deathly illness, and yet there was a hardness, a vitality, in his lithe frame and gray eyes that showed anything but physical weakness. His face was as finely chiseled as a Praxiteles marble. He moved through the crowd like a cat threading its way across a set dining table.

But even more striking than Pendergast was his so-called ward. She was a beauty, but not in any way common or modern—no, hers was a Pre-Raphaelite beauty, the spitting image of Proserpine in the famous painting by Rossetti, but with her straight hair cut in a flapperish bob. She wore a formal gown by Zac Posen that Mayles had admired in one of the galleries along St. James’s on Deck 6—the costliest one there. Interesting that she would purchase her First Night dress on board rather than select one from her own wardrobe.

He quickly recalculated the seating and placed Pendergast at his side, and Constance opposite. Mrs. Dahlberg went on the other side of Pendergast; Mayles had put her on the list because she had divorced two English lords in a row and ended up with an American meatpacking mogul, who then died a few months after the nuptials, leaving her a hundred million richer. Mayles’s febrile imagination had gone riot with that one. But as he contemplated her in person he was disappointed to see she did not look like the vulgar fortune-hunter he had imagined.

He sprinkled the others about—a dashing young English baronet and his French wife; a dealer of impressionist art; the lead singer for the Suburban Lawnmowers and her boyfriend; the author and bon vivant Victor Delacroix; and a few others who, Mayles hoped, would make for a brilliant and amusing table. He’d wanted to include Braddock Wiley, a movie star aboard for the mid-atlantic premiere of his new film, but his stature as an actor was waning and Mayles had ultimately decided he could invite him on the second night.

As he seated people, Mayles deftly introduced them to each other, to obviate the need for a round of vulgar introductions once they were seated. Soon everyone was in place and the first course arrived: crêpes Romanoff. They chatted about nothing for a moment as the waiters laid down the plates and poured the first wine of the evening.

Mayles broke the ice. “Do I detect a New Orleans accent, Mr. Pendergast?” He prided himself in his ability to tease out even the most reluctant conversationalist.

“How clever of you,” responded Pendergast. “And for my part, do I detect, behind your English accent, a touch of Far Rockaway, Queens?”

Mayles felt the smile freeze on his face. How in the world did the man know
that
?

“Don’t be concerned, Mr. Mayles—I’ve made a study of accents, among other things. In my line of work I find it useful.”

“I see.” Mayles took a sip of the Vernaccia to cover up his surprise and quickly turned the conversation away. “Are you a linguist?”

A certain amusement seemed to lurk in the man’s gray eyes. “Not at all. I investigate things.”

Mayles had his second surprise of the dinner. “How interesting. You mean, like Sherlock Holmes?”

“Something like that.”

A rather unpleasant thought ran through Mayles’s head. “And are you . . . investigating now?”

“Bravo, Mr. Mayles.”

Some of the others were now listening, and Mayles didn’t quite know what to say. He felt a twinge of nerves. “Well,” he went on with a light laugh, “I know who did it: Mr. Mustard in the pantry. With the candlestick.”

As the others laughed politely, he again turned the conversation away from this potentially difficult line. “Miss Greene, have you ever seen the painting
Proserpine
, by Rossetti?”

The woman turned her eyes on him, and he felt a shiver of disquiet. There was something distinctly strange in those eyes. “I have.”

“I do believe you resemble the woman in the painting.”

She continued to look at him. “Should I be flattered to be compared to the mistress of the lord of the underworld?”

This bizarre answer, its intensity—and her resonant, old-fashioned voice—put Mayles out. But he was an expert at riding any vagary of conversation, and he had a ready reply. “Pluto fell in love with her because she was so beautiful, so vital—as you are.”

“And as a result Pluto kidnapped her and dragged her into hell to be his mistress.”

“Ah well, some people have all the luck!” Mayles glanced around and received an appreciative laugh for his little bon mot—even Miss Greene smiled, he was relieved to notice.

The dealer, Lionel Brock, spoke: “Yes, yes, I know the painting well. It’s in the Tate, I believe.”

Mayles turned a grateful face toward Brock. “Yes.”

“A rather vulgar work, like all the Pre-Raphaelites. The model was Jane Morris, the wife of Rossetti’s best friend. Painting her was a prelude to seducing her.”

“Seduction,” said Miss Greene. She turned her strange eyes on Mayles. “Have you ever seduced, Mr. Mayles? Being cruise director on a luxury ocean liner must be a marvelous platform from which to do it.”

“I have my little secrets,” he said, with another light laugh. The question had cut rather closer to the bone than he was accustomed to. He didn’t think he would put Miss Greene at his table again.

“
Afar from mine own self I seem, and wing strange ways in thought, and listen for a sign
,” Greene recited.