Voyage into Violence (9 page)

Bill had sought out the ship's stenographer, carrying the book. She had looked at it and—quite literally, as it happened—thrown up her hand. “All I know,” the stenographer said—she had quick, pretty hands, with pointed fingers—“all I know, it isn't Gregg. Anyway, not any Gregg
I
ever saw. And I've seen some scrawls.”

Conceivably, it might be Pitman, or some modification of Pitman. She wouldn't know about that. Most probably, it was no standard system—many attempts had been made to improve on the standard systems, and few had lasted. But, here and there, a variant was remembered by someone, and used by someone. Perhaps whoever wrote in the notebook—and she wasn't asking who, or being told—had used such a variant, more for the purposes of secrecy than for speed. If meant to be secret, it was, from her.

So that, for the time being, was that. Much could be found on the
Carib Queen
, but there was, understandably, a dearth of cryptographers. In New York, it would be easy enough to get Marsh's notes deciphered—unless, of course, they were in a private code. In that event, it might take time. But, thus cut off—cut off until Havana—there did not seem to be anything to do about the notebook.

They were left with a .38 revolver, photographs of an elderly woman and of articles of jewelry; a note and a check, sharing a signature which was itself a cryptogram, and the contents of Marsh's wallet and of his pockets. They had his eyeglasses and his wrist watch; they had several hundred dollars of his money.

Dorian and Pam and Jerry North had looked at these things, and shaken their heads over them. They looked at them again.

What they had to do, Pam pointed out, was to put two and two together. “It's supposed to be very easy,” she said. “Like rolling off a log.” She paused. “I've never really understood that one,” Pam said. “What's so easy about rolling off a log?”

“Because they're round,” Jerry told her, and was looked at doubtfully.

“Anyway,” Pam said, letting it go. “Anyway—”

She considered, carefully, the photographed jewelry. “Are they real?” she asked, after scrutiny. “Because,” she added, “I've had almost no experience with jewelry.” She then, briefly, scrutinized Jerry North, who merely grinned at her. Bill Weigand turned from his thoughtful study of the blueness of the sea. He said that they had no way of telling that; that if they had the objects themselves—the bracelet, the ring, the two necklaces—they would still need an expert. Meanwhile, if it helped, they might assume them real, since there would be little point in the careful photography of rhinestones, of synthetic pearls.

“Put jewelry together,” Pam said, “you get jewel thefts, of course. Then put this sad old lady with them and what do you get?”

They waited.

“Private detectives recover jewels,” Pam said, and looked toward Bill Weigand, who nodded his head and, to the nod, added, “Sometimes.”

“And capture the thieves?” Pam asked, and Bill said, “Not often. That isn't often the point.” Pam waited. “Act as go-betweens, more frequently,” Bill told her. “Between thief and insurance company—thief gets the reward, owner gets the jewelry, private investigator gets paid for his trouble. But I never heard Marsh was in that line of work.”

“Nor,” Dorian said, “do I see quite where it gets us.”

She was, Pam said, merely looking for things to add. Jewelry, a sword, an elderly woman with sad eyes in a sad face, a man killed and a young man slugged, Ancient and Respectable Riflemen. “A little heap of things,” Pam said, and Bill Weigand added to them. “A woman who says her stateroom was searched,” he said. “A check and a letter. A notebook which we can't read. A—”

“Wait,” Pam said. “The sad woman—” she indicated the photograph—“is a jewel thief. These are some of the jewels she's taken—part of a haul. Marsh was after her and—wait!”

The last came with a small yelp of triumph.

“That's how Mrs. Macklin comes in,” Pam said. “That's plain, isn't it?”

It was not. It was not even plain, Jerry pointed out, that Mrs. Macklin came in at all. You couldn't, he said, start adding things to other things merely because—He discovered that the others were looking at him expectantly. He peered about his mind for an exit from a sentence which seemed to have closed around him. “Merely because they happen to be there,” he said, and felt it feeble. Pam, at any rate, looked disappointed.

“That's very interesting, Jerry,” Pam said, courteously. “You mean—we can't add—oh, apples and elephants? Merely because there
are
elephants?”

Jerry North ran the fingers of his right hand through his hair. It did not seem to him that that was precisely what he had meant.

“Of course,” Dorian said, kindly, “he's quite right. We have to know which things to add. Or—we don't have to, but it would help.”

“Well,” Pam said, “somebody was searching Mrs. Macklin's room for jewelry. Start with that. This—jewel thief.” She pointed to the photograph of the sad woman. “Of course,” she said, “orchids make a great deal of difference.”

Bill Weigand left the porthole. He sat down, rather carefully, in a chair. He said, “Orchids, Pam?”

“Oh,” she said, “the general feel of orchids. And nice clothes and being on a cruise. Here—” here was again the photograph—“her face goes down. But with orchids, it might very well go up, which would make all the difference.”

“You,” Dorian said, “are thinking of the woman at the captain's table.”

“Of course,” Pam said. “With orchids. Make-up and everything. Couldn't she be?”

Dorian thought. She uncurled and reached for the photograph which Pam held out to her and curled again and looked at it. Finally, she said, “Mmmm.”

“Exactly,” Pam said. “That's just what I think. Mmmm.”

Jerry looked at Bill Weigand.

“Your back's to them,” Bill said. “The woman they're talking about at the captain's table is with her husband. A couple named Furstenberg. I can't say—” But he got up and got the photograph from his wife, and looked at it.

“All right,” Pam said, “isn't it ‘Mmmm'?”

The woman in the photograph and Mrs. Aaron Furstenberg were, probably, of about the same age—late sixties, at a guess. Both had white hair. Mrs. Furstenberg did not, by any means, look sad. But that, as Pam pointed out, might be the orchids, which was to say what the orchids stood for.

“A gang,” Pam said. “Gang of two, anyway. Working the ships—probably some people who take cruises, even short cruises, have a lot of money.
And
jewelry. And Mr. Marsh was employed by—by—”

“An insurance company, possibly,” Bill said. He looked at the photograph thoughtfully. There was nothing whatever to support Pam's theory. It was—it was merely one of those things which seemed to leap into her mind. It seemed unlikely that a jewel thief, even one on the verge of exposure, would turn murderer. But still—

“Mmmm,” Bill Weigand said, and so paid tribute to those things which leaped into Pamela North's mind. It was not that she was always right. It was more that she was seldom altogether wrong.

“The letter,” Pam said, is from whoever it was—somebody at the insurance company—who hired Mr. Marsh. The check is, too. Not a regular company check because—” She paused. “Not let the left hand know what the right hand's doing,” she said. “Marsh found out something—probably that they had been in Mrs. Macklin's stateroom. Then he tried to blackmail them, so they killed him. With Mr. Folsom's sword. Probably Mr.—what's the name again?—Furstenberg actually used the sword, because women don't. Daggers—yes. Swords—no. They're too long. And—”

“Pam,” Jerry said. “Please, Pam.”

“And then went back to the stateroom to see if there was anything which would give them away and—what, Jerry?”

“Whoa,” Jerry said. “Just whoa, Pam. And—your bit's showing. The one in your teeth.”

“All the same—” Pam said, and stopped. “Well,” she said, “have you got a better idea?”

“Folsom and his merry men,” Jerry said, gravely, “are really a gang of espionage agents. Working in a pack. Marsh was really F.B.I., playing a lone hand. They caught up with him. Marsh had the photographs of jewelry because he was thinking of buying his wife some and wanted to look at pictures. The sad woman is his wife. The—”

“Jerry!” Pam said. “She's much too old. And—”

“On the other hand,” Dorian said, “Mrs. Macklin is a wealthy widow and people have moved in on her. The daughter isn't really her daughter—she's more of a wardress. The daughter and Marsh were working it together, gradually getting the money. Forcing her to sign checks and make over securities. Probably selling off her jewels. Mrs. Macklin, driven to desperation, turned on Mr. Marsh with a sword. Thinking that Marsh might have concealed evidence which would incriminate her, the daughter, Hilda, went to the stateroom and—”

“You,” Pam said, “sound like a synopsis. Also, I like mine better. Bill?”

But Bill Weigand shook his head, slowly.

“I'm afraid,” he said, “that I haven't any theory. But then, I haven't any facts. A man's dead and a younger man's been slugged. I—”

The telephone rang. Bill picked it up. He said, “Right,” he listened. He said, “No. Put the rest in a radiogram, will you?” He listened and said, “Thanks.” He replaced the receiver and looked, oddly, at Pam North.

“Sergeant Stein,” he said. “There is a jewel thief aboard—at least, someone who was picked up last year for questioning and let go because the woman who'd lost the jewels wouldn't sign a complaint. Probably the insurance company reward racket. Going over the passenger list, one of the boys spotted it—a familiar name.”

Pam's eyes widened slightly.

“Missis—” she began, but Bill was shaking his head.

“A man,” he said. “Quite a young man—late twenties. A professional dancer. Name of Jules Barron.”

“Oh,” Pam said.

“Right,” Bill said. “On the other hand—Aaron Furstenberg is a retired jeweler—manufacturing jeweler, and designer.” He looked at Pam, still a little oddly.

“My goodness,” Pam North said. “Things do go together, don't they?”

“The trouble is,” Pam North told Jerry, “you've got stiffening of the moral fiber. It's very bad for people. At home, you don't think about walking all the time.”

It was a little before noon and for an hour they had hardly thought of murder. On a lazy ship, moving serenely through bright waters, it is difficult to keep one's mind on things. In the bracing air of New York, spurred to endeavor by carbon monoxide, Pam would, she realized, have been up and about, not, as now, lethargic in a deck chair. If any murderer wanted to be caught, as long as the sun shone thus, he or she would have to come and ask for it. Pam had produced a theory and felt, uncharacteristically, exhausted by the effort. And now Jerry, who could usually be trusted as to mood, wanted her to walk the deck, eight to the mile. She would, she told him, as soon walk the plank. She mentioned his new ailment.

“At home,” Pam said, “you sit at a desk and swivel. Anyway, after Labor Day.”

“At home,” Jerry said, “I do not eat large breakfasts, including kippers.”

“Ugh,” Pam said, with some difficulty.

“Nor large luncheons, including trifle,” Jerry said. “Also, walking keeps me awake.”

To find that Jerry, also, was in a lethargy from which even murder did not wholly arouse him was reasonably consoling. And, Pam further told herself, that had been the idea, really—a week of floating, an effortless week. Jerry had been looking tired, what with one author and another. Pam, stretched in the deck chair, oiled against the sun, wearing dark glasses to protect her eyes and enough bathing suit to satisfy minimum requirements, floated. After a while she would arouse herself—she would scrutinize Mrs. Furstenberg to see if, in droopier moments, she resembled the white-haired woman in the photograph—she would—

Someone sat down on the deck chair next to hers. Jerry had not, surely, already done his eight laps. Pam opened her eyes. It was not Jerry beside her. It was Mrs. Macklin. Pam turned her head and removed her glasses. She felt herself penetrated by Mrs. Macklin's gaze. It was like being transfixed by a double-barreled harpoon.

“Where is this detective?” Mrs. Macklin asked, her voice as sharp as her gaze, and then, before Pam could answer, “Don't tell me you don't know him. I saw you in the smoke room.”

Pam started to speak.

“I've been looking for him all over,” Mrs. Macklin said. “Upstairs
and
down. I want to hire him.”

“Hire him?” Pam said. “Hire Captain Weigand?”

“Weigand?” Mrs. Macklin said. “What are you talking about, girl? What's he captain of? These toy soldiers?”

Pam sat up.

“Oh, you've got pretty legs,” Mrs. Macklin said. “I'll give you that.”

She was drunk again, Pam decided. It was early in the day for it, but Mrs. Macklin was drunk again. Only—she did not look drunk.

“Well?” Mrs. Macklin said.

“The New York City Police Department,” Pam said.

“Oh,” Mrs. Macklin said. “That one. You're talking about the wrong one. I don't want that one. The private one. Since nobody will do anything. You don't know where he is?”

“No,” Pam said, and, when her conscience rustled faintly, told it that she didn't. Not precisely. Under refrigeration, of course. But where? “What did you want to hire him for, Mrs. Macklin?”

“You were there,” Mrs. Macklin said. “Heard me tell the captain. Heard him promise he'd do something.”

“Oh,” Pam said, “about an intruder in your room? Didn't he?”

“Would I want to spend good money for a detective if he had?” Mrs. Macklin asked. “Tell me that.”