us?”
“I’m sorry, sir.” miss werner, the nurse, had a low, husky voice.
“We heard and saw nothing. Nothing at all that might be of any help.
But if there’s anything we can do “there’s nothing for you to do,”
cerdan interrupted harshly, “except your job. We can’t help you,
gentlemen. Good evening.” once more outside in the passageway, I let
go a long, deep breath that I seemed to have been holding for the past
two minutes and turned to cummings. “I don’t care how much that old
battle-axe is paying for his stateroom,” I said bitterly. “He’s still
being undercharged.”
“I can see why mr. and mrs. Cerdan junior were glad to have him
off their hands for a bit,” cummings conceded. Coming from the normally
imperturbable and diplomatic purser, this was the uttermost limit in
outright condemnation. He glanced at his watch. “Not getting anywhere,
are we? and in another fifteen, twenty minutes the passengers will
start drifting back to their cabins. How about if you finish off here
while I go below with white?”
“Right. Ten minutes.” I took keys from white and started on the
remaining four suites while cummings left for the six on the deck below.
Ten minutes later, having drawn a complete blank in three of the four
remaining suites, I found myself in the last of them, the big one on the
port side, aft, belonging to julius beresford and his family. I
searched the cabin belonging to beresford and his wife-and by this time
I was really searching, not just only for benson, but for any signs that
he might have been there-but again a blank. The same in the lounge and
bathroom. I moved into a second and smaller cabin the one belonging to
beresford’s daughter. Nothing behind the furniture, nothing behind the
drapes, nothing under the four-poster. I moved to the aft bulkhead and
slid back the roll doors that turned the entire side of the cabin into
one huge wardrobe. Miss susan beresford, I reflected, certainly did
herself well in the way of clothes. There must have been about sixty or
seventy hangers in that wall cupboard, and if any one hanger was draped
with anything that cost less than two or three hundred dollars, I sadly
missed my guess. I ploughed my way through the balenciagas, diors, and
givenchys, looking behind and beneath. But nothing there. I closed the
roll doors and moved across to a small wardrobe in a corner. It was
full of furs, coats, capes, stoles; why anyone should haul that stuff
along on a cruise to the caribbean was completely beyond me. I laid my
hand on a particularly fine full-length specimen and was moving it to
one side to peer into the darkness behind when I heard a faint click, as
of a handle being released, and a voice said: “it is rather a nice mink,
isn’t it, mr. carter? that should be worth two years’ salary to you any
day.”
chapter 3
[tuesday 9.30 pm. 10:15 p.m.]
susan beresford was a beauty, all right. A perfectly oval shaped
face, high cheekbones, shining auburn hair, eyebrows two shades darker,
and eyes the greenest green you ever saw, she had all the officers on
the ship climbing the walls, even the ones she tormented the life out
of. All except carter, that was. A permanent expression of cool
amusement does nothing to endear the wearer to me. Not, just then, that
I had any complaint on that ground. She was neither cool nor amused,
and that was a fact. Two dull red spots of anger-and was there perhaps
a tinge of fear?-touched the tanned cheeks, and if the expression on her
face didn’t yet indicate the reaction of someone who has just come
across a particularly repulsive beetle under a flat stone you could see
that it was going to turn into something like that pretty soon; it
didn’t require any micrometer to measure the curl at the corner of her
mouth. I let the mink drop back into place and pulled the wardrobe door
to. “You shouldn’t startle people like that,” I said reproachfully.
“You should have knocked.”
“I should have “her mouth tightened; she still wasn’t amused.
“What were you going to do with that coat?”
“Nothing. I never wear mink, miss beresford. It doesn’t suit me.”
I smiled, but she didn’t. “I can explain.”
“I’m sure you can.” she was halfway round the edge of the door
now, on her way out. “But I think I would rather you made the
explanation to my father.”
“Suit yourself,” I said easily. “But please hurry. What i’m doing
is urgent. Use the phone there. Or shall I do it?”
“Leave that phone alone,’ she said irritably. She sighed, closed
the door and leaned against it, and I had to admit that any door, even
the expensively panelled ones on the campari, looked twice the door with
susan beresford draped against it. She shook her head, then gave me an
up-from-under look with those startling green eyes. “I can picture many
things, mr. carter, but one thing I can’t visualise is our worthy chief
officer taking off for some deserted island in a ship’s lifeboat with my
mink in the stern sheets.” getting back to normal, I noted with regret.
“Besides, why should you? there must be over fifty thousand dollars’
worth of jewellery lying loose in that drawer there.”
“I missed that,” I admitted. “I wasn’t looking in drawers. I am
looking for a man who is sick or unconscious or worse, and benson
wouldn’t fit in any drawer i’ve ever seen.”
“Benson? Your head steward? that nice man?” she came a couple of
steps towards me and I was obscurely pleased to see the quick concern in
her eyes. “He’s missing?” I told her all I knew myself. That didn’t
take long. When I was finished, she said, “well, upon my word! what a
to-do about nothing. He could have gone for a stroll round the decks,
or a sit-down, or a smoke, yet the first thing you do is to start
searching cabins “you don’t know benson, miss beresford. He has never
in his life left the passenger accommodation before eleven p.m. We
couldn’t be more concerned if we’d found that the officer of the watch
had disappeared from the bridge or the quartermaster had left the wheel.
Excuse me a moment.” I opened the cabin door to locate the source of
voices outside and saw white and another steward some way down the
passage. White’s eyes lit up as he caught sight of me, then clouded in
disapproval when he saw susan beresford emerging through the doorway
behind me. White’s sense of propriety was having a roller-coasts ride
that night. “I was wondering where you were, sir,” he said reprovingly.
“Mr. cummings sent me up. No luck down below, i’m afraid, sir. Mr.
cummings is going through our quarters now.” he stood still for a
moment, then the anxiety came to the foreground and erased the
disapproval from his face. “What shall I do now, sir?”
“Nothing. Not personally. You’re in charge till we find the chief
steward, and the passengers come first, you know that. Detail three
stewards to be at the forward entrance to the ‘a’ accommodation in ten
minutes time. One to search the officers quarters forward, another for
the officers quarters aft, the third for the galleys, pantries,
storerooms. But wait till I give the word. Miss beresford, i’d like to
use your phone, please.” I didn’t wait for permission. I lifted the
phone, got the exchange, had them put me through to the bo’sun’s cabin,
and found I was lucky. He was at home. “Macdonald? first mate here.
Sorry to call you out, archie, but there’s trouble. Benson’s missing.”
“The chief steward, sir?” there was something infinitely
reassuring about that deep, slow voice that had never lost a fraction of
its lilting west highland intonation in twenty years at sea, in the
complete lack of surprise or excitement in the tone. Macdonald was
never surprised or excited about anything. He was more than my strong
right arm; he was deck-side the most important person on the ship. And
the most indispensable. “You’ll have searched the passengers’ and the
stewards’ quarters then?”
“Yes. Nothing doing. Take some men, on or off watch, doesn’t
matter, move along the main decks. Lots of the crew usually up there at
this time of night. See if any of them saw benson or saw or heard
anything unusual. Maybe he’s sick; maybe he fell and hurt himself; for
all I know he’s overboard.”
“And if we’ve no luck? another bloody search, sir, I suppose?”
“I’m afraid so. Can you be finished and up here in ten minutes?”
“That will be no trouble, sir.” I hung up, got through to the duty
engineer officer, asked him to detain some men to come to the passenger
accommodation, made another call to tommy wilson, the second officer,