Death by Water (15 page)

‘On two glasses of sherry, Dot, not even a moderate sized dog would pass out. You were drugged. Now, would you like breakfast first or remembering first?’

‘Breakfast. I feel all right, Miss, really, just a bit slow. A good breakfast and I’ll be bonzer.’

‘If you say so,’ said Phryne. Dot put on her shoes and went out.

Phryne ate a thoughtful croissant. That Dorothy Williams was made of strong stuff. Meanwhile, Phryne needed a few cups of the thought-provoking coffee herself. Who had had the immor-tal brass-edged nerve to drug Dot? And—she found herself wondering suddenly—what about the coincidence of Magda deciding to sing ‘Ten Cents A Dance’ so very appositely when Jack Mason was telling her about Jonquil? It was going to be a busy day. And, with any luck, there would be answers. And fjords.

Phryne ate the rest of her croissant and stared out to sea. The wind was cold. She was dressed in a warm woollen suit and soft shoes. Lifeboat drill this morning, she noticed in the ship’s newsletter, and then the
Hinemoa
would sail into Milford Sound, South Island which the guidebooks said was magnificent.

Phryne had not half finished thinking when the ship’s siren began blowing, bells went off in every corridor, and it was time for her to assume her life jacket and report to Boat Deck Station Three.

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The life jacket was not the most becoming of garments, but it was easy enough to put on. Phryne came out into the pas-sageway to find Caroline inserting a returning Dot into hers and shrugging on her own. People were already streaming up to the boat deck. Phryne and Dot joined the multitude.

‘Waste of time,’ she overheard Mrs West saying crossly. Mr Singer, beside her, turned a pale face to the young woman and snarled, ‘Don’t say that, you silly woman! You wouldn’t say that if the ship was sinking. In the dark, in the middle of the cold sea.’

‘Here,’ said West angrily. ‘I won’t have you speaking to my wife like that!’

‘He is, however, correct,’ observed Professor Applegate, the white calico of her life preserver trussed so high that she could have rested her chin on it. ‘Lifeboat drill is essential. Once you know where your station is, and how to get there, you can find it again. Come, don’t fuss, Mrs West. This won’t take long.’

And it didn’t. Phryne was astounded at how quickly the passengers were mustered, directed to their stations, and ranked by their lifeboats.

‘At least there are enough boats,’ said Dot. ‘Thomas says that’s what the sinking of the
Titanic
did for safety.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Phryne. ‘I rather missed the
Titanic
disaster.’

‘How did you miss it?’ asked Dot, amazed. ‘It was in all the papers. Hundreds of people drowned.’

‘In April 1912 I was in the process of being dragged off to England to go to a very tough girls’ school. The headmistress did not believe in what are now called current events. I did hear about the ship sinking, but none of the details.’

‘They didn’t have enough lifeboats,’ said Dot. ‘They saved most of the women and children in First Class, and everyone
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else died. It must have been awful. Thomas says that no one will ever forget it.’

‘I should think not,’ said Phryne, not attending. ‘Well, here is our boat, and is everyone here?’

‘All present,’ said Mr Aubrey. Roberts, their boat steward, nodded. The wind was cold now, with a nitrogen tang which spoke of ice. It might not be out of question to meet an iceberg in this sea, either. The lifeboat was an agreeably robust looking boat with a stout canvas cover. It was being slung down from its davits. Phryne was pleased. The lines were new, the blocks and pulleys worked with only minimal creaking, and the large boat descended to the boat deck and landed with barely a thud.

Four sailors jumped in and urged the passengers to climb aboard and sit down.

This was managed with the usual amount of complaining and a few stepped-on toes. Jack Mason, late and jacketless, joined his boat in a flying leap which tumbled an innocent bystander into the bottom of the boat and earned him a smart clip over the ear from a steward.

‘Ouch,’ he complained.

‘Couldn’t you find somewhere else to have the accident?’

demanded Phryne.

‘Didn’t hear the siren,’ he said, which was scarcely credi-ble. Anyone not roused by that combination of harsh bells and hooting siren must have been deaf, dead drunk, or just dead.

The boat swung out for a dizzying moment, then was lowered smartly into the sea. It landed with a slap and floated high, like a cork. Other boats were appearing from above; all classes, crew, even the restaurant staff, the stokers and the Melody Makers—all around the large mother duck of the
Hinemoa
they floated.

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An officer in a powered boat was gathering the ducklings into a large flotilla. They rowed away until they were perhaps a hundred yards from the ship.

Phryne was impressed. The organisation had been seamless.

No one had fallen overboard yet, though Jack Mason would probably contrive it. If this had been a real emergency, the ship would have been emptied of people in less than half an hour.

On the other hand, there was always something missing from a drill. This was the emergency itself, and all the aggravating factors: darkness, panic, people screaming, water pouring in, perhaps smoke or fog or fire. And fear. Fear had a scent which might be hard to detect but infected anyone who smelled it.

Phryne shivered, bobbing up and down in her commodi-ous lifeboat, and was glad when they were belayed aboard again, and could go into the Palm Court for a little morning tea. Dot, feeling some after-effects, went back to the Imperial Suite, secured all the doors and windows, and lay down on her bed with the teddy for company.

Table three were in the Palm Court in force, both Singers, both Cahills, both Wests, and the usual cast. Phryne ordered strong coffee and petits fours. The conversation inevitably turned to maritime disasters.

‘Jolly lifeboats they have on this ship,’ said Mr Aubrey bracingly. ‘Cork lined and close to unsinkable.’

‘Don’t say that,’ said Mr Singer.

‘Only ‘‘close to’’, old chap, not ‘‘absolutely’’.
Hinemoa
is a very fine ship, and her lifeboats match her, that’s all I meant.’

‘And yet
Hinemoa
could be considered to be a jinxed name,’

said Jack Mason idly. ‘There was another
Hinemoa
in the 1890s.

She was ballasted with graveyard rubble, and her captains went, in order, insane, criminal, alcoholic, suicidal and homicidal.

Finally she was wrecked off Scotland in 1908, a total loss.’

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‘Nonsense,’ said the professor. ‘Kindly do not mention this again, young man! These things have a way of getting about.

Do you think that you are the only person aboard who knows about the old
Hinemoa
? The Maoris asked a famous
tohunga
about her, before she was launched, and he said that the other one was cursed not by her Maori connections or any breaking of
tapu
, but by carrying dead men’s bones unwillingly from their resting place. That does not apply to us. We are ballasted with good New Zealand gravel. Now hold your tongue,’ concluded the professor crisply, and Jack Mason obeyed.

‘There was the most famous mystery of them all,’ said Mrs Cahill. ‘The
Marie Celeste
, left empty and no explanation.’

‘
Mary Celeste
,’ said Navigation Officer Green, who had joined them. ‘‘‘Mary’’. Not ‘‘Marie’’, sorry. A lot of people make that mistake.’

Mrs Cahill sniffed. ‘Well, what about the
Mary Celeste
?’ she asked.

‘A real mystery, though not the only ship that’s been found empty and still floating. Wooden ships, particularly, were built to, er, as it were, float. The
Mary Celeste
was first sighted by the
Dei Gratia
, Captain Morehouse. She had left New York for Genoa on the fifth of November 1872, if my memory serves me.’

Professor Applegate allowed herself a chuckle. ‘Well of course it serves you, my dear Mr Green. Do go on.’

‘
Dei Gratia
sent the mate and two sailors across to
Mary
Celeste
. They searched the ship and there was no one aboard: no one at all. Everything was in good order. A flask of oil on the sewing machine unspilt. A bed with the indentations where a woman and a child had lain down upon it. That would have been the captain’s wife, Mrs Briggs, and his two year old daughter, Sophia. Water had washed into the cabins, but there was no damage to the ship. She did not seem, even, to have been in
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heavy weather. When they pumped her out she was as dry as a tick and rode high.’

‘What happened to the log?’ asked Phryne, who knew how Navigation Officer Green felt about logs. He smiled gratefully at this intelligent woman who understood the importance of documentary evidence.

‘The log was found intact. The last entry was the twenty-fifth of November when the ship was passing Santa Maria island. No more entries had been made and the ship had travelled about five hundred nautical miles since then.’

‘What’s the difference between a nautical mile and a land mile?’ asked Mr Cahill.

‘It’s a little longer and much, much wetter,’ said Mr Green with a straight face.

Mr Cahill thought about this, finally decided it was a joke and laughed.

‘Didn’t the owners change her name?’ asked Mrs Cahill.

‘Yes, the strange fate of the
Mary Celeste
is supposed to be a warning about changing a ship’s name. Perhaps as the
Amazon
she might have been luckier. But possibly not. She was run aground, on fire, and wrecked on four occasions before she was sold, repaired and renamed. Not a lucky ship from the beginning, perhaps.’

Much as Phryne enjoyed being told things by Navigation Officer Green, she had an investigation to make. She finished her petit fours and went back to her suite, where she found Caroline at the door.

‘She’s locked herself in,’ Caroline told Phryne.

‘And not to be wondered at,’ said Phryne. She knocked. ‘It’s me, Dot dear,’ she said.

Gradually, the door opened. Phryne and Caroline went in and Dot resumed her place on her bed. Clearly the small ration
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of extra alertness conferred on her by unaccustomed coffee had quite worn off. ‘I’m that sleepy,’ she said.

‘I know. Now, remember for me. What happened after you went to dinner with the second class citizens?’ Phryne demanded.

‘I went along as usual,’ said Dot. ‘Sat down with the ladies and stewards. Caroline was there. She’ll tell you,’ she added, yawned cavernously, closed her eyes and fell asleep.

‘Caroline?’ asked Phryne.

‘Yes, Dot came in to dinner,’ Caroline replied. ‘We all sat down, she was sitting between Maggie and Mr Thomas. Mrs West’s maid and Mr Mason’s man, you know. We had a really good mulligatawny soup. Is this what you want to know?’

‘I won’t know until you tell me, so tell me all.’ Phryne said, lighting a gasper. Caroline went on slowly, racking her brains for anything suspicious.

‘Then a nice cut of beef and vegetables and gravy. The men drank beer, except Mr Thomas who always has wine. Dot had a glass of sherry with her meal. I had a gin and tonic.’

‘What did you talk about?’

‘I don’t know,’ wailed Caroline, distressed. ‘Just the usual things, I suppose. Maggie was saying that Mrs West wanted her to take up the hem of a handkerchief point dress and it was very hard to do without the proper sewing things. Mr Thomas talked about wine. He always talks about wine.’

‘Did Dot offer to help Maggie?’

‘Yes, but Maggie said she’d manage it by herself. She doesn’t really want help, that Maggie. You see, if someone helped her she wouldn’t be able to complain and she likes complaining. We had ice cream for dessert—no, Dot had pudding, a summer pudding with raspberries. I thought Dot seemed a bit tired and she said she wouldn’t stay for a few hands of cards or anything
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but go to her cabin and have an early night. And she knows the way back so I just . . . let her go.’

Caroline burst into tears. Phryne supplied a handkerchief and a pat on the shoulder.

‘All right. So Dot went out by herself and was waylaid by someone or someones who carried her down to the third class deck. Did anyone else leave your dining room at the same time, or just after Dot?’

‘No,’ said Caroline, wiping her eyes. ‘It was early. We always have a game of cards or draughts and a bit of a chat before we turn in. The next watch of stewards was already on deck so there was nothing we needed to do. The girls from the beauty salon were making costumes for the masquerade and I went over to talk to the other Maori stewardesses. We were playing cards for matches.’

‘Tell me, why did Tui bring Dot to you?’

‘I’m
rangatira
,’ said Caroline matter-of-factly. ‘An aristocrat.

Tui belongs to the same tribe as me.’

‘So you’re his feudal superior? His princess?’

Caroline did not smile. Neither did Phryne. ‘Sort of. More that I’m responsible for him. Tribal chiefs—
ariki
—had to look after their people in the old days. My father is a chief. So if boys like Tui strike something they don’t feel they can cope with, they call me.’

‘That’s how feudal loyalty used to work, too,’ Phryne told Caroline. ‘Do you think Dot would have accepted anything to eat or drink from a stranger?’

‘No,’ said Caroline

‘Me neither. Therefore she was drugged at dinner. The mulligatawny would have been a good vehicle. That curry soup would hide any odd taste. Easier to do, too. Just drop in a powder and give it a quick stir.’