Death by Water (29 page)

‘Kia ora,’ said the professor to Donald Peace.

‘Kia ora,’ he replied in a subdued tone. ‘I’m Donald Peace and this is Detective Inspector Minton and we’d like to ask you some questions.’ There was a pause, after which he added, ‘If you please.’

‘Come in,’ said the professor.

Ten minutes later, they left her cabin. The professor had given them a pithy summary of every person about whom they had inquired. She was not constrained by politeness, as Theodore Green had been. Thereafter her crisp assessments occurred to Detective Inspector Minton as he spoke to the other people on his list.

‘Inadequate dyspeptic; beats his wife.’ That was Professor Applegate on Mr Singer, which entirely agreed with Mr Green’s
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‘enjoys poor health and has an uncertain temper’ but was somehow a lot more informative.

Mr Singer was sharp and nervous. Mrs Singer was polite but terrified. Partly, Peace realised, it was because he was a Maori. That was expected. But it was more than that. The poor woman was trembling, and to get any sense out of her they would have to remove her husband from the equation.

Miss Fisher’s notes said that Mr Singer had declared that he was going to bed and had actually left with the professor and the other older people, but he was on the lido when Jack Mason did his boathook-assisted high dive.

‘If you would be so kind as to come along with me, sir,’

said Peace, communicating with his chief by one glance. ‘We’ll go up to the lido and you can show me where you were standing. My boss just has a couple of questions for your wife.’

‘I ought to be here if she’s going to be interrogated,’

declared Mr Singer. ‘I’m not going!’

‘Come along now,’ coaxed Mr Peace. ‘We don’t want to make a fuss, do we?’ The gentle pressure on Mr Singer’s shoulder increased a little. He shrugged it off.

‘Don’t you say a thing, you hear?’ he snarled at his wife.

‘Not a thing! I shall know if you do!’

Then the door was shut. Mr Minton said to Mrs Singer,

‘He won’t know what you say to me.’

She shook her head. ‘He’ll know,’ she said in an utterly defeated voice. ‘He always knows. I’ve crossed him before. The last time he broke five of my ribs. But actually I haven’t got much to tell you. I stayed at the party when it moved up to the lido. I haven’t been to a party for a very long time. I was having fun. Dancing. I knew he’d make me pay for it but it was such a beautiful night, last night. All those stars and music on the water.’

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‘Yes,’ said Minton gently. ‘It was a corker night, all right.’

‘And I knew I’d have to come back here, but I was free, just for that moment. I danced with the doctor and Mr Green, and I even danced with Jack Mason. I saw Miss Fisher sitting out, looking just like one of those Chinese dolls. She’s very beautiful, you know. Let me see, the Wests were there, several other people I didn’t know. I didn’t see the poor boy fall, only heard the screams. Then suddenly my husband grabbed me from behind. He hustled me down here and I haven’t even looked out this morning. He wouldn’t let me open the window.’

Minton could see, under the loose short sleeves of her blouse, the darkening marks of fingerprints on Mrs Singer’s fragile upper arms.

‘What, no breakfast?’ he asked cheerfully. ‘Can’t have that.

You cut along and have something to eat, and I’ll tell your husband I sent you there. All right?’

‘Thank you,’ she said, and scuttled out in case Mr Singer should return.

When he did he was not informative. He had gone up to the lido to search for his errant wife when she didn’t come back to the cabin. He had heard a scream and someone had told him that Mason had fallen off the ship. It was no business of his. He had escorted his wife back to their cabin.

Neither of them had gone out again that night. That was all.

Mr Singer worried Minton. There was an air of barely suppressed glee about the man which was foreign to his character, as described by both Green and Professor Applegate. What was the secret that was giving Mr Singer so much pleasure? He was hugging it close to his chest like a greedy child hugs a stolen pudding. Peace shifted uncomfortably. He had noticed the same thing.

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‘All right, Mr Singer, that will do for now. And just a hint, sir, if you’ll forgive me. If I see any more bruises on your wife, I’ll have you taken up for battery. Is that clear?’

‘What has the bitch been telling you? She’s mad, always has been, she makes things up!’ shouted Singer.

‘She didn’t say a word. I’ve got eyes,’ said Minton curtly.

He collected his sergeant and left, trying not to slam the door.

‘Phew,’ said Peace.

‘You bet,’ agreed his inspector. ‘I hate these wife-beating bastards. Got to be something wrong with someone who has to hit women. Who’s next?’

‘Mr Aubrey,’ said Peace. Both Mr Green and the professor had agreed that Mr Aubrey was a charming aged gentleman of impeccable character.

He invited them in and asked if he should order tea.

‘I reckon I’m about filled up with tea to pussy’s bow,’ said Minton. ‘But thanks for the offer. What did you think of Jack Mason, Mr Aubrey?’

‘A good boy with time on his hands,’ said Mr Aubrey judiciously.

‘That’s what everyone says,’ sighed Mr Minton.

Peace was looking at Mr Aubrey’s cabin. It was draped with Indian painted cloths, enriched with brass idols, and stuffed with interesting handicrafts.

‘I tend to collect a lot of things on voyages,’ Mr Aubrey explained. ‘Then when I haven’t room to move, I give them all away and start again. I’m a perpetual traveller, as I am sure they have told you.’

‘Very pretty,’ approved Mr Minton. ‘You didn’t go out again after you left the dance last night?’

‘No, I watched the stars for a while and went to bed,’ said Mr Aubrey, and they left him.

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Miss Margery Lemmon, described by both informants as a nice girl, probably looking for a husband, fluent in Indian languages, Mr Aubrey’s niece, was not helpful. She was lying down and crying. She had been crying for hours by the state of her eyes.

‘I just saw the boathook shoot out from the crowd,’ she said. ‘Then he was gone. Poor boy. Poor boy!’

‘Mr Forrester wasn’t at the first class party at all,’ said Peace, consulting his notes as they left Miss Lemmon to the minis-trations of her stewardess. ‘Next cabin is Mr and Mrs West.’

Mr Theodore Green had said ‘An unstable couple, always quarrelling. Mrs West is flirtatious and Mr West is jealous.’ The professor had said ‘Jonquil is a greedy slut and her husband is a perpetually tormented wreck, expecting at any moment to be crowned with horns. Both of them are superficial and tedious.’

Professor Applegate did not habitually mince words.

The Wests were, however, polite. Mrs West was wearing a trussed-tight dressing gown and her husband was still in his silk, monogrammed pyjamas.

‘We were dancing the last dance when all of a sudden the poor boy fell,’ said Jonquil in her high, child’s voice.

‘Did you see him fall, Mr West?’

‘No, I had my back to the rail. Jonquil gave a shriek and I asked her what on earth was the matter and she just pointed and screamed. Then a lot of other people were doing the same.

Gave me the jumps. As soon as they let us go we came down here and we stayed, like the officer said.’

‘And I was having hysterics,’ said Jonquil proudly. ‘The doctor had to give me brandy and sal volatile.’

Neither West had anything else to offer, except to say that Jack Mason was a nice boy. Mr West said it through gritted teeth, but he said it.

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‘Not helpful,’ commented Peace as they drew a breath outside. That cabin had been foul with sweat, cigarette smoke and expensive French perfume in about equal measure.

‘It’s all information,’ said his boss. ‘Now what?’

The Cahills were next. They hadn’t seen a thing, and they had seen it together.

‘I suppose we’d better talk to the Melody Makers,’ said Mr Peace as they left the Cahills’s cabin. ‘What if you do the musicians and I go down and see if I can talk to the Maoris?’ Peace seemed uneasy.

‘What have they told you about the Melody Makers, Don?’

‘Just that they’re man-eaters, sir, and I’ve never been very good with them sort of women.’

‘Well, today’s your day to learn a new skill. Come along with Papa, boy.’

The Melody Makers took one look at Peace and decided that he would do for breakfast. Then they considered his boss and decided that maybe they would leave the young man, so deliciously terrified, for another time. Detective Inspector Minton was a nice, polite, well spoken policeman who looked like a man who might see how a night in the cells would subdue a cheeky wench who got in his way.

So they were affable and absolutely unhelpful. No, they hadn’t seen anything. Yes, they had been playing the last dance, the Maori Farewell. They were tired and inattentive and at least half of them had been on the booze, to the extent that some of them were only playing from conditioned reflex.

‘We’d been playing for four hours almost nonstop,’ said Mavis. ‘And people kept bringing my girls drinks. What can you expect at that time of the night?’

‘You grabbed a young woman and stopped her from falling,’ said Peace to Jo, greatly daring.

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‘So would you have,’ she retorted. ‘I thought she was going to go down after him. And that’s your lot,’ said Jo. And it seemed that it was.

Hans Blum

Wilhelmshaven, Saxony

Dear Papa

I have left the shipyard and I am going to America. I do not want
to build the Kaiser’s warships. This can only end in disaster for the
Fatherland. When I have a job I will send for you and Mamma.

Your son

Anton Blum

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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

He hath at will

More quaint and subtle ways to kill;
A smile or kiss as he will use the art
Shall have the cunning skill to break a heart.

J Shirley

‘The Last Conqueror’

Lunch was a fairly dismal meal. Margery had kept to her cabin, Phryne was feeling sad, Mr Aubrey and Theodore Green were shocked, the Wests were subdued and not even bothering to quarrel, the Singers were distant, the Cahills horrified and Mr Forrester was still demanding details, as he had missed the whole event. Finally the professor, who had long ago outlived her fear of death, explained the happenings of the previous night to him in crisp, measured tones. It was an excellent account. Everyone at the table nodded in agreement.

‘He danced with several of you ladies,’ said Mr Forrester.

‘Did he say anything about being threatened, feeling in danger?’

‘No,’ said Phryne. ‘But he did smell rather strongly of spirits. Whisky, I believe.’

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‘Certainly did,’ said Mrs Singer. ‘Definitely whisky.’

‘When he was dancing with me I didn’t smell a thing, except starch from his shirt,’ protested Mrs West.

‘That’s odd,’ said Phryne. ‘Not even a masking smell, like peppermint?’

‘No,’ said Mrs West. ‘And he didn’t say a word to me.

I thought he was angry. He seemed very tense. You can tell, if you are dancing with someone,’ she said. ‘Their back muscles are all hard.’

Odd, thought Phryne. Then she spoke aloud: ‘I talked with him, but it was just the usual nonsense; lovely night, lovely party. Did he talk to you, Mrs Singer?’

‘Same sort of thing,’ replied Mrs Singer, watching her husband like a hawk. But Mr Singer was still possessed of that strange glee which Minton had noticed and did not seem to be listening. ‘Who’d want to kill that poor boy?’

‘We’ll let the police do their job,’ said Mr Aubrey firmly.

‘And help them as much as we can. I wonder what they are going to do about this cruise? They can’t hold a whole ship up for long.’

‘No,’ said Theodore Green. ‘They’re letting us go on with the cruise. We are taking that policeman and his assistant with us. Meanwhile the Harbour Trust will keep dredging for

. . . the body. We leave tomorrow. Only one day late. We’re one day at sea and then we’ll report in at Christchurch. They’ve been very fair,’ he said lamely.

‘Good, good.’ Mr Aubrey rubbed his hands together. ‘We’ll all feel better when we’re moving again. Ah, here’s my vindaloo, and the chicken fricassée for you people without asbestos tongues. Come along, now, eat up. Mr Green, could you signal to Pierre? I believe that we would all be comforted by a nice drink. On me,’ he added.

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‘Thank you,’ said Phryne, as the fragrant chicken dish was placed in front of her. ‘You’re quite right. We can’t help Jack Mason now.’

Mr Singer emitted a sound which was almost a giggle and waved away his usual omelette. He tucked into a plate of fricassée. Phryne felt a deep sense of unease. Mrs Singer was also watching her husband in disbelief. He hadn’t kicked her once.

He was enthusiastically eating ordinary food as if there was no such thing as dyspepsia in the world. And he didn’t even raise an eyebrow when she ordered a glass of that heavenly Rhine wine.

Phryne went to her suite very puzzled. Dot was there, sewing. She had finished her drawn thread work and was embroidering Australian flowers onto her tea cloth. This required less concentration than counting threads so she looked up when Phryne came in and exhibited the design.

‘Nice,’ said Phryne, shucking her shoes and throwing herself down on her bed. ‘I always did like boronia. Dot, something very odd is going on with Mr Singer.’