Murder Most Posh: A Mrs. Xavier Stayton Mystery (6 page)

   Bashfully, he smiled and replied, “Right. I’m sorry to have disturbed you.”

   “A compliment is far from a disturbance, Mr. Pace,” I assured him before he bowed his head once more and departed.

   The rest of the afternoon passed without incident. Before dinner, Lucy and I turned Yara into a sort of dress-up doll. Going through our collective attire, we found that she looked most stunning in a crimson evening gown that Mother Stayton had insisted I purchase for myself.

   Far too flashy on me, the dress complemented Yara’s dark complexion and beautiful black hair. From her small stash of personal effects, she produced a necklace made from large, colorful marble beads. 

   Compared to our exotic friend, Lucy and I appeared quite mild mannered. Lucy wore a dark purple gown of soft velvet, and I lent her my emerald necklace and earrings. She looked ever so elegant. I wore a simple black gown and my favorite pearl earrings. It suited me just fine that my companions would be the center of attention.

   Dressed and hungry, we made our way to the dining room. The steward led us to the same table as the evening before. Of course, the Beaumonts were already there.

   Quickly, I introduced Yara and explained, “There was a problem with her accommodations, so she is sharing our suite.”

   (I knew it was wrong to tell a lie, but in truth, there certainly was a problem with the young lady’s accommodations—she would have been incarcerated in the ship’s hospital.)

   Tiny Mr. Beaumont mumbled something, mostly in French, while his wife gazed skeptically at Yara. Rather than making any sort of greeting, she asked, “What kind of stones are those?”

   Yara ran a graceful finger over her necklace and replied, “Brazilian Marble.”

   Maxie Beaumont’s head popped up from a fold of chins, and her eyes grew wide. “Marble, you say?” she began, but her attention was caught by the approach of Mathew Farquhar and his wife.

   To both my surprise and discomfort, the couple sat at our table. Each of them spoke quick words of greetings, and I introduced them to Yara. (Should I mention that I had to give Lucy a little kick under the table because she was staring strangely at Mathew and his wife?)

   Our meal was excellent, although the conversation was almost painful. Maxie overcame her coldness toward Yara and proceeded to tell the story of the
Tatiana’s
sinking.

   This caused our new friend undue distress that seemed to please Mrs. Beaumont.

   The countess made nervous eye contact with me several times. Her expression seemed a plea for me not to mention seeing her earlier in the day. Or perhaps that was just what I made of the pained looked.

   Mathew, who had no idea what Lucy and I were aware of regarding him, made several attempts to keep a steady flow of conversation. It wasn’t until the mention of the Emerson brothers that he succeeded.

   “I met one of the chaps on our little privileged hall; Michael Emerson. Nice enough fellow, a sort of nervous disposition.”

   Maxie retorted, “I gather there is something wrong with that brother of his; keeps him locked up in that room.”

   “Taking him to a farm. Sounds a little odd to me. I rather have the notion that his brother was in the looney bin,” said Mathew.

   “What is
looney bin
?” asked the countess.

   We all looked to each other, and Lucy, who seemed to know the definition of every expression, answered, “An asylum.”

   The countess pouted and replied, “How awful for him.”

   “Michael said life on the farm will be good for him; they have horses…”

   Speaking in a mixture of French and English, Mr. Beaumont made some sort of boisterous remark that annoyed his wife.

     “I don’t love horses! People say they are majestic; well, I don’t see it,” snapped Maxie.

   Her husband sputtered out another sentence that I couldn’t understand, yet everyone else at the table chuckled.

   “Only when they win!” exclaimed Maxie.

   Those around me laughed once more, perplexed, and I nodded my chin and smiled.

   “My little
pug boy
on the tracks; he loved his horses,” Maxie said as she gazed at her husband rather affectionately.

   I thought this to be strange term of endearment, and the expression on my face must have been telling. Lucy leaned toward me and whispered, “A
pug boy
is what they call jockeys while they are in training.”

   I felt my mouth gape a bit. Of course, Jerome Beaumont had been a jockey. I could imagine him in the colorful outfits they wear, with a whip in one hand and goggles in the other.

   Jovially, Mr. Beaumont replied to his wife’s comment. Again, I understood nothing the man said.

   As the rest of the table made polite chuckles, Mrs. Beaumont replied with great mirth, “Oh, no, I lost more money than I won when I placed bets on you.”   

Chapter Five

It was now our fourth day at sea, and we were past the halfway point. Yara slept in, and Lucy and I took a quick breakfast at the little morning café.

   Afterward, we found a quiet spot in a sumptuously decorated reading room. With notebooks in hand, we began whispering to each other.

   “We have an unfaithful husband of newly inherited wealth married to a penniless countess,” I said as I read through my notes.

   Lucy looked over hers and added, “With a sister in America.”

   “Yes. Then we have Mr. Hurst in second class; how does he know the countess?” I asked rhetorically. 

   “We also have the Beaumonts,” Lucy replied.

   “And Mrs. Beaumont’s jewelry. We just need a cat burglar.”

   “One of the Emerson brothers…or Yara!” Lucy’s voice raised above a whisper.

   I thought of my jewelry hidden under the bed and hoped that Yara wasn’t a jewel thief. “She would make a good red herring.”

   Lucy nodded and scribbled her thoughts down in her notebook. “What will you call this book?”

  
“
Deception at Sea,
” I replied melodramatically.

  “Oh, that’s brilliant. I’m so excited.”

   I smiled and went on, “We have to give reasons for everyone to be aboard the ship. We know the countess is off to America to see her sister. The Emersons to go to a farm. Yara is following her fiancé. Why were the Beaumonts in France?”

   “They were there for the horse races,” replied Lucy.

   “Oh, how do you know that?” I asked, puzzled.

   “Mr. Beaumont mentioned it,” Lucy replied, just as puzzled as I.

   “I cannot understand a word that man says,” I was forced to admit.

   Lucy chuckled and scribbled down another note.

   I cleared my thoughts and then said, “I just need to come up with a clever way for the thief to steal Mrs. Beaumont’s jewels.”

   We sat in silence as we pondered my dilemma.

   By luncheon, Mrs. Beaumont’s jewelry was still quite safe. The spark of literary genius had not yet struck. Yara joined us, and we had a pleasant meal in the cheery little café. We were just about to leave when we encountered Michael Emerson.

   “Ladies,” he said with that nervous smile of his.

   “Good afternoon, Mr. Emerson,” I replied. I then introduced him to Yara, and his eyes went straight to the patterned linoleum floor beneath us. When he looked up, his smile was rather pained. It dawned on me that I had never met a man so awkward among women. 

  “You and your brother really must join us for dinner; we have but two more evenings until we arrive,” remarked Lucy.

   “Two evenings, pity. I hadn’t read the post yet, but I had hoped we’d travel faster.”

  Lucy repeated the announcement she had read earlier. “The seas have been rough; apparently, we are soon to hit a storm that will slow us down.”

   “Still, six days isn’t bad. My last trip took seven,” I remarked, noticing how uncomfortable Michael appeared.

     “Yes, of course,” he said, and then we made our polite farewells to one another.

     We walked Yara to the ballroom where the orchestra rehearsed, and left her to visit Francisco.

     Passing through a seemingly endless corridor, we came to one of the first-class stairways and found none other than Mrs. Beaumont arguing with a well-tailored fellow. A placid steward played referee.

     “You, my dear sir, are a card sharp.” said Maxie, as she pointed a chubby, jeweled, finger in the face of the angry gentleman before her.

   With a crisp, distinctive German accent, the man replied, “I am a professional gambler, it is you who are a cheat!”

   “Do you know who you are speaking to?” Mrs. Beaumont replied, aghast.

   “Yes, the Maxie of Grip,” he snorted, “Who deals from the bottom of the deck!”

  “How dare you…” Mrs. Beaumont caught sight of us and called out, “Mrs. Stayton, Miss Wallace, come defend my honor.”

   Reluctantly, we stepped beside Maxie, and I asked, “What seems to be the trouble.”

   Before either of the agitated parties could reply, the steward answered, “It would seem that both of our esteemed passengers believe the other to have been cheating at a game of poker.”

   The acidy scent of cigarette smoke wafted from the men’s reading room nearby. From within I heard a chorus of laughter and a heavy groan. I imagined that among this group the stakes were higher than matchsticks.

   Lucy brilliantly, or quite naively, commented, “I didn’t know that you couldn’t deal from the bottom of the deck. Why should it matter?”

   The German fellow rolled his eyes and said, “Keep to your checkers,
Fraulein
.”

   I’m sure that the steward meant well despite the implications of his remark, “Poker isn’t a woman’s game; best that we just let the matter be.”

   Mrs. Beaumont gave both men a grunt and linked her arms through ours; she then towed us like a mighty tugboat towards the stairway.

   Once we reached the next landing, Lucy said, “I can’t believe that man accused you of cheating.”

   Maxie Beaumont let out a deep cackle and replied, “You sweet girl, I was cheating! I owed that Kraut a hundred pounds. An ace or two at the bottom of the deck was going to get me out of that pickle.”

   “Mrs. Beaumont, what terrible thing to do,” replied Lucy, quite abashed.

  “Think of it as reparations from the war.” Maxie chuckled at her snide comment, while I recalled Michael Emerson’s disappointment at the ship’s speed. 

   “I think I will stay in tonight,” I told Lucy after she asked me what I would wear to dinner. The thought of another evening with Maxie Beaumont’s tedious conversation robbed me of my appetite.

   “Then I will stay in as well,” Lucy said in a very chipper tone, to hide her disappointment.

   “Oh, no, I won’t have that. Make a night of it. Wear your lovely blue gown and my sapphire set,” I told her. “Be quick at dinner, and then take Yara to the ballroom. Find yourself a dashing fellow, and kick up your heels!”

   Lucy giggled and fetched her blue satin gown from the wardrobe.

   Once dressed for the evening, Yara and Lucy departed, and I was relieved to have the cabin to myself, although I did not feel alone. I placed a clove on my tongue, savored the taste, and took a photograph of Xavier from the writing desk. 

   Gazing at the image of my dear Xavier, I said, “You are quite clever; how should my diabolical cat burglar abscond with Maxie Beaumont’s jewelry?”

   A moment of silence passed, and then I knew:
yes, a distraction.
I placed the framed photograph gently on the desk and picked up my notebook.

   A distraction along the corridor shared by the four parlor suites would lure the Beaumonts out of their room. While an accomplice gained everyone’s attention, the master criminal would sneak inside and lift the jewelry.

   But what might the distraction be? I pictured the accomplice calling out, “The ship is sinking!” However, that would not work. Mrs. Beaumont would gather her jewelry before dashing out of her room.

   I thought about the subject for some time. In a flash, it came to me. We had all found it strange that Rory Emerson had been kept in the cabin for the trip. Michael’s vague explanation that his brother was
special
had detoured us from asking more questions.

   It struck me the scene would follow with Michael battering on the doors of the Beaumont’s cabin, Mr. Farquhar and his wife’s cabin, and then on Mrs. X’s. He would tell us his brother was missing; he needed help to find him. Distracted, the Beaumonts would leave their cabin door unlocked.

   We would all go in search of the young man, only to find him on deck or in the barber shop, somewhere that provided abundant alibis. Michael, knowing what directions we’d all gone off in, would slip inside the Beaumonts’ room and take the jewels that Maxie had flashed about.

   The fingers of my right hand began to ache as I rapidly wrote down my idea. I just needed a clue to leave behind, something for Mrs. X to spot.

   I knew that the evening had grown late, and I was pleased that Yara and Lucy had yet to return. I enjoyed the idea of them in the ballroom, dancing and making merry.

   My concentration was broken when I heard the slam of a door, followed by Mathew Farquhar and his wife yelling. The only words I could make our were his, as he shouted, “I don’t know her!”

   The door to our cabin opened, and Lucy and Yara entered the room and pointed toward our fighting neighbors.

   “You should have seen what happened,” said Lucy in a hushed tone.

   “What did I miss?”

   “We were in the ballroom, dancing, and that blonde woman appeared, dressed like a Ziegfeld Follies showgirl. She stepped up to Mr. Farquhar and the countess during a waltz and attempted to cut in. She and the countess exchanged words, and then the countess slapped Mr. Farquhar.”

   I reached for my notebook and jotted down several thoughts as I mumbled, “Shocking, absolutely shocking.” 

   The neighboring room fell silent, and we heard the door leading to the hallway slam shut once more.

   Yara and Lucy described what had been a lovely evening until the spectacle occurred, and then, like children up past their bedtimes, they both went off to sleep.

   I remained awake for a little while longer, thinking about Mathew Farquhar’s blonde-headed woman. It seemed that she had certainly created a distraction.

   I had dozed off on the divan in the parlor, my notebook still in my hand, when I heard a strange noise from the hall. Dressed in a robe, I went to the door and peered outside.

   Mathew stood just behind two brawny members of the crew, and he was saying, “She’s put something heavy in front of the door.”

   The men rammed their shoulders to the obstacle, but it didn’t open. I poked my head out farther and said, “Do either of you have a passkey? You could go through our promenade to theirs if you can unlock the door.”

   Startled, Mathew looked at me and said, “I hadn’t thought of that.” The quiver in his voice told me that this was a lie.

   One of the crewmen replied in a cockney accent, “Good thinking, ma’am. I’ve got a master key. That is, if it works on these here parlor suites. If you pardon?”

   I let the men pass by me, and we all walked to the promenade. Rather noticeably, Mathew trailed behind. The master key did indeed work, and the crewmen proceeded to open the door into the couple’s sitting room.

   Reluctantly, Mathew went inside as the two men remained on the deck. “Dominika?” he called out, hesitantly. He then turned back and called for me.

   “Yes, Mr. Farquhar?”

   “I don’t think she’s in here,” he told me.

   I passed by the curious crewmen and entered the suite. The cabin was decorated much like ours. There was a single lamp on, illuminating the room, and I noticed an envelope leaning against it.

   “Dominika,” he called again, very much for show.

   I pointed at the letter that he was trying very hard to ignore. As he extended his hand to pick up the envelope, I saw that he was shaking. He tore it open and quickly read the letter.

   “Dear God!” he blasphemed. “It’s a suicide note.”

   He thrust the piece of parchment into my hands. I read it, though not as quickly as he. In a melodramatic fashion, it described a life of emptiness, self-loathing, and pain. The message ended with the words,
I cannot go on.

   I gave the letter back to Mathew, then turned to the crewmen. “Search the promenades; she may not yet have thrown herself overboard!”

   Mathew watched the men rush toward the door where a chair had been leaned on two legs and shoved under the crystal handle.

   “How did she get out of the room?” Mathew asked me.

     I decided to play along. “I’ll show you.”

  He followed me back to the private promenade, and once inside, he pointed to the windows, “But they are all sealed; they cannot be opened.”

   “You are correct, Mr. Farquhar,” I agreed. “This way.” We walked back through our promenade, and then I gently placed my hand on the door that connected to the Emersons’ private deck, and with ease, it swung open.

   Mathew looked inside, and we both saw that the door on the end of the Emersons’ promenade, which joined the public deck, was wide open.

   By this time, Lucy and Yara, both in dressing gowns, were peering out at us. Michael Emerson’s voice could be heard giving Rory stern orders to remain in his room before he came out and demanded to know what was happening.