The Case of the Fickle Mermaid (14 page)

Just as Gretel was enjoying this fuzzy reverie and considering another polka, she noticed Herr Hoffman leaving the ballroom via a side door. With a sigh she set her champagne flute down upon the nearest passing silver tray and went after him. She was not a woman built for stealth, and her ball gown did not allow for swift and effortless progress. However, such was the milling and thronging of the revelers and so great was their number that her disappearance was not noticed, and she was able to trace the quartermaster's steps and hurry along the starboard passageway and up to the main deck. One or two giggling partygoers could be heard in clandestine cuddles here and there, but they had interest in no one save each other. Gretel scanned the area for signs of Hoffman, but there was no hint of him. She made her way along the length of the ship, pausing to peer down stairwells or up rigging, but he was nowhere to be found. At last she came to the steps leading up to the poop deck. She could see the captain's cabin door from where she stood. There were lights on inside, but she could not blatantly go in uninvited. If Hoffman was inside she could not follow, and in any case, there was an efficient-looking sailor at the wheel, who would no doubt challenge her presence.

Disgruntled at having wasted her time and being thwarted in her pursuit of a man she remained convinced had something significant to hide, she turned on her heel and started to walk back to the ballroom, this time along the port side of the ship. She wondered idly if Bo'sun Brandt would be impressed with
her improved grasp of nautical terminology. As she drew level with a row of lifeboats, she saw that the canvas covering on one of them was not properly secured. On closer inspection, she could see that one of its ropes had been left untied. By climbing onto a nearby deck chair, Gretel could reach the side of the small boat, lift the loose canvas, and peer inside. Had her perch not been quite so wobbly she might have contained the cry that escaped her, but the sight of Frenchie, dead and bloated, still wearing his chef's whites, coupled with her unstable footing, caused her to shout aloud and clutch at the lifeboat. The note of shock in her voice was detected by nearby courting couples, who hurried over to her.

“What it is?” asked one pink-cheeked youth. “Fraulein, whatever is the matter?”

“What have you found?” asked another.

Gretel quickly recovered her composure. Much as the discovery of the cook's body had startled her, she was not unaccustomed to such sights. Other people, in her experience, had a tendency to overreact to the presence of death, and she had no wish to spread panic through the ship. She pulled the canvas back into place and was on the point of describing a rat or some such when none other than Herr Hoffman himself appeared at her elbow.

“Well, fraulein, tell us what it is you are trying to hide,” he demanded.

“I do not care for either your tone or your implication,” she told him.

“It is clear something has happened,” he said, in a voice even more authoritative and clear than usual, turning as if to address anyone who cared to hear, rather than speaking to Gretel herself. “Won't you tell us what it is?”

“For pity's sake, keep quiet, man,” she hissed at him. “Do you want to cause hysteria among the passengers?”

A small crowd was gathering, and already excitement and suspicion were running through it like ill-trained puppies, nipping at ankles and yapping in a manner that could only serve to agitate people further.

But Hoffman was not to be stopped. With a flourish, he reached over, grabbed the lifeboat cover, and wrenched it back, exposing poor Frenchie to the nippy night air. If, as seemed his plan, he had wanted to effect a dramatic revelation, he was prevented from doing so because of the height and position of the boat, so that he was compelled to exclaim to the onlookers, “A body! A corpse!” As the crowd gasped and shrieked, he added, “A man dead, cold, murdered!” just in case anyone had missed the point. “And we find his assassin with him still!” he cried, pointing at Gretel with all the dramatic ham of a provincial amateur operatic performance.

She narrowed her eyes at him. Having Hoffman attempt to murder her was one thing; having him endeavor to besmirch her reputation was quite another. She allowed the quickly swollen crowd to have their moment of shock and frenzy, letting them exclaim and swoon and snatch up their smelling salts without interruption. When she was satisfied that as many as could fit on the deck around them had been assembled, and that all had given vent to their feelings, she cleared her throat, drew herself up as best she could on her unstable platform, and held up a hand for quiet. At last the hubbub subsided. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Ferdinand thread his way to the front toward her and several of his men taking up positions around the scene.

“There is indeed, here in this lifeboat, the body of the deceased chef known as Frenchie.” There was a fresh murmur of shock, but Gretel pressed on. “He was missed four days ago from his post aboard the
Arabella
. An extensive search was mounted, but it proved fruitless.”

“He must have made his way to this ship, only to be murdered here!” the quartermaster insisted. The crowd followed his thinking and glared at Gretel in the way a pantomime audience might be incited to boo a villain.

She held her nerve and said levelly, “The somewhat disturbing extent of the hapless Frenchie's cadaver, to wit the bloated features,”—there came a groaning from the crowd—“the blueness of his flesh,”—followed by gasps—“the way the eyes bulge in their sockets,”—there was the sound of one or two fainters hitting the deck—“together with the distinctive and powerful odor of decay,”—several people retched over the rails—“are irrefutable evidence of the fact that he is long dead. What is more, I would say that he did not meet his end here, but at some other place.”

“So
you
say.” Hoffman scowled.

“Yes, I do say, and I do so because it is obvious to a bat in a sack. A person who has had his throat slit—and this victim's head is all but severed from his body—bleeds quickly and profusely”—another brace of ladies in the crowd pitched from the vertical to the horizontal—“yet there is no blood, dried or wet, in this boat. All there is is a corpse, several days old, still clutching a bottle . . .” She paused, raising her lorgnettes to her eyes for a closer look. “. . . of brandy. Whoever murdered him did it somewhere else. Whoever murdered him then moved him into his current position for reasons as yet unknown. Whoever murdered him was not me,” she added, pointedly looking at Herr Hoffman.

General von Ferdinand stepped forward, issuing orders for his men to move the passengers away and rope off the area. He sent word to the captain to tell him of the discovery, and a messenger gull was organized to inform Captain Ziegler that his errant chef had been located. With a great deal of muttering, Herr Hoffman relinquished his position as Gretel's prosecutor
and took himself off to organize the tender for the return trip to the
Arabella
. The ball, it seemed, had come to an unexpectedly early finish, much to the displeasure of the baroness. She steamed onto the deck looking for someone upon whom to vent her ire. She found Gretel.

“What is the meaning of this?” she spat. “Why am I compelled to cut short my entertainments?”

“We have discovered the body of a missing person, baroness,” Gretel told her.

“Who was this . . .
person
?”

“He was the chef from the cruise ship
Arabella
.”

The baroness tutted loudly. “I fail to see why a person of no consequence should alter my plans, be he alive or dead,” she said.

Gretel quelled the urge to punch the baroness on her pointy Findleberg nose.

“Whether or not Frenchie's demise warrants your sympathy, baroness, the matter of murder is always of consequence.”

“Murder, you say?” This information at least seemed to penetrate the woman's ironclad soul. “Are you sure? Herr General, are you of the same opinion? Could the man not have died at his own hand? Or in a drunken mishap, perchance?”

Ferdinand shook his head. “Such an injury could not have been self-inflicted, baroness. This is indeed a serious matter and will need investigating. We are fortunate to have Fraulein Gretel to assist us,” he explained, turning to offer the detective one of his most handsome smiles.

Gretel felt a pleasing warmth travel from her throat to the very tips of her ears. It was a warmth of such quality that it could not be cooled even by the icy, disapproving stare of Baroness Schleswig-Holstein.

What did bring her up short, however, what sent a chill sprinting up her spine, was the eerie, distant singing that suddenly filled the
sky. All present gasped and turned in the direction from which the sound came, straining to spy its point of origin in the gloom; but the dark was too deep, the sea too wide, the horizon too far. There was nothing that could be seen, but still the ephemeral song continued, growing louder and clearer. Two nearby sailors cursed. Another began to pray. Passengers who had been persuaded away from the drama of a dead body reappeared, as if drawn by the siren's call. Soon the deck was crowded once more, and all the company was silent and enthralled. They could do naught but listen as the bewitching notes cut through the night air. The moment was rare and particular and none who had been there would ever be able to forget it.

What they would also remember, whether they wished to or not, was the more raucous, discordant sound coming from the direction of the
Arabella
: the mournful howling emitted by the lonesome mer-hund locked in Gretel's cabin.

TEN

C
aptain Ziegler's fury was quite something to behold. Gretel sat in his sumptuous cabin, still in her ball gown, allowing him to rant and rave, reasoning that his outburst was a storm so violent it must soon blow itself out.

“Disaster is heaped upon catastrophe, I tell you! The days pass and your presence does nothing to bring about a resolution of these vexing matters. God's teeth, and hang me for a liar if the situation has not worsened!” he raged, banging his fist down on the very fine mahogany of the desk before him. “'Tis not enough that my cook goes missing, he must be found mutilated and murdered and apparently placed upon my rival's ship.”

“A fact some might say indicates the involvement of Herr Sommer.”

“The man is many things, fraulein, but a fool is not one of them. Why would he implicate himself in such a manner? No, it is more likely seen as a clumsy attempt to blacken his name. Well, the effect is the opposite. 'Tis my name, that of my ship, that is sullied. Do you not see that?” Without waiting for an answer, he thundered on. “I brought you here, at no small expense . . .”

“Ah, a matter we have not yet fully discussed, if I might remind you . . .”

“. . . you gave me assurances, woman. The case will be solved . . .”

“And so it shall.”

“Before my ship is devoid of crew? Two more men jumped ship on hearing the news of Frenchie and the mermaid's singing. Two more! Much more of this and I shan't be able to sail.”

“Could not others be pressed into service for the time being?”

“The
Arabella
is no rowing boat or canal barge. Such sails as she boasts require a number of men to work them. When I fall below that figure, will you be ascending the rigging, fraulein?”

Gretel took a deep, slow breath and rose from her seat. It had been a long night. The happy revelries of the ball had required a certain exertion. The heightened tension of the discovery of a dead body, and the ludicrous accusations that followed, had drained her. She was weary and had had quite enough of being bellowed at.

“Captain Ziegler,” she said, levelly holding his wild-eyed glare, “I will allow that circumstances are testing.” She held up a hand to ward off his interruption. “Be that as it may, the measure of a man is surely not what manner of trouble he finds
himself in, but in what manner he finds his way out of it. And I contest the notion that matters have worsened of late. True, we have lost a good man, who also happened to be an excellent cook, but even in death Frenchie can tell us much.”

“How so?”

“To begin with, there is the way in which he met his end. His throat was slit with a large blade, and that weapon must be found.”

“Huh! Every man worth his salt keeps a knife. How will we know which it was?”

“It will be the one missing. By which I mean, no murderer will keep the murder weapon close to him. Look for a man who no longer has a knife, or has recently acquired a new one. Secondly, the fact that Frenchie was placed where he was suggests a complicated mind at work. This was no random act, nor a killing done in a moment of passion or rage. The perpetrator wanted Frenchie out of the way—and we must ask ourselves why that might be the case—and once he was dispatched, they sought to use his corpse to obscure both their identity and their purpose. Their attempt to implicate me in his demise was nonsense, of course, but it served to swell the confusion surrounding his discovery. And then there is the bottle the late cook clutches still.”

“Ah! I have that!” cried the captain, pleased with himself. “The murderer wanted to make it look as if Frenchie was drunk at the time he met his end. Perhaps violent in his cups, so that the villain could claim he acted to save his own neck.”

Gretel smiled indulgently as she gently strangled this weakling of a notion with her own robust logic. “The bottle was empty. The stopper in place. What drunkard would carry with him a bottle full of nothing? No, I inspected his grip. Frenchie held that bottle with his dying grasp, knowing even as the life bled from him that his clutch
post mortem
would be too stiff
for another to undo. Particularly if that other was in a hurry. The act was deliberate. It was meant to signify something to whoever found him. I intend discerning that something.”