The Golden Rendezvous (6 page)

away from their ship and installed them aboard the campari. Cummings caught my look and shook his dark head. "Sorry, johnny, i'm as much in the dark as you. I saw him shortly before dinner, about ten to eight, it would have been, when I was having a noggin with the paying guests."

cummings' noggin came from a special whisky bottle filled only with ginger ale. "We'd white up here just now. He says he saw benson in cabin suite six, fixing it for the night about eight-twenty-half an hour ago, no, nearer forty minutes now. He expected to see him shortly afterwards because for every night for the past couple of years, whenever the weather was good, benson and white have had a cigarette together on deck when the passengers were at dinner."

"Regular time?" I interrupted. "Very. Eight-thirty, near enough, never later than eight thirty-five. But not to-night. At eight-forty white went to look for him in his cabin. No sign of him there.

Organized half a dozen stewards for a search and still nothing doing.

He sent for me and I came to the captain." and the captain sent for me, I thought. Send for old trusty carter when there's dirty work on hand.

I looked at Bullen. "A search, sir?"

"That's it, mister. Damned nuisance, just one damned thing after another. Quietly, if you can."

"Of course, sir. Can I have wilson, the bosun, some stewards and a.b.s?"

"You can have lord dexter and his board of directors just so long as you find benson," Bullen grunted. "Yes, sir." I turned to cummings.

"Didn't suffer from any ill-health, did he? liable to dizziness, faintness, heart attacks, that sort of thing?"

"Flat feet was all." cummings smiled. He wasn't feeling like smiling. "Had his annual checkup last month from doe marston. One hundred per cent. The flat feet are an occupational disease." I turned back to captain Bullen. "Could I have twenty minutes, perhaps half an hour, for a quiet look round, sir, first? with mr. cummings. It's a calm, windless night. There's been no word of any shouts, any cries for help, and as there's always a good few of the crew on the lower decks at night the chances are that any thing like that would have been heard.

And he's not likely to be ill. What i'm getting at is that it's a hundred to one against his being in any trouble where he requires immediate help. If he did require it, he's probably past all help by now. I can't see there's any harm in waiting another twenty minutes before raising the alarm."

"No one's going to raise any alarm, mister. This is the campari."

"Yes, sir. But whether it's broadcast over the tannoy system or whispered in a dark corner, it'll make no difference. If benson is missing and is going to stay that way it will be all over the ship by midnight to-night. Or earlier."

"Job's comforter," Bullen growled. "All right, johnny, you, too, howie, see what you can find."

"Your authority to look anywhere, sir?" I asked. "Within reason, of course."

"Everywhere?" I insisted. "Or i'm wasting my time. You know that, sir."

"My god! and it's only a couple of days since that jamaican lot.

Remember how our passengers reacted to the customs and american navy going through their cabins? the board of directors are going to love this." he looked up wearily. "I suppose you are referring to the passengers' quarters?"

"We'll do it quietly, sir. They're still at dinner. And howie here can fix anything that comes up."

"Twenty minutes then. You'll find me on the bridge. Don't tramp on any toes if you can help it." we left, dropped down to "a" deck, and made a right left turn into the hundred-foot central passageway between

the cabin suites on "a" deck: there were only six of these suites, three on each side. White was about halfway down the passageway, nervously pacing up and down. I beckoned to him and he came walking quickly towards us, a thin, balding character with a permanently pained expression who suffered from the twin disabilities of chronic dyspepsia and overconscientiousness. "Got all the passkeys, white?" I asked.

"Yes, sir."

"Fine." I nodded to the first main door on my right, number one suite on the port side. "Open it, will you?" white looked at cummings.

It was an understood thing at sea that deck officers never, never went into the campari's passenger accommodation except by passenger invitation, and even then only by kind permission of the purser and head steward. But to burgle the passenger accommodation. "You heard the chief officer." I wondered when i'd previously heard a harsh note in howie's voice and decided never; he and banana-legs benson were pretty good friends. "Open up." he opened up. I brushed past him, followed by the purser. There was no need to switch on the lights-they were already on; asking the campari's passengers, at the prices they were paying, to remember to turn off the lights would have been a waste of breath and an insult. There were no bunks in the campari's cabin suites. Fourposters, and massive four-posters at that, with concealed and mechanically operated sideboards which could be quickly raised in bad weather; such was the standard of modern weather reporting, the latitude allowed captain Bullen in avoiding bad weather, and the efficiency of our denny-brown stabilisers that I don't think those sideboards had ever been used. Seasickness was not allowed aboard the campari. The suite was composed of a sleeping cabin, an adjacent lounge and bathroom, and beyond the lounge another cabin. All the plate-glass windows faced out over the port side. We went through the cabins in a minute, looking beneath beds, examining cupboards, wardrobes, behind drapes, everywhere. Nothing. We left. Out in the passageway again I nodded at the suite opposite. Number two. "This one now," I said to white. "Sorry, sir. Can't do it. It's the old man and his nurses, sir. They had three special trays sent up to them-when, now -let me see; yes, sir, about six-fifteen to-night, and mr. carreras, the gentleman who came aboard to-day, he gave instructions that they were not to be disturbed till morning." white was enjoying this. "Very strict instructions, sir."

"Carreras?" I looked at the purser. "What's he got to do with this, mr. cummings?"

"You haven't heard? no, I don't suppose so. Seems like mr.

carreras-the father-is the senior partner in one of the biggest law firms in the country, cerdan and caireras. Mr. cerdan, founder of the firm, is the old gentleman in the cabin here. Seems he's been a semi-paralysed cripple-but a pretty tough old cripple-for the past eight years. His son and wife-cerdan junior being the next senior partner to carreras-have had him on their hands all that time, and I believe the old boy has been a handful and a half. I understand carreras offered to take him along primarily to give cerdan junior and his wife a break.

Carreras, naturally, feels responsible for him, so I suppose that's why he left his orders with benson."

"Doesn't sound like a man at death's door to me," I said.

"Nobody's wanting to kill him off, just to ask him a few questions. Or the nurses." white opened his mouth to protest again, but I pushed roughly past him and knocked at the door. No answer. I waited all of thirty seconds and then knocked again, loudly. White, beside me, was stiff with outrage and disapproval. I ignored him and was lifting my hand to put some real weight on the wood when I heard a movement and suddenly the door opened inwards. It was the shorter of the two nurses, the plump one, who had answered the door. She had an old-fashioned pull-string linen cap over her head and was clutching with one hand a light woolen wrap that left only the toes of her mules showing. The cabin behind her was only dimly lit, but I could see it held a couple of beds, one of which was rumpled. The free hand with which she rubbed her

eyes told the rest of the story. "My sincere apologies, miss," I said.

"I had no idea you were in bed. I'm the chief officer of this ship and this is mr. cummings, the purser. Your chief steward is missing and we were wondering if you may have seen or heard anything that might help us."

"Missing?" she clutched the wrap more tightly. "You mean -you mean he's just disappeared?"

"Let's say we can't find him. Can you help us at all?"

"I don't know. I've been asleep. You see," she explained, "we take it in three-hour turns to be by old mr. cerdan's bed. It is essential that he is watched all the time. I was trying to get in some sleep before my turn came to relieve miss werner."

"I'm sorry," I repeated. "You can't tell us anything then?"

"I'm afraid not."

"Perhaps your friend miss werner can?"

"Miss werner?" she blinked at me. "But mr. cerdan is not to be

"please. This might be very serious. One of the crew is missing, and delay doesn't increase his chances."

"Very well." like all competent nurses she knew how far she could go and when to make up her mind. "But I must ask you to be very quiet and not to disturb mr. cerdan in any way at all." she didn't say anything about the possibility of mr. cerdan disturbing us, but she might have warned us. As we passed through the open door of his cabin he was sitting up in bed, a book on the blankets before him, with a bright overhead bed light illuminating a crimson tasselled nightcap and throwing his face into deep shadow, but a shadow not quite deep enough to hide the hostile gleam under barstraight tufted eyebrows. The hostile gleam, it seemed to me, was as much a permanent feature of his face as the large beak of a nose that jutted out over a straggling white moustache. The nurse who led the way made to introduce us, but cerdan waved her to silence with a peremptory hand. Imperious, I thought, was the word for the old boy, not to mention bad-tempered and downright ill-mannered. "I hope you can explain this damnable outrage, sir." His voice was glacial enough to make a polar bear shiver. "Bursting into my private stateroom without so much as by your leave." he switched his gimlet eyes to cummings. "You. You there. You had your orders, damn it. Strictest privacy, absolutely. Explain yourself, sir."

"I cannot tell you how sorry I am, mr. cerdan," cummings said smoothly. "Only the most unusual circumstances "rubbish!" whatever this old coot was living for, it couldn't have been with the object of out live his friends; he'd lost his last friend before he'd left the nursery. "Amanda! get the captain on the phone. At once!" the tall, thin nurse sitting on the high-backed chair by the bedside made to gather up her knitting-an all but finished pale-blue cardigan-lying on her knees, but I gestured to her to remain where she was. "No need to tell the captain, miss werner. He knows all about it-he sent us here.

We have only one small request to make of you and mr. cerdan "and I have

only one very small request to make of you, sir." his voice cracked into a falsetto, excitement or anger or age or all three of them. "Get the hell out of here!" I thought about taking a deep breath to calm myself, but even that two or three seconds' delay would only have precipitated another explosion, so I said at once, "very good, sir. But first I would like to know if either yourself or miss werner here heard any strange or unusual sounds inside the past hour or saw anything that struck you as unusual. Our chief steward is missing. So far we have found nothing to explain his disappearance."

"Missing, hah?" cerdan snorted. "Probably drunk or asleep."

then, as an afterthought: "or both."

"He is not that sort of man," cummings said quietly. "Can you help 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.]