The Wrath of Fu Manchu and Other Stories (31 page)

All his deductions were being proved wrong. He must get more data, and do some hard thinking. When a radio message was brought to him, he made it an excuse to go. Maureen, left alone with Theo Leidler, gave Shaun an almost pathetic look as he walked away.

Shaun went below and made the acquaintance of Lorkin, the purser. He asked for certain information. Lorkin, who had had a trying morning, was far from amiable. “This is a British ship, you know. I should have to get the Old Man’s okay.”

Shaun gave Lorkin a cheerful grin. “Old Man in as bad a humour as you are?”

“Worse.” Lorkin opened a locker and exposed a row of bottles. “Capitan McAndrew is a martinet. The hitch in Port Said has ruined his day. Scotch or bourbon?”

It was easy after that.

Two more radiograms were brought to Shaun in the purser’s room. After he had read them he felt pleased with the work of the Port Said police but more completely fogged than ever about the relationship between Theo Leidler and Maureen. He was inclined to feel unhappy, but didn’t blame the purser’s whisky.

Lorkin had produced all the information he had on Leidler. The man had crossed twice before in the
Antonia
on her usual run from Southampton to New York. His United States passport described him as a business manager.

He had always come aboard at Cherbourg. “Hell of a lad for the ladies,” was Lorkin’s only comment.

“He’s the hell of a lad altogether,” Shaun assured him. “Theo Leidler is the big shot of the most successful gang of loot traffickers operating between Europe and the United States. Before this ship docks in New York I intend to prove it.”

* * *

Shaun had many things to keep him busy. He positively haunted the radio office, sending and receiving messages. At five o’clock he took a walk around. He discovered Maureen and Mrs Simmonds having tea on deck. Leidler was in attendance.

Shaun joined the party but declined tea.

“Isn’t the Mediterranean a simply wonderful blue?” Mrs Simmonds said.

“Yes.” Shaun glanced at Maureen, “It’s the colour of some Irish eyes.”

Maureen began speaking, quickly. “I’m going back to my room after tea, to work until cocktail time. I shan’t have my dress ready for St Patrick’s night if I don’t.”

“St Patrick’s night? That’s tomorrow, isn’t it? Some special jamboree?”

“A fancy dress ball.” Maureen met Shaun’s lingering gaze. “With prizes.”

Shaun moved quickly, as Maureen stood up, to help her out of her long chair. Their glances met. “I shall be through by six o’clock.” Maureen spoke softly.

“May I call for you?”

She nodded, smiled at Theo Leidler, who was frowning, and hurried away.

Shaun sat down again, but Leidler didn’t seem disposed to stay. He hesitated for a moment, his glance following the slim figure, then bowed in his Continental way to Mrs Simmonds, ignored Shaun, and walked off in the opposite direction.

“You know—” Shaun turned to Mrs Simmonds, “I don’t understand that man.”

“I don’t think I want to!”

“Oh, you feel like that about him? Is he an old friend of Miss Lonergan’s?”

“She never saw him until this morning!”

This was what Shaun wanted to know, and he soon knew all that Mrs Simmonds had to tell him: Maureen’s first meeting with Theo Leidler outside some shop (she didn’t know the name) in the Arab quarter; her second during lunch at the Casino; how, from the moment he came on board Leidler had tried to monopolise her. Shaun felt better about everything as he hurried back to his room.

* * *

When Shaun knocked on Maureen’s door at six o’clock, she came out at once. She had changed her frock, and, Shaun thought, was a radiant vision. “Your dress looks as though it came from Paris.”

Maureen laughed. She was very happy. “It didn’t. It came from New York. Oh! We’re going the wrong way! The bar’s upstairs.”

“We’re not going to the bar. You don’t mind? We’ve having drinks in the purser’s quarters—just you and me, and Mrs Simmonds and Lorkin. Too dull?”

“Oh, no!” When Maureen’s eyes were turned to Shaun they seemed to be dancing. “If it isn’t too dull for
you
.”

“Just thought I’d like you all to myself—if only for a few minutes.”

They were outside the purser’s door before Maureen spoke again.

“How do you manage these things? You’re not a director of the line, are you?”

Shaun smiled holding the curtain aside for Maureen. “Not my kind of luck. But my own kind is pretty good.”

Shaun now had all the information he was likely to get from Port Said. All that remained was to pin some evidence of his crimes on Leidler. But how could he be sure Leidler really had such evidence among his belongings?

And where did Maureen come in?

At one time, watching Maureen on deck with Leidler, Shaun asked himself whether it could be possible that this naïve little girl knew more about the matter than she pretended. Mrs Simmonds had seemed to clear her of any past acquaintance with Leidler. Shaun was far too experienced in the Secret Service game to discount other possibilities. He had been fooled before. But somehow this particular two and two didn’t seem to make four. Maureen, almost eagerly, had told him all about herself, how hard she had worked and saved up for this cruise. She was a fashion artist and dress designer, and apparently a successful one. The dress she planned to wear on St Patrick’s night was of her own designing.

Shaun sauntered up to Maureen and took out his cigarette case. She opened a box which lay beside her. “Won’t you try one of these?”

Shaun drew a deep breath. The box was half full of uncommonly long cigarettes,
rose-tipped
. It was the stub of one of these which he had seen on a brassy tray in the Arab café—near the dead man!

“Highly exotic! Where did you get them?”

“They come from Istanbul. Mr Leidler insisted on presenting me with a dozen boxes…”

* * *

For St Patrick’s night a space had been cleared for dancing in the
Antonia’s
dining room. Green candles decorated the tables and on each were bunches of shamrock especially shipped from Ireland. Weather was ideal, the Mediterranean like a lake.

Shaun, looking clean-cut and bronzed in his white tuxedo, sat watching the fancy dresses as singly and in pairs the passengers came in to dinner. Some won applause; others laughs. Most of the dresses were of the stock variety and only a few of the women had made any attempt to rise to the special occasion.

Nothing like enthusiasm was shown until Maureen made a rather timid entrance. She wore a lace frock covered with hand-painted shamrocks, leaving her arms and shoulders bare; green shoes, green silk gloves. Emerald earrings, too large for her small ears, and a blazing green and white necklace, completed the ensemble.

Amid the cries and clapping of hands, Shaun stood silent, staring like a man struck dumb. Maureen, who seemed to be really frightened, cast an anxious glance around. She saw Shaun, smiled more happily, and waved her hand. He waved back and as Maureen went to her table at the other end of the room, sat down with a sudden sickening feeling that he wanted to clutch his head.

Maureen looked unreally lovely—but tonight it wasn’t this that had overpowered him. Now he was racked by doubt, mentally lost in a fog of hopeless misunderstanding…

When dancing began, it was a long time before he managed to get Maureen for a partner. Even then, while Leidler danced with Shelley Downing, the dark man’s glance followed Maureen ravenously about the room. Shelley had come as a leprechaun. It was plain that she knew nothing of the Irish climate, for she evidently thought leprechauns wore next to no clothes.

“Your friend, Theo,” said Shaun, when he and Maureen were alone in the crowd of dancers, “seems to regard you as his private property!”

“Yes. He’s getting to be a real nuisance.” Maureen changed this subject quickly. “Do you think I deserve the first prize? Mr Lorkin says I shall win it.”

“You have
my
vote, Maureen. Your dress is a dream. Did you have the earrings and necklace already, or are they those you bought in Port Said?”

“In Port Said I got the earrings at Simon Arzt’s, and the shoes. I dyed my own stockings! The necklace I picked up at Suleyman’s.”

The band stopped, showed signs of resting; but Shaun, into whose mind the name,
Suleyman
, had crashed as a revelation, applauded persistently. Leidler, who had led Shelley back to her table, watched Maureen like a hungry wolf preparing to spring on a gazelle. The band started again. As Shaun and Maureen resumed dancing: “You
did
say Suleyman’s, didn’t you?” Shaun asked.

“Yes. Hadji Suleyman’s. Do you know it? I’d just come from there when—I met you. It was the necklace you picked up!”

And then, while relief flooded through Shaun, Maureen laughingly told him all about the queer old woman who didn’t know the price of anything, but all the same had charged her five dollars for a trinket worth fifty cents. “It’s so heavy! It’s fraying my neck. I’m going to my room in a minute to take it off.”

Shaun started to remonstrate but the band stopped just then and they were hemmed in the crowd. “I’ll only be a minute,” Maureen said, and before Shaun could stop her she was gone.

Back in her cabin, Maureen dropped the heavy necklace on her dresser and paused to adjust her hair and make-up with hasty care. Then she ran out to return to the dance. For a moment she hesitated by a dark alleyway next to her room. She had a sense that someone was standing there in the shadows. Then she hurried on.

Maureen had hardly turned the corner by the purser’s office when Shaun stepped out of the shadowy alleyway, glanced swiftly left and right, then opened the door of Maureen’s room and glided inside. He reclosed the door. He had had no more time than to take cover when another man came in!

The second visitor wasted not a moment. He scooped up the green necklace, inhaling sharply, moved away, was about to turn, when: “What’s the hurry, Leidler?” a casual voice inquired.

In a wing of Maureen’s mirror, his own face suddenly blanched under the bronze, Theo Leidler saw Shaun Bantry standing at his elbow, holding an automatic.

“I’m here—” Leidler swallowed audibly—“at Miss Lonergan’s request—”

“Sure you are! But at my request you’re coming along to see the captain. No! Leave the necklace in your pocket!”

In Captain McAndrew’s quarters the story was told, that grim seaman presiding over the meeting. Shaun Bantry had done most of the talking.

“The Egyptian police have recovered an unusual cigarette stub left behind in the café. And they have a glass of
râki
which Hadji Suleyman was drinking. It had enough dope in it to kill ten men!”

Leidler moistened dry lips. “What has this to do with me?”

“Six witnesses have described you—and
I
saw you come out of the café. You may have meant just to send Suleyman to sleep. Instead, you sent him to Paradise! Don’t waste your breath to interrupt me. We have the facts in line. I’ve figured out the set-up at Suleyman’s.”

Shaun paused to light a cigarette. An armed quarter-master who stood behind Leidler’s chair looked hypnotised. Lorkin was studying the captain’s angry face.

“When an agent of the gang dumped a valuable piece there, Suleyman put it in amongst a lot of junk. If there was any trouble he could say he’d bought it for a few
piastres
and didn’t know its value. But he was taking big risks. And he wanted a big cut on profits.”

“You’re talking nonsense!” Leidler broke in hotly.

“Silence!” Captain McAndrew spoke in his bridge voice.

“You met at the café to settle terms. You had found out that Suleyman’s wife knew nothing about her husband’s underground connections, had no knowledge of precious stones. But
he
had! Having put Suleyman to sleep, you counted on getting this—” he pointed to the necklace lying on the captain’s desk—”for the price of a packet of cigarettes. Maybe you were desperate. It might have been your last deal. I’m just guessing. In any case, it is your last deal, Leidler.”

Leidler’s eyes darted furtively around the room, seeking a means of escape. Then, seeing the hopelessness of his situation, he shrugged his shoulders in an elegant gesture.

“Well…well,” boomed Captain McAndrew. “Have you anything to say for yourself, man?”

Leidler smiled thinly. “In moments of this sort,” he said, “I find it better to keep my own counsel.”

The Captain stirred impatiently. “As you wish.” He nodded to the quartermaster. ‘Take the prisoner below. Mr Bantry, congratulations on a fine piece of work.”

Now it was Shaun’s turn to smile. “I’ve been waiting a long time to play out this little scene, sir,” he said, softly. “Now I feel at sort of a loose end.”

* * *

It was very late when Shaun leaned on the rail beside Maureen looking out across a dark Mediterranean. The band had packed up. St Patrick’s night was over, dawn not far away. “What’s that light, Shaun, over there? Not on the African side.”

“Malta.”

They were silent for a while. Shaun’s hand lay over Maureen’s on the rail.

“Shaun, will you tell me something—now?” Her voice was barely audible above the lullaby of the sea as it swept the bows of the big ship.

“Anything.”

”What really happened tonight?” She turned to him and her eyes were bright in the dim lights along the deck. “And why was my necklace stolen from my room? It only cost me five dollars!”

Shaun put his arm around her shoulders. “Five dollars was what it cost
you
, Maureen. But that necklace has been valued at two hundred and fifty thousand!”

“Shaun!”

He smiled down at her. “The emeralds alone are worth a fortune, without the diamonds. It’s the famous necklace which Catherine II of Russia presented to Marie Antoinette.”

She was silent a moment, shivering a little till his arm tightened around her and she was drawn against him. Her eyes were lifted, and now there was laughter behind their serious depths. “And that’s what you were after all the time?” she asked.

“All the time,” he agreed, solemnly.

“And nothing else?”