The Golden Rendezvous Page 4

  Señor Miguel Carreras spoke first.

  “The Campari’s prices, Mr. Carter, are quite atrocious,” he said calmly. He puffed appreciatively at his cigar. “Robbery on the high seas would be a very fitting description. On the other hand, the cuisine is as claimed. You have a chef of divine gifts.”

  “From all accounts, sir, ‘divine’ is just about right. Experienced travellers who have stayed in the best hotels on both sides of the Atlantic maintain that Antoine has no equal in either Europe or America. Except, perhaps, Henriques.”

  “Henriques?”

  “Our alternate chef. He’s on tomorrow.”

  “Do I detect a certain immodesty, Mr. Carter, in advancing the claims of the Campari?” There was no offence meant, not with that smile.

  “I don’t think so, sir. But the next twenty-four hours will speak for themselves—and Henriques—better than I can.”

  “Touché!” He smiled again and reached for the bottle of Remy Martin—the waiters vanished at coffee-time. “And the prices?”

  “They’re terrible,” I agreed. I told that to all the passengers and it seemed to please them. “We offer what no other ship in the world offers, but the prices are still scandalous. At least a dozen people in this room at this very moment have told me that—and most of them are here for at least their third trip.”

  “You make your point, Mr. Carter.” It was Tony Carreras speaking and his voice was as one might have expected—slow, controlled, with a deep resonant timbre. He looked at his father. “Remember the waiting list at the Blue Mail’s offices?”

  “Indeed. We were pretty far down the list—and what a list. Half the millionaires in Central and South America. I suppose we may consider ourselves fortunate, Mr. Carter, in that we were the only ones able to accept at such short notice after the sudden departure of our predecessors in Jamaica. Can you give us any idea of our itinerary?”

  “That’s supposed to be one of the attractions, sir. No set itinerary. Our schedule largely depends on the availability and destination of cargoes. One thing certain, we’re going to New York. Most of our passengers boarded there and passengers like to be returned to where they came from.” He knew this anyway, knew that we had coffins consigned to New York. “We may stop off at Nassau. Depends how the captain feels—the company gives him a lot of leeway in adjusting local schedules to suit the best needs of the passengers—and the weather reports. This is the hurricane season, Mr. Carreras, or pretty close to it: if the reports are bad Captain Bullen will want all the sea room he can and give Nassau a bye.” I smiled. “Among the other attractions of the s.s. Campari is that we do not make our passengers seasick unless it is absolutely essential.”

  “Considerate, very considerate,” Carreras murmured. He looked at me speculatively. “But we’ll be making one or two calls on the east coast, I take it?”

  “No idea, sir. Normally, yes. Again it’s up to the captain, and how the captain behaves depends on a Dr. Slingsby Caroline.”

  “They haven’t caught him yet,” Miss Harrbride declared in her rough gravelly voice. She scowled with all the fierce patriotism of a first-generation American, looked round the table and gave us all the impartial benefit of her scowl.

  “It’s incredible, frankly incredible. I still don’t believe it. A thirteenth-generation American!”

  “We heard about this character.” Tony Cerreras, like his father, had had his education in some Ivy League college: he was rather less formal in his attitude towards the English language. “Slingsby Caroline, I mean. But what’s this guy got to do with us, Mr. Carter?”

  “As long as he is at large every cargo vessel leaving the eastern seaboard gets a pretty thorough going over to make sure that neither he nor the Twister is aboard. Slows up the turn-round of cargo and passenger ships by 100 per cent., which means that the longshoremen are losing stevedoring money pretty fast. They’ve gone on strike—and the chances are, so many unpleasant words have been said on both sides, that they’ll stay on strike when they do nab Dr. Caroline. If.”

  “Traitor,” said Miss Harrbride. “Thirteen generations!”

  “So we stay away from the east coast, eh?” Carreras senior asked. “Meantime, anyway?”

  “As long as possible, sir. But New York is a must. When, I don’t know. But if it’s still strike-bound, we might go up the St. Lawrence first. Depends.”

  “Romance, mystery and adventure,” Carreras smiled. “Just like your brochure said.” He glanced over my shoulder. “Looks like a visitor for you, Mr. Carter.”

  I twisted in my seat. It was a visitor for me. Rusty Williams—Rusty from his shock of flaming hair —was advancing towards me, whites immaculately pressed, uniform cap clasped stiffly under his left arm. Rusty was sixteen, our youngest cadet, desperately shy and very impressionable.

  “What is it, Rusty?” Age-old convention said that cadets should always be addressed by their surnames, but everyone called Rusty just that. It seemed impossible not to.

  “The captain’s compliments, sir. Could he see you on the bridge, please, Mr. Carter?”

  “I’ll be right up.” Rusty turned to leave and I caught the gleam in Susan Beresford’s eye, a gleam that generally heralded some crack at my expense. This one, predictably, would be about my indispensability, about the distraught captain sending for his trusty servant when all was lost, and although I didn’t think she was the sort of a girl to say it in front of a cadet I wouldn’t have wagered pennies on it so I rose hastily to my feet, said “Excuse me, Miss Harrbride, excuse me, gentlemen,” and followed Rusty quickly out of the door into the starboard alleyway. He was waiting for me.

  “The captain is in his cabin, sir. He’d like to see you there.”

  “What? You told me ——”

  “I know, sir. He told me to say that. Mr. Jamieson is on the bridge”—George Jamieson was our third officer—“and Captain Bullen is in his cabin. With Mr. Cummings.”

  I nodded and left. I remembered now that Cummings hadn’t been at his accustomed table as I’d come out although he’d certainly been there at the beginning of dinner. The captain’s quarters were immediately below the bridge and I was there in ten seconds. I knocked on the polished teak door, heard a gruff voice and went in.

  The Blue Mail certainly did its commodore well. Even Captain Bullen, no admirer of the sybaritic life, had never been heard to complain of being pampered. He had a three-room and bathroom suite, done in the best millionaire’s taste, and his day-cabin, in which I now was, was a pretty fair guide to the rest—wine-red carpet that sunk beneath your feet, darkly-crimson drapes, gleaming sycamore panelling, narrow oak beams overhead, oak and green leather for the chairs and settee. Captain Bullen looked up at me as I came in: He didn’t have any of the signs of a man enjoying the comforts of home.

  “Something wrong, sir?” I asked.

  “Sit down.” He waved to a chair and sighed. “There’s something wrong all right. Banana-legs Benson is missing. White reported it ten minutes ago.”

  Banana-legs Benson sounded like the name of a domesticated anthropoid or, at best, like a professional wrestler on the small town circuits, but in fact, it belonged to our very suave, polished and highly-accomplished head steward, Frederick Benson: Benson had the well-deserved reputation of being a very firm disciplinarian, and it was one of his disgruntled subordinates who, in the process of receiving a severe and merited dressing-down had noticed the negligible clearance between Benson’s knees and rechristened him as soon as his back was turned. The name had stuck, chiefly because of its incongruity and utter unsuitability. White was the assistant chief steward.

  I said nothing. Bullen didn’t appreciate anyone, especially his officers, indulging in double-takes, exclamations or fatuous repetition. Instead I looked at the man seated across the table from the captain. Howard Cummings.

  Cummings, the purser, a small plump amiable and infinitely shrewd Irishman, was next to Bullen, the most important man on the ship. No one questioned that, tho
ugh Cummings himself gave no sign that this was so. On a passenger ship a good purser is worth his weight in gold, and Cummings was a pearl beyond any price. In his three years on the Campari friction and trouble among—and complaints from—the passengers had been almost completely unknown. Howard Cummings was a genius in mediation, compromise, the soothing of ruffled feelings and the handling of people in general. Captain Bullen would as soon have thought of cutting off his right hand as of trying to send Cummings off the ship.

  I looked at Cummings for three reasons. He knew everything that went on on the Campari, from the secret take-over bids being planned in the telegraph lounge to the heart troubles of the youngest stoker in the boiler-room. He was the man ultimately responsible for all the stewards aboard the ship. And, finally, he was a close personal friend of Banana-legs.

  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’s 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 6, fixing it for the night, about 8.20—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 8.35. But not tonight. At 8.40 White went to look for him in his cabin. No sign of him there. Organised 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 bo’sun, 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 medical check-up last month from Doc 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 around, sir, first? With Mr. Cummings. Your authority to look anywhere, sir?”

  “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.”

  “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 those suites, three on each side. White was about half-way 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 over-conscientiousness.

  “Got all the pass-keys, 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?”

  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. Four-posters and massive four-posters at that, with concealed and mechanically operated side-boards 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 side-boards 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 aide. 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 6.15 tonight, and Mr. Carreras, the gentleman who came aboard today, 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 & Carreras. 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 understood 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 on the door.

  No answer. I waited all of thirty seconds, 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 woollen 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. Our 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 little 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.”

  “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 bead-light illuminating a crimson tasselled night-cap and throwing his face into deep shadow, but a shadow not quite deep enough to hide the hostile gleam under bar-straight 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——”