Ralphie had emailed to express his sorrow regarding Lady Em’s passing. Wisely, he had not included any mention of Lady Em’s jewelry.
Brenda made her way upstairs, smiling particularly at people whose faces she recognized. A number of them had offered condolences, recognizing that she had been Lady Em’s assistant for many years. When she reached her room, she went directly to the phone and called Ralph.
When he answered, she started by saying, “Don’t say too much. You never know if these conversations are being recorded.”
“I understand,” he replied. “How are you, honey?”
Brenda blushed. It was so nice after all these years to have someone call her “honey.” Even her mother had not been given to voicing any endearments.
“I’m good, sweetie,” she promised, “although, of course, I’m heartsick about Lady Em’s death. But it does mean that I’m free of the responsibility of being at her beck and call. So if you still want me to marry you, I’ll be home this Sunday.”
“Of course, I’ll be waiting for you,” Ralph said. “I’ve been wanting to be married to you since the first day we met. I promise you now that Lady Em is gone, things are going to be very different.”
“Yes, they will be,” Brenda agreed. “Your buttercup says good-bye for now, my Ralphie. Kisses.”
She hung up the phone smiling. I wonder how long it will be before I get the three hundred thousand from the estate. It wouldn’t have killed her to leave me half a million, or even a million bucks, she thought. I deserve it.
Satisfied with her self-justification, Brenda picked up the book she had been intending to start. She walked over and opened the door to the balcony. It was much too windy to go out. She was itching for this voyage to be over so she could get back to New York.
Brenda could feel Ralphie’s arms around her as she began to read the tender passages in Jane Eyre’s journey from tragedy after tragedy to reconciliation with Mr. Rochester. He reminds me of Ralphie, she thought, as the picture evolved in her mind of the towering figure who was Jane Eyre’s hero. She settled back in the club chair and began to read again.
69
Devon Michaelson attended the session with Celia and the entertainment director but only half listened to both the questions and responses. He was still seething from his meeting with Gregory Morrison and the ship owner’s obnoxious follow-up phone call minutes later.
“You’re from Interpol, right?” Morrison had asked.
“Yes, I am.”
“And you’re on this ship specifically to safeguard the Cleopatra necklace?”
“That is true.”
“Well, I must say you’ve done a lousy job. Our most prominent passenger has been murdered and the necklace has been stolen. And it’s obvious you’ve made no progress finding the Man with One Thousand Faces. All this time you were busy throwing ashes over the side of my ship. If you were my employee, I’d fire you.”
“Fortunately, I am not your employee, Mr. Morrison. I work for the best international detective agency in the world. And I might add that under no circumstances would I ever consider working for you.”
When the jewelry presentation was finished, Devon lingered near the door long enough to see Celia leave with Ted Cavanaugh. A romance in the making? he wondered. I don’t care one way or the other. There are less than two days left on the cruise. Before we reach Southampton, I intend to find that necklace. And I’d love to shove it down Morrison’s throat, he thought.
70
Professor Henry Longworth had not intended to go to Celia’s third presentation, however after his lecture was finished and he had had a quick lunch, he decided to go. He got to the auditorium just a few minutes before Celia was introduced and stayed at the back until just before the program was set to begin.
When he saw Brenda come in, he shrank against the wall. The last thing he needed was to be subjected to her tiresome comments during the jewelry discussion. He waited until she had settled into a seat before he circumnavigated and took a seat as far away as humanly possible.
When he sat down, he took a good look around. To his chagrin, Celia had almost twice the audience he had had for his talk. She’s talking about jewelry, base baubles, he thought. I’m talking about the Bard, the finest writer the world has ever known!
Jealous? I admit I am, he told himself. Nevertheless, she is a rather nice young woman. Is she poor Cordelia, falsely accused and misunderstood, or is she Lady Macbeth, a cold killer encased in lovely femininity? he mused.
He recognized that he was engaging in his favorite dalliance, trying to decide if anyone would guess who murdered Lady Em.
By the end of Celia’s lecture, he was sure no one would suspect her. Then who would people suspect?
He looked around. How about Brenda Martin? There she was, sitting five rows ahead of him and far to his left. He thought of how she had bolted up from the table after the Captain’s announcement that Lady Haywood had died in her sleep. But then she had returned only a few minutes later. It was obvious that what should have been distressing news, that her employer had died, had not affected her appetite. To his disappointment she did not discuss what had happened when she reached the suite. Of course, by then speculation was widely available on news sites that Lady Em had been murdered and her famous necklace stolen.
He glanced over at Brenda inadvertently and caught her eye. I’d love to read your mind, he thought. I wonder what I’d find there. False face must hide what the false heart doth know.
When the hour ended, he stood up with the others, waited until Brenda had left the auditorium, then sauntered out with the few remaining guests. He did not feel any need for company and went directly to his suite. There he opened the bar and made himself a gin martini. With a sigh of satisfaction, he settled in the club chair, put his feet on the hassock, and began to sip.
This trip may be crazy, he thought, but even so it does have all the amenities they promised. And a murder on board is such an interesting plot twist. He began to laugh.
71
When she left Ted Cavanaugh, Celia went straight to her room. She admitted to herself that she had really enjoyed sharing a cocktail with him, but did not want to dwell on it. Instead she was desperate to know what people really thought of her.
She had spotted Yvonne and her two friends in the audience. She could only imagine how Yvonne was feeling. I hope my presentation took her mind off things for a while, Celia thought. She had barely reached the suite when the phone rang. She hoped it was Alvirah, and she was pleased to hear her voice.
“Celia, your presentation was simply wonderful,” Alvirah said. “I thought you were terrific the other day, but you were even better today.”
Take refuge my heart, Celia thought to herself. But she had to admit Alvirah’s compliment made her feel much better.
“I’ve been giving a lot of thought to your situation,” Alvirah continued. “I’d like to come see you in your room.”
“I could use a friend. Come on over.”
She was so used to seeing Alvirah and Willy together that it was a surprise to see Alvirah alone at her door. When she let her in, Alvirah anxiously asked, “Are you sure this isn’t an intrusion? I know you might be tired after your presentation.”
“Frankly, I’m glad to have your company, Alvirah. When I’m alone, I have too much time to think.”
“Well, that makes me feel better,” Alvirah said, as she sat on the couch.
“Celia, Willy and I know perfectly well that there is no way on God’s earth that you ever would or could have harmed Lady Emily or stolen her necklace.”
“Thank you,” Celia murmured. Should I? she asked herself. She decided the answer was yes.
She reached into her pocket and took out the Cleopatra necklace. Seeing the shocked expression on Alvirah’s face, she said, “I didn’t steal it. Lady Em gave it to me. Let me explain what happened.
“Right after I got back to my suite last night, Lady Em phoned and asked me to co
me to her suite. She told me to bring my loupe, the eyepiece I use to examine jewelry. When I got to her suite, she handed me a bracelet and asked for my opinion regarding how valuable it was. It was easy to see that it was composed of inferior diamonds. It was virtually worthless. When I told Lady Em, she looked terribly sad. She told me that she believed her assistant Brenda had been switching her good jewelry for cheap imitations.
“ ‘But Brenda has been with you for twenty years,’ I said. Lady Em told me that she was very sure of what she was saying, and that Brenda looked extremely uncomfortable when Lady Em told her the jewelry didn’t look right.
“Then she said that she felt so disappointed because she had always been so kind to Brenda and very generous.”
“How sad,” Alvirah sighed.
“That isn’t all,” Celia continued. “Lady Em also told me that she was convinced that Roger Pearson was cheating her. Apparently she told him yesterday that she was planning to have an outside accountant go over all of her affairs, and he looked very distressed.”
“I can understand that,” Alvirah said. “Willy and I heard him shouting at Yvonne the other night when we walked past their suite. He was saying that he could go to prison for twenty years.”
“Alvirah, what do I do about the necklace? Lady Em told me she had decided to do what Ted Cavanaugh asked. When she returned to New York, she would give the necklace to her lawyers and they would turn it over to Ted. Apparently at the cocktail party, the Captain had suggested to Lady Em that she give it to him to keep in his private safe. Last night Lady Em gave it to me and asked me to bring it to the Captain this morning.” Celia shook her head. “I’ve been so afraid to tell anyone that I have it. I’m sure there are plenty of people who already think I’m a thief because of the hedge fund. It will be easy for them to believe that I killed Lady Em and stole the necklace.”
“You’re right,” Alvirah agreed. “But you can’t be walking around with it in your pocket. And it will look terrible for you if someone finds it in your suite.”
“That’s my point,” Celia sighed. “I’m in trouble if I admit having it, and I’m in trouble if I hold on to it.”
“Celia, do you want me to hold it for you? I’ll give it to Willy. Let him be the one carrying it around. It will be safe with him. I can guarantee you that.”
“But what happens when we reach Southampton?” Celia asked. “What will you and Willy do with it then?”
“I have a little time to figure that out,” Alvirah said grimly. “I’m considered a pretty good detective. Let’s see if I can solve this case before we reach Southampton.”
With a sense of being unburdened, Celia picked up the necklace and handed it to Alvirah.
“It is so beautiful,” Alvirah commented, as she put it in her pocketbook.
“It is,” Celia agreed. “I think it is the most beautiful piece of jewelry I have ever seen.”
Alvirah paused, looked at Celia and asked with a smile, “Should I be worried about the Cleopatra curse?”
“No,” Celia said, smiling back at her. “The curse is that ‘whoever takes this necklace to sea, will never live to reach the shore.’ And if the curse was real, poor Lady Em was the victim.”
As she spoke, Celia’s mind was filled with the memory of Lady Em’s troubled, sad face when she told her that her two trusted confidants, Brenda and Roger, had been cheating her.
72
Raymond Broad, Lady Em’s butler on the ship, had been sure that the information he sent to the gossip website PMT about Lady Em’s murder and the stolen necklace would be traced to him. To his surprise, he was not questioned beyond his original statement that he had found Lady Em dead in her suite. The security chief called to admonish him to not speak to guests or anyone else about what he saw in Lady Em’s room. But they appeared now to be assigning the blame for tipping off the news media to a mysterious jewel thief who was purportedly on the ship.
His thoughts returned to when he was in the suite and realized Lady Em was dead. A few feet from her bed the door of her wall safe was open and jewelry was scattered on the floor. He regretted that he had not followed his first impulse. Take some of the jewelry. Maybe take all of it. It would be assumed that whoever killed her and opened the safe would have taken it. He had even considered hiding it in the breakfast cart which he wheeled away after being dismissed by Dr. Blake.
But what if they had treated him like a suspect? Would they have searched him or the breakfast cart? Kicking himself, he realized that if he had merely closed the door of the safe, no one would have focused on a robbery. He could have left with the jewelry and no one would have been the wiser.
His other reason for regret was that Lady Em was known as a very big tipper. So on all counts I lose, he decided.
After Lady Em’s suite was sealed, he had been reassigned and was now in charge of both Professor Longworth’s and Brenda Martin’s cabins. He did not think much of either of them. The professor barely acknowledged him when he was in the room. And Brenda Martin was constantly asking for one thing after another.
Broad had received a call from his contact at PMT confirming payment to him for his tip about Lady Em and asking him to be very sure to notify them immediately of any further developments on the murder and the theft. Raymond had eagerly assented, even while he admitted to himself that it was unlikely he would uncover any new information before Queen Charlotte arrived in Southampton.
The phone in his little kitchen rang. It was Brenda Martin. She wanted afternoon tea served in her suite. It was not necessary for her to add that she wanted the tiny sandwiches and pastries that were always served with afternoon tea. There won’t be a crumb left when she’s finished, Raymond thought.
73
The Man with One Thousand Faces had narrowed down the number of suspects who might have taken the necklace to only one, Brenda Martin. He knew she had a key to Lady Em’s suite. What would be more natural than for her to go there, ostensibly to check on Lady Haywood? It had been obvious that Lady Em was not feeling well when she got up from her final dinner.
As he straightened his tie and started down to dinner, he wondered what he would say to Brenda if he saw her. He was tempted to say, “Brenda, have a good meal. It may very well be your last supper.”
74
Roger did not realize his arms had stopped flailing. He did not hear a voice shouting, “Grab him, he’s sinking!” He did not feel arms go under both his shoulders. He was not aware that he was being pulled up and lifted onto something.
He did not feel a blanket being thrown over him. He was unaware of the sound of an engine starting to roar or that he was being lifted up and hoisted over a railing. In his mind he was beginning to sink. The waves breaking over him were making it impossible to breathe.
He could barely hear the ship’s doctor say, “Take him down to the infirmary. We’ve got to warm him up.”
On those comforting words, Roger drifted off to sleep.
75
Alvirah held her pocketbook tight after she left Celia and went back to her room. Willy was there and looked up expectantly. He was surprised that Alvirah, before she even greeted him, turned around and bolted the door of the suite.
“What’s that about?” Willy asked.
“Let me show you what it’s about,” she whispered. “And keep your voice down.”
Opening her pocketbook, she reached into it and pulled out the Cleopatra necklace.
“Is that what I think it is?” he asked as he took the three-strand necklace from her hand.
“Yes, it is,” Alvirah answered.
“Where did you get it?”
“Celia gave it to me.”
“How did she get it? Don’t tell me she was the one who smothered that poor old woman.”
“Willy, you know as well as I do that Celia Kilbride is no murderer or thief. This is what happened.”
Her voice still low, she told Willy everything Celia had shared with her. She finished by saying, “You can
understand how frightened she is. She was absolutely certain that if people found out she had the necklace, they would never believe that Lady Em gave it to her.”
“I can see that,” Willy agreed. “So what do we do now? I don’t want anyone to find out you have it and end up killing you.”
“You’re right, Willy, and that’s why you have to hold on to it, keep it with you at all times. It will be safest with you.”
“But after we get off the ship, what do we do with it?” Willy asked.
“Celia told me that Lady Em was planning to give it to Ted Cavanaugh because she agreed with him that it belonged to the people of Egypt.”
“Well, I just hope they don’t frisk me,” Willy said, matter-of-factly.
He stood up and slid the necklace into his pants pocket, where it immediately caused a visible bulge. Alvirah saw the look of dismay on his face.
“When you put your jacket on, nobody will notice,” she said.
“I hope not.” After a pause, Willy asked, “Okay, what do we do now?”
“Willy, you know I’m a good detective.”
He looked alarmed. “Don’t tell me you’re going to try to solve this mystery. Don’t forget. You’re dealing with a killer who didn’t get what he or she wanted.”
“I understand that. But when you think about it, Lady Em told Celia that she was sure both Roger Pearson and Brenda were cheating her. Isn’t that awful?”
“We heard Roger and Yvonne at each other’s throats the other night. It’s a heck of a coincidence that Roger was dead less than twenty-four hours later.”