“In Japan, the earth moves often. In a Japanese house, roof tiles may fall, cups and plates may smash, but the house itself is soon repaired. It is built of wooden beams that lock together and move.” She held up her intertwined fingers, by way of illustration. “Traditional Japanese house not even—does not even have windows. If an earthquake destroys a house—or a city—in Japan, it is because of the fire, not the shaking. In September, the earthquake came at a terrible time: at noon, when all the cooking fires were lit. Mr Yamaguchi here is an architect, and he will talk to you about the way the house is made.”
Low bows were exchanged—his not quite so deep as hers—and he began to speak. Mr Yamaguchi’s English was more heavily accented than hers, but clear, and at the end of ten minutes, even the native brick-dwellers in his audience had a glimmer of how this utterly foreign style of house was created. Miss Sato bowed, and then she and the others talked about their homes, not only as machines of shelter but as places of comfort and welcome.
At the end of an hour they rose—rocking back onto their heels and flowing upright as gracefully as they had knelt—and bowed to our applause.
As a lecture, it had been quite impressive, not only leaving fifty strangers with a sense of how the cities they would see functioned, but the inevitability of the choices made by the country’s traditional builders—and why such things as removable shoes and sliding walls were necessary. I had little doubt that even the muscular young men, who had come with little more in mind than lessons in colourful customs, had received instead a degree of insight into how the land, the houses, and the lives that went on inside them were as interlocked as the joints of post and beam, mortise and tenon.
The day was heating up, the Palm Lounge temperature becoming uncomfortable. Many of the audience made for the doors. However, quite a few moved in the other direction, towards the front, to have words with the speakers—or, in the case of the women, to have a closer look at the kimonos. One of those who moved forward had come in towards the end: Lady Darley.
Tiny thread of moon.
Vast bright cavalcade of stars.
Dark water beckons.
I was, as one might imagine, interested in the wife of a blackmailing earl. Charlotte Bridgeford Darley—the name on the printed passenger list—was in her early thirties, with no sign of grey in her shining chestnut hair. She was of medium height and curvaceous enough to look faintly ridiculous in modern fashion geared towards those with my own stick-like torso. Fortunately, she made no such attempt, but chose soft fabrics that draped and complemented, cut in a way that made the young women around her look childish. The rest of her matched: hair short enough for fashion while avoiding the extremes, hands manicured but not showy, necklace and earrings tasteful, solid, and comfortable.
The countess looked expensive, but the money had been well spent. My estimation of the earl went up a notch: this was not the wife a complete fool would choose.
I had drifted forward to join the group. Lady Darley stood patiently, with no attempt to push to the fore, yet her very presence made others fall back a little at her approach. She moved smoothly into the series of empty spaces until she stood in the front rank. She bent to admire the complex garments the older women wore, then turned to Miss Sato with a smile.
“That was a terribly interesting talk, thank you so much.” Her accent was a rich amalgam of London and Europe overlaying a Yorkshire childhood.
Miss Sato and the others all bobbed down in bows, and thanked Lady Darley in return.
“May I ask—my husband and I plan to be some weeks in Japan, where, among other things, he will be representing a friend’s business. Hosting social events and the like. Do you feel I shall need a kimono?”
Miss Sato and the others assured her that it was by no means necessary, although if she was interested, any good hotel would have tailors who could make up a costume for her, as well as maids who could assist her in wearing it. This led to questions about the wide belt that held the loose garment in place—the obi—and soon there was a gathering of women exclaiming over the way it all worked. One of the other English women, a Kent native of about Lady Darley’s age if not her rank, asked what kind of business it was that Lord Darley was representing.
“Porcelain china.” The lady gave a small laugh. “I know—coals to Newcastle. But I believe the thought was that, considering how much destruction the earthquake caused, this could be a good time to move into the Asian marketplace. Our friend plans a trip out himself later in the year, but since we were coming through Japan on our world tour, my husband offered to, as it were, pave the way. Now, this one is made of silk, is it not? And that one of cotton?”
Talk turned to details, and thence to the undergarments. The men made haste to move away, although we did not get so far as to begin unwrapping the two kimono-clad ladies. Miss Sato kept up a stream of two-way translation, and after a few minutes, one of the older ladies had a question of her own. Miss Sato answered, and the three ladies erupted into a stream of Japanese and polite giggles, until Lady Darley broke in.
“May one ask, what so amuses the ladies?”
Miss Sato immediately turned and gave her an apologetic bow. “So sorry, the question was what Western women wear, and I was telling Onoko-san that I would be happy to demonstrate later.”
“A ladies’ salon!”
“Japanese people have as many questions about Western customs as you have about ours.”
The Kentish woman spoke up. “Maybe we could make the afternoon lectures work in both directions? There aren’t very many Japanese passengers, but it only seems fair.”
Miss Sato’s eyebrows came up. “There are more, but mostly in Second Class.”
“You think anyone would mind if they were invited up? I for one would enjoy meeting a few more of your people.”
“The purser …” Miss Sato said.
“I shall speak with the purser,” Lady Darley told her, leaving no doubt as to the result of that conversation.
Miss Sato turned to the other two for a brief explanation. One of them nodded in approval, but the other made a face and said something that caused the others to raise their hands and laugh.
Miss Sato turned back to us, eyes twinkling. “It is proposed that the first topic of mutual explanation needs to be this substance you English call ‘tea.’ ”
A storm of other possibilities flew, but since the stewards were moving into the edges of the room to prepare it for precisely that, the gathering broke up with a flurry of bows.
I found myself moving towards the door beside Lady Darley. She noticed me, and stopped, holding out her hand. “Good afternoon,” she said, with that slight lilt of enquiry that I replied to with my name.
“That was very interesting, wasn’t it?” I asked.
“Quite. I think I shall need to explore the possibilities of the kimono,” she said with an almost girlish gleam in her eye.
“They are lovely. Although I don’t know that I’d be able to stand up that smoothly—certainly not after I’d been on my knees for an hour.”
As I spoke, I watched Lady Darley perform that automatic mental sorting that was ingrained in any member of English society: accent; attitude; expensive shirt slightly out of date; careless haircut; cropped nails; and no makeup. Conclusion: wealthy bohemian. Which in fact was a fair category for me.
“You’re married to that older man, aren’t you?” she asked.
Holmes was not an “older man”; he was … well, Holmes. However, I admitted to the relationship. “And you’re travelling with your husband’s son as well, aren’t you?” I asked.
A tiny reaction, instantly brought under control. The countess gave me a cool smile. “Yes, Thomas. Some people found it odd that we should take him on what is, after all, a honeymoon, but this is also by way of a business trip, seeing friends. My husband is very fond of Tommy. And perhaps he wished to keep an eye on him, just a little.”
“Indeed,” I said, and was rewarded by a slightly war
mer version of the smile.
I found my “older man” standing at the rail with a cigarette, scowling at the waves. I planted my backside against the railing. “You missed fascinating talk.” He said nothing. “About the implications of tatami mats. I also spoke with Lady Darley. I get the distinct feeling that she’s led an unorthodox life. Not as completely sure of herself, socially speaking, as she appears to be. I’d say an earldom is a big step up from where she started. I wonder if that’s why she’s travelling without maids? Servants can be so intimidating.” His reply was a grunt. I sighed.
“Are you going to tell me who Wilma Roland is?”
“I have no idea.”
“Then why did you sprint out after the purser?”
“I did not sprint.”
“Holmes.”
“I am considering revealing my identity, that I might look at her things before they are packed away.”
“Oh, Lord, please don’t do that.” Invoking the name of Sherlock Holmes to the purser would spread it across the ship in no time flat, condemning him—and worse, me—to three weeks of sidling away from earnest passengers with the most interesting problems, or three weeks in our cabin.
“A woman disappears from the ship a blackmailer is on. And do not tell me that coincidences have been known to occur.”
“Although they do happen. You think the purser will hurry to clear her cabin?”
“They’re sending her trunks back from Colombo.”
“Then we’ll have to break in. If I provide a distraction, how long would you need?”
“Six or seven minutes should do it.”
“Most everyone is busy with tea, including the purser’s men. If it were done …”
He flicked the end of his cigarette into the wind. “… ’twere well it were done quickly.”
On our way, I caught up a large flower arrangement from a meeting-place of the hallways, and stood with it outside the door to 312. Holmes tried the handle, tapped gently at the door, then dropped to his heels to work his lock-picks. He paused.
“Scratches.”
“Every lock on the ship is scratched, Holmes.” Keys were not easy to aim when the seas were up.
“Recent.”
“Just get on with it, please.”
The laden vase was heavy. Flowers tickled my nose. I was just about to offer to trade places when I heard a click. He stepped inside, shut the door—and two uniformed men walked around the corner.
The vase did not break when it hit the carpeting, although I’d tried hard, but it did vomit flowers in all directions. Water glugged across the corridor, soaking the wool, and the exclamations of the men mingled with my own cries of horror and loud apologies and …
And it was well more than seven minutes before the catastrophe was cleared and the last apology given, along with a fervent promise that, yes, next time one of the old ladies wanted a bouquet of flowers I’d tell her to order it from the ship’s florist.
Fortunately, cabin 312 had a generous porthole, and Holmes was gone when the two men went inside. Back on deck, the state of his buttons told me how close the fit had been, while the set of his shoulders testified that our bit of chicanery had not given him much.
“Did you find any further signs that someone broke in?” I asked him.
“Nothing obvious.”
No hastily scrubbed bloodstains, no upturned mattresses, then. “Tell me I didn’t spoil that nice bit of carpet for nothing?”
“Oh, Miss Roland was definitely onboard at some point.”
“Could she have got off again in Bombay?” We’d been sitting at the docks long enough for the entire passenger list to march up and down the gangways ten times.
“There were three hairs on the bedcover, but none on the pillow-case beneath. The imprint of a body, less the shoes.”
“As if she’d lain down for a time on top of the bed.”
“Also, it won’t take the steward long to pack up her goods. Most of it remains in her trunk or her handbag.”
“Perhaps she’s secreted away with a lover?”
“The purser said that no other passenger has failed to appear for at least one of the meals.”
“He could be down in Second Class? Or she,” I amended, then amended further. “Or Third.”
“This purser is an old hand. He’d have asked the stewards before he put it before the passengers.”
“It might help if we had a photograph.”
Obligingly, he removed an envelope from his breast pocket.
I took it. “What else did you find? Or, not find, for that matter?”
“Wallet, passport, money, an expensive wrist-watch, all there. She’d used her fountain pen quite recently, since it was on the top of her handbag’s contents. No journal or stationery, other than a box of paper in the trunk beneath her bunk. But, no key.”
“You mean, to the trunk?”
“I mean, to her cabin door.”
Interesting.
The envelope contained four snapshots, all taken in India. Only one face appeared in all four, a tall, thin, tentative-looking woman in her thirties with a modern haircut and friendly eyes.
I studied the face: she smiled like someone coming back to life after a long illness, not fully trusting her health. Her clothing did not look new, unlike the modern cut of her hair. I wondered which of her friends had talked her into that exaggeratedly sharp cut. Possibly the one whose blonde hair had a similar shape? Hmm. I’d seen that head before, though not from the front. Where …?
I suddenly had it. “She was onboard, when we cast off. I saw her in that crowd about fifty feet down the railings from us. As the gangway came in, she turned to go inside.”
Holmes thought for a moment, recalling the sequence. “As we cast off? Or as Lord and Lady Darley passed beneath us?”
The earl’s hands had come up, removing his hat, smoothing his hair. Revealing his face.
My eyes came up to meet his. “What, so this woman recognised him and panicked? Why?”
“We know his methods.”
“You’re suggesting that Darley was blackmailing Miss Roland? Ten years ago?”
“Few criminals reform without reason. Darley was never even accused.”
“You think he’s still active? More than that—you think he’s moved on from merely providing information to active blackmail.”
“I think it a possibility.”
“But that it was a coincidence that she found herself on the same ship with him?”
“That remains to be seen.” Holmes did not readily concede to chance.
“And she was trapped because the ship cast off the instant Darley came on.”
“Yes.”
“If she’s not hiding out in her room, for fear that he knows she’s here, then she’s hiding somewhere else. Ships are big. And she only needs to stay out of his way until we reach Colombo. She’d probably figure that her things would be taken off there, too.”
“That is one possibility.”
“You have a more likely one?”
“She lay on her bunk waiting for the dark, then stepped overboard.”
“What? Holmes, I …” I stopped, considering my words. “Holmes, not everyone commits suicide when threatened with exposure.”
He pushed aside what I was saying for an earlier concern. “Say it was a coincidence. Would she have believed it? Blackmail oozes into every corner of the victim’s life, colours every surface, weaves a thread of terror through every innocent happenstance. Those photographs were taken over a period of three or four weeks. They show her progress from a haunted creature unable to eat to a young woman with a new haircut and a tentative interest in makeup. She’s gained several pounds, despite it being the tropics.”
I fanned out the pictures, arranging them in the sequence he had in mind, then reversed them. “They could as well go the other way around.” He jabbed an impatient finger at the one with the healthiest-looking woman, standing in a marketplace. “Russell: the background.
What fruit is that?”
Mangoes. Which had only just begun to appear our last week in the city. “All right, let’s go with your theory. Was Darley in fact following her?”
“Much as I dislike the idea of coincidence, blackmailers do not generally hound victims to their deaths.”
“What if it wasn’t blackmail? Perhaps they’d had an affair, and she broke it off, but he didn’t accept that.”
“Does she look the sort to rouse a man like Darley to passion?”
I thumbed through the four pictures again. Her friends were younger, with careful makeup and clothing chosen to emphasise their youth: the “fishing fleet,” sailing to India in hopes of catching a young officer. Miss Roland, on the other hand, looked like an intelligent woman with more on her mind than hooking a husband. Still …
“Stranger things have happened.” I handed him the photos. “But in truth, I can’t see Lady Darley giving him that much free rein. She doesn’t seem like a woman who misses much.”
I told him then about the salon gathering. He waited with small patience through the substance of Miss Sato’s presentation, then showed more interest when I told him what Lady Darley had said.
He grunted, and took out his tobacco.
“Their being here does sound reasonable,” I mused. “I’d guess there is a growing market for fancy English goods in Japan, especially after their Prince Regent visited Britain three years ago. As for Darley, there could be money in it for him, if he provided his friend with any likely contacts.” It was one of the few jobs for which impoverished nobles were qualified: converting the Old Boys’ Network into hard cash. And if the wife had money of her own, well, the wife didn’t have to know about the transfer of pounds sterling from one old boy to another.
Holmes scowled, but he did not argue.
Black from their shovels,
White with their pure thoughts and prayers,
Red runs through the veins.
We docked at Colombo early the next morning, after a night in which my card-dreams turned to earthquakes, no doubt inspired by Miss Sato’s lecture and underscored by the nauseating roll of heavy seas. I’d spent the latter portion of the night seeking fresh air on the top-most deck, trying to count the blessings of a rolling ship: an absence of competing musical airs wafting from the staterooms (the skip of needles being hard on gramophone records); no mid-night shuffleboard or deck-tennis games; less danger of being set upon by the profoundly intoxicated (who were kept gently but firmly behind doors by the stewards whenever the seas were rough).