First Blush: A Meegs Miscellany (A Harry Reese Mystery) Read online

  “Not really,” I said. “She simply bored easily.”

  “And you found the gold amongst the skeletons?” the captain asked.

  “Yes, cleverly shaped to look like bones, femurs mostly, and painted a dull ivory. We had to pick up each one in turn and test its weight until we had recovered all the gold.”

  I could see the gentlemen were impressed by my account—all but the cynical Mr. Finn. It was partly to assuage his skepticism that I chose a more pedestrian narrative for the second case. This one involved the theft of bonds from a rich man’s safe. The type of crime you read about every day. Unfortunately, in setting up the scenario I introduced far too many characters, and the sequence of events was rather serpentine. When I reached the climax, where I apprehended the jilted lover (Angie Yakeley) of the valet (Thomas Godkin) while pretending to be her cousin (Albert Brandt), I found I had left my audience more than a little confused.

  “Wasn’t Thomas Godkin the fishmonger?” M. Guenard asked.

  “No, no, he was the one-legged wheelwright,” Captain Veblynde insisted.

  “I thought it was his arm that he was missing,” M. Trepanier protested.

  “Then how would he manage as a wheelwright?”

  “Oh, yes. A clever observation, M. Houyvet,” M. Trepanier conceded.

  “But doesn’t that prove he was the fishmonger?” M. Guenard asked.

  Happily, M. Rollin came to my rescue by noting that only a very shrewd detective could have sorted out such a bewildering set of facts. For the last story, which was also my favorite, I chose a nautical theme. I wanted to show that Harry and I were familiar with crimes at sea. It began in South Africa, where a gang had stolen a trainload of diamonds. They had dressed up as gorillas and disabled the locomotive by pelting it with papayas, thus causing it to slide completely off the tracks.

  I explained that Harry and I happened to be passing through Pretoria on our way to an international conference of insurance investigators taking place the next week in Katmandu. Once the insurers of the diamonds learned who we were, they beseeched us to take the case. Reluctantly, we agreed. We set off on camelback in pursuit of the gang, who themselves were now disguised as pygmy headhunters. At Mombasa, they boarded a dhow they had lying in wait. We chartered a similar boat and eventually caught up with them off a small island in the Bahamas. We ambushed them just as they were burying their loot on a deserted beach. The climax was a chaotic battle fought with scimitars and dirks, with both Harry and I doing a goodly amount of beheading. At last, the pirates were vanquished, the diamonds recovered, and the Maharini freed.

  “Maharini?” M. Trepanier inquired.

  “Yes, did I neglect to mention their abduction of the Maharini of Valparaíso? That occurred immediately after their sacking of Rhodes.”

  My tales held the Frenchmen in thrall, while Mr. Finn wore a silly smirk throughout, several times grunting his disbelief. Then the captain insinuated his incredulity about my having actually helped Harry as much as I had reported. He used that belittling tone men take on these occasions, when they dress their derision in exaggerated politeness. Harry is very lucky he never makes use of it. I’ve always imagined that Mrs. Ertel’s husband had used the same tone just before she shot him dead. And as I often remind Harry, Mrs. Ertel was acquitted. Well, needless to say, I took offense at the captain’s remark and so offered him a wager: I would find the culprits on my own. Naturally, he was compelled to accept my challenge, but only for one hundred francs. I was cheered some when Mr. Finn said he would put up one thousand francs, but there were no other takers.

  Later, when Harry and I reached our cabin, neither of us could hide our disappointment. Our quarters on Spoils of the Sovereign were both spacious and beautifully outfitted. It was only reasonable that we expected something similar, having been told ours would be a first-class cabin. What we found was more like a storeroom stuffed with some antiquated furniture. But I felt I needed to make the best of the situation, so as not to make Harry feel guilty for my forgoing our tour of Europe.

  Due to his rudimentary grasp of French, Harry had missed much of the conversation in the captain’s stateroom. I related the few portions I thought it necessary for him to be made aware of, including the terms of my wager—specifically, that I had pledged that we would work independently. He seemed unconcerned, telling me he already had formulated a plan and had every confidence in its success. I was a little miffed at his indifference. It’s true that our methods are very different. But, in the end, they usually complement each other nicely. In this case, I don’t think Harry appreciated how gullible it was to believe Mme. Yvard was completely innocent. I suspected he was trying to imagine where the gold was hidden, a course I considered all but impossible. The gold would take up only a very small space in what was a very large ship. Besides, it had already been searched thoroughly. I spent the rest of the afternoon recording the fictional cases I had enumerated earlier. They were really quite good and I thought I could make use of them in my writing.

  That evening, Harry and I had dinner in Le Havre with M. Trepanier and Mr. Finn. During the meal, Mr. Finn told us he’d be on the upcoming voyage of L’Aquitaine as well, as the bank was transferring him to its Buenos Aires office. Afterwards, while we were strolling along the quay, I took M. Trepanier aside and inquired about Mme. Yvard. He told me that her husband was a minor minister in the government, but he knew nothing else about her. If that was the case, I asked, why were they sure she wasn’t involved? It would simply be out of the question, he said. It was only after a good deal of persistence on my part that he confided that M. Yvard’s ministry had something to do with chartering insurance companies.

  Before we left him, M. Trepanier presented Harry with a one-hundred-franc note. This payment was part of our agreement. You see, I had told M. Trepanier that Harry would take the case for the intellectual challenge alone. It was he who insisted on a token consideration. What I didn’t realize, but which Harry wasted no time in apprising me of, was that by accepting this payment, neither he nor I, as his wife, would be eligible for the fifteen-thousand-dollar reward the insurer was offering for the gold’s return. Harry’s enthusiasm for the endeavor diminished a good deal that evening.

  The next morning, I went back into town and found a library, where I was able to learn more about Mme. Yvard and her husband. She had been born Courtois, to a family of some small amount of aristocratic blood. When she married the middle-aged M. Yvard, about eight years before, she was still quite young—a strikingly attractive blonde renowned for her arresting hazel eyes.

  That evening we sat at Captain Veblynde’s table, where he introduced us to his wife. Mme. Veblynde was making the trip to New York to visit a daughter who’d married an American. It was the eve of our sailing and there were few others on board. After dinner, Mme. Veblynde and Mr. Finn remained in the saloon with Harry and myself, and I suggested some cards. We played several games of whist and when Mr. Finn went off to the smoking room, he was replaced by an American named Smallby. He told us he was a professor of zoology and an authority on shrews. It soon became obvious that Mr. Smallby understood French even less well than Harry, so I took advantage of the privacy their common ignorance afforded and confided in Mme. Veblynde. I told her about my wager with her husband, much to her amusement. She wished me well and offered to help in any way she could. I asked her if she knew anything about Mme. Yvard, from whose trunk the three bars of gold had fallen. She told me she only knew what she’d read in the newspapers and magazines, and all that amounted to was that the Yvards entertained in the grand style and that Mme. Yvard was a very beautiful woman.

  After the card game broke up, and both Smallby and Harry went off, I asked Mme. Veblynde about the officers we had met the previous afternoon. She had been acquainted with M. Houyvet, the gaunt first officer, for a number of years, but knew very little about him beyond that he was unmarried. He was always cordial, and got on very well with the captain, but otherwise was an enigma, even to the o
ther officers. M. Rollin, the second officer, she hadn’t known as long, but he was just the opposite, very charming and friendly. Also unmarried, he saw himself as a bit of a Lothario. M. Guenard, the purser, was another middle-aged bachelor who’d been with the company a number of years. An efficient man, but something of a dullard.

  That night, when I met up with him again in our cabin, Harry informed me that Mr. Smallby was an impostor.

  “How do you know he’s an impostor?”

  “That nonsense he was spewing about shrews being rodents. He knows less about the Soricidae than you know about geography.”

  “Soricidae?”

  “Shrews, Emmie. The shrew family, Soricidae, is within the order Insectivora, not Rodentia. Didn’t you learn anything in school?”

  Harry is a font of this sort of arcana, most of it as useless as you might suspect. But this bit of trivia would prove helpful to me later.

  II

  The next morning, the 17th, the remainder of the passengers boarded and we left port promptly at eleven. After lunch there was a gathering in the smoking room that drew everyone’s attention, even that of the women forced to remain outside. I was aware that it had become a tradition on the liners for the passengers to form a pool on each day’s run, and now Mme. Veblynde informed me of the mechanics of the enterprise. Several dozen slips of paper, each bearing a figure representing some mileage considered by the organizers to be reasonable, were placed in a hat and drawn randomly. They could be purchased for ten francs apiece. Then in the evening, there would be another assembly and each of the slips auctioned to the highest bidder, with half the proceeds going to the original holder of the slip and half added to the common pool. The next day, at noon, the distance of the previous day’s run would be posted by a junior officer and the man holding the nearest number collected the pool. It seemed a wonderful opportunity for someone in my circumstances. But it was a men-only affair, and Harry, for no good reason at all, adamantly refused to take part.

  That evening, and for the remainder of the trip, Harry and I sat at the table of the second officer, M. Rollin. M. Guenard, the purser, was also there, along with Mlle. Moreau, his fiancée, and a young woman named Julie Dupagnier. Madame Dupagnier, she pointed out to M. Rollin, who appeared unconcerned with the distinction. She wore her long, brunette hair in an intricate knot that changed each day. She was clearly attractive, but obscured the upper half of her face with a veil.

  Mlle. Moreau was at least as old as M. Guenard, forty-five I would guess, with dark hair, and peasant-like features and figure. She reminded me of my mother, who would have felt equally awkward in the first-class saloon of an ocean steamer. At one point, she mistakenly offered the glass meant for dessert wine to the waiter. A faux pas hardly worth noticing, one would think. But when she briefly left the table, Mme. Dupagnier took the opportunity to make a catty remark about it. M. Guenard turned very red and forgot his position for a moment, telling Mme. Dupagnier she was being rude. But then M. Rollin said she obviously hadn’t realized the relationship between the two of them. The purser apologized for taking such offense. I couldn’t remember for certain, but it seemed to me we were all at the table when the introductions had been made. I knew Mme. Dupagnier’s type very well from college, and my sympathies were firmly with Mlle. Moreau.

  The next morning, I asked Harry if he had searched the officers’ quarters.

  “No, do you think I should?” he asked.

  “Surely they are the chief suspects.”

  “Maybe, but does it seem likely the thief will have the gold neatly piled under his bed?”

  “I wasn’t suggesting that. But there might be other clues about.”

  “Ah, clues! Yes, I forgot all about clues. Thank you, Emmie, for reminding me.”

  I wasn’t pleased about having to suffer Harry’s sarcasm. But I did achieve my end. Harry spent the day alternately angering and incommoding the officers, to the great detriment of the ship’s efficiency. In the meantime, I visited the ship’s library, where I was able to verify his account of shrew taxonomy. Later that afternoon, when the men were gathering for the drawing of the lottery in the smoking room, I stopped Mr. Smallby, the faux professor, and led him aside.

  “Mr. Smallby, you are a charlatan,” I told him. But I made sure to smile, and wasn’t at all accusatory. “You know nothing about the Soricidae.”

  “That’s true enough,” he conceded. “Who in the world are the Soricidae? Arabs?”

  “The Soricidae are the shrews.”

  “Oh, yes. Those little fellows. Are you a connoisseur of shrews?”

  “No, not particularly. But a brief visit to an encyclopedia was enough to verify your fraud.”

  “Well, no harm’s been done,” he said. “It was just a little joke.”

  “I’m happy to accept your explanation. It can remain our secret.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Reese. And if there’s something I can do for you?”

  Of course, there was something he could do for me and I wasted no time in telling him. I proposed that we form a syndicate for the purposes of the pool. He smiled, and agreed readily.

  “But you haven’t heard my terms yet,” I told him. “At the auction this evening, we need to acquire the shortest run.”

  “You think the weather will take a turn for the worse?”

  “Yes, something of that nature. However, I must depend on you for the capital.”

  “I’m not a wealthy man, Mrs. Reese. But I’ll make every effort to do as you wish.”

  That evening at dinner, Mme. Dupagnier made a point of sitting beside M. Guenard, the purser. She was acting peculiarly attentive toward him. I say it was peculiar not merely because she was a married woman, or because his fiancée, Mlle. Moreau, was seated at his other side, but because, whatever positive qualities M. Guenard might have had, charm and good looks were not among them. And Mme. Dupagnier, in spite of once again covering her eyes with a veil, was quite obviously a very beautiful woman. I assumed, at first, she used this to mask some scar or birthmark. But I soon learned that was not the case. A waiter passing too closely behind her disarranged her hat, and I helped her to right it. There was no mark or scar. And had I eyes like hers, I would not be hiding them.

  After dinner, Mme. Veblynde and I went to the music room, where several passengers had offered to give a performance. It was really quite excruciating. I wanted desperately to leave, but knew my companion was obliged by her position to endure the spectacle. Meanwhile, Mr. Smallby had gone off to the smoking room to do his duty by the syndicate. When the concert had at last concluded, Mme. Veblynde excused herself and M. Rollin, who’d been seated at my other side, suggested a stroll on the promenade deck. He’d apparently been rebuffed by Mme. Dupagnier and I had moved up on his list. Hoping to gain some intelligence, I agreed. Only later did I realize he’d misinterpreted my enthusiasm. He led me out and as we walked pointed out several constellations of the zodiac. When we rounded a corner, I saw Harry on the deck below. He disappeared down a hatch with a bottle of wine in his hand. The sight gave me an odd, and completely unfamiliar, feeling. I don’t think it was jealousy, exactly. But certainly something more than curiosity.

  In the meantime, M. Rollin was attempting to ingratiate himself by exaggerating my charms and beauty. It was easy to imagine him chalking up conquests with each voyage. I asked him if he’d made the acquaintance of Mme. Yvard during the last voyage. Unfortunately, my object was all too transparent. But instead of taking offense, he found it very humorous. He told me he had swept her off her feet, but her obsequious devotion quickly became too taxing. He gave her the gold in lieu of his affection, and sent her back to her husband. I laughed, and then told him I needed to go in. He moved quite close and I began to feel not a little discomfited. He told me he had a secret to confide. From the look in his eye, I thought I had a very good idea as to the nature of his secret and told him it held no interest for me. I repeated that I needed to go, as my husband was waiting for me. It was just th
en that Harry passed not five feet from us, yet took no notice at all. That made it rather difficult to convince M. Rollin he was pining anxiously for my return.

  The next morning, Harry was planning to search the crew’s quarters and asked me how to politely wake a man and ask to search his belongings. I thought a bit, and then sang out in the lilting voice a mother would use with a child, “Réveillez-vous, morse paresseux! Laissez-moi voir ce que vous cachez.”

  “Morse paresseux?” he asked.

  “It’s an idiom. It means something like ‘my dear comrade.’ But the intonation is key.”

  It took some doing, but eventually Harry was able to speak the lines well enough to convey his intentions. Or, I should say, my intentions. I had misled him, of course, but it was his own fault for being so credulous.

  I couldn’t be certain what effect he would have, going about calling the crew lazy walruses and accusing them of hiding things, but I assumed it wouldn’t be a positive one. At noon, a young officer went to the smoking room and posted the previous day’s run. A crowd had gathered, but I feigned indifference. Then, to my relief, I heard Mr. Smallby being congratulated. Many expressed puzzlement that so little progress had been achieved, as the weather had been clear and there was little wind to speak of. As we had arranged, Mr. Smallby kept our winnings until after he had again secured the shortest distance at that evening’s auction.

  Just after lunch, M. Rollin came off watch and found me speaking with Mme. Veblynde on the promenade deck. She absented herself almost immediately, saying she needed to do some mending. M. Rollin again mentioned his secret, this time adding that it might be an important clue as to the identity of the thieves. I said in that case, I was indeed interested. He insisted he needed to tell me someplace private and proposed using our cabin. I laughed at the suggestion, but he told me he only wanted to aid me in winning my wager with the captain.

  “You know something that would expose the thieves?” I asked.