copper's cruise 17

 sorry to be late, Simon had some muse last night and I've been working as well

 

 

Chapter 17 Death of a Cad part 3

 

Alexander was happy to stay on the riverboat for the two days it remained in Cairo, for those who wished to visit the vibrant Eastern city. He was, personally, a trifle sick of vibrant eastern cities, and Ida was happy to make dockside sketches, and Alma was frankly just as happy to enjoy the climate of somewhere warmer than England, but not too sultry, reading and chatting. She would accompany Ida when viewing ruins, but without taking as much interest as the would-be archaeologist. She was, however, curious to see the Sphinx and the pyramids, and they all set out in the motorbus which would take them to see these marvels.

Ida took her painting things, of course, and settled down to record the scene in various ways. This included a sketch which had Alexander and Alma in whoops of laughter, depicting Alma after the fashion of a tomb painting with the sphinx on a lead, rolling around in some recognisable cat mint. The sphinx’s head was that of Mrs. Worthington. Penelope and her sons did not escape, with Penelope depicted as a queen, and her sons as courtiers, Freddy in a leopard skin, and Eric with the scalp lock of a juvenile.

“You are a wonder, Miss Henderson,” said Freddy.  “Oh, your brother would be proud of you. I’ve seen his depiction of Armitage.”

“We share the same offbeat humour,” said Ida. She was working up several paintings from sketches, and Christie Freeman peered over at her work.

“I say, you’re actually quite good,” she said, in surprise.

Ida smiled.

“I’m glad you think so. My brother, who taught me, would be pleased.”

“And who is your brother?”

“My artist brother was Basil Henderson,” said Ida.

Christie retreated. She was embarrassed by damning with faint praise the sister of a famous painter who was apparently as talented as her brother. She was even more embarrassed and overwhelmed to later be given a sketch of herself and her husband as a pharaoh and his wife, but totally recognisable, as a wedding gift.

“Your names are in the cartouches as closely as I could manage,” said Ida. “Nesu-biti Doug, Mery-Ra, lord of upper and lower Egypt, Doug, beloved of Ra, and Hemet-nesert-weret Christi Nefert, the great wife, Christie the beautiful.”

“You read hieroglyphs? Oh, my!” gasped Christie.

“I’ll be starting my degree as an archaeologist in September,” said Ida. “I simplified it down a bit, because unless you care about the magical significance of having five names for a pharaoh, I thought it would be a bit much to have to remember.”

“Yes, thank you,” said Christie, who had already forgotten what her title was.

“I wrote the transliteration on the back as a crib sheet,” said Ida.

“Thanks!” said Christie. “This’ll please Douggie no end, he dropped a packet to the man with the weird moustaches last night.”

“Oh, bother, I thought Alex had warned him,” said Ida.

“I… uh, I think he thought he could take care of himself,” said Christie, flushing.

“Can you afford to lose it? Or do you need Alex to win it back for you?” asked Ida, sharply.

“We’ll have to budget a bit more carefully, but it hasn’t broken us,” said Christie. “Your fiancé has hidden depths.”

“They let him loose on the more gentlemanly sharpers and bunco artists,” said Ida. “He learned sleight of hand and how to recognise marked cards at his father’s knee; his family have been in police work forever. Believe me, it’s an education to learn how to cheat at Old Maid.”

Christie laughed.

“It’s a nursery game,” she said.

“Yes, but a good way to learn to recognise sharping,” said Ida. “Simon-papa wanted me prepared for professional gamblers on our cruise. I prefer a quiet game of whist or bridge with the ladies.”

“Doug and I play bridge.”

“Oh, good, another pair; I’ll write you in. Freddy, Eric, and Penelope play whist, if a little erratically in Penelope’s case, she and Alma play for pure fun and partner each other as the serious players like Anne take exception to wild bidding and erratic discards. And her son, Freddy feels he ought to help, which irritates Penelope.”

“Anne is the starchy lady?”

“Yes, and she likes to partner Miss Goldsworthy, who is a demon bridge and whist player; Violet prefers to watch. I’ve been sorting out a schedule to play a rubber an evening, and then the pairs with the best records to play off between them.  I’ll have to rotate you in as that’s ten people, but no worries.”

“Thanks,” said Christie.

 

oOoOo

 

It would now take a week to get to Luxor, stopping to visit Faiyum, known to the Ancient Egyptians as ‘Shedet’, and other towns on the way.

It would only be dedicated sight-seers who would get out at every stop; most people intended to just enjoy the river trip. Ida wanted to see Faiyum, but otherwise planned to rest until reaching Luxor.

It was pleasant cruising on the river, with enough of a breeze from the speed of travel to cut through the otherwise oppressive heat. The company sponsored a show after dinner, and if Alexander did not appreciate the ventriloquist, he found some of the card-tricks interesting. He smirked to notice that Reginald Langburne and his moustaches resented how the card-trick player revealed some sharping tricks.  The stand-up comic pair were… embarrassing. The jokes were decidedly dated, and of the calibre of ‘I say, who was that lady I saw you with last night?’ ‘That was no lady, that was my wife.’ Not wanting to play whist or bridge every night, Alexander plaintively asked if a sing-song might be in order, and demanded the services of Anne Grant to play the piano, having caught her playing rather frisky French airs one morning. He was happy to solo ‘A policeman’s lot is not a happy one,’ with others joining in, and managed the clean version of ‘Mademoiselle des Armientiers.’

“Hey, now I know where I know you from, Diamond Nancy,” said Captain Thwaite.

Anne paled.

Alexander frowned.

“Thwaite, we were enjoying ourselves. Just use your voice for singing or don’t use it at all,” he said. “Nobody cares about your wartime reminiscences, or which nurses held the bedpan for you. Play on, please, Miss Grant.”

Anne carried on playing. Thwaite sulked off.

  Everyone knew such wartime favourites as ‘Roses of Picardy,’ ‘K-K-K-Katy,’ ‘Danny Boy,’ ‘ʼEnery the Eighth,’ and ‘I’m always chasing Rainbows,’ which led to Anne wandering off into the unadapted ‘Fantasie Impromtu’ by Chopin, and into more classical numbers. She was worth listening to; so the passengers listened.

“That’s my lot,” said Anne Grant, shutting the piano lid. “Maybe another night.”

“Thank you, on behalf of all of us, for your efforts,” said Alexander.  “Ida, will you and Alma go with Miss Grant to prevent that fellow from accosting her?”

“Certainly,” said Ida. “A most unpleasant fellow.”

This view was reiterated in hearing Thwaite buttonholing Freddy, and sneering at him.

“There’s no point pursuing the steel statue, you know; the Beauchamps are an old family, and whatever family your mother comes from, she won’t let you wed the sniff of trade, however rich the frigid bitch may be.”

“Why don’t you jump overboard and give social advice to a crocodile?” suggested Freddy. “Miss Pettit, I don’t need a rich wife, but I like you very much and so does my mother. Don’t let that festering little tick get your dander up.”

“I’d be happy to knock him down and throw him to the crocodiles,” said Violet Pettit. “The little creep made a pass at me, and then tried to assault my maid, Millie.”

“Well, he’s no gentleman,” said Freddy. “Is she all right”

“She kicked him in the nuts,” said Violet.

“Good for her!” said Freddy.

Alexander sighed. Thwaite was a nasty character.

“You haven’t asked what he meant about Diamond Nancy,” said Anne Grant, quietly.

“That’s before,” said Alexander. “I assume you made such a career as you could, during a difficult period, but the war’s over, and we’re all still picking up the pieces in civvy street.  I’m not a Major any more, and you’re not the Cleopatra of Paris any more, nor the Soldier’s Fancy, or whatever names they lumbered you with. I take it you invested wisely.”

“I did, and I used my education to be a hostess and entertain as well as… what I had to do,” said Anne Grant. “You don’t judge me.”

“We’ve all done things we would have preferred not to have done,” said Ida. “You’re a friend, Anne.”

“You little sweetheart,” said Anne, who was crying.

“Come and have a hot chocolate with Alma and me, in our cabin,” said Ida. “We don’t abandon friends.”

Alexander left the ladies, and went to see the captain.

“That fellow, Thwaite, is making trouble again,” he said. “Can’t he be put off the boat at the next stop?”

“He has paid his passage….”

“Reimburse some of it. I’ll pay the reimbursement if you are worried about the Company. But he is upsetting the ladies, and some of us are on this trip for our health, and he’s a detriment.”

“If you will cover the reimbursement, I will put him off the ship tomorrow.”

“Thank you!” said Alexander. “I know it doesn’t help other people wherever he fetches up, but I’m being selfish.”

 

 

oOoOo

 

The boat made an unscheduled stop calling in at port at a settlement on the river; and sailors were sent to round up Thwaite.

The captain sent for Alexander.

“This Captain Thwaite, he is not on the boat,” said the captain.

“Oh, shit,” said Alexander. “I fear I may have been too late.  You’d better radio downriver, and see if he was tossed overboard. I did hear someone threatening him with an involuntary swim. I’m an inspector with Scotland Yard, and if he’s been assaulted, I will need to take his statement and act on it.”

“Of course, sir,” said the captain.

 

 

oOoOo

 

“Why have we stopped? Has something happened?” asked Penelope Beauchamp of Alexander, as they breakfasted.

“I asked to have Captain Thwaite put ashore; but he’s vanished,” said Alexander. “And I have a bad feeling about it.”

“Really? So long as he is gone, I don’t much care,” said Penelope. “He’s been needling dear Violet, who is having an excellent influence on Freddy, and I have strong hopes of romance budding. She isn’t like the sneering types of his usual set, born with the oak leaves and ermine… no disrespect to Ida, intended there.”

“My family came to the gentry late,” said Ida. “It’s Alex who trails oak leaves and ermine, being descended from a royal duke, but you’d never know it, he’s very well house-trained.”

Alexander laughed.

“And the entry in Debrett’s is, by family tradition, spurious, in any case,” he said.

“Tough luck,” said Ida. “If it’s in Debrett’s, it is as the law of the Medes and Persians.”

 

The captain approached Alexander after breakfast with a grave face.

“A word in private, Inspector Armitage?” he said.

Alexander grimaced.

“I can make a guess or two from your face,” he said, following the captain into his day cabin.

“I had a wire from downriver that they have the body of a man answering Captain Thwaite’s description, somewhat the worse for crocodile damage, but not wholly consumed. The initial examination suggests that, though there may be a bruise on his head, he died of drowning or shock due to blood loss; there is no suggestion of strangulation or anything of the kind.”

“As I understand it, crocs drag their victims under to drown them, yes?”

“Yes, I believe so.”

“And a bruise on the head might be caused by bumping his head if he fell overboard in a state of inebriation; which they can tell from his blood in due course, or, indeed if he was careless, or in the course of a struggle not necessarily designed to kill,” said Alexander.

“Quite so, but I understand you are known to be able to settle such things with discretion as need be?”

“Yes, but if there was premeditated murder, I won’t hush it up,” said Alexander, grimly.

“No, no, I quite understand,” said the captain, hastily.

“Very well; he was alive when I went to bed, because I heard Mr. Frederick Beauchamp tell him to go and annoy a crocodile; which comment he did not keep to a low tone, so I don’t consider it significant,” said Alexander.

What was significant was Freddy’s hot temper, but he did seem to be controlling it.

“I heard it myself,” said the captain, dryly. “The crew….”

“The crew probably had nothing to do with it, but by all means check their movements,” said Alexander. “It was the passengers he was annoying. Is the gambler a company man like the entertainers?”

“No, but he gives the company a cut of his winnings to be tolerated,” said the captain. “The entertainers are on a wage, so they don’t care if the passengers decide to amuse themselves.”

Alexander nodded.

“I confess, your comic duo left me feeling homicidal,” he said. “I’ve heard better from a Tommies’ impromptu talent night.”

“We take what we can get,” said the captain. “It’s a trifle stale.”

“Stale? If that’s stale, Tutankhamun is fresh,” said Alexander. “You’d think at least they might try to find some topical jokes. I’m sure there are mummy jokes to be had.  Even if only, ‘I say, why is King Tut covered in bandages?’ ‘He’s very wrapped up in being pharaoh.’ Or something.”

The captain laughed. “You have better timing, as well,” he said.

“I’ll sing Gilbert and Sullivan, but I refuse point blank to be a stand-up comic,” said Alexander. “Just tell them to write some new gags, already! Not that this is germane to the point. I’ll do my best to find out what happened. But I suspect it might not be possible; too many people disliked Thwaite.”

“Thank you sir; I can’t ask more,” said the captain.