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Chapter 6 Death on the deep, part 2

 

“Your ship’s doctor needs to perform at least a brevet autopsy,” said Alexander. “What was the apparent circumstance of her death?”

“She was found floating face down in the pool; we permit our crew to use it before the passengers rise,” said the captain.

“And the inference is that she drowned herself, Captain Markham?” asked Alexander, with a raise of the eyebrow.

“She was fully dressed, so it seems unlikely that she went for a swim and met an accidental death,” said Markham. “But she appears to have broken her neck, so I suppose one cannot rule out her having slipped.”

“I’ll get dressed and present myself to your medical quarters for the autopsy,” said Alexander. “Miss Henderson will act as stenographer to record the findings, she is quite able.”

“I... the young lady is a little highly strung, I thought....”

“You’d be highly strung if the brother who was looking after you was murdered by a member of your own household and every time you thought you could move on, someone reminds you,” said Alexander, with asperity.  “It was a nasty business, and the vicious criminal involved forced opium on Ida as well. I wouldn’t mention this if it were not germane, but she is quite clear of the drugging now, but not unnaturally, a little vulnerable around some subjects. I assure you, she will be keen to bring official justice on whoever killed Mrs. Mainwaring; she was a fool, and a gadfly, but not, I think, intentionally, and does not – did not – deserve to die for her  foolishness.”

 

Ida got up willingly, if a little pale of face.

She may not have done any nursing, like Gladys, but she had indicated a willingness to learn, and it was, thought Alexander, a good time to see if she could handle it.

There was a tiny operating theatre, and Alexander made a surprised noise.

“You’d be surprised how often I end up performing appendectomies,” said the ship’s doctor, who had examined Alexander when he first came aboard.  “Also tracheotomies when the consumption of alcohol leads to passengers performing wagers over what they can get in their mouths. You haven’t lived until you’ve removed a lady’s diamante-encrusted slipper from a young man’s windpipe.”

“Good G-d!” said Alexander.  “Though, I have to say, as a copper, I’ve seen a few interesting occurrences as a result of the consumption of alcohol; and in the army.”

“Oh, when I was in the army, I had to remove a six-pounder round, projectile and casing, from a fellow’s rectum once.”[1]

“Bloody hell!” said Alexander. “That’s more than two inches across! How....?”

“He claimed he sat on it accidentally, in the trenches,” said the doctor.

“Tell that to the marines!” said Alexander. “We had a six-pounder in our tank, and...well, tears to the eyes.”

“It wasn’t my eyes, so I wasn’t bothered,” said the doctor. “No names, no pack drill, but he was enjoying it right up to the point I was pulling out the rim.  And as for women... well, here’s your lady so I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

“Human beings are a strange lot,” said Alexander. “I hope you are prepared to cut into her to see if there is water in the lungs?”

“I was intending to, and to check the hyoid bone,” said the doctor. “Though, on initial examination, I see no petechiae, even in the eyeballs, look.”

Alexander looked.

“No asphyxiation then?”

“Very probably no asphyxiation. I want to check.”

“Yes, as well to double check everything.  Have you got that, Ida?”

“Apart from not being able to spell pet- what you said.”

The doctor obligingly spelled it for her, and Ida noted it down.

“The cervical vertebrae are parted quite violently; she has longish hair which she wore up, I’d postulate someone caught her with her hair down for the night, and snapped her neck over the back of a chair, or their own knee, holding on to her hair for leverage,” said the doctor.  “Hyoid bone... intact. Opening chest to examine lungs.... here we are, and folding skin away from lungs, I see no sign of pulmonary oedema, so no indication of drowning; piercing the lung does not cause an outflow of fluid, so she did not drown.”

“Could she have broken her neck accidentally?” asked Alexander.

“She’d have to come down an awful wallop to have that level of whiplash to the neck,” said the doctor, scratching his chin. “Or be hit too hard on the head it broke it with the force, and I’d say there should be a bruise to the head at least, and likely her skull broken. Which it isn’t.”

“Dear me!  Well, when it comes to suspects, I should probably ask for the ship’s manifest,” said Alexander.

“Not excepting me,” said the doctor, dryly. “Asked if I was qualified, and before I could confirm it, went on about how I was probably barely competent or was disgraced to have to be a doctor on a ship, not in a fashionable Harley Street address, the wretched woman. I took pneumonia in the trenches, and the sea air suits me.”

“Moreover, the company would hardly hire someone dodgy for their expensive paying passengers,” said Ida. “Her assumptions were all built on faulty logic.”

“Yes, she certainly insulted almost all the passengers in our mess sitting,” said Alexander. “Except the two married couples.”

“Oh, you’re well out there,” said Ida. “You need Gladys and Alma to confirm it, but when we were swimming yesterday, as well as upsetting little Mrs. Amberside over whether she should play tennis or not, she also referred to Mrs. Chatterley as positively slavish to her husband, and like Ganymede, Zeus’s cup bearer.”

Alexander froze.

“And that was the example she used?” he asked.

“So Alma said, she asked me about it, not being familiar with the classics. She did not know who Zeus was, until I explained, thinking his name to be Zee-us, having only seen it written.”

“And you, my child, doubtless are unaware of the special relationship Ganymede had.  It’s not flattering likening a young bride to a man, however beautiful he was supposed to have been, and one in such a situation, too, as if suggesting her husband treats her to other practices in bed,” said Alexander. “It’s been used in the past as a means of contraception, but not an appropriate suggestion to make.”

“Well, I am catching on to your meaning as you babble with coy, male, embarrassed babbling around the subject, but I doubt, somehow, that Mrs. Mainwaring was even aware that such relationships exist. It was utter nonsense, anyway; I’ve seen the Chatterleys play tennis, and anyone with as bruising a serve as Mrs. Chatterley isn’t going to be a doormat. She’s one of these awful hearty girls one avoids at school.”

“I’m amazed her husband had the chance to say, ‘I do,’ at the wedding ceremony,” said Alexander.

“Her ‘poor Philip,’ and that description the truest she’s ever spoken, was wounded early in the war, and she snapped him up, being already on the shelf, to provide him with a devoted nurse. He was deafened and had his balance destroyed by a spent bullet that lodged in his ear, as well as shrapnel in the gut,” said Ida. “He expired quietly last summer, and I could have brought that up and said she talked him to death, but I rose above the temptation. I suspect whilst devoting herself to him, she didn’t annoy the neighbours as much as when she had time on hands.”

“Poor creature,” said Alexander. 

“I have to tell you that Mrs. Amberside consulted with me; I can’t be specific,” said the doctor. “Patient confidentiality and all. But I assured her that playing tennis would do her no harm.”

“Ah, I will ask her when I question each of the passengers,” said Alexander. “Are you through? Yes? Well, I’m going to go take a swim to clear my head, and after breakfast, Captain Markham, perhaps you will arrange for me to use a cabin to question the passengers, and any of your men she came into contact with; that’ll be the steward and his assistant, yes?”

“Yes, indeed,” agreed the captain.

“I don’t see why anyone would kill her, though,” said Ida. “I slapped her, yes, and I could see her dying if pushed in anger for her silly comments and foolish lies, but deliberate killing?”

“Ah,” said Alexander, “But suppose one of her foolish lies was true?”

 

oOoOo

 

“Your attention,” said Alexander, at breakfast. “I gave my name when we all met, but I neglected to point out that I am a Detective Inspector with Scotland Yard. Now, as this is a British cruise ship, I do have jurisdiction, which irritates me no end, as I was supposed to be recovering from a wound gained in the pursuance of my duty. However, since I am sure that the death of Mrs. Mainwaring during the night has been officially hushed up, everyone knows about it, and there are doubtless many lurid theories going about.”

“One of the stewards said she was overcome with shame and threw herself overboard,” said Cyril Chatterley.

“Untrue,” said Alexander. “Mrs. Mainwaring was deliberately and cold-bloodedly murdered.  And though she put up the backs of all of us, she didn’t deserve that.”

“Quite,” said Lady Burleigh.  “One ignores that sort of woman; disgraceful that she was even allowed to mingle with those of us in this setting; though if they have to resort to accepting policemen, I suppose one can understand why. I am not pleased; I thought you were a gentleman, Mr. Armitage.”

“The two are not mutually exclusive, Lady Burleigh,” said Alexander, fighting his temper. “After all, some of us have a sense of noblesse oblige to use our talents as seems fit. Your late husband, as a rally driver for an avocation, drove ambulances on the continent, I believe during the war.  And would be sneered at by some as a mere chauffeur.”

Lady Burleigh flushed.

“You are correct, one serves as one might,” she said. “Are you one of the Essex Armitages?”

“Yes, and you probably know my father, Simon,” said Alexander. “Which being so, perhaps you and the Honourable Miss Vera will volunteer to be the first to be questioned after breakfast?”

“Yes, of course,” said Lady Burleigh. “We will answer all your questions, which I recognise have to be intimate and impertinent.”

“I’ll be using the steward’s office as my centre of enquiries,” said Alexander.

“Maybe someone should investigate you – it was your lady friend who slapped the Mainwaring woman, after all,” sneered Cyril Chatterly. “And then got upset by her rude treatment of her apology.”

“Maybe the captain already has,” said Alexander. “The doctor will vouch for me being unable to carry Mrs. Mainwaring from her cabin to where she was found, and with the captain I have already been able to ascertain that she was killed in her cabin.”

“How?” demanded Cyril.

“Body fluids released on death,” said Alexander. “Also some of her hair torn out when it was used to hold her. It was a cruel death. The poor, foolish woman plainly happened on some detail someone wanted to keep quiet, and whilst I might have felt sympathy over asking to have her put ashore, to preserve a sensitive sort of secret which might be frowned on, I do not hold with killing.”

“Have you got any clues?” asked Geoffrey Paul, eagerly. “Police work must be a bit like archaeology.”

“Funny you should say that, my wife-to-be is going to be taking a degree in archaeology,” Alexander said.  “And I heard the comment the eminent antiquarian made after he brushed her off over a question about Howard Carter, about obnoxious amateurs; she isn’t an amateur, and some of what she’s already learned informally from Sir Brian Cleevey has been helpful to me.”

“Disinterring a body dismembered and partly burned on a compost heap was extremely interesting,” said Ida, brightly.

“Really? Did you find that the use of garden vegetation speeded up the rate of decomposition?” asked Leonard Cobham. “And I apologise for my crass remark to my nephew, I am used to rather silly flappers asking rather silly questions, you did not tell me you were a fellow professional in training.”

“Oh, think nothing of it,” said Ida. “I am able to imagine some of the fatuous remarks. I did go to school with other girls, after all. I had actual fainting fits when I excavated the midden and found the remains of the aged kitchen cat who had been dumped there on death by a rather unsentimental cook.  Naturally, in the spirit of science, I embalmed the poor creature, and made him a sarcophagus.  The headmistress was delighted when I left.”

“Foolish woman,” said Cobham.

“And yes, the little red worms on a compost heap do speed up decomposition,” said Ida.

“Really, I’d rather not think of things like that at breakfast,” said little Mrs. Amberside, faintly.

“A trifle indelicate,” said Lady Burleigh.

“Oh, I do beg your pardon,” said Ida. “I’m living with Alex’s parents, and when he’s down at the weekend, we have police work for breakfast, and some of it is quite insalubrious, so one gets used to it.”

“I don’t always have time to read autopsy reports except over meals,” said Alexander. “The changes to the kidney under poisoning with Lead acetate is particularly fascinating... but I’ll shut up about it,” he added as there were reproachful looks.

“I imagine that, as a – what was it? Inspector? – you get more interesting work than a constable,” said Geoffrey Paul.

“In a way, yes,”, said Alexander. “But I’ve got a protégé, still a bit wet behind the ears, but a good lad, observant, and knows how to use his initiative, and rather than tearing him off a strip for being a know-it-all, if I point him at something tedious, but in need of considerable research, and decision making, I can let him loose on it, knowing that he has the determination to get the job done, and more, without having to send a more experienced man whom I can use on less time-consuming tasks.  Young Munday is a real asset, because he knows that as a junior, he’s doing most of the legwork. He also has a bike, so he does it quicker, and doesn’t keep interrupting me to ask what to do next.  I wager, one day, I might be calling him, ‘sir;’ when Alma’s husband, my boss, has retired, and Munday has leaped over me.”

“Wouldn’t that trouble you?” asked David Amberside.

“Not if he was the better man for the job,” said Alexander. “I think I’m likely to stay ahead of him, but if I’m wrong, well, I want what’s best for the force.”

“You’re a remarkable man, if so,” said Cobham.

Alexander shrugged.

“I am a gentleman, with independent means,” he said. “I don’t need to jockey for position for the pay raise, and I have an interesting life.”

“By ‘interesting’ he means he also sets himself up as bait for a nasty pair of sociopaths, to be tortured, and end up in a wheelchair where they cut him about before his men burst in,” said Ida.  “But I wouldn’t have my idiotically brave idiot any other way.”

“OH!” said the Honourable Vera. “We read about that in the paper. So, you’re the artistic Miss Henderson, sister of Basil Henderson?”

“Yes, and it’s why the Mainwaring woman got on my nerves,” said Ida. “We came from Paris where a forger copying my brother’s style claimed to be Basil.”

“That must have been very upsetting,” said Vera. “I am sorry.”

“Thank you,” said Ida.  “We both know how needling people can hurt, so we’ll be taking the questioning very gently.”

“I have no intention of hiding anything,” said Vera. “It would be foolish and counter-productive. As you are our sort of people, you will understand.”

“Indeed,” said Ida, correctly interpreting that as being the sort of people who would be at home at a Burleigh House tea party.

Breakfast passed, and Alexander and Ida reconvened in the steward’s office.

 

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[1] Genuine medical case