SUSPECTS
That run home to Southampton did not begin auspiciously for Nanette.
Her happiness at being on the same ship with O’Shea was distinctly
blunted by the presence of an official chaperone.
Her father had some sort of pull with the line, and by dint of
industrious cabling, he had contrived to get in touch with a lady he
knew who was returning from South Africa: One Mrs. Porter, a really
formidable matron, deep-chested, heavy-jowled, and contemplating a
sinful world through spectacles of an unnecessarily unpleasant
pattern.
“Pop is mad!” said Nanette. “This woman must die.”
Excluding O’Shea and myself, Nanette had come on board with a male
escort of three devoted dancing partners. Lacking the society of
Nanette, these were three very lonely young men, divided by a mutual
distrust but united in their dislike of O’Shea.
Unreciprocated passion renders its victims clairvoyant; and each one
of these three knew what the rest of the crowd at Reid’s Hotel had
never suspected: that Nanette only emerged from a land of dreams when
O’Shea was with her. Now, to crown a troublous situation, Mrs. Porter
presented a protégé--Captain Slattery. She made it pointedly clear
that no other follower would be tolerated.
I resigned my staff of office with a sigh, and settled down to be
sorry for Nanette--and Slattery.
O’Shea and I stood at the door of the smoke-room watching the coast of
Madeira melt into a blue distance. Nanette, in a short, sleeveless
frock, came along the deck, linked between two men, one of whom was
Slattery. She pretended not to see us. But right in front of the door
she pulled up insistently, leaning on the rail and pointing out
something to her companions. Nanette knew she had very beautiful arms.
But she wanted O’Shea to know.
He smiled at me, sadly, and turning, went into the smoke-room. The
girl’s dainty naïveté was hopelessly disarming. We sat down facing
one another across a table, and:
“There is something I want you to do for me,” said O’Shea.
“About--Nanette?”
“No.” He shook his head, and that tragically hungry look came into his
eyes that I had seen there before. “Don’t let us talk about her,
Decies. I have a valuable portfolio in my stateroom.”
“Surely you will hand it over to the purser?”
“Impossible. Contrary to the rules of the game. The ship might sink.
But a certain Adolf Zara is on board. Therefore----”
He paused, staring at me significantly.
“You want _me_ to take charge of it?”
“Yes. Lock it in your trunk. I don’t expect any move on this
gentleman’s part. He is stalking bigger game and therefore anxious to
avoid publicity. But he _might_ take it into his head to pay me an
unofficial visit. I have a room to myself. You are sharing a cabin
with a representative of the _Cape Times_ whom, luckily, you chance to
have met before.”
“Very well,” said I. “Of course, this man, Zara, will know you are on
board?”
“Naturally,” O’Shea returned. “His associates in Madeira will have
advised him--although absolutely nothing to afford a clue to his
assumed identity happened at Funchal. He is a dangerously clever man.”
“Have you taken a look around?”
“Yes. Have you?”
“I have. But no likely candidate for the honour of being Adolf Zara
has presented himself.”
“I agree,” said O’Shea quietly. “But I have an appointment with the
purser in an hour’s time. I am going carefully through the declaration
sheets.”
When O’Shea left me, I was joined by the journalist, my
stable-companion; a substantial Scot whom I had met in London two
years before. He proposed a promenade. And just as we started the
faithful three came into the smoke-room, together, and ordered drinks.
Their aspects were mournful.
Then, in a shady corner outside, we discovered the explanation.
Nanette was coiled up in a deck chair, her charming head turned in the
direction of her neighbour on the right--Slattery. In a chair on her
left, enveloped in an unnecessary rug, Mrs. Porter slumbered
soundly--and almost noiselessly.
Nanette beckoned to me. As I paused, she threw a venom-laden glance at
the unconscious chaperone, and:
“I do not like you, Mrs. P.,” she murmured. “The reason why is plain
to see--and hear.”
Slattery, his gaze fixed upon her, smiled admiringly. He had very even
white teeth. Then he looked up at me.
“I hear that your friend is the famous O’Shea,” he said. “I thought he
was a movie actor.”
The words told me plainly that this was another victim of the
distracting Nanette. Therefore I forgave him.
“His appearance is certainly deceptive,” I admitted.
“We were on their right at the time he was recommended for the V.C.,”
Slattery went on. “I was only a pup, but _we_ saw some dirty work,
too. The crack regiments always get the limelight, though.”
Nanette glanced at him under suddenly lowered lashes, and:
“Please, Mr. Decies, lead me to a cool drink with lemon in it,” she
said.
She was on her feet in one graceful movement. Her ability to
disentangle herself from complicated poses resembled that of an
antelope. Grasping my right arm and the left of my startled Scottish
companion, she moved away.
“Captain Slattery is so good-looking that he bores me,” she whispered
in my ear.
O’Shea found me some little time later.
“I have ventured to have you put at a table among strangers,” he said.
“Your immediate neighbour is a certain Dr. Zimmermann.”
He stared at me.
“I’ll do my best, O’Shea,” said I. “Where are _you_?”
“At the purser’s table,” he replied, “facing one John Edward
Wainwright, of Halifax, Nova Scotia. These two birds may prove to be
black swans, but there isn’t another query in the passenger list.”
I experienced Dr. Zimmermann at lunch and later at dinner. Apart from
his audible enjoyment of the soup, I found his table manners genial.
He had been studying the neolithic fauna of South Africa on behalf of
some learned Munich institution blessed with a name that only Dr.
Zimmermann could pronounce and that I shall never attempt to spell.
My report to O’Shea was unsatisfactory.
“He seems fairly true to type,” I said. “If he is not what he
professes to be, he carries it well. How about your man?”
O’Shea shrugged in his curious way.
“He obviously knows Halifax,” was the reply. “His line appears to be
steam trawlers. Having unaccountably neglected the subject of steam
trawlers, I am rather at a disadvantage here.”
“I am equally rusty,” I confessed, “upon the neolithic fauna of South
Africa.”
There was dancing on deck that night. Nanette danced with the faithful
three in turn and with Slattery. Slattery secured more than his fair
share because of the powerful backing of “Mrs. P.”
Nanette was dancing with me, in a curiously abstracted way, when
suddenly she grew animated. Her eyes sparkled. She floated in my arms
lightly as a feather.
Following her glance, I saw O’Shea watching us.
When I had deposited Nanette with the guardian Mrs. Porter, I returned
to find O’Shea; for he had signalled to me. He was standing just
inside the smoke-room door.
“Adolf Zara is active,” he said in a cautious voice.
“What do you mean?”
He glanced around the smoke-room warningly. I took the cue and looked
about me. Dr. Zimmermann sat in a corner, fast asleep. Wainwright, the
other suspect, formed one of a bridge party.
“Two dispatch-cases have been forced open,” O’Shea went on, “by
someone who entered my cabin to-night!”