Murder on the Minnesota (18 page)

“Oh?”

“He was my idea of what a man ought to be. Intelligent, sensitive, attentive.”

“What was his name?”

“George Dillman,” said Fay. “I sat next to him at dinner last night. He’s younger than I am but I’ll tell you this: I came dangerously close to flirting with him.”

Genevieve hoped that her blush did not show.

TEN

I
f Rutherford Blaine was feeling nervous in the dining saloon, it did not show in his face. He was as relaxed and urbane as ever. With his back to the wall, Dillman deliberately sat opposite his friend so that he could command a view of the whole room and see if anyone was taking a special interest in Blaine. Joining them at a table for six were their usual companions, Mr. and Mrs. Chang, together with Bruce and Moira Legge. The latter were at their most talkative. Since Genevieve had mentioned them, Dillman knew what to expect by way of an introduction from the English couple.

“We’re the Legges,” said Bruce jovially. “I’m the right leg and Moira is the left.” The others laughed dutifully. “We were on holiday once in Cornwall and we met this couple called Mr. and Mrs. Foot. I thought they were joking at first but that was their real name. You can imagine the fun we had out of that.”

“It could have been worse,” observed Blaine, reaching for the menu. “Their name might have been Kneecap.”

“Nobody would be called that, surely?” said Moira.

“They would, Mrs. Legge. I had a colleague named Louis
Patella. That amounts to the same thing. Ah, crab!” he said, reading the menu. “That looks tempting.”

“As long as they don’t serve raw fish,” she said with a grimace. “That’s what they eat in Japan, apparently. The mere thought is revolting.”

“They seem to thrive on it, Mrs. Legge,” said Dillman.

“It’s worse than eating snails, as the French do.”

“Yes,” said Legge disdainfully. “They’ve got some deplorable habits, the Frogs.”

“Where was that restaurant that served horsemeat, Bruce?”

“There are dozens of them all over Paris, darling. Their standards are different from ours. They’d eat their grandmothers if you let them.”

Chang gulped. “French people eat their grandmothers?” he said.

“Only when the snails and the horsemeat runs out,” teased Legge.

Amusing at first, the English couple became increasingly tiresome. The Changs were their worst victims. Because they could not understand Legge’s sense of humor, they took his facetious remarks seriously. What Dillman objected to was their lordly air. They not only patronized the Chinese-American couple, they shed a few reflex prejudices about the United States. Blaine showed great restraint in holding back from comment.

It was Moira Legge who introduced the subject of religion.

“Does anyone know what’s happened to that appalling priest?” she asked.

“Priest?” said Li Chang.

“Be warned, Mr. Chang. He’s a missionary on his way to China.”

“Most disagreeable fellow,” said Legge, fingering his beard. “Father Slattery. That was the chap. He gave the Catholic Church a bad name.” He blinked at his companions. “No offense meant if any of you are Roman Catholics.”

“I don’t believe that we are, Mr. Legge,” said Blaine, looking around the table.

“The French are Catholics,” noted Legge meaningfully. “That says everything.”

“Tell them about Father Slattery,” urged Moira.

“I’d prefer to forget him, darling.”

“He never stopped talking. Bruce and I hardly said a word.”

“No, Moira. You never got a chance to tell your story about China.”

“Oh?” said Chang. “You’ve been to our country before?”

“No, Mr. Chang,” she replied, “but my brother has. He’s an archeologist. Eric spent two years there before taking up a professorship at Cambridge. He couldn’t have picked a worse time to go to the country.”

“He not like it?”

“He loved it until he found himself in the middle of the Boxer Rebellion.”

Chang sighed and looked at his wife. She gave a little nod.

“Tell them what Eric said, darling,” encouraged Legge. “Moira should have told this to Father Slattery,” he added, eyes bulging with significance. “It would have put him in his place good and proper.”

“I don’t know that he needed putting in his place,” said Dillman, not wishing to hear anyone speak ill of the dead. “I met Father Slattery and he struck me as very courageous man. Missionary work is always beset by hazards. Hundreds of Catholic missionaries were killed during the rising.”

“My brother almost joined them,” announced Moira, determined to tell her tale. “When the trouble broke out, he and his team were in the back of beyond, digging up the remains of an old temple. Friends told them to get out quick, but it was too late. Before they could escape in litters, they were set upon by an angry crowd. Eric says they were pelted with stones and clods of clay.”

“And jeered at,” said Legge. “They were called foreign devils. The crowd wanted to tear them to pieces. They almost did.”

“Let me tell it my way,” scolded Moira.

“Sorry, darling.”

“Eric is
my
brother.”

“How did he escape, Mrs. Legge?” asked Blaine.

“By means of his religion. That’s what I wanted to point out to Father Slattery.” Moira gabbled on. “The leader of the attackers pulled back the straw covering of the litter and ordered Eric to get out and kneel down. Eric refused, knowing that he’d never get up alive again. ‘You are Roman Catholics,’ said the man. ‘Get down!’ Eric was not having that. ‘We’re not Catholics,’ he said in a loud voice. ‘We abhor Catholicism and all that it stands for. We follow the true religion of Jesus.’ Those were Eric’s exact words.”

“What happened next?” said Blaine.

“The man turned to the crowd and said, ‘They’re not
Tien Chu Kaio
.’ That means Roman Catholics. ‘They’re
Ie-su Kaio
,’ he told them. That means Protestants. So they let Eric and the others go.”

“See what I mean?” said Legge. “That would have shut Father Slattery up.”

“I disagree,” returned Dillman. “I’m pleased that lives were spared, but you can hardly use that incident as a stick to beat the Catholics. In your brother’s position, Mrs. Legge, I’m quite sure that Father Slattery would have proclaimed his Catholicism for all to hear, even though he knew that it was his death sentence.”

“There is no killing in China now,” said Chang. “All that is past.”

Moira was pessimistic. “It could start again, according to Eric.”

“Cambridge is rather a long way from China,” remarked Blaine. “Unless your brother has remarkable eyesight, I don’t think he has any idea what’s happening inside the country. Mr. and Mrs. Chang do. They correspond regularly with their family.”

“Things are better now,” insisted Chang.

“I sincerely hope so,” said Legge.

“We even stopped eating our grandmothers.”

The unexpected flash of humor from Chang made everyone laugh and brought a natural end to that passage of conversation. Dillman was relieved. He found any mention of Father Slattery very painful. It had been disturbing enough when he had believed that the priest had been murdered by an unknown enemy. Now that he knew the man was the innocent victim of a grotesque error, the death was even more poignant. Blaine shared his disquiet. Though his face remained impassive, his eyes spoke eloquently to Dillman.

The meal was delicious and passed off without incident. Dillman cast many surreptitious glances around the room, but there was no hint of surveillance. Blaine was not being watched. In fact, the only person who caught his eye was Genevieve Masefield. She gave him such a strange look that Dillman wondered what it meant. He had no opportunity to find out. When the meal was over, Genevieve went out with Fay Brinkley. Dillman lingered over coffee, then rose from his seat with Blaine and the Legges. All four of them headed for the exit. Chatting to the Legges, the detective made sure that he kept an eye on Blaine’s back. When they got outside, Mike Roebuck was waiting, as planned, to intercept Blaine and escort him away. It was all done with such casual ease that nobody would have suspected collusion.

Dillman gave them fifteen minutes before he made his way to the purser’s office. Sipping a cup of coffee, Mike Roebuck was sitting at his desk with the passenger list in front of him. He looked up as his friend entered.

“Is Mr. Blaine safely stowed away?” said Dillman.

“Yes, he likes his new cabin.”

“Let’s hope they don’t find out where it is.”

“Nobody followed us today, George, that’s for sure. How was I?”

“Perfect. You should go on the stage.”

“I already am on it,” said Roebuck. “This job is largely a performance. Unfortunately, I never seem to get any applause at the end of it.”

“You’ll get applause from Mr. Blaine, if everything goes well. And I daresay you might even get a mention in government dispatches.”

“I just want to get him to Japan in one piece.” He stood up. “Any developments?”

“A few. Genevieve has been very industrious.”

“What has she found out?”

“A number of interesting things, Mike. Including the name of one of Gilpatrick’s henchmen. I’ve checked him out on my copy of the passenger list and he seems to have a cabin on the promenade deck.”

“Who is he?”

“Mr. Gault. Thomas Gault.”

Roebuck was surprised. “I didn’t realize that Tommy Gault was aboard.”

“You know him?”

“Of course. He was a useful middleweight in his day. I saw him fight in Seattle once. Tommy was very light on his feet. He packed a good punch as well. He was up against a much taller boxer, but that didn’t seem to hamper him.” He looked down at his own list. “Yes, there he is,” he said, pointing. “Mr. Thomas Gault. I didn’t spot that. When you’ve got over fifteen hundred passengers on the list, you can’t make a note of them all. Especially the Chinese. We must have dozens called Chang. Don’t they have any other names over there?”

“I’ll ask my friend, Mr. Chang,” said Dillman with a grin. “Tell me about Gault.”

“All I know is what I saw in the ring that night and what I read in the sports pages. Tommy Gault had real promise at one time, but I suspect that he may have taken a punch too many. They usually do in the end.”

“What does he look like?”

“Short, thickset, plug-ugly.”

“He’d be easy to pick out, then?”

“Dead easy,” said Roebuck. “Look for his cauliflower ear and
his fighter’s strut. He stands out a mile. Oh, and be careful, George.”

“Why? Is he dangerous?”

“Lethal.”

* * *

The concert began late in the afternoon. When Genevieve arrived, there was no sign of Maxine Gilpatrick, so she took a seat in an empty row near the back. Maxine was still in a temper when she finally appeared.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, Jenny,” she said, sitting down, “but I couldn’t get into the cabin to change. Rance was in there with Joe McDade. He
knew
that I wanted to come to this concert. The worst of it was that I was stuck with Joe’s wife for half an hour. Blanche is a nice enough woman, but she has so little to say for herself. I was glad when she went off to have her afternoon nap. Anyway,” she concluded with a sniff, “when I was finally allowed into the cabin, I had the most terrible rush.”

“You’re here now, that’s the main thing.”

“No thanks to my husband.”

“They’ve got a good audience,” said Genevieve, looking round. “There must be well over a hundred in here.”

“We’ll have twice as many as that,” boasted Maxine. “We’re going to put up posters to advertise it. Maxine Montgomery sings—that’s my stage name, by the way. Piano accompanist—Genevieve Masefield.”

“Where will you get posters from at such short notice?”

“Rance has fixed it. I told you he was good at arranging things.”

“But who’s going to do them?”

“He found this artist, making sketches of people on the deck,” said Maxine airily. “An English guy with one of those fancy double-barreled names.”

Genevieve bridled. “David Seymour-Jones?”

“That’s him. He knows you, apparently.”

“Yes, Maxine.”

“When Rance first asked him, he wasn’t interested at all. He got on his high horse a bit and said that he didn’t do that kind of work. But Rance talked him around,” she said. “When he mentioned your name, this guy suddenly showed an interest.”

“That’s odd,” said Genevieve. “Mr. Seymour-Jones was at my table earlier. He didn’t breathe a word about this.”

“Maybe he wanted it to be a surprise.”

“I’ve had enough surprises from him already.”

Maxine grinned. “Oh, it’s like that, is it?” she said with amusement.

“No, Maxine.”

“This artist is sweet on you. No wonder he was so keen to do some posters. Hey!” she said with mock aggression. “If he puts your name above mine, there’ll be big trouble. I expect top billing.”

“You deserve it,” said Genevieve, anxious to get off the subject. “But I’m sorry that you found Blanche McDade a little disappointing.”

“She was so dull, Jenny. She’s an intelligent woman, I could see that, but she’s never really lived. Oh, you know what I mean,” she said with a nudge. “The woman has no passion in her life.”

“Married to Mr. McDade, I doubt if I would.”

“Nor me,” said Maxine, shaking with laughter. “He’s a human walrus.”

The arrival of the orchestra was greeted by a burst of applause. Maxine controlled her mirth and watched them take their seats. Genevieve was looking forward to the concert until someone suddenly dropped down beside her.

“I
knew
that you’d share my love of music, Miss Masefield,” he said. “Schubert is my favorite composer. I couldn’t possibly miss this afternoon.” He looked across her and waved a hand. “Hello, Mrs. Gilpatrick. It’s lovely to see you again.”

“What are you doing here?” demanded Maxine.

“The same as you, of course, dear lady. I came to enjoy myself.”

Arms folded, Willoughby Kincaid sat back in his chair and purred contentedly.

George Porter Dillman was in luck. When he tracked down Tommy Gault, the man was on the promenade deck, holding his jacket open so that a small boy could pummel away at his stomach. Two other boys were watching the demonstration.

“Go on,” urged Gault, grinning broadly. “Hit me harder.”

“I’m trying,” said the boy.

“Can’t feel a thing.”

The children were taking turns to test their strength against him and he was enjoying every moment of it. Coming down the steps toward him was the ample frame of Rance Gilpatrick. Dillman sidled over to him and nodded toward the others.