Murder on the Minnesota (24 page)

The fight was over. Realizing that he had picked the wrong man yet again, the assassin took to his heels and fled. Still dazed, Dillman dragged himself to his feet and lumbered out in the passageway. He knew that pursuit was futile. However, two things had been established. The threat to Rutherford Blaine was very serious, but the assassin was definitely not Rance Gilpatrick’s henchman. Dillman’s stomach punch had inflicted pain. It would have had no impact on Tommy Gault. The detective chided himself for coming off worst in the fight, but at least he had shielded Blaine from the attack. As he stumbled to the bathroom to examine his wounds, he consoled himself with the thought that he had landed a solid punch on the man’s face. The bruise would still be there the next day. It was an important clue.

TWELVE

M
axine Gilpatrick's fury had not abated during the night. When she woke up the next morning, she was still as angry at her husband as before. Gilpatrick was not allowed to enjoy his customary lie-in. She shook him until he was roused from his slumbers.

“What’s going on?” he mumbled, blinking in the light.

“I want to speak to you, Rance. Wake up.”

“Why did you shake me like that? I thought there was some kind of emergency.”

“There is,” she declared. “It concerns our marriage.”

He saw the clock beside his bunk. “It’s not even seven yet!”

“Who cares?”

“I do, Maxine. A guy needs his sleep. Get back in your bed.”

“Not until we’ve had this out,” she said, hands on hips. “I’m not going to holler at you as I did last night. I just want you to know how upset I am at what you did. I’ll never forgive you for that.”

“For what?” he asked, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

“Having Jenny watched like that.”

“I thought I had good cause.”

“Well, you didn’t. You acted outrageously.”

“That’s not what happened, honey.”

“No,” she retorted, simmering with rage. “What happened was that, between the two of you, you and Tommy Gault robbed me of the best friend I’ve made since we came onboard. You also lost me my accompanist for the song recital.”

“We’ll find another.”

“I don’t want another. I want Jenny Masefield.”

“Then we talk her around. Let me fix it.”

“That’s the last thing I’m going to do,” she stormed. “You keep well away from Jenny in the future. And if Tommy Gault ever gets within twenty yards of her, I’ll brain him. Keep him away from her or you’ll be sleeping alone in this cabin from now on.”

He was hurt. “What do you mean?”

“Exactly what I say.”

“Look, take it easy,” he soothed. “You’re getting this out of proportion.”

“No, I’m not, Rance. This is how I see it,” she said, folding her arms and glaring her defiance. “Last night, Jenny and I had the best rehearsal so far. It was so good it actually settled her nerves. Before you butted in, we were in a wonderful mood.”

“You had every right to be, Maxine. I heard you sing.”

“Then why couldn’t you just applaud and then take me out of there?”

“Because I came to speak to Miss Masefield.”

“You came to accuse her. I know that look of yours. You thought you’d caught her out and bided your time until you could spring your little surprise on her. Jenny is beautiful, unmarried, and over the age of twenty-one,” she reminded him. “She can invite the entire crew into her cabin if she wishes to—only she doesn’t want Tommy outside the door, counting them as they go in.”

He reached out for her. “Maxine—”

“Don’t touch me!” she said contemptuously, backing away.

“We can sort this out between us.”

“You’ve done enough sorting as it is. What on earth possessed you to have Jenny watched? She’s completely harmless.”

“I wasn’t sure about that.”

“Why not?”

“Oh, little things,” he said impatiently. “You knew I had doubts about her from the start. That’s why I asked you to find out a little more about her.”

“I’m not doing your spying for you, Rance. That’s not my idea of a wifely duty. Besides,” she insisted, “there was nothing to find out.”

“I felt that there was. Especially after that guy Dillman showed up.”

“He’s a friend of hers, that’s all.”

“Then why did she deny it at first?”

“Jenny didn’t. She merely said she didn’t know him all that well.”

“She knew him well enough to invite him into her cabin.”

“Now we know why. Honestly, Rance,” she went on, teeth bared, “I’ve never felt so humiliated in my life. What you did to that woman was appalling. How would you like it if another man was snooping on me?”

“I thought he might be. Indirectly.”

“Who?”

“Nobody,” he said, wanting to terminate the discussion. “Listen, honey, why don’t we get another hour’s sleep, then have breakfast together?”

“I’m not sharing a table with you.”

“What do you mean?”

“You still don’t see why I’m so riled up, do you?”

“Of course I do. I made a mistake and I’m sorry.”

“An apology won’t cover the damage you inflicted last night.”

“Come back to bed.”

“No,” she snarled. “I don’t even want to be in the same room as you!”

“There’s no need to yell. People will hear us in the next cabin.”

“Let them hear us!” she shouted.

“Maxine!”

“I still haven’t got the truth out of you yet. Why did you want me to keep an eye on Jenny in the first place? And what was it about this Mr. Dillman that aroused your suspicions?”

“It doesn’t matter now,” he said wearily.

“I want to know, Rance.”

“Take it easy, will you?”

“And if you say that to me once more, I’ll throw something at you,” she said, grabbing a vase of flowers to prove that it was no idle threat. “I’m your wife, or had you forgotten? Married couples are supposed to share things.”

“Put that vase down.”

“Tell me what I want to know first.”

“Put it down,” he ordered, getting out of bed to snatch it from her. “And stop pushing me. You’re not the only person who can get angry.”

“Don’t threaten me, Rance. I’m still waiting.”

He put the vase back on the table. “You wouldn’t understand, Maxine.”

“I think I’m beginning to understand only too well.”

Gilpatrick turned to look at her. Curbing his anger, he sat on the edge of the bunk with his head in his hands. When he looked up at her again, he made an effort to control himself. He spoke with deliberate slowness.

“Here’s how it looked from where I was standing,” he explained. “No sooner do we get on the ship than Miss Masefield suddenly pops up out of the blue.”

“She was playing the piano. I couldn’t resist singing. That’s how we met. Jenny made no attempt to seek me out, Rance. How could she when she’d never set eyes on me before? Jenny didn’t just pop up. I chose her as a friend.”

“You chose her, but I didn’t. I confided my suspicions to you at the start. Now,” he said, wiping a hand across his mouth,
“a few days later, Mr. Dillman turns up on the boat deck. I don’t know why. He certainly doesn’t have a cabin there. He seemed a pleasant guy and he knew a fair bit about the
Minnesota.
And I admit that I had a good laugh at him when he took a shot at Tommy’s stomach and almost broke his hand. Off he went and I forgot all about him. Until—lo and behold!—he’s seen slipping into Miss Masefield’s cabin.”

“By the man you stationed outside.”

“I thought I might learn something.”

“Why?”

“I told you before. I wanted to know what her game was.”

“Jenny is a passenger. She has no game.”

“It looked funny to me. Her and Dillman getting together like that.”

“What did you think the pair of them were doing?”

“Comparing notes about me.”

Maxine bit back a reply. Her rage was slowly replaced by a feeling of disquiet.

“Is something going on, Rance?” she asked.

“No, honey.”

“You’re up to your old tricks, aren’t you?”

“Of course not.”

“You swore to me that this was a kind of honeymoon. There might be a little business involved, you said, but it wouldn’t get in the way. Well, so far it’s been all business and no honeymoon,” she said, advancing on him. “Do you know what I think, Rance Gilpatrick? I don’t believe you wanted me here as your wife at all.”

“I did, Maxine. I love you.”

“You just needed a decoy, didn’t you?”

“No!”

“What are you up to this time?”

“Some minor transactions, that’s all.”

“Was that why I was locked out of my own cabin yesterday?” she said with heavy sarcasm. “So that you and the bellowing Joe McDade could discuss a minor transaction?”

“You get the benefit in the long run.”

“I’m more concerned with the short run, and there are very few benefits in that.”

“Maxine,” he protested. “I’ve done everything you wanted.”

“Like insulting my friend and making her pull out of the concert?”

“Who arranged the concert in the first place?”

“You did,” she conceded.

“And who fixed it so that you can use the orchestra’s piano?”

“You did.”

“Then there were the posters I commissioned.”

“Don’t mention those,” she snapped. “Why didn’t you discuss it with us before you hire some guy you know nothing about? This David Seymour-Jones may be a terrific artist, but he also happens to be the one man on the ship that Jenny can’t bear.”

“That’s not my fault.”

“It’s all your fault,” she said, crossing to the bathroom and pausing in the doorway. “Now, I want you out of here when I get dressed. Is that understood?”

He was shaken. “No, it isn’t.”

“I’m not stripping off while you’re in the bedroom.”

“But I’m your husband.”

“No, Rance,” she said pointedly. “You’re still the same cheap crook you were when I first met you. I thought you’d changed. Now you have money, I thought you didn’t need to sail so close to the wind. But you do and you always will. I don’t know what’s going on this time, but I want no part of it.”

“Maxine,” he said, crossing to her with outstretched hands.

“Keep away from me.”

“Listen,” he said, searching for ways to appease her. “I’ll make it up to you. I’ll fix it so we dine at the captain’s table today. I’ll have flowers sent to Miss Masefield as an apology. I’ll even swallow my pride and beg her to play that piano for you. Just tell me what I can do, honey, and I swear I’ll do it.”

“Then get lost!” she said.

Disappearing into the bathroom, she slammed the door in his face.

When the purser called on him, Dillman was still in his dressing gown. Mike Roebuck noticed the bruising on his temple and frowned with concern.

“Did he come, George?”

“Yes,” said Dillman. “He came and went.”

“What happened?”

“His jujitsu was more effective than my boxing skills.”

“Tell me all.”

Dillman gave him an account of events during the night, admitting freely that his adversary was too elusive for him. The frown on the purser’s face deepened.

“Why didn’t you come straight to me to report it?” he asked.

“What was the point of that, Mike?”

“I could have started a search.”

“Where? By the time you’d rustled up some men, he’d have gone to ground somewhere. On a ship this size, there must be thousands of hiding places. It would’ve been a complete waste of time.”

“The guy tried to kill you.”

“Unsuccessfully.”

“But he might have come back for a second crack.”

“No chance of that,” said Dillman proudly. “I gave him too warm a welcome. In any case, he’s after Mr. Blaine and not me. I don’t think it took him too long to realize that I couldn’t possibly be Mr. Blaine. That’s why he ran away.”

“I think
I’d
run away if you pounced on me.”

“I failed, Mike. I set the trap and he walked straight into it. Then he escaped.”

“I did tell you to have someone else in here with you.”

Dillman smiled. “I never share a bedroom with another man.”

“Not even if he might save your life?”

“I saved it myself last night. And I landed a hefty punch on his face.”

“So?”

“All we need to do is to look for a passenger with a black eye.”

“If only it was that easy,” said Roebuck with a pessimistic grin, “but we can hardly ask fifteen hundred people to queue up so that you can examine their faces. Besides, he might have been a member of the crew. That gives you another two hundred and fifty to get around, and you’ll have real problems there.”

“Problems?”

“I was thinking of the stokers.”

“Yes,” said Dillman. “I see what you mean.”

“Passions run high down there, George. When you spend your whole day shoveling coal into a furnace, you don’t have time for the social niceties. Tempers are short. Arguments start. Fights develop. You’ll probably find half a dozen black eyes among the stokers.”

“I still think it could be a lead.”

“Only if your attacker ventures out into the light of day.”

“He can’t hide away forever.”

“All he has to do is to wait until the black eye fades.”

“I’ll find him,” asserted Dillman.

“Not by putting your own life on the line, George. I’m pulling rank on you. If you want to try this again, you share the cabin with a man or a gun or, preferably, both.” He looked around. “Not that there’s any chance of him coming here again. He’ll try to find out where Mr. Blaine is sleeping.”

“Don’t tell Mr. Blaine about this, will you?”

“I wasn’t going to,” said the purser. “He has enough on his mind as it is.”

“That’s true. Say that nobody showed up.”

“How will you explain that bruise on your temple?”

“I banged my head accidentally, didn’t I?”

“With a little help from someone else.”

“Mr. Blaine needn’t know that. Anyway,” said Dillman cheerily, “I’m glad you called, Mike. It’s not all bad news. I had a productive visit to the boat deck last night.”

“Did you get into Gilpatrick’s cabin?”

“And into Mr. Hayashi’s.”

The purser listened to his report and nodded his approval of the find.

“We had the feeling that it might be guns of some sort,” he said.

“Gilpatrick gets the silk, Hayashi gets the weapons.”

“We’ll need more evidence than a few catalogs.”

“Don’t forget that letter heading I copied in Hayashi’s cabin.”

“That might turn out to be useless, George. Give me something more solid.”

“Then you’ll have to trust my judgment.”

“In what way?”

“I’m going to need the keys to the orlop deck again,” said Dillman. “And I want to take you with me next time I go down there. That’s where we’ll get hard evidence.”

“We can’t go breaking into sealed cargo.”

“It’s the only way.”

“The skipper won’t sanction that without an extremely good reason.”

“Then I’ll provide it,” affirmed Dillman. “The contraband must be hidden down there somewhere. I’ll tell you this, Mike. You won’t find any guns in Gilpatrick’s wardrobe. There’s no room. His wife has filled it to the brim with her dresses.”