amended further. “Or Third.”
“This purser is an old hand. He’d have asked the stewards before he put it before the passengers.”
“It might help if we had a photograph.”
Obligingly, he removed an envelope from his breast pocket.
I took it. “What else did you find? Or, not find, for that matter?”
“Wallet, passport, money, an expensive wrist-watch, all there. She’d used her fountain pen quite recently, since it was on the top of her handbag’s contents. No journal or stationery, other than a box of paper in the trunk beneath her bunk. But, no key.”
“You mean, to the trunk?”
“I mean, to her cabin door.”
Interesting.
The envelope contained four snapshots, all taken in India. Only one face appeared in all four, a tall, thin, tentative-looking woman in her thirties with a modern haircut and friendly eyes.
I studied the face: she smiled like someone coming back to life after a long illness, not fully trusting her health. Her clothing did not look new, unlike the modern cut of her hair. I wondered which of her friends had talked her into that exaggeratedly sharp cut. Possibly the one whose blonde hair had a similar shape? Hmm. I’d seen that head before, though not from the front. Where …?
I suddenly had it. “She was onboard, when we cast off. I saw her in that crowd about fifty feet down the railings from us. As the gangway came in, she turned to go inside.”
Holmes thought for a moment, recalling the sequence. “As we cast off? Or as Lord and Lady Darley passed beneath us?”
The earl’s hands had come up, removing his hat, smoothing his hair. Revealing his face.
My eyes came up to meet his. “What, so this woman recognised him and panicked? Why?”
“We know his methods.”
“You’re suggesting that Darley was blackmailing Miss Roland? Ten years ago?”
“Few criminals reform without reason. Darley was never even accused.”
“You think he’s still active? More than that—you think he’s moved on from merely providing information to active blackmail.”
“I think it a possibility.”
“But that it was a coincidence that she found herself on the same ship with him?”
“That remains to be seen.” Holmes did not readily concede to chance.
“And she was trapped because the ship cast off the instant Darley came on.”
“Yes.”
“If she’s not hiding out in her room, for fear that he knows she’s here, then she’s hiding somewhere else. Ships are big. And she only needs to stay out of his way until we reach Colombo. She’d probably figure that her things would be taken off there, too.”
“That is one possibility.”
“You have a more likely one?”
“She lay on her bunk waiting for the dark, then stepped overboard.”
“What? Holmes, I …” I stopped, considering my words. “Holmes, not everyone commits suicide when threatened with exposure.”
He pushed aside what I was saying for an earlier concern. “Say it was a coincidence. Would she have believed it? Blackmail oozes into every corner of the victim’s life, colours every surface, weaves a thread of terror through every innocent happenstance. Those photographs were taken over a period of three or four weeks. They show her progress from a haunted creature unable to eat to a young woman with a new haircut and a tentative interest in makeup. She’s gained several pounds, despite it being the tropics.”
I fanned out the pictures, arranging them in the sequence he had in mind, then reversed them. “They could as well go the other way around.” He jabbed an impatient finger at the one with the healthiest-looking woman, standing in a marketplace. “Russell: the background. What fruit is that?”
Mangoes. Which had only just begun to appear our last week in the city. “All right, let’s go with your theory. Was Darley in fact following her?”
“Much as I dislike the idea of coincidence, blackmailers do not generally hound victims to their deaths.”
“What if it wasn’t
“This purser is an old hand. He’d have asked the stewards before he put it before the passengers.”
“It might help if we had a photograph.”
Obligingly, he removed an envelope from his breast pocket.
I took it. “What else did you find? Or, not find, for that matter?”
“Wallet, passport, money, an expensive wrist-watch, all there. She’d used her fountain pen quite recently, since it was on the top of her handbag’s contents. No journal or stationery, other than a box of paper in the trunk beneath her bunk. But, no key.”
“You mean, to the trunk?”
“I mean, to her cabin door.”
Interesting.
The envelope contained four snapshots, all taken in India. Only one face appeared in all four, a tall, thin, tentative-looking woman in her thirties with a modern haircut and friendly eyes.
I studied the face: she smiled like someone coming back to life after a long illness, not fully trusting her health. Her clothing did not look new, unlike the modern cut of her hair. I wondered which of her friends had talked her into that exaggeratedly sharp cut. Possibly the one whose blonde hair had a similar shape? Hmm. I’d seen that head before, though not from the front. Where …?
I suddenly had it. “She was onboard, when we cast off. I saw her in that crowd about fifty feet down the railings from us. As the gangway came in, she turned to go inside.”
Holmes thought for a moment, recalling the sequence. “As we cast off? Or as Lord and Lady Darley passed beneath us?”
The earl’s hands had come up, removing his hat, smoothing his hair. Revealing his face.
My eyes came up to meet his. “What, so this woman recognised him and panicked? Why?”
“We know his methods.”
“You’re suggesting that Darley was blackmailing Miss Roland? Ten years ago?”
“Few criminals reform without reason. Darley was never even accused.”
“You think he’s still active? More than that—you think he’s moved on from merely providing information to active blackmail.”
“I think it a possibility.”
“But that it was a coincidence that she found herself on the same ship with him?”
“That remains to be seen.” Holmes did not readily concede to chance.
“And she was trapped because the ship cast off the instant Darley came on.”
“Yes.”
“If she’s not hiding out in her room, for fear that he knows she’s here, then she’s hiding somewhere else. Ships are big. And she only needs to stay out of his way until we reach Colombo. She’d probably figure that her things would be taken off there, too.”
“That is one possibility.”
“You have a more likely one?”
“She lay on her bunk waiting for the dark, then stepped overboard.”
“What? Holmes, I …” I stopped, considering my words. “Holmes, not everyone commits suicide when threatened with exposure.”
He pushed aside what I was saying for an earlier concern. “Say it was a coincidence. Would she have believed it? Blackmail oozes into every corner of the victim’s life, colours every surface, weaves a thread of terror through every innocent happenstance. Those photographs were taken over a period of three or four weeks. They show her progress from a haunted creature unable to eat to a young woman with a new haircut and a tentative interest in makeup. She’s gained several pounds, despite it being the tropics.”
I fanned out the pictures, arranging them in the sequence he had in mind, then reversed them. “They could as well go the other way around.” He jabbed an impatient finger at the one with the healthiest-looking woman, standing in a marketplace. “Russell: the background. What fruit is that?”
Mangoes. Which had only just begun to appear our last week in the city. “All right, let’s go with your theory. Was Darley in fact following her?”
“Much as I dislike the idea of coincidence, blackmailers do not generally hound victims to their deaths.”
“What if it wasn’t
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