The Pleasure Cruise Mystery (2 page)

“Algernon, my old wimple, listen to this blurb; it's inimitable; a second-rate publisher couldn't do better: ‘Each state room on the “Mars,” the
dernier mot
in sumptuous luxury, is fitted with every modern convenience that can appeal to the man or woman of culture and refinement, from electric fans and radiators'—er, well, you wouldn't need the last.”

“Need what last?” asked Vereker drearily.

“Electric curling irons,” replied Ricardo, glancing at his friend's thin fair hair and laughing boisterously.

“Ricky, I really can't descend to your depths of humour at the moment. You're becoming more infantile every day.”

“I'm sorry you're not
en rapport
. As I've warned you before, you'll have to give up this itch for painting. Painting's a degrading vice. Once you become an addict you're no longer fit for human company. You neglect your fellow men to hobnob with landscapes, you make bosom pals with still life and other inanimate objects, you have unblushing intimacy, only visual to be precise, with repulsive nudes! There's only one thing more debasing than Art, and that's Art criticism.”

“Even Art criticism couldn't be worse than your last serial, Ricky.
The Cost of Loving
I think you called it.”

“It went a long way to meet the cost of living, Algernon. It served its purpose. Painting—I mean your painting—serves no purpose at all. It's merely an exasperating excrescence on your mental life. Since the critics slated your last atrocity you've been unfit to live with. If I could afford it I'd leave your hospitable flat at some distant future date and seek sanctuary in a common lodging-house. You'll end in acute melancholia.”

“And you suggest a pleasure cruise, Ricky. The very epithet ‘pleasure' makes me recoil!”

“What better antidote to the poison of paint, Algernon?” asked Ricardo and, opening out the folder, continued: “Listen to this. ‘A holiday cruise in luxurious comfort. You visit lands of sunshine, mystery and romance. Dances, carnivals, fancy-dress balls, bathing pool, gymnasium, deck sports…' You see, Algernon, there's everything for geniuses like you and me who seek relaxation from the rigour of the Ideal!”

“Um!” grunted Vereker.

“Wait; the best is still to come. ‘A carefully selected supply of wines, spirits, tobacco and cigars at moderate prices. Bar open from 7 a.m. till 12 p.m.' Try to realise that. It meets the best of thirsts with a British sense of fair play. A barber's shop too! ‘Scalp massage one and sixpence. Chiropody from three shillings and sixpence.' Inexpensive peace for tortured tootsies! ‘Cheques cannot be accepted.' That's the only snag so far, and sounds like a pub on shore. ‘Deck chairs free; rugs five bob. Further details from the purser or…'”

“I don't want any further details, Ricky.”

“I'm glad you've decided to come.”

“I don't know, I don't know,” said Vereker reflectively and after a pause; “it might be an escape from life, though carnivals, dances, fancy-dress balls, deck sports sound rather painful.”

“Listen once more, Algernon,” said Ricardo, turning to the illustrated folder. “This I think's the sublime, the irresistible appeal: ‘You meet people of culture and refinement, people with good taste and
savoir vivre
. You make new friends, you enter at once into a charming social life…'”

“Good Lord deliver us!” exclaimed Vereker.

“Don't fall back on the Lord in your present state of mind, Algernon; it's cowardly. For a man like yourself, disgustingly bourgeois, what you need is a few delightful weeks with the right kind of people, people with
savoir vivre
and all that. No use sticking your nose into a palette of colours and thinking you're kissing the skirts of the shy goddess of Beauty. It's high time you learned that she's always just out of mortal reach. Now on board the ‘Mars' you'll be having a high old time in a new low way. Not a moment to think—thinking's a disease, anyway. As you walk briskly round the promenade deck imagining yourself a sea rover—Vereker the Viking—you'll regain physical health. You'll be a healthy animal in a week. Didn't my old friend Epicurus say that animals were the mirrors of Nature. Algernon, you'll go about looking like a cheval glass. Then there are beds instead of bunks, enchanting diddler machines, the ship's Lido or bathing pool, with alluring women unabashedly undressed, bridge parties, violent flirtations with a fortunate time limit to avoid the distress of love, dancing and dining and wining and a two bob deposit on a book to prevent you reading rubbish…”

“Ricky, you almost persuade me to be a Christian.”

“Thanks for the interruption; I was out of breath. Now I've got my second wind I'll be serious. Your concentration and bad luck in the Armadale murder took it out of you. Inspector Heather won in a common canter while you were nibbling grass somewhere near the starting post. Your one-man-show of pictures that followed demoralised you. You must get back to mere living. It's terribly difficult but not impossible. I'm suggesting to you the easiest and quickest way back—a cruise on the ‘Mars' with me as your inseparable companion. You'll be immersed in the joyous inanities of a charming social life, while around you, just to remind you of reality, will be the terrible beauty of the sea, vast, restless, indifferent, but profoundly disturbing at times. Every now and then you'll experience an inexpressible thrill when her cruel grandeur pokes a mischievous finger into the cosy mental tent of your self-satisfaction. Momentarily she will take you by the collar of your dress shirt and haul you roughly into the presence of the Unintelligible Infinite—nearly as disrupting as being hauled before your C.O. for appearing dirty on parade. I've done my rhetorical damnedest—are you coming on this bally cruise or not?”

“You're going, of course?”

“Indubitably. I'm writing up a little brochure for the Green Star Company to cover the cost of my fare. You can lend me the rest. It's a bit of a literary descent from the
Cost of Loving
, but I must stoop to conquer the present adverse state of my financial world. Like my namesake I'm an economist!”

“I've half a mind to accompany you, Ricky.”

“You never had more than half a mind in any case, so the matter's settled, Algernon. Now what about a
soupçon
of lunch? Your sherry's a great appetiser. You'll have to order some more shortly.”

“Your presence in my flat's a constant reminder, Ricky. Shall we go round to our old friend Jacques?”

“Anywhere for lunch, my dear Apelles, except a modern drapery store. Being persons of refinement and culture about to enter the charming social life of the ‘Mars' on a footing of equality, we must adhere strictly to our social code. No civilised being could sip a choice wine with
brassières
at four eleven three in the offing. It simply isn't done.”

“When does this pleasure cruise start, Ricky?”

“The ‘Mars' leaves the Thames on Monday, March the 26th, a week hence. Lean on me. I know young Wheble up at the Green Star's offices. His guv'nor is one of the directors. He'll wangle us the nicest berths and get us a seat at the captain's table. I've met the latter—I mean the captain, not his table—before. Bluff old mariner who keeps up the proud traditions of the British Mercantile Marine and all that sort of bravura, so we'll have our knobs well in as they used to say in the Army when I was a corporal in the H.A.C. without ‘a marshal's baton in my kit-bag!”

“But, Ricky, what's this going to cost us?”

“Cost us? Cost you, you mean. We can compute that better on our return, Algernon. When you, I mean we, were busy unravelling the Bygrave case, you promised to take me afterwards to Provence. Fond of romaunts, I was eager to join you as a troubadour, but you dashed off in the scented wake of that provoking jade, Ida Wister, and left me in the lurch, alone in London. I always thought you were a man of principle...”

“The man who acts on principle instead of being guided by intelligence is a fool, Ricky.”

“Then I was right, Algernon. On principle you're going to redeem your debt to me. After lunch I'll run up to the Green Star's offices and put the matter on an irrevocable footing. Before lunch what about another spot of your old golden Sherry?”

“Not for me, thanks, Ricky.”

“Being guided by intelligence, I'll wait till we reach Jacques'; your bottle's empty. Shake yourself and we'll beat it, Algernon. I'm famished. There's no time to lose. Some time this afternoon I must root out Aubrey Winter. He'll be able to lend me deck shoes, a tropical kit and a decent dinner jacket—in fact he'll think it almost an honour.”

“Aubrey's a charming fool,” replied Vereker quietly.

The luxury liner “Mars” lay with her bow up-river and her stern to the incoming tide. Punctually at twelve o'clock the ship's siren blew a warning blast for departure; friends of those about to start on the well-advertised cruise hurried down the gangway and waved spasmodic farewells from the quay to the ranks of happy, excited travellers lined along the taffrails of the upper decks of the ship. Two fussy tugs tackled the monster, pulling her stern towards mid-river and swinging her nose round to the wharf. In a few minutes, with almost off-hand efficiency, the “Mars” was under way, breasting a light wind and the lazily rolling river. Gradually she drew into the widening estuary of the Thames, and the receding banks became flat bluish-grey stretches dotted with clumps of elms and touched here and there with the lighter coloured splashes of farms and dwellings. Anthony Vereker and Manuel Ricardo stood leaning over the rails of the upper promenade deck, gazing at a determined tug plugging up-river with oil barges in her wake, her black and scarlet prow nosing into a bouquet of snowy spume.

“It's the first time I've realised the truth and beauty of Walcot's Thames etchings, Ricky,” said Vereker.

“Hang Walcot's etchings, Algernon! Have you noticed the high standard of good looks aboard? Hollywood afloat but not on its own conceit. There's one dark-looking Argentine maid with eyes, large, Latin, lustrous. I'd like her for keeps. I scent romance, Algernon.”

“Ricky, my boy, when will you learn that a woman is seldom romantic. She hasn't time for imagination; she's always too busy trying to make a man practical. You'll be horribly disappointed. By the way, did you see her mother?”

“Oh, yes, the old wisp with onyx eyes and saffron skin. Looks like a compendium of all the vices bound in crepe rubber. I shall have to snooker her. What do you think of our cabins?”

“I'm glad you got them on this top deck. We're not quite in the thick of the refinement and culture. If we run into rough weather I dare say we'll get too much motion.”

“They're O.K. even in rough weather. I never mind being rocked in a Ritz of the deep, but I bar cradles. Have you seen your next-door neighbour?”

“Just a glimpse. She was going to emerge from her cabin as I was entering mine, but on seeing me changed her mind and quickly closed her door. Her action rather puzzled me.”

“Easily explained, Algernon; her complexion was temporarily dismantled. If you're searching for mysteries you needn't look further than a woman's nose. Was she pretty?”

“I saw her for an instant only.”

“Beauty is always instantaneous: character requires a time exposure.”

“You mean a bad character,” corrected Vereker with a slight twitch at the corners of his mouth.

“
Bien touchế
, Algernon; almost up to my standard of brilliant flippancy.”

“I suppose flippancy's the name you give to other people's wit, Ricky?”

“Only when I'm reviewing a smart book. Wholesome deflation so to speak. But to return to the lady, was she dark or fair?”

“Fair and English I should say.”

“But her name's Mesado.”

“How on earth did you discover that?”

“Natural inquisitiveness; my birthright as a journalist. I read the label on a monstrous cabin trunk that was left for a few moments in the corridor outside her state room.”

“'Pon my soul, Ricky, what will you poke your nose into next?”

“Anything but a bad smell, Algernon. What makes you think she's English?”

“She wears brogues, a signet ring on her left hand, smokes Players and says ‘damn' deliciously.”

“Did she damn you when she was about to come out of her cabin?”

“I flattered myself that she was impersonal; she was cursing circumstance.”

“She probably thought you weren't worth a damn or looked suspiciously like circumstance. You seem to have gathered a lot of information in a ‘palpebral flicker' as we used to say when we were young enough to think it funny.”

“Observation's one of my confirmed habits, as you know. I caught a glimpse of a beautiful left hand holding a fifty box of Players fags, a neat left foot, the line of hip and thigh encased in check tweed, but her face disappeared behind the door before I saw more than a flash of nicely waved fair hair. As I said before, her action puzzled me; it was so unnecessary. I wasn't unduly inquisitive.”

“A grave fault in your attitude to a pretty woman, Algernon. She's out to rouse your curiosity, of course.”

“Then why did she mutter a faint damn? It was a clear indication of annoyance.”

“Simulated hostility is the oldest gambit in the game of intrigue. Immediately a woman begins to make you think you're a nuisance she has definitely removed your apathy. You've acquired momentum. You will either run away from her or bally well run after her. If she's beautiful the deduction's obvious. Even if you run away she prefers that to your being static. You've proved to her that she's significant. There's nothing the feminine gender hates more than to be thought neuter.”