It's Murder, On a Galapagos Cruise: An Amateur Female Sleuth Historical Cozy Mystery (Miss Riddell C by P.C. James (the best ebook reader for android TXT) 📗

“‘May be hot’ the excursion guide said,” Freda grumbled, as the bushes crowded in on them, blocking even the merest hint of a breeze they’d enjoyed on the beach. “This isn’t hot, it’s baking.”

“When you live in England,” Pauline said, “everywhere else on the planet seems hot.”

“Not Norway,” Freda replied. “Keith and I went there five years ago in August. It was like our October, so cold and wet.”

“That’s probably why the Vikings left,” Pauline said as she made her way carefully across the ridged volcanic rock. “Some of the older folk are going to struggle here,” she said, staring at the trail ahead of them.

“Most of the older people are on the shorter hike.”

“You said Betty was. That would please Rod.” Pauline grinned at the thought of the grim, taciturn Rod assisting his wife over these broken boulders and razor-sharp ripples of solidified lava.

They followed the guide and listened with half their attention as he told them the seahorse-shaped island was actually five volcano cones that had merged together to form a single island. He said the volcanoes were still considered to be active and they all laughed politely when he suggested one may erupt today and bring additional excitement to their visit.

The walk took them among deep pools fringed by brilliant green vegetation, so different to the ‘colonist’ plants on the newly formed Fernandina. Finches flitted among the bushes and cameras clicked and whirred as the keenest members of the party tried to get that great photo to show their friends and neighbors the amazing sights they’d seen. Pauline, whose opinion of the utterly nondescript birds wasn’t high, couldn’t help thinking the friends and neighbors would likely be unimpressed.

The afternoon was to be another long hike at a more southerly part of the island. When they’d planned this trip, she and Freda had agreed that it would be great having all day off the ship, walking among the flora and fauna of the most unusual islands known to man. Now Pauline was wishing she’d planned to stay onboard and read a book. This first hike felt like more than enough to satisfy her needs.

The walk, however, did have something to interest Pauline. Set back from the shoreline, which, according to their guide, had been raised more than twelve feet by an earthquake back in 1954 was the remains of a coral reef, now marooned inland. For the first time, Pauline got a sense of just how unstable these islands were and how precarious was the existence of their birds and animals.

The hike, too, got better as the morning wore on. Because the older and slower people had chosen the optional excursion, this hike kept a good pace that felt exhilarating after trailing around at the speed of giant tortoises as they’d done the day before. It also brought her into contact with Ruth and Isaac for the first time away from the other dinner guests.

“Hello,” Pauline said, “are you enjoying this fast hike too? I’m pleased to be moving again instead of dawdling along.”

“We are indeed enjoying it,” Isaac said. “We’re working people, so a vacation is something strange for us and today feels more natural.”

Pauline nodded. She could see both of them working in the fields. They had the stocky, strong frames of farmers.

“Can I ask you about the night of the accident?”

“It will make a change from questions about whether we’ve lost our faith now we’ve seen the light of Darwinism,” Isaac said, with again that hint of humor she’d seen so often in him when answering impertinent questions about their beliefs.

“I imagine,” Pauline said. “You left the lounge after dinner so you might have heard or seen something in the quiet of the outside. Did you?”

Ruth said simply, “No.”

Isaac added, “We have thought about this, and repeatedly walked through that evening in our minds. We were outside. The evening was so beautiful but then it grew dark and the wind was cold. We returned to our cabin to read. Everything we saw made sense then and still does. We saw officers on the bridge and heard people talking in normal voices, not raised in argument. The voices we heard, we didn’t recognize.”

“That’s disappointing,” Pauline said. “Do you remember what time it was when you left the dinner table or arrived in your cabin?”

“Not really,” Ruth said. “Time doesn’t mean as much to us as it seems to mean to you folk.”

“It’s true. We’re obsessed with it, aren’t we?”

“As with so much else we find puzzling,” Isaac said. “Do any of these things you all crave and pine for make any of you happy?”

“Now, you’re teasing me,” Pauline said. “I’m sure you know the answer as well as I do. But I think it’s as the American Constitution says, it’s the ‘pursuit of happiness’ and not the ‘achieving happiness’ that makes all our lives meaningful.”

Isaac smiled. “We don’t have much to do with the U.S. or any other national constitution, but it does describe life correctly – the pursuit of happiness. It’s how people pursue it that differs, I guess.”

Pauline was about to reply in kind, when she stopped. “You said people talking in normal voices. Can you say more about that?”

“What is there to say? There seemed to be people outside on the decks, maybe balconies, talking. They didn’t sound angry or frightened.”

“Were they speaking English or Spanish?”

“English.”

“Did they have an accent?”

“Everyone has an accent,” Isaac said, “and all of your accents sound strange to us. But if what you’re asking is ‘were they crew members’, I think the answer is no. They were passengers.”

“Men or women?”

“Men,” Ruth said.

“Two or more?”

“There were two groups of men, I think,” Isaac said, looking to Ruth for confirmation. She nodded.

“More than two in each group do you think?”

“Possibly but probably just two pairs of men, outside smoking and talking,” Isaac said.

“You were on the lounge deck. Were they out of sight on the same deck or above, on upper decks?”

“One group was above us on an upper deck.