The Moonlit Murders: A historical mystery page-turner (A Fen Churche Mystery Book 3) by Fliss Chester (best ereader for pc .txt) 📗

‘Made of sturdier stuff?’ James raised an eyebrow at Fen, who gave him a disparaging shake of the head.

‘It’s not like it gets any easier… finding dead bodies, I mean.’ She paused, thinking of the recent murders she and James had investigated. ‘But I guess I have toughened up a bit. And I…’

‘What is it? James asked.

‘I met him. Here on board the ship and on the dock even before we left. I knew he was German.’

‘You didn’t mention this to me?’ James said, and Fen wondered if his feelings were a touch hurt.

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t really know what to do with the information. Rather inflammatory, don’t you think, to have a German on board? Anyway,’ she paused and looked up at him. ‘It’s not like I was the only one keeping a secret.’

‘Ouch. But I suppose I deserve it.’ James swept a hand through his damp hair, pushing it away from his forehead, before ruffling it back into position again. ‘Any thoughts?’ He slipped back into investigative mode while the captain and crew gestured for them to move away from what was now effectively a crime scene.

‘About who did it? No, not yet. But something’s bothering me about his name, or lack of it.’

‘What do you mean?’ James looked a bit perplexed.

‘I mean, I don’t know what his name is, only that he was German. And in cabin thirteen, which is a few doors down from my own, so therefore it’s in second class and therefore—’

‘He should be listed along with all of us in one of those leaflets we all got in our cabins,’ James finished off Fen’s thought for her.

‘Exactly. And yet when I first realised he was German, I did a quick tally and then compared that to the floor plan at the back of the leaflet and there were exactly the right amount of names for the first- and second-class cabins. And none of them were German.’

‘Meaning he gave, or was given, a false one for the purposes of the voyage?’ James concluded.

‘Yes, but why bother? He barely concealed his accent from me when I bumped into him before we embarked, he even said “Entschuldigung” as if it was the most normal thing in the world for a German chap and an English woman to be buying newspapers together on a French dock!’

James frowned and Fen wondered if he was still hurt by her omission, or if he was merely concentrating. Before she could ask, he spoke again. ‘So, no name listed, or rather a phoney one, if you say the number of cabins tallies with names…’

‘Yes, even after more passengers came on at Southampton. And there was another odd thing…’ Fen thought she better tell James everything about the man, or everything she’d seen and heard, at any rate. ‘It wasn’t only on the dock that I bumped into him. Later on, shortly before dinner that first night, I heard him shouting the same words over and over again. “Ich bin foreign” or something. I’m afraid my German isn’t terribly good, but I don’t know why he’d be shouting “I am foreign”.’

Fen paused to check that James was following her train of thought. His brow was furrowed in thought, so she assumed so. ‘And then he came out of his cabin, right into the corridor, where luckily I was the only person in sight. I mean, anyone could have heard that thick accent of his. And he said something about deserving to die in the sea. It was quite incomprehensible. And not just because he was German.’ Fen sighed and pushed herself away from the cold metal wall she’d been leaning against in the stairwell.

Crew members were strapping the body to a stretcher now, overseen by Bisset, and Fen wondered if he looked entirely shocked by the whole affair.

She lowered her voice to a whisper so she couldn’t be overheard. ‘Bisset was lurking outside cabin thirteen too that night and he told me that he himself had torn down the last swastika in Le Havre. He didn’t say he’d kept it, but…’ She shrugged. ‘But I do know what Arthur would have said in this situation.’

‘If you can’t work out your two across, look at your five down.’ James knew Fen’s mind liked to work as if she was solving a cryptic crossword, a technique her late fiancé had taught her, and one that had served her well over the last couple of months.

‘Quite,’ Fen replied, smiling at the thought of Arthur, his round spectacles on and a copy of the Daily Telegraph crossword in his hand. ‘And at the moment I think my five down, in fact my only down clue, is going to be working out which name he was using.’

‘And if while you’re at it, you could try to find out where anyone, murderer or not, would find a body-sized swastika flag and sort out the mystery of the missing jewels too…’ James winked at her.

‘You never know, James, the Princeton tiara might be my five down instead… I’ll put my thinking cap on.’

‘Thinking tiara.’

‘Very funny, come on.’

With that, the two of them followed the staircase down to the lower decks and Fen bid James goodbye before heading to her cabin for a much-needed hot wash and lie-down under a nice warm blanket.

23

An hour or two later, Fen met up with James again in the dining room. The reassuring noise of cutlery on crockery and the gentle hum of chatter belied the fact that somewhere on this ship was not only a jewel thief but also a murderer.

‘I hate calling him “the German Man” as if he wasn’t a real person,’ Fen mentioned as they discussed the morning’s events. ‘It feels a bit disrespectful.’

‘I agree.’ James loaded up his fork, but spoke before putting it in his mouth. ‘Though we may be the only two on board this ship who think like that. What shall we call