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

‘I mean, in simple terms, what happened last night? As far as you remember. Timings and whatnot.’

‘Well, I retired to the cabin after supper, that would be by about ten. I undressed,’ Mrs Archer said the word as if it were improper to repeat it in company, ‘and took off my tiara, placing it in its red box. I think I pulled off the earrings and bracelets too – yes, that was right, before I could take my white gloves off…’

Fen had remembered thinking how glamorous and positively Edwardian Mrs Archer had looked the night before, with her long white evening gloves, with rings and bracelets placed over the top of them. She had reminded her of Queen Mary, the queen mother, in those photographs from official engagements, festooned in diamonds in the form of necklaces, earrings, brooches and, more often than not, a sparkling tiara.

Mrs Archer finished telling them how she had then put all the jewellery into the red Cartier box and placed it in the bottom of her cabin’s wardrobe.

‘And I returned to my cabin at eleven – isn’t that about the time we all came back from Genie’s, Fen?’ Eloise had taken over the storytelling.

‘Yes, that’s right.’ Fen smiled at the memory of seeing elegant Eloise dressed up in one of Genie’s boas and covered in make-up, flouncing out of the cabin door having said an elaborate goodnight. They had joked that a drunk Spencer might see her on his way back from the bar and think his lady love had come to find him!

‘I was asleep by then, niece, as I didn’t hear you come in. And then the next thing I knew it was morning and they were gone!’ Mrs Archer finished her testimony.

‘And was there any sign of a break-in? Assuming you locked the door to your cabin?’

For this, Fen received a very dirty look from Mrs Archer.

‘Of course I had locked the door. Not between our rooms, naturally,’ she turned her glare to Eloise and the younger woman blushed.

‘I have to admit that I, in my tipsiness, may have forgotten to lock mine…’

‘Oh dear,’ Fen said. ‘So there’s an opportunity for someone to get between the rooms and past two sleeping women. It could be anyone then?’

‘Except Johnstone, it seems,’ Eloise said. ‘And you of course, Lord Selham.’

‘James, please.’

‘But just about anyone else…’ Fen mused. ‘It’s a good thing we have three days till we reach New York, that’s all I can say.’

24

That evening, the mood in the saloon bar and dining room was sombre. News of a body being found in a lifeboat had spread and for those who knew that he was German, there was much in the way of gossip and speculation.

Fen sat in the saloon bar sipping a small sherry, just the thing, she thought, to help nip out the cold that was settling in her bones after the morning hunt for the jewels had ended with her tussling with tar-covered ropes and canvases up on the lifeboat deck. A small sherry never hurt anyone after all, not like that horrible large knife that stuck in her mind every time she closed her eyes. Its glint in her torch beam and the ragged slash of the black swastika was a hard image to shift.

She took another sip of her drink and, as she waited for James to join her, she caught snippets of conversation from the other passengers. They say he was a top-ranking Nazi… No, I heard he was an academic… How did he get on board without anyone knowing?…

Fen thought back to when the German had surprised her outside his cabin. What had he said then? ‘Perhaps I deserve to die…’ Maybe the loose tongues and on-board gossips weren’t far from the truth and he had been something in the Nazi party, and his conscience was finally catching up with him? And, more worryingly, someone had caught up with him. Fen felt bad making a judgement on the man she barely knew, a man who may well have been a harmless academic or shopkeeper or who knows what? The flag wrapped around his body suggested otherwise though.

She finished her sherry rather more quickly than was perhaps ladylike, but told herself that the alcohol had a medicinal quality to it tonight. She was also relieved when James pushed open the door to the saloon from the deck and she waved at him, beckoning him over.

‘Not with Eloise?’ he asked mischievously, knowing full well that Fen remained guilty, in Mrs Archer’s mind, of some sort of dereliction of duty on that front.

‘There was no sign of her when I called at her cabin earlier.’ Fen almost added a more sarcastic ‘actually’, but she knew James had only been teasing her. ‘I thought I’d better do my duty and ask her to join me here now… well, I say duty, I mean it’s no hardship is it really, having a nice chinwag with someone.’

James nodded and then picked up her empty glass. ‘Another one before dinner?’

‘Why not?’ she agreed. ‘Keeps the chill out, and I’m still feeling rather shivery from standing out in the rain for so long today.’

‘I’m frogmarching you to Fifth Avenue when we get to New York,’ James said as he got up from the table. ‘You won’t need coupons there for a proper winter coat.’

Fen sighed and shrugged. He was right. Although, coupons aside, and despite having her passage paid for her, her pocketbook wasn’t looking terribly full and she subconsciously tugged her new cotton evening dress down. I should have gone for the woollen one, she chastised herself, as I don’t think one should rely on sherry for all of one’s warmth.

James came back from the bar with her drink and a tumbler full of what looked like Scotch for himself. ‘Barman says the captain’s getting very upset with all this speculation about Albert.’

‘I’ve heard about forty theories walk past me in the time I’ve been sitting here,’ Fen acknowledged, and then stood