《The Unfortunate Moth》


 Prologue

    The puzzle of why most people, even intelligent people, were so illogical and pig-headed was one to which Poirot had devoted quite enough consideration while lying awake the previous night... ¡ª Sophie Hannah, The Mystery of Three Quarters


    A house on the shore of Lough Erne


    Near Enniskillen


    12 May, 19¡ª


    Mrs. Rachael was yelling again. Nothing unusual there. Nellie would have been more surprised if the house had been quiet. Miss Octavia always had a bad effect on Mrs. Rachael''s temper. Nellie didn''t know what the latest fight was about. Probably Miss Octavia''s new hairdo.


    Nellie continued clearing away the breakfast dishes. The gardener strolled past the sitting room window pushing a wheelbarrow. A small boat appeared from behind one of the islands out in the lough, then disappeared from view behind the trees at the bottom of the garden. In the background Mrs. Rachael continued yelling, the only discordant note in what was otherwise a perfectly nice morning at Langdale Manor.


    Occasionally her flow of words was interrupted when Miss Octavia was finally able to get a word in edgewise. Nellie couldn''t hear what they were saying, but knowing George the footman he was outside the study door listening to every word. He''d relay all of it in the servant''s hall later.


    A shadow suddenly fell over the table. A shape, silhouetted against the brightness outside and with a head shaped like a saucer, pushed the window open and climbed through. Nellie yelped and upset the sugar bowl. For a moment all of the cook''s wild stories about ghosts and monsters came back to her. Then she calmed down and forced an embarrassed smile, because it was only Miss Ophelia. What she''d thought was a bizarrely-shaped head was only the brim of Miss Ophelia''s hat.


    "Breakfast''s over, miss," she said, politely pretending there was nothing unusual about her employer''s niece climbing through windows. "But I can get you toast and a cup of tea if you want."


    "No need," Miss Ophelia said, closing the window behind her. She winced as her aunt''s voice reached an especially obnoxious pitch. "I''m about to go into town. I''ll get my breakfast there. Is all the luggage packed?"


    "Yes, miss. All sitting in the hall and ready to go in the car."


    "Good. I''ve just been down to the boathouse to check the boats are locked up safely. Tell Reginald to get my car ready for me."


    Something nagged at Nellie as she carried the breakfast things to the kitchen. She left them with Cook and went in search of Reginald the chauffeur. As she passed the path leading down to the boathouse she realised what it was.


    Miss Ophelia said she''d been down there. The rain yesterday had turned the path into a morass. Yet Miss Ophelia''s shoes and the hem of her dress had been perfectly clean.


    <hr>


    A police station in Yekaterinodar


    20 May, 19¡ª


    This was the most ridiculous waste of time Constable Murogov had encountered in his life. Even worse than that time a politician''s wife wanted him to arrest a dog for barking at her. It was dinnertime, he was hungry, and instead of being able to go to his favourite restaurant for a nice meal he had to stand in a crowded room and listen to his boss drone on and on interminably.


    His only consolation was that his colleagues were as unhappy as he was. There were four of them present, which seemed excessive when they weren''t being asked to arrest anyone and the superintendent wasn''t making an important announcement. He was, in fact, doing nothing but reading excerpts from their reports for three weeks ago.


    And yet there was something strange going on here. Because why did Mr. Turov and Mrs. Turova have to be present? The police hadn''t tracked down Mrs. Turova''s stolen jewels yet. It seemed rather silly to waste their time too.


    Out of the corner of his eye Murogov caught someone making an impatient movement. He glanced over and frowned. Yes, there was definitely something strange going on here. The superintendent didn''t make a habit of inviting random civilians into his office for no reason.


    Mr. What''s-his-name ¡ª So? Suh? Sho? Murogov hadn''t caught it properly when the superintendent first introduced him, and had never bothered to ask ¡ª had been making a nuisance of himself around the police station for the past week, asking all sorts of pointless questions about the Turova jewel theft. Murogov knew only three things about him: that he was a friend of the superintendent''s, that he was from China or Mongolia or one of those places, and that he was ridiculously rich. His glasses alone must have cost enough to pay a policeman''s salary for a year, and he didn''t even need them. Murogov had seen him recognise a person on the other side of the room when he wasn''t wearing them.This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    "In conclusion," the superintendent said. His subordinates brightened up, then immediately tried to look as if they weren''t waiting for him to shut up so they could leave, "no unusual activity has been seen anywhere near the Turovs'' house since the jewels were brought there. Now I believe Mr. Seo has something to add."


    The policemen who had thought they were about to be freed slumped down in despair.


    Mr. Seo walked over to stand in front of the superintendent''s desk. He turned to face the room at large like an actor about to begin a soliloquy.


    "You have heard there were no suspicious-looking loiterers around the Turovs'' house," he began.


    Murogov and his fellow officers exchanged startled looks. Every time they''d met Mr. Seo before he spoke strongly-accented, ungrammatical Russian like any other tourist. Now he spoke it as perfectly as if he''d lived his whole life in St. Petersburg.


    Seo continued, "That is very odd, because Mrs. Turova insists she saw men lurking outside on several occasions. In fact that''s why she demanded the police to patrol the street regularly. Curiously, for someone so concerned with the safety of her new jewels, she did not ask to have the house watched constantly.


    "Then, on 11th May, the house is broken into and the jewels stolen. Another odd feature in this case: the jewels can only have been stolen in the afternoon, because the Turovs invited their friends over for dinner in the evening. It was during the dinner that Mrs. Turova''s maid discovered the robbery and burst into the dining room with the news. The jewels had most certainly not been stolen earlier, because Mrs. Turova wore them to the opera the night before. Yet the Turovs were home all day. I ask you, what self-respecting thief would take such a risk as to break into a house in broad daylight while the owners were there?"


    A sudden movement in the audience interrupted him. Mrs. Turova had started to get up when her husband pulled her down again. She rounded on him as if she was about to strike him, then thought better of it. Seo waited until they''d both settled down again. He was smiling faintly, Murogov noticed, like a theatre-goer who had seen this play before and knew a humorous scene was about to begin.


    "I have examined the house, the room where the robbery was committed, and the box the jewels were taken from. Now I have a story to tell you all which I think you will find interesting.


    "A woman buys a set of expensive jewellery. Shortly afterwards she discovers they are fake. Her humiliation is great. No one must know of this! But if she continues to wear them it''s only a matter of time before someone suspects. So she and her husband make a plan. They will pretend someone is planning to rob them. They inform the police and apparently take precautions. Then, before she goes down to dinner, the woman removes them from their box and hides them in her husband''s study, to be dealt with later. She stages the scene to look like a robbery. The apparent robbery is discovered. Everything goes according to plan.


    "Except for one thing. Because when the woman tries to retrieve the jewels from the study, she discovers they really have been stolen."


    This time it was Mr. Turov who tried to jump up, and it was his wife''s turn to restrain him.


    "Now we must go back a few weeks. Who was it that first told the woman to have the jewels checked? Her husband, who was alarmed by hearing a story of fake jewellery being passed off as real. Who was it she took them to? A jeweller who happened to be a friend of her husband''s. And when I checked her husband''s bank account, what did I discover? He had paid a large sum of money to that jeweller just before he raised questions about the jewels, a sum he could hardly afford when his finances were in a, shall we say, precarious position. And who knew where the woman hid the jewels after removing them from their box? Her husband."


    Mrs. Turova turned and gave her husband a look that could have curdled milk.


    Seo''s voice suddenly became much colder. He wasn''t a particularly tall man, but he towered over the cringing couple seated in front of him. "The jewels were real, as Mr. Turov knew all along. He bribed the jeweller to lie so his wife would be eager to get rid of them. He went along with her plan of staging a robbery, then stole the jewels for real and sold them to pay off his debts."


    Here he was interrupted again. Mrs. Turova couldn''t restrain herself any longer. She leapt to her feet and snatched up her umbrella.


    "You bastard! You lied to me!"


    She tried to hit her husband with the umbrella. Seo yanked it out of her hand before she could. The superintendent stepped in before she attacked her husband with her bare hands.


    "Mr. Turov and Mrs. Turova, you''re both under arrest!"


    "And that, gentlemen," Seo finished, turning to address the policemen, "is the explanation for the incredible disappearing jewels, and the reason you were given extra work and sent on a wild goose chase."


    Murogov recovered enough presence of mind to remove his handcuffs from his belt and clap them on Mr. Turov''s wrists. One of his colleagues did the same with Mrs. Turova. The pair of them were escorted to the police station''s cells, still yelling curses at each other, the police, and Mr. Seo.

 Chapter I: All at Sea

    For weeks she had been living under a strain so intense that her feelings had seemed to cease to have any connection with what was normal. She had known too much; and yet she had been certain of nothing at all. -- Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Making of a Marchioness


    A hotel balcony


    Hong Kong


    31st May, 19¡ª


    "Aaah-chooo!"


    Phil glared at the flowers as if the hotel staff had deliberately set them on the table to irritate her hay-fever. Her mood was worsened by a shout from the room next door.


    "Stop that noise!" her aunt yelled. "You''re making my headache worse!"


    Phil pulled out her handkerchief to wipe her nose. She gingerly picked up the vase, carefully avoiding the flowers, and carried it over to the far side of the balcony. The balcony was accessible from two rooms: the one she shared with her sister, and her aunt''s next door. She placed the vase outside her aunt''s door with a spiteful wish that Aunt Rachael would trip over it when she walked through the door.


    The clink of the vase being set down prompted another shout. "If you can''t stop making a noise, at least do something useful and order me a cup of tea!"


    Phil counted back from ten as she left the balcony. Her room was much smaller ¡ª and less expensive ¡ª than her aunt''s, but it had one advantage: it had a phone. This was solely for her aunt''s convenience. When staying in hotels Rachael Patton-Langdale refused to have a phone in her own room where it could disturb her sleep. She was much more cavalier about her niece''s sleep being disturbed. Phil had lost count of the times she''d been jolted awake by some business partner of her aunt''s phoning about stocks and shares and goodness knew what.


    She picked up the receiver and dialled for room service. "Hello? A pot of tea for Room 273, please."


    Once the order was confirmed she went back onto the balcony. It overlooked the harbour. For a while Phil sat watching the ships glide past and trying to spot which one was the ship that would take them to Australia.


    A movement glimpsed in the corner of her eye made her turn her head. A man had stepped out onto one of the balconies further along. He was rolling a cigarette, apparently oblivious to her presence. He lit it and stood smoking for a minute. Then he wandered back into his room.


    There was nothing unusual about his actions. Yet Phil had seen that man before. He''d gotten onto the same train in Moscow and had gotten off at Tiflis[1]. She remembered him specifically because he''d been wearing a bow-tie patterned with little dogs. He wasn''t wearing it now, but she was sure it was the same man.


    What were the chances of meeting a stranger twice, four thousand miles apart?


    Phil turned and frowned thoughtfully at her aunt''s doorway. Rachael, as usual, hadn''t said a thing about why they were making this trip. Octavia imagined it was just a holiday: a train ride across Russia and neighbouring countries followed by a cruise to Australia. Phil, however, was smarter than her sister. Their aunt had some deeper reason for dragging them half-way across the world, or her name wasn''t Ophelia Lucinda Patton.


    The man''s reappearance had given her an idea. What if her aunt had come here for a business meeting, safely away from anyone who could report the news to the stockholders? Her aunt never bothered to tell Phil anything, but she couldn''t conceal that something was wrong in her business affairs.


    Thirty years ago the Pattons had owned a small security company selling locks, gates and burglar alarms to local businesses. Then Rachael Patton had married the wealthy Edward Langdale and convinced him to take over and expand her father''s business. To paraphrase what had once been said about Jane Seymour, it had been a marriage of good luck and good sense ¡ª Rachael had the good luck to find an idiot willing to marry her, and Edward had the good sense to die shortly after their son''s birth, leaving his wife in full control of the business.


    According to the coroner Edward had fallen into the lake by accident. Unkind people suggested Rachael had murdered him. Phil thought it was much more likely he''d committed suicide.


    Whatever the truth, Rachael was the undisputed owner of Patton-Langdale Security while her son was a child. And when he got old enough that she began to worry about someday having to hand the business over to him, he very helpfully solved that problem for her by running away to an island somewhere off the coast of Scotland and becoming an ornithologist.


    Phil had never met her cousin Jack, but she approved of him. His actions showed great common sense.


    Meanwhile Rachael''s brother Ben hadn''t done quite so well for himself. He became a dentist, which Rachael had approved of, and married an actress, which she had emphatically disapproved of. She''d disapproved so strongly that she refused to acknowledge his existence for the rest of his life.


    She''d meant this as a punishment. Phil was convinced her father had seen it as a blessing.


    And that was how Phil herself came into the story. Octavia had been born first, followed by Ophelia two years later. (Their names were entirely their mother''s fault. She was fond of soppy romance novels with heroines named things like Margaretta and Valentina. There was a reason Phil cringed every time she had to use her full name.) Then their father had died of lung cancer, leaving their mother with a small income which she squandered within months.


    Perhaps Rachael had felt some grief at her younger brother''s death. Or perhaps she simply wanted someone she could boss around. Whatever the reason, she had offered to take in both of her nieces and raise them to succeed her in the business. Their mother had gratefully accepted then swanned off to resume her acting career. She remembered their existence only at Christmas and ¡ª rarely ¡ª on their birthdays.


    Rachael quickly discovered the best way to ensure the business foundered would be to put Octavia in charge of it. So Vi got off easy, and Phil was landed with being her aunt''s heir.


    The trouble was that Rachael seemed to believe her heir must be superhumanly perfect. Phil had gotten yelled at for wearing too many hat-pins, wearing gloves, not wearing gloves, taking too long to review the books, reviewing the books too quickly, dressing too old for her age, dressing too young for her age, being too outgoing, being too reserved, being too suspicious of other people, not being suspicious enough...


    In short, Phil was criticised for everything under the sun that a person could be criticised for. She would have run away long ago, but Rachael ¡ª perhaps remembering Jack''s escape ¡ª refused to let her have any money of her own. Ophelia Patton was twenty-two and had to ask her aunt for pocket-money as if she was a child. It was enough to drive anyone mad.


    Everyone had a breaking point. Phil knew she was getting close to hers.


    <hr>


    Seo Yo-han fixed a politely interested expression on his face as the steward showed him to his cabin. It grew more and more strained when the ship''s engines started, making the entire room shake. He managed to keep his composure until the steward left. Then he dashed into the bathroom.


    A while later he emerged, still feeling queasy. One glance at the glass of water kindly provided for him ¡ª the water was sloshing around as if it was trying to imitate the sea ¡ª and he felt a strong inclination to run back in again.


    The nausea was less severe this time. Once it faded Yo-han marched resolutely out of the cabin. He''d never liked ships, but he''d learnt from experience that the sickness would disappear in about an hour. In the meantime he needed fresh air.


    His plan to spend at least an hour out on the decks received a sudden check when he turned a corner and found the hallway blocked. Four people were gathered outside a cabin door: a middle-aged woman, a young woman, a man who could be anything from thirty to fifty, and a steward.The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    In his own words Yo-han was interested in learning about other people. In his half-brothers'' words ¡ª not to mention the words of all the criminals he''d caught over the last twenty years ¡ª he was a busybody fundamentally incapable of keeping his nose out of other people''s business. Either way, he stopped at once to see what was happening.


    The middle-aged woman was the main actor in the unfolding drama. A casual passer-by would have assumed she was a British noblewoman ¡ª a countess at the very least, to judge by her behaviour. Yo-han had always had a gift for languages and had trained himself to have a decent grasp of accents in foreign languages. He also had studied enough people of all races and from all walks of life to pick up on subtleties of body language and expression. He knew at once that this was no noblewoman. She was as common as common could be, and she knew it. She was afraid everyone else knew it too. That was why she wore five pearl necklaces. That was why her clothes were the very latest fashion, even though they didn''t suit her at all. That was why she acted like she owned the ship. That was why she put on an upper-class accent. Yo-han had never seen this woman before, but he had seen a thousand copies of her.


    His eyes moved to the young woman. The first word that came to mind was "sharp". Everything about her was sharp: her jaw, her nose, the shape of her face, the look in her eyes. She didn''t say a word. Her face was very pale and there was a wild, hunted sort of look in her eyes. Her expression was blank. Her hair was bound up in a severe bun better suited to a much older woman.


    Yo-han looked at her thoughtfully. He''d seen people very like this woman before. People who had been pushed to the very limits of their endurance. What would happen if she snapped?


    The man looked about as happy as a dental patient undergoing a root canal. His clothes were respectable but certainly not new. Yo-han spotted the ink stains on his fingers and immediately knew he was a secretary. He spared a moment to pity anyone who had to work for the middle-aged woman.


    Finally there was the hapless steward, who had been unable to get a word in edgewise yet. The poor man looked like he was contemplating running on deck and leaping overboard.


    "I insist on my niece always having the room beside mine!" the middle-aged woman was shouting. "The room across the hall isn''t good enough!"


    Yo-han looked at the young woman again. The hunted look was still there, and now there was barely-restrained fury alongside it. His mind repeated its earlier question: what would happen if she snapped?


    The ship tilted again. Yo-han''s stomach twisted. He immediately lost interest in the unfolding scene and fled back to his cabin. He was vaguely aware of running past another passenger in the corridor. He was in no state to pay any attention to them, so he had only a fleeting impression of someone carrying a very large suitcase.


    <hr>


    People who knew him ¡ª a short list back in Hungary and an even shorter one in Ulster ¡ª had always told M¨¢t¨¦ Kir¨¢ly he was inclined to be pessimistic. In Hungary M¨¢t¨¦ had only to point to his father and his never-ending procession of ever-younger girlfriends to show he had good reason to be pessimistic. In Ulster he could instead point to his employer.


    The best he could say for Mrs. Patton-Langdale was that she spared him the worst of her temper. He knew this was out of pragmatism rather than any regard for him ¡ª secretaries who were fluent in German, Hungarian, Romanian, and who could also muddle by in Russian and French weren''t exactly a dime a dozen. If she treated him half as badly as she treated Miss Ophelia, he would hand in his notice at once and she would have the trouble of finding a new secretary and professional translators for each of those languages.


    Unfortunately for Miss Ophelia, she wasn''t a paid employee and couldn''t threaten to resign. She was an easy target. And Mrs. Patton-Langdale, like all bullies, chose easy targets.


    When he first began working for Mrs. Patton-Langdale, M¨¢t¨¦ had tried to stand up for Miss Ophelia. He had quickly learnt this was useless. Worse than useless, because it made Mrs. Patton-Langdale suspect there was something between him and Miss Ophelia when nothing could be further from the truth.


    Vi had a plan to help her sister. M¨¢t¨¦ knew the basics ¡ª she had opened an account in her sister''s name and was discreetly setting aside a certain amount of money each month ¡ª but had thought it wisest not to ask for more information. This way he could honestly say he didn''t know what she was doing if her aunt found out.


    Unfortunately Vi''s plan would only be helpful when she had enough money for Miss Ophelia to move out. And in the meantime, scenes like this were practically a daily occurrence.


    Mrs. Patton-Langdale practically spat her words at the unfortunate steward. "Listen to me, young man. I often can''t sleep and need my niece to read to me. It is far more convenient for me when she is in the next room. I can summon her with a knock on the wall. But if she''s in the room on the other side of a hallway? I''d have to get up in the middle of the night and go out into a cold, draughty hall to wake her!"


    M¨¢t¨¦ glanced over at Miss Ophelia. Her face was blank, as it always was during scenes like this. If she ever decided to take up poker she''d wipe the floor with all her opponents. She was deathly pale except for a dull red flush around her cheekbones. Her jaw was clenched in a way that made him wince in sympathy.


    The steward looked helplessly from M¨¢t¨¦ to Miss Ophelia, hoping for back-up they couldn''t provide. "But ma''am, the room next door is taken by a Dr. Latimer¡ª"


    "So give Dr. Latimer the room across the hall," Mrs. Patton-Langdale interrupted.


    "I can''t¡ª"


    Mrs. Patton-Langdale drew herself up to her full height. She appeared to think this made her look imposing. M¨¢t¨¦ thought it made her look like a toad in mid-jump. "I am an acquaintance of the ship''s owner. Its burglar alarms were provided by my company. I will lodge a formal complaint against you, young man, unless you let my niece swap rooms with Dr. Latimer."


    "What about the room on the other side?" Miss Ophelia interrupted. Her voice was tight and she couldn''t keep her anger out of it entirely.


    "It''s taken by a Mr. and Mrs. Tremaine," the steward said in the tone of one who had given up hope. "Very well, ma''am. Your niece can have this room, but you can explain it to Dr. Latimer."


    "Thank you," Mrs. Patton-Langdale said, and swept into her own cabin.


    The steward darted off at the speed of lightning, probably to take refuge in the bar. M¨¢t¨¦''s cabin was further down the hall. He headed towards it before his employer reappeared to start yet another argument.


    As he left he heard Miss Ophelia mutter, "I''m going to kill her."


    <hr>


    If it had been remotely possible Phil would have thrown her aunt overboard on the spot. It was bad enough that she had to spend her life at the beck and call of a tyrant''s whims without having to witness said tyrant harassing other people. And this had been the one time she thought she might have a chance to escape Rachael''s demands for the duration of the voyage, too.


    "I often can''t sleep and need my niece to read to me", indeed. What Rachael should have said was "I often can''t sleep, so I make sure my niece can''t either." Phil rarely got to actually read much when her aunt summoned her. She''d get a few words out then Rachael would yell at her for not reading with enough emotion, not reading clearly enough, not reading slowly enough, or any other objection that came into her mind.


    Phil glowered at her aunt''s cabin door. As she did increasingly often, she contemplated killing Rachael. How would she do it? How would she avoid getting caught? She doubted she was strong enough to strangle her, unless Rachael had been drugged beforehand. Stabbing her? Striking her on the head with an iron bar? Shoving her down the stairs? All of those could be traced back to Phil. Besides, no matter how angry she was, she knew deep down she couldn''t actually plan and go through with a murder.


    Yet.


    Footsteps approached. Phil came back to reality with a jolt and realised she''d been standing glaring at a door. That wasn''t the sort of thing normal people did.


    She looked up sharply. Then she froze. She knew this man. She''d seen him twice before: on a train from Moscow and in a Hong Kong hotel. He wasn''t wearing his eccentric tie again, but he was eye-catching enough without it.


    When they were teenagers Vi had irritated Phil by decorating their shared room with photos of the various film and theatre actors she had crushes on. All of them looked more or less the same to Phil ¡ª carefully-styled hair, good looks that were just slightly too perfect for Phil to find attractive, either a fake smile or a vacant stare that apparently counted as a "soulful" expression. This man looked like he had stepped out of one of those pictures. Phil could easily believe that he was an actor. But that didn''t fit with her theory of him being some business partner of her aunt''s.


    She stared at him, knowing she was being rude but so surprised by his being here that she didn''t care. Hadn''t he and her aunt met up at the hotel? Had they decided an ocean liner was a better place for a business meeting than a hotel with easy access to the post office, the telephone, and the telegraph office?


    He stared back as he walked past. He actually turned his head to keep her in view as he continued down the corridor. She noticed his eyes were a very dark shade of blue. His skin was sallow, the sort of paleness that suggested either a recent illness or a lack of sunlight. Combined with his black hair it gave him a washed-out, almost unreal look. One of his eyebrows was slightly higher and more arched than the other. That was the only obvious imperfection in a face that was otherwise too abnormally handsome to be truly attractive.


    He was carrying a very large suitcase. Phil briefly considered the idea that he might have his own telegraph to send messages back to his head office, but dismissed that as nonsense.


    She watched as he passed her new cabin''s door, then only just stopped herself from staring open-mouthed. He opened the door of the cabin beyond hers and went in. The door closed behind him and she distinctly heard it lock.


    Once again she was jolted back to reality. Suddenly she realised how very odd she must have looked, standing outside a door and staring at a complete stranger. No wonder he''d stared back.


    Phil tried the door of her new cabin, then remembered she only had the key of her old cabin. All of her luggage was still in her old cabin too. She''d have to go back down to the check-in station, explain the situation, and ask them to give her the key for Cabin 175 instead of 174.


    She gritted her teeth and set off through the ship''s maze-like corridors.

 Chapter II: The Actor

    Slowly, then all at once


    A single loose thread


    And it all comes undone


    -- Sleeping at Last, Sorrow


    Cabin 174


    The ocean liner Kaiserin Elisabeth


    4th June, 19¡ª


    The first days on the ship went exactly as Phil had expected. Her aunt spent most of the time bed-ridden with sea-sickness. Well, she said she had sea-sickness. Phil was there when her meals were delivered, and for a sick woman Rachael ate an astonishing amount. When not eating she demanded on Phil reading to her. Occasionally she tired of finding fault with Phil''s reading and demanded on Kir¨¢ly going over the year''s sales so far. That was the only time when Phil had freedom, and by then she was always so exhausted that she went back to her cabin and fell asleep.


    She hadn''t seen the mysterious reappearing stranger since that first day. Nor had she seen many other people. Apart from the staff and Rachael, the only person she''d spoken to since they left Hong Kong was Kir¨¢ly, and those conversations were confined to cursing Rachael.


    The situation had finally changed this morning. Rachael announced she was well enough to get up, had met some acquaintances in the dining room during breakfast, and was now in a sitting room somewhere playing bridge. That was the odd thing about Rachael. Sometimes she demanded on controlling every minute of Phil''s life, and sometimes she left Phil completely to her own devices.


    Phil took advantage of her new freedom to put on her best dress ¡ª which had been a present from Vi for her twentieth birthday and was consequently four years out of fashion, but Rachael had sent Phil away with a flea in her ear when she dared to suggest buying a new one ¡ª and going to the dining room, then ordering coffee and two slices of chocolate cake.


    To anyone else it would have seemed a strange or downright childish thing to do. But Rachael dictated what Phil wore and how much sugar she could eat. It had been over a year since Phil had last had chocolate cake. There was very little cake of any sort in the Patton-Langdale household, for that matter. Rachael had a tight hold over every aspect of Phil''s life, and this was the only sort of rebellion she was currently capable of.


    The teapot, teacup and saucer were pink and white and decorated with painted roses. Phil knew something about pottery ¡ª Rachael''s efforts to appear more upper-class than she was extended to buying the most expensive tea-sets she could find so she could show them off when she invited her friends to tea, and it had become Phil''s job to distinguish between fakes and genuine articles ¡ª and she spotted at once that this was Royal Albert china.


    She contemplated how much it must have cost to buy hundreds of these dainty, easily-broken little things. Her mind boggled. It was more money than she ever expected to have in her life.


    This early in the afternoon the dining room was fairly busy but not crowded. Some people came for a late lunch, some came for a snack after lunch, and some came just to meet up with their friends. As she slowly ate her chocolate cake Phil watched the people who passed her table without much interest. She couldn''t help noticing various things: that all of the women her own age had more fashionable clothes than she did, that an elderly woman had lifted her dog onto the table and asked the waiter to bring it a plate of its own, and that the man at the table closest to her was reading her copy of Old Mortality.


    Phil did a double take. At once she realised how stupid she''d been ¡ª her copy of Old Mortality was in her cabin, and the man''s was much newer and looked like it had barely been read. His copy had the exact same cover as hers, and her brain had jumped to conclusions.


    She looked curiously at the stranger who shared her taste in literature. Off-hand she couldn''t think of anyone who looked less likely to be interested in Sir Walter Scott''s more obscure novels


    As Rachael insisted on telling her, Scott and other authors from the last century simply weren''t fashionable any more. This man, however, was wearing a suit in the very latest fashion ¡ª Vi worked in the costume department of the Belfast Opera House and Phil had learnt more than she would ever need to know about men''s fashions from her ¡ª and the material alone had probably cost a hundred pounds. Based solely on his clothes Phil would have expected him to read James Joyce or some other recently-published pretentious idiot who fashionable people claimed to have read so they looked cultured. He was also Chinese, which wasn''t unusual on a ship that had just left Hong Kong but was unusual for a reader of Sir Walter Scott.


    Phil amused herself for a minute by imagining how someone who looked like a rich businessman had ever discovered a no-longer-fashionable novelist from the other side of the world. Then a commotion on the other side of the dining room attracted her attention and she forgot about the man and the book.


    A young boy had knocked over his teacup. The tea had splashed on his mother''s dress ¡ª a silk dress that looked brand new and was covered with lace. Phil winced as she imagined how much that had cost. The mother hissed something at the boy. He slumped back in his chair, the picture of misery. Clearly he was in for a lecture as soon as they left the dining room. A lecture or worse.


    Phil was suddenly reminded of herself when Rachael was angry. The thought left a bad taste in her mouth. She took another sip of tea to get rid of it. Then she grimaced, because the tea in her cup had cooled. There was some left in the pot so she poured herself another cup.


    She froze, still holding the teapot over the cup. The man from the train and the hotel had just walked in. She gawked at him as he went up to the cash register and ordered coffee.


    A faint splash returned her attention to the teapot. Once, some time last year, Kir¨¢ly had been pouring tea when he saw something that shocked him ¡ª Vi walking into the parlour when she was supposed to be in London, if Phil remembered correctly, and that had raised her suspicions and led to a very interesting but rather unsettling conversation with Vi. He had been so shaken that he forgot to stop pouring, and the tea went all over the table. Phil had thought it was funny then. Now it had happened to her, and it suddenly wasn''t so funny any more.


    She was luckier than Kir¨¢ly. Her teacup was on a saucer, and the tea that had spilled out of the cup had landed in the saucer. The table itself was unharmed. But how was she to get the tea back into the cup without spilling it?


    She was seriously considering just drinking the tea from the saucer, good manners be damned, when a shadow fell over the table. She looked up, expecting to see a waiter, and came face to face with the stranger.


    "Do you need help?" he asked politely, offering her a handkerchief.


    Phil took it mutely, too stunned to think of anything to say. She mopped up the puddle of tea in the saucer. It left the handkerchief a soggy mess. She began to hand it back to the man, then realised it would just soak his pocket.


    He laughed, with a hint of embarrassment in his voice. "It''s all right, you can keep it. I have more."This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it


    "Thank you," Phil said, finally recovering her voice. Rachael would throw a fit if she knew she''d been talking to a strange man, business partner or not, and that thought was partly what made her said, "Won''t you sit down?"


    He sat down opposite her and a waiter brought him his coffee. An awkward silence fell as neither Phil nor the stranger could think of what to say.


    "I saw you in Hong Kong," Phil began abruptly, suddenly determined to show she knew more about her aunt''s business dealings than Rachael thought. If the stranger told Rachael, maybe dear old auntie would finally tell Phil what she was doing instead of dragging her around the world without a by-your-leave. "And on the train to Moscow. If you''re looking for my aunt, I think she''s in Drawing Room A."


    The stranger looked blank. It suddenly occurred to Phil that it was just possible she had jumped to the wrong conclusion.


    "Your aunt?" he repeated slowly. "Does she work for the theatre company?"


    It was Phil''s turn to look blank. "Theatre? Aunt Rachael has never been to a theatre in her life." Realising that something was wrong, she continued, "I think there''s been¡ª Well, I think I mistook you for someone else. Maybe we should start with introductions? I''m Ophelia Patton. My aunt owns a company that makes burglar alarms, and I thought you were one of her business partners."


    "Pleased to meet you, Miss Patton. I''m Leopold Colman. I work for the Century Theatre in London."


    Phil turned scarlet. "Oh. I''m sorry, you must have thought I was very rude when I stared at you, but I was so sure you were..." She trailed off helplessly. Thank god Aunt Rachael doesn''t know about this. She''d never let me live it down.


    Mr. Colman smiled. "Actually, I thought you''d recognised me. I expected you to ask for my autograph. It was quite a relief when you didn''t."


    Phil shook her head. "My sister''s the one who likes the theatre. Even if I recognise an actor, I can never put a name to them. Are you acting in a play here?" she added curiously, vaguely remembering there was some sort of theatrical entertainment on-board for passengers interested in that sort of thing.


    "No, I''m on my way to Sydney for business. Ever heard of Murder, Ahoy?"


    Phil took a wild guess. "I suppose it''s a play about a murder mystery?"


    Mr. Colman nodded with a grimace. "Philpott wrote it. Worst play I''ve ever starred in. Unfortunately Philpott is the director, the manager, and the theatre owner, so when he writes a play he generally gets it staged. And his wife''s brother is a reviewer who gives Philpott''s plays good reviews even when they''re trash. So a theatre in Sydney heard good things about Murder, Ahoy and have bought the rights to it. Philpott''s sent me over to make sure their production is close to the one last year."


    "What''s the play about?" Phil asked.


    "Well, there''s a tourist who hires a boat ¡ª and believe me, I felt very silly pretending to row a boat across the stage ¡ª and while he''s sailing he sees a murder committed in a house by the shore."


    Unwanted memories of events shortly before leaving Langdale Manor came crowding into Phil''s mind. For the first time she considered the possibility that someone out on the lough had witnessed...


    Don''t be silly, she reprimanded herself. It happened in the evening. They''d have needed a telescope and a floodlight to see anything.


    What about when you moved the body? her mind whispered.


    I moved it away from the lough. No one could have seen.


    She gathered her thoughts and continued listening to Mr. Colman''s summary of the plot.


    "Then he goes to investigate, and of course everyone in the house behaves very suspiciously in the least plausible ways. We ¡ª me and my co-stars ¡ª made quite a game of counting how many times someone jumps out a window, or hides under a table, or behaves in a way that would get them sent to Colney Hatch[1] in real life. In the end he discovers the butler is the murderer. I suspect Philpott plagiarised it from a potboiler."


    "It doesn''t sound like a very good play," Phil said dubiously. "Why does someone want to perform it in Australia?"


    "Darned if I know. But I can''t say I''m surprised. You wouldn''t believe the trash that gets revived year after year because the playwright knows the right people, or the director believes incomprehensible plays are the height of art, or a newly-started theatre can''t get the rights to any better material."


    From there the conversation moved on to a discussion of other plays, both good and bad, that Mr. Colman had seen or starred in. The memory of Phil''s embarrassing misunderstanding became amusing instead of painful, and before they left the dining room Phil and Mr. Colman had a good laugh about it.


    Mr. Colman went back to his cabin then, and Phil went for a brief walk on the deck before going in search of her aunt. As she leaned over the rails and watched the sea below, Phil reflected that at least she now knew one normal, likeable person on-board.


    <hr>


    Yo-han hadn''t exactly forgotten the painful scene he''d witnessed that first day. But other things had taken up his attention. He discovered a fellow-passenger was one of his former clients, who took the opportunity to thank him again for clearing him of a murder charge. He found the ship''s library had an extensive collection of books and took the opportunity to read the works of authors he''d never heard of before. He had a book of crosswords that he''d bought in New York last year and still hadn''t completed. And when he had nothing better to do, he could always sit somewhere and observe the other passengers.


    Today he was half-way through Old Mortality. Claverhouse had just rescued Henry from the Cameronians. Yo-han made a note of words he was unfamiliar with as he read. There were a lot of them ¡ª clearly he was not as familiar with English dialects as he had thought, but as he didn''t expect to visit Scotland any time soon it was unlikely to be a problem. He was struggling to parse Cuddy''s dialogue when his attention drifted to someone at a nearby table.


    It was the young woman he''d seen in the hall. The niece of the argumentative social-climber, who was required to change cabins for her aunt''s convenience. She looked, if not exactly cheerful, then certainly less miserable than she had on that day. Her clothes were much brighter too. There was an air about her that was almost defiant, as if she expected someone to question her right to order food in a public restaurant.


    Yo-han guessed that it was a rare occasion for her to have this sort of freedom.


    She watched the passers-by with as much interest as Yo-han himself did. He wondered if she deduced pieces of their lives and came to the same conclusions as he did. He was no Sherlock Holmes, but he had been all over the world and met so many people ¡ª and more importantly learnt that there were only so many different types of people; once you knew which type you were dealing with, you could deduce almost everything about their life with near-certainty ¡ª that he had become skilled in spotting things that most people overlooked.


    For a minute he observed her. He drew the conclusions that she was used to travelling by ship, that she was interested in pottery, and that chocolate cake was a rare treat for her. Not particularly interesting. But the memory of her face when he first saw her kept coming back. That hunted look was something he''d seen often enough from people who''d been driven ¡ª or were about to be driven ¡ª to desperation. Which usually involved breaking the law. And not infrequently resulted in someone''s death.


    His mind repeated what he''d thought before: What would happen if she snapped?


    Unfortunately there was nothing he could do without barging into someone else''s business. But he had a presentiment that something was going to happen. And that presentiment told him this woman would be involved in it.


    Yo-han pushed those thoughts away. No use in borrowing trouble before it came. He went back to his book and continued his struggles to to decipher the Scottish dialect. He succeeded well enough that it came as a surprise, when he next looked up, to see a young man sitting at the woman''s table.


    Inexplicably Yo-han''s first thought was of his stepmother. He blinked in utter confusion. Why had his brain found a connection between a foreigner he''d never seen before and Seo Hui-jae? They didn''t even look alike.


    Ludicrous or not, the association left a bitter taste in Yo-han''s mouth. He forced himself to push away the automatic negative impression he''d developed of the stranger. He looked at him thoughtfully. There was nothing reminiscent of Hui-jae in his behaviour. There was nothing about him to suggest he was anything but a perfectly normal twenty-something talking to a friend.


    Hui-jae had smiled so sweetly at her mother-in-law while treading on Yo-han''s foot to stop him speaking. She had promised Mrs. Han that everything she said was in confidence, and an hour later had told Mrs. Han''s secrets to half the town.


    Yo-han watched as the man and woman left. He couldn''t have said what he expected to see ¡ª proof that the man was two-faced? Whatever it was, he didn''t see it.


    That pesky presentiment was stronger than ever.

 Chapter III: Mercury Rising

    When you read the account of a murder - or, say, a fiction story based on murder - you usually begin with the murder itself. That''s all wrong. The murder begins a long time beforehand. A murder is the culmination of a lot of different circumstances, all converging at a given moment at a given point. People are brought into it from different parts of the globe and for unforeseen reasons. [...] The murder itself is the end of the story. It''s Zero Hour. -- Agatha Christie, Towards Zero


    Cabin 172


    The ocean liner Kaiserin Elisabeth


    5th June, 19¡ª


    10 A.M.


    "''Your uncle did not seem vexed at my not coming?'' said Mrs. Dale. ''We have not seen him, mamma,'' said Lily. ''We¡ª''[1]"


    "For God''s sake, speak clearly! Do you think I want to hear you mumbling? It has such a dreadful effect on my nerves."


    Phil closed her eyes. She took a deep breath. Slowly, enunciating every word as distinctly as if it was a matter of life and death, she continued. "''We have been ever so far down the fields, and forgot altogether what o''clock it was.''"


    "Now you sound like a funeral dirge. In my day young ladies were taught to read properly!"


    It took all Phil''s self-control not to throw the book at Rachael. "Would you prefer to read it for yourself?"


    Rachael scowled, not bothering to open her eyes. She was lying on the bed with a blanket wrapped around her as if she was an invalid, and one suffering from a cold into the bargain. "Don''t be absurd. You know reading hurts my eyes."


    There was nothing wrong with Rachael''s eyes any more than there was wrong with Phil''s. She was simply lazy and thought tormenting her niece was the height of entertainment.


    What Rachael didn''t realise was that Phil derived a grim sort of enjoyment from deliberately annoying her in return.


    Phil deliberately read fast, stringing her words together until they were incomprehensible. "''Wehavebeeneversofardownthefieldsandforgot¡ª''"


    "Stop that!" Rachael roared. She pressed a hand to her forehead as if she was suffering from a headache. A dark, vengeful part of Phil speculated on the probabilities of her having a brain tumour or aneurism. "Go and order me a nice cup of tea. From your own room!" she snapped when Phil reached for Rachael''s telephone. "I won''t have you yelling down the telephone and making my poor head ache."


    Rachael herself was the only person in the Patton family with a fondness for yelling on the telephone. Phil didn''t bother to point that out. She left, and heaved a sigh of relief as soon as her aunt''s door closed behind her.


    <hr>


    As soon as Ophelia was gone, Rachael opened the drawer of her bedside table. She took out the letter and read it over again.


    It had arrived at the hotel in Hong Kong, addressed to Kir¨¢ly and with a postmark showing it had come from London. Rachael had seen it sitting at the desk and had no compunction about taking it with her own letters. Why should her staff care if she read their letters? If they objected it was only proof they had something to hide.


    She had opened the letter when she was alone. At once she recognised the handwriting. Octavia had written this. Octavia, her useless, ungrateful niece who had run away to become some sort of actress like her disreputable mother. Octavia, who had come to Langdale Manor just before Rachael left and had the audacity to inform her that she ¡ª Octavia ¡ª was thinking of getting married. In the ensuing row it had been revealed that Octavia was in fact already married and was trying to break the news gently. Rachael had not been mollified by this concern for her feelings. Especially when Octavia had refused to say which of her useless, talentless actor friends she''d married.


    There was no name at the top or signature at the bottom. Nor was there a date or a return address. The message was short.


    I must see you as soon as you get home. VERY IMPORTANT. Don''t phone or write. I had a blazing row with the old hag before I left. Remember J! Heather Glenn.


    Rachael had held onto this letter for the last week. She was sure Kir¨¢ly didn''t know it existed, and she hadn''t let Ophelia see it either. She simply didn''t know what to do about it. The most likely explanation was that Octavia had come to sponge money off Rachael. When that hadn''t worked she realised it was useless going to Ophelia, who had no money of her own, and instead appealed to Kir¨¢ly. The reference to herself as "the old hag" incensed her. As soon as she got home she''d see her lawyer and have Octavia completely disinherited.


    But who or what was J? Rachael had tried various conjectures. A mutual friend of Octavia and Kir¨¢ly, a place, a stage play, a license plate, even the initial of a rival company. None of them were convincing. Finally she hit on the idea of blackmail. J referenced some event or person Kir¨¢ly wanted to remain unknown, Octavia had found out somehow, and she was using it to demand money.


    As for Heather Glenn ¡ª or possibly that was really Heather Glem, or even Heather Glew; Octavia''s handwriting was a mess ¡ª she must be one of Octavia''s actress friends. Why she was mentioned in the letter was yet another mystery.


    Rachael had considered several courses of action. She could confront Kir¨¢ly. She could interrogate Ophelia, though she doubted her older niece knew anything about it. The sisters had never been close.


    Or, and this was the most promising one, she could wait until they were all back in Langdale Manor. She could summon Octavia from whichever theatrical dive she was currently lurking in. And she could produce the letter in front of everyone and demand an explanation.


    She heard Ophelia open her cabin door. Quickly she shoved the letter back into the drawer and closed it before Ophelia came in.


    <hr>


    Ji Ye awoke to one of his fellow stewards hammering on his door and shouting obscenities. He blinked at the clock and almost fell out of bed. How had he slept so late?


    He had vague memories of drinking too much when he went off-duty and getting into a poker game with a friendly passenger. He could only hope he hadn''t told them anything too impolite about the more obnoxious passengers. Gossip had a way of spreading, and his boss would murder him if any of it was traced back to him.


    He pulled on his steward''s uniform and hunted through his pockets for his skeleton key. Then he searched the floor. He pulled open all the drawers in the bedside cabinet. He scoured the whole cabin. But it was useless. He''d lost his skeleton key.Stolen novel; please report.


    <hr>


    12:30 P.M.


    "''Johnny Eames cannot be called unlucky in that matter of his annual holiday, seeing that he was allowed to leave London¡ª''"


    "All right, that will do," Rachael interrupted.


    Phil closed the book with an internal sigh of relief. Rachael had tired of picking faults in her reading and had allowed her to get through a full chapter without interruption. She had also very kindly allowed Phil to take a break for half an hour to have a cup of tea.


    "Dinner will be served by now. Do something with that atrocious mess you call a hairstyle then follow me to the dining room."


    Phil went back to her room thinking things not lawful to be uttered about her aunt''s hairstyle, and the way she braided her hair before putting it in a bun. She unpinned her hair, gave it a quick brush, and pinned it up again. Unfortunately she couldn''t manage the fashionable pompadour hairstyles worn by all the other young women[2]. Before leaving she paused to scowl at her reflection ¡ª specifically at her dress.


    Rachael insisted on dressing in the late-1880s styles that had been the height of fashion when she was young and desperately wishing to be part of fashionable society. Only a minor rebellion had prevented her from imposing those same outdated styles on her nieces. She still refused to let Phil wear anything made after 1910. Every day Phil had the mortification of being the only young woman on-board whose hemline was below her ankle. She could only thank her lucky stars that she wasn''t stuck wearing something from 1908 or earlier; the puffed sleeves were completely out of fashion by now[3].


    Her clothes were always dull, usually grey or navy and devoid of frills and lace. Phil often thought she looked more than a country schoolteacher than a wealthy businesswoman''s niece.


    As soon as Rachael died, the very first thing Phil was going to do would be to get some decent clothes.


    It was almost 12:40. She couldn''t waste time any longer. Phil picked up a magazine she''d bought the previous day and hadn''t had a chance to read yet. If she was lucky Rachael would go to play bridge and leave her in peace after dinner. Then she left her cabin and locked the door behind her.


    <hr>


    12:40 P.M.


    I''m working to a very strict schedule. I have to so everything can go smoothly. The girl has thrown it off. I allowed her five minutes to get ready. I timed her yesterday and she didn''t take as long as that. Of course it would be today that she dawdles.


    Finally! She''s leaving. She locks her door, of course. I wait until she''s out of sight. Everyone else on this hallway has already left. I wait a minute in case she comes back. Then I open her door. The skeleton key works perfectly.


    A small square cut out of the wall is all I need. Beside the wardrobe is the best place. The wood and the clothes in it will quiet the sound of the shot, if anyone is around to hear. She put a chair beside the wardrobe, which was very considerate. I move the chair out of the way and begin to saw.


    It only takes five minutes. I''ve done this before. When I''m done I put the chair back in its place. I stand back and examine my work. She''ll never see it there unless she''s specifically looking for it.


    I lock the door behind me.


    <hr>


    12:50 P.M.


    Rachael was planning something unpleasant for someone. Phil had seen the symptoms before. Unusual abstraction, frowning and tapping her fingers against her lips, not noticing when she was spoken to, maintaining a stony silence; they were all unpleasantly familiar. Phil immediately began reviewing her recent behaviour to see what might have set Rachael off. Her normal yelling was bad enough. But this sort of behaviour always preceded a particularly nasty outburst. The sort of outburst that lasted for days and could sometimes become physically violent. (Mostly to Rachael herself; during these explosions she would slap her own face and accuse the target of her wrath of driving her to do this. At these times Phil honestly believed her aunt belonged in a padded cell.)


    Phil spotted the symptoms as soon as she walked into the dining room. What could have happened to cause this in a few minutes? She didn''t know, but she immediately switched from trying to provoke Rachael to being as conciliatory as possible. She''d planned to read her magazine during dinner. Instead she kept her handbag firmly closed and greeted Rachael more politely than she had at any time since they left home.


    Rachael stayed silent all through dinner. It played havoc with Phil''s nerves. She kept her head down, then worried that was making her aunt even angrier. She pretended to be absorbed in her meal, but when her knife scraped against the plate she tensed and waited for an explosion that didn''t come. She tried to act naturally but felt like a puppet operated by a trainee puppeteer. Every minute she expected Rachael to accuse her of something. Phil almost wished her aunt would just so she would finally know what was wrong.


    She couldn''t have said what was served for dinner. All the food tasted like ash, and there was a twisting feeling in her stomach that prevented her eating much.


    The outburst would come when they were alone, Phil was sure of it. Even Rachael had some idea of what was or wasn''t considered proper.


    She was wrong in two ways. The outburst came during dessert. And it came from Phil herself.


    Mr. Colman came in late, deep in conversation with another man. Phil, who was facing the door, caught a few sentences as they approached.


    "But have you proof he cheated?" Mr. Colman was saying.


    "That card was in my hand right up until he knocked over his drink," the other man said. "Then suddenly it had disappeared and he had it instead. I know he stole it."


    "Proving it will be tricky," Mr. Colman said. He saw Phil and nodded to her. "Afternoon, Miss Patton."


    Phil suddenly knew exactly how someone felt when they were standing on a crumbling cliff-edge and faced disaster no matter what they did. She could say nothing and be thought extremely rude, but that was useless because Rachael''s head had snapped up as soon as she heard Mr. Colman address Phil. Or she could answer, which would just confirm that she knew him. It would be useless to explain to Rachael that they were just casual acquaintances.


    "Good afternoon," she said, and commended her soul to God.


    Mr. Colman and his friend moved on to another table, blissfully unaware of the chaos they had unleashed. Rachael fixed Phil with her most icy, beady-eyed stare.


    When she spoke it was in a deceptively pleasant voice. "Who is that young man, Ophelia? Do we know him?"


    "I met him yesterday," Phil said, and carefully left out any reference to Mr. Colman''s occupation. Rachael was convinced that actors were the most immoral people on earth. "He lent me his handkerchief when I spilt my coffee."


    Rachael began to smile. It was what Vi called her "dead-fish" smile, because it was cold and left its target feeling like someone had just slapped them with a dead fish. "I thought you knew better than to speak to strange young men. You should spare a thought for your reputation."


    Phil gritted her teeth. If she answered as snappily as she wanted to, she would only confirm Rachael''s suspicions. "There were dozens of people around. It''s not as if I spoke to him alone."


    Rachael shook her head with that infuriating air of martyrdom she affected at times. "I see you''re determined to disgrace yourself like your sister has."


    Her words threw the situation into a completely new light. Suddenly Phil realised that the target of her aunt''s rage wasn''t her at all. It was Vi, which could only mean that Rachael had discovered a certain secret ¡ª but apparently not Phil''s part in it.


    "How has Vi disgraced herself?" she asked guardedly to find out how much Rachael knew.


    "She has become a blackmailer."


    If Rachael had announced that Vi had been elected empress of Mars it would have surprised Phil less. She gawked at her aunt. Then she said what she thought.


    "You''re mad."


    It was the worst thing she could possibly have said. Rachael practically snarled at her.


    "I thought so. I thought you must be tangled up in it too. But what can I expect when your mother is no better than she should be?"


    To be perfectly honest Phil had no strong feelings either way for her mother. She didn''t particularly like her for abandoning her daughters to Rachael''s tender mercies, but Mrs. Patton had so little presence in Phil''s life that she might as well have been dead. All the same, Phil was not going to sit here and let her be insulted.


    She looked Rachael dead in the eye and said something she had often thought. "I wish you were dead."


    Finally it was Rachael''s turn to look like someone had hit her with a dead fish. "What did you just say?"


    Phil raised her voice, completely forgetting the other passengers around her. "I wish you were dead!"


    A shocked exclamation to her right reminded her of where she was. She looked round and discovered that everyone within hearing range was staring at her. Suddenly she couldn''t bear to stay in the dining room for another minute.


    Phil jumped up and ran out.

 Chapter IV: Murder Most Foul

    I think, my dear, we won''t talk any more about murder during tea. Such an unpleasant subject. -- Agatha Christie, 4:50 From Paddington


    2:00 P.M.


    "Disgraceful, how ungrateful young people are nowadays. It was different when I was a girl. Quite different."


    The other three ladies nodded sagely at Rachael''s remark.


    "You know, I think that niece of yours must be mentally unbalanced," Mrs. Gilpin said. "Have you considered sending her away to a nice place for a rest?"


    As usual after dinner, Rachael had joined three other women for a game of whist in one of the second-class sitting rooms. They''d all heard about Ophelia''s outrageous declaration at dinnertime. Everyone was united in the opinion she was insane. Rachael, now that her initial rage had worn off, was inclined to agree.


    Perhaps it was hereditary. She was convinced her brother had been at the very least dull-witted or he would never have disgraced himself by marrying an actress. Her son was next door to a complete lunatic; no one else would voluntarily spend their life watching birds on some god-forsaken rock in the middle of the ocean. Octavia was certainly not in possession of all her sense, as proved by her choice of occupation, her marriage, and her blackmailing attempt. It was perhaps only inevitable that Ophelia would also go mad.


    "Do you think she might be dangerous?" Mrs. Parker-Smith asked. "I suppose you''ve heard about the American millionaire''s son who went mad and tried to run his father down in their brand new car? They say it started with him shouting at his father. If I were you I''d keep a careful eye on that girl."


    "Maybe you should talk to the detective," suggested Miss Pym.


    Rachael had very little time for detectives. None of the ones back home had ever been able to prove her husband had hidden at least half of his money in some unknown bank account, even though she knew he had. She also knew he''d done it to stop her using it, and that her wretched, useless son had access to it.


    "Detectives are all fools playing at being Sherlock Holmes."


    "Not this one," Miss Pym insisted. "I saw him in Hong Kong before we left. I was talking to Mrs. Walsh-Murray ¡ª you know, the former Miss Weston, the one who''s married to the American consulate in Saigon ¡ª and she said he''s considered the best detective in Joseon. Oh, but it''s not Joseon any more, is it? I mean the Korean Empire[1]. Apparently he travels the whole world looking for interesting mysteries because he''s run out of ones to solve in Korea."


    Rachael raised an eyebrow disbelievingly. "I doubt a hysterical young girl counts as an interesting mystery for such a famous detective. Besides, I don''t approve of Chinamen."


    "...He''s Korean."


    "So what? All those people are alike."


    <hr>


    2:20 P.M.


    For the first half-hour after the scene at lunchtime Phil took refuge on-deck. There were few other people around; mostly old men who either couldn''t or wouldn''t leave their deck-chairs to go to lunch, so instead had their servants bring their plates to them. They were all too absorbed in their meals or in talking to each other to pay any attention to Phil. She wandered further along the deck until she found a space between two lifeboats.


    She leaned on the railing and watched the waves. The sea stretched out to the horizon without any sign of land. If she remembered correctly they were still two days away from Australia.


    As soon as we land I''m stowing away on a train and never looking back, she thought.


    So what if she didn''t have any money? It couldn''t be that hard to find a job. Anyway, she''d resort to bank robbery before she put up with Rachael for any longer.


    Other passengers wandered past without paying any attention to her. She knew they were there from the sound of their footsteps on the deck. She listened out for her aunt''s distinctive stride, which always reminded her of soldiers on the march. It didn''t come. Instead she heard a set of footsteps approach slowly. They stopped a short distance away.


    Phil looked round, expecting to find her aunt had sent a steward to bring her back. Instead she saw it was only Kir¨¢ly.


    "If you''re going to give me a lecture, it''s no use. I''m not sorry and I''m not going to say I am."


    Kir¨¢ly looked like someone who had expected the worst but was still disappointed. "So you really did tell your aunt you want to kill her?"


    That was unexpected. "Of course not! Is that what she told you?"


    "I haven''t spoken to her and I wasn''t close enough during dinner to hear what you said. I gathered what happened from all the gossip."


    Phil rolled her eyes. "Well, the gossips got it wrong. I said I wished Rachael was dead, not that I wanted to kill her."


    "Not much of a difference," Kir¨¢ly observed.


    "Yes, there is. Anyway, Rachael brought it on herself. Her and Vi."


    Kir¨¢ly''s eyebrows shot up. "What has Vi to do with it?"


    He pronounced Octavia''s nickname like the letter V, while Phil pronounced it like the first syllable of violin.


    "She''s taken up blackmail as a hobby, apparently. That''s what dear old auntie says, though how she knows is beyond me."


    Kir¨¢ly looked sceptical. "If anyone in this family is likely to be a blackmailer it''s Rachael herself."


    That was undeniable. Phil could only shrug helplessly. "Go and ask her yourself if you want. But I''d leave it until tomorrow so she can calm down. When do we reach Australia?"


    Kir¨¢ly didn''t bat an eyelid at the abrupt change of subject. "Three o''clock the day after tomorrow."


    "Then I''d better make myself scarce before we arrive and try to be in the first group to disembark." In answer to Kir¨¢ly''s questioning look she elaborated, "I''m running away. I can''t stand it any more."


    Phil had expected an argument, or at least some disagreement. But Kir¨¢ly just nodded as if he''d expected it all along.


    "Vi has a bank account in your name," he said.


    Phil had suspected Vi was up to something of the sort. A while ago she might have been too proud to accept. Now she just determined to repay her sister when she had money of her own.


    "Won''t you wait until we''re back home?" Kir¨¢ly asked. "You don''t know anyone in Australia."


    "I can''t put up with Rachael for that long, and it would be too easy for her to find me."


    The spectre of the night before their departure rose up before her again. If the police found the body in the lake, if there was anything on it to make them suspicious... It wasn''t as if she''d shot or stabbed the man. He''d tripped and fallen down the stairs. Surely no one would think his death was anything but an accident. But just in case they did, she had another reason for wanting to get as far away as possible.


    <hr>


    3:20 P.M.


    After her talk with Kir¨¢ly Phil had gone back to her cabin and tried to read. She hadn''t succeeded very well. For weeks she''d managed to avoid thinking of that night.


    Rachael had sent her down to the boathouse. A shawl left on the boat. Stairs leading down to the lakeside. A man in the shadow of the trees. Beside the path. He spoke to her. She grabbed a fallen branch to defend herself. He talked nonsense. Wanted to see her aunt''s business records. Tried to grab her arm.


    Three things stood out amidst the chaotic, disjointed memories. The crack of the branch hitting him. His cry as he fell down the stairs. The crash of his landing.


    Silence.


    A startled owl hooting overhead.


    Phil had been too scared to move for a long time. Only the thought that Rachael might come to see what was taking so long spurred her into motion. She shone her torch down the stairs. The man lay still at the bottom.


    She crept down closer to get a better look. His neck was twisted at an unnatural angle. His eyes were open and staring. Without having to check she knew he was dead.


    Fear of Rachael''s reaction, fear of being called a murderess, fear of what would happen if the body was discovered, fear of the dead man''s possible accomplices. All of those combined into all-consuming terror. Phil dragged the body off the path and into the concealment of a patch of ferns.


    She staggered down to the boathouse. She collapsed onto the pier. Phil couldn''t remember for sure, but she had an idea she''d been sick at some point. Finally she managed to retrieve the shawl from the boat and started back to the house.


    "What a time you''ve been," she remembered Rachael saying. "Did you fall into the lake?"


    Phil was almost sure she''d replied with, "No, I dropped my lantern and it took a long time to relight it." That had been the best excuse she could come up with.


    She hadn''t been able to sleep that night. In the early hours of the morning she had gone downstairs, climbed out the breakfast room''s window, and went down to the lakeside. It took her a long time to find the body. Even longer to drag it further down the path. Down to a small cove that technically was part of Rachael''s property but where boaters often landed for picnics.Stolen novel; please report.


    She shoved the body into the water. Face-down so it would look like he drowned. If anyone discovered him she hoped they''d think he''d fallen out of a boat. Or had a swimming accident. People could break their necks while swimming, couldn''t they?


    The next morning she''d gone back again and checked to be sure there were no obvious signs of what had happened. It had rained during the night. If there had been any traces, they''d been washed away.


    That night seemed like a bad dream. As days went by without any news ¡ª not even news of the body being discovered and put down as an accidental death ¡ª Phil began to wonder if it had happened at all. Could she have dreamt all of that?


    She tried to cling to the hope that no news was good news. That the police thought the body was just another of the foolish tourists who rented boats and had no idea what they were doing.


    Last year a boat had been found floating empty on the lake. The woman who''d hired it was found later with her neck and skull broken. It was eventually determined that she hadn''t known how to tack across the lake and had refused all offers of help. It had been an unusually windy day when she went out in the boat. She had apparently sat down to have a sandwich. The boom had swung across unexpectedly and struck her in the neck, killing her instantly and knocking her overboard.


    Surely the police would assume something similar had happened this time.


    Phil had drifted into a kind of half-wakeful doze as she thought of all this. Then she heard something that woke her up instantly.


    Rachael''s way of marching around the place was unmistakeable. She was approaching along the corridor. Phil leapt off the bed and hovered by her door, afraid her aunt would check to see if she was there.


    She was in luck. Rachael went straight into her own cabin. When she closed the door behind her, Phil opened her own door and slipped out. She didn''t bother to lock it in case Rachael heard the noise.


    Muffled voices came from behind a few of the cabin doors as she tiptoed down the hall. No one opened their doors and she didn''t meet anyone walking back to their cabin. As soon as she reached the staircase she ran for the library. There she found a secluded corner to retreat into, partially hidden behind a curtain so no one would be able to find her.


    <hr>


    4:00 P.M.


    The man in Cabin 181 is listening to Dvo?¨¢k on his record player. Symphony No. 7, I believe. I''m surprised he hasn''t had complaints about the noise. Somewhere in a cabin around the corner I can hear a hoover[2]. Certain of my colleagues would object to so much noise around the place where they''re working. Too many potential witnesses, they say.


    I prefer conditions like this. Plenty of noise to cover up the shot, and no one will be sure whether they actually heard it.


    I have already pieced together my gun. The silencer is attached[3]. For jobs like this I always carry it disassembled at the bottom of my suitcase. I have a plan of the cabins around me and from my partially-open door I can see my neighbours come and go. It''s a fine day. Almost everyone is up on deck. The man in 181, my target in 172, and myself are the only people currently in their rooms. That''s why the record player goes unremarked ¡ª though I must say I''m surprised the target hasn''t complained.


    I check my watch. It''s time.


    My borrowed skeleton key doesn''t work on the girl''s door. I try the handle. She forgot to lock it! How stupid. Convenient for me, but stupid.


    The chair beside the wardrobe is still in place. I move it quietly out of the way and kneel down so I can see through the hole.


    A minor mystery is solved: my target is fast asleep and is wearing earmuffs. I take careful aim for her head. If she had been sitting up I would have aimed for the chest. Headshots are more reliably fatal than chest shots ¡ª you would be astonished to find out how long a person can live with a bullet in their chest ¡ª but they''re tricky and tend to miss. But in this case my target is obliging enough not to move.


    I pull the trigger.


    With the silencer the gun sounds like a door closed with force, or even a very loud sneeze.


    Her body jolts. Blood splashes on the wall beside her. I spare a moment to pity whoever finds her, because that means the bullet travelled right through her skull and tore out a chunk on the other side.


    I move the chair back into place. Now for the hardest part: leaving unobserved.


    Dvo?¨¢k''s symphony continues in the background. It''s reached the third movement. The noise of the trumpets, strings and drums may have disguised the gunshot, but they also drown out quieter sounds. If someone was walking past the door I wouldn''t be able to hear them.


    I open the door a crack and peer through it. No one approaching from the left. Someone coming from the right would cast a shadow once they passed the light fixture on the ceiling just outside my door. I wait. No shadow appears. I risk opening the door wide enough to get my head around it.


    The corridor is empty.


    I dart out of the girl''s room, close the door, and return to my room. There I disassemble my gun and conceal it again.


    Two of the passengers are having an engagement party in the first class dining room. I change into my best clothes and go to give them my best wishes.


    It''s 4:11 when I leave my room. No one ever pays close attention to who arrives when at these ¡ª comparatively ¡ª informal events. If asked for an alibi I''ll swear I was there at four.


    <hr>


    4:25 P.M.


    Phil''s book slipped from her hands and thumped on the carpet. She jolted awake at the noise. For a minute she blinked non-comprehendingly at the curtain beside her. Then she remembered. She had yelled at her aunt, she was planning to run away, and she was hiding in the library.


    She picked up the book ¡ª a copy of The Moonstone which she had only read a few pages of before falling asleep ¡ª and replaced it on the shelf. She checked her watch. Over an hour before dinner. She had enough time for a bath first.


    Only the first class cabins were en suite. Phil and her aunt were travelling second class, so they had to go to one of the bath cubicles set aside for the women in second class. So far Phil had made do with washing her hair at the sink in her cabin, but when she ran away it might be a week or more before she could get a bath.


    She went back to her cabin and began to gather her clothes. When she opened the wardrobe its door collided with a chair placed too close. Phil stifled an impatient exclamation. Her aunt might still be next door, even though there was no noise from her cabin, and if she thought Phil was here she''d storm in.


    Phil moved the chair out of the way. A discoloured patch on the wall caught her attention. That hadn''t been there before. Puzzled, she looked more closely.


    It wasn''t a discoloured patch after all. It was a square cut right through the wall. She could see the carpet of Rachael''s cabin on the other side.


    "What on earth?"


    Phil knelt down and examined the square. It wasn''t a broken board or anything so simple. It had been sawn out deliberately. She could spot the sawdust on her carpet.


    Her first thought was that Rachael had done this to spy on her. A wave of rage washed over her at the idea. She looked through the square and got a shock. Rachael was in her room. She was fast asleep.


    Phil was angry enough to immediately go to confront her aunt. She stalked out of her room and tried to open Rachael''s door. It was locked, but the key hadn''t turned properly and it opened with a bit of pushing.


    "Did you think I wouldn''t notice?" she demanded, storming in as soon as the door opened.


    Rachael didn''t answer. Those damned earmuffs must have drowned out Phil''s entrance.


    Phil was too angry to notice the red stains on the pillow. She snatched the earmuffs away. Then she got a second shock, because Rachael''s head jolted in a weird, stiff way. The side of her face was a mask of red. She didn''t open her eyes.


    At first Phil''s brain refused to comprehend what she saw. Rachael had hit her head against the wall beside the bed. She''d cut her face. Maybe she''d knocked herself out.


    But there was a small hole on the side of her head facing Phil''s wall. A red line ran from it and pooled on the pillow.


    The cabin lurched as if the sea had suddenly turned choppy.


    The wall beside Rachael''s bed was splashed with blood. Part of Phil''s mind tried to figure out how that could have happened when the bullet-hole ¡ª oh god that''s what it is, it can''t be anything else ¡ª was on the opposite side. The rest of her thoughts were a tangle of horror and bewilderment.


    The whole thing seemed like a dream. Why, it was just like one of the sensational murder mysteries she had read. It couldn''t possibly happen in reality. Any minute now she would wake up and¡ª


    One memory forced its way to the front of Phil''s mind.


    "I wish you were dead!"


    Oh God. Suddenly she knew two things with absolute certainty. The bullet had been fired from her room. And half the ship would swear to having heard her declare she wanted her aunt dead.


    Phil staggered back. She bumped into the door. It dawned on her that if someone walked past while the door was open like this, she would be arrested on the spot and no amount of protestations would save her from the noose.


    She recoiled from the idea of shutting the door. To close herself in here with¡ª with that... It was unbearable.


    She forced herself to do it anyway. She had to think this through.


    What happened in the murder mysteries? The murderer always wanted an alibi. Phil knew with a sickening sense of dread that she didn''t have one. She had specifically chosen a hiding place where no one would find her. True, she had passed a few people on the way back to her cabin, but how many of them would remember her or know when they''d seen her?


    Kir¨¢ly! Kir¨¢ly could vouch for her whereabouts at¡ª Phil tried to remember when they had spoken. Half two? Definitely before three.


    How long had Rachael been dead?


    She could probably have guessed from whether rigor mortis had set in. The ghastly memory of dragging the man''s body to the water came back to haunt her. The thought of going over to Rachael''s body again, of touching her, made Phil gag.


    Rachael had definitely been alive at half three. That was when Phil had fled to the library to avoid meeting her. Kir¨¢ly''s evidence would be useless once the doctor determined the time of death.


    Wait a minute. The time of death. The time!


    Phil distinctly remembered a novel where the murderer had changed the time on the victim''s watch. Then they had broken the watch to make it look like it had been damaged and had stopped when the victim fell down the stairs. The police had assumed the victim died at the time on the watch when in fact they had been dead almost an hour before.


    Rachael didn''t have a watch. But she did have a clock. It was on her bedside table.


    Phil had been leaning against the door, partly to keep it closed and partly for support. She forced herself to stand up straight. Then to take a step forward. Then another one. She turned her head away to avoid having to see the... the corpse.


    With shaking hands she picked up the clock and wound it forward. A quarter to five. Five. A quarter past five. That would do. Now to make it look like the clock had broken accidentally.


    Phil kept her eyes averted from the bed as she raised the clock. Then she flung it to the floor as hard as she could. There was a loud crash and a definite sound of glass shattering.


    Good. The police would assume the clock had been knocked over by the murderer. Maybe they wouldn''t notice the hole in the wall.


    Just to make sure they wouldn''t, Phil dragged an empty suitcase down from the top of the wardrobe and set it in front of the hole. She took a final look around to make sure she had left nothing to incriminate her.


    Her hands were shaking so badly she could barely turn the door-handle. She stumbled into the hallway and immediately stifled a scream. One of the maids had just gone into a cabin on the other side of the hall.


    There was no time to think. Phil acted. She half-turned her head and forced herself to speak naturally, as if she was talking to a real live person and not a bloodied corpse.


    "I''ll tell them not to disturb you, Aunt Rachael. Sleep well."


    Her words sounded unbearably stilted. Never before in her life had Phil cared if Rachael was disturbed or if she slept well. She felt a deranged desire to laugh. To scream. To run away, to turn herself in, to jump overboard. Her mind felt like it was a leaf being carried along by a fast-flowing stream. Her legs felt like they were made of lead.


    There was no way for her to lock her aunt''s door from this side. She couldn''t bear the thought of reaching around the door to get the key. It was ridiculous but she felt sure something would grab her if she did.


    Phil had a moment of inspiration. She darted into her own cabin, retrieved the "Do Not Disturb" sign, and hung it on her aunt''s door.


    Now to make sure the maid didn''t interfere.


    Phil forced herself to walk down to the cabin the maid had just gone into. She knocked the door. She illogically expected the maid to accuse her of murder on the spot. Instead the woman barely looked at her. She was too busy trying to change the quilt cover to pay any attention to Phil.


    "My aunt in Cabin 172 has a headache and is having a nap," Phil said. "She doesn''t want to be disturbed."


    "All right, I''ll see to her room at dinnertime," the maid said, as if it was a matter of complete indifference to her.


    Phil somehow made it to the bathrooms at the end of the corridor. She stumbled into a cubicle and was promptly sick.


    She knelt on the bathroom floor for ages. If only she could keep the door locked and hide in here until they reached Australia. If only she didn''t have to arrange an alibi and answer questions and deflect suspicion. If only Rachael had never come on this journey! It was all Rachael''s fault. She''d brought it on herself. No wonder someone had decided to kill her. It was only surprising that it had taken this long. It was all Rachael''s fault.


    All Rachael''s fault.


    All¡ª


    Phil felt something wet on her face. She brushed it away and almost expected to see blood on her hand. It came as a shock to realise she was crying.

 Chapter V: The Body

    "Murder," said Norman Gale, "doesn''t concern the victim and the guilty only. It affects the innocent too. You and I are innocent, but the shadow of murder has touched us. We don''t know how that shadow is going to affect our lives." -- Agatha Christie, Death in the Clouds


    5:00 P.M.


    Leo scowled at the line. Out of morbid curiosity he''d sat down to reread the play, and somehow it was worse than he remembered. Who on God''s green earth called their wife ''beloved angel'' ¡ª spelt ''beloved angle'', because Philpott clearly hadn''t paid attention in English class ¡ª in this day and age?


    Once more he considered substituting one of his own plays for this one. True, he''d never actually published the scripts he wrote or tried to have them performed. The only people he''d shown them to were a few of his co-stars, who hadn''t been exactly enthusiastic in their praise. But that didn''t matter. He knew he was no Shakespeare, but he also knew he was a better playwright than Philpott.


    He had one play that would do very well if he changed the location of the murder from a train to a boat. The theatre company in Australia had probably never read the play, and if they noticed something different he could always say it was a revised version...


    Leo had come up to the deck after a quick bath because he found the interior of the ship unpleasantly warm. Several other passengers wandered past without paying any attention to him. He tuned out their presence so he could concentrate on the script. Gradually it dawned on him that someone was leaning over the rails just in front of him.


    He looked up, expecting to see Roberts. He and Roberts had played poker against two other men the night before, and Roberts was convinced one of their opponents had cheated. Leo had no opinion on the subject because it wasn''t his money he''d lost ¡ª it was some of the money Philpott had given him ¡ª but he didn''t want Roberts to cause a scene.


    It wasn''t Roberts. It was an East Asian man, probably one of the Hong Kong businessmen on-board, and he was pointing a camera out at the ocean. Leo watched in bemusement as the man struggled to keep his balance and hold the camera steady at the same time.


    He snapped several photos, nodded in satisfaction, and turned away. He saw Leo staring at him and pointed back at the sea.


    "A whale," he said in perfect English with only the slightest hint of a foreign accent. "Looks like a southern right whale."


    Leo wasn''t particularly interested in animals of any sort, sea or land, but a whale was unusual enough to make him go over to see what was happening.


    At first he saw only what looked like a rock barely visible beneath the water. Then it sank out of sight. It reappeared further away a minute later. Again it vanished. This time its tail rose out of the water as it dived. Leo watched with wide eyes. That thing was huge. If it decided to attack the boat...


    The other man must have guessed his thoughts ¡ª which wasn''t exactly flattering to Leo''s opinion of his skills as an actor ¡ª because he laughed softly. "Don''t worry. I have never heard of a ship this size being attacked by a whale."


    A rustle of fabric behind him alerted Leo to the arrival of a third person. Miss Patton came up beside him and looked out to see what was so interesting. She was just in time to see the whale''s tail rise out of the water a considerable distance away. She drew her breath in sharply. When Leo looked over he was mildly pleased to see by the look on her face that she was thinking along the same lines as he had.


    "This gentleman assures me we are in no danger from it," he said to reassure her.


    Miss Patton didn''t look as if she was comforted. Come to think of it, she looked far more shaken than could be put down to seeing a whale. Her face was drained of all colour. Were those tear-marks under her eyes?


    The memory of the scene at dinnertime came back to Leo. Ah. No wonder she was upset. No doubt that old harridan had given her an earful for that.


    Aside from a few waves the sea was still. The whale had apparently decided it had been gawked at and photographed enough. The other man set his camera down on a chair and took a notebook out of his pocket. He scribbled something in it.


    "That''s the fifth variety of whale I''ve seen since I left Vladivostok," he said cheerfully.


    "Is whale-watching your hobby?" Miss Patton asked, seeming to notice him for the first time. Her voice was oddly flat.


    Leo couldn''t help feeling that she spoke mainly to distract herself from her own thoughts. A strange and most unexpected wave of sympathy swept over him. He felt an absurd wish to take her far away from everyone associated with her old life. He shoved that idea away at once.


    The other man was saying, "Not exactly. It is my brother''s hobby, so when he heard I was going to Australia he gave me a book on whales and made me promise to record all the species I saw." He gave Miss Patton a questioning look. "Are you alright, Miss..."


    "Patton," she said, rubbing her eyes. "I''ll never be fond of travelling by sea. Always make me feel queasy."


    Leo remembered how un-queasy she had seemed both times he''d seen her before.


    The other man nodded, but he didn''t look convinced. "Pleased to meet you, Miss Patton and Mr..."


    "Leopold Colman," Leo said, offering his hand.


    "Seo Yo-han," the man said, shaking his hand. "Or, as your name order would have it, Yo-han Seo."


    "Why does China put names round the wrong way?" Miss Patton asked.


    Seo smiled wryly. "I am Korean. And I could just as easily ask why English names are the wrong way round."


    "Hm. I never thought of that."


    A shadow suddenly passed over Miss Patton''s face and she fell silent. Leo looked at her in bemusement, trying to figure out if she had taken offense at having her question turned back on her. No, she seemed to have completely forgotten about the men''s presence. She stared down at the sea with a complicated expression. For a minute Leo thought she was about to jump. He half-started forward to stop her. He looked over his shoulder and saw Seo looked as alarmed and baffled as he felt.


    "Miss Patton? Is something wrong?"


    When she spoke it was on a completely different subject. "Strange name for a ship."


    Leo and Mr. Seo looked at her, then at each other. They both knew they were thinking along the same lines: "Is she quite in her right mind?"


    "I don''t quite understand," Leo began.


    "Kaiserin Elisabeth[1]. Empress Elisabeth. Or Erzs¨¦bet kir¨¢lyn¨¦, as Kir¨¢ly insists on calling her." Miss Patton giggled suddenly. "Kir¨¢ly, kir¨¢lyn¨¦[2]... Anyway. Strange to name a ship after her. Almost tempting fate. She was stabbed on a ship, wasn''t she?"


    "On her way to board a ship, yes," Mr. Seo said. "You speak Hungarian, Miss Patton?"


    She shrugged listlessly. "A little. Couldn''t help picking it up from Kir¨¢ly and¡ª" She stopped suddenly, as if she thought she was about to say something she shouldn''t. Leo became increasingly convinced that she was drunk. "Wait, do you speak it? You said your name was Johann; are you half-German or something?"


    Mr. Seo shook his head with a faint smile. Leo looked at him curiously, but couldn''t see anything to suggest he was mixed.


    "No, I am fully Korean and Yo-han ¡ª only one N, and spelt with a Y, not a J ¡ª is a perfectly good Korean name. I have travelled widely and learnt many languages. Once I learnt one European language the others were easy to grasp, though I found Hungarian much more difficult[3]. The only language I can''t learn at all is Adyghe[4]. No language should have that many consonants!"


    "What''s Adyghe?" Miss Patton asked, finally straightening up and looking as if she was genuinely interested in the conversation.


    "It''s similar to Russian[5]," Leo said. "I''m impressed, Mr. Seo. I''ve never been able to learn any languages. Sometimes I can barely speak English!"


    Mr. Seo gave him a sidelong glance. Leo got the distinct impression his English skills ¡ª or perhaps his accent ¡ª had just been insulted.


    Miss Patton was saying, "Are you a translator or a professor of languages?"


    "Neither. I''m a detective." Leo noticed Miss Patton start. Mr. Seo apparently didn''t notice, and continued without pausing. "Being able to question suspects in their own language is an advantage." He grinned. "Being able to understand what they say to each other when they think I''m an ignorant foreigner is an extra advantage."


    Miss Patton said slowly, "Are you... investigating a case now?"This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.


    "Not yet. But I expect to find one when I arrive in Australia. That''s why I''m going there; the head of a political party has asked me to track down a politician''s mistress who has absconded with government funds."


    "Good heavens!" Leo and Miss Patton exclaimed in unison.


    "Do you deal with murders?" Miss Patton asked in an oddly stilted voice.


    Leo looked at her thoughtfully, trying to determine if it was a casual question or if it had deeper meaning.


    "Sometimes. My most recent failure was an unsolved murder, though I can''t say I tried hard to catch the killer. From everything I heard about him, Ioseb Jughashvili deserved to die and his assassin did the world a service[6]."


    Miss Patton had gone very pale. "Do you think some people deserve to die?"


    "Murderers and terrorists like Jughashvili? Absolutely. But those sorts of people are mercifully few and far between. I dare say I was wrong to only do the bare minimum of investigating his death. He was killed by a hired assassin who I know will kill again, and his next victim will almost certainly not deserve death."


    Mr. Seo fell silent for a moment, staring out at the sea.


    "But," he said with an attempt at a cheerful air, "murders aren''t nearly as common as detective novels make out. Most of my cases are jewel robberies, frauds, political scandals, and blackmail."


    <hr>


    6:40 P.M.


    That "Do Not Disturb" sign had been on the door for hours. Mrs. Schmidt had no objection to letting passengers sleep in the afternoon if they wanted to, but it was now past dinnertime and she still hadn''t been able to hoover Cabin 172. She couldn''t afford to wait any longer. She had a schedule to keep, and she had already fallen behind!


    She rapped the door sharply. No answer. She tried the handle. The door opened easily.


    ,,Was f¨¹r ein Idiot!" Mrs. Schmidt grumbled. The fool had left that sign on the door when she wasn''t even in the room!


    She turned to lift her hoover over the threshold. When she stepped into the room she almost dropped the hoover in shock. The passenger was still there after all, fast asleep and wearing ear-muffs.


    Mrs. Schmidt tried to back out without waking her. A splash of red on the wall caught her attention. She stopped and frowned at it. That shouldn''t be there. Only the first class cabins used red in their decorating. It clashed with the rest of the blue colour scheme. What was it, anyway?


    She set down the hoover and stepped forward to investigate. Her face changed. She recoiled with a yell.


    <hr>


    6:45 P.M.


    "Time of death was approximately three hours ago," Dr. Latimer said.


    First Officer Adler looked at the watch on the floor. In accordance with protocol no one had touched it until the police arrived to investigate ¡ª which wouldn''t happen until they reached Australia, because the ship''s security officers weren''t equipped to deal with murders. The worst they''d ever dealt with had been a case of assault and battery following a drunken brawl. "Do you think the time on the watch will be the time of death?"


    "Possibly." Dr. Latimer closed his bag and stepped away from the body. "I believe there''s a detective on board. We''d better call him in."


    "I''ve already sent someone to find him."


    A steward arrived a minute later with the detective in tow. Mr. Seo looked at the body and drew his breath in sharply. He let it out again with a sort of low whistle.


    "Well, doctor? What conclusions have you drawn?" he asked.


    Dr. Latimer pointed to the bullet wound. "She was shot at fairly close range with a gun. I don''t know enough about guns to say what sort, but judging by the damage it was a powerful one. The bullet travelled right through her head and out the other side, taking a considerable chunk out of her skull. Death was instantaneous. Her body is still warm and only beginning to go stiff, so she was killed no more than three hours ago."


    Seo nodded. "What was the angle of the bullet?"


    "Odd. That''s the only way I can describe it. The killer must have crouched down and fired upwards."


    Seo looked around the room. He looked at something on the wall opposite the body. His expression hardened. "I don''t believe cabins usually have holes cut in their walls."


    "Of course not," Adler said, insulted at the very suggestion. "Why, that would encourage voyeurs and¡ª"


    He broke off in astonishment as Seo moved a suitcase out of the way. A small square had clearly been sawn out of the wall. Seo peered through it. "Right through the wall. Who has the cabin next door?"


    Dr. Latimer frowned. "It was originally my cabin. The victim made a tremendous fuss and got her niece moved into it on the first day."


    "Her niece, who earlier today shouted that she wished her aunt was dead." Seo frowned at the hole. He ran his finger along the bottom edge. "This was sawn from the other side. Recently, too. No earlier than this morning." He turned his head abruptly. "Only one thing doesn''t fit here. The watch. How did it end up on the floor?"


    Neither Latimer nor Adler could answer that.


    "She knocked it down in her death throes?" the steward suggested.


    "Except the doctor has just declared she died instantly. Do you think she could have thrown her arms up, knocked the watch off the bedside table, then set her arms down on the bed again in a split second?"


    "No, that''s impossible. The murderer must have knocked it down," Latimer said.


    "The murderer wasn''t in this room at all. They fired the gun through that hole. See the scorch mark on the wood?"


    It was all very well for him to think about minor details like watches and scorch marks. Adler had a much more important problem. "Should I arrest the niece?"


    Seo didn''t answer for a while. He continued to stare at the watch as if it held all the secrets of the universe. "Yes, I suppose you have no choice. The circumstantial evidence against her is certainly... very strong."


    He didn''t sound like he was happy about it. Neither was Adler. He''d never had to arrest a woman before. It didn''t seem right.


    <hr>


    7:10 P.M.


    After dinner a newly-engaged couple convinced their friends and any other willing passengers to join them in an impromptu ball. The band launched into a collection of waltzes by Strauss, starting with "The Blue Danube". Phil turned down Mr. Colman''s first offer to dance. She didn''t feel like dancing. She felt like she was living in a nightmare.


    How could everyone keep acting so calmly after a murder? Surely someone else had found the body by now. Had the whole thing been Phil''s imagination? Was Rachael going to walk in at any moment?


    The meeting with the detective and his talk of murder seemed even more surreal. Phil found herself wondering if she''d gone mad or if everyone else had.


    Mr. Colman had been dancing with another young woman. When the Emperor Waltz finished he left his partner and again asked Phil to dance. This time she accepted. She had never danced with anyone before, thanks to Rachael''s strictures. But what did that matter? The world was upside down and back to front, Rachael might be dead or Phil might be going mad, but Mr. Colman was very nice and she liked him better than she''d liked any man before.


    The band began playing "Roses From the South". Phil followed Mr. Colman out onto the ballroom floor.


    "I don''t have any ballgowns," she said as an excuse for her embarrassingly plain, old-fashioned dress.


    Mr. Colman laughed. "So what? I bought this suit in a charity shop back in 1908[7] and it was out of fashion then."


    "I would have expected actors to be more fashionable," Phil said without thinking, then realised that sounded insulting when she had meant it as a simple observation. "I mean, the ones my sister works with. She works in a theatre''s costume department. She''s constantly complaining about actresses demanding she supplies them with fashionable clothes for every day wear."


    To her relief Mr. Colman didn''t seem to be offended. "What theatre does your sister work for?"


    "Belfast Grand Opera House."


    "Then she works with much more popular, better-paid actors than me. The only time I''ve been in an opera house is as a paying customer to see a show." A fleeting shadow crossed his face. "I would like to play Shakespeare in a famous theatre some day, but for now I''m stuck in an amateur theatrical company playing in nonsense like that play I told you about."


    Phil felt sudden sympathy for him. "And I would like to travel the world and become famous for something ¡ª photography or writing travelogues, I think. But instead..."


    She trailed off abruptly as she realised she was no longer tied to her aunt''s wishes. She paled. Luckily Mr. Colman assumed she had been about to say something completely different.


    "Yes, people would talk an awful lot about a young woman doing that," he said.


    "What don''t people talk about?" Phil muttered rhetorically. "I dare say all these people would have a lot to say if they knew you were an actor."


    Mr. Colman nodded with a grimace. "Yes, we do have a bad reputation. Not that some of us don''t deserve it, of course." He looked at her in mild surprise. "I would have expected a young lady like you ¡ª especially, not to put too fine a point on it, with an aunt like yours ¡ª to be more discriminating in who she associates with. That is to say, most young ladies will have nothing to do with me as soon as they learn I''m an actor. Is it because of your sister...?"


    Phil thought about this. "Partly. And partly to annoy my aunt." She refused to think about how nothing could annoy Rachael any more. "And partly because if I didn''t talk to you I''d have no one to talk to except Kir¨¢ly, and we have nothing in common. He doesn''t like reading and is the only person I''ve ever met who actually enjoys maths." She paused, considering how to phrase her next words without giving the impression she meant more than she really did. "And mainly because I like talking to you. You''re the closest I''ve ever had to a friend." To make absolutely sure there could be no misunderstandings she added, "And I only mean a friend. Nothing... else."


    Mr. Colman nodded without seeming to be remotely offended or disappointed. "I think of you as a friend and nothing more too, Miss Patton. In fact, you''re probably the best friend I have. I don''t dare be anything more than polite to the actresses in the company in case they get the wrong idea, and the other actors are as talentless and boring a lot as ever disgraced a stage."


    "Why don''t you join another company?" she asked.


    The music drew to a close. As they left the dance floor Mr. Colman said, "I wish I could, but I want to be part of a really prestigious company and can''t afford to get into any of the acting schools. Now that films are popular I''m considering trying those instead, though I really can''t imagine acting without speaking[8]."


    Plenty of people were milling about the room. Out of the corner of her eye Phil saw two figures approaching. She thought nothing of it until they came right up to her. Mr. Colman had been saying something about film studios. He broke off in surprise.


    Phil stared at the two men. Their uniforms showed they were part of the ship''s crew. And their grim expressions told why they were here.


    "Miss Patton?" one of them asked. When she nodded he said, "Come with us, please."


    She felt like a spectator watching from a distance as she got up, murmured some excuse to a baffled Mr. Colman, and followed them out of the room. They led her through the hallways until they approached her aunt''s cabin. The door was open and people were clustered around it.


    One of the men left her and the other man just beyond the crowd. He shoved his way through into the room. Phil''s perception of noise had changed somehow. She knew the crowd were talking among themselves, but their voices were an indistinct buzz. However she distinctly heard someone say in the cabin indignantly, "You brought her here?"


    Another voice, a vaguely familiar one, said, "Do you mean to say you haven''t told her anything?"


    "I''ve never had a situation like this before. I couldn''t just tell a young lady I''m arresting her! It wouldn''t be polite!"


    Someone made a disgruntled sound. "Get these people out of here and I''ll tell her myself."


    Phil still felt strangely disconnected from events. She might as well have been reading about them in a book. Dimly she thought that she should pretend to be shocked when they told her Rachael was dead. She should insist she had an alibi and demand to know why they were arresting her. They knew nothing about the man in Lough Erne. She hadn''t killed Rachael. No one could connect her to Rachael''s death.


    Two people emerged from the cabin, followed by a third. The first two shooed the crowd away. Phil hardly noticed them. All her attention was focused on the detective.


    Mr. Seo looked suitably troubled as he approached her. "I''m very sorry to have to tell you this, Miss Patton. Your aunt is dead. And..." He broke off, hesitated, then tried again. "I''m sorry, but she was murdered. You are under arrest."


    Now was the time for Phil to pretend to be shocked. But she couldn''t. She felt as if one weight had been lifted from her and replaced with another, heavier weight.


    She burst into tears.

 Chapter VI: The First Interrogation

    Listen, I will tell you something. In every case of a criminal nature one comes across the same phenomena when questioning witnesses. Everyone keeps something back. Sometimes -- often indeed -- it is something quite harmless, something, perhaps, quite unconnected with the crime; but -- I say it again -- there is always something. That is so with you. Oh, do not deny! I am Hercule Poirot and I know. -- Agatha Christie, Death in the Clouds


    After his first twelve murder cases Yo-han had learnt that there were only so many ways for suspects to react. Angry outbursts were the most common, followed by shocked denials, tearful breakdowns, and stunned resignation. He''d become fairly good at guessing which one each suspect would choose.


    Miss Patton surprised him. He''d expected an angry outburst ¡ª especially since this was the woman who, approximately six hours earlier, had wished death on the victim. He had not expected a tearful breakdown.


    When things had calmed down somewhat and Miss Patton had been escorted down to one of the holding cells, Yo-han began a careful examination of her cabin.


    The hole in the wall was the only thing that was obviously out-of-place. Under the supervision of an officer he went through her wardrobe and bedside cabinet. He opened her suitcases. He sent word to the laundry department asking them for a full list of all Miss Patton''s and Mrs. Patton-Langdale''s clothes. He searched under the bed, under the mattress, and even checked if it was possible to lift the carpet.


    He wasn''t really surprised there was no murder weapon to be found. Any half-way sensible murderer would have thrown it overboard at the earliest opportunity. Much more telling was the absence of any sign a gun had been concealed in the room. He couldn''t even find a place where one could have been hidden.


    In spite of this he did learn some interesting things from Miss Patton''s room. She had no personal correspondence at all. She didn''t even have pen and paper, suggesting she had no one to write to. Her clothes were several years old and all in dull colours. And she had a collection of novels in her suitcase, an eclectic mixture of Sir Walter Scott (Yo-han was amused to discover he and she were reading the same book; the very same edition, no less), Charlotte Mary Yonge, and potboiler murder mysteries.


    Yo-han had never subscribed to the idea that tastes in literature were an accurate reflection of innocence or guilt. When he had caught a serial rapist last year, the man''s bookshelf had been full of reference books on marine botany and the lives of Catholic saints. On the other hand his landlady during his stay in Berlin had been a sweet little old lady who wouldn''t hurt a fly and loved gruesome horror novels.


    Next Yo-han moved on to Mrs. Patton-Langdale''s cabin. The body had been removed to the ship''s hospital, where it had been placed in a hastily-constructed coffin filled with ice to slow its decomposition.


    One of the crew had been assigned to supervise Yo-han''s investigation and relay messages to the captain. The poor man hovered in the doorway looking distinctly green. He couldn''t bear to look into the room and instead kept his eyes fixed on the carpet. The hallway had been cordoned off to prevent curious passengers from interfering with the crime scene. As soon as Yo-han was finished here, the crew member would lock up both cabins and leave them for the Australian police to examine.


    The first thing Yo-han did was examine the hole in the wall again. He knelt down beside it and imagined firing a gun from that position. A more natural target would have been the victim''s chest. Why go for the head? Was the murderer showing off his marksmanship?


    He looked at the clock again. Had the murderer missed the first shot and hit the clock? No, there was no sign of a bullet-hole on it. It looked as if someone had picked it up and thrown it to the floor.


    Yo-han stared at it thoughtfully for a while. Then he got up and began to examine the victim''s belongings. No sign of robbery. Her jewels were still in their box. Her clothes were hanging up neatly. Her make-up and perfume were still in their place.


    One thing jarred, like a single wrong note in the middle of an orchestra. Yo-han stepped back and stared at the square in the wall, waiting for his mind to interpret what it was.


    Finally he understood. It had nothing to do with either the hole or the clock. He opened the wardrobe again and examined the victim''s clothes. Mentally he compared them to her niece''s. They were old-fashioned, yes. Even he could tell that. But they were made of new material that couldn''t have been cheap.


    He opened the bedside cabinet. At once his eyes narrowed. Very conveniently placed on top of a stationery set, where no one who opened the drawer could help but see it, was a letter.


    It was unsigned and had no name at the start. Beneath it was an envelope. Yo-han put on a pair of gloves to avoid adding his fingerprints to possible evidence and lifted it out. The envelope was addressed to M¨¢t¨¦ Kir¨¢ly, care of a hotel in Hong Kong. Kir¨¢ly, he''d heard that name before.


    The secretary, Yo-han remembered.


    Why did the victim have a letter meant for her secretary? She had not been the sort of employer who Yo-han could picture caring about her employees'' lives.


    The letter itself shed no light on the situation. It had apparently been written in a hurry, possibly in a darkened room, by someone with terrible handwriting. If it had been in hangeul, hiragana or even Cyrillic, Yo-han could have made a guess at it. But for this he would need a native English speaker to decipher.


    He put the letter in its envelope, then put both in one of the bags he always carried around in case he needed to put evidence in them. Possibly this had nothing to do with the crime. It might even be a red herring deliberately planted; his mind returned to the puzzle of the clock.


    All the same, he took it with him when he went to see Miss Patton.


    <hr>


    Once the initial shock wore off, Phil found she could view the situation almost apathetically. It had been just a matter of time before someone murdered Rachael. She''d managed to anger half of second class and most of the staff with her behaviour. As soon as the police began to investigate they''d find dozens of people with a motive. She had ensured she had an alibi. Soon she''d be free.If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    Had anyone told Vi yet? What about funeral arrangements? Murdered or not, Phil was not going to drag her aunt''s body half-way across the world just to be buried at home. Surely Vi and Cousin Jack wouldn''t object. Neither of them liked Rachael any more than Phil did.


    There was nothing she could do until someone came to tell her what was happening. She waited. And waited. And waited. It felt like an eternity before she heard footsteps approaching her cell. The door was unlocked.


    Phil wasn''t particularly surprised when one of the ship''s crew showed Mr. Seo in.


    "What exactly is happening?" Phil asked, trying to keep her voice steady. "Am I to be kept here all day?"


    Mr. Seo stared at her unblinkingly. She fidgeted uncomfortably under the force of that stare.


    "Miss Patton, do you understand the seriousness of this situation? You are suspected of murder. You will be kept here until we reach Australia, and then you''ll be arrested and put on trial."


    "But I didn''t kill her!" Phil protested.


    "I believe you didn''t," Mr. Seo agreed. "But I think you can shed some light on the case. Your behaviour when we met earlier was very unusual. Quite out of character, in fact. And you were not surprised to hear your aunt was dead. Then of course you asked if I solve murders. Correct me if I''m going astray here, but I believe you had already discovered the body before you met me this afternoon."


    Phil sank down onto the only chair in the cell. "Yes. Yes, I did."


    "You knocked over a clock in the room."


    His knowledge seemed downright uncanny. Phil would have thought he''d been spying on her if she hadn''t known there was no way he possibly could have been.


    "I broke it. I changed the time... I didn''t have an alibi. I wanted to make it look like... like she died later..." She trailed off helplessly.


    Mr. Seo nodded as if he''d thought as much. "Start from the beginning, please. What happened after you shouted at your aunt and left the dining room?"


    Slowly at first, then in a rush, Phil recounted the whole sorry saga. Mr. Seo listened in silence.


    "I know it looks like I''m guilty, but I swear I didn''t kill her."


    Phil didn''t mean to stress that last word. It slipped out before she realised what implications it had. The sharpness in Mr. Seo''s expression told her he''d picked up on it too.


    "The best way for me to help you is if you tell me everything that might have a bearing on the case," he said mildly. "Is there some extra information you''re withholding?"


    It struck Phil as darkly humorous that she was falsely accused of murder when she could be honestly accused of manslaughter. "I didn''t mean to kill him." Mr. Seo raised an eyebrow. She felt as if he was silently disbelieving her, so desperately she continued, "He tried to grab me so I hit him and he fell down the stairs. It was an accident."


    "This was not during the voyage?" he asked.


    "No. Before we left home. The night before."


    "Who was the man you hit?"


    She could only shrug. "I''ve no idea. He was lurking near the lake. He wanted to see... I think it was my aunt''s accounts. I suppose he was working for a rival company."


    Mr. Seo "hmm"ed thoughtfully. "Do you have access to your aunt''s accounts?"


    Phil laughed in spite of herself at that. "Me? She''d as soon trust the barman at the Golden Goose with them. Kir¨¢ly saw some of them, but she kept most of them to herself. She didn''t trust anyone."


    "Did anyone threaten her?"


    "Not that I know of," Phil said. "But if you ever saw her, you know what she was like. Everyone hated her. Actually I was planning to run away as soon as we got to Australia."


    Mr. Seo took a small bag out of his pocket. "Speaking of Kir¨¢ly, did you plant a letter in your aunt''s cabin when you broke the clock?"


    Phil tried and failed to figure out what he was talking about and what Kir¨¢ly had to do with it. "No."


    "Then was your aunt in the habit of reading her employees'' letters?"


    If Rachael had been, then the mystery of her seemingly uncanny knowledge of the servants'' home lives would be cleared up. "I never saw her do it, but I wouldn''t be surprised."


    Mr. Seo put on a pair of gloves and opened the bag. He lifted out a letter. "Can you shed any light on this?"


    He held it out to her so she could read it without touching it. Phil scanned the lines with a steadily-sinking heart. No wonder Rachael and Vi had had such a blazing row just before they left. "I could. But it''s not my secret. Ask Kir¨¢ly to explain."


    "You did not write the letter, then?"


    She shook her head. "It has nothing to do with the case. I can say that for certain."


    Yet a sliver of doubt crept into her mind. Kir¨¢ly knew how to shoot. Could he have seen a way of getting rid of an annoyance?


    Mr. Seo put Vi''s letter back in the bag. "One more question, Miss Patton. Do you know of anyone who dislikes you? Not your aunt, but you specifically?"


    Phil thought, but couldn''t come up with anything. "No. I don''t think anyone knows me well enough to have an opinion on me at all."


    As he turned to go she asked, "Do you believe me? That I didn''t kill her?"


    He smiled grimly. "Miss Patton, this murder was carefully planned in advance. For days the killer knew what they would do and never let it show. While you went to pieces with the strain of trying to conceal the murder for a few hours. On that score alone I believe you are innocent."


    <hr>


    Yo-han left the cell with a relatively light heart. This case would be far less complicated than he had feared. The revelation about the man Miss Patton had accidentally killed ¡ª according to her, at least, but he would contact the local police to check ¡ª had been the only real surprise in the interrogation. Next he would question Kir¨¢ly about the letter.


    One thing was absolutely certain. The killer''s cabin was on the same corridor as the victim''s. It simply wasn''t practical to carry a saw and a gun for any distance. Plus the proximity would make it easier to know when Mrs. Patton-Langdale was alone. All he had to do was search the cabins ¡ª though by now the killer would certainly have disposed of the murder weapon ¡ª and question everyone in them. He would pay special attention to the passengers who had quarrelled with the victim two or more days before the murder. It had been planned for at least that long; the hole in the wall showed this wasn''t a spur-of-the-moment explosion of temper.


    The cells were several floors beneath the second class compartments. Yo-han headed for the lift.


    Strangely his thoughts kept straying back to Jughashvili''s well-deserved end in Georgia. It had happened in broad daylight, in the newspaper office owned by Jughashvili''s cronies. The assassin had taken their position upstairs in the building next door. They had a clear shot through two windows ¡ª both open; it had been an unseasonably warm day without a breath of wind ¡ª at Jughashvili, yelling at someone from his desk.


    The assassin had used a hollow-point bullet[1]. It had struck the victim in the back of the head. According to first-hand accounts, the room had looked like a butcher''s shop.


    By the time Yo-han arrived in Georgia the assassin was long gone. That was the funny thing. In spite of all the noise ¡ª the shot, the shouting, the screams ¡ª the assassin had walked out of the house and disappeared. No one had seen them. A ghost could hardly have vanished more completely.


    Yo-han suspected a conspiracy. He''d begun to investigate a possible connection with another politically-motivated murder in Turkey, but that had gone nowhere. Once he learnt more about Jughashvili ¡ª the rapes, tortures and murders of his enemies, the criminal empire he''d built up ¡ª he hadn''t exerted much effort to track down the killer.


    A bullet to the head from the room next door. A murderer who no one had seen. Was it possible that the Georgian assassin was here on the ship?


    Unlikely, Yo-han decided as he stepped into the lift. One of the few things he had discovered in his investigation was that two of Jughashvili''s enemies had withdrawn over twenty thousand rubles, probably to hire the assassin. Mrs. Patton-Langdale wasn''t nearly important enough for someone to pay that much to have her killed. Unless the assassin had lost their money in record time and had to settle for a much lower fee than before, he felt he could rule that option out.


    The lift stopped. Yo-han left it, and came face to face with a distraught Mr. Colman.

 Chapter VII: The Second Interrogation

    Two people rarely see the same thing. ¡ª Agatha Christie, The Murder on the Links


    "It''s dreadful!" Mr. Colman cried. He wasn''t quite wringing his hands and tearing his hair, but he wasn''t far off. "How can they have arrested her? Anyone can see she can''t possibly have done it!"


    Yo-han studied Mr. Colman carefully. Both times he''d seen him before he had gotten the impression of falseness, an impression that had been strengthened when he learnt the man was an actor. But if he was acting now he was giving the performance of a lifetime. He looked like he was close to tears, and Yo-han knew very few men would cry in public unless they were sincere.


    "I see you''ve heard about the murder," he said.


    "Everyone''s talking about it. And they say Miss Patton''s been arrested! She can''t have done it! Why, you saw her on deck yourself, and I was with her until those stupid police came for her!"


    Yo-han didn''t bother to correct his confusion about who had come for Miss Patton. "The murder had already been committed by the time I saw Miss Patton."


    "But she can''t have done it!" Colman repeated as if this was a convincing argument in itself.


    Yo-han felt as if he was talking to a brick wall. "I know she didn''t." That finally startled Colman out of his ''woe-is-me'' attitude. "I am currently trying to prove she didn''t. And if you would stop behaving like someone murdered your entire family I would be able to do it more quickly."


    Colman had undergone a complete transformation while Yo-han was speaking and he now looked downright cheerful. "Are you going to catch the real murderer? Who is he?"


    Oh no. He was one of those obnoxious people who thought solving a murder was as easy as baking a cake.


    "I don''t know yet," Yo-han said shortly.


    He brushed past Colman. Colman, damn him, immediately began to follow like an overly-friendly puppy.


    "Can I help?" he asked. Yo-han remembered the last time an amateur had tried to help him and felt utter despair. "I''ve read murder mysteries." No wonder he and Miss Patton got on so well. They had the same taste in literature. Now if only Colman would go talk to her about books and leave Yo-han alone. "Are you going to question everyone on the ship?"


    "That would take the better part of a year," Yo-han said dryly. "For now I''m going to question the people closest to the victim, and they''re more likely to talk to me without you hanging around."


    Finally Colman took the hint. Yo-han had begun to fear he wouldn''t be able to beat him off with a stick.


    "Can I see Miss Patton?" he asked.


    Yo-han considered the pros and cons of this. "I suppose there''s no reason why not."


    Colman sped off towards the lift. Yo-han heaved a sigh of relief and continued towards Kir¨¢ly''s cabin.


    <hr>


    Yo-han wasn''t really surprised to find the cabin was locked. If Kir¨¢ly was inside he wasn''t answering the door. This gave Yo-han a chance to measure the distance between his cabin and Miss Patton''s. He ran from one to the other and found he could do it in two seconds. However, there was no carpet on the corridor and his shoes made a racket.


    If Kir¨¢ly was the murderer, he could only have done it when the neighbouring cabins were unoccupied.


    The doctor estimated the time of death was around four o''clock. No earlier than half three, no later than half four. That coincided with the time most of the passengers were meeting their friends or going for a walk on-deck. The second-class cabins got rather stuffy in the afternoon. It also coincided with the time chosen for the maids to clean the cabins.


    Hmm. The victim had certainly not been polite to the staff.


    Yo-han added the cleaners to his list of possible suspects. So far it was very short. Kir¨¢ly was at the top of the list, because who was more likely than a disgruntled employee to finally snap? Dr. Latimer was on it too, because he had been forced to change rooms because of the victim. He wasn''t a likely suspect. From their interaction earlier Yo-han hadn''t got the impression he could be a murderer, especially not for such a petty reason. But he had a motive, so for now he was on the list.


    The stewards, the cleaners, and the waiters were also on the list. So far Yo-han considered them unlikely murderers too. Yes, the victim had been rude and demanding, but so were countless other passengers. If the staff had restrained themselves from murder on every voyage so far, they probably wouldn''t have made an exception now.


    So who? Who had access to a gun, skill in firing it, and ingenuity to saw through a wall?


    The crime scene had been set up to throw suspicion on Miss Patton. Was he looking at this from the wrong angle? Was the murderer someone with a grudge against Miss Patton, and her aunt was killed solely to frame her?


    Footsteps sounded on the staircase leading down to the corridor. Yo-han waited to see who was coming. He was pleased to discover Kir¨¢ly had spared him the trouble of searching the ship for him.


    Kir¨¢ly didn''t spot him until he was almost at the bottom of the stairs. Yo-han had plenty of time to watch him carefully for any signs of a guilty conscience.


    The main impression Kir¨¢ly left on him was of someone who viewed life as a vale of tears. His clothes were black and grey, which combined with his pale skin made him look almost as if he''d stepped out of a photograph. A general air of grim resignation hung about him, as if he had expected the worst but was still disappointed.


    When he finally saw Yo-han he looked at him with no sign of recognition.


    "Who are you?" he demanded in a tone so unfriendly it was just this side of openly hostile. "What are you doing outside my cabin?"


    "I am the detective in charge of the investigation," Yo-han said. "I''m afraid I must ask you a few questions, Mr. Kir¨¢ly."


    Kir¨¢ly sighed. "You might as well come in, then."


    <hr>


    Cabin 178 was almost depressingly devoid of anything to show its occupant''s personality. Mrs. Patton-Langdale had a framed photograph and her own alarm clock. Miss Patton had her murder mysteries. Yo-han himself had his calligraphy set and photo album. But M¨¢t¨¦ Kir¨¢ly had his suitcase and nothing else. No photographs, no letters, no books, no trinkets of sentimental value, not even any sign of a hobby. Yo-han found himself wondering how the man passed the time.Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    Kir¨¢ly gestured Yo-han to the only chair in the room. He sat on the bed himself and took a cigarette case out of his pocket, then changed his mind and put it away. Whether that was because he thought it would be rude to smoke in such a confined space, or simply didn''t want to give away the slightest detail about himself, was up for debate.


    "What do you want to know?" Kir¨¢ly asked in a marginally less chilly tone. Yo-han got the impression he was trying to be friendly but was badly out of practice.


    "I want to find out as much as I can about your employer and her niece," Yo-han said.


    "Here''s something for a start: Miss Ophelia didn''t do it."


    Yo-han had never investigated a case where everyone was so convinced the main suspect was innocent. It was almost enough to make him suspect Miss Patton in spite of himself.


    All he said on that subject for the moment was, "I am inclined to agree with you. But more about that later. Would you mind telling me how you came to work for Mrs. Patton-Langdale?"


    "She fought with her latest secretary and fired him. So she advertised for a new one, I applied, and she hired me because I can speak German."


    Yo-han raised an eyebrow. "Kir¨¢ly is not a German name," he said, phrasing it as a question.


    "No. I''m Hungarian."


    "Highly unusual for a Hungarian to go all the way to Belfast just to become a secretary when Budapest or even Vienna is so much closer," Yo-han observed.


    "Budapest and Vienna are also closer to my father," Kir¨¢ly said with a sour twist to his mouth. "He can''t speak English, so I went to London."


    Yo-han was already sure what the answer would be, but he asked anyway. "Did you like working for the victim?"


    Kir¨¢ly burst out laughing.


    "No," he said when he was able to speak again. "There were times when I could gladly have killed her myself." He stopped, realising how tactless and potentially incriminating it was to say that about a murder victim. "I should clarify now that I did not kill her. The best proof I can offer is that I stayed in her employment for a full year when none of her other secretaries could bear it for six months. If I didn''t kill her in her own house before now, when I could have staged it to look like a robbery gone wrong, is it likely I went to the trouble of travelling around the world just to kill her?"


    Yo-han had once caught a murderer who did just that. He politely didn''t mention it. "You admit you disliked her yet you worked for her for a year. Why?"


    Kir¨¢ly''s eyes darted to the side briefly. Only for a second, but enough to show he was uncomfortable. Yo-han followed his line of sight and realised he''d glanced at the bedside table, almost as if he''d expected to see something there.


    "She paid me well," Kir¨¢ly said.


    "Did you expect a legacy?"


    He rolled his eyes. "She made sure everyone in the house knew exactly what was in her will. I get nothing."


    Yo-han leant forward. "Who does benefit?"


    "Her son, first," Kir¨¢ly said, to Yo-han''s surprise. Until now he hadn''t realised the victim had a son. "She left the house, the business, and most of the money to him on condition he gave up his job, moved to Enniskillen, took over the business, and married Miss Patton. If he wouldn''t do all of that, he was disinherited. Then the business and half the money would go to Miss Patton, the other half would go to," he stumbled over his words, "to Miss Octavia, and they would share the house."


    A theory began to form in Yo-han''s brain. He took note again of how empty the cabin was. He looked at Kir¨¢ly''s suitcase propped against the side of the wardrobe. Rather a large suitcase. Too large for the number of clothes carried in it. He also took note of a fleeting movement of Kir¨¢ly''s; it looked as if he''d tried to adjust a ring that wasn''t there.


    "What if either of the nieces married?" he asked.


    Kir¨¢ly''s answer came more slowly this time. "If Miss Patton married she would keep the business and the money, and her husband wouldn''t be able to touch it. Mrs. Patton said this was to stop fortune-hunters marrying her for her money. She also insisted that Miss Patton''s future husband must change his surname to hers. If she doesn''t marry, or marries but has no children, everything goes to Mrs. Patton''s son or his oldest child."


    "And Miss Octavia?"


    "If she married without her aunt''s permission she would be completely disinherited."


    Yo-han''s theory was becoming a near-certainty. To prove it he produced the letter. "This was in your employer''s cabin. Did she often read your letters?"


    As an answer Kir¨¢ly gave Yo-han a lesson in the sort of Hungarian not generally used in polite society.


    "I might have known," Kir¨¢ly said when he calmed down enough to revert to English. "She always read her maid''s letters. She''d have read Miss Patton''s too, if Miss Patton ever got any."


    "Speaking of Miss Patton, she assured me this letter has nothing to do with the case. But it is a mystery, and I dislike more than one mystery at a time. Makes a case so much more complicated than it needs to be. Perhaps you can explain." Yo-han''s tone made it clear this wasn''t a suggestion.


    Kir¨¢ly read the letter in silence. Yo-han took advantage of the pause to reach over and rap his knuckles against the suitcase.


    "What are you doing?" Kir¨¢ly asked, sounding more resigned than annoyed.


    "Confirming a theory. I am sure that if I opened this suitcase and examined it closely, I would find a false wall in it." Yo-han straightened up and fixed Kir¨¢ly with the stare that never failed to silence suspects. "I believe I understand the situation, but you can correct me if I''m wrong. In the first place, you and Miss Octavia are married."


    Kir¨¢ly nodded slowly.


    "I have two theories on why you kept it secret, one less honourable than the other. In the first theory, Mrs. Patton-Langdale was unbearable as an employer and would have been even worse as an in-law, so you kept her in the dark to keep peace in the family. In the second, you admitted Mrs. Patton-Langdale¡ª" Yo-han internally cursed the victim for not being content to pick one surname and stick with it, "¡ªwould disinherit Miss Octavia ¡ª I beg her pardon; Mrs. Kir¨¢ly ¡ª if she married without permission. I notice you didn''t say what would happen if she married with permission."


    "Mrs. Patton had no plans to ever grant that permission unless Vi found a duke or a millionaire," Kir¨¢ly snapped. "And I resent your insinuations! We were going to tell her. We just planned to break it to her gently. Vi tried just before we left and it ended in a terrible fight. She mentions that in the letter. Though I don''t know what J means or why I''m supposed to remember it." He frowned at the letter as if hoping to find a post-script he''d missed the first time.


    "But even if you broke the news gently you would still have married without permission," Yo-han pointed out.


    Kir¨¢ly made an exasperated gesture. "Vi never expected to get anything from her aunt at all. Either Mr. Langdale or Miss Patton or both of them will get everything. Mrs. Patton threatened constantly to make a new will disinheriting Vi completely, married or unmarried. She might have actually done it; she visited her lawyer the week before we left."


    "Then where exactly did you expect to get money? Surely you didn''t think Mrs. Patton would keep you in her employment when she found out about the marriage."


    "Vi has a job in the opera house. She''ll have a steady income for as long as they need costumes made and altered. And I can easily find another job." Kir¨¢ly frowned. "But how did you find out?"


    Yo-han gestured to the room at large. "In the first place I had begun to suspect a relationship of some sort from the letter. In the second I saw how empty this place is. The logical deduction was that you had hidden your personal belongings somewhere you thought they would be safe from your employer''s curiosity. The suitcase fit with that." His tone became abruptly more serious. "I must trouble you to open it, since it would also provide a convenient hiding place for a gun."


    Kir¨¢ly looked like he was about to object, but thought better of it. He opened the suitcase, moved his shirts aside, and removed the false wall. Inside, as Yo-han expected, were letters and photographs. Also there, as he hadn''t expected, were a painting kit and a few watercolour landscapes.


    The space wasn''t as large as he had expected. Most of it was a layer of padding to prevent the photographs being damaged. There was no sign of a gun and no room for one to have been hidden there.


    "Thank you," Yo-han said. "Out of curiosity, who do you think killed Mrs. Patton-Langdale?"


    To his surprise Kir¨¢ly answered without hesitation. "The doctor."


    Yo-han wondered if he''d heard right. "The... who? Do you mean Dr. Latimer?"


    "Of course," Kir¨¢ly said as if it was obvious. "He''s close enough to her cabin."


    "Do you think he was so upset over changing cabins that he murdered her?" Yo-han asked.


    Kir¨¢ly rolled his eyes. "No. It goes back before that, to the hotel in Hong Kong. The doctor was staying there too. Mrs. Patton found out something about him and I think she tried to blackmail him."


    This was new information. Yo-han decided to question the doctor next. "Do you know who is in each cabin on this corridor?"


    "No one''s in the ones opposite Mrs. Patton''s and Miss Patton''s. An old lady is in the one between mine and Miss Patton''s. The doctor is opposite her, and that actor is opposite me. That one¡ª" He pointed to the wall to indicate the cabin to the right of his, "¡ªis empty. So''s the one beside the actor. One of the others is empty, and the last one has a man who plays loud music."

 Chapter VIII: Further Questions

    ...death, fires, and burglary make all men equals... -- Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist


    When Yo-han left Kir¨¢ly''s room the first thing he saw was that the door directly opposite was ajar. He remembered Kir¨¢ly''s list of the other passengers. From there it wasn''t hard to deduce Colman was back in his room. Now was as good a time as any to question him too.


    Yo-han knocked politely. As he had expected, this made the door slide a little further open so he got a glimpse inside before Colman said, "Come in."


    The main impression the cabin made on Yo-han was of absolute chaos. Sheets of sketches lay piled haphazardly on the chair, spilling over onto the floor. A suit was unceremoniously draped over the half-open wardrobe door. Since the chair was unusable, Colman was half-sitting half-lying on the bed and using a suitcase as a footrest. The suitcase was too full and looked like it would burst open at any minute.


    Yo-han was hardly a tidy man. He had an amazing ability to get ink over everything when writing, he could never find his shoes without turning his cabin upside down, and he never bothered to fully unpack but instead hunted through his suitcase for what he needed. All the same, this was excessive. How could Colman bear to live in this mess?


    Colman looked up from the book he was poring over. "Oh, hello, Mr. So! Have you caught the murderer yet?"


    Yo-han let both the mispronunciation and the question pass without comment. "I''d like to ask you a few questions, if you don''t mind."


    Colman''s face fell. "Then you haven''t caught him yet."


    "Perhaps you can help me," Yo-han said.


    "Won''t you sit down?"


    Yo-han looked pointedly at the chair. Colman laughed sheepishly and set down his book. While he removed the sheets from the chair, Yo-han craned his neck to read the book''s title without having to go closer. Richard II. Hmm. He''d assumed Colman''s acting career was confined to the sort of musical comedy that relied on twee songs and scantily-clad women to get an audience.


    "Would you like some tea?" Colman asked, piling the papers haphazardly on top of a cupboard.


    Yo-han slightly revised his opinion of the man. Clearly he had some manners. "No need to go to the trouble. I won''t be here long."


    Colman dropped the last sheaf of papers on top of the pile. He watched without apparent surprise as they promptly slid off and fell to the floor. Yo-han resisted the urge to suggest he should take housekeeping lessons.


    "If you don''t mind my asking, what are all those... drawings?"


    This was clearly the right thing to ask, because Colman brightened up. "They''re set designs. Some are sets other people designed for plays I''ve acted in, and some are my own invention. In case I ever become a director and can stage my own productions, you know. This one''s for King Lear, this is for a play about Anne Boleyn, here''s an idea for The Pirates of Penzance ¡ª with a few quick alterations during scene changes, the "ship" set can also be used for the Major-General''s house ¡ª and this is the set from a Sherlock Holmes play I saw in January. I''m going to bring some of these to show Miss Patton when I visit her next. They might cheer her up."


    Yo-han didn''t offer an opinion on that. "Speaking of Miss Patton, I have some questions."


    Colman put the drawings back on the cupboard and sat down on the bed again. "Fire away."


    Now was a chance to investigate Kir¨¢ly''s theory. "Dr. Latimer has the cabin beside yours. What do you think of him?"


    Colman looked blank. "Never thought of him at all. Never knew his name until now. Why?"


    Yo-han continued as if he hadn''t heard the question. "What about the cabin on the other side of yours?"


    "No one''s staying there. Do you mean the cabin beyond it? I don''t know his name, but there''s a very annoying man in it who turns his record player up as loud as it''ll go. Especially in the evening. If there was a policeman around I''d report him for disturbing the peace."


    That fit with what Kir¨¢ly had said.


    "Do you know any of the other people on this corridor?"


    Colman thought for a moment. "Well, there''s that secretary or whatever he is. Very grim chap. Always looks like he''s on his way to a funeral. Then there''s a little old lady who''s quite deaf. I said good morning to her once and she told me to stop mumbling. Then Miss Patton, of course, and... and her aunt. I don''t think there''s anyone else. Do you suspect one of them? Personally I''d say the record man is the most likely. I can''t hear myself think when he turns that machine on. He could shoot everyone on this storey and I''d never hear it."


    "He is a suspect," Yo-han agreed, "but so far so is everyone else. So are you, for that matter."


    Colman gawked at him as if he''d said water was dry. "Me? But¡ª You can''t believe I''d kill someone! Why, I didn''t even know Mrs. Langdale!"


    "Right now everyone who had an opportunity to commit the murder is a suspect. That includes very unlikely people indeed, like the deaf old lady and Miss Patton herself. When I learn more, I can eliminate names from the list. Would you mind telling me where you were at the time of the murder?"


    Colman frowned. "That was... What time was it?"


    "Between three and half four."


    To Yo-han''s surprise Colman took a notebook out of his bedside table and flipped through it.


    "Lost by four to seven¡ª No, that was this morning. Ah, here. At three o''clock I was playing cards with Hislop in the dining room. I won by two points." He set the notebook down. It was still open, so Yo-han could see scribbled numbers and sums. "After that... I think I went on-deck for a smoke. I didn''t check my watch, but this must have been after half three. I''d left my script in the dining room by accident this morning, so when I remembered where it was I went down and got it. There was a party going on and I took a slice of cake. Then I came back on-deck to read, and I''d been there about... probably more than fifteen minutes when I saw you."


    "Thank you," Yo-han said. "You say you didn''t know Miss Patton before?"


    Colman shook his head. "I spoke to her for the first time in the dining-room."


    "Then how can you be sure she didn''t kill her aunt?"


    For a minute Colman spluttered incoherently. "I¡ª Well¡ª She can''t have! Young women don''t go around murdering people in real life! Only in badly-written melodramas, like Philpott''s trash!"


    Yo-han didn''t know who Philpott was, but he could have proved Colman wrong by recounting several previous cases. He decided not to bother.


    "Well, that will be all for now. In the morning I''ll question the other people on this corridor, and I''m sure before long you''ll be relieved to hear I''ve caught the killer."


    "I certainly hope so," Colman said with a disdainful expression. Clearly he hadn''t forgiven the implied aspersion on Miss Patton''s innocence.


    "By the way," Yo-han said as he stood up, "what is that drawing meant to be?"If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    He pointed to a paper that had floated to the floor. The drawing resembled nothing so much as Tower Bridge seen late at night, in a fog and by someone who had spent too long in the pub. His mind boggled at what sort of play that set could be for.


    Colman picked it up. "It''s another for King Lear. It''s meant to be his castle. It would be in the background every time he''s on-stage and would tilt further and further onto its side as he goes mad. Then it would collapse when he dies."


    "Hmm," Yo-han said. "What if it injures the actors?"


    Colman stared at him, then at the drawing. "...Oh."


    <hr>


    Despite how late it was, and how long the day had been, Yo-han did not go to bed for another hour. First he asked a steward for the names of the staff who had been working at the time of the murder. He discovered that a maid had been hoovering a few cabins away and had heard nothing. He also learnt some interesting things about Mr. Tremaine, the man in Cabin 181, otherwise known as the man who insisted on playing loud music at all hours.


    Finally he sent a message to Kir¨¢ly asking him to visit Miss Patton with him in the morning. Then at long last he went to sleep.


    <hr>


    Phil, locked up in a cold room with only the guard outside for company, didn''t sleep much at all.


    <hr>


    The next morning Yo-han got up at six and went straight to the telegraph office. The radio operators took turns working through the night. One of them was spending off the last of yesterday''s messages when Yo-han arrived. He sent urgent messages to Hong Kong, London, Belfast, Sydney, and after some thought, Tiflis.


    By the time he was finished it was seven o''clock and he had already received an answer from Hong Kong. It wasn''t what he expected. He read over it twice, considering how it fit in with the case. Then he went downstairs.


    He had to knock repeatedly before Dr. Latimer finally opened the door. The doctor was still in his pyjamas and looked half-asleep. He groaned when he saw Yo-han.


    "Not another murder, please," he said in-between yawning.


    "No. I have a few questions to ask, if you don''t mind."


    "You couldn''t come back later?" Latimer grumbled, but he let Yo-han in anyway.


    "In the first place, I know you and the victim stayed in the same hotel in Hong Kong. I know you had some sort of argument with her. What was this argument about?"


    The doctor stared at him. "...Are you by any chance a mind-reader?"


    Yo-han stopped himself from audibly scoffing, but only just. "Certainly not. I have a brain, knowledge of human nature, and access to a telegraph machine. Your explanation, please."


    Latimer didn''t so much sit down as collapse onto the side of the bed. "It''s... Well, there''s really not much to tell. I attended a series of lectures at Hong Kong''s medical school, and I stayed in that hotel because it was nearby. The lectures ended six days before Mrs. Patton-Langdale and her family arrived. I stayed on because I missed my original ship to Sydney, and there is only one per week.


    "When Mrs. Patton heard I was a doctor she asked me to prescribe sleeping pills for her. I listened to her symptoms and decided she didn''t really need them, so I told her to wait until she could consult her own doctor.


    "I have a stomach problem and I take tablets to control it. Mrs. Patton saw me taking them. She assumed they were opium and tried to blackmail me into giving her the sleeping pills. I told her what my tablets actually were and reminded her blackmail is illegal. She left me alone after that until we ended up on the same ship and she insisted on her niece having my room. I was happy enough to switch; didn''t fancy the idea of having a room right next to the old harridan''s."


    Latimer opened his bedside cabinet. He took out a small bottle. "These are the tablets, if you want to have them examined."


    "That won''t be necessary. I believe you''re telling the truth." Yo-han went back to the last part of the story. "You were the original occupant of Cabin 174. The murder was committed from Cabin 174, apparently to throw suspicion on Miss Patton. But it was only a coincidence she had that room at all. Do you know of anyone on the ship with a grudge against you?"


    Latimer shrugged. "Patton-Langdale herself, I suppose, but if that was a suicide I''ll eat my hat. I don''t know the niece or the secretary at all. Can''t imagine either of them disliking me just because the aunt did. Other than them, the only person I know at all is Colman, and I only know him by sight. He was at the hotel too. Doubt if he knew anything about the sleeping pills business, though. Spent most of his time at the card table. The man must have the devil''s own luck, or so much money he doesn''t care how much he loses. Or maybe he can earn a lot of money with that violin."


    "Actors rarely care about money," Yo-han said. "Violin? I didn''t know Mr. Colman played it."


    Yo-han pictured Colman''s cabin. He couldn''t remember a violin case anywhere.


    "He keeps it in a special case and guards it like it''s a Stradivarius. I only saw him playing it once, and then only because some actor friends of his were having dinner at the hotel."


    Yo-han returned to the main subject. "Do you suspect anyone specifically of the murder? Anyone whose cabin is on this hall?"


    "Not the niece, because only an idiot would use their own room for a murder. Not the secretary, because why would he put himself out of a job? Not the old lady opposite me, because at four I was playing croquet on-deck and she was sitting on the side-lines pointing out all my mistakes. The only possibilities are Colman and that chap in the cabin near the stairs. Don''t know his name, but I think he''s a cad. I saw a woman sneaking into his room the day before yesterday. I''ll bet you anything that''s why he plays records so loudly."


    "Having a clandestine relationship does not necessarily make one a murderer," Yo-han pointed out.


    "No, but if Patton-Langdale spotted the woman too and tried to blackmail them?" Latimer shook his head. "I''ll eat my hat if he''s not the murderer."


    <hr>


    When Yo-han left the doctor''s cabin he went straight to Mr. Tremaine''s. The record player was silent now. If the doctor''s theory was right, that meant Tremaine was alone. Yo-han knocked sharply. No answer, so he knocked again.


    A voice with a distinct American accent grumbled, "All right, I''m coming!"


    The bed creaked. Heavy footsteps approached the door. Someone fumbled with the key. The door opened to reveal a tall, stout man in a nightshirt, with a goatee beard so pointed it looked like it had been borrowed from a theatre''s costume department. His nightcap was half-over his eyes. He shoved it back, and in the process banged his elbow on the door.


    He said a few words that would be considered offensive even in America. Nor did his language improve when he got a good look at Yo-han.


    Holding his elbow, he growled, "Damn it, another¡ª!" and he used an extremely offensive word for Chinese people. Slowly and loudly he said, "What you want?"


    Yo-han had always been good at accents. Now he put on an English accent so posh it would have put George V to shame. "I''m the detective in charge of the murder investigation. I have a few questions for you, Mr. Tremaine. I advise you to keep a civil tongue in your head."


    Tremaine''s small eyes bulged out of his face, which was gradually turning red. His mouth hung open. A less attractive spectacle would be hard to imagine.


    Yo-han continued without waiting for him to recover. "First, where were you at the time of the murder? That was four o''clock yesterday afternoon." He paused, but Tremaine was still incapable of speech. "Either you were in your room or you wished people to think you were. I have the testimony of a maid who said you were playing loud music at a quarter past three when she began to hoover, and you were still playing it a full hour later when she stopped."


    Tremaine made a noise at the back of his throat. It sounded like a malfunctioning clock struggling to tick.


    "I believe you were here during that time, and if so I am sure you weren''t alone. Even with the music you are sure to have heard the gunshot. Did you? Or must I find your paramour and question her?"


    Tremaine seemed to have shrunk while Yo-han spoke. Now he was practically cowering.


    "Don''t talk so damn loud!" he begged. "Everyone will hear!"


    Yo-han said nothing and gave him a look. It was the look he had perfected from years of dealing with suspects, and it never failed to make them quail. Tremaine shuddered.


    "I didn''t hear no shot," he said. "Yeah, we heard the girl hooverin''. That was how we knoo the coast was clear, ''cause no one stays down here when they''re hooverin''. We play the moosic just to be safe."


    "But you heard something," Yo-han said.


    "We heard a door, that''s all." Yo-han raised an eyebrow. Tremaine practically fell over himself to elaborate. "Someone closed a door real loud. We heard it over the moosic and everythin''. Thought it was the girl hooverin''. Didn''t sound like a gun."


    That confirmed what Yo-han had suspected: the murderer had used a silencer. The maid hadn''t heard it because she mistook it for a drum. "What record were you playing at this point?"


    Tremaine stumbled over his own feet in his haste to find the record. "This one. Divverak."


    Yo-han didn''t bother to correct his atrocious pronunciation, but only because he wasn''t entirely sure how to pronounce Dvo?¨¢k himself. "Play it now, please."


    Tremaine set the record on the turntable, moved the needle to a random track, and turned it on. It started off softly. The volume increased, then decreased. So far there was no loud crescendo that would cover a shot.


    Yo-han picked up the record cover. He took note of the run-time of each movement. "When did you begin to play this record? Before your paramour arrived?"


    "No, ''cause we had to change the record. This would''ve been ''bout... after half three."


    With a little calculation, that meant the piece playing at the time of the murder was the finale. He moved the needle. This music was much louder. He picked out cellos, drums and violins amongst the instruments. He turned the volume up, and it would certainly have disguised a gunshot.


    Now the only real mystery was how Tremaine and his paramour could endure all that noise in such a small room. They must have invested in industrial-strength earmuffs.


    Out in the hall a door was flung open with force.


    "Stop that racket!" Kir¨¢ly roared. In Hungarian he added his opinion of Tremaine''s ancestry and where he could expect to spend eternity.


    Yo-han turned off the music. Kir¨¢ly''s door was closed again with equal force.


    "Thank you, Mr. Tremaine," Yo-han said politely. "You have helped me answer two important questions."


    He left the room and almost bumped into a very annoyed Colman, who was still in his pyjamas. They exchanged greetings. As Yo-han continued down the hall he heard Colman begin, "I''ve tried to be understanding, Mr. Tremaine, but this simply must stop. This isn''t the Royal Albert Hall. How can you expect the rest of us to get any sleep?"

 Chapter IX: The Last Interrogation

    I do not imagine; detectives aren''t allowed to imagine. They note probabilities. -- Ngaio Marsh, A Man Lay Dead


    Yo-han went back to the telegram office. Two more replies had arrived. He read them and found they confirmed all his suspicions. He went on-deck for a breath of fresh air and to go over the pieces of this puzzle. Again and again he mentally put them together in various combinations. Only one explanation fit. But there was still one very important detail missing: the motive.


    It was now half-nine. Time to meet Miss Patton and Kir¨¢ly. Yo-han was almost certain he would discover the motive in a few minutes.


    When he arrived at Miss Patton''s door he found Kir¨¢ly already there, scowling at the guard. The guard, for his part, was seated in a chair beside the door and munching stolidly away at a slice of toast. He looked up with a relieved expression when he saw Yo-han.


    "About time," Kir¨¢ly grumbled. "This idiot insisted I had to wait out here."


    The guard shrugged. "Orders, sir. I''m not to let anyone speak to the prisoner ¡ª I mean, the young lady ¡ª without Mr. Seo being there too."


    He got up and knocked the door, then unlocked it. "She''s had her breakfast. Kroeger ¡ª him who had the watch last night ¡ª said she cried most of the night, poor girl. I hope," he looked anxiously at Yo-han, "you can prove she didn''t do it? Doesn''t seem natural, a young lady killing her own flesh and blood."


    "I assure you I can do more than that. In a few hours you will have the real murderer in this room."


    The guard and Kir¨¢ly stared at Yo-han, the guard in admiration and Kir¨¢ly in astonishment.


    "Cor!" the guard said in an awed tone. He finally remembered to open the door and let them in. Behind them they heard him mutter "Cor!" again.


    Miss Patton was standing when they entered, less as if she was waiting to receive them and more as if she''d paused in the middle of pacing back and forth. Her hair was disordered and her face was even paler than normal. Her first words showed she had overheard what Yo-han said.


    "Do you mean it?" she demanded as soon as the door was closed. "You know who the killer is?"


    "I do," Yo-han said. "All I need is your help to find the motive."


    The cell was really just an empty cabin hastily given an extra lock, so it had a bed and a chair just like the other cabins. Yo-han opened the door again and asked the guard to bring an extra chair for Kir¨¢ly. When this was done the three of them sat down.


    Yo-han took one of the telegrams out of his pocket. "I have received some interesting news from Belfast. I think it will be a surprise to you, Miss Patton, but probably not to you, Mr. Kir¨¢ly. Mrs. Patton-Langdale was robbing her business partner in Belfast."


    "I thought so," Kir¨¢ly said, while Miss Patton exclaimed, "So that''s how she could afford that summer-house!"


    Yo-han took out another telegram. "Her business partner appears to be a... I don''t know if ''gangster'' is quite the right word, but certainly an unscrupulous businessman. He is suspected of hiring an assassin to kill a reporter who annoyed him. But what assassin would travel half-way across the world to kill someone? I contacted an acquaintance in Hong Kong who assures me no assassins there have been hired by foreigners lately, and he certainly can''t have hired an Australian one."


    "Do you want an answer or are you just talking to yourself?" Kir¨¢ly wanted to know.


    Miss Patton''s mind moved along the same tracks as Yo-han''s. "The murderer must have been hired in Britain but was already planning to go to Australia. Or he was paid enough to make the trip worth his while."


    Yo-han nodded. "Who on the ship has plenty of money?"


    "The people in first class," Miss Patton suggested.


    Kir¨¢ly scowled. "That bast¡ª sorry. That loathsome creature Tremaine. Did you hear the racket he made this morning?"


    Yo-han wisely decided not to mention his part in that. "Playing loud music without regard for the neighbours does not necessarily mean a man is rich."


    "No, but the way he bought free drinks for everyone yesterday does. He said he''s some American film producer and one of his films is a success. I don''t believe it. A producer travelling in second class?" Kir¨¢ly rolled his eyes at the very idea.


    "Anyway, the assassin must have got to the ship after us," Miss Patton said. "He would have killed Aunt in Hong Kong if we were still in the hotel when he got there. I''ve never seen Tremaine so I don''t know when he arrived. Mr. Colman and the doctor were at the hotel with us, and Mr. Colman was on the train with us before that."


    Kir¨¢ly looked surprised. "Was he? I never noticed."


    Miss Patton nodded. "He got off somewhere in Russia. Yesterday he showed me the photos he took of the place where he stopped. Lots of mountains and forests and old churches. But about the murderer, I think he must have meant to kill Aunt in the hotel and had to change his plans at the last minute. It just doesn''t make sense to do something like saw through a wall unless you''re desperate and running out of time. So find out who bought their ticket right before sailing and I think we''ll have found the murderer."This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.


    Yo-han got up. "I have one last thing to investigate. In about an hour I''ll speak to the captain and summon both of you ¡ª and a few other people ¡ª to a meeting. Then I''ll reveal who the murderer is."


    He stared very hard at a drawing taped to the wall. "Excuse me, Miss Patton, is that from Mr. Colman?"


    Miss Patton blushed slightly as she looked at it. "Yes. He said he couldn''t get any real flowers, so he drew some for me."


    "What sort of flowers are they?"


    Unexpectedly it was Kir¨¢ly who answered. "Lilies of the valley, tulips, orchids, and I think those are meant to be hyacinths." Yo-han and Miss Patton both gave him surprised looks. It was his turn to blush. "Vi likes flowers."


    Miss Patton''s air of gloom briefly dispelled. She nodded with a wry smile. "I know. When we shared a room she filled it with flowers every spring. It was enough to give me an allergy."


    <hr>


    Yo-han walked slowly back to his cabin. He now had all of the pieces, including ones he hadn''t expected. None of them were conclusive in themselves. So much evidence, but no proof.


    He sent a message to the captain. Miss Patton, Mr. Kir¨¢ly, Mr. Colman, Dr. Latimer, Mr. Tremaine, and Yo-han himself would all gather in the captain''s own sitting room, accompanied by several armed guards just in case the murderer tried anything when they were revealed. The meeting was set for twelve o''clock. It was now half-past ten.


    Yo-han rummaged through his suitcase for a notebook. He pulled his chair over to the bedside table and used it as a desk. Methodically he wrote down every piece of evidence. They were all so little, but they added up to so much.


    When he finished he asked himself, Can I be wrong?


    He tried fitting the facts to the other suspects. Something was always out of place.


    <hr>


    The cleaner watched in astonishment as an officer knocked the cabin door, then opened it with his master key.


    "Excuse me, sir, is something wrong?"


    "Captain''s orders," the officer said shortly.


    He disappeared into the cabin. A minute later he emerged carrying a large square box. The cleaner couldn''t help suspecting robbery. He watched the officer relock the door and head down the corridor. At the end he met up with the detective. They had a short whispered conference. The officer handed the box over to the detective and left. The detective left in the other direction.


    After a minute''s speculation, the cleaner gave up and went back to dusting. It couldn''t possibly be something to do with the murder. He''d never believe it, not from the occupant of that cabin.


    <hr>


    Twelve o''clock found five passengers, four officers, and the captain himself in the captain''s sitting room. A curious mixture of emotions were on their faces. Mr. Tremaine looked nervous. Dr. Latimer looked bored. M¨¢t¨¦ was waiting patiently, but without any obvious emotion. The captain was busy trying to light his pipe. Phil was pale but otherwise composed, and talking quite calmly to Leopold, who was doing his best to be cheerful.


    Yo-han arrived as the clock on the mantlepiece was still chiming the hour.


    "I won''t keep you long," he said without preamble. He moved the vacant armchair back so he could see everyone, and waved Mr. Tremaine over from the window to sit on the settee so he could see his face. "I''ve asked you all here to reveal who killed Mrs. Patton-Langdale. But first I must go back two months and recount one of my previous cases. The reason, I hope, will soon be clear.


    "There was a, let''s call him a political leader, in Georgia ¡ª not the American Georgia, the European one. He used a dozen aliases, but his real name was Jughashvili. He started out as a trainee priest[1], then changed his mind, became a communist, and lived like a king. Unfortunately that king was George the Evil[2]. In his pamphlets he said private property shouldn''t exist and everyone should have the same amount of money, and he practiced what he preached by forcing people off their property and taking it for himself. It''s not really surprising someone decided the world was better off without him.


    "They hired an assassin. This much I was able to find out: the assassin crossed the Black Sea from somewhere in eastern Europe, but he was not from eastern Europe. I traced him as far as Vienna before the trail went cold, and I''m almost sure he had come from somewhere even further west.


    "The assassin killed Jughashvili by shooting him in the head, through a window, from the building next door. Strangely no one saw the assassin enter or leave the building. I was able to trace him as far as central Russia, but there he disappeared again.


    "As you might expect, the assassin took the job for a large sum. I don''t know how large because I suspect a deposit was paid before the murder, and there was some confusion about who actually hired the assassin. He may very well have been hired by two separate groups, each unaware of the other. But whatever the truth, he left Georgia a very rich man. Hardly the sort of man who would need to kill someone else for money two months later. Especially when the victim was someone so much less important. An embezzler is a step down from a bank robber, serial torturer and gangster.


    "And yet, I believe that is exactly what happened."


    Yo-han paused to see what reaction this elicited. Until now most of the audience had been listening with politely-concealed boredom. At his last words they mainly looked astonished. Kir¨¢ly looked disbelieving, and Miss Patton looked stunned. Yo-han looked at them all in turn to avoid appearing to single anyone out. All the same, he took careful note of one person''s expression. In spite of himself he had to admit he was impressed at their mask of surprise.


    "Are you telling me that a professional killer was hired to murder Mrs. Langdale?" the doctor asked.


    Yo-han nodded. "I know, it sounds improbable. But there are certain important facts that prove it. First, the similarity in the murder weapon and the way the murder was committed."


    Tremaine ventured to say, "That ain''t proof, though."


    "Not on its own. Second, the assassin''s apparent invisibility. Third, the music."


    "Hey!" Tremaine yelped. "Are you tryin'' to pin this on me?"


    Yo-han took a deep breath and forced himself to remain polite. "Not at all, I assure you. I simply mean the assassin was familiar with the piece of music and knew when it would be loud enough to cover a shot.


    "Fourth, where did the money go? Obviously the assassin has expensive tastes, or is spectacularly careless. I doubt he gave it all to charity. Could he, perhaps, have lost most of it in gambling?"


    Under cover of surveying all of the suspects, Yo-han kept a close eye on one of them in particular. Now for the first time he saw a flicker of alarm beneath the mask.


    "Fifth, the hole in the wall.


    "Sixth, he cannot have regular employment or he would never be able to travel the world like this. Yet he can''t be completely reliant on the money he earns from killing, or the irregularity in his finances would have been discovered before now.


    "In short, we have a murderer with a fondness for gambling, a knowledge of disguise, music, and carpentry, and no steady job. That description would fit an actor very well. Don''t you agree, Mr. Colman?"

 Chapter X: Instrument of Murder

    My experience as a police inspector has taught me that many people are able to regard themselves with inordinate fondness, no matter what heinous crimes they have committed. They care only about how they look to others, and whether they can get away with it. -- Sophie Hannah, The Mystery of Three Quarters


    If Yo-han had thrown a bomb at the gathered suspects he could hardly have caused more uproar. Tremaine and the doctor jumped as if they''d been stung. The captain dropped his pipe. The guards looked back and forth from Yo-han to Colman. Kir¨¢ly leapt to his feet with an expression that suggested someone was about to get punched, and he hadn''t decided yet if it was Colman or Yo-han. Miss Patton turned to Colman with a bewildered frown.


    Colman himself returned Yo-han''s stare without flinching and without any apparent emotion. He said nothing, simply raised one eyebrow and waited. His face was blank but there was something in his eyes that suggested he wanted to smile sardonically.


    "You''re wrong," Miss Patton said. Her voice wavered. "You... You must be wrong. Mr. Colman''s my friend!"


    A flicker of real emotion crossed Colman''s face. Yo-han noticed it. Pain, he thought, but not guilt.


    "Well, Mr. Colman?" he asked quietly.


    Colman finally seemed to decide on how to play this. Perhaps he had a whole list of scripts for moments like these. He laughed almost naturally. "Alright, Mr. Seo. You''ve had your fun. But don''t you think the joke''s fallen flat?"


    Yo-han simply looked at him. Colman looked back. He was smiling faintly but his eyes were very cold. Did he believe he could convince Yo-han he was wrong or did he know the game was up? Yo-han couldn''t tell.


    He got up and crossed to the door. An officer was waiting outside as he had asked. Yo-han took the box from him and went back to his chair. The officer locked the door again. Colman watched with his head on one side and a mildly puzzled expression. Everyone else looked bewildered. Kir¨¢ly had sunk back down into his chair, but looked like he was ready to leap up again at a minute''s notice.


    "Do you recognise this?" Yo-han asked.


    "Certainly," Colman said. "It''s my violin case."


    A chorus of indignant exclamations interrupted here. "That''s not a violin case!" "Do you take us all for fools?" "Violin? Yeah, and I''m the Emperor of Mexico."


    Colman waited until the others were quiet. "It is a violin case. I had it custom-made so it would look like an ordinary box, because my last violin was stolen. Open it and you''ll see."


    Yo-han took him at his word. He opened the box and held it up so everyone could see the violin.


    "I admit, I gamble far too much," Colman said. "But I am quite capable of making money through acting or music. I don''t need to go around killing people."


    Yo-han ignored him and lifted the violin out. He set it carefully on the table. "Thank you, Mr. Kir¨¢ly. Your suitcase gave me an important clue." He ran his fingers along the velvet lining that framed the space for the violin. "All of you can see this case is far larger than it needs to be. What is all that extra space used for?"


    One corner moved when he touched it. Yo-han prised it up. The velvet lining came away. A chorus of gasps followed.


    A gun lay in pieces in the hidden compartment.


    Colman didn''t react with anger or despair or even the slightest hint of embarrassment. He sighed and nodded as if he wasn''t really surprised. His voice was quite calm as he asked, "What gave me away?"


    "When Miss Patton asked what Adyghe is, you said it''s a language similar to Russian. You claimed you only speak English, yet you have heard of an extremely obscure language and know where it''s spoken. That made me think. I had already deduced Jughashvili''s killer must have been good at disguises, so who better than an actor?"


    Miss Patton had stared mutely at Colman since the gun was revealed. Her face showed more bafflement than anger, as if she still couldn''t believe what was happening. At the mention of her name she turned and stared at Yo-han. There was confusion and hurt in her expression, but also dawning anger.


    Yo-han continued, "Then of course you showed me your drawings. They made me realise you were interested in set design, which would include some knowledge of carpentry. Enough to know where to saw through a wall without hitting the wiring or pipes, perhaps.


    "Any remaining doubt was destroyed when you sent Miss Patton that drawing this morning. I consulted a dictionary of flower meanings. Lilies of the valley, tulips, orchids and hyacinths have one thing in common: they all mean regret[1]. When used in a bouquet they mean the giver is apologising for something."


    Colman winced. He turned to stare almost wildly at Miss Patton. "I never meant to put the blame on you. I thought you''d have an alibi. I was an idiot but I didn''t deliberately frame you. Everything I''ve told you is true. I do think of you as a friend. Believe that if you believe nothing else."


    Miss Patton stared at him. Her lip trembled and she clenched and unclenched her hands. She raised one hand sharply, but let it drop without striking him. Abruptly she got up and walked over to the other side of the room. She leant on the windowsill and stared out at the sea. Colman watched her, then slumped back against the settee. He looked genuinely distraught as he stared at the floor.


    It occurred to Yo-han that the man was more upset about losing a friend than about murdering two people.This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.


    The captain finally recovered. "Leopold Colman, you are under arrest for the murder of Mrs. Rachael Patton-Langdale. You will remain in a cell until we arrive in Sydney, then will be handed over to the police."


    Colman shrugged. He looked up and gave Yo-han a sarcastic smile. "No cell will hold me. I''ll walk off this ship and you will never stop me."


    "Believe that if it gives you comfort," Yo-han said dryly.


    The guards hauled Colman to his feet and marched him to the door. While it was being unlocked Colman looked back at Miss Patton. Genuine pain showed on his face, and perhaps a hint of remorse. But Yo-han was sure the only thing he truly regretted was being caught.


    <hr>


    Phil had never felt so numb. Not when her aunt was killed, not even when she was arrested. She left the room in a sort of daze. M¨¢t¨¦ and Mr. Seo accompanied her to her new cabin. Her old one, of course, was roped off as part of the crime scene.


    M¨¢t¨¦ looked so alarmed that she wondered if he thought she was likely to harm herself. She could almost have laughed at that. Mr. Seo asked her if she wanted a cup of tea. She shook her head silently. Talking was too much effort. When they left her alone she collapsed onto the bed and replayed everything Leopold had ever said to her.


    Had he been acting the whole time? He''d come to see her when she was arrested. He''d sworn he believed she was innocent. Well, of course he had. No one knew the truth better than him. He''d visited her as often as he was allowed to.


    That drawing...


    Phil took it out of her pocket and unfolded it. Regret, Mr. Seo had said. An apology. Was it genuine? It had to be, because who had he been trying to fool? In the end it had just incriminated him.


    She wondered suddenly if he''d deliberately incriminated himself. If he''d found the one sure way of proving her innocence.


    It was wishful thinking. No matter what he might say, it was impossible a murderer could truly care about anyone.


    Phil traced the outline of the flowers. They were just outlines without colour. Had he meant them to be white or had he forgotten to colour them?


    The drawing blurred. Phil angrily dashed the tears away. It was no use. They kept coming back. She dropped the paper, buried her face in her pillow, and cried herself to sleep.


    <hr>


    It was odd how everything could go back to normal so quickly. The captain had announced to the rest of the passengers that the real murderer had been caught. Apart from a few comments expressing sympathy for Miss Patton, everyone immediately seemed to forget about the whole thing. Sydney was less than a day away. The passengers unconnected with the murder were more interested in packing and exchanging their details than thinking about what had happened, especially now they knew no one else was in danger.


    Some people didn''t have the luxury of putting it out of their mind.


    Yo-han visited Colman in his cell. He tried to find out how many murders he had committed, and how many others he could give information on. Colman ¡ª assuming that was his real name ¡ª refused to be drawn. He asked about Miss Patton, then answered all of Yo-han''s questions with questions of his own.


    Eventually Yo-han gave up. Colman watched him leave with a smile playing around his mouth. Yo-han couldn''t shake the feeling that Colman knew something he didn''t.


    What was it he''d said? "No cell will hold me. I''ll walk off this ship and you will never stop me." It was nothing but bravado. But just in case, Yo-han ordered that the guard outside the cell should be doubled.


    He went back to his cabin. There was his notebook with the list of reasons for Colman''s guilt. He''d been right about all of them.


    Yo-han picked up his book and tried to read. His mind kept wandering back to Colman''s words. He gave up after reading the same page five times and not understanding a word of it. He''d used all the film in his camera, he didn''t feel like doing calligraphy, and he certainly wasn''t hungry. For want of anything better to do he wandered up on deck.


    His route took him down the corridor past the scene of the tragedy. There was Mrs. Patton-Langdale''s cabin, still with a cordon over the door. There was Miss Patton''s cabin, now devoid of its occupant. There was Colman''s cabin, devoid of both its occupant and his belongings (which had been impounded to be handed over to the police). Tremaine''s cabin was silent for once. So were the doctor''s and Kir¨¢ly''s.


    Yo-han walked slowly up the stairs, past the restaurant, and out onto the deck. It was late afternoon now. He spoke to Colman here yesterday about this time. Mrs. Patton-Langdale was already dead and Miss Patton''s nightmare had already begun. It had been too late. He had been far too late.


    On the horizon the shore was visible, a featureless line of black. No whales could be seen today. Someone was leaning on the rails anyway. For a disconcerting moment Yo-han felt as if he''d stepped back in time and was about to speak to Colman again. Then the person turned their head and he saw it was Kir¨¢ly.


    He nodded to Yo-han with more politeness than he''d ever shown before. Yo-han nodded back. He joined Kir¨¢ly in watching the distant shore. For a while they were both silent.


    Kir¨¢ly took out his cigarette case. He offered a cigarette to Yo-han.


    "No, thank you. I don''t smoke."


    Kir¨¢ly lit his own and let the match fall down into the water. "I think I''ll stop after this. I only started smoking because Mrs. Patton doesn''t... didn''t like it."


    Yo-han smiled wryly. "What do you intend to do now? You''re out of a job."


    "I want to go home to Vi, of course. If I could I''d be on a boat leaving Australia within a day." Kir¨¢ly looked briefly puzzled. "I still don''t understand what she meant in that letter." He obviously dismissed that thought and returned to the original question. "It depends on what Miss Patton decides to do. I can''t leave her here alone. I suppose she''ll want her aunt buried here, and maybe she''ll attend the trial. But beyond that I don''t know. Don''t suppose she knows herself."


    In all the chaos of the last two days Yo-han had almost forgotten why he was originally going to Australia. Now that he thought of it again, the politician and the disappearing mistress seemed utterly unimportant. "I have another case waiting in Australia."


    "Not another murder, I hope."


    Yo-han nodded, internally debating the probabilities of the case ending in tragedy. "Not another murder, I hope."


    Kir¨¢ly finished his cigarette. He dropped it overboard too and stared down at the water for a minute. "I never would have thought it was him."


    There was nothing Yo-han could think of to say that didn''t sound trite.


    "Do you think he really does care about her?"


    Yo-han thought of the times Colman had sought out Miss Patton''s company. He couldn''t see anything the man had gained from that. As he had calmly admitted during their talk in the cell, Colman had decided on how to commit the murder from the minute he got his hands on a plan of the ship. Had he amused himself by deliberately befriending a young woman, knowing the whole time he was going to kill one of her closest relatives?


    Yo-han had met criminals who had done similar things and derived ghastly pleasure from it. But somehow he couldn''t picture Colman doing that. Those criminals had never been able to hide their true feelings for long. He remembered what he had thought of Colman''s reaction to Miss Patton''s arrest.


    If he had been acting, he had given the performance of a lifetime.


    "I don''t know," he said at last. "But I don''t think it matters in the end."


    "Miss Patton might disagree."


    Yes. Miss Patton might disagree. "It would almost be worse if he does care. Whatever the nature of his feelings, whether romantic or purely friendly, they weren''t enough to make him stop."


    There was little to say after that. Yo-han and Kir¨¢ly stood together on the deck in silence and watched the shore grow darker as the sun set.

 Chapter XI: Land

    Dogs are wise. They crawl away into a quiet corner and lick their wounds and do not rejoin the world until they are whole once more. -- Agatha Christie, The Moving Finger


    Phil didn''t leave her room until the next morning. When she emerged she wasn''t actually wearing mourning, but her normal clothes were such dark colours that it was hard to tell. Her eyes were slightly puffy and with dark circles underneath. But her hair was neatly arranged and her demeanour was as normal as could be expected.


    Too normal, some people said. She behaved as if her aunt had died naturally after a long illness, and of course she was sad but she wasn''t going to let it interfere with her life.


    At breakfast some of the passengers felt it was their duty to offer their condolences. Phil accepted them with perfect composure. Afterwards she had a conference with M¨¢t¨¦ in the library.


    "I''m going to have Aunt buried in Sydney, of course," she said. "I''ll contact her lawyers back home, though I''m sure they''ve heard of the situation by now. If Jack doesn''t want his inheritance, and I doubt he will, I''ll take over the business. Do you want to stay on as my secretary?"


    M¨¢t¨¦ listened with an expression of open amazement. "Miss Patton¡ª" He had never been able to decide if marrying Vi gave him the right to use Phil''s first name, even though she''d told him he could, "¡ªare you... I mean, you don''t... Well, are you sure it''s proper to make plans so soon?"


    Phil smiled sadly. "You of all people should know I don''t feel much grief over Aunt''s death. I know it sounds horrible, but I do believe I''m more upset about..." Her throat closed up. It was a struggle to say, "Leopold." She took a deep breath. "Aunt Rachael made me miserable while she was alive. I''m not going to let her continue in death. I''ll wear mourning for two months and no more. And I will run the business and my own life in the way I want."


    M¨¢t¨¦ was silent for a while. Then he shrugged. "I''ll stay."


    <hr>


    As soon as the ship docked in Sydney, Yo-han went ashore to meet with the police. None of the passengers were allowed to leave yet. The police came on-board and took statements from Yo-han, Miss Patton, Mr. Kir¨¢ly, and the captain. They looked over the crime scene and had the body removed. Then they went down to Colman''s cell and arrested him.


    Yo-han wasn''t present for that part. The passengers had begun to depart. He had brought his luggage off the ship and was waiting near the passport check-point to meet Miss Patton and Mr. Kir¨¢ly when they disembarked. He idly watched the passengers milling by. Some he recognised, some he knew by sight only, some he didn''t know at all. One mousy, non-descript young man brushed past him.


    "Good day, Mr. Seo," the man said.


    Yo-han returned the greeting automatically. The man had passed him and was showing his passport to the officials before his words ¡ª and more importantly his voice ¡ª registered.


    Yo-han''s head snapped round. He was just in time to see the man walk through the gate. He stopped and looked back. There was nothing particularly memorable about him, any more than about the dozens of similar young men all around. Then he straightened up and tilted his head to the side. Even from a distance Yo-han could see he was grinning.


    Leopold Colman waved cheerily and disappeared into the crowd.


    Yo-han started forward. He opened his mouth. The words to alert the officers were on the tip of his tongue. Then he closed it again. Colman was long gone.


    How in the gods'' names had he managed that? He hadn''t changed his appearance at all; only his clothes and his way of carrying himself. Yo-han reluctantly had to admit that Colman was undeniably an excellent actor. If only he was content to use his talents on the stage alone!


    It took Yo-han a minute to realise the implications. Since Colman had somehow managed to escape, who the devil was the man being arrested and led off the ship?


    He ran back up the gangplank. The police were just emerging from the lift, with a man in handcuffs between them. The prisoner was protesting volubly in German. Yo-han saw at once that he was one of the guards assigned to watch Colman''s cell.


    "Wait! That''s not the man!" he shouted, oblivious to the scene he was causing.


    The policemen stopped and stared at him as if he was speaking double Dutch.


    "The real killer just walked off the ship and escaped into Sydney," Yo-han snapped. He glared at the guard. "This man was meant to be guarding him. I expect he can give you an explanation."


    <hr>


    According to the guard, Colman had overpowered him when he brought him his breakfast. No one had bothered to check on the prisoner after that. The police had found him locked in the cell, assumed he was the murderer, and handcuffed him. None of them spoke German and he spoke little English, so his attempts to explain were useless.


    Yo-han had ordered there should be two guards on duty at all times. The other guard remained conspicuous by his absence.


    So did Colman. During the rest of his stay in Australia, Yo-han never saw or heard of him.


    <hr>


    58 Rowan Path[1]


    Belfast


    29 July 19¡ª


    Dear Phil,


    I''ve just heard everything! How dreadful! And they tell me it was an actor who committed the murder! I feel quite ashamed on behalf of the theatre as a whole.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    You might have heard that I sent a letter to M¨¢t¨¦. I tried to warn him in code, but my code was so safe he couldn''t decipher it. Here''s the full story: a body was found in the lake near Aunt Rachael''s house. (I suppose it''s your house now. How funny!) The police wanted to question Aunt Rachael about it. Then they found out she''d been murdered, and they discovered the dead man was working for the man who hired the assassin, so they think he was the first assassin sent to kill her. But she was a match for him!


    Funny to think of old Aunt Rachael shoving an assassin down the stairs then hiding his body in the lake. But the police say that''s what happened. I suppose they know best.


    I''ve written to M¨¢t¨¦ too but I might as well explain it to you. J in my code meant those mystery books by Jemima Gibbs-Taylor. You know, the murder mysteries I showed you, that you said were silly. I thought you''d understand.


    Send M¨¢t¨¦ home soon please! I''m so lonely without him!


    Your affectionate sister,


    Vi


    <hr>


    TELEGRAM FROM MISS OPHELIA PATTON TO MRS. OCTAVIA KIR¨¢LY


    M¨¢t¨¦ already on way home stop you are an idiot stop


    <hr>


    The funeral of Rachael Patton-Langdale was a very quiet business. Only two people attended. Phil was there in full mourning. She had insisted on M¨¢t¨¦ going home before the funeral as there was nothing he could do here. She had cancelled her aunt''s business meeting here and booked her passage on a ship sailing the next day. In the meantime here she was, in a graveyard ten thousand miles from home, at the funeral of a woman she still despised.


    The other mourner was Seo Yo-han.


    After the grave was filled in they both stood in silence for a while. Phil read the headstone over and over again.


    It was short and to the point.


    Rachael Patton-Langdale


    Born 1876 in Belfast


    Died 1915 at sea


    There was nothing else to say. "Beloved aunt" or "Deeply missed" would be lies of staggering magnitude.


    Phil turned to Mr. Seo. She didn''t know what to say, so she settled for, "Thank you." That seemed insufficient when he had proved her innocence, so she continued, "If you ever visit Ulster, I''d be happy to see you again."


    Even to her own ears her words sounded stilted and ridiculous.


    Mr. Seo smiled faintly. "Thank you, Miss Patton."


    In spite of herself Phil asked, "Have you found him?"


    No need to elaborate. They both knew there was only one person she could mean.


    Mr. Seo shook his head. "I expect he left on the first available boat. By now he could be anywhere: New Zealand, America, perhaps even back in Europe. I doubt he''ll ever bother you again."


    Phil didn''t know which would be worse: seeing Leopold again, or not seeing him. She murmured her goodbyes and left.


    As she walked out of the graveyard she couldn''t help scanning the place for one person in particular. He would be alone, she thought even as she told herself she was being ridiculous, and wouldn''t dare come too close. He would probably stand at a distance, on that hill for example. But there was no one there.


    Wherever Leopold Colman was, he didn''t deign to attend his victim''s funeral.


    Phil didn''t know what it said about her that she almost wished he had.


    <hr>


    104 Westfield Grove[2]


    Oxford


    4 September 19¡ª


    Dear Miss Patton,


    You''ll think this is very strange. Probably you''ll tear up this letter as soon as you realise who it''s from. I apologise for the familiarity in calling you "Dear". But then, I have far more to apologise to you for.


    I have just returned to England. As you may imagine, I took the scenic route home to avoid a certain detective. I believe I owe it to you to make a full confession.


    This much is true: my name is Leopold Colman and I am an actor. I did briefly work for an imbecilic playwright named Philpott, and I was bringing his script to Australia.


    This is what I didn''t tell you: I am an assassin. I killed a man for the first time when I was twelve. I killed a man deliberately for the first time when I was sixteen. As I didn''t get caught, I decided to make a career out of it. No doubt this is shocking to you. But though we are both from Ulster, your life has been very different to mine. A boy from a Belfast slum has very little chance of turning out well. Especially a boy whose parents are a prostitute and a Catholic priest.


    My acting career is partly a hobby and partly a cover. For now I''m taking a break from assassinations, so the theatre-goers of England can expect to see me more often.


    To return to the events in June: I was aware a detective had been hired to catch Jugashvili''s killer. (If I had known what trouble he would cause me, I would never have taken the hit on that [a word scribbled out] I beg your pardon; such language is unfit for a lady''s eyes.) I took the most circuitous route possible until I got to Shanghai. By then I had already lost most of my money. I admit it, I am an inveterate gambler. (A hobby I mean to break now.) I heard of another hit put out. The money offered was far less, but it was enough to get me home from Australia.


    (I should perhaps mention that Philpott is based in Shanghai, not England, and I had taken a temporary job in his company to earn money to get home. One benefit of my job: I see a great deal of the world.)


    I accepted the job. You know what happened next. But I swear this is true: I had no ulterior motives in befriending you, and my friendship is genuine. When I first spoke to you I had no idea I''d been hired to kill your aunt. When I found out... I have a strict rule of never allowing emotions to interfere with my job. If I had been hired to kill my own aunt I would have done it just as surely. All the same, I wished you weren''t so closely linked to her.


    Would you believe that I was kindly disposed towards you from the start? Would you believe it was (at first) solely because of your accent? You were the first Ulsterwoman I had met for months. I doubt you ever guessed my origin; I changed my accent years ago.


    I decided to fire the shot from your cabin long before I even got on the ship. I truly believed you would have an alibi. No doubt this is cold comfort, but I had no intention of framing you.


    There is very little else to say. I apologise for killing your aunt. But I am what I am, so I must admit I am only sorry that I caused you pain. You need not fear my attempting to see you, or to seek revenge against Seo. I outsmarted him once, so it''s only fair he outsmarted me. I quite like him, actually.


    Goodbye, Miss Patton. I truly wish you well. I will not contact you again unless you wish me to.


    Yours sincerely,


    Leopold Colman.


    P.S.: it''s useless to send the police to the address I give in this letter. If they come they will find an empty house, not lived in for years.


    P.P.S.: if you do want to contact me, send a letter to the William Shakespeare Theatre in Oxford[3].


    <hr>


    Phil''s first impulse was to throw the letter in the fire. Instead she read it out of mingled indignation and curiosity. Half-way through she regretted not slapping Leopold when she had the chance. When she finished it her feelings were a tangled mess.


    Another sheet of paper was still in the envelope. She slid it out and discovered it was a drawing of herself, leaning on the rail of the Kaiserin Elisabeth. It must have been done partly from memory and partly from consulting a fashion magazine, because she had never worn such a fashionable dress or hairstyle on the ship.


    Phil stared at it for a long time.

 Epilogue

    I promise you I''m not broken, I promise you there''s more


    More to come, more to reach for, more to hurl at the door


    Goodbye to all my darkness, there''s nothing here but light


    Adieu to all the faceless things that sleep with me at night


    -- The Amazing Devil, Farewell Wanderlust


    Seoul


    Korean Empire


    14 October 19¡ª


    Judge Seo Jin-gu''s house had never been Yo-han''s home. He had left long before his father was promoted, and even longer before his father earned enough to buy this house. On the few occasions he visited it he had never been able to stay long. His father rarely remembered his existence, and a few days of his stepmother''s presence was all he could bear.


    But it was his half-brother''s fifteenth birthday. Yo-han had no pressing cases at the minute, so he made a special trip back to Seoul.


    Hyeon-su was the only person genuinely glad to see him. The minute Yo-han arrived at the house his half-brother swooped down on him and began talking. Hyeon-su had always had an amazing ability to talk without pausing for breath. Once he had managed ten minutes at once; Yo-han had timed him.


    Experience had taught him it was impossible to get a word in edgewise. He allowed himself to be dragged into Hyeon-su''s room and shown all of the gifts their father had bestowed on his younger son. Yo-han couldn''t help reflecting that their father had never given him anything for his birthday, and only had made the most perfunctory acknowledgement of his coming-of-age ceremony.


    Finally Hyeon-su ran out of presents, but he hadn''t yet run out of breath. To Yo-han''s surprise the next thing he produced was an envelope.Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    "This came for you in August. I hid it before Mother could see. I would have sent it on, but I didn''t know where you were. You don''t write enough! What does it say? I can''t read English. Is that English? Who''s it from? Oh, a newspaper! Is it about one of your cases? Tell me all about them! Look, I framed the photos you took of the whale!"


    Yo-han took a deep breath. "Hyeon-su, could you please stop talking for five minutes?"


    Hyeon-su immediately closed his mouth and sat down. He kept his eyes on the clock. Clearly he was going to make sure he said nothing for exactly five minutes and no longer.


    Yo-han unfolded the newspaper clipping. It was indeed in English. A short article described a recent production of Richard III at a famous London theatre. After praising the lead actor it added ¡ª and these words were underlined ¡ª a short paragraph praising Mr. Leopold Colman''s portrayal of Buckingham.


    He checked the envelope just to make sure an assassin didn''t know his father''s address. No, it had been addressed to "Detective Seo Yo-han, care of Seoul Police Headquarters".


    Another folded piece of paper was attached to the newspaper with a paper clip. Yo-han opened it. The writing was untidy but still legible, even for a non-native English speaker.


    Shame you can''t be here!


    In spite of himself Yo-han laughed.


    The five minutes were up. Hyeon-su leapt to his feet. "What does it say?"


    "Oh, nothing, really. Just an update about an actor whose career I am following with interest."


    Hyeon-su looked bemused and mildly disappointed. Then he remembered he''d forgotten to order tea and ran off to rectify his mistake. Yo-han reread the newspaper and the note.


    Of all the ways a criminal could taunt a detective, this was certainly one of the most foolish. Yo-han now knew exactly where Colman had been and how long he had been there. Any amateur could easily trace him with that information. There were two possibilities: either Colman was so suicidally over-confident that he thought he could evade pursuit...


    Or he wanted Yo-han to chase him.


    Either way, Yo-han was sure he hadn''t heard the last of Mr. Colman.


    THE END