Midnight Sailing, page 11
“Oh, but I do!” wailed Mrs. Greeve. “Will you promise you’ll do something before he can hurt me?”
“I promise.”
Mrs. Greeve’s orange satin form billowed upright in the berth. She clutched Larkin’s sleeve with her chubby fingers, drew him close to her. Then she lay back again, her eyes closed. “I don’t know who it was,” she gasped. “I mean I don’t. Really.”
“Was it a tall, lean, blond man named Frayle?” Larkin prompted.
“No, no! I mean I didn’t see his face. I don’t know who it was.”
“It was Jeremy Hood,” said Larkin at random.
Millicent Greeve’s eyes opened wide. She sat up.
“Not so loud, Mr. Parker! Please! He’s right in the cabin across from us. It wasn’t him anyhow, but he might hear you. I’m still scared to death, Mr. Parker. I mean I’m trembling like a leaf. Just look at me, Mr. Parker. Pass me that bottle again, won’t you, Mr. Parker?”
Larkin reached for the bottle. He stood up. “Millie,” he said, “I can’t protect you against cerise behemoths. But you can always try dark glasses for those. Or empty glasses. So long, Millie.” He opened the door. He met Dorothy Bonner’s anxious, questioning glance with a slight motion of his head.
She followed him into the corridor and closed the door behind her. “What do you think?” she asked.
“I don’t know what to think.”
“Do you think—did Charlie Frayle really—? Oh, it can’t be that. It couldn’t be. I don’t know what I’d do…”
“I don’t know about Frayle,” said Larkin, “but I’ll find out.”
“Do you think Millie really saw something?”
“That’s hard to say. Millie is a little vague on a number of things. That husband of hers, for instance. Poor Mr. Greeve’s been meeting her at Yokohama, Shanghai, and Hong Kong, in the three times she’d mentioned him to me. And she told Willowby she was meeting him in Kobe. Go in and hold her hand while I check up on a few points. I’ll be back in half an hour or so—to hold your hand.”
Dorothy smiled for the first time that day. It was a warm and warming smile. She said, “Glen, you are a darling. I’m afraid I’d rather like that.”
Larkin rather liked that, too. For a moment he forgot, that she had left him holding the photostatic copies of a set of blueprints stolen from the United States Navy. He said, “That’s a mistake. Thousands of women have found it out, to their great sorrow. It might interfere with our business arrangements. And besides, you have a fiancé.”
Dorothy shook her head. It was a noncommittal gesture, if you discredited her smile—which you couldn’t very well. “You’re a very comfortable person to have around,” she said. “Regardless.” ’
She was still smiling when she returned to her stateroom.
Chapter Seventeen: CHROMOXYLOGRAPHS
In response to repeated rapping, the door of Stateroom F opened a few inches—just enough for Larkin to catch sight of the blue-steel butt of an automatic pistol sticking out from under Jeremy Hood’s pillow in the background.
“Am I intruding?” Larkin asked politely.
Jeremy Hood saw the direction of Larkin’s gaze. He closed the door another inch and tried to maneuver his thin, stooped body into the line of vision. Larkin could still see over the mouse-colored fuzz of his baldish head—a head that was several sizes too large for his narrow shoulders.
“Oh, no, no,” said Jeremy Hood. “I just wasn’t sure I heard someone knock. I’ve been taking a nap.”
“I’d like to talk to you privately for a moment, Mr. Hood,” Larkin said. “Would you like to come to my stateroom?”
“No,” squeaked Mr. Hood.
“Then do you mind if I come inside?”
“I’m pretty crowded. There’s no place to sit down…”
“I don’t mind standing. It won’t take a moment.”
“What’s it about?”
“I’ll tell you privately.”
“Well—” Hood hesitated. “All right, come in.”
He shut the door after Larkin, then with quick, birdlike steps retreated to his berth. His thin translucent fingers rapidly arranged the mussed bedding as he sat down, and his right hand lingered on the edge of the pillow that he had jerked forward to hide the pistol butt.
“Well, what is it?” he demanded shrilly.
“It’s about this thing that happened today,” Larkin began.
“What thing?”
“This young man who was murdered.”
“Oh, that. I thought it was an accident.”
“Then you have heard about it? I thought that perhaps, not seeing you in the dining saloon, or at the funeral—”
“The steward told me,” said Hood. “Some good-for-nothing narcotics addict stumbled and struck his head against a ventilator cowl. What about it?”
“There’s a feeling among some of the cabin passengers,” Larkin said, “that the ship’s officers were just a little too ready to regard this young man’s death as an accident. We don’t enjoy living with the possibility that there may be a murderer among us, and we think there should be a fuller investigation. We’re preparing a petition to Captain Fujiwara to this effect. Would you sign?”
“No,” said Jeremy Hood.
“Isn’t that a rather unusual attitude, Mr. Hood—?”
“Not at all,” shrilled Hood. “In the first place, it’s none of my business, and in the second place, I have complete confidence in the officers of this ship. You and your friends distrust them because they’re Japs.”
“No, Mr. Hood…”
“Yes, you do. You’ve got that California prejudice. You’ve been listening to tourists tell that Japs are dishonest and sly and bloodthirsty. Well, they’re not. They’re a nation of artists. There isn’t another people on the face of this globe with a finer and more universal esthetic sense. This unfortunate affair in China—that’s not typical of Japan. That’s the work of a small military clique. That’s—”
“Yes, I understand all that,” Larkin interrupted. “I’m merely assuming that for reasons of their own, the officers of this ship are hiding the truth about the death of this stowaway, and some of us passengers are cowards enough to want the truth brought into the open.”
“And what makes you think that the truth hasn’t been told?”
“For one thing,” said Larkin, “there’s pretty strong evidence that the man’s death was not solitary. Someone went through his pockets—and left them turned inside out. I saw that myself.”
“Indeed.” Jeremy Hood’s spine seemed to stiffen. His left hand drew his black crocheted sweater closer about his shoulders, as though in response to a sudden draft of cold air. The fingers of his right tightened on the edge of the pillow.
“So I was wondering,” Larkin continued, “if you didn’t notice any unusual commotion on deck last night, say, some time between two and four in the morning.”
“No, of course not,” said Mr. Hood indignantly. “How could I? I haven’t been outside of my cabin since we sailed from San Francisco.”
“Not at all, Mr. Hood?”
“Not once!” His black eyes glittered aggressively in his dull, grayish face, daring Larkin to doubt his word.
“Yes, of course,” Larkin said, half-apologetically. “I remember now that Dr. Bioki said something about you not being well. Seasick, weren’t you?”
“I’m in perfect health!” Hood declared shrilly. “And I was never seasick in my life. I’m naturally careful, that’s all. And you’d be careful, too, if you had eighty thousand dollars’ worth of merchandise in your cabin. You wouldn’t be leaving it much, either.”
“I see,” said Larkin. “Then you’re a jewelry sales man.”
“Jewelry salesman!” Jeremy Hood sniffed scornfully. “I’m an art dealer. Perhaps not the largest on the Pacific Coast but certainly the most important. At least if you measure importance by taste and knowledge rather than by financial standards. And in my specialty, I have no peer in America.”
“And what is your specialty, Mr. Hood?”
“Chromoxylographs,” said Mr. Hood.
“Ah, yes, chromoxylographs.” The word had a faintly familiar ring to it. Larkin’s memory was busy sifting associated ideas.
“Japanese color prints to you, sir. I add the popular term to spare you the embarrassment of asking me if a chromoxylograph is not a musical instrument.”
“Thanks for your tactful consideration,” said Larkin, “but, although some of my best friends are Philistines, I’m not completely ignorant of Japanese prints. I used to own one, in fact, when I lived in Paris. A rather nice Hokusai. One of the Hundred Views of Fuji.”
“It would be Hokusai,” Jeremy Hood snorted. “And I suppose your entire knowledge of the subject comes of reading Edmond de Goncourt’s monograph on Hokusai and Utamaro. That’s all most of you know—Hokusai and Utamaro and perhaps Hiroshige’s snow scenes. Utamaro, I grant you, is great. But what of Koriusai and Kiyonaga and Harunobu? I sometimes think the whole art of chromoxylography culminated two centuries ago with Kiyonaga, and I’ll wager you never heard of him. Or the women of Toyokuni the Elder? My dear man, I have a collection of Toyokuni actresses, right here in this room, that—”
“Here?” broke in Larkin. “Are you taking Japanese prints to Japan?”
“Eighty thousand dollars’ worth!” said Hood.
“Aren’t you carrying rum to Jamaica, Mr. Hood? All the Oriental art dealers I ever knew did their buying in the Orient and their selling in America—or Europe.”
“That shows your ignorance, my dear man,” said Jeremy Hood. “Your ignorance is the appalling ignorance of Americans where Oriental art is concerned. Americans know nothing about Oriental art. Oh, there is a certain snobbish interest in Ming vases and Ch’ien Lung glass and Suzuki bronzes. But most so called Oriental art dealers subsist by selling teakwood screens and antimony Buddhas and carved ivory replicas of Hidari Jingoro’s three Nikko monkeys. And why not? Their customers have neither the knowledge nor appreciation of the true masters. I have in my portfolios a dozen original prints by Hishigawa Moronobu, but I could not get their proper price in America because how many Americans know that Hishigawa Moronobu was the father of chromoxylography? But in Japan there are many new millionaires being created, because of war contracts and munitions orders.… So I buy in America from collectors who do not know the real worth of their treasures, and sell them in Japan to collectors who do, And I make a neat profit.…”
Jeremy Hood’s high-pitched voice droned on and on with the persistency of a buzz-saw and even less variance of tone. Larkin was anesthetized by its shrill monotony and by the deadening volleys of facts and unfamiliar names that Hood was flinging at him. “Nishiki-ye … Ukiyo-ye school… 1760 … Kiyomisu … the Shigekichi Mihara collection …” The wizened little man was not only warming to his subject; he was boiling over with it. In fact, he continued to boil with such turbulence that little by little Larkin got the impression that this was not entirely professional enthusiasm. All this prolix vehemence on the subject of Japanese color prints was certainly not for the mere edification of a benighted stranger. It had some other purpose. What was it?
“… the classic monochromes of Jasoku, even more magnificent, perhaps, than the classicism of Sesshiu.…”
Larkin lit a cigarette, tried not to listen to words, that he might probe the mind of the nervous, old-maidish art dealer. Jeremy Hood was gesturing violently—with his left hand. Beads of perspiration were pearling the fuzz of his denuded pate. He was working frantically to bore Larkin, to drive him away, or at least to keep his mind off the dead stowaway with his pockets turned inside out. But Larkin’s obstinate mind clung firmly to its original purpose. He began to see the line his further questioning should take. It was a rather obvious line. Funny he hadn’t seen it before.
“Mr. Hood,” he interrupted at last, “did you know P. G. Bonner?”
“Bonner?” The word was almost an explosion, like the snapping of Jeremy Hood’s whirring endless belt of conversation. His piercing eyes gleamed blacker than ever. But when he resumed talking, his voice was bland, almost conciliatory. “Why, yes,” he said. “Anybody who has visited Japan as often as I have must know Pongee Bonner. Tragic, the way he died, wasn’t it?”
“Wasn’t it?” Larkin got up, tossed his cigarette through the porthole. He was about to take a shot in the dark. He asked, “Is it true that Bonner was something of a collector of—chromoxylographs?”
“Yes indeed. He had a very fine collection. I saw it in Yokohama ten years ago. After the earthquake, he had a special fireproof room built to house it.”
“Have you seen it since then?”
Hood moistened his thin colorless lips before he replied. “No,” he said. “Although I—I tried.”
“When was this, Mr. Hood?”
“Two years ago,” said Jeremy Hood. “I happened to be in New York at the same time Mr. Bonner was, and I called to see him. I heard that his collection was for sale, and I was anxious to bid on it. On part of it, at least. He had a very fine set of Hokusai’s Ten Chinese Poets. Very fine.”
“And did you get them, Mr. Hood?”
“Well, no. Mr. Bonner’s prices were not my, prices. He was one of those rare collectors who knew the true value of his treasures.”
“Did you know that P. G. Bonner’s daughter is a fellow passenger of ours, Mr. Hood?”
“No!” Jeremy Hood half rose from the berth, then settled back, as though weak from astonishment. “Of course, I wouldn’t know, not having left my cabin since we sailed. But it does seem odd that an heiress to the Bonner millions would be traveling on a ship like this. I’ve never met her. I understand she’s quite beautiful.”
“Quite,” Larkin agreed. “And have you ever seen her brother?”
“Never!” said Hood promptly. “Is—is he aboard, too?”
“I believe he was—until an hour ago.”
Jeremy Hood blinked his seeming uncomprehension. Then he jerked himself erect, sat forward on the very edge of the berth. His mouth opened in speechless surprise. Not very convincing, Larkin thought’ A little too pat.
“You mean to say? No, that’s impossible!” Hood exclaimed after a pause. “I understood the dead man was a stowaway.”
“I’m certain he was Arthur Bonner.”
“But why—? How do you explain that?”
“I can’t. There’s plenty I can’t explain. That’s why I think there should be a fuller investigation. What do you think, Mr. Hood?”
“Under those circumstances,” said Hood slowly, “I think perhaps I should sign your petition. Where is it?”
“I’ll bring it when it’s prepared,” Larkin replied. “And, in the meantime, you’ll comb out your memory and see if there isn’t some forgotten detail about last night that might help, won’t you?”
“Did someone tell you I might be concealing something?” Hood’s eyes narrowed.
“No, nobody,” said Larkin. “I just thought that inasmuch as your cabin looks out on the passageway that leads to the spot where the body was found … Well, I thought you might have seen someone pass, or overheard a scrap of conversation that you’d forgotten…”
“No, nothing,” declared Hood.
“Well, then, I’ll see you anon, Mr. Hood.” Larkin turned to leave. As he took the three steps that separated him from the door, he noticed a raincoat hanging from a wall hook. From a pocket in the coat, the gleam of polished chromium caught his eye—the end of a metal cylinder. It looked very much like the protruding tip of a flashlight.
Chapter Eighteen: A SURGEON’S BISTOURY
As Larkin closed the door to Stateroom F, he heard a dry, humorless chuckle behind him. William Cuttle was leaning back against the opposite bulkhead, his arms crossed, the brim of his derby hiding his eyes.
“What’s that you were saying this morning, Mr. Larkin,” asked Cuttle, “about amachoor detectives?”
“What big ears you have, grandpa!” Larkin said.
“They hear more and better than any ears their own size,” said Cuttle.
“And are guaranteed to fit any keyhole,” Larkin added. “Educated at Yale, so to speak. Did they collect any hot information for you just now, Gumshoe?”
“Just a chuckle or two,” said Cuttle. “You ain’t very good on the ‘Q and A.’ You don’t bear down hard enough.”
“Maybe you’ll give me lessons,” Larkin said. He nodded toward the dining saloon adjoining. “Come on. I’ll buy you a beer and you tell me where I was wrong.”
“All right, I’ll have a beer,” said Cuttle.
The two men walked into the dining saloon. The green baize cover was still on the long table, thereby denoting that the room would serve as bar, social-and-writing saloon, and smoking lounge until the steward came in with the dinner dishes.
Cuttle banged on the table with his hairy fist until the steward appeared. Then he said, “Bring two bottles of beeru.” Turning to Larkin he explained, “Beeru—that’s Jap for beer.”
“You pick up languages fast,” said Larkin.
The steward brought two bottles of Asahi and opened them. The foam overflowed on to the green baize.
“Kampai!” said Larkin. “That’s Japanese for ‘Down the hatch.”
“Mud in your eye,” said Cuttle. He drained his glass without one intermediary movement of his throat muscles. He took out a cigar, bit off the end, and looked at Larkin with a sly, half-smile. “So you’re a newspaperman,” he said.
“Not so loud,” Larkin pleaded. “My friends think I’m still piano-player in that Lancaster Street riding academy in Albany.”
“You didn’t fool me.” Cuttle struck a match.
“I wouldn’t try,” Larkin said. “You’re a detective. Tell me, how did you know what I was—by the way I comb my hair?”
“Nope,” said Cuttle, pumping great clouds of smoke through his cigar. “I read your story on the funeral. Not bad. You laid on the unkbay pretty thick, but it ain’t bad.” He snuffed the match between his thumb and forefinger.
Larkin clenched and unclenched his fist under the table, but his expression did not change. He asked, “Do you have to read all the messages that go through the ship’s radio, Mr. Cuttle?”
