She was in number 4 compartment. She took a quick look into number 3, the next one forward, but Mervyn was not there. Turning back, she walked aft, holding on to anything she could grab as the plane bucked and swayed. She passed through number 5 and established that he was not there either. That was the last big compartment. Most of number 6 was taken up by the ladies’ powder room, on the starboard side, leaving room for only two people on the port side. These seats were occupied by two businessmen. They were not very attractive seats, Diana thought: fancy paying all that money and then sitting outside the ladies’ toilet for the whole flight! Beyond number 6 there was nothing but the honeymoon suite. Mervyn must be seated farther forward, then—in number 1 or 2—unless he was in the main lounge, playing cards.
She went into the powder room. There were two stools in front of the mirror, one already occupied by a woman Diana had not yet spoken to. As Diana closed the door behind her, the plane plunged again, and she almost lost her balance. She staggered in and fell into the vacant seat.
“Are you all right?” the other woman said.
“Yes, thanks. I hate it when the plane does this.”
“So do I. But someone said it’s going to get worse. There’s a big storm ahead.”
The turbulence eased, and Diana opened her handbag and started to brush her hair.
“You’re Mrs. Lovesey, aren’t you?” the woman said.
“Yes. Call me Diana.”
“I’m Nancy Lenehan.” The woman hesitated, looking awkward, then said: “I got on the plane at Foynes. I came over from Liverpool with your ... with Mr. Lovesey.”
“Oh!” Diana felt her face go pink. “I didn’t realize he had a companion. ”
“He helped me out of a jam. I needed to catch the plane, but I was stuck in Liverpool with no way of getting to Southampton in time, so I just drove out to the airfield and begged for a ride.”
“I’m glad for you,” Diana said. “But it’s frightfully embarrassing for me.”
“I don’t see why you should be embarrassed. It must be nice to have two men desperately in love with you. I don’t even have one.”
Diana looked at her in the mirror. She was attractive rather than beautiful, with regular features and dark hair, and she wore a very smart red suit with a gray silk blouse. She had a brisk, confident air. Mervyn
“Not very,” Nancy said with a rueful smile.
“I’m sorry. His manners aren’t his strong point.” She took out her lipstick.
“I was just grateful for the ride.” Nancy blew her nose delicately on a tissue. Diana noticed that she wore a wedding ring. “He is a little abrupt,” Nancy went on. “But I think he’s a nice man. I had dinner with him, too. He makes me laugh. And he’s terribly handsome.”
“He is a nice man,” Diana found herself saying. “But he’s as arrogant as a duchess and he’s got no patience at all. I drive him mad, because I hesitate and change my mind and don’t always say what I mean.”
Nancy ran a comb through her hair. It was thick and dark, and Diana wondered whether she dyed it to conceal gray streaks. Nancy said: “He seems willing to go a long way to get you back.”
“That’s just pride,” Diana said. “It’s because another man has taken me away. Mervyn’s competitive. If I’d left him and gone to live at my sister’s house he wouldn’t have cared tuppence.”
Nancy laughed. “It sounds as if he has no chance of getting you back.”
“None whatsoever.” Suddenly Diana did not want to talk to Nancy Lenehan any longer. She felt unaccountably hostile. She put away her makeup and her comb and stood up. She smiled to cover her sudden feeling of dislike, saying: “Let’s see if I can cakewalk back to my seat.”
“Good luck!”
As she left the powder room, Lulu Bell and Princess Lavinia came in, carrying their overnight cases. When Diana got back to the compartment, Davy, the steward, was converting their seat into a double bunk. Diana was intrigued to see how an ordinary-looking divan seat could be made into two beds. She sat down and watched.
First he took off all the cushions and pulled the armrests out of their slots. Reaching over the seat frame, he pulled down two flaps in the wall at chest level, to reveal hooks. Bending over the seat, he unfastened a strap and lifted out a flat frame. He hung this from the wall hooks to form the base of the upper bunk. The outward side slotted into a hole in the side wall. Diana was just thinking that it did not look very strong when Davy picked up two stout-looking struts and attached them to both upper and lower frames to form bedposts. Now the structure looked more sturdy.
He replaced the seat cushions on the lower bed and used the back cushions as a mattress for the upper one. He took pale blue sheets and blankets from under the seat and made up the beds with fast, practiced movements.
The bunks looked comfortable, but frightfully public. However, Davy broke out a dark blue curtain, complete with hooks, and hung it from a molding on the ceiling that Diana had thought was merely decorative. He attached the curtain to the bunk frames with snap fasteners, making a tight fit. He left a triangular opening, like the entrance to a tent, for the sleeper to climb inside. Finally he unfolded a little stepladder and placed it convenient to the upper bunk.
He turned to Diana and Mark with a faintly pleased look, as if he had performed a magic trick. “Just let me know when you’re ready, and I’ll make up your side,” he said.
“Doesn’t it get stuffy in there?” Diana asked him.
“Each bunk has its own ventilator,” he replied. “If you look just above your head you can see yours.” Diana looked up and saw a grille with an OPEN/CLOSED lever. “You’ve also got your own window, electric light, clothes hanger and shelf; and if you need anything else, press this button and call me.”
While he had been working, the two passengers on the port side, handsome Frank Gordon and bald Ollis Field, had picked up their overnight bags and trooped off to the men’s room; and now Davy began to make up the bunk on that side. The arrangement was slightly different over there. The aisle was not in the center of the plane, but nearer to the port side, so on that side, there was only one pair of bunks, placed lengthwise rather than across the width of the plane.
Princess Lavinia returned in a floor-length navy blue peignoir trimmed with blue lace, and a matching turban. Her face was a mask of frozen dignity: obviously she found it painfully uncomfortable to appear in public in her nightclothes. She looked at the bunk in horror. “I shall
A moment later Lulu Bell appeared in a rather flimsy pink chiffon ensemble that did little to conceal her charms. She had been stiffly polite with Diana and Mark since Foynes, but now she seemed to have suddenly forgotten her pique. She sat down beside them on the divan and said: “You’ll never guess what I just heard about our companions!” She jerked a thumb at the seats vacated by Field and Gordon.
Mark looked nervously at Diana and then said: “What did you hear, Lulu?”
“Mr. Field is an F.B.I. man!”
That was not so startling, Diana thought. An F.B.I. agent was only a policeman.
Lulu went on: “And what’s more, Frank Gordon is a prisoner!”
Mark said skeptically: “Who told you this?”
“Everyone’s talking about it in the ladies’ room.”
“That doesn’t make it true, Lulu.”
“I knew you wouldn’t believe me!” she said. “That kid overheard a row between Field and the captain of the plane. The captain was mad as hell because the F.B.I, didn’t warn Pan American that they had a dangerous prisoner on board. There was a real set-to and in the end the crew took away Mr. Field’s gun!”
Diana recalled thinking that Field seemed like Gordon’s chaperon. “What do they say Frank did?”
“He’s a mobster. He shot a guy and raped a girl and torched a nightclub.”
Diana found that hard to believe. She had talked to the man herself! He was not very refined, it was true; but he was handsome and nicely dressed, and he had flirted with her politely. She could see him as a confidence trickster or a tax dodger, and she could imagine his being involved in illegal gambling, say; but it did not seem possible that he had deliberately killed people. Lulu was an excitable person who would believe anything.
Mark said: “It’s kinda hard to credit.”
