Erlich seemed to take particular care to give London a close lookat the drawing, which was very detailed, including measurements.
He asked her, “Do you have any idea what this object might havebeen?”
London could tell by his tone of voice that he was gauging herreaction. If she was guilty, he surely thought, she might respond with alarm tothe sight of this drawing. Of course, the image meant nothing to her. She couldonly guess that it was caused by a smooth hard, rounded object—a metal pipe,maybe.
“I have no idea what caused the injury,” she said, quitetruthfully.
Apparently pleased by her answer, the captain let out a grunt ofapproval.
It’s a good thing he’s here, London thought. She realizedshe wouldn’t like to be questioned like this without an authority figure from theship also present.
Finally Erlich stopped pacing and looked at her sternly.
“Fräulein Rose, I want to clarify a few things you said yesterdayand get more details.”
“Of course,” London said, gulping hard.
Erlich tapped his pencil against his notepad.
“You told me you’d gone up onto the stage after finding HerrForstmann’s monocle.”
London replayed the moment in her mind.
She said, “Actually, my dog ducked under the curtain, and Ifollowed him to see what interested him.”
“You didn’t mention earlier that you’d been following your dog,”Erlich said.
London’s eyes widened.
“Does it matter?” she asked.
“Everything matters,” Erlich said.
London was shocked by the suspicion in his voice. He seemed to belooking for even the smallest inconsistencies in her account.
Erlich then said, “And after you went onto the stage, you climbedup onto platform above the vat.”
“That’s right.”
“Why did you do that?”
London’s head swam for a moment as she tried to remember. Sheglanced down at Sir Reggie and remembered the dog sniffing around on the stagefloor. Then it came back to her.
“I saw beer splashed on the floor. I wondered how it got there.”
“And you thought maybe someone was in the vat?”
“I didn’t know what to think. I … guess I went up onto theplatform to find out.”
Erlich looked at her as if he didn’t quite believe her. Indeed,London half-wondered whether she was telling the exact truth.
What was I thinking right then? she wondered.
She couldn’t really remember thinking anything at all. Tothe best of her memory, she’d simply acted on reflex.
Jotting down notes, Erlich said, “And you only saw the body whenthe curtain opened and the lights came up?”
“Yes.”
Erlich paused and scratched his chin.
“I’ve talked to a fair number of witnesses,” he said. “None ofthem remembers hearing you call for help at that moment.”
London felt a tingle of rising anxiety.
“Well, I don’t believe I did call for help,” she said.
“No?” Erlich said.
“No, I just jumped into the vat myself to see if I could helphim.”
Erlich gazed at her skeptically for a moment. London was startingto feel unnerved now.
Captain Hays growled with disapproval.
“Now see here,” the captain said to Erlich. “I can’t imagine whyit should concern you whether she called for help or not. Why would she? Awhole crowd was watching. They could see there was trouble. London’s firstinstinct was to jump in herself and see what she could do. Can anybody faulther for that?”
Erlich turned his gaze on the captain.
“I didn’t say I faulted her for anything. But I would like to hearher answer to my question.”
He looked at London again, waiting for an answer. The truth was,London was sure the captain had just explained the matter as well as she could.But she knew it wouldn’t do to repeat his words.
“I don’t know why I didn’t call for help,” she said. “I just didn’tthink of it at the time.”
Erlich nodded, then paced a bit more before speaking again.
“I have talked with your colleague, Bryce Yeaton,” he said. “Itappears that you were with him shortly before the incident.”
London felt her heart quicken as she remembered the sheepish lookshe and Bryce had exchanged just before she’d come into the stateroom. Now sherealized the situation was even more fraught than she’d feared. Her own answershad to be consistent with whatever Bryce had just told Erlich.
She tried to convince herself that that shouldn’t be a problem.Bryce had surely just told Erlich the truth. All London had to do was do thesame.
So why do I feel so flustered? she wondered.
She couldn’t help feeling as though Detektiv Erlich wasdeliberately trying to catch her off guard. And she couldn’t be sure how muchBryce had told them or exactly how he had described everything.
Erlich asked, “Could you tell us exactly what you were doing justbefore you found the monocle?”
“I was wandering through the crowd looking around for passengersand crew members,” London said. “It was getting toward time for our departure,and everybody needed to return to the boat.”
“Where was Herr Yeaton at the time?”
“He was doing the same thing elsewhere.”
“And what were the two of you doing before that? Before youstarted searching for passengers and crew?”
“Um, Bryce and I took a little walk.”
“Where did you go?”
“To the Schönleinsplatz.”
“Why did you go there?”
“We just wanted to get away from the festivities for a littlewhile,” she said.
“And what did you do at the Schönleinsplatz?”
London felt her face redden with both embarrassment andirritation.
Why on earth does that matter? she wondered.
London sensed more and more that Erlich was trying to throw heroff balance by asking some questions that were surely irrelevant to hisinvestigation. Doubtless he had asked Bryce the same question. But how hadBryce answered it? Had he told him about their would-be romantic moment?
She didn’t know, and she cringed at the idea of saying anythingabout it in front of the captain. But she thought that the safest thing was tobe as forthright as possible.
Her jaw tightened as she said, “If you must know, we almostkissed.”
She glanced warily over at the captain. She thought he lookedeven more irritated, but couldn’t tell whether he was annoyed with her or with DetektivErlich.
London added, “But we were interrupted by a phone
