‘Torpedo Alley…’ Fen whispered, remembering what this part of the Atlantic had been called in the war.
‘Exactly. One of the most “successful”, if you can call it that, torpedo designs ever created. And you say this Fischer chap had paperwork from the Schwarzkopf factory?’
‘Yes, it looked like he worked there, years ago though.’ Fen sat back and then remembered the note she had slipped into the dictionary. She reached into her pocket for it and told James how it had been sitting between the blueprints and sheets of paperwork. ‘Informationen zu Ihrem Vorteil. Treffen heute Abend auf dem Oberdeck,’ she read out, and then quietened her voice as she and James realised that the German words, however badly pronounced or out of context, had caused a few raised eyebrows around them. ‘Any ideas? Else I’ll check the dictionary.’
‘Information to your… advantage? I think.’ James took the paper from Fen and looked at it. ‘And Oberdeck means top or upper deck.’
‘That’s where Genie and I found him, on the upper lifeboat deck.’ Fen took the note back from James and slipped it between the pages of the dictionary. ‘Do you think he was lured to the top deck so that he could be killed?’
‘Heute Abend means this evening, or tonight, so yes, it looks as if someone was trying to get him out of the safety of his cabin,’ James added.
‘So someone on this ship lured him to his death. Someone who knew about his past, perhaps?’
‘Or guessed it from his accent. He hadn’t exactly stayed incognito,’ James mused. ‘If you heard him speak, and Dodman, then who else on board did?’
‘Bisset was lurking near his cabin once. Gave me quite the history lesson on Nazis in Le Havre too. Said he was the one to take down the swastika from the town square after the festung.’ Fen looked thoughtful. ‘I did wonder if it was the same one, and Mrs A did say that Bisset had had a souvenir stolen.’ She sighed. ‘Then again, Albert… or Ernst wasn’t exactly doing the can-can through the dining room, so I don’t think many of us knew there was a German on board. And as for Dodman, he very kindly let me into cabin thirteen to find this note, so I think his involvement in all of this really is coincidental.’
‘All the same,’ James added, ‘if he and Bisset knew there was a German on board, then all of the crew would do too.’
‘Still talking about the enemy, are we?’ Eloise interrupted their conversation and Fen and James politely stopped talking and welcomed her to join them. ‘Aunt M wondered where you’d got to, Fen, so I thought I’d better come and find you before she demanded her money for your passage back.’ She winked as she said this, but Fen blushed nonetheless.
‘I’m so sorry, Eloise. I must say my mind is full of tangled webs regarding who killed whom on board this ship.’
‘It’s all rather grizzly, isn’t it. I shall be glad to be docked at New York, shan’t you? Though I know it’s not home for you, it will at least be dry land.’
‘And a chance to see all those things you hear about. Broadway and…’ Fen stopped. Genie had been desperate to get to Broadway and had wanted to see her name in lights. So much so she had planned on putting on a show for them here on the ship, it seemed. Dodman, with his universal key, had let her into the auditorium and it was on Fen’s to-do list to see if any of the prop costumes had a missing epaulette. After this morning, she rather thought she’d used up all her favours with Dodman, but perhaps there was someone else she could ask. ‘Eloise…?’
Fen told her about the epaulette she found in Genie’s room and a plan was readily struck up, with Eloise suddenly seeming a lot more excited about life on board. ‘I’ll suggest that Frank—Lieutenant Johnstone and I want to practise a surprise for Aunt M. They’ll never turn down a request if she’s involved. And I’m looking for a uniform with no epaulette, is that correct?’
‘Exactly. I’ll meet you back at your cabin before lunch, would that give you time?’
‘Plenty! Gee, now to find Frank… see you in a bit.’ She winked and waved goodbye to Fen and James and almost skipped off out of the café terrace.
‘Mad as a spring hare, that one,’ James noted, and then said ‘What?’ as Fen looked at him.
‘Isn’t it obvious? She’s mad as something… madly in love. I don’t think old Reginald T. Vandervinter will get much of a look-in once they’re back in New York.’
‘Timing couldn’t be worse,’ chuckled James. ‘Saving herself for years during the war, turning down all those GIs who were probably in and out of that château, only to fall for someone on the last leg home. Poor Reginald. Never met the chap and I feel sorry for him.’
‘Girls do love a soldier,’ Fen mused, and wondered if loving someone in military uniform, costume prop or otherwise, had been the undoing of Genie?
At the appointed hour, Fen knocked on Eloise’s cabin door. Unlike hers, Eloise’s cabin was much grander and not set down a small, narrower passageway with other cabin doors leading off it. And it was connected via an internal door to her aunt’s, a convenience that the thief had obviously found when Eloise had left to go on her midnight wanderings the night Genie was killed.
Fen knocked again. Perhaps Eloise was still hunting through the costume basket in the auditorium? Fen checked her watch. It was only midday and they had said to meet shortly before lunch. Perhaps, if she was in the habit of leaving her door unlocked in the night… Fen smiled at a passing steward, and then waited for him to walk further down the passage before trying Eloise’s door’s handle.
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