Mrs Archer sighed. ‘Fine, fine. Have it your way. I’ll tell your mother that you’ve changed your mind, but please do one thing for me and at least meet Reginald when we get home and settled. He may have changed as much as you.’
Eloise sighed but agreed, and crossed her arms to indicate that so far as she was concerned the conversation was now over.
Moments later, the door swung open again and Frank reappeared, the red box with its delicate gold filigree band decorating the top.
Mrs Archer beckoned him over. ‘Quick, man!’
‘They were where you said they’d be, Ellie.’ Frank handed over the jewel case to Mrs Archer, who actually managed to utter a thank you.
Everyone watched as she opened up the red leather case and in front of her was not only the tiara but many more bracelets, earrings and brooches, including the string of opal beads.
Fen smiled at Mrs Archer, who had the grace to nod a thanks to her, and then pushed herself up from the chair with her good arm. Her job here was done.
Fen’s wrist was throbbing and she was bruised from being pulled about by the captain and pushed to the cold, wet deck. But there was something she wanted to see now they were getting so close to New York. Bisset had excused himself, and Fen realised that they would be docking into the 57th Street Pier in a matter of hours.
Fen crossed the saloon bar and pushed the swing doors open. The fog that had accompanied them across the ocean from Southampton had finally cleared and the sky was blue and crisp, with that tang of sea salt ever present in the chill, but still, air around her.
Fen walked along the deck, bustling as it was with passengers who either didn’t know what had been going on in the saloon bar, or who had decided that their first glimpse of the famous New York skyline was more exciting than some powwow.
And they wouldn’t be wrong. Fen walked to the prow of the ship where the De Grasse was cutting through the gently choppy waters of the Atlantic, calmer now than when they were in the deep sea. The roll of the waves, never troubling the great ship much, were nothing but foam against the steep sides of the hull. Easy sailing, Fen thought, for the rest of the voyage at any rate.
She reached the handrail at the very front of the ship and held her hand up to her brow, squinting her eyes to focus on the skyline. The rising sun was behind them as they headed due west and, to her right, she could see the shoreline of Long Island, and thought of Eloise pretending to her earlier in the voyage about the house she’d have in the Hamptons. She couldn’t resist a wave to where she thought the American Southampton might be on that long stretch of land and her heart felt heavy that she was so far away from her own Southampton. In a matter of hours, they’d be cruising in to the upper bay of Manhattan Island and Lady Liberty would dominate the horizon.
Fen shrugged her shoulders as she felt a warm coat being draped over them.
‘Can’t have you catching a chill,’ James said, as he came to stand next to her. ‘Not if you plan to stand here all the while.’
‘Once-in-a-lifetime sort of view though, isn’t it?’ Fen looked up at him. ‘And I must admit, the fresh air is helping my head.’
‘Are you all right?’ His frown conveyed a genuine concern and Fen nodded to reassure him. His face crinkled into a smile at that. ‘Jolly well done though, old girl. I told you you were the brains of the operation.’
‘I just followed my five downs.’ Fen shrugged and smiled up at him, then they both turned back to face the advancing land.
James put his arm protectively around her shoulders while they waited for the Statue of Liberty to come into view. ‘Arthur would be so proud of you,’ he said as a ray of sunlight glinted brightly off Liberty’s golden torch.
Epilogue
Waldorf Astoria Hotel
New York, New York
November 1945
Dear Kitty,
Well, here I am, New York, New York! And staying in the world’s tallest hotel, can you believe it? James has very kindly stumped up the cash for it, and for once I’m letting him pay, as the passage home is on me – I’ll explain when I see you. I don’t feel so bad when it’s a tit-for-tat deal, although I don’t know how to thank him for the generous present he gave me.
You see, when the De Grasse docked, we were interviewed for hours by the New York police department, and rightly so as not many transatlantic crossings end with two bodies in the morgue, a jewel thief on board and the captain in shackles. The poor harbourmaster probably wondered if the boat was to be renamed Bounty, rather than De Grasse, what with our mini mutiny and all!
Still, once ashore, and once I’d explained for the umpteenth time about poor Genie being mistaken for Eloise, and therefore murdered by the captain, who thought she’d seen him murder Ernst Fischer, the German scientist who was on board… Oh it’s a mouthful even to explain now. And adding into that Eloise’s terrible behaviour in stealing her aunt’s jewels so that she and impoverished Frank Johnstone could be together… Oh Kitty, it’s like the plot in one those silly magazine serials we used to laugh over in front of the fire at Mrs B’s!
Anyway, Frank and Eloise are now very much together, I’m pleased to say, and, surprisingly, Mrs Archer, Eloise’s aunt, has even let her keep some of the jewels she stole to help start their new life together, which may sound perfectly reasonable, but, Kitty, you never met Mrs A – she was a dragon
