The Illusion of Murder (22 page)

Finally reaching the section I’m looking for, I groan.
B
5-3 means the items are located on the third tier, access to which is obtained by a narrow ladder that a monkey would find challenging, less more a woman in a full dress with heeled shoes.

Similar to a tall stack ladder in a library, the ladder is rolled sideways along the floor to where you want to ascend, but book ladders don’t move all by themselves and this one does, sliding back and forth as the ship plows into seas whipped up by the blow.

I’ll probably break my neck.
They’ll find my crumpled body when they empty the hold at the next port. But there’s no turning back; it’s too late. I have no place to go but up, literally. I’ve crossed the Rubicon and don’t even have Caesar’s army to back me.

Somehow I manage to reach the third level, unhooking the netting as I go up, but I’m only halfway home. Luggage and boxes are piled two deep and three or four high in the space. The only saving grace is that the items are not piled completely to the top, permitting me to move some of them as I hang on to a sliding ladder, worrying that the whole shebang will come flying off the shelves with the violent roll of the ship.

If I hadn’t boasted to myself about my cleverness in plotting this ransacking of the ship’s luggage hold, I would abandon the project. Only stubborn pride and a lack of good sense keep me going.

With very dim lighting it’s hard to see the numbers on the individual items, but there are only five boxes and three of them should be the ones that Lord Warton has stored.

Now I am in a dilemma. I can’t get them down to the floor to search and bring them back up because they are too awkward and heavy. They will have to be searched on the tier and that is only going to happen if I have two hands free instead of one clutching a ladder rung while grabbing out with the other to keep the ladder from sliding.

As I shove and restack everything, I manage to separate the luggage enough to create a hole big enough for me to squeeze in and I find myself standing upright on the third tier, hot and sweaty and a little nauseated from the ship’s motion as I hang on to the top box of a stack I want to go through.

Never never never again will I be so stupid.

Each box has twine tied tightly around it and I don’t have a knife. I am angry enough to rip it off with my teeth.

Lacking both a blade and strong enough teeth, I use an object from my hair that women all over the world for centuries have found as handy as the tools of men: a hairpin.

With sheer stubborn determination I manage to untie the string, open the box, and find the books.

Removing the piece of paper with numbers written on it and the Yorkshire book of laws, I take turns holding each of them in the direction of the light to see the printing.

The first set of numbers lead me to the word “extreme” in the law book; the second sends a quiver down my spine: “danger.”

Hanging on tight as the ship rolls, I quickly check the written number scheme for page, line, and word place, and find the word “for.”

My knees tremble with so much excitement, I’m ready to collapse.

As I’m reading the fourth set of numbers, I hear voices and the door opens. Petrified, I freeze in place.

“Here it is! In the door. You must have left the key here the last time you brought down luggage.”

It’s the purser, chewing out his assistant.

“But, sir, I would swear—”

The ship rolls again and I let out a startled yelp.

“Who’s there?” the purser snaps.

The two men are sent staggering against the compartment to their left as the ship rolls again. The stack of boxes I’m using for support go and I throw myself deeper into the compartment to keep from being flung off the tier by the motion of the ship.

The ship pauses for a moment at the end of its roll and then starts to roll again in the opposite direction.

Frantically I grab at luggage as everything around me begins sliding off the shelves—
no longer restrained because I had removed the netting.

Unable to keep my balance and with nothing left to hold on to, I follow the avalanche down, screaming bloody murder.

31

“With thirty years experience at sea, from stoking the boiler to raising the sails and commanding the entire ship, I can tell you that despite any old sailors’ tales, a woman is not bad luck at sea.”

The captain is leaning back in his swivel chair, staring up at the ceiling as if he is expecting a missive from heaven.

Sitting perfectly still, I stare straight ahead, my hands in my lap … waiting for lightning to strike.

He leans forward and shifts a little to meet my eye but I turn away.

“Madam, my officers suggest that perhaps now there is something to the connection between women and bad luck aboard, but I reject that contention because you are not bad luck, you are a regular Medusa, worse than the plagues God threw at the Egyptians.”

The purser and first officer are standing behind me, shaking with smothered laughter.

I just cringe. I know my face is flaming red and I am so angry that I have to struggle to keep my composure—not angry at the captain or the ship’s officers, but at myself. I have made a complete fool out of myself.
Again.

“Well, what do you think, gentlemen? What shall we do with the young woman who has disobeyed the laws of the sea?”

“Keelhaul her, Captain,” the first officer says.

The captain leans forward in a pretense of gravity. “Do you know what keelhauling is, young woman? We run a line from one side of the ship to the other and tie an end of it around the miscreant. We then throw him into the sea and pull him back aboard … only we pull from the opposite side we threw him over so he is dragged under the keel, his flesh rubbed off by the rough barnacles that attach to the keel.”

If this charade is not gotten over with soon, I will scream. There will be no punitive action against me except the one I dread the most—humiliation.

A pretty picture I must have made, flying off the tier and onto a mountain of luggage and boxes.

I’m mortified and so embarrassed at making a fool of myself. I will never go back out on deck where people can see me, never into the dining room, I will have to take meals in my room. Or drown myself.

What bothers me most of all is the dishonor I have brought to the death of Mr. Cleveland.

“Keelhauling is too harsh for a woman’s delicate skin, Captain,” the purser says. “I say we put her in irons and throw her—”

I leap out of my chair and push by the two officers and flee, their laughter flying at me faster than I can move.

Frederick is in the corridor outside the office and I rush by him, breaking into a run.

“Nellie! Wait!”

I shake my head without turning back and hurry to the stairway to my deck. Thank God it is late and there is no one in the corridor. I will throw myself overboard if anyone sees me running like a dog with my tail between my legs.

Not bothering to knock, I fly into Sarah’s dark stateroom, pouring light in from the corridor behind me.

Her coffin lid is open and she sits upright, startled. Her face is covered with cold cream, her creamed hands are in gloves, her hair soaked in some other cream and bundled under a shower cap.

“What are you doing?”

“They’ve beaten me!” I wail.

“Who?”

“Warton, Frederick, the British Empire!”

“Well … that certainly narrows it down.”

I cry for the damage I did to John Cleveland. And Nellie Bly.

“Nellie—”

“No, not Nellie, my real name is Elizabeth Cochran. Nellie Bly is the name of a reporter. I’m nothing, just a factory girl who thought she knew everything.”

32

Lord Warton stalks back and forth, glaring at the pile of luggage and boxes that fill the end of the Passenger Luggage Compartment aisle.

He whips around and demands from the captain, “Well, where are they?”

The captain and the first officer look to the assistant purser, who squirms under their stares.

“The books were here,” he says, “fell out of a box Miss Bly had opened before she took her tumble. When everything came off the shelves, the box dumped its contents. I saw them right there.” He points to an empty spot on the floor. “Three books, scattered about along with some papers.”

“If they were here,” Lord Warton yells, “where are they now? I demand you search the room of that troublemaking reporter.”

“She was with us when the books went missing,” the captain answers. “Someone took them when my officer went to find crewmen to clean up the mess.”

“Who? Who took them?”

The captain gives Lord Warton a tight grin that says he has had about enough with the man’s demands. “Sir, obviously I don’t know, but I suggest that in order to find out who, we start with
why.
What’s the importance of these books?”

“You told me the woman said there were writings in a secret code,” Lord Warton says, directing the statement at the assistant purser.

“That’s what Miss Bly claimed when we got her untangled from the mess she created,” the man responds.

“What secret was she talking about?” the captain asks Lord Warton.

“It is a matter of national security to which you do not have privity.”

The captain looks to his officers. “Well, gentlemen, then I suggest none of us lose any more sleep about a matter to which
we
don’t have privity.”

*   *   *

“Y
OU!
”

I let go of the handle to my cabin door as if it is a hot poker and whip around in surprise.

Lord Warton is the source of the exclamation.

“You are in deep trouble, young woman; more than you can imagine.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“Name your coconspirator, the one who took Cleveland’s books, or I shall have you arrested.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You know exactly what I am talking about. You told the assistant purser that those books contained a code. I demand you turn them over to me so they can be given to the proper authorities at Colombo.”

I’m speechless, not because of his demand but because it means he was unaware of the secret writing. I’m also not going to be bullied.

“I don’t have the books and didn’t even know they are missing. But now that you’ve explained the matter, I can see your problem.”

“
Your
problem, you mean.”

“No, sir, I’m not the one who appointed myself custodian of Mr. Cleveland’s possessions. I’ll leave it to you to explain to the authorities how you stored them in a
public
place and now cannot find them.”

I slip into my room, throw the latch, and lean back against the door, breathless.

I can’t believe Warton didn’t know the numbers were a code. So why did he have the contents of Cleveland’s luggage repacked into boxes and go through the charade of having the cases sent ashore?

In a strange way, I am greatly relieved, even elated to hear that someone has nicked the books. It validates my contention that they contain a secret.

I don’t think the captain and his chumps will be laughing so hard now that they know I was on a serious quest. But I also find it strange that the captain had been amused rather than angry.

Completely exhausted and worn to the bone, my knees are wobbly as I shuffle to my bunk. I had talked with Sarah for over an hour and she had set me right about myself by telling me what she had gone through early in her own quest to establish a career.

When she was still a teenager and had ambitions to be an actress, her mother had pushed her into being a courtesan, literally providing “favors” to wealthy men in order to get acting roles.

She acquired roles, but they came with contempt from other stage players who were less fortunate. “And less talented,” Sarah said. Ultimately, her God-given talent had won the day and the path she took for her first steps has been overshadowed by the universal proclaim of her talent.

“But along with success comes challenge,” she told me. “You will never stop having to prove yourself.”

Her story is a good reminder to me. I have always believed that the only course to be taken when I’m knocked to the ground is to get back up and fight. Perhaps Frederick is right, I don’t know how to duck, I only know how to throw punches, but some of those punches land as one did tonight.

I had assumed that my adversary aboard is the British lord, who I now discover is in fact as inept at being a spymaster as he no doubt was instructing Moroccan farmers on how to grow wheat. Frederick basically told me that was his take on Warton, too.

The same person who searched my room for the key had taken the books, and it is someone who knows enough about my movements to allow them to slip in and steal the books in the wake of the chaos I have left behind.