Part 108 (1/2)

”I thought you'd ask how I learned of the mystery.”

”Actually,” he said, ”I'm curious how you knew to be in this room. As my message was for the captain alone, I believe.”

She sipped her own tea. ”I eavesdropped.” She smiled. ”My German is excellent.”

The door at the base of the stair swung open. It was a fragile thing, fabric stretched over a wooden frame, closed by a wooden latch for lightness of structure. Sebastien and Jack stood as Captain Hoak entered the salon alone, his hat pinned against his side by his left elbow. Mrs. Smith remained seated, as was proper, but set her teacup down.

”Mrs. Smith,” the Captain said, in English. ”Good morning. And guten Morgen, Don Sebastien, Master Jack. Is Mrs. Smith” He wavered, uncertain as to whom he should be addressing.

”Mrs. Smith is just leaving,” the auth.o.r.ess said. She abandoned her cup and plate and made sure of her reticule before standing. ”I shall be in the observation lounge if I am required. Thank you for the excellence of your company, Don Sebastien.” She offered her gloved hand. He took it and bowed over it lightly. ”Master Jack,” she concluded, with a teasing smile that sent high color across the young man's face, and swept past the Captain with a little gracious nod.

The Captain turned to watch her go. He was a tall man, blond hair graying, and he carried the beginnings of a small, hard paunch. He sighed lightly as the door latch clicked and went to fetch his own coffee. ”How much have you been informed, Don Sebastien?”

Sebastien reclaimed his chair as the Captain sat. He lifted his cooling tea and blew across the saucer. Jack, who had already finished two scones and was toying with the crumbs on his plate, sat as well. Sebastien expected a steward would be along to tidy when their conference was done. ”Only that Madame Pontchartrain is... gone, I believe the word was. Not dead, I take it then?”

”Vanished,” the Captain said. ”Dead, perhaps. If she fell, certainly, but there's no evidence she did. No breach in the hull, and the pa.s.senger doors are sealedand she did not enter the control cabin.”

”Have you searched the lifting body?” Sebastien's hand rose, an extended finger indicating the ceiling and the giant framework of aluminum beyond it. Within the streamlined lifting body were thirteen donut-shaped gas containers filled with hydrogen and harnessed by netting within the dirigible's frame.

”We are searching it now,” Captain Hoak said. ”But there has been no sign of her there. And of course, even if a woman of her... dignity could be expected to be clambering up ladders, the hatchways are kept locked.”

Sebastien picked up his cup and saucer and stood smoothly, without reliance upon the arms of the chair. ”By all means,” he said. ”Let us examine the lady's cabin.”

Madame Pontchartrain's cabin was no different from Sebastien's, except in that women's clothinga dozen or so dresses, half of them rich with velvet and silk, and cut for a more generous figure than the plainer muslins and woolsand two nightgownshung from the bar at the foot of the bunks, and the upper bunk had been tidied. Sebastien and Jack searched the cabin thoroughly, to the Captain's stiff-lipped dismay, and found little of note. The lower bed lay as it had been left, the covers smoothed roughly over a bottom sheet that was rumpled but not creased; hardly typical of what Sebastien had observed of the chambermaids' military efficiency. There was no blood, and no sign of a struggle, although Madame Pontchartrain's papers seemed to be in some disarray inside her portfolio, and her cabin bag was less neatly packed than one might expect.

”Dear boy,” Sebastien said, while the Captain posed rigidly beyond the door, erect as a hungry hawk upon a glove, ”do you suppose a woman of Madame Pontchartrain's age and breeding is inclined to creep from her bed at nightto any purposewithout smoothing the sheets respectably?”

”Perhaps if she were very ill,” Jack said uncertainly. He stood a little closer to Sebastien than decorum warranted, but the Captain seemed disinclined to comment. ”And very much in a hurry.”

”Captain,” Sebastien said. ”I believe we must examine the ladies' washroom.”

The ladies' was innocent of any sign of violence, and like Mademoiselle LeClere, the attendant had heard nothing. After their inspection, Sebastien accompanied Jack to the dining room for an early luncheon, switching plates discreetly when Jack finished his own steak and salad and began eyeing Sebastien's poached salmon. He was halfway across the serving and eating methodically when his fork hesitated in midair and his chin came up, blue eyes catching the filtered light.

Sebastien, who was sitting with his back to the windows so he would not be dazzled by even indirect sunlight, saw their bright shapes reflected in Jack's irises.

”Ah,” he said, observing the deepening furrow between Jack's eyebrows. ”The nightgowns.”

”Two nightgowns,” Jack agreed. ”Hanging, and one unrumpled. Madame Pontchartrain never went to bed last night.”

”Indeed she didn't,” Sebastien said, holding his wine under his nose before tilting the gla.s.s, and flicking his tongue out to collect just a drop on the tip, for tasting's sake. ”So the question remains, who rumpled her bunk?”

”And why did Mademoiselle LeClere lie?” Chewing a last bite of salmon, Jack laid his fork across his platemore yellow Meissen, with cabbage roses and gilt edges. The tablecloths were eyelet linen, white and fine. ”Speaking of which, there's the young lady herself. With Miss Lillian Meadows, no less.”

Sebastien lifted his knife and turned it so the silver blade reflected the dining room behind him. He saw two blonde heads bent close together as the ladies were seated, Miss Meadows tight-trousered and drawing sidelong glancesadmiring or censoriousand Mlle. LeClere scandalous with her shawl wound about her neck like a scarf rather than covering the white expanse of her bosom. ”While the duenna's away” Sebastien began, but then his eyes were drawn to the white cloth twisted around Mlle. LeClere's long pale throat.

Jack cleared his throat. ”I know where you were last night.”

”Indeed.” Sebastien laid the knife crisply across Jack's plate, abruptly grateful that he could not blush. ”So do I. And also I think it's time for a stroll. Do you not agree?”

Silently, Jack rose, folding his napkin. And together they left the table.

Chapter III.

”Do you think it's Miss Meadows?” Jack asked, when they were safely away from the dining room, strolling the promenade. It was only a little past noon, so the sun was safely blocked from the long windows by the shadow of the airframe, and if anyone did harbor suspicions about Sebastien, it would do no harm for Sebastien to be seen by midday.

”One doesn't find many of the blood in theatre.” Sebastien licked pale lips. ”Matinees.”

”But she's a motion picture actress”

”And how might she explain an inability to shoot outdoor scenes in daylight?”

”Ah,” Jack said. He raked at his hair, pale curls stretching between his fingers and then springing back. ”Besides, why would she turn to Mlle. LeClere when she has two travelling companions of her own?”

”Mrs. Smith was wearing an open-necked s.h.i.+rtwaist,” Sebastien pointed out.

In answer, Jack touched his own loosely-knotted cravat. He did not affect the London and Milan fas.h.i.+on of high collars, as Sebastien did. ”Mrs. Smith may not be p.r.o.ne to bruising”

”She is a very pale blonde.”

”or she may be a more intimate friend of Miss Meadows' than Mlle. LeClere, leaving the evidence... in.o.bvious.” Jack finished, smugly.

”I am scandalized,” the great detective answered, a small smile warming his lips. They warmed further when Jack checked over his shoulder, and then brushed them with a quick peck.

”If not Miss Meadows....” Jack said, stepping back.

”You make a.s.sumptions,” Sebastien said. A cardinal sin, and Jack winced to be caught out. ”If there is another of the blood aboard this s.h.i.+p... and if Mlle. LeClere is of her court” the polite term, in preference to any of the myriad cra.s.s ones ”it would be the rankest sort of stupidity to murder an old woman.”

They turned at the wall, and began walking back.

”Because suspicion would naturally fall on any pa.s.senger discovered to be of the blood.”

”Prejudices die hard,” Sebastien said.

”I've known a few Jews,” Jack said. The dryness that informed his voice was no happenstance. He was one, blond curls and blue eyes and good plain English alias aside. ”It's the same everywhere. And it needn't be your folk, Sebastien. A disappearance in the absence of any evidence suggests black magic to me. Teleportation, trans.m.u.tation... what if someone turned her into a frog?”

”Or a green parrot? And us without a forensic sorcerer anywhere to be found.”

Jack cleared his throat. ”We've seen the parrot and Madame Pontchartrain in the same place. So if it is one of yours, and not Miss Meadows, who?”

”Korvin ur,” Sebastien said, automatically. And then he checked himself. ”At a guess.”

”Good guess,” Jack said. He lowered his voice; they were still alone on their side of the promenade, but below, in the dining room blurrily visible through the interior isingla.s.s, Virgil Allen and Hollis Leatherby had entered and paused beside the drinks caddy. ”I'm trying to remember if I've heard his name”

”Have you?” The tone was sharper than Sebastien had intended. He did not care to be reminded of Jack's past.