Listen, I will tell you something. In every case of a criminal nature one comes across the same phenomena when questioning witnesses. Everyone keeps something back. Sometimes -- often indeed -- it is something quite harmless, something, perhaps, quite unconnected with the crime; but -- I say it again -- there is always something. That is so with you. Oh, do not deny! I am Hercule Poirot and I know. -- Agatha Christie, Death in the Clouds
After his first twelve murder cases Yo-han had learnt that there were only so many ways for suspects to react. Angry outbursts were the most common, followed by shocked denials, tearful breakdowns, and stunned resignation. He'd become fairly good at guessing which one each suspect would choose.
Miss Patton surprised him. He'd expected an angry outburst — especially since this was the woman who, approximately six hours earlier, had wished death on the victim. He had not expected a tearful breakdown.
When things had calmed down somewhat and Miss Patton had been escorted down to one of the holding cells, Yo-han began a careful examination of her cabin.
The hole in the wall was the only thing that was obviously out-of-place. Under the supervision of an officer he went through her wardrobe and bedside cabinet. He opened her suitcases. He sent word to the laundry department asking them for a full list of all Miss Patton's and Mrs. Patton-Langdale's clothes. He searched under the bed, under the mattress, and even checked if it was possible to lift the carpet.
He wasn't really surprised there was no murder weapon to be found. Any half-way sensible murderer would have thrown it overboard at the earliest opportunity. Much more telling was the absence of any sign a gun had been concealed in the room. He couldn't even find a place where one could have been hidden.
In spite of this he did learn some interesting things from Miss Patton's room. She had no personal correspondence at all. She didn't even have pen and paper, suggesting she had no one to write to. Her clothes were several years old and all in dull colours. And she had a collection of novels in her suitcase, an eclectic mixture of Sir Walter Scott (Yo-han was amused to discover he and she were reading the same book; the very same edition, no less), Charlotte Mary Yonge, and potboiler murder mysteries.
Yo-han had never subscribed to the idea that tastes in literature were an accurate reflection of innocence or guilt. When he had caught a serial rapist last year, the man's bookshelf had been full of reference books on marine botany and the lives of Catholic saints. On the other hand his landlady during his stay in Berlin had been a sweet little old lady who wouldn't hurt a fly and loved gruesome horror novels.
Next Yo-han moved on to Mrs. Patton-Langdale's cabin. The body had been removed to the ship's hospital, where it had been placed in a hastily-constructed coffin filled with ice to slow its decomposition.
One of the crew had been assigned to supervise Yo-han's investigation and relay messages to the captain. The poor man hovered in the doorway looking distinctly green. He couldn't bear to look into the room and instead kept his eyes fixed on the carpet. The hallway had been cordoned off to prevent curious passengers from interfering with the crime scene. As soon as Yo-han was finished here, the crew member would lock up both cabins and leave them for the Australian police to examine.
The first thing Yo-han did was examine the hole in the wall again. He knelt down beside it and imagined firing a gun from that position. A more natural target would have been the victim's chest. Why go for the head? Was the murderer showing off his marksmanship?
He looked at the clock again. Had the murderer missed the first shot and hit the clock? No, there was no sign of a bullet-hole on it. It looked as if someone had picked it up and thrown it to the floor.
Yo-han stared at it thoughtfully for a while. Then he got up and began to examine the victim's belongings. No sign of robbery. Her jewels were still in their box. Her clothes were hanging up neatly. Her make-up and perfume were still in their place.
One thing jarred, like a single wrong note in the middle of an orchestra. Yo-han stepped back and stared at the square in the wall, waiting for his mind to interpret what it was.
Finally he understood. It had nothing to do with either the hole or the clock. He opened the wardrobe again and examined the victim's clothes. Mentally he compared them to her niece's. They were old-fashioned, yes. Even he could tell that. But they were made of new material that couldn't have been cheap.
He opened the bedside cabinet. At once his eyes narrowed. Very conveniently placed on top of a stationery set, where no one who opened the drawer could help but see it, was a letter.
It was unsigned and had no name at the start. Beneath it was an envelope. Yo-han put on a pair of gloves to avoid adding his fingerprints to possible evidence and lifted it out. The envelope was addressed to Máté Király, care of a hotel in Hong Kong. Király, he'd heard that name before.
The secretary, Yo-han remembered.
Why did the victim have a letter meant for her secretary? She had not been the sort of employer who Yo-han could picture caring about her employees' lives.
The letter itself shed no light on the situation. It had apparently been written in a hurry, possibly in a darkened room, by someone with terrible handwriting. If it had been in hangeul, hiragana or even Cyrillic, Yo-han could have made a guess at it. But for this he would need a native English speaker to decipher.
He put the letter in its envelope, then put both in one of the bags he always carried around in case he needed to put evidence in them. Possibly this had nothing to do with the crime. It might even be a red herring deliberately planted; his mind returned to the puzzle of the clock.
All the same, he took it with him when he went to see Miss Patton.
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Once the initial shock wore off, Phil found she could view the situation almost apathetically. It had been just a matter of time before someone murdered Rachael. She'd managed to anger half of second class and most of the staff with her behaviour. As soon as the police began to investigate they'd find dozens of people with a motive. She had ensured she had an alibi. Soon she'd be free.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Had anyone told Vi yet? What about funeral arrangements? Murdered or not, Phil was not going to drag her aunt's body half-way across the world just to be buried at home. Surely Vi and Cousin Jack wouldn't object. Neither of them liked Rachael any more than Phil did.
There was nothing she could do until someone came to tell her what was happening. She waited. And waited. And waited. It felt like an eternity before she heard footsteps approaching her cell. The door was unlocked.
Phil wasn't particularly surprised when one of the ship's crew showed Mr. Seo in.
"What exactly is happening?" Phil asked, trying to keep her voice steady. "Am I to be kept here all day?"
Mr. Seo stared at her unblinkingly. She fidgeted uncomfortably under the force of that stare.
"Miss Patton, do you understand the seriousness of this situation? You are suspected of murder. You will be kept here until we reach Australia, and then you'll be arrested and put on trial."
"But I didn't kill her!" Phil protested.
"I believe you didn't," Mr. Seo agreed. "But I think you can shed some light on the case. Your behaviour when we met earlier was very unusual. Quite out of character, in fact. And you were not surprised to hear your aunt was dead. Then of course you asked if I solve murders. Correct me if I'm going astray here, but I believe you had already discovered the body before you met me this afternoon."
Phil sank down onto the only chair in the cell. "Yes. Yes, I did."
"You knocked over a clock in the room."
His knowledge seemed downright uncanny. Phil would have thought he'd been spying on her if she hadn't known there was no way he possibly could have been.
"I broke it. I changed the time... I didn't have an alibi. I wanted to make it look like... like she died later..." She trailed off helplessly.
Mr. Seo nodded as if he'd thought as much. "Start from the beginning, please. What happened after you shouted at your aunt and left the dining room?"
Slowly at first, then in a rush, Phil recounted the whole sorry saga. Mr. Seo listened in silence.
"I know it looks like I'm guilty, but I swear I didn't kill her."
Phil didn't mean to stress that last word. It slipped out before she realised what implications it had. The sharpness in Mr. Seo's expression told her he'd picked up on it too.
"The best way for me to help you is if you tell me everything that might have a bearing on the case," he said mildly. "Is there some extra information you're withholding?"
It struck Phil as darkly humorous that she was falsely accused of murder when she could be honestly accused of manslaughter. "I didn't mean to kill him." Mr. Seo raised an eyebrow. She felt as if he was silently disbelieving her, so desperately she continued, "He tried to grab me so I hit him and he fell down the stairs. It was an accident."
"This was not during the voyage?" he asked.
"No. Before we left home. The night before."
"Who was the man you hit?"
She could only shrug. "I've no idea. He was lurking near the lake. He wanted to see... I think it was my aunt's accounts. I suppose he was working for a rival company."
Mr. Seo "hmm"ed thoughtfully. "Do you have access to your aunt's accounts?"
Phil laughed in spite of herself at that. "Me? She'd as soon trust the barman at the Golden Goose with them. Király saw some of them, but she kept most of them to herself. She didn't trust anyone."
"Did anyone threaten her?"
"Not that I know of," Phil said. "But if you ever saw her, you know what she was like. Everyone hated her. Actually I was planning to run away as soon as we got to Australia."
Mr. Seo took a small bag out of his pocket. "Speaking of Király, did you plant a letter in your aunt's cabin when you broke the clock?"
Phil tried and failed to figure out what he was talking about and what Király had to do with it. "No."
"Then was your aunt in the habit of reading her employees' letters?"
If Rachael had been, then the mystery of her seemingly uncanny knowledge of the servants' home lives would be cleared up. "I never saw her do it, but I wouldn't be surprised."
Mr. Seo put on a pair of gloves and opened the bag. He lifted out a letter. "Can you shed any light on this?"
He held it out to her so she could read it without touching it. Phil scanned the lines with a steadily-sinking heart. No wonder Rachael and Vi had had such a blazing row just before they left. "I could. But it's not my secret. Ask Király to explain."
"You did not write the letter, then?"
She shook her head. "It has nothing to do with the case. I can say that for certain."
Yet a sliver of doubt crept into her mind. Király knew how to shoot. Could he have seen a way of getting rid of an annoyance?
Mr. Seo put Vi's letter back in the bag. "One more question, Miss Patton. Do you know of anyone who dislikes you? Not your aunt, but you specifically?"
Phil thought, but couldn't come up with anything. "No. I don't think anyone knows me well enough to have an opinion on me at all."
As he turned to go she asked, "Do you believe me? That I didn't kill her?"
He smiled grimly. "Miss Patton, this murder was carefully planned in advance. For days the killer knew what they would do and never let it show. While you went to pieces with the strain of trying to conceal the murder for a few hours. On that score alone I believe you are innocent."
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Yo-han left the cell with a relatively light heart. This case would be far less complicated than he had feared. The revelation about the man Miss Patton had accidentally killed — according to her, at least, but he would contact the local police to check — had been the only real surprise in the interrogation. Next he would question Király about the letter.
One thing was absolutely certain. The killer's cabin was on the same corridor as the victim's. It simply wasn't practical to carry a saw and a gun for any distance. Plus the proximity would make it easier to know when Mrs. Patton-Langdale was alone. All he had to do was search the cabins — though by now the killer would certainly have disposed of the murder weapon — and question everyone in them. He would pay special attention to the passengers who had quarrelled with the victim two or more days before the murder. It had been planned for at least that long; the hole in the wall showed this wasn't a spur-of-the-moment explosion of temper.
The cells were several floors beneath the second class compartments. Yo-han headed for the lift.
Strangely his thoughts kept straying back to Jughashvili's well-deserved end in Georgia. It had happened in broad daylight, in the newspaper office owned by Jughashvili's cronies. The assassin had taken their position upstairs in the building next door. They had a clear shot through two windows — both open; it had been an unseasonably warm day without a breath of wind — at Jughashvili, yelling at someone from his desk.
The assassin had used a hollow-point bullet[1]. It had struck the victim in the back of the head. According to first-hand accounts, the room had looked like a butcher's shop.
By the time Yo-han arrived in Georgia the assassin was long gone. That was the funny thing. In spite of all the noise — the shot, the shouting, the screams — the assassin had walked out of the house and disappeared. No one had seen them. A ghost could hardly have vanished more completely.
Yo-han suspected a conspiracy. He'd begun to investigate a possible connection with another politically-motivated murder in Turkey, but that had gone nowhere. Once he learnt more about Jughashvili — the rapes, tortures and murders of his enemies, the criminal empire he'd built up — he hadn't exerted much effort to track down the killer.
A bullet to the head from the room next door. A murderer who no one had seen. Was it possible that the Georgian assassin was here on the ship?
Unlikely, Yo-han decided as he stepped into the lift. One of the few things he had discovered in his investigation was that two of Jughashvili's enemies had withdrawn over twenty thousand rubles, probably to hire the assassin. Mrs. Patton-Langdale wasn't nearly important enough for someone to pay that much to have her killed. Unless the assassin had lost their money in record time and had to settle for a much lower fee than before, he felt he could rule that option out.
The lift stopped. Yo-han left it, and came face to face with a distraught Mr. Colman.