As Raymond Broad was passing the room, he could hear Brenda’s voice on the phone. He leaned his ear to the door as she said, “Good-bye, my dear Ralphie. Kisses.” She then made several smooching sounds with her lips.
She has a boyfriend, he thought. I would never have guessed.
Before he knocked on the door, he lifted the coverlet to make sure the kitchen had sent the right flavor pie. Brenda had scolded him once before for bringing pecan pie, claiming she had an allergy to nuts. “Rubbish,” he said to himself as he saw that the kitchen had made the same error again. He hurried back to switch pies.
In her room Brenda had a weird sense of something wrong. And then she felt some type of cloth being pulled over her head and something being tightened around her throat. An instant later she felt herself being tossed down into what she believed was the closet.
Don’t panic, she warned herself. Don’t let him know you can still breathe. With all her will she held her breath until she heard the door of the closet close, then began to inhale and exhale as quietly as she could. With each successive breath, her breathing became more normal. Although something very tight had been pulled around her neck, she had managed to slip a finger inside it, leaving her throat open just enough to breathe.
The Man with One Thousand Faces was sure that no one had seen him come down the corridor and into the room. Working swiftly, he emptied Brenda’s purse on the floor, then rushed to the safe. No necklace there either, he observed. Then he rifled through the suitcases and dresser. “I’d have sworn she was the one who had it,” he grumbled, as he opened the cabin door an inch and saw that the coast was clear. Walking swiftly but at the same time trying to appear casual, he quickly covered the distance back to his own room.
Less than two minutes later Raymond returned to Brenda’s room and tapped on the door. Hearing nothing, he opened the door and went in. He was surprised to see that there was no one there. He placed the coffee and dessert on the cocktail table. But then he heard the sound of someone grunting and kicking in the closet. Not sure that he was hearing correctly, he walked slowly to the door and opened it. He was greeted by the sight of Brenda sprawled on the floor, one hand over her pillowcase-covered head and the other on her throat.
Raymond scrambled to the dresser for a pair of scissors. He rushed back, knelt down and said, “I have you. Let go of the rope.” Slipping his finger into where Brenda’s had been, he carefully slid one blade of the scissors between her neck and the rope. A moment after he applied pressure the cord snapped. He used the scissors to cut away the pillowcase and ripped it away from her face.
She breathed in life-giving air. He waited a few minutes until she began to caress her throat with her hands. He helped her to a sitting position and then dragged her to her feet.
“What took you so long?” she gasped. “I could have been choked to death!”
“Miss Brenda,” he said, “let’s get you into your chair. A cup of coffee will help you get settled.”
Leaning over him, Brenda collapsed in a chair and reached for the coffee.
Raymond picked up the phone and called the chief of security to report an “incident” that had occurred in Brenda’s room. Saunders promised to come right over and bring Dr. Blake with him.
Turning back to Brenda, Raymond said, “Is there anything I can do—”
She cut him off. “Go get me a towel with some ice cubes in it. I want to wrap it around my neck.”
“Ma’am, I think it would be a good idea if I stayed with you until—”
“I SAID GET ME A COLD TOWEL!”
“Right away, ma’am,” Raymond said, delighted to have a reason to leave the suite.
Before Raymond left, Brenda called out to him, “Tell the Captain someone tried to strangle me, and I insist on getting better protection until we reach Southampton.”
Too bad that her dear Ralphie isn’t around, Raymond thought as he tiptoed out. He went directly to a storage closet and closed the door behind him. As soon as the connection was established, he whispered, “Another attempted murder. This time Lady Haywood’s personal assistant Brenda Martin was the intended victim. He tried to strangle her, but she managed to slip a finger under the cord and keep breathing. She didn’t talk about anything missing from her room, so the motive is not clear.”
Raymond slipped the cell phone back into his pocket and exited the storage closet.
One minute later his phone registered that he had received a text. It was from John Saunders, the chief of security. He was being summoned back to Brenda’s suite, where the Captain and the ship owner were waiting for him. With a towel and ice bucket in hand, Raymond hurried back to her cabin.
Brenda was still in the armchair where he had left her. Raymond’s first glance revealed that she had finished the vanilla ice cream, the apple pie and the coffee in the few minutes she had been alone. But there was no missing that she had an ugly red bruise all around her neck. She could have been asphyxiated, he thought, but the first thing he heard her say to Dr. Blake was that she wouldn’t be alive if Raymond hadn’t rescued her. She added that she planned to sue the cruise line because even though they knew there was a murderer on board, they had not taken the trouble to secure the halls from a serial killer.
Captain Fairfax began a lengthy apology, but he was cut off by Gregory Morrison. The ship owner assured Brenda that he would take good care of her if she would agree to not say a word to the other passengers about what happened to her.
“Whether or not I say a word won’t matter to what you are going to pay me,” Brenda gasped as she ran her fingers over her sore neck. “I could be dead,” she moaned, “and it would be because all of you failed in your duty to protect us. The next thing you know is we’ll all be on the deck singing, ‘Nearer, my God, to thee, nearer to thee.’ ”