Chapter 1

The Last Arrival

As you will have gathered, the Montmartre was, at the time, the newest and most beautiful and most desirable and hardest-to-get-on ship in the fleet of the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique. She had, in fact, been in commission only five weeks.

But, two days later, we were standing on her promenade deck, looking down on the faces of those who were massed on the pier below to wave and smile or weep farewell to the fewer and luckier ones gathered on the decks above.

The final gongs had sounded moments before, and the last of the people who were going ashore were going ashore. We’d had some guests in the suite who’d come down to see us off, and after the usual toasts and handshakes and cheek-kissing they had left, and now the four of us were by ourselves. The trip was about to start.

Ostensibly, it was an ordinary departure of four people sailing to Europe, and for three of us it was. Twit-Twit was standing next to me with slightly moist eyes (why do women always get emotional at sailings and weddings?); Betsy and Tom would shortly begin the pleasurable process of slowing down, of realizing they were to be on shipboard for the next five days with nothing to do but enjoy themselves.

I was glad I’d been able to arrange that, especially since I am normally anything but a big arranger, and I knew that what I had done meant a lot to them.

I looked around. Tom looked healthier already. The TV show he produces had had a good year and was ending the season with fine ratings, whatever ratings mean. But it had taken a lot out of him, and that had showed.

Now he looked happy under the implausible Tirolean hat which he has worn ever since I’ve known him, which is fourteen years. But the white brush was missing from it, lost perhaps in the crush on the dock as we came through. Or perhaps in the crush in our suite, for there had been quite a few people, most of them armed with champagne.

“I’ll be damned. I guess I’ve been kicked out of the Alpine Mountain Climbers’ Club.”

“I always knew you would be. But what for?”

“It must be because of that day I was supposed to climb a mountain, and goofed. I climbed a valley instead.” Tom likes champagne.

“That could happen to anyone.”

“Of course. But it was pretty dumb of me. I should have realized much sooner why the blood was rushing to my head.”

We all chuckled.

The stewards came around again with their trays of paper streamers and bags of confetti, and we all took some and began throwing them down on the pier, and calling to people we spotted, and getting that feeling of imminence that seizes you at a sailing. Only one gangplank remained in place, and only two lines—at bow and stern—bound us to the North American continent. Those, and the hundreds of little paper streamers, still being flung downward with enthusiasm.

I suppose they symbolize something, the knowledge that you are going a long way away, and leaving a lot of people and relationships—ties that will soon be broken.

It’s not such a bad feeling.

But Twit-Twit’s eyes still were moist. So were Betsy’s.

I looked to my left. Next to me was a little group of college girls—maybe I should call them a murmuration—obviously on their way to the long summer-educational tour of Europe. They were apparently under the chaperonage of a tall, dark young woman who looked like she might need a chaperone herself in due time. The girls had the well-combed, well-scrubbed look that American kids have and which you never appreciate for what it is until you’ve been abroad awhile and run into it in places that aren’t well scrubbed.

But they weren’t murmuring now or saying much at all. Some of them were dabbing their eyes, and again I thought, what in hell goes with women that they get so emotional when they leave land to go on water? But it happens, and it doesn’t happen when they take planes.

Down below some blue-clad dock-workers came forward to lower the last gangplank. Only two lines and the paper streamers now held us to land.

I wondered if my assignment, if I may use the expression, was aboard. I’d been watching the gangplanks as best I could and had seen no sign of her. Maybe she’d gotten on early, of course. Or would arrive at the last minute; it would probably be one or the other.

I had checked the tentative passenger list when we first came aboard, and of course she was not listed. But she would not be traveling under her own name.

Maybe it would turn out she wasn’t on board at all. In which case this would be an unalloyed pleasure trip for me. Otherwise I would have work to do.

The gongs were whanging their final warning. I spotted one of our friends in the throng below and waved to him. He waved an empty champagne glass back at me; he’d walked off the ship with it full. The dockmen began pulling the gangplank back.

Either she was aboard or she wasn’t. I sort of hoped she wasn’t.

One of the college girls was crying openly; probably her parents were down there in the crowd. Or a boyfriend.

Then I got my answer.

From behind us came a sudden wild explosion of sound. Everybody jumped. The ship’s band had assembled behind us and, without even a warning roll on the snare drum, now broke loudly into “The Poor People of Paris.” And even while the trumpet and trombone blared, and the clarinet and violin squealed and squeaked, and the cymbals clashed, a little black-coated figure came scooting out of the crowd below toward the lowering gangplank and said something to the dock-workers who were handling it.

You could see their exasperation even from where I was. But they reversed the motion, and the gangplank moved back into position. The lady in the black coat, sunglasses, dark hat and all, ran up into the ship, and the gangplank again receded.

She looked like somebody’s frightened maid.

But she wasn’t. There was no mistaking that figure and those legs.

My assignment was aboard. Oh, well. In a way, I felt relieved. At least our presence on the ship was justified to the guy who had arranged the transportation.

The ship’s whistle sounded its farewell blasts. The band swung into “Anchors Away.” The first of the remaining two lines was twitched aboard. I got an idea.

Without saying anything, I turned, ducked past the band, and headed topside to the boat deck. That’s where her cabin was to be. I got to the stairwell just as she did, preceded by a steward carrying a small bag for her. I turned aside for them to pass and followed up the stairway.

In a long black coat she seemed a small, almost slight figure. Certainly not the most famous female body in the world. She wore small, thin-rimmed, tinted glasses, not the usual Hollywood-type of big frame sunglasses. Little tufts of homely, grayish-white hair wisped out from under the pulled-down black slouch hat. With no lipstick or other make-up, she looked more and more like somebody’s old nanny, breathlessly making the boat at the last minute.

I had to hand it to her. From what I knew, she must have doped out that disguise herself and put it on herself. And it was pretty good.

They stopped at a stateroom door lettered B-78, and I brushed past without looking twice. Down at the end of the Montmartre’s boat deck there’s a tiny bar, primarily I suppose for the carriage trade that occupies the boat deck. I went into it because I wanted to get out of sight, and to appear to have been going someplace, in case I was being observed.

It also occurred to me that a drink would not be a bad idea at this point; I had not had much champagne because I don’t like sparkling wines.

But the bar was crowded, and I felt a little nervous about leaving the others on the deck below. The ship’s whistle sounded the final blast. So as soon as I thought it was safe and I was not likely to be spotted, I started back down the passage toward the stairs. I wanted to go by her door again to be sure I knew its exact location.

Just as I passed, the door swung open wide and the steward came out. I caught a glimpse of what was beyond. A girl who had just taken off an old frump of a coat, and was taking off a hat that had covered what seemed to be gray hair. The hair was gray all right. But the body and the young profile were known around the world. I looked away fast and kept going.

* * * *

“Where did you go?” Twit-Twit said.

I saw the last line snake inboard. The band was still playing “Anchors Away” but as the chorus ended they modulated without missing a beat into “Le Marseillaise.” I looked down over the rail. Only the little ribbons of paper bound us to land, and they began parting. Dirty brown water appeared in the gap between the ship’s white side and the pier. Confetti fell into it. The band played even louder, and people began yelling meaningless final greetings.

“Take care of yourself!”

“Have fun in Paris!”

“Kiss Marie for me!”

I told Twit-Twit, “I just went around on the other side. To see what I could see.”

“And what did you see?”

“The other side. But I have to run below in a moment. Gentleman’s powder room.”

“You do not. You hardly touched the champagne. You’ll stay here while we go down the bay.”

“I’ll stay for a little.” She took my arm.

But for once I wasn’t thinking of her. I was telling myself I knew where I stood. The subject was on the ship and I knew where to make contact. The charm, as Macbeth’s witches crooned, was wound up. The fact she was aboard was the signal that she was really going ahead and making the moving picture.

How long I could keep the whole thing concealed from my three traveling companions, I had no idea.

Still, perhaps because of the pleasant hysteria of sailing, I felt confident and happy. There’d be a drink soon, and then a delicious lunch. The rest of the day would take care of itself.

* * * *

The ship had backed out into the Hudson or North, a term I prefer, River. The band played a final brave chorus and then moved off to its next station in the first-class lounge. The tugs swung us around efficiently and pointed us south, and there was New York’s West Side skyline. The Dolans were looking at it.

I said, “Look, cookie pants. I’ve really got to go below and see about our accommodations. Let’s meet at the smoking room bar. Order me a very dry Martini. Like the nice bitch you are.”

Unexpectedly, she squeezed my arm. “I don’t believe you for a minute. You’re up to something. And I don’t know what it is. But I’ll find out. And meanwhile, I love you for getting us on this boat at the last minute. It’s going to be a dreamy trip.”

I was glad that she loved me, for that or for any other reason. But I had gotten the accommodations at the last minute only because I had accepted a responsibility, and I had to do something about it now.

I kissed her cheek. “The bar. Ten minutes. A very dry Martini.”

Below, the passages were filled with stewards bringing, late-arriving flowers and fruit baskets, and bearing away the glass debris from bon voyage parties. I went to the purser’s desk.

“The final passenger list is not made up?”

“No, m’sieu. In an hour perhaps. Meanwhile, there is the temporary list.”

“May I look?”

“Mais oui.”

I looked up cabin number B-78. It was occupied by Constance Kent and maid, Klára Vörös. Constance Kent. Why had she picked a name like that? Did she know of an earlier Constance Kent? (The Case of Constance Kent is one of the most teasingly uncertain murder mysteries in the unparalleled annals of English crime. Constance was a daughter in a family living in Wiltshire. Her mother died in 1852 after many years of emotional instability; her father married again, and on June 30, 1860, the body of Constance’s four-year-old brother Francis was found, his head virtually severed from his body, in an outcloset. In the Victorian police investigation which followed, suspicion attached to sixteen-year-old Constance, due in part to the disappearance of a nightdress. She denied knowledge of the murder. In a highly controversial trial, she was acquitted and went into a French convent where, in 1865, she confessed that she had murdered her little brother because of hatred of her stepmother, whose child the victim was. But there was, and still is in certain quarters, suspicion that Constance Kent made her confession to help someone else. Sentenced to penal servitude, she was released in 1885, and disappeared in the fogs of anonymity. There is reason to believe that both Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins drew on the case of Constance Kent for The Mystery of Edwin Drood and The Moonstone, respectively.)

But I had learned what I wanted; it was time to get to the bar.