The Golden Rendezvous

There were imitators, of course, but one might as well have tried to imitate Buckingham Palace, the Grand Canyon or the Cullinan diamond. Lord Dexter left them all at the starting gate. He had found his formula and he stuck to it unswervingly: comfort, convenience, quiet, good food and good company. Where comfort was concerned, the fabulous luxury of the state-rooms had to be seen to be believed: convenience, as far as the vast majority of the male passengers was concerned, found its ultimate in the juxtaposition, in the Campari’s unique telegraph lounge, of the stock exchange tickers and one of the most superbly stocked bars in the world: quiet was achieved by an advanced degree of insulation both in cabin suites and engine-room, by imitating the royal yacht Britannia inasmuch as that no orders were ever shouted and the deck crew and stewards invariably wore rubber-soled sandals, and by eliminating all the bands, parties, games and dances which lesser cruise passengers believed essential for the enjoyment of ship-board life: the magnificent cuisine had been achieved by luring away, at vast cost and the expense of even more bad feeling, the chefs from one of the biggest embassies in London and one of the finest hotels in Paris: those masters of the culinary world operated on alternate days and the paradisical results of their efforts to outdo one another was the envious talk of the Western Ocean.

Other shipowners might, perhaps, have succeeded in imitating some or all of those features, although most certainly to a lesser degree. But Lord Dexter was no ordinary shipowner. He was, as said, a genius and he showed it in his insistence, above all, on having the right people aboard.

Never a single trip passed but the Campari had a Personage on its passenger list, a Personage varying from Notable to World-famous. A special suite was reserved for Personages. Well-known politicians, cabinet ministers, top stars of the stage and screen, the odd famous writer or artist—if he was clean enough and used a razor—and the lower echelons of the English nobility—travelled in this suite at vastly reduced prices: royalty, ex-presidents, ex-premiers, ranking dukes and above travelled free. It was said that if all the British peerage on the Campari’s waiting list could be accommodated simultaneously, the House of Lords could close its doors. It need hardly be added that there was nothing philanthropic in Lord Dexter’s offer of free hospitality: he merely jacked up his prices to the wealthy occupants of the other eleven suites, who would have paid the earth anyway for the privilege of voyaging in such close contact with such exalted company.

After several years on this run, our passengers consisted almost entirely of repeaters. Many came as often as three times a year, fair enough indication of the size of their bankroll. By now, the passenger list on the Campari had become the most exclusive club in the world. Not to put too fine a point on it, Lord Dexter had distilled the aggregate elements of social and financial snobbery and found in its purest quintessence an inexhaustible supply of gold.

I adjusted my napkin and looked over the current gold mine. Five hundred million dollars on the hoof—or on the dove-grey velvet of the armchair seats in that opulent and air-conditioned dining-room: perhaps nearer 1,000 million dollars, and old man Beresford himself would account for a good third of it.

Julius Beresford, president and chief stockholder of the Hart-McCormick Mining Federation, sat where he nearly always sat, not only now but on half a dozen previous cruises, at the top right-hand side of the captain’s table, next Captain Bullen himself: he sat there in the most coveted position in the ship, not because he insisted on it through sheer weight of weal, but because Captain Bullen himself insisted on it. There are exceptions to every rule, and Julius Beresford was the exception to Bullen’s rule that he couldn’t abide any passenger, period. Beresford, a tall, thin, relaxed man with tufted black eyebrows, a horseshoe ring of greying hair fringed the sunburnt baldness of his head and lively hazel eyes twinkling in the lined brown leather of his face, came along only for the peace, comfort and food: the company of the great left him cold, a fact vastly appreciated by Captain Bullen, who shared his sentiments exactly. Beresford, sitting diagonally across from my table, caught my eye.

“Evening, Mr. Carter.” Unlike his daughter, he didn’t make me feel that he was conferring an earldom upon me every time he spoke to me. “Splendid to be at sea again, isn’t it? And where’s our captain tonight?”

“Working, I’m afraid, Mr. Beresford. I have to present his apologies to his table. He couldn’t leave the bridge.”

“On the bridge?” Mrs. Beresford, seated opposite her husband, twisted round to look at me. “I thought you were usually on watch at this hour, Mr. Carter?”

“I am.” I smiled at her. Plump, bejewelled, over-dressed, with dyed blonde hair but still beautiful at fifty, Mrs. Beresford bubbled over with good humour and laughter and kindness: this was only her first trip but Mrs. Beresford was already my favourite passenger. I went on: “But there are so many chains of islets, reefs and coral keys hereabouts that Captain Bullen prefers to see to the navigation himself.” I didn’t add, as I might have done, that had it been in the middle of the night and all the passengers safely in their beds, Captain Bullen would have been in his also, untroubled by any thoughts about his chief officer’s competence.

“But I thought a chief officer was fully qualified to run a ship?” Miss Beresford, needling me again, sweet-smiling, the momentarily innocent clear green eyes almost too big for the delicately-tanned face. “In case anything went wrong with the captain, I mean. You must hold a master’s certificate, mustn’t you?”

“I do. I also hold a driver’s licence, but you wouldn’t catch me driving a bus in the rush hour in downtown Manhattan.”

Old man Beresford grinned. His wife smiled. Miss Beresford regarded me thoughtfully for a moment, then bent to examine her hors d’œuvre, showing the gleaming auburn hair cut in a bouffant style that looked as if it had been achieved with a garden rake and a pair of secateurs, but had probably cost a fortune. The man by her side wasn’t going to let it go so easily, though. He laid down his fork, raised his thin dark head until he had me more or less sighted along his aquiline nose and said in his clear high drawling voice: “Oh, come now, Chief Officer. I don’t think the comparison is very apt at all.”

The “Chief Officer “was to put me in my place. The Duke of Hartwell spent a great deal of his time aboard the Campari in putting people in their places, which was pretty ungrateful of him considering that he was getting it all for free. He had nothing against me personally, it was just that he was publicly lending Miss Beresford his support: even the very considerable sums of money earned by inveigling the properly respectful lower classes into viewing his stately home at two and six a time were making only a slight dent on the crushing burden of death duties, whereas an alliance with Miss Beresford would solve his difficulties for ever and ever. Things were being complicated for the unfortunate duke by the fact that though his intellect was bent on Miss Beresford, his attentions and eyes were for the most part on the extravagantly opulent charms—and undeniable beauty—of the platinum blonde and oft-divorced cinema actress who flanked him on the other side.

“I don’t suppose it is, sir,” I acknowledged. Captain Bullen refused to address him as “Your Grace “and I’d be damned if I’d do it either. “But the best I could think up on the spur of the moment.”

He nodded as though satisfied and returned to attack his hors d’œuvre. Old Beresford eyed him speculatively, Mrs. Beresford half-smilingly, Miss Harcourt—the cinema acress—admiringly, while Miss Beresford herself just kept on treating us to an uninterrupted view of the auburn bouffant.

The courses came and went. Antoine was on duty in the kitchen that night and you could almost reach out and feel the blissful hush that descended on the company. Velvet-footed Gôanese waiters moved soundlessly on the dark grey pile of the Persian carpet, food appeared and vanished as if in a dream, an arm always appeared at the precisely correct moment with the precisely correct wine. But never for me. I drank soda water. It was in my contract.

The coffee appeared. This was the moment when I had to earn my money. When Antoine was on duty and on top of his form, conversation was a desecration and a hallowed hush of appreciation, an almost cathedral ecstasy, was the correct form. But about forty minutes of this rapturous silence was about par for the course. It couldn’t and never did go on. I never yet met a rich man—or woman, for that matter—who didn’t list talking, chiefly and preferably about themselves, as among their favourite occupations. And the prime target for their observations was invariably the officer who sat at the head of the table.

I looked round ours and wondered who would start the ball rolling. Miss Harrbride—her original central European name was unpronounceable—thin, scrawny, sixtyish and tough as whalebone, who had made a fortune out of highly-expensive and utterly worthless cosmetic preparations which she wisely refrained from using on herself? Mr. Greenstreet, her husband, a grey anonymity of a man with a grey sunken face, who had married her for heaven only knew what reason for he was a very wealthy man in his own fight? Tony Carreras? His father, Miguel Carreras? There should have been a sixth at my table, to replace the Curtis family of three who, along with the Harrisons, had been so hurriedly called home from Kingston, but the old man who had come aboard in his bath-chair was apparently to have his meals served in his cabin during the voyage, with his nurses, in attendance. Four men and one woman: it made an ill-balanced table.

Señor Miguel Carreras spoke first.

“The Campari’s prices, Mr. Carter, are quite atrocious,” he said calmly. He puffed appreciatively at his cigar. “Robbery on the high seas would be a very fitting description. On the other hand, the cuisine is as claimed. You have a chef of divine gifts.”

“From all accounts, sir, ‘divine’ is just about right. Experienced travellers who have stayed in the best hotels on both sides of the Atlantic maintain that Antoine has no equal in either Europe or America. Except, perhaps, Henriques.”

“Henriques?”

“Our alternate chef. He’s on tomorrow.”

“Do I detect a certain immodesty, Mr. Carter, in advancing the claims of the Campari?” There was no offence meant, not with that smile.

“I don’t think so, sir. But the next twenty-four hours will speak for themselves—and Henriques—better than I can.”

“Touché!” He smiled again and reached for the bottle of Remy Martin—the waiters vanished at coffee-time. “And the prices?”

“They’re terrible,” I agreed. I told that to all the passengers and it seemed to please them. “We offer what no other ship in the world offers, but the prices are still scandalous. At least a dozen people in this room at this very moment have told me that—and most of them are here for at least their third trip.”

“You make your point, Mr. Carter.” It was Tony Carreras speaking and his voice was as one might have expected—slow, controlled, with a deep resonant timbre. He looked at his father. “Remember the waiting list at the Blue Mail’s offices?”

“Indeed. We were pretty far down the list—and what a list. Half the millionaires in Central and South America. I suppose we may consider ourselves fortunate, Mr. Carter, in that we were the only ones able to accept at such short notice after the sudden departure of our predecessors in Jamaica. Can you give us any idea of our itinerary?”

“That’s supposed to be one of the attractions, sir. No set itinerary. Our schedule largely depends on the availability and destination of cargoes. One thing certain, we’re going to New York. Most of our passengers boarded there and passengers like to be returned to where they came from.” He knew this anyway, knew that we had coffins consigned to New York. “We may stop off at Nassau. Depends how the captain feels—the company gives him a lot of leeway in adjusting local schedules to suit the best needs of the passengers—and the weather reports. This is the hurricane season, Mr. Carreras, or pretty close to it: if the reports are bad Captain Bullen will want all the sea room he can and give Nassau a bye.” I smiled. “Among the other attractions of the s.s. Campari is that we do not make our passengers seasick unless it is absolutely essential.”

“Considerate, very considerate,” Carreras murmured. He looked at me speculatively. “But we’ll be making one or two calls on the east coast, I take it?”

“No idea, sir. Normally, yes. Again it’s up to the captain, and how the captain behaves depends on a Dr. Slingsby Caroline.”

“They haven’t caught him yet,” Miss Harrbride declared in her rough gravelly voice. She scowled with all the fierce patriotism of a first-generation American, looked round the table and gave us all the impartial benefit of her scowl.

“It’s incredible, frankly incredible. I still don’t believe it. A thirteenth-generation American!”

“We heard about this character.” Tony Cerreras, like his father, had had his education in some Ivy League college: he was rather less formal in his attitude towards the English language. “Slingsby Caroline, I mean. But what’s this guy got to do with us, Mr. Carter?”

“As long as he is at large every cargo vessel leaving the eastern seaboard gets a pretty thorough going over to make sure that neither he nor the Twister is aboard. Slows up the turn-round of cargo and passenger ships by 100 per cent., which means that the longshoremen are losing stevedoring money pretty fast. They’ve gone on strike—and the chances are, so many unpleasant words have been said on both sides, that they’ll stay on strike when they do nab Dr. Caroline. If.”

“Traitor,” said Miss Harrbride. “Thirteen generations!”

“So we stay away from the east coast, eh?” Carreras senior asked. “Meantime, anyway?”

“As long as possible, sir. But New York is a must. When, I don’t know. But if it’s still strike-bound, we might go up the St. Lawrence first. Depends.”

“Romance, mystery and adventure,” Carreras smiled. “Just like your brochure said.” He glanced over my shoulder. “Looks like a visitor for you, Mr. Carter.”

I twisted in my seat. It was a visitor for me. Rusty Williams—Rusty from his shock of flaming hair—was advancing towards me, whites immaculately pressed, uniform cap clasped stiffly under his left arm. Rusty was sixteen, our youngest cadet, desperately shy and very impressionable.

“What is it, Rusty?” Age-old convention said that cadets should always be addressed by their surnames, but everyone called Rusty just that. It seemed impossible not to.

“The captain’s compliments, sir. Could he see you on the bridge, please, Mr. Carter?”

“I’ll be right up.” Rusty turned to leave and I caught the gleam in Susan Beresford’s eye, a gleam that generally heralded some crack at my expense. This one, predictably, would be about my indispensability, about the distraught captain sending for his trusty servant when all was lost, and although I didn’t think she was the sort of a girl to say it in front of a cadet I wouldn’t have wagered pennies on it so I rose hastily to my feet, said “Excuse me, Miss Harrbride, excuse me, gentlemen,” and followed Rusty quickly out of the door into the starboard alleyway. He was waiting for me.

“The captain is in his cabin, sir. He’d like to see you there.”

“What? You told me——”

“I know, sir. He told me to say that. Mr. Jamieson is on the bridge”—George Jamieson was our third officer—“and Captain Bullen is in his cabin. With Mr. Cummings.”

I nodded and left. I remembered now that Cummings hadn’t been at his accustomed table as I’d come out although he’d certainly been there at the beginning of dinner. The captain’s quarters were immediately below the bridge and I was there in ten seconds. I knocked on the polished teak door, heard a gruff voice and went in.

The Blue Mail certainly did its commodore well. Even Captain Bullen, no admirer of the sybaritic life, had never been heard to complain of being pampered. He had a three-room and bathroom suite, done in the best millionaire’s taste, and his day-cabin, in which I now was, was a pretty fair guide to the rest—wine-red carpet that sunk beneath your feet, darkly-crimson drapes, gleaming sycamore panelling, narrow oak beams overhead, oak and green leather for the chairs and settee. Captain Bullen looked up at me as I came in: He didn’t have any of the signs of a man enjoying the comforts of home.

“Something wrong, sir?” I asked.

“Sit down.” He waved to a chair and sighed. “There’s something wrong all right. Banana-legs Benson is missing. White reported it ten minutes ago.”

Banana-legs Benson sounded like the name of a domesticated anthropoid or, at best, like a professional wrestler on the small town circuits, but in fact, it belonged to our very suave, polished and highly-accomplished head steward, Frederick Benson: Benson had the well-deserved reputation of being a very firm disciplinarian, and it was one of his disgruntled subordinates who, in the process of receiving a severe and merited dressing-down had noticed the negligible clearance between Benson’s knees and rechristened him as soon as his back was turned. The name had stuck, chiefly because of its incongruity and utter unsuitability. White was the assistant chief steward.

I said nothing. Bullen didn’t appreciate anyone, especially his officers, indulging in double-takes, exclamations or fatuous repetition. Instead I looked at the man seated across the table from the captain. Howard Cummings.

Cummings, the purser, a small plump amiable and infinitely shrewd Irishman, was next to Bullen, the most important man on the ship. No one questioned that, though Cummings himself gave no sign that this was so. On a passenger ship a good purser is worth his weight in gold, and Cummings was a pearl beyond any price. In his three years on the Campari friction and trouble among—and complaints from—the passengers had been almost completely unknown. Howard Cummings was a genius in mediation, compromise, the soothing of ruffled feelings and the handling of people in general. Captain Bullen would as soon have thought of cutting off his right hand as of trying to send Cummings off the ship.

I looked at Cummings for three reasons. He knew everything that went on on the Campari, from the secret take-over bids being planned in the telegraph lounge to the heart troubles of the youngest stoker in the boiler-room. He was the man ultimately responsible for all the stewards aboard the ship. And, finally, he was a close personal friend of Banana-legs.

Cummings caught my look and shook his dark head.

“Sorry, Johnny,” I’m as much in the dark as you. I saw him shortly before dinner, about ten to eight it would have been, when I was having a noggin with the paying guests.” Cummings’s noggin came from a special whisky bottle filled only with ginger ale. “We’d White up here just now. He says he saw Benson in cabin suite 6, fixing it for the night, about 8.20—half an hour ago, no, nearer forty minutes now. He expected to see him shortly afterwards because for every night for the past couple of years, whenever the weather was good, Benson and White have had a cigarette together on deck when the passengers were at dinner.”

“Regular time?” I interrupted.

“Very. Eight-thirty, near enough, never later than 8.35. But not tonight. At 8.40 White went to look for him in his cabin. No sign of him there. Organised half a dozen stewards for a search and still nothing doing. He sent for me and I came to the captain.”

And the captain sent for me, I thought. Send for old trusty Carter when there’s dirty work on hand. I looked at Bullen.

“A search, sir?”

“That’s it, Mister. Damned nuisance, just one damned thing after another. Quietly, if you can.”

“Of course, sir. Can I have Wilson, the bo’sun, some stewards and A.B.s?”

“You can have Lord Dexter and his board of directors just so long as you find Benson,” Bullen grunted.

“Yes, sir,” I turned to Cummings. “Didn’t suffer from any ill-health, did he? Liable to dizziness, faintness, heart attacks, that sort of thing?”

“Flat feet, was all,” Cummings smiled. He wasn’t feeling like smiling. “Had his annual medical check-up last month from Doc Marston. One hundred per cent. The flat feet are an occupational disease.”

I turned back to Captain Bullen.

“Could I have twenty minutes, perhaps half an hour, for a quiet look around, sir, first? With Mr. Cummings. Your authority to look anywhere, sir?”

“Within reason, of course.”

“Everywhere?” I insisted. “Or I’m wasting my time. You know that, sir.”

“My God! And it’s only a couple of days since that Jamaican lot. Remember how our passengers reacted to the Customs and American Navy going through their cabins? The board of directors are going to love this.” He looked up wearily. “I suppose you are referring to the passengers’ quarters?”

“We’ll do it quietly, sir.”

“Twenty minutes, then. You’ll find me on the bridge. Don’t tramp on any toes if you can help it.”

We left, dropped down to “A” deck and made a right-left turn into the hundred-foot central passageway between the cabin suites on “A” deck: there were only six of those suites, three on each side. White was about half-way down the passageway, nervously pacing up and down. I beckoned to him and he came walking quickly towards us, a thin, balding character with a permanently pained expression who suffered from the twin disabilities of chronic dyspepsia and over-conscientiousness.

“Got all the pass-keys, White?” I asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Fine.” I nodded to the first main door on my right, number one suite on the port side. “Open it, will you?”

He opened up. I brushed past him, followed by the purser. There was no need to switch on the lights, they were already on; asking the Campari’s passengers, at the prices they were paying, to remember to turn off the lights would have been a waste of breath and an insult.

There were no bunks in the Campari’s cabin suites. Four-posters and massive four-posters at that, with concealed and mechanically operated side-boards which could be quickly raised in bad weather; such was the standard of modern weather reporting, the latitude allowed Captain Bullen in avoiding bad weather and the efficiency of our Denny-Brown stabilisers that I don’t think those side-boards had ever been used. Seasickness was not allowed aboard the Campari.

The suite was composed of a sleeping cabin, an adjacent lounge and bathroom, and beyond the lounge another cabin. All the plate-glass windows faced out over the port aide. We went through the cabins in a minute, looking beneath beds, examining cupboards, wardrobes, behind drapes, everywhere. Nothing. We left.

Out in the passageway again I nodded at the suite opposite. Number two.

“This one now,” I said to White.

“Sorry, sir. Can’t do it. It’s the old man and his nurses, sir. They had three special trays sent up to them when now, let me see, yes, sir, about 6.15 tonight, and Mr. Carreras, the gentleman who came aboard today, he gave instructions that they were not to be disturbed till morning.” White was enjoying this. “Very strict instructions, sir.”

“Carreras?” I looked at the purser. “What’s he got to do with this, Mr. Cummings?”

“You haven’t heard? No, I don’t suppose so. Seems like Mr. Carreras—the father—is the senior partner in one of the biggest law firms in the country, Cerdan & Carreras. Mr. Cerdan, founder of the firm, is the old gentleman in the cabin here. Seems he’s been a semi-paralysed cripple—but a pretty tough old cripple—for the past eight years. His son and wife—Cerdan Junior being the next senior partner to Carreras—have had him on their hands all that time, and I believe the old boy has been a handful and a half. I understood Carreras offered to take him along primarily to give Cerdan Junior and his wife a break. Carreras, naturally, feels responsible for him so I suppose that’s why he left his orders with Benson.”