It's Murder, On a Galapagos Cruise: An Amateur Female Sleuth Historical Cozy Mystery (Miss Riddell C by P.C. James (easy novels to read txt) 📕

Freddie. They’re just possible avenues to be explored. We, however, need to be a bit more careful than usual for the next few days, that’s all.”

“That’s all!”

“Yes! Don’t go all hysterical on me or I’ll regret having you on my detecting team.”

“You can’t regret it any more than I’m regretting being on your team right now.” Freda cast an anxious glance around the empty deck. “Should we even be walking here alone?”

“There are two of us,” Pauline said, “and this deck is well-lit and overlooked by the men on the bridge. We’re as safe here as anywhere.”

“That’s probably what Jose thought when he wandered out onto an empty deck after sunset,” Freda snapped.

“Stop it, Freddie. There’s no sense talking this way.”

“But it’s why you said you didn’t want to investigate in the first place. You said it was likely a sordid affair of Jose being involved with some criminals and they’d caught up with him. Now, because Detective Somerville says it, you’re saying it’s unlikely and I shouldn’t worry.”

“I said from now on you should wedge your cabin door shut and I’m not saying it’s unlikely because Somerville said it. I’m just saying we need to keep a sense of proportion. If there’s a gangland hitman, he won’t want to bring attention to himself by killing someone else, particularly when the police have ruled it an accident.”

“Urgh,” Freda growled, and stalked off toward the cabins leaving Pauline in sole command of the deck.

“What did I say about being extra careful,” she said, shaking her head. It was clearly a mistake involving Freda.

7

South Plaza Island

Pauline and Freda woke early and made their way to Rise and Shine stretch class. Pauline had an added incentive for joining this class today, beyond just getting all the exercise they could to fight the layer of flab they’d accumulate if they didn’t, judging by the meals and snacks that were continually being offered. Today, she wanted one last inspection of the railings and gate without anyone watching. Few people rose early on cruises, she’d noticed in the past, and just after sunrise would be especially quiet.

They were the only two in the class and, as Pauline had a pressing reason to finish it as quickly as possible, the moment it was over she thanked the instructor and marched Freda away.

“Quickly now,” Pauline said, as they headed across the deck to where Jose fell.

“Why are we doing this?” Freda asked, eying the roped off gate with dislike.

“I want to look again at that gate and the railing during daylight and before the maintenance crew replaces it with a more substantial fix.”

They stood for a moment in silence, inspecting the gate, which was behind ropes and a warning sign. Pauline lifted the rope and, stooping, passed under it to stand at the railing. She looked down to the spot where Jose’s body had lain the two nights before.

She turned to her sister, “Freddie, how tall are you?”

“Five feet, seven inches. Why?”

“You’re that inch taller than me,” Pauline said. “I’d like to test what that means with respect to the height of this gate.”

“I’m not leaning on it to see if I fall over,” Freda replied.

“I’m not asking you to,” Pauline said. “Just stand beside it so I can see where it comes on your hip. The doctor said Jose was five feet, nine and a half inches. I can measure down you, to see where it would come on him.”

Freda joined her sister at the railing and reluctantly allowed herself, holding tightly onto the railing at either side, to be positioned next to the gate while Pauline counted two-and-a-half inches down the back of her thigh.

“You see how low this would catch Jose and, being a man, with much more weight in the chest and shoulders and not so much in the hips—”

“Thank you very much!”

“I’m not making a comment about your hips, Freddie,” Pauline said. “I’m just pointing out the top rail of this gate would be well below Jose’s center-of-gravity. Once he toppled, he’d have little chance to save himself if he went over backwards, as I think he did.”

“What does all this mean?”

“It means it wasn’t an accident. Someone knew this gate was low and arranged this event to happen.”

“It could still be an accident.”

Pauline shook her head. “It’s too fortuitous. We know there’s nowhere else on the ship where this arrangement exists.”

“Why does it exist at all, I’d like to know,” Freda said. “It’s an accident waiting to happen.”

“I think it’s a simple mistake. The hinges should have been set higher up the railing post and for some reason the gate was hung without the mistake being properly appreciated.”

“The gate is in an out-of-the-way corner,” Freda said. “Its only use that I can see is for someone to go down this ladder to replace the bulb in the light down there.” She pointed to a large lamp intended to light the deck immediately below.

“Well, you can be sure the problem will be fixed soon,” Pauline said, “which is why I wanted to see it again today.”

“Now you’ve seen, let’s get away. I feel creepy just being here.”

“We have to get away quickly anyhow,” Pauline replied, “because I can see our excursion boats being lowered into the sea and made ready. If we don’t get to breakfast and dressed for hiking soon, we’ll miss the excursion.”

Later, when they were on the tender and heading for the island, Pauline said, “It’s like they used to say about the army, everything is ‘hurry up and wait’.”

They’d gobbled down breakfast, raced to their cabins, dressed with lightning speed and then sat idly on the boat deck for fifteen minutes waiting to get a seat on a tender that would carry them to shore.

The tender docked and they stepped out to the newly built stone pier on an almost flat island covered in desert-like vegetation.

“We’ll get scratched to death if the path hasn’t been cleared through those cactus things,” Freda said.

“We’re explorers, Freddie. We don’t care about