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) 📕

about it, as I’m sure we all have, and no, not really. It isn’t against any rules for crew members to go out for fresh air, though it shouldn’t be on a passenger deck. No one I’ve spoken to can say why Jose was where he was. It would have meant another talking to, had he not gotten himself killed.”

Seeing there was no further questions, Ferguson thanked the chief engineer and Gregor left the room. The detectives turned to Ferguson.

“What do we know about your chief engineer, Captain?” Somerville asked.

“We know a lot. He’s been with this ship longer than I have,” Ferguson said.

Puzzled, Pauline asked, “How does an Eastern European seaman become a chief engineer on a western ship?”

“He was training as a Marine Engineer at university in Poland, where he’s from. In 1956 he visited a schoolfriend who was at university in Budapest. They became embroiled in the uprising and, when the Russians stepped in to put it down, he and his friend fled to the West. Gregor finished his schooling in England and thought himself lucky because we still were the place to be for ships and shipbuilding then. It’s hard to believe that now.”

Ferguson paused as the realization of the speed of decline and fall once again overtook him.

He shook himself out of his reverie, and continued, “Anyway, he worked his way up the ladder, joining this ship as chief engineer when she was still sailing the Med. That was sometime in 1965, I think. Just before I arrived as a junior officer.”

“Do you think he could have confronted Jose?” Somerville asked.

“No. Absolutely not. He doesn’t suffer fools gladly,” Ferguson paused, and then said, “but he’s a good officer and he’s never had a bit of bother with his crew in the twenty years I’ve known him. He’s one of those men that people follow by example, rather than through fear.”

“And you, Señor Hidalgo,” Pauline said, speaking louder for the microphone, “Have you anything on those three crew members, particularly the two without alibis?”

“Nothing has come through yet,” Hidalgo said. “They are just ordinary people you know, and ordinary people don’t have long public records, criminal or otherwise: birth, school, marriage, children and death is about it really. There may be something different by the time we have our evening briefing.”

“Then,” Ferguson said, “if there’s nothing else, I’ll bring this meeting to a close. Thank you everyone. We will meet again after dinner and let’s hope Señor Hidalgo has more for us then or tomorrow.”

As they were preparing to leave, Pauline said, “Captain, would you ask Rod Chalmers to join us this evening. I think there’s something to be learned there.”

“I’ll ask, Miss Riddell, but he’s a prickly sort of fellow. He may not come.”

Pauline grinned. “Prickly is the right word for Mr. Chalmers and usually I would dismiss someone so obviously suspicious from my list of suspects. Only he is evasive about his movements at the time and no one has given him an alibi, except his wife, and she’s now admitted it wasn’t true.”

“It shall be done, Miss Riddell,” Captain Ferguson said, “and we shall hope he’s in an accommodating mood.”

“He can be mellow after dinner and drinks,” Somerville said, as Pauline and Somerville left Ferguson’s cabin together and headed back toward the lounge.

Part way along the narrow corridor, Somerville stopped and, seeing he wanted to talk, Pauline did too.

“Do you believe them, Gregor and the captain, I mean?”

“Yes, I do, in the essentials.”

“Ah, you aren’t one hundred percent sold either then?”

“People always try to put their best foot forward. What are your reservations?” Pauline replied.

“It’s too good to be true, I guess. Our chief engineer is a tough cookie and, from what I’ve heard, like a lot of Polish people, a staunch Catholic. He’ll have old-fashioned ideas about how to deal with sex squabbles, however much he chooses to pretend he’s okay with it.”

“I’m a churchgoer myself, Detective, and I have old-fashioned ideas about such goings-on and yet I wouldn’t advocate hurting people for lapses, but I take your point. His response was strangely tepid for something so unacceptable to him as an officer and a Catholic.”

“Miss Riddell, I have a confession. At the outset I was certain this was an accident and I thought your suggestion of murder out in left field. Over the past days, I’ve come to think your instinct was correct. However, just for the record, even though there are a number of possibilities to this death, I still think, in the end, we’ll find it was an accident.”

“It’s good of you to say you now see what I saw, Detective, but don’t you find it compelling that this one man had so many things going against him? I doubt we’d find anyone else on this ship with a similar background of threats and horrors.”

“I can’t entirely agree with you there, Miss Riddell. The crew are almost all from the nearby Central and South American countries and all of them have lived with violence throughout their lives. I suspect many, if not all, share a similar history. That’s even true of the passengers, who are mainly elderly people that have lived through Prohibition, the Depression, World War II, the Korean War, and so on. Take Arvin Weiss, for example.”

“I’ve thought all that too,” Pauline agreed, “but Jose is very young for such a packed history.”

“Once his parents were killed, the rest I feel follows almost naturally and doesn’t necessarily point to anything bad in him. I’m almost tempted to agree with Señor Hidalgo, suicide wouldn’t be beyond plausibility.”

“Not implausible, I agree, but not likely in this case. He fell or was pushed backwards.”

“I agree with you, not suicide, but I still feel not murder. Where does this leave us, do you think?”

“We had four viable suspects, Pedro, Rod, Arvin, and Gregor, and Pedro looks out of it for now. That leaves three. In each case, however, the opportunity appears to be there, and they have no alibis. The means