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“I see.” Mayles took a sip of the Vernaccia to cover up his surprise and quickly turned the conversation away. “Are you a linguist?”
A certain amusement seemed to lurk in the man’s gray eyes. “Not at all. I investigate things.”
Mayles had his second surprise of the di
“Something like that.”
A rather unpleasant thought ran through Mayles’s head. “And are you . . . investigating now?”
“Bravo, Mr. Mayles.”
Some of the others were now listening, and Mayles didn’t quite know what to say. He felt a twinge of nerves. “Well,” he went on with a light laugh, “I know who did it: Mr. Mustard in the pantry. With the candlestick.”
As the others laughed politely, he again turned the conversation away from this potentially difficult line. “Miss Greene, have you ever seen the painting
Proserpine,
by Rossetti?”
The woman turned her eyes on him, and he felt a shiver of disquiet. There was something distinctly strange in those eyes. “I have.”
“I do believe you resemble the woman in the painting.”
She continued to look at him. “Should I be flattered to be compared to the mistress of the lord of the underworld?”
This bizarre answer, its intensity—and her resonant, old-fashioned voice—put Mayles out. But he was an expert at riding any vagary of conversation, and he had a ready reply. “Pluto fell in love with her because she was so beautiful, so vital—as you are.”
“And as a result Pluto kidnapped her and dragged her into hell to be his mistress.”
“Ah well, some people have all the luck!” Mayles glanced around and received an appreciative laugh for his little bon mot—even Miss Greene smiled, he was relieved to notice.
The dealer, Lionel Brock, spoke: “Yes, yes, I know the painting well. It’s in the Tate, I believe.”
Mayles turned a grateful face toward Brock. “Yes.”
“A rather vulgar work, like all the Pre-Raphaelites. The model was Jane Morris, the wife of Rossetti’s best friend. Painting her was a prelude to seducing her.”
“Seduction,” said Miss Greene. She turned her strange eyes on Mayles. “Have you ever seduced, Mr. Mayles? Being cruise director on a luxury ocean liner must be a marvelous platform from which to do it.”
“I have my little secrets,” he said, with another light laugh. The question had cut rather closer to the bone than he was accustomed to. He didn’t think he would put Miss Greene at his table again.
“
Afar from mine own self I seem, and wing strange ways in thought, and listen for a sign,
” Greene recited.
This was followed by silence.
“How lovely,” said the meatpacking heiress, Mrs. Emily Dahlberg, speaking for the first time. She was a strikingly aristocratic woman in a gown, draped in antique jewels, slender and well-kept for her age, and—Mayles thought—she looked and spoke exactly like the Baroness von Schräder inThe Sound of Music . “Who wrote that, my dear?”
“Rossetti,” said Greene. “The poem he wrote about Proserpine.”
Brock turned his gray eyes on Constance. “Are you an art historian?”
“No,” she replied. “I’m a pedant and an obscurantist.”
Brock laughed. “I find pedants and obscurantists charming,” he said with a smile, leaning toward her.
“Are you a pedant as well, Dr. Brock?”
“Well, I . . .” He laughed off the question. “I suppose some might call me that. I’ve brought along some copies of my latest monograph, on Caravaggio. I’ll send a copy over to your stateroom—you can decide for yourself.”
A hush fell over the table as a distinguished man with silver hair, in uniform, came up to the table. He was slender and fit, and his blue eyes sparkled under his cap. “Welcome,” he said.
Everyone greeted him.
“How is everything going, Roger?”
“Just shipshape, Gordon. So to speak.”
“Allow me to introduce myself,” the new arrival said to the table, gracing them with a charming smile. “My name is Gordon LeSeur and I’m the first officer of theBrita
A murmuring of introductions went all around.
“If you have any questions about the ship, I’m your man.” He smiled again. “How’s di
Everyone assured him it was excellent.
“Fine! We’re going to take good care of you, I promise.”
“I’ve been wondering,” asked Mrs. Dahlberg. “They say the
Brita
is the largest cruise ship in the world. How much bigger is it than the
Queen Mary 2
?”
“We’re fifteen thousand tons heavier, thirty feet longer, ten percent faster, and twice as pretty. But Mrs. Dahlberg, I have to correct one thing you said: we’re not a cruise ship. We’re an ocean liner.” “I didn’t know there was a difference.”
“A world of difference! The point of a cruise ship is the cruise itself. But an ocean liner’s job is to transport people on a schedule. The ‘B’has a much deeper draft and a more pointed hull form than a cruise ship, and it is capable of serious speed: over thirty knots, which is more than thirty-five miles an hour. The hull has to be a lot stronger than a cruise ship and good at seakeeping, able to cross the open ocean in all weathers. You see, a cruise ship will run away from a storm. We don’t divert—we just plough right through.”
“Really?” asked Mrs. Dahlberg. “We might encounter a storm?”
“If the weather reports are correct, we
will
encounter a storm—somewhere off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland.” He smiled reassuringly. “Nothing to worry about. It’ll be great fun.”
The first officer said his good-byes to the table and moved to another nearby, one populated with loud dot-com billionaires. Mayles was grateful for the momentary silence from those braying asses while the first officer repeated his spiel.
“Finest first officer in the fleet,” Mayles said. “We’re lucky to have him.” It was his standard line; and, in fact, LeSeur was a decent fellow. Not your typical first officer, who were usually arrogant, conceited, with a chip on their shoulders because they weren’t captain.
“He looks rather like a graying Paul McCartney,” said Lionel Brock. “No relation, is there?”
“It’s the accent,” said Mayles, “and you’re not the first to make that observation.” He winked. “Don’t let him hear you say that; our first officer, I’m sorry to say, is not a Beatles fan.”
The main course had arrived along with another wine, and the volume of simultaneous talk at the table intensified. Mayles had his radar out. Even as he himself spoke, he could listen to several other conversations simultaneously. It was a useful skill.
Mrs. Dahlberg had turned to Pendergast. “Your ward is a remarkable young woman.”
“Indeed.”