“The dust on Speaker’s forehead seemed to consist of — get this — tiny colored glass spheres.”
Silence greeted this announcement. Then Helen said, “There goes my newfound respect for the doctor. He’s a mental case himself.”
“Did he say anything else, King?” Leroy asked.
“Just not to bother him anymore. In a nice way, of course.”
Martin Leroy said with the enthusiasm of the true puzzle-solver, “What, may I ask, are a bunch of microscopic glass spheres doing on board a ship at sea, let alone on a dead man’s forehead?”
“How about that glassy powder on a nail file?” Carol offered. “You know, like sandpaper?”
“Or some of that shiny stuff in a city sidewalk? Mica, is it?” Helen said.
Danforth shook his head. “Sorry, ladies. They aren’t spheres. And besides, the doctor said colored glass spheres. Red, blue, and green.”
“Oh, colored!” Helen was undismayed. “How about some of the stuff on one of those sparkly masks they wear in Rio for the Carnival?”
Leroy suddenly put down his fork with a clatter. His dark eyes glowed. “Please,” he begged, “will you dispense with these childish guessing games for a moment? And let the genius in your midst be heard?”
“Mart, you know what the dust is?”
“I thought you’d never ask. Of course I know what it is. Anyone with a reasonably keen interest in amateur photography would know. At least,” he amended with a broad deprecatory smile, “anyone who has total recall like me.”
“Total recall!” Helen scoffed. “Why, you can’t even remember your social-security number!”
Danforth said, “Please ignore your unappreciative wife, Mart. What’s the dust?”
Leroy narrowed his eyes dramatically. “The dust is the material they coat on home movie screens.”
“Hey!” Danforth exclaimed. “Now you mention it, I think that’s it. To make the surface reflective, right?”
“We’re very impressed,” Carol said, “but so what?”
Her husband answered, “It just might mean that Calvin Speaker didn’t fall down those steps at all.”
“Here we go again!” Helen moaned. “You mean he may have been murdered, I suppose?”
“Maybe. Or at least killed somewhere else than on that staircase.”
“Like where?”
“Like somebody’s cabin where there’s a home movie screen.”
“I can see what’s coming next,” Carol announced. “Killed last night in somebody’s cabin where there’s a home movie screen, kept in the cabin all night, then brought out on deck and pushed down those steps to make it look like an accident.”
“You’re beginning to learn, my dear,” said Leroy. “No doubt by association with your brilliant husband, my partner. But that would account for the dinner jacket at daybreak and the dust on the forehead.”
Helen laughed. “I can think of another way to account for the dinner jacket. And not necessarily involving a movie screen, either.”
“You mean he spent the night in some blonde’s cabin?” her husband asked. “Some sordid shipboard intrigue. Forget it. We’ve got a great clue here that could mean murder. So let’s not get side-tracked by romance.”
“Spoken like a true mystery fan,” agreed Danforth. “So who on board would have a home movie screen in his cabin?”
“Almost anybody,” Helen said.
“No, it’s unlikely that any of the passengers would bring a movie screen on a cruise. Cameras, yes. Screen, no.”
“How about the crew?” Carol suggested.
Her husband shook his head. “Not likely.”
“Listen.” Leroy took over. “How about narrowing it down, for the nonce, to the likeliest possibility?”
“The ship’s photographer,” Danforth said. “Okay.”
“Gregory?” Helen asked. “That nice youngster?”
“That nice youngster with a movie screen in his cabin which I have personally seen.”
“But he wouldn’t kill anyone!”
“I don’t think he would, either,” Leroy murmured. “All the same I’d like to examine Gregory’s movie screen.”
After breakfast they took a leisurely turn around the promenade deck. As they passed the bulletin board on which the ship’s photographer posted the candid shots he took during shore excursions, Danforth said, “Wait a minute. Mart. Maybe there’s a picture of Calvin Speaker here.” They stopped and scanned the rows of photographs pinned to the board.
The latest batch covered the Valhalla’s visit to Jesselton, North Borneo. The Leroys and Danforths had already seen the display — had, indeed, ordered two prints from the ship’s photographer as keepsakes of the cruise: a shot of the four of them grouped around a heavy-homed water buffalo.
The whole Jesselton shore trip was represented. Tanjong Aru beach, from which had been visible the towering jungled mountain on which the fast-disappearing orangutan was making its last stand against extinction; the unicorn and lion dances performed by Malay and Chinese children; the rubber plantations, rice fields, native villages; the water-buffalo races at Penampang; the exhibition of blowgun marksmanship by a Murut native. In almost every scene one or more cruise passengers appeared, but in none of them could they spot the face of Mr. Calvin Speaker.
Leroy indicated an empty space in one of the rows of photographs. “There’s no picture number 432,” he said with a quick glance at Danforth, “although apparently there was one, judging from the thumbtack hole in the board.”
Flanking the empty space were two pictures — numbers 431 and 433 — of cruise passengers standing beside the naked Murut tribesman who had demonstrated the accuracy of his blowgun by placing breath-expelled darts neatly in a small pig-shaped target forty yards away. The savage, flamboyant in feathered plumes and nothing else, was selling blowguns to the fascinated tourists from a small bundle of guns at his feet.
“Do you suppose,” asked Danforth carefully, “that the missing photo number 432 could be a picture of Calvin Speaker? And that it has been, for some unknown reason, removed from this display?”
“There’s one way to find out,” Leroy replied. “And we wanted to look at Gregory’s movie screen anyway.”
King cleared his throat. “May we meet you two charmers in our deck chairs shortly?” he said to the wives. “We are about to undertake negotiations of the utmost delicacy and can’t permit ourselves to be distracted by two beautiful women.”
With the haughty air of dowagers denied an invitation to the fete of the season, Carol and Helen went off to their deck chairs while Leroy and Danforth thoughtfully made their way to the ship’s photographer’s cabin-cum-dark-room on the main deck.
Danforth knocked. After a moment Gregory opened the door halfway and peered out into the corridor. “Yes?” he inquired. Then he recognized them, and his somewhat distraught expression sharpened into a welcoming smile. “What can I do for you?”
“May we come in for a minute, Greg?” Leroy asked. “Got a little problem.”
“Sure.” Gregory stepped aside and they went in past him. He waved at his bunk. “Sit down. What’s your problem? Do you need a photographic consultant on your next plot?” Like almost everyone on the Valhalla, Gregory knew that his two visitors were the famous literary collaboration known as “Leroy King,” whose books have sold more than 125,000,000 copies throughout the world. “If so, I’m your man.”
Danforth and Leroy ranged themselves side by side on the edge of his bunk. Gregory remained standing, his back to the door. “We’ve got two problems, actually,” Danforth said.