Catriona circled around Philip with long, stately steps.
"I want to know why you and my father argued about the Orange. Do you think that's too much to ask?"
"Whoever said that we argued about the Orange!"
"Mr. Trimmer here was chauffeuring you at the time. He heard everything."
"Did he now?" asked Philip cuttingly, without raising his eyes or anywhere near Trimmer. "Well, even limousines have ears."
Catriona said, more gently, "I know about the Orange, Mr. Carter-Helm. I know everything that happened. I know that she's still sailing him the Funabashi."
"I see."
"Well, don't you think you'd better tell me about it?"
"Why should I?" retorted Philip, with surprising sharpness.
"Because you're a guest on this ship, that's why. And because I happen to be my father's daughter; and everything that my father did is my concern."
Philip held up the note which Trimmer had slipped under his door, asking him to come to Catriona's cabin. "This particular matter is none of your business whatsoever, I regret to say. And forgive me for being so forthright, when I'm nothing but a guest."
"Mr. Carter-Helm—"
"Miss Keys, I have nothing to say to you on the subject. Your father and I did have some discussions, yes, but I am not obliged to disclose what they were, and I have absolutely no intention of doing so."
Catriona stared at him, feeling cold and angry as a princess, especially in the costume she was wearing.
"Mr Carter-Helm, the future of the whole of Keys Shipping is at risk."
"I've already given you my advice. Sell the Arcadia to Mark Beeney."
"But the Orange is crucial to the whole thing, the whole sale."
"Be that as it may, there's nothing more that I'm prepared to say. I really think I ought to be going."
"Mr. Carter-Helm—"
"Miss Keys," said Philip, "remember the old nursery-rhyme?
"What did you say?" asked Catriona, shocked.
Philip replaced his hat and stalked to the door. "I'm telling you in the politest way that I know how to, Miss Keys, that you should try to mind your own business."
With that, he left the stateroom and closed the door firmly behind him.
"E was rather hoff 'and," remarked Trimmer.
"Yes," said Catriona.
"Are you all right, miss?" asked Alice. "You're looking a link queer."
"Yes, I'm all right," said Catriona. "In fact I think I'm better than ever."
SIXTY-TWO
As the first-class passengers assembled in the Grand Lounge for the beginning of the fancy-dress ball, two significant conversations took place. One was between the Knave of Hearts, who looked distinctly like Maurice Peace, and Julius Caesar, who bore an uncanny resemblance to Derek Holdsworth. Maurice was eating an anchovy-and-cheese sandwich, and holding a pint tankard of Mumm's champagne. Derek Holdsworth was eating nothing at all, and looking anxiously around for Harry Pakenow. He was very unhappy that he had let Harry go, especially since Mrs. Chalk-Herbert had reported earlier this evening that one of her diamond bracelets was missing. Derek's father had divided the human race into three, like a cheese. There were decent sorts, he had averred, and bad lots, and women. That was all. Before you made up your mind about anybody, you had to work out into which category they fell, and after that it was easy. Harry Pakenow, quite obviously, was a bad lot. He certainly wasn't a woman. The only exception to Derek's father's rule had been it's mother, who had somehow contrived to be a woman and a decent sort both at once. As a boy, Derek had found that mystifying. It still mystified him slightly.
Maurice said, "Odd that, about yesterday's run."
"What was odd about it?" asked Derek Holdsworth, abstractedly.
"Odd that we managed to sail so far, even though we stopped to rescue Miss Conroy."
Derek frowned. "The Arcadia is a very fast vessel, Mr. Peace."
"Well, I'm aware of that. But 635 miles? It doesn't really seem possible."
"You don't think so?"
Maurice finished his sandwich and licked his fingers. "I just thought it was a little fishy, that's all."
"Well try one without anchovies in."
"I meant the mileage, Mr. Holdsworth, not the cheese sandwiches."
Derek Holdsworth blinked. Then he said, "Oh, the mileage. Oh, well. You know what happened about that."
"No," said Maurice, suspiciously. "What happened about that?"
"It was all something to do with daily averages, Mr. Deacon said. We had to turn in fairly similar figures for each day's sailing, in order to satisfy the investors that we were running smoothly. That's why we entered six hundred and thirty-six for the last twenty-four hours; and that's why we're steaming ahead so fast now to make up the actual distance."
Maurice looked at him with his head inquisitively cocked to one side.
"You mean we didn't actually sail six hundred and thirty-six miles?"
Derek Holdsworth nodded. "But don't tell anyone I told you. Strictly hush-hush."
Maurice made a thoughtful face. "I wouldn't dream of telling anybody you told me. Not a soul."
Just then, Lord Willunshaw came across the crowded lounge in a long white toga, dressed as Diogenes. He was carrying a brass lamp in one hand and a glass of champagne in the other.
"Are you looking for an honest man or an alcoholic?" asked Maurice.
"I'm looking for neither, as a matter of fact. I'm looking for you. Do you fancy a return game of poker tonight? Give a chap a chance to win some of his money back?"
"Lord Willunshaw, I'm going to try to put this nicely," said Maurice. "I've been gambling all my life and you're not really in my league. I don't want to see you lose any more. I've already won two of your loose-boxes, a sofa, and one of your servants' cottages. Next you'll be staking your horses, or your daughters, or something."
Lord Willunshaw cleared his throat loudly. "Damn it," he said, "you can have me daughters any time. But not me damn horses."
Across the lounge, under the sparkling lights, through the laughing crowds of cavaliers and pierrots and punchinellos, through the bright and hilarious group who were blacked up as ebony steppers from a Harlem nightclub, through the mermaids and kings and Harlequins, Harry Pakenow made his uncertain way. He had no fancy-dress costume of his own, but his steward, a miniature ginger-haired man of intense dapperness, had managed to borrow on his behalf a clown's costume, in silvery satin, with black diamond patches on it, and black ruffles at the neck and cuffs, and a black skullcap. Unhappy, lonely, and uncertain, Harry skirted around the edge of the lounge, smiling back at anyone who waved to him, but feeling completely isolated from all this wealth and gaiety and swinging music.
At length, he stood by one of the lounge's reflecting pillars, drinking his third glass of champagne more quickly than he ought to, and eating a kidney wrapped in bacon. He saw Catriona arrive down the staircase, in her dazzling white fairy-tale crinoline and her tall white elaborate wig; and Mark Beeney, as Prince Charming, in a midnight-blue Regency frock-coat, and tight white breeches which Harry (with his glum but uncompromising eye for life's realities) thought far too revealing to the assembled company. He finished his champagne, and a steward immediately took away his glass and gave him another one. Tonight, he thought, I'm going to get extremely pissed. Or spifflicated, as most of the young people in cabin class called it.