“Thank you, Mr. Putnam.” Andre beamed. “Don’t worry,” he assured me with an intimate pat on the behind, “you will soon grow accustomed to it.”
So I one-eyed myself over the side of the ship to the waiting dinghy. An hour later the car dropped me off in front of the Gypsy tearoom in Valetta. And now here I was being told that the Fates had a sea voyage in store for me.
“The lady has made arrangements to sail on the Luzona Maru leaving Valetta at six o’clock tomorrow morning,” the fortune-teller told me now. “Passage has been arranged for you. Your papers will be ready in a few moments."
There was a sudden flash of light, and I blinked my uncovered eye. “What was that?” I asked with a start.
“Your picture has just been taken,” the Gypsy told me. “For a passport photo.”
“That's one I’ll put in my scrapbook,” I promised. “Incidentally, just where is the Luzona Maru bound for?”
“Manila. ’
Putnam must have planned it! That was all I could think. The one place on the face of the earth where they were after my hide for murder. Still, I suppose it figured. Maybe I’d finally come face to face with my homicidal double. I wondered if the Philippine cops would penetrate my disguise. “I sure hope the Manila police suffer from astigmatism,” I said aloud .
“I beg the gentleman’s pardon?” the Gypsy said.
“Never mind. Just a private prayer.”
A man slid into the room, handed some papers to the Gypsy, and slid out again. She examined them before passing them to me. “Passport. Money. Letters from Dublin. Yes, everything is here,” she said, checking them off.
I put the papers in my pocket, thanked her, and left. I found an all-night movie and dozed in a rear seat until about five-thirty. Then I made my way to the docks and boarded the Luzona Maru.
It was a tramp steamer sailing under a Portuguese flag. From the looks of her, she didn’t carry passengers as a rule. I’ve seen garbage scows on the Hudson that looked less filthy and beat-up. I guessed that she probably hadn't had a paint job since before Dewey sailed past her in Manila Bay.
A dried-up Peter Lorre of a steward showed me to my cabin. It was small, which I’d expected. What I hadn’t expected was the smell of deep fat frying which I’d later learn was to be ever-present. It seemed I’d been put right next to the galley and my room shared the same ventilating system—or lack of it—-with the garbage disposal unit. I held my nose and tried to grab a few hours’ sleep.
Despite the odors, I slept right through breakfast until lunchtime. I might have gone right on sleeping if the steward hadn’t slithered into my cabin and wakened me. He was full of oily concern over the possibility of my missing lunch as well as breakfast, but I suspected that his real motive was to get me out of bed so he could make up the cabin and be finished with his work. Anyway, I got dressed and went up to lunch.
I rated the Captain’s table. Aboard the Luzona Maru that was something less than shipboard elegance. There were four at table, the Captain, the First Mate, myself, and a lady who was introduced as Mrs. Wheatley. Between slurps of soup, the Captain informed me that the only passengers on board were myself and Mrs. Wheatley.
I recognized Mrs. Wheatley immediately as Major Dwight Worthby’s wife. As far as I could tell, she didn’t penetrate my disguise. But then maybe she was more concerned with herself, since she was also somewhat camouflaged.
When I’d met her the first time, in the casino, Mrs. Worthby-Wheatley had looked a typical upper-crust British officer’s wife. Her figure had been slender, but the off-the-shoulder evening gown she’d been wearing had seemed designed more to accentuate bone structure than flesh. Ruffles over the bosom had left its size and shape to guesswork. She’d seemed sharp-featured and bird-eyed, with a metallic cast to her blonde hair. All in all, a thirtyish British sophisticate with her delicate nose riding high in the clouds, the lady had hardly been the picture of pulchritude or sex appeal.
Sad to say, she was even less so now. She may have seemed asexual, but at least she’d looked smartly turned out back in the casino. Now she was even more asexual — and positively dowdy besides. Her blonde hair seemed duller, and it was cropped to lie flat along the sides of her head. Rimless glasses pinched her nose and made her blue eyes seem larger and more watery. Her chest was completely flat now under a shapeless tweed jacket. Her skirt, also tweed, concealed her legs. And even her ankles were lost in the sensible walking shoes she wore. I upped my estimate of her age from thirtyish to late thirtyish — or even fortyish.
She acknowledged the Captain’s introduction with a bobbing motion of her head. It was the movement of a stork bobbing for apples, or a music teacher yo-yo-ing along with a metronome. She had a nice, firm, white, columnar neck, but the movement made it seem angular and awkward. If it had been up to me, I think I’d rather have devoted my attention to the steward.
Still, duty dictated—-and it wasn’t as if she was downright ugly. So, after lunch, I wandered down the deck until I found her stretched out under a light blanket in a deck chair and asked her if she minded if I sat in the chair beside her. A reluctant and precise agreement forced its way from between her lips, and I settled on the chaise longue.
“Is it pleasure takes you to Manila now?” I opened the conversation with my best impersonation of Barry Fitzgerald.
“My sister lives there. I’m going there to live with her and her husband.”
“Your husband is there then already, is he?”
“No. My husband is dead. I’m a widow.”
“Sure an’ I’m apologizin’ to you, then.”
“It’s not necessary. My husband died a long time ago.”
“Oh?” I decided to become a bit more wolfishly Irish. “Then it’s a merry widow you are.”
“No,” she told me firmly and humorlessly. “I’m not merry at all, Mr. O’Ryan.”
“Call me Liam. We’ve a long journey before us. ’Tis right well we’ll be gettin’ to know each other. So let’s be startin’ out friends. An’ what would your Christian name be?”
“Mavis.” She still sounded reluctant.
“Well now, Mavis, if you’ll be sittin’ up a little and lookin’ starboard, I’ll point out one of the sights of the world to you.”
She sat up and looked where I was pointing. “Oh!” she gasped. “It is beautiful. What is it?”
“The Isle of Crete,” I told her. “An’ the purple o’ the hills you’re seein’ is doubtless the Greek blood spilled by British bayonets on the blessed soil.”
“That’s olive trees and some sort of heather,” Mavis said practically.
“Tis the poet in me,” I said, grinning at her. I stretched, looked up at the sun, took off my shirt and stretched again. I let her get a good look at my muscles rippling in the sunlight before I pointed my satyr-like red beard in her direction again. “Sure an’ this Mediterranean sun’ll bring the blush to your cheeks, Mavis,” I told her. “But you’ll never be tannin’ with all those clothes you’ve on.”
“I don’t tan. I burn. I get a very bad sunburn.”
“I’m thinkin’ it’s just that you’re shy an’ inhibited,” I told her boldly.
“I suppose I am.” Her voice was still cold, but her eyes were glued to my pectorals and there were signs of smouldering in their watery depths.
I sat back down beside her and stretched out. “Course it is a mite cool when you lie still,” I observed. “Do you think I might be sharin’ your blanket with you?”
“Of course.” She reached over to spread the blanket and her hand grazed over my bare chest.
I took hold of it. “Yes, it is chilly," I said again. “Sure an’ your hand’s like an icicle. Let me be warmin’ it for you.” I put it on my chest and covered it with my own hand.