“I’ll make it a point to be there.”
“Don’t do that. Don’t wait around, Rob. Only I...”
She broke off and frowned with annoyance as Merton Ostrander came swinging along the deck towards them.
“Hello, everyone,” he said. “How’s the dog this morning?”
“Fine, thanks,” Rob said.
“Rob and I were talking,” Linda said quietly.
“So I gathered,” Ostrander announced affably, “and I’ll bet you forgot about the ping-pong tournament.”
“What about it?”
“You and I were scheduled to start playing five minutes ago,” Ostrander said, tapping his wristwatch significantly, “The tournament is approaching the final stages, the...”
“Oh, bother the tournament!” she said. “I’ll be down later.”
He shook his head. “You can’t do that, Linda. The table is reserved for us at this hour. The other match was just completed and they want to have everything ready for the finals at two-thirty this afternoon.”
She hesitated, not pretending to disguise her annoyance.
“Oh, all right,” she said. “I warn you I’m going to be particularly ruthless.”
“That’s the way I like my women... ruthless,” Ostrander said. “See you later, Rob.”
There was a frown on Rob’s face as he watched them walk away. He felt he had been about to penetrate the barrier which Linda Carroll had erected whenever he had sought to discuss her personal affairs. The moment had been propitious. He even felt that Linda had been on the point of confiding in him.
Rob paced the exercise deck with the dog at his side, and then realized that Harvey Richmond had climbed to the upper deck and was watching him.
As Rob swung past the point where the genial, heavy set man was standing, Richmond said, “You certainly did a nice job with that dog, Trenton.”
“Thanks.”
“What’s happened to your exercising partner? I saw her going down the deck with Ostrander a moment ago.”
Rob started to tell the man to go to the devil but controlled himself. “I believe they were in a ping-pong tournament,” he said coolly, trying politely to rebuff the man’s curiosity.
But Richmond seemed completely immune to any rebuff. “Ostrander did a funny thing last night,” he went on.
“Yes?” Rob asked, his voice showing only the amount of interest which ordinary politeness would require.
“That’s right,” Richmond said genially. “He had those cowbells in cartons down below — brought them up from storage and started throwing them overboard. Linda Carroll remonstrated with him and said he’d promised her four of them. She wants to put them on the cows she has on a little farm somewhere. He finally gave her the four, but she almost had to make a scene to get them. He dumped the rest overboard.”
“Dumped them overboard!” Rob exclaimed incredulously. “Why on earth did he do that?”
“Said they were too heavy to be packing around,” Richmond said. “He said he’d changed his mind about lecturing on his European trip and using the bells as props. It seems he wants to travel light. Strange chap, that Ostrander.”
“You’re sure he threw the cowbells overboard?” Rob asked.
Richmond nodded. “All but the four he gave Linda Carroll.”
“There were witnesses?”
Again Richmond nodded.
“I mean really credible witnesses?” Rob said.
“I was one,” Harvey Richmond commented dryly. “I wondered if you knew anything about it.”
“It’s all news to me,” Rob Trenton said.
“Well, I’ll be seeing you,” Richmond announced. “I’m interfering with your exercise of the dog.”
He turned and descended to the lower deck.
Watching the man’s shoulders, Rob Trenton suddenly realized that the sole purpose of Harvey Richmond’s visit to the upper deck had been to tell him about Ostrander having dumped the cowbells overboard, and to see if the news came as a surprise to Trenton or whether Trenton already knew something about it.
Why should Harvey Richmond be so interested in Merton Ostrander’s private affairs? Come to think of it, Richmond asked questions, lots of questions.
Rob Trenton started to concentrate on Harvey Richmond, but the thought again popped into his mind that Linda Carroll had been on the point of confiding in him, of telling him something that he knew instinctively would have been of the greatest importance to him. And sheer coincidence had robbed him of the opportunity. The other ping-pong game had been finished at an inopportune time and Merton Ostrander had come to pick up Linda Carroll. If a little white celluloid ball on a ping-pong table had bounced just a few more times, Linda would at least have given him enough of an opening so that he could reopen the conversation later.
But the little ping-pong ball had not bounced enough times. The match had ended, Ostrander had shown up, and there was nothing left for Rob to do but continue walking the dog.
Chapter 6
The big ship glided majestically past the Statue of Liberty, up into the harbor, and slowed its pace until it seemed barely to maintain headway, yet the two tugs which were racing alongside were pushing great waves of water under their bows, churning the ocean behind them into milky confusion as they tried to keep up with the liner.Then the tugs nosed in, lines were passed and gradually the ship eased its way in to the dock where friends waved handkerchiefs and hats in a frenzy of happy greeting to returning travelers. Immigration officials had been busy examining passports, and Rob Trenton, his baggage all stamped with placards bearing a big letter ‘T”, was preparing to go ashore when two men, smiling without cordiality, stepped up to him. “You’re Robert Trenton?”
“That’s right.”
“You own a dog, I believe, you want to take ashore?”
“That’s right. The dog was given to me while I was on the ship.”
“I understand,” the spokesman said. “I wonder if you would mind stepping back down to your cabin for a moment, Mr. Trenton?”
“Why?”
“We’d like you to.”
“I’m sorry, but I’m planning to go ashore immediately.”
As though they had rehearsed the action, the two men simultaneously raised left hands to the lapels of their coats, moved the garments slightly aside and showed gold badges which loomed importantly large.
“We’re with the Customs,” one of the men said.
“But my baggage is all down on the pier.”
“Oh, no, it isn’t,” one of the men said. “It’s in your stateroom, and if you don’t mind, we’ll make the examination there. I think it will be less embarrassing to you if we examine you there.”
“Well, of course, if you insist,” Rob said reluctantly, looking to where Linda Carroll was going down the gangplank. “I thought...”
“I’m sorry, but this happens to be official,” the larger man said curtly. “Let’s go back to your stateroom if you don’t mind.”
They searched him to the skin. They searched his garments. They unpacked everything in his suitcases. They searched the baggage itself for false bottoms. They even inspected the heels of his shoes, and went so far as to remove the bottoms from the tubes of his toothpaste and shaving cream and squeeze out all of the contents.
Rob Trenton, white-faced with indignation, realized there was nothing he could do. The men went about the job carefully, painstakingly and efficiently.
“Will you please tell me why I am singled out for this sort of treatment?” Trenton asked, his voice cold with fury.
One of the men reached into the inside pocket of his coat, took out a typewritten letter.
“Of course,” he said, “it’s anonymous. Like to read it?”