The False Inspector Dew

'Did you ever find out what happened to the thief?'

'No. I don't know whether he survived. I wouldn't know him if I met him again. Hardly got a look at his face. He was a short, stocky fellow in a dark suit. I was close to panic by then. I still get dreams about it, the ship listing unbelievably, and Kate unconscious in my arms and the dread that any minute the water will be flooding in.'

'That will be why you wouldn't stay below decks in the storm last night.'

Jack nodded. 'I'm not one of those who swore never to set foot on a ship again, or I wouldn't have chosen this way of life. But I'm going to make sure that if there ever is a next time, I'm not trapped below deck.'

'Understandably,' said Walter. 'It must have been a vile experience. You mentioned that you wouldn't recognize the thief if he survived, but I wonder if your wife got a better look at him.'

'She did, Inspector. She always said she'd know the blighter if she saw him again.'

'Did she indeed? That's interesting.'

'Why?'

'If he were on this ship, it would give him a reason for murdering her.'

'By God, you're right.'

'I wouldn't go so far as that,' Walter said, as if he regretted having mentioned the possibility, it's just another theory.'

'It's the only one that fits the facts,'said Jack with a voice that needed no convincing. 'He came aboard at Southampton and had the shock of his life when he saw Kate. I expect he thought she had drowned when the Lusitania sank. He knew she was sure to recognize him in five days at sea, so he decided to murder her. He assumed she was travelling alone, so if he threw her in the sea, there would be nothing to connect him with her disappearance. He was a thief, so he would have no trouble breaking into her stateroom. He strangled her and put her through the porthole. Then things started to go wrong.'

'The body was recovered from the sea,' said Walter.

'That was the first thing. The second was the news that you were on the ship, a famous Scotland Yard detective. And the third was me — Kate's husband. He didn't know she was married until he heard the rumours and saw me talking to you. Perhaps he remembered my face. Whatever it was, he convinced himself that I would tell you what had happened on the Lusitania, and you — the man who caught Crippen — would lose no time arresting him. He was desperate, so he tried a desperate remedy.'

'He shot me,' said Walter.

'Yes. Whether he aimed at you or at me is immaterial.'

'I can't agree with that,' said Walter stiffly.

'I mean that from his point of view the result would be the same,' said Jack with a slight betrayal of impatience. 'It would stop me from telling you about the Lusitania. But it didn't. You're in possession of the facts now. What will you do next, Inspector?'

Walter looked into his drink as if the answer might be there. He said, 'There's my packing to be done.'

Jack's jaw gaped open. He said, 'We've got to find this man. He murdered my wife. He nearly murdered you.'

'Yes. But I doubt if he'll try anything else. And he can't get away. I'll see him in the morning.'

'Do you know who he is?' Jack asked in something like a gasp.

'I think I do,' said Walter with a modest smile.

'Aren't you going to tell me?'

'It's better if I don't. But thank you for your help.'

21

Alma looked at herself in the mirror and reached for the rouge. Her face looked spectral. She dreaded what was to come. She was waiting for Walter. She had slipped a note under his door asking him to come and see her. She was going to tell him that she had been mistaken. She did not love him. It had been infatuation.

Already she wished there was some way to retrieve the note before he found it. She was afraid of him. She should never have chosen to tell him here, in the stateroom where Lydia had died. Only the strength of her love for Johnny kept her from running away. She would rather die than lose her chance of marrying Johnny.

Yet she was tormented by guilt. In her mind she had been over and over the events that had entangled her life with Walter's and each time she could reach only one conclusion. If Walter had never met her, he would not have dreamed of murdering his wife. He would still be somewhere in England trying to find a way of continuing to work as a dentist. He was not and never had been the exquisitely glamorous figure her imagination had made him. He was decent and dependable and dull, dull, dull. There was not a spark of animation in him. It was depressingly obvious to Alma now that she had been bewitched not by Walter, but an idea. She had fallen in love with the prospect of running away with a man who had murdered his wife and abandoned everything — job, home and country — to be with her for the rest of his life. And now she did not want him. He was still dull beyond belief.

Somewhere she had read that almost all murderers were boring and pathetic individuals. She had not believed it. Surely Ethel Le Neve had not believed it. But what if Crippen had never been caught? What if Ethel had faced the rest of her life with him?

The murder had not made Walter glamorous. It had changed him in one way only: he was dangerous now. Dull and dangerous. A man who has murdered once and got away with it can never be ignored.

The knock came, startling her. She was wearing a silk blouse, and it was alive with fear. She took a deep breath and went to the door.

He stood with the note in his hand and his eyebrows raised questioningly.

Alma tried to summon a smile. She stepped aside to admit him, and closed the door. She said, 'Walter, I know we agreed not to meet unless there was some over-riding reason.'

'But there is a reason?'

She nodded. 'Please sit down. I had to find a way of talking to you before tomorrow. 1 don't know how to start. You've had so much more to face then we anticipated.'

He shrugged dismissively. it hasn't been so bad. It's occupied my mind.'

'But you were shot. Are you still in pain?'

'I wouldn't call it pain. Discomfort if you like.'

'I blame myself for what has happened,' Alma told him. 'I've had more opportunity than you to think things over.'

'Blame yourself for what?'

'Everything. Lydia's death.'

'We agreed to that together.'

'If you had not met me, you would never have considered it. You would never have set foot on this ship, never have done what you did in this God-forsaken room, never have been forced to pose as a policeman.'

Walter blinked in surprise. 'That's been no hardship. I've enjoyed it immensely.'

'Enjoyed it?'

'I've never been treated so well. I thought it would be difficult at first, but it wasn't. I didn't need to ask clever questions or discover hidden clues. Being a detective is just a matter of getting other people to talk. I'm a good listener — Lydia made sure of that. Well, if you let them talk they tell you everything and give you the credit for arriving at the truth.'

Alma thought she understood. She said, 'Yes, you must have been clever to have taken them in.'

'Taken them in?' repeated Walter as if the words were offensive.

'Convinced them that you knew what you were doing — that you were solving the mystery.'

'My dear, I have solved it. I know who committed the murder and I know why. That's what I'm saying. I'm a very good detective.'

'Walter, that's impossible.'

He leaned back in the chair with folded arms and said, 'You'll see.'

She looked at him, wondering whether his mind had snapped. He seemed to have been taken over by the identity of Dew. He believed he was the great detective. He believed he had solved the crime.

Was it conceivable that he was so far in the grip of this delusion that he intended naming himself as Lydia's murderer? And herself as his accessory? Was that to be the ultimate achievement of the false Inspector Dew?