All by Myself, Alone Read online

  “Oh, Lady Em,” Brenda sighed. “What a terrible story. Maybe you’d better just leave the necklace in the safe!”

  “Not a chance,” Lady Em said crisply. “Now, let’s order the tea.”

  4

  Roger Pearson and his wife, Yvonne, were having afternoon tea in their suite on the concierge floor of the Queen Charlotte. With a hefty frame, thinning light brown hair and eyes that crinkled when he smiled, Roger was outgoing and gregarious, the kind of person who made everyone feel comfortable in his presence. He was the only one who dared to joke with Lady Em about politics. She was an ardent Republican; he was an equally passionate Democrat.

  Now he and Yvonne looked at the list of activities for the next day. When they saw that Celia Kilbride was slated to speak at two-thirty the next afternoon, Yvonne raised her eyebrows. “Isn’t she the one who works at Carruthers Jewelers and is involved in that hedge fund fraud?” she asked.

  “That Thorne crook is trying to drag her into it,” Roger said indifferently.

  Yvonne frowned in thought. “I’ve heard that. When Lady Em brings any of her jewelry in to reset or repair, Celia Kilbride is the one she sees. Brenda told me that.”

  Roger turned his head to glance at her. “Then Kilbride is a salesperson there?”

  “She’s much more than that. I’ve read about her. She’s a top gemologist and goes around the world selecting precious stones for Carruthers. She lectures on ships like this one to interest people with big bucks to invest in pricey jewelry.”

  “She sounds pretty smart,” Roger observed, then turned to the television.

  Yvonne studied him. As usual when they were alone, Roger dropped his hail-fellow-well-met demeanor and virtually ignored her.

  She went back to sipping her tea and reached for a dainty cucumber sandwich. Her thoughts switched to the outfit she would wear tonight, a new Escada cashmere jacket and slacks. The jacket was in a black-and-white pattern and the slacks were black. The leather patches on the elbows of the sleeves gave the outfit the sporty look which was the dress code this evening.

  Yvonne knew she looked far younger than her age, which was forty-three. She wished she was taller, but her figure was trim and the hairdresser had achieved exactly the shade of blonde that she wanted. Last time it had too much of a gold tint.

  Her appearance was very important to Yvonne, as was her social status, the Park Avenue apartment and the house in the Hamptons. She had long ago become intensely bored with Roger, but loved their lifestyle. They didn’t have any children, and there was no reason why Roger should be expected to pay college expenses for his widowed sister’s three boys. Yvonne had been on the outs with his sister for years, but she suspected that Roger was paying the college bills for all of them anyway.

  As long as that doesn’t interfere with anything I want, she thought, as she finished the cucumber sandwich and swallowed the last of her tea.

  5

  “This is much too expensive, Willy, even if it is our forty-fifth wedding anniversary,” Alvirah sighed as she looked around the suite Willy had booked to celebrate the occasion.

  Even as she was protesting, Willy could hear the excitement in his wife’s voice. He was in the living room area opening the complimentary bottle of champagne that had been chilling in a silver ice bucket. As he worked the cork open, he gazed at the floor-to-ceiling mirrors, and out at the dark blue waters of the Atlantic.

  “Willy, we didn’t need a room with our own balcony. We could go out on deck when we wanted to look at the water and feel the breeze.”

  Willy smiled. “Honey, on this ship I’ll bet every suite has its own balcony.”

  Alvirah was now in the bathroom off their bedroom. And she was almost shouting. “Willy, can you believe this? There is a TV built into the bathroom vanity mirror. All of this must cost a fortune.”

  Willy smiled indulgently. “Honey, we get two million a year before taxes. We’ve been getting it for five years now and you also make money writing for the Globe.”

  “I know,” Alvirah sighed, “but I’d much rather be using the money to give to good causes. You know, Willy, ‘much is expected from those to whom much has been given.’ ”

  Oh boy, Willy thought. What’s she going to say when I give her the ring tonight? He decided to give her a hint. “Honey, would you think about this? Nothing makes me happier than celebrating our lifetime together. It really hurts me if you don’t let me show you how happy I’ve been with you for forty-five years. And I have something else I’m going to give you tonight. If you don’t accept it, well, it will hurt me very much.” Spoken like a politician, he thought.

  Alvirah looked stricken. “Oh, Willy, I’m so sorry. Of course I’m glad to be here. And you know when you think of it, you were the one to say we’re going to buy the lottery ticket that day. I said that we might as well have saved the dollar. I’m thrilled to be here and I’m thrilled with anything you may have to give me.”

  They were standing at the balcony door admiring the view of the ocean. Willy put his arm around her. “That’s more like it, honey. And just think, for the next week we’re going to enjoy every minute of every day.”

  “Yes, we will,” Alvirah agreed.

  “And you look beautiful.”

  Another expense, Alvirah thought. Her usual hairdresser was on vacation so she had had her hair dyed at a super-expensive salon. The suggestion of going there had been made by her friend Baroness von Schreiber, owner of the Cypress Point Spa, where Alvirah had gone right after she and Willy won the lottery. I should have known Min would only suggest that place, she thought, but she did have to admit that her hair was the soft shade of red she always liked. And Monsieur Leopoldo had shaped it becomingly. And she had lost fifteen pounds since Christmas and was able to again wear the really nice clothes Min had picked out for her two years ago.

  Willy gave her a hug. “Honey, it’s nice to know that on a ship like this the only thing you’ll have to write about in your next column will be carefree cruising.”

  But even as he said it, Willy had a sinking feeling that things wouldn’t turn out that way. They never did.

  6

  Raymond Broad, the butler appointed to Lady Em’s suite, came in with a tray to remove the remnants of the afternoon tea. He had seen her leave, with her assistant trailing behind her, probably heading to the Queen’s cocktail lounge on the seventh floor.

  Only those with the fattest wallets can afford to be up there, he thought. The kind of people I really like. Expertly he placed the tea service and the leftover sandwiches and assorted sweets on the tray.

  Next he went into the bedroom and looked around. He opened the drawers of the night tables on either side of the bed. So often rich people just dropped jewelry there instead of going to the safe in the closet. He watched for that.

  And people can be careless about money too. If at the end of the trip someone left a bulging wallet in one of their drawers, they’d never miss a couple of hundred dollars that they didn’t bother to count.

  Raymond was very careful about what he stole, which was why no one had ever suspected him in the ten years he had been working for the Castle Line. And where was the harm in his making a little extra money feeding juicy tidbits to the tabloids about the antics of celebrities on board? He knew he was considered an excellent butler.

  He went back into the great room, picked up the tray and left the suite. The smile of satisfaction that was always on his face after he had cased an area disappeared when he opened the door. Solemn-faced, trim in his uniform, his thinning black hair neatly combed over his bald spot, his expression became subservient, in case he met a guest in the hallway.

  7

  Professor Henry Longworth checked his bow tie to make sure it was exactly in place. Although the dress code for tonight was casual, he had no interest in wearing an open-neck shirt. He simply didn’t like them. They reminded him of the shabby clothes he had worn during his rough and tumble boyhood in the slums of Liverpool. Even at
age eight he had been shrewd enough to know that the only hope for his future would be achieved through education. After school, when other boys were playing football, or as the Americans call it, “soccer,” he was studying.

  At age eighteen he was awarded a scholarship to Cambridge. When he arrived there, his Scouse accent had been the subject of amusement to his fellow students. It had taken unceasing effort to completely eradicate it by the time he graduated.

  Along the way he had developed a passion for Shakespeare, and eventually became a professor at Oxford, teaching that subject until his retirement. He knew his colleagues at Oxford had joked that when he died he would be laid out in his casket wearing a white tie and tails. But he didn’t care.

  The tie was straight and in perfect position under his shirt collar.

  He put on his jacket, a lightweight plaid perfectly suitable for mid-September weather, and glanced at his watch. It was ten minutes before seven. Punctuality is the politeness of kings, he thought to himself.

  His suite was on the concierge floor, and he had been pleasantly surprised that on this new liner the amenities were substantially more luxurious than the ones on older ships. Of course it was a joke to use the word “suite” for a bed/sitting room, but so be it. He walked over to the long mirror on the bathroom door and took a full-length glimpse of himself to be sure there was nothing amiss in his appearance. His reflection showed a thin sixty-year-old man, of medium height, wearing rimless glasses over intense brown eyes, with a bald head and a fringe of gray hair around it. He nodded approvingly, then went to the dresser to look over the passenger list again. Not surprisingly, celebrities from different walks of life were aboard. I wonder how many of them are complimentary guests of Castle Line. Quite a few, he imagined.

  Since his retirement he had become a frequent lecturer on the line and was very popular with the cruise director. Six months ago, after reading the advance publicity of the maiden voyage of the Queen Charlotte, he had contacted the booking office and indicated that he would be pleased to be a guest lecturer on that voyage.

  And here he was. With a warm feeling of satisfaction, Professor Henry Longworth left his cabin to go to the Queen’s cocktail lounge and mingle among the most important passengers on board.

  8

  Ted Cavanaugh took a fleeting glance around his suite and then dismissed it. As the son of an ambassador, he was accustomed to luxurious surroundings. And even though these accommodations struck him as remarkably expensive, he was not going to waste any time enjoying them. Thirty-four years old, Ted had lived abroad with his parents until his college years, attending the international school in whichever country his father was posted. He was fluent in French, Spanish, and Egyptian Arabic. A legacy graduate of Harvard University, then Stanford Law School, his passion for antiquities traced back to his youthful years in Egypt.

  Eight months ago, he had read that Lady Emily Haywood had signed on to the maiden voyage of the Queen Charlotte. He recognized the opportunity he would have as a fellow guest to find an occasion to plead his case to Lady Haywood. Cavanaugh intended to make clear to her that even though her father-in-law, Richard Haywood, had bought the necklace one hundred years ago, the evidence was overwhelming that it was a stolen artifact. If she gave it to the Smithsonian Institution and his law firm sued to recover it, it would generate unpleasant publicity for Lady Haywood and both her late husband and his father. The men were famed explorers, but his research indicated that they were guilty on several occasions of raiding ancient tombs.

  That would be his pitch. It was well known that Lady Haywood took passionate pride in her husband’s legacy. She might possibly listen to reason rather than have his reputation and that of his father sullied by a nasty lawsuit.

  With this thought in mind, Ted decided that until cocktail time he would give himself the brief luxury of settling down with a book he had been wanting to read for months.

  9

  Devon Michaelson had scant interest in his surroundings. His luggage contained only the necessary clothing for this kind of trip. Behind his bland expression, his hazel eyes were alert and penetrating. He heard everything and missed nothing.

  He was disappointed when he learned that the ship’s captain and the chief of security had to be made aware of his presence on the ship. The fewer people who knew, the better, he thought. But if he was going to accomplish his mission, he needed the cooperation of Castle Lines to be placed at a table near Lady Emily Haywood’s, where he could observe her and those around her.

  The “Man with One Thousand Faces” was well known to Interpol. His brazen thefts, which had occurred in seven countries, were an embarrassment. His most recent heist, the theft of two early Henri Matisse paintings from the Musée d’Art de la Ville de Paris, had been only ten months earlier.

  The thief liked to taunt Interpol about his accomplishments, often posting details about the crime in the weeks afterward. This time the thief had apparently taken a different tack. From an untraceable email account, someone claiming to be the Man with One Thousand Faces had posted his desire to own the Cleopatra necklace. The post appeared shortly after Lady Emily Haywood had foolishly bragged to the press that she would display it on this voyage.

  Castle Lines had been aware of the threat when Devon contacted them. They quickly agreed to cooperate.

  A non-social man, Devon dreaded the fact that he would be assigned to a table and have to make conversation with strangers, all of whom he was sure he would find intensely boring. But since Lady Haywood was only traveling as far as Southampton, that would be his final destination as well.

  I’ve heard so much about the Cleopatra necklace, how perfectly matched the dazzling emeralds are and how breathtaking they are to behold. It would be interesting to see them close up, he thought.

  His pretext for the trip, to share with his fellow passengers, was to scatter at sea the ashes of his mythical wife. A good cover story, he thought, one that would account for his wanting to spend periods of time alone.

  It was nearly seven o’clock, the time when cocktails would be served in the exclusive Queen’s Lounge, reserved for only those passengers on the private deck.

  10

  Anna DeMille gasped as she opened the door of her suite. Her previous experience at sea had been a Disney cruise. The only celebrities on board had been Mickey, Minnie and Goofy. That trip had not been fun because it was filled with families with young children, and one time when she sat on a lounge chair on a deck she had come in contact with a piece of chewed bubble gum that stuck to her new slacks.

  But this! This was heaven.

  Her luggage had been unpacked. Her clothes were on hangers in the closet or stacked neatly in the drawers. Her toiletries were arranged in the bathroom. She was delighted that the shower was also a steam bath and resolved to try it first thing in the morning.

  She went around the suite inspecting every single item. The headboard of the bed was tufted with a flowered print which picked up on the edgings of the white coverlet.

  She sat and bounced on the bed. The semi-firm mattress was exactly what she liked, and she saw that it could be raised to a seated position if she wanted to watch TV in bed.

  She opened the door, stepped out onto the balcony and was disappointed to see that it was entirely private from the ones on either side. She had hoped that talking back and forth to the neighboring balconies would be a way to make friends.

  She shrugged off that thought. There would be plenty of time to mingle at dinner and at all the social events. And she had a hunch that she would have luck getting started with a new man.

  Divorced for fifteen years, she still remembered the exchange in court when the decree was finalized. Her newly ex-husband had said to her, “Anna, you are the most annoying person I have ever had the bad luck to meet.”

  Since then Glenn had remarried and had two children. His second wife was constantly on Facebook, gushing about her adorable husband and her perfect children. Sickening, Anna thought,
but she did sometimes wonder what might have been if she and Glenn had had children.

  “After all, tomorrow is another day” was her favorite expression from Scarlett O’Hara, her ideal woman. Her mind quickly turned to something infinitely more important than having missed any hidden qualities in Glenn.

  What shall I wear tonight? She knew it was not a formal evening, but checked to be absolutely sure. Her new blue glen-plaid suit would be perfect, she decided.

  With growing anticipation, she began her preparation for her first night on the Queen Charlotte.

  11

  At seven o’clock Celia debated about going to the Queen’s cocktail lounge, but then decided that she would. Even though she wanted a lot of time to herself, she also realized that the downside would be having too much time to think. Of course there would be some people from the New York area on board, but certainly the majority of passengers would neither know nor care about Steven’s hedge fund fraud.

  The restaurant Steven had chosen for their first date was lovely. The maître d’ had greeted him by name. Steven had arranged for them to have a quiet table in an alcove near the back.

  He had complimented the earrings I was wearing. When I told him they had been my mother’s, before I even realized it, I was sharing with him the story of losing both my parents.

  Steven was so sympathetic. He said he rarely spoke about the tragedy in his life. He was also an only child. After his parents were killed in an automobile accident when he was ten, his loving grandparents had raised him in a small town twenty miles outside of Dallas. With a tear in his eye, he told me how his grandmother had died a few years earlier. She had been caring for his grandfather, who at the time was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s. His grandfather, who no longer remembered him, was in a nursing home.