The Six Messiahs - Mark Frost [30]
Here was Innes.
"Aside from what they stowed in their cabin, Rupert Selig and Stern brought four pieces of luggage," said Innes, producing a list. "Steamer trunk, two valises, one crate. Saw them myself; sitting in the hold, undisturbed." Doyle raised an eyebrow. "I slipped this bloke in the engine room a fiver."
"Good work."
"Crate's sealed with an intact customhouse band. About the size of a large hatbox. Figure that for the Book of Zohar, what?"
Doyle said nothing.
"Where's Stern now?" asked Innes.
"Captain's cabin, well looked after for the moment. There's an inordinate amount of paperwork to sort out a civilian death at sea."
"Never even occurred to me: What do they do with the body?"
"Refrigerated lockers. Necessity on any cruise liner with their older clientele: a good many of them overfed, apoplectic, sclerotic ..."
Innes shivered involuntarily. "Not too near the kitchen, I hope."
"Separate area. Nearer the hold, where they store those coffins we saw them loading in port."
"Put a man right off his mutton."
"Listen: The ship's doctor insists on labeling Selig's a natural death," said Doyle.
"He can't be serious."
"All outward signs indicate Selig died of acute coronary failure. I can't dispute that, and that's surely what his killers would like us to. believe. There's no facility to conduct a proper autopsy on board; if there were, I'm not sure the results would contravene. And the last thing the Captain needs on board his luxury liner is idle talk about the murder of a passenger."
"But of course that's exactly what we think it is."
"Frighten a man to death? Send an excess of adrenaline racing through his system and literally explode his heart? Yes, I'd call that murder."
"What could have set him off?"
Doyle shook his head.
"Maybe he caught a glimpse of the ship's ghost wandering around belowdecks," said Innes.
"Good Christ." Doyle stared at him, wide-eyed, as if he'd been struck with a mallet.
"Are you all right, Arthur?"
"Of course; that's it. Well done, Innes."
"What did I do?"
"You've cracked it open, old boy," said Doyle, walking him rapidly toward the nearest hatchway.
"I did?"
"Call back that engineer of yours. Have him fetch a fireman's ax, a hammer, and a crowbar. It's time we had a few words with Mr. Stern and Captain Hoffner."
The engineer flashed the beam of his lantern into the dark recess of the storage bay, picking out a sealed, rectangular shipping crate from among the forest of cargo.
"Is that your crate, Mr. Stern?" asked Doyle.
"Yes, it is."
"I'm sure we are all most interested, Mr. Conan Doyle," said Captain Hoffner with chafed civility, "but I'm afraid I am not seeing the point of this exercise...."
Doyle raised the ax and with one short, economical blow smashed the cover of the crate to pieces. Stern gasped. Doyle reached down, picked through the splinters, and extracted the contents of the box: a large square sheath of blank white paper.
"Equivalently weighted to approximate your Book of Zohar," said Doyle to Stern, balancing the stack in his hand.
"I didn't know; I swear," protested Stern. "I mean I saw ; them; I was there in London when the Book was crated."
"It seems your late partner Mr. Selig had other plans, which may account for his disinclination to leave your cabin."
"What is the significance of this, please?" asked Hoffner.
"Begging your patience for the moment, Captain, I will | attend to that presently," said Doyle, dropping the paper and hefting the ax over his shoulder. "Now if you would be good enough to accompany us to our next destination. Innes?"
Innes gestured and the little engineer—secretly thrilled at the spectacle of his rigid, disciplinarian Captain kowtowing to this crazy Englishman—led the way through a maze of passages and hatches to an adjacent