Нэнси Пикард - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 128, No. 6. Whole No. 784, December 2006

“All right, keep your voice down. I believe you.”

They exited the stockroom and Lisa returned to waiting on customers. Susan took the escalator down to the lobby floor, searching for Sid Cromwell, who was nowhere in sight. She asked at the desk for the security office and was directed down the corridor, where she found him at his desk. “I was going to come looking for you,” he told her. “Here’s a reply from my query to the Omaha archdiocese.”

She took it and read quickly: Rev. John Ullman, 34, native of Little Rock, AR; ordained 1999, served in St. Michael’s and Sacred Heart parishes in Omaha. Intelligent; highly regarded. A photograph had been faxed along with the message and it clearly showed the dead man.

“Well, there’s no doubt it’s him,” Susan admitted. “So much for that theory.”

“I also checked that manilla envelope for fingerprints. There were none. I wore gloves when I handled it, and apparently it had been wiped clean before that.”

She thought about it. “Well, what do we have? A possible scheme to swindle priests out of their money. The only evidence is that envelope of forms. Maybe it didn’t belong to the victim. Maybe it belonged to Father Stillwell, his roommate. Naturally when you asked him, he would have denied any knowledge of it.”

“I’m going to hold a meeting of all the priests on board. It’s probably something I should have done yesterday. This individual questioning is getting us nowhere.”

“Some of them are on the upper deck right now. They could probably spread the word to the others.”

Sid got to his feet. “Let’s go see if we can get them all together this afternoon. The captain really wants us to have something for the FBI tomorrow.”

It wasn’t hard to do. Most of the clergymen were in the pool or the gym, while others were playing shuffleboard or Ping-Pong. Susan found Father Dempsey on the putting green. “They have everything here,” he said. “I may skip Rome and stay on for the return trip.”

“The Pope wouldn’t approve of that,” she said.

“No, I suppose he wouldn’t.”

“The ship’s security officer has asked me to gather all the clergy together at two this afternoon.”

“It’s about Father Ullman, of course.”

Susan nodded. “We’re meeting in the small auditorium, where you all say Mass in the mornings.”

“I’ll be there.”

Next she sought out Father Broderick, the senior priest on board. She found him at a more sedate bingo game on a lower deck. “You’re not wearing your colored socks, Father,” she said.

He shook his head sadly. “It’s not a time for frivolity after what happened to Father Ullman. I’ll be saying Mass for him in the morning.”

“Mr. Cromwell, the ship’s security officer, wants all the clergy assembled where you have Mass. Be there at two this afternoon. We’re trying to determine if anyone might have seen Father Ullman speaking with other passengers.”

“A good idea. I’ll tell the others when I see them.”

Then Susan hurried through the atrium to Mayfield’s. She spoke to Lisa and arranged for her to be at the meeting, too. Time was running out. The FBI would be taking over in another twenty-four hours. She spoke to Sid again just before the meeting with the clergy began, then stood in the back of the small auditorium with Lisa while the priests filed in.

“Fifty-five,” she said, doing a quick count. “The word got around to everyone.”

Sid Cromwell opened the meeting with a few words about the killing and his investigation so far. “An FBI agent will be coming aboard tomorrow in the Azores, but I hope to have everything cleared up by then. We’re investigating two possible motives for Father Ullman’s murder. One involves the possibility that someone was trying to swindle the clergy with a questionable retirement scheme. Have any of you been approached while you were on board?”

The priests glanced around at each other, shaking their heads. Father Broderick stood up so he could see them all, but no one raised his hand to offer any information. “How about Monday night?” Sid continued. “Did you see anyone with Father Ullman, especially around nine or ten o’clock?”

Only his roommate, Father Stillwell, raised his hand. “I ate with him and we stopped at the bar for a bit of sherry. That was the last I saw of him.”

Susan knew Sid had heard all that before. There was nothing new to be had from these priests. “All right,” he said grimly. “I want to move on to the second possibility. I have information that Father Ullman purchased a sport shirt at the Mayfield’s shop shortly after we sailed on Monday afternoon. He needed a larger size, and the shop’s manager brought him one when she closed up at ten o’clock. There’s a possibility that something happened between them in the cabin and Lisa Mandrake stabbed—”

“No!” Lisa shouted, springing away from Susan’s side. “You’re not pinning this on me! He had a visitor with him when I brought the shirt and I know who it was!”

“Then please tell me,” Cromwell said, “and we can put an end to this business.”

“I’ll tell the FBI tomorrow, and no one else.”

“Miss Mandrake, I’m afraid I’ll have to insist.”

She ignored him and started out of the room. “Hold her!” Sid yelled.

Susan grabbed her arm and pulled her around. Lisa aimed a punch at her but missed. She was in tears, half hysterical now, and Susan held her until Sid reached them with a pair of handcuffs.

“I’ll have to hold you, Miss Mandrake,” he said. “Maybe a night in our cell will shake some sense into you.”

Susan accompanied Sid and Lisa to the cell on the lower deck. “I’d better tell the other clerks they’ll have to cover your shift,” she told the girl. “I’ll be back to see you later.”

Father Broderick was waiting near the shop when Susan returned. “Do you think she did it?” he asked. “We don’t need any sort of scandal before we see the Pope.”

“We should know tomorrow when the federal agent comes on board. If she has anything to say, she’ll say it to him.”

The lower deck where the ship’s holding cell was located was a dreary place, lit only by dim ceiling bulbs along the corridor. Past midnight there was no one on duty and the prisoner was left alone on the cell’s single cot, up against the white bars that made up two of the cell’s four walls. Susan had visited Lisa earlier, but now, in the post-midnight hours, all was quiet.

It was sometime after one when the elevator down the corridor descended to that level and the doors glided open silently. The visitor moved softly, barely breathing, until he reached the cell with its dimly seen shape wrapped in blankets on the cot. For a moment he merely stared at the shape, then he took out a five-inch knife that flicked open at the touch of a button. He reached through the bars and drove it into the blanketed shape, once, twice—

Suddenly the corridor was bright as day, and Sid Cromwell dove across the room at the intruder. They rolled over on the floor and Sid knocked the knife free. “I’ve got him,” he said.

Susan and Lisa came out of the storeroom where they’d been hiding. “You can be thankful you weren’t under those blankets,” Susan told the girl.

Sid snapped the cuffs on Father Dempsey and raised the stout man to his feet. “I’ll clear those life jackets off the cot and you can take their place till morning.”

“Not a shred of evidence,” Susan said a little later, “but it worked.”

“You suspected it was Dempsey. How’d you know?” Sid Cromwell was sitting with Susan and Lisa in his office, drinking coffee till five o’clock, when he knew the captain would be up and eager to hear the good news.