Charles Ardai - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 102, No. 4 & 5. Whole No. 618 & 619, October 1993

He offered the glasses to Rand, who put them to his eyes and adjusted them to see the circling white birds off the distant shoreline. “What are those, gulls?”

“Terns. Gulls are rarely found in tropic areas like this. The two are related, however.” He slipped the binoculars into their leather case. “Are you going down to breakfast?”

“Multan said they served at seven.”

“It’s just about that now.”

The ship’s mess was a stateroom barely large enough to accommodate a long table with six chairs on each side. Captain Rodriguez was already there, along with a couple of the crewmen. An Afghan cook served them bacon and eggs with some unidentifiable side dish that Rand chose not to investigate. The coffee was a bit weak but passable.

He was halfway through breakfast when the door opened to admit a handsome young woman of dark complexion and piercing blue eyes. She wore a long gossamer scarf, almost a sari, over more casual attire. “Miss Sishane Kemal,” the captain intoned, “these are our other passengers — Mr. Claquer from Marseilles, France, and Mr. Rand from Reading, England.”

Both of them stood and shook hands with her. “Please be seated,” she insisted, speaking good English. “I didn’t mean to disrupt breakfast with my appearance.”

Rand knew she was twenty-six years old, and she looked about that age. Though he hadn’t seen her father in years, he could make out some resemblance to the elder Kemal. Relieved at this confirmation, he allowed himself the luxury of wondering what he would have done if the woman on board the Happy Moon had been someone entirely different.

Her presence seemed to spark the conversation, and Pierre Claquer immediately asked what had brought her on board. “A sea voyage,” she said with a smile. “I’m returning home to Istanbul. I don’t like to fly and I didn’t wish to travel by train across Iran. This was the only alternative. But how about you?”

He smiled in return. “I am a magistrate on holiday. Birds are my hobby, and this voyage is the perfect way to observe unfamiliar shore birds. There are no cruise lines that travel on exactly this route.”

“And you, Mr. Rand?”

“I’m retired,” he said simply. “Cruising the world.”

“This is a slow way to do it,” Captain Rodriguez told them. “It’s about four thousand miles to Istanbul through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. With luck we can make about six hundred miles a day, so the journey will take us almost a week.”

“I’m in no hurry,” Sishane replied.

After breakfast he followed her out on deck, but there was no opportunity for conversation. The first mate, Sallis, appeared to chat with her and then she moved a deck chair into the sun and sat down, closing her eyes at once.

It was not until the following day, the second of the voyage, as they were passing close to the coast of Oman, that Rand found his opportunity. He came out on deck in the afternoon to find Sishane Kemal standing by the railing staring at the barren coastline. “Not much there except desert,” he remarked.

She turned to him. “Is it Oman?”

“Yes. Like many other Arab countries it exists primarily on oil money.”

“You know a great deal about the Middle East. What did you do before you retired?”

“I was a bureaucrat in London. Dull but necessary.”

Sishane was wearing a striped top and shorts in the balmy tropic air. She might have been any tourist on a Mediterranean cruise line. “My father was stationed in London for a time. Efes Kemal — perhaps you knew him.”

“I may have heard the name,” Rand murmured vaguely.

She sat down on a deck chair and picked up a book she’d brought along. It seemed to be a history of the impact of oil on Middle Eastern affairs. “Not exactly light reading,” he commented.

“When your father is a diplomat it forces you into a certain awareness of global affairs.”

That still didn’t explain what she was doing on board the Happy Moon. But she seemed immersed in her book and Rand could see the brief conversation had come to an end. He spent the remainder of the afternoon chatting with Pierre Claquer about his travels in search of exotic birds.

On the third day out, as the Happy Moon was rounding the Arabian peninsula in preparation for entering the Red Sea, a small fishing boat came out from the shore to meet them. Rand was at the railing watching every move, though he hardly expected any sort of drug transfer would be made in broad daylight. The crewman Multan climbed down the accommodation ladder to speak with the fisherman but returned empty-handed.

“What was that all about?” Rand asked the first mate.

“The fishermen come out to sell us their catches,” Sallis explained. “They had nothing good today, or their price was too high. Multan does well dealing with them.”

A bit later in the day another fishing boat appeared and the scene was repeated. This time Multan passed over some money and came back up the ladder holding a half-dozen good-sized fish. He wore a broad grin as he passed them to the waiting cook. “A good day! These are newly caught.”

They dined on the fish that evening. Rand had to admit they were good, but when told they were a member of the herring family he decided they must be red herring, hardly large enough to conceal a profitable cache of heroin.

Still, the troubling thought persisted that the “trouble” which had concerned Efes Kemal had something to do with drugs. Either Sishane was smuggling them personally or she was accompanying a large shipment on the Happy Moon itself. Later that evening, by trying his stateroom key in the other locks, Rand made the interesting discovery that one key fit the locks on all four passenger compartments. Both Sishane and Claquer might return to their cabins at any time, so he did not attempt to enter either of their rooms just yet. That could come later, if it seemed necessary.

Awakening on the fourth morning, Rand saw that they had entered the Red Sea and were sailing now in a northwesterly direction. After breakfast a couple of the crew members decided to go for a swim and Sishane went along. Claquer got out his camera and joined them. “Don’t go in the water,” Rand cautioned her. “It may not be healthy.”

She smiled back at him as she went down the ladder to the boat they’d lowered. “Thank you for the advice, Mr. Rand. That sounds exactly like something my father would say.”

Her remark troubled him. Had he somehow given himself away? While she and the Frenchman were both off the ship he decided to risk looking through their cabins. The key worked easily in Sishane’s door and he entered to find the stateroom a duplicate of his own. Her bunk had already been made up by Multan, though his own remained undone. Most of her belongings were still in two suitcases, and he went through them quickly — a couple of books in Turkish, another in English, a leather pouch containing a makeup kit and perfume, another pouch with a dozen large brown bottles of assorted vitamin pills, a travel wallet containing her passport and visas. In the tiny closet were the dresses and sports clothes she’d been wearing on the trip. A few toilet articles were in the tiny bathroom.

There was no sign of drugs. Rand went back and unscrewed the top from one of the vitamin bottles, but the small white pills looked harmless enough. Finally he put everything back and carefully left the cabin, making certain he wasn’t seen by a crewman.

He glanced over the railing and saw that the swimmers were still down there, with Sishane and Pierre Claquer watching them from the little boat. Rand took out his key again and entered Claquer’s cabin. He found a half-dozen bird books, additional camera equipment, and nothing to cast doubt on the stated reason for the Frenchman’s presence aboard the Happy Moon.