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.