Free To Davy Jones Below by Carola Dunn

work.”
    â€œYou let Miss Oliphant administer a potion? Suppose she’d been in league with the thrower overboard and wanted to silence the only witness?”
    â€œYou don’t believe in the thrower overboard,” Daisy pointed out. “Anyway, she couldn’t very well poison her so publicly, and she and I both drank the tisane, too. I’ll talk to Lady Brenda tomorrow.”
    â€œBy which time,” Alec said with satisfaction, “she’ll have thought better of her story, if she made it up; or she’ll realize
she can’t be sure of what she saw in that shifting moonlight. Too much to drink is a much more likely explanation.”
    â€œWe shall see,” said Daisy.
    Arbuckle’s suite was even more spacious than the Gotobeds’, having two sleeping cabins and a commensurately larger sitting room. The paintings on the walls were of the Salamanca and the Ciudad Rodrigo . Otherwise, the furnishings and colour scheme were just the same.
    â€œNight-cap?” offered Arbuckle. “I guess you won’t want Scotch whisky, Mrs. Fletcher. How’s about some Horlicks? My little girl always has her Horlicks at bedtime. Ovaltine it’s called in England.”
    â€œThanks, I’ll wait till Gloria comes. Alec, do you know who it was, the man overboard?”
    â€œNo. I waited till they brought him up, but no one there recognized him.”
    â€œHe … he didn’t drown, did he?”
    â€œNo, love, but he wasn’t capable of speech. Harvey rushed him below to the sick-bay.”
    â€œWhat’s this about someone pushing him in?” Arbuckle asked.
    Alec sipped his whisky while Daisy told Arbuckle about Lady Brenda’s hysterical outburst up on the boat-deck.
    â€œI don’t imagine there’s anything in it,” said Alec. “With the clouds sliding across the moon, every shadow seemed to move. Lady Brenda is not a reliable witness in any case. A decidedly flighty young thing.”
    â€œHer story oughta be investigated though,” said Arbuckle.
    â€œWell, it’s not my pigeon, thank heaven,” Alec pointed out. Arbuckle frowned.

6
    â€œH e’s gone and told the Captain I’m a Met detective!” Alec groaned, closing the cabin door. He waved the sheet of paper handed him by the messenger. “Captain Dane wants to see me after breakfast.”
    â€œMr. Arbuckle gave you away?” Daisy swung round from the tiny mirror above the washstand, where she was brushing her hair. “What a rotten thing to do! Now I’ll be cut out of things altogether.”
    â€œI doubt it, love. I shall tell Dane firmly that I’m sure it’s a storm in a tea-cup. So you’ll be able to investigate away as much as you like.”
    â€œYou only say that because you don’t think there’s anything to investigate,” Daisy said resignedly. “Right-oh, I’m ready. And I’m starving.”
    As they walked along the passages and up the stairs to the dining room, it became obvious that the Talavera was pitching more than she had the day before. The motion was even a bit more than when the engines had stopped, though not enough to require the use of the handrails on the corridor bulkheads. Up in the enclosed promenade, a small boy with a toy motor car was having a wonderful time letting it race downhill in
one direction as the bows went up, and the other when the stern rose.
    It was no surprise not to see Wanda in the dining room. She had earlier announced that she was “banting” and never ate breakfast, but this morning she was no doubt prostrate, as Gotobed confirmed.
    â€œT’poor lass doesn’t want anyone but her maid by her,” he said, sounding very Yorkshire in his distress, which did not, however, appear to affect his hearty appetite. “As if I’d care a jot that she’s looking peaky.”
    â€œI fear Mrs. Gotobed was unwilling to try the remedy I