The Star of Sierra Leone - Cruise Ship Crime Mysteries

CHAPTER ONE

Betty Palmer

THE LADY WHO WAS CLIMBING the gangway was not elderly but she was not young either. Her brown hair was expertly coiffed, and her designer summer dress had obviously not been bought at the local market, it was exquisite in its simplicity and elegance. She made it to the platform where she was met by Ms. Babette, the famous French playwright.

“Truly, Babette, I don’t know why they don’t hoist people like me in a basket to the top deck,” Betty Palmer said, tittering. “It would be much simpler. Besides, the unacceptable passengers could be dumped on the spot, wouldn’t you say?”

Laughing now, Babette said, “I have to agree with you, Betty, these gangways are not the most practical things in the world. But you’ve made it and that’s marvelous.” Babette turned to the couple stepping beside her friend. “And who might you be?” She shot a curious glance at the lady and then her eyes traveled the height of the man beside her.

“Let me make the introduction,” Betty said, “This is my assistant and secretary, Adele Muesli, and her companion is Gregory Ashton.” She giggled, “Gregory can’t do enough for me. Short of massaging my feet – truly he would if I let him – he finds the things I need whenever I need them.”

“Like a “garçon de course”,” Babette remarked, throwing a quizzical glance at the young man.

“Very much like that, yes,” Betty agreed, “But both have been most helpful.”

“I’m certain they are,” Babette added. “Pleased to meet you, I’m sure.”

Betty looked around her and noticed, as if for the first time, the chief purser waiting for the three newcomers to register with him. “Let’s check-in, shall we?”

The young man smiled when he said, “I’m Armand Guillaume, the chief purser here on The Contessa, Mrs. Palmer. If you’d like to go to the reception desk at the back of the foyer, you and your companions will be given your embarkation packets and cabin keys.”

“Thank you, Mr. Guillaume. I think we can manage from here.”

As she accompanied her friend to the reception desk, Babette’s gaze seemed to be lost in some other dream-like vision. She let the three of them register and waited in one of the mini salons furnishing the elegantly decorated foyer. As she sat down on the sofa, out of earshot from any of the passengers standing about the room, she murmured: “Edmund, would you mind trying to find out who the two with Betty are?” She didn’t have to wait for a reply; she knew her ghostly friend had heard her request and was on his way already, to try finding out an answer to her question.

When Betty joined Babette in the salon, she told her that she was going up to her suite to freshen up. “I’ll see you later today, Babette. Maybe we can have some tea at one of the cafés upstairs this afternoon?”

“Sounds like a plan,” Babette replied. “If you give me your suite number, I’ll call you later to set up a time.”

“Perfect,” Betty replied, turning to Adele and Gregory. “Come on, you two, we’ve got things to do and plans to make.”

Ms. Babette was a well-to-do woman in her sixties now. Although she belonged to a noble family in Europe, she detested being reminded of the fact. She had always preferred the accolades and applauses she received for the writing of many splendid Broadway and London plays. More than that, she didn’t want or need. At the end of the previous cruise, which took her to Antarctica and South America, she had mentioned in passing that she would love to return to Tenerife in the Canaries and Africa. Lo and behold, a couple of weeks later she received a letter from the cruise line company saying that the management had already been organizing a voyage along the West Coast of Africa, as soon as The Contessa returned from her trip around the Mediterranean. Babette couldn’t have been more pleased. She had not been to the Canary Islands in nearly forty years and was looking forward to the visit. On the other hand, she had been a little afraid to visit other places on Africa’s west coast so soon after the Ebola epidemic had ravaged the population of so many countries. Yet, there was no stopping Babette’s adventuresome character. “If my friend, Dr. Alan Mayhew, says it’s okay, I don’t see why I should miss such a wonderful opportunity,” she had said to her producer. The latter was now in charge of staging her next play, which would regale the audience of the Parisian theaters the following winter.

Babette returned to her suite and waited for Dr. Edmund Netter to come back. Talking about Edmund; he was Dr. Alan Mayhew’s great-grandfather. Perhaps a little explanation would be a propos here. Dr. Mayhew found his great-grandfather’s photograph in an old museum in South East Asia. He was not only absolutely delighted with the find, but terribly puzzled. The reason being that, as soon as he handled the picture frame, Dr. Edmund Netter literally came out of the photograph, to begin haunting his great-grandson with his delightful presence. But that wasn’t all. During his lifetime, Dr. Netter had the pleasure of being acquainted with a young lady by the name of Miss Babette. Nearly a hundred and fifty years ago, Miss Babette delighted the Parisian audiences of stage and variety shows. She was the current Ms. Babette’s great-grandmother.

When Edmund “met” the 21st century’s Ms. Babette, it was “friendship at first sight.” The two of them now traveled together as much as possible or as often as Alan was traveling on a cruise of Babette’s choice.

When Edmund came back to Babette’s suite, he found his friend reading the latest news in the local newspaper while sipping on her morning coffee.

“Now, milady,” Edmund began, hovering over a seat across from Babette, “at first glance, the two people accompanying your friend Betty seem alright. Of course, I would have to spend a little more time with them…”

“But did they say why they’re here?” Babette interrupted, putting the paper down on the coffee table.

“No. They only talked about the camel drive in Mauritania. They seem very intrigued by the prospect of traveling on a camel’s back across the Sahara. I can’t see the attraction in doing such a thing myself. My brother recounted the many tedious hours he spent on camel back in the service of the French Foreign Legion. I guess one might try everything once, while one can,” Edmund remarked pensively.

“What about Betty? Do you think she’ll be okay?”

“Why are you asking, dear lady? She didn’t seem ill or suffering from any ailments, as far as I could tell anyway.”

“No, Edmund, it’s not her health I am worried about, it’s her mental condition.”

Edmund raised a questioning eyebrow. “Do you think there’s something wrong with her brain?”

Babette had to smile. “That’s a crude way of putting it…. But no, I only meant; does she look worried about something?”

“No, not that she showed during the few minutes I was in her suite.” Edmund paused. “Interestingly, I did notice her pensively looking at the photograph of a young woman holding a baby in her arms…”

“Do you think that was Betty herself in the picture?”

“I could not tell you, Babette. The woman held some resemblance with Ms. Palmer, but the photograph is at least thirty or forty years old. People do change in that time.”

“Yes, yes, of course. I’m afraid I am letting my imagination run away with me. You see, Edmund, there was something unsettling about Adele Muesli. Perhaps it was the way she was dressed, with the scarf around her head and the many pieces of jewelry adorning every part of her exposed skin that disturbed me. I frankly don’t know what to make of her. She certainly didn’t look like any secretary I know.”

“Maybe you should remember that Betty and her companions are on holidays and a more formal frock for this young woman would have been out of place.”

“Not as out of place as the gypsy-looking costume she was wearing on a six star cruise,” Babette remarked, getting to her feet. “I think I will call her and see when she’s free this afternoon. We’ll soon see what these two are all about.”

Dr. Alan Mayhew, the medical officer aboard The Contessa was whistling when he entered the medical center. He loved to be working on this particular vessel. Perhaps it was because he had assisted in the design and construction of the center some years back, or maybe it was because The Contessa was a relatively small cruise ship with only two hundred passengers and the same number of crew. The passengers owned condos on this ship and were regular travelers, which made it easy to make friends and to know your patients. Besides, since The Contessa only catered to the very rich and not so famous people on earth, the crew, staff and officers were...