Call on Inducement

Author's Note: This short chapter will be included in a collection being published as The Seaport Chronicles.

Three doors opened off a dark passage. From behind one of them there seeped the smell of spent gunpowder.

Eugene cast his cigarette over the starboard rail before turning the knob and softly pushing his way into the cabin.

On the floor lay the crumpled body of the ship’s lone lady passenger. Beside her was a delicate pearl-handled .22 pistol. A wisp of smoke clung to the evening’s heavy humid air.

A sudden clamor of rushed approach. Eugene was paralyzed – not by fear – but a vague fatigue. He had been on a long journey.

“Who’s in there?” growled the ship’s captain. “Open the door slowly and come out with your hands where can see them.”

Eugene turned to do as he was told, and slipped in pool of blood gathered about his feet. He fell quickly to the deck, injuring his wrists with the attempt to break the impact.

The door swung violently toward him, as the captain and two of the crew stormed in.

“Stay where you are Mr. Bryan,” said the Captain. “Don’t get up until we secure this area.”

Eugene struggled to explain, as the three men carefully stalked about investigating the scene.

“Shut up,” said the Captain. And to the others he ordered that nothing be touched or moved. “Miss Jaffy is very dead,” he observed. “We’ll take photos and seal off the area until we contact coastal authorities.”

Eugene was hoisted upright, and his bloody hands were bound behind his back with plastic wraps. The two seamen flanked and dragged him to a closet just off the passage. With barely enough room to stand, Eugene sank down into a squat and was enveloped in blackness as the door was slam shut. A heavy turn of the lock – and with the subsequent silence – troubled sleep.

A blinding light streamed in as the door was opened the next morning. The same two seamen picked Eugene up and escorted him to the head where he was unbound to relieve himself and perform a quick ablution. The descent from the cross. From here he was taken to the Captain’s quarters.

“Pull up a chair, Mr. Bryan. “We won’t need to cuff you again if you behave.”

Eugene’s wrists were throbbing and his legs ached from the confinement.

The captain tapped his pipe and struck a match to light the bowl. He took a long draw while closing his eyes for a moment, then expelled the smoke and stared intently at Eugene.

“This episode has caused us a great deal of trouble, Mr. Bryan. We have no forensics on board, nor any refrigeration for the corpse of Miss Jaffy, so we must divert our port call and head for Marseille. There is not a great deal of demand for our coffee there, but we are hoping to arrange a deal with our cargo brokers. In any case we will be rid of you.”

“When I arranged my passage with the agency in Tunisia, they said we were to call Cartagena and Naples. France was never mentioned,” said Eugene.

“This death looks self-inflicted, but it there’s foul play involved, you are the only suspect. Still, I am at a loss to imagine a motive. You were fond of the young Miss Jaffy, yes? She seemed fond of you, as you always appeared together at my dinner table. In our galley I heard pieces of your conversation. This is something that I will have to share at the deposition.”

The door creaked open and the first mate came into the cabin and placed a light blue sealed envelope before the Captain.

“The girl was enroute to meet her fiancé…or at least the poor devil who was to wed her. That much I remember,” said the Captain. “But was she leading you on? Were you two ever…intimate?

“That is no question to ask a gentleman,” said Eugene.

“Gentlemen don’t travel on freighters, Mr. Bryan. “You are a seeker of adventure, or a fugitive…most likely both. We call your kind ‘self-loading freight.’ But you are ballast to me…the only cargo we are compelled to discharge on this inducement call.”

The Captain put down his pipe, and continued.

“We fly under the flag of Liberia,” explained the Captain. “If you are tried in their courts, and found guilty you will be hanged. But you are disembarking in la belle France, where there is no death penalty. I found it curious, though, to hear that the local police were very interested in this case. Your name has a certain resonance there, no?”

Eugene struggled to his feet. And asked if the letter on the desk had any meaning.

“Rather a quaint vestige of a bygone era. The hand-written suicide note. But what if that’s not the message, Mr. Bryan? What then?