Charteris returned to Miss Mather’s side, on the bench. Hilda remained at the sill, watching the fog slither by like a giant’s cigar smoke.
Blessedly self-satisfied, Miss Mather closed her notebook, and then-as he was searching for a way to bring up Eric Knoecher-she did it for him, saying, “You know, that nice young gentleman I saw at your table, the first night?”
“Yes?”
“What’s become of him? He seemed like such a lovely boy.”
“He did? That is, he did. You spoke to him?”
“Yes.” She gazed contentedly into the memory of the encounter. “Very sweet-he sought me out, to… it embarrasses me to say so.”
“Please. You’re among friends.”
“He said I dressed beautifully. He said with my slender figure I might well be a… you’ll laugh.”
“No.”
“… a fashion model.”
Hilda laughed, but managed to turn it into a cough.
“His name is Eric, isn’t it?” Miss Mather went on.
“Yes,” Charteris said, “Eric Knoecher. He’s my cabin mate, actually.”
“Really? Well, where is he keeping himself?”
“In the cabin, I’m afraid. He’s come down with a terrible cold.”
“Oh dear! Such a nice-looking young man. Perhaps I could take him some soup.”
Charteris shook his head. “No, he’s specifically requested I keep everyone away from him-he’s afraid he’s contagious.”
“Oh!” Miss Mather glanced suspiciously at Hilda, then back to Charteris. “Well, uh, where are you staying, then?”
“With him. I seem to be immune.”
She sighed and sat back, notebook in her lap, held by both hands. “Well, please do give him my best.”
“We’ll do that,” Charteris said, and rose, and he and Hilda wandered over to the lounge. A steward was taking drink orders from the bar and Charteris asked for a double Scotch and water and Hilda requested a Frosted Cocktail.
They sat and chatted, and then their drinks came and they sat and drank and chatted-all the while Charteris wondering if Miss Mather had been so easily forthcoming about her aid to German Jews with that nice-looking young Eric Knoecher.
“Excuse me, sir?” piped up a voice just to his left, a male voice, rather high-pitched, almost as if it had not quite changed yet. The English words were precise if heavily German-accented.
Looking up, swiveling slightly, Charteris saw respectfully standing there, in gray coveralls and crepe-soled slippers, a young crew member-the boy couldn’t be older than twenty-five-fresh-faced, blue-eyed (weren’t they all?), a tall, pale lad whose wholesome good looks were offset by ears that stuck out slightly from the elongated oval of his head, features somewhat embryonic, his lips puffily feminine, his jaw a bit weak.
“Excuse me for interrupting, sir.”
Suddenly Charteris realized this was the baby-faced crew member who had stared down at him from the rafters of the ship, on yesterday afternoon’s tour.
“Not at all. It’s rather a treat to see one of the crew invade our sacrosanct little world.”
But Hilda seemed annoyed by this intrusion, openly frowning, and Charteris gave her a quick sharp look, and she softened.
“I was hoping you might sign my book.” From behind his back the boy withdrew a well-read-looking copy of The Saint Overboard, the Hodder amp; Stoughton British edition, its dust jacket protected in the manner of a lending library, one of whose cast-off copies this apparently was.
“Well, it would be my pleasure,” the author said. “Everyone on board seems to know who I am, and some even claim to read me, but you’re the only one with proof. Do you have a pen?”
“I came prepared, sir.” The boy rather stiffly handed forward both the book and a fountain pen.
“This particular work has been translated into German,” Charteris said, as he thumbed to the title page. “But you have an English copy, I see.”
“I prefer to read American and British books in the tongue they were written in, sir.”
“You speak very well. What’s your name, son? So I can it inscribe in the book?”
“Eric,” he said. “Eric Spehl.”
Another Eric. Another blue-eyed Eric, at that.
“No joke intended, Eric, but could you spell Spehl?”
The boy didn’t smile; well, it hadn’t been much of a joke and he’d probably heard it a thousand times.
“S-P-E-H-L,” he said.
Charteris signed it-“To Eric Spehl, with Saintly best wishes”-and added the stick figure with halo that was the “sign of the Saint,” a logo that had risen out of Charteris’s own limited artistic ability but which had added enormously to the success and recognizability of his swashbuckling creation.
He handed the book back to the lad, who held it open, letting the glistening black ink dry. Strangely, Spehl’s expression remained blank, with little of the die-hard fan’s glowing-eyed pleasure. Obviously a shy one.
Hilda was frowning again, tapping her finger on the table. Embarrassed, Charteris made conversation with the young crew member.
“Do you like mystery fiction in general, Eric? Or are you strictly a Saint fan?”
The boy seemed to brighten a little. “Oh yes, I like detective stories and Wild West novels. Biographies, too.”
“That’s an interesting combination-escape fiction and biographies.”
“Well, sir, in both cases they represent lives more interesting than mine.”
“What could be more interesting than working on a zeppelin? What’s your job, by the way?”
“Rigger.”
“That sounds more like duty on a sailboat.”
“I use a sailmaker’s needle, sir, and heavy thread that can stand up to weather like we’ve been having.”
“You work mostly with your hands, then.”
He nodded. “I was an upholsterer’s apprentice before I came to work for the Reederei. But I am no seamstress.”
This last seemed vaguely defensive.
“I’m sure you aren’t, Eric.”
“I have to climb high up into the ship to patch a gasbag tear, or repair the linen skin over the frames.”
“Exacting work. Dangerous. And of course you get to travel.”
Spehl nodded. “I like that very much. I’m just a farm boy, and now my world is so much bigger.”
“Where were you raised?”
Hilda sighed heavily. Charteris glanced at her again, trying to convey his unhappiness with her rude behavior. She glanced away.
“Goschweiler, sir-a little village in the upland meadows of the Black Forest. Beautiful there. But just one small corner of the big world.”
“Still, home always has its special place in our hearts, doesn’t it? Well, thank you, Eric, and do keep reading me.”
Charteris held out his hand and the boy blinked, then accepted the handshake, and Spehl’s grip was firm, powerful, more than you might expect of a slender lad like this, if you didn’t know the good and taxing work he did with his hands.
The inscription dry, Spehl closed the cover on the Saint book, nodded, muttered another thanks, and moved quickly off. Another jumpsuited crew member-whose presence Charteris hadn’t noticed before-rose from a bench by the slanting windows, where he had apparently been waiting for his friend. A shorter, more burly fellow, he fell in at Spehl’s side, and they made a quick exit.
“Why were you so ill-mannered with that boy?” he asked the braided beauty, mildly aggravated with her.
Her chin was high; she sniffed. “He was intruding. We were having a quiet moment. Why did you keep him here, talking to him, for such a long time?”
He sipped his Scotch. “First, my dear, that young man is a reader of mine. That means he’s a customer. And callow youths all around the world, like that one, keep me in business, and allow me to maintain the high style of living to which I’ve become so accustomed, including the ability to flit about the skies with lovely mysterious women.”
She couldn’t help herself: she laughed at that. Shaking her head, sipping her Frosted Cocktail, she said, “I was boorish. Accept my apologies.”