The walls featured pages from music scores and images from the composer’s life, including photos of village scenes of when Bartok had toured Eastern Europe collecting and recording peasant folk songs. Although not as vast as the grand suite that the late Mrs. Klimowski had occupied, this one was twice as big as London’s stateroom and quite luxurious.
London also noticed quite a lot of clutter. Scattered over almost every furniture surface were dozens of little souvenir gifts, presumably of places Oswinkle had visited at one time or another. There was a little brass Eiffel Tower, a figurine of a Beefeater at the Tower of London, a small plaster Rock of Gibraltar, a little Leaning Tower of Pisa, and many more such items.
He’s a collector, London thought.
Or maybe more of a hoarder. And he brings it all along with him.
Meanwhile, Archie kept right on with his lecture.
“Now, you can try to maintain equilibrium in your thermodynamic system—your room temperature, that is—by having it interact with other systems, say by pumping in warm air or cool air. Even so, the temperature can’t help but change just a little from its intended state, if only because of the law of entropy. Let me try to make that clearer …”
Oswinkle waved his hands anxiously.
“No, no! I think I get it,” he said.
“You do?” Archie said.
“Yes, I do.”
“Are you sure? I’ll be glad to go over it all again.”
“You’re saying it’s impossible to maintain the exact temperature of my room.”
“Well, our system gets you pretty close—less than a degree of variance either way. Which is pretty good, considering that …”
Oswinkle looked positively desperate for Archie to not start talking again.
“No need to explain. Really, really, I get it.”
“That’s good,” Archie said, shaking Oswinkle’s hand. “It was nice visiting with you, Mr. Oswinkle.”
“Uh, likewise.”
Trying to conceal her amusement, London said, “Is there anything else we can do for you, Mr. Oswinkle?”
“No, no, everything’s … just fine for now.”
“Well, be sure to let us know if you need anything,” London added.
“I’ll do that.”
When she and Archie left the room and the door closed behind them, London couldn’t help laughing.
“You handled that in a really interesting way, Archie,” she said.
“I was just presenting him with the facts,” Archie told her. “I’ve found that a little scientific information can go a long way when it comes to dealing with really stubborn problems—and stubborn passengers. They tend to listen to reason sooner or later. I could have gone on like that for another fifteen minutes or so.”
“I’m glad you didn’t have to,” London said.
“Me too. I even bore myself sometimes.” Then he added with an innocent expression, “But it is often effective.”
London suddenly noticed that Sir Reggie wasn’t trotting along with her.
“Where did Sir Reggie go?” she said.
Archie chuckled.
“My guess is he got tired of listening to me talk and took off on his own. Can you blame him?”
“Well, no, it’s just that …”
Her voice faded.
It’s just that what? she asked herself.
“I wouldn’t worry about that little hero,” Archie said. “After all, you really want to give him the run of the ship. I’m sure he’s able to take care of himself.”
London didn’t doubt it. It just felt a little odd to not know exactly where Sir Reggie was at the moment.
I’d better get used to it, she thought.
“Let’s go down to your room and see how the guys are doing with your doggie door,” Archie
Archie and London took the stairs to the Allegro deck, where they encountered a fierce racket as soon as they entered the passageway. Two of Archie’s maintenance men had taken London’s stateroom door off its hinges and laid it out across two sawhorses. Several power tools were scattered around, and one of the men was working with an electric sander.
London realized that she hadn’t gotten word of any more noise complaints. She reminded herself that it was the middle of the day. The crew members or other passengers who lived here must be either relaxing or working on other levels.
Except, of course, her immediate neighbor, the mysterious Stanley Tedrow. Surely he must be still in that room he hadn’t left during the whole trip.
Why wasn’t he out here objecting to the clamor?
The workmen had just about finished fitting the doggie door together. It was a little square frame with a vinyl flap over it. They were smoothing out the opening they’d cut into the stateroom door where the mini-door would fit.
“They’re doing a good job,” London said to Archie over the noise. “It’s going to look like the little flap was always part of the big door.”
Archie nodded.
“You can have this back,” he said, handing her back her master keycard. Then he continued making suggestions to his workers.
Glancing into the room, London was surprised to see Sir Reggie stretched out on the bed, apparently sleeping quite soundly.
I guess Archie was right, London thought.
The dog had gotten bored up in Oswinkle’s room and had come straight back here. He didn’t seem to be bothered by the noise, and certainly wasn’t making any noise himself.
But as the thunderous rumbling of the sander continued, London decided that she’d better check on Mr. Tedrow. This whole door project had come up in response to his complaint about the yapping dog. Why hadn’t he been annoyed by the racket the workmen were making?
When she went to stateroom 108 and knocked, she could barely hear a voice inside but she couldn’t tell what he was saying.
To her relief, the din of the sander finally stopped.
She leaned her ear closer to Tedrow’s door and knocked again.
Then she heard the faint voice again. Was he telling her to come on in?
London tried the knob, but the door was obviously locked.
“Mr. Tedrow,” she called.
She pressed her ear against the door. This time, she heard him call out anxiously.
“Unhand me, sir. You’ve got no right to treat me like this.”
London’s nerves quickened with alarm.
Something bad is happening in there, she thought.
She put her keycard into the latch and opened the door.
CHAPTER SIX
London pushed the door open and dashed into the suite. To her surprise, no one was attacking the occupant. In fact, nothing seemed to be happening at all. Although he had called out in apparent distress, Mr. Tedrow sat at his table staring at his computer screen, as if unaware of her arrival.
He spoke sharply as his fingers kept clacking away on the keys.
“You’ve got no business laying your hands on me! I’m an innocent woman!”
An innocent woman? London wondered.
Then she realized—he was writing dialogue. And as writers sometimes did, he was speaking the words aloud.
London stood there awkwardly. Stanley Tedrow was obviously hard at work on a book. What she’d mistaken for a cry for help was nothing more than a character’s words.