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announced in its unique way that the voyage was about to begin: The first meal was in preparation.
    On deck, passengers were lining the rail, and I found a place for myself just beyond the first-class promenadewith its hanging lifeboats, toward the bow of the ship—the area called the forecastle, from which the bridge could be made out easily. So could the sight of visitors streaming down the gangways; why did the image of rats abandoning a sinking ship pop into my mind? Far too trite a thought even to have.
    Deckhands who had traded in their crisp white sport jackets for turtleneck sweaters and heavy, seaworthy windbreakers, performed a thousand small tasks beyond the average passenger’s comprehension; this whirl of activity, more than anything else, announced that the great ship was coming to life.
    Cargo hatches were battened, and bells rang out as officers rushed up gangways with last-minute paperwork in hand, bills of lading and cargo consignments and such. The pilot’s H flag was hoisted from the halyard of the signal bridge, and on the narrow stern of the control bridge the American flag flapped, while upright streamers of myriad other flags ran up and down the fore and aft masts, lending a gay ambience worthy of a cruise ship. Less festive, even ominous, was the black smoke belching from the fat exclamation points of the black-painted funnels.
    After the floral fragrance of the public areas of the Big Lucy, the deck presented olfactory reminders that this was, indeed, a ship. In addition to the coal smoke, engine oil and grease smells, and the pungent whiff of tarred decking and the nastily mysterious odors emanating from scuppers and bilges, the bouquet of salty sea air provided an ever-present reminder that this was—despite the Cunard line’s best efforts—a steamer, not a luxury hotel.
    On the dockside sightseers and friends seeing off passengers threw confetti, and waved hats, hankies, miniatureAmerican flags and, when all else failed, their hands. I did not wave back: I didn’t know any of them, and Rumely had long since disappeared back into the reality of Manhattan.
    “You really are a grouch,” an already familiar alto voice said, next to me.
    I couldn’t suppress the smile as I turned to her, those loose tendrils flying like little blonde flags of her own in the breeze.
    “Just because I don’t behave like a schoolboy,” I said, “waving at a bunch of strangers, doesn’t make me a grouch.”
    “No. I am sure there are other factors.”
    I laughed, once. “Miss Vance, are you following me?”
    “Why, do you mind?”
    “No,” I said forwardly. “The sooner a shipboard romance begins, the better, I always say.”
    She arched a brow; her eyes were an impossible light blue, eyes you could gaze straight through to the core of her . . . a core consumed, at the moment, with mocking me. “Is that what you think this is? The beginnings of a romance?”
    I shrugged. “We only have a week. And, after all, you like my beard.”
    She raised a finger. “No—I said I liked the self-confidence it indicated—that you’re a man who goes his own way. If I could have my way with you, I’d cut that beard off.”
    “If I could have my way with you, I’d let you.”
    She did not blush, but she did turn away so I would not see just how broad her smile was. And when she turned back to me, the smile had lessened but was very much still there. “You are a rogue, Mr. Van Dine.”

    “I thought you were going to call me Van.”
    “I should call you a horse’s S.S.”
    And I laughed again—more than once. “I like you, Vance.”
    “No ‘Miss’?”
    “I don’t think so. Whether a shipboard romance develops or not, I believe you were right the first time.”
    “How’s that?”
    I half-bowed. “We are going to be great friends.”
    Below, burly stevedores were hauling the creaking gangplanks onto the pier, really putting their elbow grease into it. Hawsers thick as a stevedore’s arm were cast