Flight or Fright: 17 Turbulent Tales

Murder in the Air ^{Peter Tremayne}

Chief Steward Jeff Ryder noticed the worried expression on the face of Stewardess Sally Beech the moment that she entered the premier class galley of the Global Airways 747, Flight GA 162. He was surprised for a moment, as he had never seen the senior stewardess looking so perturbed before.

“What’s up, Sal?” he greeted in an attempt to bring back her usual impish smile. “Is there a wolf among our first-class passengers causing you grief?”

She shook her head without a change of her pensive expression. “I think one of the passengers is locked in the toilet,” she began.

Jeff Ryder’s smile broadened, and he was about to make some ribald remark.

“No,” she interrupted as if she had interpreted his intention. “I am serious. I think that something might have happened. He has been in there for some time, and the person with whom he was traveling asked me to check on him. I knocked on the door, but there was no reply.”

Ryder suppressed a sigh. A passenger locked in the toilet was uncommon but not unknown. He had once had to extricate a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound Texan from an aircraft toilet once. It was not an experience that he wanted to remember.

“Who is this unfortunate passenger?”

“He’s down on the list as Henry Kinloch Gray.”

Ryder gave an audible groan. “If a toilet door is stuck on this aircraft, then it just had to be Kinloch Gray who gets stuck with it. Do you know who he is? He’s the chairman of Kinloch Gray and Brodie, the big multinational media company. He has a reputation for eating company directors alive, but as for the likes of you and me, poor minnows in the great sea of life…” He rolled his eyes expressively. “Oh Lord! I’d better see to it.”

With Sally trailing in his wake, Ryder made his way to the premier-class toilets. There was no one about, and he saw immediately which door was flagged as “engaged.” He went to it and called softly: “Mr. Kinloch Gray? Is everything all right, sir?” He waited and then knocked respectfully on the door.

There was still no response.

Ryder glanced at Sally. “Do we know roughly how long he has been in there?”

“His traveling companion said he went to the toilet about half an hour ago.”

Ryder raised an eyebrow and turned back to the door. His voice rose an octave. “Sir. Mr. Kinloch Gray, sir, we are presuming that you are in some trouble in there. I am going to break the lock. If you can, please stand back from the door.”

He leaned back, raised a foot, and sent it crashing against the door by the lock. The flimsy cubicle lock dragged out its attaching screws and swung inward a fraction.

“Sir?…” Ryder pressed against the door. He had difficulty pushing it; something was causing an obstruction. With some force, he managed to open it enough to insert his head into the cubicle and then only for a moment. He withdrew it rapidly; his features had paled. He stared at Sally, not speaking for a moment or two. Finally he formed some words. “I think he has been shot,” he whispered.

The toilets had been curtained off, and the captain of the aircraft, Moss Evans, one of Global Airways’s senior pilots, had been sent for, having been told briefly what the problem was. The silver-haired, sturdily built pilot had hid his concerns as he made his way from the flight deck through the premier-class section, smiling and nodding affably to passengers. His main emotion was one of irritation, for it had been only a few moments since the aircraft had passed its midpoint, the “point of no return,” halfway into its flight. Another four hours to go, and he did not like the prospect of diverting to another airport now and delaying the flight for heaven knew how long. He had an important date waiting for him.

Ryder had just finished making an announcement to premier-class passengers with the feeble excuse that there was a mechanical malfunction with the forward premier-class toilets, and directing passengers to the midsection toilets for their safety and comfort. It was typical airline jargon. Now he was waiting with Sally Beech for the captain. Evans knew Ryder well, for Jeff had been flying with him for two years. Ryder’s usually good humor was clearly absent. The girl also looked extremely pale and shaken.

Evans glanced sympathetically at her; then he turned to the shattered lock of the cubicle door. “Is that the toilet?”

“It is.”

Evans had to throw his weight against the door and managed to get his head inside the tiny cubicle.

The body was sprawled on the toilet seat, fully dressed. The arms dangled at the sides, the legs were splayed out, thus preventing the door from fully opening. The balance of the inert body was precarious. From the mouth to the chest was a bloody mess. Bits of torn flesh hung from the cheeks. Blood had splayed on the side walls of the cubicle. Evans felt the nausea well up in him but suppressed it.

As Ryder had warned him, it looked as though the man had been shot in the mouth. Automatically, Evans peered down, not knowing what he was looking for until he realized that he should be looking for a gun. He was surprised when he did not see one. He peered around again. The hands dangling at the sides of the body held nothing. The floor of the cubicle to which any gun must have fallen showed no sign of it. Evans frowned and withdrew. Something in the back of his mind told him that something was wrong about what he had seen, but he could not identify it.

“This is a new one for the company’s air emergency manual,” muttered Ryder, trying to introduce some humor into the situation.

“I see that you have moved passengers back from this section,” Evans observed.

“Yes. I’ve moved all first-class passengers from this section, and we are rigging a curtain. I presume the next task is to get the body out of there?”

“Has his colleague been told? The person he was traveling with?”

“He has been told that there has been an accident. No details.”

“Very well. I gather our man was head of some big corporation?”

“Kinloch Gray. He was Henry Kinloch Gray.”

Evans pursed his lips together in a silent whistle. “So we are talking about an influence backed by megabucks, eh?”

“They don’t come any richer.”

“Have you checked the passenger list for a doctor? It looks like our man chose a hell of a time and place to commit suicide. But I think we’ll need someone to look at him before we move anything. I’ll proceed on company guidelines of a medical emergency routine. We’ll notify head office.”

Ryder nodded an affirmative. “I’ve already had Sally check if there are any doctors on board. As luck would have it, we have two in the premier class. They are both seated together. C one and C two.”

“Right. Get Sally to bring one of them up here. Oh, and where is Mr. Gray’s colleague?”

“Seated B three. His name is Frank Tilley, and I understand he is Gray’s personal secretary.”

“I’m afraid he’ll have to stand by to do a formal identification. We’ll have to play this strictly by the company rule book,” he added again as if seeking reassurance.

Sally Beech approached the two men in seats C one and two. They were both of the same age, mid-forties; one was casually dressed with a mop of fiery red hair, looking very unlike the stereotype idea of a doctor. The other appeared neat and more smartly attired. She halted and bent down.

“Doctor Fane?” It was the first of the two names she had memorized.

The smartly dressed man glanced up with a smile of inquiry.

“I’m Gerry Fane. What can I do for you, miss?”

“Doctor, I am afraid that we have a medical emergency with one of the passengers. The captain extends his compliments and would greatly appreciate it if you could come and take a look.”

It sounded like a well-repeated formula. In fact, it was a formula out of the company manual. Sally did not know how else to deliver it but in the deadpan way that she had been trained to do.

The man grimaced wryly. “I am afraid my doctorate is a Ph.D. in criminology, miss. Not much help to you. I think that you will need my companion, Hector Ross. He’s a medical doctor.”

The girl glanced apologetically to the red-haired man in the next seat and was glad to see that he was already rising so that she did not have to repeat the same formula.

“Don’t worry, lass. I’ll have a look, but I am not carrying my medical bag. I’m actually a pathologist returning from a conference, you understand? Not a GP.”

“We have some emergency equipment on board, Doctor, but I don’t think that you will need it.”

Ross glanced at her with a puzzled frown, but she had turned and was leading the way along the aisle.

Hector Ross backed out of the toilet cubicle and faced Captain Evans and Jeff Ryder. He glanced at his watch. “I am pronouncing death at thirteen-fifteen hours, Captain.”

Evans stirred uneasily. “And the cause?”

Ross bit his lip. “I’d rather have the body brought out where I can make a full inspection.” He hesitated again. “Before I do, I would like my colleague, Doctor Fane, to have a look. Doctor Fane is a criminal psychologist, and I have great respect for his opinion.”

Evans stared at the doctor, trying to read some deeper meaning behind his words. “How would a criminal psychologist be able to help in this matter unless—?”

“I’d appreciate it all the same, Captain. If he could just take a look?” Ross’s tone rose persuasively.

Moments later, Gerry Fane was backing out of the same toilet door and regarding his traveling companion with some seriousness.

“Curious,” he observed. The word was slowly and deliberately uttered.

“Well?” demanded Captain Evans impatiently. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Fane shrugged eloquently in the confined space. “It means that it’s not well at all, Captain,” he said with just a hint of sarcasm. “I think we should extricate the body so that my colleague here can ascertain the cause of death, and then we can determine how this man came by that death.”

Evans sniffed, trying to hide his annoyance. “I have my company’s chairman waiting on the radio, Doctor. I would like to be able to tell him something more positive. I think you will understand when I tell you that he happens to know Mr. Gray. Same golf club or something.”

Fane was ironic. “Knew, I’m afraid. Past tense. Well, you can tell your chairman that it rather looks as though his golfing partner was murdered.”

Evans was clearly shocked. “That’s impossible. It must have been suicide.”

Hector Ross cleared his throat and looked uneasily at his friend. “Should you go that far, old laddie?” he muttered. “After all—”

Fane was unperturbed and interrupted him in a calm decisive tone. “Whatever the precise method of inflicting the fatal wound, I would think that you would agree that it looked pretty instantaneous. The front parts of the head, below the eyes and nose, are almost blown away. Nasty. Looks like a gunshot wound to the mouth.”

Evans had recovered the power of speech. Now, as he thought about it, he realized the very point that had been puzzling him. It was his turn to be sarcastic.

“If a gun was fired in there, even one of low caliber with a body to cushion the impact of the bullet, it would have had the force to pierce the side of the aircraft, causing decompression. Do you know what a bullet can do if it pierces an aircraft fuselage at thirty-six thousand feet?”

“I did not say for certain that it was a gun.” Fane maintained his gentle smile. “I said that it looked like a gunshot.”

“Even if it were a gunshot that killed him, why could it not have been a suicide?” the chief steward interrupted. “He was in a locked toilet, for Chrissake! It was locked on the inside.”

Fane eyed him indulgently. “I made a point about the instantaneous nature of the wound. I have never known a corpse to be able to get up and hide a weapon after a successful suicide bid. The man is sprawled in there dead, with a nasty mortal wound that was pretty instantaneous in causing death…and no sign of any weapon. Curious, isn’t it?”

Evans stared at him in disbelief. “That’s ridiculous…” There was no conviction in his voice. “You can’t be serious? The weapon must be hidden behind the door or somewhere.”

Fane did not bother to reply.

“But,” Evans plunged on desperately, knowing that Fane had articulated the very thing that had been worrying him: the missing weapon. “Are you saying that Gray was killed and then placed in the toilet?”

Fane shook his head firmly. “More complicated than that, I’m afraid. Judging from the blood splayed out from the wound, staining the walls of the cubicle, he was already in the toilet when he was killed and with the door locked from the inside, according to your chief steward there.”

Jeff Ryder stirred uncomfortably. “The door was locked from the inside,” he confirmed defensively.

“Then how—?” began Evans.

“That is something we must figure out. Captain, I have no wish to usurp any authority, but if I might make a suggestion?…”

Evans did not answer. He was still contemplating the impossibility of what Fane had suggested.

“Captain?…”

“Yes? Sorry, what did you say?”

“If I might make a suggestion? While Hector does a preliminary examination to see if we can discover the cause of death, will you allow me to question Gray’s colleague, and then we might discover the why as well as the how?”

Evans lips compressed thoughtfully. “I don’t feel that I have the authority. I’ll have to speak to the chairman of the company.”

“As soon as possible, Captain. We’ll wait here,” Fane replied calmly. “While we are waiting, Doctor Ross and I will get the body out of the toilet.”

Hardly any time passed before Moss Evans returned. By then Ross and Fane had been able to remove the body of Kinloch Gray from the toilet and lay it in the area between the bulkhead and front row of the premier-class seats.

Evans cleared his throat awkwardly. “Doctor Fane. My chairman has given you full permission to act as you see fit in this matter…until the aircraft lands, that is. Then, of course, you must hand over matters to the local police authority.” He shrugged and added, as if some explanation were necessary: “It seems that my chairman has heard of your reputation as a…a criminologist? He is happy to leave the matter in the hands of Doctor Ross and yourself.”

Fane inclined his head gravely. “Will you be diverting the aircraft?” he asked.

“My chairman has ordered us to continue to our point of destination, Doctor. As the man is dead, it is pointless to divert in search of any medical assistance.”

“Good. Then we have over three hours to sort this out. Can your steward provide me with a corner where I can speak with Gray’s colleague? She tells me that he is his personal secretary. I want a word without causing alarm to other passengers.”

“See to it, Jeff,” Captain Evans ordered the chief steward. He glanced at Fane. “Don’t they say that murder is usually committed by someone known to the victim? Doesn’t that make this secretary the prime suspect? Or will every passenger have to be checked out to see if they have some connection with Gray?”

Fane smiled broadly. “I often find that you cannot make general rules in these matters.”

Evans shrugged. “If it helps, I could put out an address asking all passengers to return to their seats and put on their seat belts. I could say that we are expecting turbulence. It would save any curious souls from trying to enter this area.”

“That would be most helpful, Captain,” Hector Ross assured him, looking up from his position by the corpse.

Evans hesitated a moment more. “I am going back to the flight deck. Keep me informed of any developments.”

Within a few minutes of Evans’s leaving, there came the sound of raised voices. Fane looked up to see the stewardess, Sally Beech, trying her best to prevent a young man from moving forward toward them.

The young man was very determined. “I tell you that I work for him.” His voice was raised in protest. “I have a right to be here.”

“You are in tourist class, sir. You have no right to be here in premier class.”

“If something has happened to Mr. Gray, then I demand…”

Fane moved quickly forward. The young man was tall, well spoken, and, Fane observed, his handsome looks were aided by a tan that came from a lamp rather than the sun. He was immaculately dressed. He sported a gold signet ring on his slim tapering fingers. Fane had a habit of noticing hands. He felt much could be told about a person from their hands and how they kept their fingernails. This young man obviously paid a great deal of attention to maintaining well-manicured nails.

“Is this Mr. Gray’s secretary?” he asked Sally.

The stewardess shook her head. “No, Doctor. This is a passenger from tourist class. He claims to have worked for Mr. Gray.”

“And your name is?” queried Fane swiftly, his sharp eyes on the young man’s handsome features.

“Oscar Elgee. I was Mr. Gray’s manservant.” The young man spoke with a modulated voice that clearly betrayed his prep school background. “Check with Frank Tilley, in premier class. He is Mr. Gray’s personal secretary. He will tell you who I am.”

Fane smiled encouragingly at Sally Beech. “Would you do that for me, Miss Beech, and also tell Mr. Tilley that I would like to see him here when convenient?” When she hurried away, Fane turned back to the new arrival. “Now, Mr. Elgee, how did you hear that there had been an…an accident?”

“I heard one of the stewardesses mentioning it to another back in the tourist class,” Elgee said. “If Mr. Gray has been hurt—”

“Mr. Gray is dead.”

Oscar Elgee stared at him for a moment. “A heart attack?”

“Not exactly. Since you are here, you might formally identify your late employer. We need an identification for Doctor Ross’s record.”

He stood aside and allowed the young man to move forward to where the body had been laid out ready for Ross’s examination. Ross moved to allow the young man to examine the face. Elgee halted over the body and gazed down for a moment.

“Terra es, terram ibis,” he muttered. Then his face broke in anguish. “How could this have happened? Why is there blood on his face? What sort of accident happened here?”

“That’s exactly what we are attempting to find out,” Ross told him. “I take it that you formally identify this man as Henry Kinloch Gray?”

The young man nodded briefly, turning away. Fane halted him beyond the curtained area.

“How long did you work for him, Mr. Elgee?”

“Two years.”

“What exactly was your job with him?”

“I was his manservant. Everything. Chauffeur, butler, cook, valet, handyman. His factotum.”

“And he took you on his trips abroad?”

“Of course.”

“But I see he was a stickler for the social order, eh?” smiled Fane.

The young man flushed. “I don’t understand.”

“You are traveling tourist class.”

“It would not be seemly for a manservant to travel first class.”

“Quite so. Yet, judging from your reactions to his death, you felt a deep attachment to your employer?”

The young man’s chin raised defiantly, and a color came to his cheeks. “Mr. Gray was an exemplary employer. A tough businessman, true. But he was a fair man. We never had a cross word. He was a good man to work for. A great man.”

“I see. And you looked after him? Took care of his domestic needs. If I recall the newspaper stories, Harry Gray was always described as an eligible bachelor.”

Fane saw a subtle change of expression on the young man’s face. “If he had been married, then he would hardly have needed my services, would he? I did everything for him. Even repairing his stereo system or his refrigerator. No, he was not married.”

“Just so.” Fane smiled, glancing again at Elgee’s hands. “Repairing a stereo system requires a delicate touch. Unusual for a handyman to be able to do that sort of thing.”

“My hobby is model making. Working models.” There was a boastful note in his voice.

“I see. Tell me, as you would be in the best position to know, did your employer have any enemies?”

The young man actually winced. “A businessman like Harry Gray is surrounded by enemies.” He looked up and saw Sally Beech ushering a bespectacled man into the compartment. “Some enemies work with him and pretended to be his confidants,” he added with a sharp note. He paused and frowned as the thought seemed to occur to him. “Are you saying that his death was…was suspicious?”

Fane noticed, with approval, that Sally had motioned her new charge to sit down and did not come forward to interrupt him. He turned to the young man.

“That we will have to find out. Now, Mr. Elgee, perhaps you would return to your seat? We will keep you informed of the situation.”

The young man turned and went out, hardly bothering to acknowledge the new arrival, who, in turn, seemed to drop his eyes to avoid contact with the personable young man. There was obviously no love lost between the manservant and secretary.

Leaving Hector Ross to continue his examination with the aid of the aircraft’s emergency medical kit, Fane went up to where the newcomer had been seated.

Sally Beech, waiting with her charge, gave him a nervous smile. “This is Mr. Francis Tilley. He was traveling with Mr. Gray.”

Frank Tilley was a thin and very unattractive man in his mid-thirties. His skin was pale, and his jaw showed a permanent blue shadow, which no amount of shaving would erase. He wore thick, horn-rimmed spectacles that seemed totally unsuited to his features. His hair was thin and receding, and there was a nervous twitch at the corner of his mouth.

Fane motioned the stewardess to stand near the door to prevent any other person entering the premier-class compartment, and he turned to Tilley.

“He’s dead, eh?” Tilley’s voice was almost a falsetto. He giggled nervously. “Well, I suppose it had to happen sometime, even to the so-called great and the good.”

Fane frowned at the tone in the man’s voice. “Are you saying that Mr. Gray was ill?” he asked.

Tilley raised a hand and let it fall as if he were about to make a point and changed his mind. Fane automatically registered the shaky hand, the thick trembling fingers, stained with nicotine, and the raggedly cut nails.

“He was prone to asthma, that’s all. Purely a stress condition.”

“Then, why?…”

Tilley looked slightly embarrassed. “I suppose that I was being flippant.”

“You do not seem unduly upset by the death of your colleague?”

Tilley sniffed disparagingly. “Colleague? He was my boss. He never let anyone who worked for him forget that he was the boss, that he was the arbiter of their fate in the company. Whether the man was a doorman or his senior vice-president, Harry Kinloch Gray was a ‘hands on’ chairman, and his word was law. If he took a dislike to you, then you were out immediately, no matter how long you had worked with the company. He was the archetypical Victorian, self-made businessman. Autocratic, mean, and spiteful. He should have had no place in the modern business world.”

Fane sat back and listened to the bitterness in the man’s voice. “Was he the sort of man who had several enemies then?”

Tilley actually smiled at the humor. “He was the sort of man who did not have any friends.”

“How long have you worked for him?”

“‘I’ve spent ten years in the company. I was his personal secretary for the last five of those years.”

“Rather a long time to spend with someone you don’t like? You must have been doing something right for him not to take a dislike to you and sack you, if, as you say, that was his usual method of dealing with employees.”

Tilley shifted uneasily at Fane’s sarcasm. “What has this to do with Mr. Gray’s death?” he suddenly countered.

“Just seeking some background.”

“What happened?” Tilley went on. “I presume that he had some sort of heart attack?”

“Did he have a heart condition then?”

“Not so far as I know. He was overweight and ate like a pig. With all the stress he carried about with him, it wouldn’t surprise me to know that that was the cause.”

“Was this journey a particularly stressful one?”

“No more than usual. We were on our way to a meeting of the executives of the American subsidiaries.”

“And so far as you noticed, Mr. Gray was behaving in his usual manner?”

Tilley actually giggled. It was an unpleasant noise. “He was his usual belligerent, bullying, and arrogant self. He had half a dozen people to sack and he wanted to do it in a public ritual to give them the maximum embarrassment. It gave him a buzz. And then…” Tilley hesitated and a thoughtful look came into his eyes. “He was going through some documents from his case. One of them seemed to fascinate him, and after a moment or two he started to have one of his attacks—”

“Attacks? I thought you said that he had no health problems?”

“What I actually said was that he was prone to asthma. He did have these stress-related asthma attacks.”

“So you did. So he began to have an asthma attack? Did he take anything for it?”

“He carried one of those inhalers around with him. He was vain and thought that none of us knew about it. The great chairman did not like to confess to a physical weakness. So when he had his attacks, he would disappear to treat himself with the inhaler. It was so obvious. Ironic that he had a favorite quotation from Ecclesiastes, ‘Vanitas vanitatum, omnis vanitas’!”

“So are you saying that he went to the toilet to take his inhaler?”

“That is what I am saying. After a considerable time had passed, I did get concerned.”

“Concerned?” Fane smiled thinly. “From what you are telling me, concern about your boss’s well-being was not exactly a priority with you.”

Tilley lips thinned in a sneer. “Personal feelings do not enter into it. I was not like Elgee, who puts his all into the job. I was being paid to do a job, and I did it with integrity and with professionalism. I did not have to like Harry Gray. It was no concern of mine what Harry Gray did or did not do outside of the job he paid me to do. It did not concern me who his lover was nor who his mortal enemies were.”

“Very well. So he went to the toilet and did not come back?”

“As I said, after a while, I called the stewardess and she went to check on him. That was no more nor less the concern of my position as his secretary.”

“Wait there a moment, Mr. Tilley.”

Fane moved to where Sally Beech was standing, still pale and slightly nervous, and said quietly: “Do you think you could go to Mr. Gray’s seat and find his attaché case? I’d like you to bring it here.”

She returned in a short while with a small brown leather case.

Fane took it to show to Frank Tilley. “Do you identify this as Gray’s case?”

The man nodded reluctantly. “I don’t think you should do that,” he protested as Fane snapped open the clasps.

“Why not?”

“Confidential company property.”

“I think an investigation into a possible homicide will override that objection.”

Frank Tilley was surprised. “Homicide?…But that means…murder. No one said anything about murder.”

Fane was too busy shifting through the papers to respond. He pulled out a sheet and showed it to Tilley. “Was this what he was looking at just before he began to have breathing difficulties?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps. It was a piece of paper like it—that’s all I can say.”

The sheet was a tear sheet from a computer printout. It had two short sentences on it:

You will die before this aircraft lands. Memento, “homo,” quia pulvis es et in pulverem revertis.

Fane sat back with a casual smile. He held out the paper to the secretary. “You are a Latin scholar, Mr. Tilley. How would you translate the phrase given here?”

Tilley frowned. “What makes you say that I am a Latin scholar?”

“A few moments ago you trotted out a Latin phrase. I presumed that you knew its meaning.”

“My Latin is almost nonexistent. Mr. Gray was fond of Latin tags and phrases, so I tried to keep up by memorizing some of those he used frequently.”

“I see. So you don’t know what this one means?”

Tilley looked at the printed note. He shook his head. “Memento means ‘remember,’ doesn’t it?”

“Have you ever heard the phrase memento mori? That would be a more popular version of what is written here.”

Tilley shook his head. “Remember something, I suppose?”

“Why do you think the Latin word for ‘man’ has quotation marks around it?”

“I don’t know what it means. I do not know Latin.”

“What this says roughly is, ‘Remember, man, that you are dust and to dust you will return.’ It was obviously written on a computer, a word processor. Do you recognize the type?”

Tilley shook his head. “It could be any one of hundreds of company standards. I hope you are not implying that I wrote Mr. Gray a death threat?”

“How would this have made its way into his attaché case?” Fane said, ignoring the comment.

“I presume someone put it there.”

“Who would have such access to it?”

“I suppose that you are still accusing me? I hated him. But not so that I would cut my own throat. He was a bastard, but he was the goose who laid the golden egg. There was no point in being rid of him.”

“Just so,” muttered Fane thoughtfully. His eye caught sight of a notepad in the case, and he flicked through its pages while Frank Tilley sat looking on in discomfort. Fane found a list of initials with the head, “immediate dismissal” and that day’s date.

“A list of half a dozen people that he was about to sack?” Fane observed.

“I told you that he was going to enjoy a public purge of his executives and mentioned some names to me.”

“The list contains only initials and starts with O. T. E.” He glanced at Tilley with a raised eyebrow. “Oscar Elgee?”

“Hardly,” Tilley replied with a patronizing smile. “It means Otis T. Elliott, the general manager of our U.S. database subsidiary.”

“I see. Let’s see if we can identify the others.”

He ran through the other initials to which Tilley added names. The next four were also executives of Gray’s companies. The last initials were written as Ft.

“F. T. is underscored three times with the words ‘no payoff!’ written against it. Who’s F. T.?”

“You know that F. T. are my initials,” Tilley observed quietly. His features were white and suddenly very grave. “I swear that he never said anything to me about sacking me when we discussed those he had on his list. He never mentioned it.”

“Well, was there anyone else in the company that the initials F. T. could apply to?”

Tilley frowned, trying to recall, but finally shook his head and gave a resigned shrug. “No. It could only be me. The bastard! He never told me what he was planning. Some nice little public humiliation, I suppose.”

Hector Ross emerged from the curtained section and motioned Fane to join him. “I think I can tell you how it was done,” he announced with satisfaction.

Fane grinned at his friend. “So can I. Tell me if I am wrong. Gray went into the toilet to use his inhaler to relieve an attack of asthma. He placed the inhaler in his mouth, depressed it in the normal way, and…” He ended with a shrug.

Ross looked shocked. “How did you—?” He glanced over Fane’s shoulder to where Frank Tilley was still sitting, twitching nervously. “Did he confess that he set it up?”

Fane shook his head. “No. But was I right?”

“It is a good hypothesis but needs a laboratory to confirm it. I found tiny particles of aluminium in the mouth, and some plastic. Something certainly exploded with force, sending a tiny steel projectile into the back roof of the mouth with such force that it entered the brain and death was instantaneous, as you initially surmised. Whatever had triggered the projectile disintegrated with the force. Hence there were only small fragments embedded in his mouth and cheeks. There were some when I searched carefully, around the cubicle. Diabolical.”

“This was arranged by someone who knew that friend Gray had a weakness and banked on it. Gray didn’t like to take his inhaler in public and would find a quiet corner. The plan worked out very well and nearly presented an impossible crime, an almost insolvable crime. Initially it appeared that the victim had been shot in the mouth in a locked toilet.”

Hector Ross smiled indulgently at his colleague. “You imply that you already have the solution?”

“Oh yes. Remember the song that we used to sing at school?

Hector Ross nodded. “It’s many a day since I last sang that, laddie. Something by Longfellow, wasn’t it?”

Fane grinned. “It was, indeed. Based on some lines from the Book of Genesis—‘terra es, terram ibis’—‘dust thou art, to dust thou shalt return.’ Get Captain Evans here, please.” He made the request to the Chief Steward, Jeff Ryder, who had been waiting attendance on Ross. When he had departed, Fane glanced back to his friend. “There is something to be said for Latin scholarship.”

“I don’t follow, laddie.”

“Our murderer was too fond of the Latin in-jokes he shared with his boss.”

“You mean his secretary?” He glanced at Frank Tilley.

“Tilley claims that he couldn’t even translate memento mori.”

“Remember death?”

Fane regarded his friend in disapproval. “It actually means ‘remember to die’ and a memento mori is usually applied to a human skull or some other object that reminds us of our mortality.”

Captain Evans arrived and looked from Fane to Ross in expectation. “Well, what news?”

“To save any unpleasant scene on the aircraft, Captain, I suggest you radio ahead and have the police waiting to arrest one of your passengers on a charge of murder. No need to make any move until we land. The man can’t go far.”

“Which man?” demanded Evans, his face grim.

“He is listed as Oscar Elgee in the tourist class.”

“How could he—”

“Simple. Elgee was not only Gray’s manservant but I think you’ll find, from the broad hints Mr. Tilley gave me, that he was also his lover. Elgee seems to confirm it by a death note with a Latin phrase in which he emphasized the word homo, meaning ‘man,’ but, we also know it was often used as a slang term in my generation for ‘homosexual.’”

“How would you know that Elgee was capable of understanding puns in Latin?” asked Ross.

“The moment he saw Gray’s body, young Elgee muttered the very words. Terra es, terram ibis—dust you are, to dust you will return.”

“A quarrel between lovers?” asked Ross. “Love to hatred turned—and all that, as Billy Shakespeare succinctly put it?”

Fane nodded. “Gray was giving Elgee the push, both as lover and employee, and so Elgee decided to end his lover’s career in midflight, so to speak. There is a note in his attaché case that Elgee was to be sacked immediately without compensation.”

Tilley, who had been sitting quietly, shook his head vehemently.

“No there isn’t,” he interrupted. “We went through the list. I told you that the initials O. T. E. referred to Otis Elliott. I had faxed that dismissal through before we boarded the plane.”

Fane smiled softly. “‘You have forgotten F. T.”

“But that’s my—”

“You didn’t share your boss’s passion for Latin tags, did you? It was the F. T. that confused me. I should have trusted that a person with Gray’s reputation would not have written F followed by a lower case t if he meant two initials F. T. I missed the point. It was not your initials at all, Mr. Tilley. It was Ft meant as an abbreviation. Specifically, fac, from facere: ‘to do’; and tatum: ‘all things.’ Factotum. And who was Gray’s factotum?”

There was a silence.

“I think we will find that this murder was planned for a week or two at least. Once I began to realize what the mechanism was that killed Gray, all I had to do was look for the person capable of devising that mechanism as well as having motive and opportunity. Hold out your hands, Mr. Tilley.”

Reluctantly the secretary did so.

“You can’t seriously see those hands constructing a delicate mechanism, can you?” Fane said. “No, Elgee, the model maker and handyman, doctored one of Gray’s inhalers so that when it was depressed it would explode with an impact into the mouth, shooting a needle into the brain. Simple but effective. He knew that Gray did not like to be seen using the inhaler in public. The rest was left to chance, and it was a good chance. It almost turned out to be the ultimate impossible crime. It might have worked, had not our victim and his murderer been too fond of their Latin in-jokes.”