The Murdery Delicious High Seas Horror: A Ghastly Getaway

By Peter Halsey Sherwood

All aboard . . . thats prepared to die! World-renowned authors and brothers Reynald and Willoughby Chalmers are back in this unexpectedly gruesome seafaring mystery where murder becomes an inconvenient, most unwelcome guest upon the elegantly refurbished clipper ship Waltzing Matilda. In The Murdery Delicious High Seas Horror, the sequel to the compelling The Murdery Delicious Hamwich Gumm Mystery, the Chalmers brothers and their wives find themselves quite stranded at sea, swirling around a tempestuous cast of unforgettable, highly fishy fellow luminaries. What was intended to be a luxurious passage to the Cte dAzur becomes instead a bloody plunge into a crashing wave of treachery and lies. The unsuspecting passengers soon discover themselves knotted together by old secrets that only raise further finger-pointing questions. Who on the ship will be able to keep their heads above water? And who will become fish food? In any case, all the members aboard find the Waltzing Matilda to be quite a fearsome kettle of fish indeed!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 19, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503522046

Peter Halsey Sherwood

Peter Halsey Sherwood studied voice and theater at London’s historic Royal Academy and worked as a theatrical agent before becoming the dining editor of Next magazine in Manhattan. He has also written for Interior Design, New York and Woman’s Day. As creator of the food blog eveningswithpeter.com, he was published in The Foodista Best of Food Blogs Cookbook. From the author of the pale of memory, The Murdery Delicious Hamwich Gumm Mystery and The Murdery Delicious High Seas Horror series, Friendship Fog is Mr. Sherwood’s latest novel.

Book preview

The Murdery Delicious High Seas Horror

A Ghastly Getaway

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Peter Halsey Sherwood

Copyright © 2015 by Peter Halsey Sherwood.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2014921417

ISBN:      Hardcover        978-1-5035-2202-2

                Softcover         978-1-5035-2203-9

                eBook              978-1-5035-2204-6

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 01/13/2015

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

656905

Contents

Acknowledgments

Cast of Characters

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Epilogue

For Mister Freiberger, my partner in crime.

An orphan’s curse would drag to hell

A spirit from on high;

But oh! More horrible than that

Is the curse in a dead man’s eye!

—Samuel Taylor Coleridge,

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

The sea has never been friendly to man. At most it has been the accomplice of human restlessness.

—Joseph Conrad,

The Mirror of the Sea

In what distant deeps or skies

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

—William Blake,

The Tyger

Acknowledgments

I would like to extend such gratitude toward my fellow crew members:

Captain Tom Berton and Jacqueline Meluso of Manhattan By Sail and the good ship Clipper City; Christopher Labas, for listening on the line and helping out wholeheartedly; Jennifer Buermann, my conspiratorial editor; Sandra Kaufmann for always believing in me and continuing to read; Nina Xixis, Stephen Fitzpatrick, and Gisela Molina for the baby talk; a big thank-you note to Robert Hallworth for his thorough thoughts; Wesley Jon Greenbaum for diagramming the situation; Chad Carns and Julie Murphy for their continued coverage; Cory Stevens, my ill-gotten beauty; the talented Mister Buzby; the lovely Miss Puc for her lively conversation; Ellen Shortill, who taught me how to cook a chicken, and George Gilbert, who taught me how to sail. The brave men and women of all the ships at sea, in proud recognition. Kiss them for me.

Cast of Characters

Reynald Chalmers: a bright young writer of international fame who recounted his encounter with the murderous devil Finton Crowleigh in print

Willoughby Chalmers: Reynald’s older brother; a successful cookbook author, and perhaps the more stalwart of the pair

Laetitia Chalmers (née Grosvenor): Willoughby’s wife; a woman of proud character very much in love with her husband

Jossie Chalmers (née Grosvenor): Laetitia’s younger sister and Reynald’s wife; a pretty, spirited, slightly loopy lady

Reynald Chalmers Jr.: the curious, newly arrived offspring of Reynald and Jossie Chalmers

Ariadne Winterbaine: a glamorous, dramatic stage actress of note, with an obscure personal history

Helka Dottage: Ariadne’s assistant; an older Slovenian woman who has an obvious loathing for her employer

Homunculus: Ariadne’s boon companion; a mad monkey approved by the state in consideration of her mental well-being

Eglantine Sharpe: a famous American artist; a deliberate, tweedy type who created her world in watercolors

Perrick Boyd: a ruthless, fatuous gossip columnist and publisher who possesses a natty knack for sporting suits with furling ascots

Captain Colin F. Winethrog: the masterly captain and owner of the sailing vessel Waltzing Matilda

Eldred Peckish: the bulbous purser of the ship, capable of his job, who, despite his nervous nature, appears harmless enough

Olivia Vidley: the comely cook of the Waltzing Matilda craft who harbors a secret

Alfred LeMarsch: a pencil-thin man with a great love for his wife, international travel, and Armagnac

Winifred LeMarsch: Alfred’s wife; a comfortable, doughy woman with rosy fingers

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THE DAILY BLOTTER

SAIL AWAY!

The Waltzing Matilda is rigged and ready to head to Côte d’Azur.

By Piers Greevey, columnist-at-large

WEST MACOTT—The exclusive, majestic clipper ship Waltzing Matilda was recently refurbished and turned into a luxury cruise liner, soon to set sail for the Côte d’Azur, helmed by the ship’s owner and captain Colin F. Winethrog. From personal invitations, artistic luminaries on board tentatively include Reynald Chalmers, whose harrowing novel The Liar’s Progeny, detailing the events of his involvement surrounding the murderous Finton Crowleigh, won him an international success as a best-selling author. His brother Willoughby, an author in his own right, creator of The Well-Tempered Clavicle cookbook, is also rumored to be in attendance. Both boys are purported to be accompanied by their wives, sisters Jossie and Laetitia (née Grosvenor), with Reynnie, Reynald and Jossie’s toddler, in tow. Famed artist Eglantine Sharpe promises to paint quite a picture, and legendary actress Ariadne Winterbaine, who recently finished a long run on the stage in Minerva of the Sorrows to much acclaim, will also apparently hit the high seas, according to our sources. Perrick Boyd, gossip columnist and publisher of the periodical Boyd’s-Eye View, has confirmed he will be on board to cover the voyage. This reporter, however, was summarily cast adrift, as it were, quite uninvited.

CONTINUED ON PAGE?

A Fishy Recipe for a Shipwreck

(Serves four; double or triple the recipe, but hardly anybody’s going to eat it anyhow)

Ingredients

A foul lot of fish pulled from a wretched sea, such as halibut, salmon, and hake, gutted and hacked into bits

Such a Sickening Sauce

4 tablespoons butter

4 tablespoons flour

1 bottle of dry white wine

2 cups furtive fish stock

A dash of curdled cream

A spot of English mustard and worcestershire sauce, here and there

A slimy, stinky anchovy

Salt and decimated pale pepper

A fistful of curly parsley

The Tasteless Topping

2 medium potatoes, skinned alive, boiled, and smashed

4 tablespoons butter

A little milk—hardly worth mentioning—and hardened

1 handful of burnt breadcrumbs

Some moldering cheese, grated

Method

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Make the sickening sauce by slowly melting the butter in a heavy pan. Stir in flour, bit … by bit … by bit. Drink the wine and remember to add about a quarter cup to your pan, drop ... by drop ... by drop. Add fish stock and cook slowly until you can’t stand it any longer, about 15 minutes. Add cream, mustard, worcestershire and throw in that dreadful anchovy. Throw salt and pepper over your left shoulder with your right hand and pray that some of it lands into the sauce. Add fish and parsley and dump into a large pie pan—make sure to overfill it so there’s quite a mess for a distant relative to clean up. Mix butter into the brutalized potatoes and pour in milk, exercising utmost caution. Bake for 30 minutes or up to an hour, when you are bored, to a fine simmer. Scatter the breadcrumbs and cheese like ashes and continue baking until it resembles something like hope. Eat immediately before food poisoning sets in or succumbing to a case of hiccups.

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GOOD GOD. IT’S Ariadne Winterbaine! I could stab myself!

Reynald Chalmers nudged his wife, Jossie, trying to contain his excitement over sighting the legendary actress pulling up to the dock to board the clipper ship Waltzing Matilda. Reynald awkwardly pushed up the cuffs of his oxford shirt, which was rapidly losing its starch, as he held his gurgling baby boy, Reynald Jr. (or Reynnie as he was affectionately called), in his arms.

Honestly, the way you’re carrying on, Reynald—Jossie smiled with big eyes at her husband—"one would think you were in love with her!"

It was the latter half of a sparkling morning on inky Cuttlefish Bay, which spread out to the vast ocean. Reynald was with his older brother, Willoughby, and they were about to embark on a transatlantic voyage to the Côte d’Azur on this spring day with both of their wives—respectively, sisters Jossie and Laetitia. Jossie, in a