Regan and Lady Exner were less than six feet away. Regan caught Nora’s eye and began making frantic shooing motions with her hand. Fortunately Lady Exner had paused to light a cigarette and all her attention was devoted to the lighter, whose starter was clearly not responding to her vigorous thumb-snapping.

Luke took Gavin’s arm and propelled him to an isolated table. “We’ve got something to let you in on,” he explained in a low voice.

They told it straight. Their daughter was on board acting as a companion to an elderly woman, Lady Veronica Exner, whose goal in life was to have Nora collaborate on her memoirs. For that reason they wanted no one to identify Mrs. Luke Reilly as mystery writer Nora Regan Reilly.

“I’m sure she’s a lovely person,” Nora said, “but we really took this cruise to unwind and be together.”

Gavin was sure he had died and gone to heaven. Nora Regan Reilly’s daughter was Lady Exner’s companion! And they were staying in the Camelot Suite. It would be so easy to get friendly with them. His thoughts moved with lightning speed. “I certainly understand your dilemma. My celebrity friends all cherish their privacy.”

Celebrity friends, Nora thought. The only people he’s interested in. You’d think he’d hosted “The Tonight Show” instead of his dinky radio broadcast which had had about three listeners. Once she’d been on and he’d spent half the time begging the audience to call in with questions. Luke and Regan had spent the whole half hour trying to find it on the dial. In vain, of course. And as for privacy, forget it. He couldn’t help himself. He loved to name drop.

Now Gavin hunched over the table and his eye disappeared in a lengthy conspiratorial wink. “It will be our little secret,” he assured them. “As a matter of fact, I believe I’m seated at their table. Do tell your daughter that I’ll be happy to accompany Lady Exner to some of the activities. There’s a psychic on board who invariably attracts senior citizens to her sessions. Why, I’ll never know.” Gavin drained his glass and broke out his hearty show-business laugh. “Her specialty is predicting the future, and since many of them look as though they won’t live to see land again, her predictions should be limited to exactly when they’ll be needing the services of someone like you, huh, Luke?”

No, Luke thought. You’re the only stiff around here.

Chapter 16

I DON’T NEED any more close calls like that, Regan thought, and I don’t want to be around when the maître d’ discovers that Veronica’s cigarette singed the back of his jacket when he leaned over to look up our table number.

“Beautiful ladies, follow me,” he smiled.