Sir Richard Musgrave, Chairman of Consolidated Trust, is about to board a ship.  A photographer is eager to take his picture, so he must be a big shot.  He is going back to South Africa after a few years away.  The photographer says there must have been a lot of changes.  I don’t know about 1960 but I think now, yeah, he might detect some differences.

Musgrave believes he recognizes a man on deck.  He goes to the purser’s office to see if a Jan Vander Klaue is onboard.  Gopher says there is no one by that name in First Class as if Mugrave couldn’t possibly know any of the rabble down in steerage with Arte Johnson and Charo.  But there is no record of him anywhere on the ship.

Musgrave catches a glimpse of the man signing a bar tab.  Musgrave asks the bartender who the man was.  In a shocking breach of bartender / boozehound confidentiality, Isaac shows him it was signed only as Room 23.  He goes to the room, but decides not to enter.  Later in the bar, their paths cross again.  Musgrave has an officer introduce the man, but his name is Keyser.  After a mysterious trip to the Radio Shack, he has a steward give Keyser a note to come to his cabin around eleven.

Musgrave paces his cabin like it’s the Promenade Deck, waiting for the man.  He opens the door to see if the man is in the hall.  We see that Musgrave is in Cabin 25.  Wait, so the dude is right next door?  He also notices a newspaper article has been slipped under his door.  The article slows a picture of the man with a caption identifying him as Jan Vander Klaue.  The story says he was “a prospector beaten and left for dead in the veldt.”

The next day, Musgrave sees Keyser in the bar — if you ever need to find either of these two guys, that’s a good place to start looking.  Keyser says he was playing Bridge and could not come to see him last night.  Musgrave asks Keyser to have lunch with him, but Keyser says he is meeting his Bridge group, and leaves.

That night, Musgrave happens upon Keyser out on the Lido Deck.  How small is this ship?  The passengers of the Minnow didn’t cross paths this much.  Musgrave finally accuses him of being Jan Vander Klaue.  Twenty years ago they were partners.  They got into a fight and Musgrave thought he killed him.  Musgrave stole his money and built an empire from it.

Musgrave’s argument to JVK is that while he 1) beat him almost to death, 2) stole his money, 3) turned that cash into a fortune while never kicking anything back to JVK’s family, 4) married and had his own fine family, 5) outlasted the Statute of Limitations . . .  it would just be, well, embarrassing if JVK were to bring this up.  Oh my word, what would the other Lords and Ladies think?  How gauche!

He makes JVK several offers to remain silent.  At the end of Musgrave’s speech, the man says he has nearly as much money as Musgrave, and walks away . . . to a door marked — naturally — First Class Bar.

Later that night, Musgrave is nervously drinking in his room.  There is a knock at the door and he finds the man standing there.  He notices pictures of Musgrave’s wife and daughter on the dresser.  I know it takes a while to cruise to Africa, but do people really take along framed 8 x 10 photos?  The man says Musgrave’s confession puts him in a bad spot and must have also been painful for Musgrave.

He tells a story that just popped in his noggin about a similar circumstance he heard about.  A man was down to his last £75 pounds.  His business partner beat him almost to death and stole the money.  The man had set the £75 aside for a operation needed by his wife.  Lacking the cash, his wife died (or is stuck with her original boobs — the screenplay is unclear).

The next morning, Musgrave is so consumed by guilt and the liquor is so consumed by him, that he throws himself overboard.  There are several witnesses, though.  Lifesavers are thrown after the Skittles prove ineffective.  400 pound JVK / Keyser standing nearby even leaps in the water to save him.  There is a struggle, as often happens in rescuing a drowning victim.  They don’t usually put their foot on your head and drown you, though.  It is not clear who was doing the killing — I think they used some stunt-bellies to make it ambiguous.

When they arrive in Cape Town, Captain Stubing presents a trophy “to Mr. AJ Keyser for his heroism in attempting to save the life of a fellow passenger.”

Well done.  My expectations shifted a couple of times throughout.  One could ask why JVK kept that article for 20 years, or why he brought it on the trip, or why he changed his name, or why he was on the veldt when his wife was so near death, or why socialized medicine did not save his wife for free, but one would just be churlish.  Good stuff!

Other Stuff:

• Oskar Homolka came off as such a brutish dick in The Ikon of Elijah and Reward to Finder that he appeared to just be playing himself.  Here, he was totally credible as the accused businessman.  Acting!