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Stranger In The Mirror - Sidneysheldon

PROLOGUE.
On a Saturday morning in early August in 1969, a series of bizarre and inexplicable events occurred aboard the fifty-five-thousand-ton luxury liner S.S. Bretagne as it was preparing to sail from the Port of New York to Le Havre. Claude Dessard, chief purser of the Bretagne, a capable and meticulous man, ran, as he was fond of saying, a "tight ship". In the fifteen years Dessard had served aboard the Bretagne, he had never encountered a situation he had not been able to deal with efficiently and discreetly. Considering that the S.S. Bretagne was a French ship, this was high tribute, indeed. However, on this particular summer day it was as though a thousand devils were conspiring against him. It was of small consolation to his sensitive Gallic pride that the intensive investigations conducted afterwards by the American and French branches of Interpol and the steamship line's own security forces failed to turn up a single plausible explanation for the extraordinary happenings of that day. Because of the fame of the persons involved, the story was told in headlines all over the world, but the mystery remained unsolved. As for Claude Dessard, he retired from the the Transatlantique and opened a bistro in Nice, where he never tired of reliving with his patrons that strange, unforgettable August day.
It had begun, Dessard recalled, with the delivery of flowers from the President of the United States.
One hour before sailing time, an official black limousine bearing government license plates had driven up to Pier 92 on the lower Hudson River. A man wearing a charcoal-gray suit had disembarked from the car, carrying a bouquet of thirty-six Sterling Silver roses. He had made his way to the foot of the gangplank and exchanged a few words with Alain Safford, the Bretagne's officer on duty. The flowers were ceremoniously transferred to Janin, a junior deck officer, who delivered them and then sought out Claude Dessard. "I thought you might wish to know," Janin...