The Titanic Murders d-1 Page 3

  “All the baggage is aboard, Major,” he said in the cultured manner of an American who had spent considerable time in England. “Our compartment is ready.”

  “Frank,” the major said, “I’d like you to meet Jack Futrelle and his lovely wife, May… Jacques Futrelle, the detective writer, that is.”

  The major’s traveling companion turned out to be Francis Millet, the celebrated painter. Futrelle told Millet how much he loved his famous painting Between Two Fires, a gently comic slice of life and love among the Puritans, and Millet praised “The Problem of Cell 13.” May oohed and ahhed over the artist; though the Futrelles had traveled in circles of celebrity since their Gramercy Park days, during Jack’s tenure on the New York Herald, May remained girlishly impressed by the famous.

  “Oh, how we’ve enjoyed your paintings in the Metropolitan, Mr. Millet,” she burbled. “And at the Tate Gallery, here in London!”

  His smile was shy, his eyes twinkling with pleasure and embarrassment. “Call me Frank, please, Mrs. Futrelle.”

  “Only if you’ll call me May.”

  As they stood chatting, a rather bizarre figure rolled through the crowd like a cannon on wheels, a figure so out of place in this posh company he seemed designed to make Futrelle feel more at home here: wearing a gray suit that seemingly had been slept in, a shapeless brown hat whose brim was as crooked as a beggar’s smile, came a potbellied cross between a hobo and Saint Nick, with wild sky-blue eyes in a splotchy visage adorned with a full nest of snow-white beard that all but blotted out his string tie. He was probably in his mid-sixties, as was the rather ordinary, heavyset woman trailing along after him.

  “My word,” May breathed. “Who is that creature?”

  “A colleague of mine, madam, unlikely as it may seem,” the major said, “though we’ve never met.”

  “That’s William T. Stead, dear,” Futrelle told his wife. “One of the world’s foremost eccentrics.”

  “I’m afraid I’ve never heard of him.”

  “Well,” the major said, “you’ll undoubtedly hear him on the ship-he’s quite vociferous, one of the most notorious of the muckraking journalists of Britain, lately an outspoken pacifist, and a devoted spiritualist.”

  “What an outlandish combination of interests,” May said.

  Futrelle could see that his wife’s initial unfavorable reaction to Dr. Stead’s appearance had already been overcome by her native curiosity in the complex package that was this strange man, who the mystery writer knew to have been an influential, even pioneering newspaperman in his day.

  But Futrelle was puzzled about something, even as he watched the burly bearded figure board the train, the elderly woman seeing him off. “And how is it that Mr. Stead is your colleague, Archie?”

  “I understand the president has invited him to speak at the international peace conference, later this month in New York.”

  “Who else is appearing?” Millet asked dryly. “A trained bear?”

  “Don’t underestimate him, Frank,” the major said to his friend. “He has an evangelical background-they say he’s a mesmerizing speaker.”

  A diminutive figure, dapper in a single-breasted fine-striped sack suit and pearl-gray fedora, topcoat over one arm, swaggered up with a gold-topped walking stick and removed his hat, nodding to May. He had gone to some trouble to present a handsome appearance, an effort undercut by his narrow ferret’s face, intense unblinking dark eyes and an oversize, overwaxed handlebar mustache.

  “Good morning, Major,” the ferret-faced man said in a voice as oily as his black hair. “Bit of breeze, carrying soot, I’m afraid.”

  “One never knows what rubbish a breeze will blow in,” the major said. His eyes were tight.

  “I was hoping you’d introduce me to your famous friend”-and the little man nodded to Futrelle-“the great author, Mr. Jacques Futrelle.”

  A smile twitched under Archie’s mustache. “If you already know who he is, Mr. Crafton, why bother?”

  The awkwardness of the situation-and such seemingly rude behavior coming from the supremely social Archie Butt (who, in a single hour at a reception given for members of the judiciary, had once introduced over a thousand guests to President Taft)-prompted Futrelle to act.

  He stepped forward, presented his hand to the ferrety little man. “Jack Futrelle at your service, sir. And you are?”

  He cleared his throat, touched his breast with a gray-gloved hand. “John Bertram Crafton, Mr. Futrelle. Traveling to the States on business.” He had a crisply British accent, but just a hint of the lower class was in it, a Cockney in the woodpile. “We’ll be fellow First-Class passengers on the Titanic. I hope you’ll allow me to buy you a drink aboard ship.”

  “I think I could be tempted. This is my wife, May…”

  As introductions were made, Archie glowered on; even the urbane Millet seemed made uneasy by Crafton’s presence.

  Finally, Crafton tipped his pearl-gray fedora, and strutted aboard the train, swinging his walking stick.

  “Cocky little bastard,” Futrelle said.

  “Jack,” May scolded; but her eyes agreed with him.

  Archie’s face was frozen in a scowl. “Stay away from him, Jack. He’s a bad egg.”

  “Care to be more explicit, Archie?”

  “No.”

  And it was left at that.

  Soon, the major and Millet had boarded and the crowd on the platform was thinning out. The Harrises were late; but, then, they were theatrical people.

  “Perhaps we should go ahead and board, dear,” Futrelle was saying, when suddenly the remaining crowd parted like the Red Sea and the Harrises, in all their good-natured show-business vulgarity, made their entrance.

  “Okay, okay, so we kept you waitin’!” Henry said, as the couple approached. “But you’d be out of business if there wasn’t a little suspense in life, right, Jack?”

  Henry-his red bow tie incongruously peeking out from under an Inverness cape that was an apparent London souvenir-was a big man with a big voice, the hair receding on a bucket head with bright dark beads of eyes barely separated by a prominent nose. His wife, Rene-that she used the masculine form of her first name betrayed her ignorance of French and a certain lack of breeding, which Futrelle found endearing-was comparatively petite, a dark-haired woman in her mid-thirties with a sunny disposition matching her yellow linen hip-length jacket, with its tan linen ankle-length flared skirt. Her cute features peeked out from under a pale green large-crowned felt hat, its wide brim turned jauntily down.

  “You know, Henry,” Futrelle said to his grinning unapologetic friend and his giggling wife, “some people think you’re a loud overbearing Hebrew jackass… but I stick up for you.”

  “No kiddin’, Jack?”

  “I say I don’t find you all that loud.”

  Henry roared with laughter, hugged his friend in that theatrical manner Futrelle had long since come to accept, and Rene and May huddled together and moved toward the train, chattering about whatever women chattered about.

  “How do you like my cape, Jack?” Henry asked, as they followed their wives onto the corridor train.

  “You look like the Yiddish theater version of Sherlock Holmes.”

  “I might just bring a Sherlock Holmes play to Broadway, Jack, if you don’t write something for me.”

  “You really think Victor Herbert wants to write a song for Professor Van Dusen to sing?”

  “Stranger things have happened.”

  Shortly after boarding, they were caught behind a couple whose considerable retinue required the private compartments on either side of the aisle; the husband and wife were a handsome pair in their late twenties, Futrelle guessed, American or possibly Canadian, judging by their accents. A nanny carried a babe in arms and the mother held the hand of a beautiful little girl of three or four with eyes as blue as the light blue bow in her golden hair. A maid was with them, too, a plump pleasant woman in her twenties, helping them jockey the children and themselves into op
posite compartments.

  Like the little girl, the nanny had beautiful blue eyes, though a different shade, a dark blue that bordered on cobalt; the nanny would have been a stunning beauty-she had an hourglass figure wrapped up in her dowdy black livery-but her otherwise lovely features were distorted by a nose that had been rudely broken. She was like a follies girl with a prizefighter’s proboscis.

  Henry noticed Futrelle staring at the girl and whispered, “You’ve got better at home, Jack.”

  Futrelle glared at his friend, who despite his good nature apparently thought tact was something you put on the teacher’s chair.

  “I’m a writer,” Futrelle whispered defensively. “I observe.”

  “Just as long as May doesn’t observe you observin’,” Henry said.

  Rene looked back and said, “What are you two whispering about? Henry B.! Be good.”

  Then the family had managed to get themselves into their opposing compartments, and the two couples moved down the train corridor toward their own compartment.

  They were nearly there when a door opened and a loud male voice from within said: “Out! We’ll hear no more of this, sir! And kindly keep your distance in future!”

  Then, shoved unceremoniously into the narrow corridor, there suddenly stood Archie Butt’s acquaintance-the ferret-faced John Bertram Crafton, awkwardly snugging his fedora back on, and attempting to maintain his balance, and his dignity.

  “You may wish to reconsider, Mr. Straus,” he huffed. “I suggest you do.”

  Into the aisle, and into Crafton’s face, came a bald, spade-bearded compact gentleman in his late sixties; his eyes were slits of fury behind pince-nez glasses not unlike Futrelle’s own. The old gentleman wore a conservative, but expensive, dark suit and had a genteel manner, even under these circumstances.

  “If you bother me aboard ship,” the old boy said, “I’ll report your conduct to Captain Smith. On a vessel as completely fitted out as the Titanic, I feel certain a brig has been included.”

  And the door slammed shut, leaving Crafton with the sudden realization that he was blocking the aisle-and that this exchange, the last part of it anyway, had been overheard.

  Crafton smiled stiffly, tipped his hat to the ladies, and said to the men, “In business, emotions can run away. My apologies, ladies… gentlemen. Good day.”

  And he disappeared down the aisle and into the next coach.

  “Who is that character?” Henry wondered aloud.

  “A disagreeable acquaintance of my old friend Major Butt,” Futrelle said. “And that’s about all I know of him… except I believe the older gentleman may be Isidor Straus… I noticed his name on the passenger list.”

  “Oh!” Rene said, as if she’d been pleasantly struck. “He owns Macy’s department store! Let’s get to know him, shall we, May? A friendship with Mr. Straus may lead to getting our fall fashions wholesale.”

  May laughed, as if Rene had been joking, though Futrelle was pretty sure she wasn’t.

  The compartment was upholstered in a deep blue gold-braided broadcloth, with lush mahogany woodwork, a nice promise of luxury to come. Futrelle and May settled into the comfortable cushioned seats and the Harrises took the opposite seating.

  Promptly at nine-thirty the boat train rolled out of Waterloo Station, its chocolate-brown coaches pulled by a green locomotive, beginning an eighty-mile journey that gave the Americans a picturesque tour of the English countryside. Slate-roofed, red-brick town houses marked Surbiton, Woking and the rest, tidy rows of tidy structures each with its own back garden bursting with blossoms. The countryside was ablaze with color: daffodils, tulips and narcissus, brilliantly green hedgerows and flowering cherry trees, all flourishing in the April sunshine of a spring that had come early.

  “We’re tickled you decided to go First Class,” Henry said, settling back. He had hung up the silly Inverness cape and his considerable girth was encased in brown tweed. “You know how these liners segregate the classes.”

  “I’m glad you two are willing to put up with riffraff like us,” Futrelle said.

  “We’ll force ourselves,” Henry said with a grin.

  “This wasn’t your doing, was it?”

  “How so?”

  May flashed a look his way, but Futrelle pressed on just the same: “You know, Henry, I do turn an honest dollar, now and then. I haven’t been reduced to taking charity.”

  “What the hell are you talkin’ about?”

  Futrelle told him about the unexpected gift from Ismay.

  “I had nothin’ to do with that,” Henry said with a dismissive wave. “But it doesn’t sound like Ismay’s style, either-I’ve been on White Star liners he was ridin’ before, and he’s one rude, arrogant son of a bitch… pardon my French, ladies.”

  Soon the train was traveling through Surrey, domain of the landed gentry with their cottages of dressed fieldstone, half-timbering and thatch, where fields of grass and heather stretched endlessly, interrupted occasionally by clusters of birch, oak, spruce and beech.

  “How did your trip go, Jack?” Henry asked. “Come back with some nice fat contracts for stories and books?”

  “Be good, Henry B.,” Rene scolded mildly. “It’s none of your business. Did you, Jack?”

  Futrelle chuckled. “I did very well, actually. I’ve contracts enough to hold me through the next year, easily… but I’ve had to revive my old nemesis.”

  “More ‘Thinking Machine’ stories?” Henry asked, eyes laughing. “I thought you’d sworn off that cranky old egghead-like Doyle dumping Holmes off that cliff.”

  Futrelle worked up half a smile. “Yes, but like Sherlock’s papa, I’m afraid, Mammon tempted me back into the fray.”

  May said, “Jack’s written six new ‘Thinking Machine’ stories on this trip-heaven help us if our steamer trunks are lost!”

  “How about you, Henry?” Futrelle asked. “Find any British plays worth producing? Got your next Lion and the Mouse lined up?”

  “I’ve got a couple honeys under option. But I’m branching out, Jack, into the future.”

  “What future would that be?”

  “In my steamer trunk are a couple of tin cans that set me back ten thousand pounds.”

  “Tin cans?”

  “Of motion-picture film, Jack-I’ve got Reinhart’s The Miracle in kinemacolor! Just spoke with Oscar Hammerstein yesterday, and he’s interested in going partners.”

  Futrelle made a face. “I’m not an admirer of the cinematograph. I believe in words not pictures.”

  “You sold The Hidden Hand for filming,” Rene reminded him.

  “Yes, and they butchered it.”

  After a while the landscape rolling by the boat-train window shifted from idyllic rural to harsh urban, sprouting not flowers but corrugated-iron factory roofs, the forests not trees but smokestacks of textile mills and steelworks. Much as he admired the captains of industry, like those on this train, Futrelle could not reconcile their capricious leisure with the quiet desperation of workers such as those who dwelled in the dingy rabbit warren of squalid red-brick row houses gliding by the window like an admonishing vision courtesy of one of Scrooge’s ghosts.

  Henry, with that good heart of his, must have felt a twinge himself, because he suggested they repair to the smoking car, where shortly Jack was lighting up a tailor-made Fatima from a gold-plated cigarette case and Harris a Cuban cigar.

  “It’s that unpleasant fellow again,” Henry said, waving out a match, nodding toward a table by the window where indeed the ferrety Crafton was seated with none other than that great unmade bed of a man, William T. Stead. The two men had their heads together, Stead listening intently, frowning, Crafton whispering, his smile lifting the ends of the handlebar mustache into black angel wings.

  “Not interested, sir!” Stead said suddenly.

  Banter in the smoke-filled car fell to a hush, as the white-bearded, massively bellied Stead stood and berated his fellow passenger in a bellow.

  “To the d
ogs with you, sir! The dogs!”

  Embarrassed, Crafton smiled nervously, shrugging to the other men in the smoking car and nodding toward Stead, with an expression that encouraged their common knowledge that the old man was mad as a March hare.

  Stead understood this patronizing gesture and grabbed Crafton by the front of his striped sack suit and lifted him from his chair like a naughty child.

  “Fortunate for you, sir,” Stead said, nose to nose with the frightened little man, “that I am a pacifist!”

  And then Stead tossed him back onto the chair, storming out of the car, leaving a smoldering stogie and a chagrined Crafton behind.

  “Fella seems to make friends everywhere he goes,” Futrelle said to Henry.

  “Maybe I should follow him around with a motion-picture camera,” the producer said.

  Soon they were back in the compartment with their wives. The train had begun its long downhill ride to Eastleigh, doing better than sixty miles per hour, shooting like a bullet through the hill tunnels of Hampshire Downs, past Winchester, into Southampton, sailing like a ship through Terminus Station and across Canute Road.

  Finally, just before 11:30 A.M., the boat train moved down the side of Central Road and took a slow turn to the right onto the track flanking the platform built on the White Star Line’s ocean dock. Nearby loomed the massive pair of long, narrow sheds, their corrugated steel painted green, where Second- and Third-Class passengers and cargo were processed.

  But the boat train delivered its First-Class passengers dockside; they stepped out into the crisp sea air, where the port side of the giant ship towered before them, filling their sight like a vast cliff of steel.

  May squeezed her husband’s hand, craning her neck back, still not able to see the sky: just the freshly painted black hull and, straining, the gold-trimmed white band above. To left and right, the Titanic filled their eyes. Around them fellow passengers were swarming about the pier, parents struggling to keep track of children, porters and deckhands lugging luggage. But May seemed oblivious to this chaos, her attention seized by the Promethean vessel that was making scurrying ants of them all.