The Lusitania Murders (12 page)

“And the commotion you heard in the hallway?”

I shrugged rather elaborately. “Klaus succumbing to the wound . . . losing his balance . . . falling unconscious, like the deadweight he had become, to the floor.”

She smiled. “That’s not bad, Van. . . . Very nicely deliberated. But you may be falling into a trap of sorts.”

“How so?”

Her eyes tightened. “I believe these bodies were
meant
to be interpreted as the aftermath of a falling out amongst our stowaways.”

“This is somehow staged? How do you ‘stage’ murdered men? They’re really dead, after all.”

“Oh, they’re dead all right. . . . Step inside that cell, Van. Take a closer look.”

With another shrug, I did as she suggested, and followed her lead and knelt over the skinny corpse, who—upon examination from this proximity—revealed an interesting further fact.

“His skin is a rather dreadful shade of light blue,” I commented.

“If you take a look at his friend,” she said, “you’ll see he shares the same condition.”

I did, and he did.

“Now sniff around his mouth,” she prompted.

I was with the smaller of the pair, the darker-haired corpse, whose mouth—like his vacant eyes—was open.

“Hmmm,” I said, and rose, doing my best to hide my revulsion at the examinations I’d just been asked to make. “I would characterize that scent as . . . well, it is familiar.”

“Almonds,” she said. “Bitter almonds.”

I exited the cell and approached her, where she stood near the desk. “You’re the detective—what’s the significance of that?”

“Well, I’m a detective, and we would need a doctor, willing and capable of performing a full scientific postmortem examination, to confirm my suspicion. But those symptoms—the blue-tinged skin, the scent of bitter almonds—would seem to indicate cyanide poisoning.”

I tried to process this information. “These men were poisoned, as well as stabbed?”

“I would say they were poisoned . . . and stabbed after their deaths, to cloud the issue.”

Now I was the one pacing. “But what can it mean?”

“I am not certain. But I have a suggestion that you may reject.”

I stopped and planted myself in front of her. “Let’s hear it.”

She raised a cautionary palm. “Let’s keep our speculations to ourselves. No, on second thought . . . you
share
your first impression of this scene of the crime, with Staff Captain Anderson, and anyone else from the ship’s staff who might ask your opinion.”

“Why on earth? Your analysis, bizarre as it is, makes a hell of a lot more sense.”

She walked to the cell and looked through the bars at our dead stowaways. “If those men were poisoned, it was by someone on the crew—possibly Leach bringing them food, or Williams, or someone else with access to this brig . . . Anderson himself, included. I would not like to alert our suspects, at this point, that we have these suspicions.”

“I see. . . . You wish to give them a false sense of security.”

Nodding, she said, “Yes, and as the only trained investigator aboard this ship, I am up against a murderer who is very likely also a German spy . . . a clever murderer, able to manipulate evidence in a most confusing manner. There may be, as you have indicated, a ticking bomb on this ship at this very moment . . . and I prefer to stay one step ahead of our prey, while seeming to be several steps behind.”

I saw the sense of this, and agreed to be her accomplice in cover-up as well as crime solving.

We heard some noise in the corridor, and stepped out to have a look—Williams and another crew member were carrying the deceased Klaus, covered by a white sheet commandeered from somewhere or other, down the corridor. A slender dark-haired, flush-cheeked boyish fellow in his early thirties—wearing a brown suit and no tie, indicating perhaps haste in dressing—was unlocking the door of the room next to the brig.

Anderson rounded the corner, picking up the rear of this little procession, and as the rosy-cheeked fellow opened the door, and the stretcher disappeared inside what was obviously one of the hospital rooms, the staff captain approached us outside the brig.

“So far,” Anderson said, “no sign of the other two stowaways.”

“I would have to disagree,” I said, and I gestured rather grandly to the open door of the brig.

Anderson stepped inside, and then exploded, delivering several salty phrases, before turning to apologize to Miss Vance, who had followed him in. I was just behind her.

Now it was Anderson thinking aloud, and he came to the same conclusion that I had: A falling-out among the stowaways had led to the “winner” of the struggle managing to stumble to first class, discard his knife, and stagger to his death.

“That’s a reasonable explanation,” Miss Vance said.

“And,” Anderson went on, adding a detail that frankly had not occurred to me, “I can tell you why he chose first class to die in—he was making for the lifeboats, to lower one and make his escape.”

Miss Vance was frowning. “Could one man manage that?”

The staff captain dismissed that with a wave. “Possibly not, but he would have to try, wouldn’t he? That would be his only possible means of escape! . . . Let’s have the doctor have a look at these two.”

Anderson stalked out, and Miss Vance and I exchanged lifts of the eyebrow.

I said, “One man might not be able to lower a lifeboat and escape . . .”

“But,” she completed, “a man with an accomplice aboard the ship could certainly manage it.”

“Even so, Anderson’s wrong—the lifeboats are adjacent to first class, all right . . . but on the Boat Deck, another floor up. And the corridor Klaus died in is forward of not only the brig but the elevators—what was our stowaway doing in
that
corridor?”

Miss Vance was smiling at me, and there was nothing predatory about it. “Nicely observed,” she said.

Moments later Anderson escorted into the brig the slender baby-faced fellow wearing the thrown-on brown suit. The staff captain made his introductions—this was Dr. John F. McDermott, the ship’s physician.

McDermott must have read my mind—or perhaps my expression—because he said, “I know I look young. . . . I’ve only been practicing for a year. But I was not last in my class, I assure you.”

He was also not first, or he would have said so.

As McDermott entered the cell, and crouched over first one, then the other victim, Anderson said to us, “Our longtime ship’s doctor, a wonderful old boy named Dr. Pointon, James Pointon, couldn’t make the voyage, this time.”

“Rheumatism,” McDermott said, from within the cell, as if this is what had killed the two stowaways. “Dr. Pointon is suffering from a rather severe case, and I’m just filling in.”

“Quite a competent lad,” Anderson assured us, meaning McDermott.

But Miss Vance gave me a look that told me she hoped the opposite was true: that this young pup would not recognize what that “wonderful old boy Dr. Pointon” might have—the symptoms of cyanide poisoning.

“Just like the other fellow,” McDermott said, emerging from the cell. “Stabbed to death.”

The faintest smile flickered over Miss Vance’s lips.

“Of course,” I said, “the other fellow was knifed from behind.”

McDermott nodded, approaching us. “Yes, on the left, between his ribs, piercing his heart.”

“Wouldn’t death have been instantaneous, in such an event?” I asked.

Miss Vance frowned at me—which was disconcerting, since she still had that gun at her side.

The young doctor said, “Normally I might say so—but since your stowaway managed to walk out of here and reach the next floor, before he collapsed. . . obviously not. The history of medicine is filled with such strange anomalies.”

What a pleasure to learn of the history of medicine from so experienced a source.

“Dr. McDermott,” Miss Vance said, “when you’ve stripped the clothing from the deceased next door, I wish to have a look at the body, and at the effects.”

“Certainly.” He turned to Anderson. “We’re lucky we didn’t have any more deaths tonight—we only have three
beds in the male hospital. . . . Could you have them transported for me, Captain?”

Anderson nodded, and the boyish doctor said polite good-byes and that it was pleasure to meet us, “even under such circumstances,” and returned to a patient his inexperience could not harm.

“Mr. Van Dine . . . Miss Vance . . .” Anderson’s expression was grave. “Even more than before, I must urge your cooperation.”

“Why, of course,” I said.

Miss Vance merely nodded.

Anderson went on. “These murders must remain confidential—I wish neither to alarm the passengers, nor impede any investigation you might deem necessary, Miss Vance.”

“I believe this is a wise course of action,” she said.

A voice from the doorway interrupted the conversation. “Begging your pardon.”

It was McDermott; his expression was perplexed.

“Captain Anderson, there’s something you should see . . . Miss Vance, as ship’s detective, I believe you’ll find this of particular interest.”

Though I had not been invited, I joined the little group as they followed the young doctor to the infirmary next door, where the next surprise in this extraordinary affair awaited us.

EIGHT
Cold Storage

At first Dr. McDermott’s discovery seemed anticlimactic, following as it did the discovery of German stowaways and a parade of foul play that extended from the brig to first class. (Later Miss Vance shared with me her fear that the inexperienced doctor had finally noticed the blue pigmentation and almond odor, and had belatedly put two and two together . . . a morsel of math she could well do without.)

The ship’s infirmary, male apportionment,
*
was a blindingly white room—neither chamber nor cubicle—where the naked corpse of Klaus the ringleader lay
facedown (apparently so that the knife wound could be examined) on a hospital bed along the left wall. On a counter opposite the doorway, beneath various cabinets, in front of rows of lidded glass containers of an innocuous variety—cotton balls, throat depressors and gauze—was the pile of the late stowaway’s clothing . . . which is to say, his commandeered clothing, the stewards’ uniform.

But next to the pants and shirt and undergarments were a pair of heavy brown shoes and darker brown woolen socks. These would have seemed as undramatic as the other apparel were not for young Dr. McDermott’s presentation of a slip of paper, about four inches by four inches, which had been folded up, until the doctor examined it.

“This,” the baby-faced physician said, “was in the deceased’s left shoe . . . under a loose flap at the heel.”

Protocol might have deemed Anderson the first party to examine this discovery; but Philomina Vance stepped forward and snatched it from the young man’s fingers, startling him.

“It’s a list of names,” she said, scanning quickly through narrowed eyes. “A very interesting list of names, at that. . . .”

The doctor was nodding. “That’s why I came running—I may be new in this job, but I certainly recognize our foremost passengers when I see them.”

She handed the list to Anderson, at whose side I stood; he made no effort to withhold its contents from me, in fact openly shared the scrap of paper with me.

The names, in no apparent order, were Charles Williamson, Marie DePage, Charles Frohman, Elbert Hubbard, George Kessler, and Alfred Vanderbilt. Next to each name was a number.

I looked at Anderson curiously, and he anticipated my question: “Cabin numbers.”

Miss Vance asked, “And those are, in fact, the correct designations?”

Anderson nodded. “This isn’t just a list of our most famous, prestigious passengers. . .but a inventory of where to find them.”

“What can it mean?” the doctor asked.

Anderson glared at the young man. “That is not your concern, Doctor.”

“Well, I didn’t mean to—”

“Your job is to deal with the dead, and to keep mum about it. Understood?”

The young doctor nodded, his cheeks crimson.

I had a feeling an irritation had been building in Anderson due to Miss Vance’s take-charge demeanor, and the poor wet-behind-the-ears doc had taken the brunt . . . the staff captain being too much of a gentleman to dress down a woman, who was after all the ship’s official detective.

Anderson turned to Miss Vance, but as he spoke, his eyes flicked to me occasionally. “I have alerted the captain, and he has requested an update, and audience with both of you.”

“When, pray tell?” Miss Vance asked pleasantly.

“He should be ready for us, now . . . Doctor. Carry on.”

The doctor swallowed, said, “Yes, sir,” rather meekly, and attended his dead patient.

Soon we were moving through the deserted, cavernous first-class dining saloon, three abreast. Miss Vance, perhaps sensing a growing aggravation in Anderson, said nothing. I, of course, threw caution to the wind.

“What do you make of the list?” I asked. “Why room numbers?”

Anderson’s expression was blank. “I would hesitate to speculate. . . . Miss Vance, have you a thought?”

Seizing the opening, she said, “It could be a list of targets . . . assassination targets.”

That, frankly, had not occurred to me, and it stopped me momentarily in my tracks; but I quickly caught up with them—Anderson hadn’t missed a beat, this dire possibility apparently having dawned on him, as well.

“It would certainly be demoralizing to the British government,” Anderson said, “should such important parties be lost while under our protection.”

“You can’t be serious,” I said. “The Germans don’t want the United States in your damned war! Why, killing the likes of Vanderbilt and Hubbard and the rest, that would incite Americans to the point of hysteria.”

We were in the Grand Entrance area now, that bulwark of wicker and ferns, the elevators and staircase opposite us.

Anderson had flinched at the phrase “damned war,” but his response did not indicate any offense had been taken. “Politics is Greek to me,” he said. “Still, I doubt your country would go to war over such killings; but the embarrassment to Great Britain, I should say, would be most devastating.”