The Titanic Murders (28 page)

“The only thing missing is the children,” he said.

“We’ll be with them soon enough. Maybe next crossing, we’ll bring them along.”

“Capital idea, my love. Are you freezing? I’m freezing.”

“Walk me home.”

They entered the Grand Staircase balcony, being careful to watch their step, avoiding René’s fate (and Crafton’s ghost), and the sounds of the orchestra playing their medley from
Tales of Hoffmann,
with its romantic echoes of Venetian gondolas and lantern-lighted balconies, floated up the stairwell from several decks below. On the next landing, they waltzed briefly, laughing like young lovers, then stopped and embraced and kissed the same way.

He walked her to their stateroom door, and said, “Do you mind if I go to the Smoking Room, for a cigarette before bed?”

“Not at all. Just don’t expect me to be awake when you get back… that wine went straight to my head.”

“I love you, darling,” he said lightly, and they shared a peck of a kiss.

The Smoking Room was lightly attended, the concert tonight going a bit long, apparently; the usual card games were under way, and smoke floated like blue fog. Archie and Millet were
playing bridge with young Widener and Hays. Nearby, in a leather armchair, in the glow of a table lamp, reading a book, sat a bewhiskered oversize gnome in yellow brown, rumpled tweed: W. T. Stead.

Futrelle pulled a chair around. “May I join you for a moment, Mr. Stead?”

Stead looked up, pleasantly. “Certainly, sir. I’m rereading Angell’s
The Great Illusion,
that magnificent antiwar tract; it may provide inspiration for my speech at Carnegie Hall.”

“I didn’t see you about the ship, this afternoon, Mr. Stead. You were even missing from morning services.”

“No, I’ve been indisposed.”

“Indigestion?”

“Conscience… I ill used my powers of mediumship last night, Mr. Futrelle.”

“Toward a good end.”

“Perhaps.” He shook his head. “But the ends do not justify the means.”

“I apologize if I coerced you into corrupting your sense of ethics.”

Stead managed a small grin, patting his belly. “I’m a big boy, Mr. Futrelle. No one forces me to do anything I don’t care to do.”

“Mr. Stead, what was that business last night with the message from ‘Julia’? You were padding your part, a bit, weren’t you?”

His response was matter of fact: “That was a real message from the other side, Mr. Futrelle—perhaps scolding me for my actions.”

“Ah.”

“ ‘Ah’ indeed.”

“Well, you should know soon enough, if helping me was right or wrong.”

“Why do you say that, sir?”

Futrelle shrugged. “Your friend Julia said you’d be hearing a ‘clarion call,’ soon—and get all the answers you’ve been seeking. Doesn’t sound like a scolding to me.”

“Perhaps you’re right, sir. I hope you are.”

A steward leaned in and said, “Can I get you anything, sir? A brandy, perhaps?”

Futrelle glanced up; it was the boy from the Verandah Café, with the bruised jaw and the tow head.

“You know,” Futrelle said, rising, “you can. Would you mind stepping out on deck with me for a moment?”

“Sir?”

“Won’t take but a few seconds. The privacy will benefit both of us.”

The steward, smiling nervously, backed up. “Sir, I’m working….”

“And I’m a First-Class passenger, and I’d like some help out on deck.”

“… All right, sir.”

Futrelle smiled down at Stead. “Thanks for your assistance, last night; that was a service only you could have provided. Now, get back to your book, and see if you can’t come up with a formula for world peace.”

Half a smile blossomed in the white-thicket beard. “I’ll see what I can do, Mr. Futrelle.”

Futrelle motioned to the young steward to go through the revolving doors, into the Verandah Café, which they did.

Though the café was empty, the writer said, “Out on the boat deck, if you please.”

“Isn’t this private enough, sir?”

“The boat deck, if you please.”

The boy lowered his head, his eyes peering up like a beaten dog’s. “All right, sir. If you insist, sir.”

Out in the bitter cold of the still night, under a thousand stars but no moon, Futrelle lighted up a Fatima, smiled meaninglessly at the lad, who stood before him, with the blankly apprehensive expression of a teenager guilty of numerous infractions, wondering which one his parent knows about.

Smart in his white jacket with gold buttons, he was a handsome boy, with wide-set dark brown eyes, a strong nose and full, nearly feminine lips. He was shaking. It might have been the bitter cold. Futrelle doubted that.

“What’s your name, son?”

“William, sir. William Stephen Faulkner.”

“Do they call you Bill?”

“They call me William.”

“Where are you from, William?”

“Romsey Road, sir. Southampton.”

Futrelle exhaled a stream of Fatima smoke. “William, has Alice told you what I’m trying to do?”

The boy frowned. “What? Who?”

“Please don’t insult my intelligence. Your girlfriend—Alice. I’m trying to help her. Like you tried to help her.”

A nervous smile formed. “Sir, you… you must have me confused with someone else. If you’ll excuse me.”

The boy began to go, but Futrelle gripped his arm. “For God’s sake, son, don’t make me turn you in. Give me a reason not to.”

Their faces were an inch apart; the brown eyes were wide with alarm. “Sir! What… what do you want from me?”

Futrelle let loose of him, took a step back. “The truth, William. What happened on the boat deck, with Alice and
Rood, that night? You were there, weren’t you? In the shadows, waiting to protect her. Surely you wouldn’t have allowed her to meet such a dangerous individual by herself, not after what she’d been through with Crafton.”

His mouth hung open in amazement. “How can you know this?”

“Alice told me,” Futrelle lied. “But I want to hear it from you, son.”

The young man stumbled toward the rail, held on. The boat well yawned below; beyond that, the poop deck. No one was out on such a chill night as this—just this boy and the mystery writer.

“He grabbed her arms,” the boy said numbly. “He was shakin’ her, shakin’ her…”

The boy demonstrated, grabbing the air.

“That’s when you stepped in?”

He nodded, swallowing. “I… I grabbed him, pulled him away from her—and he swung at me, got me here… that’s how I got this jaw, sir… and as I was gettin’ up, he pushed me down. I came up hard, rammin’ into him, shovin’ him back, and…”

“He hit his head.”

The boy sighed heavily and nodded. “There was a lot of blood; I sneaked back, later, with a bucket, and cleaned that up. Alice didn’t scream or nothin’. She was calm, almost like she was in a trance. She helped me hide ’im in the boat… it took the both of us to do it….”

“I know.”

“You know that?”

“That’s how I knew she had help, son. She couldn’t have lifted that body up into that hanging boat, not by herself. And you were her only friend on the ship, weren’t you?”

He shrugged, then nodded; hung his head. “She’s not a bad girl, sir. ’Tweren’t her fault, none of it.”

“Did you unlock Crafton’s door so she could go and smother him, and rob him?”

His eyes popped in horror. “No! Oh my God, no, sir—she come to me… my quarters is right in First Class, y’know—and she took me to that room and showed me what she’d done. Him all dead in bed…. She was cryin’….”

“Did you know she’d taken the money off that dresser?”

His gaze dropped. “Well… yes, sir, I did, sir… I figured she had it comin’, what hell he put her through.”

“What did you do, William?”

“Nothin’, sir. Just grabbed Alice and used my key to lock the door behind us.”

So much for the locked-door mystery.

Another swallow; then Faulkner looked up, pitifully. “Do we… do we go talk to the captain now, sir?”

“I don’t think so.”

He seemed on the verge of crying. “What do you want me to do, sir?”

“The story you just told me?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Never tell it again.”

The boy’s eyes tightened, then they widened, and his face exploded into a winning smile. “Yes, sir. You’re a hell of a bloke, sir.”

“One other thing…”

“Sir?”

Futrelle pitched his Fatima into the sea; it arched and spit sparks, like a tiny flare. “I’m going back into the Smoking Room. I’ll have a brandy.”

So, nestled into a comfortable armchair, Futrelle sat and smoked a Havana cigar Archie Butt offered him, and sucked the rich smoke into his lungs, and enjoyed the snifter of brandy the attentive young steward brought him. He had nearly nodded off when something jarred him awake—an unexpected jostle that was the first sign since he’d boarded that he was on a ship, not in a hotel. The muffled sound of agitated voices, like distant cannon fire, drifted in from outside.

Wondering idly what that had been, Futrelle rose, stretched, took one last sip of brandy, crushed out the remainder of his cigar in a White Star ashtray. Perhaps he’d go out on the cold deck, before going back to his warm wife in their warm bed, and see what the fuss was about.

He certainly couldn’t have felt more at ease, or frankly more self-satisfied. A pair of damned blackmailers were dead, a mystery or two solved; the young lovers responsible would likely meet a merciful fate at the hands of Captain Smith. All was right with the world, the little city on the big ship safe once again, with naught but the promise of calm seas and smooth sailing ahead.

EPILOGUE

THAT NIGHT REMEMBERED

M
Y ANONYMOUS PHONE CALLER NEVER
contacted me again, and my attempts to contact the various official expeditions to the
Titanic
’s wreckage on the ocean’s floor, two and a half miles under the Grand Banks, have been fruitless. My letters about murders on the ship, and the possible existence (and discovery) of two canvas-body-bagged corpses in the cold cargo hold, apparently have been viewed much as I originally did my midnight caller: the work of a crank. (My phone calls have resulted in hang-ups, bum’s rushes and being put on hold until a dial tone clicks back in.)

Of course, I have no way of contacting any unofficial expedition—doubtful as the existence of such an effort might be, considering the shortage of deep-diving submersibles like Robert Ballard’s
Alvin
and IFREMER’s
Nautile
—and confirming my caller’s story now seems unlikely or even hopeless.

Researching the story told me by May and Jack Futrelle’s daughter, Virginia, that April afternoon in Scituate, has been considerably more successful, as the narrative you’ve just concluded I hope indicates. Virtually everything Mrs. Raymond told me about the murders fit neatly into known history, and answered a number of questions that have baffled researchers
(why Captain Smith canceled the Sunday lifeboat drill, for instance, and the seemingly needless rush to port).

Unfortunately, I had only that one long afternoon’s meeting with Mrs. Raymond, who passed away later that same year.

What we do know is: who survived, and who did not, and—despite the tumult of that terrible night—we have at least some idea of the circumstances surrounding those who lost their lives so tragically and, almost invariably, heroically.

For the record, at approximately 11:40
P.M.,
the
Titanic
—at a speed approaching twenty-three knots—side-swiped an iceberg, despite the ship’s captain and crew having received numerous warnings of ice in the area. With too few lifeboats aboard and a slowly dawning realization by crew and passengers of the extent of the damage to the ship, a disaster worsened into tragedy. By 2:20
A.M.
, the
Titanic
was gone, taking many of her passengers and crew with her, putting more than fifteen hundred people either in or under the icy waters.

Archie Butt and Frank Millet, with several other passengers, aided in the loading of women and children onto lifeboats; when all of the lifeboats had been dispatched, the gentlemen returned to their card game in the Smoking Room until the slant of the table no longer allowed. Stories of Major Butt on deck fighting off swarthy steerage “rabble” with a walking stick or even a firearm appear to be one of the many yellow-journalistic inventions that pervaded early coverage of the disaster.

Archie Butt was last seen standing solemnly to one side on the boat deck, stoically awaiting his fate like the good soldier he was. He was apparently in the company of his friend Francis Millet; both men died in the sinking, Millet’s body recovered by the crew of the
MacKay Bennett,
whose grim task it was to salvage as many
Titanic
corpses as possible from the icy Atlantic.

Captain Smith’s fate remains clouded, as do conflicting reports of his demeanor on deck. The press of the day made him out a hero, but considering the source, the reports that he fell into a dazed, near-catatonic state are more credible; still, witnesses recalled seeing him with a megaphone, directing lifeboats to return to pick up more passengers (an order ignored). One story has him committing suicide with a pistol, but more credible is the eyewitness account of a steward who saw his captain walk onto the bridge, shortly before the forward superstructure went under, presumably to be washed away—a suicide of sorts, at that.