The Titanic Murders (6 page)

The numbering of the rooms was confusing and inconsistent, and by the time they found theirs—C67/68—the Futrelles were not far from where they’d started, the area near the C-deck entrance hall and the grand stairway.

“We’re going in circles already,” Futrelle said, working the key in the door, not sure if the size of this ship was to his liking.

But May’s eyes glittered with girlish anticipation. “Let’s see if our accommodations measure up to Henry and René’s.”

They did, and then some.

The Futrelles found themselves in a suite that made the Harrises’ quarters seem like a plush closet: awash with the elegance of Louis Quinze stylings, the oak-paneled suite consisted of a sitting room adjoining a bedroom (off of which were both a bathroom and a steamer-trunk closet—their things, too, had been delivered). The carpeting was a deep blue broadloom.

“Oh Jack,” May said, breathlessly. “This is too much….”

“The last time I saw a room like this,” Futrelle said, “a velvet rope was keeping me back, and a tour guide was nudging me on.”

The sitting room was almost cluttered with fine furnishings with their typical Quinze cabriolet legs and ebony wood—replete with rococo carvings, in a shell motif—and upholsteries of delicate shades of blue: a sinuously contoured sofa, a round table with a damask cloth, corner writing desk, assorted formal chairs. A large gilt-framed mirror leaned out over the white-and-gold sham fireplace with an ornate gold clock on the mantel; on either side of the mirror were windows—not portholes—blue-striped satin curtains gathered back for ocean views.

“How can I make myself at home in this showroom?” Futrelle asked May, thinking she was beside him, but she wasn’t.

Glowing, she leaned out from the adjacent room. “Jack, come take a look at this bedroom—”

“Now this
is
starting to sound like a second honeymoon,” he said, joining her, but she wasn’t paying any attention to his flirtation. She was caught up in the grandeur of their sleeping quarters.

Ebony woods and the rococo shell motif continued, but shades of rose had taken over the fabrics, and the carpeting was a cream-and-rose floral that Futrelle hesitated to set foot on with his lowly shoes. Like a child in a flower garden, May flitted from furnishing to furnishing—mirrored dresser, table with lamp and chairs, pink-and-white striped chaise lounge—touching each as if to test its reality. A four-poster brass bed with plump pillows and pink quilted bedspread nestled to the right of the adjoining room’s door.

“I wonder what we did to deserve this,” Futrelle muttered, mostly to himself.

May was peeking in the bathroom, saying, “Before we go up on deck, I’d like to freshen up.”

He checked his pocket watch. “We’re supposed to shove off at noon—that’s fifteen minutes from now.”

A shrill ringing caught both their attentions.

Futrelle, frowning, turned in a half circle, as the ringing continued. “What the hell… is that some kind of ship’s signal?”

“What do you think it is, silly?” She smirked prettily and pointed to the marbletop nightstand, and the telephone there, from which the ringing emanated. “Some detective you are.”

“Telephones?” Futrelle said, going there, not sure whether he was impressed by the extravagance or offended by it. “The cabins on this ship have
telephones
? Amazing… Futrelle, here.”

The voice in his ear said, “Mr. Futrelle, J. Bruce Ismay, chairman of the White Star Line.”

Futrelle had to smile; as if Ismay needed to identify himself as such…

“Yes, Mr. Ismay. To what do I owe this pleasure? I refer to both this call, and this sumptuous suite we find ourselves in.”

“The White Star Line believes that celebrities like yourself should travel in style. If you could spare me five minutes, in my suite, I can explain further, and properly welcome you to my ship.”

May was already in the washroom.

“Certainly,” Futrelle said. “Can I get there without a taxicab?”

Ismay laughed, once. “You’ll find all the First-Class cabins and facilities on the
Titanic
are rather conveniently grouped together. I’m just a deck above you, sir—almost directly above you, in B52, 54 and 56.”

“That’s even one more number than we have.”

Another laugh. “You know what they say about rank and its privileges. Can you come straightaway?”

“Delighted.”

A minute later, more or less, Futrelle knocked once, at the door of Suite B52, and almost instantly, the door opened. Futrelle had expected a butler or valet to answer, but it was J. Bruce Ismay himself, a surprising figure, in several ways.

First, he wore a jaunty gray sporting outfit—Norfolk jacket, knickerbockers and heavy woolen hose—where Futrelle had expected something more pretentious of the man.

Second, Ismay was the rare human who towered over Futrelle, a man who himself had been described by one reporter as a “behemoth.” Ismay topped six feet four, easily, although the narrow-shouldered man lacked Futrelle’s massive build; in fact, he looked slight and soft, for as tall as he was.

But Ismay did cut a fine figure in his sports clothes: a handsome devil, in his late forties or early fifties Futrelle judged, trimly mustached, with bright dark eyes in a heart-shaped face, his healthy head of dark hair touched here and there with gentle gray.

In a tenor voice, confident and cutting, his host announced himself: “J. Bruce Ismay.”

Somehow Ismay had resisted the urge to add: “Chairman of the White Star Line,” and somehow Futrelle had resisted the smart-aleck urge to utter it, himself.

“Mr. Ismay,” Futrelle said, with a little nod.

Ismay was extending his hand; and Futrelle took it, shook it—a firm enough grasp. “Bruce, please, call me Bruce.”

“Jack Futrelle. Call me Jack.”

“Do come in. I had hoped you’d bring your lovely wife along.”

But of course Ismay hadn’t mentioned to Futrelle that he should bring his wife; and Futrelle already had the firm idea that Ismay wasn’t the sort for such an oversight—this was meant to be a private meeting between the two men, as the absence of any servant or secretary augured.

“May’s settling in, in our suite, before we go up on deck for the waves and cheers.”

“Mustn’t miss that.”

Ismay’s sporting attire—apropos for the great ship’s departure as it might be—seemed suddenly absurd in the ostentatious suite with its French Empire decor. If the Harrises’ cabin had paled next to the Futrelles’ stateroom, Ismay’s suite of rooms reduced them both to shanties.

The parlor into which the two men had entered was white-painted oak with a beamed ceiling and built-in fireplace, an oblong gilt-framed mirror over its mantel. The mahogany and rosewood furnishings, sometimes ebony-punctuated, reflected the straight and curved, ponderous and heavy, construction of a style dictated by the Little Corporal himself: the Napoleonic paw and claw feet, the brass and ormolu mounts, carved winged griffins and pineapples. No sissy stripes or floral patterns adorned the rich, heavy upholstery: strictly royal blue, like the carpet and sofa, or deep red, like the gathered curtains on the windows that looked out not onto the ocean, but a private, enclosed promenade deck.

A door stood open onto a similarly grand bedroom, and a door in that room onto another.

“Impressive digs,” Futrelle said. “Remind me to acquire some rank so I can get privileges like these… not that I’m complaining about my own accommodations, mind you.”

“Sit, please,” Ismay said, gesturing to a round, blue-damask-clothed table in the center of the parlor. Futrelle did, and Ismay, not sitting yet, asked, “Too early for a drink? Some lemonade, perhaps?”

“Nothing, thanks.”

Ismay sat across from Futrelle, and smiled shyly, a smile Futrelle didn’t fully believe. “Normally I wouldn’t travel in such a highfalutin fashion… not on my company’s dollar, at any rate.” Ismay gestured about him. “This parlor suite was reserved for Mr. Morgan, but he took ill at the last moment… so why let it sit empty?”

By “Mr. Morgan,” Futrelle took that to mean American financier J. Pierpont Morgan, the
Titanic
’s titanically wealthy owner, the man who’d acquired the White Star Line from the Ismays a decade before.

“Actually,” Ismay said, a smile lifting his mustache, “you and Mrs. Futrelle are in
my
suite.”

“So we benefited from Mr. Morgan’s illness as well. But why did you choose us with whom to be so generous, Mr. Ismay?”

“Bruce! Please.”

“Sorry—Bruce. Or should I say Saint Nick?”

He smiled again, shrugged. “As I indicated on the phone, we like our celebrity passengers to travel in style. You’d be wasted in Second Class.”

“Wasted how?”

Ismay folded his hands, shifted in his cushioned chair; his expression shifted, too: serious, businesslike. “This is the
Titanic
’s maiden voyage…”

This was news on the order of learning that Ismay was chairman of the White Star Line.

“… and it’s important to us that our First-Class passenger list resembles the audience at a gala theater opening… I’m sure your friend Mr. Harris would understand the importance of salting notables among that first-night crowd.”

“Well, obviously, I’m happy to offer whatever small prestige my presence might provide. But I think you rather exaggerate my importance.”

“Not at all. We have a number of authors aboard, but none of your stature, your popularity, on both sides of the Atlantic. My understanding is that your books sell just as well in England as in the United States.”

“Perhaps a little better,” Futrelle admitted.

His eyes tightened. “This is… if I may be frank, knowing that you will be discreet… a somewhat troubled first crossing for us.”

Now Futrelle shifted in his chair. “How so?”

“Oh, oh, it’s nothing to trouble yourself over… from the standpoint of technology, this is the safest ship on the ocean, the finest achievement shipbuilding has yet realized.” He frowned, shook his head. “But this recent coal strike has thrown a veritable wrench in the works… other transatlantic lines have idled their vessels—thousands of crew members, dockworkers, are out of work. We even had to cancel crossings for a number of our other ships.”

“I know,” Futrelle said. “When we decided to come home a trifle early from our European tour, the
Titanic
was really our only option.”

“Well, we transferred bookings from half a dozen of our other liners onto the
Titanic,
and without this tactic, frankly, we’d have been embarrassingly underbooked for our maiden voyage. Even so, we’re only 46 percent of capacity in First Class
and 40 percent in Second Class… though steerage is 70 percent capacity.” He chucked dryly, adding, “Finding poor people who want to go to America is never much of a problem.”

“This is a stumper.” Futrelle adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose. “The maiden voyage of the world’s largest liner—that should have attracted ticket buyers like bees to honey.”

“Oh, we’ve a respectable booking, but the damned strike’s damaged the entire shipping industry… with cancellations and postponements making travel so unpredictable, leaving passengers stranded, bewildered, disenchanted…. People just aren’t traveling at this particular time, a time which is so crucial to us with the launching of this ship.”

“You may have been up against another problem, Mr. Ismay—Bruce.”

“Yes? What would that be?”

“Fear.” Futrelle raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t there those who feel that your ‘monster ship’ is simply too big to float?”

Ismay sighed. “Unfortunately, Jack, you’re right—though that’s such sheer poppycock it barely merits a response. This ship is the last word in modern efficiency, every expert considers it literally unsinkable. It’s utter ignorance, and the pity is, it’s not just coming from the great unwashed, but from intelligent, educated people, as well.”

“And what can be done about that?”

He leaned forward. “Reeducation. This is where you could be of service to the White Star Line, Jack.”

Futrelle sat back. “To repay my luxury suite, you mean?”

“No. There are no strings attached to that, other than the right to inscribe you upon our glittering First-Class passenger list. But I understand you and Mrs. Futrelle make at least one European crossing, annually…”

Futrelle nodded, folded his arms. “It’s the nature of my business. You indicated yourself, I have a following on your side of the pond.”

“Exactly. How would you like to have free annual passage on any White Star liner, a permanent open ticket—First Class?”

“Is that a rhetorical question?”

“Not at all. It’s a business proposition, actually.”

“How so?”

“Mr. Futrelle—Jack… if you could concoct a novel, with the
Titanic
as its setting… a mystery… an adventurous romance… detailing the lovely surroundings, the fine cuisine…”

“I’m not an advertising writer, sir.”

Ismay held up his hands, palms out, as if Futrelle were a highwayman he was facing. “Please! I don’t mean to offend you. But isn’t a vivid, intriguing setting for his story something any good writer of popular fiction strives to achieve?”

“Yes, of course…”

Ismay shrugged again, risked a small smile. “Well, then. The White Star Line would simply like to see you use our magnificent ship as the backdrop for your next exciting novel.”

“Bruce… Mr. Ismay. Frankly, what you suggest strikes me at first blow as distasteful… and yet I admit I really can’t see a reason not to at least consider your suggestion.”

“Good!” He leaped to his feet, quick as a jack-in-the-box; this response from Futrelle was apparently enough for Ismay to consider this phase of the negotiations closed. “Your consideration is all I ask, at this point.”

Almost reeling from the suddenness of this, Futrelle rose, and Ismay cheerfully took his elbow and led him to the door. “… Now, in the meantime, please enjoy your voyage. I’ve arranged for you and Mrs. Futrelle to sit at the captain’s table, tomorrow
evening—that should be a nice way to start off our first evening out at sea.”

“Well, uh… thank you, Bruce. I know my wife will be pleased.”