The Titanic Murders

DAY FOUR


APRIL 13, 1912





NINE


STEERAGE





EVEN ON THE TITANIC, A vessel whose motion was at best barely detectable, Futrelle found that the subtle pulse of steaming engines and rushing waters conspired to make shipboard sleep particularly restful, satisfying, deep and dreamless. The unexpected and unwelcome alarm of the shrill ringing phone awakened him instantly, nonetheless, and he snatched the receiver from its cradle before the gently slumbering May, beside him, was similarly disturbed.

“Yes?” he whispered.

“Jack, it’s Bruce—Bruce Ismay.”

At least he didn’t say “J. Bruce Ismay.” But Futrelle sat up, reading the signal of the frazzled edge in the White Star director’s voice.

“Yes, Bruce,” Futrelle said thickly, wedging his glasses onto his nose, as if seeing better would help clear the cobwebs from his mind and ears.

“Did I wake you? If so I apologize, but it’s urgent that we see you, the captain and I.”

“Certainly. Your suite?”

“No, Captain Smith’s. It’s on the boat deck, starboard side, near the wheelhouse. There’s a gate separating the First-Class promenade and the officers’ promenade.”

“I know where that is.”

“Good. Second Officer Lightoller will be waiting there for you.”

“Give me five minutes,” Futrelle said, hung up, and rolled out of bed.

May turned over and her eyes slitted open. “What was that?”

Her husband was at the closet, selecting his clothes. “Ismay again. Probably wanting to know how my inquiries went yesterday.”

“What are you going to tell him?”

Climbing into his pants, he said, “Only what I see fit. I’m not getting Hoffman or Navatril or whatever-his-name-is into hot water. It’s not my place.”

She smiled sleepily at him. “You have a soft heart, Jack. That’s one of the few hundred reasons why I love you… What time is it, anyway?”

Slipping into his shirt, he walked over and checked the nightstand clock, an ornate gold item that would have been at home on a palace mantel. “After nine… I guess we slept in.”

She sat up, covers in her lap, her breasts perky under the nightgown. “Shall I get dressed? Shall we have breakfast when you get back, in the Dining Saloon? Or call room service again?”

Futrelle, otherwise clothed, was sitting on a chair, tying his shoes. “Why don’t you call room service, darling. Then we can talk frankly, about whatever it is Ismay and Smith want me for.”

Waiting at the forward end of the First-Class promenade on the boat deck, at the accordion gate, was crisply uniformed Second Officer Lightoller, a tall man (though not as tall as Futrelle) with dark close-set eyes, pointed features and a jutting jaw.

“Mr. Futrelle?” The voice was deep, resonant.

“Officer Lightoller, I presume?”

“Yes, sir. This way, sir.”

Futrelle stepped through, and Lightoller closed and locked the folding gate behind them: a near slam followed by the click of the key in the lock; there was something ominous about it. Then the businesslike Lightoller led Futrelle down the officers’ promenade to a door marked CAPTAIN—PRIVATE, which in military terms seemed a contradiction, and the second officer knocked.

Smith himself answered, in his navy-blue uniform today, graced with the usual ribbons; but he was not wearing his hat, and the lack of it was somehow disturbing. So were the eyes in the comfortingly stern white-bearded visage: they seemed cloudy, troubled.

“Thank you for coming, Mr. Futrelle,” Smith said, the soothingly soft voice touched with, what? Melancholy? Distress?

The captain motioned Futrelle in, instructing Lightoller to wait outside the door.

These quarters, with their white-painted walls and oak wainscoting, harbored the no-nonsense, spartan style characteristic of a naval man, leaving luxury to the First-Class passengers; maple and oak Colonial furnishings gave the spacious sitting room a New England air, as did the handful of modestly framed nautical prints. This sitting room was also a sort of office, as in one corner, by a porthole, sat a heavy Chippendale desk with many compartments, and a brass captain’s-wheel lamp atop it. A doorway stood half-open for a glimpse into the bedroom.

In the midst of the room, Ismay was seated at a round table—a captain’s table—and there it was, the captain’s hat, crown down, like a centerpiece bowl awaiting flowers or fruit.

The White Star director—in an undertaker’s black suit and tie—was pale as milk, if the milk had gone as sour as his expression, anyway; dark pouches lingered under bloodshot eyes and even his mustache seemed wilted.

Captain Smith gestured to a chair at the round table and Futrelle sat, and so did he.

“Would you be so kind,” Ismay said, and despite his cadaverous appearance, there was nothing rude or anxious in his voice, “to provide an informal report as to the results of your ad hoc investigation, yesterday, Mr. Futrelle?”

Futrelle glanced sharply at Captain Smith, who said, almost sheepishly, “It became necessary to acquaint Mr. Ismay with our arrangement.”

After a sigh and shrug, Futrelle said, “Well, as you both can guess, I had to be indirect in my questioning, and in my approach. Most of our suspects, if indeed that’s what they are, are distinguished, notable individuals. If you are expecting a detailed list of alibis and denials of guilt, I have none.”

“What did you learn?” Ismay asked politely. “What did you observe?”

“What,” the captain added, “are your suspicions?”

“I spoke with Mr. Straus, Mr. Astor, Mr. Guggenheim, Mr. Rood, Mr. Stead, even Mrs. Brown. And I’d spoken frankly about Crafton with Major Butt prior to the blackmailer’s death. I also spoke with Mr. Hoffman. By being frank with them about the nature of how Crafton intended to blackmail me, all but one of them was equally frank with me. Now, my friends, I see no reason to share with you what these reasons are; suffice to say, that while every one of these gentlemen, and the one lady, did have something in their past or present that Crafton conceivably could attempt to blackmail them over, none of these people seemed agitated enough to kill, none of their skeletons-in-the-closet seemed worthy of murdering the man over.”

“Any one of them could have been lying,” Ismay pointed out. “Any one of them could have withheld the true nature of the blackmail, substituting something else, something more trivial.”

Futrelle removed his glasses and polished them on a handkerchief. “That’s certainly true. But I am an experienced newspaperman, Mr. Ismay, and while I do not claim infallibility, I feel I know when an interview subject is evading the truth or outright lying to me.” He snugged his glasses back on. “These men—and again, the one lady—seem to me to be telling the truth. None of them, in my at least somewhat informed opinion, had sufficient motive to kill the man.”

“But someone did,” Ismay said.

Futrelle cast another sharp look at Captain Smith, whose expression was unreadable. Then to Ismay, the mystery writer said, “You seem to have changed your opinion about Mr. Crafton dying of natural causes.”

“You have no suspicions, then, sir,” Ismay said, without addressing Futrelle’s statement.

“I asked each of them if they’d seen Crafton aboard the ship yesterday—knowing, of course, that he was already dead, and hoping to catch the killer in a lie, or at least get some indication, some nervous flash in the eyes, some tic or gesture that might indicate I’d touched a raw nerve.” He shrugged. “Nothing.”

“You said, ‘with the exception of one man,’” the captain pointed out.

Nodding, Futrelle said, “Yes, Mr. Rood wasn’t very forthcoming. His reaction was the most consistent with someone who had something to hide—perhaps Crafton was blackmailing Rood over something worth killing for. And I suppose, if pressed, for the sake of argument, I would have to say our leading suspect is Mr. Rood.”

“I would say that’s highly unlikely,” Ismay said, dryly.

“And why is that?”

The captain sighed heavily. “Mr. Rood was murdered last night.”

“The devil you say!” In a quick chilling flash, the mummy’s curse Stead had recounted filled his mind, but Futrelle still managed to ask, “What are the circumstances? Another bedroom entry, and smothering—”

“No,” Ismay said. “He was struck a blow to the back of the head.”

Nodding toward the outside, Captain Smith said, “He may have been shoved hard, backward, into the side of one of the lifeboats, here on the boat deck.”

“What makes you think that?”

Ismay said, “His body was discovered, having been stuffed rather rudely into lifeboat seven… not terribly far from where we sit right now.”

“A hasty, clumsy job of concealment,” Captain Smith said. “One of Mr. Rood’s arms, dangling from the side of the tarp-covered craft, caught the attention of a deckhand.”

Futrelle sat forward. “My God, gentlemen. Has the word gotten out? This will cast a terrible pall across the ship.”

“Mr. Rood’s body was discovered before dawn,” Ismay said, “and, after Dr. O’Loughlin approved it—the good doctor believes the murder took place sometime between midnight and five A.M.—the body was moved into the cold cargo hold, where Mr. Crafton’s remains also currently reside.”

“The lid, as they say, is still on,” Captain Smith said. “Only a handful of crew know about this, including the master-at-arms, and all have been given strict orders to speak to no one of the affair, at peril of loss of their jobs.”

“The lifeboat in question has been tidied up,” Ismay said.

“Maybe so,” Futrelle said, “and I would also like to see the ‘lid’ kept on, at least for the time being… but we’ve gone well beyond a death in a stateroom that could possibly have been written off as a heart attack. We have a murderer aboard, gentlemen… a violent one.”

“You’re correct, sir,” Captain Smith said. “We have a new set of concerns, now, for the safety of our passengers.”

Futrelle stood, and began to pace. “We understand why John Crafton, in all probability, was killed; he was a damned blackmailer. But why Rood?”

Ismay said nothing, but shot a telling look at Captain Smith, who was also mute and expressionless.

“Gentlemen,” Futrelle said, sensing something was up, “did you conduct a complete search of Mr. Crafton’s room, yesterday?”

After a few moments, Ismay nodded.

“Did you turn up anything of interest? Any documents pertaining to our late friend’s blackmail victims, perhaps?”

“No,” Ismay said.

“All right. Has Rood’s cabin been searched?”

Again, Ismay paused but finally said, “Yes.”

“And?”

“We found a room key that was not Rood’s own.”

“Really? Whose room key was it?”

“… Crafton’s.”

Futrelle’s eyebrows climbed his forehead. “Rood had a key to Crafton’s room? If he weren’t dead, I’d say he was still our best suspect. What about blackmail documents?”

Ismay said nothing, and he avoided Futrelle’s gaze.

But Captain Smith frankly said, “We did find certain documents, pertaining to our First-Class passengers.”

Ismay, rather petulantly, added, “Yourself included, sir.”

Futrelle sat down heavily. “Specifically, what?”

“Various items,” Captain Smith said. “Statements from witnesses… photostatic copies of various records… in your case, of a hospital admissions book. Frankly, we haven’t examined them closely.”

“Good God, man—you haven’t destroyed them, have you?”

“No!” The captain seemed rather offended by the suggestion. “These documents are evidence. When we reach port, the material will have to be read, have to be handed over to the authorities.”

Ismay shook his head, moaning, saying, “The embarrassment to our passengers… On a maiden voyage, a catastrophe like this, it’s unimaginable.”

Futrelle didn’t bother pointing out that the embarrassment Ismay was concerned about was his own, and his company’s.

Instead, he said, “Where are the documents now?”

“In the purser’s safe,” the captain said. “Mr. Futrelle, as bizarre as the proposition might sound, could we have two murderers aboard? If Mr. Rood had obtained the extra key, and used it to enter and slay Mr. Crafton, it would explain the presence in Rood’s room of these sensitive documents.”

Futrelle smiled but he wasn’t happy. “Rood wasn’t Crafton’s blackmail victim, gentlemen—he was his accomplice.”

Captain Smith’s eyes widened and he shook his head, no. “Have you forgotten that Rood assaulted Crafton in the Smoking Room!”

“Conveniently staged by the two of them,” Futrelle said, “to cloak their collaboration.”

The eyes of both men seemed to light up as they grasped the implications.

Futrelle continued: “And Rood was unforthcoming to me, yesterday, because he alone of those I spoke to knew that Crafton was dead, or was at least in a bad way. Rood may have entered his partner’s cabin and seen the body, before that housekeeping stewardess discovered it; or he may have realized that the guard posted on Crafton’s room meant that either his partner was in custody, or dead.”

“So the motive remains the same,” Captain Smith said. “Another blackmailer has been murdered.”

“And probably by one of your First-Class passengers,” Futrelle said.

Ismay thought about that briefly, then said, “Your suspect in Second Class—Mr. Hoffman—might have made his way to the boat deck, in the middle of the night. That is when our crew members would be most susceptible to a bribe from a Second-Class passenger who wanted to see how the other half traveled.”

“What are we going to do, gentlemen?” Futrelle asked.

Ismay’s eyes narrowed and his voice cut like a knife. “You, sir, are going to do nothing. You will cease and desist, where your investigation is concerned, and you will speak to no one of this, including your wife.”

“That sounds suspiciously like an order.”

“I apologize for the harshness of my tone. Perhaps, if you and your delightful wife were moved to Second Class, it would remove the temptation of talking about this matter with the First-Class passengers.”

“Why not put us in steerage? Then I couldn’t even talk to Hoffman.”

Ismay smiled and half bowed. “Very gracious of you. Shall I make the arrangements?”

“Mr. Ismay,” Captain Smith said sharply, “I don’t appreciate any attempt to intimidate Mr. Futrelle. As you damn well know, his investigation was at my request. He’s generously helped us, and I won’t condone your rudeness to him. Must I remind you that I’m still the captain of this ship?”

Ismay nodded. “I apologize, gentlemen. The captain is quite right. Mr. Futrelle, I do thank you for what you’ve done, and request your cooperation.”

Futrelle offered half a smile to the White Star director. “I was just about to say yes to your idea of writing a murder mystery set on the Titanic. I believe we have the right subject matter, now.”

Ismay sighed, his eyes going to half-lidded. “Perhaps I deserve that. Can I count on your cooperation, Jack?”

“Bruce… Captain Smith… I’m at your service. Will you be launching an official inquiry? Perhaps by the master-at-arms?”

The captain shook his head. “No. But we will be heightening ship’s security. These murders both happened after dark. Let’s hope the daylight is safe.”

“I don’t think our passengers are in any danger,” Ismay said. “The only victims have been blackmailers, and unless a third accomplice is aboard, who would be at risk?”

“I tend to agree,” Futrelle said, rising, “but I applaud the captain’s precautions nonetheless.”

“I have suggested,” Ismay said, “that we proceed with all possible speed into port. The sooner we have our passengers safely on shore, the better.”

“With the extra boilers lit, we may be able to reach New York as early as Tuesday evening,” Captain Smith said, rising, adding, “I’ll see you out, Mr. Futrelle.”

The captain walked with Futrelle down the officers’ promenade, Second Officer Lightoller walking behind, keeping a respectful distance.

Staring out at the gray sea under the gray-blue sky, the captain asked, “Do you think there’s anything we’ve overlooked, sir?”

Futrelle considered that for a few seconds, then admitted, “The only thing that comes to mind… and it’s probably nothing… is the Allison family.”

“The Allisons.” Captain Smith nodded. “I’ve spoken to Hudson Allison; nice fellow. What connection could he have to any of this?”

“You wouldn’t think anything… but I know for a fact Crafton sought the Allisons out, was friendly to them. If you were to ask Hudson and Bess Allison about John Bertram Crafton, they would tell you what a friendly, charming fellow he is. Of course, their nanny was giving him the evil eye….”

Captain Smith stopped dead. “Their nanny? A woman named Alice something?”

“Why, yes…”

Why in God’s name would the captain of a ship the size of the Titanic, carrying thousands of passengers, remember or even ever know the name of one family’s nanny?

The captain turned to Lightoller and asked, “Do you have that note, Mr. Lightoller, that came up from Third Class a day or two ago?”

“I believe I know where it is, sir. We didn’t do a thing about that, though, sir.”

“I know. Fetch it, would you?”

“Yes, sir.”

Lightoller clipped off, toward the wheelhouse, and Futrelle said, “I’m afraid, Captain, you’ve got me thoroughly confused.”

“A note came up from Third Class, I don’t remember the name of the fellow, but the gist of it was that he knew something about the Allisons’ nanny and wanted to know what it was worth.”

“Sounds like you have a blackmailer in steerage, too.”

Captain Smith twitched a frown. “We didn’t follow up on it—it seemed just a crank note, and unclear as to its purpose at that. If the Allisons are satisfied with their nanny, why should the opinion of some lout in steerage be of any interest or concern?”

Lightoller was on his way back, a small piece of paper in hand.

The captain said, “Give that to Mr. Futrelle, would you?”

“Yes, sir,” Lightoller said, and did.

“That will be all, Mr. Lightoller. I’ll see Mr. Futrelle to First Class.”

“Yes, sir.”

Then the captain and the mystery writer were alone on the promenade.

“Mr. Futrelle, would you do me the favor of looking into this for me? Mr. Andrews will see that you get down to steerage… and back again, despite Mr. Ismay’s wishes.”

“My pleasure. Does this mean I’m back on the case, Captain?”

A glorious smile appeared in the impeccably trimmed snowy beard. “It’s my last crossing, Mr. Futrelle. What’s Ismay going to do—fire me?”

The captain said he had alerted Mr. Andrews that Futrelle would be stopping by, and the writer made his way to the shipbuilder’s suite on A deck, on the port side of the ship just off the First-Class aft reception area. Along the way Futrelle read the note, written in pencil, in a legible cursive hand and, despite a few misspellings, fairly literate, seeming to speak less of blackmail than Captain Smith had implied:


To the captain


I have notice on your fine shipp Miss Alice Cleaver nurse to young children of man and wife in first class who’s name I don’t know. Details on Miss Cleavers past history is of value to parents.

Untill I hear from you sir I remain your servant


Alfred Davies


Futrelle folded the note and dropped it in his pocket, then knocked on the door of A36. He was just ready to knock again when Andrews appeared, wearing coveralls, a distracted expression and the baggy-eyed look of a man who wasn’t getting enough sleep.

“Good morning, Tom,” Futrelle said. “Are those the required togs for Third Class?”

“Pardon?” Then he looked at himself. “Oh, this boiler suit… no, after I’ve put you and your Mr. Davies together, I have to go down to the stokehold, to speak to the chief engineer.”

Beyond the gentle-faced man with the rugged build in the doorway, a glimpse of the sitting room of A36 showed it had been given over to an office: blueprints were pinned to a drafting table near a desk arrayed with charts rolled up like treasure maps, piles of paper bearing calculations and sketches, and a half-eaten breakfast roll.

As they went down the stairway to C deck, Futrelle said, “You must be the only man in First Class not having a good time, Tom.”

He gave Futrelle half a smile. “Perhaps this is my idea of a good time.”

“Glutton for punishment, are you?”

The oak and marble of the stairway was all around him. “I’ve seen this vessel grow, from a design on a cocktail napkin to construction in the shipyard, frame by frame, plate after plate, day upon day, for two long years.”

“And you’re a proud father.”

“Oh yes—but a typically fussy one. Have you noticed that the pebble dashing on the promenade decks is simply too damned dark?”

“No.”

“I have.” Andrews grinned as the staircase emptied them into the aft reception area on C deck. “It’s my curse, and blessing. An argument between stewardesses, a defective electric fan… no concern too trivial, no job too small.”

“Including ushering me into Third Class.”

“Are you free yet to tell me what this is about, Jack?”

“You’ll have to get that from the captain, Tom. You may be this baby’s parent, but Captain Smith is her headmaster.”

Andrews used one of his many keys to unlock a door between the First-Class C-deck corridor, leading into the Second-Class enclosed promenade, where protected from the wind and cold, a number of passengers were seated on benches, enjoying the glassy gray view. A few were on deck chairs, bundled only lightly in a blanket, reading books or writing letters.

“I’ve called ahead and Davies should be waiting for us,” Andrews said, as they stepped outside, onto the deck and into the chill air. They moved down the metal stairs, into and through the open well that was the Third-Class promenade, where the benches were empty, and only a few children of ten or eleven were braving the brisk weather, chasing each other, squealing with delight. Futrelle had a flash of his own son and daughter at that age, and felt a bittersweet pang of loss.

Under the poop-deck roof and through a door to the left of the wide, five-banistered flight of metal stairs down into the Third-Class aft cabins, Andrews led Futrelle into the General Room, the steerage equivalent of a lounge.

About forty by forty, the sterile white-enameled walls were dressed up with framed White Star Line posters promising pleasure cruises these passengers were unlikely ever to take; the sturdy yellowish-brown teakwood double-sided benches, built around pillars, were brimming with a shipboard melting pot, though not much melting was going on. Various languages being spoken by isolated groups within the room floated like clouds of words, English and German mostly, but Finnish, Italian and Swedish too, and Far Eastern languages that Futrelle could not identity.

But these were not pitiful huddling masses. They were men and women, from their late teens to old age, many gathered in family groupings, not even shabbily dressed, simply working people heading to a new land for new work. The undeniable smell—not quite a stench—of body odor had to do with steerage’s limited bathing facilities, not the emigrants’ lack of grooming. A piano seemed to be the only possible source of entertainment, though it stood silent at the moment.

A steward in a gold-buttoned white uniform approached Andrews and said something to him that Futrelle could not hear, over the babble.

Andrews turned to Futrelle. “We’ve found Davies. They have him waiting next door, in the Smoking Room.”

As Futrelle followed Andrews across the room, it was as if he were crossing border upon border, so rapidly and frequently did the language shift. Then through a doorway into the Third-Class Smoking Room, the atmosphere changed.

It was quiet in here—men were smoking, playing cards, in an agreeably masculine room with dark-stained oak-paneled walls and long, room-spanning back-to-back teak benches, and, scattered about, tables-for-four with chairs. If the inlaid-pearl mahogany world of the First-Class Smoking Room was an exclusive men’s club, this was a lodge hall.

The room was only sparsely attended, but that was natural: the small adjacent bar hadn’t opened yet; too early in the day. The only languages Futrelle caught were English and German.

A strapping young man in a well-worn but not threadbare black sack coat over a green woolen sweater sat alone at one of the tables, turning his black cap in his hands like a wheel. Clean-shaven, with a round, almost babyish countenance, his brown hair was already thinning, though he couldn’t be more than twenty-four or -five years of age.

“I believe that’s your man,” Andrews said, nodding toward the lad. “I suppose I should keep my distance while you talk to him.”

“It embarrasses me to ask that of you,” Futrelle admitted, “but yes.”

“I’ll take a seat in the General Room.”

Andrews headed out as Futrelle approached the table and the burly young man rose.

The mystery writer asked, “Son, are you Alfred Davies?”

“Yes, sir,” he said. His voice was a pleasant tenor. He smiled shyly, displaying the crooked yellowed teeth so common to his class and country. “Did the captain send you, sir?”

“Yes, he did.”

“About the nurse them people is usin’?”

“That’s right.”

Davies let out an enormous sigh, shaking his head. “ ’Tis a relief, sir. I was afraid me message didn’t get to ’im… or that them above thought I was some lyin’ or some such.”

“My name is Jack Futrelle.” He extended his hand and the boy took and shook it; though Davies didn’t make a show of it, power lay in those hands and the arms and shoulders that went with them. “Let’s sit, shall we, son, and talk?”

“Yes, sir,” the boy said, and sat. “If you don’t mind my askin’, sir, what’s your job with the ship?”

“I’m working for Captain Smith on a matter of ship’s security.”

He nodded; the soft, childlike features seemed incongruous next to that massive frame. “I see, sir. Well, then, you’d be the man to talk to, then, sir.”

“You have information about the Allisons’ nanny—Alice Cleaver?”

“I don’t know the family’s name, sir, but if it’s the hatchet-faced wench I saw up on the boat deck, yes, sir, Alice Cleaver, sir.”

“You were up on the boat deck?”

“No! We stay on our side of the chain, sir. But from the well deck y’kin see up top. And it’s hard to mistake her, with that puss of hers, sir. Stop a clock, it would.”

Futrelle grinned. “Maybe so. But the rest of her could start a dead man’s heart beating again.”

Davies returned the grin. “I guess that’s why God made the dark, sir.”

From his inside suit coat pocket, Futrelle removed his gold-plated cigarette case, offered a Fatima to the boy, who refused, then lighted one up for himself. “Where do you hail from, son?”

“West Bromwich, sir—Harwood Street.”

“You boarded at Southampton, I take it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And are you bound for New York, or points west?”

“Points west, sir. Place called Michigan—Pontiac, Michigan.”

“What takes you there?”

“Me two brothers are working there, in the motorcar works. They say we can get jobs, too, good ones. Y’see, sir, we lost our jobs at the smelting works.”

Smelting again—Guggenheim’s business in First Class, Davies’s business in Third.

Davies went on: “Me old dad’s been a galvanizer since the Lord was in the manger. All us Davieses are ironworks men—puddlers, copula workers, the like. But times at home is gettin’ hard, sir—you’re American, sir?”

“Born and raised.”

“Is it the promised land, sir?”

Futrelle blew out a stream of smoke, laughing gently. “As close as anything on this earth might come, son.”

“I’m travelin’ with my other two brothers—John and Joseph—and we’ll send for our families, soon as we get settled.”

They were hitting it off well—young Davies treating Futrelle respectfully, but feeling comfortable enough to say whatever was on his mind. So Futrelle stepped forward gingerly into the next topic…

“Alfred—may I call you Alfred?”

“Me mates call me Fred.”

“All right, Fred.” But Futrelle didn’t give the boy leave to call him “Jack”: the writer liked the deference he was being paid; it gave him the upper hand.

“Fred, this information you have about Alice Cleaver.”

“Yes, sir?”

“The captain took your note to mean you expected to be paid for sharing what you know.”

“No, sir! This isn’t about money a’tall, sir. It’s about babbies.”

Futrelle suppressed a smile at the pronunciation, but the sincerity in the lad’s eyes was unmistakable.

“Well, then, tell me, son. What is it you know?”

He leaned forward, the cap on the table, his hands folded almost as if he were praying. “Dad and Mum raised me to read and write, sir. I may work with me hands, but I like to read a book now and again, and of course the newspaper.”

Encouraging words to the ears of a journalist like Futrelle, but he wasn’t sure what it had to do with anything.

“’Twas in January, must’ve been 1910, no—aught nine—such a terrible thing.” He was shaking his head; his eyes were wide and staring into bad memories. “Plate layers, workin’ the North London Railway, they found something terrible sad.”

“What did they find, son?”

“A babby. A dead babby… a poor pitiful dead boy, who they say was tossed from a movin’ train, the night afore. They arrested a Tottenham woman for the crime—it was her babby boy, y’see, her own son—and she wailed to the sky she was innocent, said she gived up the child weeks afore to a orphanage run by a ‘Mrs. Gray,’ I think the papers said… you’d have to check that… but there was no orphanage and there was no ‘Mrs. Gray.’ They convicted her, and only then she copped, ’cause it come out that her boyfriend, who’d put her in the family way, had run off and left her and the little one to fend for themselves.”

The lad sighed, slowly shaking his head at the horror of it.

Sitting forward, chilled, Futrelle said, “And this woman, this mother who murdered her infant son… is Alice Cleaver? The nanny entrusted with the Allisons’ children?”

He nodded. “It was in the papers day upon day. ’Twas a story you followed. They put her picture in, and it’s not a face a man would likely forget, is it, sir?”

“No it’s not. Why in God’s name isn’t she in prison?”

“The jury asked for leniency, the judge took pity on her. She was a wronged woman, His Honor said, and hers was a desperate act. Her livin’ with the memory of what she done was punishment enough, he said. She was set free.”

Futrelle was flabbergasted; he stabbed out his cigarette in a glass White Star ashtray. “How could she have ended up the Allisons’ nanny with that in her past?”

The lad threw his hands in the air, his eyes wide with the conundrum. “I don’t know, sir. If you lived in England, you’d likely know about the case.”

“That may explain it—the Allisons were just visiting London; they’re Canadian.”

“Sir, has anyone else said anything of this sad business to you? Your British passengers?”

“It’s mostly Americans, in First Class, son… and the few British among us are not likely to read the same papers as you. And even so, the only stories they’d be inclined to ‘follow’ would focus on themselves.”

Davies hung his head. “P’rhaps ’twas wrong to point this out, a’tall. P’rhaps the poor pitiful woman only wants what we all want, down here in the hindquarters of this great ship: a new life, another chance.”

Futrelle nodded gravely. “The promised land.”

Then Davies looked up and his dark eyes were burning in his baby face. “But the little babby she’s carryin’ in her arms, it deserves a first chance, don’t it? And with a crazy woman, a child killer, lookin’ after the wee one… well, it just don’t seem right, sir.”

“No it doesn’t… You’re a good man, Fred.”

“Sir, I hope to have children of my own, someday, and soon.” The crooked smile turned shy; it was strangely ingratiating. “Monday last, day afore we left, I was married at Oldbury parish church—April eighth—to the prettiest girl in West Bromwich.”

“Well, congratulations. Is your bride aboard this ship, son?”

“No, she’s moved in with her mum till I can send for her.” He laughed. “Y’know, we almost missed the boat! Got the wrong train out of West Bromwich, barely made it aboard, me brothers and uncle and me. But I’ve always been a lucky sod… sir.”

Futrelle stood. “I hope you do find the promised land, son.”

Davies stood, too. “Thank you, sir. I hope I done the right thing, tellin’. Couldn’t stand the thought of her hurtin’ another babby.”

Futrelle nodded; they shook hands again, and the mystery writer joined Andrews in the General Room, where someone was playing the piano—some lively English music-hall number—while many of the emigrants clapped along.

“Success?” Andrews said.

“Of a sort,” Futrelle said.

The clapping around him was almost like applause.

Almost.