“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.
TEN
SHIPBOARD SÉANCE
EVEN FOR THE TITANIC, THE Reading and Writing Room spoke of uncommon elegance. Situated on A deck, just forward of the ornate First-Class Lounge (of which it was a virtual extension), the high-ceilinged Georgian-styled chamber, with its plush armchairs and sofas upholstered in pink
-and-red floral design, its wall-to-wall deep red carpet, its sheltering potted palms, made an ideal retreat for the ladies.
During the day, however, the white walls combined with the many-paned high windows, including a bay window onto the sea, so blindingly suffused the room with light, its designated purpose—reading and writing—was made moot. Thus the chamber was little used, and after dark, when the First-Class passengers were dining or attending the nightly concert, the room lay as abandoned as a mining-camp ghost town.
So it was with little difficulty that Futrelle—with Captain Smith’s sanction—secured the room for a private affair, a unique event, for a very select and honored list of guests: a séance.
Just before nine P.M., Futrelle, still dressed in his formal clothes from dinner, his stomach rather nervously trying to digest the latest parade of delicacies bestowed by the First-Class Dining Saloon, wandered about the room, setting the stage. He had been, in his professional life, only three things, and two of them were different branches of the same tree: reporter and fiction writer.
But his other job had been those two years in Virginia, running that repertory company—managing a theater, mounting productions, casting and even writing the plays himself. That was his common bond with his friend Henry B. Harris; and, with Henry’s help, he would again stage an effective show.
Helping him prepare the room for his production was May, emerald earrings glittering, resplendent in a high-waisted black lace dinner gown, the low neckline and white corsage emphasizing the swell of her bosom, a matching corsage in her hair. With tapering fingers tucked into the long white gloves that began where her short-tiered black lace sleeves ended, she was drawing closed the dark curtains on one of the many windows.
“Oh Jack,” she said, gliding to the next window, “I haven’t been this nervous since the opening night of The Man from Japan.”
“If it goes well, do you suppose Henry will want to purchase the cinema rights?”
With some effort, Futrelle pushed a large, heavy round oak table into the center of the room, to accommodate the ten people who would be seated here, in just a few minutes. Already, with the drapes closed, the room was darkening into a more appropriate setting for mystical doings.
“How can you joke?” she asked, approaching him. She was pale, and even trembling a little. “Aren’t you frightened?”
“There’s nothing to be frightened about.”
“How about, unmasking a murderer?”
“That may not happen. If, in fact, we have a cold-blooded, premeditating killer in our midst, there may be no reaction at all.”
“Oh, Jack, I’m suddenly cold. Hold me.”
And he did, tight, whispering in her ear, “There’s no danger, darling. After all, this is the safest ship on the ocean.”
She drew away enough to arch an eyebrow at him. “The two men in cold storage may have a different opinion.”
As usual, she had a point; but he felt confident that he knew which of his guests tonight would reveal guilt, and similarly sure that the individual in question would not react violently.
The most violent reaction he’d received had come, predictably, from the most indispensable guest: William T. Stead.
“Are you suggesting,” Stead had bellowed, the sky-blue eyes wide with indignation, “that I submit my good name, my untarnished reputation as a medium, to the conducting of a fraudulent séance?”
“I am,” Futrelle said, “but for a worthy cause.”
Futrelle had been admitted to the parlor of C89, Stead’s suite, the layout of which was identical to the Futrelles’ own, though the furnishings were Queen Anne, a delicate setting for the rumpled grizzly bear within. Stead had converted the sitting room to a study; the table and floor were littered with galley proofs, foolscap filled with longhand, and wadded-up balls of discarded paper.
Stead’s chin jutted, the white-thicket beard held high, extending like a pennant. “No cause is worth my reputation, sir. These are my religious beliefs you’re asking me to betray, no, verily to prostitute!”
Futrelle remained calm. “You may have noticed, Mr. Stead, the absence of Mr. Crafton in our presence in recent days.”
“A blessing.”
“No—a murder.”
And Stead’s wide eyes hardened, then narrowed, and softened, and soon the two men were seated on the sofa, as Futrelle revealed his intentions, and his plans.
“I am your servant, sir,” Stead said quietly, even humbly. He shook his big shaggy head. “But at least it does explain something that’s vexed me about this voyage.”
“What would that be?”
“The many warnings I’ve had.”
“I don’t follow you, sir.”
He shrugged. “Several friends… two extraordinary psychics, and a most respected clergyman… independently warned that danger awaited me on the sea, in April. None of them knew I intended travel, yet two specifically indicated I should avoid any trip to the Americas. These feelings of foreboding they shared indicated I would meet danger, even death, on the Titanic… and now I have.”
“Why, with your belief in such things, did you still book passage?”
“The president of your United States requested that I attend a peace conference; I could not refuse.” He laughed heartily. “Messages from the invisible world are not Marconi ’grams—they require interpretation, Mr. Futrelle, and I am not about to live my life by assuming the worst, and by capitulating to fear.”
With Stead’s participation, lining up the rest of the guests was, for the most part, child’s play. The man may have had the grooming of a shipwreck victim crawled to shore, but W. T. Stead was a famous fellow, one of the best-known journalists on either side of the pond, and sitting at one of his séances would make an irresistible anecdote for the likes of Astor, Guggenheim, Straus and Maggie Brown, all of whom said yes more or less instantly. So did Ismay, who did not begin to suspect the real purpose of the evening.
The trickiest invitation was Alice Cleaver.
Futrelle had determined not to inform the nanny’s employers of her criminal background—not just yet, anyway. He had observed her with the Allison children and she had been a good and gentle nurse; there was no reason to suspect that she might snap and turn violent on the tykes, no call to think she might—like Jekyll into Hyde—again become the woman who had fallen to pieces when her common-law husband deserted her and her child.
The problem was—how to invite the servant of a First-Class passenger to a party? A party her employers would not be invited to themselves?
Mid-afternoon, Futrelle found Hudson and Bess Allison strolling on the A-deck enclosed promenade, with no sign of their nanny or children.
“Another beautiful afternoon,” Futrelle commented casually as they paused at the rail by the window onto the gray-blue expanse broken by tiny whitecaps.
“Oh yes,” Hudson said, adjusting his glasses, “but too chilly for the boat deck, don’t you think?”
Even within the relative warmth of the promenade, pretty Bess was holding on to her husband’s arm tight.
“Much too chilly,” Futrelle agreed. “And where are your lovely children?”
“Lorraine and Trevor are with Alice,” Bess said, “in the starboard Verandah Café.”
“The kids seem to have taken over that little palm court,” Futrelle said with a grin. “I hope you won’t consider this forward, but I have an unusual request.”
“Certainly, Jack,” Hudson said, as if they were old friends; that was the way it was on a crossing.
“You’re familiar with W. T. Stead, of course.”
“Of course,” Hudson said, and some small talk followed about what an interesting character the old boy was.
“Well, he’s having one of his famous séances this evening,” Futrelle said.
Hudson’s youthful face lighted up, and Bess was smiling too. They exchanged glances and Hudson said, “Oh, wouldn’t that be a riot to attend! You’re not asking us to be part of it, a
re you? I think we’d say yes in a flash.”
“That’s not precisely it… You see, Stead, as you say, well… he’s a character all right—and he has eccentric criteria in selecting his participants.”
Hudson’s smile had frozen. “Do tell.”
“As a medium, he studies faces, and senses spiritual auras, listens to vibrations we earthbound mortals don’t feel or hear.” Then, with a laugh, Futrelle added, “Or at least he thinks he does.”
The Allisons, quite confused, laughed along, albeit a little stiffly.
“Anyway,” Futrelle continued, “Stead asked me to ask you, on his behalf… he apparently noticed that we’d formed a friendship…”
The Allisons both nodded, though Futrelle was overstating wildly.
“… so he’s asked me to ask if you would allow him to invite your nanny, Alice, to attend the séance.”
A moment of stunned silence followed; the couple had suddenly turned into a wax-museum exhibit.
Finally, Hudson managed, “Alice?”
“Our Alice?” Bess echoed. “Why ever for? She’s the quietest girl you could imagine.”
Futrelle shrugged, laughed softly. “Well, apparently still waters run deep—or at least, psychic waters do… If you need a baby-sitter for Lorraine and Trevor, I can provide one. Either my wife May, or Mrs. Henry Harris—you’ve met her… René?”
Hudson was trying to process this bewildering request. “Uh, well… dear, what do you think?”
Bess seemed on the verge of turning cross. “I’m disappointed that we weren’t asked, frankly. Can’t we even watch?”
“No, I’m afraid not. Mr. Stead is rather stubborn on that point: participants only, no spectators.” Futrelle hung his head, shaking it. “I do apologize for being party to this rudeness…”
“No!” Hudson blurted. “Not at all. I suppose it’s rather an honor to have our… nanny asked to attend such a special affair.”
Bess asked, “When is this séance?”
The Titanic Murders Page 17