The Lusitania Murders d-4
Page 19
Again we sat in the Verandah Cafe, sipping hot tea, saying little, wrapped up in an ambience that was both eerie and strangely restful.
Out of the fog, down the deck, emerged Staff Captain Anderson. He brightened upon seeing us, and strode over.
“Just the man I was looking for,” he said to me.
“Really?” I replied, surprised. “Please join us.”
He sat, removing his cap. “I have a request. I feel somewhat abashed, asking. . since in retrospect you and Miss Vance were right about so much, and I was so wrong.”
“Nonsense. What is it?”
He shifted in the chair, still uneasy. “Well, all attempts to question Williamson have failed. He won’t give us any sort of statement, much less admission, despite being caught in the act.”
“Won’t talk,” Miss Vance said, between tea sips, “without his solicitor.”
Anderson nodded. “Nearly his very words.”
The Pinkerton operative shrugged; she wore a gray linen morning suit and, of course, no hat. “Common among criminals of all classes.”
“You see,” the staff captain continued, “we’re concerned about the sabotage aspect of this affair. . that there may still be some sort of small but deadly explosive device tucked away somewhere.”
“You’ve got him locked up,” I said. “Surely if such a device had been planted, he’d be in as much danger as the rest of us.”
Anderson sighed. “Or he might feel he could make his escape in the resulting tumult.”
“Locked away as he is?”
“He might hope for release. That would be the humane thing, in such a case.”
I decided not to offer an argument on the merits of letting the fiend drown in his cell, and instead asked, “Could a pipe bomb, such as the one you found in my quarters, really do a ship this size much damage?”
“That depends upon its placement. You see. . and Mr. Van Dine, I am trusting your discretion-what I am about to reveal is not for publication, you understand.”
“Certainly.”
He spoke softly and deliberately. “We do have a small cargo of what might be considered munitions aboard-four thousand-some cases of rifle ammunition. . some five million rounds. . and over a thousand cases of three-inch shrapnel shells, along with their fuses.”
“Might be” considered munitions?
At last I had fulfilled my mission for my employer Rumely: discovered the presence of contraband aboard the Lusitania. But somehow I felt no sense of victory.
“How much of a danger does that present?” Miss Vance inquired.
“Well, that’s fifty-one tons of shrapnel alone. I would say a bomb, even a small one, might ignite a larger explosion. We’ve searched that area of the ship, but. . I still have a certain trepidation about what Mr. Williamson and his conspirators may have done.”
“I can understand that,” I said, with a dry sarcasm that Anderson may have missed.
“In addition,” he said, “we are near the end of our voyage, and our coal bins are nearly empty. . a coal dust explosion is another possibility, should such a device be ignited.”
“You haven’t made your request as yet,” I reminded him.
With a world-weary sigh, Anderson shook his head and said, “The bastard. . excuse me, ma’am. .”
“You may call the son of a bitch a bastard if you like,” Miss Vance allowed.
“Thank you, ma’am-the bastard says he’ll talk to you, Mr. Van Dine. . and only you. And in private.”
That set me to blinking. “Why, in heaven’s name?”
“That,” Anderson said, with a puzzled shrug, “he will not reveal. Are you willing to speak to him?”
I responded with my own shrug, more resigned than puzzled. “With iron bars between us, I am willing-though Lord knows what he might want of me.”
And so it was that I came to stand in the ship’s brig, staring into the smug face, and the intelligent and dare I say evil blue eyes, of Charles Williamson. . like the late and unlamented prisoners before him, still attired in his purloined stewards’ smock.
He had been stretched out on the lower bunk, and now walked over to me, and stood-in traditional prisoner style-grasping the bars with both hands and staring at me through an opening between them. . displaying a disturbingly self-possessed smile.
“What do you want with me?” I asked, impatiently. “I have no particular interest in finally getting around to our discussion of art, if that’s what you have in mind.”
Half a smile carved a hole in his left cheek. “Are you sure, Mr. Wright?”
For a moment, it went right past me-then I realized:
He had just called me by my right. . Wright. . name!
“Of course I recognized you,” he said to me, with a haughty laugh. “We have been at several functions, though we were never introduced. But everyone in art circles in New York City knows of the astringent Willard Huntington Wright. Don’t you have a new book on art theory coming out or something?”
I said nothing-I admit I was shaken.
“Can you really be so thick?” he asked patronizingly. “Didn’t you know I was needling you, when I criticized your brother’s work? Did you really think that was a coincidence?”
“So you know my real name. So what? I’m travelling under a pseudonym, in order to interview people who might not grant me an audience, if they knew my real identity.”
“Like Hubbard-whom you have skewered in print, several times, I believe.”
I shrugged. “Perhaps. . and how does this make a private audience with me a desirable thing, for a goddamned murderer and thief like you?”
He took no offense, merely laughed, and dropped his hands from the bars. “Have you a smoke?”
I removed the cigarette case from my inside jacket pocket, handed him a Gauloises-and lighted it up with a match. He inhaled the rich tobacco greedily, waiting long moments to exhale a blue-gray cloud.
“I know your politics,” he said. “Everyone does, in our world. . You’re a prolific one, aren’t you? Two books coming out. . one of them on Nietzche, I believe.”
I said nothing to confirm the undeniable correctness of his statement.
“You’re as pro-German as I am,” he said suddenly, the smile gone, the eyes flashing.
So that was it!
“I should think you’re chiefly pro-Williamson,” I said.
His eyes tightened, and his smile was small yet satanic. “I can be a valuable ally.”
“Can you.”
“Just don’t forget about me, down here.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Should anything untoward occur, in these treacherous waters. . just remember your fellow pro-German down in the brig. That’s all.”
I stepped closer, my nose near the iron bars. “Is there another bomb somewhere on this ship?”
He backed away. “I didn’t say that. I merely point out, we’re in the war zone. Should we fall prey to a U-boat, I shouldn’t like to go down with the ship, trapped behind these bars-I would find dying on a British vessel most distasteful.”
I sneered at the rogue. “Just because my tastes run to Wagner, Goethe and Schopenhauer, don’t assume I wear a photo of the Kaiser in a locket near my heart.”
He shrugged, wandered over to the bunk, stretched out on it again, arms winged behind his head, cigarette bobbling in his lips as he said, “That’s all I have to say. . Mr. Wright. I’ll keep your silly little secret, too. . as a show of good faith.”
In the corridor I was met by Miss Vance and Staff Captain Anderson.
“What did he want?” Anderson asked.
I snorted a wry laugh. “The fool thinks this Kaiser Wilhelm beard of mine suggests a pro-German heart beating in my chest.”
Miss Vance frowned. “And that’s all?”
“He asks that I not forget him, down here in the brig. . should a U-boat try to sink us.”
Her frown tightened. “He could mean, if a bomb goes off.”
Glumly, Anderson nodded. “That’s good advice. . and we’ll take it. But a vessel this size has many a nook and many a cranny.”
Miss Vance was shaking her head. “He must be bluffing,” she said. “He must be. . ”
“I’m sure he is,” I said.
Neither of us, however, seemed terribly swayed by our own argument.
By mid-morning, the fog had burned off and the weather turned clear and warm, revealing a flat lake of a sea, disturbed only by the lazy roll of a ground swell from where the shore should be. Land took its time revealing itself, the direction of the coastline offering nothing but a gathering flock of filthy gray seagulls flapping alongship the ship, heads turning greedily from side to side.
Then just before noon, the murky shadow of land teasingly materialized off the port beam. From the rail where the lovely Pinkerton agent shared her binoculars with me, we watched it grow, becoming more distinct, revealing itself as a rocky bluff. Around one-thirty, the coast took on a more definite configuration-trees, rooftops, church steeples, sweeping by. Miss Vance and I exchanged relieved expressions that the crossing had been safely made. What if a saboteur’s bomb were to explode? The shore was so near.
Oddly, the flat, blue-green waters seemed to belong to the Lucy alone-no other vessels, commercial ones or warships either, presented themselves. Where was the Irish Coast Patrol, for one? Hadn’t we been promised protection from the British Admiralty?
We returned to the Verandah Cafe for a rather late and light luncheon-both Miss Vance and I had decided the dining saloon with its endless food and mawkish orchestra could wait till this evening-and, by two o’clock, had finished our little crustless sandwiches and a dessert of assorted petits fours.
Sitting idly, enjoying the view of the bright blue sea, I noticed a white-gold glimmering swirl of sunlight on the water’s dimpled skin.
“Is that a porpoise?” I asked, pointing.
Miss Vance sat up and squinted toward the sunny sight. “I’m not sure. . They usually leap.”
“Whatever it is,” I said, “it’s spreading. . coming closer. . ”
“That’s a torpedo, isn’t it?” Miss Vance asked, frightfully calm.
I stood, looking toward the forward end of the ship. “Have they noticed it on the bridge, I wonder? Can’t be a torpedo. .”
Still deadly calm, she said, “I think it is.”
The handful of other passengers in the cafe had noticed it, as well, and were making similar comments-no one panicking, everyone strangely still, as if waiting for that foamy, frothy wake, arrowing inexorably toward us, to reveal its intentions.
Which it did: The shock of the impact was surprisingly mild if distinct, making a heavy, somewhat muffled roar, the ship trembling momentarily under the blow’s force. Miss Vance was on her feet, and in my arms-we were holding each other tight when a second, more severe explosion rocked the vessel, and all of us, the deck itself seeming to rise, then settle.
Instinctively, we looked toward the explosion’s source, and a geyser of coal and steam and debris erupted between the second and third funnels, a skyward shower of deck planks, boats, steel splinters, coal dust and water, quickly followed by the hard rainfall of gratings and other wreckage clattering and scattering on the decks and splashing into the sea, forward of us.
Grabbing on to Miss Vance’s shoulders, I pulled her back deeper into the shelter of the cafe, as wreckage descended on the deck like ghastly hailstones. The canvas awning, stretched across the cafe’s entrance, sagged under the weight of water and ruins, and seemed about to split apart.
Taking her by the hand, I dashed out onto the littered deck, the rain of rubble apparently over, and away from the cafe, heading forward.
“That second explosion. .” I began, over the hissing of ruptured steam pipes.
“The son of a bitch had planted a second bomb,” she said through her teeth. Her pretty face was freckled with soot. “And that U-boat torpedo detonated it!”
“We should gather our belongings,” I said, “and get our life jackets, and find our way to a lifeboat.”
She agreed, and we continued forward along the deck, among other passengers who were displaying a surprising and altogether admirable lack of panic. Perhaps, despite all of the denials, everyone had suspected the ship might be hit, even expected it, and now reflex action had taken over, and passengers were moving in a fairly orderly manner up toward the lifeboats.
Near the entry to the deck’s Grand Entrance area, we were startled to see Elbert Hubbard and his wife; standing at the rail, the husband’s arm around the wife’s waist in an affectionate fashion. They seemed frozen, or perhaps dazed.
I knew their cabin, like mine, was a deck below, on that same portside corridor, and I said, “You need to get to your stateroom, and get your life jackets-straightaway!”
In a soft, almost placid voice-barely audible above the hissing and clamor-Hubbard said, “There may not be enough boats. Someone must sacrifice.”
I grabbed on to his arm. “Spout your aphorisms another time, you fool-this is life and death!”
That the boat was already listing seriously to the right was all too apparent.
He jerked his arm away and glared at me-the only time I’d ever witnessed any expression on that face that evinced anything like anger-and he said, “Mind your own business.”
“Is that the best you can do for your famous last words?” I asked bitterly.
The hell with him. Taking Miss Vance by the arm, I headed into the Grand Entrance, which was thronged with people moving up the stairs and out onto deck. Signs of a gathering frenzy were now indeed in evidence, and understandably.
The elevators were out of the question-the electricity had gone, and the lifts were trapped halfway between floors, filled with passengers coming up from lunch. They were screaming down there, trapped like rats, rattling their cage.
At the top of the companionway, I suggested she wait for me, here.
“No! I’m coming with you.”
“No need-give me your key, and I’ll fetch our life jackets. What else of yours is vital?”
Reluctantly, she was accepting my decision, handing me her room key. “My passport’s in the top drawer of the bureau. . Nothing else.”
I held her by her arms and kissed her on the mouth; she returned the kiss with desperate enthusiasm.
“I’ll be back,” I said.
“I’ll be here,” she said, as frightened passengers, many soot-smeared, rolled by in a human tide.
As I took the stairs, many more were coming up than going down, a swarm of hysterical second-class passengers surging up from belowdecks, lacking the outward composure of those of the first class who were resolved not to be caught up in a sordid stampede. I had to lower myself to their level and elbowed my passage with no thought of common courtesy. At the bottom of the stairs a steward was urging passengers to be calm, and handing them life jackets-many ignored both his good advice and valuable gift.
I suppose I could have worked my way over to him, and snatched up two of those life jackets, but I had enough sense of decorum and decency to realize I should fetch the ones I knew to be in our cabins. The passageway was jammed with fleeing passengers, mostly second-class I would venture, and I could only imagine the sheer panic of the lower decks-third class and, God help them, the “dirty gang” down in the boilers.
The starboard list was unmistakable but not extreme, and, other than pushing through the crowd, I had no trouble making my way to the forward portside corridor. While many were heading for the deck, a few other self-composed first-class passengers were doing as I was, seeking their valuables and life jackets in their cabins.
The torpedo’s impact must have affected the structure of the ship more than was readily apparent, for I discovered my cabin door was badly jammed, and it took three swift kicks to rudely open it.
/>
With the ship’s electricity gone, and no porthole, my cabin was as dark as a cave. I lighted a match, and quickly found my life jacket on its shelf in the wardrobe, and from the nightstand gathered the leather pouch with my passport, various other papers and folding money. The list of the ship had increased, in this short time, rather alarmingly.
It was necessary to kick open Miss Vance’s bedroom door, as well-it occurred to me a great deal of money was somewhere in this bedroom, but I did not know where. . nor had she requested it. Perhaps Madame DePage and her friend Houghton had already retrieved the funds-or abandoned them, if the bulk made such impractical. Using another match, I recovered Miss Vance’s passport from the bureau and her life jacket from its wardrobe shelf.
As I exited, the ship lurched further starboard, a severe tilt now, and the sounds of chaos on the decks above, trampling feet, excited voices, betrayed an absence of discipline, to say the least. The passage was now empty, and dim-the only light filtering in from way down the corridor, at the Grand Entrance area, adjacent to the portside and starboard promenades. The starboard list was so extreme, in fact, that I as walked toward the entry light, I had one foot on the floor and the other on the wall.
Moving along the dark passageway, clutching close to me the pair of bulky, fiber-filled life jackets, I noted that-down some of the cross passages, leading to staterooms-the portholes were gaping open. . and the water was eagerly lapping at those portals, like the tongues of hungry beasts. Soon the sea would come rushing in, in all its inexorable coldness. The ineptitude of Turner and, yes, Anderson was outrageous-that these had not been closed and sealed, as we steamed through the war zone. .
When I reached the Grand Entrance, the wicker furniture overturned, crushed, discarded, potted plants spilling their soil on the linoleum, the mounting horror unequivocal. Passengers down in those stalled elevators were shrieking, beating desperately on the grille gates; the water would have them soon. Panic-stricken, white-faced third-class passengers were streaming up the companionways, scrambling up the stairs, climbing over one another with no compunction.