The Lusitania Murders

by Max Allan Collins

  The music ceased, and in short order the door opened, and we were met by Frohman’s valet, a slender, cheerful, rather effeminate young man in a dark gray suit. The valet showed us into the study of the suite, which was in the Colonial style.* A desk against the wall was piled with play manuscripts; an occasional table next to it bore an elaborate ship-shaped basket filled with flowers and fruit.

  The frog prince of a producer was perched on a damask print settee by an open porthole—though he’d confined himself to his quarters, he could at least smell the sea air—and his squat frame was wrapped up in a burgundy silk smoking jacket, a script folded open and in his lap. His left slippered foot was on a padded stool, and his cane leaned against the sofa near his right hand. On a round table next to him was an array of dishes filled with various bite-size chocolate candies and salted nuts; and on a matching round table, on the opposite side of the settee, a gramophone rested with a stack of cylindrical discs—the source of that ragtime tune.

  “I must apologize for not rising,” Frohman said. His voice was a nasal, soft-spoken baritone, pleasant enough, but unsuited for the stage. “My rheumatism can be a demanding travelling companion, when it’s so inclined—and it is, this trip, I’m afraid.”

  I introduced Miss Vance, and myself, and shook hands with him—his hand was small, almost dainty, surprising for such a roly-poly fellow—and we took chairs on either side of him, pulled in to face him.

  Homely as he was—his head was as squashed as a Hallowe’en pumpkin—his genial, self-deprecating nature soon lent him an attractiveness of character that dispelled his physical shortcomings.

  Almost immediately he put Miss Vance at her ease, winning her over entirely.

  “I know you!” he said, eyes sparking. “Philomina Vance—I saw you in East Lynne, at the Chicago Theater!”

  She touched her bosom. “I had no idea you were there, sir!”

  “We won’t have any of this ‘sir’ nonsense—my friends call me C.F. And I must insist we be friends . . . William! Ginger ales all around.”

  William had been sitting on the other side of the room, reading a magazine; he rose and fetched.

  Frohman’s cheeks plumped further as he beamed at Miss Vance. “You were quite wonderful—I know it was negligent of me, not to come backstage and meet you.”

  “How I wish you had . . .”

  “We’d never been introduced, and I felt it would be a breech of etiquette.”

  “Sir . . . C.F.—in our business, such propriety is put aside! If you don’t mind my saying, you’re royalty, in the theater . . . and a king never has to stand on ceremony.”

  Still smiling, he shook his head. “My dear, ceremony is all a king has to stand on—not that I’m a king. A little success doesn’t warrant abandoning good manners, or common courtesy. . . . It was my intention to have one of my agents call you, but shortly after that performance, you left the theatrical profession, I understand.”

  “I did,” she said, “though if I’d had a call from Charles Frohman, I might not have!”

  His interest seemed genuine. “And how is that you’ve become a journalist?”

  “If I might interrupt,” I said, “Miss Vance is not the journalist—I am.”

  He nodded. “And I understand, Mr. Van Dine, you’re with Samuel McClure—which is why I consented to your interview. I admire the muckraking Mr. McClure very much.”

  “I’m sure he’ll be delighted to hear that. . . . Miss Vance is a friend, helping me out, you might say.”

  “Such charming company is always a help,” he said to me. Then to Miss Vance, he said, “Should you ever decide to return to the theater, my dear, let me know. You cut a commanding figure, on the Chicago stage, and New York needs to know of you.”

  Miss Vance was blushing from all this, and her delight was clear. “You’re very kind, C.F. Very kind.”

  William brought everyone glasses of iced ginger ale.

  “Help yourselves to the goodies,” Frohman said, even as he was doing so with chocolate kisses from one of the bowls. “I’m afraid I have a fierce sweet tooth . . . and I’ve passed along my confection infection to William. . . . Isn’t that right, William?”

  “Yes, it is,” William said with smile, regarding his employer with obvious fondness, before returning to his chair elsewhere in the room.

  “We had a regular dessert orgy last night,” Frohman chuckled.

  I was beginning to wonder how chocolate had figured into that; but I was not here to pry into such things—I had several other agendas. I began with my duties for the News. . . .

  “I understand you visit London twice yearly,” I said, “to scout new plays and discover acting talent.”

  One of Frohman’s specialties was introducing American actors to English audiences—and English actors to American audiences.

  “I’m afraid I’ve fallen back to once a year,” he said. “These trips have become increasingly difficult for me.”

  The articular rheumatism had developed after a fall on the porch of his home at White Plains three years before; ever since, he’d been a virtual prisoner in a suite at the Knickerbocker Hotel in Manhattan. Travel might have seemed an escape, if it hadn’t aggravated his condition so severely.

  “That’s why I booked passage on this ship,” he said. “The Lucy’s the fastest ship on the Atlantic—and I can have the trip over and done with, as quickly as possible.”

  Miss Vance asked, “Have you ever considered sending one of your staff to go to London, to see the new productions?”

  “I’ve been tempted—but, in truth, I don’t trust anyone else’s judgment . . . Whether a play works, or an actor has talent, that’s something I feel here . . .” And he tapped his ample belly with a forefinger.

  I asked, “Weren’t you wary of this talk of U-boats?”

  “Frankly, I was. . . . My friends at the German Club . . . Captain Boy-Ed and Colonel Van Papen . . . advised me, in rather cryptic fashion, not to sail on this ship.”

  This was an interesting wrinkle.

  He was going on about the others who had tried to convince him not to travel on the Lusitania, which included many of his famous clients. Isadora Duncan and her dance troupe, and actress Ellen Terry, had cancelled their reservations on this ship to cross on the slower New York.

  “The U-boat rumors are all about the Lucy,” Frohman said. “And taking an American liner is probably safer than sailing on a British ship . . . but the faster the better, for me.”

  “Worth the risk?”

  “Worth the risk. How can anyone take this German bluster so seriously? But so many people are.”

  “You’re of German descent, obviously . . .”

  He nodded, and frowned. “A German-American, yes. That doesn’t make me pro-German. But it does make me pro-American.”

  “America isn’t in this war.”

  “Yet. When we are, German-Americans like me will stand behind the Stars and Stripes. As a Jew, I know all too well of prejudice. . . . Now I see my fellow German-Americans already being viewed through a prism of bias.”

  I made sure to write that down—that was a nice turn of phrase: “prism of bias.”

  “For that reason, I’m producing a new play by the novelist Justus Miles Foreman. . . . I’ll introduce you, he’s crossing with us . . . that deals with this subject. Opens in Boston in two weeks. The Hyphen, it’s called . . . and it refers to the hyphen in the term German-American.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “That would seem to be yet another risk you’re taking.”

  He waved that off with a pudgy hand, right before it dipped back into the bowl of chocolates. “The arts . . . even the popular arts . . . must take a stand. I’m hoping to find a producer in Britain for the play, as well.”

  That seemed optimistic.

  “Of course,” he continued, “this trend to musicals and slangy ‘mystery’ plays threaten thoughtful drama, and the drawing-room comedy . . . though I’m not really worried about these so-called �
�movies’—we won’t live to see them become more popular than the stage.”

  I had enough for the News—it was time to reveal the role Miss Vance was truly playing. With a nod, I cued her.

  “C.F.,” she said, “you may have noticed that I’m travelling with Madame DePage.”

  He had.

  She briefly explained her function as ship’s detective, and his eyes widened—he was fascinated by this, and they spoke for perhaps five minutes about her departure from the stage to the Pinkerton Agency.

  “We are concerned about a theft ring aboard,” she told him.

  He shifted, and pain tightened his face momentarily. “It’s rumored Madame DePage is travelling with the funds she raised.”

  “I have heard that rumor,” Miss Vance said with a smile.

  “Which is why you are her devoted companion. I also believe George Kessler . . . an old acquaintance, if something of a blowhard . . . may be foolishly travelling with . . . well, that’s not for me to say.”

  But it was for me to note, both mentally and literally.

  Miss Vance sat forward. “Are you travelling with any valuables or a large amount of money? Sir, you can trust us . . . Staff Captain Anderson has already vouched—”

  “It’s ‘C.F.,’ ” he said, “and as a matter of fact, yes, I am travelling with a considerable amount of cash. Normally, I would have funds in various English banks, but we had . . . there’s no use trying to disguise the fact . . . some financial reverses. Last year was a bad one for my theater syndicate.”

  “So,” I said, picking up on this, “you’re taking along funds with which to buy new properties.”

  “Yes, if I’m lucky enough to find any. . . . There’s fifty thousand dollars, in that bulging briefcase by my desk.”

  Miss Vance and I exchanged sharp expressions. I asked, “Has anyone approached you, aboard ship, trying to establish a new friendship?”

  His eyes frowned, his mouth smiled. “To get into my confidence, and then my briefcase? Other than supper with my friends last night, in that Broadway show of a dining room, I’ve been entrenched in this suite, reading plays—I devour manuscripts like chocolates.”

  “What about last night? At dinner?”

  He sipped his ginger ale and thought that over. “Well, that fellow Williamson . . . Vanderbilt’s friend . . . said he’d like a meeting with me.”

  “Did he say why?”

  “Yes—he’s an art dealer. Vanderbilt is a client—apparently, Williamson recommends buying certain paintings as an investment, I take it. Lives mostly in Paris, I believe.”

  I jotted this down; Williamson was on our docket anyway—one of that elite half dozen who’d received threatening telegrams and been on Klaus’s list.

  As we took our leave, Frohman apologized for not seeing us to the door, and again reminded Miss Vance—as if a reminder were necessary—to contact him for theatrical work.

  “And I intend not to be an antisocial animal for this entire trip,” he said, with a salute of his ginger ale glass. “I’m having a party Thursday evening—and you are both invited.”

  We accepted his invitation, and thanked him for his hospitality.

  In the hall, Miss Vance was glowing from the reception she had received. But I reminded her that, for now at least, she was more detective than actress.

  The interview with George Kessler—the so-called “Champagne King”—would vary from the previous two in a significant way: Kessler had requested I meet him in that exclusively male haunt, the ‘First-Class Smoking Room.’ Miss Vance took the opportunity to return to the side of Madame DePage, who was in the ‘Reading-and-Writing room’ with her new friend, Dr. Houghton—someone we were interested in knowing more about, anyway.

  The smoking room was aft on the Boat Deck, a large* chamber dominated by an enormous ornate wrought-iron skylight with leaded glass and inset panels. Walnut paneling framed furniture of the Queen Anne period—sofas, easy chairs, settees, writing desks and marble-topped tables—and the red carpeting and upholstery, in concert with the natural wood tones, created a rich masculine warmth at odds with the white and gold of so much of the rest of the ship.

  The air was a smorgasbord of cigar smoke, making a cigarette man like myself feel something of a piker—and a pauper. This was, after all, the bastion of rail barons, shipping magnates, international publishers and millionaire businessmen.

  George Kessler didn’t know me, but I recognized him—his bushy black beard was hard to miss. He was seated in one of two angled easy chairs facing an elaborate, unlighted fireplace, with a brown valise tucked under (and held in place by) his legs. A cigar smaller than a pool cue in the fingers of his left hand, the Canadian wine magnate was wearing a three-piece dark gray suit with lighter gray pinstripes, and reading an issue of The Philistine, the digest-sized magazine published (and largely written) by Elbert Hubbard.

  I approached, introduced myself, he did not get up, we shook hands and I took the other easy chair.

  “Are you a subscriber to that magazine?” I asked him.

  “Hell no,” Kessler said, with gruff good humor. “That eccentric ninny is passing these out all over the ship . . . though I must say he gives Kaiser Bill the devil in this article.”

  “You’re no fan of the Germans?”

  “I am not. Some men make money off wars, but for me it’s a goddamned nuisance—restricts my travel, plays hell with my ability to entertain my friends and business associates.”

  “That’s partly why I wanted to interview you, sir,” I said, getting Mr. McClure’s work out of the way. “These famous ‘bashes’ of yours. . . .”

  For perhaps ten minutes the outgoing businessman regaled me with tales of the extravagant dinners and parties—how he had once hired London’s best carpenters, scenery painters and electricians to turn the Savoy Hotel’s courtyard into a corner of Venice . . . including flooding it and serving dinner in a giant white gondola. At another event a mammoth cake was conveyed to guests on the back of a circus elephant, while Caruso sang. At yet another do (the Savoy again), he turned the garden into a faux North Pole, complete with silver-tissue icebergs and fields of plastic snow.

  I had written all of this down, on the questionable assumption that any of the News’s readers would care, when Kessler paused to relight his cigar, which had gone out during his blatherings. As he did, he must have taken a closer look at me, because he blurted that he’d seen me earlier.

  “Is that right?” I said.

  “Yes! You were giving Anderson a bit of a bad time, on deck, and God bless you for it—I saw that pitiful excuse for a lifeboat drill! Ye gods, what a joke.”

  “It’s less than reassuring, all right.”

  He shook his head and the thicket of black beard bounced. “These are wartime conditions—bunch of damned ostriches, heads in the sand. You know, I complained directly to Captain Turner.”

  “You did?”

  “I did—the daft old bastard. I went right to his day cabin and bearded the lion in his den—said, ‘I think it would be an excellent idea if each passenger was given a ticket listing the number of the lifeboat he’s to make for.’ ”

  “How did Turner take it?”

  “He just looked at me—like a shaved walrus. I said, ‘You know, Captain—just in case anything untoward happens.’ Finally he told me Cunard had already considered this idea—it had come up after the Titanic disaster! But it was rejected as too impractical.”

  “I would imagine this response disappointed you.”

  “It did, and I told the old boy so! And he just replied that he did not have the authority to act on my advice—even if he wanted to! Bugger him, I say.”

  How I wished this could go into my News articles. . . .

  “Do you know how Turner spends his time?” Kessler asked.

  “Frankly, no.”

  “Tying fancy nautical knots, to impress his officers! Challenges ’em to top him. They think he’s a fool, too. . . . There are women and children
on this ship, goddamnit! Have you seen how many tykes are aboard?”

  I, of course, had; but somehow I felt Kessler’s prime concern was self-preservation.

  “I have the feeling,” I said, “that steamer travel does not suit your temperament.”

  “You’re correct, sir—no voyage is too short for me. I get restless—even with that sea air and walks on deck, I have a cooped-up feeling. But it has its positive side—I’ve had numerous good business ideas; sometimes I feel my mind is whirling with new ways to make more money.”

  “And to spend it?” I said, with a smile. “Maybe turn the Savoy into the Taj Mahal?”

  “Hell of an idea,” he said. But his impatience even extended to me, and this interview. “Well, is that it? Did I give you what you needed? You got the spelling right?”

  I told him the interview was over, and that I did indeed have the correct spelling of his name; but that I would like a few more minutes with him. He cooperated, and I explained about Miss Vance—whom he remembered from seeing her on deck with me (“Fine-looking woman!”)—and our fears that a thievery ring might be aboard.

  At mention of that, his face turned white. “It’s a good thing I carry a gun,” he said.

  “Why is that, sir?”

  He leaned closer. “I can speak only in strictest confidence. I would want this repeated only to the Pinkerton agent—so that she might help in a preventative manner.”

  I had no idea what he was talking about, but I nodded.

  He stroked the nest of beard. “You might consider me as eccentric as that Hubbard character, in my own way.”

  “Why is that, sir?”

  “Well. . . . I am of the belief that a man should not leave his possessions out of his sight.” He tapped the brown valise over which his legs rested. “I have some transactions in mind, in London, that may demand fast financing.”

  So the valise must have contained a sizable quantity of cash—much as Frohman’s briefcase bulged with fifty thousand dollars.

  “I have two million in stocks and securities,” Kessler said. “Having it so close by . . . well, it’s much safer this way, don’t you think?”