The Lusitania Murders

by Max Allan Collins

  “Will you be attending the Frohman affair?” he asked cheerfully, after we had invited him to pull up a chair and join us.

  “Yes,” I said, “and probably the Kessler one, as well.”

  The breeze ruffled his dark hair. “He’s a beastly character, this Kessler . . . but he’s invited me, so I suppose I shall do the polite thing and attend.”

  Miss Vance asked, “How is your friend Mr. Vanderbilt today? Is he recovering from his personal blow?”

  Williamson frowned, shaking his head. “He’s quite melancholy, frankly. But I did manage to get him to take his meals at the dining room yesterday, and he’s agreed to attend the Frohman party.”

  “It will be good for him,” I said.

  “He’s quite a fan of Mr. Frohman and his theatrical ventures. The night before we embarked, I accompanied Alfred and his wife to a Frohman production.”

  “A Celebrated Case, perhaps?” Miss Vance asked.

  The production at the Empire Theater was a particularly popular one.

  “Yes—excellent show.” The handsome, slender art dealer glanced at the sea, the blue of his eyes a darker shade than the waters. “Hard to believe this trip is almost over.”

  “Such voyages seem forever,” I said, “and in an instant they’re gone.”

  Williamson grinned wolfishly. “Now you’re sounding like that fellow Hubbard.”

  “Please! No insults.”

  Again he shook his head. “And we haven’t had a chance to really talk art yet—we have a debate ahead of us, on Synchromism, I feel.”

  I returned his smile, saying, “Perhaps we do.”

  “Maybe at the Frohman party,” he said, rising, nodding to us. “Or the Kessler. . . . Miss Vance, good morning.”

  “Good morning, Mr. Williamson.”

  He disappeared off down the deck.

  “He’s in a pleasant mood today,” she said.

  I ventured a smirk. “Maybe that’s because we didn’t bring up the Ruiz ‘suicide.’ That fellow can smile all he likes—he’s a scoundrel.”

  Her own smile was amused, but the twinkle in her eyes seemed different, this time. “Do you think so?”

  “Certainly. He either arranged a murder for Vanderbilt, or took it upon himself to kill the discarded mistress, and he’s wormed his way into his very rich friend’s life and pocketbook, ever since.”

  Miss Vance was beaming at me. “Why, Mr. Van Dine—I believe you’re exactly right. . . . We don’t really think this investigation is over, do we?”

  “No. Leach had an accomplice in first class, who spiked the poor bastard’s tea with cyanide, so the dead steward could take the full blame.”

  She sipped her harmless tea. “Well, Leach was in it to his navel, no question—this was the work of a party of two. Leach got the stowaways aboard, and the plan was to disguise them as stewards . . . probably in plain sight.”

  “Giving them simple duties, you mean?”

  Nodding, she said, “Possibly hiding the Huns when they weren’t gathering espionage materials, seeking to show the ship has munitions and other contraband aboard.”

  “So they were, in your view, saboteurs.”

  “Yes—but they were discovered too soon. . . before they could talk at length with Leach, and meet their confederate in first class, for full instructions.” Her smile outsparkled the sea. “You caught them, Van, ants in their pantry—speaking German with a camera in their hot little hands.”

  “And Mr. Leach panicked, with the stowaways taken into custody. . . . Two of the Germans seemed anxious to talk, to make a deal, which would have meant the end for Mr. Leach.”

  “So,” she said, picking up my thread, “he fed them a cyanide-spiced dinner. . . but only two of them. Their ringleader was loyal to the cause, and went along with Leach’s improvised plan, to stab the corpses, and (he hoped) cover up their murder by cyanide.”

  Now I picked up her thread. “Leach then accompanies Klaus to first class, where they meet with their confederate. . . . But why was Klaus stabbed? He had complied with Leach’s murder of the other two, after all.”

  Her eyes stared unblinkingly into her thoughts, which she collected for several long moments. Then she said, “I believe their ally in first class saw no use for Klaus—the plan was now defunct, after all. Our first-class conspirator would recoil at the suggestion that Klaus be hidden in his room! The German was of no further use, and eventual questioning of Klaus in Britain by the secret service might well expose the conspirator’s aiding and abetting of sabotage.”

  “A capital crime,” I said, with an arched eyebrow and a nod. “So . . . after Leach escorts Klaus to first class, a discussion ensues in the hallway . . . an argument?”

  Miss Vance shrugged. “Possibly Leach and his accomplice offered Klaus the opportunity to take a lifeboat into the sea. But Klaus may have objected—without a U-boat waiting, that was near certain death. Or possibly Klaus was a good German, and wished to finish his mission of sabotage, before departing, however much danger he put them all in.”

  “Then we were wrong that this was a matter of robbery.”

  She shook her head forcefully. “No—we were right that this is about both sabotage and robbery. Leach’s accomplice in first class—the brighter of the two by far, possibly a criminal mastermind—was in this only for the money.”

  “What was their plan, do you think?”

  She leaned back in her chair, eyes narrowed. “It was much as we’ve speculated, I should think: Near journey’s end, a bomb goes off, off the Irish coast, and in the confusion, stewards loot the key staterooms . . . the names on that list from the stowaway’s shoe.”

  I considered that. “Or they might have used tomorrow night’s parties, as an opportunity.”

  Now her eyes widened; she nodded. “Good, Van! That’s an interesting line of thought. . . . Go on.”

  Like a puppy whose master had patted his head, I tried further to please. “Every potential target on Klaus’s list will be at one of those two parties tomorrow night—two of the names on the list are throwing the affairs! This, of course, assumes that our accomplice knew of these parties in advance.”

  “A reasonable enough assumption. Invitations to both affairs had been printed up beforehand. . . . Go on.”

  “If their accomplice is indeed one of the prominent names on that very list, he or she could have kept an eye on the robbery victims at the parties, keeping them busy, paving the way for plunder by his co-conspirators.”

  Now she seemed doubtful. “But the robberies would be discovered.”

  “Ah, but this is a big ship . . . plenty of places to hide the loot. It’s doubtful, this close to the end of the voyage, that the ship would be searched in any rigorous fashion at all. Remember, we’re talking millions, here, in cash and securities.”

  Now I had her again; she was smiling, nodding. “Yes . . . yes. The authorities at Liverpool would seal off the ship, no passengers would be allowed to leave, until the booty was found . . . and every suspect on the ship questioned, all twelve hundred of them!”

  But that had me doubtful, suddenly. “Would Cunard put up with such an embarrassment?”

  She waved off my uncertainty. “They would have no choice. It’s a matter of law enforcement . . . and stir into the soup the presence of enemy agents during wartime, and you can bet the passengers would be stuck on this vessel for days—the closest to dry land they could get would be looking out a porthole!”

  And of course the band of looters/saboteurs could not withstand what would await them at Liverpool. . . .

  “So,” I said, “now we’re back to a bomb.”

  “To a bomb,” she said with a nod. “Before the ship reaches an English port, our saboteurs-in-stewards’-clothing set off another of those pipe bombs—just off the coast of Ireland . . . and you know the rest.”

  As the crew hustles passengers into lifeboats, during the commotion and perhaps the panic, the villains retrieve their booty and go over the side, picked
up by pro-German accomplices. The first-class conspirator most likely stays aboard, and receives his share at a later, safer date.

  “And a good plan it was, too,” she admitted. “Either version. . . . Only, they’ve been interrupted in their efforts.”

  “Death can be rude, at times . . . but what if you’re right, Vance? What if the accomplice in first class is something of a criminal mastermind? Perhaps the crooked chef who cooked up the twisted recipe in the first place?”

  Again her eyes narrowed. “You mean . . . our first-class felon might continue improvising?”

  I jerked a thumb toward the ship. “He . . . or she . . . shows every sign of such an inclination, starting with Klaus’s murder, and that pipe bomb deposited in my cabin, yesterday. . . . Or was that Leach’s independent handiwork, d’you think?”

  She shook her head. “I believe not—I think your first instinct is correct. I think we have a murderous thief aboard who will likely try to gather his millions, yet.”

  I studied her—studied her like a modern art painting I was trying to fathom. “You . . . you know who it is, don’t you?”

  Her smile was tiny and smug; so was her shrug. “Yes—don’t you?”

  I admitted I didn’t.

  She leaned forward, locked her eyes with mine. “Think for a few moments, Van, and you will. You have all the clues you need.”

  “Really! Such as?”

  She ticked them off on her pretty fingers. “First, the threatening telegrams—what was their real purpose? Second, the sequence of the names on the list in Klaus’s shoe—is it truly random? Third, the planting of the bomb in your cabin yesterday—why was that done, and at that particular moment? Finally, why did Klaus die on the portside of the ship?”

  I confess my mind was reeling, but as we continued to discuss the matter, the clearness of it—the sheer obviousness of it—did present itself . . .

  . . . as did our best course of action, which most certainly was not to present our findings to the two captains.

  Instead, we would go to the two parties—that is, cocktail parties, thrown by Frohman and Kessler, tomorrow evening. She would go to one, and I would go to the other.

  And before the final concert of the voyage, we would have our thief . . . our murderer . . . our answer.

  By Thursday morning, when Miss Vance and I were strolling the Boat Deck’s open-air promenade, the Lusitania had experienced a change, however subtle. During the night, the ship had crossed into the war zone, signalling new precautions—we could see that the lifeboats had been swung out in their davits; and stewards were rigging more elaborate blackout curtains over doors and port-holes.*

  Visibility was splendid, and the morning foretold a day as lovely as the previous several—sunshine, cool breezes, with the promise of a crisp evening. By the time evening arrived, however, I admit my nerves were on edge. We had spent the day in typical shipboard tomfoolery—food and strolls and even some time behind closed doors. But the task ahead was one for which a Pinkerton operative—even one as beautiful and feminine as Miss Vance—was far better suited than a man of letters.

  Both cocktail parties began at six P.M. Approximately ten minutes past that hour, I dropped Miss Vance off at the Verandah Cafe, where Kessler was entertaining in the cool, open air, dusk painting the sea a shadowy shade of blue. Among the attendees were ship-builder Fred Gauntlett, the would-be nautical expert Charles Lauriat, the paranormal enthusiast Miss Pope and her young Friend, and several dozen others, most notably Madame DePage and her shipboard companion, Dr. Houghton.

  Staff Captain Anderson had dropped by to represent the officers of the ship—Kessler was still giving him a bad time about the lifeboat drills—and I nodded hello to him. I scattered a bit of small talk around the cafe for perhaps five minutes, making sure to shake the Champagne King’s hand and thank him for the invite.

  Miss Vance positioned herself near the bar, where we knew she would have easy access to the telephone.

  “Good luck to us,” I said, and kissed her cheek, boldly.

  Her eyes were glittering again. “Good luck to us,” she repeated.

  I paused, my hand on her arm. “You love this, don’t you?”

  Her smile was as enchanting as it was wide, the breeze catching the dark blonde tendrils and doing wonderful acrobatics with them. “Very much. . . . It’s better than opening night.”

  Five minutes later, I was a floor below, on the starboard side of the Promenade Deck, in a suite where Charles Frohman was entertaining a slightly larger, even more star-studded group. The chubby frog prince of Broadway beamed as he moved throughout the crowd, leaning on his “wife” (that ever-present cane of his), seeming in less pain than before. The genial host was decked out in a dark suit with scarlet tie under a stiff white collar—formality and theatricality at once, a Napoleonic ring on his little finger to add a dash of Broadway flamboyance.

  Everyone was dressed for dinner—men in formal wear, women in décolleté gowns—but few were likely to bother with the dining saloon this evening: Generous trays of canapés were on the occasional tables, and Frohman’s girlish man William (as if having to keep track of Master-at-Arms Williams and Charles Williamson weren’t enough!) continually threaded through the room keeping Champagne glasses brimming. And the Champagne saw to it that the drawing room stayed alive with laughter and banter.

  Vanderbilt and Williamson stood sipping Champagne, but the millionaire seemed gloomy, in the aftermath of his friend’s death, if not outright depressed. The art dealer was talking to everyone who happened by, full of personality, as if feeling the need to make up for his subdued friend.

  Among the well-dressed, even glamorous crowd were Frohman’s theatrical entourage, including the actresses Josephine Brandell and Rita Jolivet, and the playwright Justus Miles Forman. In the midst of these fashionably dressed guests, an oasis of gauche, were the Bard of East Aurora and his bride; Hubbard was his usual floppy-tied self, in a tuxedo no respectable rental firm would let; his wife looked modestly attractive in an off-white silk gown appropriate for a wedding, circa 1900.

  Right now Hubbard had found his way over to Williamson and Vanderbilt. The millionaire was staring into space, sipping his Champagne; but—judging by the snippet I heard—the art dealer had engaged Fra Albertus in a discussion of their common interest.

  “You must not over-intellectualize art,” Hubbard was saying, and it frightened me to hear that view, because I agreed with it. “There is in most souls a hunger for beauty, just as there is a physical hunger.”

  “But art is an intellectual process, too,” Williamson argued. “It must engage the mind as well as the heart.”

  Hubbard shook his head. “Beauty speaks to the spirit through our senses—harmony as set forth in color, form and sweet sounds.”

  “Art is a more complex thing than that, surely!”

  The bard snorted a laugh. “Art is not a ‘thing’—it is a way.”

  Back to aphorisms—but that, I had to admit, was a pretty good one.

  I moved on, and suddenly I was facing my smiling host—homely as he was, his good nature made him appealing. “And where is your lovely friend. . .Miss Vance?”

  “She is, I’m afraid, representing us at the Kessler affair.”

  “Well, I hope she’ll stop by and eat some of my food, and drink some of my Champagne.”

  I smiled. “If Kessler doesn’t fill up his guests with bubbly, something’s wrong.”

  “True enough,” he laughed. “Now, I want to make sure Miss Vance knows my interest in her thespian abilities is quite sincere. Will you be staying in London for a while?”

  I shrugged. “Perhaps a week.”

  “Splendid. I would like you and Miss Vance to be my guests, and accompany me to James Barrie’s new play, Rosy Rapture, at the Duke of York’s Theatre, Saturday evening.”

  “Mr. Frohman, that’s very generous!”

  He raised a small chubby forefinger. “None of that—C.F., remember. C.F.!”
r />   “Well, C.F., I accept your gracious invitation on both our parts.”

  Before long I had managed to reach my goal—I meant to position myself near the desk, where the phone hid behind that enormous ship-shaped basket of flowers and fruit. Those flowers were doing fairly well, for as many days as had passed; I noted the card was signed by Maude Adams, the famous actress Frohman had discovered.

  I nibbled canapés, but didn’t overdo the Champagne, chatting with whomever happened by. There was a great deal of war talk . . . fairly optimistic, however: Allied advances on the Western front and in the Dardanelles, with the prospect of Italy joining the Allied cause.

  Captain Turner himself came by, in a rare sociable mood. Several guests asked him about the new shipboard precautions—everyone had noticed them—and Frohman asked, “Are we in any danger, Captain?”

  “In wartime there’s always danger,” Turner said. “But no cause for alarm. . . . I would request that those gentlemen who are fond of cigars refrain from lighting them on deck.”

  Whether that was intended as a joke or not, it got a laugh that rippled across the suite, just as a bellboy was entering, to hand the captain a wireless message.* Turner bid some hasty good-byes and took his leave.

  Shortly afterward, Williamson took his leave as well, thanking Frohman, saying he needed to drop by the Kessler party, out of politeness; C.F. understood. And Vanderbilt was left behind, with his Champagne and his doldrums.

  “This war,” Hubbard was saying, a group of theatrical types gathering around a ham greater than themselves, “will progress from horror to horror. . . . Art, science, invention, man has lifted himself to the Matterhorn of Hope . . . and now this.”

  I used the phone, calling the Verandah Cafe, asking for Miss Vance, who soon came on the line; we spoke briefly. Then I wandered over to Vanderbilt.

  “Mr. Vanderbilt,” I said, nodding.

  “Mr. Van Dine.”