The Titanic Murders - By Max Allan Collins Page 0,25
smile and a genuine laugh, Ismay said, “Well, that finally explains it—the rumor I heard that a man of your description had hung a smaller man upside down off the balcony.”
“Weren’t you going to bring that up, sir?”
“Why? No complaint was filed by Mr. Crafton, and my policy, my company’s policy, is to treat our honored guests with… discretion.”
“How discreet was I, hanging that bastard over the railing?”
“Not very. Frankly, if I’m not out of line, Jack, I would discourage such practice in future… though that little snake in the grass is worthy of worse.”
“I know for a fact that he’s approached a number of your other passengers; I’ve happened upon him in the act, several times.”
Ismay’s expression darkened. “That is distressing news.”
Futrelle ticked the names off on his fingers. “Major Butt, Mr. Straus, Mr. Stead, even a Second-Class passenger named Hoffman… They’ve all apparently sent him packing.”
“Good for them.”
“Of course, I have no way of knowing what sort of threat he made, in these individual cases… He clearly represents an international blackmail ring.”
“Clearly.”
“With what did he threaten you, Mr. Ismay?”
Ismay blinked; he hadn’t seen that question coming. “Pardon?”
“I saw him knock on your door, shortly after I left your suite yesterday morning… just before noon? And I saw you admit him.”
Half a smile settled in Ismay’s check, raising one end of his mustache. “You do get around, sir.”
“This is a large ship, but a small city. I’m merely more observant than the average person, because of my line of work. That’s what you get when you cross a newspaperman with a mystery writer… You’re not obligated to tell me, Bruce. I’m just curious, as a fellow Crafton-appointed ‘client.’”
Ismay shrugged. “He was simply threatening to widely circulate a certain canard about the building of this ship.”
“What canard would that be?”
“A foolish rumor that this ship was built at such a supposedly ‘frenetic pace’ that a crew of workers were trapped within her hull, and that we simply left them there… to ‘suffocate and die.’”
“Were there any deaths in the building of this ship?”
Another dismissive shrug. “From keel laying to launch, only two—quite within acceptable standards—the unwritten rule of British shipyards, you know.”
“What unwritten rule is that, Bruce?”
“ ‘One death for every one hundred pounds spent.’”
It was attitudes like that that bred unions and strikes. But at the moment Futrelle was more concerned with blackmail than politics, and said, “Crafton threatened to spread this ‘trapped crewmen’ tale in the ‘sensationalist’ press, I suppose.”
“Certainly.”
“Please tell me you didn’t pay him off, Bruce.”
“Jack, please do me the courtesy of trusting that I did the right thing.”
That was an evasive answer if ever there was one. But Futrelle didn’t press it.
He said only, “You now have aboard this vessel representatives of two of America’s richest and most powerful families—do you really want this Crafton character working his blackmail racket on Astor and Guggenheim?”
Yet another shrug from Ismay. “What could I do about it?”
Futrelle laughed humorlessly, hollowly. “You could put Crafton off this ship right now—while you still have a chance—here at Queenstown.”
Ismay had begun shaking his head halfway through Futrelle’s little speech. “I can’t do that, sir. Mr. Crafton is, however disreputable a character he may be, a paying customer of the White Star Line.”
So Ismay had paid Crafton’s fee.
“Well,” Ismay said, standing suddenly, “I certainly enjoyed meeting Mrs. Futrelle, and I look forward to seeing you at the captain’s table this evening.”
Then he strode off, heading aft in his quick, martinet’s manner. When J. Bruce Ismay decided a conversation was over, it was over.
The aft A-deck promenade had been transformed into an open-air market. This was the same area outside the Verandah Café where yesterday Futrelle and May had seen Crafton bothering Hoffman up on the Second-Class end of the boat deck. Now the relatively cramped area was thronging with First-Class passengers examining the wares of Irish vendors, men in derbies and shabby suits, women in unlikely fine lace like those they were selling from folding-leg tables.
Among the browsing passengers was a particularly striking couple—a slender handsome man in his late forties escorting a pretty, pretty young woman, who could have been father and daughter, but weren’t. They were Colonel John Jacob Astor IV and his child bride, the former Madeline Force, fresh from a honeymoon tour of Egypt.
Madeline was said to be as shapely as a showgirl, but that wasn’t evident with her navy-blue-and-white pinstriped Norfolk style suit, which even with silk velvet inlay and fancy bone buttons looked a trifle dowdy;