The Titanic Murders - By Max Allan Collins Page 0,32
not.” Futrelle was at the closet, choosing his clothing for the day. The brown houndstooth-check suit seemed appropriate, somehow. “I suspect something’s wrong.”
“Whatever could it be?”
He smirked to himself. “Let’s hope it’s not an iceberg.”
“What, dear?”
“Nothing… just, when you’ve finished The Virginian, for your own peace of mind, I’d avoid this little novel I’m reading.”
She gave him a puzzled look, shrugged and returned to her reading.
Within minutes, Futrelle was again knocking at the door to suite B52. This time a servant answered—a cadaverous liveried butler in his late fifties—who ushered Futrelle through the parlor of the grandiose stateroom. Soon the author had left Napoleon’s Empire stylings behind for the mock-Tudor world of Ismay’s private enclosed promenade, with its white walls with dark half-timbering.
Blond wicker chairs, mostly deck-style, mingled with the potted plants, so the sunny space provided plenty of places to sit; but both Captain Smith and J. Bruce Ismay were pacing, with all the anxiety of expectant fathers but none of the hope.
“Jack!” Ismay said. He wore a businesslike dark brown tweed; no knickers today. “Thank you for coming, old man. Sit down, won’t you?”
Ismay pulled a wicker chair out into the walking area, and Futrelle sat; the White Star director drew up his own chair, while Smith—regal in a uniform as white and well pressed as that of a prosperous ice-cream salesman—stood with his hands locked behind him, staring absently out at the endless gunmetal sea.
Ismay was fussing. “Would you like coffee or tea, sir? Anything at all?”
“No. We had a late breakfast. Your room service is superb, gentlemen.”
“Thank you,” Ismay said.
The captain said nothing.
Awkwardness settled over the promenade like fog. Ismay looked toward Smith for help, but Smith’s eyes were on the boundless waters.
“Something extremely unfortunate has occurred,” Ismay said, finally. “One of our passengers has… passed on to his final reward.”
“Who died?”
Ismay twitched a wholly inappropriate smile. “Mr. John Bertram Crafton of London.”
A humorless laugh that started in his chest rumbled out of Futrelle like a cannonball. Then he asked, “Murdered?”
Captain Smith glanced sharply over his shoulder, then stared back out at sea.
Ismay’s eyes and nostrils were flaring like those of a rearing horse. “Why do you assume he’s been murdered?”
“Oh, I don’t know—perhaps because he appears to have been trying to blackmail the entire First-Class passenger list… yourself included, Bruce.”
Ismay swallowed thickly. “Our ship’s surgeon indicates natural causes. Though a relatively young man, Mr. Crafton appears to have died in his sleep… peacefully. Who knows—perhaps he had a heart condition.”
Futrelle was cleaning his glasses on a handkerchief. “For that to be true, he’d’ve had to have a heart.”
Ismay sighed, shifted in the wicker chair, crackingly. “If this were a case of murder… and believe me, it isn’t… you would be in a particularly awkward position, Jack. After all, witnesses saw you suspending Mr. Crafton by his ankles over the Grand Staircase balcony.”
“That was just a prank to make a point.”
Futrelle thought he saw a faint smile cross the captain’s lips, but—in his side view of the man—wasn’t positive.
“In any case,” Futrelle said, “I was hardly alone in my distaste for Mr. Crafton. I don’t believe he was your choice for most favorite passenger, either, Bruce—and of course, Mr. Rood slapped him rather publicly, last night.”
“Very true,” Ismay said, nodding. “But, again, our ship’s surgeon says this is definitely not murder.”
“Well, that’s a relief, because you’d certainly have a blue-chip list of suspects on your hands… not to mention have a damper thrown over your highly publicized maiden voyage.”
Fires lighted in the White Star’s director’s eyes, and his spine stiffened. “That will not be allowed to happen.”
Futrelle shrugged. “If it’s not murder, why should it? As I believe I pointed out, we are a little town, floating in this palace of the sea. People die in little towns every day, every night. A natural enough occurrence… sad though it might be.”
“Yes.” Ismay lowered his head, his expression somber. “The loss of any one of our fellowmen is not to be taken lightly. As it is said in the Bible, ‘His eye is on the sparrow.’”
“And, it would seem, the vulture… So what does this have to do with me, gentlemen?”
The two men exchanged enigmatic expressions.
Then Ismay withdrew from the inside pocket of his suit coat a sheet of paper—White Star rounded-corner letterhead (found in every cabin on this ship) with its familiar wind-caught white-starred red flag at left of the legend: On Board R.M.S. Titanic. Oddly, the bottom of the sheet was torn away, leaving only