The Titanic Murders - By Max Allan Collins Page 0,8

his wife. “One of the world’s foremost eccentrics.”

“I’m afraid I’ve never heard of him.”

“Well,” the major said, “you’ll undoubtedly hear him on the ship—he’s quite vociferous, one of the most notorious of the muckraking journalists of Britain, lately an outspoken pacifist, and a devoted spiritualist.”

“What an outlandish combination of interests,” May said.

Futrelle could see that his wife’s initial unfavorable reaction to Dr. Stead’s appearance had already been overcome by her native curiosity in the complex package that was this strange man, who the mystery writer knew to have been an influential, even pioneering newspaperman in his day.

But Futrelle was puzzled about something, even as he watched the burly bearded figure board the train, the elderly woman seeing him off. “And how is it that Mr. Stead is your colleague, Archie?”

“I understand the president has invited him to speak at the international peace conference, later this month in New York.”

“Who else is appearing?” Millet asked dryly. “A trained bear?”

“Don’t underestimate him, Frank,” the major said to his friend. “He has an evangelical background—they say he’s a mesmerizing speaker.”

A diminutive figure, dapper in a single-breasted fine-striped sack suit and pearl-gray fedora, topcoat over one arm, swaggered up with a gold-topped walking stick and removed his hat, nodding to May. He had gone to some trouble to present a handsome appearance, an effort undercut by his narrow ferret’s face, intense unblinking dark eyes and an oversize, overwaxed handlebar mustache.

“Good morning, Major,” the ferret-faced man said in a voice as oily as his black hair. “Bit of breeze, carrying soot, I’m afraid.”

“One never knows what rubbish a breeze will blow in,” the major said. His eyes were tight.

“I was hoping you’d introduce me to your famous friend”—and the little man nodded to Futrelle—“the great author, Mr. Jacques Futrelle.”

A smile twitched under Archie’s mustache. “If you already know who he is, Mr. Crafton, why bother?”

The awkwardness of the situation—and such seemingly rude behavior coming from the supremely social Archie Butt (who, in a single hour at a reception given for members of the judiciary, had once introduced over a thousand guests to President Taft)—prompted Futrelle to act.

He stepped forward, presented his hand to the ferrety little man. “Jack Futrelle at your service, sir. And you are?”

He cleared his throat, touched his breast with a gray-gloved hand. “John Bertram Crafton, Mr. Futrelle. Traveling to the States on business.” He had a crisply British accent, but just a hint of the lower class was in it, a Cockney in the woodpile. “We’ll be fellow First-Class passengers on the Titanic. I hope you’ll allow me to buy you a drink aboard ship.”

“I think I could be tempted. This is my wife, May…”

As introductions were made, Archie glowered on; even the urbane Millet seemed made uneasy by Crafton’s presence.

Finally, Crafton tipped his pearl-gray fedora, and strutted aboard the train, swinging his walking stick.

“Cocky little bastard,” Futrelle said.

“Jack,” May scolded; but her eyes agreed with him.

Archie’s face was frozen in a scowl. “Stay away from him, Jack. He’s a bad egg.”

“Care to be more explicit, Archie?”

“No.”

And it was left at that.

Soon, the major and Millet had boarded and the crowd on the platform was thinning out. The Harrises were late; but, then, they were theatrical people.

“Perhaps we should go ahead and board, dear,” Futrelle was saying, when suddenly the remaining crowd parted like the Red Sea and the Harrises, in all their good-natured show-business vulgarity, made their entrance.

“Okay, okay, so we kept you waitin’!” Henry said, as the couple approached. “But you’d be out of business if there wasn’t a little suspense in life, right, Jack?”

Henry—his red bow tie incongruously peeking out from under an Inverness cape that was an apparent London souvenir—was a big man with a big voice, the hair receding on a bucket head with bright dark beads of eyes barely separated by a prominent nose. His wife, René—that she used the masculine form of her first name betrayed her ignorance of French and a certain lack of breeding, which Futrelle found endearing—was comparatively petite, a dark-haired woman in her mid-thirties with a sunny disposition matching her yellow linen hip-length jacket, with its tan linen ankle-length flared skirt. Her cute features peeked out from under a pale green large-crowned felt hat, its wide brim turned jauntily down.

“You know, Henry,” Futrelle said to his grinning unapologetic friend and his giggling wife, “some people think you’re a loud overbearing Hebrew jackass… but I stick up for you.”

“No kiddin’, Jack?”

“I say I don’t find you all that loud.”

Henry roared with