The Hindenburg Murders - By Max Allan Collins Page 0,11
way, you can have the top bunk, if you like. I just was looking for someplace to stow my suitcase.”
“No, this is fine.” Charteris sat on the lower bunk; Knoecher was standing, arms folded, leaning back against the washstand wall. “I’m a little surprised to have company, though, since I understand this flight is underbooked.”
“Is that right?”
Charteris nodded. “I think they’re only a little more than half capacity. There should be plenty of cabins.”
Knoecher frowned in thought. “Well, perhaps we could complain.”
“I don’t mind the company, Eric, if you don’t. Besides which, I’m endeavoring to make the point moot by getting into the good graces of a lady passenger I recently met. She doesn’t have a roommate—yet.”
“Ah! A shipboard conquest, so early?”
Charteris smiled, shook his head; like Ed Douglas, he was craving a smoke. “Early stages, and I don’t like to think of it as a ‘conquest’—that’s so ungentlemanly. Rather a… new friend that I hope to make.”
This remark was not lost on the German, who grinned; his English was good enough to grasp the double entendre.
A sharp knock interrupted their conversation. Charteris rose and opened the door to find a familiar figure—Chief Steward Heinrich Kubis, whom the writer had become well acquainted with on the ship’s maiden voyage.
“Welcome, Mr. Charteris,” the chief steward said. His German-accented English was impeccable.
“Heinrich! I rather hoped you’d be aboard.” Charteris put one hand on his friend’s shoulder and extended the other for a warm clasp.
Looking past Charteris to his cabin mate, the steward said, “I hope I am not intruding, gentlemen.”
“You’re a welcome sight,” Charteris said.
In his late forties, about five-foot-nine, dark blond hair brushed back, bright blue eyes perpetually a twinkle, Kubis was a cheerful, suave veteran of such fashionable hotels as the Carlton in London and the Ritz in Paris. He had also been the first steward ever to serve aboard an airship.
Charteris introduced Knoecher to the chief steward, and after some polite small talk, Kubis said, “Captain Lehmann would be honored to welcome you aboard, personally, Mr. Charteris. If you would come with me, sir…”
In the narrow hallway, the chief steward said, “I just finished your book.”
“Really? Which one?”
“The Saint in New York. Exciting, if a bit bloodthirsty.”
They walked single file in the cramped corridor, the steward leading the way, glancing back as they conversed. Charteris was amused by Kubis, who catered to famous passengers, keeping up on all the society columns.
“I appreciate the business, Heinrich. Did you read it in German or English?”
“German. Very good translation, sir.”
“Yes, I’ve taken a look at the German versions—the fellow they’re using isn’t bad. Is it true Captain Lehmann is merely observing on this flight?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How many captains do you need on one trip?”
“Well, this time we have five, sir.”
“Five!”
“There are more airship captains available, at present, than airships—but we hope, with this new American sister fleet imminent, that may all change.”
Charteris had supposed they were headed to the control gondola, but Captain Lehmann was instead waiting in the chief steward’s office on B deck, starboard, near the tiny bar and the much-yearned-for, still off-limits smoking room.
The office also served as Kubis’s quarters, which were about twice the size of a passenger cabin, but nonetheless hardly spacious, with both a cot and a desk, flush against opposite walls. After ushering Charteris into the cubbyhole, Chief Steward Kubis departed, both as a practical matter of space, and out of respect to these two men.
Captain Lehmann rose from the desk to greet the author with a smile and a handshake. The captain looked smaller in civilian clothes—a gray three-piece suit and darker gray bow tie. Suddenly Charteris realized the fiftyish Lehmann was an unprepossessing figure out of his usual snappy midnight-blue captain’s uniform—short, stocky, his thin dark graying hair combed back, Lehmann seemed an unlikely candidate for war hero or principal director of the Zeppelin Company, both of which he was.
Lehmann had struck Charteris, on the ship’s maiden voyage, as a kindly, soft-spoken father figure, with a surprising wellspring of good humor, as demonstrated by entertaining the passengers with his accomplished piano and accordion playing. Around his eyes and mouth were lines etched by a lifetime of smiles; but in the pale blue eyes in the egg-shaped face, a new melancholy seemed to have settled.
Charteris knew, at once, something was wrong.
“Please sit down, Mr. Charteris,” the captain said in German, and the conversation that followed was in that tongue. Lehmann gestured to the cot, adding, “Forgive the limited seating.”
Charteris sat. “I’m delighted to see you