The Titanic Murders (13 page)

“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 three-quarters of the otherwise perfect specimen of
Titanic
stationery intact.

On the page, in a cramped, masculine cursive, had been penned the following list of names:

Astor

Brown

Butt/Millet

Futrelle

Guggenheim

Hoffman

Check marks were beside every name with the exception of “Brown.”

Ismay asked, “And what do you make of this, Jack?”

Futrelle, studying the list, said, “Well, these, obviously, are the names of Crafton’s blackmail ‘clients.’”

“Yes. Including your own.”

“With the exception of Mr. Guggenheim and Mrs. Brown… and the lack of a check mark next to Maggie’s name may indicate Crafton had not yet approached her… I witnessed the late extortionist in action with each of these individuals. Are you talking to everyone on this list?”

A nonsmile twitched Ismay’s lips; his mustache bobbed. “Thus far… only you.”

“Why?… Let me answer that in part, myself: with the exception of your Second-Class passenger Mr. Hoffman, I’m the least socially prominent of the lot. Approaching Colonel Astor or Mr. Guggenheim… that could be embarrassing. Delicate, at the very least.”

A wan smile now formed under Ismay’s mustache. “We value you every bit as much as anyone on this ship, Jack—a little more than most, actually.”

“Why?”

Finally the captain spoke, though he still did not turn away from the view on the sea: “You have a background in newspaper
work, sir, and criminology. Before this matter is closed, I would like you to have a look at Mr. Crafton.”

Futrelle squinted; the sun coming in made it difficult to look at the captain for long. “I don’t understand.”

Smith swiveled on his heels, like a figure on a cuckoo clock; his hands remained locked behind him. “I want you to see the scene… Mr. Crafton’s body has not been moved, nothing has been disturbed.”

Futrelle held up the White Star letterhead. “Other than this list.”

Defensively pointing to the sheet still in Futrelle’s grasp, Ismay said, “That was found on his dresser. Out in the open. Just like that.”

“
Just
like this? May I point out, Bruce, that this letterhead has been torn.”

“Obviously.”

“And several names are missing.”

“I don’t follow.”

Futrelle kept his voice gentle, as unintimidating as possible when he said, “I think you do. This is an alphabetical listing… the missing names are Mr. Rood’s, Mr. Stead’s, Mr. Straus’s… and yours, Bruce. In order to remove your name from this list, tearing across the bottom, you had to remove Rood, Stead and Straus, as well.”

Ismay was naturally pale, but he turned paler. “Well! I certainly didn’t expect insults—”

“I didn’t mean it as an insult. I don’t blame you—in your position, I might have done the same. I might have destroyed the list in its entirety.”

Ismay thought that over. “Then you are willing to be of help?”

“I’m certainly willing to look at the scene of the crime.”

Eyes and nostrils again flared. “It’s not a crime, damnit!”

“Then why bother having me view the scene? Believe me, I understand, Bruce, that your position in this is not enviable. The last thing on this earth that you desire is to have this maiden voyage blemished. I can well understand that you do not want the
Titanic
’s name forever linked with death.”

Ismay considered Futrelle’s words, then said, “So you will be discreet?”

“I have no desire for my wife and myself to be moved from our sumptuous stateroom into steerage, thank you.”

Smith smiled—just a little, but a smile. He said, “We appreciate your cooperation, Mr. Futrelle.”

“I won’t go so far as to say it’s my pleasure, Captain… but I do consider it my duty, a concept with which you’re intimately acquainted.”

They took the stairs down to C deck. Crafton’s suite was C13, which was toward the forward end of the First-Class accommodations, on the port side of the ship, down a shallow hallway off of which were only a pair of rooms on either side. In a white uniform with cap, a bulbous-nosed, white-mustached, medium-sized old gent in his early sixties stood in the hallway to one side of the door marked C13, a black bag held before him like a big lumpy fig leaf.

Pausing there at the door, the captain said, “Mr. Futrelle, this is Dr. O’Loughlin, our chief surgeon. William, this is Jacques Futrelle.”

O’Loughlin smiled, but his eyes didn’t; he said, “I understand you’re a famous author.”

It occurred to Futrelle that if he were really famous, the chief surgeon would not have to be told that.

“I’m a writer,” Futrelle said. “How was the body found, doctor?”

Ismay, looking furtively about, said, “Let’s not discuss that until we’re within the cabin, if you would, gentlemen?”

And the White Star director used a key to unlock the door, gesturing for Futrelle to go in, which he did, the other three men following.

It was a single, whitewashed oak-paneled room with a lavatory, like the Harrises’ cabin, but minus the trunk closet—a brass double bed, green horsehair sofa, marble washstand, wicker cushioned armchair, a green mesh sack on the wall taking the place of a nightstand.

The figure on the near side of the bed, which was at left upon entering, was sheet-covered; no sign of struggle, or blood.

“I stripped the bed before making my examination,” the doctor said, indicating the quilted bedspread and blankets which lay in a pile at the foot of the bed; on top of the pile sat the bed’s two fat feathered pillows, both looking used.

Futrelle prowled the room, briefly, the three men getting out of his way as he did; he found nothing unusual, nothing that seemed out of place. He did not look in drawers, however, and stopped short of an actual search.

“To answer your earlier question, Jack,” Ismay said, following him about, “Mr. Crafton was discovered this morning, just after nine o’clock, when a staff member came in to make up the room. As is common practice, the stewardess knocked, received no answer, unlocked the door and came in.”

Futrelle was examining the door. “So the body was found in this locked room?”

“Yes.”

“The door doesn’t lock without a key, does it?”

“No—it can be locked from either side, but only with a key; there’s no automatic locking device, as you do find in some hotels.”

Futrelle, excusing himself as he brushed past the captain, approached the doctor, who stood near the bedside, poised to pull back the sheet.

“If you please, Doctor,” he said.

“I warn you, sir—rigor mortis has set in.”

“I’m a big-city newspaperman, Doctor. The dead are unfortunately not strangers to me.”

The doctor nodded and drew the sheet to Crafton’s waist.

In death, the blackmailer looked no less ferretlike, though easier to pity than despise. The late John Bertram Crafton stared at the ceiling with wide, dead eyes, his mouth drawn back in a grimace.

Futrelle tossed a smirk over his shoulder. “A peaceful death, did you say, Mr. Ismay?”

Crafton was a scrawny, even malnourished man with the scars of skin conditions and diseases upon his nearly hairless naked body.

“Did you strip him as well as the bed, Doctor?”

“No, sir. He’s just as I found him—on his back, naked in bed…. No nightclothes or underthings.”

Futrelle leaned in for a closer look. What he saw was hideous: the whites of Crafton’s eyes were so clotted with burst vessels they were almost crimson.

“Petechial hemorrhaging, Doctor?”

Dr. O’Loughlin blinked in surprise; the nod that followed was barely perceptible.

Futrelle examined the corpse’s hands, finding them—palms up—clawlike, a state grotesquely exaggerated by the rigor mortis.

Standing away from the corpse, Futrelle nodded to the doctor to cover Crafton back up, asking, “How many pillows was he sleeping with?”

“Just one,” the doctor said.

“Where was the extra pillow? In its position near the headboard?”

“No. Halfway down the bed, as if…” The doctor glanced at Ismay, then shrugged.

“As if discarded,” Futrelle said.

The captain stepped forward and said to Futrelle, “What was that medical term you used, sir?”

“Petechial hemorrhaging,” Futrelle said. “A person being suffocated tries so hard to breathe, the blood vessels in the eyes burst. The clawed hands are another clear signal. Doctor, you may wish to examine under the fingernails for skin scratched from—”

“This is nonsense,” Ismay said. His face was almost as red as Crafton’s eyes had been.

“You’re saying that this man was suffocated,” the captain stated calmly.

“I have no doubt,” Futrelle said. He nodded toward the pile of bed things. “With one of those pillows, most likely.”

“Doctor,” Ismay said, rage barely in check, “are these symptoms also consistent with heart failure or some other kind of natural cause?”

The doctor said nothing.

“Well, Doctor?” the captain asked.

“Perhaps,” he said, with a shrug.

“Then as far as any of us are concerned,” Ismay said forcefully, “this is death by natural causes. Is that understood?”

No one replied.

“Good,” Ismay said.

Directing the question to all three of them, Futrelle asked, “Doesn’t it concern you that you have a murderer aboard?”

Ismay’s grimace was worse than Crafton’s. “To have a murderer aboard, Mr. Futrelle, we would first have to have a murder.”

“I understand your reluctance to involve passengers of prominence like Colonel Astor, Major Butt, Mr. Guggenheim and the rest… but you might be endangering them, if a malevolent presence is aboard this ship.”

Ismay sighed heavily. “Mr. Futrelle…”

“What happened to ‘Jack’?”

“Jack.” And now Ismay spoke with withering sarcasm: “Let us suppose your diagnosis, and not Dr. O’Loughlin’s, is the correct one; let’s assume that years of medical school and years of the practice of medicine are no match for the expertise of a writer of mystery stories. What would be the motivation for Mr. Crafton’s… removal?”

“Oh, I don’t know—possibly that he was a goddamned blackmailer.”

“Precisely. This is not the work of Jack the Ripper, sir—if it’s ‘work’ at all. Even if I wanted this matter investigated, I have limited security on the ship—the master-of-arms and his small staff. The ‘suspects,’ if you will, are wealthy individuals, traveling with retinue that could easily include a manservant or two, willing to dispatch an odious task of this nature. Someone like Major Butt, with his military background, would certainly have the stomach for it, himself.”