Max Collins - The Titanic Murders

“Good morning!”

The voice belonged to J. Bruce Ismay, standing tall and thin, a handsome Ichabod Crane in a dark blue suit with gray pinstripes and matching gray spats, and, brisk breeze or not, no topcoat or hat.

As the blanket-bundled Futrelle and May stirred, Ismay urged them, “Don’t get up, please don’t get up on my account!” Before Futrelle could make introductions, the White Star Line director bowed to May. “J. Bruce Ismay, madam-I presume you’re the lovely Mrs. Futrelle.”

“If I’m not,” she said, “the lovely Mr. Futrelle has some explaining to do.”

Ismay laughed, once-he used laughs as punctuation, having enough of a sense of humor to know where to place them, though no more. “I understand you’re an author yourself.”

“A novice compared to Jack, here, I’m afraid.”

“But published.”

“Oh yes. Several times.”

“An accomplishment I envy. May I sit?”

“Please,” Futrelle said, and Ismay pulled up a deck chair on the husband’s side.

“Would it be bad form, sir, to ask if you’ve had time to consider my proposal?”

“Not at all.” Futrelle nodded toward his wife. “I have discussed it with May. She’s favorably disposed toward doing a mystery set aboard your ship.”

He beamed so widely at her, the ends of his mustache threatened to tickle the corners of his eyes. “I’m grateful, madam. I was not at all convinced your husband would say yes.”

“I haven’t said yes,” Futrelle reminded him.

“I hope that isn’t ‘no,’” Ismay said.

“I haven’t decided, but I am leaning in your direction, sir.”

“Splendid! What can I do to aid you?”

“We’ve had a tour of the ship, thanks to your personable purser, Mr. McElroy.”

“Wonderful chap.”

“Yes he is. But we may wish to take a closer look at the Titanic, from the crow’s nest to the boiler room. As a newspaperman turned fiction writer, I find the more truth I can build my tale around, the better.”

Ismay was nodding at the good sense of that. “Well, tonight at the captain’s table, I’ll introduce you to Mr. Andrews. I’m sure he’ll take you anywhere on the ship that you wish, and he has keys to everything.”

“Thomas Andrews? The master shipbuilder responsible for this vessel?”

“Himself,” Ismay said, clearly pleased that Futrelle was this knowledgeable, though Futrelle knew only what a few articles had told him.

A small and colorful flotilla of bumboats laden with local vendors and their wares had followed in the wakes of the two tenders; the bumboats bobbed out there, voices traveling over the water, “Lace and linens!” “Knick-knacks and fineries!”

With comical urgency, May asked Ismay if they’d be allowed to board.

“It’s White Star’s policy to let the more reputable merchants come aboard,” he said, with a tiny shrug, “as a courtesy to our passengers.”

Her eyes were bright; shopping was one of May’s passions. “Where will they be setting up, and when?”

“On the aft A-deck promenade, madam, and soon.”

May turned to her husband, and said, “Jack, I need to get my handbag in our stateroom. Why don’t you continue your chat with Mr. Ismay, and I’ll meet you down on deck in a few minutes.”

Futrelle said that was fine, stood to help his wife unbundle herself from her blanket, they exchanged pecks on the cheek, and she was gone as if fired from a rocket.

“My wife is the same,” Ismay admitted. “Someday you simply must visit my wing at Harrods.”

Futrelle chuckled; that was a pretty good jest, coming from Ismay. “Actually, Bruce…” They were on first-name terms, after all; Ismay had insisted, yesterday. “I’m pleased we have a moment in private. There’s a subject I need to broach that I’d prefer to keep from my wife.”

Ismay frowned in interest, saying, “Continue, please.”

And Futrelle told Ismay of his meeting with Crafton on the balcony of the Grand Staircase-omitting, of course, his dangling of the man over the railing.

But Ismay didn’t need to be told of the latter.

With a 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.”