Max Collins - The Titanic Murders

May squeezed her husband’s hand, craning her neck back, still not able to see the sky: just the freshly painted black hull and, straining, the gold-trimmed white band above. To left and right, the Titanic filled their eyes. Around them fellow passengers were swarming about the pier, parents struggling to keep track of children, porters and deckhands lugging luggage. But May seemed oblivious to this chaos, her attention seized by the Promethean vessel that was making scurrying ants of them all.

“Jack-it’s endless….”

“Four blocks wide, dear. Eleven stories tall-not counting the four funnels. The literature says you could drive twin locomotives through one of those glorified smokestacks… but who’d want to?”

“I can’t even see the funnels….”

“Step back, just a little.”

“There! There they are-they’re golden, Jack! Oh, and there’s the sky, at last.”

Futrelle, overwhelmed by its looming enormity, was nonetheless impressed by the vessel’s racing-craft-like sleekness.

“I think that’s the way!” Henry Harris, a giddy Rene on his arm, was pointing to the gentle slope of a gangway that led to the main entrance on B deck. They trundled that direction.

“Shall we go aboard, dear?” May asked.

“Why not?” Futrelle responded.

Into the entryway of B deck, with its gleaming white walls and gleaming white linoleum, trooped the elegant army of First-Class passengers. They were met by a gaggle of ship’s staff-the chief steward and his assorted minions, and the purser’s clerk, who saw to it that tickets were quickly processed, names jotted in a ledger book, keys dispensed, directions to staterooms given, with smiles and courtesy and efficiency that boded well for a pleasant voyage to come.

In the entrance hall beyond, the opulence of the ship first made itself known to the Americans: gold-plated crystal teardrop light fixtures, polished oak paneling, gilt-framed landscapes in oil, Oriental carpet, horsehair sofas, silk lampshades, caneback chairs with red velvet cushions….

The abundance of it all assaulted their senses, stopping them in their tracks. May gasped, Rene began to laugh, and both women did pirouettes, looking all about with the wide, innocently greedy eyes of children in a lavishly stocked toy store.

To the right rose a magnificent marble staircase enclosed by a grand framework of wood sculpture, its carved walnut flowers running floor to ceiling, with exquisitely sculpted oak balustrades bearing wrought-iron and gilt-bronze scrollwork.

Henry put his hands on his hips and laughed. “And I thought I was a producer! This makes the Lusitania look like a garbage scow.”

Futrelle was admiring a beautiful bronze cherub perched on a pedestal at the center of the foot of the flight of stairs. “Well, I heard White Star planned to leave speed to Cunard, and concentrate on luxury-apparently it wasn’t just the bunkum.”

Only the relative lowness of the ceilings in this reception area provided a hint that this was anything but the finest land-based hotel. Behind them, the next group of First-Class passengers was traipsing in, to be similarly bowled over by this opulence.

The two couples made their way around and down the staircase to C deck, and were soon padding along a wide, blue-carpeted, brass-railed white corridor on the port side of the ship, where other First-Class passengers were following the path to their staterooms, as well. Up ahead was that family from the boat train, the handsome couple with the lovely little golden-haired girl, shapely blunt-nosed nanny with babe in arms and plump maid. They had paused and the young husband was speaking to someone.

John Crafton.

“Is your friend making friends again?” Henry whispered, walking just behind Futrelle and May.

Actually, he seemed to be. Crafton’s pearl-gray fedora was in his hands and he was smiling pleasantly, or at least as pleasantly as possible for him, and both the husband and the wife were returning the smile, with no apparent strain.

Only the nanny was frowning, and seemed nervous, but then again the baby in her arms was squirming and fussing.

As the Futrelles and Harrises approached where the little group clustered, blocking the way, Crafton noticed and said, “We seem to be holding things up… I’m so pleased to have run into you, Mr. Allison, Mrs. Allison. Until later, then.”

Crafton tipped his hat and-the Futrelles and Harrises standing aside for him-swaggered past, cane in hand, nodding and smiling as he did.

Rene twitched her nose. “Why does a smile from him make me crave a bath?”

This required no answer, and anyway, they were up even with that family, now.

“I’m afraid we always seem to be in the way,” the young husband said, turning toward the two couples with an embarrassed grin. “I’m Hudson Allison, this is my wife Bess, our daughter Lorraine… Alice, there, has little Trevor.”

Introductions were made all around, hands shaken (though of course the maid was not mentioned, and nanny Alice only that once in passing); but more passengers were coming up the corridor and the baby was crying, so further information, getting better acquainted, would have to wait. It was time for everyone to move on.

Heading aft, making a left turn down a hallway (for all its length, the ship wasn’t all that wide-perhaps ninety feet), the Harrises finally found C83, their cabin. Before pushing on to find their own quarters, the Futrelles peeked in at the lovely little room with its graceful, even dainty Louis XVI styling, exemplified by walls of white-and-green-and-gold brocade with whitewashed waist-high walnut trim.

“Oh, Rene,” May said. “It’s simply beautiful!”

“Step inside, you two,” Rene said.

A gilt-adorned carved walnut bed with silk-damask-upholstered head- and footboard dominated the room, that same upholstery carried to a plump sofa and a padded walnut armchair. A basket of fresh flowers adorned a rosewood-and-walnut dressing table, and more flowers waited on the marble-topped mahogany nightstand. A small black fan was ceiling-mounted, perching like a big out-of-place bug in all this elegance.

“I guess our baggage will be delivered later,” Harris said, taking in the posh little room with a big grin.

“Wrong again, Henry B.,” Rene said-she’d been exploring. “Here it all is!”

In a spacious trunk closet, as if they’d materialized magically, were neatly stacked the array of steamer trunks and bags.

“Can all the rooms be this marvelous?” May wondered.

“Let’s find out,” Futrelle said, and to the Harrises added, “We’ll probably head up on deck to take in the departure.”

“We’ll find you up there, or see you at luncheon,” Henry said. Rene waved, saying, “Toodle-oo, you two!”, and the Futrelles pressed on.

The numbering of the rooms was confusing and inconsistent, and by the time they found theirs-C67/68-the Futrelles were not far from where they’d started, the area near the C-deck entrance hall and the grand stairway.

“We’re going in circles already,” Futrelle said, working the key in the door, not sure if the size of this ship was to his liking.

But May’s eyes glittered with girlish anticipation. “Let’s see if our accommodations measure up to Henry and Rene’s.”

They did, and then some.

The Futrelles found themselves in a suite that made the Harrises’ quarters seem like a plush closet: awash with the elegance of Louis Quinze stylings, the oak-paneled suite consisted of a sitting room adjoining a bedroom (off of which were both a bathroom and a steamer-trunk closet-their things, too, had been delivered). The carpeting was a deep blue broadloom.