Max Collins - The Lusitania Murders

I used the phone, calling the Verandah Cafe, asking for Miss Vance, who soon came on the line; we spoke briefly. Then I wandered over to Vanderbilt.

“Mr. Vanderbilt,” I said, nodding.

“Mr. Van Dine.”

“If I might risk rudeness, I would like to ask a rather personal question.”

He looked at me curiously; an eyebrow lifted. He was a little drunk.

I asked my question. “You didn’t actually see that steward, Leach, come out of my room, did you?”

His eyes tightened. “Whatever do you mean?”

“Your friend Williamson saw it, but asked you to report it. Do you know why?”

Vanderbilt’s defensiveness vanished; he shrugged. “He told me what he’d seen, and that he was concerned-asked if I would go to Captain Turner about it. He was afraid to.”

“Afraid?”

“Well, he knew Turner wouldn’t turn me away-that I’d be taken seriously.”

“I see,” I said, as if that made sense.

The phone’s ring was almost lost in the cocktail chatter, but I heard it, and went to answer; but Frohman’s valet, William, reached for the receiver before I got there.

I said, “That will be for me.”

He made a face and said, “I’m sure. . Frohman suite!” He listened, then turned to me with surprised confusion, handing me the phone, saying, “It is for you, sir.”

“Mr. Williamson has arrived at the party,” Miss Vance’s voice said into my ear, over the sound of festivities on her end of the wire. “He’s making the rounds-no one will miss the fact that he was here.”

“Time for you to leave.”

“Yes it is.”

I hung up, because it was time for me to leave, as well. Making no good-byes, I slipped out, and I reached the door to Madame DePage’s suite just as Miss Vance arrived, looking fetching in her low-cut green silk gown, a small purse in hand.

We did not speak. She used her key in the door-these were her quarters, as well as madame’s, after all-and we went in to wait in the lavish suite, with its Louis XVI decor and walnut panelling, its residence-like windows covered in black.

We did not have long to wait.

Dressed in a steward’s uniform, Charles Williamson-a large satchel in hand-entered the suite’s living room; he had just begun to search when I emerged from where I’d crouched behind a green settee, and said, “You look good in white-but you’ll look better in stripes.”

His eyes hardened-he was frozen in the middle of the room-and his hand dipped into the satchel, which was unlatched, and emerged with a revolver. .

. . but another revolver, a smaller but no less deadly one (compact enough for a purse), had inserted its snout in the back of his neck, before his own gun could become much of an issue.

“As ship’s detective,” Miss Vance said, “I’m placing you under arrest, Mr. Williamson. . ”

I took the gun from his right hand and, from his left, the satchel-in it were Mr. Kessler’s stocks and bonds, and Hubbard’s five thousand.

“I suppose C.F. Frohman’s cash would have had to wait,” I said, “till his party was over and he was off attending the concert.”

He made no denials. His blue eyes flicked from one of us to the other, his lips curled in something between a smile and a sneer.

“If you don’t mind my asking,” he said, hands raised, “how did you know?”

“Klaus had a list in his shoe,” Miss Vance said accommodatingly-training her gun on Williamson, as I covered him with his own weapon. “Your name was at the top of it-and the names below were in alphabetical order. Quite straightforward, really-the stowaways’ contact first, followed by a listing copied from a passenger’s register, provided by your friend, the late Mr. Leach.”

“And you knew, from that? No court would accept such thin evidence.”

“No court has to-you’re nabbed red-handed, sir. But there are other matters-your inclusion among those who received warning telegrams, for example. You are hardly worthy of inclusion on such a celebrated list-why would a mere art dealer be included among the prominent likes of Hubbard, Vanderbilt, Kessler, DePage and Frohman?”

The sneering smile settled in one corner of his mouth. “Why indeed?”

“ You sent those wires-you or your associates. A fairly venerated ploy, the villain hiding amongst his victims. . giving himself access to all the famous personages on that list, by becoming one of them. We asked your intended victims if any stranger on the ship had gone out of his way to make a friend of them. . Your name came up, but only once. . yet you no doubt got next to all of them-though they didn’t think of you as a stranger. No, not Vanderbilt’s friend-you had something in common, after all. . you were part of the group warned with those threatening telegrams!”

His smile had begun to fade.

I said, “You planted that bomb in my room-Vanderbilt admitted to me that you asked him to report seeing Leach do it, to Captain Turner. You meant to distract us, while you gave your accomplice a friendly drink of cyanide-laced tea; and in creating his ‘suicide’ you also meant to further cement in our minds Leach as the culprit. . Staging suicide is a specialty of yours, isn’t it?”

Now he frowned.

“Your cabin is just down the corridor,” Miss Vance pointed out sweetly. “On the portside of the ship. . the hallway where you stuck a knife into your cohort’s back.”

His laugh was hollow. “Why do you care? He was just a German-they were all just a bunch of damned Hun spies, and I took care of them. I deserve a medal.”

“Perhaps,” I said, “but not a satchel of money.”

“Alert the master-at-arms,” Miss Vance said to me. Then to Williamson she said, “You’re checking into new quarters-the brig.”

Williamson only smiled. “I hope they’ve cleaned it out. That blood can get sticky.”

Chilled, I used the telephone.

I suppose I have been frank enough about our relationship to reveal that Miss Vance and I spent Thursday night together in her cabin. After our shared exploit, we craved each other’s company in the manner of adults of free will and progressive thinking. We were happily and snugly slumbering in each other’s arms in a bed designed for one when the bellow of the ship’s foghorn rudely awakened us-and I damned near fell off the bed.

There was no getting back to sleep-the foghorn was simply too insistent-and, after I’d returned briefly to my cabin to freshen up and dress, we joined the DePage group at the first breakfast seating. Only Madame DePage herself had been informed of last evening’s melodramatics, largely because, after all, they had been staged in her quarters. Captain Turner himself had told Vanderbilt of his friend’s transgressions, and what was said between them I do not know-the millionaire made himself scarce, and I did not see him at all until much later that Friday.

Otherwise, a cloak of confidentiality as thick as the morning fog enveloped the ship.

Jaded, at this time, by the Lucy ’s embarrassment of gastronomic riches, neither Miss Vance nor myself ate what could be called a hearty breakfast-tea and scones with marmalade being about the extent of it. Perhaps we felt that letdown that follows any great adventure-Miss Vance even commented that she was reminded of the day following the closing of a play’s successful run.

A walk on the Boat Deck’s open-air promenade presented an experience both surreal and ghostly, the air chill for May, the view past the railing one of swirling mist. The Lusitania might have been the Flying Dutchman , a specter ship at home in dense fog-perhaps I should have run this theory past the paranormally inclined Miss Pope. And even a landlubber like me could tell we’d slowed-the engine’s deep thrum had shifted significantly in amplitude and tempo.