Robert Walker - Titanic 2012

“It may’s well be the moon,” he moaned.

Hopelessness washed over him.

Not two hours later, well after Ransom finished his jailhouse meal, amounting to bread and water, Reahall returned, and through Ransom’s bars the two detectives played a staring game of wills.

“Maybe you’re right, American,” said Reahall. “It’s a long shot but perhaps you’re just the man for the job.”

“What job? What am I right for?”

Ransom knew it was only a matter of time before the damning news coming from Chicago to Belfast would reach Reahall now that the Marconi wireless operated between the countries. A full description of Alastair, down to his scars from his Haymarket Riot days on the force would prove to Reahall that he indeed had in his custody the escaped murderer of a priest in Chicago.

The following morning at the Belfast lockup things seemed unsettled. Breakfast had not come on time and no sign of Sergeant Quinlan and that skeleton key that Ransom had had his eye on. Neither had Chief Constable Reahall brought his chess board and pieces as earlier promised for a hearty and heady game. Time passed. No one showed up until suddenly, Ian Reahall stood outside Ransom’s cage, white-faced.

“What is it? What’s happened?”

“Pinkerton Agent Tuttle,” he said outright.

“They located his body? Where? Aboard Titanic ? Sent word via the wireless, did they? Got Bellingham’s message, discovered the body, finally took the professor’s rantings seriously on seeing Tuttle’s black corpse? Turned back, did they?”

“Shut up, will you, Alastair! No, no… Titanic is long gone… well on its way.”

“To America, now?”

“Your concern for the U.S. is touching,” said Reahall. “The ship is still in making its way to Southampton. There it’ll be taking on supplies and be outfitted for Easter celebrations.”

“Dressed out, of course, for Easter?” Ransom being alone had long ago lost all connections to such holidays.

“April 7 th, she’ll be draped on all sides with flags—both British and American. So she’ll remain in port for the holiday; it’s why the schedule calls for April 10 thas the date they set sail—three days later.”

“Well then, damn it, man, tell me where was Agent Tuttle found?”

“The ocean always gives up its dead.”

“The ocean?”

“Our unforgiving Irish Sea. He washed up south of Belfast—a small village. My counterpart there sent word by car—what appeared to be a corpse long in the ground had washed ashore there.” He held up a small note, waving it overhead. “I went to have a look, taking Dr. Bellingham and those two former cellmates of yours, along with me. They dissected the body then and there. What I saw…” Reahall was visibly shaken.

“Hold on! Bellingham allowed them to do a dissection—after burning the other bodies at the steel ovens?”

“How did you learn of that news?” Reahall asked.

“Your Sergeant likes to play chess, too.”

“I didn’t know that,” Reahall admitted. “I trust you can beat Quinlan at the game?”

“Never mind that. Tell me more about Tuttle’s remains.”

“Well… it seems Enoch’s been won over by those two students of his.”

“Is that right? Bully for the boys.” Ransom imagined the sabre-toothed creature had a sobering effect on Enoch Bellingham as well as the idea of a medical journal article on the new find.

“It appears so. At any rate, we all went to have a look together.”

“And what did the medical men find inside Tuttle?” Ransom recalled the ugly egg sacs of the stillborn alien life forms he’d seen in the operating theater.

“What did they find, indeed! Shocking,” replied Reahall, who was spinning a large skeleton key in his hand as he spoke. “Found similar results as found in the lab here—results you have yourself seen, Inspector Ransom.”

“Wyland, it is Wyland, sir.”

“I am sure.”

“In any event, I’d thought Tuttle’s body aboard Titanic ,” replied Ransom. “But if he was thrown overboard or rather killed himself by leaping into the water… what with this disease upon him… .who might he have come into contact with before he died? One of the interior workmen? Another Pinkerton agent? Someone aboard Titanic is quite possibly carrying the plague now.”

“It’s a possibility shared by the medical men.” Reahall slapped the bars with what appeared to be a note gripped in his hand.

“There were engineers and other Pinkerton agents who were aboard the night Anton Fiore and the two miners disappeared.”

“Correct and true,” mused Reahall, “but Titanic ’s long gone from here.”

“But she will be remaining in dock at Southampton till the tenth!”

“Understood, and sir, take these in hand.” Reahall’s note in hand was not a note at all but an envelope.

Ransom took the envelope and searched its contents. “Three tickets aboard Trinity?”

“I have seen to it you have a berth on a merchant ship aptly named for your mission, Detective, if you are willing to go to work for me in the capacity of a deputy of Belfast—”

“Deputy?” Ransom smiled wide. “Deputy Constable Wyland of Belfast. Has a pleasant ring to it.”

“I am sure it sounds better than an executioner’s rope.” Reahall held out a badge to him through the bars. “Not as a snitch but as the long arm of the law.”

“I don’t know what to say,” replied Alastair, astonished.

“The good ship Trinity leaves in half an hour. Be ready to make Southampton by early morning tomorrow. Your young surgery friends have agreed to be aboard but only if you will travel with them. It’s the bargain we struck… the only one we can all live with, and I for one intend to live a long life, so now it is your decision, Deputy Constable Wyland? Southampton or the hangman’s noose?”

“I would be proud, sir, to serve under you,” Alastair lied but he felt good about the lie.

“Good, then you won’t mind if I escort you to Trinity where you then can play Father to the Son, and The Holy Ghost.”

“Apt undercover titles for three saviors, eh?”

“Come then.” Reahall unlocked the cell, stepped in, and began reciting the oath of office to Ransom as Ransom up held his right hand. When he got to the part calling for Ransom to declare his name for the record, Alastair thought it all a ploy to get him to confess. To avoid this, he shouted his reply: “I Alastair Wyland, being of sound mind, do hereby swear to uphold the laws and constitution of Belfast and Ireland.”

“That should make it legal enough, Constable Wyland. Now… shall we have at it?”

Alastair grabbed his overcoat, top hat, wolf’s head cane, checked the time on his gold watch—all of which he’d negotiated back from Quinlan and Reahall over these days, and he announced, “Well then… do lead on, Constable.”

Reahall hustled him out and down a back stairwell, and soon they stood in the morning light of a Belfast alleyway slick with a night rain. Even the odors rising like steam off nearby trash cans proved a balm to the freed man.

Alastair asked,“You’ve arranged for a berth but why? What’s changed your outlook? Tuttle’s condition?”

“Better you with your bloody principles and ethics to go chasing this damnable thing down than me; I’m no hero but perhaps… just perhaps you are more like those tow-head boys than you think.”

“I’m no naïve lad; you know that much about me.”

“No, not naïve by any means, certainly not innocent, but I find in you a certain recklessness and thumbing your nose at authority as well as perhaps death itself. Some might term it Yankee gallantry; as in rushing into a burning building, or-or that mine shaft that first night.”