The Lusitania Murders (11 page)

“Somehow I managed to resist. Is that a bullet wound?”

She leaned in, her pretty nose damn near touching the blossom of blood. Then she drew back, her eyes meeting mine and holding them. “No—that’s a knife wound. Possibly a hunting knife—judging by the width of the tear in the fabric . . . nearly two inches.”

“Couldn’t the cloth have been torn in the struggle?”

She shook her head. “I don’t believe there was a struggle—this is the classic example of a man stabbed in the back.”

I disagreed—telling her I had heard a to-do in the hall. Surely this was the result of a scuffle escalating into tragedy.

She shrugged. “Perhaps there were two other men . . . two assailants, let us say. One is arguing with our late friend here, facing him, and the other is behind him.”

“I see—one keeps him busy, the other stabs him in the back.”

“Or one is arguing with the victim, and as the argument seems about to get out of hand, the accomplice ends the discussion with a two-inch blade of steel.”

She stood and so did I.

“Of course,” she said, “what immediately comes to mind is his two friends—the other stowaways.”

“Yes! If Klaus escaped the cell, so must have the others—and there was tension between them . . . I witnessed it.”

Nodding, she said, “The other two seemed more likely to cooperate, to talk—wasn’t that your opinion, after interrogating them?”

“It most certainly was. . . . Shouldn’t we alert Staff Captain Anderson, or perhaps Captain Turner himself?”

“We should. But I’d like a few moments, here, at the scene of the crime. . . before too many well-meaning fools come tromping through.”

I was doubtful this was wise. “We may have two stowaways at large, remember—one of whom is armed with a hunting knife.”

“Van, I scarcely think they’ll be trying to take over the
ship with it—they are probably seeking a new hiding place, not looking for another victim.”

Miss Vance requested that I stand near her doorway, and she returned to her quarters and emerged moments later with a magnifying glass.

I had to laugh. “How Sherlock Holmes of you!”

“What may seem a cliche in Conan Doyle,” she said, “is a valuable tool in real detection. . . . Physical evidence has put many a guilty neck in the hangman’s noose.”

The detective in gingham knelt to examine the linoleum in the area of the corpse, an activity that took several seemingly endless minutes.

Finally she turned toward me, her eyes glittering in a predatory fashion. “Droplets of blood,” she said.

Walking along, half-bent over, gazing through the magnifying glass, she followed a trail of tiny scarlet globules. She stopped at the mouth of the short corridor next to my cabin.

“Come,” she said, motioning to me. “Hug the wall, as you do.”

I joined her—and there on the floor, halfway down the short corridor so near where I slept, was a black-handled hunting knife, smeared crimson. Blobs of blood trailed toward where it lay. Miss Vance said this indicated the knife had been flung there—by the murderer.

Gesturing back down the hall, toward the corpse, she said, “The murderer walked along with the bloody knife at his side—probably held out, a ways, to prevent getting any blood on his clothing. Then, seeing this corridor, impulsively pitched the murder weapon away.”

“Then this was not a carefully calculated affair—rather a killing by impulse?”

“Yes—but by a person carrying a deadly blade. That
indicates some forethought of foul play. . . . Now it’s time to contact the good staff captain.”

Within five minutes Anderson had arrived, looking remarkably crisp in his gold-braided blue jacket with cap, for after two in the morning, anyway.

“Sorry to have disturbed you,” I said. Miss Vance had made the call. The master-at-arms was on his way, as well.

“I’d just returned to my cabin,” he said, his expression wide-eyed yet business-like as he surveyed the corpse on the linoleum, “having dispatched a second group of crew members to continue the search of the ship. We’ve found nothing thus far.”

“Until now,” Miss Vance said, with a redundant gesture toward the corpse. She quickly filled Anderson in, leading him for a look at the discarded knife that lay on the floor of the adjoining short corridor.

“I would like to take that weapon into evidence,” she said. “While I’m limited, I do have a kit with me that includes fingerprinting works.”

“Good Lord,” Anderson said, “what if you find prints on the handle? What would you compare them to? Would you have us fingerprint everyone on shipboard?”

“If need be. However, might I suggest, for the present at least, that we not advertise this matter.”

Anderson sighed in relief. “I’m very pleased to hear you say that. As soon as possible, I would like to arrange for the body to be taken to the ship’s hospital.”

Miss Vance nodded. “Splendid idea, Captain—I would like the ship’s doctor to have a look at the body. I would also like to examine all of the late stowaway’s effects.”

This was agreeable to the staff captain, who requested the use of Miss Vance’s phone.

“We’ll get the doctor up here,” Anderson said, “and a stretcher, and remove the deceased to a comfortable bed.”

“I’m sure he’ll appreciate that,” I said.

A voice said, “Good Lord,” which seemed to be the exclamation of choice here in the corridor; the master-at-arms, Williams, had arrived. The short, sturdy fellow had come from the direction of my cabin, and he stood a respectful distance from the dead man, gazing down with mouth and eyes agape, his thick dark eyebrows pushing his forehead into his scalp.

No one greeted the master-at-arms—it didn’t seem warranted.

“The captain will have to be woken, too,” Anderson said to no one in particular, rubbing his chin, apparently contemplating the various phone calls he would need to make from Miss Vance’s room.

“Mr. Williams,” I said to the master-at-arms, “who was guarding the stowaways?”

“No one,” he said with a shrug, still gazing at the corpse.

“And why is that?”

Anderson answered for him. “They were locked in the cells, and the brig itself is kept locked. No one sees them except the steward who brings them their supper.”

“Which,” I said, “would be Mr. Leach.”

With a nod, Anderson said, “I have to make my calls,” and was turning toward Miss Vance’s door when I spoke again.

“That’s all well and good,” I said, “but shouldn’t a priority be to check the status of those cells? Until we do, we won’t know for certain that all three stowaways are at large.”

Anderson glanced back at me, trying unsuccessfully to
conceal his annoyance with my amateur’s question. “Mr. Van Dine, if the ringleader is dead in first class, it’s reasonable to assume the door to the cell has been unlocked . . . and, if so, that all three went through that open door.”

“Two open doors,” I reminded him. “To escape, both the cell door and the outer door had to be unlocked. I would suggest you have a security breach—some crew member may be in league with these Germans.”

Now he turned all the way around and did not hide the annoyance in either his expression or his voice. “Sir, my men—”

But I cut him off: “Consist of whomever you were able to round up from loose ends, with all the able-bodied seaman serving the Royal Navy.”

The staff captain sighed—he twitched a non-smile, which was as close as he could allow himself to acknowledge the truth of my statement.

An awkward silence hung between us, until Miss Anderson said, “Mr. Van Dine has a point about the brig—I suggest he and I go down and check out the scene, until you can arrange for our dead stowaway’s removal.”

The frustrated Anderson agreed to this, and went into Miss Vance’s room, the door of which had been left ajar.

Prior to attending to our task, Miss Vance took care of another one.

“Do you have a handkerchief I could borrow?” she asked me.

I said certainly, and gave her one.

Stepping around Klaus, she returned to the short corridor, disappeared down it, and quickly returned holding the knife by its bloody tip, her fingers shielded from the blood by my handkerchief. She took it into her cabin, deposited it somewhere, and returned to the hall.

Williams was on one side of the corpse and Miss Vance on the other, when she asked pleasantly, “Are you still carrying that revolver we shared earlier?”

Williams blinked; those thick dark brows seemed only to emphasize a certain vacuity about his eyes themselves. “Why, yes, ma’am.” He patted his jacket on the left side, where indeed a bulge indicated something heavy resided there.

“Might I borrow it, please?” she asked, as if requesting another hanky.

His forehead furrowed, but then he shrugged and said, “Certainly, ma’am.”

And he removed the revolver from his pocket, and passed it across the corpse to Miss Vance. There was something terribly unsettling about the one-handed ease with which she managed the weapon.

Though our destination was merely a floor down, we took the elevator, on which the pistol-packing Miss Vance posed several questions.

“You suspect someone among the crew, Van?”

“Don’t you?”

“Do you suspect someone specifically?”

“Mr. Leach and Mr. Williams have the easiest access to the brig—the steward in charge of food service, and the master-at-arms.”

She nodded, but the tightness around her eyes seemed not to agree.

“What bothers you about that theory?” I asked.

“A clever criminal would not lay the blame so near his own door.”

I shrugged. “Perhaps he isn’t clever—does either Leach or Williams strike you as a mastermind?”

“No . . . and that’s what troubles me. But I’ve already
cabled my home office, and they’ll both be thoroughly investigated within forty-eight hours.”

We exited the elevator into the Shelter Deck’s Grand Entrance area, with its potted ferns and wicker furnishings. Without the usual milling of people, the ship seemed like a big empty house we were haunting, our footsteps echoing off the floor as we headed into the First Class Saloon, where the tables were already covered with fresh linen, china and silverware, ready for breakfast service. This tabernacle of a restaurant seemed absurdly vast, when only two people were in it, and we hurried across as if we were thieves trying not to get caught—that Miss Vance had a gun in her dainty fist only served to emphasize this sense.

We moved aft down a corridor with a galley on one side and pantries on the other; the hospital rooms, with the brig at the far end, were down a corridor to the left, bisecting the ship. The brig door was closed, but—when Miss Vance tried it—unlocked. The lovely detective seemed about to go in, when I inserted my arm between her and the door.

I shook my head. Even if she was the one with revolver, I would go in first. I was still, technically at least, the man here.

Opening the door quickly, I moved inside the same way, with Miss Vance and her gun following close. While I had not been expecting anything, really—other than perhaps an empty cell—what we did view was certainly not on either of our mental lists of possibilities.

The other two stowaways were still inside the cell, though the barred door yawned open. They were asprawl on the floor—the tall, skinny, brown-haired one to the left, the average fellow with lighter brown hair on the
right. Even from just inside the room, the dark red—almost black—splotches could be seen on their white stewards’ jackets, over either man’s heart, like badges of blood.

Miss Vance and I exchanged troubled looks, and she entered and knelt over either man. Strangely, she leaned near and sniffed the open mouths of each corpse, as if checking their breath for the scent of something . . . although neither had any breath left, obviously.

She rose, and stood there surveying the carnage, pistol at her side.

“Knife wounds?” I asked.

She nodded and exited the cell, approaching me; I was standing near the unattended desk. “What would you say happened here, Van?”

I walked toward the cell, looked in through the bars, studied the position of the bodies, and tried to reason it through.

“Think out loud,” she suggested.

“Well, perhaps the knife . . . does it appear, from the wounds, to be the same weapon? The hunting knife in the corridor?”

She nodded.

I began again. “Perhaps the knife was smuggled in to them by a comrade among the crew . . . or possibly, somehow, they managed to sneak that weapon past the searches of their persons, unlikely as that might seem.”

“Continue.”

I offered a sigh, a shrug and the following speculation: “I would say Klaus and his stowaway associates had a falling-out—when I interviewed them, signs of such a conflict were apparent. My guess is that these two wanted to cooperate with the shipboard authorities, possibly
reveal not only the nature of their mission but where . . . perhaps . . . a ticking bomb might be found aboard.”

Her expression indicated my reasoning seemed sound enough to her.

Encouraged, I went on. “So we have three stowaways and one knife—with two stowaways at odds with their leader. A struggle ensues, and one of them stabs Klaus in the back . . . but Klaus is a tough, brawny exemplar of the fatherland, and, though wounded, he manages to take that knife away, and stab his assailant . . . and then he stabbed the other would-be traitor, and left them to die.”

Miss Vance sighed; she began to pace. “This presumes that Klaus could have survived such a wound long enough to get to that first-class corridor.”

“Relatively speaking, it’s not that far away—one floor up.”

Still pacing, she said, “We’ll ask the ship’s doctor his opinion, based upon examination of the wound . . . but the blood droplets, and the apparently discarded knife, seem at odds with your theory.”

I raised a lecturing finger. “Perhaps you’ve read the evidence incorrectly. . . meaning no disrespect to your professional standing. Perhaps that trail of blood led in the opposite direction you assumed—perhaps it was Klaus who discarded the bloody knife, and staggered down the hall, in the direction of your room, his wound leaving a trail of liquid rubies for you to find.”