The Titanic Murders (25 page)

Futrelle—whose left hand was being gripped firmly, to the point of discomfort, by Alice Cleaver—was afraid the old boy, in the grip of his conscience and delusions, would spoil everything.

But Stead suddenly fell silent, releasing Miss Gibson’s hand, and he grasped a pencil and, with eyes still closed, head raised, he began to write, quickly, fluidly. He seemed to have written about a paragraph’s worth, when he reached for Miss Gibson’s hand again and looked down at what he’d just written.

“My great and good friend, my spirit guide, Miss Julia Ames, has imparted a message for me, which I will share with you. She says, ‘Let me say to my dear friend and helper, who goes forth across the sea, rest assured that you will be left in no uncertainty when comes the clarion call. All questions soon will be answered.’”

Futrelle, like any good producer, was getting irritated with Stead, to whom he attempted to send the following psychic message:
Stick to the script, you old goat!

Then the quiet room was again loud with the ticking clock, the thrum of engines, the rattle of the glass dome, the distant movement of people elsewhere on the ship….

Just when Futrelle thought he would scream not from fright but boredom, Stead said, in his own voice, “I sense a spirit in this room.”

Darkness and ambience had begun playing sly tricks; their own faces in the campfirelike glimmer of the lamplight seemed to float about the table.

“A child… a very young child,” Stead said quietly. “So young he has not learned to speak…”

Alice Cleaver’s hand gripped Futrelle’s even tighter. With his head lowered, but his gaze secretly shifted her way, Futrelle could see her, staring at Stead, the blunt-nosed mask of her face frozen with fear, the cobalt eyes wide and staring and glittering in the hurricane’s yellow glow.

“… but I sense forgiveness… absolution… this baby, like the baby Jesus, embodies forgiveness…”

The grip loosened, just a bit; and Alice Cleaver’s lower lip trembled, her eyes brimming with tears.

“… though he died by violence, the baby boy is at peace, and he loves his mother….”

Tears trickled down the homely face, glistening in the lamplight.

But another woman at the table was reacting, too: the woman next to Stead, Dorothy Gibson—her eyes closed tight, her head weaving as if loose on her neck—was in a trancelike state, trembling, a trembling that ascended to tremors, as if the young woman were a volcano intent on erupting.

All eyes in the darkened room were on the beautiful face in the yellowish luster of the lamp, a beautiful face that began to contort as if in excruciating pain.

Then, in a deep, male voice, Dorothy Gibson spewed the words:
“I forgive no one!”

Stead, still holding on to the convulsing girl’s hand, asked gently, “Who are you, spirit? Why are you troubled?”

Miss Gibson shivered, as if fighting the spirit within her, then the male voice said, “My name is John.”

Alice Cleaver blinked away the tears; she, too, was trembling, but the tears had halted, and her eyes were wide and wild with fright.

Patiently Stead asked, “What is your last name, John?”

The deep male voice erupted from the girl: “Crafton!”

Astor said, confused, “Crafton isn’t dead!”

Maggie said, “Yeah? When’d you see him last?”

“That’s just wishful thinking,” Guggenheim said, but he didn’t sound so sure.

“Quiet,” Straus said, fascinated by the bizarre tableau.

Ismay’s eyes were narrowing in mistrust; then he glared across the table at the mystery writer. “Futrelle…”

And Alice Cleaver’s grip on Futrelle’s hand was evincing the strength he’d suspected she had….

“I can’t breathe!”
the male voice screamed, and everyone at the table jumped in their seats, as Dorothy Gibson’s face reddened, the pretty features twisting into a mask of anguish. The deep voice flowed out of her: “Stop! Please stop…. Can’t breathe!
I can’t breathe… you… are… killing… me!
”

Alice Cleaver screamed.

Releasing Futrelle’s hand as if it were a stove’s hot burner she’d touched, the young woman sprang to her feet and ran into the darkness.

“Please keep your seats,” Stead said gently, just loud enough to rise over the murmured confusion of his guests. “May—the lights… this sitting is over.”

Ismay was rising, but Stead stood and reached across the exhausted Miss Gibson and clutched Ismay’s arm. “Be seated, sir! Do not follow them… I beseech all of you.”

In the meantime, Futrelle had pursued the young woman into the darkness, her sobbing leading the way; even in the dark, Futrelle had enough sense of his bearings to know she wasn’t heading for the double doors into the lounge, but to the side door, the corridor door.

Then a momentary slash of light cutting through the blackness—as that door opened and closed—confirmed his suspicion.

The nanny was running down the corridor, forward of the Reading and Writing Room, and Futrelle was after her, following her into the reception area—empty of passengers, not even a steward in sight—as the Grand Staircase yawned before them. His glasses had fallen off his face, and her hat had tumbled to the floor, like a big bread crumb marking her path.

She all but flew up the stairs, her ruffled skirt rustling, hard soles of flat shoes echoing like gunshots, running up onto that very balcony where, not so long ago, he had dangled the blackmailer down over.

Then she was through the door onto the boat deck, and he was only seconds behind her, and when he burst through the door, onto the deserted deck, the cold night air was little brittle icy daggers stabbing at him, and the girl…

… the girl stood at the rail, between two lifeboats, her leg slung over the side, propped there, as she was trying to decide.

“That
would
end it, Alice,” Futrelle admitted quietly.

“Stay back, sir! Stay away.”

“I can’t obey that request, Alice.” He shrugged. “If you’re going to jump, you’re going to jump… but do it knowing I stand here not as your judge, or as any threat to you.”

“My life is over,” she said, and her eyes were tormented, her face streaked with tears, her lips trembling. “I got to go join my baby.”

But she didn’t jump. He knew she might, but didn’t really think she would: everything he knew about this young woman indicated, however sad and sick and even twisted she might be, that she was, first and foremost, a survivor.

So Futrelle moved gingerly forward until he was standing at the rail next to her. He glanced over its edge. “The water’s so black it doesn’t even reflect the stars. They say it’s cold—near freezing.”

“Don’t touch me. Don’t try to stop me.”

The sky was a dark blue, cobalt not unlike this poor girl’s eyes; no moon, but the stars were so vivid, so limitless, it was if the night had countless tiny holes punched in it and tomorrow was streaming through.

Futrelle leaned casually against the rail, as if he were just taking the air and not talking to a woman perched between the deck and the depthless ocean as if astride a mechanical horse in the nearby gym.

Gently, unthreateningly, he said, “John Crafton tried to blackmail me, too, Alice.”

“… Pardon, sir?”

“Just about everyone in that room downstairs, at the séance, was one of his victims. I had a mental breakdown, Alice—I was hospitalized—and John Crafton was going to defame me with that knowledge, in front of the world.”

Her lower lip quivered, shivered, whether from cold or emotion, he couldn’t hazard a guess; the eyes welled with fresh tears. “He was a beast.”

“Everyone has secrets, Alice—many of us have terrible secrets. Things we’ve put behind us; things for which we pray God has forgiven us.”

She nodded, haltingly. That flat-nosed face could have been pretty if someone, perhaps as long ago as her childhood, hadn’t struck her some dreadful blow.

He kept his voice casual. “Even Mr. Guggenheim, Mr. Astor, the richest men on this ship, richest in America herself, have
secrets… same as simple people like you and me, Alice. They were Crafton’s prey, as well.”

Her chin was quivering now, too. “He… he didn’t want my money.”

“He wanted something else, didn’t he, Alice?”

She nodded pathetically. “I had twenty dollars Canadian the Allisons give me. I sneaked out, late at night, went to his room like he asked… he opened the door, and yanked me inside, and…”

Tears streamed down her face and her body was racking with sobs, and Futrelle lifted her off the railing and into his arms and patted her back, comforted her, holding her gently.

“He was naked, wasn’t he?” Futrelle whispered.

“Yes, sir.”

“You tried to give him that money, Alice?”

“Yes… He stood there, naked as a jaybird, pale as a frog’s belly, and he laughed at me. Laughed!”

She drew away so that she could look at him; her expression said that she was telling the truth.

“Like I said, sir—he didn’t want money. He… he told me to get undressed; said he wanted to watch. Said if I didn’t give him my favors… every night of this voyage… he’d tell the Allisons about my baby.”

“I understand.”

“He… he climbed in bed. He kept saying, take them off, take them clothes off… and I say, ‘Let me give you a kiss first,’ and he said somethin’ like, ‘Now that’s a girl,’ or ‘That’s more like it,’ and I leaned over and I put the pillow on him.”

Her voice and her face had a blankness now, an emptiness; her eyes were half-lidded, staring dully into the awful memory of it.

“He was a scrawny thing… not strong. Weak as a kitten, or a cat, anyways. And I was never stronger. I held them feathers on him, and he fought, he did thrash, but I pushed down, I held him down, and… and finally he didn’t struggle no more.”

She began to sob again and he gathered her to him, and patted her back, and said, “He was an evil man, Alice. You were protecting yourself.”

Nodding desperately, she said, “I was protectin’ my honor! I ain’t the best girl in the world, I guess I know that better than anybody, sir… but I ain’t no man’s white slave! So I smothered the son of Satan, and I’d do it again, gladly.”

“You did do it again, didn’t you?”

Her eyes flared. “Pardon?”

“Crafton’s partner-in-crime: Mr. Rood.”

She swallowed. “Don’t know ’im, sir.”

“Alice… I’m your only hope. Either you trust that I have your best interests at heart, or you’d best go back to that rail and jump.”

“I don’t… don’t really wanna die, sir. Will they hang me?”

“I’ve told you: I’m not your judge. I’m your friend—and another victim of that vile pair. What happened with Rood?”

“He told me to meet him on the deck, middle of the night—two
A.M.
, when the ship was asleep. He said if I didn’t meet ’im, he’d tell on me to the Allisons. He knew all about my baby, too. He said he even had the pictures from the papers to show the Allisons. I need that job, sir! I need the chance the Americas give.”

“You’re getting off the subject, Alice. Tell me about that night on deck with Mr. Rood.”

“He… he knew his partner was dead. He said he seen the stewardess come tearin’ out of his friend’s cabin, white as a ghost,
and he quicklike slipped in and seen the body. And he knew I done it—or anyways, he figured I done it, ’cause his friend told him what he was goin’ to do to me. I think… I think I was to be both their white slaves, by crossing’s end.”

“Is that what he wanted from you up here, Alice? Your ‘favors’?”

She was staring at the deck. “No. No, he… he wanted the money.”

“What money, Alice?”

“I did somethin’ bad in that room, somethin’ I shouldn’t—and I ain’t talkin’ about riddin’ the world of that blackhearted bastard. But there was this money on his dresser, just sitting there, this great wad of paper money. When Mr. Crafton was dead, when I just stood there catchin’ my breath, I seen it there, sir, that money… and I snatched it up. Took it with me. Figured… I earned it.”

“And Rood wanted that money.”

She nodded. “He started in to get rough with me, sir… he begun to shake me like a doll, till my head was rattlin’… it was right there, it happened.”

She pointed, like a child picking out a toy in a store window; but she was singling out one of the davit-slung lifeboats.

“That’s where it happened, sir… I grabbed him and I shoved him, shoved him hard… didn’t mean to do it so hard, I was just… tryin’ to get loose of him.”

“You’re saying that’s what killed him?”

She nodded. “Caved the back of his head in, it did, sir.”

“There must have been blood.”

“There was, sir. He didn’t have no pulse, sir. So I hid him in the boat.”

“You did that yourself? Slung him up in there?”

“Yes, sir. You said it yourself, sir… I’m a strong girl.”

Something didn’t sit right with the second half of her story; but Futrelle had a feeling this was the only story he’d get out of her. She had calmed down—the hysteria was over, the tears too, and she had gone from the girl unhinged by his manipulated séance to the battle-scarred survivor she innately was.

Still, she was beaten down, a flat-nosed girl in her blue Sunday dress. “What now, sir? See the captain? I’ll turn myself in, if you like. Will they hang me, sir?”

“Let’s find a bench and sit, Alice.”

They did. The deck remained theirs alone; theirs, and the cold night and the glittering stars.

“I’m going to try to help you,” he said.

She gazed at him, puzzled. “Why, sir?”

“Because men like Astor and Guggenheim and the rest… even men like me… can fight the likes of a John Crafton in all sorts of ways, including just throwing money at him. But a girl of your station, you don’t have the same choices. It troubles me that violence follows you, Alice… but I told you I was not your judge.”

“But the captain… ?”

“The captain and Mr. Ismay, well… I’m going to try to keep this from coming out. I can’t promise you I can manage it. But I promise I will try.”

“Why?”

“You were wronged, Alice. To see you spend a day in jail for removing a cancer on society like Crafton or Rood, I simply cannot countenance.”

She beamed at him, happiness seeming out of place on the battered face. “Oh, sir… what do you want from me?”