We approached Staff Captain Anderson, who seemed to frown just a little when he saw us, but I could not be certain.
We both bid him good morning, and I said jovially, “You look surprisingly well-rested, after such a long night.”
My remark seemed to put him at ease, and he said good morning to us, adding, “It was indeed a long night, Mr. Van Dine. . However, the two of you look none the worse for wear, I must admit.”
I patted my stomach. “If I can survive all this food. . Miss Vance and I were just walking off a hundred or so courses of breakfast.”
A simple soul, Anderson beamed, proud of his ship and the service it delivered to its passengers. “We do try to keep our guests well-fed. People have come to expect a steamer to be a floating gourmet banquet.”
“The Lusitania fills that bill easily. . What were you up to, there, Captain? If you don’t mind my asking.”
“Oh, I was conducting a lifeboat drill.”
“It’s all very well drilling your crew,” Miss Vance said, already risking the staff captain’s enmity, “but why aren’t you drilling the passengers?”
His affability remained. “Captain Turner doesn’t consider it necessary for passengers to take part in these drills.”
I said, “What’s your opinion?”
“Cunard doesn’t pay me to have opinions on subjects that the captain has already formed one about.”
Miss Vance was shaking her head. “With all this talk of U-boats and torpedoes, I should think a drill would provide the passengers comfort and reassurance.”
Now the strain was showing in his tightening features. “Captain Turner does not care to have the passengers unduly alarmed.”
The subject seemed closed, so I inquired about Anderson helping me with certain celebrated passengers.
“I’m sitting down to talk with Madame DePage this morning,” I said. “Could you possibly arrange for another interview or two for the afternoon?”
“Certainly. Any preference of order?”
“None.”
“Consider it done.”
“Thank you.”
Miss Vance decided to press her luck, and asked if she might make a small suggestion.
“Of course,” Anderson said, but not terribly enthusiastically.
“Would you please have the rooms of Mr. Leach and Mr. Williams thoroughly searched? Preferably without their knowledge.”
“I’ve already done so.”
Miss Vance brightened at this news. “Splendid. And?”
The staff captain shrugged. “Nothing untoward was discovered. And we’ve heard nothing from you on the fingerprinting subject-what have you discovered?”
“Oh, the process is a slow one,” she lied. “I won’t know whether that blade has prints for several days.”
“I see,” he said, seemingly accepting that absurdity. He tipped his cap. “Do please keep us informed. . Mr. Van Dine, I’ll leave word with the switchboard about those interviews.”
I thanked him, and he strode aft, disappearing through a doorway.
“Interesting fib,” I said to her, with a smile.
“I was studying him as I spoke,” she said soberly. “He betrayed nothing.”
“Probably because he had nothing to betray.”
She sighed. “Probably.”
We walked amidst the affluent passengers of Saloon Class, on deck decked out in their Sunday finery, fresh from divine services, derbies and boaters on the men, the chapeaus on their ladies no more elaborate than your average wedding cake. The wide open-air deck, narrowing when a davit-slung lifeboat interrupted with a reminder of reality, was the avenue down which these swells strolled in a manner seemingly oblivious to the hazards of ocean travel during wartime.
The Lusitania-like any great ship-was a city unto itself, almost a world unto itself; but I could not keep my mind from taunting me with the knowledge of three murders recently committed under the uninformed noses of these Sunday saunterers.
Time came when Miss Vance and I retired to her cabin, where we went over in some tedious and repetitious detail the facts and experiences of the day (and night) previous. I will not bore the reader with this, and admit no new insights were garnered. But it seems to be human nature to beat a dead horse, or in our case, a murdered trio of stowaways.
The First Class Lounge and Music Room, where my interview with Madame DePage took place, was aft of the Boat Deck’s Grand Entrance, an enormous* chamber rivaling the domed dining saloon in elegance.
Decorated in a late-Georgian style, panelled in inlaid mahogany, the lounge boasted its own domed ceiling with ornate plasterwork surrounding stained-glass panels through which sunlight filtered during the day (with electric bulbs to light the night). An apple-green color scheme unified the floral carpet with cushions and drapes, and marble fireplaces bookended the chamber forward and aft, over which were elaborately framed enameled panels of dignified if dull landscapes. For all its size, the lounge created coziness through arrangements of its satinwood and mahogany furnishings, which included easy chairs and overstuffed settees and tables just large enough for cards or snacks.
In a corner of the lounge, near a grand piano that bore silent witness, Madame DePage-in stylish black again, with a hat bearing one black feather and a white one-sat regally in an arm chair with Miss Vance on her left and me on her right.
The dark-haired, dark-eyed beauty was the only person beside myself and certain crew members aware that Philomina Vance was the ship’s detective-and that Miss Vance’s role as her travelling companion was something of a ruse. Still, guarding the funds Belgium’s lovely envoy had raised for the Red Cross was a significant part of the Pinkerton agent’s assignment.
Nonetheless, we had decided not to share with Madame DePage the true facts, regarding the existence (much less the demise) of the stowaways. Miss Vance and I were, on the one hand, complying with the wishes for confidentiality of the two captains; but, also, Marie DePage was a possible suspect as an accomplice to the Germans, if not their murderer; and, in any event, an undeniable key figure in the affair.
She had, after all, received one of the warning telegrams, and her name had been on the chief stowaway’s list.
Which meant she may have been targeted for robbery-or even death-by the late saboteurs.
I was armed with a pencil and a secretary’s spiral-bound notebook, dutifully taking down the rather stale “news” the charming, charismatic woman was sharing with me.
“I tour your beautiful country,” she said, her accent turning syllables into poetry, “for two month.”
She meant “months,” of course, but such lapses in her otherwise admirable mastery of English only made her seem all the more charming.
“This effort was for the Belgian Red Cross,” I said, pencil poised.
“Oui-my husband, Antoine, is Surgeon General of the Belgian Army, and director of the Queen’s Hospital at La Panne. That is where I find this passion.”
“At the hospital, you mean?”
The dark eyes flashed, and so did a lovely white smile. “Yes-I visit the wounded soldier there, talk to them, write letters to their family for them. Soldier from both side! German boys, too. One say to me, ‘Madame, why do you write for me? I am your enemy.’ And I say, ‘To me you are just a wounded boy who needs help.’ They are all. . you know the expression? Enfants perdus?”
I did. Lost children-soldiers sent to certain death in war.
Despite her smile, her eyes had welled with tears, and Miss Vance handed her a handkerchief.
“You must excuse me,” Madame DePage said, dabbing at her tear-pearled lashes. “You see, my son, Lucien, he is seventeen. I have just learn, a few days ago, that he has. . join the army.”
Miss Vance turned to me. “That’s why Madame DePage booked last-minute passage on the Lusitania. . to see her boy before he goes to the Western front.”