“What’s that?”
“The ability to tell lies.”
“How true.” Stead’s faint grin betrayed some unease.
“You can’t simply push someone overboard and hope for the best.”
“Good. You’re rising to the challenge,” said Stead, more to reassure himself than the young man. “If you can think of something special, dear boy, I’m sure Jacques Futrelle will be more than willing to turn your ideas into fiction. Wouldn’t that be a fine reward?
“A kind of immortality,” said Finch.
“Well, yes. I often ask myself how a man would feel if he committed a murder and got away with it and was unable to tell anyone how clever he’d been. We all want recognition for our achievements. This is the answer. Get a well-known author to translate it into fiction.”
“I’d better make a start, then.”
The young man got up to leave, and Stead gazed after him, intrigued.
Jeremy Finch was confident he’d not given too much away. Stead had been right about all of us wanting recognition. That was why certain murderers repeated their crimes. They felt impelled to go on until they were caught and the world learned what they had done. Finch had no intention of being caught. But he still had that vain streak that wanted the world to know how brilliant he was. The idea of having his crime immortalised through the medium of a short story by a famous author was entirely his own, not Stead’s. He’d deliberately approached the two eminent men of letters in the smoking room and steered the conversation around to the topic of murder.
He wanted his murder to be quoted as one of the great pieces of deception. In Futrelle’s fine prose it would surely rank with Chesterton’s “The Invisible Man” and Doyle’s “The Speckled Band” as a masterpiece of ingenuity. Except that in his case, the crime would really have happened.
It was already several weeks in the planning. He had needed to make sure of his victim’s movements. This crossing was a God-send, the ideal chance to do the deed. As Stead had pointed out, an ocean voyage affords unequalled opportunities for murder.
He had made a point of studying the routine on C Deck, where the first class staterooms were. His previous transatlantic voyages had been second class, luxurious enough for most tastes on the great liners. His wife Geraldine always travelled first class, arguing that an unaccompanied lady could only travel with total confidence in the best accommodation, her virtue safeguarded. This theory had proved to be totally misfounded. Another dealer, a rival, had taken cruel pleasure in informing Finch after Geraldine’s latest trip to New York that he had seen her in another man’s arms. The news had devastated him. When faced with it, she admitted everything. Finch shrank from the public humiliation of a divorce, preferring to deal with the infidelity in his own way.
So for the first days of the voyage he observed his prey with all the vigilance of Futrelle’s creation, The Thinking Machine, getting to know his movements, which were necessarily circumscribed by the regularity of life aboard ship. He thought of himself as a lion watching the wretched wildebeeste he had singled out, infinitely patient, always hidden, biding his time. The man who was picked to die had not the faintest notion that Finch was a husband he had wronged. It wouldn’t have crossed his lascivious mind. At the time of the seduction, six months before, he’d thought lightly of his conquest of Geraldine. He had since moved on to other lovers, just as young, pretty, impressionable and easily bedded.
He was due to die by strangulation on the fourth evening at sea.
The place picked for the crime, first class stateroom 10 on C Deck, was occupied by Colonel Mortimer Hatch, travelling alone. By a curious irony it was just across the corridor from the stateroom where Jacques Futrelle was pacing the floor for much of each day trying to devise a perfect murder story.
Mortimer Hatch was forty-one, twice divorced and slightly past his prime, with flecks of silver in his moustache and sideburns. His shipboard routine, meticulously noted by Finch, was well established by the second day. He would rise about eight and swim in the first-class pool before taking breakfast in his room. During the morning, he played squash or promenaded and took a Turkish bath before lunch. Then a short siesta. From about three to six, he played cards with a party of Americans. In the evening, after dinner, he took to the dance floor, and there was no shortage of winsome partners. He was a smooth dancer, light on his feet, dapper in his white tie and tails. Afterwards, he repaired to the bar, usually with a lady for company.
It was in the same first class bar, on the third evening out from Southampton, that Jeremy Finch had a second meeting with Stead and Futrelle. They were sharing a bottle of fine French wine, and Stead invited the young man to join them. “That is, if you’re not too occupied planning your perfect crime.”
“I’m past the planning stage,” Finch informed them.
“I wish I was,” said Futrelle. “I’m stumped for inspiration. It’s not for want of trying. My wife is losing patience with me.”
“Nil desperandum, old friend,” said Stead. “We agreed to pool our ideas and give you a first-class plot to work on. I have a strong intimation that young Jeremy here is well advanced in his thinking.”
“I’m practically ready,” Finch confirmed.
“Tell us more,” Futrelle said eagerly.
Stead put up a restraining hand. “Better not. We agreed to save the denouement for the night before we dock at New York. Let’s keep to our arrangement, gentlemen.”
“I’ll say this much, and it won’t offend the contract,” said Finch. “Do you see the fellow on the far side of the bar, mustache, dark hair, in earnest conversation with the pretty young woman with Titian-red hair and the ostrich feather topknot?”
“Saw him dancing earlier,” said Stead. “Fancies his chances with the ladies.”
“That’s Colonel Hatch.”
“I know him,” Futrelle said. “He’s in the stateroom just across from mine. We share the same steward. And, yes, you could be right about the ladies. There was a certain amount of giggling when I passed the door of number 10 last evening.”
“All I will say,” said Finch, “is that I am keeping Colonel Hatch under observation. When he leaves the bar, I shall note the time.”
“Being a military man, he probably keeps to set times in most things he does,” said Stead.
“Even when working his charms on the fair sex?” said Futrelle.
“That’s the pattern so far,” said Finch, without smiling. “I predict that he’ll move from here about half past eleven.”
“With the lady on his arm?”
“Assuredly.”
The conversation moved on to other matters. “Are you married?” Futrelle asked Finch.
“Separated, more’s the pity.”
“Not all marriages work out. Neither of you may be at fault.”
“Unhappily, in this case one of us was, and it wasn’t me,” said Finch.
After an awkward pause, Stead said, “Another drink, anyone?”
At eleven twenty-eight, almost precisely as Finch had predicted, Colonel Hatch and his companion rose from their table and left the bar.
“I’m glad we didn’t take a bet on it,” said Stead.
“I think I’ll turn in,” said Futrelle. “My wife will be wondering where I am.”
“Good idea,” said Finch. “I’ll do the same. I need to be sharp as a razor tomorrow.”
Stead gave him a long look.
The next day, the fourth at sea, Colonel Hatch rose as usual at eight, blissfully unaware that it was to be his last day alive. He went for his swim, and the morning followed its invariable routine. Perkins, the steward for staterooms 10 to 14, brought him breakfast.