Futrelle heard neither Crafton’s words, nor the black-haired man’s response.
But the pantomime they acted out indicated a response that was incensed to say the least, and apparently included enough blasphemies to justify the apparent father to draw his boys closer to him and cover their ears with his hands and the press of his body.
The emotion of the black-haired man was palpable, and so was his disgust for Crafton: his eyes flared, his face reddened, his body trembled, though his head was held high.
Whirling, his gray topcoat spreading like a cloak, the black-haired man gathered the boys and receded onto the Second-Class boat-deck promenade, out of view.
Crafton took the rejection in stride; he sighed, shrugged to himself, and then he noticed Futrelle below, looking up.
Crafton called out: “Beautiful day at sea, Mr. Futrelle, don’t you agree?”
Futrelle stepped closer, until he was directly below the ferrety little man in the pearl-gray fedora. “Some of us are more at sea than others.”
He shrugged again. “Mr. Hoffman is emotional-you know how Frenchmen are.”
Futrelle wasn’t sure he did know how Frenchmen were; but he did know they weren’t often named “Hoffman.”
“Are those his boys?” Futrelle asked.
“Oh yes. He does love his Lolo and Momon. He loves them more than anything.”
“And how is it, Mr. Crafton, that such a First-Class individual as you finds himself in Second Class?”
The ship was strictly segregated-the First Class was no more allowed in Second or Third than vice versa.
“Just slumming, Mr. Futrelle. I wonder-could you find some time for me? Just a few short minutes? I have a business proposition.”
“What sort of business, Mr. Crafton? Are you a publisher?”
“One of my interests is publishing, yes. Could I have just five minutes? No more, perhaps less.”
May had come up next to her husband; he glanced at her, and she was frowning, shaking her head, no, almost imperceptibly.
“All right,” Futrelle said.
May sighed.
Crafton called down: “Shall we say the A-deck balcony in… ten minutes? Would that be agreeable?”
“I’ll be there, Mr. Crafton. Then we’ll see how agreeable it is.”
Crafton tipped his fedora and withdrew.
May said, “Why are you giving that awful little man the time of day?”
“He’s been making people angry all day,” Futrelle said. “Why should I deny myself that pleasure?”
“You’ve seen how people react to his ‘business propositions,’ whatever they are. He’s obviously an odious creature.”
“I know. I’m just eager to find out how, exactly.”
Futrelle and May walked down the portside promenade, and he used the few minutes before his appointment to tell his wife about the offer Ismay had made.
“Well, I think it’s a wonderful idea,” she said, as they walked arm in arm.
“You don’t find it the least bit… base? Using the pages of a novel to advertise Mr. Ismay’s ship?”
“It would make a wonderful setting for an adventure story… maybe something about a jewel thief, perhaps international intrigue….”
“He’s suggesting I use my fiction to advertise his product!”
“You sell stories to magazines all the time, and newspapers-and the editors pepper ads all around your tales, don’t they?”
“But you can tell where the story ends and the ad begins.”
“Don’t be stuffy, Jack. We could write it together.”
He and May had collaborated on one “Thinking Machine” short story, and it had been successful enough, appearing in Sunday supplements all across America. And May had published her first novel, A Secretary of Frivolous Affairs, last year, and it had sold well in both England and America.
“We have been looking for the right idea to do together, as a novel,” he admitted.
“Well, then,” she said brightly, “let’s at least consider this one. We don’t need to give Mr. Ismay an answer just yet-but as we enjoy ourselves on this wonderful ship, we’ll just keep a keen writer’s eye on the possibilities it presents.”
They entered the A-deck reception area, where natural light was filtering down through an immense domed skylight, a marvel of wrought-iron scrollwork and white-enameled glass with a crystal chandelier at its center. This sifted sunlight reflected off the polished oak-wall paneling and the gilt-decorated wrought-iron balustrades of the balcony and Grand Staircase, giving the room a glow at once romantic and ghostly.
Futrelle walked May to the electric lifts behind the staircase, saying, “I’ll join you in our stateroom in just a few minutes.”
“Now, Jack, don’t you strike that blackguard,” she said, her expression stern.
Then just as the lift steward was closing the cage door, she added, “Unless he deserves it.”
Patting the fanny of the cherub perched at the pedestal at the foot of the middle handrail, Futrelle jogged up the wide marble stairway. He paused on the landing to admire the intricate wood sculpture of the central panel bearing a round Roman-numeral clock, on either side of which leaned a nymph-classical figures carved there by an artisan of unimaginable skilclass="underline" Honor and Glory crowning Time.
Not the most fitting sentiment to carry into a meeting with John Bertram Crafton, he would guess; the stairs forked right and left, and he went right, because Crafton was standing up there, leaning against the railing.
“How good of you to meet with me,” Crafton said as Futrelle joined him on the balcony. A pair of overstuffed chairs and a small table waited by a window that would have looked out onto the boat deck had its glass not been cathedral gray. Swinging his gold-tipped walking stick, Crafton strode there and Futrelle followed, their heels echoing off the fancy cream-colored tile.
“I wanted to find out what makes you so popular,” Futrelle said, settling into his chair.
Crafton’s smiled lifted a corner of his waxy mustache. “Your sarcasm is not lost on me, sir.”
“Why should it be? It’s about as subtle as your approach.”
Crafton shrugged, began removing his gray gloves, finger at a time; he had set his fedora upside down on the table and filled it with the gloves. “I understand that the service I provide is an… unsavory one… destined to make me less than anyone’s favorite among their acquaintances.”
“Well, don’t be proud of it.”
His smile lifted both sides of the mustache. “Why not? I have a job to do, a service to perform shall we say, and I do it well. The patient never likes hearing bad news from the physician… but without knowledge, what are we?”
“Ignorant.”
“Precisely. A doctor properly diagnoses a patient, and a favorable prognosis is then possible-treatment of the problem…. Wouldn’t you agree, sir?”
“Why do I think it unlikely you’re a doctor, Mr. Crafton? Unless you perform certain back-alley operations that polite society frowns upon while still finding necessary.”
One eyebrow arched. “You mean to insult me-though why you should feel any enmity toward me is a mystery…”
“That’s my line of work-mysteries.”
“… I admit there’s some truth in what you say. Without the abortionist-let us not mince words, sir, you and I-how many lives, prominent young lives, might be ruined?”
“Well,” Futrelle said, patting his stomach, “I may look like I’m in need of an abortion, but I assure you I don’t. I’m merely well fed.”
Crafton chuckled. “You are a successful man-a noted author….”
“That’s perhaps too generous, sir. I’m a newspaperman who writes popular fiction. Fortunately for me, there’s an audience for my foolish tales.”
“And we both want that audience to remain steadfastly in your camp, don’t you agree?”
“It’s blackmail, isn’t it?”
The dark eyes flared; the ratlike nostrils, too. “What? Sir-please, I beg you not make rash accusa-”
“Shut up. It’s a dangerous game, Mr. Crafton, in company like this. There are powerful men, on this boat-the likes of Major Butt can snap his fingers and you would be nothing more than just an oily little memory… a memory no one will care to cling to, either.”