Hearing those words from a man whose face was streaked with tears, his nose running, his lips trembling, could only mean a tragedy was about to be recounted.
It was, and a familiar one: “My business began to fail, my wife had an affair… we separated. The boys went with their mother. Lolo and Momon, they came to stay with me over Easter, and I… I stole them.”
“You kidnapped your own children?”
He wasn’t crying now; he had himself under control. “Yes. I have made arrangements for a new life in America. A former partner awaits me to go in business with him-and I am a good tailor, I will give my boys a good life.”
“What about their mother?”
He lowered his head. “I still love her. If she comes to her senses and leaves this man, perhaps she’ll come and find us one day, her little family.”
And the weeping began again.
“How did Crafton find out?”
Bitterness edged Hoffman’s voice. “It’s his business to know the grief of others. My wife has posted a reward, there are circulars… Crafton says if I don’t make him a partner in the new business, he’ll turn me over to the police. I’ll go to jail for kidnapping my own flesh and blood.”
Futrelle patted the man on the back, in a “there there” manner, and then he said, “When did you see Crafton last?”
Hoffman shrugged. “On the deck that day. He’s like you-in First Class. He does not come bother me again-but he will in America. He will in America.”
“No he won’t.”
Hoffman looked up at Futrelle with red eyes. “What do you mean?”
“If I tell you something, Mr. Hoffman…”
“It’s Navatril. Michel Navatril.”
The little man offered his hand and Futrelle shook it.
“Mr. Navatril, I need your word that if I share a confidence with you, it will go no further than these walls and our ears.”
“You have my word.”
“John Crafton is dead.”
“… How?”
“Someone murdered him.”
“It wasn’t me!”
“No. I’m fairly certain you’d have shot him and tossed him overboard. No, he was smothered with a pillow. Those in charge of the Titanic are keeping this news concealed, for the moment, for their own purposes. But you must be careful-you are known to be one of his blackmail victims.”
“How could anyone know?”
“A list of ‘clients’ was in his room. You need to get off the ship, when it docks, and quickly disappear with your boys.”
“You… you’re not going to…”
“Turn you in? No. I don’t know that what you did was right, Mr. Navatril, but I do know you love your boys… and I’m convinced you didn’t kill John Crafton.”
“I would have liked to.”
“An understandable sentiment… Good luck to you.”
And the two men again shook hands.
His manner considerably warmer, Navatril walked Futrelle back to the Second-Class Dining Saloon, where father rejoined sons and Futrelle rejoined Andrews.
“Did you do what you needed to?” Andrews asked as they headed out.
“Yes.”
“No difficulties?”
“Nothing much.”
By the time the two formally attired men wound their way through the galley, on the return trip, the hectic pace of the expansive kitchen had slowed into the cleanup phase, the execution of culinary arts replaced with the mundane reality of dishwashing, storage and garbage disposal. And in the now cavernously empty First-Class Dining Saloon, tables were being set anew with linen and china and silverware.
At the Grand Staircase beyond the Dining Saloon, Andrews disappeared with a nod, probably heading up to his stateroom, while Futrelle made his way into the spacious reception room, where the nightly concert was under way.
Like the two dining saloons, the reception room extended the width of the ship, yet for an area so expansive (over fifty feet in length, Futrelle guessed), the effect was of intimacy-the white-paneled walls so exquisitely carved in low relief, soft glowing lighting, the rich Axminster carpet, the casual cane chairs, the occasional luxurious Chesterfields, the round cane tables for parties of four amidst lazily leaning palms sprouting from an abundance of pots.
Violinist Wallace Hartley’s quintet was clustered about the grand piano (there was no stage), playing a medley of numbers from Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann, which seemed ironically fitting to Futrelle, considering the tale he’d just heard from “Hoffman.” The little orchestra was quite good at light classical-Puccini, Dvorak, Bizet-and late in the evening an area might be cleared for some informal dancing to ragtime, primarily by the younger passengers, struggling to perform that latest dance, the fox-trot, to a drummerless orchestra with no fox-trots in their repertoire.
Futrelle joined May and the Harrises at a little table near a window onto the serene ocean under a clear starless sky; faintly, ever so faintly, the thrum of the ship’s motion could be perceived, like a gentle counterpoint under the main melody. The “concert” was informal, and muted conversation was common, as stewards circulated with coffee and tea, and scones (in the unlikely event anyone had saved room).
“She’s a pretty girl,” Henry was saying.
“Don’t get any ideas, Henry B.,” Rene said, kidding him on the square. She looked pretty herself in a green silk organdy evening gown with a diamond tiara trimmed with bird-of-paradise feathers.
“Who’s a pretty girl?” Futrelle asked, settling into his chair.
“Dorothy Gibson,” May explained. His wife looked especially comely tonight, in her cream silk-satin evening dress, her hair up, no hat. “Young cinema actress Henry and Rene met on the boat deck, this afternoon.”
“Brazen little thing,” Rene said, rolling her eyes. “She came up and introduced herself.” This seemed to Futrelle an amusing judgment coming from such a modern, self-assertive woman.
“She has your typical obnoxious stage mother,” Henry said, “who normally I couldn’t abide. But this girl, Dorothy, has a, uh… business relationship with Jules Brulatour, the film distributor.”
“Business relationship,” Rene said. “That’s a new word for it.”
“Anyway,” Henry said, “I’m offering her a part in my next Broadway production.”
“I hope she can talk,” May said.
Henry waved that off. “With her looks she doesn’t have to… and with her connections, I’ll be making my own cinematographs before the year’s out.”
“You’re convinced these moving pictures are the future,” Futrelle said, shaking his head.
“The future is here and now, Jack. And I’m gonna be looking for snappy stories… if you should happen to know of any good writers.”
“Nobody comes to mind,” Futrelle said, and as he nodded to a steward that he would indeed like his coffee cup filled, the mystery writer noticed Ben Guggenheim seated nearby, sharing a table for four with the lovely blonde Madame Pauline Aubert, stunning and shapely in her pink-beaded purple panne-velvet dinner dress.
Guggenheim’s was an odd shipboard situation; the renegade member of the iron-smelting dynasty, now in his dapper late forties, was not shunned exactly, and due to his station, he was treated respectfully. Futrelle had seen the Astors stop and chat with him just before dinner, and Maggie Brown appeared to be an old friend, possibly dating to Guggenheim’s mining days in Colorado.
But no one sat with Guggenheim and his lovely lady in the reception room. The blue-eyed, fair-skinned, slightly plump, prematurely gray millionaire was, after all, Jewish, and the Jewish tended to sit together, by choice, or in the case of the dining saloons, by White Star’s prearrangement. And could anyone imagine that model of married life, the conservative Strauses-Guggenheim’s nearest social equivalent-sitting with a man and his mistress?
The little orchestra completed their Tales of Hoffmann medley, to much applause, and had begun playing the haunting “Songe d’Automne,” when Guggenheim rose, patting his lovely companion on the shoulder and exchanging smiles with her, then heading out of the room.