“I’m a great admirer of this fellow you work for,” Stead said, eyes narrowed, nodding at Futrelle.
“Mr. Hearst?”
“Yes. William Randolph Hearst. The man understands newspapers! He’s fearless.”
Futrelle had to smile. “Not everyone shares your admiration of Mr. Hearst, sir.”
“Not everyone understands the newspaper business, as do you and I, sir.”
“That’s kind of you.”
“I must say, however, that you at times disappoint me, Mr. Futrelle.”
“It’s Jack-and why have I disappointed you, sir?”
Stead rocked back in his chair; his voice was teasing. “Well, Jack, I’ve read some of these ‘Thinking Machine’ stories of yours, and this detective you’ve conjured up, he’s a debunker. You contrive tales that are… if I must use your word, Major Butt… ‘supernatural,’ and then your man explains the mystical occurrences away with mundane realities.”
Futrelle shrugged. “That’s just the pattern of the tales. Some of my stories don’t resolve their otherworldly aspects.”
“Then you must give me the names of those stories before this voyage ends-I would like to read them.” He tented his fingers and stared over their structure at Futrelle, eyes nothing but glittering slits. “That dim, obscure world of the spirit is very real, Jack. Have you met Conan Doyle?”
“I have.”
“Do you respect him, sir?”
“Of course. He was the inspiration for me to write.”
“And you know that he shares my views on such subjects as clairvoyance, telepathy, psychometry, automatic writing…”
Millet spoke up. “What the devil is automatic writing, Mr. Stead?”
“The devil has nothing to do with it.” Stead withdrew a packet of Prince Albert cigars from his inside pocket and a kitchen match from an outside pocket and lighted up as he responded to the artist.
“I am one of those certain few gifted individuals who can merely pick up a pen and, with no conscious thought of my own, my hand will be guided by telepathic communication. I write automatically, as it were, as I receive thoughts from the unconscious minds of other people.”
Intrigued but skeptical, Futrelle asked, “You could receive my thoughts? Perhaps when I was asleep, for example?”
Stead nodded. “Yes, conceivably. But most of what I receive comes from the other side.”
Archie was frowning. “The other side of what, sir?”
“The veil. My most frequent visitor is Mrs. Julia Ames, a departed friend of mine, a Chicago journalist. Now and then I hear from Catherine.”
“Catherine?”
Stead blew smoke. “The Second. Of Russia.”
Smiles and chuckles rippled around the butted-together tables, but no one was bored, and the good-natured Stead took no offense.
“I understand your skepticism, gentlemen… I would have shared it, not so long ago. I spent the better part of my life in pursuit of charlatans and sinners. But I assure you that I am not mad and not a fraud. Many of the most well-known and well-respected sensitives-mediums-of our day are among my closest friends. We have formed ‘Julia’s Bureau’ and meet regularly, for seances.”
The men exchanged glances and smiles, but they were still in his thrall.
Harry Widener, the independently wealthy bibliophile, spoke up. “Do you think you might hold a seance aboard this ship?”
Stead shook his head, no. “I have no plans. This is as serious as church to me, gentlemen-not a parlor trick.” He withdrew and checked his gold-plated pocket watch. “It’s getting on toward midnight, gentlemen… perhaps we have time for one more example, to show you the power that can extend from the other side.”
Archie laughed. “A ghost story?”
With a grandiose shrug, Stead said, “Call it that if you like-a tale told ’round our ocean campfire… but a true one.”
And the men at the table, however powerful and wealthy they might be, were like children, exchanging breathless glances, as the storyteller began.
“There is currently on exhibit, in the British Museum in London, a certain Eygptian relic-a mummy, the wrapped embalmed corpse of a priestess of the God Amen-Ra. The vividly painted coffin cover of this mummy is unlike any the curator of the museum had ever seen-the figure painted had anguish-filled eyes, a terror-constricted expression.”
This melodrama had the men smiling-but they were listening. They were listening…
“Experts on Egyptology were called in; their opinion was that this priestess had lived a tormented life, perhaps even an evil life… and the coffin cover’s portrait was designed, perhaps, to exorcise an evil spirit that possessed her soul.”
The smiles faded.
“To learn more, of course, a translation of the hieroglyphics inscribed on the sarcophagus was necessary. And the translation of the inscription on that frightful mummy’s coffin carried a tragic narrative of a beautiful young priestess who fell in love with the pharaoh. She poisoned the wife of the pharaoh, and all of the pharaoh’s children as well, in a misguided, malevolent attempt to become the pharaoh’s new queen. But she was discovered in her evil acts, gentlemen, and the vengeful pharaoh embalmed her alive, with screams that echoed through her pyramid…”
Every man at the table was hanging on Stead’s words.
“… but the inscription warned that should the priestess’s body be disturbed, should it ever be removed from her tomb, and most importantly should her story ever be translated and spoken aloud-the evil she had once within her would be again unleashed, in a torrent of sickness, death and destruction, rained upon those who translated the sacred inscription, and even upon those who passed along the story… as I have just done.”
Stead cast a grave look around his listeners, even as he crushed out his cigar in a White Star ashtray.
The lawyer Seward asked, “What… what became of those who translated the hieroglyphics?”
“Within months, dead to a man. The mummy and its coffin lid remain on display at the British Museum, gentlemen-but there is of course a new curator. And for reasons of safety, they do not post the translation; in fact, it has been burned.”
Archie was leaning so far forward, he was all but sprawled upon the table. “Good God, man-you don’t believe in this curse?”
Stead roared with laughter. “Of course not! That, my friends, is superstition, pure and simple. As Christians you should be ashamed if you even pondered the possibility. I have told you this tale to make a point-not the point you expected-but as proof that I am not superstitious.”
And again Stead removed his gold pocket watch from its resting place in the shabby tweed suit and he announced, “I call to your attention, gentlemen, that it was Friday when I began this story, and the day of its ending falls on the thirteenth.”
“But,” Seward said, “if the curse is true-”
“Why,” Stead said grandly, ridiculously, “this ship is doomed, and the first corpse should appear by morning.”
Then the old man rose, nodding to his audience, bidding them pleasant good-byes individually, and exited from the Smoking Room like a tugboat with legs.
Futrelle followed him through the revolving door.
“Where are you headed, sir?”
“Ah, Mr. Futrelle! Jack! To my stateroom on C deck.”
“I’m on C deck, as well. I’ll walk with you, if you’ve no objection.”
“Pleased and proud to be in your company, young man.”
Soon they were on the staircase, and Futrelle said, “I witnessed you, on the boat train, in a brief altercation with John Crafton.”
Stead frowned and paused. “Are you unfortunate enough to know the sorry specimen?”
“Yes, I’m afraid so.”
“Surely you don’t call him your friend!”