A moment of stunned silence followed; the couple had suddenly turned into a wax-museum exhibit.
Finally, Hudson managed, “Alice?”
“Our Alice?” Bess echoed. “Why ever for? She’s the quietest girl you could imagine.”
Futrelle shrugged, laughed softly. “Well, apparently still waters run deep-or at least, psychic waters do… If you need a baby-sitter for Lorraine and Trevor, I can provide one. Either my wife May, or Mrs. Henry Harris-you’ve met her… Rene?”
Hudson was trying to process this bewildering request. “Uh, well… dear, what do you think?”
Bess seemed on the verge of turning cross. “I’m disappointed that we weren’t asked, frankly. Can’t we even watch?”
“No, I’m afraid not. Mr. Stead is rather stubborn on that point: participants only, no spectators.” Futrelle hung his head, shaking it. “I do apologize for being party to this rudeness…”
“No!” Hudson blurted. “Not at all. I suppose it’s rather an honor to have our… nanny asked to attend such a special affair.”
Bess asked, “When is this seance?”
“Nine P.M.”
“Well, then,” she said, accepting her lot in life as coming in second place to her own servant, “the children will be in bed asleep by then. Our maid can look after them, easily enough. Let’s go give Alice the good news, shall we?”
Alice didn’t consider it good news.
“A seance?” she said. Trevor was on a blanket at her feet, pawing at a rattle with which golden-haired Lorraine was gently teasing the toddler. “Y’mean, one of them spook things?”
“Yes, dear,” Bess said patiently. “It’s an honor. Mr. Stead is a very famous man.”
“Do I have to?”
“It’s a night off, for Lord’s sake,” Hudson said irritably. “Don’t be sullen when you’re being singled out for a treat, girl!”
“If I must.”
Futrelle smiled at the young woman; the battered nose did such a disservice to her otherwise attractive features. The cobalt eyes were striking-and carried more intelligence than her dour manner betrayed.
“Alice,” Futrelle said, “Mr. Stead senses a great sensitivity in you. He would greatly appreciate your presence.”
Tiny Trevor said, “Goo! Gah!”
Lovely little Lorraine was laughing at her brother, letting him snatch the rattle from her.
Their nanny, who had once murdered a child younger than either of them, shrugged. “I’ll come.”
Futrelle had ruled out Hoffman/Navatril. It would have been clumsy, arranging an invitation for the Second-Class passenger, and the mystery writer doubted the man would come, under any circumstances. The doting father would not let out of his sight the children he’d kidnapped, which was one of the several reasons Futrelle did not believe him to be the murderer of Crafton and Rood.
Only one of those he asked refused his invitation to Stead’s seance.
“I want nothing to do with that old charlatan,” Major Archie Butt had said, taking a break between hands in an ongoing high-stakes poker game in the Smoking Room, a fragrant blue cloud of cigar smoke hanging over the table, as if threatening rain. Butt’s friend Millet was playing, as were young Widener and railroad man Hays.
“Hell, Archie,” Futrelle said, “you were hanging on his every word in here the other night.”
The dimpled jaw jutted. “That’s when I knew I’d had enough of him! That mummy balderdash! No, sorry, old man-afraid I have better things to do with my time… such as play cards or get bloody drunk or a sublime combination thereof.”
It was clear the major could not be budged, and, disappointed, Futrelle had moved through the revolving doors into the portside half of the Verandah Cafe (it was the starboard half of the palm court that had been taken over by children and their nannies). He had just sat at a table in the shade of a palm so close it was tickling his neck when Millet-dapper in a gray suit and blue silk tie-came through the revolving door, looking for him.
The white-haired, distinguished-looking artist pulled up a wicker chair and sat, smiling shyly. “Glad I caught up with you, Jack.”
“Surprised you left the table, Frank. It looked like you were winning.”
Millet smoothed his salt-and-pepper mustache with a thumbnail. “I asked to be dealt out for a few hands. I… wanted a word with you, sir-in private.”
A steward came by and the two men ordered coffee.
“I wanted to explain about Archie’s reluctance to accept your invitation,” Millet said.
“No explanation necessary.”
“Well, he was damn near rude, and… look, there’s something I’ve been wanting to let you know, anyway.”
“I’m listening, Frank.”
The reserved artist drew in a breath, gathered his courage, and said, “The story Archie told you about this fellow, this blackmailer Crafton, that was true, as far it went-Archie indeed has been suffering from nervous exhaustion.”
“Being pulled between two friends as powerful as Taft and Roosevelt has to be an ordeal.”
“It was, and it is… but this Crafton is a scoundrel of the first rank. You need to be cautious around him, Jack-he’s capable of spreading the most scurrilous slander.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“I don’t think you are. This is… embarrassing to even bring up.”
“I don’t tell tales out of school, Frank-and the only writing I do these days is fiction.”
Millet nodded, sighed again and, with a tremor in his voice, said, “Well, as you know, Archie and I are close friends-we’re also both lifelong bachelors. This son-of-a-bitch Crafton was threatening to humiliate us, in the most damaging, defamatory manner imaginable… Do I have to be more specific, Jack?”
Looking at this esteemed American artist-a man decorated for bravery under fire in both the Civil War and the Russian-Turkish conflict-Futrelle felt a flush of rage toward the late Crafton.
Through his teeth, Futrelle said, “Crafton was going to try to paint Major Archibald Butt as, what-Oscar Wilde? It’s preposterous.”
Millet avoided Futrelle’s gaze, hanging his head. “All I can say is, Archie puts up a good front, but something as potentially emotional… and revealing… as Mr. Stead’s seance-good fun though it will probably be-would be a trial for him. So I apologize for my friend.”
“Again, none is necessary-but he’s lucky to have as good a friend as you.”
Now Millet met Futrelle’s eyes. His voice was soft, his expression almost bashful. “You haven’t asked me if there’s any truth to his slander.”
“I wouldn’t dignify the accusation with any consideration whatsoever. Besides-it’s none of my damned business, is it?”
Millet just thought about that for a moment; he seemed quietly shocked by Futrelle’s reaction. Then he smiled and nodded, saying, “You’re a good man, Jack.”
Their coffee arrived, and the two sat drinking it, talking of more pleasant subjects, including mutual admiration for each other’s prose (Millet was, in addition to a fine artist, an author of short stories, essays and an eminent translator of Tolstoy, among others). Millet expressed a typical expatriate’s view of his fellow countrymen, or at least countrywomen.
“An inordinate number of obnoxious, ostentatious American women on this voyage, don’t you think, Jack? Have you noticed how many of them carry tiny dogs with them, like living mufflers?”
“I have,” Futrelle admitted. “But it’s their husbands they lead around like pets.”
The two men had a hearty laugh, finished their coffee, shook hands and went their separate ways.
But Futrelle was dismayed by Butt’s refusal to attend, particularly now that he knew the major’s murder motive was the only one that truly rivaled that of the person Futrelle had pegged as the killer.
Only belatedly did it occur to him that Millet had the same motive.
And the artist seemed as unlikely as Butt to accept an invitation to a seance; so Futrelle decided not to bother offering one. The performance the mystery writer was staging was meant for only one person, and if he had misjudged the guilt of that person, the evening ahead would be purely entertainment, just another exotic shipboard trifle to amuse the rich passengers.