Alice Cleaver screamed.
Releasing Futrelle’s hand as if it were a stove’s hot burner she’d touched, the young woman sprang to her feet and ran into the darkness.
“Please keep your seats,” Stead said gently, just loud enough to rise over the murmured confusion of his guests. “May-the lights… this sitting is over.”
Ismay was rising, but Stead stood and reached across the exhausted Miss Gibson and clutched Ismay’s arm. “Be seated, sir! Do not follow them… I beseech all of you.”
In the meantime, Futrelle had pursued the young woman into the darkness, her sobbing leading the way; even in the dark, Futrelle had enough sense of his bearings to know she wasn’t heading for the double doors into the lounge, but to the side door, the corridor door.
Then a momentary slash of light cutting through the blackness-as that door opened and closed-confirmed his suspicion.
The nanny was running down the corridor, forward of the Reading and Writing Room, and Futrelle was after her, following her into the reception area-empty of passengers, not even a steward in sight-as the Grand Staircase yawned before them. His glasses had fallen off his face, and her hat had tumbled to the floor, like a big bread crumb marking her path.
She all but flew up the stairs, her ruffled skirt rustling, hard soles of flat shoes echoing like gunshots, running up onto that very balcony where, not so long ago, he had dangled the blackmailer down over.
Then she was through the door onto the boat deck, and he was only seconds behind her, and when he burst through the door, onto the deserted deck, the cold night air was little brittle icy daggers stabbing at him, and the girl…
… the girl stood at the rail, between two lifeboats, her leg slung over the side, propped there, as she was trying to decide.
“That would end it, Alice,” Futrelle admitted quietly.
“Stay back, sir! Stay away.”
“I can’t obey that request, Alice.” He shrugged. “If you’re going to jump, you’re going to jump… but do it knowing I stand here not as your judge, or as any threat to you.”
“My life is over,” she said, and her eyes were tormented, her face streaked with tears, her lips trembling. “I got to go join my baby.”
But she didn’t jump. He knew she might, but didn’t really think she would: everything he knew about this young woman indicated, however sad and sick and even twisted she might be, that she was, first and foremost, a survivor.
So Futrelle moved gingerly forward until he was standing at the rail next to her. He glanced over its edge. “The water’s so black it doesn’t even reflect the stars. They say it’s cold-near freezing.”
“Don’t touch me. Don’t try to stop me.”
The sky was a dark blue, cobalt not unlike this poor girl’s eyes; no moon, but the stars were so vivid, so limitless, it was if the night had countless tiny holes punched in it and tomorrow was streaming through.
Futrelle leaned casually against the rail, as if he were just taking the air and not talking to a woman perched between the deck and the depthless ocean as if astride a mechanical horse in the nearby gym.
Gently, unthreateningly, he said, “John Crafton tried to blackmail me, too, Alice.”
“… Pardon, sir?”
“Just about everyone in that room downstairs, at the seance, was one of his victims. I had a mental breakdown, Alice-I was hospitalized-and John Crafton was going to defame me with that knowledge, in front of the world.”
Her lower lip quivered, shivered, whether from cold or emotion, he couldn’t hazard a guess; the eyes welled with fresh tears. “He was a beast.”
“Everyone has secrets, Alice-many of us have terrible secrets. Things we’ve put behind us; things for which we pray God has forgiven us.”
She nodded, haltingly. That flat-nosed face could have been pretty if someone, perhaps as long ago as her childhood, hadn’t struck her some dreadful blow.
He kept his voice casual. “Even Mr. Guggenheim, Mr. Astor, the richest men on this ship, richest in America herself, have secrets… same as simple people like you and me, Alice. They were Crafton’s prey, as well.”
Her chin was quivering now, too. “He… he didn’t want my money.”
“He wanted something else, didn’t he, Alice?”
She nodded pathetically. “I had twenty dollars Canadian the Allisons give me. I sneaked out, late at night, went to his room like he asked… he opened the door, and yanked me inside, and…”
Tears streamed down her face and her body was racking with sobs, and Futrelle lifted her off the railing and into his arms and patted her back, comforted her, holding her gently.
“He was naked, wasn’t he?” Futrelle whispered.
“Yes, sir.”
“You tried to give him that money, Alice?”
“Yes… He stood there, naked as a jaybird, pale as a frog’s belly, and he laughed at me. Laughed!”
She drew away so that she could look at him; her expression said that she was telling the truth.
“Like I said, sir-he didn’t want money. He… he told me to get undressed; said he wanted to watch. Said if I didn’t give him my favors… every night of this voyage… he’d tell the Allisons about my baby.”
“I understand.”
“He… he climbed in bed. He kept saying, take them off, take them clothes off… and I say, ‘Let me give you a kiss first,’ and he said somethin’ like, ‘Now that’s a girl,’ or ‘That’s more like it,’ and I leaned over and I put the pillow on him.”
Her voice and her face had a blankness now, an emptiness; her eyes were half-lidded, staring dully into the awful memory of it.
“He was a scrawny thing… not strong. Weak as a kitten, or a cat, anyways. And I was never stronger. I held them feathers on him, and he fought, he did thrash, but I pushed down, I held him down, and… and finally he didn’t struggle no more.”
She began to sob again and he gathered her to him, and patted her back, and said, “He was an evil man, Alice. You were protecting yourself.”
Nodding desperately, she said, “I was protectin’ my honor! I ain’t the best girl in the world, I guess I know that better than anybody, sir… but I ain’t no man’s white slave! So I smothered the son of Satan, and I’d do it again, gladly.”
“You did do it again, didn’t you?”
Her eyes flared. “Pardon?”
“Crafton’s partner-in-crime: Mr. Rood.”
She swallowed. “Don’t know ’im, sir.”
“Alice… I’m your only hope. Either you trust that I have your best interests at heart, or you’d best go back to that rail and jump.”
“I don’t… don’t really wanna die, sir. Will they hang me?”
“I’ve told you: I’m not your judge. I’m your friend-and another victim of that vile pair. What happened with Rood?”
“He told me to meet him on the deck, middle of the night-two A.M., when the ship was asleep. He said if I didn’t meet ’im, he’d tell on me to the Allisons. He knew all about my baby, too. He said he even had the pictures from the papers to show the Allisons. I need that job, sir! I need the chance the Americas give.”
“You’re getting off the subject, Alice. Tell me about that night on deck with Mr. Rood.”
“He… he knew his partner was dead. He said he seen the stewardess come tearin’ out of his friend’s cabin, white as a ghost, and he quicklike slipped in and seen the body. And he knew I done it-or anyways, he figured I done it, ’cause his friend told him what he was goin’ to do to me. I think… I think I was to be both their white slaves, by crossing’s end.”
“Is that what he wanted from you up here, Alice? Your ‘favors’?”
She was staring at the deck. “No. No, he… he wanted the money.”
“What money, Alice?”
“I did somethin’ bad in that room, somethin’ I shouldn’t-and I ain’t talkin’ about riddin’ the world of that blackhearted bastard. But there was this money on his dresser, just sitting there, this great wad of paper money. When Mr. Crafton was dead, when I just stood there catchin’ my breath, I seen it there, sir, that money… and I snatched it up. Took it with me. Figured… I earned it.”