9 August 1881

We were at breakfast when the first officer approached us. “Excuse me for interrupting your breakfast, but the doctor requests your immediate assistance in the sick bay,” he whispered.

He could have been asleep on the sick bay examining table, but the body of Billy the sailor was in the first stage of rigor mortis. A stoker had found his body crumpled in a passageway forward of the crew’s quarters. Fortunately, the officers and masters-at-arms had whisked the body away to the sick bay before the passengers were up and about.

Billy had been the picture of health. His body was tall and athletic - a blue-eyed, blonde Viking. Who could have struck down this man and why?

I was dumbfounded and guilty. Was I responsible for his death because I set him to discover the user of clove cigarettes? It was with great trepidation that I told Bell of my involvement.

Dr. Bell flicked open his pocket magnifying glass and commenced a minute examination; first the head and neck, then hands and arms, and on down the body to the feet. There were no marks of violence, no bruises, no hair or skin beneath the fingernails suggesting a scuffle. There was the odor of beer in his mouth, but nothing else. He searched the skin for a tell-tale pin prick - a place where an assailant could have inserted a long needle into the brain or the chest.

“A mirror and a light, please,” he said.

Bell adjusted the gaslight, bent the head back, and I shined reflected light from the mirror while he examined the interior of the nasal cavity with a speculum.

“Well, well, look at this.”

There, high in the back of the nose, were a few drops of blood. “Very clever. The assailant grabbed Billy from behind, bent back his head, and inserted a long needle into his nose. The assailant knows human anatomy well enough to stab through the thin base of the skull and on into the brain. Billy was instantly paralyzed and died within minutes.”

Neither the ship’s doctor nor Captain Veery argued against an autopsy. Dr. Bell, rather casually, assigned to me the task of slicing through the scalp and sawing off the skull cap while he took his usual morning stroll on deck. He returned, an hour later, just as I was lifting the brain from the base of the skull.

“There, a needle track. Doyle, hold the lens while I dissect.” The faint needle went from the base of the brain upward through the vital respiratory center.

He put down the scalpel and wiped his hands. “Aye, indeed, our Billy did find the murderer. Unfortunately, before he could bring the villain to justice, he became one of his victims,” he said, almost to himself.

I felt awful for being involved in sending him to his untimely demise, and when the autopsy was complete, I returned to our cabin and sulked for a bit.

That afternoon, the ship disembarked passengers at Copenhagen, but none of the crew left the ship. After another long dinner, I couldn’t sleep and prowled the deck until quite late. We had entered the Baltic Sea and now had a strong wind on our stern. The ship rushed through the waves. There were fleeting glimpses of the Big Dipper and the North Star through ragged clouds.

It was peculiar that we were on a southern course, rather than east to St. Petersburg. I stopped to light a smoke and noticed a figure in a long, dark cloak forward of the bridge. As I watched, I became more and more convinced it was Penelope. What was she doing, alone on deck at this time of night?

I caught up with her. It was indeed Penelope. I immediately hoped for another passionate embrace or a little snuggle, but she drew back into the folds of her dark cloak.

“Are you following me?”

“No, I chanced to be on deck, and there you were. Would you care for a drink in the lounge?”

“Leave me alone.”

“But, there is a murderer about. You might be in danger. I will not leave until you are safely in your room.”

It seemed like a calculated move, rather than a romantic impulse. She flung her arms around my neck and offered her lips for another passionate kiss. “Help me,” she breathed. “Come along and be of some use.” As if under a spell, I followed without a word.

She led the way forward to a hatch cover. “Lift it,” she said.

I followed her down a steel ladder forty or fifty feet deep into the very bowels of the ship. It was a cavernous space, as dark as a black, tropical night. She fumbled in a voluminous purse, found a lucifer, and lit a small bulldog lantern. In the flare of the light, I could see three large crates in the center of a cargo hold.

“This is supposed to be a passenger ship. Why is it carrying cargo?” I asked.

“Don’t ask questions. Stay on guard,” she hissed.

Penelope shined the lantern about the cavernous space and focused on three huge wooden crates chained to bolts. The words ‘Brooklyn Navy Yard’ were printed in large, black letters on the center crate.

I clung to the ladder for support against the rolling ship and felt, as much as heard, the relentless crashing of waves against the bow. Penelope moved about, probing here and there with a folding knife until she disappeared on the far side of the crates. I was left alone in pitch dark, clinging to the ladder and feeling more and more sea sick from the pitching and rolling of the ship. Hot acid rose in my throat.

I spit foul saliva onto the steel floor and swallowed. What was she looking for? Seconds lengthened to minutes. Except for occasional flashes of light from her lantern, the hold was chill and completely dark. I shivered when the thought of a tomb crossed my mind. Was it my heightened imagination, or was there a faint tremor in the ladder? I heard the faintest scrape of shoe leather against a steel rung and I thought it was the killer with his lethal needle coming to murder both of us.

In the darkened hold, the figure descending the ladder was invisible, but his raspy breathing and the scrape of his shoe came closer and closer. Where should I go? How could I stay alive? I was close to panic. We were in a trap and the killer had us at his mercy.

I didn’t dare call out to alert Penelope but braced myself for an attack. At the very moment the figure reached the bottom rung, Penelope emerged from behind the crates. She shined the lantern directly on me, and in an instant, a small revolver appeared in her other hand. Was it my imagination? Was she aiming the gun at me or the intruder?

The click of another revolver was only a foot or so from my ear. I lashed out at the shadowy figure by the ladder with a fist and struck solid bone. His gun went off with a tremendous roar, but the killer went down without a sound.

In an instant, I had him in a choke-hold, yet he was already unconscious from my blow to his head. I twisted the revolver from his inert hand just as Penelope cried out. “For God’s sakes ... Don’t kill him!”

“Penelope, are you hurt?” I screamed.

Did anger flare in her eyes? For an instant, I had the feeling she had expected the intruder and that I had interrupted a secret meeting. Then, her demeanor seemed to change and Penelope almost cooed. “I’m fine, shaken but unhurt. You’re as dashing a young man as your uncle. Bravo. I owe you a kiss.”

My anger drained away. She shined her lantern on the intruder’s face. He was the American engineer, Gritz, unconscious but still breathing. Penelope went through his pockets and found nothing, then searched the inside of his waistcoat. There was only a thick wallet, but she wasn’t interested in the contents. “Damn. Oh, damn,” she muttered. “It isn’t here.”

“What are you looking for?”

She flashed another hard look. “Nothing, nothing at all... Now, Arthur, sweetheart, listen to me. This has to look like an accident.”

“How?”

“We must take him to the deck and you report to the ship’s officers. Please, Arthur, if you care for me, say nothing about this incident. I cannot tell you more, but you must trust me. It is part of my secret work as a spy for the Crown.”

She believed in me to help make things right for her. My suspicions melted away. It was impossible to refuse this beautiful woman, and besides, she was practically a relative, even though Uncle Declan was dead. However, I also knew the body would be too heavy for me to carry on my own. “Sorry, Penelope. I want to help, but his body is dead weight and there is no way I can carry him straight up that ladder,” I said.

Penelope swept the revolver from the floor and leveled it at my chest.

“Fine, I can kill you and give him another good rap on the head. You will both be dead. It will look like you killed each other.”

“But why would you do that?”

“Your uncle is dead, so what if another Foley joins him?”

What a ghastly creature! I half-wondered if she was joking, but realized she was serious, clearly mad, and without any scruples. Though I wanted to abandon her right then, I still enjoyed the thought of her passionate kisses and, if I wanted to live, I could not resist her gun, her steely eye, and the tension of her finger on the trigger. “Aye, then. Let us give it a try,” I sighed.

“That’s a good lad.” She smiled. “I would not want to harm you.”

“You always get your way.”

“That I do.”

It was a long and weary task. With great difficulty, I hoisted the man’s dead weight on my back with his arms crossed in front of my chest. There was a ripping sound as Penelope tore strips from her dress, which she twisted into ropes.

She then bound his arms across my chest so I could carry him with my hands free to grasp the ladder. Up we went, rung by each painful rung, as I dragged two hundred extra pounds on my back. I was near exhaustion when I reached the closed hatch. It was dogged down and wouldn’t budge.

I couldn’t let go of the ladder to turn the locking handle. The man on my back moaned and feebly moved, as if he was waking up. It was a devilish situation. I could have dropped the bastard. “Goddamnit! We are trapped!” I gasped.

“Idiot! God knows how you made it through medical school. Let me by,” hissed Penelope, who was still below on the ladder.

By moving aside only a few inches, Penelope was just able to climb by. She angrily bumped me as she went up the ladder and released the locking handle, opening the hatch. The engineer moaned as I moved through the hatch and collapsed on deck. He opened his eyes and began to move once again, but Penelope smashed the butt of the revolver against his head and he went back out cold for a second time.

“What? Woman, are you completely insane?”

“It was nothing.”

“Nothing? You could’ve killed him!”

“I didn’t hit him that hard. He has to be unconscious long enough for us to get away. Report him to the officers and take him to sick bay.”

The third officer and the master-at-arms believed my story of finding the victim passed out on the deck during an evening stroll. The American engineer was unconscious, but breathing regularly. The ship’s doctor examined him in sick bay.

“I would wager the fellow had a bit to drink and fell on deck; happens all the time,” he said.

“I will be happy to stay with him,” I said.

“That would be kind of you. It’s getting late and I want to retire for the night.”

“I’ll sit with him until he comes around,” said I.

“Fine. And if you’d lock up when you go, it would be much appreciated.”

I nodded and the ship’s doctor departed. Penelope arrived in less than an hour wearing a stunning new evening dress. She tucked the cleaned and reloaded revolver and his fat wallet into the engineer’s waistcoat pocket. When the fellow woke up, there would be nothing missing. She was very clever, but what was behind her actions? Did she really spy for the Crown, or could she be some sort of double or triple agent?

When the fellow woke up, he was disoriented and amnesic. I offered to walk him back to his quarters, but he refused and shakily left the sick bay. After locking up, I went on deck for fresh air and a bit of a walk. I stretched my back and shoulders, which ached from carrying the damn engineer. I wearily sat in the shadow of a lifeboat to have a smoke.

The ship was entering a narrow channel that led to a brightly-lit naval shipyard in the city of Kiel. A tugboat guided the Servia alongside a long embankment with a huge steam-driven crane ablaze with gas lights.

The passengers were still sleeping off another large dinner, but to my amazement, the German, Count von Wittenberg, accompanied by the Americans, appeared on deck.

“Where is Mr. Gritz?” the count asked.

“Don’t know. We haven’t seen him since dinner,” one American said.

The count spat on the deck. “Mein lieber gott! Damn imbeciles! Find him.”

German workers swarmed onto the deck, opened the forward hatch, and led massive cables down into the hold. In less than half an hour, the three large crates were lifted out and deposited on the embankment. The crane then rolled away, and another machine with a long conveyer belt poured coal into the hold.

The Americans appeared, assisting the wobbly engineer, now a familiar figure, out of the darkness. At the same time, Penelope, shrouded in a cloak, glided to Count von Wittenberg. There was a moment’s conversation, then she disappeared as silently as she had arrived. The entire affair was most mysterious. The pouring of the coal appeared to be a cover to hide the unloading of the secret cargo.

So then, the question remained - what was the secret cargo? What was in those three huge crates, and why was Penelope involved with the German, as well as the Americans? Why was she so cozy with the Russian students? Was I really in love with her, or was this another one of my infatuations? My poor head whirled with these contradictory thoughts.

Dawn was breaking as the ship churned into the Baltic Sea. I returned to my cabin and rolled into my bunk without even undressing.