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Senator William Alden Smith
The spectators had been silent for some time. Albert Crawford’s story of Ida and Isidor Straus waiting serenely for death had brought an abrupt ending to the circus atmosphere, and a shadow lingered in the room. Perhaps it was the effect of Crawford’s humble presence, so small and unpretentious in his borrowed suit, or perhaps it was his simple words: “I saw the iceberg.” As the steward sat there wiping his nose, it seemed that everyone in that room could see the iceberg and feel its chill.
Bill knew that he was taking a risk in calling his next witness, but it had to be done. Time was short, and he was making very little progress. He would have to talk to the man who was already a hero in the British newspapers—the man who had kept the small flotilla of lifeboats afloat during the long, cold night—the most senior officer to survive. Charles Lightoller.
Within moments, Bill knew that Lightoller was making a favorable impression on the spectators, especially the ladies, and if he was not careful, Lightoller would make him look like a fool. The officer answered every question in a quiet but firm voice with a warm, friendly rural accent. He was polite, professional, and every word he spoke revealed how little Bill knew of the sea and how foolish Bill was in his questioning. The questioning began well enough.
“What is your name?”
“Charles Herbert Lightoller.”
“How old are you?”
“Thirty-eight.”
“What is your business?”
“Seaman.”
Such a simple answer, Bill thought. The sea was the entirety of this man’s professional life. He didn’t boast of his status; he simply spoke of the sea. He did not try to put his position above that of anyone else. He was a seaman—enough said.
Bill would have to begin by forcing the man to acknowledge that he had some responsibility for the ship. He was not just a seaman. “What position do you occupy?” Bill asked.
“Second officer of the Titanic.”
While Bill took Lightoller through a long series of questions about the sea trials of the Titanic, he could feel the audience, and even his own committee, becoming restless. The man answered each question, but each answer led to another question, and Bill was soon lost in a flurry of replies about the intricacies of preparing a ship like the Titanic for sea trials. Lightoller spoke with authority about days spent in Belfast Lough, turning circles and adjusting the compass. He professed no knowledge of engine tests, stating quite clearly that was the business of the chief engineer, and somehow making Bill feel a fool for asking.
He looked at the man standing at attention behind the committee table. Lightoller had been given an opportunity to sit, but he had chosen not to. He was not a conventionally handsome man—stocky and broad faced—but every eye was fixed on him, and some of the ladies were actually fanning themselves.
“Mr. Lightoller,” Bill said, “would you describe a life belt?”
Lightoller raised his eyebrows, and Senator Newlands leaned across the table and seemed to offer Lightoller a sympathetic wink. Nonetheless, Bill waited while Lightoller described a life belt in unnecessarily minute detail.
“So,” Bill asked, “have you ever been in the sea with one of these on?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Where?”
“From the Titanic.”
“In this recent collision?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How long were you in the sea?”
“About an hour.”
Lightoller spoke the words in the same businesslike tone he had used for all of his responses, but Bill, and probably everyone else, would know what they meant. An hour in the frigid water was almost more than a body could bear. The man who stood calmly now had been very close to death. Well, Bill thought, I suppose we are closing in on the important questions now.
“What time did you leave the ship, Mr. Lightoller?”
“I didn’t leave it.”
“Did the ship leave you?” Bill regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth.
“Yes, sir.”
Bill watched the shadow that crept into Lightoller’s eyes and softened his tone. “Did you stay until the ship had departed entirely?”
“Yes, sir.”
The shadow retreated from Lightoller’s eyes to be replaced by stoic resignation as Bill poked and prodded at the man’s memory, asking if he had seen Ismay, asking where the captain had been, asking how the boats had been uncovered. Finally he returned to the moment that the Titanic had taken her final plunge into the depths.
The shadow returned deep and dark, and seemed to fall not only over Lightoller but over the entire room. Lightoller turned his head away and focused his eyes on something that no one else could see.
“The ship lunged forward, and a great wave rolled up over the bridge. I turned my back on the ship and dived forward into the icy water. I swam towards the starboard, not knowing why, not knowing why I should swim at all, for there was surely no hope of rescue for me.”
Bill held his breath. He could see it for himself. The ship sinking by the bow, the people scrambling upward, trying to save themselves for one last moment, one last precious breath, and Lightoller turning his back and diving into the sea.
“As the vessel sank,” Lightoller said, “I found myself drawn by suction towards an airshaft on the roof of the officers’ quarters. The sea was pouring down the shaft, and I was riveted to the grating, unable to escape. I closed my eyes and recalled the words of the Ninety-First Psalm: ‘He shall give his angels charge over thee.’ And then a great explosion of hot air belched up from the shaft, and I found myself surfacing next to an overturned collapsible lifeboat. I grabbed the rope and thanked God. I drifted with the collapsible and watched. The Titanic’s bow plunged deeper, and her stern rose ever higher into the air. The smokestack toppled over with a crash and a spray of sparks onto the people struggling in the water.”
“Did it injure any of them seriously?” Bill asked.
“Does it matter?”
“Did it kill anybody?”
“I cannot tell.”
Newlands leaned across the table, and his voice was an angry hiss. “That’s enough, Smith.”
Bill nodded and took a deep breath to compose himself. “We’ll break for lunch,” he said.
“I think you had better.”
“But I’m not done with Lightoller. He’s a brave man, no doubt about it, and a natural commander, but that doesn’t make him immune from questioning.”
Newlands picked up his notepad. “Just be careful. If you raise too much sympathy for him, Ismay will get swept along with him. It’s obvious you’re not going to get Lightoller to say anything about Ismay—first, because he’s a company man, and second, because I don’t think he knows anything. Obviously, he was too busy getting the lifeboats out to worry about anything else. You’ll do better asking the passengers.”
Bill spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “You know the score, Newlands. Two days, that’s all. After that, the passengers will all scatter, and I’ll have to send the Titanic crew home. I can’t keep them forever.” He looked across at Will McKinstry. “Any other word from the president? Any change of mind?”
“No, sir. Nothing. He’s still keeping his door closed.”
Newlands shook his head. “I don’t know how he plans to run an election campaign from behind closed doors. He’ll have to come out sometime.” He rubbed his hands together. “Come on, Smith, let’s go to lunch. We have a table at the Palm Court.”
Bill turned to his secretary, who seemed ready to follow along with him to the restaurant. “Will, what happened about the Irish family I asked you to find for my wife? Was there anyone saved?”
“It’s possible,” McKinstry said. “I found two girls, sisters. They were in a bad way, having lost their father and, I believe, a couple of brothers, but they said their father had talked of taking them to Washington, said they had a relative who worked in the house of someone in government. They didn’t know you by name, Senator; they scarcely remembered their own names, poor little things, but they seem to be a possibility. The names matched. They are Maeve and Kitty McCaffrey, or so they say, and those are the names we were looking for.”
“Well, where are they?” Bill asked. “They didn’t send them to Ellis Island, did they? They’ve been through enough without ending up in that grim place.”
“They were taken in by the Salvation Army,” McKinstry said. “They have the men in one hostel and the women in another. They are locked up for the time being.”
“Locked up?” Bill asked. “Why would anyone lock them up? They’re not criminals.”
“We don’t know that,” McKinstry warned. “They’ve no paperwork and they could be anyone. Immigration will have to sort them out and make sure they match with the passenger list. They promise to be quick about it, but of course, they’ll mostly be charity cases even if they’re allowed in—women without husbands, and children without fathers, and whatever little treasure they may have accumulated will have gone down with the ship. It’s a sad case, Senator. I went in among them on the Carpathia. I have never seen such grief.”
Bill rubbed a weary hand across his eyes. “I know, Will, and I promise you we’ll get to the bottom of what happened, but we have to start at the top. If I can’t pin the blame on Ismay and the whole thing is judged to be an act of God, no one will get a penny. As for the girls, we’ll send them on to Washington. Maybe they’re Molly’s relatives or maybe they’re not, but Nana will find a place for them. At least we can do that much. Go and send a telegram to her and tell her the girls are coming.”
McKinstry frowned. “One more thing, Senator.”
“Yes?”
“I saw a great deal of anger among those steerage folk. They say they were locked belowdecks. We need to nip that talk in the bud, sir, or we’ll have an Irish rebellion on our hands. We don’t need this to reach Boston.”
“We don’t need it to reach anywhere,” Bill said. “We’ve enough Irish here in New York City to set off a rebellion.”
He stood for a moment watching McKinstry walk away to send the telegram. He thought that Nana, at least, would be pleased with his decision and hoped that the two girls truly were Molly’s relatives. He thought of the afternoon ahead and the questions he would have to ask. Not only must he deal with Ismay’s slippery answers and Lightoller’s quiet heroism, but he also had to avoid mention of the very late arrival on deck of the steerage passengers. That was a subject that would have to be approached carefully at a later date, once the steerage passengers had dispersed. Tempers were running high now, stoked by wildly speculative newspaper articles. He wished he had more time. Forty-eight hours was not enough time to even scratch the surface.
Eva Trentham was the first person he saw when he walked into the Palm Court. She sat at a small table in the center of the room. Although she was the only person seated at the table, she was not alone. Bridie, now wearing a nurse’s gray dress and white cuffs, stood behind her wheelchair, and various representatives of New York society paused to speak to Eva as they proceeded to their own tables. Bill refused to catch her eye. She had helped to bring this hearing about, but he would not answer to her—not now, not ever.
Newlands led the way to a secluded table set among the potted palms, which were the main feature of the restaurant. Bill sank into his seat, and a waiter appeared at his elbow almost immediately.
“Whiskey and soda,” Bill said. Nana did not approve of lunchtime drinking, but Bill needed a drink. He admitted to himself that he had not done well with Ismay. The man was arrogant and unlikable, but very firm in his testimony that he had not been responsible for the running of the ship. As for Lightoller ... Bill shook his head. The Englishman had made a fool of him. No, that was not true—Bill had made a fool of himself. He should never have given Lightoller a chance to describe his actions as the ship had gone down. He had left an indelible impression of bravery—going down with the ship, surfacing in the icy water, and recalling words from the Psalms. Who could condemn a man like that? Bill knew he would have to recall him after lunch and find a way to bring his actions into question.
The waiter brought him his whiskey and soda, and Bill took a long swallow to take the unpleasant taste from his mouth.
“Stop here, Bridie. Yes, right here.”
Bill looked up and saw that Bridie was maneuvering Eva Trentham’s wheelchair to a position beside his table. He rose instinctively to welcome her.
“Oh, sit down, sit down,” Eva croaked. “I don’t want to be shouting up at you for everyone to hear.”
Bill returned to his seat and took another long swallow of his drink. “You know Senator Newlands?”
“Of course I do. I know everyone. Now, let’s get straight to the point. Ismay is going to be a dead end, isn’t he?”
“No, of course not. I’ll recall him.”
“And he’ll continue to deny everything,” Eva said.
“No doubt he will,” Bill agreed, “but we’ll have to break him down.”
“He was a rat leaving a sinking ship,” Eva said, “and if you dig around, you’ll find he wasn’t the only rat. I saw a few rats myself. Unfortunately, being a rat is not a crime, and you can’t drag them all in and humiliate them—you don’t have time.”
“We need the Titanic’s sailing orders,” Newlands said. “Without them, we have nothing.”
Bill shook his head, hoping that Newlands would understand that they had no need to share this information with Eva. This was a Senate investigation, not an afternoon tea salon.
“Well,” Eva said, “the captain’s gone; the first officer’s gone; and you got nowhere with Lightoller this morning, so where will you find these orders?”
“We’re undertaking a search for the ship’s logbook,” Newlands offered. “We believe it will prove that she was proceeding at an unsafe speed.”
“Well, of course she was,” Eva sniffed. “If her speed had been safe, she wouldn’t have run into the damned iceberg.” She looked at Newlands’s shocked face. “Yes, I swear sometimes. In fact, I swear quite often. I haven’t always been a lady. I’m going to leave you to eat your lunch now, but I have one more name for you.”
Bill stared down at the tablecloth, willing her to go away, but Newlands waited with an eager expression.
“J. P. Morgan,” Eva said. “It was his ship. He’ll know if they were going for a crossing record.”
“J. P. Morgan is in France,” Bill said wearily. “He did not even sail on the Titanic. We’ll never get him here to testify.”
“Issue a subpoena,” Eva growled.
Bill shook his head. “He won’t come.”
“Oh, really,” Eva hissed. “I never took you for a quitter, Senator. I am very disappointed.” She turned her head to look at Bridie. “Push me, woman. I have nothing more to say here.”
Eva retreated to her table, and the waiter arrived with soup. Bill ordered another drink. Newlands raised his eyebrows.
“Impossible woman,” Bill said.
“But she’s not wrong. J. P. Morgan would be quite a catch.”
“If we destroy him, we destroy our whole financial system,” Bill said. “I’m not calling him. Ismay will be enough for our purposes.”
Bill had taken only one spoonful of soup before he felt the presence of someone else at the table. He looked up and saw a handsome woman in a black dress, accompanied by a boy of about seventeen, wearing a black tie and a black mourning band on his sleeve. Once again Bill and Newlands rose to their feet.
“Please forgive me for interrupting your meal,” the woman said. “I’m not accustomed to introducing myself, but I no longer have a husband to do that for me. I am Mrs. John Thayer, and this is my son, Jack. I think you know ... knew my husband.”
“Yes, of course,” Bill said. “I did.”
“We are sorry for your loss,” Newlands added. “Your husband was a fine man.”
“Yes, he was,” Mrs. Thayer agreed. “I don’t mean to keep you for long, but I don’t suppose we will be called to give testimony, and so I want you to hear for yourself what my son has to say about Sir Bruce Ismay.”
Bill looked at the boy, tall and gangly, more of a man than a child. “I’m sorry about your father,” he said with sudden real sympathy. He remembered how it was to lose a father.
“Thank you, sir.”
Mrs. Thayer gave her son a gentle push. “Go ahead, Jack. Tell the senators what you saw. Don’t be shy.”
“I was with Dick Williams, sir, and the ladies, our mothers, had already gone in the lifeboats.”
“Why didn’t you go with them?” Newlands asked.
Jack straightened his shoulders. “I’m seventeen years old, sir. It was women and children only.”
Newlands nodded. “I see.”
“We were running along the deck,” Jack said. Bill thought that his calm words failed to convey the panic the two boys must have felt as they watched the lifeboats leaving and saw the water rising above the lower decks.
“There was a crowd,” Jack said, “and we saw Sir Bruce.”
Bill waited.
“He was pushing,” Jack said. “You see, the purser, he had a gun, and he was firing it to keep the people away so he could load the lifeboat properly.”
“A gun?” Newlands said. “This is the first I’ve heard of guns.”
“That’s how Sir Bruce got in that lifeboat.”
“You’re saying he forced himself in at gunpoint?” Bill asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“And you,” Bill asked. “How did you get into a lifeboat?”
Bill saw a shadow creep across Jack’s young face. He was beginning to know what that shadow meant. Young Jack had a story he needed to tell.
“I didn’t get into a lifeboat,” Jack said. “I waited. We were all there, waiting. Masses of us. Just hanging on until the last breath. And then I sat on the rail and I jumped. The water was freezing, and I was so cold that I couldn’t swim.”
Mrs. Thayer caught hold of her son’s arm. “You don’t have to say anything else, dear.”
“No,” Bill said. “Let him speak. He needs to say it, and we need to hear it. What happened next, son?”
“I just stayed there,” the boy said, “and watched her, watched the ship. There was light all around her, like she was on fire and shining up from under the water. And then I bumped into this overturned boat, a collapsible, and I climbed on top with the other men.”
Bill noted the hint of pride in Jack’s voice as he included himself with the other men. On that night, he had grown from a boy into a man. If he had gone with his mother to the lifeboats, he would still have been a boy, but not now.
“We could see the people on the Titanic,” he said, “clinging to her deck like swarming bees. She rose way up into the sky, and then she fell.”
Mrs. Thayer nodded to Bill. “We just wanted you to know,” she said.
“What about your friend Dick?” Newlands asked.
“Dick Williams,” Jack said. “I think he’s going to be all right. He couldn’t find a place on the upturned collapsible, so he was in the water for a long, long time. His legs are frostbitten.”
“The doctor on the Carpathia wanted to amputate them,” Mrs. Thayer said, “but he wouldn’t let him. He said he would recover, and I think he will. He’s up and walking. He’s a very determined young man.” She turned away with tears in her eyes. “Come along, Jack.”
Newlands watched them depart. “Seventeen years old,” he said, “and he owns the Pennsylvania Railroad. Will you call him as a witness? He spoke of the purser firing a gun.”
Bill resumed his seat. “It’s not enough for young Jack to say it. We need proof. I’ll get Joe Bayliss on it and see what he can uncover. We need to know who was doing the shooting and why.”
“And what will we do this afternoon?”
“We’ll have Lightoller back, and this time, I won’t have any heroic speeches from him. I want to know what really went on when they loaded the lifeboats, and then I want to talk to the radio operator from the Carpathia. The man from the Titanic is in hospital. They say he stayed at his post even as the ship went down. I can’t afford to interview any more heroes, and I’m not having him brought out in a wheelchair. Cottam, from the Carpathia, can tell us what he knows, and we’ll only call the Titanic’s man if we have to, and when he’s not in a wheelchair.”
“Be careful,” Newlands said. “We’re looking into a tragedy, but if we can find heroes to praise, why not praise them?”
“Because praising heroes won’t bring results. I will not allow the newspapers to see the White Star officers as heroes. The fact is they ignored radio messages and ran their ship into an iceberg. I’m not interested in what they did afterward—I want to know what happened before they hit the damn thing. I want Ismay.”
“He’s not going to tell you anything.”
Bill turned his attention back to his food. “Someone will,” he said, “if the president gives me time to ask enough questions.”
West Village, New York
Joe Bayliss
Joe strode in through the front door of the sailors’ hostel on Jane Street. He felt better for having stretched his legs on his walk across the city, but the ever-present noise, the polluted air, and the press of the crowded streets reminded him why he tried to avoid cities. He set aside his longing for the clear waters of Lake Michigan, with its sand dunes and pine-studded bluffs, and looked around at the gloomy dark-paneled lobby.
He thought that maybe the hostel’s cramped accommodation would be suited to the Titanic’s ordinary crew members, but the ship’s officers were no doubt accustomed to something finer. So far they had not complained, but that was probably because they expected to go home, if not tomorrow, then the day after. He leaned across the reception desk and struck the bell. An elderly man with sailor tattoos on his arms and crinkles around his eyes from staring too long at distant shores came out of the inner office. Joe flashed his badge.
“What?” the old sailor said. “You want to arrest someone here? No criminals here.”
“I want to see the rooms where the Titanic’s officers are staying.”
“Up the stairs, third floor. You’ll find some of the crew up there, but the officers are all out.”
Joe nodded. Of course the officers were all out; that was why he had chosen this moment to arrive. The officers were all at the Waldorf Astoria, waiting to be called as witnesses.
“We could do without those officers,” the old sailor said. “They shouldn’t be here. They made a fuss. Didn’t want to mix with the crew.”
Joe raised a querying eyebrow. “The officers didn’t want to mix with the crew?”
“Said it wasn’t right. Said they should have separate accommodations. If you ask me, they’re lucky to have anything at all. Lucky to be alive.”
“Yes, they are,” Joe agreed. “Give me the room keys, and I’ll see myself up.”
“They won’t like it.”
“That’s my problem, not yours,” Joe said. “If they complain, you can tell them I’m acting on behalf of the US government, and if they don’t like that, they can complain to their ambassador. Meantime, I am going to look in their rooms.”
Joe ascended the stairs with the bundle of keys in his hand. The hallways were cramped, with cell-like rooms on either side and daylight seeping in through windows at the end of each corridor. When he reached the third floor, he saw that a number of doors were open and a knot of disheveled men stood in his way.
Joe was prepared to flash his badge and exert his authority, but the men who turned to face him showed no sign of aggression. They were unhappy, traumatized no doubt, but not dangerous.
“Step aside, please,” Joe said.
A short man with a thatch of untidy brown hair and the beginnings of a beard looked at him with an expression that was almost pleading. “Have you come to tell us we can go home?”
“No. I’m sorry. That’s not what I’m here for.”
“I don’t know why they want to keep us. It ain’t like anyone’s going to ask us any questions. We don’t know nothing. The captain says we’re sinking. The officers say get in a lifeboat and row, and that’s all we done. We don’t know nothing else.”
Another man, this one with a bandaged hand and a cut over one eyebrow, shook his head. “You’re wrong, Hemming. They’re not done with us. I mean, they called Crawford, didn’t they? He got a paper, and he had to go.”
“A bedroom steward,” Hemming said. “What they gonna learn from a bedroom steward?”
“He was a first-class steward,” the other man replied. “They just want to know what the nobs were doing when the ship was sinking. They don’t care about us.”
“Are you all just regular seamen?” Joe asked.
“You could say that,” Hemming said. “I’m a lamp trimmer.” He indicated the man with the bandaged hand. “Fred Clench is an able seaman; Moore is a fireman; Frank Evans is another able seaman; and Fleet, well ...” He pointed at a small, dark-haired man who seemed unwilling to look Joe in the eye. “Fleet was the lookout,” Hemming said.
“Didn’t do a very good job,” Evans muttered.
“We didn’t have no binoculars,” Fleet complained.
Joe made a mental note. The lookout had had no binoculars—that was something to tell Senator Smith.
“Do you know when we’re going home?” Hemming asked. “We don’t know nothing, and we want to see our families.”
“Do our wives even know we’re alive?” Evans added. “They’re probably thinking we’ve all gone down to a watery grave.”
“What am I going to tell my mum?” Clench asked. He looked at Joe with watery eyes. “My brother, George, was on board with me, and he’s gone. How am I going to tell her that I didn’t look out for him?”
“Yeah, well, someone should have been looking out,” Evans said. He looked at Fleet. “That’s the lookout’s job, isn’t it, Fleet?”
“It wasn’t my fault,” Fleet mumbled.
“Can you do anything for us?” Hemming asked. “We ain’t been paid, and we ain’t going to be paid. Our pay stops when the ship goes down, and we need to go home and get another ship, or we need to make some money here. There’s a whole lot of reporters out there willing to pay money for our stories, but our officers say we can’t speak to them.”
“They ain’t really our officers,” Clench said. “Think about it. If White Star ain’t paying us, then Lightoller and Lowe and all ain’t really our officers. We should just go outside and talk.”
“If we do, we’ll never get a berth from White Star ever again,” Fleet said.
“Well, you won’t,” Hemming said, “on account of you not seeing the iceberg.”
“I did see it,” Fleet grumbled. “I called it out.”
Joe slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out a roll of dollar bills. He peeled off five one-dollar bills. “Here’s a dollar each. Go on outside and buy yourselves something to eat, but don’t talk to the reporters. If I find that any of you have talked to a reporter, I’ll issue a warrant for your arrest, and you’ll never go home. Do you understand me?”
Hemming eyed the money suspiciously. “You can’t arrest us.”
“Yes, I can. I’m a federal marshal. Take the money and go.”
The men looked at each other, and finally Hemming nodded. “We’ll take it.” He held out his hand. “Come on, lads. Let’s go and see the city.”
Joe waited until the men had clattered down the stairs in their borrowed shoes, and then he sorted through the bunch of keys. He opened the first door and began his search.
Greenwich Village, New York
Danny McSorley
Danny surveyed the row of imposing brownstone houses and considered how fortunate he was not to live in one of them. Maybe some would think them very fine, with their grand front steps and fancy wrought-iron railings, but he could only see that they were squeezed together and sharing walls. In that respect, they were no different from the workmen’s cottages at home in Borrowdale.
He considered walking along the side alley and presenting himself at the service entrance. He was disheveled and damp from his long walk across the city in a light, drizzling rain, and Wolfie was certainly not at his best. Although Danny had fed Wolfie a sausage he had purchased from a street vendor and allowed him to drink from a horse trough, Wolfie was not happy. The source of the hound’s unhappiness was Danny’s insistence that they keep moving instead of allowing Wolfie to investigate each and every intriguing new scent. On their walk through the varied city neighborhoods, they had encountered a flood of odors, from spicy Italian cooking to the inevitable stink of drains and privies. Wolfie wanted to trace them all to their sources.
Danny straightened his tie and smoothed back his hair. He was not going to the back door. He was here on business from the US Senate. He imagined that Joe Bayliss would not go to the back door, and therefore, neither would he.
He tied Wolfie’s leash to the wrought-iron railing. “Wait here.”
Wolfie flopped down onto the sidewalk and lowered his head between his paws. Apparently, he was in need of a rest. Danny, on the other hand, was filled with energy at the thought that the lovely Miss Kate was just a few steps away. She was within reach, both in terms of distance and in terms of social standing. She was not a rich first-class passenger; she was a governess. She was a member of a respectable profession, and so was he.
He was grinning as he walked up the steps and knocked on the door. When no one came to answer his knocking, he knocked again. Now he could hear voices on the other side of the door.
A man’s voice was bellowing angry questions, and a woman’s voice was providing answers.
“What do we pay the damned servants for,” the man shouted, “if I have to answer the door myself?”
The woman’s voice was shrill. “They’re not here. We have no servants. You sent them all away when we went on the cruise.”
“Well, I’m not answering the door,” the man—Danny assumed he was Mr. van Buren—insisted.
Danny knocked again. He had no intention of leaving, and he would keep knocking until the two people behind the door resolved their argument.
To his surprise, the door opened suddenly while the man and woman were still arguing. He looked down and saw two childish faces looking up at him—a girl and a boy who shared the same round, well-fed faces, small dark eyes, and dull brown hair.
“It’s a man,” the boy said, turning away to talk to his parents.
The girl pushed past her brother and caught sight of Wolfie. “He’s brought a dog. Is it for us?”
“What? No! No dogs.”
The master of the house turned with a furious expression on his face. The expression changed a little as he took in Danny’s height and width. When he was fourteen years old, Danny had achieved a growth spurt unrivaled by any other member of his family. Although his sudden expansion upward and outward had removed any possibility that he would make a living from the narrow coal seam worked by the miners of Borrowdale, it had its advantages in serving as a wordless threat to anyone who wanted to pick a fight with him. Mr. van Buren took a step backward and adjusted his expression.
Danny smiled at the little girl. “That’s my dog. He’s not for you, but you can go and pet him if you like.”
The mother came forward at once. “Brigitta, don’t you dare.”
She scuttled past Danny and caught her daughter’s hand. She turned to the boy. “Come with me, both of you. This is men’s business.”
“Not really,” Danny said. “Just wanted to know ...”
Mrs. van Buren dragged her children away, with Brigitta still whining that she wanted to pet the dog, and Danny was left face-to-face with the master of the house.
Van Buren was a doughy-looking man, pudgy faced and soft bellied. His eyes were pale and protruding, and his lips were thick and seemed unnaturally moist. Danny tried to imagine Kate voluntarily spending time in the company of this man, or the two children, whose whining voices still reached him from somewhere within the house. How desperate must she be to submit herself to this family?
“I’m looking for your governess, Miss Kate Royston,” Danny said firmly.
Van Buren pursed his unpleasant lips. “What do you want with her?”
“It’s official business,” Danny replied. “I would like to speak to her immediately.”
“So would I,” Van Buren sneered, “but she’s not here.”
Danny checked his momentary disappointment. “When will she return?”
Van Buren shook his head. “Never. She’ll never show her face around here again, ungrateful little ...” Something in Danny’s expression caused Van Buren to fall silent. When he regained his voice, his tone was somewhat milder but still suspicious. “What kind of official business are you on? You don’t look very official to me, and that dog is no police dog.”
“I’m here on behalf of the sergeant at arms of the US Senate,” Danny said. “Miss Royston is to be questioned as a witness.”
“Witness to what?” Van Buren asked.
“The Titanic,” Danny replied.
“She didn’t see anything,” Van Buren sniffed. “She was on the Carpathia. You’re in the wrong place, young man. Now take that mangy dog and go.”
“Not until I’ve seen Miss Royston.”
“She’s not here,” Van Buren repeated. “She was never here.”
“But she left the Carpathia with you and your family.”
Van Buren grimaced. “She did not. I offered to take her with us and let her stay the night here, and I left to secure a cab, but she never joined us.”
“You mean she never left the ship?”
“I don’t know what she did. I told her where to meet us, and we waited for her, but she never came, and I haven’t seen her.”
“Do you have any idea where she may have gone?”
Van Buren’s lip curled impatiently. “No, I do not. I know nothing about her. She answered an advertisement I placed in the newspaper and seemed qualified for the position. I asked her nothing about her private life. In fact, I barely spoke to her.” He leaned forward and spoke confidingly. “Attractive young woman like that ... well, you know how it is. My wife didn’t want me in close proximity.”
“Perhaps your wife could tell me—”
“My wife is fully occupied with the children,” Van Buren declared, “and she knows nothing of Miss Royston’s comings and goings. We waited for her, and she never came. That’s all I can tell you, and I’ll thank you to get yourself off my doorstep and your dog off my sidewalk.”
Danny retreated down the steps. He could find nothing to like about Kate’s employer, but he had believed him when he’d said Kate was not in the house. It was obvious that Mrs. van Buren was reluctantly looking after the children herself.
His thoughts turned to the chaos that had reigned as the Carpathia’s passengers had disembarked and forged a path through the jostling reporters and anxious relatives. For some reason, Kate had followed the Van Buren family down the gangplank, but instead of seeking the safety of their waiting cab, she had set off in another direction. Where could she possibly have gone on such a night in the wind and rain, and carrying her portmanteau?
He untied Wolfie’s leash and set off on his return journey. He walked slowly with his head down and his thoughts churning. He was painfully aware of the bloodstained letter he carried in his pocket. His promise to a dying man could not be ignored, and because of that promise, he could not stay in New York. He had not found Kate today, and now it seemed that he never would.
The Waldorf Astoria
Senator William Alden Smith
Senator Newlands leaned across the table and coughed discreetly to draw Bill’s attention. Bill turned away from Harold Cottam, the Carpathia’s radio operator, and bent down to hear what Newlands had to say.
“Don’t drag this out, Smith,” Newlands whispered. “You ask too many questions.”
“I have to ask before he forgets or changes his mind.”
“He seems like an honest young man,” Newlands said, “and he’s done nothing wrong. You’re losing sympathy.”
“I’m not here for sympathy. I’m here for facts.”
“It’s an inquiry, not a court of law, and we only have another day and a half at the most. At this rate, we’ll run out of time before we run out of witnesses.” Newlands scowled impatiently. “Get on with it, or I’ll start asking the questions myself.”
Bill turned back to Harold Cottam, noting the concentration on the young man’s face. Newlands was right, of course, Cottam was doing his best to make order out of the chaos of that terrible night when the Titanic had sent her distress call to any ship that could hear her. This man, only twenty-one years old, had been at the heart of the chaos, sending and receiving and monitoring messages to discover which vessel had the best chance of reaching the sinking liner.
“Mr. Cottam,” Bill said, “what were your instructions?”
“The captain told me to tell the Titanic that all our boats were ready and we were coming as hard as we could come, with a double watch on in the engine room, and to be prepared when we got there with lifeboats. I got no acknowledgment of that message.”
“Whether it was received or not, you don’t know?”
“No, sir.”
Bill tried to put himself in Cottam’s place. He had sent a message of reassurance to the Titanic: We are on our way. We’re ready to help you. And the response, as the Carpathia had changed course and fired up her boilers, had been silence.
“Just so we all understand,” Bill said. “When you received that last call from the Titanic, that her engine room was filling with water, you say you acknowledged its receipt and took that message to the captain. Did you acknowledge its receipt before you took it to the captain?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then, after you had taken this message to the captain, you came back to your instrument and sent the message that you have just described?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And to that you received no reply?”
“No, sir.”
“And you never received any other reply?”
Cottam’s voice was bleak. “No, sir.”
“Or any other word from the ship?”
“No, sir.”
“Very well. I think I will just let you stand aside for a while, but we may want you in the morning. Will you be here?”
Cottam gave him a wry smile, and Bill realized the futility of his question. Of course Cottam would return in the morning. He was under subpoena. He was going nowhere until Bill was finished with him. Bill was painfully aware that his questioning of the captain and crew of the Carpathia was delaying the ship’s departure from New York. Hundreds of passengers were waiting to resume their interrupted cruise of the Mediterranean. The Cunard Line was losing money. Bill was making enemies in high places, and yet he could not shake the feeling that there was something still to be discovered—something that would point to the real reason for the sinking of the Titanic.
The reporters were the first to leave the room, rushing for the doors while the spectators gossiped and gathered their belongings. He wondered what the newspapers would make of the day’s testimony. Crawford’s story of Ida and Isidor Straus would form a tragic symphony. Lightoller, with his stiff upper lip and precise recall, would no doubt be lauded. Although Bill had spent the afternoon firing questions at Lightoller on where and when he had received warnings of ice, how fast the ship was moving, who had taken the ice warning to the bridge, none of that would erase the second officer’s moving testimony. Neither, Bill thought, would it erase the stupidity of his own question when Lightoller had described the ship’s funnel falling in a shower of sparks among the people struggling in the water. Had it hurt anybody? Of course it had. Had it killed anyone? Who could say? Did it even matter? The people in the water had already been as good as dead.
Well, Bill thought, they still had Ismay’s testimony to chew on. Ismay had made a very poor impression. The reporters would have plenty to say about him.
McKinstry closed his notebook. “Do you still want me to call Mr. Bride, the operator from the Titanic?”
“Is he out of the hospital?”
“I understand he can be brought here.”
Another hero, Bill thought, but he would have to be questioned. Despite Lightoller’s protestations, it was obvious that the Titanic had received ice warnings from surrounding shipping and equally obvious that they had been ignored.
Bill looked up and saw Joe Bayliss looming in the doorway, an immovable rock as the departing spectators flowed around him. He tried to read the expression on his friend’s weathered face, but Joe’s craggy features gave nothing away.
When the room was finally empty, Joe stepped inside.
“Well?” Bill asked.
“You owe me five dollars.”
“Why?”
“The cost of getting rid of some of the nosiest members of the Titanic crew.”
“The officers are all here at the Waldorf,” Bill said. “I have them standing by, ready to be called. I suppose I should send them away now.”
“Well,” Bill said, “if you’re looking for the logbook, you’d better undertake a search of their clothing before they leave here, or maybe take a look in Ismay’s room. The log is not at the seamen’s hostel. Really, there’s nothing much there. Those poor devils have nothing but the clothes they stand up in.”
The sheriff pulled a cheroot from his pocket and struck a match against his boot. A woodsman to the last, Bill thought.
“I’ve sent young McSorley searching after our missing subpoena witness, Miss Kate Royston. If he doesn’t locate her, do you want me to have a word with one of my Pinkerton buddies? After all, we may need her.”
Bill thought he saw real concern on Joe’s face. “Have you gone soft?” he asked.
“She seemed like a fine young lady, and I think she was traveling alone. I don’t see how she could have disappeared. I’m worried about her.”
Bill shrugged. “Let’s wait a while before we bring in the Pinkerton men. If they start sniffing around, so will the journalists. I’m sure McSorley will find her. He seems a competent fellow.”
“I suppose so,” Joe grunted. “Sorry about the logbook, but I have something else for you.”
“What?”
“I spoke to the lookout. His name is Frederick Fleet, and he let slip that he had no binoculars up there in the crow’s nest. The other crew members didn’t seem real happy with him, but they closed ranks when they could see I was interested. Maybe if he’d had binoculars, he could have seen the iceberg sooner.”
“And,” Bill said, “maybe if they hadn’t been going so fast, or if they’d listened to the ice warnings, they would not have been in the ice at all. This was no accident, Joe. This was criminal carelessness. I know it, but I can’t prove it.”
“So what are you going to do?”
Bill shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ve called the Titanic’s junior radio operator for tomorrow. The poor lad’s been in hospital ever since he arrived here, and they’re going to bring him down here in a wheelchair. It won’t look good. I’ll have to go easy on him. If I can’t prove that Ismay was in fact giving the orders, I’m going to come out of this with nothing, or maybe less than nothing. If I keep on like this, getting nowhere, I’m going to lose the support of my own constituents. This is not paving the road to the White House for me.”
“Senator.”
Bill turned to see Will McKinstry standing behind him. “Take a break, Will. You’ve been scribbling away all day.”
“There’s a lady, sir, a first-class survivor, who would like you to take her statement. She has something to tell you. She’s staying here at the Waldorf. Would this evening be convenient?”
Bill shrugged. “Why not? I’m not doing anything else. You’d better come with me, Joe. I may need a sworn witness.”
“Meantime,” Joe said, “I think we all need a drink.”