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April 21, 1912
The Willard Hotel
Washington, DC
Kate Royston
Kate sat on a velvet banquette in the hotel lobby. She had been to any number of fine restaurants and hotels in Philadelphia and New York in the company of her mother and father, but she had never been to Washington, and she had never been anywhere quite as magnificent as the Willard Hotel. Although she was dressed in the best evening gown that could be obtained at very short notice, she felt homely and insignificant amid the marble splendor of the Willard, set within sight of the White House and the Capitol Building and bustling with the comings and goings of men of power.
She was waiting now for Bridie to bring Eva down in the elevator. She knew that as soon as Eva arrived, she would be able to bathe in the glow of the old lady’s social standing, and nothing would be said about her rather ordinary ivory gown, more suited to a Sunday afternoon tea than dinner in Washington’s most expensive hotel.
She shrank back into the shadow of an enormous aspidistra in a gilded vase as a side door opened and admitted a contingent of gentlemen with suitcases. From her hidden position, she was able to observe the surreptitious arrival of Sir Bruce Ismay and Philip Franklin, along with two other gentlemen. She glanced toward the front doors, where she could see a large contingent of reporters lying in wait for the arrivals from New York. They were obviously unaware that their quarry had eluded them. Several hours earlier, when Kate had arrived with Eva, Bridie, and one of Eva’s footmen to carry the luggage, the reporters had looked at them in disappointment.
“I’m surprised they don’t want to talk to me,” Eva had remarked. “If they only knew what I know, they’d be all over me.”
“What do you know?” Kate asked impatiently. She was tired from the train journey and uncomfortable under the scrutiny of the press. Where was Myra Grunwald? When was she going to arrive to challenge Kate with the newspaper headlines of just a year ago?
“I know that J. P. Morgan is hiding in fear,” Eva said, “but Bill Smith will drag him out of his burrow, and then we shall see.”
Now, as Kate watched Sir Bruce Ismay scurrying across the lobby to the bank of elevators, she wondered why Eva couldn’t be satisfied with making this man’s life miserable. Why was she so determined to also ruin the life of J. P. Morgan? Wasn’t it enough that, whatever the verdict of the Senate committee, Ismay would never hold his head up in public again? He was already ruined. He had been branded as a coward and would be forever forced to bear the burden for the fifteen hundred people who had died on his ship.
As one elevator car spirited Ismay away, another car arrived and disgorged Eva in her wheelchair, attended by Bridie in a nurse’s uniform and a footman carrying a traveling rug over one arm. Eva’s wispy white hair had been teased into a bun and adorned with a jeweled pin and a tall red feather to match her red velvet dress. Looking at her as she approached, Kate could see the shadow of a once-beautiful woman. Even now, there was something endearing about the twinkle in Eva’s eyes. Of course, Eva didn’t want anyone to find her endearing—she wanted people to be terrified of her—but Kate was coming to hope that a soft heart lay beneath the sharp exterior, and it would soon be revealed.
Kate rose to meet the entourage and felt Eva’s eyes sweeping the length of her body, from the modest pearl brooch in her hair to the ruffled hem of her dress.
“We have to find a dressmaker,” Eva said. “You’re sufficiently youthful and pretty that you can pass muster in a dress like that, but we will need to dress you in something brighter and better fitting if you are to break men’s hearts.”
“I wasn’t planning on breaking hearts,” Kate protested.
“We shall see,” Eva said enigmatically. “Push me, Bridie.”
Kate followed the procession into the dining room and found it to be almost the twin of the dining room in the Waldorf Astoria, with potted palms and a glass ceiling. The room was bright with electric lights that glinted on polished silverware and crystal glasses set on snowy-white table linens. Moving between the tables, Kate wondered if this was how dining had been on the Titanic.
As they approached their table, Kate saw that they were not going to be dining alone. Two men rose to their feet as Eva and her entourage arrived. The footman busied himself removing one of the chairs. Bridie pushed Eva’s wheelchair into place and then took up a position behind the chair. The footman took several steps back from the table, where he remained like a rather grim statue, holding the traveling rug.
In any other circumstance, Kate would have laughed at Eva’s showmanship, but instead of laughing, she found herself able to proceed with renewed confidence. Her dress was very plain and her jewelry almost nonexistent, but she was with Eva Trentham, and Eva was putting on a show with Kate as only a minor player. The overwhelming effect of their arrival, intentional or otherwise, was that all eyes were on Eva and not on Kate. Kate’s dress was irrelevant.
The two men remained standing as Kate took her seat between them.
“Major Arthur Peuchen and Colonel Archibald Gracie,” Eva said. “Survivors.”
Unwilling to stare directly into their faces, Kate looked at them from beneath lowered eyelashes. They were not youthful men, but neither had they settled into the comfortable middle age that would strain a waistcoat. Major Peuchen appeared to be the picture of health, but Colonel Gracie was pale. Kate had read the interviews these two men had given to the New York Times. The major had been assigned the task of rowing a lifeboat. He had not been in the water. On the other hand, the colonel had spent the night in the water and stayed afloat by clinging to the overturned collapsible lifeboat. No wonder he was pale, and no wonder his body trembled.
“And this,” Eva said, “is Miss Katherine Moorhouse, who was very kind to me on board the Carpathia.”
Kate looked up sharply and met Eva’s bland, innocent stare as the two gentlemen settled into their seats. She felt herself blushing with guilt. Why had Eva decided to invent a name for her? Was she now expected to become Katherine Moorhouse and live forever under an assumed name? She busied herself spreading the linen napkin on her lap and consulting the menu. Could Eva do this? she wondered. Could she just give Kate another name and swipe away all the memories that went with the name of Royston? Surely it could not be so simple.
The dark-haired gentleman with melancholy eyes, who Eva had introduced as Major Peuchen, leaned forward. “How are you now, Mrs. Trentham? We understand that you had an unfortunate landing on board the Carpathia.”
“Yes, I did,” Eva agreed. “All would have been well if only Ismay had been willing to offer a hand.”
“On the Carpathia?” Major Peuchen queried. “Perhaps you mean on the Titanic.”
“No,” Eva insisted. “I would not have been injured at all if Ismay had come forward to give me a hand. He just stood there and watched while I struggled to come on board.”
“Because of the dog,” Kate said, without realizing that she had spoken aloud. “You can’t blame him for that. It was the dog that caused the problem.”
Eva looked down her nose at Kate. “I don’t know why you would say that, Miss Franklin.”
Kate’s anger began to rise. If Eva was going to invent a name, she should at least try to remember what name she had invented, and if she was going to blame anyone for her broken leg, she should blame herself, not Sir Bruce Ismay. He was certainly an unlikable man, but he was not responsible for everything that had happened to Eva.
Kate’s anger leaked out in the form of a hissing whisper. “If the Carpathia’s crew had not saved you,” she said, “you and the dog would both have fallen into the boat below. You can’t blame Ismay for everything.”
“He was standing there watching,” Eva snapped back.
“I blame Captain Smith,” Major Peuchen said smoothly.
“For breaking my leg?” Eva challenged.
“For all of it.”
Kate lifted her head and stared at him. He had spoken words that had been spoken by no one else. So far it had seemed that Captain Smith’s reputation was to remain unsullied. He had done all that a captain should do, including following his ship to the bottom of the Atlantic, but now Major Peuchen was actually blaming him for everything that had happened.
Colonel Gracie made a harrumphing sound at the back of his throat. “Now come along, Arthur. This will never do. We don’t speak ill of the dead.”
“Maybe you don’t,” Major Peuchen said, “but I will. Captain Smith was never any good. I don’t know why he was given the command. He was popular with the society crowd, a great man to have at your dinner table, but as for commanding a ship like the Titanic, well ...”
“No, no,” Colonel Gracie said, his pale face flushing, “this will never do. You can’t speak like this.”
Eva’s eyes were alight with excitement. “Let him speak any way he likes,” she insisted. “We have all been through a simply terrible ordeal, and I for one refuse to sit back and say nothing when there is blame to be apportioned. I am quite sure that Senator Smith agrees with me, and that is why we are all here to speak to the Senate committee.”
Colonel Gracie shook his head vehemently. “Ismay was pushing for speed,” he said. “He wanted to show what his ship could do. Well, he showed that, didn’t he?”
“And Captain Smith was a very poor seaman,” Major Peuchen responded. “He managed to collide with another vessel before we even left the harbor in Southampton. My goodness, he surely should have known that a ship the size of the Titanic would create a wash leaving the pier, but he showed no awareness. Boats were snapping their mooring lines all around us, and we just sailed on, not even caring.”
“It is difficult,” Colonel Gracie said, “for a ship the size of the Titanic to come to a stop or even change course, especially in a harbor like Southampton. What would you expect him to have done, Arthur?”
“I pity the people on board the New York,” Major Peuchen replied. “Smith snapped their mooring lines and sent them drifting without power. She was almost under our bow.”
“I agree it was an inauspicious start to the voyage,” Colonel Gracie responded placatingly.
“Inauspicious!” Major Peuchen’s voice took on an angry tone. “Yes, I would certainly say that it was. I don’t doubt Ismay will bear the blame for all of this, but I don’t believe it. Smith escaped blame by going down with his ship. Ismay was not so fortunate.”
Kate lowered her lashes and looked surreptitiously at the men on either side of her. They were both becoming red in the face. She looked at Eva. Eva’s smile was pure satisfaction. Kate sighed. Eva knew exactly what she was doing in inviting these two men to share a table. She had expected a disagreement, and she had what she had expected. Kate suspected that if the two men had been alone, they would have come to blows. Only rigorous social training kept them in their seats and speaking in low voices.
It occurred to Kate that either one of these men could be accused of doing exactly what Sir Bruce Ismay had done—they had survived. She looked around the dining room, occupied mainly by men in evening dress and only a very few women. She had no doubt that most of these men had also somehow saved themselves, some without even getting wet. And, she asked herself, what of Danny McSorley? Was it wrong for him to be alive? What had he done to save himself? The warm feeling that had come from expecting to meet him in Washington suddenly turned cold. Had Danny taken the place of a woman or a child? Did he bear any blame?
She stared down at the tablecloth and wished for the meal to be over even before the waiter had set the first dish in front of her.
The cold consommé was just one of many dishes. Each dish was no doubt excellent, but for Kate, the food turned to ashes in her mouth as she grappled with an inescapable reality. Sir Bruce Ismay was just one of many men who had saved themselves. If he truly had nothing to do with the speed of the ship, and if the captain had been incompetent, how did it feel to be blamed for all those lives? When would the blaming stop?
Kate fought back tears. She could see her father’s face set in a mask of despair and hear her own voice whispering to him. It’s not your fault. They can’t blame you. You didn’t know.
But they had blamed him, and this was the result. This was why she was here, on Eva’s charity, waiting for Myra Grunwald to recover a memory.
The White House
Washington, DC
Senator William Alden Smith
The president’s door was open. Taft was seated at his desk, and Charles Hilles was standing beside him. The windows were open, admitting a light breeze that promised rain and made little progress against the lingering odor of new construction..
Bill took the open door as an invitation and stepped inside the office. “You wanted to see me, Mr. President?”
Taft looked up. Bill saw that the president had not yet set aside his melancholy. If anything, he looked worse than he had the last time Bill had seen him. Although the president’s belly was still a massive mound, causing him to sit far back from his desk with his legs spread wide, he seemed to have lost weight in his face. His cheeks were drooping, and the skin beneath his eyes was dark and baggy.
Taft waved Bill to a seat and waited until Bill was sitting down before he dismissed Hilles. “Five minutes,” he said as his secretary reached the door. “Come back in five minutes. We have no time to waste today.”
Hilles exited, and Taft looked at Bill ferociously. “Your Titanic hearing is not the only thing happening today,” he said accusingly.
Bill kept silent. He was not the one who had asked for this meeting, and therefore, he was not the one who should be accused of wasting time.
Taft gestured to the papers on his desk. “Everybody wants something,” he said. “They want me to go after Roosevelt, you know. Go after him with hammer and tongs, they say. Make him sweat.” He shook his head. “I can’t do it. I’m not ready. Losing Archie has knocked the stuffing out of me.” He looked at Bill with mournful eyes. “It’s true, isn’t it? There is no hope of finding Major Butt alive.”
“No, sir, there is no hope.”
“And what was he doing at the very end?”
“Witnesses say that he helped with the lifeboats until the last one was launched. There were a number of gentlemen who behaved with courage, and I can assure you that Major Butt was one of them.”
Taft pursed his lips. “Is it possible,” he asked, “that the sinking was intended as a way of making sure Major Butt did not deliver his message?”
Bill took a deep breath and held it for a moment while he considered the answer to Taft’s question. “Well, Mr. President,” he said slowly, measuring his words, “if someone had wanted to assassinate Major Butt, they could have done it at any time. He was apparently out and about, eating in the restaurant, walking on the deck, exercising in the gymnasium. There would be no need to sink the entire ship just to harm the major.”
Taft rubbed his chin, his expression gloomy. “It was an important message,” he said eventually. “There’s going to be a war in Europe unless we do something about it.”
“I’m not sure there is anything we can do,” Bill said, “except make sure that we are not involved. It will be Europe’s war, not ours.”
“It will be Britain against Germany,” Taft said. “The king against the kaiser, even though they are cousins, and it will affect trade, if nothing else. I was trusting Archie to bring me news, but now he’s gone.” He looked at Bill with watery eyes. “Have they found his body yet?”
Before Bill could answer that question, Hilles returned with a yellow telegram form in his hand.
Taft looked up. “Not now, Mr. Hilles.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but this is urgent. Another telegram regarding the Mexico situation. You will need to make a decision.”
Bill turned his attention to Hilles. “What Mexico situation?”
Taft lifted a despairing hand. “Go ahead and tell him. He’s a senator, and maybe he has an answer.”
“We have a situation in Mexico,” Hilles said. “Americans are being held prisoner by a bandit chief in Chihuahua. The president is being pressured to send in the marines.”
Bill looked at Taft and saw that he was not even listening. He turned back to Hilles. “If the president sends in the marines, we could find ourselves in a war with Mexico.”
Hilles nodded and leaned down to speak softly to Bill. “Perhaps you could talk to him. He seems to be unable to make a decision. We also have a miners’ strike in West Virginia, and the railroad workers in New York are threatening to down tools. The president has a number of decisions to make.”
“Well, I can’t make them for him,” Bill hissed. “He needs to pull himself together.”
Taft looked up and focused his eyes on Bill. He ran a hand through his hair. “I know you have your eye on the White House,” he said. “Now you see what I have to deal with. Do you think you could do better than me?”
Bill decided that silence would be the best response. Yes, I could handle it better than you, he thought. I wouldn’t give in to mourning over one man’s life, and I would certainly get out on the campaign trail before Roosevelt has a chance to steal the election.
Taft straightened his shoulders, and his eyes strayed to the pile of papers on his desk. “About this hearing,” he said, “and the people you are bringing to Washington.”
“Yes?”
He laid a hand on the papers. “I have messages here from the British. They are deeply offended by the tone of your questions to Ismay and the British officers.”
“That is not my concern.”
Taft poked a finger at Bill. “The British newspapers are holding you up as a figure of scorn.”
“I am not concerned with the British press; I am concerned with apportioning blame for the great tragedy that robbed you of a friend and robbed this country of some of its greatest leaders of industry.”
Taft nodded. “Fine words, Bill, but you’ll need more than words. So this fellow Ismay—can you pin the blame on him?”
“I am going to try. He’s a very reluctant witness, but I’ll have the truth out of him.”
“I hope so,” Taft said solemnly, “because if you get this wrong, you can give up any hope of sitting in this chair.”
Hilles coughed discreetly from the doorway, and Bill rose to his feet. His mind was already on the committee members gathering in the new Senate hearing room, on the witnesses waiting to be called, and on the ace he had up his sleeve.
Boston Harbor
Sheriff Joe Bayliss
Joe was more accustomed to dealing with the ships and sailors that plied the Great Lakes, but now he felt perfectly at home leaning on the counter of a dockside bar in Boston. Through the open door, he could see the Californian snugged up against the pier, with her deck hatches open and longshoremen unloading her cargo. A trio of sailors was stationed in the bow, half-heartedly chipping paint under the supervision of an officer.
He watched as two men came down the gangplank and approached the bar. The anxious expressions on their weather-beaten faces told him that these were the men he was expecting. He signaled the barman to bring a bottle and three glasses, and then he lit a cheroot and made himself comfortable.
The elder of the two men was first to speak. “You Sheriff Bayliss?”
“I am.”
“So you’re a policeman, are you?”
Bill heard a trace of Scottish in the man’s accent. Evidently, this was James McGregor, the ship’s carpenter.
“No,” he said, “I’m not a policeman. I’m an officer of the court, and I’m not here to arrest you, if that’s what you’re worried about, Mr. McGregor.”
“How do you know my name?”
“Lucky guess,” Joe said. He looked at the other man. “You must be Ernest Gill.”
“So what if I am?”
Joe pushed the bottle toward them. “Take a drink, Mr. Gill, and calm down. I’m not here to make trouble, but I will if I have to.”
Gill poured himself a drink and eyed Joe suspiciously. “What do you want?” he asked.
“Well,” Joe said, “it has come to my attention that Mr. McGregor told a story to a newspaper reporter about seeing a ship in the early hours of April fifteenth. Is that true, Mr. McGregor? Did you see a ship?”
“Maybe,” McGregor said as Joe slid the bottle toward him. “The reporter made it worth my while.”
Joe nodded. “I’m sure he did, Mr. McGregor, but you won’t get the same consideration from me. What you will get from me is a ride to Washington to testify before the Senate committee investigating the sinking of the Titanic. If you tell the truth, nothing else will happen to you, but if you don’t ...”
“It’s the truth,” Gill said. “I’ll swear to it. We’re telling the truth. We saw a ship, only it weren’t the fifteenth; it were the fourteenth, because it wasn’t yet midnight. It was four minutes to midnight when I seen it.”
Joe poured himself a drink. “That’s very precise. Are you always so sure of the time?”
“Not always,” Gill said truculently, “but I am this time, because at five minutes to twelve, I was working with the fourth engineer at a pump that wouldn’t work. While we were interested in our work, we forgot the time, and I looked up, and I said, ‘It’s five minutes to twelve, and I haven’t called my mate Mr. Wooten to come on duty. I’ll go and call him.’ And I got to the ladder to climb out of the engine room and get on deck. That taken me one minute to get up there, so it was four minutes to midnight, like I said.”
Joe studied Gill’s face and was reassured to read an expression of frustrated honesty. He relaxed, convinced now that he was not on a wild-goose chase.
“Was the ship moving at the time?” Joe asked.
Gill shrugged. “I didn’t notice, what with rushing to call my mate.”
“We were drifting,” McGregor said. “Not underway, just drifting.”
“So you were also on deck?” Joe asked.
McGregor nodded and looked down into the depths of his glass.
“I went along the deck,” Gill said, “and I could see her a way over, a big ship and a couple of rows of lights. She wasn’t any small craft, not a tramp, nothing like that. I didn’t think then that she was a White Star boat; I reckoned she must be a German. Anyways, I dived down the hatch, and I went and called my mate, and that’s the last I saw of it.”
Joe refilled his glass. “Are you sure that’s the last you saw of her?” he asked.
Gill nodded. “I didn’t see her again, but I saw rockets.”
“She was firing rockets,” McGregor said. “That’s what I told the reporter. It’s no lie. A big ship firing rockets, and not ten miles away.”
“So first you saw the ship, and then later you saw rockets, but you couldn’t see her lights.”
“That’s right,” Gill said. “It was about half an hour later, after I’d called my mate and come back on deck, and I seen rockets. No ship, just rockets.”
Joe watched the smoke drifting idly from his cheroot for a moment before he spoke. “What made you say that you saw a German ship?”
“I dunno,” Gill said. “I mean, that’s where we sometimes see a German ship coming and going from New York, and the Frankfurt was somewhere out there, so I just thought, well ...” He stuttered into silence for a moment.
“It was the Titanic,” McGregor said flatly. “We all agree it was the Titanic, and if it wasn’t the Titanic, why have we been told not to talk about it?”
“Why indeed?” Joe said.
“It’s not right,” McGregor said, “and that’s why I spoke to the reporter.”
“And because he paid you,” Joe commented.
McGregor shook his head. “Someone had to say something.”
Joe turned to Gill. “What else did you see?”
“I didn’t see nothing after the rockets, but I heard Mr. Evans, the second engineer, saying that more rockets went up after I turned in, and they reported her to the captain. Seems they tried to signal her with the Morse lamp, but they didn’t get no reply. And then Mr. Evans asked why the devil they didn’t wake the wireless man.”
Joe suppressed a shiver as he thought of Harold Bride on the Titanic, sending desperate messages into the night as the ship sank lower and lower into the water, while just a few miles away, the officers of the Californian did not think to wake their wireless operator.
“If you were concerned about the rockets,” Joe said, “why didn’t you take your concern to the bridge or the officers of the watch?”
McGregor gave a short bark of a laugh, and Gill grimaced. “I couldn’t do that, sir.”
“It’s not our business to notify the bridge or the lookouts,” McGregor said, “but they couldn’t have helped but see the rockets.”
“I went to bed,” Gill said softly. “I turned in immediately after. I supposed the ship would pay attention to the rockets. I didn’t know nothing else until six forty, when we got our orders. ‘Turn out to render assistance—the Titanic has gone down.’ We saw her, sir. We saw her lights and we saw her rockets. We saw her sinking.”
Joe straightened up and drained his glass. “What is the name of your captain?”
“Captain Lord. Stanley Lord.”
Now Joe had what he had come for. He called for the bartender to bring the bill.
“What do we do now, sir?” Gill asked.
“You pack your bags while I go and talk to your captain. I’m taking you all to Washington.”
The Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC
Senator William Alden Smith
As Bill stepped out of his car in front of the gleaming white facade of the Russell Senate Office Building, he was swarmed by reporters.
A familiar face emerged at the front of the pack. Carlos Hurd of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch had wasted no time in transporting himself to Washington. Now he stood in the watery spring sunshine, notebook in hand, eyes eager.
“Senator, where are the crew of the Titanic? Are they here?”
“They are in Washington,” Bill admitted.
“Where are they staying?”
Bill shook his head. “Do you really expect me to tell you? Let me just say that they have arrived in Washington. They came in a special car from New York and were escorted by my own personal aide, Mr. William McKinstry.”
“Are they under guard?”
“The sergeant at arms has a man with them for their own protection.”
“Protection from what?”
“I imagine they’re being protected from you, Mr. Hurd,” Bill said. “Now let me pass. We have important work to do.”
When Bill attempted to climb the stairs to the main doors, another man barred his way. This man also had the look of a reporter, although his attitude was not quite as combative. Bill paused to allow him to ask his question.
“Will you be discussing compensation for the victims, Senator?”
Bill’s anger flared. “Of course we will be discussing compensation. That is why we are here.” He waved a hand at the reporters pressing in on him. “If you would stop looking for sensational stories, and if you would stop listening to lies, you would understand what we, as a Senate committee, are doing.”
He searched the crowd, looking for unfamiliar foreign faces. The American press may well understand, but the foreign press would have to be told. “Here in the United States, we have an act called the Harter Act, and this act allows victims of maritime disasters to sue for compensation if—and only if—negligence can be proved on the part of the shipowner. That is what we are about here. Now please let me through.”
“What about the immigrants? We heard some of them were shot.”
Bill rounded on the questioner, recognizing an Irish accent. “Well, I have heard no such thing.”
“Because you haven’t asked, and you won’t ask, will you?”
“My colleagues and I will ask every question we believe to be relevant, and you will be allowed to listen to the answers.”
He was pleased at the surprised murmur from the reporters. “We will hold the hearing in the Caucus Room,” he said. “It will hold several hundred people, and there will be a reserved area for members of the press.”
He pushed forward and climbed several steps until he was able to look down on the crowd. “We will have no star-chamber proceedings,” he declared. “The country has a right to know the truth about this terrible disaster, and we’ll ascertain the truth if we possibly can. The doors will be opened shortly. The sooner you let me go, the sooner we can start the proceedings.”
He nodded to a police officer stationed at the top of the steps, and the doors swung open to admit him and closed again to keep out the reporters.
He found two of his fellow senators waiting for him. Francis Newlands grinned. “Star-chamber proceedings,” he said. “Where did you get that from?”
“My wife suggested it,” Bill said. “It’s an infamous British court known for its secrecy and unfair judgments.”
Newlands continued to grin. “You really are out to tweak the British bulldog’s tail, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am,” Bill agreed.
Senator Jonathan Bourne joined in the discussion with a somber face. “Don’t let the British insults get under your skin. We can’t give in to their demands.”
“I wasn’t aware they had made any demands,” Bill commented.
“They want their people back,” Bourne said.
“They’ll have them back when I’m finished with them,” Bill responded grimly. “I am determined to get to the bottom of this.”
Newlands shook his head. “I’m on your side, Smith, but I doubt if anyone will ever get to the bottom of this affair. We’ll do our best, but the rumors are flying thick and fast, and I don’t see how we’ll ever rein them in.”
“And that,” said Bill, “is why we have to do this now, with no further delay. Memories will change with time, and some of these people are susceptible to outside pressure. I’m not saying they will lie outright, but ...”
“I think they will,” Newlands said. “I’m willing to bet that the stories we heard in New York will have changed already.”
Bill looked up as Will McKinstry approached, with his footsteps echoing along the marble corridor.
“Good morning, McKinstry.”
“Good morning, Senator. We are almost ready. I have the witnesses sequestered in the small meeting room, and we’re in the process of seating some of the survivors in the Caucus Room. We’ll want them in place before we admit the general public.”
McKinstry paused and gave Bill a hangdog stare. “Mrs. Trentham is here with her entourage.”
“Her entourage?”
“Her nurse, her footman, and young Miss Royston. I must say that Miss Royston is looking far better than she did in New York. She’s quite the young lady now.”
Bill nodded. “I’m not sure what to think about that girl. She’s hiding something. I suspect that she’s running away from someone.”
“A husband?”
“No. She’s too young.”
“How young is too young?” Newlands interjected. “Jacob Astor’s widow is a girl of twenty-one. He was almost twice her age.”
“Does anyone know how she is?” Bill asked. Now that the subject had come up, he thought he should glean some information to take home to Nana, who was very interested in the affairs of New York society.
“I understand she’s at home in the New York mansion with the drapes closed and the doctors in attendance. The family is relying on her to safely produce an heir, although she has some months to go.”
Bourne shook his head. “A sad affair. I sometimes wonder about this business of women and children first. We lost some splendid fellows from the Titanic, and the stock market fell two points overnight. Surely there should be some other measure to use in loading lifeboats.”
“I have to agree,” Newlands said. “I read some of the reports in the New York newspapers, and from what I can tell, some of the boats were launched half-empty because there were no women and children to put in them. It makes no sense.”
Bill drew in a sharp, disapproving breath. “If we give in and allow ‘every man for himself,’ we will be no better than savages. If you will excuse me, gentlemen, I will go and greet Mrs. Trentham.” He pulled a watch from his vest pocket and glanced at it. “We shall commence in ten minutes.”
Bill followed McKinstry along the echoing corridor and up a short flight of steps into the splendor of the Caucus Room. The drapes on the floor-to-ceiling windows stood open, allowing daylight to flood the room and reflect off the gold-leaf decorations on white marble walls and columns. He shivered slightly at the sight of row upon row of chairs lined up to face the dais where he and his fellow senators would sit. The hearings at the Waldorf Astoria had been cramped and impromptu, but this was different. This room solemnly reflected the serious intent of the committee. Bill thought of the sacks of mail in his office. The people of the United States wanted the answers he had promised to provide.
He studied the dais and the chair he was going to occupy. He wondered how long he would be able to continue the inquiry. Taft would not stay forever wrapped in melancholy. Any day now, maybe even today, he would emerge from his grieving and begin to ask questions.
Mrs. Trentham was entrenched in the front row, just as she had been in New York. Kate Royston sat beside her, looking quite fetching in a broad-brimmed hat trimmed with silk roses and a dress of gauzy pink fabric. He fixed the details of her couture in his mind, because he knew Nana would ask questions.
Eva wasted no time in coming to the point. “Who will be first?” she asked. “Will it be Ismay? You’ll need to skewer him early on, before he has a chance to lie his way out of the corner.”
“He may not be lying,” Kate said quietly.
Eva turned on her. “Of course he’s lying. I know what kind of man he is. Cut him down as fast as you can, Senator, and we can move on to Mr. Morgan.”
“Mr. Morgan will not be here.”
“You can subpoena him.”
“I have no evidence,” Bill insisted.
“Well, find some.”
Bill clasped his hands tightly behind his back, resisting the temptation to clasp them around Eva’s throat, or at least to grasp the wheelchair and wheel it from the room.
“We will begin with Mr. Franklin, the American representative of the White Star Line,” he said.
Eva shook her head. “No one wants to hear from him. He wasn’t on the ship.”
“That doesn’t mean he wasn’t giving orders,” Bill said. “If they were to try for a speed record, the orders would have been given before they left Southampton.”
Bill looked up as the doors opened to admit a trickle of people. They were well dressed, the ladies in extravagant hats, the gentlemen with bristling mustaches and starched collars, but their eyes were haunted, and their faces still held the shadow of their memories. Survivors, he thought, come to relive the horror.
He turned away, but Eva caught the sleeve of his coat with a grip as clawlike and as tenacious as a bird of prey’s. “You need to meet these people.”
“I don’t have time.”
“Of course you do,” Eva said. “They are passengers from first class. They have influence. Now, let me see ... Do you know Sir Cosmo and Lady Duff-Gordon?”
“I’ve heard of them, but I don’t know them.”
Eva beckoned to Sir Cosmo and Lady Duff-Gordon, and they approached with wary expressions on their faces. It occurred to Bill that Eva was taking full advantage of her wheelchair confinement to order people around. She no longer had to make any effort of her own. She was now in the queenly position of summoning people to her side, and she was loving it.
Bill had, of course, heard of the Duff-Gordons and their scandalous marriage. Nana had been at pains to make sure he knew all about it and to ask him for a report on what Lady Duff-Gordon was wearing, in the unlikely event he had a chance to meet her. He could almost hear Nana’s voice. She’s a divorcée, Bill. She can’t even be received at court, but I doubt she cares. She makes her own money as a fashion designer, although I’m told it’s not dresses she designs but lingerie. Very expensive but very risqué.
He studied Lady Duff-Gordon. She was a slim, attractive woman with dark hair and a black dress that clung sinuously to her frame. As all her possessions had been lost along with the Titanic, he could not imagine where she had obtained such a fashionable garment at such short notice.
Her Scottish husband, Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon, had the look of a sportsman and the complexion of a man accustomed to tramping the moors. On first sight, he did not look like the kind of man who would marry a divorcée, or have any interest in dress designs, but he and his wife were actually clasping hands, and he looked at her with besotted affection.
As Bill extended his hand to Sir Cosmo, he saw that the Scotsman was giving him a wary look that verged on fear.
“You don’t intend to call us, do you?” he asked.
“No,” Bill said. “I have subpoenaed the witnesses I need.”
Lady Duff-Gordon smiled at her husband. “You see, chéri. He doesn’t intend to make trouble for us.” She smiled at Bill. “I’m afraid your newspapers have been most unkind to us. It is not our fault that there were so few people in our lifeboat. It is not something that we arranged, and I do not intend to apologize for the fact that my dear husband is alive when so many men are not. He waited and I waited with him, and he did not get into the lifeboat until we were quite certain that there were no other people waiting.”
Bill wondered what the newspapers had said about Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon and his wife. Obviously, there was more to this tale than Lady Duff-Gordon being a divorcée and a designer of lingerie. He made a mental note to ask McKinstry. He had been too busy preparing to question Bruce Ismay and the officers of the White Star Line to even formulate questions about what had happened in the lifeboats. Those questions could wait, because whatever had occurred in the lifeboats had not caused the Titanic to sink. They were not the focus of his inquiry.
“Oh, look,” said Lady Duff-Gordon. “There’s that young man who was in the lifeboat with us.”
Bill saw that Danny McSorley was approaching. For once, he was not accompanied by Wolfie. Danny’s name was on the list of witnesses to give testimony about Marconigrams sent from the Carpathia. He really should not be in this room. He should be sequestered with the other witnesses. It was some years since Bill had practiced law, but he still knew he needed to keep witnesses separate.
He heard someone draw in a sharp breath behind him. He turned to see that Kate Royston was on her feet and facing the Duff-Gordons. “Are you sure he was in your lifeboat?” she asked.
Lady Duff-Gordon smiled. “Why, yes, of course. How could I forget any detail of that awful night? He was in our boat, and he seemed to be a very nice young man.”
“I don’t think so,” Kate said breathlessly. “No, I really don’t think so.”
Bill stared in amazement as Kate turned on her heel and fled the room.
Danny stared after her with a bemused expression on his face, but he made no move to follow her. He ignored the Duff-Gordons and stepped close to Bill.
“Senator,” he said softly, “I need you to do something for me.”
Bill shook his head. “I never interfere in affairs of the heart.”
Danny looked after Kate’s fleeing figure. “No, nothing like that,” he said. “I don’t know what I’ve done to offend her, but it’s not important. Well, not important at this moment.”
“I see. Well, what do you need?”
“I need to talk to the president.”
“The president?” Bill queried. “The president of the United States?”
“Yes. President Taft. I need to talk to him.”
“Why?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Well, if you can’t tell me, I can’t arrange it. We don’t let just anyone into the White House to talk to the president.”
“I need to talk to him,” Danny said stubbornly.
“No,” Bill said. “You need to leave this room and go and sit with the people I have subpoenaed.”
He raised a hand and summoned one of the policemen who were guarding the doors. “Take Mr. McSorley to the small caucus room, and then I suppose you’d better open the doors and admit the members of the public.”
“There’s an awful lot of them, Senator,” the policeman said.
“It’s a big room.”
The policeman shook his head. “Not big enough. We’ll do our best to keep them under control. You’d better go and join your colleagues before the rush.”
As Bill followed Danny and the policeman from the room, he heard the sound of the doors opening behind him. He turned quickly and saw a tidal wave of people scrambling into the room, pushing and shoving at each other and climbing over chairs in order to get seats. Police whistles blew; women screamed; and men roared.
Bill hurried from the room with his mind reeling. This was not an inquiry. This was a Roman circus with a mob howling for blood.