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Senator William Alden Smith
Bill looked up and saw Joe Bayliss in the doorway. He set aside his notebook and reached into his desk drawer for a bottle and two glasses.
Joe dropped into a chair and stretched out his long legs. “They’re here,” he said. “I have a man watching the two crewmen, and another watching Captain Lord. They’re not going anywhere, but I suggest you get them into the witness chair sooner rather than later. Lord is not happy at being called.”
Bill poured a generous measure of Jim Beam and pushed the glass across the desk. “What do you think?” he asked. “Was Lord really close? Did he just sit and do nothing while the Titanic went down?”
Joe shrugged. “The two crewmen say they saw a big ship with her lights blazing, and Lord says that’s not so.”
“Why didn’t someone wake the radio operator?”
“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask him.”
Bill poured himself a glass and sat back in his chair. “What do you think, Joe?”
“I think it’s up to you to find out.” Joe sipped his drink. “Of course, even if Lord and the Californian were just over the horizon, even if they were only ten miles away from the Titanic, the Californian didn’t cause the sinking. Lord and the Californian are a distraction at best; they are not the story you’re looking for. You’re grasping at straws, Bill.”
Bill studied his old friend. Was this the time to say what he really thought, or should he maintain the confident facade he had been displaying for the past two weeks? He had been certain that careful questioning would reveal the story he wanted to hear, but now he wasn’t so sure. His meticulous, patient interrogation of the survivors had raised more questions than answers. Time and again, he had found himself immersed in the chaotic scene they painted for him. He stood with them on the deck of the sinking ship while steam shrieked from the boilers, drowning out all coherent speech. He joined in their desperation at finding only a handful of hastily uncovered lifeboats. He felt the panic as officers and gentlemen insisted that women and children take the few seats available. He heard the courage of men who told their wives, “I’ll be along shortly. Don’t worry.”
At times, he descended to the bowels of the ship, where the stokers continued to feed the boilers and immigrants struggled to unlock the gates that kept them from the boat deck. He was in the radio room, where Harold Bride and Jack Phillips, up to their knees in icy water, hunched over the radio, sending the same message again and again. He was even with Bruce Ismay as he looked around and found no ladies to occupy the seats in the last collapsible lifeboat.
Bill shook his head. “I can’t stop now, Joe, but I need a diversion to buy me some more time. I have to find something to keep the press at bay and keep the president from closing me down, and I’m going to give them Lord. I’ll let them chew on that while I try to find more evidence.”
Joe took a long swallow of his drink before he spoke. “What if you don’t find what you’re looking for?”
“I have to.”
“But if you can’t ...”
“Then there’ll be no compensation for the families.” Bill allowed frustration and anger to take hold. “I thought you were with me, Joe.”
Joe rose from his chair and set the glass carefully on Bill’s desk. “I’m interested in the truth, Bill. What are you interested in?”
As Bill attempted to form an answer, Joe raised a hand to silence him. “No, don’t tell me. I don’t think I want to know. I’ll see myself out.” He turned as he reached the door. “By the way, what do you know about the Marconi man Mr. Danny McSorley?”
Bill shrugged. “I know nothing about him.”
“He wants to see the president.”
“I know he does, but does he say why?”
“No.”
“The president is not seeing anyone. I’d like to keep it that way until we finish our inquiry.”
“Whatever you say,” Joe growled. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
Bill slumped in his chair and listened to the steady pace of Joe’s departing footsteps as the sheriff strode away along the marble corridor. The footsteps stopped abruptly, and Bill heard a snatch of muffled conversation before Joe’s footsteps resumed marching away into the distance while lighter, more uncertain footsteps drew closer.
Bill barely had time to open the desk drawer and stow the bottle and the two glasses before Bruce Ismay shuffled into view. The Ismay Bill had seen on board the Carpathia had been a proud and angry man, and the Ismay he had questioned in New York had been calm and supercilious. The Ismay now standing in his doorway was a shadow of his former self. He seemed to have lost weight. The luster was gone from his dark hair, and his eyes were red and tired. For a moment, Bill was tempted to open his desk drawer and offer the Englishman a drink, but the lawyer in him resisted the temptation. This was not a legal trial, but he still thought of himself as the prosecutor and Ismay as the accused.
“Mr. Ismay.”
“Senator.”
“What can I do for you?”
“You can put an end to this farce and release my crew.”
“Your crew? As you have testified that you were not responsible for the operation of the Titanic, I am surprised you now take responsibility for her crew and call them your crew.”
Ismay’s eyes flashed. “Common decency calls me to defend these men, who are being kept here against their will and against the will of the British government.”
“I have had no official complaint from your government.”
“His Majesty’s government has complained to your ambassador in London. Action will be taken if we are not released.”
Bill’s heart sank as he understood Ismay’s words. Taft could not continue to ignore an official complaint made to the ambassador.
Ismay sat without being invited. “Time is running out, Senator, and you have nothing.”
“On the contrary,” Bill replied, “I have accumulated considerable evidence that the Titanic was driven through the ice field at reckless speed on your instructions.”
“You have no proof.”
“I have the word of witnesses.”
“You have the word of passengers, who are people with no knowledge of the sea. You have a man who thinks the engines were running fast but admits he knows nothing about marine engines. You have a couple of society ladies who misunderstood the information in a radiogram. You have not persuaded even one officer to tell you the ship’s speed, and you do not have the logbook. No one has reported seeing me on the bridge. You have nothing.”
Bill looked longingly at his desk drawer. He was in no mood for verbal fencing with Bruce Ismay. He needed a drink; he needed a bath; and he needed to go home.
“Your lookout had no binoculars,” he accused.
Ismay nodded his agreement. “Yes, I heard about your questioning of Fleet. The man is obviously a fool who is unable to tell the difference between two hundred feet and a thousand feet. The Titanic was equipped with binoculars. All he had to do was ask, but he didn’t ask.” Ismay’s face suddenly flushed red with anger. “Are you saying that it’s my fault? Do you think that I take personal inventory of the equipment in the crow’s nest? I am no more responsible for Fleet than I am for the missing logbook.”
“I am not so sure that the logbook is missing,” Bill interrupted.
Ismay sighed. “It makes no difference. If you could find the logbook, it would not tell you what you want to know. Your president was most unwise in putting this inquiry into the hands of politicians. If you had a serving merchant marine officer on your committee, he would have told you that the daily log is not kept in a logbook.”
“What do you mean?”
“The daily log is kept in the scrap log, which is nothing but a sheet of paper affixed to the chart table. At the end of the watch, the numbers are neatly transferred to the official log. Give it up, Smith. You’re not looking for a company logbook; you’re looking for a single scrap of paper that floated away on the waves or went to the bottom of the ocean. You’ll never find it.”
Bill’s voice trembled on the edge of fury as he stared into Ismay’s small, deep-set eyes. “Did you destroy it?”
Ismay stared right back at him. “No, Senator, I did not. If I had it, I would show it to you, and you would see that it is nothing but instructions and notes taken by the officer of the watch. The navigation of the ship is the captain’s business, not mine. Can’t you get it into your thick politician’s head that I was not responsible for anything that happened?” He leaned back in the chair. “What do you really want from me, Smith?”
“I want compensation for the victims.”
Ismay shook his head. “No, you don’t. This isn’t about compensation. This is about your ambition. You don’t care about the victims. You’re just playing games for the benefit of the newspapers and your voters.” He lifted his hands in a despairing gesture. “You’ve got everything you’ll get from me. You’ve ruined my reputation, and—”
“You ruined your own reputation when you took a seat in a lifeboat.”
“It was the last lifeboat,” Ismay said quietly, “and there were no women or children anywhere near it. I acted on impulse. If you had been there, Senator, you might have done the same thing.”
Bill intended to speak, but the words would not come. He was suddenly unsure of himself. If he had seen a space for himself in that half-empty lifeboat, what would he have done?
“I hear you’ve found another man to ruin,” Ismay said.
“What are you talking about?”
“Lord, of the Californian. I hear you’re about to ruin his reputation.”
“I intend to ask him questions.”
Ismay rose wearily from his chair. “It’s just another way of getting at me, isn’t it?”
Bill looked at Ismay in genuine puzzlement. “I don’t understand.”
“Of course you do,” Ismay sneered. “The Californian is part of the Leyland Line, and the Leyland Line is part of International Mercantile Marine, and I am the chairman of International Mercantile Marine. This is just another way of destroying me.”
Ismay loomed above Bill’s chair, his face twisted in contempt. “How many more people do you intend to ruin, Senator? Do what you like. You won’t find your scapegoat. Only one man is responsible for the loss of the Titanic, and he’s dead. He went down with his ship. Isn’t it time to leave the living alone and start speaking ill of the dead?”
Capitol View Guest House
Washington, DC
Sheriff Joe Bayliss
Joe sat on the front porch of the guesthouse as the dawn sky turned from pink to blue. As he puffed on his cheroot, he watched the flow of traffic along Delaware Avenue and came to the conclusion that the automobile was now king of the road. Even his enjoyment of his fine Kentucky cheroot was blunted by the gasoline fumes that accompanied the clattering automobiles and omnibuses. He had been here for far too long, and he was homesick for the cool, clean air of Lake Michigan. It was time to go home. Once he reached Sault Ste. Marie he would stay there, and he would never again involve himself with politics and politicians. Bill could finish the hearings without him. One of the Pinkerton men could keep an eye on Captain Lord, and Joe could get the next train to Chicago. He looked longingly up the road toward Union Station. Just a short walk, and he would be on his way.
His thoughts of home were interrupted by a chorus of Klaxon blasts, a squealing of brakes, and an angry warning shout. He looked up and saw that a woman had managed to bring traffic to a halt as she made her way across the road. The woman wore a bright blue skirt and a navy jacket. Tendrils of black hair escaped from her feathery blue hat as she ran across the road and up onto the sidewalk in front of the guesthouse.
Joe grinned. He really could not help himself. It seemed that Kate Royston was always running and always causing chaos. He stepped down from the porch and caught Kate’s arm as she stood panting for breath.
She turned her face toward him. Her cheeks were flushed; her eyes were bright; and she was definitely the prettiest thing he would see today.
“Are you all right, Miss Kate?”
“Yes, of course I am,” she said impatiently as she made a futile attempt to tuck her hair back under her hat. “I’m not used to automobile traffic.”
“Neither am I,” Joe agreed. “Where are you going? Would you like me to walk with you? You really shouldn’t be out on your own.”
“I’m perfectly capable of being on my own,” Kate replied.
Joe said nothing, but his raised eyebrows were met with a grin.
“All right, Sheriff, I admit that this is the third time you’ve had to help me stand upright.” She shook her head, and another ringlet escaped from her hat. “I’m really not like this. I don’t usually require the assistance of a lawman to help me stand.”
“Of course not,” Joe agreed. “May I ask where you are going?”
Kate indicated the front porch of the guesthouse. “Up there,” she said. “I want to talk to Danny McSorley. He’s staying here, isn’t he?”
“He’s in the backyard,” Joe said, “with the dog. I’ll show you the way.” He stubbed out the cheroot and offered Kate his arm. “I think you should hold on to me.”
She took his arm, and he led her along a flagstone path toward the back of the guesthouse.
“Does Mrs. Trentham know that you’re out here?” he asked.
Kate withdrew her hand from his arm. “She’s not my keeper. I can go wherever I want.”
“Of course. I wasn’t suggesting—”
“Yes, you were. I suppose you think that I would be nothing without her.”
Joe shook his head. “No, of course I don’t think that, but I was under the impression that you had no family to help you.”
Kate stopped walking and stood for a moment, staring at the ground. When she looked up, she had tears in her eyes. “You’re right, Sheriff—I have no family, and without Eva Trentham, I am nobody. And no, she doesn’t know I’m here. She won’t be up and dressed for at least another hour, and that’s why I came over to see Danny. I have to ask him something.”
“Well,” Joe said, “while you’re asking, will you please ask him to tell you why he wants to see the president?”
“The president? Really?”
“Oh, yes. He’s quite insistent. I thought he’d be off to Newfoundland now that Senator Smith has moved on to a new line of questioning, but he won’t leave until he’s seen the president.”
They rounded the corner of the house, and Danny McSorley came into view, throwing a stick for Wolfie, who didn’t seem to understand the object of the exercise.
“He’s been trying that for a couple of days,” Joe said, “but that dog’s not a land retriever. He’s a water dog. That’s why he was swimming around the Titanic. He was probably trying to retrieve something he fancied. Wolfie doesn’t belong in the city any more than Danny does, or any more than I do. I’m going to deliver Captain Lord to the hearing room, and then I’ll take my leave of Washington.”
“Oh no!” Kate made no attempt to hide her disappointment. “I thought that you would ... I mean, Eva thought that you would ...”
“Would what?” Joe asked, looking down at Kate, whose face had flushed to a fetching shade of pink.
“Nothing. Nothing at all. I’ll just speak to Danny, and I’ll go back to the Willard.”
“Will you need me to see you safely across the road?”
“No, I will not.”
Joe watched Kate as she marched across the lawn toward Danny and Wolfie. He thought about the flush on her cheeks and her obvious disappointment, now followed by equally obvious irritation. Surely it was not possible that Kate had formed some kind of attachment to him. He knew that women, against all common sense, sometimes found him attractive. Several society beauties had told him that he represented a challenge. He was a grim wild beast they would like to tame. Kate wouldn’t think that way, but Eva Trentham was not above playing that kind of game. Perhaps she had been putting ideas into Kate’s innocent young head.
Wolfie took his nose out of the bushes and fixed his eyes on Kate. He wagged his tail and turned his attention to retrieving the stick that Danny had thrown. Apparently, he would not retrieve for Danny, but Kate was a different story.
Danny’s face lit up with delight at the sight of Kate tripping lightly across the lawn, and Kate returned his broad smile. Joe set aside his previous thoughts of Kate. Whatever Eva Trentham may have up her sleeve, Kate’s mind was fixed on Danny. He observed the way that the tall young Viking stood in blond contrast to Kate’s petite build and dark hair. Kate laughed as Wolfie trotted up with the stick, and Danny laughed with her.
Joe spun on his heel and walked purposefully back to the front door. Once inside the paneled front hall, he slipped into the morning room, where he had a view of the backyard and the two young people. He quietly lifted the sash window and pulled up a chair, taking care to conceal himself behind the heavy red drapery. He felt no guilt in listening in on Kate’s conversation. He was not, he told himself, listening to Kate; he was listening to Danny. As a representative of the law, and a sworn deputy of the Senate sergeant at arms, he had every right to find out what Danny was saying. Danny was an Englishman, a foreigner, and yet he wanted to have a private audience with the president, and he would not explain his reasons.
Danny McSorley
Danny watched the smile fade from Kate’s face as Joe Bayliss walked away. Her eyes followed the sheriff’s tall form until he disappeared into the house. When she turned back, her face was set in a serious expression. Wolfie made an attempt to attract her attention by offering her his stick, but she ignored him.
“Mr. McSorley,” Kate said in a soft but determined voice, “you know that I’ve been able to hear all the testimony given to Senator Smith.”
Danny looked down curiously at the top of her head, which came only just above his shoulder. Perhaps she wanted to tell him something that she’d heard, something he would not have been able to hear for himself. He would have preferred to talk about something else, but if she wanted to talk about the testimony, then that was what they would talk about. He was willing to talk about anything she wished, so long as she remained with him in the garden. “I haven’t heard everything,” Danny said, “because witnesses are supposed to be kept separate, like at a real legal trial, but I’ve read the newspapers and I’ve talked to other people. It’s not really possible to keep anything secret, is it?”
Even as he spoke the words, he thought of the secret he was keeping. The only way to keep a secret was to tell no one, and he had told no one.
“I met Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon and his wife,” Kate said. “They were in your boat, weren’t they?”
Danny tried to keep his voice steady as he replied. “Yes, they were.”
He knew he should say more than just three words if he wanted to keep Kate with him in the garden, but memory surrounded him like a sinister mist, curling around the rosebushes and spring flowers, and turning the lush green lawn into cold gray ocean. Would it always be this way? he wondered. Would the names ever cease to trigger memories and set him adrift in the darkness, chilled to the bone and listening to the shrill of an officer’s whistle somewhere impossibly far off?
He forced himself to return to the garden and the sunlight. “I thought the Duff-Gordons were rather unpleasant,” he said. “There were just the three of them, Sir Cosmo and his wife and the secretary woman. And then there was the man who sells machinery, Mr. Stengel. He was all right, I suppose, but the three stokers they put in the boat were useless.”
“And what about you?” Kate asked. Her voice was still strangely cold, perhaps even accusatory. Her posture had become rigid, her shoulders stiff, and her face pale.
“What about me?” Danny asked.
“What were you doing in the boat?”
“Not much,” Danny said. “I took quite a tumble getting into the boat and banged my head. I was out of action for a while. I didn’t even see the ship go down.”
“Didn’t you?” Kate said.
Danny was puzzled by the ice in her voice. It was as though he had done something to offend her, but he could not imagine what that could be. Surely she should understand that he had no wish to recall all the horrors of the night. Nonetheless, if she wanted him to speak, he would speak.
“When I came round, Sir Cosmo was making the stokers row. He said we were supposed to go towards a light that everyone could see. Mr. Stengel was very upset. He wanted us to go back, because there were still people in the water. Sir Cosmo refused. He promised the stokers money if they would keep rowing. He said that if we went back, the boat would be swamped and we’d all drown.”
“And what did you do?” Kate asked.
“Well,” Danny said, “I was confused, you know, and I’d banged my head.”
“But what did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything. I suppose I agreed with Sir Cosmo.”
“You agreed not to pick up any more people?”
Danny hesitated. He didn’t want to paint himself into the picture she was surely imagining. He didn’t want to say why he had gone along with Sir Cosmo. It was not just that Sir Cosmo’s arguments were, unfortunately, sensible and realistic; it was that Danny was under orders. Stay alive! Take this to the president.
“Is that true?” Kate asked with a shrill edge to her voice. “Did you agree not to pick up any more people?”
“No, no, it wasn’t like that. But we had to wait until ... uh ... well, we waited until there were fewer people.”
“You waited until most of them had died,” Kate accused.
Danny took a step back. She was angry. What right did she have to be angry? What right did she have to pick and prod at his already guilty conscience? “No, it wasn’t like that,” he snapped. “We were drifting, you see, and it wasn’t long before we lost sight of the people in the water—”
“If there were any left alive,” Kate interrupted.
“I suppose you could say that.”
“I am saying that.”
“Well,” Danny continued, doggedly hanging on to his self-control, “we could hear an officer’s whistle, so we rowed toward the sound and found the other lifeboats.”
“The ones that were full,” Kate said.
“No. They weren’t all full, but some people were transferred out of the boats that were too full into ones that had seats. I don’t understand why you’re asking me these questions. You’ve heard the testimony.”
“Yes, I have, and now I begin to understand.”
Danny felt his self-control slipping. “What do you understand? What will you ever understand? You’re one of those women, aren’t you? You think that any man who preferred stepping into a half-empty lifeboat to diving into the freezing ocean is to be branded a coward and a monster. Why don’t you just give me a white feather?”
Kate’s voice rose to an angry shout. “Did you shoot someone?”
Danny took a step back and stared at the angry red spots on Kate’s cheeks. “Did I shoot someone? What kind of question is that?”
“Well, did you?”
“No, of course I didn’t.”
“That’s not what Mr. Stengel says.”
“Mr. Stengel says that I shot someone?”
“He says that he heard a shot, and then suddenly an officer was leaning over the rail and telling Sir Cosmo that he had to let you into the boat. Obviously, you shot someone so you could get a place in the boat.”
Sheriff Joe Bayliss
Watching from behind the curtain, Joe saw that Danny was clenching his fists. If Kate had been a man, there was no doubt that she would now have been flat on her back with a bloody nose.
Danny took a long, deep breath. His voice was cold with controlled rage. “I’m sorry you think so little of me, Kate. Do not expect me to dignify your question with an answer. I trust you can find your own way back to your lodgings.”
Joe shook his head in disappointment as Kate clamped her mouth shut, turned on her heel, and ran from the garden. Running again, he thought. Always running. He thought of going out to the sidewalk and making sure she crossed the street without incident, but at the rate she was running, she’d be across the road before he reached the front porch.
He stepped away from the window and went out into the hall to intercept Danny. He was in time to see Danny and Wolfie coming in through the back door.
Danny didn’t wait for Joe to speak. “I’m sick of this,” he declared. “I’m going to the White House.”
“Why?”
“To see the president.”
“They won’t let you in.”
“They will if you come with me.”
“I can’t come with you now. I have to accompany Captain Lord to the hearing.”
“Another scapegoat for your American press,” Danny said.
Joe shook his head. “I think he was close by, Danny, and so do you. I think his crew saw the Titanic and he did nothing.”
“That’s a serious charge,” Danny said.
“Well,” Joe said, “I think I heard another serious charge—something about you shooting someone.”
Danny was easily equal to Joe’s height and well able to stare him in the eye. “Why were you listening?”
“I couldn’t help it. I was in the morning room. Your voices carried.”
“So what are you going to do? Who are you going to believe?”
“I’d believe you if you gave me an explanation,” Joe said. “I understand why the young lady is concerned. We’ve had several reports of gunfire.”
“I wasn’t firing.”
“So who was?”
“I believe it was Officer Lowe.”
Officer Lowe, Joe thought. Yes, that sounds possible. Fifth Officer Lowe had been a slippery witness, and Joe suspected that he’d withheld a great deal of information. “Did you see Lowe fire his weapon?”
“No, I didn’t see him fire it, but I saw him with a weapon. I was on the boat deck with Major Butt when ...” Danny shook his head. “I’m sorry. I can’t say any more.”
“Why not?”
“I can only speak to the president.”
Joe wanted to shake the young Englishman, although he suspected that Danny would not take well to being shaken and would probably return as good as he received.
“Why,” Joe asked, “do you want to see the president? Does it have something to do with Major Butt?”
“Would it make a difference?”
“Of course it would. The president is practically paralyzed with grief over the major. If you have something to tell him—”
“I do. Can you help me?”
Before Joe could reply, he heard heavy footsteps on the stairs and looked up to see Captain Lord descending the staircase. Unlike the Titanic’s officers, who had dressed in borrowed civilian clothes to give their testimony, Stanley Lord was arrayed in his dress uniform and carried his cap tucked under his arm.
“This is all nonsense,” Lord declared as he reached the bottom step. “If your Senator Smith carries on like this, there will be war.”
Joe heard Danny’s sharp intake of breath and turned away to speak to him. “He’s exaggerating, lad. There’ll be no war.”
Danny pulled on Wolfie’s leash and turned toward the kitchen. “Don’t be sure about that,” he said softly as he walked away.
The Willard Hotel
Kate Royston
Kate straightened her hat and brushed dog hair from her skirt before she entered the lobby of the Willard. When she approached the desk, the clerk looked up and recognized her immediately.
“Miss Royston.”
“Yes?”
“I have been asked to tell you that the Countess of Rothes is waiting for you in ... uh ... she’s ... uh ... she’s waiting for you in the smoking room.” His last words came out in a rush of disapproval.
Grudging amusement momentarily dissipated Kate’s fog of anger and disappointment. She was well aware that ladies rarely entered the dark-paneled smoking room that adjoined the gentlemen’s bar, but obviously, Lucy Noël Martha Leslie, Countess of Rothes, was not someone who could be restricted.
Maintaining an air of calm, as though the visit of a countess were an everyday event, Kate thanked the clerk for the message and turned toward the smoking room. Perhaps the countess was in Washington to attend the Senate hearings, but why would she want to talk to Kate? Their interaction on the Carpathia had been interesting, but they were hardly friends.
Kate walked across the lobby and into the tobacco-scented smoking room, with its groupings of wingback chairs. She found the countess comfortably ensconced in a leather chair, smoking a thin black cigarette adorned with a gold band. With her blonde hair and pale blue traveling costume, the countess stood out like a beacon amid the heavy furnishings and the scattering of dark-suited gentlemen.
The countess waved an elegant hand to Kate as she entered the traditionally masculine enclave. Fragrant smoke wafted from the countess’s cigarette as she gestured toward an adjoining armchair.
“Good morning, Miss Royston. Would you care for a cigarette?”
Struck speechless by the countess’s appearance and the fact that some of the chairs in the room were occupied by powerful men, Kate could only shake her head.
The countess smiled. “Sit down, Miss Royston. May I call you Kate?”
Kate reluctantly took a seat. Why couldn’t the countess sit in the elegant lobby like any other well-bred lady? Why was she insisting on invading this bastion of male privilege?
“May I call you Kate?” the countess asked again.
Kate could only whisper her answer. “Yes, of course.”
“And I shall be Noël. No need to stand on ceremony when we have, after all, shared underwear and nightclothes.”
Kate blushed. “Really, I don’t think that’s—”
“You don’t think that’s an appropriate subject of conversation?” Noël asked. “You are no doubt correct, Kate, but someone has to do something about the atmosphere in this room. All these stuffy old gentlemen need to be shaken out occasionally, like dusty oriental carpets. Are you sure you won’t have a cigarette? They are Sobranie Black Russians, the very best tobacco.”
“No, thank you. I have never smoked.”
Noël grinned. “No, I suppose you wouldn’t. When I see you now, in fashionable clothing, walking and talking like a lady, and entering this room with the appropriate diffidence of a well-bred young lady, I realize that I misjudged you. I was told you had boarded the Carpathia as a governess, and I assumed you were one of those unfortunate young women who have been educated above their station. Now I see that is not the case. I think you have fallen suddenly from a comfortable, if somewhat bourgeois, station in life, and you have been unable to pick yourself up.”
Kate’s heart began to pound. Noël’s suppositions were very close to the truth.
“It’s ironic that you should have found a refuge with Eva Trentham, whose situation is the opposite of your own,” Noël continued. “Eva Trentham started with nothing—some would even say less than nothing. It’s a long climb from poor Irish immigrant to the richest woman in America.”
“But she’s not Irish,” Kate protested.
The countess smiled and shook her head. “That’s what she’d like you to think, but I’ve made it my business to find out who Eva Trentham is and why she will stop at nothing to ruin J. P. Morgan. It’s her single-minded passion that’s dragged Senator Smith into holding these hearings. She’s the one who is egging him on day after day, although anyone with half an eye can see that he’s ruining his political career and making himself a laughingstock overseas.”
Kate sat forward on the very edge of her seat. She had not thought to question Eva’s background. Eva had climbed the social ladder with a series of marriages to wealthy men, but had she really been a penniless immigrant like Kitty or Maeve? The countess was right about one thing—Eva’s determination to destroy J. P. Morgan. Kate had suspected that the financier had at one time destroyed the business enterprises of one of Eva’s husbands, but perhaps the feud had a different root.
The countess leaned back in her seat and blew a perfect smoke ring. She watched it drift away before she returned her attention to Kate. “What do you know of the Irish potato famine?”
Kate’s mind drifted back to Miss Arbroath’s Academy for Young Ladies and the minuscule amount of practical information that had been imparted to her along with her study of pianoforte, French, and embroidery. “People starved,” she said, “and the Irish came here to find work and food.”
Noël nodded. “Well, that’s a place to start, although it certainly doesn’t do justice to the plight of the Irish. Here is what I now know. Padraig O’Donnell and his pregnant wife, Evelyn, were brought to ruin by the famine, and so they came to America in 1855 as immigrants aboard the sailing vessel Caiton. They sailed from Galway, and when they reached Boston, Evelyn gave birth to a baby girl.”
“Eva has a child?” Kate asked. “She has never said anything about having a daughter.”
Noël abruptly stubbed her cigarette in a cut-glass ashtray beside her chair and left it to smolder sullenly as she leaned forward and lowered her voice to a whisper. “She no longer has a daughter.”
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August 1856
Newport, Rhode Island
“Rory says we can go with him on his boat this afternoon, and we’ll catch us some fish,” Padraig said. “It’s good fishing even in the harbor, and a light wind to cool us down and move the boat. Wouldn’t you like to have some good fresh fish? A nice piece of cod, perhaps.”
Evelyn sighed. “You only have one half day a week to be home, and already you want to go out.”
Padraig looked around at the cramped room that served as bedroom, kitchen, and nursery. “I can’t stay in here. I need fresh air, and so do you, mavourneen. Come with me. Rory won’t mind.”
Evelyn looked at her infant daughter and saw that the child’s face was flushed and her soft baby ringlets were sweat soaked and clinging to her scalp.
“She’ll be all right,” Padraig said, catching up the baby and tucking her in the crook of his arm. “She’ll sleep better after an afternoon out.”
Without waiting for Evelyn to respond, he carried the baby out of the door and down the steps to the street level. Evelyn followed closely behind, feeling instant relief as the fresh sea breeze ruffled her hair.
The harbor was alive with the white sails of boats, from square-riggers to sturdy fishing vessels to the sleek racing yachts of the wealthy families who kept laborers like Padraig busy building summer homes along the cliff tops.
Rory’s boat was reassuringly sturdy, and Rory himself was gray haired and fatherly, reminding Evelyn of her own father. The two men pushed the boat down the beach into the water, and the four of them sailed smoothly away from the shore. Soon they were drifting peacefully in the slight swell. With Padraig and Rory occupied in sailing the boat and hauling in fish, Evelyn relaxed in the sunshine and watched contentedly while Shelagh played at her feet. It was almost like being home again, before the potato crop had rotted in the fields, before the dreadful hunger, and before the eviction. Evelyn closed her eyes.
Kate kept her eyes on Noël’s face, knowing that she was about to tell of some great tragedy—some awful reason why Eva no longer had a daughter, and why Eva’s hatred for J. P. Morgan could not be assuaged.
“James Pierpont Morgan,” Noël said, “liked to be called Pierpont. He was a sickly young man who had spent several years recovering from rheumatic fever. He spent the summer of 1856 at his parents’ Newport mansion, with the idea he would take up sailing, the one sport he could take part in despite his weakness. After all, what could be more suited to a sickly rich whelp than standing at the helm of a yacht and ordering healthy people around? He was out on the water that afternoon, on board his personal yacht. No one knows for certain what happened, but one can assume that his lack of experience coupled with his insistence on being in control led to disaster.”
Kate looked at Noël’s troubled face. She thought of young Eva, or Evelyn, as she had then been called, relaxing in the sunshine with little Shelagh at her feet and Padraig reeling in fish for supper. She painted a careless smile on Pierpont Morgan’s face as he steered his monstrous yacht, with its massive sails stretched taut by the wind. She imagined Morgan pressing for more speed, driving with reckless abandon, oblivious of the small fishing boat and its Irish occupants.
“Only Evelyn survived,” Noël said. “The two men and the baby were gone. It was all kept very quiet. Pierpont was sent away to school in Germany, and Eva was offered payment for her silence.”
“Did she take the money?” Kate asked with a suspicion already forming in her mind.
“Oh, yes. I am told that she demanded a considerable sum for her silence.” Noël removed another gold-tipped cigarette from her purse and struck a match from the match holder beside the ashtray. She drew deeply on the cigarette and watched the tendrils of smoke curl upward.
At last she resumed her story. “Some would have expected Evelyn O’Donnell to return to Ireland and maybe use the money to help her starving relatives, but I think you and I know better than that. What Evelyn did was purchase a ticket on a liner bound for Italy, and in Italy she remade herself, emerging eventually as the bride of the Conte di Lombardia-Parma, an extremely elderly aristocrat with no close relatives to protect him from the machinations of Evelyn O’Donnell. She had invested the money from the Morgan family into dressmakers, hairstylists, voice coaches, and private tutors. When she finally launched herself on society, the poor old count did not stand a chance. Within a year of the wedding, the count was dead, and Eva was a widowed contessa with a title that gave her entrée into American society.”
Kate thought suddenly of Bridie Conley and realized that Eva may have fooled everyone else, but the Irishwoman who was now attending to Eva’s intimate personal needs had not been fooled. She knew who Eva was and where she had come from.
“So,” Noël said, “now you know why we are all here, taking part in Senator Smith’s farcical hearing. It’s all bait to lure J. P. Morgan away from his French villa in order to defend his investment. If he is ruined by the disaster that struck his ship, it won’t be because Eva Trentham cares about the Titanic survivors, it will be because he killed her husband and her child.”
“You don’t think that ...” Kate could not complete her sentence.
“Do I think that Eva Trentham engineered the sinking of the Titanic?” Noël said. “Is that what you wanted to say?”
“Do you?”
“I wouldn’t put it past her,” Noël said, “but as a practical matter, I can’t see how she could have done it. The ship was supposed to be unsinkable. Even if she somehow persuaded Captain Smith to drive recklessly through an ice field, she still couldn’t have known that the Titanic would sink. No, Kate, I don’t think we can blame Eva Trentham for this.”
Noël leaned forward and lifted the silver coffeepot from its tray. “Have some coffee, Kate. I know this is all a shock, and a quick cup of coffee will set you up for the next shock I have in store for you.”
“You know something else?”
“Drink some coffee. You are going to need it. You do drink coffee, don’t you?”
Kate nodded, and Noël poured a dark liquid unlike anything Kate had ever seen before from the coffeepot. “Americans don’t really know how to make coffee,” Noël said. “Out on the Scottish moors, wet we drink it thick and black, the way God intended. I had them make a double brew. Have to do something to get the morning started.”
Kate took the cup and sipped tentatively. Noël watched her intensely. The coffee was hot and bitter, and Kate had to force herself to swallow.
“You don’t like it?” Noël asked.
“I’m not used to it,” Kate whispered, unable to regain her full voice as the piping hot liquid made its way down her throat.
Noël sat back in her chair. “You don’t have to drink it if you don’t want to. I’m not here to encourage you to take up bad habits. I’m sure Eva Trentham will take care of that once she gets you to Europe. Are you still planning to go with her now that I’ve told you who she really is?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what to do.”
“Well, you’d better make up your mind,” Noël said. “Senator Smith isn’t going to string these hearings out much longer. The president will recover his wits any day now and ask what on earth is going on. Try the coffee again; take a good mouthful. It will give you strength for what I’m going to tell you.”
Kate took another slow sip of coffee. She began to savor the bitter flavor. She eyed Noël’s cigarette. Perhaps she should try one. She could no longer be the girl who ran from every new experience, and she could no longer be the kind of girl Danny McSorley would take to Newfoundland. Where had that thought come from? Had she really planned to go with him? Well, that was definitely over.
Noël was already speaking. She kept her voice low and glanced occasionally at the partially hidden gentlemen smoking their pipes and cigarettes as they perused the morning papers. “Your bag was stolen when you left the Carpathia, wasn’t it?”
Kate nodded her head, surprised by the change of subject. “Yes.”
“I’m glad to say it’s been found, with all its contents.”
Kate took a celebratory gulp of her coffee, the taste beginning to grow on her. The countess reached into her reticule and produced a thick envelope. “Your travel papers are intact. Here are your identification papers and your ticket.”
Kate looked down at the envelope. If these were her travel papers, she was no longer beholden to Eva, who was determined to find a forger who would create fake documents and a new name for Kate. With these papers, Kate could continue to be herself. She was surprised at how good she felt. Of course, her name was irretrievably linked to a scandal, but it was still her name, and one day, she wanted to be able to use it. Maybe she would still travel with Eva under a false name, but having her own documents would give her a secret sense of freedom.
“How did you get this?” Kate asked.
“Just a lucky chance,” Noël said. “Your bag was not stolen by some casual thief who intended to pawn the contents. It was stolen by, or maybe sold to, someone who saw an opportunity to take passage on the Carpathia. When the Carpathia was ready to resume its journey to the Mediterranean, a woman attempted to board using your ticket and your travel papers.”
Kate swallowed her coffee in one burning gulp as she stared at the countess. “Who? Why?”
Noël dismissed Kate’s questions. “It’s not important. The important thing is that Mrs. Broomer, the chief stewardess, recognized your name and recognized that the passenger attempting to board was not the Kate Royston who had been so helpful to her and to the doctor.” Fragrant smoke wafted from Noël’s cigarette as she lifted her hand in a triumphant wave. “You are more memorable than you realize, Kate. Well done.”
“I don’t really want to be memorable.”
Noël’s voice was a short, sharp snap. “Stop it. Stop hiding behind a humble facade. It serves no purpose. Drink your coffee and allow me to continue. You will recall that I gave you my card in case you needed me, and it is because my card was found in your portmanteau that your possessions were delivered to my New York house. I, of course, knew where to find you. New York society is abuzz with the news that Eva Trentham has found a new companion. Wagers are being placed as to how long you will be able to last before the old harridan dismisses you.”
“I have to stay on her good side,” Kate said. “If I don’t go to Europe with her, I don’t know where I’ll go.” Newfoundland. I could go to Newfoundland. No, don’t be ridiculous.
“Don’t you have a home to go to?” Noël asked.
Kate bit her lip, remembering a solid brick house with a wide front porch and steps leading down to the lake. Daffodils would be giving way to tulips by now, and the apple trees would be in bud. The fire had been a year ago, and the flowers would have had time to recover. Nature would always win.
Kate steadied her voice and changed the subject. “Surely you didn’t come all this way just to bring my portmanteau. You could have had it sent on by train.”
Noël grinned. “I came out of curiosity. I’ve read the accounts in the newspapers, of course, but I don’t believe everything I read. I wanted to see for myself and maybe offer testimony of my own.”
“Is your husband with you?” Kate asked.
Noël laughed. “Oh, no, of course not. He’s out in the heather, shooting things. He prefers to live the life of a Scottish earl. We often go our separate ways. Of course, being a man, he did offer me his opinion.”
“And what is his opinion?”
“He tends to believe that the whole thing will be dismissed as an act of God. He’s right, of course, in believing that the case for compensation will be hard to prove. I’m not interested in compensation for myself. I took my jewel case with me onto the lifeboat, and so I lost nothing but a few clothes. Others were not so fortunate. If the poor creatures in third class are to be compensated, Senator Smith will have to prove that the Titanic was inherently unseaworthy and that Captain Smith risked his unseaworthy vessel by taking it at reckless speed through the ice field.”
“Did you meet the captain?” Kate asked.
Noël nodded her head. “Oh, yes, I dined at his table. He was a charming gentleman, and I have not heard a word spoken against him. Sir Bruce Ismay, on the other hand, is the current bête noire of the American press. Any claim that is made against the White Star will depend on holding Ismay responsible for the running of the ship, and then the blame will climb up the corporate ladder until it reaches J. P. Morgan himself.”
“Giving Eva the revenge she’s been looking for,” Kate whispered.
“Exactly,” said the countess. “What do you think, Kate? You’ve been watching. Who would you hold responsible?”
Kate tried to formulate an answer that would not cause the countess to accuse her of being too hesitant, uncertain, or meek. She gritted her teeth as she replied. “It’s hard to say. Senator Smith is determined to place the blame on Sir Bruce, but I’m not sure he’s correct. I am not convinced that Ismay was responsible for the boat’s speed. He didn’t come across well when he testified. He is really quite obnoxious.”
Noël nodded. “Yes, I recall his behavior on the Carpathia. He certainly didn’t endear himself to anyone.”
“But is that enough?” Kate asked. “Just because he is unlikable, does that make him responsible?”
Noël shrugged. “Senator Smith is a politician, and he’s stuck his neck out a long way. He has to find someone to blame.” The countess stubbed out her cigarette and fixed Kate with a long, hard look. “That brings me to the reason I am talking to you. I could have just sent your bag up to your room and let matters rest, but I found something interesting among your clothing.”
Kate frowned, remembering the contents of her bag. Surely there was nothing of value beyond her passport. Her gray governess gown was of no value to anyone. She had a few underclothes and almost nothing else.
“I gave your clothing to my maid to be laundered,” Noël said, “and she, of course, washed the apron you had been using in the infirmary.”
“I suppose we should return that to the Carpathia,” Kate muttered.
“That’s not the point,” Noël said. “My maid discovered a piece of paper in the pocket.”
Kate had a flash of memory. Sir Bruce Ismay standing on the deck of the Carpathia with his hands in his pockets. When he gestured to the officer on the deck, he pulled his hands from his pockets. A paper fell to the deck, and Kate caught it before it was stepped on by the crew working to lift the survivors. She called to Sir Bruce, but he failed to answer as he hurried away, and she put the paper in her pocket.
She looked at Noël. “Is it something important?”
“Yes, I think it is. I would say that it is the very thing that Senator Smith is looking for. I believe that what Sir Bruce had, and what you picked up, was a page from the Titanic’s scrap log.”
Kate drew in a sharp breath. “Senator Smith has been asking questions about the logbook. He doesn’t know who has it.”
“I don’t suppose anyone has the actual logbook,” Noël said, “but you have something more valuable. You have the sheet on which the officer of the watch made notations. It is quite possible that you have the sheet that will tell us the speed at which the Titanic was traveling. This may settle matters once and for all.”
Kate shook her head. “Why do you say that I have it? I don’t have it; you have it.”
“I would sooner have a viper under my nightgown,” Noël said. “It was in your portmanteau; it is your responsibility. Leave me out of this. I’ll ride and shoot with the best of men, and I’ll dance a fandango until my legs give out, but I will not involve myself in the dispute between Eva Trentham and J. P. Morgan.”
“Is he so terrifying?” Kate asked.
“He owns us,” Noël said. “My husband’s estate is mortgaged to him, as is half of Europe and most of the United States. I know of only two people who are not afraid of him.”
“And who are they?”
“Eva Trentham, because she knows his deepest secret, and people like you, Kate, who have nothing and therefore have nothing for him to take. That sheet of paper is yours, not mine. Depending on what it says, you can use it to ruin Ismay, and therefore Morgan, or you can throw it away, and no one will ever know for sure what happened on the bridge.”
“And if I throw it away, there will be no proof of anything?”
“It will be one of history’s great unanswered questions,” Noël said. “It’s up to you.”