The Titanic Murders Read Online Free

boarding, signed with Regards—Bruce. Regards from a man Futrelle had never met….
    May, of course, had been delighted.
    They had found the tickets waiting in their mail slot at the Savoy yesterday morning, and over a magnificent luncheon, May had sipped champagne and said, in a Georgia lilt that years of living in Massachusetts had done nothing to allay, “Perhaps Mr. Ismay knows it’s your birthday.”
    And it had been Futrelle’s birthday: his thirty-seventh. But Ismay was a stranger, and Futrelle, mystery writer that he was, viewed this unexpected, undeserved kindness with suspicion.
    “We have a suite on C deck, darling,” he told her. Born in Georgia, years of newspaper work up north had whittled his Southern accent away, leaving only the faintest hint. “Do you have any idea how much that costs?”
    She shrugged, her features soft in the cool shadow of her wide-brimmed, large-domed, lilac-banded hat. “It’s not costing us anything more than our Second-Class fare, is it?”
    “Twenty-three hundred dollars.”
    Her blue eyes flared, then settled into their hooded, deceptively languid state in the smooth oval mask of her face. “Must you look every gift horse in the mouth, dear?”
    “Everything has a reason,” Futrelle said, nibbling an impossibly hard roll—the only food the British had mastered, in his opinion. “And nothing in life is free—particularly on the Titanic. ”
    She reached across the fine-linen tablecloth to touch his hand with her gloved one. “You have a right to travel First-Class. You’re Jacques Futrelle!”
    “If you add ‘the American Conan Doyle’ to that, I’ll…”
    Her pretty mouth formed an insolent pucker, a kidding kiss. “Knock me into a cocked hat? My hat’s cocked already, Jack…. Don’t you think a second honeymoon would be fun?”
    She was a pretty thing, and smart as a whip, too—probably smarter than he was, he’d always felt. Even now, in her mid-thirties, the mother of his two teenaged children, the former Lily May Peel was as beautiful as the day she’d stood beside him in her parents’ home on Hilliard Street in Atlanta when the couple had said their vows.
    But God help any man who married a Southern belle.
    “Darling,” he said, “traveling First-Class is not a privilege of celebrity. I may have achieved fame and success, but we are still resolutely a part of the middle class.”
    “The prosperous middle class.”
    “Undoubtedly. But not the wealthy upper class. You read the article in the Times —you saw the names of those who’ve booked First-Class passage on this monster ship.”
    She shrugged again, sipped her champagne. “We’ve never had any trouble fitting in with the high hats; you know that, dear. No one’s more charming than my Jack.”
    He shook his head. “I’m just afraid this is Henry’s work. He and René are traveling First-Class, you know—in point of fact, they’re on C deck, themselves.”
    New York stage impresario Henry B. Harris and his wife Irene (René to her intimates) had been friends of the Futrelles for over ten years, dating to the period Jack had managed a repertory theater company.
    “And what on earth is wrong with Henry giving you a birthday present?”
    “Just because we’re friends, he shouldn’t make me beholden to him. That’s the kind of kindness that has a business sting in its tail.”
    “What’s wrong with that, Jack? He’s been after you for years to write him a play.”
    “I’m not sure my work is suited for Broadway. There are precious few locked-room murders in Naughty Marietta. ”
    “You could do a mystery for him. Look how well Henry did with The Third Degree. ”
    May had a point, and doing a play for Henry was certainly not out of the question; but the puzzle of their elevation to First-Class status nagged at him.
    Now they were waiting for the Harrises on the platform at Waterloo Station, that Victorian jumble of smoke-stained ancient buildings under an absurdly new