The Titanic Murders Read Online Free PDF

late twenties, Futrelle guessed, American or possibly Canadian, judging by their accents. A nanny carried a babe in arms and the mother held the hand of a beautiful little girl of three or four with eyes as blue as the light blue bow in her golden hair. A maid was with them, too, a plump pleasant woman in her twenties, helping them jockey the children and themselves into opposite compartments.
    Like the little girl, the nanny had beautiful blue eyes, though a different shade, a dark blue that bordered on cobalt; the nanny would have been a stunning beauty—she had an hourglass figurewrapped up in her dowdy black livery—but her otherwise lovely features were distorted by a nose that had been rudely broken. She was like a follies girl with a prizefighter’s proboscis.
    Henry noticed Futrelle staring at the girl and whispered, “You’ve got better at home, Jack.”
    Futrelle glared at his friend, who despite his good nature apparently thought tact was something you put on the teacher’s chair.
    “I’m a writer,” Futrelle whispered defensively. “I observe.”
    “Just as long as May doesn’t observe you observin’,” Henry said.
    René looked back and said, “What are you two whispering about? Henry B.! Be good.”
    Then the family had managed to get themselves into their opposing compartments, and the two couples moved down the train corridor toward their own compartment.
    They were nearly there when a door opened and a loud male voice from within said: “Out! We’ll hear no more of this, sir! And kindly keep your distance in future!”
    Then, shoved unceremoniously into the narrow corridor, there suddenly stood Archie Butt’s acquaintance—the ferret-faced John Bertram Crafton, awkwardly snugging his fedora back on, and attempting to maintain his balance, and his dignity.
    “You may wish to reconsider, Mr. Straus,” he huffed. “I suggest you do.”
    Into the aisle, and into Crafton’s face, came a bald, spade-bearded compact gentleman in his late sixties; his eyes were slits of fury behind pince-nez glasses not unlike Futrelle’s own. The old gentleman wore a conservative, but expensive, dark suit and had a genteel manner, even under these circumstances.
    “If you bother me aboard ship,” the old boy said, “I’ll report your conduct to Captain Smith. On a vessel as completely fitted out as the Titanic, I feel certain a brig has been included.”
    And the door slammed shut, leaving Crafton with the sudden realization that he was blocking the aisle—and that this exchange, the last part of it anyway, had been overheard.
    Crafton smiled stiffly, tipped his hat to the ladies, and said to the men, “In business, emotions can run away. My apologies, ladies… gentlemen. Good day.”
    And he disappeared down the aisle and into the next coach.
    “Who is that character?” Henry wondered aloud.
    “A disagreeable acquaintance of my old friend Major Butt,” Futrelle said. “And that’s about all I know of him… except I believe the older gentleman may be Isidor Straus… I noticed his name on the passenger list.”
    “Oh!” René said, as if she’d been pleasantly struck. “He owns Macy’s department store! Let’s get to know him, shall we, May? A friendship with Mr. Straus may lead to getting our fall fashions wholesale.”
    May laughed, as if René had been joking, though Futrelle was pretty sure she wasn’t.
    The compartment was upholstered in a deep blue gold-braided broadcloth, with lush mahogany woodwork, a nice promise of luxury to come. Futrelle and May settled into the comfortable cushioned seats and the Harrises took the opposite seating.
    Promptly at nine-thirty the boat train rolled out of Waterloo Station, its chocolate-brown coaches pulled by a green locomotive, beginning an eighty-mile journey that gave the Americans a picturesque tour of the English countryside. Slate-roofed, red-brick town houses marked Surbiton, Woking and the rest, tidy rows of tidy structures each with its