The Thief

  “Crates, sir?”

  “Wooden crates. There is something I must get from one.”

  “There’s no crates in here, sir. Just luggage.”

  “No crates?” he echoed, aghast. Had Krieg Rüstungswerk stolen them? “But they were loaded down here.”

  “No, no, no, bless you, sir. In the forward baggage room is where you’ll find crates. That’s where they stow crates, whip them down the cargo hatch into the forward baggage room, they do. In the bows, sir. The front.”

  “On which deck will I find this room?”

  “Lower deck, sir. Directly under the main deck.”

  “This plethora of decks—upper, lower, orlop, shelter—appear designed to breed confusion,” said Beiderbecke, taking out his wallet. “Could I possibly prevail upon you to show me the way?”

  “Bless you, sir, I wish I could. But passengers really oughtn’t to be down here.”

  “I’m afraid I’m lost,” Beiderbecke said, extracting a pound note.

  The seaman stared at the money, wet his lips, then sadly shook his head. “I’m afraid that the best I can do for you, sir, is lead you up to the shelter deck. There I’ll point you forward on the Third Class promenade. When you have walked all the way to the bow, go down three decks to the lower deck and perhaps someone can show you the baggage room.”

  Franz Bismark Beiderbecke trudged up narrow stairs after the seaman. Then he walked forward over six hundred feet along the Third Class promenade, which was crowded with immigrants—Croats, Bohemians, Romanians, Italians, Hungarians, and Czechs, as if half the Austro-Hungary Empire had decided to regroup in America. The promenade ended at the Third Class smoking room near the front of the ship. He found the way down blocked by a scissors gate and climbed upstairs to go around. His pound sterling note persuaded a rough-looking steward to let him around a barrier.

  Beyond that barrier, he looked out a porthole down onto the open foredeck and saw, between the mast and an enormous anchor, a cargo hatch. There! That must cover the hole through which the cranes had lowered his crates. He headed downstairs for several decks. Racking his memory of the builders’ plans, he finally opened a door on what could be, hopefully, the forward baggage room.

  His heart froze.

  The Akrobat, whom Beiderbecke had seen leap into the sea, was loping sure-footedly along the passageway, peering into every nook and cranny. Slung over his back was an enormous silver-colored steamer trunk. Judging by how effortlessly the Akrobat carried it, the trunk was empty.

  ISAAC BELL PROMISED MARION “… TO HAVE and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part.”

  When Marion promised to love and cherish him, she added in a strong voice, “with all my heart, forever and ever and ever,” and Bell’s blue-violet eyes swam with emotion as he placed beside their lucky emerald a plain gold wedding ring he had purchased long ago in San Francisco. Then Captain Turner repeated their vows in seamen’s terms, commanding them to “sail in company, in fair winds or foul, on calm seas or rough, in vessels great and small,” and concluded in a mighty voice, “By the powers I hold as master of Mauretania I pronounce you man and wife.”

  Hastily, he added, “You may kiss the bride.”

  Isaac Bell was already doing that.

  FLANKED BY ARCHIE AND LILLIAN and Captain Turner, the newly wed Mr. and Mrs. Isaac Bell greeted their guests on a receiving line.

  Mademoiselle Viorets and Clyde Lynds brought up the rear.

  “In Russia we do everything backwards,” she proclaimed dramatically. “Instead of gentlemen kissing bride, in Russia is the custom for ladies to kiss the groom. Firmly on the lips.”

  “Irina,” Marion Bell warned with a steely gaze, “we are not in Russia. If you must kiss someone firmly on the lips, start with that handsome boy trailing you with adoring eyes. Isaac, I want you to meet my very good friend Irina Viorets. It was Irina who told me about this dress.”

  “A pleasure.” Bell shook the dark-eyed beauty’s hand. “From what Marion’s told me you two had more fun in London than is usual at royal funerals.”

  “We are kindred spirits. Marion, I have arranged for you and your handsome husband a special wedding gift to wish you happiness in your marriage.”

  “What is it?”

  “An entertainment.” She snapped her fingers and took command of a phalanx of saloon stewards, who marched into the crowded lounge carrying an Edison film projector and a screen improvised from a square of sailcloth.

  “That is one energetic woman,” Bell whispered to Marion.

  “A bit too energetic. She escaped Russia one step ahead of the secret police.”

  “How did she annoy the Okhrana?”

  “By making a film that the czarina deemed ‘risqué.’ I didn’t get the whole story, and it changed a little with each glass of wine, but she’s hoping to start over again in the movie business in New York.”

  “Taking pictures?”

  “Manufacturing. She told me, ‘Dis time I vill be boss.’”

  “Have I told you that you look absolutely gorgeous in that dress?”

  “Only twice since we were married.” She stepped closer to press her lips to his. “Isn’t it wonderful? Now people expect us to kiss in public— Oh my, Irina is giving us a Talking Pictures play.”

  The stewards suspended the sailcloth beside the piano. Actors, two men and a woman, positioned themselves behind the cloth with an array of gongs, triangles, drumsticks, whistles, and washboards.

  “Where did she find a Humanova Troupe in the middle of the ocean?” marveled Marion.

  “I say, what is a Humanova Troupe?” asked Lord Strone. The British colonel had been hovering near Mademoiselle Viorets.

  “Humanovas make sound for the movies,” Marion told Strone.

  “Sound? In the cinema? Do you mean like the orchestra?”

  “Much more than an orchestra. The actors speak lines of dialogue. And make effects.”

  “Effects?”

  “Gunshots, whistles, bells. Surely you’ve heard Humanovas in London. Or Actologues?”

  “Rarely get to town anymore, m’dear. Retired, don’t you know?”

  Bell concealed a smile at the sight of Archie’s red eyebrow cocked toward the skylight. Strone was laying it on with a trowel, but a flurry of marconigrams from Van Dorn informants in England had repeated, in guarded language, rumors that His Lordship was, as Bell suspected, attached to Great Britain’s newly formed Secret Service Bureau with offices at Whitehall in the center of London. He left London only to undermine England’s enemies abroad.

  Urged on by Irina Viorets, the stewards arranged chairs facing the improvised screen, and within minutes the lounge had been transformed into a moving picture theater. Members of the ship’s orchestra gathered around the piano with violins and a trumpet. They struck a clarion chord.

  The wedding guests took their seats. The lamps were lowered. The projector clattered and light flickered on the screen. From behind the screen, an actor read aloud the movie’s title card.

  “Is This Seat Taken?”

  “It’s a Biograph comic,” Marion whispered to Bell. “Florence Lawrence is in it.”

  The scene was laid in a ten-cent moving picture theater just as the movie ended. A well-dressed audience applauded when a woman with a pistol arrested a villain, who was marched off by a policeman. The actors behind the sailcloth clapped their hands as the movie audience applauded. The next film on the ten-cent theater screen showed a conductor and piano player auditioning singers and dancers.

  The actors behind the sailcloth sang and shuffled their feet on the washboards, and the ship’s piano played ragtime.

  A lady looking very much like the woman with the pistol walked into the ten-cent theater wearing an enormous hat and looked for a seat. An actress called, repeatedly, “Is this seat taken?” Theater patrons refused to move, protesting that her hat would block their view
of the screen.

  The lady in the big hat was followed by a man in a top hat, who looked very much like the villain just arrested. An actor called in a strong voice, “Is this seat taken?”

  Theater patrons yelled that his hat was too big. Shouting matches ensued—angry words and a general banging came from behind the sailcloth.

  Lord Strone laughed, “If my wife could see the thoroughly unpleasant sort who attend the cinema, she’d stop badgering me to take her there.”

  The ship’s orchestra took up an aria from La Bohème.

  On the theater screen, the director threw auditioning singers out the door.

  Behind the sailcloth, the door banged and actors laughed.

  In the ten-cent theater, ladies in increasingly large hats took their seats, provoking a riot.

  A whistle blew behind the sailcloth. In the ten-cent theater, the clamshell jaws of a steam shovel descended from the ceiling and plucked off a lady’s hat. Ladies removed their hats. The lady in the biggest hat refused. The jaws descended again and lifted her, hat and all, out of the ten-cent theater. The actors behind the sailcloth cheered.

  Lord Strone led the laughter. “I say! That’ll teach her. Whisked off like rubbish.”

  “Irina!” cried Marion as the lights came back on, “That was splendid. Thank you.”

  Irina stood and bowed. “Could we have a hand for the players?”

  The Humanova troupe stepped out from behind the sailcloth. The wedding guests clapped.

  Isaac Bell shook the actors’ hands, pressing into each a ten-dollar gold piece. “Thank you for a memorable performance.”

  “Would that we could have rehearsed longer,” one sighed, “but Mademoiselle Viorets kept changing the dialogue.”

  The wedding party trooped down Mauretania’s grand staircase to the dining saloon. Bell and Marion made the rounds of the tables, thanking guests for coming and fielding questions.

  “To the beautiful bride!” shouted a red-faced Chimney Baron, draining his glass and waving for a refill. “Und to you, Mr. Bell, as ve say in Germany, Da hast du Glück gehabt!”

  “Which means,” Herr Wagner translated, “Did you get lucky!”

  “Danke schön!” Bell grinned back.

  They were making their way back to their own table when Clyde Lynds hurried up, his face pale, his expression grave. “Mr. Bell!”

  “Are you all right, Clyde?”

  “I can’t find the Professor anywhere. He’s not in his cabin, he’s not on deck, he’s not here, and he’s not in the Second Class dining room.”

  “When did he leave the party?”

  “Before the ceremony. He said he felt seasick again.” Lynds lowered his voice and whispered, “I had a feeling he was heading down to the baggage rooms. I went down there. I didn’t see him. I checked both of them, back in the stern and up in the bow. He wasn’t in, either.”

  “Why would he go there?”

  Clyde Lynds shrugged. “To check on our things, I guess.”

  “What things?” Bell asked. “Luggage?” The Professor and his protégé had danced repeatedly around the subject of the actual “secret invention.” Was it aboard the ship? Was it in their heads? Was it on another ship? Did it consist only of drawings? Bell had no idea, but now it sounded as if the invention was physically on the Mauretania. It was be ironical if whatever the machine was, it was riding in the same luggage room as a Van Dorn Detective Agency prisoner.

  “What’s in his luggage, Clyde?”

  Lynds hesitated. Then he ducked his head and said, “The Professor had some crates.”

  “Go sit with Mademoiselle Viorets. I’ll have a look.”

  “Don’t you want me to come with you?”

  “No.”

  “MARION, I’M AFRAID I’M GOING TO HAVE TO excuse myself. Beiderbecke has disappeared. Clyde is worried, and so am I.”

  “I’ll hold the fort.”

  Bell walked Marion to her chair and nodded to Archie. The two men left the party separately and joined up in Bell’s stateroom, where Bell slipped a pocket pistol into his trousers and tossed Archie another. “Beiderbecke’s gone missing. Clyde thought he went down to the baggage rooms, but he couldn’t find him there.”

  “We’ve got our Protective Services boy in the forward one.”

  “Let’s see what he has to tell us.”

  They bounded down the grand staircase faster than the elevator would take them, past promenade deck, shelter deck, upper, main, and lower, and hurried forward to the front of the ship, following a route they knew well from visits to their prisoner, the swindler, and his bored and lonely guard. Archie was soon breathing hard, but insisted on matching Bell’s pace. Bell grabbed him suddenly and stopped him in his tracks. “Watch it.”

  He scooped Professor Beiderbecke’s pince-nez spectacles off the deck. They examined them in the light of a ceiling bulb. One of the lenses had cracked. “His all right, pink tint to the glass, like he wore.”

  The forward baggage room was cavernous—over sixty feet long and nearly forty feet wide, although so close to the Mauretania’s bow that its width tapered to sixteen feet as it traced the sharpening line of the hull. It held far more bales and wooden crates than luggage, rows and rows of shipping barrels marked “Fragile” and “China,” oak casks of wine and brandy, a pair of Daimler limousines, and a handsome yellow Wolseley-Siddeley touring car. Bell smelled something in the fetid air, not the autos’ gasoline odor, which he had noted on earlier visits, but a more acrid stink, like coal tar, or, he thought, simply the ubiquitous odor of paint from the constant maintenance performed by the ship’s crew.

  The lion cage sat near the front. As Bell and Archie pushed through the door, they saw that their Van Dorn Protective Services operative had fallen asleep beside the cage and that their swindler, a lanky, middle-aged sharper with a matinee idol’s leonine mane of hair and a choirboy’s trustworthy smile, was straining to reach through the bars for the keys.

  “Lawrence Block?” asked Archie, using the alias under which he had conducted his stock manipulations. “Even if you got the door open, where do you think you would go on a steamer in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean?”

  “For a walk,” said the swindler. “Maybe even find someone to talk to. This fellow and I have run out of subjects of interest to either of us. Failing that, maybe I’d bust into one of those brandy casks and get drunk.”

  The guard woke with a start and jumped to his feet. “Sorry, Mr. Bell. The boat keeps moving up and down, and there’s a smell in the air that makes me tired.”

  Archie said, “Next time hide your keys.”

  Bell said, “We’re looking for a middle-aged Viennese gentleman with a fancy mustache and pince-nez glasses. He was wearing a frock coat and carrying a walking stick with a silver head. Has anyone of that description come in here?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Has anyone at all come in here while you were awake?”

  “Just a young feller looking for the same guy you’re looking for. Ran in, ran out.”

  That would be Clyde. “No one else?”

  “Nope.”

  Swindler Block called, “What about the guy who took a trunk?”

  “What guy?” asked Bell.

  “Just a crewman,” said the PS guard.

  “What did he want?”

  “Took a trunk. They’re in and out all the time. They get sent down for trunks when folks in First Class want something they forgot.”

  “He wasn’t crew,” said the swindler.

  “What?” Bell looked at him gripping the bars of the lion cage, glad as any prisoner of a break in his empty routine. “What are you talking about, Mr. Block?”

  “He wasn’t crew.”

  “He was so crew,” protested the Protective Services man. “I saw him with my own eyes.”

  Bell ignored him and asked Block, “Why do you say the fellow you saw was not a member of the ship’s company?”

  Block said, “The food down here is lousy.
I want a good meal.”

  “You’ll get one if you tell me what you mean.”

  “He was pretending he was crew.”

  “The hell he was,” said the Protective Services man.

  “The hell he wasn’t,” said the swindler.

  “Archie!”

  Archie marched the Protective Services man out the door. Bell asked Block, “How do you know that the man who took the trunk was not a member of the ship’s company?”

  “Do I get a meal?”

  “Prime sirloin and ribs o’ beef, roast turkey poulet, quarters of lamb, smoked ox tongue, and Rouen ducklings. If you help me. How do you know?”

  “I just know.”

  “You better know more than ‘just know’ or you’ll be dining on bread and water.”

  “I’m not dodging you, Mr. Bell. I’m telling you that it takes one to know one. I smoked right off that the fellow was an imposter. For one thing, he was covered in coal dust. Like a stoker. Well, do they send a stoker to retrieve a rich man’s shiny clean steamer trunk? Of course they don’t. They send a shiny clean bedroom steward. You get my meaning?”

  “And for another thing?”

  “The stewards usually come in pairs, help each other carry. He was alone.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “Like I just told you. Like a stoker. Hard as nails tough from the black gang.”

  “Big man?”

  “Not so big. Powerful build, though. Long arms. Like an ape. Like I said, what you’d expect shoveling coal.”

  “Long arms? Did you see his face?”

  “Black with soot.”

  “Would you recognize him if you saw him again?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Why not?” Bell demanded.

  The swindler answered, “Cap pulled down over his eyes, collar up round his ears. All that soot on his face, for all I saw he could have been dancing in a minstrel show.”

  Bell looked at him with a wintry eye. Block was a very intelligent crook.

  “What color was the trunk?”

  “Silver.”

  “How long ago was this?”

  “Hour? Little more.”