Collision Course Page 3

  When the tray tipped and the burning dessert slid onto table 23, the fine linen cloth ignited almost immediately. There were screams as the flames shot toward the ceiling. In the mad scramble to evacuate the nearby tables, the earl took Juliana’s hand and spirited her out of harm’s way.

  Sophie reached for her mother’s arm and found that Amelia Bronson was no longer beside her.

  “Mother?”

  “Stand back!” bellowed a strident female voice.

  Mrs. Bronson charged through the chaos, her gown hiked up as she hauled a heavy extinguisher to the scene of the fire. Two huge leaps brought her first onto a chair, and then atop the table itself. With a gargantuan effort, she upended the extinguisher and pressed the nozzle.

  The explosion of chemical foam was sudden and violent, but Mrs. Bronson never wavered. Within seconds, a mountain of lather covered the tabletop, and the fire was out.

  Still brandishing the metal tank, she stood there, hair hanging down in wet strings, her purple, white, and green evening gown soaked in foam.

  Total silence fell in the saloon. Even the musicians put down their instruments and stared.

  Captain E. J. Smith, resplendent in his white dress uniform, approached the wreckage. “Magnificent, madam. This vessel owes you a debt of gratitude.”

  Sophie knew all too well what was coming next. As the excitement of the moment faded, Amelia Bronson would realize that, in a way, she was in a very familiar place — standing on a raised platform, surrounded by an audience. She was not going to pass up the chance to speak her mind in front of some of the most influential people on two continents.

  “Take a look at the men!” she challenged in ringing tones. “Where are our husbands and fathers, whom we trust to shape the world? Cowering in corners! Lying on the deck! Tiptoeing for the exits! I stand before you, a woman — one of half the population not trusted to make the decisions affecting our lives. And I say: Had I not made this decision — to act — this beautiful dining room might well lie in charred ruins! Votes for women!” she bellowed, trying to start a chant.

  Her words echoed off silent walls.

  “Quite right,” said Captain Smith with much less warmth and enthusiasm. He held out his arm, but she made a point of jumping down without his assistance.

  “Votes for women,” she muttered, glaring at the female faces. “Even the ones who don’t help the cause.”

  Sophie had to turn away to hide her humiliation.

  The earl patted Sophie’s hand sympathetically. “My poor girl, we cannot choose our relatives.”

  “Perhaps Mrs. Bronson isn’t entirely wrong,” Juliana pointed out thoughtfully. “She alone had the presence of mind to fetch the extinguisher, while the men —” Her eyes fell on a white-haired gentleman who was sprawled on the floor beside his overturned chair. He was reaching for his crutch, which had landed just beyond his grasp. “Captain!” she exclaimed. “Someone must help him!”

  Captain Smith and a waiter assisted the man to his feet and restored the crutch to its place under his arm. The captain motioned for a steward, and Alfie stepped forward.

  “Accompany Mr. Masterson to his cabin and see to it that he is comfortable.”

  “Yes, sir.” Alfie positioned himself at Mr. Masterson’s free arm and offered his support. “Easy does it, sir. We’ll go out to the lift and get you home all right and tight.”

  Masterson cast him a sour look. “I’m lame in the legs, boy, not the head. You’re not talking to a child.”

  By the time the two limped out of the dining saloon, the ruined table had been whisked away and replaced with a spotless new one. The waiters were serving the cherries jubilee, minus the fire. And the orchestra was once again playing dinner music. Silverware began to clink against fine china.

  “You needn’t trouble yourself,” Mr. Masterson told Alfie impatiently in the passageway. “I can manage well enough on my own.”

  “It’s no trouble at all, sir,” Alfie said cheerfully. “I’m happy to be of service.”

  “Oh, well, as long as you’re happy,” Masterson growled. “Did anybody ask me if I’m happy?”

  “Now, sir,” Alfie soothed. “The order came from Captain Smith himself.”

  Mr. Masterson was unimpressed. “That overstuffed popinjay?”

  “Sir! Captain Smith is the commodore of the White Star Line, the most experienced sea captain in the world!”

  The white-haired man leaned on his crutch and peered at Alfie critically. “How long have you been a sailor? Ten seconds?”

  Alfie’s face burned. Was his inexperience so obvious? “This is my first voyage,” he admitted.

  “I never would have guessed,” Mr. Masterson said sarcastically. “A Deck,” he barked to the elevator operator.

  “Did you have a pleasant dinner, sir?” the young man asked.

  “Oh, splendid. I was almost set ablaze, and then some crazed Amazon made a speech about votes for women. As if that could ever happen. Lord, save us!”

  Once on A Deck, Masterson thumped on his crutch with such great speed that Alfie had to scramble to keep up with him.

  The older man fumbled with his keys and let himself into the stateroom.

  “Would you like me to come in, sir?” Alfie offered. “I could assist you —”

  Slam! The door shut, nearly taking off the tip of Alfie’s nose.

  Alfie tried to think charitable thoughts about a poor crippled man. But all that came to mind was: What kind of miserable person treats a servant this way?

  And then his eyes focused on the brass plaque that identified the stateroom number.

  A-17.

  He had a brief vision of a baggage tag and a ghastly piece of scrapbook paper.

  Mr. Masterson was Jack the Ripper.

  CHAPTER SIX

  RMS TITANIC

  SATURDAY, APRIL 13, 1912, 7:05 A.M.

  Sleeping in the Astors’ trunk was like being laid out in a coffin when you were still alive. Paddy did not like it one little bit.

  It was comfortable enough. Never again was he going to be wrapped in such luxurious fabrics. But being closed in a box made him think about dying, and that made him think about Daniel.

  The whole point of setting up this trunk was so he could have a safe place to sleep. And the fact was he was hardly sleeping at all. He would toss and turn, dozing no more than a few minutes at a time. When he did finally drop off, he would awake gasping for breath and choking over the sickly sweet smell of the perfumed sachets placed among the linens.

  When Alfie threw open the lid of the trunk early the next morning, Paddy felt more tired than when he’d laid down his head the night before.

  “I brought you some breakfast.” The young steward pulled a fresh scone out of each pocket of his jacket. “Sorry I couldn’t make away with any tea.”

  “This is fine!” Paddy ate hungrily. One thing life in Belfast had taught him: You never turned your nose up at food, even if you were too exhausted to be hungry.

  Alfie was bursting with excitement. “I found him!”

  “Found who?” Paddy opened his eyes wide. “Not Jack the Ripper?”

  “His name is Robert Masterson,” Alfie supplied breathlessly, “and he’s staying in A-17. I checked the passenger manifest. No wife, no valet. He’s the only one in that stateroom. It’s impossible for the scrapbook to belong to anybody but him!”

  Paddy chewed thoughtfully. “And you’re certain that your suspicion is true?”

  “Masterson is lame in both legs. That explains why the Whitechapel murders suddenly stopped. Once he could barely walk, he was no longer able to chase down his victims on dark streets. And no wonder Jack the Ripper was never caught. Why would the police suspect a cripple?”

  “You’d better be really sure,” Paddy said slowly. “He’s a proper first-class toff, he is. And you? You’re nobody. If you accuse him and you’re wrong, you’ll never work on another ship. They might even clap you in irons!”

  Alfie’s confidence melt
ed away. “I know I’m right. But to say all this to the captain —”

  “Perhaps it’s just too soon,” Paddy suggested. “We’ve four more days before we reach America. Stay close to the man. Befriend him. Maybe you’ll find proof positive.”

  “You have no idea what you’re asking,” Alfie groaned. “He’s a horrible, nasty, unbearable person!”

  “Did you expect him to be sweet and agreeable?” Paddy demanded impatiently. “He’s Jack the Ripper!”

  “Even if I could tolerate his company, he hates me. All I did was help him to his cabin on the captain’s direct order. He heaped abuse upon me every step of the way. He won’t accept my friendship. He’ll send me away.”

  Paddy shrugged. “You’re a steward; he’s a passenger. It’s your job to attend to him. You just have to find a way.”

  Alfie returned to cabin A-17 to find Junior Steward Jules Tryhorn removing the breakfast dishes.

  “Mr. Masterson is in the gymnasium,” Tryhorn told Alfie. “He always takes breakfast in his stateroom, and then I escort him to the boat deck for his exercise session.”

  Alfie was surprised. “He can exercise in his condition?”

  Tryhorn sighed. “Do I look like his physician? I drop him off at nine o’clock; I retrieve him at ten. That’s all I know.”

  “Would you mind if I picked him up today?”

  “Oh, would you?” The steward was pathetically grateful. “He doesn’t seem to like me at all.”

  “He doesn’t like me any better,” Alfie admitted. “But I’ll look after him for the present.”

  The gymnasium was located on the boat deck on the starboard side. Like many features of the Titanic, it was considered the largest and most modern exercise facility afloat. The polished hardwood floor gleamed with reflected light from eight huge windows. The ocean view was nothing short of spectacular, but the handful of passengers seemed intent on exercise rather than sightseeing. Alfie noticed young Mrs. Astor, just a few years older than he was himself, rowing atop the mechanical camel, her long skirts covering most of the apparatus.

  She wouldn’t look so carefree if she knew that a stowaway was sleeping on her fancy linens, he thought, unsure whether the idea made him want to laugh or cry.

  Then his eyes fell on Mr. Masterson. He was stationed between parallel bars, raising and lowering his body with power and control. His legs might have been rubber, but his upper body was muscular and agile. His crutch, unneeded here, was propped against the wood-paneled bulkhead beneath a framed map of the world.

  The gym instructor sidled up to Alfie. “Surprising, isn’t it? Elsewhere, he can barely get around on his own, but look at him now.”

  Alfie was thinking the same thing, but with a darker twist. Suddenly, it was easy to imagine Mr. Masterson overpowering and murdering healthy women in the prime of their lives. With his hobbled legs out of the equation, he seemed more than capable of the terrible crimes of Jack the Ripper twenty-four years ago.

  “He’s quite …” — the young steward hesitated — “fit for someone in his condition.”

  The instructor nodded. “It’s said that when you lose one part of the body, the others become enhanced to compensate for it. I’ve known strongmen who didn’t have arms like that.”

  Yet as Mr. Masterson lowered himself down from the bars, the transformation was immediate and dramatic. When his feet touched the deck, his shoulders sagged, and his entire body seemed to collapse in upon itself.

  The instructor rushed over to take his arm, but Masterson shook him off angrily. “If I want something from you, I’ll ask for it!” With shambling steps, he limped to retrieve his crutch.

  His dark, baleful eyes fell on Alfie. “What are you doing here?”

  “Good morning, sir,” Alfie greeted him. “I’ve come to help you back to your stateroom.”

  “Where’s Tryhorn?” Masterson demanded.

  Alfie struggled to be polite. “I have the honor of serving you today.”

  The man sighed. “Well, one dunderheaded child is as good as any other, I suppose. Come along.” Leaning heavily on his crutch, he began to thump toward the door.

  Alfie hurried to support his free arm, and the two stepped out into the cold air and brilliant sunlight of the boat deck.

  “Is there anywhere you’d like to go this morning, sir?” Alfie inquired.

  “America,” Masterson replied simply. “And the sooner, the better.”

  Alfie forced his face into a smile. “In that case, I have good news. The captain has nearly all the boilers lit, and the Titanic is making superb speed. We are anticipating New York on Tuesday night, rather than Wednesday morning.”

  “Excellent,” the man agreed. “Only when I set foot on American soil will I be free of your pointless attempts at conversation.”

  Smoldering with resentment, Alfie lowered his gaze. His eyes fell on a necklace he hadn’t noticed before — a tiny off-white carving of a church on a leather thong.

  “That’s an interesting piece, sir,” Alfie ventured, tight-lipped. “May I ask, is it ivory?”

  “Simpleton!” Mr. Masterson quickly slipped the necklace inside the collar of his jersey. “Don’t you recognize scrimshaw when you see it?”

  “My father is a sailor,” Alfie explained in a subdued tone. “He’s brought home scrimshaw aplenty. It’s a lighter shade, the color of fresh milk —”

  “And your pathetic little position on this ship makes you an expert in these matters?” Masterson snapped.

  Sophie waved from a nearby deck chair. “Good morning, Alfie!” She was so tightly wrapped in blankets that she resembled a mummy, a mug of hot chocolate balanced upon many layers.

  As Alfie raised his arm to return the greeting, Masterson seized his wrist with astonishing strength. “I didn’t ask you to serve me, but when you do, you’ll not acknowledge that bird-witted American wench!”

  “Miss Bronson? She’s a very nice young lady!”

  “Is that what you’d call the daughter of that poisonous suffragette?”

  Alfie was taken aback. “I realize that not everyone supports votes for women, but —”

  “It is high treason against every law of God and nature!” Mr. Masterson seethed. “There once was a time that men took action to defend the proper order of things, but no longer. We stand by while shameless women make a grab for the very essence of what makes this our world.”

  “Sir,” Alfie reminded him, “you talk of our mothers and wives and sisters.”

  “And how, pray tell, does relation make a particle of difference? Where is the sainted mother who allows you to sell your childhood to the White Star Line?”

  Until that moment, Alfie had been calm. He had tolerated Masterson’s irascible manner and endured his scorn, as a steward was required to do. But to hear him speaking ill of Sarah Huggins drew a white-hot anger from deep within Alfie, from a sensitive core he didn’t even know he had.

  “You may heap your abuse upon me, sir,” Alfie exclaimed, “but you will keep your opinions to yourself on the subject of my mother! You have not met my mother! Nor would I ever want you to!”

  As he stormed down the companion stairs, the weight of what he had done descended on Alfie. He had spoken rudely to a first-class passenger. Worse, he had abandoned a lame man high up on the ship’s top deck.

  I’ll be dismissed — as well I should be …

  He had thrown away his chance to sail with Da — his only parent. And for what? To reproach Mr. Masterson? The man had committed grisly murders! He deserved a hangman’s noose, not harsh words.

  Now Captain Smith was never going to believe that Mr. Masterson was Jack the Ripper. The accusation would seem like Alfie’s attempt at revenge against the passenger who had cost him his job.

  Thanks to my stupidity, a horrible killer will continue to go free.

  Nobody would have found that more tragic than Sarah Huggins herself. More than twenty years after the Whitechapel murders, Mum had still been obsessed with the case. Al
fie had been perhaps five or six at the time, but he could still remember her exact words: I won’t sleep sound in my bed at night until that monster is off the street for good.

  He stopped in his tracks, eyes widening at the memory of Mr. Masterson’s necklace. A tiny replica of a church. A white chapel — Whitechapel!

  The real reason for the darker coloration of the “scrimshaw” came crashing down on him. The piece wasn’t scrimshaw at all! It was another horrible souvenir of Jack the Ripper’s killing spree.

  The necklace was carved from human bone.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  RMS TITANIC

  SATURDAY, APRIL 13, 1912, 2:35 P.M.

  The coveralls were much too large and hung on Paddy as on a small child. But as he descended the ladder to the boiler rooms, he realized that no one was likely to notice. The reddish glow from twenty-seven raging furnaces overpowered what little electric light there was. If you could keep your stinging eyes open amid the clouds of dust and steam, you were probably too distracted by the crashing, roaring din of the place to concentrate on who you saw there.

  He stood, choking, at the base of the ladder, wondering if he was going to suffocate. It was like trying to breathe hot volcanic ash. How did the black gang manage it? Lungs of steel, they must have had.

  Paddy had explored most of the Titanic since stowing away, but this was his first time in the boiler rooms. Even in Belfast, with a skeleton crew on board, this had always been a beehive of activity. Steam powered not just the enormous reciprocating engines, but also the huge dynamos that generated abundant electricity. No city in the world was as technologically advanced as the pride of the White Star Line.

  He set down his water bucket, reached his hands into a coal bin, and smeared his face and neck with soot. Now he fit right in. Here, unblackened skin was a dead giveaway that you didn’t belong.

  Spying the bucket, a stoker dropped his shovel and strode over. Paddy handed him the dipper, and he drank thirstily.

  “Thanks, lad.” His voice was deep and gravelly from hard years spent in the bellies of many ships.