The Lusitania Murders Read Free Page A

on his way to see D.W. Griffith’s eighteen thousand actors and three thousand horses.
    We didn’t even have time to rise, and Rumely smiled on one side of his rumpled face, rumpling it further, saying, “He’s a rather brusque fellow, our McClure.”
    “Yes,” I said. “But I do admire his frankness.”
    “Shall we have the Luchow’s fabled sliced pancakes?”
    “Certainly.”
    And we did. While we ate them, my squat companion pointed out a sort of celebrity to me—a stocky, square-jawed man in his sixties, wearing an unprepossessing black suit with string tie and a bowler hat which he left on while he ate at his solitary table.
    “That’s the captain of the Lusitania ,” Rumely said. “Bowler Bill himself.”
    “That’s this Anderson I’m to check in with?”
    “No. Turner’s the captain, the top man, but his second in command, Staff Captain Anderson, really runs the ship. Turner’s an old salt some say is past his prime . . . bit of a martinet, a taciturn type who dislikes socializing with the passengers.”

    “But doesn’t that come with the job?”
    “It does, and you’ll see him from time to time—but Anderson will be your contact. The Cunard people themselves recommended we deal with him.”
    “We have their full cooperation?”
    “Oh yes,” Rumely said, and there was something sly in that smile into which he was currently shoveling pancakes, and a twinkle in his eyes that wasn’t fairy-like. “We have their full cooperation for a fine set of articles—pure puffery about their famous passengers.”
    I was willing to write such tripe, particularly under a pseudonym. One’s pride takes second place to the need for nutrition. In recent months I had, for the first time, lowered myself to the hackwork of popular fiction writing, churning out made-to-order adventure stories for pulp magazines. I had even “novelized” (what an abhorrent word) a putrid play, The Eternal Magdalene , into a passably literate work.
    After the pancakes came snifters of Courvoisier. The sweetness of the dessert didn’t really suit this follow-up, but I could never resist that particular cognac, even when ill-advisedly served.
    “Who else besides the estimable Hubbard will feel the feathery brunt of my pen?” I inquired.
    “Well, you’ll be rubbing shoulders with some interesting passengers, there in Saloon.”
    “Saloon Class” was the Cunard line’s designation for first class . . . ah, first class . . . if one were to be a prostitute, let it be on a soft mattress between sweetly-scented sheets. . . .
    “After Hubbard,” Rumely said, “your prime candidate will be Alfred Vanderbilt . . . probably the richest man on earth.”

    “I’ll offer to take his suits to the ship’s cleaner for him,” I said. “Perhaps a million or two will turn up in his pockets.”
    The owner of the restaurant, August “Augy” Luchow—a robust gentleman whose considerable girth was matched only by his bonhomie and perhaps his handlebar mustache—was making a fuss over Captain Turner.
    Rumely said, “This Madame DePage—have you read of her?”
    I sipped my snifter, tasted the cognac, let its warmth roll down my gullet. “The Belgium relief fund woman? She’s been too conspicuous in the press to miss, even for an apolitical lout like myself. Is she travelling the Lusitania ?”
    “Yes, she and the one hundred fifty thousand dollars in war relief cash that she’s raised in recent weeks. Her motives seem sincere—she could rate a good human-interest piece.”
    “Anyone else?”
    “Frohman’ll be aboard. He’s always good for a story. People love show business, you know.”
    Charles Frohman was the leading theatrical producer of the day—the man who brought Peter Pan to the stage, and Maude Adams to Peter Pan .
    Rumely handed me a manila envelope. “There are your tickets and other materials—using the pseudonym you requested. Is the ‘S.S.’ a reference to steamship, or to Mr. S.S.