The Thief (12 page)

“Where is Clyde now?”

“He’s safe. Archie’s with him.”

Marion frowned. “Lillian told me that Archie is still not entirely well.”

“Archie promised to shoot first and avoid fisticuffs.”

“But is he well? Lillian says he still drifts off to sleep sometimes.”

Bell nodded. “It happened last week in Nice. But he snapped out of it. The fact is it’s important to Archie that he pull his own weight. I have to honor that,” he added evenly. “Whether I like it or not.” A warm smile softened his no-nonsense expression. “Which leaves me with time on my hands until we join Captain Turner for dinner tonight. Is there anything you would like to do on our last day at sea?”

Marion stretched across the bed and lifted the receiver from the switch hook of a white telephone affixed to the paneling. “If you would like to shed your scratchy outdoorsy tweeds, you’ll find in that closet a silk dressing gown that I bought for you at Selfridges— Oh, yes, good morning, steward. We would like our breakfast in bed, please— They’re asking what we want.”

“Honeymoon specials.”

T
HAT NIGHT, THEIR LAST NIGHT
at sea, Isaac and Marion and Lillian Hennessy Abbott ate at the Captain’s table in the First Class dining saloon. Archibald Angell Abbott IV sent his regrets. He was busy babysitting Clyde Lynds.

C
LYDE
L
YNDS WATCHED
A
RCHIE
A
BBOTT DRIFT
toward sleep, start awake, then drift again.

Isaac Bell’s redheaded pal would be a goner in ten more minutes, he predicted, and indeed in eight he was fast asleep, sitting up in the chair squeezed into a corner of Clyde’s cabin. Having noticed Archie’s condition, Clyde had prepared for this opportunity by visiting the purser’s office to remove some money from the wallets he and the Professor had left in the safe.

He slipped quietly out the door and signaled a deck steward he had primed to wait, touching a finger to his lips to ensure silence. The steward hurried off and returned quickly with two mates, bigger men then he. They padded quietly along the corridor, their shoes making no sound on the rubber tiles. All three were grinning like men who were about to earn enormous tips for very little effort.

“Ready?”

“Ready, sir.”

“I don’t expect trouble, but just in case.”

“Don’t you worry, sir,” all three assured him.

“If trouble they want, trouble they’ll have.”

“Bet yer sweet life.”

He knew this was crazy. But he had to get a look at the machine to be sure it was O.K. It was a move like this that got the poor Professor the ax, which was why he was paying good money to husky stewards to make sure it didn’t happen to him.

“You know the way?”

“Follow us, sir.”

“Where you headed, Clyde
?”

Clyde Lynds whirled around to discover a wide-awake, hard-eyed Archie Abbott in the doorway behind him. The stewards rushed to his rescue, then thought better of it.

“Whoa, Emma!”

Archie held a pistol tucked tight to his torso. “Take it easy, boys. Where are you headed, Clyde?”

Clyde Lynds explained that he had hired the stewards to escort him safely to the baggage hold so he could see his machine. “I just have to make sure it’s O.K., Mr. Abbott. Can you understand? It’s really important.”

Archie took a close look at Clyde’s “protection squad.” Second Class stewards were a tougher lot than he’d seen in First. And one bruiser looked like he’d stepped into the prize ring, though not recently.

“All right.” He pocketed his pistol. “I’m rear guard. Go ahead, gents. Lead the way.”

They went quickly along the corridor and down companionways, Clyde close behind the stewards and Archie lagging behind Clyde, breathing hard and thinking to himself, I could be dining with my wife instead of herding this motley crew into the bowels of an ocean liner.

Both the swindler and his guard were fast asleep under blankets. Neither stirred when Archie, Lynds, and the stewards crowded into the baggage room. Archie smelled something sharp and acrid that he hadn’t noticed on his last visit. Clyde smelled it, too. He stopped abruptly in front of the row of wooden crates from which the smell emanated.

“I smell tar,” said Archie.

“Could be the wine went bad,” said a steward and laughed, “Why don’t we sample some, see if it’s all right?”

Clyde did not laugh, Archie noticed. The young man wet his lips and looked around nervously.

“What’s the matter, Clyde?”

“Uhhmm.”

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Do you smell something sharp?” Clyde asked.

“Yes, I just said that. So do they. What’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” Clyde answered, slowly, though Archie bet that he did. He laid a tentative hand on one of the crates, bent over it, and sniffed the wood. When he straightened up, Archie thought that he looked terrified.

“Mr. Abbott, we’d better open all the doors and hatches in this baggage room. Immediately—all you men! Open everything. Now!”

The stewards looked about, uncomprehending.

Archie said, “What is going on, Clyde?”

“Unless I’m mistaken,” said Clyde, “these crates contain raw celluloid film stock. Movie film. The tar smell indicates that it’s old and decomposing.”

“So what?”

“It breaks down chemically into a volatile nitrate gas. It will explode.”

“How do you know?”

“I’m a scientist! I experiment all the time with celluloid film. It’s manufactured by dissolving nitrocellulose in camphor and alcohol.”

“Guncotton,” said Archie, as the penny finally dropped. “Highly flammable.”

“The gas generated by the breakdown will do more than burn. First it will explode.
Then
the film will burn. We have to vent the gas before something detonates it.”

“Open everything!” Archie ordered the stewards. “Do it now. Open every door.”

They ran to obey.

Clyde Lynds looked up at a ten-by-ten square opening in the ceiling. “The cargo hatch!”

“What are you doing?” said Archie.

Lynds scrambled onto a crate, reached up, and pulled himself onto the bottom rungs of a ladder that rose into the darkness overhead. “The cargo hatch,” he called down. “If I can open it, the shaft will suck the gas out like a chimney.”

M
ANY DECKS HIGHER AND THREE
hundred feet aft in the First Class dining saloon, Marion said, “Captain, I can’t help but notice that eight of the twelve seats at your table are empty. Surely it can’t be for lack of guests who want to dine with you. This is a splendid dinner, and you are a charming host.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Bell,” Turner replied, studiously ignoring the titans of industry, the London aristocrats, and the American millionaires at nearby tables who were attempting to catch his eye. “I will carry your sweet compliment to my grave. But I only dine with passengers when I feel like it, which is not often. They tend to be a bunch of bloomin’ monkeys, present company excepted.”

“Doesn’t the line object? Isn’t the captain supposed to woo wealthy passengers?”

“Cunard have taken notice of a curious fact,” the captain answered. “The more I insult First Class passengers, the more First Class passengers wish to sail in my ship. It was the same way on the
Lusitania,
my previous command. For some reason the wealthy, particularly the newly wealthy, court abuse. As you know”—Turner lowered his voice and beckoned them closer, conspiratorially—“the White Star Line will soon launch
Olympic
and
Titanic
. Neither will ever match
Mauretania
’s speed, of course, but they will be bigger, and there’s always the appeal of novelty, so competition will be hotter than ever. With that in mind, I’ve suggested to the chairman that I drive up ticket sales by treating passengers in First Class to old-fashioned Royal Navy floggings.”

Isaac Bell and Marion burst out laughing.

“Haven’t heard back from him yet,” Captain Turner chortled. “Presumably he’s debating it with his directors.”

Their laughter was abruptly quelled by a hard thump that rattled the silverware. Crystal rang musically. Five hundred people in the enormous dining saloon fell silent.

Bell thought it felt as if something heavy had smashed the carpeted deck under their feet. Either another vessel had struck the ship, or somewhere in the eight-hundred-and-ninety-foot hull something had exploded with terrific force. Then came the most frightening cry heard at sea.

“Fire!”