The Titanic Secret (15 page)

If a storm broke out, the captain would almost certainly have to reduce speed. If it met a heavy swell, that could be almost as bad, because the submarine might have to turn to meet the waves bow on, as well as reducing speed, which would add to the distance it had to cover, and all of that would cause more delays.

And most important of all, the interception itself would be a one-shot attempt. If the boat didn’t get to the rendezvous position on time, there would be no second chance.

This was one of the reasons why Mansfield Cumming had insisted on manning his office himself. Through his contacts at the Admiralty and elsewhere, he was receiving regular position reports for both the
Titanic
and the submarine. Every time a new report arrived, he would update his chart so that he could refine his estimates for the liner’s progress across the Atlantic, and the corresponding track for HMS
D4
.

That morning, just before eleven, Mrs McTavish had placed a slip of paper on the desk in front of him. The message written on it was brief and to the point. It simply said: ‘Queenstown. 1130. 90-120 mins’, which told him everything he needed to know. The
Titanic
was expected to arrive at Queenstown, its last port of call on the east side of the Atlantic, at half past eleven, and should take between about ninety minutes and two hours to complete the embarkation of the passengers and mail there.

He walked across the office to the chart and pencilled in the new figure. The good news, from his point of view, was that the various delays the ship had experienced meant that it was already slightly behind schedule and that, in turn, should give HMS
D4
a few more precious hours to make it to the rendezvous.

For a minute or so, Mansfield Cumming stared down at the chart, mentally recalculating times and distances. Then he nodded and walked back to his desk. The moment that the
Titanic
raised her anchor at Queenstown, the clock would start ticking. He would be able to calculate the speed – and therefore his best estimate of the ship’s arrival time at the spot he had selected for the rendezvous – much better once he knew the exact time of departure, and her midnight position.

He’d barely sat down again at his desk before Mrs McTavish knocked on the door and then bustled in carrying a typewritten sheet of paper.

‘This is just in from Berlin, sir,’ she said, then turned and left the office.

Mansfield Cumming didn’t even see her go. He was already eagerly scanning the closely typed paragraphs. When he’d finished, he sat back with a satisfied look on his face. It wasn’t good news. In fact it was very bad news, but it was, he hoped, just one more nail in Voss’s coffin.

11 April 1912
RMS
Titanic

Just before eleven thirty the next morning, a dull rumble echoed through the ship, a tremor that could be felt underfoot as the passengers strolled along the decks. The ship had now come to anchor some distance offshore, and was awaiting the arrival of the tenders from Queenstown which would be transferring the last of the transatlantic passengers to the
Titanic
, and both delivering and collecting mail sacks.

Maria and Tremayne spent a few minutes considering the view, and then resumed their perambulations. They had spent their time since eating breakfast strolling, apparently casually, around all the first-class public spaces. This allowed them to keep their eyes open, and to find out where Voss, and the two unidentified men he had eaten dinner with the previous evening, were spending the morning. It was essential that they worked out the pattern of their targets’ movements before they needed to take action.

In fact, locating Voss turned out to be quite easy. On the Promenade Deck, just behind the aft first-class staircase, was a large and elegant smoking room, accessed by doors on both sides of the ship. The only problem for Maria was that it was a male-only preserve.

‘I don’t smoke anyway,’ Maria said, as Tremayne pushed open the port-side door and looked inside. ‘It’s a filthy habit.’

‘Neither do I,’ he replied, ‘but I don’t think it’s compulsory. It’s probably best if you go forward and wait for me in the first-class lounge.’ He gestured towards the next section of the ship’s superstructure. ‘I’ll have a quick look in here. If Voss and his cronies are inside, I’ll stay for a few minutes. If not, then I’ll come straight out and join you.’

Maria nodded in agreement, turned and walked away as Tremayne stepped into the room.

The smoking room was, like all of the
Titanic
’s first-class public rooms, elegance personified. Plaster mouldings decorated the ceiling, from which chandeliers descended, giving the open space a bright and airy feel. Polished beams, resting on carved wooden columns, appeared to support the roof. The walls were panelled with carved and polished mahogany in Georgian style, and inlaid with mother of pearl. The centrepiece of the room was an impressive fireplace, above which was a large painting called ‘Plymouth Harbour 1910’ by Norman Wilkinson. The furniture – mainly occasional tables surrounded by comfortable leather armchairs – provided convenient seating for a group of friends or acquaintances to gather to smoke, drink and talk. And, of course, there was an ample supply of alcohol.

Almost as soon as he walked inside the room, Tremayne spotted Voss sitting at a table on the opposite side. The two other men, the ones he and Maria had seen in the restaurant the previous evening, were sitting with him. All three were smoking cigars and with heavy crystal glasses in front of them which Tremayne guessed contained port. They were deep in conversation.

He ambled slowly across the room to stand in front of the fireplace for a minute or two, looking up at the painting which hung above it. It was a bright and cheerful work, showing the harbour entrance under a blue sky dotted with white clouds. A Royal Navy battleship – a dreadnought – was steaming out of the harbour through the calm water, smoke pouring from its four funnels, while behind it a flotilla of yachts, their sails bright orange against the white stone of the lighthouse, appeared to be engaged in a race. And behind them, the shape of another dreadnought could be seen in the harbour, steam up and preparing to sail.

It was an evocative scene, contrasting the harmless enjoyment of people messing about in boats with the understated but still impressive power of the Royal Navy’s capital ships. In the circumstances, and knowing what he did, Tremayne thought the image somewhat ironic, especially as the people he believed intended to destroy Britain’s maritime supremacy were sitting in the same room.

Below the painting, in the fireplace itself, coals burned brightly, the flames dancing and flickering, and he could feel the heat it generated.

Tremayne glanced around him, marvelling at what he saw. He was in the middle of the ocean, or at least at anchor a couple of miles off the southern coast of Ireland, but he could easily think he was in some elegant country house a hundred miles from the sea. A ship like the
Titanic
really was the only way to travel, he decided.

He turned away from the fireplace and walked across the smoking room, passing close by the table where the three men were sitting.

As he got near, Tremayne offered them a cheerful ‘Good morning’, but received only nods in return. He continued strolling past them and chose another table some distance away, from which he could see the three men, but not hear what they were saying. Then he sat down and ordered a drink – a small Scotch with lots of water – from one of the waiters.

When it arrived, he sipped it slowly while he surreptitiously watched Voss and his two companions. Now that Tremayne was some distance away and unable to hear what they were saying, they’d started their conversation again. Obviously it could just be a normal business meeting, but somehow he doubted it. To him, they had the look of three men who were anticipating good news very soon. There was an air of smug expectation about them.

A smartly dressed pageboy walked into the smoking room, an envelope in his hand, and started making his way around the occupied tables, stopping at three of them and asking questions of the people sitting there. Tremayne was at the far end of the room and the last person that he tried.

‘Sir, I apologise for disturbing you, but are you Mr Alex Maitland?’ he asked.

Tremayne nodded his head. ‘Yes,’ he replied.

‘Thank you, sir. I’ve been asked to give you this,’ the pageboy said, handing over the envelope. ‘I’ve been told it’s an urgent message from your London office. If you need to send a reply, you can obtain a form from the Purser’s Office and send them a Marconigram.’

‘Thanks.’

As soon as the pageboy had walked away, Tremayne opened the envelope and pulled out a single sheet of folded paper. He glanced at it, then replaced it in the envelope, slipped it into his pocket and finished his drink. Then he stood up and walked out of the smoking room.

11 April 1912
RMS
Titanic

On the other side of the smoking room, Gunther Voss glanced round him incuriously, his gaze resting for a few moments on each of the people in the room. The good-looking young man – he had obviously been English – who had spoken to him a few minutes earlier had just stood up and left.

He had looked like precisely the kind of person that Voss despised most: certainly rich – he had to be if he was travelling first class – probably upper-class, and most likely he had never held down a proper job in his entire life. Just a wastrel, a drain on the system, that was all.

He switched his gaze, and his attention, back to what Jonas Bauer was saying.

The banker was a heavy, fleshy man with a large stomach on which he was prone to lace his pudgy and beringed fingers when sitting down. He had narrow shoulders and a head that seemed a little too small for his body, giving him almost the appearance of coming to a point, rather like a pyramid. Oiled black hair, dark-brown eyes and a thick moustache completed the picture. He was a man who enjoyed the sound of his own voice, as Voss had discovered some considerable time ago.

‘The timing is not critical,’ Bauer was saying now, continuing to dominate the conversation. ‘In fact, I’ve already asked some of my associates in New York to begin circulating stories about the British economy. Falling industrial output, high unemployment, inflation beginning to rise, all that kind of thing. Nothing concrete, you understand, nothing that can be attributed to any particular source, and of course nothing that can be proven – or disproven. I expect that within two to three weeks there will be a climate of uncertainty in the financial community in New York, and then a fall in the value of sterling will be widely anticipated, if indeed it has not already begun.’

‘And then you’ll start dumping the pound?’ Voss asked.

‘Precisely. Between us, Lenz and I control something like forty per cent of the banking system in New York. What we do, the rest of the financial institutions do as well, usually within a matter of days, sometimes within hours. As soon as we’re back, we’ll see what the market is doing, and we might start straightaway, if we think the sentiment is right. Otherwise, we’ll start spreading the word ourselves. But whatever happens, I believe we can guarantee a major run on the pound will start within no more than two weeks. And you are sure that the other matter has been taken care of?’

Voss nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I checked the cases myself to ensure that they were correctly labelled and I watched them being loaded into the forward hold of this ship. And the other items are locked away in one of my trunks which is also stored in the hold.’

‘I would have expected you to keep them in your stateroom,’ Bauer said. ‘Surely they’d be safer there?’

‘Probably not. The holds are out of bounds to everyone while the ship’s at sea, but your stateroom is at the mercy of any sneak thief who can undo the lock on the door. If we lost those two pieces of metal, the whole scheme could fall apart. That’s why I put them in my trunk.’

‘That makes sense,’ Lenz Kortig said. ‘And then we can start the second phase of the operation as soon as the cases have been delivered to the warehouse in New York.’

He, too, was a banker, but that was where all resemblance between him and Jonas Bauer ended. Where Bauer was fat, Kortig was thin, his hair and complexion fair, as opposed to his companion’s dark, almost swarthy, appearance. He didn’t talk very much, preferring to listen, to absorb what other people were saying. Kortig firmly believed that his ability to listen was one of the main reasons for his success in the world of finance.

All too often in conversation, people would say things which they shouldn’t have divulged, information which could give an astute listener a slight but definite advantage in any future negotiations. On two occasions, information which he had gleaned in this way and then investigated in depth had allowed him to do rather more than just seize a negotiating advantage: it had allowed him to obtain substantial payments from two wealthy citizens of New York in return for nondisclosure. They had called it blackmail. Kortig had said it was just business.

And it was another conversation which the banker had overheard that had provided both the impetus and the key which had allowed the present scheme to go ahead. A chance remark, which at first Kortig had thought he’d misheard or misunderstood, had led him to a certain individual, a middle-aged man, living in an apartment building in Washington D.C. And that, in turn, had produced an envelope containing half a dozen documents which had first amazed, and then electrified, the banker. He hadn’t hesitated, just handed over the huge sum of money that the man had demanded. Then he’d picked up the envelope and walked out of the apartment.

Kortig had arranged for the documents to be copied, as a safeguard. Two days later, he’d met with Voss and Bauer. And a week after that, they’d known exactly how the plan was going to work.

And now, depending on how long it took the
Titanic
to reach New York, they were no more than a couple of weeks away from implementing a political scheme which would change the western world for ever.