The Titanic Secret (18 page)

She passed the message form over and Tremayne studied it, then nodded. Whoever had composed the message had a good descriptive eye, and the two brief word-pictures suited Voss’s companions exactly.

‘No argument there. So now at least we know who they are.’

Just before four o’clock, they climbed the staircase up to the Promenade Deck and, as before, they separated, Maria going forward to the first-class lounge while Tremayne walked into the all-male preserve of the smoking room. They’d walked by the windows a couple of times during the afternoon, and each time they had seen that Voss and his two companions were still in there. On the third and last occasion, the three men had been absent, but when Tremayne and Maria walked a few yards further aft, they saw that their quarry had simply moved into the Verandah Café to take afternoon tea.

They were clearly creatures of habit. In their perambulations around the ship, Tremayne and Maria had seen many of the other passengers making use of the
Titanic
’s excellent leisure facilities: the first-class section of the ship boasted a swimming pool, a Turkish bath, plus a fully equipped gymnasium and a squash court for the more energetic. Maria had even spotted John Jacob Astor in the gymnasium enthusiastically pounding away on one of the rowing machines. In contrast, the three people they were interested in seemed merely to move from one restaurant, café or lounge to another. But as Tremayne had remarked to Maria earlier, from the size of the man, he doubted if Jonas Bauer had moved at faster than a slow amble for the last ten years. And it did make Tremayne’s job slightly easier, knowing that the three men would usually be together, and in one of a limited number of locations.

Now, as Tremayne walked through the door, he saw the three men again on the far side of the room. As usual they were deep in conversation.

Tremayne chose a seat in the opposite corner, and then settled down to watch and wait. He’d brought a novel with him –
Psmith in the City
by P.G. Wodehouse, an author he’d always enjoyed – and placed the book with its distinctive blue cover, showing two seated figures either side of a cluttered office desk, on the table in front of him, but realistically he didn’t expect to read much more than a few words.

After about forty minutes, Voss and his two companions stood up and started walking towards the main doors of the smoking room.

Tremayne decided to give them a few seconds’ start, and watched as the three men left the room.

Then, as he saw them begin descending the aft first-class staircase, he stood up and began following, keeping a few yards back. The three men were making their way down slowly, still talking, snatches of their conversation just audible.

But they didn’t go far, stopping on B-Deck for a few moments to exchange some final words. Tremayne stayed on the deck above, waiting and listening. Then there was silence, and he moved quickly down the staircase. One figure – Voss – was descending to the deck below, but Tremayne moved across to the port-side corridor and glanced through the open door. Two figures were retreating down the passageway in front of him.

Then he moved back to the staircase and walked down it. Ahead of him, Voss stepped off the staircase and turned right.

It looked as if Voss’s stateroom was on the same deck as Maria and Tremayne’s. Tremayne smiled. Most convenient.

He watched as Voss turned right again, to walk down the port-side passageway, and made an immediate decision. He knew there were lavatories on one of the cross passages which led off the corridor Voss was walking down, and that would give him an excuse to be in the passageway.

He strode forward, a few yards behind Voss, who eventually stopped outside a door on the left-hand side of the corridor. He took a key from his pocket and inserted it in the lock just as Tremayne reached him.

Almost opposite that door was one of the cross passages, and Tremayne immediately turned right, walked a few paces, and stepped into the male facilities. A couple of minutes later, he opened the door and peered out, but the corridor was deserted. He now knew which suite Voss was occupying.

Tremayne walked across to the starboard passage, and then turned right to head back to the staircase. He climbed swiftly back up to the Promenade Deck and strolled into the lounge to rejoin Maria, who was sitting at a table beside one of the large windows.

‘They’ve gone down to get ready for the evening?’ she asked, as he sat down beside her.

Tremayne nodded. ‘The other two must have staterooms on B-Deck, but Voss is on C-Deck, the same as us.’

‘And you saw which door he went in?’

‘Yes. It’s on the same passageway as us, but quite a way further forward, almost opposite one of the cross passages. Fortunately, because of where it is, it should be easy enough to spot Voss when he comes out.’

A few minutes later they left the lounge and walked down to their deck. Tremayne unlocked the door of the stateroom and then closed it behind them.

‘When do you want to do it?’ Maria asked.

‘No time like the present. Let’s get ready for dinner now, and as soon as we’re dressed we can keep an eye on Voss’s suite. Once we’re sure he’s gone for the evening, I’ll get inside and start searching.’

‘You’re sure you can unlock it, then?’

‘No problem.’ Tremayne unzipped a compartment in his portmanteau and produced a small leather case. He opened it and showed Maria a collection of unusual-looking tools, some L-shaped, others flat, and some pointed.

‘Lock picks,’ she stated.

‘I never travel without them.’

‘Some day,’ she said, ‘you must tell me where you learned some of your more unusual skills.’

‘As I said before, Mansfield Cumming likes his people to be competent in whatever they do. It wasn’t just lock-smithing I was taught. I also spent quite some time with two circus per-fomers.’ Tremayne paused and looked over at Maria.

She took the bait. ‘Who? Trapeze artists maybe?’

Tremayne shook his head. ‘Nothing so exotic. An escapologist and a knife-thrower. Both more useful skills than being able to hang upside down from a trapeze.’

While Tremayne kept watch down the corridor, Maria quickly donned her evening clothes. This time she wore a creation of shimmering silk chiffon in a wonderful shade of lavender with a darker blue top, trimmed with white lace. In her dark hair she placed a velvet band with a cluster of jewels on one side. Again Tremayne found himself staring at her with more than a casual appreciation of a beautiful woman. Then they changed places while Tremayne got dressed. But it was another thirty minutes or so before the door of the suite finally opened, and Gunther Voss emerged, resplendent in black tie and dinner jacket. He locked the door behind him, and then strolled off down the corridor in the opposite direction.

Tremayne looked at his watch. It was twenty-five minutes past six.

‘Dinner doesn’t start for over another half hour, so he’s probably going somewhere to have an aperitif. Just to make sure that I get a clear run, let’s go down to the reception room on D-Deck. With any luck we’ll see Voss going into the dining saloon.’

Voss wasn’t in the reception room when they got down there, but he appeared with his two companions a few minutes later. As Tremayne had expected, the three men sat down at a table and ordered drinks and then, on the stroke of seven, the three of them walked through into the dining saloon.

‘That should keep him out of our way for at least a couple of hours,’ Tremayne said, as he finished his own drink. ‘Let’s get started.’

11 April 1912
RMS
Titanic

Tremayne and Maria walked back to their stateroom on C-Deck. At this time in the evening, the corridors, passages and staircases were largely deserted. If there was ever a good time for a burglary, this was probably it.

In their room, Tremayne unlocked his portmanteau and took out the Browning pistol that Mansfield Cumming had given him back in London. He released the magazine, opened the box of ammunition, and expertly loaded it. But he didn’t pull back the slide to chamber a round and cock the weapon. He was carrying it purely for self-defence purposes, and he knew that if he had to draw it, he would have time enough then to ready it for firing: the process only took about a third of a second.

‘Here’s hoping you don’t need to use that,’ Maria said, as Tremayne slid the compact pistol into the right-hand pocket of his trousers.

‘So do I. But now we’re taking the fight to the enemy, as it were. We carry our weapons at all times, loaded, of course. Your pistol can easily fit inside your handbag.’

Maria smiled at him and opened the top of the bag a few inches to reveal the black chequered butt of her Browning. ‘My pistol has been with me ever since we stepped on board the ship.’

‘I’m not entirely surprised,’ Tremayne said, ‘and I’m really glad I’ve got you watching my back.’ He paused for a moment, then added: ‘I know we only met a few days ago, and then got thrust into this situation together, but I absolutely know I can trust you with my life. And I hope you feel the same way about me.’

Maria nodded. ‘You’re okay, Alex. When I first saw you, I thought you were a typical English upper-class idiot, despite what Mansfield had told me about you, but now I know he was right and I was wrong. First impressions so often are. We’re working well together, and you’re right: I would trust you with my life.’

‘Nobody’s ever called me “upper-class” before. I don’t know whether to be flattered or insulted.’

‘Take it whichever way you like. Now we need to get to work. I’ll be watching your back, as you said. So where do you want me to be, and what signals do you want me to make?’

Tremayne nodded. ‘Once I’m inside, station yourself at the end of the cross passageway, where you’ll be able to see up and down the corridor. Just pretend to be an irritated woman waiting for her husband to come out of the lavatory. That should come easy. I’m not bothered about other passengers or stewards, but if you see Voss, either of the other two men, or anybody who might be one of Voss’s bodyguards, walk over to the door and knock three times. That’ll give me time to get out of sight.’

Tremayne checked that he had his lock-picking tools, then stepped out into the corridor, which was still deserted. He walked quickly down it, Maria beside him, past the staircase lobby and the barber’s shop, and stopped close to the door of Voss’s suite. Again he checked that he was unobserved, then rapped sharply on the door, twice.

If Gunther Voss had left one of his bodyguards in his stateroom, then the man would now appear at the door. But there was no sound of movement that Tremayne could detect.

After another glance up and down the corridor, he took two steel tools from his leather pouch, bent down and started working on the lock. He inserted a tiny wrench into the keyhole to apply a turning force, and then used a pick to locate and move the pins of the barrel. It was delicate, tactile work, as he tried to visualize in his mind’s eye what the pick was telling his fingers about the shape of the lock itself.

Tremayne had done this many times before, and in less than thirty seconds the last of the pins clicked upwards, and the wrench turned smoothly in the lock. He slid the tools back into his pocket, opened the door and stepped inside the stateroom.

At that moment, Maria was splitting her attention between Tremayne and what he was doing with the door lock and the corridor in which they were standing. As the door closed behind him, she saw two figures approaching from her left and turned to look at them, but then dismissed them as a threat: they were a middle-aged man and woman and as she watched they entered another stateroom some way down the corridor. But because she was looking that way, she failed to notice a heavily built man wearing a dinner jacket who appeared at the far end of the passageway to her right. For a few seconds, the man looked down the corridor towards Voss’s stateroom, and then he stepped backwards and retreated the way he had come.

For a fleeting second, as she turned her head to the right, Maria thought she saw movement in her peripheral vision, but when she looked down the corridor, there was nobody in sight.

The room Tremayne and Maria were occupying was opulent enough, but Voss’s suite provided a whole new level of luxury. Tremayne found himself standing in a large lounge panelled in a dark wood, perhaps walnut or mahogany, and equipped with a gilt fireplace adorned with flowers in front of the grate and a painting, a still life which also depicted a bouquet, in a heavy gold frame above it. On the mantelpiece stood an ormolu clock and a pair of small jewelled vases, and either side of the fireplace twin wall lights illuminated the stateroom. A comfortable sofa covered in an elegant patterned fabric, two matching armchairs and an occasional table comprised the main furnishings. Heavy curtains were draped over the large windows, the carpets were thick underfoot, and all the decoration was simply sumptuous. Again, Tremayne found it difficult to believe he was actually on board a ship.

He moved quickly across the stateroom and looked around him, checking for cupboards and drawers, anywhere that Voss might have secreted papers or documents, but saw no obvious hiding places. In fact, he could see no sign of personal belongings anywhere in the room.

In the bedroom it was a different story. Two large leather suitcases stood against one wall, but the moment Tremayne lifted them he knew they were both empty. He turned his attention to the wardrobes, opening the doors wide to reveal suits, jackets, trousers and shoes. Drawers yielded shirts, socks, underwear and ties, all entirely innocent.

On the table beside the bed were two novels –
Under Western Eyes
by Joseph Conrad and
The Olympian: A Story of the City
by James Oppenheim – and a swift flick of the pages showed that there was nothing concealed in them.

The only place left to check was under the bed. Tremayne lifted the edge of the counterpane and looked underneath. Right in front of him, he saw a small leather case with two catches. He pulled it out and placed it on the bed.

The catches were locked, but another of his tools released them in a matter of seconds. Tremayne snapped them both open and lifted the lid.