Murder on the Titania and Other Steam-Powered Adventures

by Alex Acks

  “Her muscles have begun to go stiff. But not so much that she cannot be moved. Three, perhaps four hours.”

  Long after he had taken his leave of the lady and Dory, then. He looked at the doctor for a moment, peering hard at the man. He was pale, but composed. “I must laud your professionalism.”

  “After the tragedy that pulled me from my bed early this morning, I confess to finding myself somewhat numb.”

  “I understand. Thank you for your help.”

  “Indeed,” the doctor said. “I’ll go check on Miss Dory, with your leave. There’s nothing to be done here.”

  Geoff waved the man off before bending to examine Lady Caraway a bit more closely. He lifted one of her hands, and noted that that there was something under her fingernails. He scraped a bit of it out with his penknife; it appeared to be skin. Geoff frowned. The lorgnette confirmed a trace of blood as well, and another small spot on the lady’s sleeve, though when he rolled it up there was nothing but a miniscule bruise at the crook of her elbow.

  There were means of murder that could make death look natural, and natural enough to fool a doctor who was distracted by personal grief; it would be naive to not consider that fact. He walked out of the bedroom to see that the guards had arrived. “I think I’d best go talk to Captain MacConnell.”

  Dr. Lehmacher nodded. “Of course. I’m going to escort Miss Dory to her room, then, and get her settled.”

  “Thank you, sir.” He took his leave and returned to the bridge.

  Captain MacConnell greeted him as cordially as ever, though he couldn’t hide the concern in his eyes. “Colonel, we’re about eight hours from port now. Have you had any success finding the culprit?”

  “The matter remains murky,” Geoff admitted. “And I also bear unhappy news; Lady Caraway is now dead, Captain.”

  The man took a step back, grabbing onto the railing that surrounded the ship’s wheel for support. “Foul play?”

  “Perhaps,” Geoff said. “I haven’t ruled out the possibility.”

  The captain shook his head. “This is insane.”

  “It may well be.” Geoff tapped his cane against the deck plates. “Whoever is now in possession of your key did the deed, I believe. It must be found.”

  “The crew has been searched, and nothing has turned up. Though if the murderer is clever, the key could be hidden nearly anywhere.”

  Geoff shook his head sharply. “Not the crew. The passengers.”

  Captain MacConnell looked nothing short of horrified. “With all due respect—”

  Geoff cut him off with a sharp wave of his hand. “The deed was done by one of the passengers. I am certain of it.”

  The captain still shook his head. “There are many powerful people amongst the passengers, Colonel. They will take offense—”

  “Then you tell them that I ordered the searches, under the authority of the Grand Duke. If you must, wait until we’re in the duchy’s air space. Use whatever excuse you must.” He paused, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Give me a passenger manifest. I’ll attempt to divine some likely suspects so that we’re not just shooting in the dark.”

  “If you’re certain there’s no other way…”

  “It’s that, or risk letting a murderer escape.”

  Captain MacConnell bowed his head. “Let us hope that we need not turn over too many stones.”

  As Geoff left the bridge and moved down the hall, a steward ran after him, a sheaf of papers in his hand. Geoff took the passenger lists with a bare nod of acknowledgment, scanning over them quickly. No names leaped out at him. His mind swirled, trying to form connections between the missing key, the murder, the second possible murder…Breakfast, he thought, that was the place to start. He doubted the murderer would be so cold-blooded as to calmly go to breakfast after killing twice. And considering the state of the crew cabin, perhaps he needed to examine which passengers were married. It seemed likely Lord Caraway had been stepping out with a married woman, and thus his death was an act of revenge. But why, then, kill the Lady Caraway as well?

  There were too many factors for an exhausted mind unaccustomed to such problems to tie together at once. He needed to write the facts down, see everything together and connected like the strands of a spider web in black and white. Then the answer might present itself, or at least a reasonable avenue of investigation.

  At the thought of writing, he automatically reached into his pocket, his fingers searching for his pen. He encountered nothing. Geoff paused, trying to recall when he’d last had it; he knew that he’d put it in his pocket before leaving his room for breakfast, and could think of no incident during the meal that would have caused him to lose it. But later, when they’d found Lady Caraway’s body, when Dory had fallen in to a faint, they’d been tangled up for a moment, and perhaps…He changed course, heading for that cabin instead.

  The guard at the door nodded to him, stepping aside. He walked purposefully into the bedroom, glancing around, eying the carpet in particular. At first he noticed nothing, but when he moved to change his angle of view, a glint of silver caught his eye. He knelt down and reached under the chest of drawers to retrieve his pen from where it had rolled.

  There was something caught in the clip on the pen’s cap. Geoff stood, examining the small scrap of cloth. The edges were ragged, as if it had been torn from a much larger piece. He held it close to the lamp, examining the color—a dark maroon—and the cloth—a thick cotton.

  Geoff’s eyes narrowed as he recalled the color of Dr. Lehmacher’s jacket, which he had seen the night before as he left Lady Caraway’s room. And this morning, the good doctor had been wearing gloves, even though he’d forgotten his jacket in his room. Gloves, he thought, to hide scratches; to hide the marks left behind by a woman struggling for her life with an assailant who stood behind her, driving him back into the chest of drawers, knocking over all of the perfume bottles…

  “Fool! You blind, blind fool.” Then he recalled where the doctor had said he would be: escorting Dory back to her room. He bolted for the door.

  “Sir?” the guard asked.

  “You have a passenger list. Tell me which cabin belongs to Miss Isadora Alvarez!” Geoff yanked his own copy of the list from his pocket, fumbling through sheets he’d already put out of order.

  The guard fumbled his own list from his breast pocket. “Cabin 5C, sir.”

  “Follow me,” Geoff commanded. Not glancing back to see if the man was doing as told, he hurried down the hallway, scattering papers as he went. He didn’t pause at Dory’s door, but twisted the knob and flung the door open, sending it crashing against the wall.

  Dory’s cabin was barely bigger than his own. The tiny floor space was covered by a man sprawled across it: Dr. Lehmacher. The doctor’s bag sat open on the small desk. Geoff caught a heavy whiff of the same cloying scent he’d caught in Lady Carraway’s room.

  Geoff paused to check the doctor’s pulse. The man was still alive, but unresponsive, even to being slapped. The glove had been pulled from one of his hands, revealing the angry red scratches that Geoff now expected. A golden wedding band glittered on that hand as well, too big for the finger that it encircled.

  Still trying to make sense of it, Geoff looked at the doctor’s black bag. In its shadow, there was a dark glass bottle, and a crumpled handkerchief. He checked the label on the bottle: chloroform. Cautiously, he prodded the handkerchief, catching another cloying whiff that left him dizzy.

  The handkerchief was his, the one he’d loaned to Dory last night. Taunting him.

  “Sir?” the guard said.

  “Whatever alert you can call, do it,” Geoff snapped, hot rage crawling up his spine. “Don’t let anyone in or out of this room. And find the woman. Now.”

  Geoff lurched from the cabin, slamming the door behind him, his mind racing. That a woman had done all this was bizarre and completely unexpected, but it had to be her. And it was too soon, he thought, too soon for someone so clever to reveal themselves, for that w
as what it had to be: intentional. Why else leave the doctor displayed so prominently in her cabin? Why else place his handkerchief just so? Unless she had another way to escape, a way that left nothing to chance discovery.

  He began to limp down the hall, faster and faster, as his thoughts reached that conclusion, that inescapable conclusion. It took him past baffled guards, crew members, and other passengers. He ignored anything that they said, heading like an arrow for the cargo bay.

  The hefty, gasketed door was unlocked, an accusation of guilt in and of itself, but was still difficult to open; the air was under much greater pressure in the living area of the ship than it was in the cargo bay. Growling with effort and anger, he yanked it open and stalked into the bay.

  It was noisy with the rush of the wind outside; his breath frosted in the far too thin air as he wound his way through the dim, orderly rows of crates stacked ten feet high. He was out of breath and dizzy when he reached the end.

  The cargo bay doors were open, showing brilliant blue sky and white clouds. At the open doors, a woman stood, face covered with a leather air mask and goggles. All she had in common with the girl he had known as “Dory” was her hair, dark brown and wild in the howling wind. She wore men’s clothing, a scarlet frock coat, and brown buckskin pants. Even her posture had changed, her shoulders taking an aggressive set. She carried a cloth satchel strapped across her chest.

  And of all insolent things, she was waiting, obviously waiting. When she caught sight of him, she offered him a bow, unhooking the mask so she could speak, not in the least out of breath in the thin air. He lunged toward her, but she danced back.

  “Come forward again and I shall throw myself out of this airship,” she said, her voice much lower than the tone she had used as Dory. “And then you shan’t have anyone to prosecute.”

  “You!” Geoff shouted. “Murderer!”

  “Hardly,” the woman said. “Murder is just the sort of unreasoning crime of passion that I find deeply abhorrent.”

  “Liar! As if I’m to believe anything you say!”

  “When you look over your evidence, you’ll see it line up if you don’t willfully blind yourself to it. But I will do you the courtesy of explaining the bare bones of the events, dearest Colonel.” The woman leaned casually against the arm of the loading crane. “Lord Caraway had the captain’s master key because he wished to have a secret rendezvous with a lover. They met in the crew quarters because there were no other empty cabins or private rooms to be had. His wife, suspicious, followed, and caught them in the act. When he tried to give chase, in her rage, she pushed him down the stairs, and then took his wedding ring for reasons of her own.”

  “I hardly think such a frail woman…”

  “Hardly think is correct,” she said, her tone bitter. “You waste so much time underestimating us, Colonel, and do your treasured cause of law and order no service by discounting fifty percent of the population as suspects. I have no doubt that you know the sort of strength that can be bestowed by the unreasoning rage of the betrayed. Women are just as capable of that feeling.” She dismissed his further attempt at protest with a flick of her fingers. “His lover, terrified of discovery, attempted to make it look like a robbery, taking his obvious jewelry and running in blind panic.”

  “And that was you.”

  “Don’t be stupid. That was Dr. Lehmacher.”

  “That—that—that’s unnatural!” The very thought of it left him feeling sick, but a traitorous corner of his mind said that sick might indeed be the explanation for the smudge of blood in the men’s toilet. He’d seen many a pale recruit lose their composure and their last meal upon the death of a friend, let alone a…And that was where he stopped that thought.

  She looked at him coldly. “Judge as you like. I tend to think that murder is a crime against nature, and the rest is none of your concern. Anyway, it was mere luck that I happened upon Lord Caraway’s body and liberated the master key before raising the alarm. It saved me a great deal of trouble.” She glanced out the cargo bay doors. “Later, the good doctor confronted Lady Caraway and saw to her demise, though out of desire for revenge or desire to protect himself from blackmail, I cannot guess. My money would be on revenge, since it was he who took Lord Caraway’s wedding ring from her. If you examine her body carefully, you’ll find a needle mark where he injected air into one of her veins after first pacifying her with chloroform.”

  “Then what was your part in this?” Geoff demanded. Already, he cursed himself for not seeing things that seemed so obvious in retrospect, for being so trusting of the wrong people. It was a lesson he would not soon forget.

  “Only the most superficial. I had other matters to attend to on this ship and just so happened to be in the right place at the right time, I suppose you could say. Though it was jolly fun to give you a hand.”

  “What other business?” He could already guess, his gut sinking.

  She smiled. “Oh, but that would be telling. You’ll find out soon enough.” Again, that quick glance out the doors. “I do hope to hear that when you hang Lehmacher, it will be for his actions as a murderer rather than his poor decision to help a married man commit adultery.”

  “Or you’ll do what?” Geoff managed something like a smirk, edging forward.

  “If you wish me to make your life a bigger misery than your predecessor’s was, I’ll be happy to oblige. And now I must take my leave.”

  “My predecessor? Wait…who are you?”

  “Captain Ramos, at your service.” She bowed mockingly, as a man would.

  “Impossible!” Captain Ramos was discussed like the top prey for big game hunters among the upper echelons of security, but always in terms of who would achieve undying fame by taking him down.

  But perhaps that had been one more bit unconscionable ego on the part of a field inhabited by men.

  “Obviously not impossible, as I stand before you.” She smirked. “But perhaps highly improbable.” Without a backward glance, she jumped from the cargo bay doors. He caught one instant of her shape against the sky, perfect and streamlined like a diver, and then she was gone.

  Geoff let out a shout of horror, all but forgetting his anger for a moment. He lunged forward as if he could stop her, barely catching himself against the support from the loading crane to stop from tumbling out the doors himself. For a moment, the support post sang with tension, and he realized that there was a thin silk rope, colored gray to make it difficult to see, tied securely there. For a moment, he stared at the taut line. Suddenly it went slack. Geoff reeled the rope in, already knowing what would be at the end: nothing. Heart racing, he leaned out as far as he could, trying to see where she might have been gone. The roaring wind whipped his hair around his head. He saw only a rapidly dispersing trail of white smoke and steam.

  There was nothing else to be done; he shut the cargo bay doors with the nearby pressure wheel before he slumped down to the floor, breathing heavily. “We’ll see whose life ends up a misery,” he said. “I don’t give up easily.”

  Another craft flew below the airship, this one held aloft by wings and the power of a steam generator, instead of lighter than air gas. It was precisely where it was supposed to be, and at the right time, much to the approval of Marta Ramos, known until lately to the colonel as “Dory.”

  The thin rope stopped her free fall from the Titania about six feet above the little aeroplane. For a dizzying moment she swung back and forth; with perfect timing, she released the clip that held the rope to the harness she wore under her jacket and landed on top of the plane’s wing, catching herself on the handholds. Grinning, she scrambled down into the copilot’s seat, closing the glass canopy behind her.

  “You can take us down now, Simms,” she said.

  “Aye, sir.” Meriwether Octavian Simms, known by preference as simply “Simms,” let the plane drop away from the airship, and then pointed its nose toward the still-distant mountains that lay west of the Grand Duchy of Denver. “You get everything you went i
n for?”

  “Possibly even more.” Marta unslung her satchel and opened it up, removing several leather-bound journals and a set of carefully folded papers. “I took the liberty of raiding Professor Jefferson’s belongings since I’ve found some of his research rather interesting. And I hadn’t realized it, but the dear man was actually on board to meet up with one Dr. Lehmacher. He’d recently been in Germany and had some secret papers to hand over, so I took those as well.” She paused for a second, her lips curling into an amused smile. “That gentleman certainly won’t have use for them. It’s likely just some inbred idiot slighting another inbred idiot, but it could turn out to be useful.”

  “That’s not quite what I meant, sir.”

  Marta was already paging through one of the journals, eying the chemical formulae therein. “Do stop being so obtuse, Simms.”

  The pilot snorted. “The jewels. You know, the ones the Grand Duke got for his daughter? The whole point of this jolly little adventure of yours? Those jewels?”

  “Oh, those. Must you always be so concerned with money?”

  “I may not be as good at math as you, but I know that jewels sell for money, and money equals food, thank you very much. And we’ve got no shortage of mouths to feed back home.”

  “Our financial situation has never been so desperate as that, I’m sure, so you needn’t be dramatic.” She dug back into the satchel. “You’d think that he’d invest in a more intelligent security chief and a better safe to transport them in.” She came out with two black velvet boxes and opened one. “See? Here they are…” Her voice trailed off as she examined them. “Hm.”

  “Hm, what? What’s that mean?”

  Marta pulled a small magnifying glass from a pocket in her coat and examined the glittering jewelry that sat in the box. Suddenly, she laughed.