The Thief

Archie took Lynds’s elbow. “You must tell me about your jail experiences.”

Bell steered Beiderbecke into the small bar at the front end of the lounge. “I’ve got a case of groom’s jumps. I hope you’ll join me in a drink?”

“I am not quite over my seasickness.”

“A ‘stabilizer’ for the gentleman,” Bell told the barman. “A dash and a splash for me, please.” “The stabilizer is half brandy, half port,” he explained to Beiderbecke.

Beiderbecke shuddered.

“Trust me, it works.”

“It is gracious of you to invite us to your wedding.” The Vie

Bell raised his whiskey and soda to the Vie

“And to your bride’s happiness.”

Beiderbecke sipped doubtfully and looked surprised. “The effect is immediate.”

“I told you you can trust me,” said Bell. “Now, can you tell me what exactly does an electro-acoustic scientist do?”

Franz Beiderbecke looked guilelessly at the tall detective. “I experiment how sounds might be recorded faithfully by employing electricity instead of mechanical means.”

“Can that be done?”

“That is my hope. In theory, it is a simple matter of amplifying and regenerating weak electrical signals. Though the actual doing of it is not so simple. But wait—” He blinked, perplexedly. “Wait! How do you know that? I did not discuss my field with you.”

“I was curious,” said Bell. “I marconigraphed a colleague in Berlin, who informed me that you are a famous scientist in the field of electro-acoustics.”

“Marconigrams are dear. You went to considerable expense to inquire about me.”

“I don’t often meet inventors of so-called secret inventions.”

“Can you blame my protégé for being cautious?”

“I blame Clyde for risking your lives,” Bell said bluntly. “He may be smart, but he’s not smart enough to distinguish friend from foe. You know that I won’t betray you to the people I stopped from kidnapping you.”

Beiderbecke touched the stabilizer to his lips. “Don’t you find protégés are more interesting that one’s own children?”

“Don’t talk circles around a deadly subject, Professor. You and Clyde are in danger. What if they have accomplices on the ship? If you do make it to New York intact, what makes you think that a powerful trust like Krieg Rüstungswerk can’t grab you in America?”

“I think of Prussians as pathologically insular.”

“You have invented something that those Prussians regard as unique. What sort of a weapon is it?”

“Weapon? Sprechendlichtspieltheater is not a weapon.”

“Sprechend-what?”

Beiderbecke put his glass down and repeated staunchly, “It is not a weapon. And I will say no more of it. I gave Clyde my word.”

“If it’s not a weapon why does a munitions trust want it?”

“I do not know. It is not for war. It is for education. It is for science. For communication. Industrial improvement. Even public amusement. It is—”

Clyde Lynds was approaching, trailed closely by Archie, who gave Bell a look that said he had diverted him as long as he could. Beiderbecke appeared deeply relieved by the interruption. “Ah, Clyde. I was just giving Mr. Bell an older man’s advice on how to survive marriage.”

“Wha’d he tell you, Mr. Bell?”

Bell said, “Say it again, Professor. I could never put it so eloquently.”

“I shall attempt to repeat it,” said Beiderbecke, shooting Bell a grateful look for going along with his dodge. “Since men and women are such different types of creatures, their only hope of getting along with each other is to love each other.”

“In other words,” said Isaac Bell, “The love they have in common is all they need in common.”

Archie Abbott opened his watch. “Assuming Miss Marion Morgan has not jumped ship, it’s time to test that theory.”

6

“Shipmates!” roared Captain William Turner, a short, square-jawed, squint-eyed man in his fifties with a great ship’s prow of a nose and enormous ears. His hearty seaman’s voice carried to every corner of the Mauretania’s Saloon Lounge, where hundreds of First Class passengers had come dressed in their best to celebrate the novelty of a wedding at sea.

None were disappointed.

The bride was bewitchingly beautiful in a daring, close-fitting cream-colored dress with a high waistline that suited her erect carriage and a sash of diaphanous silk that promised, discreetly, an enchanting décolletage. Her blond hair was swept up high on her head, circled by an abbreviated veil that graced her high brow, and capped with a tiara made of rosebuds instead of diamonds. Diamonds, all agreed, would have paled beside her dazzling eyes.

Her golden-haired groom stood proudly at her side in a tailcoat. He was tall and straight-backed as a cavalry officer. Beneath his gold mustache, his lips parted in a smile that twitched repeatedly into a broad grin.

The beautiful matron of honor and handsome best man wore expressions of sheer delight for their friends. The Mauretania’s famously standoffish captain was a vision of cordiality, aglitter in the dress uniform of the Royal Naval Reserve, with buttons, belt, braid, and epaulets of gold, a sword at his side, and a hat cocked fore and aft on his head.

“We are gathered together in the sight of God and in the face of Mauretania’s passengers and ship’s company to join this man and this woman in matrimony, which is an honorable estate…”

With the attention of the entire ship riveted by the wedding, Professor Beiderbecke calculated it would be safe to visit the baggage hold, deep below and far to the back, to check on the well-being of his machines and instruments. He retreated before the ceremony began, pleading that his seasickness was worse, even though the sea had calmed and most passengers were moving about with color restored to their faces.

Clyde had barely noticed. The young man was in a high state of excitement, put there initially by gaining entrance to the sumptuous First Class lounge, then by being seated next to an exotic Russian woman of Marion’s acquaintance. Dark-eyed Mademoiselle Viorets was no exception to Beiderbecke’s experience that Russian women were intoxicating. Poor Clyde was panting like a Austrian Brandlbracke puppy.

Fearing that the way into the bowels of the gigantic ship would be a confusing labyrinth of stairs and passageways, the Professor had studied builders’ drawings in the library and committed them to memory just as he would schematics for arcane electrical circuits or the latest triode vacuum tubes.

Rich carpets and ru

Suddenly he had a strange feeling that someone was watching him. His first terrible thought was that the Akrobat—as he had dubbed the long-armed, agile thief who had tried twice to steal his Sprechendlichtspieltheater machine — was stalking him again.

Impossible. Beiderbecke had seen with his own eyes the mysterious Akrobat jump off the Mauretania into the sea. Nonetheless, he stopped in his tracks and cast a fearful glance up the stairs. No one. He craned his neck to peer down another flight. No one. He poked his head into a corridor, saw no one, and continued down into a crew section, past rudimentary sleeping quarters and lavatories, storage rooms, and pantries. The air grew oppressive.