Titanic 2012: Curse of RMS Titanic

THIRTEEN

Tim McAffey’s dead features were intact beneath the bark-hardened exterior, at least enough to identify him, and still no sign of the other man, Francis. Also lying here was the mysterious, ancient wolf-like creature with its enormous haunches and hair as thick and matted as a woolly mammoth. The creature was stiff as old tree bark. It looked like a once muscular, energy-charged, huge, long dead and dehydrated beastie of fable.

All this lay before them. Thomas Coogan had returned with his professor and mentor, Dr. Enoch Bellingham and a tall, imposing Chief Inspector Ian Reahall.

Reahall quickly sized up the situation as Ransom studied him and the professor. Bellingham looked uncomfortable, shaky—his thin frame hardly capable of holding his coat on his shoulders. In fact, the good doctor, perhaps in his late fifties, looked sickly and appeared somewhat corpselike himself, but he at least had his color. Dr. Bellingham or Dr. B as everyone was calling him tentatively knelt over McAffey’s dessicated body.

Ransom quickly concluded that Reahall, a man slightly larger than Ransom himself and looking like he enjoyed three meals a day, was most assuredly given to a bad habit he’d found in most police investigators—a preference for wild conjecture over fact. Ransom recalled fashioning the facts to fit the crime; it was a dangerous practice and could lead a man down a primrose lane faster than falling down a rabbit hole.

“Enoch,” Reahall said to Dr. Bellingham and Ransom noted the two were on a first name basis. "The dead man must have been attacked by the missing O’Toole who appears to’ve used a blow torch as his weapon to so disfigure a man! You know, the sort used at the shipyards by the riveters and steel workers.”

While it sounded just dandy, Ransom knew the local constable was drawing at straws and hoping for quick corroboration from the doctor.

“We find O’Toole,” continued Reahall, “and by God, we find the weapon, case closed.” Reahall’s self-assured tone had the effect of getting a nod from everyone except Ransom and Declan, and why not? It answered the unsettling thoughts, the unfamiliar odors, and unheard of sights before them; in a word it made sense—converted the unknown to the known and so fended off unreasonable fear.

Usually a good approach, but in this case, Ransom knew better, and so he guessed, did Declan. The details simply did not fit with Reahall’s ‘facts’. Still, the others quickly grasped at the proffered straw.

“And what of the beast?” asked Ransom with a kick at the animal corpse which he immediately regretted as he shouted in pain shooting through his toe. Once he regained his composure, he said to his Belfast counterpart, “Constable, really how can a torch do this kind of damage to a man? It’s not burns; you’d smell the flesh if it’d been caused by fire—and look at the man’s clothes! Untouched by fire. No, this… this is something I’ve never encountered, sir. Have you? Have you really?”

“I know of you, sir. Mr. Private Detective, and I know you were once yourself on the Pinkerton payroll—as strike breaker, correct?”

Like most men, Reahall’s tone made it clear that a strike breaker was a creature of the lowest depths, worthy only of contempt, but Ransom had only hired on in Dublin for a month so as not to starve. The Constable’s done some digging about, like a pig at truffles, Ransom thought but said, “Wyland, sir, Wyland’s the name, but that’s hardly the question before us, inspector.”

“Constable… here in Belfast it is constable. I understand until recently a select few detectives in Chicago were called inspectors—masters at their work, I understand?”

Ransom fought an urge to scratch his ear or head, thinking if not careful down to each word that this man smelling of cheap cologne had him dead-to-rights. “I wouldn’t know about that, Constable!” He gave out with a laugh. “A-And no, sir, never with the Pinkertons.”

“I have a report of a Wyland in Dublin at a mine there working for the Pinkertons.”

“I applied once, but flatly turned down. Something about my drinking turned up in a background check, and those Pinkerton executives are sorely conservative fellows. Wouldn’t have the likes of me, no sir, so—” he continued to fabricate. “Not me, no. This old man…”

“I see, you’re just a private investigator.”

“Rather poor one at that these many years. Work for hire, it is. I work for citizens who need a wee bit of help is all—like the lads here.” He indicated Declan and Thomas.

“Ahh, provide a bit’o muscle from time to time, eh?”

“Leverage… clout when needed.”

“Yes, clout it is, I see,” replied Reahall, a man Ransom’s height and girth. Ransom imagined it would be a close fight between them in a ring or back alley. “There’s now a fourth missing man too close on for comfort.” Reahall indicated to Ransom to step off with him to speak in relative privacy.

“Another man gone missing?”

“Yes, well, not a man so much as a Pinkerton agent!” Reahall laughed at his own joke before calming enough to continue. “Man’s name is Tuttle. One of a handful guarding Titanic at holding slip 401. Harry Tuttle—ever any dealings with him?”

“Tuttle, Tuttle? Hmmm… no, can’t say as I have.”

“Tuttle?” gasped Thomas, overhearing. “Declan, you remember—”

“Tuttle, yes, the night Uncle went missing, this fellow Tuttle was at the forecastle. Shooed us off from where we stood at the base of the ship near the open cargo hold.”

“You spoke to him?” asked Reahall.

“Yes, I mean no but—”

“Which is it Coogan?”

“I mean, we told him we were looking for my uncle.”

Declan added, “We were about to step onto the ship in search of Mr. Fiore when Tuttle threatened us.”

“Threatened you?” Reahall grew excited at the term.

“He had two others with guns all pointing, so we got out of there fast.”

“Did Tuttle look upset, make any strange remarks, what?” pressed Ransom.

“We couldn’t really see him or read him,” replied Thomas.

“He was on the topmost deck and we on the dock,” explained Declan. “And it was dark.”

“I argued with him.” Thomas waved his hands in the air. “He called my uncle a drunk.”

Declan leaped in with, “Tuttle said he thought the watchman might be at the nearest watering hole as he put it, implied since Thomas’ uncle was Irish, he’d be after a drink—along with all the other Paddy’s.”

“He said that?” asked Ransom.

“Something to that effect, yes. Implied a lot.”

“And you boys got angry and argued with him?” asked Reahall.

“I pulled Thomas off, and we went searching elsewhere for his Uncle Anton.”

“Searching where?”

“His house, hoping he’d gone home to bed, thinking him perhaps unwell.”

“I see.” Reahall rubbed his chin, striking a pose, looking thoughtful. “And next thing we know, Tuttle is gone as well… and no one has seen or heard from O’Toole. I arrested O’Toole a couple of times for drunk ’n’ disorderly. I warrant the man is somehow behind this mystery.”

“Unless he, like the others, is a victim,” suggested Ransom.

“Four men gone missing…” muttered Declan. “All in a matter of one night.”

“I presume you interviewed the other Pinkerton agents?” asked Ransom of Reahall. “Agents are rough men, often hired for their transgressions and brought into the fold. Some have been known to go bad once they’re given a spot of power and a gun.”

“A falling out among the scum, eh?” said Reahall. “I suppose you know all about that, being from Chicago.”

“Boston, actually. As for Chicago, I have found it no worse than any other major city, including Irish cities; each having its underbelly.”

“So now that you have your start here at the mine in searching for Fiore,” replied Reahall, taking another tack with Ransom,“where might you go next to locate the missing watchman or O’Toole for that matter?”

Ransom continued huddled with Reahall. “If there is a connection between Fiore and O’Toole, perhaps the shipyard is the place to continue,” suggested Ransom. “401 –Titanic as of now a fourth man’s gone missing from this general locale. Tuttle was guarding the ship, Fiore guarding the yard, McAffey in a sense, being a super, was by definition a guard at the mine.”

Reahall beamed at the direction Ransom was taking now. “Shades of anarchy at work, you surmise?”

“It would be my first guess—if not for the elephant in the room.”

“You mean the beast here?” Reahall pointed a boot at the animal carcass.

“If it weren’t for that and the condition of McAffey’s body, I’d definitely be rounding up suspected and known anarchists about now, yes.”

“You are a policeman at heart—a detective in Boston, you say?”

“I was a private detective there,” he lied atop the lie. He’d only passed through Boston on his way to taking a berth on a merchant marine bound for Ireland after his escape from Chicago.

“Suppose our anarchists have some new chemical they’ve doused McAffey and some pony-sized stray dog with? Something that blackens the skin and turns it hard?”

“Yes, these anarchists—least the ones I encountered in Boston—they were always seeking to find new types of explosives and chemical weapons, true. True indeed. Knew one fellow who had cultured a batch of smallpox, but I know of no such chemical that could kill a man so surely as this. Why look at these two! What could’ve done this? To leave a man like this?” Ransom indicated McAffey’s horrid remains. “Do you, Constable Reahall know of any chemical form of combustion to do this?”

“Acid perhaps?” Reahall looked to Dr. Bellingham for an answer, but Dr. B was once again mesmerized by what his eyes were taking in. It took Reahall shaking the man to bring him to reply. “Yes, yes… well… we need to view the man’s entire body sans clothing to make any intelligent guesswork. As to an estimate of time of death, given the petrified nature of the exterior… . I mean it has gone from seeming like tanned hide to a rocklike texture just since I’ve arrived—and a likely corresponding dehydration of the interior makes any estimate sheer folly.”

Bellingham was clearly out of his element and dazed.

“I mean the discoloration is so damnably uniform about the face and hands and forearms. I suspect if we cut away his shirt…”

Declan finished for Dr. B, saying, “The blackened skin will likely cover the man’s entire frame. Isn’t that right, Dr. B?”

. “I’ll ask the questions here,” Reahall said, anxious to control the uncontrollable. He then looked into Bellingham’s eyes and said, “Well then, Enoch, cut away the man’s clothes and let’s have a look, shall we?”

But Bellingham seemed no more anxious to touch the dead man than did Reahall, and no one could blame him.

Declan snatched out a scalpel from a double-thick leather sleeve clipped to an inside pocket of his tweed jacket. Both jacket and scalpel had been given him by his father—a surgeon back in his home town in Wales where he grew up neighbors to Thomas and his family. As a result, Declan carried the scalpel on him at all times, and so now holding its gleaming surface up to everyone’s eyes, he asked Dr. Bellingham, “Would you like me to do the honors, sir?”

Bellingham stammered, “Ahhh… well, son… Declan…”

“I’ve already handled both corpses, sir; if it’s contagious, I’m already dead—along with Mr. Wyland and likely Thomas as well.”

Bellingham took a deep breath. “Yes… by all means, Mr. Irvin, do cut away the clothing. Let us have a look at the chest. You there, man, hold the lantern closer.”

Walter McComas did as asked, no questions, his beaked nose like a snapping turtle, his frame that of a scarecrow.

Declan kneeled and began cutting away the miner’s shirt to reveal his chest. “Uniform discoloration… no splotches, no isolated patches, and the cloth itself fully intact. Whatever this is… it didn’t come about by a torch or acid thrown on the man or even a bomb blast; this discoloration, sir comes from within—”

“Enough, Declan,” ordered Bellingham. “We can’t do any further medical examination here in the dark.”

“Understood, sir, but—”

“Declan, Mr. Irvin, we need the body transported to our lab at the hospital morgue—the one devoted to Queens University, gentlemen. I’ll send the knacker-man ’round.”

“A horse butcher?” asked Ransom, astounded. “Would you tell the man’s wife that her husband’s body was carted about on a butcher’s wagon?”

“The knacker doubles as our body man,” said Thomas, shrugging and frowning.

“For corpses, you see, to work on… at the morgue, you see, for surgical study,” added Declan as if informing a child.

Reahall slapped Ransom on the shoulder and said, “What you fellows in Chicago call a John or Jane Doe, we designate as A. N. Other; any unidentified body found dead in the gutter or dead of mysterious causes—and this certainly qualifies—goes for dissection and studies like your John Doe types.”

“Boston, man. I am from Boston.”

“But wait, sirs, this man is known,” piped up Walter who’d remained respectfully quiet, holding the lantern, keeping a certain distance from the educated men. “He’s no ‘Nother’ for your dissections! The miners hear of you cutting on McAffey, you’ll have a riot on your hands, for sure.”

“Hold on there, big fella,” said Reahall, a hand going up; this followed by a near imperceptible signal for two uniformed Belfast coppers to step forward out of the waiting shadows to lend a hand and to keep Walter in his place. “You can send one of my men to fetch the knacker,” he told Bellinghan.

“He’s not far,” said Declan, back on his feet. “Name is Mitchem… lives in the back alleyway near where Grovesnor meets Hilltop End just past Falls Road.”

“Aye, that’s the place,” added Thomas, “and you need only ask anyone in the neighborhood and they’ll point it out.”

Constable Reahall ordered one of his men off on the errand. “You’ll do your best then to determine cause of death, Dr. Bellingham?” Reahall’s rhetorical question hung in the air for a long moment until Bellingham met his eye and slowly nodded. Ransom recognized the unspoken signal—that the constable, as with the knacker-man, would get a kickback on the corpse.

“The lads and I will find an answer,” replied Bellingham. “It’s a medical mystery to be sure, and we love a good mystery—don’t we lads?”

“Ol’ Mitchem’ll find some use for that damnable dog, too,” added Reahall, laughing as if picturing the knacker at a meal. “Might make a nice meal for Ol’ Mitch, eh?” he asked Bellingham.

Bellingham only frowned and replied, “I think it best he haul the thing along with the bodies to our refrigerated units at the dissection theater back of the hospital, and from there, we’ll get it to one of the furnaces at the steel works. Burn the damnable thing along with the bodies if need be.”

“I should think he’d best burn it where it lies,” said Declan. “For all we know it’s riddled with disease.”

“Your decision, sir,” replied Declan, “but whatever’s to be done with this creature hauled from the mine, every precaution should be taken as it may well be riddled with a disease.”

“What sort of disease?” asked Reahall.

“We have no idea, not yet,” replied Declan.

“Black plague?”

“Too soon to tell,” Bellingham intervened quickly. “We’ve not seen the like of it in our lifetime—whatever it is brought these men so suddenly to death.”

While the others debated such matters, Ransom imagined this fellow Mitchem, likely a body snatcher as well as a horse butcher, and the silent tacit agreement among these medical men and the authorities; he imagined how Bellingham paid dearly for Reahall to look the other way whenever he got a new body at the university for dissection—a homeless without family or ties normally snatched not from the grave but from the gutter. His greatest contribution to his race coming in death by repeated, passive teaching—teaching surgery to such good young men as Thomas Coogan and Declan Irvin.

“You damn ghouls!” Walter suddenly shouted. “Goons! You can’t have McAffey to cut ’im open in that morgue! He’s to be buried proper and in one piece!”

“We’ll not dissect the man nor misuse his body!” countered Bellingham. “I promise you, we’ll only run some tests on his blood and fluids, Mister… mister…”

“McComas, your honorable sir… and I will come looking for you if there’s a mark on him!”

“That’s enough, McComas,” said Reahall raising a club and adding, “One more word of disrespect, and you can spend the night in my jail! I won’t have ya threatening the good doctor or these lads.”

“Make sure the napper hauls both bodies to the Mater when he gets here,” Bellingham said to Reahall. We’ll want to compare the blood and fluids.”

Since his arrival in Belfast, Ransom had learned of every back alleyway, studying the lay of the city for the day when he must run, a day sure to come… and perhaps it already had given this trouble. For now he slipped away from the others and this mess he’d become entangled with, a mess that had to drag in the authorities. As he silently disappeared, he thought of the two medical residents who’d hired him. He also thought as he made his way back to his small rented apartment of how often he heard the common phrase about these streets: ‘You go to dah Mater to find out what is dah matter’ referring to the Mater Infirmorum Hospital.

He heard this phrase almost as often as the word ‘hello’ here; he heard it whenever someone in a shop, a café, or a pub complained of an ailment. In this area of the city where the hospital resided, everyone knew it as Mother-of-the-Sick, but the Latin word Mater was interchangeably pronounced as ‘mae-ter and matt-er’.

Again his thoughts returned to his clients, the two students at the hospital, which he recalled as founded in 1883; he knew too that it’d been modernized in 1900 and had some major improvements three years ago such as dormitories for the students, and while it stood in the midst of a socially and economically deprived part of the city, it welcomed fresh, young gentlemen working to become doctors and surgeons. The hospital was not far from the center of commerce here and the wharves. Mater was often caught up in community tensions during the time of ‘The Troubles’ as the locals called open religious warfare between Protestant and Catholics—both of whom lived side-by-side in the surrounding streets. Mater had begun to take on the power of a symbol of stability in this unsure place, leading by example, turning away no one from their door—despite political leanings, and as a result the place had become famous for dealing with gunshot wounds as well! True too of Victoria Hospital across town. Mater had only three years ago become a teaching center, receiving students from Queens University.

“Those boys,” he said aloud to the dark streets as he walked through a shroud of fog for his current home, “have to admire them their youth and their goals.” They reminded him of young Gabby back in Chicago, Dr. Jane Tewes’ daughter, for her determination to become a surgeon like her mother before her. He fantasized for a moment of enticing Jane and Gabriel to Belfast to work and teach at this place named Mother of the Sick.

“You may count on it as surely as rain falls in Spain, doctor,” Constable Ian Reahall was saying while looked about for the mysterious private investigator, Wyland, only to realize he’d slipped away into the shadows. “Damn that man,” Reahall muttered in anger, but he recalled what Wyland—if that was his actual name—had said about going to Slip 401, to Titanic for a look around the yards there. “You can all wait for the napper; I am off to catch this fellow Wyland late of Boston, indeed.”

Reahall’s sarcasm made Declan wonder what he could mean; he shrugged in Thomas’ direction, but Thomas only looked away, a sick look painting his features.

“Nothing more to be done tonight, lads… ah gentlemen,” began Bellingham. “You two are way beyond curfew and bedtime. Get some rest, and we’ll sort this affair out the in light of day.”