“My fiancée’s acquaintances are not immigrants. They’re artists saving on expenses, trying to make ends meet.”
“Infectious diseases do not distinguish between motives. I am sorry, but surely you understand.”
“What’s tomorrow’s dinner menu in steerage?” asked Bell, using the popular term for Third Class.
“A nourishing soup with bits of beef in it.”
“May I see tomorrow’s First Class dinner menu?”
The purser produced a tall menu card beautifully illustrated with a color print of the immensely tall and narrow four-stack Mauretania framed by pink roses. Bell read it from top to bottom.
“I see nothing here that displeases. For our wedding feast, my bride and I will have prime sirloin and ribs o’ beef, roast turkey poulet, quarters of lamb, smoked ox tongue, and Rouen ducklings sent down to steerage.”
“Excellent! Give me your acquaintances’ names, and I will see—”
“To everyone in steerage.”
“Everyone?”
“Everyone will enjoy our wedding feast.”
“Most generous, sir,” the chief purser said drily. “May I remind you that we have one thousand one hundred and thirty-five passengers in steer—Third Class.”
“What’s for dessert in steerage?”
“On Sunday they’ll get some marmalade.”
Bell referred back to the First Class menu. “We’ll send down apple tart, petits fours, French ice cream, and rum cake.”
The chief purser looked around his office, confirming they were alone and the door was closed. “I don’t presume to ask what a private detective earns, sir, but the cost of feeding First Class fare to over a thousand souls will be considerable.”
“Fortunately,” Isaac Bell smiled, “I had a kindly grandfather. He blessed me with a legacy. Which reminds me, how many children are in steerage?”
“Many.”
“Better lay on extra ice cream.”
“MARCONIGRAM FOR MR. BELL,” piped a twelve-year-old call boy in a blue uniform.
“Don’t move, nervous groom,” said Archie. “I’ll get it.”
The normally nimble-fingered Isaac Bell was having trouble knotting his tie, so best man Archibald Angell Abbott IV was attempting to tie it for him. Archie tossed the boy a coin that made his eyes widen and handed Bell the orange Marconi Wireless envelope.
Bell tore it open, unfolded the buff-colored marconigram, noted the date and the notation “Handed in at S.S. Adriatic,” indicating the White Star liner had relayed the radio signal from a shore station, and then began to decipher its handwritten contents while Archie started over again on his tie.
“This is odd.”
“Hold still! What’s odd?”
“Art Curtis says that Professor Beiderbecke is not a munitions inventor.”
“What does he invent?”
“Hang on, I’m still trying to figure…” Ordinarily as quick with figures as he was nimble-fingered, he was having trouble reading the familiar Van Dorn code.
“I have never seen a more jittery groom,” said Archie.
“You were walking into walls at your wedding. Here we go! Professor Beiderbecke is an electro-acoustic scientist at Vienna’s Imperial-Royal Polytechnic Institute.”
“What the heck is an electro-acoustic scientist?”
“Art says he holds patents for recording and amplifying speech and music.”