It was dry, and level, and there were only a few people outside the door. It must be earlier, Joanna thought, but when she stepped over the threshold, the young woman had changed out of her nightgown and into a red coat and a fur stole made of red-fox heads with sharp noses and shiny black glass eyes. The woman with the piled-up hair was wearing a coat, too, and a lifejacket.
“It’s so cold,” the young woman said, shivering. “Shouldn’t we go up to the Boat Deck?”
Joanna hoped they would. Then she would know where the door to the Grand Staircase was. But the bearded man shook his head and said, “I have sent the steward to find out what is happening. Until then, I think it best that we remain here.”
“Yes, Edith,” the other woman said, putting a white-gloved hand on the young woman’s arm, “we’ll ask the steward to light a fire,” and they turned to go back into the passage.
Joanna stepped out of their way and out into the middle of the deck. The Grand Staircase should be in the middle of the ship or slightly forward, which meant she needed to go toward the bow. She wondered if she could, or whether any movement in that direction would take her back to the lab.
I’ll have to risk it, she thought, looking toward the bow. There was another deck light that way, shining with a blinding brilliance she couldn’t see past. She shielded her eyes and walked into it.
And into a wall. It extended all the way to the windows with no doors in it. Now what? she thought. I’ll have to access the Grand Staircase from one of the other decks, and remembered there was an entrance to it from the Boat Deck. The band had stood just inside the doors to it while they played.
She ran down the deck to the aft staircase. It was locked, but the door to the second-class stairway wasn’t. She ran up the three flights to the Boat Deck. Her red tennis shoe was still in the door, wedging it open. She left it there and walked toward the bow, trying every door. They were all locked, even the one to the wireless shack. She went around to the gymnasium.
Greg Menotti was just coming out, dressed in a white Nike sweatshirt and dark blue sweatpants, a water bottle strapped to his leg. “Greg,” she said. “Do you know where the Grand Staircase is?”
“Grand Staircase?” he said. “You mean the main staircase? It’s over here.” He jogged over to the aft stairway, Joanna in his wake.
“No, not that one,” she said breathlessly. “The Grand Staircase. It has marble steps and a bronze cherub.”
He was shaking his head. “You’re really out of shape, you know that?” he said. “How often do you jog?”
“You haven’t seen any other stairways? What about on the other decks? Did you see any other stairways there?”
“On the other floors, you mean? No. ’Bye. I’ve got six more laps to do.” He jogged off toward the stern, his white sweatshirt bobbing in and out of shadow.
What now? She was sure there was an entrance to the Grand Staircase from the Boat Deck. Heidi had said Kate Winslet’s mother and the creepy boyfriend had stood at the foot of its stairs waiting for their boat to be called, so all she had to do was find it. But the only doors left to try were those to the officers’ quarters.
She tried them anyway. They were all locked, too, except for the last one. It was a closet, with piles of blankets. Maybe they have the Titanic’s name on them, she thought, and shook one out, but it was a featureless gray, and when she put it back, she saw, high up on a shelf, the Morse lantern the sailor had propped on the bow.
The name would be on the bow, Joanna thought, and ran out onto the forecastle and over to the railing. She grasped the rail with both hands and leaned far out, trying to see the side of the ship below her, but it was too dark to see it. She looked out at the horizon, searching for the Californian’s light and then down at the blackness below. There’s nothing down there, she thought, nothing out there. Not just no light. Nothing. And if it goes down—
She began to run, past the bridge, past the officers’ quarters, past the lifeboats, thinking, Please let my shoe still be there, please let the door to the passage be open, and was all the way down the stairs past the A La Carte Restaurant before she was able to stop herself, grabbing on to the polished railing as if it were a lifeline, forcing herself to stand still, to think.
“You can’t go back yet,” she said aloud, her hands gripping the stair rail. “You have to find out for sure if it’s the Titanic.” And the deck’s not listing yet, the stairs are still dry. There’s plenty of time. And there has to be an entrance to the Grand Staircase from the Promenade Deck.
She forced herself to walk back up the stairs to the restaurant and along the passage. It ended in a door, and she opened it and went out on the Promenade Deck. It was dark, but there was light coming from windows farther along. Stained-glass windows. They shone in patterns of red and yellow, blue and green, on the wooden deck. She walked down to them and looked in the windows.
It was a bar of some sort. It was dimly lit and smoky, and over against one wall, she could see a mirrored mahogany bar with ranks of liquor bottles and glittering glasses. At one of the tables a man in evening dress with a dark mustache sat, dealing out a hand of cards. He dealt them one at a time, facedown, and then picked them up, stared at them, arranged his hand, stared at them again. After a while he shuffled his hand into the deck, and dealt another hand.
I could go ask him what the name of the ship is, Joanna thought. Unlike Greg Menotti, he looked like he had no illusions about where he was and what he was doing here, but something in his face made her drop her hand from the door and leave him there, dealing, shuffling, dealing again.
There was no one in the next room, which was even more elegant than the bar. The walls and the white pillars were decorated with gold filigree, and the chairs and sofas were upholstered in gold brocade. Yellow-silk-shaded lamps stood next to the chairs and on small tables, casting a golden light over the whole room. Books lay on the tables and stood in glassed-in bookcases lining both end walls.
The ship’s library, Joanna thought, or some sort of writing room. On the far wall, next to the deck windows, was a row of desks. They had lamps, too, and neatly arranged pens and envelopes and cream-colored writing paper. The name of the ship will be on the stationery, Joanna thought.
She pushed open the beveled-glass door and walked in and across to the nearest desk. Too late, she saw the room wasn’t deserted after all. A man sat at the last writing desk, bent earnestly over a letter. She could see his graying hair and the white sleeve of his shirt as he dipped his pen in the ink bottle, wrote, dipped it again.
She hesitated, but he hadn’t looked up as she came across the room. He dipped his pen in the ink again, poised it above the paper again. Joanna tiptoed to the nearest desk. The envelopes and writing paper lay in cubbyholes. She reached to pull out a sheet of the paper.
“Do you have a hall pass, Ms. Lander?” the man said sternly, and Joanna wheeled.
“Mr. Briarley!” she gasped.
“Joanna Lander,” Mr. Briarley said, smiling broadly. “I had no idea you were here!” He stood up and started toward her, knocking against the desk as he did. The ink bottle wobbled, and the pen rolled off onto the gold carpet. He steadied the ink bottle and then clasped her hand in both of his. “How delightful! Sit down, sit down,” he said, pulling a chair over from one of the other desks. “I had no idea you were on board.”