“Correct and true,” mused Reahall, “but Titanic’s long gone from here.”
“But she will be remaining in dock at Southampton till the tenth!”
“Understood, and sir, take these in hand.” Reahall’s note in hand was not a note at all but an envelope.
Ransom took the envelope and searched its contents. “Three tickets aboard Trinity?”
“I have seen to it you have a berth on a merchant ship aptly named for your mission, Detective, if you are willing to go to work for me in the capacity of a deputy of Belfast—”
“Deputy?” Ransom smiled wide. “Deputy Constable Wyland of Belfast. Has a pleasant ring to it.”
“I am sure it sounds better than an executioner’s rope.” Reahall held out a badge to him through the bars. “Not as a snitch but as the long arm of the law.”
“I don’t know what to say,” replied Alastair, astonished.
“The good ship Trinity leaves in half an hour. Be ready to make Southampton by early morning tomorrow. Your young surgery friends have agreed to be aboard but only if you will travel with them. It’s the bargain we struck… the only one we can all live with, and I for one intend to live a long life, so now it is your decision, Deputy Constable Wyland? Southampton or the hangman’s noose?”
“I would be proud, sir, to serve under you,” Alastair lied but he felt good about the lie.
“Good, then you won’t mind if I escort you to Trinity where you then can play Father to the Son, and The Holy Ghost.”
“Apt undercover titles for three saviors, eh?”
“Come then.” Reahall unlocked the cell, stepped in, and began reciting the oath of office to Ransom as Ransom up held his right hand. When he got to the part calling for Ransom to declare his name for the record, Alastair thought it all a ploy to get him to confess. To avoid this, he shouted his reply: “I Alastair Wyland, being of sound mind, do hereby swear to uphold the laws and constitution of Belfast and Ireland.”
“That should make it legal enough, Constable Wyland. Now… shall we have at it?”
Alastair grabbed his overcoat, top hat, wolf’s head cane, checked the time on his gold watch—all of which he’d negotiated back from Quinlan and Reahall over these days, and he announced, “Well then… do lead on, Constable.”
Reahall hustled him out and down a back stairwell, and soon they stood in the morning light of a Belfast alleyway slick with a night rain. Even the odors rising like steam off nearby trash cans proved a balm to the freed man.
Alastair asked,“You’ve arranged for a berth but why? What’s changed your outlook? Tuttle’s condition?”
“Better you with your bloody principles and ethics to go chasing this damnable thing down than me; I’m no hero but perhaps… just perhaps you are more like those tow-head boys than you think.”
“I’m no naïve lad; you know that much about me.”
“No, not naïve by any means, certainly not innocent, but I find in you a certain recklessness and thumbing your nose at authority as well as perhaps death itself. Some might term it Yankee gallantry; as in rushing into a burning building, or-or that mine shaft that first night.”
“They say fool’s rush in.”
“And so I take you for one mad enough and wild enough to go chasing Titanic. Besides, you can never hope to win at chess if you allow men like Quinlan and me to beat you at chess.”
Ransom’s laugh carried to the sea on a brisk, cool breeze. They had made their way to the pier and the ship called Trinity. Anyone seeing them might think them old comrades, possibly two old soldiers reminiscing about the old times.
“Touché, you’ve found me out and wanting. But you’ve not answered my question. Why?”
“To answer why?” He took in a deep breath where they came to a standstill. Some sixty odd yards from them, Ransom saw the beautiful Bluenose schooner where crew worked to prepare her for the open sea. He saw Declan and Thomas waving from the deck as he neared.
Reahall indicated the two interns. “I’m told by those two that you sincerely care about all this… about putting an end to this… this thing—whatever the holy hell it is.”
“Yes, go on.” Ransom was clearly enjoying this turn of events.
“I am not about to go chasing something that could leave my body in the same state as those we’ve both seen. But you… you I give your freedom to, if you will give me your word that you will do all in your power to catch Titanic before she sails out of Southampton, and to order it held there and quarantine her in dock until more can be learned.”
“More can be learned? How long is that?”
“Until you are satisfied there is no contagion aboard… until your two young doctors and Titanic’s doctors, and perhaps Southampton’s chief public medical officer can do likewise. I’ve wired them of the possibility.”
“Then if they heed the warning, perhaps we have a chance; perhaps they’ll delay her taking off for America.”
“I know how persuasive you can be, Alastair.” He took Ransom’s hand and heartily shook it with both his hands. Ransom saw it as a sign like Pontius Pilot washing his hands of a decision that rocked the world. But Alastair was not naïve, and like Pontius Pilot, whose career hung in the balance when deciding Christ’s fate, Reahall too was a selfish soul and in the end a little man concerned for his small fiefdom.
“This is quite the turn of events, Ian—if I can call you, Ian—and quite the turn of mind on your part.”
“I saw the results up close this time; I hardly gave it a look in Enoch Bellingham’s lab that day we arrested you! Must admit, my zealous desire to clamp the irons on you may’ve clouded my judgment, I’m afraid. At any rate, Irvin and Coogan convinced Enoch, and Enoch convinced me of just how virulent this plague is.”
“Now that I can believe.” Ransom took the RIC badge of the Royal Irish Constubulary and attached the gold-plated shield to his vest, and he then placed the lapel of his overcoat across it; he could flash it when needed, hide it when needed. “Well now, boss, let’s get me the hell out of Belfast and onto that ship headed for Southampton.”
“She’s a Bluenose schooner class is Trinity—very fast. She reads the ocean like she has her own mind. I’ve made channel crossing on her in the past. Trust me; if anyone can get you to Southampton in record time, it’s Captain McEachern.”
“All well’n’good, but Ian—may I call you, Ian?”
“Go on.”
“I’d be able to move a lot faster working alone.” He indicated the two interns already aboard. “Besides those lads there, they’ve already placed their lives on the line twice now.”
“Young Doctors Declan and Coogan,” he thoughtfully replied, rubbing his chin. “I agree, brave lads, the both. But they’ve volunteered, and besides you’re going to come up against a great deal of resistance in asking the owners of Titanic to stand her down.”
“All the same, I don’t want to see—”
“Ahhhhh! You will need medical men for what you need to do. It will not be easy to convince officials in England, nor officials aboard Titanic, that there is reason to end her progress before she’s made any headway toward the western horizon.”
They stood below a sign that read: SLIP 506.
“What about you, Ian?”
“I am too old to go chasing about the continent, Alastair.”
“You’re not so old as I am!”
“I can’t leave my responsibilities here. Besides, as I said, I’m no one’s hero.”
“Do you think the place will fall apart without you? Old men like us, Ian, we’re seldom called to adventure at our age! Danger, man! It’s the thing gets your blood racing, the heart pumping.”