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9
“Isaac! They found the trunk on the promenade deck!”
Bell passed Archie at a dead run, climbing the grand staircase. There was a mob at the top of the stairs. The corridors converging outside a service pantry were jammed with the junior officers: saloon, deck, and bedroom stewards and seamen who had been pressed into the search. Bell saw a saloon steward sprawled on his back, his normally immaculate tunic filthy, and beside him the silver trunk. A husky seaman stood over it, aiming a fire ax at the lock.
“I’ll open it,” said Bell, shouldering him aside. He knelt by the trunk and felt with his hands that it was heavy. “Would there be a wine screw handy?”
The sommelier’s assistant produced a corkscrew. Bell twisted it into the lock, manipulated for a moment while gazing into the middle distance, and the lock clicked open. To the murmur of acclaim, and before anyone asked how an insurance executive happened to know the fine art of lock picking, he said, “Parlor trick my great-aunt Isabel taught me. She was a regular whiz.”
Stewards and seamen laughed.
“Never would say where she learned it,” Bell added, and the officers laughed, too.
He hinged the hasp up and lifted the lid. The laughter died.
Professor Beiderbecke had been squeezed into the trunk. His legs were bent sharply to his chest, his arms pressed about his head. His eyes were wide open. His face was rigid with pain and fear. His skin was blue.
Without a word, an elderly dining saloon steward passed Isaac Bell a gleaming fish knife. Bell held it to Beiderbecke’s nostrils. He did not expect that the poor man’s breath would cloud the silver, but it did.
“He’s alive!” A dozen hands helped Bell pull Beiderbecke out of the trunk. They laid him on the rubber-tile floor and gently straightened his limbs. Beiderbecke groaned, gasped, and inhaled fitfully.
“Doctor!”
“Get the surgeon.”
Bell leaned closer, searching for a spark in his wide-open eyes. They seemed to focus on him. “You’ll be fine,” said Bell. “The doctor’s coming.”
Beiderbecke’s body convulsed. “My heart,” he whispered. Racked with pain, he clutched his chest. “Bell!” he gasped.
“I’m right here, Professor.”
“Bell. My… protégé…”
“Don’t worry, I’ll look out for Clyde.”
“Protect him, please.”
“I will.”
“Protect him from the akkk…”
“From what?” Bell put his ear to Beiderbecke’s lips, for the man was surely dying. “From what?”
“Akrobat.”
The ship’s surgeon arrived, shooing people from his path. Bell stood up to make room for him, then watched as the surgeon parted vest and shirt with sure hands and pressed a stethoscope to Beiderbecke’s chest. He listened for a long time, shaking his head, and finally removed the instrument.
“What did Beiderbecke say? Archie asked Bell.
“Made me promise to protect Clyde.”
“From Krieg?”
“I suppose,” Bell answered. “But that wasn’t all he said.”
“What else did he say?”
