“Stupid?” asked Ransom.
“Ignorant,” said Declan.
“Is there a difference?” asked Ransom, snapping the newspaper tighter to make it stand more rigid as he wished to read on.
“Well now ignorance is having an absence of the facts, not knowing, whereas stupid is knowing the facts, yet still acting like the ignorant fool,” Declan tried defending his professors but only managed to spin himself into a verbal quagmire.
After a long silence, Ransom announced, “Launch time tonight is 8PM.” He checked his watch on its fob. “Six twelve now. Damn.”
“Are they going to feed us sometime tonight?” asked Thomas, still pacing, running his fingers along the cage bars. “You suppose we only get the one meal a day, Declan? God, it’s been a long time since lunch.”
“The Ship’ll be well on her way before we see daylight,” Declan remarked on Thomas’s concern over food. “I can’t believe that Dr. Bellingham—of all people—is simply going to ignore our findings, Thomas! And he calls himself a scientist. You know how he keeps harping about how a scientist must keep his mind open to chance, to happenstance, to-to failure as well as opportunity? Was he just being a blowhard?”
“He’s always saying how a good doctor has to be a good scientist a hundred times if he said it once,” piped in Thomas. “Guess he’s full-a-horse manure after all.”
“Don’t be so quick to judge me with your slinging of manure, Mr. Coogan!” It was Dr. Bellingham on the other side of the bars standing before them as if he’d simply materialized. He’d come in so quietly, they hadn’t noticed until now. “I’ve come to have you out of here, gentlemen. No point in your remaining here all night with a common criminal.” He eyeballed Ransom, frowned, and turned to Quinlan as the hefty Sergeant stood holding a huge ring with a large skeleton key.
Sergeant Quinlan opened the cell holding the two young men, Declan and Thomas knocking into one another in their rush to be free, hardly giving Ransom a look.
“Lads,” Ransom shouted at the younger prisoners when they’d almost gone out the heavy oak door. “You’ve got to convince them of the importance of stopping that ship—now, tonight before she sets sail for Southampton.”
“We’ll do what we can, sir,” Declan assured him, “but we’re not magicians.” Declan gave Ransom a slight wave of his hand, holding up the sabre-tooth they’d found in the lab that’d fallen from the clothing of one of the dead miners.
Hidden in part by Dr. Bellingham’s girth, Thomas slowed only long enough to ask Bellingham, “Do you think the food vendors on Newcastle are there at this hour?”
Ignoring Thomas’ question, Dr. Enoch Bellingham suddenly stopped and turned to Ransom, eyeing him warily once more. “Detective,” Bellingham said, giving Ransom a moment’s hope that was instantly lost when he added, “I hope everything ahhh… works out for you, sir.”
“It’s not me I am worried about, Professor; it’s the victims of this damnable plague, and everyone who boards
“We can do nothing without tests, detective. Hell, any tests that might result in an actual antidote, we’re talking about years to develop.”
“Then you know how dangerous this is? You’ve read Declan’s notes, haven’t you?”
“It changes nothing; the situation is hopeless. No one’s going to stop that monster ship because a handful of Irishmen have died here in Belfast, man. They’d laugh in your face.”
Deflated, Ransom dropped his gaze. “Meanwhile first, second, third class passengers, crew, staff, officers, the captain, the builder, and I understand envoys, mayors, the famous, the infamous barons of wealth, along with many giants of commerce and industry—all aboard will die if not stopped from boarding, and if not quarantined. Call it an anarchist threat if necessary but—”
“I pray whatever scurrilous thing this is… this disease that sucks men of every ounce of life’s blood and fluids has run its course, but rest assured that I and Dean Goodfriar have sent word to the ship via the Marconi.”
“What do you mean? You sent word over the wireless?” Ransom was incredulous. “You need to go down to the shipyards! Speak to the captain and crew face-to-face, make them understand! A Marconi message is not going to convince anyone!”
“They’ve set sail. It was the only way to get word to them,” countered the professor of surgery.
“What do you mean?”
“They’ve set sail!” he repeated.
“But the newspaper said they wouldn’t be shipping out till eight!”
“Do you believe everything you read in the Bugle?” Bellingham stared at him and added, “Apparently yes.”
“All right… very little news trickles in here. Look here, then… did you receive a response from
“I did on first sending.”
“Which was?”
“Some rude chap shouted for the operator at the Belfast station to—and I quote—“Stuff it and get off the line.”
“You must try again!”
“We did, the operator and I—several times. A warning.”
“And what then?”
“No reply. I can’t say for certain if word ever got through to the captain.”
“Send another and another until they understand,” insisted Ransom. “Until they do reply, sir— immediately.”
Just then Constable Ian Reahall stepped in and said, “Dr. Bellingham–take your charges and be gone—the lot of ya.”
“I thank you for your help, constable.” Bellingham ushered Declan and Thomas out, and everyone left save Reahall who began to pace up and down before Ransom. “What to do with you, Ransom… what to do… .”
“I thought you had your mind set on collecting some fictitious reward, Constable; how much is on the head of this man Ransom?”
“Not exactly a king’s ransom,” Reahall said with a smirk. “Hardly enough to cover my expenses to get you back to the states.”
Ransom imagined the amount on his head fairly slight, typical of Chicago authorities. They might want him dead or alive, but they didn’t want to pay too terribly much for it. “Is this how you barter for my release?”
“I am told
“Left already, says Bellingham. Is it true?”
“Yes, off to her port of embarkation.”
“Southampton, England, where those holding tickets will board—placing them all in jeopardy if that contagious plague is aboard working on Agent Tuttle—killing him from the inside out.”
“Southampton’s some five-hundred seventy miles from here.”
Ransom dropped his head, muttering, “Five-hundred seventy bloody miles…”
“She’ll be on display there for Easter Sunday, dressed for it. That’s tomorrow, the 10th. So there’s little hope of stopping her from here. Those fool egg-heads at the university hospital can send all the messages they like. There’s no stopping the White Star Line from set schedules. She’d been slated to leave on the 10th but circumstances being as they are, it appears the ship sets off on the 11th.”
“You could send someone. They could be there before she makes her stops, before she goes for the open seas.”
“It’s a lost cause, I tell you!” Ransom heard the anger rise in the man’s voice, “Now I’m here to ask you, man, have you not any friends here in Belfast who will put up bail for you?”
“Ahhh, now I see your game, Constable… bail. It’s your primary source of income, eh? How much then did you squeeze out of Bellingham?”
“You do know how things work, don’t you? By God if you aren’t Ransom of Chicago, you have indeed been a
