Read Chapter 16: The Banker's Ledger

The corridor outside Vance’s stateroom was silent, the thick carpet swallowing their footsteps. A steward had passed a moment ago, his face pale beneath his cap, muttering about water in the boiler room. Margaret pressed her back against the door, her eyes scanning the hallway in both directions while Jack worked the lock with the tension wrench he kept in his heel.

“Faster,” she whispered.

“I’m going as fast as a man with a pinned collar can go.” The lock gave with a soft click. He pushed the door open.

Inside, the room was a monument to Vance’s vanity. Mahogany panels, a brass bed with silk sheets turned down, a decanter of scotch sweating on the sideboard. The air smelled of cigars and cologne. Jack shut the door and locked it behind them.

“Check the desk,” Margaret said, already moving toward the wardrobe.

Jack crossed the room, running his hand along the polished surface of the desk. A blotter, a silver pen, a stack of unopened telegrams. He pulled the top drawer. Nothing but stationery. The second drawer held a leather valise, and beneath that—

A false bottom. His fingers found the seam, worked it loose.

Inside was a letter, the paper heavy and watermarked. He unfolded it.

*To whom it may concern at the Union Club, Boston—*

*Please find enclosed the full registry of the Merchant’s Mercantile vaults, as discussed in London. The Ferrier brothers will deliver payment upon receipt of the manifest. Shipment of said registry must occur prior to the conclusion of our voyage, at which point all parties shall consider the arrangement settled.*

*Yours in business,* *J. Vance*

Jack read it twice. The registry. That was the ledger. The list of names he’d decoded from Anna’s key—it wasn’t just a customer list, it was the bank’s entire vault registry. Names, account numbers, contents. And Vance was shipping it to the Ferrier brothers—a name Jack knew from the Bowery whispers, a gang that ran protection rackets in Boston and did favors for anyone who paid in gold.

“Margaret.” He held up the letter. “Vance is selling the list. He’s not just buying the diamonds—he’s brokering a deal to hand over the entire registry to the Ferrier gang.”

She came over, reading over his shoulder. Her jaw tightened.

“That’s why he needed the original notebook destroyed,” she said slowly. “With Anna’s codebook, he could translate the list and sell it. But you beat him to it.”

“And he knows I have it.” Jack folded the letter and tucked it inside his jacket. “Or at least he knows I have what he thinks is the list.”

“Do you think he has another copy?”

Jack shook his head. “No. The key’s needed to decode it. Without it, the list is just numbers on a page. It’s garbage.” He paused. “But if he manages to get me before Moran gets his deadline, he might use me to decode it. I’m the walking registry now.”

Margaret’s eyes went dark. She returned to the wardrobe, pulling at the shirts hanging inside. Jack scanned the rest of the desk, searching for anything else that felt off. His fingers brushed against the underside of the blottter. It moved.

A second panel—looser this time. He lifted it.

Inside was a hand-drawn map, folded into rough quarters. He spread it out on the desk. It showed the forward hold in cross-section, crates marked with boxes and arrows. A red circle was drawn around one large hatch, with a small label pressed in pencil: *DANGEROUS CARGO*.

“Margaret. Look at this.”

She came back to him, her arms empty. The moment she saw the map, she went still.

“That’s what Vance was paying the crewman about,” she said. “The unmanifested shipment. But that’s not diamonds.”

“It’s not?”

“There’s no way to know for sure from a map.” She traced the red circle with her finger. “But diamonds don’t get marked as dangerous cargo. Something like that gets labeled as confidential or insured. Dangerous means it can blow up. Or burn. Or kill men on contact.”

Jack stared at the hatch. “So Vance is running not just diamonds—but munitions?”

“Or worse.” Margaret’s voice was low. Her hand moved to the edge of the map, where a notation was scribbled: *Fire sticks handled with gloves. Do not ignite.*

“That’s phosphorus,” she said. “It burns through everything it touches. And if the ship goes down with a crate of that loaded, the water—” She stopped.

“What?”

“Never mind the water. If the hull tears into that crate, the reaction will accelerate. It could burn through the deck. Through the ship.” She looked at him, and for the first time since they’d entered the room, Jack saw real fear in her eyes. “If that hitches below deck when the sea comes in, it might not just sink us slower. It could take the ship down fast. Break its back.”

Jack let out a breath. “Vance isn’t just a thief. He’s a smuggler running a cargo that could get every person on this ship killed.”

“Not could,” Margaret said. “It’s about to.”

Before Jack could answer, a sound from the hallway. Bootsteps. Heavy ones, moving fast.

Jack crossed to the door, pressed his ear to the wood. A voice penetrated, thick with Irish brogue.

“—sure it was this door. Vance said the stateroom on the port side. C-Deck. Number it.”

Moran. Or one of his men.

Jack spun back to Margaret. “We need to go. Now.”

She grabbed the map from the desk, folded it in half, and tucked it into her bodice. Jack moved to the window—a porthole, too small to escape through. He scanned the room. The vents. The doorway. The ceiling access.

No route.

“There’s no way out but the door,” Margaret said, reading his mind.

Jack looked at the scotch decanter. An idea formed—quick and dirty. He grabbed a glass, splashed the liquor across the front of his shirt, and staggered toward the door.

“Madam,” he slurred. “I had too much to drink. I must find the facilities.”

“You’re a fool,” Margaret said, catching on. She steadied him as he unlatched the door, swaying on his feet.

The henchman—a thick-necked brute with a scar above his eyebrow—was six feet from the door. He saw Jack in the threshold and froze, recognizing him.

“Yer him,” the henchman growled.

“I am—” Jack hiccupped violently. “—rather unwell. You wouldn’t hurt a sick man, now would you?”

The henchman’s hand went for his coat. Jack shoved Margaret backward into the corridor, moving opposite direction across the hallway, away from the henchman’s grasp.

“Run, love! I’ll hold him off!”

“Jack!” Margaret’s voice cracked, but there was steel in it too.

“Go!”

She hesitated—then turned and ran down the corridor, away from him.

The henchman lunged. Jack dodged, grabbed the decanter, and swung it with all his strength. The crystal caught the henchman square in the temple, exploding into shards. The man dropped like a sack of coal.

Jack stood over him, breathing hard, the smell of scotch rising from his shirt. He wiped a piece of broken glass from his palm.

“Well,” he muttered. “That’s one less for the passenger list.”

He stepped over the unconscious body, locked the stateroom door from the outside, and sprinted after Margaret, the map tucked against his side, the letter burning in his jacket.

The Ferrier gang. Phosphorus aboard a sinking ship. And now Moran’s men already knew where to find his room.

Every layer of this mess kept getting deeper.

But ahead of him, Margaret’s silhouette turned down the passageway toward the dining saloon. His last escape to Vance’s dinner was gone, but the path to survival had just resolved itself into one single question—where in the forward hold was that crate, and how soon could he break it open before it broke them all?