Read Chapter 30: The Blackmail List

The water on C-deck swirled around Jack’s knees as he pressed the blackmail list flat against the strongroom door. Margaret held a striker-lit match above his shoulder, the flame guttering in the wet air. Beside them, the matron—Mrs. Hargrave, she’d finally given her name—braced herself against the wall, her gray eyes scanning the corridor for any sign of trouble.

The paper was damp but legible. Fifty-three names. Dates. Sums. Bank accounts in Zurich, London, and New York. And at the bottom, in a cramped, precise hand, a single notation: *Bell – 22:40*

“Bell,” Jack muttered. “The explosion. That’s the man who set the charge.”

Margaret’s fingers tightened on the match. “There’s more. Look at the second page.”

He peeled it away. This one wasn’t a ledger. It was a letter, folded into thirds, with the letterhead of a private bank in Boston. The prose was dry, transactional, but the meaning cut through like a blade.

*…the collection is to be sealed in the hold as crates of mineral specimens. The loss will be claimed against Lloyds before the ship is fully submerged. The British Museum’s own registrar has been compensated for his confusion. Should the archive be recovered, the water will have done our work for us—no one will question the destruction of parchment by salt.*

Jack read it twice. The third time, aloud.

Margaret’s face drained. “They sank the *Titanic*.”

“They didn’t sink her,” Jack said, jaw tight. “But they planned to use her sinking. The art—” he tapped the letter—“the British Museum’s collection. Vance and a banker in Boston. They packed real treasures into crates, marked them as minerals, shipped them on the maiden voyage. Then they’d claim the insurance, collect the payout, and retrieve the crates from the wreck before anyone else could.”

“But crates sink with the ship,” the matron said. “How would they retrieve them?”

“They wouldn’t need to.” Jack’s mind raced. “The museum’s registrar—‘compensated for his confusion.’ They swapped the real pieces for fakes before they ever left London. What’s on this ship is worthless plaster. The real art is sitting in a warehouse in Boston, waiting for the insurance money to clear.”

Margaret lowered the match as it died. “And the list? The fifty-three victims?”

“Blackmail,” Jack said. “The banker cultivated creditors. Men who owed him favors, or secrets. He used them to move money, to grease wheels. When the ship went down, he’d lose the evidence but keep the debts. The list is his leverage—every person on here owes him something. And if they’re dead, no one can contest the claims.”

The matron crossed herself. “Monstrous.”

Jack folded the papers and tucked them back into his jacket, over his heart. “They’re not monstrous. They’re practical. The Titanic wasn’t a tragedy to them. It was a deadline.”

A groan echoed through the hull. The water at their ankles rose another inch.

Margaret grabbed his arm. “We have to get this to someone. The captain. The wireless operator.”

“The captain’s got his hands full with a sinking ship,” Jack said. “And anyone we give this to who doesn’t already know about it becomes a target. Vance is still out there. And if Bell’s the man who set that charge, he’s not alone.”

“The crewman,” the matron said. “The one you left with instructions. O’Brien, you said? The purser’s assistant.”

Jack nodded. “O’Brien knows who I am. If I don’t make it, he’s my failsafe. But he’s on the other side of the ship, near the purser’s office on D-deck. With this much water coming in, that route’s likely flooded by now.”

Margaret’s jaw set. “Then we go up. Boat deck. Get on a lifeboat, get to New York, and hand the list to the authorities there.”

“The authorities will want to know how a stowaway got it,” Jack said. “And Boston is where the banker lives. His reach extends to the harbor police, the customs men, half the lawyers in the city. If I hand this to the wrong uniform, I’m dead before I make the dock.”

The matron stepped closer. “Then you don’t hand it to a uniform. You hand it to the newspapers.”

Jack blinked. “The *Boston Globe*?”

“The *Globe* broke the Standard Oil scandal in ’08,” she said. “Their editor, Loomis, is a crusader. He’d print this on the front page before the ink dried. I know him—I wrote letters to his paper for years under a pen name. He owes me a favor.”

Margaret stared at her. “You were a correspondent?”

“I was a schoolteacher, like you,” the matron said, a thin smile crossing her face. “But I taught composition. And I read the papers closely.” She looked at Jack. “If you can get me to a lifeboat, I’ll carry the list myself. You’ve got a foot on the ladder of suspicion already—don’t spend it all in one climb.”

Jack considered it. The matron was tough, sharp, and untraceable. Margaret was already in danger just by standing next to him. But the list was explosive. If the banker learned who carried it, he’d burn every connection in the city to find her.

“No,” he said. “We keep it together. I don’t trust this ship’s mail service, and I don’t trust my luck to hold if we split up.” He looked at Margaret. “You still want to come?”

“I already made that clear,” she said. “You’re not getting rid of me.”

The matron’s eyes flicked past them. “Men. Two of them, coming down the corridor. Crew, by the look.”

Jack pressed them both back into the strongroom’s shadow. Through the dark, he saw two figures splash toward them. One carried a lantern; the other had a canvas sack over his shoulder. They weren’t moving like crewmen checking the flooding. They moved with purpose. They were looking for something.

Or someone.

The lantern swung, catching Jack’s face.

“There,” one said, and they broke into a run.

Jack grabbed Margaret’s hand and bolted the other way, the matron right behind them. They rounded the corner, splashing through waist-high water, heading for the staircase that led up to B-deck. Behind them, the men’s boots hammered against the flooded floor.

“Who are they?” Margaret gasped.

“If they work for Bell, we’re in trouble,” Jack said. “If they work for Vance, we’re in worse.”

They hit the stairs and climbed, water sucking at their clothes. Halfway up, Jack risked a look back. The men were at the base of the stairs, one of them pulling a revolver from his belt.

“Heads down!” Jack shouted.

A shot cracked against the metal frame above them. The matron cried out, stumbling. Jack grabbed her arm and hauled her up the last steps as another shot whined past.

They burst onto B-deck’s corridor, gasping. The matron pressed a hand to her shoulder—blood seeped between her fingers.

“Graze,” she said, teeth gritted. “Keep moving.”

Jack wanted to stop, but the men were already climbing. He dragged them both forward, scanning for cover. Ahead, the corridor split—one way led toward the first-class dining saloon, the other toward the grand staircase. And beyond the staircase, the boat deck.

“Get to the boats,” he said. “I’ll hold them off.”

“No,” Margaret said, gripping his coat. “We stay together.”

“You just said you wanted to come with me,” Jack snapped. “That means you do what I say when I say it.”

She didn’t flinch. “I said I wanted to stay with you. I didn’t say I’d let you die alone.”

Footsteps thundered behind them. Jack glanced back—the men were ten yards away, closing fast.

He pulled the blackmail list from his jacket and shoved it into the matron’s bloodied hand.

“You know Loomis’s address?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Then get to the boat deck. Find a lifeboat. If I’m not there by the time you’re lowering, you go without me. You get this to Boston. You don’t look back.”

The matron clutched the folded pages. For a moment, her eyes met his with something like gratitude—or forgiveness. Then she turned and ran up the corridor toward the grand staircase.

Margaret watched her go, then looked at Jack. “The list.”

“She’ll carry it farther than I can from the bottom of the Atlantic,” he said. He pulled the dying Pinkerton agent’s wallet from his own jacket—empty of cash, but still bearing the man’s badge. It would have to do.

The two men rounded the corner.

Jack raised the badge like a shield. “United States Marshals Service,” he said, voice steel. “You’re under arrest for attempted murder on the high seas.”

The men hesitated. The one with the revolver squinted at the badge, then at Jack’s soaked, coal-dusted clothes from the boiler room hours. A slow smile spread across his face.

“You’re not a marshal,” he said. “You’re just a thief who stole the wrong ledger.”

He raised the gun, and Jack saw the unmistakable glint of a British Museum cataloguer’s ring on his trigger finger—a tiny, crowned lion, stamped in gold. The same mark he’d seen inked at the bottom of the letter, beneath the banker’s signature.

These weren’t Vance’s men.

They were the banker’s.

And that meant the banker was on board.