Jacques Futrelle: The Last Story

Jacques Futrelle: The Last Story

Dedicated to Patricia Dabbs, for a friendship I treasure dearly

The great ship, RMS Titanic, felt less like a vessel and more like a majestic, floating palace as she sliced through the calm, early spring waters of the Atlantic, having departed Queenstown. For Jacques Futrelle, the famed mystery writer, a native son of Pike County, Georgia, and possessed of the measured, courtly bearing of a Southern gentleman, the voyage was meant to be a moment of respite, a gentle decompression after a period of intense, sustained literary effort.

Yet, his mind, forever restless, was already plotting new puzzles.

He was a large, tall man, with an air of kindness and a deep love of learning and people. His dark eyes twinkled as he would often show a rapier, sharp wit, or the gentleness his two grown children so loved about their Papa. Jacques Futrelle

had come a long way from his days in the Post Reconstructionist South, and he knew his good fortune had been well earned in his storytelling.

He and his beloved wife, Lily, occupied a luxurious stateroom. Still, the true treasure they carried was not in the safe, but in a sturdy, leather-bound briefcase: the bulk of his finished manuscripts—a season's worth of new, unpublished stories awaiting serialization, featuring his legendary hero, Augustus S.F.X. Van Dusen, ‘The Thinking Machine.’ This stack of linen paper represented his best work yet, a precious intellectual cargo more valuable to him than all the gilded trappings of the first-class decks

.

The evening of April 11th was a spectacle of Edwardian society. The first-class dining saloon was a blaze of electric light reflected off crystal prisms, shattering into rainbows across damask tablecloths. The air was rich with the scent of fine Bordeaux, roasted pheasant, and the gentle, almost intoxicating, hubris of wealth and confidence. The Futrelles were seated at a prominent table alongside the celebrated Colonel John Jacob Astor IV and his young, pregnant wife, Madeleine.

Colonel Astor, a man whose quiet demeanor belied his vast fortune, spoke little, observing the room with an air of cool, almost academic detachment. Madeleine, however, was effusive, her dark hair shining and her eyes bright with curiosity.

Her hand often rested gently over her expectant child, a soft promise amidst the hard glamour of the dining room.

“Mr. Futrelle, I must confess that I am absolutely captive to your hero, Augustus S.F.X. Van Dusen,” Madeleine said, leaning slightly toward him, lowering her voice conspiratorially. “The way ‘The Thinking Machine’ dissects the human motive and solves the truly unsolvable crime—it’s not just mystery; it’s pure, distilled genius. I find myself constantly trying to catch his methods, but he is always three steps ahead. Tell me, do you ever truly fear you will run out of marvelous conundrums? The well of original mystery must run dry eventually, mustn't it?”

Jacques smiled, a genuine, warm expression that momentarily smoothed the intellectual furrows in his brow. He reached for Lily’s hand, whose fingers were interlaced with his beneath the crisp linen tablecloth. His voice, though educated and clear, carried the slow, melodic cadence of the deep South. “A writer’s well, Mrs. Astor, if properly maintained by curiosity, observation, and a healthy respect for the absurdities of human nature, is never dry. I assure you, my practical darling,” he squeezed Lily’s hand for emphasis, “I have just completed a fresh stack of stories. I believe they contain some of the most intricate and technically complex scenarios I’ve ever penned. My publisher, Mr. McClure, will have enough material for a new serial to run well into the late autumn, and perhaps even into the deep winter. Fifty thousand words of pure, undiluted, cold reasoning.”

Madeleine gasped softly, leaning back against the plush velvet seat. “Fifty thousand words! And all solved by deduction and the scientific method! To produce so much in one sitting—it’s utterly prodigious. I’ve even tried to read the serials backward, Mr. Futrelle, to test the logic, and it remains flawless.”

The couple soon parted ways, but the formality of the dinner gave way to a relaxed, easygoing camaraderie in the days that followed. The small, rarefied circle of first-class passengers often coalesced in the Reading and Writing Room, or along the enclosed A-Deck promenade where the wind was kept at bay. Jacques and Lily found a genuine, warm connection with the Astors that went beyond mere social courtesy. They often shared light-hearted anecdotes about their life in Paris—the Futrelles' second home—and the peculiar challenges of life in the public eye.

They also frequently encountered Margaret Brown, a woman whose spirit was as buoyant as the sea itself and whose reputation for frankness was well-deserved. Molly, as she insisted on being called, saw the intense focus in the serious writer and the gentle, grounding presence of his wife.

"You, Mr. Futrelle," Molly declared one sunny afternoon in the Turkish Bath waiting area, snapping shut her jeweled fan with a decisive thwack. "You are a true rarity among these gentlemen. A man who uses his brain for something other than making a fortune! When I heard you speak of your new stories, I was dying to know what impossible crime the Machine tackles next."

It was this frank and flattering enthusiasm that led to the small indiscretion Lily later regretted so bitterly.

The following afternoon, sitting in the hushed, tranquil sanctuary of the glass-domed Palm Court, Jacques found himself deep in conversation with Madeleine Astor about the subtle art of laying a false trail in a mystery.

Jacques, proud of his recent work and momentarily softened by the sheer conviviality of the voyage, reached into his briefcase.

"This is the latest, Mrs. Astor," he said, pulling out a thick, rolled packet of linen paper, bound not with a ribbon, but a simple, practical rubber band. "It’s a standalone called 'The Problem of the Lost Voice.' It is the most technically complex scenario I’ve ever devised, involving a locked room and a sound wave paradox."

Madeleine's face lit up with a childlike delight. "Oh, Jacques, you mustn't tease me! May I look at the first page? I promise I won’t spoil the solution for myself."

Jacques, charmed by the sheer flattery of her attention, relented. He handed her the entire scroll. Madeleine, utterly delighted, promised to devour it quickly and with the utmost care, reading it in her cabin after dinner. "It's for my publisher, really," Jacques cautioned lightly, "a sort of advance copy, if you will. Please, keep it quiet."

Later that evening, as the couple prepared for bed, Lily watched as Jacques replaced his empty briefcase. A worried frown deepened the elegant lines on her forehead.

“Jacques, dear, you shouldn’t have done that,” she said, her voice tight with genuine, escalating anxiety. She walked over and laid a concerned hand on his arm, her eyes searching his. “You know Mr. McClure plans his serial schedule months. The whole point of a good mystery, as you said yourself, is the anticipation, the secrecy. His contracts specify that the work must be kept private until release. You shouldn’t let anyone read your manuscripts yet. It feels… too exposed. They are our livelihood, and they should be guarded.”

Jacques turned, his demeanor softening immediately. He recognized the anxiety in her tone—the fear of the writer's wife, that their work might be lost or stolen. He gathered her into a tender embrace, his cheek resting against the silk of her hair.

"You worry too much, my practical darling! My publisher deals in intellectual property, not secrets of state. Besides, Mrs. Astor returned it to me just before we came back to the cabin. She was effusive, truly, absolutely charmed by the complexity. I have all the copies back now, dear! My secrets are perfectly safe." He gave her a final, reassuring squeeze.

"Now come, the air is too good tonight to fret over paper and ink. Let’s look at the stars; they are remarkably clear tonight."

The vast, silent beauty of the night of April 14th held a terrible, unseen danger. The sea was uncannily flat, the air frigid. At 11:40 P.M., the ship shuddered, not with a violent blow, but a long, grinding tremor, an unnatural sound that brought an abrupt, metallic finality to the perfect silence. It felt as though a giant hand had raked a nail along the ship's spine.

In their cabin, the subsequent confusion was a thick fog, quickly burned away by the dreadful truth whispered by the returning stewards. Soon, screams began to be heard and everyone knew: time was of the essence. "We've hit an iceberg!" the steward banged on their door, "Everyone to the top of the ship! We've hit an..."

The unsinkable was sinking. Jacques helped Lily dress, his movements precise and calm, a feat of conscious control that hid a terror that threatened to paralyze him. He found her the warmest beaver coat, ensuring she wore her stoutest shoes.

On the boat deck's frozen expanse, the scene was one of controlled yet desperate chaos. The ship's band played a ragged tune, a futile attempt at order. The officers' stern separated men, women, and children, with an unyielding directive: women and children only. The knowledge was immediate and brutal: this was a farewell.

Lily collapsed against her husband’s chest, clutching his coat, shaking with sobs that tore at his own composure. “I won’t leave you, Jacques! I can’t face the world without you!”

He cupped her face in his trembling hands, forcing her to look into his eyes. His gaze, usually alight with intellectual curiosity, shone with a profound, final love. “Hush, my sweet Lily. You must be safe; you must be warm. You must promise me that. I love you, and I will see you soon. This is the only procedure. There will be more boats, I promise. And the Carpathia—a ship will surely be here by morning to pick us all up from the lifeboats.”

He kissed her deeply, a final, fervent promise that felt like a desperate lie even as it left his lips. The kiss was slow, meant to imprint the very feel of his mouth on hers forever.

He then pulled the heavy wool blanket he had fetched from the cabin tightly around her shoulders, tucking it close over her chest, a small, futile barrier against the North Atlantic. He lifted her and handed her over to an officer near Lifeboat No. 5. Madeleine Astor was already seated, shielded by her husband, pale but silent, alongside Molly Brown, who was actively urging the men to move faster.

As the crewman prepared to lower the boat, their eyes locked across the short, final distance. Jacques blew her a kiss, a gesture of profound tenderness and false cheer that broke Lily's heart anew.

Colonel Astor stood beside Jacques, a pillar of granite, watching the love of his life descend. He gave his wife a decisive nod and called out, his voice steady and strong against the rising wind: "All will be well, darling! I'll join you shortly!"

The boat slipped down the sheer side of the massive hull and hit the icy black water with a sickening splash. The crewman immediately rowed away from the immense, terrifying spectacle of the dying liner. Lily watched, numb, as the lights of the great Titanic began to dip and vanish into the absolute blackness, the final plunge a horrifying, drawn-out groan swallowed by the night. The women in the lifeboat, huddled together against the cold and despair, wept openly. They knew their beloved men were lost, sacrificed to the sea and the cruel code of the night.

The hours in the lifeboat were an eternity of bone-searing cold, terror, and wrenching, silent grief. The silence after the Titanic went down was the most awful sound Lily had ever heard—the sound of 1,500 lives extinguished, replaced by the relentless, mocking lapping of the waves.

Aboard the rescue ship Carpathia, under the weak, grey light of dawn, Lily was given a rough, warm berth. She collapsed next to Molly Brown, the exhaustion and trauma finally overriding the shock. As she drifted toward a fitful, dream-haunted sleep, the full, crushing weight of her widowhood settled. Not only was her brilliant, kind husband gone, swallowed by the relentless ocean, but a second, terrible realization struck her: his stories, the life’s blood of his imagination, were gone forever too. The briefcase full of new manuscripts—the complete, finished series of The Thinking Machine—was at the bottom of the Atlantic, nothing but saltwater and ink now. She fell asleep weeping for the man she loved, the memory they shared, and the work that had defined him, all now lost in the watery grave.

The agonizing journey to New York was a haze of shared tragedy and muted kindness. When she finally arrived, still pale and moving like a ghost, her first actual duty, a grim one, was to face the reality of their profession. She was driven immediately to the bustling offices of McClure’s Magazine in New York, where Jacques’ publisher, Mr. Harrison, was waiting with a face etched with weariness and sorrow.

Lily sat stiffly in the worn leather chair, twisting the thin gold wedding band on her finger. "Mr. Harrison," she began, her voice a dry rasp that hurt her throat. "I came as soon as I could. I… I regret to inform you of a second, terrible loss, beyond Jacques himself.

He had with him the entire new collection of the Van Dusen stories. They were in his main luggage, which was never recovered from the ship. I am so sorry. The work for the next serial, for the entire season, is… gone." A fresh wave of tears choked her; the thought of the intellectual destruction was almost as painful as the personal one. "All those hours, all that genius, nothing but saltwater now."

Mr. Harrison, a stout man who had known Jacques for years and recognized the weight of his contribution to the magazine, strolled around his heavy mahogany desk. He blinked, a strange, hesitant mix of profound sadness and bewilderment in his kind, weary eyes. “The loss of Jacques is an unconscionable tragedy, Mrs. Futrelle, truly grievous, and we mourn him deeply. But I am confused by one detail. You say the entire collection?”

He went to a large, fireproof safe built into the wall, unlocked it, and returned holding a thick sheaf of folded paper. It was folded neatly in half, not rolled, and secured with an elegant scarlet silk ribbon—the same type Lily often used to tie up her own hair.

"These," he said, gently placing the package on the desk before her, "came by a special courier from the Astor residence just last week, even before the news of the disaster reached us."

Lily stared, unable to reconcile the clean, dry paper with the devastating grief she felt.

Mr. Harrison explained, his voice hushed with reverence. "Mrs. Astor, she had finished reading the story Jacques had lent her. She told her maid that she was so impressed, she didn't want to risk leaving the manuscript behind in the chaos of the evacuation, nor did she want to entrust it to a steward. She had carefully folded it and secured it with this ribbon, intending to return it personally to Jacques upon docking. But in the sudden horror of that terrible night, she simply put the manuscript safely into the deep, inner pocket of her heavy wool coat before she was taken to the lifeboat, forgetting it was there until she unpacked days later in New York."

He spread the title page carefully. It was 'The Problem of the Lost Voice,' the intricate scenario involving the sound wave paradox, the very story Lily had warned Jacques not to show. The title, the neat handwriting, the faint, lingering scent of cigar smoke—it was undeniably Jacques.

"It was the Astors' memory, and her small, cautious act of preservation, that saved it," Mr. Harrison concluded, his hand resting on the paper. "Not the entire series, no, but enough. This is a complete, full-length, standalone story. It is Jacques’ final gift to us, a last, perfect deduction from the mind of a great man."

Weeks after the news of the tragedy had stunned the world, the final, meticulously crafted mystery solved by the brilliant Augustus S.F.X. Van Dusen was published in McClure’s

Author's Note:

Mrs. Astor was but a young bride, carrying her first child, when her husband was killed on the Titanic. She would go on to have her son, called "The Titanic Baby!" She had an adventurous life, but she never actually had Jacques' story. I created that piece of fiction. Molly Brown would go down in legend herself, and Lily would struggle in life without her beloved husband. She was also a writer, focused on her own work and her husband's legacy, and helped rear her grandchildren.

The Titanic would later be found, a ship at the bottom of the ocean, with many secrets and one of the greatest maritime tragedies, which took many lives.