Helen stared at him in disbelief. She had so many questions. How did he see her run away from the room? How did he know she ran from the worker's cargo room? Why was a boy who looked like a waiter even having a conversation with her? Helen didn't ask these questions aloud but the look on her face said it all. Meanwhile John stood looking at her unexpectedly, probably expecting her to slam the door in his face and saying she didn't know what he was talking about. To her surprise Helen said the opposite.
"Show you what?" Helen asked hesitantly. She was debating whether to confess to a waiter, but then again he didn't look as if he was very familiar with the ship and looked flustered. He couldn't possibly be a waiter she concluded, he was a stowaway.
"I want you to show me where you were and why you ran." John said.
"I-" Helen looked shocked.
"I saw you. I saw you run up to B-Deck and followed you, I know you were somewhere or else you wouldn't have been running. You had a worried look on your face. Will you show me?" John said quickly.
His reasoning to go to the worker's cargo room at the far end of the ship was not to see what the room looked like or even what is down there and the secrets it may hold, he needed a new place to hide. Before he saw Helen run very fast up to B-Deck, he was stuffing his old clothes in a garbage can and trying to survey the ship as a waiter to try and find a new place to hide and sleep.
"Fine. Meet me at the first class elevator when the sky starts to darken, most people will be in the dining rooms handling drinks and now guarding every door on the ship. We can't be seen." Helen didn't know why she was helping him, but she couldn't risk telling him she didn't find a hidden room. He might go blabbing about it to other people on the ship.
A few hours later Helen started to head for the elevator. Her mother didn;t know where she was going, Helen had told her she was going to take a bath in the turukish bath room. Besides, her mother was too busy with money and friends to care where Helen went for hours on end. Just as long as she was in bed by midnight, everything was fine.
"So who are you?" Helen asked curiously as John caught up to her waiting for him by the elevator. He looked happier as he approached, having a decent meal from the leftovers in the kitchen.
"I'm John Barnes."
"And I'm Helen Coleman." They both looked at each other, examining one another.
"Why did you sneak aboard this ship, Mr. Barnes?" Helen quizzed him.
"I...I did somethin' real bad. I stole money. I couldn't pass up an opportunity, I'm sorry I did it, but you gotta understand I was desperate. Some men roughed me up, and I ran. I heard about this ship and how there were thousands planning to board, I took hold of my chance and sneaked up the laundry shoot. Can't believe I got in ter be honest."
Helen didn't even notice that the elevator had come, she was perplexed by John's story. A stowaway...came through the laundry shoot? The more Helen thought how he sneaked onto the ship the more it didn't seem too abstract. If someone found them here, what could that do to Helen's reputation? She was a first class passenger, her mother was well known!
As Helen and John rode down the elevator to the bottom of the ship. They stood silent, Helen didn't want to tell John her story, it would sound boring. Helen snorted out loud when she thought about it, if she told him what her story was she would say I'm rich and my mother's famous. They reached the end of the line and stepped out towards the old door hidden behind a staircase.
John held out his hand to let her through first and Helen obliged. She opened the door once again to the luggage in drapes. There was still an eerie light coming from the porthole window. They both look around until Helen stops and finds the book she found on her last visit. She holds it up to the light once more, "The Civil War 1861-1865" she murmured. John found her looking at it and looked at it also.
"Why would someone have that?"
"I don't know, maybe they're doing history homework?" Helen suggested
She looked more in the room for a while when Helen looked out the porthole window again, the sky was pitch black. Helen noticed another book on the floor but this book was open and some of the pages looked ripped out. Helen picked it up and examined it. 'The Book Of Dreads' the cover read etched in silvery letters, "clever name." Helen thought as she looked through the contents.
When she looked through the pages she saw numerous pictures of dirty depressing looking men. John was looking through an open luggage case that toppled over from the stack nearby.
"Get over here, I want to show you this."
John obliged and walked over to her. As soon as he saw one of the men's faces, he stepped back, shook.
"What? Who is he?"
"I don't know," John gulped. "I just know that man beat me up about a week ago and knocked me out."
Helen looked worried she had never been in serious danger before so she didn't know the feeling John felt as he looked at the man on the page.
"William Smith, accused of street violence, involvance with gangs, now employee of John Jacob Astor IV. Wait," Helen gasped. "John Jacob Astor IV, isn't he the richest man in the world? He's the guy who got all his money from real estate!"
"There was another man who watched me getting beat up, he probably works for that Astor guy too." John said with a worried expression.
"Don't forget how it says here," Helen pointed her finger to a particular passage on the page. "William Smith and Robert Willson accused of disturbing violence in numerous towns. Those were the men who beat you up? Do they look like this?"
"The man who beat me up is William Smith, it looks exactly like this man. Robert Willson...I'm not sure if this was him, he was nearby Willson and I didn't get a clear view of his face - probably because I could hardly breathe." John added thoughtfully.
"Why would anyone want such a book?" Helen said slowly.