Murder on the Titanic

by Evelyn Weiss

along to Sir Chisholm’s study, so here I am. I’ve only been here a minute. But I’m so glad you’re here, Miss Agnes! Look at this.” She points to papers strewn across the carpet. “They were on Sir Chisholm’s desk, all laid out in order. I’m so clumsy these days, I knocked them off. They fell on the floor and they’re all mixed up…”

  I smile reassuringly at her. “I’m sure you and I can work together and put them back in the right order.”

  I calm Kitty’s nerves as we sort the papers. It’s an easy job – they’re just bills, a letter from a Mr Laurie on the Glenlui estate, and a sheet covered in handwritten numbers, estate accounts probably. But as we sort them, Kitty is shaking.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “These scattered papers. It reminds me of something, of somewhere else, but I can’t remember where… I don’t know why, but looking at those sheets of paper all across the floor, it made me feel scared.”

  I hear a tremor in Kitty’s voice, and I see her hands shaking. Will there be any value in trying to hypnotize her in this state?

  “I’m glad that you’re going to stay with me this time, Miss Agnes. I felt so afraid last time – like, when it was just the gentlemen, you know…”

  “This time, everything will be fine, Kitty.” She smiles nervously at me, and I’m glad to see that she’s no longer trembling. I ask her “Where are the gentlemen?”

  “I don’t know, Miss Agnes. I thought they would be here by now.”

  As she speaks, the study door opens. “Kitty. Agnes. Please accept our apologies: sorry to keep you both waiting.” Chisholm, followed by the professor, comes in just as I’m putting the papers back on the desk. “And Kitty – well done for having another go. Brave girl.”

  In contrast to Chisholm’s encouraging smile, the professor’s face is serious, almost stern. “We will see, Miss Kitty, whether you are ‘brave’ as Sir Chisholm calls it. Are you willing to go under my Fluence, as you were before? To go back, in your mind, onto the Titanic?”

  “I am, Professor. I hope that…”

  “You hope that the hypnosis will help us find the killer of Viscount Percy Spence. But you also hope that it will help you.”

  “Yes, Sir. I’m so troubled. Especially my breathing. I sometimes wake in the night, short of breath. As if there’s a weight on my chest, and I can’t shift it.”

  “Do you have nightmares?”

  “No – not exactly. But I’ve got sense, somehow, of something in my dreams. Like a locked door. A place I dare not enter.”

  “Perhaps, when that door is opened, you will feel better. Perhaps the weight you feel will disappear, and you may be able to breathe more easily. I hope so. But – mark my words – I do not guarantee it.”

  Despite the professor’s warning, Kitty looks gratefully at him. She sits passively, awaiting what will happen.

  “Let us proceed. As we did before, Miss Kitty – please make yourself comfortable in your chair. As soon as you feel completely relaxed, look steadily at me. Breathe deeply and smoothly. Miss Agnes, could you slowly dim the gaslamps? We need to simulate the gradual onset of twilight. As if the logical, rational mind is gently going to sleep.”

  As I dim the lamps, Professor Axelson is speaking to Kitty. His voice is slow, deep, every syllable measured. “You can feel calmness. It is like water. Imagine you are stepping down white, marble steps into a pool: into still, clear water. The marble steps are cool on your toes, on the soles of your feet. You take another step, and another. Every movement is calm, slow, relaxed.

  Now one foot enters the water, then the other. The water feels soft, cool, silky on your skin. Your feet, your lower limbs, your abdomen, is sinking into the water, like a deep relaxation flooding through your body.” I wonder at the imagery he’s using: is all this talk of rising water really the way to calm her? But the shakes that Kitty had five minutes ago have gone: she breathes more slowly: deeply, evenly. Her mild brown eyes stare fixedly ahead, but the lines in her forehead, the tension in her neck, visibly eases and leaves her.

  “The water is at your chest. It laps your neck, touches your chin. You feel suspended in the cool fluid, every muscle relaxed. Now, the water reaches your mouth. It pours in, flooding you with a feeling of perfect relief, perfect peacefulness. It touches your nose, and you breathe it in, a deep, deep serenity. You can feel the surface of the water lapping your cheeks, your eyelashes, creeping up the lenses of your open eyes.” Kitty blinks, like a twitch, but her breathing now is deep and strong, like the roll of the sea.

  “The water of calm, the water of peace, it enters your brain. It floods every thought you have, dissolving every little sensation. You think nothing. You feel only the deepest peace, a slow, slow bliss.” She sighs, and even I’m feeling the calming effects of the professor’s hypnotic voice. I look across at Chisholm, but he’s not affected: his eyes are still bright, alert, intent.

  “The water that dissolved your thoughts is now dissolving every feeling you have, except this deep calm… every muscle, every nerve in your body is fading, blurring into this deep, smooth water. You are becoming one with the ocean. As I count down, your physical body blends with the water. Five. You have no thoughts. Four. You are drifting into nothingness. Three. Your mind, your body, is blending into the water. Two. You are the ocean – the waters of the ocean, the deep, deep sea. One. Deep, deep calm. Now.”

  I look, and Kitty’s eyelids are shut. She sits, breathes. She is silent, placid, unmoving, like a tailor’s dummy. As if to test his success, Axelson takes one of her hands. It’s totally pliable in his fingers, as if she is unaware of us, or of where she is. Unaware of her own body.

  “Miss Kitty, can you hear me?”

  “Yes. You are Professor Axelson, the Swedish scientist.”

  “Where are you, Miss Kitty?”

  “I am on a ship. Me and many others, we are sailing across an endless sea. A big, big, ship. So huge, so full of lights. Like a palace, but it moves itself along, steering its way across the water. We’re moving fast. I’m on the deck, I can feel the breeze of the sea, the smell of salt as we drive into the wind, into the sun.”

  “Do you like the ship, Miss Kitty?”

  “Yes. The ocean is huge, but our ship is so, so strong. I feel safe here, safe from the wild sea. Like our ship has tamed the waters and made them safe for me. I enjoy the swell of the waves, our ship driving through them. It’s like I can feel the deep humming and throbbing of the engines, pushing us along, slicing the waters open ahead of us. It’s so – exciting.”

  “Do you have any friends on this ship?”

  “I am with a very good family – a brother and sister. I serve them. I am employed by Sir Chisholm Strathfarrar. With him on the voyage is his sister, Lady Blanche Lockesley. Sir Chisholm has asked me to accompany them on their journey, so that I can act as Lady Blanche’s maid. Also with us is Miss Agnes Frocester, a young lady who came over to England from America two years ago. She is Lady Locksley’s companion. She is friendly to me, and Sir Chisholm is kind.”

  “Do you have any other friends on the voyage?”

  “Yes. I have met a very fine gentleman. Finer features than Sir Chisholm, so elegant, and – such a voice. Viscount Percy Spence. A charming, charming gentleman. He compliments me. I blushed the other day, he told me what a pretty girl I was. And he asked me –”

  “He asked you what?”

  “He whispered in my ear – he said, wouldn’t it be nice if he and I could go up to the Palm Court Room, dance there. A secret dance, when the Palm Court Room is empty. I’d love to dance, for just once in my life. To dance, feeling the swell of the waves on the ship, up through the deck, into my feet. How I’d love to dance.”

  “Have you danced with him, Miss Kitty?”

  “I’m dancing now. He’s so handsome, dashing. Perfect manners. I’m nervous, in case anyone comes in, but it’s late in the evening, we are the only people in the Palm Court Room, and we’re waltzing, waltzing to the rhythm of the sea. I can hear music in
my mind. An orchestra – the sound of a waltz, like they dance in Vienna. The music is only in my mind, it’s not real, but it sounds so sweet, so beautiful. And I know this happiness can’t last, but this moment – I look into his eyes. I’m in heaven.”

  “And when the dancing stops?...”

  “The music in my mind – it’s quieter now. I’m straining to listen to it, that magical melody, but it’s fading, getting harder to hear. It’s drowned out by some other noise… voices. Many, many voices. They get louder, shouts and commands. They sound – alarmed. Percy says we mustn’t be afraid, we must go to his cabin.

  We open the door and go out, onto the Promenade Deck. And we’re high up on the ship, I can see people, hundreds of people, all struggling along, all going one way. A tide of bodies. Percy says we must go against the tide, we must get to his cabin. It’s on the next deck below us, we’ll have to go down the Grand Staircase.

  We’re trying to go down the stairs, but there are so many people. They’re all going up the staircase, they push and shove. So many faces, so many white, scared faces. We’re trying to get down the stairs to Percy’s cabin, but this mass of people is surging upwards. They’re not only scared, they’re angry – angry with us. They’re shouting at us, they say that we are getting in their way. They seem to think we’re mad to be going down the stairs, not up. At last, we’re past all the