Murder on the Titanic

by Evelyn Weiss

like that tea you ordered for me on arrival.”

  “It’s a pleasure, Agnes. I count you as a friend – a dear friend.”

  “Were you shocked when we first got on the ship, and you saw me sharing tea in my cabin with Rufus du Pavey?”

  “Of course not. In fact, I thought ‘Clever girl. That’s the way to get that rascal to make a slip: a woman being friendly to him.’”

  “I’m sure he’s aware of what we’re doing, Chisholm. He singled me out, approached me in the boarding-tower while you were talking to that porter about our cases.”

  “I have rather a daring suggestion. I think we may get du Pavey to agree to the professor’s hypnosis – if you were to ask him, Agnes.”

  “You mean – I might succeed where a frank man-to-man request might not?”

  “Exactly that.”

  “Exactly what?” The professor has finally arrived: a waiter pulls his chair out from the table for him as he sits for breakfast.

  “We are talking about Rufus du Pavey.”

  “Well that’s a coincidence. Because I have already met du Pavey, this morning, in the corridor. That was what delayed me getting to breakfast this morning. He said that he recognized me from my photographs in the newspapers – and introduced himself. Of course, that is nothing new to me: my fame means that many people introduce themselves to me.”

  I cast a glance around the dining saloon in case du Pavey himself is coming in for breakfast. But he’s nowhere to be seen. I look at the professor and tell him what I think.

  “From my meeting with him when we boarded the Olympic, I’d say that du Pavey knows what we’re doing, and that’s why he’s sniffing around us. That’s why he approached you in the corridor just now, Professor.”

  “Indeed, Miss Agnes. But, with only a few minutes’ conversation in the corridor, I myself have got much further with our investigation of du Pavey. I found him surprisingly friendly.”

  “So did I.”

  The professor carries on speaking. “Du Pavey said that he has read in the newspapers of my Hypnotic-Forensic Method. He told me that he is fascinated by my theories, and full of admiration for my achievements. He was even aware that I am Chair of Forensics at Dresden University. So, the man may be on my list of suspects, but he is no fool.”

  “And how did you progress our investigations with him?”

  “Sometimes, the direct approach is the best. I simply asked him if he would be willing to undergo hypnosis, in relation to the events on the Titanic and the murder of Viscount Spence.”

  Chisholm and I look at each other. “What was his response?”

  “He says he would very much like to see my Method in action, with himself as my patient. He claims that Spence was his dearest friend, that he fervently hopes the killer will be found, and that he would do anything to help with our investigation. In short, he is completely willing to be hypnotized – but then, he said he was indisposed at present with sea-sickness. Despite his automobile racing and his flying, he is, ironically, a poor sailor. He will send word to us, when he is feeling better.”

  “I have a hunch that he won’t feel better until the Olympic is docking in New York.” Chisholm says that mostly to me, with a little smile. The professor is oblivious to Chisholm’s expression, and answers him directly.

  “Oh no, Chisholm. The human body gets used to the motion of the ship within a few days at most, and du Pavey is young and vigorous. I’m sure we will be able to interview him before we reach New York. This investigation is proceeding very well. We found out a lot from Calvin Gilmour: I suspect that a Hypnotic-Forensic session with du Pavey will be even more revealing.”

  I suppress a grin at the professor’s conceit, but he carries on speaking. “And I have other good news, too. After my session with Calvin Gilmour, I sent a telegram to New York to enquire about the gentleman that Gilmour told us about, the man in the lifeboat – Mr Freshing. Last night I received a response.”

  “Was it informative?”

  “Very. It seems that Mr Douglas Freshing is a well-known member of New York’s thriving business and legal community. He works as a scrivener, copying legal documents and making technical notes of lawyers’ meetings. Ideal skills for an effective witness, don’t you think?”

  “Where is this Mr Freshing? In Manhattan?”

  “Unfortunately, his ordeal aboard the Titanic and in the lifeboat led to him contracting pleurisy. His recovery has been slow, and he is taking an extended stay at a health spa in the country, in order to regain his strength. But that need not prevent me visiting him, hypnotizing him and finding out the truth. He was there when Spence took his last breath. In his final moments, a victim is likely to name his attacker: I suspect that Spence told Freshing the killer’s name.”

  I look at the professor. “So you think – that’s what was going on, when Mr Freshing was leaning over towards Spence in the lifeboat?”

  “I am totally confident of it. As you know, I have my list of five names. I feel sure that I will hear the name of one of those five, from the lips of Mr Freshing.”

  Breakfast over, I take a stroll up on the deck. I’m even brave enough to walk towards the rear of the ship, towards the poop. This is the third-class Promenade Deck, but in my plain black dress and simply arranged hair, I don’t stand out from the crowds. I traveled steerage to England on the Mauretania, and I was surprised at the cleanliness and high standard of the cabins and the public rooms. Here on the White Star Line, they like to claim their third class is as good as Cunard’s second class – and, looking around at my fellow passengers on the Promenade Deck, I certainly don’t feel out of place. In a way it’s a welcome change from the ship’s state rooms. A group of young men touch their caps as I walk by, and I smile at them. I overhear them earnestly discussing their hopes of employment in New York as they pass around a single cigarette: the smoke mingles with the cindery soot from the ship’s funnels. Then, salty air from the ocean blows into my face as I notice three young women, soberly dressed, sitting on a bench and chatting quietly: they remind me of myself when I set out on my first journey across the seas. Families are taking a stroll on the deck. A little girl toddles along, excitedly chasing a hoop with a stick. The clothes I see around me are shabby, sometimes threadbare, but spotlessly clean. Everywhere, I see faces full of anticipation of a new world, a new life ahead of them. But despite the smiles and laughter, there’s something in the lines of the deck, the curves of the rails, the steps up onto the poop… an unwelcome memory begins to surface in my mind. Like a recurring dream, it won’t go away. This place, out on the stern of the ship – as the Titanic sank, this deck, crowded with terrified people, was the last to hit the water. The final plunge into the ocean: the screams, the bodies in the water, the dead faces… I try to block out the unwanted thoughts, the insistent voices and noises in my mind. This is a different ship, I tell myself: it just looks like somewhere I once saw, in the dark, in a bad dream. Today is different: the noises I hear around me sound full of hope and happiness. It’s full daylight, the sun is shining, the sky is bright. As far as the eye can see, the sea is illuminated, like blue glass: waves glitter, gleaming with the sunlight, enough to hurt my eyes.

  And then I see them.

  Ice.

  The bergs line the horizon, like a battalion of white warriors. Silent: waiting.

  I feel faint. We’ve sailed near to the ice line, where the eastbound Gulf Stream waters meet the chill west-flowing Labrador Current, bringing its spring crop of bergs from Baffin Bay. The icebergs calved from the Greenland ice-cap, and they’ve floated round in the Arctic waters, sometimes for years. But each spring, the ocean melt frees up the bergs, and brings another batch of them down into the Atlantic, carried on the cold currents. The change in the ocean waters from the warm Gulf Stream to the polar temperatures of the Labrador Current is an abrupt one. The icebergs line up where the two bodies of water meet, like a row of jagged teeth in the mouth of a shark. I remember something I read years ago in a magazi
ne, an interview with Captain Edward John Smith who died aboard the Titanic. His prophetic words in that magazine article were often quoted in the wake of the disaster. “The big icebergs that drift into warmer water melt much more rapidly on the surface, and sometimes a sharp, low reef of ice extending two or three hundred feet beneath the sea is formed. If a vessel should run on one of these reefs, half her bottom might be torn away.”

  The third-class passengers have all noticed the icebergs now. They crowd against the starboard rail of the Promenade Deck to gaze at the ocean, and a child cries out “I can see the North Pole!” People seem excited, not alarmed. But I dare not look again. When will I stop being haunted by these memories, so strong they seem to transport me physically back to that night? Again I feel I’m among dark, swirling waters: I recall what Kitty said, under hypnosis: “White shapes on the black. Ghosts, made of ice.” Did she mean the bergs? – or was she talking about something else she saw, that night?

  My knees, my legs, feel wobbly, unsafe. And a feeling of near-panic, utterly irrational, is choking me. For a moment it is as if everything is swirling round me, like a whirlpool. I have to get off the Promenade Deck, inside the ship, out of the sight of the bergs. I walk unsteadily along the deck and open the door. I’m already feeling relieved as I