by Evelyn Weiss
because of?... – Because I may as well tell you now, I’m not that way inclined. To be honest, the thought had never crossed my mind.”
“Don’t worry. Darling.” She placed a hand on my wrist. “You’re perfectly safe from my wicked ways. I simply don’t fancy you, you know. You’re an attractive woman, Agnes. But not to me. You and I – we’re friends. Good friends, I hope.”
She kissed my cheek, and she was gone.
My reverie about Gwyneth is interrupted. As the regular strokes of the oars continue, Professor Axelson begins to speak.
“So, Miss Kitty, we have Miss Agnes to thank for finding you here in this unexpected place, in the heart of the Highlands of Scotland.”
“I like it here. I’ve never been happier in my life.” Again I see Kitty glance at Fraser Laurie. And she looks in glowing health – much better, even, that before the Titanic. I feel glad that after everything she has been through, things have turned out well for Kitty. The professor, however, carries on talking.
“It is odd, Miss Kitty – but in a strange way, the beauty of this place is one of the reasons that led, by a long chain of events, to your kidnapping. But, Miss Agnes solved the case, so perhaps she should be the one to explain that to you.”
“You tell her, Professor. Or at least, you start the explanation.”
The professor looks at Kitty. “Very well – I will explain. And I’ll start my story with the beauty of this place, Glenlui. I believe there is a painting, Miss Kitty, in Glenlui Castle, of Chisholm’s ancestor, Cameron Strathfarrar?”
“Yes, it’s on the main staircase. Mrs McDonald pointed it out to me. I can show it to you when we get there.”
“The Glenlui Estate, with all its little farms and crofts, is an idyllic place – but many other Highland glens now stand desolate and unpopulated. The clans of the Scottish Highlands were ruthlessly suppressed by the English Army, after Bonnie Prince Charlie’s defeat in 1746. Then, ownership of many Scottish estates passed to absentee landlords whose only interest was money. So, over the hundred years that followed, the little villages and crofts of the Highlands were ‘cleared’. People were driven by force from their homes, and in desperation they crowded onto ships sailing for the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Nova Scotia – ‘New Scotland’ – where my involvement in the Spence case began, was one of the principal destinations. Many died on those Atlantic crossings, in a strange prefiguring of the Titanic disaster.
But none of those terrible things happened on the Glenlui Estate. Cameron Strathfarrar was a good landlord to his tenant farmers, as were his successors. But, you see, he had understood what was coming. From the beginning of those dark times, Cameron Strathfarrar sided not with Bonnie Prince Charlie, but with King George II of England. By doing so he avoided trouble for both himself and his clan.
Now, we come back to the twentieth century. As a young man, Chisholm admired his ancestor Cameron. And then, he became a British Army officer. He took the oath – ‘For Queen and Country’. But, he saw with his own eyes how the Army behaved in the Boer War. His British patriotism was destroyed when he saw the South African concentration camps into which the Army had herded men, women and children – deeds every bit as brutal as the clearances of the Scottish Highlands.
“I asked him once about the Boer War. He wouldn’t speak of it.”
“Indeed. But also, Chisholm knew that a European war was coming. Now, the lesson that Chisholm had learnt from Cameron Strathfarrar was this: identify the winning side, and join it. What if modern, progressive Germany won a swift victory over the outmoded British Empire? Chisholm very nearly said it to us himself at one point: that a quick decisive war would save the lives of perhaps millions of soldiers, as well as avoiding the civilian horrors of war that Chisholm had witnessed in Africa. He had an independent, humane mind, and the thought of betraying his country grew from tiny seeds. But he was also decisive, even ruthless, when necessary. He recognized that some might have to die in the short term, for what he saw as the longer term greater good.
Among Chisholm’s ruthless actions was your own kidnapping, Miss Kitty. So I’m glad that you like Glenlui, after the way that you were brought here. We know now that Chisholm instructed his agent Dieter Kühn – whom we know, and may as well continue referring to, as Daniel Carver – to abduct you from your room at Grafton Square. Chisholm then had you sent up here to the Highlands – and he told Mrs McDonald, the housekeeper at Glenlui Castle, that you were feeble-minded and confused. He said that you were permanently traumatized by the horrors you had suffered when the Titanic sank. He told his staff at the castle that they should look after you, and keep you safely here, a prisoner in a gilded cage. Fortunately, Mrs McDonald at the Castle, after seeing you over some months, has realized that you are an intelligent and capable girl.
Chisholm decided to have you abducted, rather than killed, for only one reason: because he did not truly feel in danger from you, Miss Kitty. He genuinely believed, you see, that you would never dare tell us everything that you saw on the night that the Titanic sank. Likewise, he did not fear my powers to reveal the truth through my Hypnotic-Forensic Method. Despite all his claims to support me, he didn’t actually believe in the Method, or in my theories. Which, for me, is a little annoying.”
A shadow passes over Kitty’s face. “That man – Carver. He came in through my window, with a gun. I thought he was going to kill me. I was terrified…”
“And we were all very afraid for you. But then, when we searched for you, Miss Agnes found a clue. A false clue, though.”
“A false clue? What do you mean?”
The professor smiles at Kitty and me, and I tell her what happened. “When you were taken away, Kitty, I climbed out of your window and looked for you on the rooftops. Then, when I returned to your bedroom window, I saw something that I’d not seen when I climbed out of it. I hadn’t seen it when I climbed out – because it hadn’t been there, at that time. A letter, placed there by Chisholm after you were taken away by Carver, and after I had climbed out onto the roof.”
“So Sir Chisholm left the letter there deliberately, for you to find?”
“Exactly, Kitty. To set us off on a false trail. The writing in the letter was illegible, but it was meant to be, because it was just meaningless scribble. Like when actors in the theatre say ‘rhubarb rhubarb’ to simulate background conversation while the main characters talk. The only thing that Chisholm wanted us to read in that letter was what looked like a signature – ‘Black Velvet’.
That was the first in a trail of false clues that Chisholm laid for us. The second was the silver pen that I found in the writing-desk at Sweynsey Hall. It was indeed Percy Spence’s pen, which Chisholm took from Spence’s cabin on the Titanic at the same time that he was leaving the carafe of poisoned wine for Spence to drink. But although it was Spence’s own pen, he never knew of those initials “BV” that were carved on it. He never even saw them, because they were engraved after his death, on Chisholm’s instructions, after he had brought the pen back to England. And the pen was then returned to Sweynsey Hall by Daniel Carver. Who broke into the Hall not to steal anything, but for the sole purpose of leaving the pen there in that drawer of Spence’s writing-desk. He left it there in order that we might find it, and connect ‘Black Velvet’ in the fake letter with ‘BV’ engraved on the pen. Chisholm did all this to make us associate Percy Spence with the name Black Velvet. We were being led –”
“‘Led up the garden path’ is your English phrase. Led on a false trail.”
“Exactly. You’ll recall, Professor, how much Chisholm took charge of us all when we were at Sweynsey, directing us and telling us what to do. It was essential for Chisholm’s plan that we find that pen.”
“But why, Miss Agnes?” Kitty is trying to make sense of it. “Why was he laying a trail of fake clues?”
I explain. “It was Chisholm, not Spence, who was Black Velvet. Percy Spence was in fact a loyal British agent. It was Chisholm who was the tr
aitor, and it was Chisholm who led the plot to infiltrate British Secret Intelligence with agents who were actually working for Germany. Chisholm knew that Percy Spence suspected a plot. He realized that Spence was drawing up a list of possible traitors, and intended to send the list to Lord Buttermere.
On the Titanic, Chisholm decided that the only way to save himself and protect his network of German agents was to murder Percy Spence. But he realized that, if Spence was killed, Lord Buttermere would investigate the death very thoroughly, and that investigation itself might well uncover Chisholm’s role as a double agent.
So, Chisholm decided to leave a false trail of clues indicating that the double agent was not himself, but Spence. The deception was fairly easy to do – because, of course, Spence was not alive to defend himself.”
Kitty looks puzzled. “But if Black Velvet, this traitor, was in fact Sir Chisholm, then what about what happened when you were all in New York? Didn’t Sir Chisholm act as a patriot there? He did expose the Irish element of the plot. And I heard that he saved you, Miss Agnes, at Chelsea Piers, and he worked with Inspector Trench. And then on the Olympic, he tackled Jimmy Nolan. He did do all that, didn’t he?”
I answer her. “Yes. He did indeed do all those