Murder on the Titanic

by Evelyn Weiss

people and Percy and I are alone together, we’re in the corridor leading to his cabin. The electric lights are flickering all down the corridor: some of them have gone out.

  We get to the cabin. And Percy’s telling me to be calm, telling me that I’m safe with him, and I know something terrible is happening. The ship is sinking and we’re going to die. And Percy says, drink some of the water that I have with my wine, it’s in the carafe there. If we have to go into a lifeboat, Kitty, who knows when you will next get to drink water – so drink it now. He tells me that I must drink it all, every last drop. And he takes up another carafe, his wine. I can see the red glinting in the glass of the carafe, like a ruby. And he drinks. He offers it to me, but I say ‘No, no. I am not allowed to drink wine. You drink it all, Percy.’”

  “This is very important, Miss Kitty. You can see Percy Spence drinking wine?”

  “Yes, straight from his carafe. I’m seeing him, now, holding it. His head tilts back as he drinks. There’s a flag and star, engraved on the side of the carafe, and the red of the wine shines through them.”

  Axelson whispers to us. “The branded carafes of the White Star Line, used in the first-class cabins.” Both Chisholm and I, of course, remember the carafes well: we saw them aboard the Titanic. Then the professor’s gaze returns to Kitty.

  “Percy Spence drinks the wine: what does he do then?”

  “He puts down the carafe, there’s only the dregs left in it. Then he goes over to the desk in the corner of the cabin. He has a little key, I see the brass catching the light and glinting, and he unlocks the drawer and gets papers out of it. He’s taking lots of pieces of paper out of the drawer. He folds a letter, putting it in inside the breast pocket of his suit jacket, then he gathers the rest of the papers into a bundle. I’m afraid, but I feel glad that I’m with Percy. He’s very calm and organized, he knows exactly what he’s doing.

  The ship lurches. Like an earthquake. I start to feel scared again, but Percy looks at me, his eyes look into mine. He says ‘Kitty, you’re a good girl. Whatever happens to us both tonight – thank you. Thank you for being with me tonight.’ And I can hear voices of terror outside the cabin, cries and screams, and crashing and breaking noises: metal grinding, wood smashing. And we turn to escape from the cabin, we go to the door and I try to open it, but I can’t.”

  “Why can’t you open the door?”

  “I’m pushing against the door, trying to open it. I push and push, but it’s jammed.” I notice that her hands are tensed now, they twist and clutch each other. Suddenly, her eyes are wide open: a blank, mindless stare.

  “Miss Kitty, look back at Percy. Tell me: what is he doing?”

  “He’s holding all his papers, the ones from the desk. Sheets and sheets of paper. He’s holding the bundle out to me – all these papers. But the papers flutter and shake in his fingers. His hands are shaking. It’s not fear that makes them shake – something else is happening to him, he seems to be trembling all over. I can see beads of sweat all over his face.”

  “Are you sure that something is wrong with him?”

  “Yes. He’s ill, badly ill. His hands shake more, and the papers, they’re falling through his fingers… It’s going dark in the cabin, the lights are fading. I hear a wheezing, panting noise. It’s Percy, he’s struggling to breathe. His head is jerking back, and he’s gasping for air, clutching his throat, desperate, desperate –”

  Her breath, just like Spence’s in her description, has changed: it’s sharp, harsh, shallow. I can see her eyes start in their sockets, she’s blinking frantically, as if even this dim light is too much for her. The professor continues talking, still slow, still controlled.

  “Breathe slowly and deeply. Tell me what is happening.”

  “The lights in the cabin are flickering – they’ve gone out! Darkness, darkness. I can see nothing. I hear the horrible gasping, it goes on and on. Rattling in his throat, like his bones are shaking. But above the gasping, I hear cries in the dark. Piteous, piteous. People are dying, these noises are their death screams – Percy – he’s stopped breathing! Percy, Percy –”

  She starts to twitch uncontrollably. Axelson looks across at me, signals with his eyes. He doesn’t want to hold down a woman by force. But he wants me to.

  Her body convulses as if with electric shock: I take hold of her upper arms to try to keep her still in her chair, but I’m not strong enough: these shakes that rack her thin frame are far stronger than any woman: there is a power in her body that seems – not human. Her eyes open again, stare emptily, then roll horribly in her head. She reaches her hands together across her chest, her nails dig into the fabric of her chemise and she rips the cotton. “Can’t – can’t breathe! Can’t breathe!” Chisholm and the professor look away as a flash of white-skinned chest is revealed.

  “Axelson. Stop this. Now.”

  “I can’t.”

  Kitty stiffens, rigid like iron, arches her back, and a hideous screech comes from her lips. Then, in a moment, she’s limp in my arms.

  3.The dead of the Titanic

  The professor and I are sitting in the study. Mrs Sharp has taken Kitty up to her own room: she seemed to be sleep-walking as she went. Chisholm has gone to see Blanche and the other household staff, and calm them after the terrifying screams that echoed through the house.

  “Now you see, Miss Agnes?”

  “See what, Professor Axelson?”

  “The power. The power that hypnotism can unleash, can set free from the chains of reason and good manners that we wear in order to live in our polite, controlled society. Underneath – we are wild beasts. You felt her strength, Miss Agnes. Did you know than an ape is five times stronger than a man?”

  Then why ask me to hold her down, I think to myself. But I don’t say it. I ask something else.

  “Professor – is it perhaps possible, that Kitty’s reaction isn’t because of some hidden wild beast in her? That it’s simply because she saw something so terrifying – perhaps she’s pretending to herself it never happened – and now she’s recalling it? Like you could decide to block off a bad memory, never think about it – but then under the hypnosis, it comes back to you vividly?...” I trail off uncertainly: I know nothing of the professor’s science.

  “Of course. Your suggestion, Miss Agnes, is correct – and it fits perfectly with my Hypnotic-Forensic Method. You see, Miss Kitty’s reason, her logical mind, tells her that this horror, this evil – it was in the past. Every moment of her waking life, her rational brain is telling her that she needs to forget what happened on the Titanic, to concentrate on being a good servant, to work hard, perform her duties, ignore these emotions. Emotions that are so strong that she has to clamp the lid down on them – as you yourself said, to pretend to herself that it never happened. But the uncontrolled, deep mind – it saw. It witnessed. It knows what happened to Percy Spence. Almost certainly, it knows who murdered him.”

  The door opens and Chisholm comes in, wiping his brow; he’s finally succeeded in quieting the household. I sense that he feels responsible for Kitty’s ordeal. But Axelson goes on speaking. “We need to try again: to hypnotize her one last time. In fact, we need to go much deeper into her mind. So far, she has still been controlling what she tells us.”

  “What do you mean, Axelson?” Chisholm sits down opposite us.

  “Miss Kitty has been lying to us.”

  Chisholm’s face hardens. “She’s an impressionable girl, Axelson. But she’s not –”

  “I do not mean deliberate lies, as if she plans to deceive us. I mean simply that her unconscious mind, the animal nature in her, has seen terrible things. My Hypnotic-Forensic Method has opened chambers in her brain. But she is still keeping some places locked away from us. She is telling us what she thinks we want to hear. Instead of what actually happened.”

  “How in God’s name do you know that, Axelson?”

  “Because the facts contradict her, Chisholm. You yourself were on the Titanic. I was not, of course – but I
have checked details closely. The door of Viscount Spence’s cabin could not have been blocked in the way Miss Kitty described to us. She said she was pushing the cabin door to try to get out of the room, but that can’t be true. Because of a very simple fact: all passenger cabin doors on the Titanic opened inwards.”

  “So – if she is still holding back from telling us everything – what can we do?”

  “Go deeper. The lie she has told us about the cabin door – it is itself a metaphor for her resistance. It shows that she is holding the final door in her brain shut. One more Hypnotic-Forensic session will reveal the whole truth. Miss Kitty will have one hour of rest, and then I will hypnotize her again.”

  “If Kitty feels able to...”

  Professor Axelson interrupts. “It has to happen sometime, Chisholm, and it’s better for us, and for Miss Kitty herself, if she tells us everything now. You yourself are concerned for her happiness – so, let me help her. She is carrying an awful burden, and the hypnosis, the revelation of the secrets she has carried for so long, may be able to free her from that burden. We need to act now. The complete, final truth of Percy Spence’s murder will be revealed to us tonight.”

  “Maybe you’re right. But while we wait for an hour – Axelson, could you explain to Agnes how you came to be involved in this case?”

  “Of course. In order to understand