Murder on the Titanic

by Evelyn Weiss

the air through the New York night, hoping desperately for something unexpected to happen: something to change the balance between us and the man who is going to kill us.

  Most of all, we’re hoping that the one other remaining young man, the one who smiled at me first when we stepped onto the train, doesn’t leave the observation platform, leaving us alone here with this killer.

  The train shakes like fury as we round another curve in the rails. I smile again at the second young man, who has pulled out a newspaper and is trying to read it: it flutters in his hand as the train vibrates. He shuts the paper with an air of mild frustration, and he glances across at our carriage. He sees my smile.

  “Reading the paper?” I shout across the noise of the train.

  “Trying to, Miss. The way this train rattles there’s not much point trying though. And there’s no news worth reading today.”

  “Me and my brother” I pull Chisholm’s arm “we ain’t bothered about the news. The news is always bad, anyway.”

  “It sure is. I’m Henry, by the way.”

  “And I’m Nancy. Nice to meet you, Henry.”

  Once again I feel the brakes gripping, the vibration grinding through the floor of the carriage. How many stations are there on this line? Henry smiles again. “Well here we are. 155th Street, end of the line.” He pauses, then glances at me again. “I guess you two don’t have far to walk home from here.”

  “Oh, me and my brother, we live in different neighborhoods.”

  “It’s dark round here, late at night. Are you walking her home?” Our new friend looks at Chisholm.

  “No. I’ve got a meeting to go to…”

  “No problem. Nancy, I could…”

  “Oh yes – if you wouldn’t mind just walking me to my door, it’s not far – I’d be delighted, Henry. What a gentleman, my knight in shining armor. Thank you. If all three of us leave the station together?...”

  The train is pulling to a halt alongside the station platform. I keep my eyes steadily on the barrel of the gun, but I reach my arm out, take the handle of the door that leads back into the carriage. I step towards the door, and Chisholm follows. The gun barrel tracks our every movement. But it doesn’t fire.

  The train stops: people in the carriage behind us are getting up, gathering hats and coats. I look back onto the other observation platform: I see Henry turning to the man with the gun.

  “Bye, mac.”

  A muttered “Bye.” I glimpse the frustration in the gunman’s eyes: a moment later, Henry is shaking our hands in greeting on the station platform. Across from us, their roofs level with the station, I see the stands of the Polo Grounds baseball stadium. They seem so close you could reach out and touch them. We turn away from the train: the three of us descend the endless steps down to street level. But of course, we’ve not escaped yet. I glance behind me: the man with the toothpick is following us down the steps. And yes, under that coat over his arm, he’s still pointing the gun straight at us. We’ve evaded him on the train, but I realize that we won’t evade him on the street. And if I leave Chisholm and go with Henry, then the man will follow Chisholm, and without a doubt, he’ll shoot him. What on earth can we do?

  Here we are: the final flight of steps down to the sidewalk. The street is dark, empty, deserted: there’s no-one around to see what’s going to happen to us. I glance back again, and I know this is the gunman’s chance. There’s nothing Chisholm or I can do. I can’t help it, I look back again, and I see that the man is now only a few feet behind us now, as close as he was to us on the observation platforms. Like he did on the train, he catches my eye. Is that what you do, I wonder, if you’re a killer? Look into the eyes of someone you’re about to shoot?

  I’m just about to tell Henry to run away, to tell him we’ll deal with the man behind us, when I hear a voice calling to us from the foot of the steps. And then I see a sleek, gleaming shape of shining paintwork. An automobile, like no automobile I’ve ever seen, is pulled up by the edge of the sidewalk opposite the bottom of the stairs.

  “I hope you like the car.” It’s Gwyneth’s voice: she sits in the driver’s seat, holding the steering wheel with one hand. I hear a new noise, a deep purring, and I realize that she already has the engine running.

  I hear another voice speaking, with a tone of surprise. It’s Henry, and he’s staring at the car in disbelief. “Is she a friend of yours?” He looks again from Gwyneth’s car to us: my peasant shawl, my homespun skirt, Chisholm’s working jacket and worn trousers. He seems lost for words.

  “Sorry, Henry. Yes, she’s my friend: and it looks like she will give me and my brother a lift home. Thanks anyway: it was nice to meet you.”

  “Okay. Go carefully now, Nancy.” He looks disappointed, crestfallen. But I glance back one last time at the gunman, and I realize with utter relief that there’s nothing now he can do. He’d get in one shot, but there are too many witnesses here now. If he fires that gun, he’s headed straight for the electric chair. I glance back at him once more, and I see him putting the gun inside his jacket. We’re safe – but oddly, my main feeling is a desire to apologize to our new, unknowing friend. I wave. “Bye, Henry.”

  Chisholm and I get into the car, leaving leave the two very different men on the sidewalk: as we drive away we see them going their separate ways. Walking along, our would-be killer looks like any other man, strolling along a darkened New York street. As Gwyneth’s car speeds away and the streetlights whiz by, Chisholm looks at me. “That was touch-and-go there on that train. I must admit, I thought it might be the end of us.”

  “We should thank my new friend Henry.” I start to laugh hysterically.

  Gwyneth glances round from the driver’s seat with a smile. “Been having adventures, you two?”

  17.Empires and rivalries

  Glen Springs Sanitarium is known as the foremost residential health spa in the United States. We drive along a private gravel road through a vast parkland of manicured lawns and scattered pines, and I glimpse it ahead of us. In the late afternoon sun it glows: a huge, palatial building, with white-walled wings stretching out from a great central tower. The layers of balconies on the tall, tapering structure give it the air of a pagoda or an Eastern temple.

  It’s less than twenty-four hours since our escape from the man on the El, but New York seems a lifetime away. After Gwyneth picked us up, we drove over Macombs Dam Swing Bridge into the Bronx, and by midnight we’d reached Westchester County, where we stopped at a hotel. I was glad to collapse into bed, but Chisholm stayed up, using the hotel telephone to contact Inspector Trench and update him on our escape from New York. He also telephoned ahead to the Sanitarium: despite the late hour of his call, they were happy to book us for a stay.

  After a few hours of snatched sleep, we got up at dawn. One thing was nice: to get dressed in my own clothes again: Gwyneth had our suitcases in the car. After a hasty breakfast at the hotel, our journey today to the Sanitarium has felt endless. How Gwyneth has kept her concentration all this way, I don’t know. We drove up the highway through Poughkeepsie towards Albany, where we stopped briefly for lunch. I thought we’d have to take a ferry across the Hudson, but there’s a new, ugly bridge from Troy to Waterford, just above the river’s confluence with the Mohawk, and from there we followed the red paint splashes of the ‘Auto Trail’, just as Gwyneth had said we could, across to Binghampton and, Elmira. Finally a small, winding local road led us through the little town of Watkins Glen to the gates of the Sanitarium’s parklands.

  We pull up at the entrance to the towering building, and a familiar figure descends the steps to greet us.

  “Professor! How have you been enjoying Glen Springs?”

  “Greatly enjoying it, thank you. I think your English phrase is ‘the lap of luxury’. The staff here gave me your message that you were coming here, and staying tonight.” Axelson looks at our car, with obvious interest. He greets Gwyneth.

  “Mrs Gilmour, it’s good that you have joined us. And acted a taxi
driver too. This looks like an extraordinary automobile.” His face is full of admiration: he seems entranced with the vehicle.

  “Thanks, professor. It’s a K-D Tourer, and its come straight from wowing the crowds at the Boston Automobile Show. Calvin bought it at the show. Women designers, too: K-D: K stands for Margaret Knight and D stands for Anna Davidson.”

  Chisholm helps me take my cases into the lobby of the spa, while Gwyneth shows the professor all the features of the car. The reception desk staff check our reservation, and all is fine: yes, a note was made late last night of Chisholm’s telephone call, and we’re booked in for dinner and an overnight stay. But before going up to our rooms, I wait in the lobby for Gwyneth and the professor, while Chisholm goes back to help Gwyneth with her luggage. I look around me at well-dressed people passing through the lobby, in little groups of twos and threes, all talking softly.

  There’s a scatter of easy chairs; I sit in one of them and pick up the brochure which lies in front of me on a low table. I read ‘Glen Springs stands 300 feet above Seneca Lake, surrounded by acres of woodlands and lawns. Within the park are bowling alleys, tennis courts, croquet grounds and golf links.’

  Chisholm comes in carrying a suitcase, but Gwyneth and the professor aren’t with him. He grins at me. “They’re still admiring the car.”

  “I’ve been looking through the Glen Springs brochure. It reads like something for a five-star hotel. I thought this was supposed to be a convalescent home?”

  “It is – but you don’t have to be ill to stay here. It’s a health spa, and that means fitness and leisure as well as illness. Apart from the central New York hotels, this is the place to be seen in American society.”

  I look up, and see that Gwyneth and Axelson are finally joining us in the lobby. We agree to meet for dinner before heading our separate ways to our rooms. Joy of joys, my room has its own bathroom with a bath.

  The Glen Springs dining room is every bit as sumptuous at that on the Olympic, with chandeliers lighting fifty tables, at least. The men wear Garment District tailored dinner jackets, and every woman is a mass of silk, furs and jewels. The menu is extraordinary: bewildered by the choice, I choose the simplest-looking dishes I can see. The professor is clearly enjoying the luxury, and Gwyneth and Chisholm, too, look very much at home. I feel like the specter at the feast in my plain black dress.

  Waiters come and go, silently and efficiently, and both Axelson and Chisholm seem confident that we won’t be overheard. Chisholm doesn’t hesitate: he tells the professor everything that has happened. I feel a kind of relief that, at last, we all have the same facts in front of us. Looking round at their faces, seeing the common understanding between us, I have the feeling that, in some way, the four of us are a team. But Chisholm needs to make an apology.

  “I must, Professor Axelson, say sorry to you. You will understand now why I was so cagey about Colette Morgan and her possible part in Spence’s murder. And especially, I must apologize that I let you carry on believing that Spence may have been killed because he unearthed a dangerous terrorist plot, when in fact he himself was the leader of that plot.”

  “It’s nothing, Chisholm. Please don’t feel any need to apologize. First, these revelations about you don’t change the person that I have worked with, and whom I trust. Secondly, I would not have done anything differently if I had had this information about Spence. The priorities remain: to discover Spence’s killer, and – if she is still alive – to release Miss Kitty from her captivity. We have simply added another priority to that: to assist in any way we can in preventing the shipment of explosives to England. Which, it appears, you already have in hand, Chisholm.”

  Chisholm nods, but I can see the stress behind his face. I guess that he has concluded that after what happened at the Metropole and on the El, Jimmy Nolan wants him dead. So Chisholm’s cover must be blown, and the planned police operation against the Gophers may be compromised.

  But the professor is pleased to see us, and he’s fascinated by Chisholm’s new revelations, and by the adventures that we’ve had. He’s enjoying it all too much to notice Chisholm’s tense expression, and he goes on talking. “Most of all, it is now imperative, Chisholm, that we solve the Spence case, because the future of Europe may be at stake. Agnes – you said that Inspector Trench implied that there might be some kind of collaboration between Irish revolutionaries and German spies. If so, Spence was clearly at the centre of it.”

  “Agreed, professor. Our work is more urgent than ever.” Chisholm glances over at me, then at Gwyneth, whom we are trusting with all this knowledge. The professor answers.

  “Besides, I should tell you all that I, Felix Axelson, now have a very personal interest in the case. We Swedes hardly want terrorism, chaos and rebellion in Britain and Ireland – or worse still, a European war.”

  I look across the table at the professor. “I’ve hear it said that a European war would suit some neutral powers. You make a lot of steel in Sweden: you could sell armaments to both sides.” I’m surprised at the sarcastic tone in my voice. I smile to show him I’m joking.

  “You may laugh, Miss Agnes. It’s nice to see you’ve not lost your sense of humor after your adventures in New York City. But your little joke about my country – you have a serious point. So I’ll remind you that I – and the government of my native land – prefer peace and justice to power and wealth. Long ago, we Swedes were an imperial power: for hundreds of years we fought the Russians, the Poles, the Germans, and lorded it over all the little nations around the Baltic. Eight years ago, we happily let the last remnant of that empire go, when we permitted a referendum in Norway. They voted for independence, and we were happy to let them go their own way. Agnes, you would be pleased to hear how we conducted that referendum: although women were not permitted to vote, we took account of the views of 250,000 Norwegian women who signed a petition for independence.”

  “It’s still not quite the same as a right to vote, though, is it? Also, I heard that years ago, some women did have the right vote in Sweden, but then your government took it away again. “

  The professor doesn’t answer me: he just carries on speaking. “My country is – how shall I put it – a grown-up adult. Empires and rivalries no longer interest us. We have grown too old and sensible for childish nonsense. We no longer need to boast that we are the biggest bully in the schoolyard.”

  I smile: despite him ignoring my last remark, I realize that I like the Professor’s odd, deeply-hidden sense of humor. Gwyneth smiles too. “It’s a shame, professor, that other countries don’t take the same approach.”

  “I agree. Including you British, Chisholm, with your empire across the globe. And Mrs Gilmour and Miss Agnes, I haven’t forgotten you Americans too – you have played the liberator, driving the Spanish out of the Philippines, but now you’ve decided that you want the islands as a colony for yourselves. So you too have become empire-builders. Every country wants to pretend it is the ‘top dog’ as you would say in English. But the Kaiser – he is the worst. He is a ruler who really has not grown up. He has industry on a grand scale, his nation dominates the economy of Europe. But it’s not enough for him: he still feels jealous of the other children’s toys. He wants to be an imperial Power like Britain and France. ‘Our place in the sun’ he calls it. Indeed there are times when I wonder if he looks acquisitively at my native land too. Maybe he plans that the Baltic Sea will become a German lake, a little pond where he can amuse himself by sailing German battleships. He is a foolish and infinitely dangerous man.”

  Chisholm asks another question that’s been on all our minds. “Professor, how have you got on with hypnotizing Mr Freshing?”

  “I have met Mr Freshing, and he has told me about the elaborate regime of treatment that the Glen Springs medical staff have devised to treat his physical and nervous ailments. But that is all.”

  “You’ve not done any hypnosis, then?”

  “Unfortunately, no. Miss Agnes and Mrs Gilmour – your A
merica, it is a land of lawyers. You see, Chisholm, the doctors at Glen Springs will not allow me to use my Hypnotic-Forensic Method on Mr Freshing until he has signed a formal legal statement.”

  “A statement of what?”

  “A declaration, to the effect that the Sanitarium has no legal liability for any harm that the hypnosis may do to Mr Freshing’s health. A waiver, they call it. I think the doctors are only asking for the statement so that they cannot be blamed, if he does not like the hypnosis.”

  “And, this waiver – when will it be done?”

  “A lawyer comes here tomorrow morning, and Mr Freshing must sign the document in the presence of a witness. Which I guess he will be used to doing, from his line of work. So, it will be the afternoon before I can proceed to the hypnosis. And then – we will learn of the very final moments of Percy Spence.”

  18.Fear and trembling

  It’s the following afternoon. The professor, Chisholm and I are out on a balcony overlooking wide, perfectly mown lawns surrounded by groves of pines. Apparently the long-term residents of Glen Springs spend much of their time on these balconies, looking out at the peaceful scenery and inhaling the benefits of fresh air. And it’s very fresh – chill, in fact: despite some pale sunshine today, spring temperatures have not yet arrived in upper New York State. We’ve all got blankets wrapped around us to keep warm. The fourth person with us, Mr Freshing, sits in a wicker-backed chair. He’s a smooth-faced, olive-eyed gentleman, maybe in his early forties. It seems odd to see his dark business suit and stand-up collar wrapped in a New England biscuit quilt like I used to sleep under when I was a child. His black hair, carefully styled, gives him a Spanish air, and there’s a Hispanic old-fashioned politeness to his manner. He reaches out from under his quilt to shake my hand, and I sense a tremble in his arm.

  “Miss Frocester. Delighted meet you too, and I hope I can be of service.” Despite his Mediterranean looks, his voice is pure Yankee. But there’s a quaver in it. And I notice a pallor beneath his Latin skin. He continues.

  “Although, in my present state of health, any service I can offer you might be limited. Pleurisy, followed by prolonged pneumonia, you see.” He coughs behind one hand.

  Professor Axelson regards him. “I understand, from our previous conversations, that there is also a nervous element to your condition?”

  Mr Freshing coughs again: a repeating noise for about a minute, before he answers the professor’s question. “The ordeal of the Titanic – it can never quite leave me, I fear. But that does not affect my appetite to