Murder on the Titanic

by Evelyn Weiss

right, Agnes. A very good point. So – what did happen, then?”

  “Rufus was desperate for money. He didn’t want to ask his lover, Percy Spence. Perhaps Spence had helped him out enough already. Now, as we know, Rufus and Calvin Gilmour have had dealings with each other for some time, Rufus wheedling away at Gilmour, trying to get him to support his aviation ventures. So, I think it happened like this. We know that, while the British Army contract was being negotiated, Gilmour was staying at Claridge’s Hotel in London. One day, Rufus visited Gilmour’s rooms at the hotel, probably trying to beg for money. He saw a contract document lying on Gilmour’s desk – the contract under which Gilmour had agreed to sell 200 field cannon to the British Army. It was lying there after being signed by Gilmour. Gilmour left the room for a moment – and Rufus looked on the desk. He read the contract. And he stole the last page.”

  Chisholm looks at me in surprise. “You can’t possibly mean that du Pavey is our spy?”

  “No. He’s not interested in the content of the contract. Like me, he probably couldn’t even understand it. No, Rufus is interested in the signatures. That’s why he only took the last page. Professor, hold up the copy that I made.”

  I look at Chisholm as I trace my finger over the carefully-copied second signature. “This person is signing alongside Calvin Gilmour. They are the co-signatory for Gilmour Holdings. Now, look at the writing, the way the letters are formed. That first word can’t possibly be Gwyneth. But it could be, and in fact it is, Unity.” Chisholm looks at me, and the penny drops.

  “You mean, du Pavey looked at the signatures, and he realized that Gilmour wasn’t married to Gwyneth at all: he was married to Unity?”

  “Just so, yes. Rufus had visited Gilmour, he’d been around Calvin and Unity, he’d met Gwyneth. Maybe he’d already picked up an impression of how those three acted around each other. So when he saw the signatures, it maybe wasn’t too hard for him to work out the truth. One of America’s richest men has a secret marriage to a black woman. He covers it with a pretended alliance to a highly eligible white lady. That’s Gilmour’s secret, and it makes him a target for blackmail.”

  The professor, too, is nodding. “Yes, Miss Agnes. I can see that Gilmour, to whom a million dollars is small change, might be made to hand over ten thousand dollars to protect a secret like that.”

  I carry on. “So, du Pavey wrote the blackmail letter, and folded it up with the page of the contract, which is his proof that Calvin is married not to Gwyneth but to Unity. He intended to deliver it to Gilmour on the Titanic, which he knew that both he and Gilmour would be sailing on. But I think that, despite his faults, he couldn’t bring himself to do such a despicable thing. I know little about these things, but perhaps he had seen other bachelor gentlemen such as himself blackmailed: gentlemen who share his emotional inclinations are, I would guess, easy targets for the cruelest extortioners. Rufus dreamed of blackmail and money, but he balked at actually doing it.”

  The professor nods. “So in short, Miss Agnes, you are saying that du Pavey’s letter was intended not for Spence, but for Gilmour. As you said ‘it seemed to me more likely that Spence might have papers in his pocket which are not actually his own business’…”

  Chisholm is nodding too. “But I’ve not fully understood yet. How did Rufus’s letter, and the contract, end up with Spence?”

  “Simple. Rufus was in an anguish of indecision on the voyage: he went to ask Spence’s advice. Spence said no, don’t send this letter. As a precaution, Spence took it away from Rufus. By taking the letter, he was intending to protect Rufus from himself.”

  The professor is pondering. “To save du Pavey from his own stupidity - it sounds like a kindly act. A generous action for Spence, who as we know was a traitor and a spy.”

  Chisholm cuts in. “To us, Spence is a traitor. But I do think he believed he was acting rightly. Acting for what he believed – mistakenly – was the greater good. We have to fight, and defeat, his plot. But the strength of that plot lies in the fact that its conspirators genuinely believe they are working for good.”

  I look at Chisholm. Despite Nolan’s death, my fears are worse than ever. The shots that were fired in the shaft tunnel – and the knowledge that Daniel Carver is aboard the ship… I have to ask the question. “Chisholm, do you believe Lord Buttermere? When he says that German spies have completely penetrated our secret services, and that it will lead to certain German victory in any war?”

  “I don’t believe or disbelieve Lord Buttermere. That’s not my role. No-one at British Secret Intelligence has the full picture, we are all working in the dark. But I guess this is true: if Spence was in league with German spies, then perhaps we can understand his actions better. We all know that war is nearly inevitable. Ultimately, that is due to only one, very simple fact: Britain and France both fear Germany’s growing dominance of Europe.”

  The professor looks grave. “If it happens, Agnes, that war may be horrible beyond our worst imagination. More than half a million men died in your own American Civil War. But do you know that when it started, people thought that it would be over in a few days? The battle of Manassas…”

  “Bull Run, us Yankees call it.”

  “Indeed. The battle took place, as you know, in northern Virginia, just a few miles south of Washington. The gentlefolk of the city drove out, in carriages, to picnic, while they watched the battle in the sunshine. It was a society event: the ladies and gentleman all dressed in their Sunday finery. People expected a victory celebration. They did not reckon on Stonewall Jackson, or to see the Bull Run Creek run red with human blood.”

  Chisholm takes up the theme. “Agnes, the professor is right. Like the Union and the Confederacy, we stand on the brink of a horror we can’t imagine. Britain and Germany are strong foes: if they fight, they will fight to the death. Unless one side has a quick victory. I’m a spy, so I have to understand the mentality of our enemies. And I’m a realist, so I know it is no use to simply regard them as demons. They believe they are acting for good. They believe that it would be better if Britain, its empire, its outmoded traditions, stepped aside and let Germany, which they see as a truly modern, industrial nation, take the lead in Europe. One continent, one major power: just as the United States has taken the lead in the New World. And if Britain won’t step aside willingly – then, I think that Spence believed that it must be made to.”

  “That seems – unpatriotic, at the very least.”

  “From Spence’s point of view, he may have been intending to sacrifice the few to save the many. The professor himself, you’ll recall, spoke of Mr Darwin on your very first meeting, at that dinner at my home in Kensington. The law of nature is the survival of the fittest… Spence may have believed that Europe would be a better place if Germany won a quick, near-bloodless victory over Britain and France.”

  “Well, even if he did think that… I believe he still must have been guided by self-interest.” I smile. “Perhaps he hoped the Kaiser would reward him by making him governor of the German empire’s Großbritannien province.”

  Axelson interrupts me. “I guess we will never really understand Spence’s motives, Miss Agnes. Please – finish your explanation.”

  “Sorry – I’ll get back to the point. What happened on the Titanic was this: Spence took the letter and the contract from du Pavey, and he put them in his pocket. He took them with him, too, when the Titanic was sinking. Do you remember, Kitty said ‘he folds a letter, putting it in inside the breast pocket of his suit jacket’? Then, when Spence was in the lifeboat, he realized that he was going to die. His last thoughts were of the man he loved: Rufus. He realized that the letter and the contract will be found on his body, and that they will incriminate Rufus: they will show that Rufus was planning to blackmail Gilmour. So, Spence tried to speak or gesture to Freshing to take the papers, to throw them into the sea or tear them up. But Spence couldn’t speak, and his attempts at gestures didn’t make any sense to Freshing. So Freshing took the papers, but he simply
kept them. At Glen Springs Sanitarium he put them in his safe, saying nothing to anyone about them. By sheer habit: after all, he is a confidential secretary.”

  Chisholm’s nodding. “The one thing I still don’t understand though, Agnes, is Freshing’s horrified reaction when he saw those papers. Professor, do you understand that?”

  “I understand Freshing’s actions perfectly – both his storing the documents in the safe, and his reaction when he saw them in Miss Agnes’s hand. Psychologically, it is the simplest piece of this whole puzzle. At the most frightening moment of his life, Freshing receives those papers into his hand from the agonized, dying Spence. Can you imagine the impression that made on him? Later, he reads what Spence has given him. He is utterly startled to find that someone was intending to blackmail Calvin Gilmour, using as evidence a contract which he, Freshing, had dealt with. Freshing is a sensitive man: he felt somehow responsible, even though of course it was du Pavey, not himself, who stole the contract. He couldn’t face those papers: he locked them away and tried not to the think of them.

  The sense of responsibility combined in Freshing’s mind with the horrors of the Titanic’s sinking and the death of Percy Spence. Horrors