The Titanic Murders (2 page)

This theory, like so many about the
Titanic,
had proved wrong. Deep-sea organisms had eaten away fabric and wood—and flesh, and for that matter, bone. An empty pair of shoes, the feet eaten right out of them, was as close as anyone had come to finding the remains of a
Titanic
fatality.

And, as my anonymous caller indicated, the various visits to the
Titanic,
whether for purposes of shooting documentary footage or salvaging artifacts, were acceptable to society at large only because no human remains had been viewed by the explorers, or their cameras. The ghostly majesty of the rust-encrusted wreckage would have turned ghastly had its decayed decks been littered with human rubble, had bones mingled with the bottles, bedsprings, dishes and dolls of the debris field.

“Listen,” I said, close to hanging up, “you’re going to have to give me your name.”

“I don’t know you, yet. Don’t trust you, yet. This is big money. Dangerous, too.”

“Why’s it dangerous?”

“I signed papers not to tell. I took money.”

“What for? Who from, damnit!”

“… I can’t say.”

I held the phone away from my face and glared at it; then I brought it back to my ear and mouth and said tightly, “Then why are you bothering me?”

Silence on the line, staticky silence.

“… They thought the galley area would be a good place to look. For the kind of things easy to take, still in nice shape… dishes, silverware, pots, pans… you know what a White Star dish from the
Titanic
would be worth?”

Had my anonymous caller been on a salvage expedition to the
Titanic,
with modern-day pirates?

“I’m sure a lot,” I said.

“They had huge refrigeration on that ship. Very modern for back then, condenser-coil water system. Separate cold rooms for different perishables, you know, meat, vegetables, wine and champagne… and on the orlop deck, a cold-storage cargo hold, for other things… away from the food.”

I didn’t know what an orlop deck was (it’s the lowest deck of a ship with multidecks, in this case right above the
Titanic
’s three immense propellers) but I did have a question. It’s the kind of question a mystery writer would ask.

“This cold-storage hold—would that be where they’d put somebody who died?”

There was a nod in his voice. “That ship had everything—swimming pool, squash court, barbershop, Turkish bath, operating room, everything—except a morgue.”

The staticky silence seemed to need filling, before he would go on; so I said, “I see.”

“You’re right—the cold cargo hold, in through number-five hatch… that’s where we found them.”

“… Bodies?”

“We didn’t know that’s what they were at first. They were just big canvas bags, sewn shut… beautifully preserved. The submersible brought the bags up, we hauled them out on deck, and we cut one of them open… the stench was like a sewer….”

“I don’t need details.”

“Have you read Poe?”

“Of course I’ve read Poe.”

“Have you read the story of the sick man who is hypnotized?”

“Yeah, and I saw the movie.” He was referring to “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar.”

“Then you remember the hypnotized man, he finally collapses in an oozing pile of putrescence, melting from the bones—”

“Okay, okay,” I said. “I may want to eat again someday.”

“It’s not what
National Geographic
wants for a Discovery Channel special, I can tell you that much. We never opened the other bag, but there was a body in it, all right.”

Staticky silence, as if some distant telegraph message were going unanswered.

I asked, “And no one knows of this?”

“Only those on deck that day.”

“On what deck? What ship, what expedition? You sound French.”

“Oh? I thought my English was very good.”

“Berlitz would hire you in a heartbeat. What about the bodies?”

“We buried them at sea. We swore not to talk of it, we were paid handsomely… I’ll tell you one thing about the body in the bag, the bag we opened?”

“Yes?”

“Its skull had been crushed. Caved in.”

“Couldn’t that have happened when the ship went down?”

“I don’t think so. I think this was death by violence, man’s violence, not nature. Murder. Isn’t that what you write about?”

“I do, but I’m not really a nonfiction writer. I mean, I research real, unsolved crimes, but then I write a fictional work around the facts I uncover.”

“That’s why I called you. I can’t risk a true treatment of this, but if you could devise a fiction story around it…”

“I don’t know. You’re not giving me much to go on… I’m afraid a nonfiction treatment would be where the interest, and the money, is. Hey, come on, pal—what
is
your name?”

“Are you interested in my story?”

“Yeah, I’m interested. Mildly. But interested.”

And he hung up.

Perhaps I hadn’t shown sufficient enthusiasm, and if you’d had as many crank calls, relating to your work, as I’ve had, you’d have been at least as skeptical as I was. Still, the notion of a murder—of
two
murders—on the
Titanic,
before she went down… that was intriguing.

And it did tap into my very narrow, specific
Titanic
interest, an interest I’d carried since childhood….

Among the
Titanic
’s famous passengers, hobnobbing with John Jacob Astor, Molly Brown, Ben Guggenheim and the rest, was one of the most celebrated and popular American mystery writers of his day, Jacques Futrelle, creator of Professor S.F.X. Van Dusen. Futrelle’s creation, also known as the Thinking Machine, was a cerebral sleuth whose exaggerated cranium housed a formidable brain, a dabbler in detection who refused payment for his crime solving, displaying a cold, imperious
attitude (and devotion to pure logic) that made Sherlock Holmes seem warm and fuzzy.

Despite the French ring of his name, Futrelle was an American journalist turned fiction writer. His tales of so-called “Impossible Mystery” were a major influence on Agatha Christie; there is much of Professor Van Dusen in her Hercule Poirot and his celebrated “little gray cells.” The Thinking Machine’s first case remains his most famous: “The Problem of Cell 13,” in which the detective, on a bet, escapes from a death-row cell. This tale remains one of the two or three most reprinted short stories in mystery fiction, and is the first detective story I remember reading.

And the brief biography of Futrelle included in the preface to the Scholastic Books’ collection of “Thinking Machine” stories was where I first heard about the
Titanic,
and the sad news that Futrelle—and a number of unpublished Professor Van Dusen stories—went down with the ship.

I’d always been interested in Futrelle, and loved his stories, but little of his work was in print and coming by editions of his handful of novels was difficult. Consequently I hadn’t given him much thought in perhaps twenty years when the Robert Ballard–stirred revival of
Titanic
interest sent journalists scurrying to talk to survivors of the tragedy, and even relatives. A wire-service interview with Futrelle’s daughter Virginia made me recall how, as a boy, I’d enjoyed Jacques Futrelle’s fiction.

Now, ironically, from a single wire-service story, I knew more about his grown daughter than I did about Futrelle himself; and she’d had quite a life of her own.

Born in 1897, Virginia had been an operatic prima donna featured in musical revues, frequently sharing the bill with young Cary Grant’s acrobatic act at the Hippodrome in New
York. She toured Europe, consorted with show business royalty (she was Barbara Stanwyck’s bridesmaid) and eventually married Charles F. Raymond, an eminent New York theatrical manager, living with him in London and, after World War II, in Johannesburg, South Africa. Later in life she worked in broadcasting, in production, winding up back in Massachusetts, where she’d grown up.

Virginia Futrelle Raymond, interviewed about her father and his death on the
Titanic,
passed along to interviewers a number of fascinating stories told to her by her late mother, May, who had survived the disaster. I noted that Mrs. Raymond, now a widow, lived in Scituate, Massachusetts.

And since I had a book tour coming up that would take me through Boston—twenty-five miles from Scituate—I made my own impulsive, out-of-the-blue telephone call to the daughter of Jacques Futrelle.

“I’m a fan of your father’s work,” I told her, “and I’d consider it a great honor if you’d consent to meet with me.”

She was easily ninety years of age, but her voice had the no-nonsense quality of a businesswoman, tempered by the musicality of a former professional singer.

“I’d be delighted,” she said. “I adored my father, and it’s a pity his memory, his work, has been so neglected.”

“I couldn’t agree more.”

Her next remark seemed intended to set the tone for our meeting to come: “It will be nice to talk to someone more interested in my father than the tragedy that took his life.”

I asked where we might meet, wondering to myself if it would be a nursing home of some kind, although the fact that her number had been listed should have told me she was in her own home or anyway an apartment.

“It’s beautiful here this time of year,” she said.

It was April.

“And,” she continued, “you should have the pleasure of enjoying our lovely harbor. So—I believe I’ll let you take me out to lunch, young man.”

It was nice being called “young man,” even if I had to hang out with women in their nineties for that to happen. My wife accompanied me on the drive down Massachusetts State Route 3A, which was mostly inland and not terribly scenic.

But Scituate itself provided all the scenery landlubbing midwesterners like us could drink in, even on a cool overcast afternoon. Nestling on four cliffs, looking down on a gentle curve of coastline, Scituate was a small, quaint community whose antique Cape Cods and Colonial homes had us immediately discussing relocating.

Virginia (on the phone she had made it clear she was “Virginia,” not “Mrs. Raymond”) had suggested the restaurant—Chester’s at the Mill Wharf—which was on Front Street, on the town’s picturesque sheltered harbor, overseen by a nineteenth-century lighthouse. We were early, and sat in the rustic, nautically themed restaurant at a table by the window looking out on the busy harbor—bobbing with pleasure craft and a working fishing fleet—and an ocean so smooth and gunmetal gray it nearly blended with the overcast gunmetal sky.

When the daughter of Jacques Futrelle entered, there was no mistaking her. I had seen Futrelle’s photograph—he had a John Candy–like, round, boyish face, with dark wide-open eyes behind wire-frame glasses, and seemed at once alert and childlike, scholarly and cherubic, and was apparently rather thickset though by no means obese.

Based upon the one known photo of Futrelle aboard the
Titanic,
a full-figure shot of him on deck in a three-piece suit, his hair ruffled by wind, the author appeared to be fairly stocky, even short.

But Virginia Raymond was tall, close to six foot, with the big-boned frame of her father and a handsome face that echoed his, as well; at ninety, she still cut a commanding figure. She wore a dignified suit—a lavender pattern on top, with a solid lavender skirt (which my wife later described as “very Chanel”)—and she used a cane, though she strode otherwise unaided through the mostly empty restaurant. (We had chosen to dine mid-afternoon, when we would have the place mostly to ourselves.)

We rose, and I introduced my wife and myself, mentioning that both of us were writers.

“Ah, like my parents,” Virginia said, allowing me to help with her chair. “You didn’t know Mother was a writer, too? She and Papa collaborated only once, on a short story that frankly wasn’t very good. Well, of course, they collaborated on my brother and me, too.”

We laughed at that, as I took my seat right across from Virginia. Soon we ordered soft drinks, and chatted about the drive down, and this lovely scenic little city, and explained that we were in Boston making appearances at several bookstores, promoting my latest historical detective novel and an anthology my wife had coedited.

“Look how smooth it is today,” Virginia said, gazing out at the calm gray ocean. “That’s how they say it was, you know. My mother said the ocean was like a millpond, that Sunday night.”

I said nothing, exchanging nervous glances with my wife; we’d agreed to avoid the
Titanic
in conversation, as on the
phone Virginia had made such a point of her willingness to spend time with a Futrelle fan, as opposed to a
Titanic
buff.

“You know, it’s close to that time of year, isn’t it?” Virginia asked.

Again, I said nothing, just smiled a little—I knew damn well the anniversary of the sinking was days away.

“Each year, on April 14, for as long as she was able, my mother held a private memorial service to my father, and the others who lost their lives that night. She would stand alone on Third Cliff here in Scituate, looking out over the open sea, a fresh bouquet of flowers in her hands… and she would sprinkle the flowers with her tears, and then would toss them, into the water.”

“That’s lovely,” my wife said.

The handsome, deeply grooved features formed an embarrassed smile. “Well, my mother did have a terrible streak of melodrama, I’m afraid. But she loved Papa; I don’t think she ever really fully accepted his death. She and I didn’t really get along very well, you know….”

This private piece of information coming along so early in our conversation was startling; but I managed to say, brilliantly, “Really?”

Virginia sipped her coffee, which she was drinking black, and nodded, saying, “She favored Jack, my brother… she had quite an ego, Mother did. When she lost Papa, she lost the one person in the world she loved more than herself.”

A waiter came over and we ordered lunch; wood-grilled fresh fish of every variety—not exactly midwestern fare. Then when the waiter had gone, Virginia turned toward the gray, gently rippling landscape and spoke again.