Max Collins: The Titanic Murders

“I’m afraid that wouldn’t be possible,” she said, as if reading my mind. “I’m already working with two friends of mine, women I worked with in broadcasting, on creating a book about Papa.”

I tried not to show my disappointment, although such a project-even if not written by me-was good news to this Futrelle fan.

That left me with nothing to say, or to ask, and I awkwardly changed the subject back to the Titanic.

“You know, these people are grave robbers, quite literally,” I said. “Anyway, they are, if this phone call I received recently wasn’t just a crank.”

“How so?” she asked.

And I told Jacques Futrelle’s daughter about the cargo hold, and the pair of bodies that had been stored there, years ago, only to be recently disturbed.

“Is that right?” she said. She was smiling, a strange smile, a young smile in the old face. “And here I thought Mother was spinning one.”

“Pardon?”

“Well, you have to understand, my mother had major writing ambitions herself. She published several novels, both before and after Papa’s death… wrote a sequel to one of his books, in fact. But when times changed, her writing style didn’t, and that was the end of it.”

“I see,” I said, not really seeing, not really following any of this.

Virginia was rattling on: “Not long before her death, in 1967, she told me a story, an elaborate story, a detailed story… and she claimed it was true. But I didn’t know what to think. Why hadn’t she told me before? She had no explanation for that.”

“What sort of story?”

But Virginia didn’t answer, not directly: “Mother was an adult when the Titanic went down. She was in her mid-thirties. Most of the survivors giving their eyewitness accounts these days were children at the time-some of them babes in arms!”

“And she was a writer,” I said, nodding. “So her memories would be vivid, and credible, in a way the average person’s might not.”

“That’s what you’d think, but sometimes I discounted her. She could be self-serving, Mother could, and she had a good imagination, a writer’s imagination, and some of what she recalled about the Titanic didn’t match up with other people’s recollections.”

“Really? What, for instance?”

“Well, for one, she insisted the band didn’t play on deck-she said it was bitter cold and the violin strings would have snapped, and besides, they were playing indoors. All the eyewitness testimony to the contrary wouldn’t sway her. She also said the band was German, and it’s well-known it was a group of English musicians.”

“Perhaps they played German selections and that confused her.”

“Perhaps. She also insisted the iceberg was a ‘growler,’ a small berg, not the towering monster of ice so many others recall seeing. So, all things considered, I didn’t pay much attention to her story, fascinating as it was. But now… what you say seems to confirm it.”

“Virginia, what are you-”

“Here’s our food,” she said, and indeed the waiter was bringing it. “We’ll speak of lighter subjects while we eat… and afterwards, if you like, if you have the time, I’ll tell you about the murders.”

And for three hours that afternoon, never seeming to tire, never missing a beat, she did.

What you are about to read is based upon Virginia Futrelle Raymond’s recollections of the tale her mother told, supplemented by research and imagination.

Bon voyage.

In a sea of top hats, bowlers and Chesterfield topcoats, Jack Futrelle, bareheaded, felt damned near dowdy in his three-piece tweed, the soot-flecked breeze mussing his brown hair. His wife of nearly seventeen years, May, standing beside him on Platform 12 at Waterloo Station, was a Gibson girl come to life in her tailored shirtwaist, leg-of-mutton sleeves and long black skirt, made stylish by her elaborate black-and-white feathered chapeau.

Futrelle had the towering, burly build of a waterfront plug-ugly, but the kind, regular features of his round face, and the pince-nez eyeglasses his brown eyes nestled behind, gave him a professorial demeanor. Though a successful author, even a celebrity (the London press insisted on referring to him as “the American Conan Doyle”), Futrelle knew he was out of his league, financially speaking.

The boat train he and May were about to board would be carrying First-Class passengers to the brand-new dock built by and for the White Star Line at Southampton. He had booked Second-Class passage on the Titanic -it had been widely publicized that Second Class on this new luxury liner was designed to surpass First Class on the rival Cunard Line-but, somewhat mysteriously, had received First-Class tickets.

A note from J. Bruce Ismay himself-the son of the White Star Line’s founder, and currently its managing director-had enigmatically stated only: Please see me at your convenience, after boarding, signed with Regards-Bruce. Regards from a man Futrelle had never met….

May, of course, had been delighted.

They had found the tickets waiting in their mail slot at the Savoy yesterday morning, and over a magnificent luncheon, May had sipped champagne and said, in a Georgia lilt that years of living in Massachusetts had done nothing to allay, “Perhaps Mr. Ismay knows it’s your birthday.”

And it had been Futrelle’s birthday: his thirty-seventh. But Ismay was a stranger, and Futrelle, mystery writer that he was, viewed this unexpected, undeserved kindness with suspicion.

“We have a suite on C deck, darling,” he told her. Born in Georgia, years of newspaper work up north had whittled his Southern accent away, leaving only the faintest hint. “Do you have any idea how much that costs?”

She shrugged, her features soft in the cool shadow of her wide-brimmed, large-domed, lilac-banded hat. “It’s not costing us anything more than our Second-Class fare, is it?”

“Twenty-three hundred dollars.”

Her blue eyes flared, then settled into their hooded, deceptively languid state in the smooth oval mask of her face. “Must you look every gift horse in the mouth, dear?”

“Everything has a reason,” Futrelle said, nibbling an impossibly hard roll-the only food the British had mastered, in his opinion. “And nothing in life is free-particularly on the Titanic. ”

She reached across the fine-linen tablecloth to touch his hand with her gloved one. “You have a right to travel First-Class. You’re Jacques Futrelle!”

“If you add ‘the American Conan Doyle’ to that, I’ll…”

Her pretty mouth formed an insolent pucker, a kidding kiss. “Knock me into a cocked hat? My hat’s cocked already, Jack…. Don’t you think a second honeymoon would be fun?”

She was a pretty thing, and smart as a whip, too-probably smarter than he was, he’d always felt. Even now, in her mid-thirties, the mother of his two teenaged children, the former Lily May Peel was as beautiful as the day she’d stood beside him in her parents’ home on Hilliard Street in Atlanta when the couple had said their vows.

But God help any man who married a Southern belle.

“Darling,” he said, “traveling First-Class is not a privilege of celebrity. I may have achieved fame and success, but we are still resolutely a part of the middle class.”

“The prosperous middle class.”

“Undoubtedly. But not the wealthy upper class. You read the article in the Times -you saw the names of those who’ve booked First-Class passage on this monster ship.”

She shrugged again, sipped her champagne. “We’ve never had any trouble fitting in with the high hats; you know that, dear. No one’s more charming than my Jack.”