Max Collins - The Titanic Murders

“Such manifestations as those I mentioned,” Stead continued, in a measured, soothing manner, “are associated with a physical medium. I, ladies and gentleman, am a mental medium; I bring only spoken or written messages, messages from the world beyond the impalpable veil…. Are there any further questions before we begin?”

“You said physical manifestations are ‘unlikely,’ sir,” Futrelle pointed out. “That seems to be leaving a door open.”

“At a seance,” Stead said gently, “many doors may open. You were invited here-all of you-because I sensed in you a certain receptivity to psychic energies. While I know, from experience, that I am not a physical medium… one of you may hold that power.”

“My word,” Ismay said. “Wouldn’t we know?”

Stead shrugged. “This ability may lay sleeping; tonight it could awaken… I have seen it happen-not often. But I have seen it. Further, you should be warned that nothing may happen-we see, we hear, on any given night, only what the spirits may be pleased to share with us.”

Guggenheim asked, “Are these spirits ‘ghosts,’ sir?”

“If that word pleases you. Are you a Christian, sir?”

“No. But I believe in the same God as the Christians.”

Astor said, “I am a Christian, sir.”

“And I,” Ismay said.

Stead said, somberly, “ ‘If a man dies shall he live again?’ Does not Christ promise us immortality? I have witnessed immortality, or at least the persistence of the personality of man after the dissolution of the vessel.”

Maggie frowned. “What, the Titanic ?”

“No! This vessel, this corporeal vesture. We no more die when we lay our bodies aside at ‘death’ than when we take off an overcoat.”

“Who are these spirits?” Miss Gibson asked. “Why aren’t they in heaven?”

Stead smiled patiently. “Perhaps they are, my child, returning to us from the other side, with wisdom to impart, or perhaps offering consolation for mourning loved ones. Others may be in a limbo world….”

“Purgatory,” Maggie said.

“That is one religion’s word for it. This is a science in its early stages; we are taking tentative steps into the unknown… but I assure all of you, none of these spirits means us harm.”

Maggie squinted at him. “The bad ones went straight to hell, you mean.”

Despite his solemn demeanor, Stead chuckled softly. “Perhaps so-I know of no instance when a sitting like this one has been visited by a demon. A tormented soul, possibly… an inhabitant of that limbo world to which you refer, perhaps some recently deceased party who has not come to terms with his new, noncorporeal state. Now-if there are no further questions…”

And there were none.

“Mrs. Futrelle, if you would, the lights?”

The room fell dark but for the glowing oil lamp, the orb of its canary shade casting its flickery jaundiced reflection upon the nine faces, eerily highlighting bone structure while other features lurked in pools of shadow. Those seated there might have been spirits themselves, albeit well-dressed ones, phantasms in fancy evening dress. Stead especially looked unearthly with his clear blue eyes and prominent nose and bushy whiskers washed in yellow.

His sonorous voice intoned, “My friends, I beg you to clasp hands…”

And, as May took her seat next to Stead, the group joined hands, forming a human circle, each one eager for the comfort of mortal flesh. Alice Cleaver’s palm was cold and clammy against Futrelle’s.

“… and we will wait, and allow the spirits to come to us, and to speak through me… I may release your hand, Miss Gibson, should I feel the stimulus to write.”

“Yes, sir,” she said meekly.

Silence fell like a cloak over the room, not really silence, but the ordinary sounds of a steamer at night, suddenly heightened: the creak of woodwork, the remote thrum of engines, the muffled movement of stewards and passengers, the shimmer of the nearby glass dome over the stairwell as the ship created its own wind carving through the night at twenty-some knots. Somewhere a clock was ticking, a mechanical heartbeat, deafeningly soft…

“William,” a voice sweetly said.

Stead’s own voice!

But this was higher-pitched than his normal tone, and feminine, coming from lips in a ghostly yellow face that had gone slack, eyes closed as if in sleep, or death.

The sweet female voice from the rough male form continued: “Why have you not saved my usual seat at your table? Am I not wanted here?”

Then the old man’s bulk shuddered, and-his eyes remaining closed-he said in his own voice, “I apologize, dear Julia. I felt our purpose tonight was beneath you.”

Futrelle-whose left hand was being gripped firmly, to the point of discomfort, by Alice Cleaver-was afraid the old boy, in the grip of his conscience and delusions, would spoil everything.

But Stead suddenly fell silent, releasing Miss Gibson’s hand, and he grasped a pencil and, with eyes still closed, head raised, he began to write, quickly, fluidly. He seemed to have written about a paragraph’s worth, when he reached for Miss Gibson’s hand again and looked down at what he’d just written.

“My great and good friend, my spirit guide, Miss Julia Ames, has imparted a message for me, which I will share with you. She says, ‘Let me say to my dear friend and helper, who goes forth across the sea, rest assured that you will be left in no uncertainty when comes the clarion call. All questions soon will be answered.’”

Futrelle, like any good producer, was getting irritated with Stead, to whom he attempted to send the following psychic message: Stick to the script, you old goat!

Then the quiet room was again loud with the ticking clock, the thrum of engines, the rattle of the glass dome, the distant movement of people elsewhere on the ship….

Just when Futrelle thought he would scream not from fright but boredom, Stead said, in his own voice, “I sense a spirit in this room.”

Darkness and ambience had begun playing sly tricks; their own faces in the campfirelike glimmer of the lamplight seemed to float about the table.

“A child… a very young child,” Stead said quietly. “So young he has not learned to speak…”

Alice Cleaver’s hand gripped Futrelle’s even tighter. With his head lowered, but his gaze secretly shifted her way, Futrelle could see her, staring at Stead, the blunt-nosed mask of her face frozen with fear, the cobalt eyes wide and staring and glittering in the hurricane’s yellow glow.

“… but I sense forgiveness… absolution… this baby, like the baby Jesus, embodies forgiveness…”

The grip loosened, just a bit; and Alice Cleaver’s lower lip trembled, her eyes brimming with tears.

“… though he died by violence, the baby boy is at peace, and he loves his mother….”

Tears trickled down the homely face, glistening in the lamplight.

But another woman at the table was reacting, too: the woman next to Stead, Dorothy Gibson-her eyes closed tight, her head weaving as if loose on her neck-was in a trancelike state, trembling, a trembling that ascended to tremors, as if the young woman were a volcano intent on erupting.

All eyes in the darkened room were on the beautiful face in the yellowish luster of the lamp, a beautiful face that began to contort as if in excruciating pain.

Then, in a deep, male voice, Dorothy Gibson spewed the words: “I forgive no one!”

Stead, still holding on to the convulsing girl’s hand, asked gently, “Who are you, spirit? Why are you troubled?”

Miss Gibson shivered, as if fighting the spirit within her, then the male voice said, “My name is John.”

Alice Cleaver blinked away the tears; she, too, was trembling, but the tears had halted, and her eyes were wide and wild with fright.