The Titanic Murders Read online

  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.

  “I wasn’t on the ship,” she said. “I was in school—I went to private school, up north—yet memories of the Titanic sinking have been with me most of my life. Mother relived the sheer terror of that experience, from time to time, nightmares mostly, and sudden stabs of memory. She lived to be ninety-one… I intend to outdo her, on that score.”

  Thinking of my anonymous phone caller, I said, “You seemed to have a positive opinion of Dr. Ballard’s expedition, uh… when you were interviewed. But what do you think of these later expeditions, recovering—”

  She interrupted sharply: “Ghoulish. Simply ghoulish. I’ve always thought of the Titanic as my father’s grave. I hope they’ll let her be—she’s at rest, a memorial in herself.”

  “Oh, I agree with you,” my wife said. “This awful talk about trying to ‘raise’ the ship…”

  Her brown eyes, which were lovely, pressed shut. “I pray nightly that the ship will be allowed to remain where she lies. Anything else is exploitation. It seems only… honorable, respectful, to leave the ship and its victims in their final resting place as was God’s will.”

  I thought of those two canvas bags, sewn shut, in the cold cargo hold.

  But then we spoke of her father, and she told anecdotes about him, warm funny stories of his playful practical jokes, such as the time her mother had “gussied herself up” for a party that her father wanted to skip. May Futrelle had approached her husband, who was tarrying with yard work, watering the lawn, and prodded him to come inside and put on his evening wear—he had instead hosed her down, in all her finery, and after her fury turned to laughter, they’d spent a quiet romantic evening together.

  “They were a love story, Mama and Papa,” she said rather wistfully. “A real-life love story.”

  “You know, I’d really like to see your father’s work get back into print,” I said. “Maybe if
I could interview you, in depth, I could put a biographical piece together that would spark some interest.”

  I was putting a toe in the water, because my real intention was to seek her cooperation in writing a book-length biography of her father.

  “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.

  DAY ONE

  APRIL 10, 1912

  ONE

  A BIRTHDAY PRESENT

  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.”

  He shook his head. “I’m just afraid this is Henry’s work. He
and René are traveling First-Class, you know—in point of fact, they’re on C deck, themselves.”

  New York stage impresario Henry B. Harris and his wife Irene (René to her intimates) had been friends of the Futrelles for over ten years, dating to the period Jack had managed a repertory theater company.

  “And what on earth is wrong with Henry giving you a birthday present?”

  “Just because we’re friends, he shouldn’t make me beholden to him. That’s the kind of kindness that has a business sting in its tail.”

  “What’s wrong with that, Jack? He’s been after you for years to write him a play.”

  “I’m not sure my work is suited for Broadway. There are precious few locked-room murders in Naughty Marietta.”

  “You could do a mystery for him. Look how well Henry did with The Third Degree.”

  May had a point, and doing a play for Henry was certainly not out of the question; but the puzzle of their elevation to First-Class status nagged at him.

  Now they were waiting for the Harrises on the platform at Waterloo Station, that Victorian jumble of smoke-stained ancient buildings under an absurdly new steel-and-glass roof. Among millionaires British and American alike, he felt decidedly like a poor relation. A dozen men, divided between this boat train and the similar one departing from Paris to Cherbourg where the Titanic would make a brief stop, netted a total worth approaching $600 million.

  Futrelle, on the other hand, at the conclusion of this European trip, was bringing home $30,000 in cash advances and contracts from publishers in Holland, Germany, France, Sweden and England. To the likes of John Jacob Astor or J. P. Morgan, this sum which seemed so grand to Futrelle would be pocket change.