Go to your cabin and rest. Wait until morning, and you will feel better. Because I know that you have an idea, a very silly plan, and you mustn’t do it.’ I’m trying to talk to Percy, but all my words are coming out wrong. I can’t talk sense, but Percy – he is talking, and what he says, it makes sense. Percy is always so wise. He’s saying ‘I know exactly what you’re thinking of doing, Rufus, and it’s the worst idea you could possibly have. Don’t spoil everything that you’ve worked for. Don’t kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.’”
“The goose?...”
“The man with the gold. The man with the money.” Despite his size, the standing figure in front of us seems curiously frail: the motion of the Olympic through the waves in this cabin is very slight, yet Rufus is swaying along with it, like a sapling blowing in a storm.
“Does Percy say anything else?”
“He’s speaking now, pleading with me, persuading me. ‘Rufus, listen to me. You mustn’t do this. So – hand it over to me. You trust me, don’t you? You know that you can always trust me. Trust my judgment. Put it in my hand, now. For safekeeping, with me. Let me look after it. Because I’m going to look after everything for you, Rufus. I will take care of everything. I’ll look after you, my darling, darling Rufus.’”
The swaying is worse now, but neither I not the professor is prepared for what happens next. The knees buckle: the figure crumples lifelessly, falls heavily, knocking the table and champagne bottles flying across the room. For the second time, Rufus du Pavey is violently sick in front of me.
I look round the room for Chisholm. But he’s not there: he must have slipped away while du Pavey was under the hypnosis. And then, just as before, Chisholm appears in the doorway.
“Sorry, I had to go for five minutes. I have some important news.”
Something in his tone commands me, and the professor, to step over towards him. Rufus lies in his vomit on the floor, but I can tell that we have something more urgent to attend to.
Chisholm holds a telegram, and reads it out to us.
“From New York Police Department Stop as a safeguard two NYPD sharpshooters are aboard Olympic and detailed to report to Inspector Trench Stop Lord Buttermere also aboard Stop he is your command and his instructions MUST repeat MUST be followed without question Stop criminals bodies at Chelsea Piers identified and James Nolan not among the dead Stop due to time constraint and need for ship to embark and belief that all the gang were dead there was not a full search of ship Stop explosives believed to be aboard.”
26.A council of war
The Captain’s Sitting Room on the RMS Olympic is somewhere I never expected to see. Nor did I ever expect to be sitting at the same table as Captain Herbert James Haddock, the master of this ship.
Because of the secrecy of this meeting, we’re crowded around a small table in the Captain’s private quarters, tucked in behind the Olympic’s bridge and wheelhouse. There is only just room for the chairs pulled up around the table, and for the odd assortment of people gathered here to discuss the crisis. The Captain sits at one end of the table, and to his right is Lord Buttermere. He and the Captain are perhaps the same age, but the two men could hardly be more different. Haddock’s uniform and his sea-hardened visage and Victorian mutton-chop sideburns contrast with Buttermere’s elegant suit and his clean-shaven, smooth demeanor.
On the other side of the captain sit Calvin and Gwyneth Gilmour. Gilmour, Haddock, Buttermere: these three men: all-powerful in their own spheres: leaders, used to giving orders and to receiving obedience from others. How will they get along together?
Professor Axelson sits next to Gwyneth. More than ever tonight, he exudes an air of wisdom. The three men at the head of the table each look at him, then at each other. They will be listening to his opinions, relying on his judgments, in the discussion to come.
I’m sitting opposite the professor, and Chisholm sits between Lord Buttermere and me. I am by far the youngest person at this gathering, but I look at each face in turn, and no-one here seems surprised at my presence. I sense that I will be expected to contribute my views too, and that they’ll be listened to. All the same, it is a daunting thought, that I may be expected to give opinions on which Captain Haddock or Lord Buttermere might rely. And then something unexpected happens. Under the table, Chisholm gives my hand an encouraging squeeze.
Opposite the captain, and between me and the professor, at the foot of the table, are four empty chairs. We are all silent, waiting for their occupants. The door opens and three men enter silently. Somber figures: Inspector Trench and two quiet-looking men in long coats. Two men you might pass in the street and never notice.
The captain speaks. “Ladies and gentlemen. Thank you all for postponing your lunches in order to join me here. I have called this meeting in agreement with Lord Buttermere. I have received a telegram today from New York with alarming news. Following that, I have received a second telegram, this time from the Communications Office of the British Secret Intelligence Bureau, part of the British War Office – effectively, the British Crown. Like the telegram from New York, it asks me to extend my full co-operation and support to Lord Buttermere, which I unhesitatingly do.” He looks around the room, checking that we all understand the importance of what he’s saying, before continuing.
“This ship, isolated far from land in the middle of the Atlantic, is the focus of both American and British intelligence and security services. The few people in this room carry, I’m afraid, a huge burden of responsibility. And we have a great and very dangerous task ahead of us. I will inform other crew members only if and when it becomes absolutely necessary – but, for the moment, it is imperative that this meeting remains secret from all other passengers and crew.”
Lord Buttermere looks around the room, and then at the captain. “Of course, I agree with Captain Haddock. Only those within these four walls must know of this news. We are like a secret council of war, here in this room. But Captain, perhaps you could explain why such secrecy is needed – from a purely seafaring point of view, of course?...”
The captain nods in agreement at Lord Buttermere, and continues. “You see, ladies and gentlemen, I have noticed, time and again in the last year, a certain fear – almost a potential for hysteria – among passengers whenever there is even a slight problem with the ship. We know that the Titanic catastrophe is in everyone’s minds. You can imagine the panic that might erupt if the Olympic’s passengers were to find out the truth. The truth being, of course, that there are enough explosives aboard this ship to cause a disaster worse than the one that happened exactly one year ago.”
I see a raised finger from Calvin Gilmour. “You say passengers, Captain. Now I’m a paying passenger: paying darned well, too, for the privilege of sailing on this goddamned boat. In fact, most of us around this table are passengers. Civilian passengers, many of us. But how many, exactly?”
Captain Haddock looks at Gilmour. “Your point is, sir?”
Gilmour continues. ““My point is addressed at Lord Buttermere and the other secret agents at this table. Drop the cloak and the dagger, gentlemen. If we’re to trust each other, I demand that every single person around this table tells all of us, honestly and openly, who they really are.”
The captain and Lord Buttermere glance at each other. Again I contrast the two men. For some reason I think of home, of my own father, the simple truths and values that he would tell me and my brother. I wonder to myself, almost dreamily: would I be proud if Captain Haddock were my father? Yes. Would I be proud if Lord Buttermere were my father?
A voice at my side calls me back to the present moment. “I’ll start, if it will answer Mr Gilmour’s concerns, and get this meeting moving. Because the sooner we start and finish this discussion, the sooner we can begin the search for the explosives. So: I am Chisholm Strathfarrar. Publicly, I am one of the many advisers to the Home Secretary in Whitehall. But in practice, I work for the Home Section of the British Secret Intelligence Bureau. Over the las
t few years, I have infiltrated extremist revolutionary groups in England and, especially, Ireland, with the aim of preventing a terrorist attack in London. We have established that the aim of smuggling these explosives aboard the Olympic is to transport them to England, to try to cause huge loss of life in London, and perhaps destabilize the British Government.
But my involvement in this matter stems from another, related reason too. My mission one year ago, aboard the Titanic, was to follow and observe Viscount Percy Spence, another and very senior British agent, who was suspected of treason. Before his murder, I was trying to uncover evidence which would show him to be the ringleader of the conspiracy to cause an explosion in London. So, I am now seeking to find Spence’s killer, who I believe is also involved in the terrorist plot.”
I hear my own voice speaking. “I’m Agnes Frocester, American citizen. Like Sir Chisholm, I was a passenger on the Titanic. I came on this trip to help the professor and Sir Chisholm. And I’ll confess that my main motive in being involved is not to find a killer, or stop a plot, but to find Kitty Murray, an innocent servant girl who was abducted from under our noses while we were trying to discover who murdered Percy Spence.”
It’s a relief to finish