Murder on the Titanic Page 11

and step up into the black interior. He pulls the reins, and the horse begins to move.

  As we trot along, I peer out into the murk. We seem to be on a kind of causeway, and through the fog I can see water on both sides of us, with maybe a crinkle of ice in places. The black water reminds me of things I’d rather not think about. Chisholm notices my mood, and speaks to break the silence.

  “The Cambridgeshire Fens. This is a particularly low-lying part of Fenland: many of these fields are actually below sea level. In ancient times this area was a primeval swamp, like a colder version of the Florida Everglades. But from the time of Queen Elizabeth, Dutch engineers were paid to build a system of drainage dykes here. So in the summer, the dykes drain the fens enough for them to be used as farmland. But in winter it’s often too wet, and the fields are flooded, for months on end.”

  The professor looks out of the window too. “It’s true, isn’t it, Chisholm, that every winter at least one unfortunate person loses his or her way, and drowns, out in these fields? That sometimes, the bodies are not recovered until the spring?”

  Chisholm forces a smile at me, to counter the professor’s remark. I smile back at him, but inside, I’m laughing at the professor’s doom-laden words. I say briskly “Well, we’re not going to drown, are we?”

  Chisholm replies. “No indeed. And, Sweynsey Hall itself is surrounded by especially deep drainage dykes. In its four-hundred year history, it has never been known to flood.”

  The carriage sweeps across a long, low bridge. As we reach the far side I sense, through the fog, protective stone walls stretching out to left and right, dividing the neat lawns and gardens of the hall from the swampy fenlands. I hope we are close to the house, but the carriage doesn’t slow its speed, and the lawns go on and on in the darkness. How far is it? Suddenly we’re in a black grove of yew trees. Another one, two minutes, then the yews open out and we’re on the graveled sweep in front of Sweynsey Hall. I can make out the fretted outline of its Tudor battlements against the foggy sky, the diamond-leaded lattices of the windows, the dark arch of the main entrance.

  A serious-faced man steps out of the gloom and greets us. “Good to meet you. I’m sorry that your train seems to have been delayed. I imagine that the fog was the cause? I’m Ernest Mordaunt.”

  We go inside, but I’m too tired to take part in the discussions over dinner, which is a meager, poorly-cooked affair anyway. The oak-paneled dining room, with its faded tapestries and ornate but cracked plasterwork ceiling, feels chill and musty, unused and unloved. The conversation is hardly cheerful: Mordaunt tells us that since Spence’s death, there has only been a skeleton staff at the Hall, and their future employment is uncertain. He says that Spence’s aunt, whom he refers to as the Dowager, has inherited the estate. Chisholm looks over his meal at Mordaunt. “So – what will happen now?”

  “Under Viscount Spence, the Hall was well looked after. Despite his busy life, the Viscount took a keen interest in Sweynsey: he was born here and spent his boyhood here, and he still regarded it as his true home. He stayed here whenever he could find time. For example, he always made sure he was here over Christmas. But the Dowager lives entirely in London, and she has not even visited Sweynsey for twenty years. I think she is unlikely to start taking an interest in the place now. I suspect that she will decide to sell the Hall and its contents. So it will pass out of the Spence family’s hands for the first time in its history. In the meantime, she’s unwilling to spend money on upkeep. And of course, it’s known locally that we are poorly staffed. Two weeks ago there was an attempted break-in.”

  Axelson is sawing at his beef and appears oblivious, but Chisholm is instantly alerted. “What happened?”

  “It was a minor incident, really. I heard a noise in the night. My room is immediately above the study. I came down, but went first into the Great Hall, where most of the valuables are kept. For instance there’s a Hans Holbein portrait of the first Viscount Spence, painted in 1537 at the court of Henry VIII: it alone is worth a fortune. But nothing in the Great Hall had been disturbed. I looked in a couple of other rooms too, then I went into the Viscount’s study. It was then that I saw that the study window had been forced open. But nothing was taken from the room. The intruder had fled. I concluded that he had heard me looking around the ground floor of the house, and so he made his escape, before he had the chance to take anything.”

  “The study window – is it secure now?”

  “Of course. I asked Willis – he’s the handyman from the village – to repair it the next day. There have been no attempts since then to burgle the Hall.”

  Despite our tiring journey, Chisholm’s eyes are sharp and intent as he thinks over what Mordaunt has told us. He looks across the table at the professor. “I think it is interesting – don’t you, Axelson? – that of all the rooms in the house, an intruder targets the study. A burglar, looking for valuables, would not make that his first choice.”

  Axelson barely replies: like me, he appears very tired. After dinner Chisholm, the only one of us who seems wide awake, asks Mordaunt to show him Spence’s study, but I – and the professor – retire for the night. My room is cold, the fire unlit, and I gather extra blankets from the wardrobe before huddling in bed. Sleep would be good, but my mattress is the worst I’ve ever slept on.

  7.The labyrinth

  The next morning, I feel more cheerful. A wintry sun is trying to break through the fog, and after breakfast we go into the study and settle to our work. Mordaunt reminds us that we have the Dowager’s permission to look at any papers and documents we wish. He leaves us to start our search, and tells us that Mrs Thwaite, the housekeeper, will bring coffee for us shortly.

  Like last night, it’s Chisholm who takes the initiative. “Let’s make a start then. Axelson, are you happy to look through these files? Agnes, perhaps you could take a look at the writing-desk?”

  The writing-desk is a pretty, French-looking affair with spindly legs: it contrasts with the heavy dark-oak masculinity of the rest of the study. The desk is near the window: wan sunlight filters through the mist and shines on its polished lacquer. I open a drawer: it’s nearly empty except for a few sheets of paper and a small rosewood box. The papers are meaningless to me, just rows of numbers – accounts for Sweynsey Hall, I guess. But they’re written in a fine, strong hand and a distinctive dark ink. I immediately open the wooden box – and give a slight gasp. Rarely is a functional thing like a fountain-pen an object of such beauty – a simple silver shaft so finely polished that it looks liquid. For some reason it – or, maybe the bold strokes of its writing on those pages – seems to set off a memory in my mind, but I can’t recall a place or a time. Like a fragrance unexpectedly smelt, rousing a memory that is vivid yet elusive… I pick the pen up and look closer. It’s delicately monogrammed. Chisholm comes over, admires it.

  “What a fine piece. What does the monogram say?”

  “It looks like – B – V.”

  I realize what I’m looking at. The initials BV don’t connect to any family or other connection of Spence’s that I am aware of.

  Chisholm raises an eyebrow. “B – V. The same as the signature we saw on the letter in Kitty’s window, Agnes? Black Violet?”

  Axelson comes over to look at what I’ve found. I put the pen into his hand: he peers at it, then looks up at us. “It’s a modern pen, but absolutely the finest workmanship. Let me look at it closely.” He examines it carefully. “Ah, this is interesting. I would say – but in this field I am no expert – that judging by its quality, this pen was probably made to order. Pens like this are not just bought in a shop.”

  I point at the B – V initials. Again the professor peers, then looks up at us. “Now, this is of especial interest. The pen was made, I would guess, within the last ten years, so it was probably made for Percy Spence himself. But this monogram – this was added later.”

  Chisholm looks at Axelson. “But added at Spence’s instruction, presumably?”

  “That, I cann
ot of course say.”

  Chisholm rings the bell. “I’ll ask about it.” Mordaunt comes into the room, and Chisholm shows him the pen. Mordaunt knows nothing about the monogram, but he confirms that the pen belonged to Percy Spence. “He used to sign all his legal papers with it.”

  The rest of the morning yields nothing. Outside, the pale sun fades and the fog steadily thickens again, as if to reflect the cluelessness of our searching. The three of us leaf though files and folders, pore over dusty documents. All the papers in the study are dull as ditch-water: estate records and contracts, and other legal documents relating to the Spence family lands. His personal life, if documented at all, must be elsewhere.

  “Axelson, we need to talk to Mordaunt.” I can sense the frustration in Chisholm’s voice.

  “I agree, Chisholm: all this searching is telling us nothing. But perhaps there are other papers, elsewhere. It may be that, out of embarrassment, Mordaunt has removed Spence’s personal letters from the study. Correspondence, for instance, with a number of ladies.”

  “I guess that if that is the case, Axelson, we may need to talk to Mordaunt man to man. After lunch, Agnes, perhaps you could leave us for an hour or so, while the professor and I speak to Mr Mordaunt?”

  Lunch is cold game pie, served in the equally cold dining room. I pick over my food listlessly, leave scraps on my plate. Then the three gentlemen go into the study. After such a bad night’s sleep, and a long morning spent peering at dreary legal papers, I have a headache. I feel like the fog’s got inside my mind. It’s maybe two o’clock, but it feels like evening. Despite the deepening gloom outside, I decide to take a turn in the gardens. I speak to Mrs Thwaite as she clears the table.

  “Yes Miss, of course, you get some fresh air. If you go out of the main entrance, across the lawns, you’ll see the formal gardens. There’s an Elizabethan knot garden, it’s beautiful in summer. But very bare, this time of year. And there’s the labyrinth, too.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Fancy name for a maze. It’s just a normal maze, really, but I’ve been told it’s one of the biggest in England. Made of yew bushes – very thick, dark hedges. Like solid green walls.”

  “That sounds interesting.”

  She looks at me and says sincerely “I wouldn’t go in there, Miss. You might not find your way out.”

  I hold back from laughing out loud at her.

  “I might just have a look at it. It can’t do any harm, can it, to take a look.”

  “Well Miss, where you walk is your own choice. But I’ve never been into the labyrinth, not in thirty years of working here at the Hall. I don’t like things like that. The Viscount, he used to go into the labyrinth, right into the middle, when he had something difficult to think about. But then the Viscount, bless his soul, he did have a very good sense of direction.” I hear a slight sniff. I look closer: there’s a tear in Mrs Thwaite’s eye.

  I walk down the steps of the Hall onto the lawn. The mist is so thick that after a few paces, when I turn round, the house is just a gray blur on a gray background. Even the lawn looks gray: thick with whitish dew, but in this strange twilight-afternoon, nothing seems to reflect any light. It’s as if the mist absorbs every ray of illumination. I look behind me again and I do see a line of color, on the ground: the green of the grass, where my footprints have brushed the dewdrops away. I speak to myself –but for some reason, I say it out loud.

  “Well if I do get lost in the maze, I’ll just follow my footsteps back out again.”

  I step forward, further out onto the lawn. I can’t see the maze yet, but then a dim shape looms up. A high, solid hedge.

  It’s so still in the mist that I can hear voices speaking indoors: Professor Axelson, low and insistent: Chisholm’s forthright voice, and Mordaunt, talking together, as if the sound somehow carries further in this moist air. There’s something odd in Mordaunt’s voice, I think: magnified, almost, by the invisible cloak of the mist. Yes, I can hear a catch in his throat, as if he’s nervous. Almost as if he’s lying, and afraid of being found out. I stride towards the hedge, and the dim voices fade entirely. It’s so silent that I can hear my own breath.

  The hedge looms up like a wall. I turn and walk alongside it. Although I’m close enough to reach out and touch the yew needles, in this thick mist I walk halfway past the entrance before I realize it’s there. Inside the entrance, I can see nothing but gray. I step into the blankness, and six paces in I feel the cold needles pushing into my outstretched fingers: another hedge, right in front of me. Out of instinct I turn right, following the other side of the hedge that I’ve just walked along. Then there’s another hedge in front of me, so I have to turn left, in towards the heart of the maze – or ‘the labyrinth’ – how pretentious! Was it clever Ariadne that gave Theseus the ball of wool to unwind as he penetrated the Minotaur’s lair, so that he could retrace his way back out of the maze? I half-recall the Greek legend from my school lessons, as I walk along, following the twists and turns. After a few minutes I have the instinctive feeling that I’m near the centre of the maze.

  “Miss Frocester! I’ve made you some coffee!”

  It’s Mrs Thwaite, of course, calling from the house. I hear her voice behind me. It seems hardly five minutes since I left her – she must have put the coffee on immediately I left the house. How long did she expect me to be? I’m mildly annoyed at her sense of timing. But also, I feel chilled in this damp air: yes, coffee would be nice. Like Theseus, I can easily find my way back: I just need to follow my footsteps in the dew.

  “Miss Frocester!”

  This time, the voice seems to be coming from ahead of me. Have I taken a turn that I didn’t notice? Then I look at the grass behind me, and I realize: my footsteps, which I thought I was following, have disappeared.

  I turn around again: there are the footprints, in front of me. Of course, I must have got distracted by Mrs Thwaite. This is easy: all I need to do is follow the footprints out of the maze. I walk along, and each turning, each hedge that looms up, looks strange to me – but of course, retracing my steps, I’m seeing it all from an unfamiliar angle.

  I feel a rush of memory. Where before have I been like this, not able to see the way, turns and twists and blockages in my path? Suddenly I’m not in the English fog any more. I’m in the blackness of the corridors of a sinking ship.

  This is nonsense, I tell myself. Stop, think, and follow your footsteps in the dew. So I stop for a moment, clear my head of these silly thoughts – visions of darkness in the corridors of the Titanic, feelings of blind horror. Voices in the dark, and a fear – no, a certainty – that my life is about to be swept away from me by the black, roiling waters of the Atlantic.

  I stand in the mist: again I sense the total stillness of the air, an atmosphere that will carry sounds. Again I can hear my own breathing.

  But it doesn’t sound quite right.

  I stand still: listen. And I’m not mistaken, and I’m not dreaming. There’s someone else breathing too.

  Someone is here in the maze with me.

  Unlike the Titanic, I tell myself, I’m hardly staring Death in the face. I say to myself: there is another person here, another human being. This is a perfectly ordinary situation: anyone can come into a maze. But none of those reasonable thoughts count for anything. I feel a shuddering in my chest – a total, animal panic. I clutch at myself, and my knees buckle. I nearly fall, there on the wet dew.

  Stand very, very still. And listen.

  The man – and despite nothing but the sound of breaths, I’m sure it’s a man – is close. He too is standing still, listening.

  Very slowly, as if my life depended on it, I kneel, put my hands on the dewy ground, bend until my face nearly touches the grass. I do this one inch at a time to avoid my dress rustling. I turn my head to the left, hardly daring to see what I already know I will see though the base of the hedge, where it’s thinner, just inches above the ground. And then I do see.

  Yes, it’s
real. This is no dream. A pair of men’s shoes, maybe four feet from me, on the other side of the hedge.

  Even though I want to gasp in terror, I’m trying to keep logical, useful thoughts in my mind. I look at the shoes, and though I can’t of course see the soles, I think of the boot print that Chisholm found on the rooftops. Crouched here in my somber dress, a black shape on the floor of the maze, I’m thinking. Can the stranger tell that I’m crouched down, that I’m watching him? And most important of all, how far is it around the corner of this hedge, the distance that this unknown man has to step to move from where he is, to where I am?

  Inch-by-inch again, I stand up. I’m shaking, but I know what I’m going to do. Just like before, I’m going to follow my dewy footprints out of this maze. I look at the ground, and although the grass around me is flattened by my turning and bending, I can see my own footprints, two steps away, back the way I’ve come. Silently, slowly, I step that way.

  The stranger steps too, almost inaudibly. He doesn’t want me to hear him. Perhaps he thinks I am still unaware of him. He doesn’t want me to know that he is here with me, aware of me – pursuing me?

  It’s tempting to run. I feel I am holding every single one of my animal instincts back, clutching them with my strongest grip. Holding on to reason. Reason tells me: follow my own footprints.

  Ahead of me, the maze bends to the right. I can’t tell if the hedge continues to the right, or if it ends. If it ends, the other pathway, where the stranger is, will join onto mine. But my only option is to move. I walk to the turning. I send up a silent prayer of thanks. The hedge continues, keeping me safe from meeting the stranger, and I realize now that I’m not far from the entrance. Yes, I remember. If I now walk straight ahead, maybe ten yards along this pathway, there’s a gap in the hedge on the left. I need to go through the gap, then walk straight ahead, and I’m out.

  I stop and listen: I can no longer hear the stranger’s footsteps, or his breath. And I feel more afraid than ever: I know what this silence means. He has realized I’m close to leaving the maze, and he’s moved fast, ahead of me, to find the way out. He wants to find me before I leave the maze.

  The fog is denser than ever. I step forward along the pathway, five, eight yards, and I realize that I can’t see my footprints any more. But I’m close to that gap on the left – I must be. A few paces more in the mist… and a solid wall of hedge appears in front of me. There’s hedges all around: to my left, and my right. I’ve walked into a dead end.

  That’s why my footsteps disappeared: I didn’t come this way. I