The Titanic Murders - By Max Allan Collins Page 0,1

seen the movie version at a matinee in a majestic theater long since torn down.

Also, my anonymous caller had touched a distant nerve. While I did not have an interest in the Titanic in general, I had a specific interest in one of the ship’s notable passengers….

So I said, “The Titanic, right, right… is that your idea? Something about the Titanic? New theory on why and how it sank or something?”

“You know, Ballard, he called us grave robbers.”

“Called who grave robbers?”

“Ballard thinks the wreck, it’s like an undersea cemetery.”

“Well, it is sort of a grave site.”

“More than you know.”

“Look,” I said, interested but irritated, “what’s this about? Were you on one of Ballard’s expeditions?”

“Not Ballard’s.”

“Whose, then?”

I was aware the French Oceanographic Institute—INFREMER—had ignored Dr. Ballard’s wish that the Titanic be left undisturbed, that no salvage or recovery be pursued, no artifacts removed, and had undertaken several expeditions to do just that. The artifacts salvaged, mostly from a debris field between the two sections of the sunken ship, had been hyped on a tacky television production hosted by Telly Savalas, and then treated rather more respectfully and responsibly, in museum exhibitions around the world.

He was saying, “You know, they get away with this, Ballard too, ’cause they found no bodies.”

Though no expert, I remembered from documentaries I’d seen that most scientists and explorers had expected to find the Titanic more or less perfectly preserved, a virtual Edwardian time capsule, due to the coldness at that depth of the ocean, and the lack of oxygen—furniture, clothing, even human bodies, showing little or no decomposition.

This theory, like so many about the Titanic, had proved wrong. Deep-sea organisms had eaten away fabric and wood—and flesh, and for that matter, bone. An empty pair of shoes, the feet eaten right out of them, was as close as anyone had come to finding the remains of a Titanic fatality.

And, as my anonymous caller indicated, the various visits to the Titanic, whether for purposes of shooting documentary footage or salvaging artifacts, were acceptable to society at large only because no human remains had been viewed by the explorers, or their cameras. The ghostly majesty of the rust-encrusted wreckage would have turned ghastly had its decayed decks been littered with human rubble, had bones mingled with the bottles, bedsprings, dishes and dolls of the debris field.

“Listen,” I said, close to hanging up, “you’re going to have to give me your name.”

“I don’t know you, yet. Don’t trust you, yet. This is big money. Dangerous, too.”

“Why’s it dangerous?”

“I signed papers not to tell. I took money.”

“What for? Who from, damnit!”

“… I can’t say.”

I held the phone away from my face and glared at it; then I brought it back to my ear and mouth and said tightly, “Then why are you bothering me?”

Silence on the line, staticky silence.

“… They thought the galley area would be a good place to look. For the kind of things easy to take, still in nice shape… dishes, silverware, pots, pans… you know what a White Star dish from the Titanic would be worth?”

Had my anonymous caller been on a salvage expedition to the Titanic, with modern-day pirates?

“I’m sure a lot,” I said.

“They had huge refrigeration on that ship. Very modern for back then, condenser-coil water system. Separate cold rooms for different perishables, you know, meat, vegetables, wine and champagne… and on the orlop deck, a cold-storage cargo hold, for other things… away from the food.”

I didn’t know what an orlop deck was (it’s the lowest deck of a ship with multidecks, in this case right above the Titanic’s three immense propellers) but I did have a question. It’s the kind of question a mystery writer would ask.

“This cold-storage hold—would that be where they’d put somebody who died?”

There was a nod in his voice. “That ship had everything—swimming pool, squash court, barbershop, Turkish bath, operating room, everything—except a morgue.”

The staticky silence seemed to need filling, before he would go on; so I said, “I see.”

“You’re right—the cold cargo hold, in through number-five hatch… that’s where we found them.”

“… Bodies?”

“We didn’t know that’s what they were at first. They were just big canvas bags, sewn shut… beautifully preserved. The submersible brought the bags up, we hauled them out on deck, and we cut one of them open… the stench was like a sewer….”

“I don’t need details.”

“Have you read Poe?”

“Of course I’ve read Poe.”

“Have you read the story of the sick man who is hypnotized?”

“Yeah, and I saw the movie.” He was referring to “The Facts