Freda Mansfield (an American, age 38) is checking out of a London hotel; she is planning on eloping with her British lover George Frobisher (age 43, who already has a wife, Monica, and kids) and they are going to New York City together. But Freda keeps getting mysterious phone calls from some strange woman, who says that Freda will never run away with George-- Freda is going with her.

The strange woman keeps phoning Freda; the caller says her name is Mrs. Rose Thorn, and adds that she is coming up to her hotel room to see her. Freda sees what might be a ghost (dressed in 1912 clothing), and goes hysterical, and faints. Later, a doctor examines Freda's body-- he tells George that she died of pneumonia-like symptoms: both lungs are filled with water, sort of like drowning. George says that his mother was Mrs. Rose Thorn, who died of drowning nearly half a century ago-- she was a passenger aboard the doomed Titanic. (He was later adopted by the Frobisher family; he had never mentione