A Case of Spirits (5 page)

‘Walter,’ said Miss Crush helpfully.

‘Yes, that is his name. Your Uncle Walter, who passed over not long ago. Perhaps a year ago.’

‘Perfectly right!’ said Miss Crush, looking to right and left to share her enthusiasm with the audience.

‘He wishes you to know that he remembers many years ago taking you to the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace. Is that correct?’

‘Absolutely!’ cried Miss Crush, adding, ‘I was no more than a child, of course.’

‘He sends you a message. It is to say that the Great Exhibition where he is now is even more magnificent. Does that make sense to you?’

‘Infinite sense,’ said Miss Crush. ‘Thank you.’ There were appreciative murmurs all round the hall.

The next two envelopes contained a pocket-book and a silver watch respectively. The owners were plainly delighted by the despatches that reached them from the Other Side. Brand was growing in confidence. ‘May I have the last envelope, if you please? Thank you. It feels somewhat heavier than the others. What did you say the name on the outside is, Professor? E. Thackeray? May I see where Mr Thackeray is situated in the auditorium?’

‘On your feet,’ said Cribb to his assistant.

‘Do you think this is wise, Sergeant?’ asked Jowett.

‘We’ll shortly see, sir.’

‘Thank you, Mr Thackeray,’ said Brand. He put his hand in the envelope and drew it out. ‘What do we have here?’

‘Handcuffs!’ cried someone at the front. The word was taken up and passed from row to row in a buzz of disbelief. Those towards the back craned to see for themselves. Perhaps only Sergeant Cribb of all the audience was not studying the object dangling from Peter Brand’s hand, but the expression on his face. The medium was clearly unable to cope with this development.

Professor Quayle stepped to the edge of the platform and addressed Thackeray: ‘Is this intended as some form of practical joke, sir, because if it is I think the audience would wish me to state that it is in arrant bad taste?’

‘Lord, no,’ said Thackeray in an injured voice. ‘It was the only thing I had in my pocket except my notebook and it’s more than my job’s worth to part with that.’

‘You are a policeman?’

‘That’s right, sir,’ said Thackeray amiably.

‘A policeman out of uniform?’

‘Right again, sir,’ said Thackeray, in the encouraging tone the other volunteers in the audience had used to respond to accurate assumptions from the platform.

‘But you are prepared for all emergencies?’

‘Every one, sir.’

‘That would account for the handcuffs, then,’ said Professor Quayle, with a slight note of conciliation in his voice. ‘I suggest that what you failed to appreciate, Officer, is that a pair of handcuffs cannot be described as a personal article, except possibly by someone of your own avocation. An article of that sort is not likely to evoke a response from the Ones Above, you see. They wouldn’t think of handcuffs as personal.’

‘There’s some in the Other Place that might, sir,’ said Thackeray.

It was a retort that delighted the audience and gave Cribb the opportunity of restoring Thackeray firmly in his seat. Quayle, for his part, seemed content to close the dialogue. ‘With the permission of our well-connected policeman friend, I shall move on to other matters, ladies and gentlemen. If the attendants will kindly turn down the gas and bring forward the magic lantern, we shall proceed to the spirit photographs, which I am confident will remove any doubts you may still have left about the existence of the supernatural.’

The lantern, already ignited and with a powerful head of paraffin-fumes issuing from its funnel, was conveyed along the central aisle on a trolley and pointed at a large white screen which the Professor unrolled from somewhere above the centre of the platform. The lights were lowered and the image of a young woman seated in a tall-backed chair was projected on to the screen. Anyone of a nervous disposition must have been reassured by the substantial form of the sitter.

‘This is a photographic plate of the medium, Miss Georgina Houghton, taken at the studio of the spirit photographer, Mr Frederick Hudson,’ announced Quayle. ‘You will observe that there is nothing remarkable about it. Now examine this one, taken a few minutes after.’

Miss Houghton on her chair was moved rapidly leftwards and replaced on the screen by another picture of herself, identically posed. This time a faceless figure draped in white stood behind the chair. A general in-drawing of breath was audible all over the hall.

‘If anyone would care to see it, I can produce an affidavit sworn by Miss Houghton and Mr Hudson that no other mortal being was present in the studio when these pictures were taken,’ said the professor. ‘How then are we to account for the second figure? Is it the result of some quirk of the photographic process—a faulty plate, perhaps, or the intrusion of light into the camera? If that is what you suspect, then I invite you to look at the next plate.’

It was an invitation Cribb was sorry to refuse, but something he had noticed made it quite impossible for him or Thackeray to stay any longer. Mr Peter Brand had taken advantage of the darkness to quit the platform and make for an exit at the side of the hall. ‘Matter to attend to, sir,’ Cribb whispered to Jowett, then jabbed Thackeray in the ribs and piloted him to the end of the row, remarking as they stumbled over knees, feet and umbrellas that the paraffin-fumes were insufferable.

They reached the door some ten seconds after Brand had gone through. He was walking briskly up Store Street in the direction of Tottenham Court Road. ‘One moment, sir!’ Cribb shouted after him. Brand did not look round.

‘I’ll stop the blighter,’ said Thackeray, starting to run.

‘No violence, Constable!’ cautioned Cribb.

Thackeray knew better than to disobey an order. If the manner in which he caught Peter Brand by the shoulder, twisted his arm into a half-Nelson and jammed him against a convenient lamp-post so that the breath erupted from his lungs in a great gasp, suggested anything but a routine request to co-operate with the Force, then thirty years’ service had gone for naught.

‘Perishing cold night, Mr Brand,’ remarked Cribb when he drew level with them. ‘This ain’t the time of year to be out without a hat and coat. Left ’em behind in the hall, did you? You’ll pardon us for coming after you. We were hoping for a few minutes of your time. Release the gentleman’s arm, Thackeray. I think he understands us. Let’s all walk peaceably back to the hall and find ourselves a quiet room for a spot of conversation.’

‘Pity about the spirit photographs,’ Cribb resumed, when the three of them were installed in the caretaker’s office. ‘It isn’t every day you get the chance of seeing apparitions, but then I suppose you’ve seen the show before, Mr Brand?’

If it were possible, the young medium looked paler and more vulnerable than he had on the platform. He said nothing.

‘Some say it’s trickery, of course,’ continued Cribb. ‘Doctored plates and double exposures. Perhaps you didn’t approve of the photographs, and walked out to register your protest?’

Whether Cribb was correct in this assumption or not, Brand was disinclined by now to register anything at all.

‘Personally I have another theory,’ said Cribb. ‘It could have been the sight of Thackeray’s handcuffs that upset you. Shabby trick to play on a sensitive man, particularly if he’s done anything to be ashamed of. I’m not suggesting that you have, sir. It’s Thackeray that ought to be ashamed, not you. He positively stopped you in the middle of your act, didn’t he?’

‘It ain’t an act,’ said Brand unexpectedly.

‘My mistake, sir. Unfortunate word.’

‘I didn’t want to parade on a blooming platform,’ Brand went on, in a cockney accent difficult to reconcile with extrasensory powers. ‘Quayle put me up to it. ’E says I’ve got to get my name before the public, and ’e’s been such a regular pal that I can’t refuse ’im. Took me in, ’e did, and taught me ’ow to get in touch. It’s a gift, you know, but you’ve still got to learn ’ow to ’andle it.’

‘I’m sure,’ said Cribb. ‘I should think it changed your life.’

‘Out of all bleeding recognition,’ said Brand. ‘It’s taken me into some of the nobbiest ’ouses in London. Mingled with the aristocracy, I ’ave. Could never ’ave done it without the professor.’

‘He sounds a very generous man. What made him do it, do you think?’

‘Ah, ’e’s almost lost the power, you see. Can’t produce the effects no more. It takes its toll of a man as ’e gets older. When ’e found the power was going ’e started lookin’ round for someone ’e could pass ’is knowledge on to.’

‘And his engagement-book, I dare say,’ said Cribb.

‘I got some introductions through ’im, true, but I’ve collected a sizeable number on my own account.’

‘Would Miss Crush be one of them?’

‘Miss Crush?’ The faintest tinge of colour rose in Brand’s cheeks. ‘She would, as it ’appens.’

‘She’s in the audience tonight, isn’t she?’ said Cribb. ‘She was your first volunteer. To anyone who didn’t know, it must have sounded quite impressive, all that stuff about Uncle what was his name?’

‘Walter,’ said Brand. ‘Give us a chance, guvnor. Strange things ’appen to a man of my calling. If I ’ave the good fortune to spot somebody I know, I ain’t so stupid as to turn me back on ’em. The old duck was pleased enough with what she ’eard, wasn’t she?’

‘No doubt of that,’ said Cribb. ‘And quite surprising too, considering her loss on the night you had the seance at Dr Probert’s.’

‘Loss?’ repeated Brand, vacantly.

‘Didn’t you hear about it? A vase was taken from her house in Eaton Square.’

‘Blimey! No one told me. Not the Minton?’

‘You saw it, then?’ said Cribb.

‘Saw ’em all lined up on the sideboard. I know a nice piece of porcelain when I spot it. Are you trying to find it then? Must be worth a cool thousand. Takes years to build up the surface on them things. They do it layer by layer.’

‘It wasn’t the Minton that went,’ explained Cribb. ‘It was a Royal Worcester piece.’

‘That’s all right then,’ said Brand. ‘Bloody rubbish, that Japanese thing. What are you asking me about it for? You don’t think I would want it, do you?’

‘Do you have a collection yourself?’

‘Blimey, no. I’m not that flush. I might be makin’ a name for meself, but I ’aven’t even got me own place yet. I’m sub-lettin’ a room from the professor. Got no room for china, I can tell you.’

‘Pictures, perhaps?’ said Cribb.

‘What are you gettin’ at?’

‘An Etty was stolen from Dr Probert’s house the other night.’

‘You don’t say.’ Brand’s jaw gaped.

‘That’s two of your clients,’ said Cribb. ‘Miss Crush and Dr Probert.’

‘They don’t suspect
me?
’ said Brand in horror.

‘
They
don’t. Others might.’

‘What do you take me for? It’s more than my career’s worth to ’elp meself to clients’ property. Jesus, I’m booked for another three seances at Dr Probert’s. Scientific stuff. The next one’s on Saturday. I’d ’ave to be off me ’ead to filch ’is pictures, wouldn’t I?’

Cribb nodded. ‘No question about it.’ He leaned forward. ‘These things that happen in the seances, Mr Brand. Spirit hands and that sort of thing. Do you actually believe in ’em yourself?’

There was a pause. Then Brand said, ‘You’re tryin’ to trap me, Copper. I ain’t obtainin’ money by false pretences, if that’s what you mean. My clients understand that I can’t guarantee nothin’ without the co-operation of the spirits. You can ask Miss Crush or Dr Probert or ’is daughter or any of ’em what they’ve seen and ’eard. Things ’appen when I put my ’ands on a table, strange things that none of us can account for, nor control, not even them that comes from Scotland Yard. ’Ave you ever ’eard of objects being spirited away?’

‘Yes, quite often,’ said Thackeray, ‘but we always get the blighters in the end.’

Would but the shade

Of the venerable dead-one just vouchsafe

A rap or tip!

His left hand was held in the unequivocal grasp of Mr Strathmore, the spirit investigator. Strathmore was similarly linked to Miss Crush, and the circle was completed by Peter Brand, Dr Probert and Captain William Nye, Miss Probert’s fiancé, who very properly held her other hand. They were seated at an oval table in the library of Dr Probert’s house in Richmond.

He had readily accepted Probert’s invitation to attend the next experiment, as it was termed. Not that he believed in this table-turning nonsense, but if the rest of sociable London was dabbling in it, he could hardly ignore it. The one condition he had demanded of Probert was that he was not to be introduced as a detective-inspector. It was certain to excite people, and lead them to expect clever explanations of everything that happened. Explanations were not his
forté;
even bottom of the bill music hall magicians mystified him absolutely. No, he was quite content to be known as Mr Jowett, a civil servant with an office in Whitehall.

The preliminaries had been got over quickly: introductions, a glass of sherry in the drawing-room and then to the library. Seven chairs were already positioned round the table, which was of polished mahogany. The room was narrow and shelved to the ceiling, but the electric light, the pride of Probert’s establishment, more than compensated for the sombre bindings of the books. At one end, a set of velvet curtains divided the room, to provide a recess, which the doctor used as a study.

Hearts were alleged to beat faster when the lights went out at a seance, but the moment when Probert pulled the switch had come as a distinct relief to Jowett. Young Nye, on Miss Probert’s other side, had been scrutinising him in a manner decidedly antagonistic, quite unjustifiably, in his opinion. Why should he be blamed if the fellow’s Intended addressed almost all her conversation to him? Alice Probert was uncommonly appealing, he was ready to admit, with natural black curls and flashing eyes and a figure he could only describe as precocious at the age of nineteen, so perhaps Nye’s state of agitation was not surprising. What torment the wretched man must be suffering with the light off!

‘Please feel free to engage in subdued conversation,’ said Brand’s voice from the darkness. He articulated each word with the care of one who had studied elocution without altogether mastering the vowel sounds. ‘I like it better than a wearisome silence and so do the spirits. If at any time during the seance you feel constrained to shout something aloud, or sing at the top of your voice, or gesticulate, I urge you for your own good to give way to the impulse. Likewise, if the person next to you goes into convulsions do not be alarmed. It is quite normal. Put a supporting arm around them and let them lean against you until the fit passes.’

That was bad news for Nye! Jowett gave Alice’s hand another gentle squeeze to let her know that support was available on the left.

‘I’ve given the domestics a night off,’ said Probert, in response to the call for conversation. ‘Sent them out. Didn’t want them making noises round the house and alarming us.’

‘Where is Mama?’ asked Alice.

‘As far away as she can get,’ said Probert. ‘I gave her a volume of
Notable British Sermons
to take upstairs. Should take her mind off the goings-on down here. Have you checked the room temperature, Strathmore?’

‘Sixty-eight point five degrees,’ said Strathmore. ‘That was five minutes ago, at half past eight.’

‘Excellent. I’m sorry about the fire-screen, ladies and gentlemen, but darkness is essential. Does anyone feel anything yet? What about you, Jowett? This is your first seance, isn’t it?’

‘That is so. I feel nothing exceptional, I assure you.’

‘Capital. And Miss Crush?’

‘I begin to feel a presence,’ said the voice of Miss Crush, speaking with a strange emphasis. ‘The room has become colder, has it not?’

Jowett, certainly, had goose-pimples forming rapidly on the backs of his legs.

‘Is there someone wishing to get in touch?’ asked Brand.

There was no response, but now the atmosphere was charged with tension. Subdued conversation had terminated for the night. The sitters waited breathlessly for Brand to put the question again.

‘Please signify your presence if you are here.’

It came at once: a distinct rap on the table.

‘There it is!’ cried Miss Crush superfluously.

Brand was into his routine with professional slickness.

‘Are you prepared to answer questions, three raps for yes and one for no?’

Three confident raps were heard.

‘Are you known to any of us?’

The same.

‘To our host?’

One rap.

‘Miss Crush?’

Three clear raps.

‘Can you give your name?’

Five raps.

‘Alphabet,’ said Dr Probert, who also seemed to know his seance procedures.

Brand recited the alphabet at a rate so brisk that it seemed he was determined to get to Z without being stopped, but at W there was a sharp rap on the table. He began again, and was stopped at once by a second rap.

‘A,’ said Dr Probert. ‘W followed by A.’

‘Walter!’ exclaimed Miss Crush in an intuitive flash. ‘Uncle Walter!’

Three loud raps confirmed the fact.

Jowett leaned forward in the darkness, trying to locate the rappings. First they had seemed to come from the medium’s side of the table, but the latest sounded closer at hand. He was not taken in by them, of course. There were at least a dozen ways of producing sounds of that sort without invoking the spirits. Over the years, so-called mediums had confessed to everything from castanets between their knees to cracking the joints of their big toes. There was the story of a lady at a seance who had fainted when one of her companions cracked a biscuit. It would take something more sensational than a few knockings under a table to convince a Scotland Yard man that he was in the presence of the paranormal.

Even so, the darkness evoked irrational possibilities. The senses were primed to respond to the smallest suggestion of anything irregular. It wanted all the self-possession cultivated in a lifetime in the Force to keep things in their proper perspective.

‘These scientific gentlemen are here to observe the phenomena of the seance,’ Brand explained to the spirit of Uncle Walter. ‘Are you prepared to assist us in our experiments?’

Three raps.

Jowett felt a sudden pressure from Alice Probert’s hand.

‘Look!’ she said. ‘Something is hovering over the table.’

‘By Jove, yes, I can see it!’ said her fiancé.

‘I, too,’ said Probert.

Jowett straightened up from trying to locate the source of the raps and to his intense astonishment saw the phenomenon for himself: a patch of light, the size of a small bird, fluttering three feet above the table. The luminosity was not sufficient to irradiate the faces of the sitters, but something was undeniably there, and it was animated, too. It rose and swooped, seeming to vanish at will and reappear in another position, altering its shape miraculously.

‘Do you see it, Strathmore?’ asked Probert.

‘Quite unbelievable!’ murmured the man from the Life After Death Society.

‘God save us!’ said Miss Crush. ‘I believe it is a hand.’

Even as Jowett watched, the fluttering movement slowed sufficiently for him briefly to discern the shape of a human palm with fingers and a thumb. Not a glove, not a plaster cast: no obvious artifice. An identifiable hand, detached at the wrist, stretching and clenching in a natural manner, so that the creasing of the flesh coincided with the characteristic markings of the palm. But for all its mobility, it lacked the colour of a living hand. It was not pink; it was livid, and glowing through the darkness.

‘A materialisation!’ whispered Probert. ‘I never thought I should live—’

‘Nor I,’ murmured Strathmore, with awe.

‘It is a common enough manifestation,’ said Brand composedly. ‘Keep a firm hold on each other’s hands and it will come down and touch us.’

As the medium spoke, Jowett saw the fingers close over the palm, which turned in the air and vanished. An instant after, there was a scream.

‘It touched my cheek!’ said Miss Crush.

At once Alice Probert said, ‘My dress! It is tugging at my dress!’

‘Is it, by Jove?’ said Nye, on her other side. ‘I won’t have that!’

‘Keep your hands on the table,’ warned Brand.

‘I’m not having my Alice interfered with,’ said Nye determinedly.

‘It’s all right, William. It has stopped,’ said Alice.

‘Damnable behaviour, whoever it was,’ said Nye.

‘Uncle Walter could never resist a pretty girl,’ revealed Miss Crush.

‘It’s a fine time to tell us that, madam, when there’s a hand at liberty under the table,’ said Nye. ‘Do you think we ought to go any further with this, Dr Probert?’

Before anyone could comment there was a blood-curdling bellow from Nye. ‘What the blazes is going on? Someone’s pelting me with fruit!’

True enough, something rolled across the table and came to rest against Jowett’s hand. It must have split on impact with Nye, for there was a pungent smell of orange-juice in the air.

‘The spirit has got the impression that you are a hostile presence,’ Brand explained. ‘Try to reassure it, Captain Nye, or the experiment will be ruined.’

‘Yes, play the game, William, for Heaven’s sake,’ added Probert.

‘The Devil I will!’ said Nye, unsociably.

There was the sound of another orange making contact with Nye. A third must have missed, but hit a vase of chrysanthemums on the mantelpiece behind him, for there was a sound of a vessel overturning, followed by a rapid dripping of water into the hearth.

‘The spirit has left us, ladies and gentlemen,’ said Brand.

‘Damn you, Nye, you’ve ruined everything!’ exclaimed Strathmore. ‘We had the eternal secret within our grasp.

I’ve waited twelve years for this. Twelve years!’

Nye was unrepentant. ‘I’m not allowing my fiancée’s clothing to be interfered with in the name of science or anything else. It’s unendurable! If that’s the nature of your experiments, Dr Probert, sir, I demand that Alice leaves the table, and so shall I. Good God, it’s like a blasted mess-night after the Colonel’s left!’

‘I think it might be prudent if we all left the table for an interval,’ said Probert. ‘I cannot see the sense in sitting here waiting for something else to be shied at Captain Nye.’

Alice, on Jowett’s right, made an odd sound in her throat which he could almost have believed was a stifled giggle. She was obviously hysterical, poor child.

‘You’re right,’ said Brand. ‘The moment has passed. We
all
need to compose ourselves. After that, I shall be happy to cooperate in the second experiment you prepared, Doctor. For the present, I suggest someone turns on the light.’

Cribb had followed him there from central London, pursued him in a cab as far as Richmond Bridge and tracked him on foot the rest of the way. He had rarely been so surprised as when the trail led clean through Kensington High Street and on to Hammersmith, Chiswick and Richmond.

And now his suspect had confidently entered Probert’s house by the back door and stepped inside. What in the name of sanity were the servants doing to leave the door unlocked? Curiously, there wasn’t a light on in the basement. The only lights in the house were at the front, on the ground floor, where the seance was presumably taking place, and a small window at the top, where the timid Mrs Probert must have gone for refuge.

Probert wasn’t going to welcome a detective-sergeant on the premises this evening and nor was Jowett, but Cribb knew which way duty lay. Allowing his quarry half a minute to get up the back stairs to the gallery of classical subjects, he followed by the same route.

When he reached the door of the gallery, he found that he had made a second miscalculation. The door was locked, and the man he was pursuing was nowhere within sight or hearing.

‘Would anyone care for another drink?’ asked Probert, breaking the uneasy silence.

‘A small gin neat wouldn’t come amiss, since you mention it, Doctor,’ said Miss Crush.

‘If I may say so,’ said Strathmore, ‘it would be wiser if we all refrained from further consumption of alcohol until after the second experiment, in the interests of science. I shall, of course, be writing a full report of tonight’s events for the
Proceedings
of my Society. One would not wish to report that certain of the participants had indulged themselves to the extent of a sherry followed by an undiluted gin. It would tend to detract somewhat from the authority of the report.’