The Revenant of Thraxton Hall: The Paranormal Casebooks of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (15 page)

A hand touched him on the shoulder, and Conan Doyle started violently, spinning around. A shadowy figure stood before him. It took several long seconds before Conan Doyle identified Frank Podmore. He must have crept up silently.

“You gave me a start!” he said, his heart vaulting.

“Sorry,” Podmore said in a tone that suggested the opposite. “I saw you standing there.”

“I could not sleep.”

“I never indulge in sleep.”

“Never?” Conan Doyle asked skeptically.

“I have trained myself not to crave sleep. It is a waste of valuable time that is better spent advancing my mind.” Podmore turned his face to the window, staring down at the figures in the courtyard below. In the darkness, his terrier eyes gleamed.

“Do you know who is arriving at this late hour?” Conan Doyle asked.

“Our final guest.”

“Final guest?”

“Lord Philipp Webb.”

“And who is Lord Webb?”

Podmore laughed mirthlessly. “Another charlatan, like all the rest.” And with that he walked off into the shadows without bothering to say good night.

*   *   *

As Conan Doyle trudged the gloomy hallway to his room, the events of the night carouseled in his head. Struck by a sudden revelation, his steps slowed and he stumbled to a halt. He had been watching Hope Thraxton’s reflection in the cheval mirror as the cacophonous knocking began, and she had spun around, startled by the din. But it seemed now, as he reviewed the action in his mind, as if the reflection in the mirror had lagged a moment behind. He recalled the double-image photograph of Hope Thraxton in
The Strand Magazine
. There were something elusive and otherworldly about her that even the laws of optics could not capture. And then a further thought occurred to him. Hope had harried him from the west wing, while she had stayed behind. How else could she return to her rooms, if not by the same route? As his hand closed on the cold brass doorknob, he dithered, fighting a strange compulsion to turn on his heel and retrace his steps back to the mirror maze, half-convinced he would find Hope Thraxton’s image trapped behind the glass, a prisoner screaming to be set free.

CHAPTER 13

A GUEST ARRIVES LATE

Conan Doyle lay awake for hours, his mind a whirling vortex. If Hope Thraxton’s premonitory vision proved true, she would be murdered in just days—at the third scheduled séance. He tried to focus on her dilemma, but instead, his mind cascaded with images. Her lips. Her eyes. Her lithe young body, naked beneath the sheer nightgown. At last he sat up in bed, abandoning any hope of achieving sleep.

He retrieved his Casebook and unlocked it with the key he kept around his neck. His pen scratched quickly across the page as he wrote an account of his adventure in the derelict west wing. Because it was a private journal, Conan Doyle’s descriptions of Hope were uninhibited. He found himself becoming aroused at the memory of her body glimpsed through the translucent nightgown. Although Conan Doyle was hardly an artist of his father’s caliber, he liked to fill the journals with sketches to remind him of his experiences. Now he found himself sketching a likeness of Hope Thraxton. He worked at it for twenty minutes or so, then stopped to regard his handiwork.

It was a fair if not a great drawing, but it lacked something. And then he remembered—the birthmark in the shape of a waning crescent moon that lurked in the crease of her smile. A few quick pen strokes and he added the peculiar birthmark shared by generations of Thraxton women.

His eyes flashed up from the Casebook as he smelled smoke. Tobacco. A familiar brand.

Sherlock Holmes sat in an armchair set against the far wall, legs crossed, the elbow of the arm holding his cigarette cupped in his hand.

“So,” Holmes began. “What have you learned thus far?”

“Learned? I’ve just arrived. I have barely met the other guests.”

The consulting detective’s face soured in a vinegar smile. “You are not here to attend a soirée. You are here to prevent a murder. These people are not merely guests—you must view each one as a potential suspect. You must think as a murderer. Get inside his, or her, mind. What is the most salient point in a murder investigation?”

“I … well…” There seemed to be a barrier between Conan Doyle’s tongue and his brain. “Whomever has the means—”

“Motive!” Holmes snarled, interrupting. “Motive is crucial! Anyone can find the means to murder another human being—especially if it involves something so rudimentary as firing a pistol at close range. All it will require is a concealed weapon and the advantage of darkness. No. You must determine who has a
motive
to kill Hope Thraxton.”

“But I— It’s too soon. I scarcely know these people, or their history.”

“Precisely. So you must endeavor to find out. But frankly your judgment is already clouded by your infatuation with the young woman.”

“Infatuation? I don’t know what you’re speaking of—”

Holmes silenced him with a contemptuous wave. “Your wife is at home, dying of consumption. How many times has she crossed your mind? Have you spent so much as a second thinking of her?”

Conan Doyle’s mouth opened. He strained, but could think of no counter. Shamefaced, he dropped his head. “No,” he admitted in a cowed voice.

Holmes drew upon his cigarette and exhaled a plume of silver smoke. “No, you have not. Lady Thraxton has described her dream. Yours was the first face she recognized. At this moment, I would consider you the primary suspect.”

Conan Doyle bristled. “Me? That is preposterous! Why on earth would I murder Hope Thraxton? I have come to prevent harm to her.”

The hawk-like visage fixed its creator with a needling gaze. “You are the primary suspect because jealousy—especially sexual jealousy—is the number-one reason why men murder women. You have been infatuated with this woman since that first meeting in the darkened room. Even before you knew what Hope Thraxton looked like, you have been mentally undressing her.”

“That’s—! That’s—outrageous!” Conan Doyle spluttered. “Why am I having this conversation? It’s ridiculous. You’re a phantasm. You’re not real!”

“Is it ridiculous?” Holmes leaned forward in his chair. “How clearly is your mind working? If I am a phantasm, then why are you conversing with me? And how is it you can even see me? After all, the room is in darkness.” He nodded to the bedside table.

When Conan Doyle looked, he saw that the lamp was not lit, and yet he could clearly see everything in the room. When he looked back at the chair, it was empty. Sherlock Holmes had vanished.

He awoke with a start, clawing at the bedsheets. He had fallen asleep with the Casebook open on his chest and now it slid off and thumped to the carpet. The oil lamp had burned dry hours ago. The room was in darkness, but light limned the edges of the heavy curtains.

And he knew at once that he had overslept.

*   *   *

Breakfast was served in the conservatory, an airy glass structure with wrought-iron tables and desiccated ficus plants withering in giant urns. By the time Mister Greaves led Conan Doyle into the space, most of the other guests were already tucking into their breakfasts, and the chatter of conversation and the clatter of silverware on bone china were clamorous. Wilde sat alone at a small table in a far corner staring out the rain-streaked glass at the wet, sheep-dotted swells of grassy turf. He had pushed aside a breakfast plate scummed with the yellow remains of quail eggs. Wilde, now in his late thirties, was accumulating weight with every year. Despite the fact that he had obviously breakfasted well, he was attacking a scone with a knife.

“You look like death,” he observed as Conan Doyle flopped into the chair opposite.

The Scotsman looked at his friend with eyes that were bloodshot and dark-circled. “I did not sleep well.”

“I slept marvelously,” Wilde said, buttering a scone with his usual aplomb and then lavishing it with a dollop of clotted cream topped with a blob of rhubarb jam. “I shall be departing as soon as I’ve finished packing. As I came down to breakfast I noticed a carriage waiting outside.”

“Let us hope that carriage is not here for you, Oscar.”

“Why ever not?” Wilde mumbled, sinking his bovine teeth into the scone.

“Because it is a hearse.”

Wilde choked, spitting scone crumbs. He wiped cream from his mouth on a linen napkin and threw his friend a horrified look. “Egad! Tell me you jest.”

Conan Doyle described the strange event he had witnessed the night before: the arrival of the final guest in a most unconventional means of transport.

“The deuce you say!” Wilde said after hearing the story. “How macabre! Whatever can that be about? I almost wish I were staying for the denouement.”

A servant set down a plate with a full English breakfast before Conan Doyle—fried bacon, fried eggs, fried mushrooms, fried tomato, a thick slice of fried bread, and several rotund sausages still sizzling and suppurating fat. “I am indeed sorry that you won’t be here to find out, Oscar,” Conan Doyle said as he peppered his eggs.

But then the fierce-eyed Mrs. Kragan appeared and hovered over them, her claw-like hands knitted tightly at her bosom, her lined face set in its perpetual scowl of disapproval. “I am sorry to inform you, Master Wilde, but with all the rain we’ve had overnight the river is up and the ford is impassable.”

Wilde’s face fell at the news. “Are you saying that I shan’t be able to leave today?”

The gray head shook in a parody of regret. “No one shall be able to come or go. We are quite cut off.”

Wilde began to open his mouth, but the housekeeper guessed what he was about to ask and preempted his question. “For several days at least.”

To this pronouncement, the greatest wit in the world could only answer with a grunt of exasperation.

“Are you feeling well, Oscar?” Conan Doyle asked as he knifed off a chunk of sausage and forked it into his mouth. “You look like death.” He chuckled around the mouthful of hot sausage as he chewed. “Looks like you’ll be here for the denouement after all.”

CHAPTER 14

MESMERIZED

The members of the SPR were slowly drifting into the parlor. Many stood in knots, conversing. A few clustered about a table laid out with a punch bowl and glasses. A card table had been set up at the back of the room at which Madame Zhozhovsky sat like a small fat spider reading the palms of anyone gullible enough to fall into her web.

“Palm reading!” Wilde exclaimed as he and Conan Doyle entered the room. “How amusing. I have often thought of hiring a gypsy palm reader for one of my soirées.”

The two friends hovered close, eavesdropping on the proceedings. The Scottish doctor was open-minded about most aspects of the paranormal, but he put little faith in determining a man’s Fate based upon the wrinkles on his palms. Still, he was interested enough to listen in as Madame Zhozhovsky had managed to catch hold of the cynical Frank Podmore and presently had his hand pinned to the table. Her head was bowed as she studied his life line, so that she could not see the look of utter disdain he was lashing her with. “Your love line is interesting,” Zhozhovsky said, tracing his palm with a finger knobby and twisted with arthritis. “See how it breaks here? I see a great loss.”

Podmore recoiled as if he had touched something hot. He attempted to snatch his arm away, but the old lady held on to his hand with a firm grip and forced it back down onto the tabletop.

She studied Podmore’s palm a second time. “You have a short life line.” The penetrating gray eyes looked up into Podmore’s face. “Fear water,” she said, her tone ominous. “You will die by drowning.”

Podmore snickered as he extricated his hand from hers. “Unlikely. I am an excellent swimmer.”

The old lady’s expression never wavered. “Palmistry is an ancient wisdom, proven over millennia. You will die by
drowning
.”

Podmore’s sneer quivered and collapsed.

Oscar Wilde was standing at Conan Doyle’s shoulder, watching intently. “Oh, I love this sort of thing, don’t you?” he gushed. “I’ve had my palm read before. Many times. They always predict a long and happy life.”

Frank Podmore got up and slunk away, and Wilde lunged forward to occupy the vacated seat. “Do me next, Madame!” he urged.

Madame Zhozhovsky cradled Wilde’s large hand in hers and traced a finger along his palm. “Your love line breaks most interestingly.” Her eyes swept up to meet his. “Much confusion here, I fear.”

Wilde’s eyes widened slightly. The eagerness evaporated from his face. “And what of my life line?” he asked with sudden trepidation.

She dropped her gaze, her eyes metronoming across Wilde’s fleshy palm. A brief look of distress swept her features and she sat up straight, pushing his hand away. “That I cannot read,” she said dismissively.

“No, you did see something,” Wilde pleaded. “Please … you must tell me.”

She sighed and held out her hand. He placed his large hand, palm up, in hers. Once again, her pudgy finger traced his life line. After a musing silence, she said, “You will not live a long life.”

Shock and alarm rippled across Wilde’s face. “But it will be a happy life, no?”