The Revenant of Thraxton Hall: The Paranormal Casebooks of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (16 page)

“Who can say?” she mused, pushing his hand away. “It is not an exact science.”

Wilde wobbled to his feet and stumbled back to join Conan Doyle, deeply shaken.

Madame Zhozhovsky’s gray graze swept the room and captured Conan Doyle’s eye. “Doctor Doyle, would you like to know your future?”

“Just going for some refreshments,” Conan Doyle answered, abandoning his friend while he arrowed toward the punch bowl. With his consumptive wife hovering on the brink of death, he had no interest in finding out about his future. He was reaching for the silver punch ladle when a female hand reached at the same moment, and their hands clashed.

“Oh, do excuse me!”

Conan Doyle looked up into the smiling face of Eleanor Sidgwick. He estimated her age to be about the same as his own, early thirties—at least twenty years her husband’s junior. She was a handsome, woman, if somewhat plain, with brown eyes and brown hair parted in the middle and scraped back into a tight bun—the very picture of an academic. She was looking straight into Conan Doyle’s eyes and drew her hand away slowly.

“May I pour you some punch, Mrs. Sidgwick?”

“How gallant! Eleanor—please call me Eleanor—and yes, that would be lovely.”

Conan Doyle ladled fruit punch into her crystal glass, and then filled his own. He turned to walk back to where Wilde was waiting and found that Mrs. Sidgwick was blocking his path and looking up at him expectantly.

“Er, I am sitting with my friend, Mister Wilde. Would you care to join—”

“Oh yes!” she leapt in. “That would be most accommodating!”

As they approached, Wilde rose from his seat and bowed. “Mrs. Sidgwick,” he said, and taking her free hand, kissed her knuckles.

“Oh!” she said, flushing. And then again, her voice a girlish flutter: “Oh!”

Conan Doyle held her chair until she sat and looked at both men with the bright eyes of a young girl who has just been invited to her first party.

“I must say,” she gushed. “I am very thrilled to sit with two men of such fame.” She threw a furtive glance across the room to where her husband, Henry Sidgwick, was holding court with Sir William Crookes and then turned her attention back to them. “It is so refreshing to converse with two giants of the arts. My husband never stops speaking of science and mathematics.”

“Oh, I hardly think I’d describe us as giants,” Conan Doyle said.

“Never argue with a lady, Arthur. Especially when she is correct.” Wilde smiled and bowed his head in homage. “The mantle of
giant
rests comfortably upon my shoulders.”

She moved forward in her chair, so that her knee was touching Conan Doyle’s, and whispered conspiratorially: “How are you gentlemen finding our little group of eccentrics?” He moved his leg away, but she shifted forward again, regaining contact.

“Stimulating,” Wilde said. “And Mister Hume’s demonstration of levitation exhausts my list of superlatives.”

“Indeed, Mister Hume is the brightest star of our gathering. And so handsome and at ease, as only our American cousins can be.”

“Yes,” Conan Doyle agreed. “But tell me, why is it that Frank Podmore seems, how shall I say—”

“Somewhat acerbic?”

Conan Doyle nodded.

Eleanor Sidgwick made a move to touch her hair as she scanned for anyone close enough to eavesdrop. “Of course, I don’t like to gossip.”

“Neither do we listen to gossip,” Conan Doyle assured her.

“Arthur speaks for himself,” Wilde said, laying his large hand atop hers. “Where gossip is concerned, I am a hummingbird and it is the nectar upon which I feed. Dear lady, do continue.”

Despite Wilde’s encouragement, Mrs. Sidgwick’s face betrayed her reluctance. “I will say no more than there is bad blood between Frank Podmore and Mister Hume … and between the Society in general.”

“But why?” Conan Doyle questioned. “I understand Podmore is a scientist.”

Eleanor Sidgwick tittered. “Frank calls himself a scientist. In truth he is a clerk in the post office. Oh, I suppose it is true that he did attend university and has a very keen mind.”

“Then why is he so scornful of Hume?”

She paused before answering, obviously choosing her words carefully. “Frank has experienced a number of
disappointments
in the spiritualist world. Especially where Mister Hume is concerned. Frank wrote a book called
Phantasms of the Living
, which described a number of sessions that verified Mister Hume’s abilities under strict scientific conditions. But a short time afterward, Frank turned on Mister Hume, claiming that he had faked many of his feats and duped his sitters. I believe, however, it may have been Mister Hume’s character flaws that colored Frank’s opinion.”

“Character flaws?” Wilde repeated, leaning forward in his seat. “Do go on. I never tire of hearing of other people’s flaws, especially as I have none of my own.”

“No … I really should say no more,” she said, fanning herself with a folded program. “It is all gossip and rumor.”

Wilde stroked the back of her hand and adopted a fawning expression. “Dear lady, must I plead?”

She giggled, and as Wilde had given her permission, took a deep breath and began: “Well, it appears that Mister Hume is something of a cad—especially where ladies are involved.”

“Delicious,” Wilde purred. “If I had wings, I would be buzzing now.”

“Mister Hume traveled the continent for a number of years, and always as a guest of wealthy patrons. Whilst in Paris, he was summoned to the Tuileries to perform a séance for Napoleon III. He also performed for Queen Sophia of the Netherlands. I understand she was quite smitten with his powers.” And then she added in a hugely incriminating voice: “
All
of them.”

“Well, I can’t say I’d fault him for using his gifts,” Conan Doyle argued, oblivious to the innuendo.

“But don’t you see? Mister Hume has no income, but lives at the expense of others: royalty, aristocrats—and especially ladies of means. The biggest scandal involves one Mrs. Lyons, a wealthy widow.”

“A wealthy widow!” Wilde said. “How titillating. I have a penchant for stories that involve wealthy widows.”

“Mrs. Lyons adopted Hume as her son.”

“As her son?” Conan Doyle said, incredulous. “How old was Hume at the time? How old was Mrs. Lyons?”

“The age difference was but a few years. You can imagine the scandal, especially when the widow gave Mister Hume sixty thousand pounds, it is said in an attempt to gain introduction to high society. When Hume failed to live up to his promise, the lady brought suit in the courts for the return of her money. The case was decided against Hume, and Mrs. Lyon’s money was returned. Of course, Mister Hume’s reputation was pilloried in the press and left Frank Podmore totally disillusioned with his onetime hero.”

At that precise moment, Daniel Dunglas Hume strode into the room and struck a theatrical pose, back arched, chest thrust out, thumbs hooked behind his lapels. Compared to the ashen-faced man who had been carried from the room the previous evening, he seemed completely rejuvenated. Spotting the punch bowl, he crossed the room with the strutting gait of a barnyard rooster.

“Please excuse me,” she suddenly announced. “I am very thirsty.”

As Hume was pouring himself a glass of punch, Mrs. Sidgwick rushed over and nearly collided with him. Conan Doyle and Wilde watched as the two exchanged pleasantries and then Mrs. Sidgwick held up her glass as Hume filled it for her with the punch ladle. They moved to a nearby love seat and sat down together. Hume said something and smiled, at which she stroked his arm playfully and simpered.

“Dear me,” Wilde said. “It rather looks as if we’ve been cuckolded—despite the fact that we are giants.”

Conan Doyle grunted. “It seems Mrs. Sidgwick is seeking male company other than her husband. She acted as if she did not receive a kiss on the hand very often.”

“From the look of her aged husband,” Wilde noted, “I’d say her lips are even more lonely.”

*   *   *

When the grandfather clock in the corner chimed the hour, Lady Thraxton arrived in a whisper of black veils. Conan Doyle’s shoulders slumped as he watched the Count draw up a chair for the Lady and then drag a chair for himself close by. Taking the Lady’s arrival as his cue, Henry Sidgwick clapped his hands for attention and called together the Tuesday meeting of the Society for Psychical Research.

“This morning,” Sidgwick began, “Mister Frank Podmore will provide us with a lecture on
Animal Magnetism
.” Sidgwick waved for Podmore to come forward from his seat.

“I’ll be interested to hear this,” Conan Doyle whispered to Wilde.

Podmore took Sidgwick’s place at the center of the room. His eyes swept the audience with impatient disapproval as he waited for stray knots of conversation to shrivel up. Then he cleared his throat and launched into his lecture. “Today, I shall be speaking about a paper I wrote last year—”

A knock at the parlor door interrupted him. Mister Greaves shuffled in and bowed his head as he announced, “Lord Philipp Webb.”

A tall man in a black suit entered. He was fastidiously groomed, his short, glossy black hair parted in the middle and pomaded in place. His large nose was anchored to his face by a modest black moustache with waxed and curled ends. The nose had a prominent bump, which provided a convenient ledge for a pair of pince-nez, from which dangled a black ribbon. His black pinstripe suit showed impeccable tailoring and made Conan Doyle, in his sensible but well-worn tweeds, feel positively shabby.

Wilde leaned close to his friend and whispered, “I admire his tailoring although—Ach!” He made a face. “A black suit with brown boots and white spats? Something’s amiss with that!”

To Conan Doyle, everything about the man screamed “aristocrat,” and then he opened his mouth and nailed the assumption in place: “You must excuse my late arrival,” Lord Webb said in a deep, mellifluous voice. “I arrived rather late, or rather, very early this morning.” His blue-eyed gaze, grossly swollen behind the pince-nez lenses, swept the room until he finally noticed the diminutive Frank Podmore. “Ah, it seems I’m interrupting.” He drew out a chair and lowered his elegant form into it, casually crossing one long leg over the other. Then, with great deliberation, he took out a silver cigarette case from his inside jacket pocket, removed a cigarette, and fitted it to a black ebony cigarette holder. Reaching into his left pocket, he took out a matchbox and shook it to ensure it still contained matches. He removed a single match. Struck it. Puffed his cigarette to life. Then fastidiously returned the burned match to its box.

It was a mundane performance, but one that held the entire room’s attention captive and only relinquished it when he was finished. As he drew on the cigarette holder clamped between his teeth, Lord Webb looked up distractedly and acknowledged Podmore with a dismissive wave, saying, “Please … do go on.”

Podmore bristled. Cleared his throat. Pulled his shoulders back. He stood as tall as he was able in an attempt to recapture the audience, but most eyes, especially those of the women, were riveted to the svelte form of Lord Webb. Conan Doyle noted that even Mrs. Sidgwick had lost interest in Daniel Dunglas Hume and was staring at the suave newcomer.

Frank Podmore chewed his lip and stood looking around the room for several moments before speaking. “In any investigation of so-called psychic phenomena, one must approach with cautious skepticism, for we are in a field tainted by superstition, delusion, and sheer knavery.”

A murmur ran through the membership.

“This fellow begins every speech with an insult,” Wilde muttered. Conan Doyle nodded agreement, although he could not tell if Podmore was trying to be offensive or if the man was simply devoid of the tiniest scintilla of tact.

“Such is the case with hypnosis, which began with the fabrications of Franz Mesmer. Despite such tarnished beginnings, hypnosis has achieved a loyal following among those who usually exhibit better judgment, and the pseudoscience has finally left the music halls and entered the hallowed halls of academia.”

Podmore went on for another ten minutes citing, with excruciating pedantry, a number of studies undertaken at various universities. He had committed a great deal to memory, and now lavished his audience with the most uninteresting minutiae. Podmore’s nasal voice managed at once to be both irritating and monotonous. Conan Doyle had enjoyed only a few hours of sleep and soon found his eyelids sagging as he battled to stay awake.

Wilde, too, must have been suffering the same effect. He leaned close to Conan Doyle’s ear and murmured, “I see now that Mister Podmore is a master of hypnosis: the entire room is about to lapse into unconsciousness.”

Wilde’s comment tickled Conan Doyle. All eyes in the room turned his way as he choked off a laugh.

Lord Webb finished his cigarette, removed it from the black holder, and tossed it in the fire, and then interrupted Podmore midstream. “And are we to have a practical demonstration of hypnosis?” he asked.

Podmore stopped mid-sentence and fixed the aristocrat with his ratting terrier stare. “I am lecturing on the advances in the study of the mind made possible by the newest applications of hypnosis.”

Lord Webb rose to his full height. “But surely a practical demonstration would be much more efficacious. After all, the members can read your paper at their leisure when the meeting is long over. While we are all gathered here, it would seem more germane to have a practical demonstration.”

“I assume, Lord Webb, that you are an expert in hypnosis?”

The aristocrat nodded modestly. “As a matter of fact, I am. Advanced education was discouraged in my family—my father deemed it unseemly for one of an elevated social class. Quite against his wishes, I attended the University of Leipzig where I studied under the great Doctor Johan Friedrich Blumenthal. You are no doubt familiar with his paper:
Die Phisoligicae und Mesmer
?”

Podmore’s mouth opened. His lips twitched as he strained for a response, but then he dropped his head, shamefaced—intellectually outgunned.

Without invitation, Lord Webb strode to the center of the room and stood beside Podmore as if to make the differences in their heights more pronounced. The younger man squirmed a moment and then silently capitulated, returning to his seat where he glowered beneath his ginger brows, radiating hatred.