A Case of Spirits

CHAPTER 4

The notices outside the Store Street Hall in Bedford Square were persuasively worded: THE WORLD BEHIND THE VEIL

A Public Address and Lantern Show upon the Revelations of the Life to Come vouchsafed in recent years to such celebrated mediums as Mr D. D. Home, Mr Stainton Moses, Miss Florence Cook and the Speaker himself, Professor Eustace Quayle, in which Genuine Spirit Photographs will be projected on to a screen Eight Feet Square, and introducing the remarkable young medium, Mr Peter Brand, whose seances at a number of distinguished houses in London of recent weeks have been attended by the most sensational phenomena.

Seating for 600 persons.

Admission Threepence. Gallery Twopence.

Thursday November 12th, 1885, at 7.30 p.m.

Inside, as the converted and the curious assembled, a harmonium was playing Who are these, like stars appearing, and towards the back of the hall Constable Thackeray was reporting confidentially to Sergeant Cribb on the results of his visits to police stations in Richmond and Belgravia.

‘I might say, Sarge, that I got a pretty cool reception at both places. The local blokes think they was perfectly capable of catching the thief, and I don’t blame ’em.’

‘Nor I,’ said Cribb, ‘but the plain fact is that we’re accountable to Jowett, and if I were you I wouldn’t question the whys and wherefores of it. He’s in thick with Dr Probert, and Probert wants it handled by the Yard and that’s the end of it. He’s coming tonight, by the way.’

‘Dr Probert?’

‘Inspector Jowett. Better get your feet off the seat in front and try to look a credit to the Force. Did you get anything of interest from B Division?’

Thackeray took out his notebook and consulted it discreetly under cover of his overcoat. ‘October 31st. Theft of Royal Worcester vase, Hereafter House, 92, Eaton Square, Belgravia. Property of Miss Laetitia Crush.’

Cribb raised an eyebrow. ‘Lettie, eh? Suits her. Carry on.’

‘Estimated value thirty pounds,’ continued Thackeray. ‘Japanese in style, made by one James Hadley-’

‘Cut the description,’ ordered Cribb. ‘What about the means of entry?’

‘A glass pane nine inches by eleven was broken in the rear door,’ read Thackeray. ‘It appears to have been accomplished with a brick which was found nearby. The glass fell on to a piece of coconut matting, and the servants heard nothing.’

‘Clumsy, even so,’ said Cribb.

‘Yes, Sarge, particularly as there was a window with a broken sashcord not ten yards away. He could have got through there, easy.’

‘What about the Richmond job?’ said Cribb. ‘How does the method of entry compare?’

‘Oh, that was uncommon crude as well, Sarge.’ Thackeray thumbed the pages of his notebook to check the damage inflicted on Dr Probert’s property. ‘The felon made a number of unsuccessful attempts to prise the bars off the pantry-window with a pick-handle before seizing on the notion of using it in conjunction with a thong. He made a shocking mess of the pantry, climbing in, too. Knocked over a tin of Bath Olivers and scattered a packet of pearl barley all over the floor. We’re not exactly dealing with a Charlie Peace, Sarge. That’s what so infuriates the bobbies on the spot. They reckon they could run the man to ground in a matter of hours, given the chance. It’s obviously someone who knew the nights when Miss Crush was out at Dr Probert’s, and Dr Probert was giving his lecture at University College Hospital. A dabbler in this table-tapping nonsense and a pretty poor hand as a burglar.’

‘Inspector Jowett,’ said Cribb.

‘Eh?’ ejaculated Thackeray.

‘Good evening, Officers,’ said Jowett, at his side. ‘You don’t mind if I join you? I think the lecture is about to commence.’ He just had time to take the seat on Cribb’s other side. The harmonium strains gave way to polite applause as the chairman for the evening stepped out from behind a tub of pampas grass to occupy the centre of the stage.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, it is my privilege tonight. .’ he began.

‘This promises to be instructive,’ said Jowett in Cribb’s ear. ‘Professor Quayle has had his palms on the tables of some of the best addresses in London. He stepped into D. D. Home’s shoes in the seventies. In demand everywhere. Now it looks as if young Brand is ready to eclipse him. Decent of Quayle to include the boy in his lecture.’

Cribb gave an affirmative grunt. He was getting used to hearing mediums discussed as if they were tenors or fiddle-players. It didn’t matter to the well-to-do whether there was anything in spiritualism or not; mediums were drawing-room entertainers, as ready to be hired for an evening as the latest velvet-voiced Italian over for the season at Covent Garden.

‘. . I give you Professor Eustace Quayle,’ concluded the chairman, neatly stepping back behind the pampas grass.

The professor, a man of commanding height and total baldness, advanced to the lectern, propped his elbows on it and leaned forward until his head and shoulders loomed over the front rows like a figurehead. ‘Who will deny that there are visitors from the Other Side in this place tonight?’ he demanded in a voice that rang through the hall. There was not a whisper from the audience as he cast his eyes challengingly along their stunned rows. It was not notably his baldness that intimidated, nor the extreme hollowness of his cheeks. It was the intensity of his eyes, so deep-set as to be fathomless under the gas-burners, and topped by a prodigious growth of eyebrow. ‘They are everywhere about us, are they not?’ he continued, with a glance which seemed to take in the back rows.

Thackeray shifted in his seat, turned slightly and found himself eye to anxious eye with his neighbour, a grey-haired lady in a racoon fur hat.

‘Invisible presences,’ said Professor Quayle. ‘The unseen spirits of the departed. Unseen? Oh, I have seen them, my friends, seen them and spoken with them, as any of you may do if you wish. Tonight I shall show you photographic plates that will satisfy the most sceptical among you. But I am not here to persuade you that beings exist outside the material world. You are free agents. You think, and act upon the promptings of your thoughts, and we call the faculty within you that determines those thoughts your inner being, your soul, your spirit. I tell you, friends, that the spirits that a medium makes contact with are nothing but the souls of men and women like yourselves extracted from their envelope of gross, terrestrial matter.’

‘Isn’t that Dr Probert there, second row from the front and two from the end?’ Jowett unexpectedly asked Cribb.

‘You’re right, sir! And Miss Crush sitting next to him.’

‘Ah, you’ve met the lady already. She was gratified to learn that Scotland Yard are on the track of her stolen vase, no doubt.’

‘That wasn’t my impression, sir.’

‘No?’ Inspector Jowett turned in surprise.

On the platform, the professor had finished talking about the spirits in the hall and had reached the less disturbing matter of his conversations with famous historical personages from St Peter onwards.

Cribb waited till the roll had passed by way of Julius Caesar and William Shakespeare to George Washington.

‘Miss Crush would like us to abandon the case, sir. Says she doesn’t mind about the vase.’

‘Good Lord!’ said Jowett loudly.

The man on his left frowned and leaned forward in an attitude plainly conveying that if he had to listen to blasphemies he preferred them to come from the platform.

‘I think she doesn’t want to upset the people she knows, sir. It’s not worth the price of the missing vase to have her spiritualistic friends investigated.’

‘Understandable, I will admit, but quite impossible. You told her that you have your job to do, I hope?’

‘Left her in no doubt at all, sir.’

Below, the professor quoted from a conversation he had recently had with Napoleon, ‘ “March forward, children! You do not need the aid of bayonets to sustain your cause. Truth is more powerful than armies, fleets, cannon and grape-shot.” ’

‘Hear, hear,’ someone shouted in the middle of the hall, and there was a nervous burst of applause in which Miss Crush could be seen to be joining energetically.

‘I trust you didn’t threaten the lady,’ said Jowett. ‘People of her class aren’t accustomed to bullying methods, you know. To be frank, I was somewhat disturbed by something Dr Probert repeated to me this afternoon, that you were planning to “put the screws on Miss Crush”. That’s not the way we conduct our investigations is it, Sergeant-not where people of refinement are concerned?’

‘Slip of the tongue, sir. Nothing sinister intended.’

‘I can vouch for that, sir,’ added Thackeray, leaning forward to catch Jowett’s eye.

‘Good God! I hope you weren’t there,’ said the inspector, as if that would have confirmed his worst suspicions of police brutality.

Remarkable as they were, Professor Quayle’s conversations with the great would undoubtedly have taken a stronger grip on the attention of the audience if they had been extensively edited. There was a disappointing sameness about them. There seemed to be a conspiracy on the Other Side to give nothing away about the life hereafter. The communications consisted in the main of expressions of goodwill and exhortations to keep getting in touch, not helped by the professor’s delivery, which was strongly reminiscent of the Best Man at a wedding reception reading out the messages from absent guests. When Lord Beaconsfield was reached, and the audience realised that his recent decease almost certainly made him last on the list, an unmistakable sensation of relief spread through the hall.

It was a critical phase in the proceedings. The moment the references to primroses and the Conservative Party were rounded off with applause, a strong injection of interest was wanted if the lecture was to be kept alive. Happily it was available. ‘At this juncture, ladies and gentlemen,’ said the professor, ‘I beg leave to introduce a young medium whose seances in recent weeks have been attended by phenomena of a most exceptional character and variety-so exceptional, in fact, that he is rapidly becoming the talk of the metropolis. Noises and rappings under a table in the suburbs are nothing new, but what do you say to the materialisation of a spirit hand in Kensington, the levitation of the entire furniture of a room in Hampstead and the writing of a message from the late Duke of Wellington in a private house in Camberwell-writing, I may say, that has been verified as authentic by the foremost graphologist in London? These are examples chosen at random to convey an impression of the scope of this young man’s powers-or rather, his faculty for concentrating the powers of the spirits to produce such prodigious phenomena. Ladies and gentlemen, he is young and unused to the public platform, but he has generously consented to appear beside me here tonight-Mr Peter Brand.’

For a novice, Peter Brand had a nice sense of timing. There was sufficient delay in his appearance for a germ of anxiety to flit momentarily into the minds of the audience. Then he stepped round the pampas grass, bowed humbly and shook Quayle’s hand. He was notably shorter than the professor, slightly built and pale of face, with a misty uncertainty in his eyes likely to cause maternal flutterings in every bosom in the hall. He had long, black hair and wore a navy blue velveteen suit and a white cravat.

‘He doesn’t look like Charlie Peace,’ Cribb remarked to Thackeray. ‘What do you think?’

‘Shifty little beggar, Sarge. I wouldn’t trust him.’

‘You will appreciate, ladies and gentlemen, that this is not the occasion for a seance,’ announced Professor Quayle, ‘and Mr Brand is not one of those so-called mediums who produce unusual effects for no better reason than to demonstrate their powers. Like me, he respects his mediumship as a gift from the Almighty, and he employs it only in humility and out of respect for the souls of those who have gone before on the Great Journey, but care to linger awhile and offer comfort to we who follow.’

‘At ten guineas a time,’ muttered Cribb.

‘Nevertheless, it may be that some of the unseen audience who are in this hall with us tonight have messages to convey to the living. And therefore in all humility Mr Brand has agreed to put his gift at their disposal. Lest there are those among you who would not wish to contact their dear ones in the forum of an open meeting, he undertakes to convey messages only to those who signify their willingness by placing some small personal article in one of the envelopes we shall presently provide, and inscribing their names in pencil on the outside.’

‘If you please,’ called a voice towards the front, and an attendant hurried over with a large brown envelope.

‘Miss Crush,’ Thackeray declared in a disillusioned voice. ‘I reckon they’ll all be people he knows, Sarge.’

‘They needn’t be,’ said Cribb. ‘What have you got in your pocket?’

‘Glory! Only my darbies-’

‘Just the thing. Lean across and call for an envelope.’

So Thackeray, not for the first time, found himself elbowed into the front line by Sergeant Cribb.

‘Very good,’ the professor presently said. ‘We now have four envelopes containing personal articles belonging to members of the audience. We shall see whether any of them evokes a response from the Other Side. Will you take this one first, Mr Brand? The name on the envelope is Miss L. Crush.’

‘Miss Crush,’ repeated Brand.

‘Speak up, sir,’ requested someone at the rear of the hall.

Brand nodded an acknowledgement, and put his hand in the envelope. ‘It is a glove,’ he said in a more carrying voice, and held it out for everyone to confirm the fact. ‘If you will bear with me. .’ He put his other hand to his forehead and closed his eyes.

The audience waited breathlessly.

‘Do you have a residence in Belgravia, Miss Crush?’ he asked without opening his eyes.

‘Yes, yes, I do,’ called Miss Crush from her place in the second row, as triumphantly as if this information alone confirmed the Life Everlasting.

‘Then there is something coming through for you from one of an older generation. A male person. An uncle. The name is difficult. Something like. .’ His voice tailed off.

‘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.’