A Case of Spirits

CHAPTER 6

They had asked Inspector Jowett to take the galvanometer readings. There was sufficient light at the fireside to observe the tremors of the needle, and he squatted by the instrument with Strathmore at his side noting the information in a pocket-book. In different circumstances it would have pleased him to be invited to play an active part in such a crucial experiment. Tonight he had reservations.

Early in the evening he had begun to ponder the reason for his presence at the seance. On accepting Probert’s invitation to attend he had not given it a second thought. It was a mark of gratitude, a return for the small service he had rendered the doctor by arranging that Scotland Yard took over the burglary investigation.

But was it only that? As the scientific purpose of the evening had become increasingly clear, he had started to wonder whether there was not some other reason for his presence there; you did not, after all, select a team of scientific investigators on a social basis. Wonder had grown into something more disturbing when Strathmore had talked of publishing his findings in the Proceedings of the Life After Death Society. People reading extraordinary claims in scientific reports quite properly took an interest in the status and integrity of those who participated. There could scarcely be a more convincing endorsement than the presence of a detective-inspector of the Metropolitan Police.

It was worrying, confoundedly worrying. For whilst Probert had given his word to say nothing during the evening about the occupation and rank of his visitor from Whitehall, no promise had been given or requested to keep it confidential afterwards. In his report, Strathmore would expect to list the names and professions of all the witnesses, and very impressive they would appear: two ladies well known in the social circles of Richmond and Kensington, two distinguished men of medicine, an army officer and. . a detective-inspector of police. How Scotland Yard would receive the information that one of its senior detectives had seen a spirit hand was not to be imagined. And that was the less startling item on the evening’s agenda! Was it too much to hope that Uncle Walter’s spirit might have returned to the Other Side in a fit of pique?

The needle was steady at a reading of 205. For the purpose of the experiment the electric light had been disconnected, and the final preparations had taken place by candlelight. Probert had gone to some trouble to ensure that a good contact was made with the medium’s hands, by wrapping small squares of lint soaked in a saline solution round the handles of the chair. Other members of the party had been invited to sit in the chair and test the sensation of the electrical current. Miss Crush pronounced it ‘agreeably stimulating, like the tingle of champagne’; Strathmore found it ‘unobjectionable’; and Captain Nye said he could not feel anything at all. Before Brand took his place in the chair he agreed to be searched to make certain he had nothing concealed that might be used to fake a materialisation. At length everyone retired to the main part of the room, the curtain was drawn and the candles extinguished.

Five minutes passed without anything but a series of small snorts and sighs from Nye to register his impatience with the whole business.

‘Perhaps it would help if we all linked hands again,’ suggested Miss Crush. ‘Speaking personally, I find that it brings my thoughts more into harmony with other members of the circle.’

‘We’ve been into that already, madam,’ said Strathmore, before Nye had a chance to explode. ‘The medium says it isn’t necessary. Besides, Jowett and I have got to be over here with the galvanometer. Ah, there’s a movement!’

‘A drop to 196,’ said Jowett.

‘And that is at 10.20 p.m.,’ said Strathmore, writing it down.

‘He must have altered his position slightly,’ explained Probert. ‘The instrument is sensitive to the smallest fluctuations in the strength of the contact.’

‘I expect he has gone more deeply into trance,’ said Miss Crush.

The flickering illumination provided by the fire might have eased Captain Nye’s doubts about the propriety of the proceedings, but it put the sitters’ nerves to the test more rigorously, if anything, than pitch darkness. Their own shadows leapt about the shelves and walls of the library. Because the effect was unpredictable it was impossible to ignore. The sudden movement caught in the corner of one’s eye was almost certainly a shadow on the curtain-almost, but how could anyone be sure?

‘Here’s a change. 188,’ reported Jowett.

‘At 10.25 p.m.,’ said Strathmore.

A log shifted in the grate. There was a sharp indrawing of breath from somebody.

‘Compose yourselves,’ cautioned Probert. ‘If we all remain in control there is nothing to fear.’

Miss Crush at once raised her right hand with forefinger erect as if she was about to admonish her host. Instead she held it poised in front of her, her several rings glinting fiercely. After several seconds she announced, ‘I divine a presence. It is the same sensation as before, a chilling of the atmosphere. Oh yes, I am sure of it. There is a visitor in the room with us now.’

Strathmore accepted this information with scientific detachment. ‘A drop in temperature, you say? We should have taken thermometer readings, Probert. It would have provided more evidence for my report. Next time-’

‘Please do not be alarmed, anyone, but I am quite sure that a hand is stroking my hair,’ said Alice Probert suddenly. ‘It is quite all right, William. It means no harm. If everyone will only keep calm. . It wants to come among us.’

‘The galvanometer is steady at 188,’ said Jowett in a low voice. Someone had to remind the ladies to keep the observations on a scientific level. Heavens, if he was to be deprived by tonight’s doings of the chance of promotion to chief-inspector, it warranted something more sensational than a draught through Alice Probert’s hair!

As if in response to his thought, there was an astonishing development from behind the curtain, the sound of something, some being walking across the carpet.

The needle of the galvanometer had not moved from 188.

‘God save us all!’ cried Miss Crush.

From behind the curtain a voice shouted, ‘What’s the bloody game?’

‘It must be a spirit,’ Miss Crush declared in a stage whisper. ‘That is not the way Mr Brand speaks.’

Certainly the outburst had lacked the painstaking articulation of Brand’s utterances earlier in the evening.

The footsteps recrossed the study, moving more quickly.

The galvanometer had risen to 196.

‘Should someone look behind the curtain?’ asked Alice.

‘It’s a bloody liberty!’ said the voice.

‘I think we would be justified in doing so,’ said Dr Probert. ‘Strathmore, you are nearest. Would you be so kind?’

The representative from the Life After Death Society advanced gingerly to the curtain and pulled it far enough aside to look through. ‘Is everything quite in order, Mr Brand?’

‘No it ain’t,’ said the medium, and the voice was now recognisable as his. ‘Fetch Dr Probert in ’ere quick.’

Probert was on his feet in a moment and bustled past Strathmore into the study. His haste was unfortunate. ‘Damn! I’ve kicked over the blasted bowl of salt solution. Light a candle, someone, for God’s sake, and bring it in here.’

Strathmore located a candle on the mantelpiece, lighted it from the fire and took it to Probert. Peter Brand was seated gripping the chair-handles as they had left him, except that his appearance bore signs of his recent state of trance, his hair dishevelled from contact with the chair-back, jacket collar turned up and trousers, with handkerchief half hanging from them, creased concertina-fashion where he had slipped down in the chair.

There was no other person in the study with him.

‘What are you tryin’ to do to me, for Christ’s sake?’ he demanded of Probert, all affectation sunk without trace.

‘You told me this was science. A bleedin’ experiment. I come in good faith and what ’appens? Someone comes creepin’ in ’ere spyin’ on me just as I’m goin’ into trance-the one bloody thing you know I can’t abide. Could’ve finished me, with my groggy ’eart, it could. It’s a fine bleedin’ state of affairs when an honest medium can’t trust ’is sitters to stay behind a curtain for ten minutes!’

‘Mind your language, Brand. Ladies present,’ Nye reminded him.

‘William, I’d be uncommonly obliged if you would take a candle down to the cellar and switch off the electricity,’ said Probert, with the authentic voice of authority.

Nye practically saluted before departing on his mission.

‘Mr Brand, we all remained behind the curtain, I assure you,’ said Alice. ‘Nobody left the room.’

‘Look, I don’t imagine these things,’ said Brand.

‘My dear, nobody would suggest that you do,’ said Miss Crush. ‘We all heard the footsteps. You were not alone in here-there is no doubt of that. But does it not occur to you that your intruder might not have been one of us?’

‘Servants, d’you mean?’

‘All out. Won’t be back before eleven,’ said Probert. ‘And if you’re thinking that it might have been my wife, I’d advise you to forget it. She’s so damned superstitious that she won’t put her head round the door of her room until you’re out of the house.’

‘So it must have been a spirit visitor,’ deduced Miss Crush.

‘It’s never ’appened like that before,’ said Brand, sceptically. ‘The footsteps was behind me as I sat in the chair.

Someone come in through the door and ’alf crossed the room, I swear it. Then ’e must’ve gone out again.’

Miss Crush appealed to Brand with open hands. ‘Don’t you understand? You have just given us a classic account of a haunting. It was a phantom that we all heard.’

Brand looked slightly mollified. ‘You really think so?’

‘No other explanation,’ confirmed Probert.

‘Well, in that case, seein’ as you can’t all be deceiving me,’ said Brand, his speech rapidly re-acquiring its veneer of sophistication, ‘I’ll be content to draw a veil over the whole episode.’

‘Most decent of you,’ said Probert. ‘As that’s settled, shall we resume the experiment? Ah, William,’ he said, seeing Nye reappear panting from his visit to the cellar, ‘we’re about to re-commence. Trot downstairs and switch it on again, will you? There’s a good fellow. Perhaps you’ll be so decent as to stand by the galvanometer and give us a reading, Jowett. We shall want to make sure we have a contact.’

It was the work of a few minutes to re-establish the experiment as it had been before the interruption and close the curtain. The sitters reassembled by firelight in the library, Strathmore kneeling at Jowett’s side, pencil poised over pocket-book; Miss Crush with hands on the table and eyes rotated upwards to the ceiling; Probert leaning back in his chair with arms folded, watching the curtain; Nye, still recovering his breath, ogling Alice, who sat reflectively twisting her engagement ring.

‘Twenty minutes to eleven,’ said Strathmore.

‘A reading of 202,’ responded Jowett.

Somewhere outside, and from a level well below them, a ship’s horn sounded a dismal note across the Thames.

‘Fog, would you say?’ said Nye.

Nobody seemed interested.

The fire had subsided in the grate and glowed evenly, with the occasional flare from a tiny pocket of gas that had somehow remained latent in the wood until now, and sprouted flames incredibly pure and brilliant in colour.

Miss Crush was not the first this time to detect a presence.

‘Something is there,’ whispered Alice Probert. ‘Listen.’

‘201,’ said Jowett, thinking of Scotland Yard.

‘Hush!’

A floorboard crunched.

‘The door!’ said Nye, saucer-eyed. ‘The handle is turning.’

Everyone looked at the library door. He was not mistaken. The handle was turning, evenly and with a calculated pressure that made Jowett’s blood run cold. When it reached the limit of its rotation the door itself swung slowly inwards. A figure took a single step into the room, and stopped. It was tall, lean in stature and sharp of feature. It was wearing a bowler hat.

‘Sergeant Cribb! How the devil do you account for this?’ ejaculated Jowett.

Before Cribb could respond, Strathmore barked at Jowett, ‘Look to the galvanometer! The current is broken.’

‘Small wonder, in this blasted bear-garden!’ said Probert. ‘When I asked you here, Jowett, I didn’t expect you to bring the rest of Scotland Yard with you. Kindly light a candle, William, and bring it to the curtain. I think we can safely assume Mr Brand won’t have anything more to do with our researches after this!’

The assumption was accurate. Horrifyingly so.

When Probert tugged aside the curtain the candlelight revealed the medium supported by the chair but no longer seated in it. He was propped like a piece of timber against the angle of the left arm and back, his legs jutting stiffly to the right. His trunk was rigid, his face twisted sideways, the features contorted, with teeth bared and clenched.

‘His hair!’ cried Alice Probert. ‘It is standing on end!’

‘Keep back!’ her father warned. ‘Don’t touch him! Downstairs, William, and switch off the current. Hurry, man, for God’s sake! Strathmore, bring another candle, will you?’

‘What has happened?’ gasped Miss Crush.

‘Electric shock, ma’am. Get back to the other room. You can’t help. This is a doctor’s work.’

‘I must!’ Miss Crush screamed hysterically, starting towards the chair.

‘Hold her back!’ ordered Probert.

Cribb, being nearest, reacted with commendable sharpness considering the bewildering sequence of events since he had opened the door of the room. He caught Miss Crush round the waist and tugged her towards him. She fainted in his arms.

‘Typical of the woman,’ said Probert. ‘Take charge of her, Alice.’

Captain Nye’s voice penetrated faintly from the basement. ‘Electricity off, Dr Probert.’

The cutting of the current produced no appreciable change in the appearance of Brand. Dr Probert felt his pulse and put his ear to his heart. ‘Gentlemen, I must try resuscitation. See if you can lift the patient on to the table in the other room, will you? Can you manage it? Where’s the other man, the police sergeant?’

Nobody answered, because nobody had noticed Cribb’s quick exit to the corridor, after consigning Miss Crush to an armchair and Alice Probert’s smelling-salts. The sergeant’s sleuthing instinct could not be deflected. He had entered the house in pursuit of a quarry, and when a loose floorboard creaked overhead, he heard it, for all the commotion over Brand.

He mounted the stairs lightly, but two at a time, and reached the first floor landing, where five closed doors confronted him. Giving chase in a large house such as this was the very devil; he would rather track a man through the streets any day. These would be bedrooms, each with several possible hiding-places-bed, wardrobe, closet and possibly balcony. If he committed himself to a thorough search of one, he was giving his man the chance to slip out of another, down the stairs and away into the night. Lying in wait at the head of the staircase was just as futile. Any housebreaker worthy of his jemmy would resort to the drainpipes in an emergency.

Was this man a professional, though? Cribb doubted it. All the evidence so far pointed to a novice, and an incompetent one at that. In the circumstances it was not too much to hope that he might be susceptible to panic.

With one hand on the nearest door-knob, Cribb turned and unselfconsciously addressed the empty landing. ‘Very well, you men. I want a thorough search made of every room. Sergeant, take two men and start with that one. I shall be looking in here. Brown, go down for reinforcements, will you? We need half a dozen able-bodied men. At the double. Avoid violence if possible, everyone. The suspect may be ready to give himself up.’ Putting his hand over his mouth, he added in two well-disguised and distinctively different voices, ‘Very good, sir.’ ‘Right, sir’. He opened the door and slammed it shut immediately. Then he crossed the landing, treading heavily, opened the nearest door and stepped inside, leaving it ajar, to wait developments.

It was unfortunate after a dramatic cameo of such quality and ingenuity that he chose the room he did, for immediately on entering it he was felled by a crack on the head that would probably have brained him but for his bowler. He hit the floor in company with the shattered fragments of a water-jug and lay momentarily unable to move as his assailant stumbled over him and across the landing to the second-floor stairs.

By a stupendous effort of will Cribb engineered himself from the horizontal to the vertical and lurched outside, in time to meet Inspector Jowett, attracted upstairs by the voices.

‘Good God, Cribb! What are you doing now? ’

‘Pur-pursuing a suspect, sir.’

‘Which way did he go?’

‘Upstairs, sir,’ gasped Cribb.

Jowett put up his right arm, as if directing traffic. ‘Get after him, then. No time to lose.’

‘I might need help, sir.’

‘I’ll be the judge of that, Sergeant. I won’t be far behind you, depend upon it.’

It occurred to Cribb as he hobbled upstairs, supporting himself on the banister, that his impersonation of an inspector deploying personnel had lacked the spark of realism. Jowett did it much more convincingly.

He was halfway upstairs when he remembered Mrs Probert. It was all very well running your quarry to earth at the top of a house, but what if he chose to make his final stand in a room already occupied by a woman in fear of her life?

She would scream.

She did. It was powerful enough to rattle the stair-rods. She was still screaming when Cribb reached her. Insensible at her feet lay Professor Eustace Quayle. Beside him was the volume of Notable British Sermons Mrs Probert had hurled at his head.