Deadly Measure of Brimstone

8

Wednesday, 23rd October 1929

To add as much verisimilitude to my tale as any story which treats of a ghost can ever contain, I had at least to go through the motions. I had to be where I had to be to see what I was going to claim to see. In other words, yet again, I was off to the Russian and Turkish. I made a neat job of folding my clothes, getting practised now, and I handed over my things to Regina like an old hand. She eyed me very warily but I smiled and said nothing.

‘Will you be wanting a rub-down, madam?’ she said.

‘Not today, thank you,’ I answered. ‘I’m sorry I upset you yesterday, Regina. Here.’ For once, I had thought of tipping before I was stripped of my worldly possessions. The coins went some way towards Regina’s unbending and she managed a bob before she left me.

I made my way into the cool room and subsided. Unfortunately it was not empty today and if I were going to play out this charade with any amount of thoroughness I would have to make sure of at least a moment alone. Besides, the locked door was not in view from here. After five minutes I stood and passed through to the warm room. From the far end, when the curtains were open, one had a view through the hot room to the sprays and if one leaned over and squinted, I thought one could surely catch a glimpse of the door too. Unfortunately, three of the beds were occupied: it was far too early for the bright young naked things with their nail files and picture magazines, but there were three swathed and solid matrons (on closer inspection, perhaps one solid matron and her two solid offspring, but such was the extreme degree of the swathing one could hardly tell) and so again I settled myself to wait out the shortest plausible time before moving on again. Even at that, one of the solid offspring opened an eye and spoke to me as I rose.

‘Rather you than me, dear,’ she said, and then licked the corners of her lips as a drop of moisture, dislodged by her speaking, ran down each cheek and settled there. I was struck again by the way we were all rendered equal, once I had discarded my tweeds and pearls and good silk stockings and she had sloughed off her serge and lisle (to judge by her vowels anyway). I saw the point all at once of nuns’ habits and monks’ cowls and thought how restful it must be. Then I smiled to myself, imagining Grant, across the valley, suddenly shivering and not understanding why. I drew the hot-room curtain to one side and slipped through.

There was no one in there, I was pleased to see. Neither, however, was there a view of the locked room. Where exactly had I been when I had got a good clear sight of it? I puzzled and then remembered, with a bit of a groan. Of course, I had been sitting on the edge of the plunging pool, trailing my fingers and learning the lie of the land from the doctor. I sat down on the nearest bed, guessing that the ones by the warm-room doorway might be marginally less blistering than the ones at the top end. How far was I willing to take this rigmarole? Since there was no one here I could surely pass through the marble chamber, past the sprays, along the side of the plunge bath and out again. Who was to know? Regina would think it odd that I managed the whole shebang in twenty minutes but only if she saw me.

I could feel my hair beginning to soften and lie down to die on my head again. If I got out right now and gave it a bit of a blotting with a towel, perhaps I could salvage things. I stood and hurried out and then, in the marble slab room, I stopped. There was Regina, rolling up wet towels from the slab benches, wiping the marble dry and unrolling fresh ones.

‘That was quick, Mrs Gilver,’ she said. I wondered if I were imagining the arch note in her voice, or if she had come here expressly to see if I were really giving myself over to the heat or if I were up to no good and only faking.

‘I far prefer the steam to the dry heat,’ I said grandly, and swept open the etched glass door.

Of course, I did not prefer the steam heat at all. I loathed all of the rooms and was fast beginning to detest the feel of marble under my feet and the chafe of towelling on my skin, but there was nothing for it now. If Regina was skulking out there to catch me, I was going to have to jump into that dratted icy pool again, and if I was going to freeze myself half to death then I was jolly well going to boil myself up nicely first, hoping to strike a balance that way. Accordingly, I sat in the steam room – all alone: no gossiping ghouls to help the time pass today – until my blood was thumping and my hair hanging in rat’s tails to my chin.

When I emerged, it was to the clearest possible sign that Regina had indeed been watching me. She was gone, but in her place Mrs Cronin, the matron, had come and was busily fiddling with the roses on the spray baths in the most unconvincing way.

‘Mrs Gilver,’ she said. ‘You look rather warm.’ Anyone else I should have expected of making fun of me, but Mrs Cronin’s face was set like the marble behind her, her mouth a grim line, her eyes cold stones, her voice a monotone.

‘Nothing a dip won’t see to,’ I said. I strode through to the pool, wrenched off my robe and then my courage deserted me. I could not, simply could not, jump in again, not now I knew how bad it would be in there. I walked along to the steps and started down them gingerly. I was out of view of Mrs Cronin but the locked door lay dead ahead of me. Blessing my cowardice, I realised that if a ghost really did come floating through the keyhole, I should see it as plain as day and so I could ‘see’ one as soon as I cared to, before I was in beyond my knees.

My plan went awry in a way I really should have foreseen. Cringing on the steps, staring at the door, I essayed a little start of surprise, in case Mrs Cronin was peeping at me through one of the Turkish archways. My feet were numb, the steps were slippery, in short, I overbalanced and not only ended up completely submerged in the icy sulphurous depths again but this time I cracked my back on the edge of a stone step too. When I rose spluttering, Mrs Cronin was standing looking down at me, her eyes colder and harder than ever.

‘Did you see that?’ I said.

‘You slipped, madam?’

‘I nearly broke my neck!’ I said. I was dog-paddling back to the steps.

‘There is a handrail,’ Mrs Cronin said, just as I reached out for it to haul myself up.

‘You didn’t see?’ I asked again. I was out now and sprinting along the side of the pool to the door.

‘Here,’ she called after me. ‘Where are you going?’

I tried the handle and found it locked as I had expected to. Then I whipped round and scanned the room. ‘Does… steam escape from in there?’ I said. ‘I suppose it might have been steam.’

‘What do you mean?’ said Mrs Cronin.

‘I could have sworn I saw someone coming out of there,’ I said. ‘But the door didn’t open.’

‘Steam, as you say,’ Mrs Cronin said. ‘And you were overheated. Your eyes might have misted over.’

‘And what about my ears?’ I demanded. It was only then when I put my hands on my hips to make my point with more force that I realised I was having this conversation quite without clothes. Mrs Cronin was no doubt used to such things, but not I. I faltered, turned away and snatched up my robe.

‘How do you mean, madam?’ the matron asked me. ‘Did you hear something?’

‘She spoke to me,’ I said. ‘She said she had a message for her daughter and her son. And she said she was cold.’ Mrs Cronin’s eyes were not hard little pebbles now. They looked enormous in her white face.

‘Her daughter and her son?’

‘Who was it?’ I said. ‘You know, don’t you?’

‘It can’t be,’ said Mrs Cronin.

‘Who?’ I said, opening my eyes very wide.

‘No one,’ she said. ‘Regina told me you’d been asking about her. That’s what’s put it in my mind. Nothing else.’

‘Mrs Addie?’ I asked.

Mrs Cronin’s eyes flashed with panic and her face drained of yet more colour until it was grey and wretched. She turned, slipping a little on the wet floor, and blundered away.

I belted my robe and made my exit calmly. Regina was waiting for me by the cubicles. She held out her hand to give me something and when I caught it I was astonished and, frankly, offended to see that it was my two shillings back again.

‘I’ll not be bought, madam,’ she said. ‘I work for Dr Laidlaw and I’m proud to say so.’

‘I have no idea what you mean, Regina,’ I said. ‘I certainly didn’t mean to imply anything beyond a tip. But I shall tell Dr Laidlaw what a loyal servant she has in you when I see her. And I shall be seeing her very soon. I have just had an extraordinary experience in the plunging-pool room, one I need to discuss with Dr Laidlaw right away.’

‘She’s very busy,’ Regina said.

‘Unless you would like to tell me what’s behind that locked door.’

‘How did you-’ she said. ‘What locked door?’

‘And why Mrs Cronin guessed right first time who might be in there.’

‘Is she?’ Regina turned as if she could see into the room. ‘She sometimes goes in there to cry.’ Perhaps it was the after-effects of the cold plunge but to hear this said so matter-of-factly made me shiver.

‘Have you seen her?’ I asked. This was quite at odds with Regina’s robust denials of all ghostliness the day before.

‘I told you,’ Regina said. ‘I work for her, not you.’

It took me a moment to understand what she was saying.

‘Wait a minute,’ I said. ‘You thought I meant Dr Laidlaw was in there?’ She frowned, as confused as I was. ‘I meant Mrs Addie,’ I explained. ‘Her ghost, trapped in that room, behind the locked door.’

Regina was made of stern stuff and she did not pale or tremble, but only grew very still while she composed her reply.

‘There’s no such thing as ghosts,’ she said at last.

‘You might be in the minority at the Hydro these days,’ I said, ‘holding hard to that view.’