Seance for a Vampire

Thirteen

I accepted the assignment from Cousin Sherlock calmly, not anticipating that it would present any particular difficulty. “There is of course,” I commented, “the matter of my obtaining an invitation to enter the house. I expect that would greatly facilitate matters.”

“Of course,” Holmes nodded understandingly.

“Of course,” echoed Armstrong, nodding too. Naturally he, being still innocent of the least bit of vampire lore, could not have understood my being so particular about wanting an invitation to cross a mere threshold; but he very quickly volunteered to introduce Mr. Prince to the Altamont family as his own friend, a man experienced in dealing with psychic problems. “I understand that it will be wise to refrain from mentioning any connection the gentleman might have with Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.”

Soon–the time was now eight o’clock, still full daylight on a long summer evening–Armstrong and I were on our way, chatting together companionably enough. I have several reasons for remembering with great clarity that particular summer day: One is the fact that it marks the occasion of my first ride in a motorcar.

For several years I had been looking forward to the event, realizing that sooner or later I should have to accustom myself to the horseless carriage. When the opportunity arrived, I dutifully equipped myself for the adventure in borrowed goggles and a long dust-coat, telling myself that this was only one more step in my never-ending adjustment to an ever-new and changing world. In fact the ride, with Armstrong at the controls, was neither as bad as I had cynically expected nor quite as exhilarating as I had dared to hope. The sheer speed (I suppose some thirty miles an hour, substantially beyond the twenty recently established as the british speed limit for cars) was no real novelty; in some of my four-legged forms, I could have outsped the machine, at least over a short distance. And flying on the support of one’s own organic wings, another act to which I am no stranger, is in my judgment a sensation far superior to that of riding in any mere land-bound device.

The young American (as Watson so liked to call him) and I were on our way, terrorizing an occasional dog or cat as we shot through the village, shouting back and forth to each other over the roar of machinery and the rush of air. Talking in this way we touched on several matters, including the current disposition of Louisa’s parents. I gathered that both elder Altamonts were eager, as only recent converts are wont to be, for more doings in the world of spirits. Father and mother were fretting in their impatience to see their departed daughter again. Though I gave Armstrong no assurance, I was convinced that very encounter could be arranged, but was far from convinced that it would be wise to do so.

According to Armstrong, there were even rumors (the servants had been gossiping) that the senior Altamonts, unable to wait, had tried to hold another séance last night, even without the help of an experienced medium. The result seemed to have been a complete failure. Well, I thought, things might have been worse.

Little daunted (if the rumors were true), Louisa’s parents were supposedly planning another sitting for tonight, still nursing hopes of getting the grief-stricken Sarah Kirkaldy to co-operate. Perhaps, I thought, the elder couple were wondering why Sarah, considered an expert in other-worldly matters, should be taking her temporary separation from Abraham so hard; one might have thought that her brother, being himself a medium, should have a particularly easy time in getting back.

I supposed that Louisa’s parents would be inclined to blame any new failure, as they had blamed the old, on strange, malignant powers that had been somehow attracted to the scene by Sherlock Holmes and his associates, including the police. None of this, I thought, was very logical; but then, logic had never been the spiritists’ strong point.

Looking toward the house from the long drive, as we came rattling and roaring up to the front door, I could recognize, from Watson’s description, the terrace where the murder had taken place, and I observed how the broken French window had been temporarily boarded up. I supposed that any real clues to the identity of the intruder at the last séance had long since been removed, either by accident or by the police.

Shortly we were at the door, divested of our long white coats and goggles, standing in a cloud of our own slowly settling dust.

When we had been shown in to meet the master and mistress of the house, Armstrong, ready to embroider the truth and demonstrating a cool skill in the work, claimed to have met me during his most recent sojourn in St. Petersburg, where (allowing for my ineradicable central European accent) I, like Amstrong himself, had been one of the corps of foreign correspondents.

Old Altamont’s handgrip was firm, but his eye was wary. His formal greeting was followed quickly by a blunt question: “Are you an agent of Sherlock Holmes?”

I blinked at this, and considered my answer thoughtfully. Finally I responded: “I have met the man, and I respect him. Nevertheless, there are important areas of human experience–far from the realms of law, or chemical science–with which his knowledge and skill are sadly inadequate to deal.”

“You are yourself a sensitive?” Mrs. Altamont inquired of me hopefully. I noted that she had somewhat modified her vivacious dress, as recorded by Watson, but had not gone back to mourning.

Again I pondered carefully. “Sensitive, in a psychic sense? Dear lady, I would be loath to make that claim. Still, I cannot deny that there have been in my life certain incidents hard to explain by any other...”

And so on. Soon Armstrong, taking advantage of a pause in spirtualist chatter, somewhat belatedly informed our hosts that Mr. Holmes had returned from his adventure and was safe. The Altamonts were charitable enough to express what sounded like sincere satisfaction with this news. In their current mental state they appeared uninterested in any of the fine points, such as whether Holmes’s kidnapper had been a spirit or mere flesh and blood.

Wading boldly into this confusion, Mr. Prince, who had already hinted broadly enough at his own psychic powers, presented himself to the bereaved parents as one who might be able to help them in their current difficulties. Though, as he admitted when asked straight out, he had never conducted a séance. He did not volunteer the information that he had never even attended one.

He soon overcame his hosts’ suspicions that he might be some kind of investigative agent. Conversing in ever more familiar terms, but in increasingly hushed voices, we moved slowly through the house toward an unstated goal. Naturally today’s first order of business for any visitor in this home was to view, with appropriate gloomy aspect and sad murmuring of platitudes, the body of young Abraham Kirkaldy.

All that was mortal of the youth had been embalmed, dressed in a new, fairly expensive suit, and coffined tastefully in a parlor amid comfortable-looking white-satin pillows and a great many flowers, awaiting interment on Saturday morning. Dead as mutton was that lad, as I could see at first glance. No question in his case of that mysterious undeath which walks by night and sups on blood–not that I had thought there would be, but it was as well that the expert should make sure.

The coffin was open–I had wondered whether it would be. The side of the head on which the murderer’s blow had fallen was turned away from the viewer, and the hair was long enough so that when properly arranged, it covered, or almost covered, the extensive damage.

Within a quarter of an hour after my arrival, I was seated in a (different) parlor and pretending to sip at some no doubt excellent tea (readers should remember that my taste in liquid nourishment is sharply limited). by this time, I was hinting strongly that I should like to be allowed to speak with Sarah Kirkaldy. Naturally, I promised to treat the bereaved sister with great courtesy and tact. I gently dropped an additional hint that I just might be able to convince the girl to conduct another séance within a day or so.

I knew that Cousin Sherlock was at least considering encouraging another séance in Norberton House–tonight seemed out of the question, but perhaps on the following night–and in any kind of planning long-range enough to reach hours or days into the future, I had learned to defer to my breathing cousin’s genius. If our enemy should then attempt another intrusive haunting, it would at least bring him within our reach, as well as allow us to make contact directly with Louisa Altamont.

Sarah, as her kindly benefactors informed me, was currently resting in the garden–the Altamonts mentioned in passing that the poor girl had developed, in the past two days, a great longing for the sunlight.

And so it was that in the formal garden of Norberton House, on that fading summer evening, I presently was introduced to Sarah Kirkaldy. She was sitting in a chair on the lawn beside a quiet terrace–on the other side of the house, let me hasten to add, from the terrace whose flagstones still bore some faint stain of her brother’s blood.

Mrs. Altamont conducted me to her, and spoke in a hushed voice. “Dear, this is Mr. Prince, a friend of Martin’s, come from London. He has some experience in these matters, and has kindly offered to see if there is anything he might do.”

Sarah was garbed all in black, forming an odd contrast with the liberated plumage of her hostess. She put down her book (a trashy novel, I was glad to see) and arose from her lawn chair with something of alarm in her expression. I suppose she must have been thinking that almost the last thing she needed at that point was another psychic swindler on the scene–or worse, another genuine terror like Mr. Gregory, whose existence she had not yet dared reveal to anyone.

Mr. Prince, who even in 1903 enjoyed four centuries’ experience in the craft of soothing nervous maidens, did his best to put this one at her ease. Speaking gently and diplomatically, pressing Sarah’s offered hand, I was soon able to calm her, and to begin to allay her fears. When, after another quarter of an hour, the two of us were left alone upon the terrace, I (having found for myself a chair in the deepest shade) began an effort to persuade her to tell me of what must have been some terrifying contacts with the rogue vampire who had slain her brother.

“Miss Kirkaldy, you have my most sincere sympathy in the loss of your brother.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“I think he need not have died; and I have hopes that his killer will not remain beyond the reach of justice.” Here I paused, waiting for some comment that did not come. “Do you know–when you insist that the drowned girl, Louisa Altamont, genuinely appeared at your séance–I am inclined to believe you.”

Sarah stared at me. I had been presented to her as a psychic, and to her stubborn skepticism, that meant I was a fake–or would have meant that a few days earlier. No doubt her encounter, or encounters, with the vampire who was Louisa’s rapist and Abraham’s slayer had done something to shake her materialist faith.

Meanwhile Mr. Prince talked on. “What the world calls death is not always the true death, is it, Sarah? Ah, I really believe that you do not yet understand.”

“Sir?”

“Please, Sarah? May I presume upon our short acquaintance to ask a favor?”

“Sir?”

“The favor is just this: my Christian name is Arthur. Will you use it when you speak to me? Somehow, as you must have noticed, I have already fallen into using yours.” Pause. “For this, I make no apology.”

She looked at me long, with the dappling of the day’s last sunlight and leaf-shadow on her attractive face. I was distracted by the tiny pulsing, so gentle a movement as to be scarcely visible, of a soft blue vein beneath the tawny skin of her soft throat. Remember, I warned myself sternly, that you are here on business.

“Arthur,” she said at last.

“Yes, that is much better. Whom do you fear, Sarah?”

“Fear?”

We sparred over that question for a little while, and then I let it drop; it was not going to be quickly or directly answered.

Sarah, perhaps mainly to distract me from any line of conversation that might lead to the man she feared, began to complain about how roughly and inconsiderately she had been questioned by Inspector Merivale.

I sympathized, listened to examples of the questions asked by the man from Scotland Yard, and managed to get answers to one or two of them where Merivale had failed.

I could picture him, towering and official, stroking his little mustache, trying to be kind and efficient at the same time. He’d demanded of Sarah: “Now, Miss. We have testimony that at your sitting, on the night Mr. Holmes was carried off, there came into the house somehow a young woman, dressed in white–”

“I told him’twas Louisa Altamont.”

“And what do you really believe? You can tell me, Sarah.”

“I dinna ken nae mair. I dinna ken what t’ think. I thocht Louisa Altamont had been dead for three weeks.”

“Come on! Tell the truth!”

“Inspector Merivale, I dinna control what happens when we ha’e a sittin’.”

And the official questioning had made little if any headway.

Our afternoon trailed on toward dusk. I was doing somewhat better than the inspector had done.

And Madeline Altamont, looking out through breeze-blown curtains at the quiet young couple in the gathering twilight, and much more observant than her husband in certain human ways, had noticed that Mr. Prince bore a distinct resemblance to Sherlock Holmes.

In fact dear Madeline had even begun to suspect that their new psychic consultant was Holmes’s illegitimate son, but for the time being she kept this suspicion to herself.