Seance for a Vampire

Four

Upon our arrival at Norberton House, Holmes and I were welcomed– under our own names.

Though our original plan had called for us to appear incognito, Holmes on reflection had decided that he at least was too well known, and very likely to be recognized, unless we were both of us thoroughly disguised–and disguise too had its disadvantages.

“Upon the whole, Watson,” my friend whispered to me when we had a moment to ourselves, “other considerations being equal, the simpler a plan, the better.”

“I can readily agree with that.”

“Also there is an innate advantage in being truthful whenever possible. Mr. Altamont must simply tell his wife that we, the well-known investigators, are open-minded on the subject of séances, and have persuaded him to be the same. Surely that is near enough the truth that it need not trouble our consciences.”

On entering the house we were greeted good-humoredly by Madeline Altamont, a slender, fair-haired lady of about the same age as her husband. The lady’s figure was still graceful, and her countenance still retained much of what must have been a truly impressive youthful beauty.

Mrs. Altamont met us wearing a white dress, a spring-like and celebrational garment. Smiling and cheerful, she made a point of telling us that she had abandoned mourning. And indeed there was no black wreath upon the door of the house, which was decorated with fresh flowers in almost every room.

Altamont himself was in town on business at the time of our arrival, but when our host appeared, shortly before dinner, we saw that he had given up wearing his black armband.

The servants wore no tokens of mourning either. The butler, Cooper, showed us to our rooms, which were on the first floor just down the hall from Martin Armstrong’s.

“Your mistress seems very cheerful, Cooper,” my friend commented as we followed our guide upstairs. It was a gentle probing, an attempt to sound the dispositions of the servants in the matter at hand.

“Yes sir.” Cooper, with our bags in hand, paused on the stair long enough to look at us carefully, one after the other. “We can only hope that she will remain so, sir. That no fresh occasion for grief and disappointment is going to arise.”

“Amen,” said Holmes, softly. And we left the matter at that for the time being.

A question of my own, on a different matter as we were nearing the top of the stairs, evoked from the butler a more cheerful response. This had to do with the history of the family, a subject in which Holmes and I had conducted some intense research over the past week. The Altamonts had lived in this house at least since the early eighteenth century, before the time of our client’s ancestor and namesake, a certain Ambrose Altamont who was said to have died in London, murdered under peculiar and violent circumstances in the year 1765.

The estate had then passed into the hands of a brother, named Peter, of that ancestral Ambrose. Our research indicated that a rumor about a family treasure had started at about that time.

There were, as so often the case in old houses where one family has remained in occupation for centuries, a dozen or more ancestral portraits, mounted in an ascending line along the stairway. Cooper’s reply to my question confirmed that one of the portraits near the top was indeed that of the Ambrose Altamont who had died in 1765. beside that portrait hung another, of the Peter Altamont who had inherited the estate. The resemblance between the brothers was notable.

As soon as the butler had left us, Holmes privately expressed to me his own concern for Mrs. Altamont’s welfare: “There is one thing we may be sure of, Watson; whether the mediums are pure charlatans as her husband supposes–or whether the true explanation proves to be more outré–her current state of happiness stands on a false basis and cannot last.”

In the circumstances I felt vaguely guilty about practicing even a slight deception upon the bereaved lady, by pretending an innocent enthusiasm for the coming séance. but I was able to reassure myself with the thought that I was doing everything for her own benefit.

Holmes was still keenly interested in inspecting the rowboat which had played such an important part in the recent tragedy, and as soon as we were settled into our rooms, Armstrong undertook to be our guide. He led us down through the garden behind the house, along a path which incorporated rude stone steps built into the gentle slope. Soon this winding descent took us out of sight of the house, among shrubbery and tall flowers to the small dock and boat shed beside the river. Here our guide pointed out to us the boat that had been involved in the strange incident. The small craft, painted a dull and undistinguished gray, lay bottom-up on wooden blocks in the shade of some tall elms, where it had been placed on the day after the drowning. Our guide informed us that the boat had been examined several times for damage, but none had been discovered.

Holmes whipped out his magnifying glass, and after a quarter of an hour of intense effort announced that he was able to detect small scratches left in the gray paint and wood of the gunwales, near the prow.

“The fine indentations are on both sides, and very nearly symmetrical. Of course there is nothing to prove that they were made at the time of the tragedy.”

Armstrong appeared to be strongly affected by Holmes’s discovery and announcement. but the young man made no immediate comment.

I thought Holmes meant to question him further, but before he could do so a fair young woman, of perhaps seventeen or eighteen years of age, appeared descending the rude steps and path from the direction of the house. Martin Armstrong stood up and introduced us to Rebecca Altamont, who unlike her mother was still wearing mourning.

Rebecca bore a strong resemblance to her mother, and later we heard from several people that Louisa also had done so, all three women being slender and blonde.

When Holmes in the course of our conversation asked Miss Altamont whether she planned to attend this evening’s séance, she responded that she did. Her tone was firm rather than hopeful, that of someone determined to perform a disagreeable duty.

Rebecca, at least at first, kept her own opinion on the subject of séances rather guarded. Meanwhile she asked several questions, with the evident object of finding out whether Holmes and I were really enthusiastic spiritualists. She appeared somewhat relieved to learn that we claimed no more than to have open minds.

When asked about her own beliefs, she stated somewhat defiantly that she was in general agreement with her father and young Martin: the séance must have been a fraud. but I received the strong impression that the young woman’s main concern was to shield her mother from further grief rather than exposing the mediums, or even to protect the family fortune.

Rebecca Altamont bestowed on the fatal rowboat a single glance of obvious repugnance, and then turned her back on it. I glanced at Holmes, but he chose not to mention to her his discovery of the peculiar marks.

Holmes wanted to hear Miss Altamont’s version of her sister’s drowning, and the events surrounding that tragedy.

After protesting that she was weary of discussing the matter, the girl went on to give an account generally confirming Armstrong’s. She had been seated in the stern of the rowboat with her sister, both young ladies facing forward, toward the young man who naturally sat amidships, facing them as he rowed.

“Then, Mr. Holmes, we experienced a violent shock.”

“As if the boat perhaps had struck a sunken log?”

“No! Not like that at all.” The young woman shook her head decisively. “That suggestion was made more than once at the inquest, but it is wrong. What happened was more like... as if some huge creature had reared up under our prow, which rose partially from the water.”

“Armstrong,” I ventured, “mentioned the idea of a sea monster– fancifully, of course.”

“I know,” said Rebecca, staring at me somberly from under the brim of her summer hat. “And then in fact the boat seemed to be gripped and twisted in a way that neither Martin nor I have ever been able to explain. The only suggestions we can make seem fanciful, I know, but I have been able to think of no better way to convey the sensation of what was happening.” And Miss Altamont stared at Holmes and myself with earnest hopefulness.

This account, while certainly strange enough, was still consistent with Armstrong’s version of events–and with the marks that seemed to indicate some grip of prodigious strength had been fastened upon the boat. Yet my friend did not pursue the point at once.

Shortly after our return to the house we encountered the mediums–and the Kirkaldys proved to be as curious about us as we were about them.

The attitude of Mrs. Altamont toward the Kirkaldys was almost that of a fond aunt, or even a doting mother–she insisted that they must be accommodated and treated, by both servants and family, as honored guests. The lady of the house had her way in this, as in much else, though I thought privately that some of the servants at least had other ideas–more in sympathy with those of her husband–regarding exactly what kind of treatment the mediums deserved.

Sarah, bustling and almost plump, dark-haired and in her very early twenties, was plainly the more aggressive of the pair, a shrewd young woman active in a business way. She was simply dressed, but her clothes were not inexpensive. Her brother Abraham was perhaps four or five years younger, a tall, frail lad of gentle appearance, evidently less concerned about his appearance, with soft brown hair and eyes, and the almost invisible beginning of a mustache. His sister alternated between doting on him tenderly and treating him severely. She seemed to be genuinely convinced that her brother was really sensitive in psychic matters.

In fact, I thought there was a moment at the dinner table when he really seemed about to go into a trance–staring into space, with soup dripping unnoticed from the spoon he held. I thought he might even be drooling from the corner of his mouth, and it occurred to me to wonder if the youth suffered from some mild form of epilepsy.

Toward the end of dinner, Rebecca Altamont, as if she might be growing apprehensive about the evening’s prospects, suggested that the séance might be more likely to succeed if it were postponed by twenty-four hours–or that another sitting held on a certain future date would be even more certain of success.

She added wistfully: “That day would have been Louisa’s twentieth birthday.”

Sarah looked at the speaker sweetly. “What are birthdays on the other side? It is the death day that is the real birthday.”

Mrs. Altamont was thrilled. “My dear, what a beautiful way to look at it! Thank you. Let us go on with it tonight.”

Then talk at the dinner table returned to harmless social generalities, and remained for a few minutes on that level.

I did my best to maintain a polite standard of conversation while remaining alert for any signs of fraud. but with my own experiences of six years earlier never far from my thoughts, I could not be other than open-minded on the subject of supernatural manifestations.

Soon enough the subject of spirit sittings again engaged the dinner table. The Kirkaldys were willing to talk in general terms about some of their past successes–without revealing names or dates–though they were reticent about any other aspect of their history. They were orphans, they said, and their family was a painful subject; they begged to be excused from any discussion on that topic.

The subject of materializations came up, and Martin Armstrong, adopting the manner of the investigative reporter, asked Miss Sarah Kirkaldy why darkness seemed to be required.

I remember that she smiled sweetly at her questioner as she produced a ready answer. “The necessity for darkness during materialization is in harmony with the creation of all animal and vegetable structures, as the former are built in the darkness of the womb of the animal body, and the latter within the darkness of the soil.”

Armstrong did not appear to be impressed. “I suppose that where it is necessary to produce phenomena in this manner, fraud may find a ready entrance.”

Her smile did not waver. “I feel confident we can all depend on you, sir, and on these other gentlemen from London, to make sure that nothing of the kind occurs.”

Mrs. Altamont was delighted with this answer, and applauded. Obviously this lady, even prior to Louisa’s drowning, had already developed an enthusiasm for séances, for she spoke of having attended several at other people’s houses. And when tragedy struck her family, the lady had been ripe to be “helped.”

One strong objection to the theory that we were about to witness a simply fraudulent performance was the problem of where, if some accomplice was intended to play the role of Louisa, such an impostor might currently be concealed.

Ambrose Altamont had joined us before dinner. Afterward, to help Holmes and myself find answers to this and other difficulties, our host took an opportunity to conduct the two of us on a short tour of the house and the immediate grounds, under the guise of simply showing us the gardens.

Proceeding slowly, we three circled the house. There were no dogs to be concerned about, both of the senior Altamonts having a general dislike of the species. Ambrose also claimed to suffer a physical sensitivity to the animals. That, I thought, might make matters easier both for impostors–if any–and investigators.

Holmes took the opportunity to ask what room or rooms were immediately above the parlor or sitting room in which the séance was to be held. Two bedrooms, our host replied, but in that part of the house, there was no direct communication between floors.

During the course of this tour, Ambrose Altamont suggested to us that the house and the grounds could be swiftly searched, without warning, before darkness descended upon us entirely, in hopes of exposing any planned trickery before it came about. The master of the house assured us that he had a couple of trusty servants ready to undertake the task.

Holmes expressed his opinion that such a search was unlikely to discover anything useful.

When we had returned to the house, Mrs. Altamont remarked worriedly in my presence that today the Kirkaldys did not seem quite their usual selves.

“I thought the young woman gave quite a good account of herself when questioned.”

“True enough, Dr. Watson, but to me–and I know her better than you do–Sarah looks quite haggard, as if some new problem had come up just this afternoon. but she says there is nothing.”

“I suppose it could be the presence of Mr. Holmes and myself.”

“She says not. Oh, I hope devoutly that the strain, whatever it is, will not prove too much for the poor girl.”

I commented that I thought that unlikely; still, I thought that both brother and sister did look rather worn.

Sarah spoke rather mechanically of the possibility that no manifestations would occur at tonight’s sitting. She said that such a negative result was frequently the case when conditions were not right.

Privately I was quite ready to attribute this seeming reluctance to perform to the presence of investigators–ourselves. but Holmes was not so sure.

So far, at least, tonight’s sitting had not been canceled. Still, I could not escape the feeling that if the two mediums had felt themselves perfectly free in the matter, they would have preferred at least to postpone it.

Mrs. Altamont in conversation informed me that the S.P.R., or Society for Psychical Research, had been founded in England in 1882. Its purpose, she stated, lay in pursuit of objective research, not worship or the giving of spiritual solace.

Actually, as Holmes himself later pointed out to me, the practitioners and enthusiasts of mesmerism (or “hypnosis” as certain medical men had called it for a generation) were not likely to support the S.P.R., for they generally regarded spirit-rappings and table-turnings as fraudulent or foolish.

I commented that Holmes must have been doing a good bit of private research into these matters since 1897. He replied that he had begun his studies in the subject considerably earlier: “My two years in Tibet were not wasted, Watson.”

“You have never spoken to me at length of what happened during that time.”

“Your enthusiasm for such matters, old fellow, has been remarkably restrained. Suffice it to say that I thought the time not wasted when we had to face our peculiar difficulties of eighteen ninety-seven.”

With the onset of the long summer twilight, and the drawing near of the hour for our appointed confrontation with the spirits, the physical atmosphere in and around the house seemed ever to grow more oppressively sultry. The rain that had threatened earlier did not come. Louisa’s mother, all eagerness to begin the sitting, beseeched and encouraged her reluctant pair of sensitives to bring her daughter once more before her.

When Mrs. Altamont, reminded of Louisa, wept, one of the mediums told her: “The veil, as we know, is very thin, and you must let yourself be comforted with the certainty that she is not far away.”

And suddenly Abraham gave indications of an extreme reluctance to conduct the séance at all. I saw and heard him, looking and sounding rather ill, propose quietly to his sister that they abandon the plan and leave the house at once.

Sarah Kirkaldy needed several minutes to argue and cajole Abraham into going on.

Listening, while trying not to appear to do so, I heard her last remark, which seemed to clinch the case: “Remember a’ the chamber pots an’ dirty boots!”