Sherlock Holmes and the Ghosts of Bly

7

If Holmes was right—there was an end of our case, ghosts and all! How absurd it was for him to continue talking about murder! Who the devil had been murdered, if it not little Miles Mordaunt? And who could have committed murder upon the child if not Victoria Temple? I suggested facetiously to my friend that perhaps he believed the apparitions had murdered one another. He looked at me seriously and with a nod of approval.

“As to that, Watson, you may be closer to the mark than you realise.”

The next day—and the day after that—I saw nothing of him between breakfast and dinner. This was not unusual when he had a case in progress. From time to time during our investigations there would be days of absence without explanation. Despite my impatience, I confess that they had sometimes brought about the sudden and triumphant conclusion of an inquiry.

After dinner, he showed no appetite for conversation. When the meal was over, he rang for the housemaid to clear the plates and dishes. To avoid interruption, he transferred himself to a plain wooden chair at his disreputable work-table with its stained surface, bottles of malodorous preparations and untidy piles of paper. Now he began to read, not with laconic amusement, as he read the newspapers, lounging by the fire. He devoured books and articles so quickly that one could hardly believe he had read them at all. His lean angular features were drawn in a grimace of concentration. From time to time, he made a pencil note in the margin of a volume or on his starched white shirt-cuff.

I made a pantomime of yawning, looking at the clock—and so to bed. As I passed, I noticed the titles of the books at his elbow. One was a treasure in any collection, Reginald Scot’s Discoverie of Witchcraft. Published in 1584, it was still in its primitive sheepskin binding. Stamped in gold on polished calf, was the Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae. It had been given to the world in 1645 by a scholar of the occult and the arcane, Father Athanasius Kircher. Even that formidable Jesuit could have known little more than Sherlock Holmes by now about the art of light and shade.

I waited for him to resume idling about the house, playing the fiddle, and reading in a desultory fashion. Despite his promise of an early solution to the mystery, a week passed. Then it seemed his work was over. He breakfasted late and went nowhere. At four o’clock that afternoon, he put down his teacup and spoke from behind the evening paper.

“If you have nothing better to do this evening, Watson, you may care to be my guest.”

There was an irony in his tone that made me uneasy.

“You have not joined a club? You of all people!”

“Certainly not. I am not inviting you to dinner, my dear fellow. I have already alerted Mrs Hudson to feed us by seven o’clock.” He folded his copy of the Globe and pushed aside the tea-plate from which he had been eating richly buttered toast. “Our destination is not a club. I might call it an intimate theatre or perhaps a learned society, which it is hoped you will join. That is the pretext for your attendance.”

“What society?”

He stood up and filled his pipe with tobacco from the Persian slipper.

“You will recall the murder at the Yokohama Club two years ago and our efforts to save Mrs Edith Carew from the gallows? That case persuaded me to keep abreast of matters which apparently defy scientific explanation. I associated myself some time ago with the Hermetic Order of the Golden Light.”*

“A bunch of crack-pots!”

He shrugged.

“I have attended several meetings, at the first of which I was initiated. In consequence, my membership gives me the entrée, as a distinguished guest, to almost any séance in London, genteel or fraudulent.”

So that was it!

“This is still about those confounded apparitions, is it not?”

He occupied himself with a lighted match, drawing smoke from his pipe. Shaking out the flame, he looked across at me thoughtfully and said,

“We are to be in Kensington by eight-thirty this evening. If all goes as I intend, I shall present an apparition that will put to shame Peter Quint and Maria Jessel. By the way, old fellow, in these arcane circles I am known only as Professor Scott Holmes.”

“A séance in Kensington, to which you will be going under a false name and title?”

It was one of the rare occasions when I saw him wince. He said, “It is commonplace for members of such societies to adopt a nom de plume. I employ two of the names conferred on me at the baptismal font. I am, after all, William Sherlock Scott Holmes. I may surely decide which I shall use? I already have some reputation in the occult world, uncompromised by my career in criminal investigation. To go as Sherlock Holmes would cloud the issue and startle my hosts.”

“Ghosts!”

“Oh, let us call them spirits. It sounds so much more polite.”

“If they did not manifest themselves to us at Bly, you may be sure they will not condescend to appear in West London!”

“There I think you may be mistaken.”

“So you expect to raise Peter Quint or Miss Jessel from the dead?”

“My sights are set higher—on an Egyptian courtier of the Eighteenth Dynasty.”

This was far beyond a joke. I scented real danger and made one more effort. I spoke quietly and, as it seemed to me, sensibly.

“Holmes, we have done our duty to Miss Temple. A favourable outcome to her case is in sight. Do you not see that if we are now known to dabble in nonsense of this kind, we shall make complete fools of ourselves? We have nothing to gain from it and everything to lose. If the story gets around, as it is bound to, we shall be lucky if we have a single client left.”

There was a disconcerting merriment in his dark eyes.

“You must not come, old chap, if it will embarrass you. I have undertaken to conduct a most important experiment and I am obliged to be there. It is only my second visit to this suburban villa and its clientele. I had not been there at all until I called to make myself known and to offer my services last week. Happily, my fame as Scott Holmes went before me. So I made a promise. Now I have a reputation to preserve—or lose.”

Before I could reply, he walked from the room and closed the door gently behind him. I heard him stride up the next pair of stairs. There were sounds of banging about in the attic. He was up there for more than an hour, before coming down with a brown leather hatbox and a large basket, better employed for a riverside picnic. He was formally suited, as if he might be attending a recital or an opera.

Without a glance in my direction, he took a flimsy telegram form across to the bureau and began to write. I could not read the words of the message from where I sat. When it lay folded on the table, I was able to glimpse a name on the envelope, “Inspector Tobias Gregson” and the address “Criminal Investigation Division, Scotland Yard.” He had once assured me that Gregson was the smartest member of the Yard’s detective force. This, at least, gave me some reassurance.

He rang for Mrs Hudson’s Billy, gave the lad a coin and despatched him with the electric message to the post office at Baker Street Underground station. Sitting down, he yawned, opened the evening Globe once more, and appeared to give no more thought to his plans for that evening. All attempts to entice him into conversation failed.

As a medical man I was trained in scientific habits of thought. I had always regarded spiritualist mediums as dupes or swindlers. Their séances were surely meetings of deluded believers preyed upon by avaricious charlatans. I had good reason to abhor the heartless exploitation of grief by wraiths of ectoplasm or greetings from the after-life. The reader must remember that I had lost my own young wife seven years earlier. Hints from well-meaning friends had nudged me towards the possibility of communication with the dead. The closer I came to the magicians, the more strongly was I repelled.

As I gazed towards the park trees at the end of our street, I had no doubt that Sherlock Holmes had produced a diagnosis of diphtheria which must soon establish the innocence of Victoria Temple. Having won his case, why should he care about the poor young woman’s hysterical visions?

Just before eight o’clock, Mrs Hudson’s long-suffering Billy was sent to call our chosen cab off the rank. In the thickening summer twilight, we pulled out along the Marylebone Road towards Sussex Gardens and Hyde Park. A last golden glow darkened along the cream terraces of the Bayswater Road. Lamps were lit in the little shops of Kensington Church Street.

Our destination was Sambourne Avenue, a secluded street of double-fronted villas, built ten years earlier in mellow red brick with white-painted gables. They rose three storeys above the broad tree-lined thoroughfare, each with a spacious area and basement below. These were substantial homes with bay windows and conservatories. By contrast, they made our old-fashioned quarters in Baker Street appear cramped and gloomy. Yet I felt no envy. Suburban houses of this type too often attract rackety people with more money than sense.

Our brown-whiskered cabman, whom I now noticed for the first time, unloaded the leather hatbox and picnic hamper. I know most of the drivers on the Regent’s Park rank, but this one was unfamiliar. Perhaps he was not a regular, just a supernumerary who must work when he could. It seemed he was obliged to take his child with him on the cabbie’s perch, as if having no one else to look after her. In response to his knock, the hatbox and hamper were taken in by a manservant at the door of the basement kitchen. Holmes turned to our postillion.

“You will wait, my man. I may be some time. You shall be well remunerated on my return. If it should be a long visit, I shall ask them to give you and your little girl something in the kitchen.”

The wiry, gnome-like fellow began to grumble.

“I don’t know so much, guv. I brought you here fair and square. I can’t spend all evening sitting about with no chance of another fare.”

“Very well,” said Holmes impatiently. “Take this and get refreshment for yourself and the child at the coffee stall off Kensington High Street. No beer—no gin! And be back here no later than an hour from now.”

He handed the man a shilling. We left this Jehu muttering to himself that “proper toffs” would have treated him more handsomely.

The whole of this pantomime was witnessed by a maid in a plain cap and apron. She had come to the front door in response to Holmes’s ring at the bell. We went up the glossily-blacked steps and were admitted.

To begin with, I thought we had come on the wrong evening. There was not a sound to be heard, even though it was half-past eight. The maid led us down the hallway to a baize-covered door. There was far more depth to this house than I had supposed, covering a larger area than appeared from the street.

We crossed a dark-curtained and over-furnished reception room. Its olive-green walls were hung with oil-painted figure-studies of women, done in a questionable taste. So much for spirit portraits! A black-leaded fire-place was lined by hand-painted Dutch tiles of a similar nature. Above the mantelboard with its green leather and brass-headed nails, the wall was fitted with shelves displaying curious little terra cotta figurines and Chinese jars. On the mantelshelf below, an ornate gold-and-enamel Buhl clock backed by a mirror ticked time away with a soft uneasy beat.

All this nick-nackery seemed contrived to impress upon the gullible that they were entering a world of exotic possibilities. There was a hint of the improper without anything that could be defined as downright objectionable. One breathed deceit and depravity in that curtained space, almost hinting at bizarre rituals or white-slave scandals. By contrast, a business-like alcove contained a plain chair and a small table with an upright telephone upon its stand. All in all, the place looked like the parlour of a very select and expensive house of ill-repute.

A varnished scrapbook-screen concealed the far end. As we stepped round it, I saw the reason for such silence. We were on the threshold of a spacious and plain-walled music-room, to judge at least from the modest-sized Bechstein grand piano, wheeled aside and folded up against the wall. In its place, fifteen or sixteen faces looked up at us earnestly from their chairs. They were gathered round the oval of a large table covered by a crimson velvet drape. Above it, a brass gasolier with vine-patterned branches was burning low, casting a stark but limited radiance on the ceiling. In the shadows at either side, a further platoon of guests sat on upright chairs along the walls, waiting their turn to be called like patients at a dentist’s surgery. There must have been thirty or forty, all told.

In the dim background, a rounded archway opened into a darkened conservatory with a vaulted roof of glass panes. Palm branches and white orchids gave off a cheap illusion of night in the mystic East.

At the head of the table, immediately opposite us, sat a woman whom I suppose I must describe as the mistress of ceremonies. Her appearance would have been overdone even on a vaudeville stage. The rouge alone might not have called attention, had not her hair been a little too auburn, her lips a little too rosy. She wore a wide-brimmed picture-hat of blue velvet, set at a slant like a mushroom. A patterned décolletage covered her neck and shoulders, almost transparently, above a bodice of lilac-mauve silk. This extraordinary ensemble was completed by black elbow-gloves, leaving exposed the coloured imitation gem-stones on her fingers.

A semi-circle of playing cards, which she had apparently been studying with the aid of a lorgnette, lay before her on the crimson velvet of the table-cloth. To either side of these a skull and a stuffed raven on a plinth stood guard. A small plaque by the raven identified her as “Madame Rosa, Clairvoyante.” It would not have surprised me in the least to learn that she had a police record.

Flanking this personage sat two women, evidently there to do her bidding. One I judged to be in her fifties, a plump and respectable-looking body. The other was younger, her black velvet hat coming coquettishly to a peak at one side. I thought her a pretty witch. A half-veil obscured her features, but I heard her addressed as Miss Shelley.

Had our mission not been of possible importance to Victoria Temple, I should have burst out laughing, turned on my heel, and left. According to Holmes, this was not the first time he had been here and so I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Madame Rosa favoured us with a slow nod and indicated a pair of vacant chairs in the shadows.

I will not try your patience by a full account. I was less interested in Madame Rosa than in the men and women who came to sit under her spell. Their dress and manner were sober, they behaved with decorum. Most of them might easily have changed places with a congregation at Sunday Evensong in one of the more fashionable churches of Knightsbridge or Chelsea. Even so, several were no doubt accomplices of Madame Rosa, masquerading as inquirers after spiritual truth.

Our evening began with a “photographic” séance and all the tricks of that trade. The gasolier was dimmed to a feeble glow and the spirits of the dead were summoned by Madame Rosa. She had a rather peremptory manner, like a schoolteacher calling the roll of her class. We saw no sign of the immortals, though a mysterious tapping was said to be proof of their presence. A tame photographer, his lens facing the conservatory, exposed a series of glass plates. His head was under the usual black linen hood as he did so. In order that he should not be accused of exposing his plates in advance, one of the newcomers was invited to take up any position or pose of his choice in the view of the lens.

I intervened at this point to ask that this person should also hold my copy of that evening’s Standard newspaper, which I had brought to read in the cab. I requested that its headline on the front page should be displayed in the photographs. “MR CHAMBERLAIN’S BIRMINGHAM SPEECH—FULL DETAILS.” I was rather disappointed when Madame Rosa agreed at once. Her spoken English was entirely correct but coloured by a slight French accent. Miss Shelley, the pretty witch, took the paper from me and handed it to the witness.

Presently, we observed the development of the glass-plate negatives in the conservatory sink by infra-red light. Who could doubt that spirits had been with us? Each image included the man holding my evening paper with headlines of the Colonial Secretary’s speech at Birmingham. But in the photograph the walls of the conservatory were decorated with cabalistic inscriptions and “spirit portraits” done by invisible fingers. Madame Rosa closed her hands together, prayer-fashion, giving thanks for these messages from beyond the grave. None of the graffiti and portraits were visible to our unaided sight. No mortal hands could have painted them there while so many witnesses were watching. To my chagrin, my newspaper had merely strengthened the imposture.

Alas, the wondrous inscriptions and portraits are explained by simple truth. It was known to Holmes and me, doubtless to Madame Rosa and her photographer, but apparently not to anyone else present. The fact is this: quinine sulphate painted on a surface is invisible to the naked eye but will appear on a photographic collodion image. Whoever staged this little drama in Kensington knew that many of the guests at the séance waited in an agony of hope for spirit messages from their departed loved ones. They would not have thanked Holmes or me for undeceiving them. Does the owner of an old master painting thank the art historian who proves it to be a forgery?

On other prints from the glass plates we marvelled at phantasmal spirits in angel robes, smiling upon the flesh-and-blood witness holding my evening newspaper. Alas, how easy it was for the cameraman, while his head was under the hood of black linen, to insert a “ghost transparency” in front of the glass plate to be exposed. Or perhaps it was possible to effect a double exposure. Since Holmes made no comment, I kept my peace. Perhaps I over-estimated the importance of the occasion. Docile though the onlookers appeared to be, they may have come for no more than the fun of the fair, as if to Jasper Maskelyne’s stage “magic” at the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly.

In a finale to the first part of the performance, half-a-dozen spirit messages were miraculously revealed in chalk on sealed slates. Madame Rosa was quick to remind us that the late William Ewart Gladstone, Prime Minister until four years earlier, had been a believer in this art.

To the initiated, the trick is simple enough. Two blank classroom slates in wooden frames are hinged and folded to face inwards to each other. The moistened surfaces of the wooden frames are coated with white adhesive powder and pressed together. They are also locked together and sealed with a stamp on melted red wax. The metal die which has stamped the seal is then placed where everyone can see it. Any interference with the slates appears impossible.

On this occasion, the gasolier was extinguished altogether to effect a “dark séance.” Madame Rosa in her sumptuous décolletage sat holding the locked plates in her lap. We were invited to close our eyes but even with mine open I could see almost nothing by the dying glow of the gas mantels. Our hostess sat apparently motionless. She could certainly not have held a pen nor a stick of chalk.

After five minutes of invocations, the gaslight was turned up. We were able to confirm that each seal was unbroken and the lock secure. It had been impossible for our hostess to separate the two slates. Miss Shelley was then commanded to break the wax seal, open the lock, and ease apart the two gummed frames. As the light fell on the first slate it showed a faint but perfectly legible inscription in white chalk. It was written unevenly, as if with difficulty from a great distance. “Your darling little Charley still waits for you where the special flowers you loved are for ever in bloom.”

All but one guest stared at this, knowing the message was not for them. When the words were read out, however, I saw that it was Miss Shelley on her upright chair who turned her face quickly away and inclined her head. She was surely hiding her tears and my instinct told me that her grief was not a trick. I had made a mistake in her case. Because she sat next to Madame Rosa and performed small tasks for her, I had assumed that my pretty witch was one of the conspirators. I was wrong—she had been one of the dupes.

The public had not yet read the warning against slate-writing by Count Perovsky-Petrovo-Solovevo of the Society for Psychical Research, first contained in a private letter to Sherlock Holmes. A few years later, this Russian nobleman exposed the deception to the world. When two slates are to be fastened hermetically face to face, some of the white adhesive powder is left unmoistened. It is allowed to fall “accidentally” and harmlessly into a corner where the slates join. Even if it is noticed, the guests think nothing of it. In truth the mixture contains sufficient chalk to inscribe a faint but legible message—and enough iron filings to respond to the attraction of a small but efficient electro-magnet.

The right hand and fingers of the medium are easily concealed beneath the slates. Skilfully palmed, a miniature magnet attracts iron filings in the powder within the thin slate. A small amount is gathered during the dark séance. With a magnet as “pen,” words are inscribed within the slates through their underside. It takes a little practice but, as I find from experiments, a birthday-party conjuror can master the technique. The effect of “spirit-writing” on the susceptible and willing, when the seal and the lock have plainly not been tampered with, is apt to be sensational.

I glanced covertly at Miss Shelley, whose composure was now quite recovered. I wondered about her little Charley and the place where the flowers they loved were for ever in bloom.

Madame Rosa had approached Sherlock Holmes, as if to signal that his turn had come. He walked slowly into the conservatory. A curtain was drawn across after him. I still had no idea what his hatbox and picnic hamper might contain or what his supernatural magic might be. He had not told me. In my present mood, pride had kept me silent.

*“The Case of the Yokohama Club” in Donald Thomas, The Secret Cases of Sherlock Holmes, Carroll & Graf, 1998.