Peter Lovesey - A Case of Spirits

Even so, the darkness evoked irrational possibilities. The senses were primed to respond to the smallest suggestion of anything irregular. It wanted all the self-possession cultivated in a lifetime in the Force to keep things in their proper perspective.

‘These scientific gentlemen are here to observe the phenomena of the seance,’ Brand explained to the spirit of Uncle Walter. ‘Are you prepared to assist us in our experiments?’

Three raps.

Jowett felt a sudden pressure from Alice Probert’s hand.

‘Look!’ she said. ‘Something is hovering over the table.’

‘By Jove, yes, I can see it!’ said her fiance.

‘I, too,’ said Probert.

Jowett straightened up from trying to locate the source of the raps and to his intense astonishment saw the phenomenon for himself: a patch of light, the size of a small bird, fluttering three feet above the table. The luminosity was not sufficient to irradiate the faces of the sitters, but something was undeniably there, and it was animated, too. It rose and swooped, seeming to vanish at will and reappear in another position, altering its shape miraculously.

‘Do you see it, Strathmore?’ asked Probert.

‘Quite unbelievable!’ murmured the man from the Life After Death Society.

‘God save us!’ said Miss Crush. ‘I believe it is a hand.’

Even as Jowett watched, the fluttering movement slowed sufficiently for him briefly to discern the shape of a human palm with fingers and a thumb. Not a glove, not a plaster cast: no obvious artifice. An identifiable hand, detached at the wrist, stretching and clenching in a natural manner, so that the creasing of the flesh coincided with the characteristic markings of the palm. But for all its mobility, it lacked the colour of a living hand. It was not pink; it was livid, and glowing through the darkness.

‘A materialisation!’ whispered Probert. ‘I never thought I should live-’

‘Nor I,’ murmured Strathmore, with awe.

‘It is a common enough manifestation,’ said Brand composedly. ‘Keep a firm hold on each other’s hands and it will come down and touch us.’

As the medium spoke, Jowett saw the fingers close over the palm, which turned in the air and vanished. An instant after, there was a scream.

‘It touched my cheek!’ said Miss Crush.

At once Alice Probert said, ‘My dress! It is tugging at my dress!’

‘Is it, by Jove?’ said Nye, on her other side. ‘I won’t have that!’

‘Keep your hands on the table,’ warned Brand.

‘I’m not having my Alice interfered with,’ said Nye determinedly.

‘It’s all right, William. It has stopped,’ said Alice.

‘Damnable behaviour, whoever it was,’ said Nye.

‘Uncle Walter could never resist a pretty girl,’ revealed Miss Crush.

‘It’s a fine time to tell us that, madam, when there’s a hand at liberty under the table,’ said Nye. ‘Do you think we ought to go any further with this, Dr Probert?’

Before anyone could comment there was a blood-curdling bellow from Nye. ‘What the blazes is going on? Someone’s pelting me with fruit!’

True enough, something rolled across the table and came to rest against Jowett’s hand. It must have split on impact with Nye, for there was a pungent smell of orange-juice in the air.

‘The spirit has got the impression that you are a hostile presence,’ Brand explained. ‘Try to reassure it, Captain Nye, or the experiment will be ruined.’

‘Yes, play the game, William, for Heaven’s sake,’ added Probert.

‘The Devil I will!’ said Nye, unsociably.

There was the sound of another orange making contact with Nye. A third must have missed, but hit a vase of chrysanthemums on the mantelpiece behind him, for there was a sound of a vessel overturning, followed by a rapid dripping of water into the hearth.

‘The spirit has left us, ladies and gentlemen,’ said Brand.

‘Damn you, Nye, you’ve ruined everything!’ exclaimed Strathmore. ‘We had the eternal secret within our grasp.

I’ve waited twelve years for this. Twelve years!’

Nye was unrepentant. ‘I’m not allowing my fiancee’s clothing to be interfered with in the name of science or anything else. It’s unendurable! If that’s the nature of your experiments, Dr Probert, sir, I demand that Alice leaves the table, and so shall I. Good God, it’s like a blasted mess-night after the Colonel’s left!’

‘I think it might be prudent if we all left the table for an interval,’ said Probert. ‘I cannot see the sense in sitting here waiting for something else to be shied at Captain Nye.’

Alice, on Jowett’s right, made an odd sound in her throat which he could almost have believed was a stifled giggle. She was obviously hysterical, poor child.

‘You’re right,’ said Brand. ‘The moment has passed. We all need to compose ourselves. After that, I shall be happy to cooperate in the second experiment you prepared, Doctor. For the present, I suggest someone turns on the light.’

Sergeant Cribb had miscalculated. He would have laid a guinea to a gooseberry that the burglary that evening would take place at Miss Crush’s. He had backed his judgment by posting Thackeray behind a tree in Eaton Square for the night. It seemed so obvious: with Miss Crush out at Richmond the Minton vase was there for the taking. Too obvious, perhaps? Thackeray was going to say some strong words about that in the morning, for the plain fact was that the man Cribb suspected of the burglaries was not in Belgravia at all. He had just let himself in through the back door of Dr Probert’s residence in Richmond.

Cribb had followed him there from central London, pursued him in a cab as far as Richmond Bridge and tracked him on foot the rest of the way. He had rarely been so surprised as when the trail led clean through Kensington High Street and on to Hammersmith, Chiswick and Richmond.

And now his suspect had confidently entered Probert’s house by the back door and stepped inside. What in the name of sanity were the servants doing to leave the door unlocked? Curiously, there wasn’t a light on in the basement. The only lights in the house were at the front, on the ground floor, where the seance was presumably taking place, and a small window at the top, where the timid Mrs Probert must have gone for refuge.

Probert wasn’t going to welcome a detective-sergeant on the premises this evening and nor was Jowett, but Cribb knew which way duty lay. Allowing his quarry half a minute to get up the back stairs to the gallery of classical subjects, he followed by the same route.

When he reached the door of the gallery, he found that he had made a second miscalculation. The door was locked, and the man he was pursuing was nowhere within sight or hearing.

Dr Probert’s Edison-Swan lamps were not only more powerful than gas; they lit the room in full brilliance the moment the switch was turned on. The sitters blinked as their optic muscles strained to adapt to the new conditions, but the discomfort was a fair exchange for a clear sight of the room. During the seance, Jowett had felt an increasing urge to check the position of the furniture and the proximity of the walls and ceiling. It was more than a mere wish to orientate himself; it was a need to reaffirm that furniture, walls and ceiling were actually there at all.

‘Would anyone care for another drink?’ asked Probert, breaking the uneasy silence.

‘A small gin neat wouldn’t come amiss, since you mention it, Doctor,’ said Miss Crush.

‘If I may say so,’ said Strathmore, ‘it would be wiser if we all refrained from further consumption of alcohol until after the second experiment, in the interests of science. I shall, of course, be writing a full report of tonight’s events for the Proceedings of my Society. One would not wish to report that certain of the participants had indulged themselves to the extent of a sherry followed by an undiluted gin. It would tend to detract somewhat from the authority of the report.’