Peter Lovesey - A Case of Spirits

Was this man a professional, though? Cribb doubted it. All the evidence so far pointed to a novice, and an incompetent one at that. In the circumstances it was not too much to hope that he might be susceptible to panic.

With one hand on the nearest door-knob, Cribb turned and unselfconsciously addressed the empty landing. ‘Very well, you men. I want a thorough search made of every room. Sergeant, take two men and start with that one. I shall be looking in here. Brown, go down for reinforcements, will you? We need half a dozen able-bodied men. At the double. Avoid violence if possible, everyone. The suspect may be ready to give himself up.’ Putting his hand over his mouth, he added in two well-disguised and distinctively different voices, ‘Very good, sir.’ ‘Right, sir’. He opened the door and slammed it shut immediately. Then he crossed the landing, treading heavily, opened the nearest door and stepped inside, leaving it ajar, to wait developments.

It was unfortunate after a dramatic cameo of such quality and ingenuity that he chose the room he did, for immediately on entering it he was felled by a crack on the head that would probably have brained him but for his bowler. He hit the floor in company with the shattered fragments of a water-jug and lay momentarily unable to move as his assailant stumbled over him and across the landing to the second-floor stairs.

By a stupendous effort of will Cribb engineered himself from the horizontal to the vertical and lurched outside, in time to meet Inspector Jowett, attracted upstairs by the voices.

‘Good God, Cribb! What are you doing now? ’

‘Pur-pursuing a suspect, sir.’

‘Which way did he go?’

‘Upstairs, sir,’ gasped Cribb.

Jowett put up his right arm, as if directing traffic. ‘Get after him, then. No time to lose.’

‘I might need help, sir.’

‘I’ll be the judge of that, Sergeant. I won’t be far behind you, depend upon it.’

It occurred to Cribb as he hobbled upstairs, supporting himself on the banister, that his impersonation of an inspector deploying personnel had lacked the spark of realism. Jowett did it much more convincingly.

He was halfway upstairs when he remembered Mrs Probert. It was all very well running your quarry to earth at the top of a house, but what if he chose to make his final stand in a room already occupied by a woman in fear of her life?

She would scream.

She did. It was powerful enough to rattle the stair-rods. She was still screaming when Cribb reached her. Insensible at her feet lay Professor Eustace Quayle. Beside him was the volume of Notable British Sermons Mrs Probert had hurled at his head.

‘He has gone, I’m afraid,’ said Dr Probert, refastening his shirtsleeves. Half an hour’s concentrated attempt to resuscitate Peter Brand had produced not a glimmer of life. The body lay as it had first been put down on the table in the library. The rest of Dr Probert’s guests and family stood in attendance.

‘Passed over?’ queried Miss Crush, unable, apparently, to accept the information.

‘Joined the majority, madam,’ said Strathmore, in language she would understand.

‘Support her, Alice!’ ordered Probert. ‘She’s going again.’

‘How the deuce does a thing like this happen?’ asked Nye, ignoring the attempt to stop Miss Crush from hitting the floor.

‘That will be for a coroner to decide,’ said Probert. ‘I suspect that the immediate cause of death is heart failure induced by an electric shock. The muscular contraction and the peculiar behaviour of the hair suggests nothing else to me. A man with a heart condition such as his would be vulnerable to a severe electric shock.’

‘But you led us to believe that the apparatus was entirely safe,’ said Nye. ‘How could he have received a severe shock?’

Probert shook his head. ‘William, I am at a loss to account for it. Everything will have to be examined by experts.’

‘That’s a fact, sir,’ said Cribb, speaking from the study. ‘We shall have to arrange for this room to be locked until it’s been seen. I’ve got a shrewd idea that unless you take precautions the housemaid will be here at some ungodly hour tomorrow morning pushing a carpet-sweeper through the wires.’

‘You may have the key for as long as you need it,’ said Probert, much subdued in manner.

‘I’ll take charge of it,’ said Jowett, leaving no doubt who was the senior officer present. ‘This is the moment I think, when I should explain to your guests, Probert, that I am a detective-inspector. My connection with Great Scotland Yard you have already disclosed, notwithstanding my request to the contrary. The man who interrupted the seance is Detective-Sergeant Cribb, and his arrival on the scene was as surprising to me as it was to the rest of you. We now know that he was pursuing a man who had illegally entered this house, the person known as Professor Quayle. Where have you put Quayle for the present, Cribb?’

‘The kitchen, sir. Handcuffed him to the range. He’ll keep nice and warm until we’re ready for him.’ Cribb smiled at Mrs Probert, who had come downstairs and was sitting inconspicuously between two bookcases. ‘That was as neat a knockdown as I’ve seen, ma’am, if you’ll allow me to say so.’

‘It was pure fright,’ said Mrs Probert simply. ‘I heard the voices on the landing underneath me and I came to the conclusion that an army was on its way up to my room. Waiting for them to burst in on me was too much to endure, so I stood at my door with the first thing that came to hand, the book I was reading. I thought it would show that I was not prepared to submit without a fight. I had a knitting-needle ready for the next man. It was a good thing you stopped the other side of Professor Quayle, Sergeant.’

‘I think we should not concern ourselves too much with Quayle at this juncture,’ said Jowett firmly. ‘It seems evident that by coincidence two lamentable events occurred in this house tonight within minutes of each other. Speaking as the senior police officer present, I must insist that the sudden death of Mr Brand has priority in our investigations. Can’t you cover him over, or something, Probert? The sight of him is obviously distressing the ladies.’

‘I’ll fetch a sheet,’ said Mrs Probert, going to the door.

‘A coincidence, you say,’ said Strathmore. ‘I’m doubtful of that, Inspector.’

Jowett crossed his arms challengingly. ‘Exactly what do you intend by that remark, sir?’

‘Why, that it seems reasonable to suppose that Brand’s accident and Quayle’s presence here are not unconnected. The men are professional collaborators, are they not?’

‘They were, ’ said Probert.

‘And they lodged in the same house,’ continued Strathmore. ‘As an investigator of the occult, I am bound to reflect on what has happened this evening and ask myself whether Quayle was here in the role of accomplice, to assist the medium in producing fraudulent phenomena. It is nothing unusual in the annals of spiritualism, I assure you.’

‘That’s a quick turn round,’ said Nye. ‘An hour ago you were ready to tell the world that eternal life was an established fact.’

‘And what grounds do you have for suggesting this was a fraudulent seance?’ demanded Miss Crush, now fully conscious, and brandishing the smelling-salts at Strathmore.

‘The things I heard and saw tonight were genuine, I am perfectly confident. You all experienced them-the rap-pings, the spirit hand and the oranges being thrown about and the vase overturned while we all had our hands linked. If you are suggesting Professor Quayle was in the room with us throwing fruit in our faces I think you have a lot of explaining to do. Do you suppose he was under the table as well, tugging at our clothes? Alice, you felt the hand touching you, didn’t you?’