Michael Dibdin - A Rich Full Death

My feeling had at first been one of lively interest, coupled with a little natural apprehension. However, as time went by, and Edith Chauncey’s trance-voice droned on, repeating Isabel’s name over and over again, with intervals of silence during which I became uncomfortably aware of a dull ache in the arm which was extended to touch the planchette, it all began to feel like one of those ‘improving’ Saturday evenings which my mother and her cronies used to get up for the Boston Women’s Guild, when someone would recite half of Southey’s ‘Vision of Judgement’, and you had to sit very very still and try to look as if you didn’t care how much longer it went on.

Then, quite suddenly, the planchette, which had been immobile all this time, jerked violently first to one side of the cloth and then another. I was far too much amazed at the way the thing moved-as though with a will of its own-to consider where it was going, but Kate Chauncey kept careful watch, and at length spelled out the word made up of the letters over which the tip of the board rested for an instant at the culmination of each spasm that shook it.

‘D,e,v,e,r,e,’ she murmured. ‘Surely that is the name of the young diplomat who passed over so tragically the other day?’

She went on to mutter something I did not quite catch about ‘interference’.

‘Where is Isabel?’ her sister meanwhile demanded, slightly querulously. ‘Come to us, Isabel. Come! Come!’

The board twitched a few times, and then moved to indicate the word No .

‘Why have you come, Mr DeVere?’ Miss Chauncey returned-a shade tactlessly I thought, though it is difficult for a novice to know what is or is not acceptable in this novel form of social intercourse. At all events, the spirit did not appear to be offended. Perhaps the dead are above such things.

I speak for Isabel , the planchette spelt out.

‘Will Isabel not come herself?’

Not in this way .

Edith Chauncey pondered this cryptic reply for what seemed like a very long time. I took the opportunity to glance quickly around the table: everyone was staring fixedly at the little wooden trolley which had so swiftly established itself as an eighth presence in the room.

‘Perhaps the vibrations are not yet in harmony,’ Miss Chauncey murmured at last. ‘And yet we have made all due preparations. The doors and windows have been locked and bolted, to ensure continuity; the lamps have been dimmed and the circle of hands formed. We are seven, a holy and mystical number: the gifts of the Holy Ghost are seven, Our Lord spoke seven times upon the cross, there are seven phrases in the prayer He taught His disciples, and His Holy Mother had seven joys and seven sorrows, while scholars both Christian and pagan inform us that there are seven saving virtues and seven sins that damn. Why will Isabel then not come?’

Not worthy of her perfect spirit .

‘This means of contact is not to her liking?’

With her voice she would speak .

Apparently this all made some sense to Edith Chauncey-to me it seemed merely another example of something I have often observed in published accounts of spirit-conversations, namely that those on ‘the other side’ seem to be as unwilling as Shakespeare’s tiresome Clowns to give a straight answer to any question. My interest was once again beginning to wane. What with the ‘stagey’ nature of the dialogue-in particular Miss Chauncey’s plum speech, clearly got by heart beforehand-I began to feel pretty certain that the whole business was a hoax- and not a very good one.

‘But why have you come?’ pursued Miss Chauncey.

I bring a message .

To whom?’

To all and to none .

‘And what is your message?’

I died too soon .

At this, as you can imagine, I pricked up my ears.

‘Poor spirit!’ Edith Chauncey commented. ‘Indeed, a tragic accident freed you from the burdens of material existence before your term.’

No accident .

‘Was it then your own unhappy hand which removed you from this vale of tears?’

I was murdered .

I looked around at my companions, just visible in the candlelight which stirred up the shadows like shapes underwater. Baron Kirkup sat staring up at nothing in particular, a little smile playing about his lips-whether ironical or merely senile I could not tell. Miss Jessie Tate looked intense, as usual, but also harrowed, and rather furtive. The Reverend Tinker’s enormous features were illuminated by a look of beatific benevolence which looked as though it had been obtained wholesale from a five-and-dime emporium in his native city; while Charles Nicholas Grant exuded an air of well-bred embarrassment, as though we were all sitting over dinner and someone had said something faintly indelicate.

‘And who did this terrible thing?’ continued Miss Chauncey-who did not seem particularly surprised by this development. But the spirit was being coy again.

I cannot say .

‘You must say! Both for our sakes and for yours, you must reveal the name of this evil person. For our sakes, because he may strike again. For yours, because until he is brought to justice your spirit will remain blocked by Desire for Revenge, and will be unable to ascend beyond the Fourth Level. Tell us his name, therefore-you who see everything that has been, is, and will be! Who murdered you? What is his name?’

We all stared fixedly at the planchette as though our lives depended on it. The board stirred beneath the seven fingers resting on it, and with a mighty impulse shook off our restraining control and flew clean off the table into the corner of the room-where I for one should not have been particularly surprised to see it scuttle away into the wainscotting like a rat.

Jessie Tate rose.

‘We had best stop,’ she said curtly. ‘Something is wrong. No good can come of this.’

‘I’ve never known such a thing to happen before!’ Kate Chauncey replied. ‘That poor spirit must be filled with negative energies.’

It seemed as though the ‘seance’ was at an end, when suddenly the most extraordinary thing happened. I felt a rush, as of air moving in a body; the candle was instantly extinguished, but instead of total darkness there came a weird unearthly glow in the air … and all at once I heard Isabel speaking!

There was no ‘like’ or ‘as if. It was Isabel herself: that unmistakable, thrilling voice I had never thought to hear again!

‘I have come,’ she said. ‘Not with the spirit board, but with my own voice would I speak. I too have a message for all and for none. I too have been taken from your midst, not by my own sinful act, but cruelly slain by an evil hand!’

Now I am fully aware that these words, set down in black and white and read by you sitting comfortably in your armchair, will appear no less contrived than the earlier utterances I recorded, ascribed to DeVere, which had totally failed to convince me of their authenticity. I must therefore ask you for the moment to take on trust the fact that I did not for one single moment doubt that I was now listening to the real and true voice of Isabel Allen, speaking to me from beyond the grave.

The reason for this sudden access of faith is simply explained: it was the voice itself which convinced me! All the apparatus of spiritualism-the boards and apparitions, turning tables and rapping panels-has always served merely to increase my scepticism. The more complex the machinery, the more easily the effect may be faked. I may not know precisely how any more than I know how a conjuror makes a dozen rabbits appear in his hat, and then changes them into so many doves. But it is of no account: I know the trick can be worked, and clearly perceive the margin where the fudging takes place.