Justin Richards - The Death Collector

‘Yes?’ Madame Sophia hissed excitedly. ‘Yes? Tell us, please. What is your message, you poor tortured soul?’

‘Now, Mr Wilkes,’ the man said gently, ‘you are quite aware of what I want to know. Be so good as to write it down would you?’

Nothing. No flicker of understanding or tremor of movement from the corpse.

‘Write it down!’ the man shouted with a ferocity that made the windows rattle. ‘Or would you rather Blade returned you to the ground?’

Slowly, deliberately, the pen stroked at the paper.

The glass paused, then trembled again. It moved directly across the table towards George, stopping by the card imprinted with the letter ‘O’. It hesitated only a moment, then it moved again. Not far, just a few letters clockwise round the table: ‘R’.

Wilkes’s fragile hand continued to move slowly over the paper. His dead eyes did not look down. Another letter was slowly inked on the page.

Next was ‘I’. Liz could almost feel the tension in the room. Everyone seemed to be holding their breath.

‘O R I,’ Gerald said quietly. ‘What can it mean … Origin?’

‘Hush,’ Madame Sophia said, surprisingly gently. The glass trembled again.

‘Thank you.’ The man’s breath misted the cold night air. It didn’t do to mix warmth with death.

Blade waited for Wilkes to finish. Then he took the sheet of paper. He swallowed dryly when he saw what was on it. He handed it to his employer without comment.

Next was ‘M’. Liz’s throat was dry. It was just a trick, she kept telling herself. But both Gerald and Madame Sophia seemed as caught up in it as anyone. Just a trick — surely it was just a trick.

The glass moved again, heading for another letter.

The man stared at the paper for several moments, breathing deeply as he struggled to keep control. Five uneven characters were scratched into the paper. Ragged and useless:

O R I M O

‘Another O,’ George said out loud.

The glass stopped. It wasn’t trembling any more. The strange life it had taken on seemed to have deserted it again.

As if to confirm this, Madame Sophia let out a long, deep sigh. ‘He has gone,’ she announced. ‘He has left us. The link is broken.’ She lifted her hand from the table and carefully passed the scrap of paper back to George. But despite the disappointment of contact being lost, she was smiling.

He crushed the paper into a ball and hurled it across the laboratory. The man was trembling with anger, but when he spoke his voice was cold and controlled.

‘Dead too long, it seems. There is something lingering, but not enough. I think, Mr Blade, we shall have to try a different approach.’ He snapped his fingers impatiently. ‘Paper and pen. Quickly, man.’

Blade hurried to oblige. He took the pen from Wilkes, dipped it in the ink again, and returned it to the dead man’s grasp.

‘Not for him, you dolt! Give it to me.’

‘I’m sorry, sir. I thought-’

‘You are not paid to think,’ Augustus Lorimore said, snatching the sheet of paper that Blade offered him. ‘Now leave me in peace for ten minutes. Then I will have a letter for you to deliver.’

Madame Sophia seemed still in a daze. Mrs Paterson was pale and shocked, her husband blinked when the lights were relit, as if he had just woken up. Without ceremony, Husband Gerald ushered the Patersons to the door and out into the hall. Liz could hear him talking to them in a low voice — accepting their money or making an appointment for a further consultation no doubt.

‘The table,’ George said in disbelief. ‘That was incredible.’

‘Thank you,’ Liz said with a smile.

But before she could explain, Husband Gerald was back. He stood in the doorway, staring at Liz and George. He did not look happy, and he had undergone a transformation. No longer was he the dithering, ineffectual little man dancing to his wife’s instructions. To George, the man seemed bigger than before. His eyes were cold and hard.

‘How much of that was real?’ he asked.

George frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You know very well what I mean,’ he snapped back. ‘But I wasn’t asking you. Sophia?’

‘Oh the spirits came,’ Madame Sophia told him. She still seemed to be in a state of near rapture. ‘No doubt about it. They touched my mind — just like in the old days. Just like they used to.’

‘Are you telling me you really used to be able to communicate with the spirit world?’ Liz asked.

‘But of course. Though you must be very powerful, my dear.’ She got up from the table and walked slowly towards Liz and George. There was something menacing about her movement. ‘Very powerful indeed to levitate the table like that. I know it wasn’t me.’

‘It wasn’t me either,’ Liz said quietly. ‘The table didn’t levitate.’

Husband Gerald was nodding as if he had guessed as much. But it was news to George.

‘People will believe what they want to,’ Liz admitted. ‘I told you the table was levitating and that was what you, and that poor gullible Mrs Paterson wanted to hear. It didn’t lift at all really.’

‘Oh,’ Madame Sophia said quietly. ‘So it was a trick. That really is most unfair.’

Liz gave a short humourless laugh. ‘It’s all right for you to trick Mrs Paterson, though isn’t it? How much did you want from her? How much does it cost to believe you’re communing with the spirits of lost loved ones?’

‘That’s no concern of yours,’ Gerald told her sharply. He was standing in the doorway and he did not look like he was going to move for them.

‘I think it’s time we were leaving,’ George said. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of the evening, but he was sure he wanted to get out of this house as soon as he possibly could.

‘Oh I think you should stay a while yet,’ Gerald said. His voice was low and threatening. ‘My wife has some questions she would like to put to you. If you really do have the ability …’

‘We don’t,’ Liz said. ‘Look, I’m not sure what happened there with the glass and the letters, but it was nothing to do with us.’

‘His spirit felt so strong,’ Sophia said. ‘I could feel it here, almost in the room with us. You have to tell me how you made such close contact.’

George was beginning to think he would have to physically move Gerald out of the doorway. He hoped the man wouldn’t call for help from some burly servant or claim he had been assaulted. ‘Let us pass, please,’ George said in what he hoped was a menacing voice.

‘No,’ Gerald insisted. ‘You came here under false pretences, and obviously under false names. You are not leaving until we have a satisfactory explanation of your conduct this evening.’

George looked at Liz, and he could see in her face that she was ready for whatever unpleasantness might follow.

But before either of them could do anything, there came an urgent shout:

‘Fire!’

George flinched. For a moment he thought Gerald was ordering them to be shot. But the shout had come from outside the room — loud and urgent.

‘There’s a fire. Everyone out, quick. Get the brigade! Hurry!’

Distracted, both Sophia and Gerald turned towards the sound. Coiled up and ready to move, George did not waste the moment. He shoved Gerald aside, out of the doorway. Liz was with him immediately, and together they ran down the hall to the front door. A maid was already there, pulling the bolt across and unlocking the door.

‘Where’s the fire?’ she asked, her eyes wide with anxiety. She looked deathly pale. ‘Where’s Mrs White?’