Douglas, Nelson - Cat with an Emerald Eye

Above me, I can see the Mystifying Max moving like some giant spider to set strands of his hidden web in motion. So I am not distracted by the usual spooky effects below. Neither fog nor knives nor sniff of chlorine will deter Midnight Louie from his appointed duty: to seek out the wrong elements of the bigger picture. I do not know what I expect to spy from my cozy point of view. Another murder attempt, perhaps? A guilty party reacting to the evening's entertainment?

Alas, all of the Mystifying Max's wonders--and they are much more chilling than the previous tricks--do not smoke out the lurking menace we all search for. Kahlua, her throaty voice a symphony of danger and disdain, makes a much more prepossessing apparition in the hearth than yours truly, I fear. The Houdini image actually moves. The dancing cutlery whirls like ninja wheels. And the gathered attendees regard the effects with a certain nervous stoicism that does not bode well for an instant confession.

Then my sharp eyes notice something. Miss Temple Barr and Mr. Crawford Buchanan have gamely joined hands with the dummy in their midst. Call her Edwina Sophie Gandolph. I see her head nodding under its large veiled hat and cannot blame even a stuffed lump for losing interest at this point.

Then I see the figure jerk. Perhaps in the heat of the seance Miss Temple (or more likely Mr.

Crawford Buchanan, the cowardly weasel) is wringing the gloved hand. No one notices the dummy dance, however, and no one notices when the slumped figures straightens and the head turns slightly from right to left, as if by itself.

Oh, come on! We are talking a literal sit-in here. So much fiber-fill and fabric.

Still ... I hear a disembodied voice drift through the chamber and then up to my perch.

"Son," it breathes, whispers, sighs.

Son. Okay. Midnight Louie is bursting with theories to explain the inexplicable. Maybe Gandolph's late mother, the bilked patroness of spirit mediums, has finally been rewarded with a genuine manifestation from the Afterlife: herself. Or maybe Houdini's mater familias has found an empty body into which to pour her frustration with the many failed attempts to reach her darling boy. Or-- hey!--maybe this animated piece of stocking stuffing is really Mrs. Bates of Psycho fame. Maybe our gathered psychics are more psycho than anyone thought.

Only now do the Others start agitating.

What Others, you ask? I wish I did not have an answer, but I cannot deny the testimony of my own eyes.

For the seated figure draped in cloak and hat, who might be Orson Welles late in life, or Gandolph in his Edwina disguise or something entirely different, sweeps closer to the chamber, like a slide that is brought into nearer focus. And Doyly has crowded near one of the etched windows to watch the Houdini image shed his chains, each muscle straining to shrug off the bonds link by link.

"Yes," Doyly says, taking the pipe from his mustached mouth. "I knew you were doomed, poor fellow. Predicted it, but I always knew you possessed powers you never admitted to. I always said that you were the greatest publicity agent that ever lived. Now prove that you are the greatest publicity agent that ever died. Come back."

Poor Ghost. He is so sincere that I feel a twinge of regret. Too bad that the Houdini we both watch is an image manipulated by the Mystifying Max on the haunted house's holographic system, if it is, in fact, the Mystifying Max with Houdini's face superimposed. The real magic here is how a man of six-feet-three can so convincingly mimic a man of five-feet-four. The cramped and chained position aids the illusion to the point of fooling a ghost, no mean achievement, Mr. Mystifying Max! Someone said that there is a fool born every minute, but you can quote Midnight Louie: it also figures that there is a fool dying every minute, too, and the Afterlife must in time get a bit crowded with as much foolishness as can be found on earth.

Meanwhile the draped black figure hovers on the periphery like a mute member of a Greek chorus. At least some people at the seance seem to see him. What a relief! I do not like to think that I am alone in the Twilight Zone.

And now I think I know who Doyly might really be. His full name has something to do with a barbarian warrior and a desert king; at least I picture a camel lot. But even Doyly is fading now as the image of Houdini turns into smoke and mirrors.

"Son," the animated dummy calls again, in vain. "I try so hard to reach you, for so long.

Forgive--"

Poor Mrs. Houdini! Her boy is the only fellow who has not deigned to show up here.

And then the flying mice come pouring down out of the rafters like, well, bats out of hell.

Hell! I would love to snag a few on the wing, but I do not snack on the job. There must be a couple hundred of the furry little gliders, but they seem like two thousand as they swoop down into the roofless chamber and bounce off the windows screeching like bad brakes.

We are talking chaos now, and I notice that the cameraman has gone a little batty, swinging his powerful light into the oncoming bats, at the still air-borne weapons. I expect we will soon have minced bat pie, but the Mystifying Max hastens to anchor the edged weapons so the bats are flopping around solo. Their built-in sonar soon guides them out of the nest of humans and things less-than. As I watch the distant figure of the hatted man comes closer to the chamber, hanging on every word Wayne says and nodding. As I watch I wonder if Gandolph knew that his Edwina Mayfair costume so resembled the huge, dignified, black-draped figure of Orson Welles late in life, or if Gandolph ever knew that he shared his house with a ghost who felt a protective urge for his successor.

And I also wonder something else, as I--and I alone--see the fabric figure of Edwina Sophie Gandolph deflate like an exhausted balloon with every word Wayne Tracey spits out.

A son was asked to forgive. Perhaps others were implicitly asked to forgive a son.

It occurs to me that there might be one other candidate for the brief possession of Sophie the soft-sculpture's passive body: Wayne Tracey's dead mother, the debunked medium, both taking revenge upon the now-dead Gandolph by taking control of the figure that represents him and encouraging her son to purge himself of the hatred that infects the living.

The dead, it strikes me from what I have seen of them here and that is more than enough for me, have had enough of hatred.

Tailpiece

Midnight Louie Encounters Pharaoh Moans

Although I have often had to put up with insults to my decedent antecedents, like many peace-loving individuals I have never had a good answer to the yahoos who bring up my crooked family tree.

Now I do.

I can now direct these low-lives to bow down and take a good look at my roots.

Not everybody is directly descended from foreign royalty, but my recent experiences amongst the ESP set have made it plain that royal blood pumps through my veins. I will not let it go to my head, though the fact that I am Somebody, that is. I will definitely let the royal blood keep rushing right to my head, where it belongs, in my brain. There is no brain-drain in Midnight Louie.

I must admit that I have not been totally candid about the manifestations at the last seance.

It seems that I have forgotten an important fact. With Kahlua on the premises with me, we have the requisite two blacks to form a feline power nexus. And Kahlua and I add up to a formidable pair of blacks.

As the human spirits fade, I retreat to Kahlua's cage to congratulate her on a fine performance. The lady sits upright in her container, still as a statue, her satin coat raised against the grain as if by static electricity.

Her green eyes out glow the blood-rubies on her collar, and she hisses like a fire hose when she sees me.