The Royal Ghost

by Linda Stratmann

  The Royal

  Ghost

  A MINA SCARLETTI MYSTERY

  The Royal Ghost

  LINDA STRATMANN

  This book is dedicated to the Royal Pavilion and Museums Foundation

  www.pavilionfoundation.org

  First published in 2016

  The Mystery Press is an imprint of The History Press

  The Mill, Brimscombe Port

  Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

  www.thehistorypress.co.uk

  This ebook edition first published in 2016

  All rights reserved

  © Linda Stratmann, 2016

  The right of Linda Stratmann to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  EPUB ISBN 978 0 7509 6925 3

  Original typesetting by The History Press

  eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

  Praise for Mr Scarletti’s Ghost: A Mina Scarletti Mystery

  ‘I love Linda Stratmann’s writing. Her descriptions of Brighton are so sharp and vivid you can smell and taste the city on every page’

  Peter James, international bestselling author of the DS Roy Grace series

  ‘Linda Stratmann has provided an indomitable heroine in Mina Scarletti’

  promotingcrime.blogspot.com

  ‘The novel is perfect for those who enjoy a Victorian atmosphere […] it is thoughtful, well-characterised and thought-provoking’

  Historical Novel Society

  ‘Linda Stratmann is happily feeding the unquenchable thirst for Victorian crime fiction’

  www.crimefictionlover.com

  Brighton, 1871

  One

  Enveloped in the sweet aroma of perfumed oils, Mina Scarletti lay on warm white towels while skilled fingers smoothed away the tension in her back. Mina understood and accepted that she would never be entirely free from pain. Her spine, twisted like an angry snake, distorted the angle of her ribs and hipbone, crushed her small body and placed awkward stresses on her muscles, which gave frequent pinching reminders of a permanent insult. Islands of peace and pleasure still remained within her reach, however, when, after enjoying a herbal steam bath at Dr Daniel Hamid’s popular establishment on the Brighton seafront, his sister Anna applied the ‘medicated oriental shampoo’ or ‘massage’ as it was sometimes known. After an hour’s treatment, Mina felt as flat, pink and boneless as a starfish washed up on the beach, and the world outside looked a little brighter.

  Anna had also, with great care and sensitivity, introduced Mina to the world of callisthenics with classes held in the bathhouse’s own gymnasium. Twice a week Mina donned a light, loose assembly of chemise and bloomers, in which she worked to improve the support for her misshapen torso with the aid of stretching exercises and weights. She had even learned to hang by her hands from a bar like a circus acrobat. Mina had deliberately not mentioned this new skill to her mother, Louisa, who would have been horrified at the idea of her daughter adopting such an outrageous posture while wearing an indecent costume.

  In recent weeks relaxation had come more easily to Mina, following the news that a dangerous criminal had been arrested. Serious crime was thankfully a great rarity in Brighton, and the publication of a warning notice by the police that some unknown person was sending fruit and cakes laced with arsenic to prominent residents had sent the whole town into a ferment of terror. The word was about that the days of the Borgias had returned. Louisa had determined that she would be greatly affected by the threat of danger, and it had been Mina’s exhausting duty to examine and re-examine every item of foodstuff in the house irrespective of whether it had been delivered or purchased directly from a shop. Urgent meetings had been held at the Scarletti home, to which Louisa had invited her closest friends, regaling them with the news that they were all about to be murdered and the anxiety was causing her the most terrible suffering.

  Once the fiend in human form was in custody and revealed to be a middle-aged spinster with an unhealthy passion for a married doctor, Brighton could heave a municipal sigh of relief, and the search was soon on for fresher and pleasanter sensations. The latest novelty to excite residents and visitors alike was a pamphlet entitled An Encounter in which two fanciful ladies had described how, while engaged in a tour of the Royal Pavilion, they had seen the spectre of the late King George IV at a period of his life when he was the young pleasure-seeking Prince of Wales, and affectionately known as ‘Prinny’. Some portions of their account were reputed to be of an indelicate nature – whether this was deliberate or unconscious was not apparent – and therefore wholly unfit for the perusal of the female sex. As a result, the pamphlet was selling by the hundred to ladies of all ages and walks of life, the copies being taken secretly to boudoirs to be enjoyed in private. Mina had not read An Encounter and had no great wish to do so. She enjoyed both stories and histories, but a work of fiction that had been dressed up to seem like fact in order to delude the impressionable she found merely annoying, not to mention dishonest.

  Mina knew the difference between the real and the imaginary, since she occupied her solitary hours writing stories about ghosts and monsters. Her tales were published under a pseudonym by the Scarletti Library of Romance, a company founded by her late father, Henry. The only person privy to her secret identity was her father’s business partner, Mr Greville. Her family, in so much as they took any interest in her writing, remained under the impression that she composed moral tales for children. The ghosts and monsters Mina created existed only in her mind, and while she gave them a kind of life by transferring them to paper, she knew that they would not reach out from the page and become real. She was all too aware, however, that suggestible persons of both sexes could easily persuade themselves that they had seen this or that elemental or supernatural being. In the early summer of that year Mina, with the assistance of Dr Hamid, had been instrumental in exposing the activities of a self-styled medium, Miss Eustace, who had taken Brighton by storm and extorted money from her adherents, impersonating a spirit by donning veils that glowed in the dark from the application of oil of phosphorus, and sending messages supposedly from the deceased by tapping a table leg with her foot. Mina had found the deception as transparent as the veils, but those who needed to believe had done so, gratefully, and had had their purses lightened and bank accounts severely depleted as a result. The adventure had cemented a warm friendship between Mina, Dr Hamid and his sister Anna, who often entertained her at their home or accompanied her as she limped her slow walk along the promenade. She had hoped that the public taste for the wonderful had subsided into something approaching common sense, but judging by the success of An Encounter, it seemed it had not.

  No one had as yet introduced the subject of the supposed ghostly sighting in the Royal Pavilion in conversation with Mina, presumably to avoid stimulating her curiosity about matters no respectable woman, whether married or single, should ever contemplate. Anna Hamid, however, her hands easing away the soreness in Mina’s back to almost nothing, after discussing issues relating to general healthfulness and the current news of the town, asked after some hesitation if she had read An Encounter.

  ‘There have been letters denouncing it in the Gazette, but I have not actually read
the book,’ said Mina, ‘and I am not sure if I would be either entertained or informed by it. If the authors had admitted from the start that it was an invention then I might find it amusing but I believe that they are quite serious about their subject. I rather thought that your brother and I had frightened away all the ghosts from Brighton.’

  ‘That is the reason I am asking, as you know so much about these things, and I would value your opinion from a woman’s point of view,’ said Anna. ‘I am very concerned that this book is upsetting the constitution of those who read it. Many ladies who come here for treatment have read it, and been overexcited to a dangerous degree. Some might think I would be pleased to have more patients seeking our services, but I do not want to line my purse by perfectly healthy ladies being made unwell. I wish to preserve the health of the town, and that means not only treating those who are in pain and discomfort but also maintaining the wellbeing of those who already enjoy it. Several of the patients I have seen recently complaining of attacks of agitation and nervousness have confessed to me that their symptoms began when they read the book. Certain passages I believe they found especially powerful.’

  The massage done, Anna helped Mina to sit up and swathed her tiny angular form in scented linen. Anna’s pale fawn cheeks were flushed, but she did not elaborate on what she had learned, and Mina knew her well enough not to enquire further. She was, like Mina, a decided spinster, although Anna, at the age of forty-eight, had chosen to be single, whereas Mina, although twenty-five and still of an age to marry and raise a family, had been told some years ago that it would be unwise for her ever to do so.

  ‘If these susceptible ladies are afraid of encountering the Prince’s ghost then surely all they need to do is stay away from those places he customarily visited when in town,’ Mina suggested.

  ‘I fear it is not the haunting that troubles them,’ sighed Anna. ‘Far from it; some have told me that they have actually been holding séances with the explicit design of having him appear before them.’

  Mina had once seen a caricature of the late King George IV, a gourmand who had become bloated by excess, and could not imagine anyone wishing to see such an unattractive sight either living or ghostly. Had he been handsome in his youth? Was that what all the fuss was about? Or was it just the thrill of an exalted connection? A lady might forgive a great deal for royalty. ‘I am sorry to hear about these foolish séances, but I suppose they are harmless enough diversions if they are not taken too seriously. Do these ladies employ professional mediums? I hope they are not being cheated any more than they deserve.’

  ‘No, they just sit in the dark and call upon the spirits, I believe. One lady told me the Prince appeared in her parlour and took tea with her, but I think she was merely describing what she wished for, and not what actually occurred.’

  ‘Knowing Brighton society as I do, I have no doubt of it. A story to make her friends jealous.’

  Anna brought more towels and pressed their soft warmth around Mina’s shoulders. ‘Well, since you have not read the book, you cannot comment upon it. In fact, I would suggest for the sake of your health that you avoid it altogether. I have not read it myself and have no intention of doing so.’

  In view of this strong advice, Mina decided not to pursue the subject with Anna, but she was already considering how she might use her connection to the business of publishing to make enquiries that could alleviate her friend’s concerns.

  Two

  Mina had first met Dr Daniel Hamid the previous June at a séance conducted by the celebrated spiritualist and sensation of Brighton, Miss Hilarie Eustace. Mina had attended because she was worried – quite rightly as it was to turn out – that her mother and friends were being made the victims of a charlatan whose hidden purpose was to extort large sums of money from the vulnerable bereaved. Dr Hamid, on the other hand, grieving deeply for the recent loss of his beloved Jane, his wife of twenty years, had been seeking hope and comfort in the assurances of mediums. Both hope and comfort had been cruelly wrenched from him by the discovery that he had been duped by a trickster. Furious with the heartless criminal, he had been angry most of all with himself for being so taken in, especially since he had always liked to believe that he was a rational, scientific man. He had at once thrown his energies into helping Mina expose Miss Eustace and her confederates as frauds and thieves, even taking risks that brought him close to the boundaries of what might seem appropriate for a doctor of medicine.

  The deceitful Miss Eustace had demonstrated her selfless sincerity by performing her evening séances without making any charge, receiving only those rewards voluntarily given by the grateful, but it was discovered that she also offered private sittings to suitable individuals for which she charged a substantial fee. Behind closed doors, with only the medium and her dupe present, messages were passed on, supposedly from much-loved deceased relatives, which induced the victim to part with ever-increasing sums of money. Mina’s determined campaign had revealed the despicable scheme before an appalled public, and the miscreants were now contemplating the fruits of their villainy at the Lewes House of Correction while awaiting trial at the next Sussex assizes.

  Once her treatment was over, Mina, feeling much refreshed, went to see Dr Hamid, who had just completed an interview with a patient and was back in his office. Three years younger than Anna, he was neatly bearded, with sad dark eyes.

  ‘I hope you are well?’ he asked anxiously as Mina appeared. Each time he saw her, even on a social occasion, he would appraise her walk and posture to see if there was any change in her condition. Her unexpected visit had clearly given him cause for concern, as he was the only doctor she would trust. No one in Brighton was better acquainted than he with the presentation of scoliosis. His older sister Eliza, who had passed away that summer, had been afflicted to a far greater degree than Mina, her distorted spine creating an exaggerated twist, lifting one shoulder high while forcing the other down, pushing her neck forward so far that she was unable to raise her head. More seriously, her misshapen ribs had constricted the action of both heart and lungs. Dr Hamid and Anna had been devoted to Eliza’s care, and she would have lived longer had she not become overexcited after being drawn into the medium’s net of delusion.

  ‘I am very well, thank you,’ said Mina reassuringly, taking the seat that faced him across the desk, tucking a cushion under one hip to even her posture. ‘Miss Hamid’s massages always ease my discomfort and are a great blessing. She did, however, mention something that is causing her some disquiet. It seems that séances have come back into fashion in Brighton, and ladies are being disturbed by a publication in which two visitors to the Pavilion have claimed that they saw the ghost of the late King George. If it was not for the fact that it is upsetting people I would think it quite comical. Do you have any observations?’

  Dr Hamid’s relief that Mina had not come for a professional consultation evaporated rapidly. He looked decidedly uncomfortable and took some time to compose his reply. ‘It is a difficult subject to discuss with any frankness, especially since you are single. I too have seen patients coming here who have been affected by this publication. All of them are ladies who have started to experience fainting fits and unusual excitement. Their family doctors assume that they are suffering from a variety of hysteria and prescribe soporific mixtures, but that merely treats the symptoms. Anna has found that steam baths and the oriental shampoo are far more beneficial in that they both calm and restore the system. But the book is an unwise publication and should never have been printed. I suspect that the authors were quite unaware of what they were writing and the effect it would have on the more sensitive reader. Some portions of the narrative can be interpreted in quite a shocking light.’

  ‘Then you have read it?’

  He tidied the already tidy pile of papers on his desk, in an effort to conceal his embarrassment. ‘I – er – well – I was obliged to read it for professional reasons,’ he admitted reluctantly.

  Mina could not resist a smil
e. ‘And have you suffered from fainting fits and excitement?’

  He stared at her in surprise. ‘No, of course not!’

  ‘So are gentlemen immune to its effects?’

  Dr Hamid was speechless for a moment. ‘Apparently so.’

  Mina decided to stop teasing him. ‘I have been told that the ladies of Brighton are holding séances in their homes to raise the ghost of the late King. Why they might wish to do so I really can’t say. It all seems very foolish and we must hope it is a fashion that will be quickly replaced by the next one.’

  He nodded emphatically. ‘I entertain the same hope. Brighton is a place of fashion after all, and constantly moves from one novelty to another. In a week this may all be forgotten.’

  Mina agreed. In August and September it was usual for the town to be gay with noisy families in search of amusement and diversion, but with the approach of October, children returned to school, professional gentlemen came to take their leisure, and a new quieter mood began to settle. Later, in November, all would be different again, as the carriage classes began their winter season.

  ‘I have no wish to attend such gatherings; not that I would be invited to them. After Miss Eustace’s fall from grace those Brighton spiritualists who continue to believe in her – and yes I am sorry to say that there are still some who regard her as a martyr to the cause – have stamped me as a hardened unbeliever. It appears that I radiate negative influences which would ensure that any attempt to contact the spirits in my presence will fail.’

  ‘Oh, I am done with séances,’ said Dr Hamid, feelingly. ‘It is a great deal of money to pay out just to learn that you are a fool.’

  ‘Those who can never learn will remain fools all their lives,’ said Mina, gently. ‘Without your insight and your assistance, Miss Eustace and her henchmen would not now be facing a trial for fraud.’