The Ulysses Quicksilver Short Story Collection (Pax Britannia)

by Jonathan Green

  But it didn't change the fact that, as far as Ulysses was concerned, the whole thing was no more than an embarrassing charade.

  To the phoney mystic's left sat Daniel Dashwood, hands flat on the table also - as had been dictated for all of them by Madam Garside - eyes closed and head erect, cigarette holder clenched between his teeth. The lazy blue tobacco smoke coiled upwards to join the clouds of incense fugging the room.

  Beside Dashwood was Emilia, her eyes screwed tight shut, an expression of earnest desperation knotting her usually soft features. Ulysses seat was next to hers.

  He noticed that his former sweetheart had taken to wearing her straw blonde hair plaited into a tight bun at the back of her head. The girl he had once known had worn it down, like a cascade of gold. That same girl would never have been seen dead in a stiff black mourning gown buttoned to the neck. Time and its cruel predations had changed her, he thought. And a broken heart might have had its part to play too, he considered ruefully.

  She was so close he could almost touch her, the little fingers of their hands inches apart. The sarcastic smile left his lips, and at that moment he wanted nothing more than to grab hold of her, take her away from this morbid shadow play which was wringing a bitter grief from her.

  Instead he turned his attention to the man to his left. Smythe was paying about as much attention to proceedings as Ulysses was himself. He was absorbed in fiddling with his machine. As he played with the knobs and dials on the front panel, the two short aerials that sprouted from the top rotated independently about a hemispherical gimble and the crackle of radio interference came from speakers at either end of the device.

  It was a ghost detector, or so Smythe had told him as they had taken their seats at the table. All the fiddling was necessary to focus the signal apparently projected by all supernatural entities, thereby allowing the machine to read the presence of ghosts. Next to him sat his fellow parapsychologist Wentworth, who flicked switches and adjusted dials on his side of the machine from time to time.

  Despite being an obvious fraud, as far as Ulysses was concerned, he had to give Madam Garside her due. It was testament to her level of concentration that she was able to keep up the pretence of communing with the souls of the departed with the constant background disturbance of Smythe and Wentworth's box of tricks.

  Next around the table, and someone who was trying desperately hard to concentrate, despite the distraction of the apparition manifestation meter, was the rotund Faustus. Eyes closed, his mouth was slightly agape, as if in wonder.

  And that completed the circle of seven.

  "Spirits of the netherworld, if you can hear me, send me a sign."

  The gathered séance-goers variously held their breath in expectation or struggled to keep a straight face. Smythe and Wentworth continued to tinker with their gizmo.

  They waited, but if the spirits were there they were not in a talkative mood this particular evening.

  Madam Garside stretched out her hands again and decried: "Spirits, I invoke you, by Osiris, by Hades and by Samhain. I command you, answer me!" Her voice had become a savage growl of barely suppressed fury.

  An unearthly quiet fell upon the room and Ulysses became aware of the muffled pitter-patter of rain from behind the thick velvet drapes drawn across the one window in the study.

  And then, the expectant hush was sharply broken by a loud knock on wood. Emilia gasped and jumped in her seat while Faustus let out a girlish cry of alarm. Ulysses looked at Dashwood, but he remained unmoved, chin in the air, eyes calmly closed.

  "Thank you, spirits. Now, you watchers from the shadow world, answer me clearly. Can you hear me?"

  The knock came again. In the muted red light of the room Ulysses looked for the medium's assistant but he was nowhere to be seen. He knew that there was some manner of trickery at work here, and Renfield was certainly up to his neck in it.

  "Are you ready and willing to answer my questions?"

  Again, the knock.

  "Very well," Madam Garside said, with the commanding tone of one who believes themselves to be in authority, "who is it that haunts this place, who is lost and cannot find their way to the other side?"

  The two parapsychologists made another adjustment to their machine and it began to emit a high-pitched whine, accompanied by a cockroach-like clicking.

  "What is that?" Ulysses hissed, leaning towards the fiddling Smythe.

  "Just white noise,"the investigator whispered back.

  "Bit like her over there then."

  The lights flickered. Madam Garside broke off suddenly, opened her eyes momentarily to glance around the room and then, finding Ulysses boldly meeting her gaze, shut them again.

  "Dwellers in darkness, if you can hear me, give us a sign."

  As Ulysses watched the Bedouin lamp began to rise slowly into the air above the table as, with a fizzing hum, that almost seemed in tune with the noise being made by the strange machine on the table, the lights in the room faded until only a feint dirty glow remained inside each buzzing bulb.

  They all heard the mournful voice, despite its eerie distortion, as it came to them through the loud speakers of the wireless box. "Emmiilliiaa!"

  Emilia cried out in alarm and gasps came from those around the table. Ulysses looked to the startled woman who returned his gaze imploringly, eyes open now, glistening with tears. "Father!"

  "Emmiilliiaa," the voice came again and all looked to the parapsychologists' device.

  "Mein gott!" Faustus whispered.

  Smythe immediately began twiddling knobs and flicking switches again, in an attempt to fine-tune the signal.

  "Come on, man," Dashwood said, although more demanding than encouraging in tone.

  "Emilia!" came the plaintive cry, more clearly still.

  "Oh, Father! Father?" she returned the call, looking desperately around the room, searching the air above her, as if hoping to see her father as well as hear his voice. "Can you hear me?"

  "Emilia? Can you hear me?" the ethereal voice echoed her words. It was becoming chopped with interference.

  "Come on, man! Get it back!" Dashwood snarled.

  "I'm trying," Smythe threw back, "but the storm's interfering with the signal!"

  "Interference," Wentworth added pointlessly.

  "Just white noise, eh?" Ulysses muttered darkly, one questioning eyebrow raised.

  More concerned by the distressed state of Emilia than the miraculous signal apparently being picked up by the ghost detector, Ulysses looked past her, seeing the strange reaction of the medium, Madam Garside. She was sitting in her chair, staring straight ahead of her, eyes bulging from their sockets, her face slack with an expression of horror, her mouth hanging open.

  Ulysses followed her horrified gaze to the far side of the study. Another strangled gasp from Emilia told him that she had done the same and could see what he was seeing. Unbelievable as it might seem, an eerie luminescence was beginning to suffuse the darkened room with its own unearthly light. As Ulysses watched, the light began to take on shape and form. The spectral image was that of a man, of that there could be no doubt. Smythe made another adjustment.

  "Emilia..." came the broken voice again, still being heard through the machine. "...ere... the sphere..."

  "What was that he said?" Dashwood snapped.

  "...ere... the sphere... sphe..."

  Ulysses strained to make sense of the unearthly message, but the signal was breaking up and the task was made all the more difficult by another dreadful moaning that now pervaded the study.

  "For God's sake, woman," Dashwood turned on Madam Garside, "shut up!"

  "Father!" Emilia all but screamed, for if there had ever been any doubt before, there could be none now. The apparition of Alexander Oddfellow had materialized before their very eyes, standing half inside his own book-strewn desk, as if it wasn't there.

  "Well, that's a turn up for the books," Ulysses muttered under his breath.

  The late Alexander Oddfellow reached towa
rds his daughter and cried her name once more. "Emi..lia... pher.. the sph..ere..."

  "Fear the sphere? What's that supposed to mean?" Dashwood exclaimed, in irritation.

  The phantasmal image flickered, washed as if with static, and then blinked out of existence, leaving the room in almost utter darkness. The lights on Smythe and Wentworth's machine had winked out too and the falling pitch of the device's power cell running dry could be heard emanating from the speakers.

  "What happened?" Dashwood demanded.

  "It's no good," Smythe admitted, giving the machine a thump of annoyance. "It's dead."

  "Dead," Wentworth echoed, emotionlessly.

  "That's not all that's dead," Ulysses said, his tone demanding the attention of all present. All eyes turned to him and thence, from him, to the medium.

  Madam Garside sat stock still in her chair, her mouth still agape, her skin white and waxy, glassy eyes bulging from her head, the light of life that should have shone behind them snuffed out.

  Ulysses studied the body with clinical interest. So that's what someone looks like when they've been scared to death, he thought.

  Madam Garside was dead, there was no doubt about it. Ulysses had felt for a pulse as had his manservant Nimrod. Consensus of opinion was that her heart had given out on witnessing the appearance of the apparition of Alexander Oddfellow. It had shocked everyone, although they had all reacted in different ways.

  Emilia was understandably distressed, and Ulysses had done his best to comfort her. However, he himself had been surprised by something else altogether: he was surprised that the parapsychologists' machine had seemingly worked so well.

  Dashwood appeared angry more than anything else, seemingly frustrated that they had lost the phantom Oddfellow so soon after managing to make his ghost materialize before them. Smythe's reaction was one of frustration, with Wentworth seeming to follow where his partner led, as ever.

  Sigmund Faustus had retired to the library looking as white as the corpse he had left behind in the study and, once there, poured himself a large scotch. Having downed it, he poured another straight away.

  By the time he was onto his third, the philanthropist had calmed down enough for Ulysses to leave Emilia in his care, whilst the dandy returned to the scene of the visitation, and the stiffening body in the study.

  Smythe and Wentworth were still there, taking apart their contraption - Ulysses supposed to change its battery - able to see quite clearly now that the lights in the room had returned to normal. And so was Nimrod, standing behind another of the chairs, pulled out now from the table, with Madam Garside's sagging flunkey slouched within it, the butler's hand resting firmly on his shoulder, in case he should get any foolish ideas.

  "Tell me about the medium Madam Garside," Ulysses said sternly.

  Renfield had revealed himself when he burst from behind the curtains in horror at hearing of his mistress's death, dropping the fishing line with the Bedouin lamp attached in the process. Any theatrical pretension he might have had before was gone now. Sidney Renfield had gone to pieces as soon as he realised Madam Garside really was dead.

  He looked up at Ulysses with red-rimmed eyes, cheeks wet with tears of panic and fear.

  "She wasn't one, a real medium I mean, but then I think you've worked that out for yourself, haven't you?" he blubbed.

  "So she was a con artist. After Miss Oddfellow's inheritance was she?"

  "No."

  "Then what? All this tonight; was she doing that simply out of the goodness of her heart?"

  "No, of course not."

  "Then Miss Oddfellow was paying her for her services."

  Renfield nodded, dabbing at his eyes with a balled up handkerchief.

  "How many séances were there to be? How many tarot readings to help get Emilia's life back on track? What does an exorcism cost these days anyway?"

  "I don't know. There'd only been two meetings before today, the second to set up the séance," Renfield said, confessing all he knew. "Gladys had never seen a ghost in all her life, of course. At least, not until... until..." Unable to continue he broke down, sobbing his heart out.

  "Until tonight, and the shock killed her." Ulysses finished bluntly. "Didn't see that coming, did she?"

  He paced the floor in front of the shaking Renfield as if deep in thought.

  "I take it you've heard of karma, Mr Renfield? Well, I'd say that the late Gladys Garside got what was coming to her. How many other poor unfortunate souls - grieving widows and orphans the lot I'm sure - have you conned over the years? I think the authorities would like to hear about what you've been up to, don't you? Well you can contemplate your fate while the rest of us get to the bottom of what's been going on around here."

  Turning from the wretched Renfield, Ulysses circled the table to where the two ghost hunting boffins were tinkering with their startlingly effective box of tricks.

  "Gentlemen," he said. "How's it going?"

  Smythe looked up in irritation while Wentworth continued to take out the screws that held the back plate of the machine in place.

  "It's the battery," he confessed, not telling Ulysses anything he hadn't already worked out for himself.

  "The battery," Wentworth agreed.

  "Can you replace it?"

  "We can. But it will take a few minutes."

  "A few minutes, then you can have another go," Ulysses said enthusiastically, a devilish grin back on his face.

  "Really? You want us to try again?" Smythe said, unable to hide the amazement from his voice.

  "Indeed," said Ulysses. "It worked, didn't it?"

  "Well, the device was designed to detect the presence of paranormal anomalies but..."

  "I'm intrigued by the apparent connection between your gizmo here and the appearance of Oddfellow's ghost," Ulysses explained, without giving the pondering Smythe a chance to finish, a note of glee in his voice. "Like I say, I want you to do whatever's necessary to get that machine ready to have another go."

  "We're ready when you are, Mr Quicksilver," Smythe announced, sticking his head around the door of the library.

  "Ready for what?" Dashwood asked, suspicious and yet intrigued.

  "To try again," Ulysses stated, as if that much was obvious.

  "Who died and put you in charge?" Dashwood challenged as Ulysses followed Smythe out of the library, but Ulysses did not deign to offer a reply.

  Ulysses re-entered Oddfellow's study after the parapsychologist. The machine was there on the table, reassembled with a new battery cell installed, Wentworth waiting patiently for his partner. The late Gladys Garside had been moved to another room at Ulysses' request.

  "Well, I'm here now, aren't I? Don't wait any longer. Start it up!"

  Smythe and Wentworth went through their well-practised routine and, as soon as the machine hummed into life, Ulysses could hear a high-pitched drone coming from the box. Then the clicking commenced and Smythe began frantically tuning the device once more.

  Without looking round, Ulysses sensed the presence of the other house guests at the door to the study. The electric lamps flickered, their luminescence failing yet again. He heard gasps behind him but kept his attention focused on the machine sat in the middle of the table.

  Thunder rumbled ominously beyond the walls of the gothic pile.

  This time it was only a matter of moments before the clicking tone warped into recognisable speech.

  "Emilia?" came the haunting voice. "Can you hear me? Anyone?"

  "We can hear you, Oddfellow," Ulysses spoke up excitedly. Smythe continued to focus the signal the ghost detector was receiving from God alone knew where.

  A sphere of luminescence glowed into life within the study again, this time above the table. It swelled, flickered and dulled, becoming the spectre of Alexander Oddfellow once more, everything below the waist sunk into and through the table.

  "Oh, father, it really is you!"

  Ulysses spun round startled. So intently focused had he been on the reappearance of
the ghost, he had not realised that Emilia had joined the group of curious onlookers at the door.

  The ghost seemed to reach imploringly towards the young woman but the voice coming from the box had become unintelligible static again. The wall lamps glowed into life and, in contrast, the ethereal image of Emilia's late father dulled.

  "Father? What is it?" she asked, pushing past Ulysses into the study.

  The fading ghost's lips moved in desperate articulation but nothing of what it was trying to say could be heard.

  "Ulysses do something, please. I have to know what he's trying to tell me," Emilia gasped.

  "Smythe, what's the matter?" the dandy demanded, looking past Emilia, but placing a reassuring hand on her arm. "Why is the image fading? Don't tell me the battery's dead already."

  "We're losing the signal," Smythe explained. "The more we try to boost it, the more power it drains from the cell. It's like it's moving out of range."

  And then, as Ulysses was looking through Oddfellow's blurring body at the two ghost hunters, the spectre moved, as if making for the door. Then it was gone.

  "Quick!" Ulysses exclaimed. "Oddfellow's leading us somewhere!"

  Smythe and Wentworth looked at one another in bewilderment, then at Ulysses.

  "Well, come on!" Ulysses exclaimed frustratedly, as he leapt for the door, sending the gaggle of gasping onlookers into a scurrying retreat. "We mustn't lose it."

  Smythe and Wentworth looked at one another blankly again.

  "For a couple of boffins capable of creating such a device, you really can be quite stupid, can't you? Pick up your box of tricks and follow me!"

  Cottoning on at last they did as he commanded, Wentworth lugging the heavy metal box in his arms whilst Smythe awkwardly attempted to focus the signal the ghost detector was receiving.

  Out in the passageway, the static whooshing from the speakers became a clear tone again and the ghost of Alexander Oddfellow materialized a few yards from them. It seemed to Ulysses that the apparition was looking through him as it beckoned with one hand. It then turned and moved off along the corridor.