Sherlock Holmes and the Ghosts of Bly

by Donald Thomas

  We crossed a dark-curtained and over-furnished reception room. Its olive-green walls were hung with oil-painted figure-studies of women, done in a questionable taste. So much for spirit portraits! A black-leaded fire-place was lined by hand-painted Dutch tiles of a similar nature. Above the mantelboard with its green leather and brass-headed nails, the wall was fitted with shelves displaying curious little terra cotta figurines and Chinese jars. On the mantelshelf below, an ornate gold-and-enamel Buhl clock backed by a mirror ticked time away with a soft uneasy beat.

  All this nick-nackery seemed contrived to impress upon the gullible that they were entering a world of exotic possibilities. There was a hint of the improper without anything that could be defined as downright objectionable. One breathed deceit and depravity in that curtained space, almost hinting at bizarre rituals or white-slave scandals. By contrast, a business-like alcove contained a plain chair and a small table with an upright telephone upon its stand. All in all, the place looked like the parlour of a very select and expensive house of ill-repute.

  A varnished scrapbook-screen concealed the far end. As we stepped round it, I saw the reason for such silence. We were on the threshold of a spacious and plain-walled music-room, to judge at least from the modest-sized Bechstein grand piano, wheeled aside and folded up against the wall. In its place, fifteen or sixteen faces looked up at us earnestly from their chairs. They were gathered round the oval of a large table covered by a crimson velvet drape. Above it, a brass gasolier with vine-patterned branches was burning low, casting a stark but limited radiance on the ceiling. In the shadows at either side, a further platoon of guests sat on upright chairs along the walls, waiting their turn to be called like patients at a dentist’s surgery. There must have been thirty or forty, all told.

  In the dim background, a rounded archway opened into a darkened conservatory with a vaulted roof of glass panes. Palm branches and white orchids gave off a cheap illusion of night in the mystic East.

  At the head of the table, immediately opposite us, sat a woman whom I suppose I must describe as the mistress of ceremonies. Her appearance would have been overdone even on a vaudeville stage. The rouge alone might not have called attention, had not her hair been a little too auburn, her lips a little too rosy. She wore a wide-brimmed picture-hat of blue velvet, set at a slant like a mushroom. A patterned décolletage covered her neck and shoulders, almost transparently, above a bodice of lilac-mauve silk. This extraordinary ensemble was completed by black elbow-gloves, leaving exposed the coloured imitation gem-stones on her fingers.

  A semi-circle of playing cards, which she had apparently been studying with the aid of a lorgnette, lay before her on the crimson velvet of the table-cloth. To either side of these a skull and a stuffed raven on a plinth stood guard. A small plaque by the raven identified her as “Madame Rosa, Clairvoyante.” It would not have surprised me in the least to learn that she had a police record.

  Flanking this personage sat two women, evidently there to do her bidding. One I judged to be in her fifties, a plump and respectable-looking body. The other was younger, her black velvet hat coming coquettishly to a peak at one side. I thought her a pretty witch. A half-veil obscured her features, but I heard her addressed as Miss Shelley.

  Had our mission not been of possible importance to Victoria Temple, I should have burst out laughing, turned on my heel, and left. According to Holmes, this was not the first time he had been here and so I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Madame Rosa favoured us with a slow nod and indicated a pair of vacant chairs in the shadows.

  I will not try your patience by a full account. I was less interested in Madame Rosa than in the men and women who came to sit under her spell. Their dress and manner were sober, they behaved with decorum. Most of them might easily have changed places with a congregation at Sunday Evensong in one of the more fashionable churches of Knightsbridge or Chelsea. Even so, several were no doubt accomplices of Madame Rosa, masquerading as inquirers after spiritual truth.

  Our evening began with a “photographic” séance and all the tricks of that trade. The gasolier was dimmed to a feeble glow and the spirits of the dead were summoned by Madame Rosa. She had a rather peremptory manner, like a schoolteacher calling the roll of her class. We saw no sign of the immortals, though a mysterious tapping was said to be proof of their presence. A tame photographer, his lens facing the conservatory, exposed a series of glass plates. His head was under the usual black linen hood as he did so. In order that he should not be accused of exposing his plates in advance, one of the newcomers was invited to take up any position or pose of his choice in the view of the lens.

  I intervened at this point to ask that this person should also hold my copy of that evening’s Standard newspaper, which I had brought to read in the cab. I requested that its headline on the front page should be displayed in the photographs. “MR CHAMBERLAIN’S BIRMINGHAM SPEECH—FULL DETAILS.” I was rather disappointed when Madame Rosa agreed at once. Her spoken English was entirely correct but coloured by a slight French accent. Miss Shelley, the pretty witch, took the paper from me and handed it to the witness.

  Presently, we observed the development of the glass-plate negatives in the conservatory sink by infra-red light. Who could doubt that spirits had been with us? Each image included the man holding my evening paper with headlines of the Colonial Secretary’s speech at Birmingham. But in the photograph the walls of the conservatory were decorated with cabalistic inscriptions and “spirit portraits” done by invisible fingers. Madame Rosa closed her hands together, prayer-fashion, giving thanks for these messages from beyond the grave. None of the graffiti and portraits were visible to our unaided sight. No mortal hands could have painted them there while so many witnesses were watching. To my chagrin, my newspaper had merely strengthened the imposture.

  Alas, the wondrous inscriptions and portraits are explained by simple truth. It was known to Holmes and me, doubtless to Madame Rosa and her photographer, but apparently not to anyone else present. The fact is this: quinine sulphate painted on a surface is invisible to the naked eye but will appear on a photographic collodion image. Whoever staged this little drama in Kensington knew that many of the guests at the séance waited in an agony of hope for spirit messages from their departed loved ones. They would not have thanked Holmes or me for undeceiving them. Does the owner of an old master painting thank the art historian who proves it to be a forgery?

  On other prints from the glass plates we marvelled at phantasmal spirits in angel robes, smiling upon the flesh-and-blood witness holding my evening newspaper. Alas, how easy it was for the cameraman, while his head was under the hood of black linen, to insert a “ghost transparency” in front of the glass plate to be exposed. Or perhaps it was possible to effect a double exposure. Since Holmes made no comment, I kept my peace. Perhaps I over-estimated the importance of the occasion. Docile though the onlookers appeared to be, they may have come for no more than the fun of the fair, as if to Jasper Maskelyne’s stage “magic” at the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly.

  In a finale to the first part of the performance, half-a-dozen spirit messages were miraculously revealed in chalk on sealed slates. Madame Rosa was quick to remind us that the late William Ewart Gladstone, Prime Minister until four years earlier, had been a believer in this art.

  To the initiated, the trick is simple enough. Two blank classroom slates in wooden frames are hinged and folded to face inwards to each other. The moistened surfaces of the wooden frames are coated with white adhesive powder and pressed together. They are also locked together and sealed with a stamp on melted red wax. The metal die which has stamped the seal is then placed where everyone can see it. Any interference with the slates appears impossible.

  On this occasion, the gasolier was extinguished altogether to effect a “dark séance.” Madame Rosa in her sumptuous décolletage sat holding the locked plates in her lap. We were invited to close our eyes but even with mine open I could see almost nothing by the dying glow of the ga
s mantels. Our hostess sat apparently motionless. She could certainly not have held a pen nor a stick of chalk.

  After five minutes of invocations, the gaslight was turned up. We were able to confirm that each seal was unbroken and the lock secure. It had been impossible for our hostess to separate the two slates. Miss Shelley was then commanded to break the wax seal, open the lock, and ease apart the two gummed frames. As the light fell on the first slate it showed a faint but perfectly legible inscription in white chalk. It was written unevenly, as if with difficulty from a great distance. “Your darling little Charley still waits for you where the special flowers you loved are for ever in bloom.”

  All but one guest stared at this, knowing the message was not for them. When the words were read out, however, I saw that it was Miss Shelley on her upright chair who turned her face quickly away and inclined her head. She was surely hiding her tears and my instinct told me that her grief was not a trick. I had made a mistake in her case. Because she sat next to Madame Rosa and performed small tasks for her, I had assumed that my pretty witch was one of the conspirators. I was wrong—she had been one of the dupes.

  The public had not yet read the warning against slate-writing by Count Perovsky-Petrovo-Solovevo of the Society for Psychical Research, first contained in a private letter to Sherlock Holmes. A few years later, this Russian nobleman exposed the deception to the world. When two slates are to be fastened hermetically face to face, some of the white adhesive powder is left unmoistened. It is allowed to fall “accidentally” and harmlessly into a corner where the slates join. Even if it is noticed, the guests think nothing of it. In truth the mixture contains sufficient chalk to inscribe a faint but legible message—and enough iron filings to respond to the attraction of a small but efficient electro-magnet.

  The right hand and fingers of the medium are easily concealed beneath the slates. Skilfully palmed, a miniature magnet attracts iron filings in the powder within the thin slate. A small amount is gathered during the dark séance. With a magnet as “pen,” words are inscribed within the slates through their underside. It takes a little practice but, as I find from experiments, a birthday-party conjuror can master the technique. The effect of “spirit-writing” on the susceptible and willing, when the seal and the lock have plainly not been tampered with, is apt to be sensational.

  I glanced covertly at Miss Shelley, whose composure was now quite recovered. I wondered about her little Charley and the place where the flowers they loved were for ever in bloom.

  Madame Rosa had approached Sherlock Holmes, as if to signal that his turn had come. He walked slowly into the conservatory. A curtain was drawn across after him. I still had no idea what his hatbox and picnic hamper might contain or what his supernatural magic might be. He had not told me. In my present mood, pride had kept me silent.

  *“The Case of the Yokohama Club” in Donald Thomas, The Secret Cases of Sherlock Holmes, Carroll & Graf, 1998.

  8

  In the next few hours, the mystery of the ghosts at Bly moved to a conclusion. Its crime had little to do with diaphanous spirits or celestial voices but much to do with bludgeons and blackguards. Before the continuation of Madame Rosa’s pantomime, there was a brief interval while we each took a cool glass of lemonade from the sideboard. I kept my eye on Miss Shelley as she carried a tray among the guests. I was right. She was here to serve, not to command.

  Holmes had disappeared behind the curtain and I knew not a soul in the room. Some had a sheepish air, as if half ashamed of having come. The rest put on confident smiles, ready to treat the whole thing as a West End show. For entertainment, they could not have done better with the Davenport Brothers or Monsieur Houdin at the Alhambra. To Madame Rosa and her confidantes, every simple-minded convert would return a profit.

  Excited chatter broke out here and there but most of us kept ourselves to ourselves, sipping the cool sweetness of the lemonade. When we were called together, the curtain was still closed across the arch of the conservatory. The music-room became the darkened stalls of an intimate theatre. The blacked-out conservatory was our stage.

  Madame Rosa stood before us in the gloom. She promised that an attempt would now be made by “the eminent Professor Scott Holmes” to invoke the spirit of the Lady Teshat. This obliging ghost had materialised at several London séances and answered questions put to her. Absolute silence and concentration were necessary. Our distinguished visitor came to us from the Hermetic Order of the Golden Light. His experiment carried the approval of the Society for Psychical Research. That, of course, was a downright lie.

  For good measure, our hostess promised that the professor would stand well back among the onlookers. He was anxious that no grounds should be given for suspecting ventriloquism.

  With a rattle of brass rings, the curtain was at last drawn back. It was difficult to see very much, though I could make out the unmistakable profile of Holmes against starlight in the conservatory windows. At that moment, he was not looking at the stage but facing his audience. His large round hatbox of polished leather was somehow fixed open upon its side on a table so that we gazed into its depths. As I grew used to the darkness, I saw by dimly reflected light that it contained an object of some kind. Perhaps it was a simple block of wood but shaped like a human head. It might be an artificial head, for no body could be attached to it. Every side of the isolated hatbox, as well as the space above, below and at the rear, was on view to some part of the audience.

  The voice of Sherlock Holmes commanded attention with quiet authority.

  “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

  Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,

  Half-sunk, a shattered visage lies.…

  And on the pedestal these words appear:

  ‘My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

  Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! …’”

  They listened to that voice as they had listened to none of Madame Rosa’s nonsense. If a man might work magic, it was surely the owner of that compelling delivery. His power of address and his sense of stage “presence,” acquired in his youthful theatrical career, had never left him. Now he turned to the conservatory, for all the world like a pagan priest before an altar.

  The outline of the thing in the hatbox was clearer. The face itself, if it was a face, gave off a slight luminous glow. His voice came again.

  “Speak to us, O, Spirit. Tell us who you are and whence you come.”

  There was no response, but it was—surely it was—a severed head that the box contained. A head perhaps long defunct and long interred. Well, I suppose it is not hard to contrive a trick like that. The eyes appeared closed and the mouth sagged open a little. In other respects, the profile was reminiscent of the magazine engravings of Queen Nefertiti in the Egyptian museum at Berlin. Yet this complexion was wizened by the dust and decay of centuries, as real flesh must be.

  “Open your eyes,” said Holmes in gentle command. “Open them.”

  The intent silence was broken by a sharp gasp from the audience as the head in the hatbox slowly raised its eyelids. The light had intensified. Yet its pale glow must come from within the box. How? It was a small head, perhaps a child’s, but life-size. As it grew clearer, the colours appeared more natural. Then it seemed that the image wavered, as if we might be watching it though the flame or smoke of a temple altar.

  “Greet us with a smile,” said Holmes more easily. He spoke with some relief, as if he had not been confident that the spirit would answer his summons.

  There was another murmur from the onlookers. This head, isolated from anything outside the hatbox, assumed a faint smile. The truly startling thing was that the smile was as natural as that of a girl walking in the park and meeting a friend. The apparition—for now I caught myself thinking this pernicious word again—was three-dimensional yet somehow insubstantial. If it was a trick, which surely it must be, how the devil was it done? This was no static magic-lantern display of glass plates. It was as far beyond slate-writing
and spirit photographs as an express train is beyond a horse and cart.

  From where I sat, the outline of Holmes’s gaunt, motionless profile now seemed carved in ebony against the faintly-reflected night sky of the conservatory and the dimmest illumination from the hatbox itself. I looked again at the shrivelled face of a woman who was still young. Holmes resumed quietly but with the same directness of command.

  “Tell us, O Spirit, who you are and whence you come.”

  The following pause was so long that I was sure he had failed. But this was merely a tribute to his sense of theatre. At last she replied and stilled every movement among Madame Rosa’s guests. No one had expected to hear a voice from beyond the grave, unless by an obvious trick of ventriloquism, which this could not be. The natural movement of the spirit’s lips ruled out such a dodge. It was a young voice, the tone flat and almost indifferent, as if the words belonged to someone else and were of no concern to her. Even Holmes could not have imitated it. Her reply came with a great effort, distantly and with an intolerable weariness.

  “I am called the Lady Teshat, daughter of the Eighteenth Dynasty, a child who will never be a woman. My service is to the god Amun of Thebes who is named the Hidden One. My master is Ozymandias, King of Kings. I am cast out for my fault, condemned to walk the future without rest, an exile through time in the courts of a Grecian underworld and the groves of a Roman Avernus.”

  Most of them surely knew the thing was a trick but enjoyed the fun. Perhaps a few could scarcely believe what they heard but longed for this preposterous muddle of mythology to be true.

  “Why do you answer our call?”

  Her reply was little more than a whisper, yet not a syllable was lost.