A Case of Spirits

by Peter; Peter Lovesey Lovesey

  ‘Please do so,’ said Jowett.

  Strathmore advanced to the curtain and opened a gap wide enough to peer through. ‘Is everything in order?’

  ‘No it ain’t,’ said Cribb’s voice. ‘Ask Dr Probert to come through.’

  ‘Remember to kick over the bowl of water, Papa,’ Alice helpfully advised.

  Probert played his part with less zest than he had on Saturday, but everyone heard the bowl of salt solution being overturned, followed by his appeal for candles. Jowett lighted two and led the others through to where Cribb was seated.

  ‘What the bleeding hell—’ began Cribb.

  ‘Very well, Sergeant,’ interposed Jowett. ‘We can afford to omit the unparliamentary language. Ladies present, you know. Is everything in order so far?’

  ‘Yes, sir. The professor entered on cue and went out again.’

  ‘Very good. Dr Probert, has Captain Nye gone downstairs to turn off the current?’

  ‘He has, Inspector.’

  ‘Splendid. What happened at this stage, then?’

  ‘We tried to pacify the medium,’ said Probert.

  ‘So we did. Do you consider yourself pacified, Cribb?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And ready to die—in simulation, of course?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Stout fellow! Ah, I can hear Captain Nye approaching. Kindly ask him to go downstairs again and restore the electricity, will you, Miss Probert? I believe I returned to my galvanometer at this point in the proceedings.’ Jowett was sounding increasingly like a host determined to inflict party games on unconvivial guests. He left the others standing woodenly round the chair and bustled through the curtain. ‘Capital!’ he presently announced. ‘I have a reading of 195. We now commence the last phase of the exercise, ladies and gentlemen. Take your places, please.’

  They filed silently through to the library, leaving Cribb to his simulated fate.

  ‘I have a reading of 200 divisions, Mr Strathmore,’ said Jowett, when everyone was seated.

  Strathmore’s co-operation in the reconstruction had not extended to copying the readings into a notebook, but he nodded, since his name had been mentioned.

  It was the last movement in the library for an appreciable time, except for the flickering of the fire. Even Jowett had succumbed to the tension now, and was standing by the galvanometer with his hands locked tightly behind his back. Alice, on the edge of her chair, was poised to give support to Miss Crush, who was holding her bottle of sal volatile six inches from her nose. Somewhere in the house a grandfather clock chimed the half-hour.

  ‘Half past ten. The needle is at 196, a slight drop, I think,’ Jowett observed.

  ‘Something is moving somewhere. I know it,’ said Miss Crush.

  ‘Steady, madam!’ growled Probert.

  ‘That man behind the curtain is a sensitive,’ she insisted. ‘Dear God, the room is getting colder! What is it, Captain Nye, what is it?’

  Nye, apparently unwilling or unable to respond, lifted his arm to point ahead of him. His eyes stood out like two half-crowns in a penny bazaar. They were focused on an object which had appeared between the two sections of the curtain. It was a white, moving hand.

  ‘God preserve us!’ cried Miss Crush, pushing the sal volatile against her nose.

  The hand came further round the curtain, exposing a wrist and forearm, partially draped in white.

  Captain Nye slumped over the table in a dead faint.

  ‘The galvanometer reading is the same!’ said Jowett. ‘Look at the needle, Strathmore!’

  But Strathmore, like the others, had eyes only for the apparition which was gliding clear of the curtain and into the library. Its face and hands were as pallid as the shroudlike garment which enveloped it, but Miss Crush’s perceptions had been sharpened by the sal volatile. ‘I recognise it!’ she said. ‘Look at the nose and side-whiskers. It is the spirit of that poor man Cribb, passing through on its way to purgatory. The chair has taken him from us, as it did poor Peter.’

  ‘Not so, madam!’ said Jowett, in a dramatic intervention worthy to rank with anything Irving ever did on the boards of the Lyceum. ‘That will do, Sergeant.’

  The figure halted.

  ‘Dear God!’ exclaimed Miss Crush. ‘It still obeys commands, poor, hapless thing. It has not yet freed itself from its mortal obligations.’

  ‘I’m afraid not, ma’am,’ said Cribb’s voice. ‘You can’t give up the Force as easy as that.’ He wiped some talcum powder away from his lips with the sleeve of his nightshirt. ‘I seem to have alarmed Captain Nye, sir.’

  ‘Not only Captain Nye,’ said Probert. ‘What the devil is this charade all about, Inspector?’

  Jowett was quite unperturbed. ‘I shall tell you, Doctor. I arranged this as a demonstration. This evening you have seen what Peter Brand intended you to see on Saturday evening: the apparent manifestation of a spirit. After his death we discovered that he was wearing a full-length nightshirt like this one of Cribb’s under his outer clothes. In the pocket was a small bag of talcum powder for application to the face and hands, to give the ghostly pallor, you understand. It sounds like a parlour game, I admit, but in the uneven light of a fire and before sitters who have already witnessed other phenomena, it could, I believe, carry some conviction. Even Cribb’s unrehearsed performance tonight seems to have impressed some of you. Are you feeling better, Captain Nye?’

  ‘Perfectly well,’ retorted the Captain over the bottle of sal volatile. ‘Haven’t had enough sleep lately.’

  Alice was frowning at what Jowett had said. ‘But if Peter Brand had dressed up—or, rather, undressed—like this, and left the chair, we should have known as soon as he took his hands away from the brass handles and broke the electrical circuit.’

  ‘A valid observation, Miss Probert,’ said Jowett, obviously relishing his role as unraveller of the mystery. ‘Won’t you kindly come over here and examine the galvanometer?’

  The invitation was to Alice, but she was joined there by everyone else.

  ‘Damn it, the confounded thing is still registering 196!’ said Probert. ‘There’s something amiss.’

  ‘There must be somebody else in the chair!’ said Alice. ‘An accomplice! That large policeman with the beard.’

  ‘No, Miss Probart. You are quite mistaken,’ said Jowett. ‘Come and see for yourself.’ He walked to the curtains and drew them emphatically apart.

  There was nobody seated in the chair. Stretched between the handles was a white handkerchief.

  ‘What’s a blasted wipe doing there?’ demanded Probert.

  ‘Standing in for Sergeant Cribb, Doctor,’ said Jowett. ‘You wouldn’t think a pocket handkerchief could stretch that far until you held it by opposite corners and saw the length of it. It tucks in nicely where the handle is screwed to the wood.’

  ‘A handkerchief won’t conduct electricity,’ said Probert.

  ‘Ah, but a wet one will,’ said Jowett. ‘And this one’s nice and wet from mopping up the water I spilt when I knocked over the flowers. You did a good job there, Cribb, and very naturally as well.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said Cribb.

  ‘We take no credit for the idea,’ Jowett went on, having conceded Cribb as much gratification as was good for him. ‘That was Brand’s. And he was clever enough to knock the chrysanthemums over with an orange—unless somebody put out a hand in the dark to assist the operation, and I suppose we’ll never know that for certain. However, he got his handkerchief saturated in a perfectly accountable way, by very decently agreeing to wipe up the water himself. He then replaced it in his pocket and took his place in the chair.’

  ‘How would he remove the handkerchief from his pocket when he was holding the handles?’ asked Strathmore.

  ‘That is easier than it might appear. He could not take his hands off the handles without breaking the current, it is true, but that still permitted him a considerable amount of movement with the rest of his body. It would not be diffi
cult to bring the right pocket into a position where the thumb of the right hand could hook out the handkerchief. So long as the palm of that hand remained firmly on the handle he could use the fingers to fasten the end of the handkerchief as you see it here. He then had only to pick up the loose end in his teeth and transfer it to the left hand, and secure it to the handle. The contact would thus be unbroken, and he could leave the chair by passing the upper half of his body under the handkerchief. Sergeant Cribb is not a contortionist, but he seems to have achieved this feat without trouble. Is that so, Sergeant?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘The rest you have seen for yourselves,’ said Jowett, spreading out his hands.

  Nye was frowning. ‘We’ve seen what the poor beggar planned to do, but you haven’t shown us how he was killed.’

  ‘That’s a different question, Captain, but you shall have the answer if you would oblige me by going downstairs to turn off the electricity again—for the last time, I do assure you. And Cribb, Constable Thackeray is waiting outside the door, I believe. Ask him to step inside, will you?’

  ‘Dressed like this, sir?’ said Cribb, frowning.

  ‘If you please. After that you may step behind the curtain and put on your normal clothes. I need Thackeray to take the part of the corpse. He is experienced in the role, you told me.’

  ‘That’s right, sir. He’s a natural in the part.’ Cribb paused, remembering something. ‘Might I make one small request, sir? I’d like to put my jacket and trousers on again first. I wouldn’t care for Thackeray to see me like this. Not good for discipline.’

  ‘Really?’ Jowett eyed the nightshirt speculatively. ‘I suppose not. Be quick then. We can’t keep everyone here till midnight, you know.’

  ‘I trust that it will not distress anybody if I ask the constable to adopt the position in which we found Mr Brand,’ Jowett resumed, after Thackeray had entered, wearing an eye-shade.

  There was no dissent, although Captain Nye was staring fixedly at Thackeray, frowning and inclining his head slightly to one side and then to the other. The constable was glad to have a reason to turn his back, sit in the chair, and give his impression of an electrocuted corpse. When he was propped stiffly against the left-hand side, he explained between his teeth, ‘By rights my hair should be standing on end, sir.’

  ‘This is quite realistic enough for our purposes,’ said Jowett. ‘Now, ladies and gentlemen, I want you to notice most particularly the position of the left hand which is not gripping the handle as one might expect. In electrocution the muscles contract and the hand takes an even stronger grip on anything it is holding. But what has happened here? The left arm dangles over the left arm of the chair. You may relax, Thackeray.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘So we asked ourselves why the body should have been in this position,’ Jowett continued.

  ‘Perhaps the handkerchief had fallen on the floor and he was reaching to pick it up,’ suggested Alice. ‘He could grip the left handle with his teeth to maintain the electrical contact.’

  ‘That’s clever thinking, Miss Probert,’ said Jowett, ‘but it isn’t quite consistent with the facts. Mr Brand couldn’t have received a shock of four hundred volts by doing what you say.’

  ‘The only way he’d get a shock like that is by touching the main cable,’ said Probert, ‘but it’s out of reach behind the chair. Anyone can see that.’

  ‘Quite right, Doctor,’ said Jowett. ‘But let us suppose that instead of the damp handkerchief lying on the floor here, as your daughter suggested, it was here.’ He pointed to the transformer. ‘Let us suppose that one end of it was attached to the positive terminal on the main side of the box. What do you suppose would happen if the medium reached out with his hand to recover the handkerchief—which we have seen was essential to his purpose?’

  ‘He would die the moment he touched it,’ said Strathmore, ‘but are you really asking us to believe that the handkerchief fell from the chair and somehow landed three feet behind it with one corner attached to the positive terminal?’

  ‘No, sir,’ said Jowett. ‘It was placed there as a deliberate act.’

  ‘But that would be murder!’ said Nye.

  ‘It was.’

  ‘Wait a moment, gentlemen!’ said Alice. ‘I think you have forgotten something. If this theory is to be believed, we should have found the handkerchief attached to the transformer when we discovered poor Mr Brand in here.’

  ‘We should indeed,’ agreed Jowett, ‘but it was not there or anywhere in sight. And the interesting thing is that there was no handkerchief among the list of possessions found on Mr Brand’s body. We are quite sure that he had one, because he mopped up the chrysanthemum-water with it. There is only one explanation possible, and that is that it was picked up by one of you—after Mr Brand had been murdered.’

  The drift of Jowett’s thesis must have been increasingly obvious, but this conclusion still had the effect of stunning everybody. Miss Crush gasped with such force that it was difficult to tell how many smaller intakes of breath occurred at that precise moment.

  Probert was the first to respond. ‘Before anyone begins to make assertions about present company, I think you ought to make it absolutely dear, Inspector, that this is an engaging theory without any basis of evidence. I’m no lawyer, but I know enough about the workings of the courts to point out that the Attorney-General himself couldn’t prove what you’re saying without a witness to the facts. Let’s see if we have one, shall we? I ask you, ladies and gentlemen, did any one of you see a handkerchief attached to the transformer as Inspector Jowett has postulated?’ He looked at each person in turn, with eyebrows speculatively raised. ‘You see? Not one witness. You can’t even produce the confounded handkerchief! It’s like trying to prove a poisoning without the arsenic.’

  This was clearly not the response Jowett had expected. He frowned, cleared his throat and rubbed the side of his face. He had the look of a conjurer who had waved his wand and been unable to produce a rabbit from his hat.

  ‘It’s plausible, I’ll grant you that,’ Probert continued, pressing home his advantage, ‘but you’ve got no proof. There’s nothing on earth to show that a wet handkerchief was ever tied to that transformer.’

  Sergeant Cribb, who had been a bystander in all this, put his hand in his pocket. The movement, slight as it was, drew the attention from Jowett’s bleak countenance. Cribb withdrew a pocket-book, turned the pages methodically, found his place and opened it. ‘You require some proof, sir? I found these on the carpet beside the transformer.’ He tipped two thin wisps, no more than an inch in length, into his palm and held them out for inspection.

  ‘What the devil are they?’ asked Probert.

  ‘Chrysanthemum petals,’ said Cribb. ‘They must have been picked up by Brand’s handkerchief when he wiped the mantelpiece dry. Tiny things, ain’t they? I don’t suppose you noticed them on Saturday when you picked the handkerchief up and put it in your pocket after Peter Brand’s death, Doctor.’

  CHAPTER

  15

  Now for it then! Will you believe me, though?

  You’ve heard what I confess; I don’t unsay

  A single word:

  ‘INSPECTOR JOWETT,’ SAID PROBERT, ‘do I take it that this subordinate of yours has your authority to level this outrageous accusation at me in my own house, in the presence of my daughter and guests?’

  ‘Do you deny it, sir?’ asked Cribb, before Jowett could respond.

  ‘Deuced impertinence!’ exclaimed Captain Nye. ‘Dr Probert is a member of the Royal Society. I don’t care for this man’s manner, Inspector, any more than I care for the look of this other person with the patch over his eye. If you hadn’t told us he was a policeman, I’d stake my reputation that I met him recently in very disagreeable circumstances. I don’t know what the police are coming to when men of this class are brought into private residences to fling abuse at decent people.’

  ‘Sergeant Cribb and Constable Thackeray a
re two of the most experienced detectives in Scotland Yard,’ said Jowett. It should have been a splendid affirmation of confidence. The pity was that Jowett’s emphasis made it sound like an admission that the Force had problems over recruitment. ‘I’m sure no insult was intended, gentlemen.’

  Cribb confirmed this with a nod and added mildly, ‘I simply stated a fact.’

  The effect of this was to give an extra twist to the curl of Captain Nye’s lips. Not content with resembling a camel, he began to make sounds like one.

  ‘Please, William,’ Alice appealed to him. ‘For everyone’s sake, keep calm.’

  Inspector Jowett, too, was anxious to avoid a scene. He leaned towards Cribb. ‘It might be wise if you withdrew, Sergeant.’

  It had been intended as a confidential remark, but Probert was quick to show that he had heard it. ‘No, no, there is no need for that. The sergeant has obviously made a mistake and must accept my word for it. The incident is closed.’

  ‘Not entirely,’ said Strathmore, with the unsparing persistence of a seeker after truth. ‘If the statement has no basis of fact, you are entitled to an apology at the very least. The Officer seems confident of his facts. Let him substantiate them. Tell us, Sergeant, what reason do you have for stating that Dr Probert picked up the handkerchief?’

  Cribb glanced towards Jowett, who looked uneasy, but nodded his consent to proceed.

  ‘Well, sir, you will recollect that when we pulled aside the curtain on Saturday night and found Mr Brand dead, we were unprepared for the sight that confronted us.’

  ‘Unprepared!’ cried Alice. ‘That’s an understatement if ever I heard one!’

  ‘If you say so, miss,’ said Cribb. ‘What matters is that our eyes fastened on Mr Brand. We failed to notice the handkerchief attached to the transformer. Observation is my job, but I don’t mind admitting that I was so taken up with the appearance of the deceased that I didn’t look behind the chair. It’s only on a second look that you notice a thing like that, but when I came to take a second look there wasn’t any handkerchief there.’