A Case of Spirits

by Peter; Peter Lovesey Lovesey

  ‘Is that to be wondered at?’ said Probert. ‘You went upstairs in pursuit of Professor Quayle. By the time you and the inspector came back into the library we had moved the body out of the chair. Any one of us could have picked up the blasted handkerchief.’

  ‘That’s right, sir. One’s the word. It was a solitary action. There wasn’t anybody else to see you pick it up or we’d have heard about it before now.’

  ‘But why Papa?’ said Alice. ‘Why do you keep saying he was the one?’

  ‘I’ll explain, miss. First I want you to answer me a question. After the curtain was pulled back, and you saw what had happened, can you remember what you did?’

  ‘Of course. I attended to Miss Crush. She had started forward as if to touch Mr Brand. Papa shouted a warning, you restrained her and she fainted. I then helped you move her to the couch and I did the things one is recommended to do in cases of collapse, such as loosening her clothes.’

  ‘Thank you, my dear,’ said Miss Crush, putting her hand on Alice’s arm.

  ‘And you, sir,’ Cribb went on, turning to Nye. ‘What did you do at this time?’

  The captain was clearly unhappy about answering questions from an officer of non-commissioned rank, so he gazed imperiously into the distance as he spoke. ‘What did I do? What I seem to have been doing all the week. I went downstairs at the double to turn off the blasted electricity.’

  ‘How long did it take you to get downstairs?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know. Not more than a few seconds, I should think. As soon as I had switched the thing off, I shouted up to your inspector.’

  ‘Ah, yes.’ Cribb turned to Jowett. ‘You were waiting at the top of the stairs, I believe, sir?’

  ‘That is correct,’ Jowett confirmed. ‘In turn, I shouted to Dr Probert that the current was off.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’ Cribb addressed Strathmore. ‘And where were you, sir, when Inspector Jowett shouted that the electricity was turned off?’

  ‘I was beside the fireplace in the library,’ answered Strathmore. ‘Dr Probert had asked me to fetch candles, if you remember, as we had no light in the study.’

  ‘I do, sir,’ said Cribb with a nod. ‘So we have a clear picture of the situation, ladies and gentlemen. When word came that the electricity was off, Mr Strathmore was in the library lighting the candles. Miss Crush had fainted, and Miss Probert and I were attending to her. Captain Nye was in the basement and Inspector Jowett was at the head of the basement stairs. The only person beside this chair was you, Dr Probert, and that was when you must have picked up the handkerchief and pocketed it. Immediately after, Mr Strathmore brought the candles and then you could not have done it unnoticed, and nor could anyone else.’

  There were a few seconds’ silence as people took in the significance of Cribb’s argument. Then eyes began to turn in Probert’s direction, as if by general consent it was his turn to justify himself.

  Alice was the last to face him and the first to speak. ‘Papa, this isn’t true, is it?’

  Probert took a handkerchief from his pocket, apparently without appreciating the effect this normally innocent action would have on people. He blew his nose and Miss Crush jerked with the shock. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘You shall have the truth. I did pick up the handkerchief, just as you say, Sergeant.’

  ‘No!’ said Alice, her face drained of colour. ‘But why, Papa, why?’

  ‘That should be clear to everyone,’ said Probert. ‘I saw the man lying dead in front of me and there was the chance of avoiding the odium of a murder investigation in my house, so as soon as the current was switched off I pocketed the handkerchief. I burned it later. That’s all it was.’

  ‘I don’t think so, sir,’ said Cribb.

  ‘Are you contradicting me?’ said Probert, more as an inquiry than a challenge.

  ‘We’ve got to establish the truth, sir. You say you didn’t want a murder investigated in your house, but what made you think of murder? A pocket handkerchief isn’t usually classed as a lethal weapon.’

  ‘It was attached to the positive terminal of the transformer,’ Probert pointed out.

  ‘I don’t doubt that, sir. What I doubt is whether that should have suggested murder to you at that particular moment. It would still look more like an accident to me. But perhaps murder was in your mind.’

  ‘Father!’ said Alice. ‘He has no right to speak to you like that!’

  Dr Probert was looking too uncomfortable by far to take issue over Sergeant Cribb’s rights. He silenced Alice by limply waving his hand. ‘Sergeant, I am not sure how it has happened, but you seem to have me against a wall. If you want my full confession to the murder of Peter Brand I am ready to give it to you, but I should prefer not to do so in front of these people who are my friends and family.’

  ‘Father!’ cried Alice. ‘It can’t be true! It isn’t true!’ She ran to Probert and caught him by the arm. ‘Say it isn’t true!’

  ‘Go upstairs to your mother and tell her as gently as you can,’ said Probert.

  Cribb put up his hand. ‘Before you do that, miss, there’s something you must say to your father. I want you to tell him in your own words—so that he can see you’re telling the gospel truth—that you are not the murderer of Peter Brand.’

  ‘Are you serious?’ said Alice.

  ‘Never more serious, miss. Your father believes you arranged to kill Brand to silence him over a certain matter arising from your visits to a hat-shop. On the night of the seance he couldn’t fail to notice that you were collaborating with Brand by tapping the table and claiming to be touched by spirit hands. He concluded that you were being blackmailed by the medium, and when the body was discovered he assumed you were responsible. He picked up the handkerchief, thinking to divert suspicion from you. Unless you can dissuade him, he is now about to make a false confession in order, as he believes, to save you from the hangman’s rope. It’s an admirable gesture, and I’m sure we all applaud him for it, but I hope you can convince him that it isn’t necessary. Constable Thackeray here doesn’t take kindly to copying out statements only to tear ’em up.’

  Alice had listened with an expression of disbelief growing into astonishment and finally awe. She shook her head slowly, temporarily unable to find words.

  Miss Crush filled the breach. ‘It would be rather extravagant to murder somebody because of something that happened in a hat-shop.’

  ‘It’s utterly incredible!’ said Alice. ‘Papa, you didn’t really believe this, did you? I agreed to help Peter Brand in the seance to stop him making mischief in the family, but I’ve explained all that. You know why I changed my clothes there.’ She gripped her father’s arm and studied his face, searching for some sign of comprehension.

  He avoided her eyes. ‘I know that you have accounted for your behaviour, Alice, but that conversation took place on Sunday, remember. On Saturday night, when I saw him dead, I could only think that you must have arranged it in some way. You have always been a strong-headed girl. I saw the handkerchief and I understood how it had been done.’

  ‘But Peter Brand didn’t bother me to that extent!’ cried Alice. ‘It was to protect you from embarrassment that I did what he asked me to do at the seance. It was no reason for killing him. If I had felt strongly about it I should have asked William to give him a thrashing.’

  ‘By Jove, yes!’ said Nye enthusiastically. ‘The bounder deserved it. It’s a damned shame he isn’t around now, or I’d alter the shape of his nose.’

  ‘Don’t provoke the departed,’ said Miss Crush, wagging her finger at Nye.

  ‘Papa,’ said Alice. ‘You do see how ridiculous your suspicions were, don’t you?’

  ‘I need to sit down,’ said Dr Probert. ‘Constable, do you mind?’ Thackeray sprang out of the chair with surprising agility for a corpse and slipped to the back of the group, well out of Captain Nye’s range. Probert took his place. ‘Yes, my dear. I believe you. But somebody must have put that handkerchief there, and for a good reason.’ />
  Cribb caught Jowett’s eye. ‘Would you like to explain, sir?’

  ‘Now that you have started, you might as well continue, Sergeant,’ said the inspector, as if the whole thing bored him.

  ‘If you insist, sir. Well, we know how Peter Brand came to be electrocuted and we know that somebody must have arranged it. A handkerchief doesn’t fall two feet behind a chair and wind itself around a terminal. We can also tell when it was done.’

  ‘It must have been after the first interruption,’ said Strathmore. ‘We all went into the study to calm Brand down after the footsteps—which we now know to have been Professor Quayle’s—had broken his concentration. That was when the handkerchief must have been put down. When we resumed, we had normal readings on the galvanometer for a few minutes, and then he must have realised that the handkerchief was on the floor and reached out to pick it up, with fatal consequences.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said Cribb. ‘That’s exactly how I see it.’

  Strathmore smiled. ‘I believe I remarked before that as investigators we are two of a kind, Sergeant.’

  ‘So you did, sir. There it is, then. Scotland Yard and the Life After Death Society agree how and when the crime was committed. And once you’ve got the “how” and the “when”, the “who” is easier to find.’

  ‘But any one of us could have attached the end of the handkerchief to the transformer,’ said Alice. ‘It would not have been a conspicuous action by candlelight, and in so much confusion.’

  ‘Quite right, miss. So we have to find a way to determine who is most likely to have done it.’

  ‘A motive,’ said Captain Nye.

  ‘That’s important, yes, sir, but I had something else in mind. Motives are helpful, but when everybody has a motive you can’t rely on them alone.’

  ‘What do you mean—“everybody”?’ said Nye. ‘I’d like to know what motive you could ascribe to me. I had no interest in doing away with that nasty little table-tapping mountebank.’

  ‘It’s not necessary to go into the question of motives,’ Cribb firmly explained.

  ‘Quite right too,’ concurred Miss Crush.

  ‘I expect he thought you might have been moved to do it on my account,’ Alice suggested to her fiancé.

  Nye beamed. ‘That hadn’t occurred to me.’

  ‘And you do have an ungovernable temper,’ added Alice.

  ‘Leaving motives aside, then,’ Cribb quickly said, ‘it’s part of a detective’s job to make deductions from the circumstances of a crime. The circumstances here are quite exceptional, because they show that the murder depended on events nobody could have predicted. For Peter Brand to die by electrocution there had to be a wet handkerchief which he would be obliged to reach for, and the purpose of that handkerchief was a secret known only to Brand; there had to be a damp patch on the carpet where his feet made contact, so that the current would pass through his body to earth—and that, in case you have forgotten, was provided by Dr Probert accidentally kicking over the bowl of salt solution; and there had to be an opportunity to put the handkerchief in position—and that only came about by chance because of Professor Quayle’s interruption, when Brand stopped the seance and would not continue until we calmed him down.’

  ‘It begins to sound more like an accident than a deliberate act,’ said Strathmore.

  ‘No, sir. We can’t get away from the fact that somebody put the handkerchief in a position where it was certain to kill Brand when he touched it. What we can say with certainty is that the action wasn’t planned from the beginning of the evening.’

  ‘In legal parlance, it was not done with malice aforethought,’ said Strathmore.

  ‘I didn’t say that, sir.’

  ‘Well, it was not premeditated.’

  ‘I prefer to say that it was improvised,’ said Cribb. ‘The murderer made use of circumstances that did not occur by his or her design. That, you see, tells us a lot about the nature of the crime. It was the subject of a quick decision, a decision that was possible only in that interval after the professor’s interruption. Only then did the circumstances make a murder conceivable at all.’

  ‘Something must have happened,’ said Alice. ‘Mr Brand must have said or done something that drove one of us to a sudden act of murder. What could that have been?’

  ‘I’ll tell you, miss. It was the sight of Peter Brand sitting in the chair with the handkerchief stretched between the handles. It showed that Brand was no more than a clever sharp, you see.’

  ‘But I don’t see, Sergeant. None of us saw what you describe. We had no idea that he was planning such a deception until you demonstrated it this evening.’

  ‘I must correct you, miss. One of you did see it. When Brand called out after the interruption, somebody went to the curtain and looked through.’

  ‘Strathmore!’ said Probert. ‘But he claimed he couldn’t see a damned thing.’

  ‘Take my word for it, sir. There was enough light when Mr Strathmore pulled aside the curtain to see a white handkerchief stretched between those chair-arms. That was why he was so particular in the reconstruction this evening about being the one to look through. He had to find out for himself whether I knew what he had seen last Saturday.’ Cribb turned to Strathmore. ‘You don’t deny it, do you, sir?’

  Strathmore avoided the question. ‘That’s a slender thread to support a charge of murder, Sergeant.’

  ‘There’s more than that, sir. There’s the question of your sudden change of attitude towards Brand. Before the murder you were quite ready to believe that your twelve years of searching for a genuine materialising medium were at an end. You were talking of your paper on the subject being read by scientists the world over—and who can blame you? How could you have known that three other people were assisting Brand in producing his phenomena? It was inconceivable that people like the Proberts and Miss Crush could be persuaded to collaborate with an impostor. No, every indication suggested that you had achieved the ultimate purpose of your Society—to prove the existence of life after death in scientifically controlled conditions. In short, sir, you were duped, and the first moment you realised it was when you looked through that curtain, before Brand had the wit to get the handkerchief back into his pocket. During those minutes of confusion when everyone was trying to account for what had happened, you removed the handkerchief from Brand’s pocket.’

  ‘It was partially on view, I remember,’ contributed Jowett.

  ‘Anyway, it was no difficult matter to gain possession of it while you were re-connecting wires,’ said Cribb. ‘Once the current was turned off, you twisted the end round the terminal on the transformer and left Brand to his fate.’

  Strathmore had listened with extraordinary calm. ‘If he had been a genuine medium,’ he said, ‘he would not have needed to touch the handkerchief. My action put him to the test. Is that really murder?’

  ‘That’s a question a court of law might argue over, sir, but it’s my duty to charge you with murder, I’m sure of that.’

  Strathmore produced a handkerchief and polished his monocle methodically. ‘I should like to hear the rest of your case, Sergeant. What made you certain that I was responsible for Brand’s death? It seems to me you might equally have charged Dr Probert.’

  ‘Go to the devil!’ said Probert.

  ‘I probably shall, but it would interest me to know why you’re not going in my place.’

  ‘I’ll tell you,’ said Cribb, whose respect for Strathmore was growing. A man who could face a charge of murder with dignity was not wholly to be despised. ‘If Dr Probert had killed Brand it would have been for a different reason, a reason he knew about on Friday evening, the night before the seance. He had time to plan a murder. He wouldn’t have left it to chance. He could have built a fault into the transformer which would have killed Brand and been accepted as an accident. He had no need to use a handkerchief.’

  ‘He pocketed it afterwards,’ said Strathmore.

  ‘He did—and that, more
than anything, convinced me that he hadn’t put it there in the first place. It was the action of a man in a panic, a man who had just seen it there and realised its purpose. He put it in his pocket thinking to protect his daughter. That must have made things difficult for you, Mr Strathmore, because you intended the handkerchief to be found, didn’t you?’

  ‘The whole thing might have been passed off as an accident,’ Strathmore agreed.

  ‘Yes, but you had another reason for wanting it to be found,’ said Cribb. ‘You wanted the world to know that Brand had cheated, and the handkerchief was going to be the proof of that. Instead, you were put into the position of calling him a fraud without any proof at all. Even after he was dead, you couldn’t bear to let anyone believe he might have been genuine, and you made your change of opinion very clear. I remember that Captain Nye commented upon it at the time.’

  ‘Quite right,’ said Nye. ‘It was a damned quick turn about, and I said so. You also made some very dubious remarks about my fiancée’s part in the seance.’

  ‘With good foundation, I gather,’ said Strathmore. He ignored Nye’s spluttering reaction to this, and faced Cribb. ‘Thank you for the explanation, Sergeant. I can see that my mistake was that I behaved unscientifically. I made an assertion which I knew to be true before I could support it with a demonstrable proof. I should have waited for the post mortem to have shown incontestably that Brand was a cheat. I was unscientific, but I can at least claim to have acted in a way consistent with truth, as I have always tried to do in my years of searching for the evidence of life after death. I cannot say the same of all my fellow-searchers.’ He faced Cribb steadily and at that moment looked the least guilt-ridden of all Dr Probert’s guests. ‘Do you require a statement at this stage, Sergeant, or will you take it at the police station?’

  ‘WILL HE HANG?’ Thackeray asked Cribb in the small hours of the morning after the door was closed on Strathmore’s cell in Richmond police station.