Mr Scarletti's Ghost

by Linda Stratmann

  She also received a letter from Miss Simmons, revealing that Mr Clee, the man who she regarded as her future husband, had somehow omitted to tell her his address. She had only ever met him in the streets or gardens of Brighton, and on each occasion they had made the appointment for their next meeting. It was essential, she wrote, that she should advise him of her new position, but unaccountably, at their most recent rendezvous, he had not appeared. Thinking that there might have been some mistake, she had gone to all their usual haunts, but he was nowhere to be found. Miss Simmons was by now consumed with fear that her betrothed had been taken ill, and was unable to send for help. She had called on Professor Gaskin for information, but he was unable to assist, other than assuring her that when he had last seen Mr Clee a few days previously, he was in perfect health. He promised to pass on a message to Miss Eustace, and shortly afterwards a brief note was received advising that although Miss Eustace understood that Mr Clee was resident in Brighton, she did not know his address. Miss Simmons had then attended one of Mr Bradley’s healing circles, which she knew Mr Clee occasionally patronised, but Mr Clee was not there, and no one at the gathering knew where he lived. She had applied for a ticket to Miss Eustace’s next séance, feeling sure that she would see Mr Clee there, but was told that the séances were fully subscribed and would be so for some time to come. In desperation she had taken to standing outside Professor Gaskin’s lodgings in case Mr Clee should enter, but without any result.

  Miss Simmons begged Mina to tell her if she knew her betrothed’s address, but, of course, Mina did not. Mina wondered if Dr Hamid had found anything in Eliza’s effects to suggest where Mr Clee lived, but on enquiring there, found that all Eliza’s correspondence had been sent via Professor Gaskin, his lodgings being the address on the calling card left by Miss Eustace, and Mr Clee had not been a client of Dr Hamid’s baths.

  The desperate efforts of Miss Simmons to try and find Mr Clee, who, she was eager to advise anyone who wished to listen, was her intended, did eventually produce one result, a letter, postmarked London, the envelope printed with the name of a firm of solicitors, addressed to Miss Simmons at the Scarletti address, which Mina was obliged to bear to her former employee, now residing with her married sister Mrs Langley in Dorset Gardens.

  Miss Simmons received the missive with great excitement and relief, for while she had never seen Mr Clee’s handwriting she felt convinced that the letter was addressed in his hand, while the stationery he had employed proved that he had been attending to urgent business matters in London. Although she did not state it outright there was more than a hint of hope in her voice that the long and worthy life of his great-aunt might have drawn peacefully to its natural close.

  Mrs Langley, a capable-looking young woman, was bearing up admirably under the requirements of a baby whose teeth seemed to erupt every five minutes. There was barely time for Mina to be introduced to her before a squeal of renewed outrage from the nursery sent the attentive mother hurrying away. Mina decided it was best to offer to withdraw so that Miss Simmons might enjoy her letter in private, but was reassured that this was unnecessary. ‘You have been a better friend to me than anyone other than my own family, and you must share the good news.’ Mina sat at the parlour table, while Miss Simmons went to fetch a letter opener. Even with the aid of the little silver knife, used carefully so as not to harm the precious contents, her hands were trembling so violently that it was a close question as to whether she would tear the envelope or stab herself in the hand.

  There were two sheets of paper in the envelope, and although Mina could not see what was written, she observed that they were business notepaper, the top one with a printed heading. Miss Simmons read, at first eagerly, then with her eyes opening wide in disbelief, and by the time she reached the bottom of the first page, she almost fell back into a chair.

  ‘Is it bad news?’ asked Mina. ‘Would you like me to fetch your sister?’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘There must be some mistake.’ She glanced at the letter again, but this time her eyes flooded with tears and she was unable to read it. She held it out to Mina. ‘Please, look at this, I can’t see.’

  The letter was not written by Mr Clee, but by a solicitor employed by Mr Clee. This gentleman had been instructed to advise Miss Simmons that he was aware that she had been spreading the rumour in Brighton that she was affianced to his client, a circumstance which had caused considerable distress and annoyance not only to his client but to the young lady of fortune and good family to whom Mr Clee was actually affianced and whom he was due to marry very soon. Miss Simmons was accordingly instructed to cease at once from spreading the untrue story, with the assurance that if she complied, then no unpleasant consequences would ensue. Should she continue, however, his client would have no alternative but to take further action to force her to desist.

  There was nothing for Mina to do but go and fetch Mrs Langley at once, and show her the letter. Mrs Langley’s expression as she read revealed that the contents, while unpleasant, were not, to her, wholly unforeseen.

  Miss Simmons, heartbroken and wretched, was taken to a darkened room to rest. Mina naturally supposed that she ought to leave, but Mrs Langley asked her to remain. Her sister, she said, had spoken very highly of Mina and she would appreciate her advice.

  Mrs Langley was a lady of very strong beliefs as to what was right and what was wrong. Proposing marriage to her sister and then pretending that the event had never occurred was a wrong that was not to be accepted lightly or without compensation. Making threats against her sister, who had done nothing more than tell the truth, was not to be tolerated.

  Mr Clee had made a very grave error, said Mrs Langley with the steely look of someone bent on revenge. He had assumed that when he and Miss Simmons had gone on their romantic perambulations while she had followed at a discreet distance, that his words could not be overheard, but he was mistaken. She had been suspicious of his intentions from the start, and being blessed with unusually sharp hearing, she had been able to remain within earshot the whole time, and had heard every word he spoke. Mr Clee, she confirmed, had made her sister an honourable offer which he claimed could only be realised when he came into his fortune. Whatever his motives might have been, it was clear that he now had no further use for her, but by communicating through a solicitor, he had now supplied an address at which he could be reached. If her sister was willing to bring an action for breach of promise of marriage – and she would strongly encourage her to do so – she was fully prepared to go to court and give evidence of Mr Clee’s guilt. It only remained for the family to appoint a legal advisor, and Mina suggested that she approach young Mr Phipps who she thought might be the very man.

  Since Mrs Langley was a level-headed lady and not given to attacks of emotion, Mina decided to lay before her everything she had thus far uncovered about the medium who had been committed to prison in 1869. If Mr Clee was already a married man, most probably the husband of Miss Eustace, then unless his claim to be affianced to another lady was a lie to extricate himself from any association with Miss Simmons, he had been planning to commit a very serious crime, and had some questions to answer about his conduct. She saw a fresh light in the lady’s eyes, the light of a huntress who had sighted her prey, noted its weaknesses and was in determined pursuit. Young Mr Phipps was about to be presented with a case that would shock and scandalise Brighton, and perhaps even bring a sudden end to the career of Miss Eustace.

  Mina and Mrs Langley, seeing that they had a shared concern, promised to keep each other acquainted with developments. A few days later, however, Mina received a somewhat disappointing letter from her new friend.

  Mr Clee, she learned, on being confronted with the newspaper report of 1869, had denied that he had any acquaintance with the lady named therein, declared that the newspaper must have made an error in the medium’s name, and asserted that he was a single man, had never been married, and anyone who attempted to prove otherwise was free to try it
, but would inevitably fail.

  The confidence with which he made these denials made Mina pause. Either he knew that no proof of a marriage could be found, or he was gambling that no one would trouble to make enquiries. Mina did not feel equipped to challenge him on this point, but at least Miss Simmons’s suit still remained.

  There was better news from Richard, which Mina thought well worth the inevitable price of the dinner and wine she provided for her brother and Nellie. Richard had discovered that Miss Eustace was living in a lodging house in Bloomsbury Place. As he had promised, the secret had not been a hard one to uncover; he had simply hired a messenger boy to loiter outside the Gaskins’ rooms on the night of a séance and then follow the medium to her lair. The lady, it was reported, on leaving the house had stepped quickly into a cab that had been ordered in advance, and it had been a delicate balance between speed and concealment to keep up with her progress unseen. The cab had not paused to take another person on board and Miss Eustace had completed her journey and slipped into the lodgings alone. A careful watch had been kept for some hours but no one else entered the premises. The house boasted a basement, a ground floor, and three upper storeys, but how these were divided and how many tenants were accommodated was unknown.

  ‘Perhaps Lady Finsbury might pay her a visit,’ suggested Nellie, who was resplendent in another new gown and a necklace that sparkled rainbows like broken glass. She patted the jewels occasionally as if wishing that they were real. ‘I am sure Miss Eustace would be very amenable to that. The only slight awkwardness would be explaining how I came by her address, which she has clearly been at some pains to conceal.’

  ‘I don’t suppose she has thought to try to discover if Lady Finsbury exists,’ said Richard, easing open a button on his waistcoat and puffing at a cigar. ‘These lying types are so easily taken in, you just have to play them with their own tricks.’

  ‘That’s it!’ said Mina. ‘Her own trick! Of course!’

  ‘Oh you have a perfectly wicked imagination, Mina,’ said Richard, appreciatively. ‘We are all ears.’

  ‘All that Lady Finsbury needs to do,’ explained Mina, ‘is say that she was given the address by a spirit. Miss Eustace can hardly argue with that, as it is her stock in trade. Even if she is a conjurer, there may be some shred of belief in her that the things she pretends are real. I suggest, Miss Gilden, that you go there in your finest gown and best jewels, present Lady Finsbury’s card, and insist on an immediate interview. She is bound to see you.’

  Nellie nodded, thoughtfully. ‘I can carry that off without any trouble; and perhaps I should offer some reason why the interview cannot take place at my hotel; a disapproving or invalid husband, perhaps. But what reason should I give for the urgency of my request?’

  ‘There is only one thing that tempts Miss Eustace and her kind, and that is money,’ said Mina. ‘Perhaps the spirit has spoken of buried treasure or a hidden will, at any rate something of great value, and has directed you to Miss Eustace as the only means of discovering its location.’

  ‘But would she agree to that?’ said Richard dubiously. ‘She can produce messages that make sense to the listener, but finding some hidden object would surely be beyond her. She might fear losing her reputation if it is not found.’

  ‘If the customer is eager enough and willing to be duped, she will agree,’ said Mina. ‘Only make it clear that she will be paid well whatever the result. All we really want is the opportunity for Miss Gilden to visit Miss Eustace, and note anything in her apartments which might offer us clues as to her mode of life and business.’

  Miss Gilden smiled. ‘That should be easy enough. I shall even provide her with a picture of the spirit.’

  ‘A picture?’ said Mina.

  ‘Oh, I have any number of portraits of theatrical persons. What about Rolly?’ said Miss Gilden, turning to Richard.

  He laughed. ‘Oh yes, Rolly Rollason, the master of mirth. He has this thing he says—’ Richard adopted a curious pose with his arms wrapped about his head, and affected a villainous grimace – ‘I ain’t, though! Ain’t I?’ he said gruffly, and chuckled. ‘Very droll.’ He paused. ‘Nellie, dear, I didn’t know you had his picture?’

  ‘Oh, a great many gentlemen give me their pictures,’ said the charming Nellie, without even the hint of a blush. ‘Yes, there is a very characterful one of him which would do extremely well. He is in evening dress, wearing a monocle and a full wig and staring at a rose. I shall tell Miss Eustace that he is my late uncle. If she manages to produce his ghost that would be most amusing.’

  ‘You will be very convincing, my dear,’ said Richard. ‘Perhaps, to demonstrate your grief concerning the deceased relative, your personation from The Wayward Ghost would be suitable?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Nellie with a smile. ‘It was a burlesque of the tragedy of Hamlet,’ she explained to Mina, ‘I played Ophelia and sang and danced and went mad and tore my clothes to ribbons.’

  ‘There were gentlemen in the front row in tears every night,’ said Richard. ‘I think Lady Finsbury might aspire to a slightly more modest exhibition of distress, but if Miss Eustace hesitates to assist then you might open the floodgates a little. Yes, let us make the attempt tomorrow!’ He signalled the waiter and ordered a glass of brandy.

  ‘And what of Miss Foxton, how does she prosper?’ asked Mina.

  ‘Well, we have not quite reached the heights of the Theatre Royal or the Dome,’ said Richard, almost as if that was a possibility, ‘but we have played extensively in some very prestigious drawing rooms, and just lately we have been reaching an altogether wider audience by taking our turn at the New Oxford Theatre of Varieties in New Street.’

  ‘We appear just after the Chinese sword-swallower and before the one-legged gymnast,’ said Nellie.

  ‘How wonderful!’ exclaimed Mina, thankful that her mother was as likely to patronise such an establishment as she would a hospital for infectious diseases.

  ‘Only sixpence for a seat in the gallery and packed to bursting every night,’ said Richard. ‘We are in place for the whole of the summer but we might look for something more elegant in the high season. Mind-reading, perhaps.’

  ‘Can you do that?’ asked Mina.

  ‘Oh yes, I used to be the Ethiopian Wonder when I was with M. Baptiste,’ said Nellie. ‘I had to be Ethiopian so I could wear paint and wouldn’t be recognised. It was a wonderful costume.’

  ‘It is all a trick, though,’ said Mina.

  ‘Everything is a trick,’ said the former Ethiopian Wonder. ‘The secret is making it look as if something is happening before your eyes that you know to be impossible. Of course in a séance it’s still impossible and it’s still a trick, only then people believe it. And, of course, they pay more to see it.’

  ‘I don’t expect you to tell me how these things are done,’ said Mina, ‘but there are some things that I can’t explain, and it is those that trouble me most, the things that Miss Eustace tells people at the private séances. Everyone who has been to one says that they are told things, quite personal things unknown to anyone else, things that Miss Eustace could not possibly have known and which therefore must be messages from the deceased. It is those messages that convince people she is genuine. I applied for a private reading myself, but she will not grant me one. That fact alone tells me she is a fraud. If she was genuine she would have nothing to fear.’

  ‘People who want to believe in the spirits are too ready to dismiss something as impossible by natural means,’ said Nellie. ‘They say that the medium could not have known this or that, but there is always a way. How many secrets are there that are known to only one or two people?’

  ‘Dr Hamid, whose sister died very recently, claims he has received messages from her that convince him,’ said Mina. ‘Miss Hamid would not discuss the pain she suffered except with her own family, yet Miss Eustace was able to say where it was.’

  ‘It is like every such trick,’ said Nellie. ‘When you do not know the secret it is mys
terious and inexplicable. Once you know, it seems so simple, so obvious, you would swear that a child could do it. Remember, Miss Eustace does not work alone. She is like a spider with a web, and she spins it all around the town and draws people in. I am sure that if you took a single example of something she has said and found out how she learned about it, you would discover a great deal more about the lady and how she deceives people, and perhaps then some of her followers would see her for what she is.’

  ‘Only some, not all?’ asked Mina, although she knew the answer.

  ‘Only some,’ said Nellie.

  Twenty-Two

  Not for the first time Mina was tempted to put her case before the police but on reflection, realised that she had nothing to go to the police with. She had not been fooled or paid over any money, so had nothing personally to complain about, and anything she said would be opposed by a chorus of voices extolling the virtue and probity of the medium.

  The next time Mina exercised at Hamid’s she expressed her continuing anxieties to Anna. Anna now had quite a number of lady patients who went to her to exercise, often for diseases of the spine. She did not believe in the wearing of stays during these activities, indeed she confided in Mina that she did not approve of the wearing of stays at all, since she thought that a lady’s own body ought to be developed to create and support her shape and not pulled into some distortion dictated by fashion in order to please men. She had therefore devised an exercise costume consisting of a loose blouse and pantaloons which ladies might either purchase or hire. Mina had ordered a set made to her own dimensions, and it was beautifully comfortable. If she had one exercise that she especially enjoyed it was a simple side stretch, not so much because it was in itself pleasurable, but because she knew from what she was told that when she placed her left hand on the back of a chair and leaned to one side, raising her right foot from the ground, this was the one position in which, perversely, her spine lay perfectly straight. How she wished she had known that some years before, when, ordered to straighten her back by her mother, she could quite simply have adopted this pose.