The Curious Affair of the Somnambulist & the Psychic Thief

by Lisa Tuttle

  The notion of shy, innocent, middle-aged Miss Jessop in a big man’s arms should have been nonsensical, but I found it terrifying. The question had to be asked. “Signora—was he a bad man? Did a bad man take her?”

  “Oh, no, not bad man! Good. She happy go with him. So happy!”

  Tears pricked the back of my eyes as I recalled Hilda confiding in the servant at her lodging house, telling her not to weep but to be happy…poor, dear Hilda Jessop! She’d had a vision of her own death and accepted it as true believers were meant to, not as something to fear and struggle against, but as a promise of eternal joy in the afterlife. No more worries about money or lonely old age…she trusted in her vision of heaven.

  “Where is she now?” I asked.

  Gabrielle pressed. “Does Hilda say that she’s happy?”

  The medium frowned at us. “How I know what Hilda say? I no talk to Hilda. I ask her leetle book; this tell me what it knows. And it no know where she go.”

  “Won’t you let Hilda speak through you, dear?” Gabrielle asked gently. “We are her friends; we’d love to hear from her, and I’m sure she’d be happy—”

  Signora Gallo’s eyes widened. “She not dead!”

  I felt a rush of hope—absurd, yet there it was. I believed that she knew.

  “You say Hilda Jessop is alive?”

  “Certo.”

  “Then ask the book where she is.”

  “Pah!” Abruptly she flung the address book in my direction; I just managed to catch it. Then, in a confusing torrent that mingled half-comprehensible English with her own rapid tongue, she explained why.

  She could read the object, picking up fragments about Miss Jessop, because she had carried it around with her and used it, and her handwriting gave the mass-produced notebook an element of her personality. But precious stones and metals, especially gold, vibrated on a higher frequency than other materials and were thus able to store more lasting impressions for the gifted reader, and when an object was a valued gift, something of the giver was stored in its memory as well. Mr. Baldwin probably thought of the friend who had given it to him every time he used his silver cigarette case, which was why Signora Gallo had picked up the details of Guy’s predicament. If she could hold a much-loved piece of jewelry—a wedding ring, or something that had been passed down in the family—something that Miss Jessop had handled or worn regularly and would remember when parted from it—then the medium might be able to give us a more detailed and precise picture of what had become of our missing friend.

  Alas, if Hilda Jessop had owned anything like that, it must have vanished with her, for there was nothing of value left behind in her room. I somehow doubted she would give a second thought to the items on her dressing table, even if (as seemed unlikely) they were of real silver.

  After all that, Signora Gallo announced she was through for the night.

  Gabrielle gave her a hard look and received a theatrical yawn in response.

  “Try again. Surely there is another object—or two—waiting for your attention.”

  “No, no, nothing more,” she muttered, avoiding her interlocutor’s gaze.

  “Are you quite certain? We don’t want any complaints.”

  But nothing more could be had from the signora. Gabrielle shrugged and addressed the hall.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, we thank you for your attention and your patience. Before you go, would you make sure that you have all your valuables about you? Please take time to check any items of jewelry that you came with are still on your person. Occasionally—”

  She was interrupted by a sudden shriek.

  “My ring! My diamond ring is gone!”

  Miss Fox shot a sideways glance at the medium, who was gazing off into the distance. “Thank you, madam, there is no need to scream. We will recover it for you. As I was about to explain, Signora Gallo has a magnetic attraction to certain objects, which operates without any intention on her part. Objects made of gold, or set with precious stones, are drawn to her presence, even when she is too tired to notice. But your ring will soon complete its transition back into the material state…Signora, if you please…?”

  While others in the audience were gripped by the mystery of the missing diamond, anxiously checking their own wrists, hands, necks, and pockets, or attending to Miss Fox’s explanation, I kept my eyes firmly upon the little woman in red, and this time I was able to see the almost unnoticeable movements by which Signora Gallo conveyed an object from her sleeve into her fingers.

  “Ecco!” she cried, holding up the ring as if she had just plucked it from the air, to be rewarded with enthusiastic applause.

  And it was a wonder, for although I had seen her take the object from her sleeve, it was still a mystery how it had come to be there. Remembering what had happened to me—my certainty that the scarab had been securely fastened to my lapel and could not have been removed by any normal means—I was baffled. I turned the puzzle over in my mind while the medium related various facts concerning the owner of the diamond ring: how her lover had presented it to her with a proposal of marriage, the overwhelming joy she had felt, their continuing happiness together, etc. Any competent confidence trickster could have cobbled together a similar tale, but it satisfied the audience, and when the ring was returned to the hand of its blushing owner, the applause that filled the hall might have been as much for the romantic heroine as for the psychic talents displayed by Signora Gallo.

  Before we left, I was determined to have another word with Miss Fox, so while Mr. Jesperson moved among the crowds, chatting seemingly casually, and yet with purpose—for he was trying to find anyone who might have more information regarding any of the missing mediums—I waited patiently until some of the admiring crowd clustered around the medium and her protector had thinned, and I was able to speak to her privately. It did not take much to get her to agree to visit us again; she promised to bring Signora Gallo to Gower Street the next afternoon. I said I would borrow some more of Miss Jessop’s possessions, in the hope that they might carry more information that the medium could read.

  “If she can help us find Miss Jessop,” I said, “I promise you, Signora Gallo will have no more ardent promoter than I!”

  Gabrielle positively sparkled with possessive pride as she assured me: “Fiorella will be better than any bloodhound for tracking her! Until tomorrow then—two o’clock?”

  —

  Outside, the fog had grown even thicker and more choking. Mr. Jesperson and I did not indulge in conversation, but adjusted our scarves to cover our noses as we made our way cautiously through the muffled streets. When we reached Oxford Street, Mr. Jesperson stepped into the road to hail a cab.

  “What’s wrong with the ’bus?” I demanded.

  “Nothing, save I need to go to Kensington, and you in the opposite direction.”

  “Then we’ll go our separate ways.” Before he could stop me, I waved off the approaching hansom cab.

  He gave a martyred sigh. “I don’t have time to go to Gower Street.”

  Nettled, I scowled. “I’m not asking you to come with me.”

  “You can’t go by yourself.”

  “I am quite accustomed to traveling alone about the city.”

  “But not at night. You may be standing, waiting, for some time—I should worry, even if you don’t. Look, there’s another cab—let me—”

  “No. It’s a waste of money.”

  “I’ll pay.”

  His thoughtless remark made me lash out. “You? It’s hardly yours.”

  “It is no waste when the money saves us time.”

  “I am in no hurry.”

  “I am.”

  “Then go.”

  There we stalled. I caught sight of an approaching omnibus and was about to hail it, when I realized it was on the wrong route. The silence grew between us. Another omnibus approached.

  “Look, a Number Six—won’t that take you…?”

  “I won’t leave you here alone.” He spoke over my o
bjection. “You do not ask me to, but I must. It is common courtesy and common sense.”

  Unfortunately, he was right. Although I hated to feel that I was in need of protection, this was a big, bad city, and not all the men who roamed the nighttime streets were as gallant as Mr. Jesperson. I had no weapon but my wit, which might not suffice if I persisted in putting myself in the way of danger.

  So I made no further protest—although I would not get down from my economic high horse and allow the hire of a cab, he could wait with me, and then accompany me back to Gower Street before he set off again, with his rapid, long-legged stride, for Kensington.

  Chapter 10

  A Nocturnal Perambulation

  An unexpected noise, followed by light footsteps on the stairs, startled me awake in the dark reaches of the night. From outside my door, a low voice said, “Go back to sleep; it’s only three o’clock.”

  It may be he spoke to his mother rather than to me, but I went obediently back to dreamland, not even pausing to wonder why Jasper had not spent the night in Kensington.

  When I rose at my usual hour, he was sleeping, and I had time to go to the house in Longridge Road and return before he got up.

  Upon my return, I sat in the front room, while Mrs. Jesperson made a fresh pot of tea and joined us. As her son munched his way through a plate of buttered toast, he told us of his nocturnal adventure.

  After he had left me, it was so late that few ’buses were still running, and there were no cabs to be had, so he simply walked, and arrived to find the Creeveys’ house dark and still.

  He had just been debating with himself over the question of rousing someone to let him in, or keeping watch from without, when the front door opened and the somnambulist emerged.

  “I followed him…and where do you suppose he went?”

  I could not imagine and motioned for him to go on.

  He smiled. “He took up a position beneath a streetlamp, facing a house on the north side of Belgrave Square.”

  I stared at him in disbelief. “You don’t say…Lord Bennington’s house?”

  “The very same.”

  “And then?”

  “And then, unfortunately, a policeman arrived.”

  A London bobby, patrolling his beat, had noticed the hulking figure standing in the pool of light beneath a lamp, eyes fixed on one of the grand houses that surrounded the square, and, quite naturally, demanded to know his business. The large man made no reply, and as the policeman became more insistent, Creevey walked away.

  “The bobby pursued him and was reaching for his truncheon when I managed to intercede.”

  “You are lucky he didn’t whack you with his truncheon. Or haul you both in for questioning.” I felt bitterly disappointed that we had not discovered Mr. Creevey’s purpose. “But I suppose you managed to spin some story…”

  “I am lucky to have been born with an honest face,” he replied, eyes twinkling. “And a fertile imagination. However, the story I told was true. The gentleman suffers from fits of sleepwalking, and his wife hired me to keep him out of trouble. The copper was intrigued by the notion of a sleepwalker…”

  “I suppose he had seen a play featuring the subject?”

  “Something of the sort. I was advised to keep Creevey on a closer rein in future, and he let us go.”

  “Go where?”

  “Creevey went home. I waited a little while to be sure he would not come out again, and then so did I. I’m surprised the soles of my shoes have not worn through.”

  “You are certain it was Lord Bennington’s house he was watching?”

  He gave me a reproachful look. “I saw where he went. I should not say ‘watching’—what does the sleeper see?—but he certainly faced that house. Who can say what might have happened if the policeman hadn’t come by.” He crunched up the last bit of toast and licked buttery crumbs from his fingers. “Perhaps Mrs. Creevey will be able to shed some light on the matter.”

  Mrs. Jesperson objected when he stood up. “You are not going to Kensington now?”

  “Why not?”

  “You were rambling through London nearly all night in the cold and fog.”

  Smiling, he shrugged off her concern. “You know how walking revives me, Mother! It’s a source of power. Even when it tires me physically, my brain is stimulated.”

  With a glance at me, he laughed suddenly. “Don’t look so worried, Miss Lane. Of course we can take the underground—or catch a ’bus, if you prefer.”

  “I am always happy to walk,” I said, feeling rather cross—after all, hadn’t I just been tramping the streets this morning while he slept? “I wasn’t thinking of saving my legs, but of the time. You have not forgotten, I hope, that we are expecting a visit from Miss Fox and her pet medium?”

  “At two o’clock. All the more reason to leave at once.”

  —

  Our reception by Mrs. Creevey was not as welcoming as before. She was cordial, yet I felt a reproach in the way she gazed at Mr. Jesperson.

  “Mrs. Creevey, we won’t disturb you long, but we have a few questions. First, did anything unexpected or out of the ordinary occur yesterday?”

  “Apart from you not turning up as expected?”

  He smiled. “Apart from that.”

  “Well, there was just one little thing. The telephone. It rang on two separate occasions—yet there was no one at the other end.”

  “An open line?”

  The phrase meant nothing to me, but she agreed. “It seemed someone was there, saying nothing, only listening.”

  “You answered the ’phone yourself?”

  “I always pick it up if my husband isn’t here, and this was sometime after five o’clock, shortly before he arrived home.”

  “And the second call?”

  “Arthur was at home then; it was perhaps half an hour later, and he picked it up and said his name, as he always does, and then some moments passed, without him saying anything more, until he put down the handset.”

  “What did he say to you about it?”

  “That it was a mistake, a crossed line or a wrong number. It happens.”

  “Has it happened before?”

  “Yes…I remember one time last month.”

  “You answered?”

  “No—I was puzzled, because he said his name and then nothing else, for at least a minute. I asked him about it, when he had ended the call, and he said there was no one on the line and it was probably a fault.” She gazed thoughtfully into the middle distance as she remembered. “It seemed strange to me—both times that he said nothing more to elicit a response. Myself, I said ‘hello’ and ‘do you hear me’ so many times I must have sounded like a parrot!”

  “I’m sure most people would do the same,” I said. “But perhaps your husband did not feel, as you did, that there was someone listening at the other end.”

  “Then why remain on the line?”

  Mr. Jesperson said, “Do you recall the date of that first wordless call—was it just before a night he went sleepwalking?”

  She blinked. “Why…I do believe…it may have been. Yes. And he walked last night.”

  “I know. I followed him.”

  Emotions chased across her face: surprise, indignation, comprehension, worry. “You knew? And waited outside? Did you think—perhaps it was your presence that kept him in bed? That he would not walk until ‘the coast was clear’? But…I thought he didn’t know what he did while he slept; that it was outside his control.”

  “His waking self has no idea what he does, where he goes, or why, I am certain,” Mr. Jesperson assured her. “When he sleeps, another part takes over. Yet that unconscious part must be able to call upon the knowledge and memories of his conscious self. Last night was the first night since I came that your husband went to bed in the knowledge—that is, the belief—that if he rose in the night, only you would know; and as he had forbidden you to follow him yourself, there would be no one to see where he went. If it wished the secret kept, his
sleeping self would feel secure.”

  Mrs. Creevey’s homely face glowed with admiration. “My, you are clever.”

  I felt a childish urge to kick his ankle, and if I’d had the concealment of a table I might have done so, especially as he smiled smugly and basked in her praise, when he really should have told her his late arrival was not planned—it was down to me and my stubborn refusal to be put into a cab.

  “Would you care for a cup of coffee? I often have one about now, and I think Cook was making ginger biscuits—so nice with coffee.”

  After she had rung for the maid and given her order, Mrs. Creevey asked, “Where did he go? Have you solved the mystery? Will there be an end to it now?”

  “The mystery is far from ended, Mrs. Creevey. Does Belgrave Square have any special meaning to you—in connection with your husband?”

  She blinked and stared. “Belgrave Square? Is that where Arthur went? We walked there together once, although for no particular reason; and I can’t recall anything that would mark it out as memorable enough to call him back.”

  “What about Lord Bennington?”

  She looked even more baffled. “What about him?”

  “Does the name mean anything to you—or to your husband?”

  “What should we have to do with aristocracy? I have heard of him, of course, but I couldn’t tell you what. A name from the newspapers. Oh—his wife died a few years ago, I remember how sad it was, especially with all those little children.”

  “Is there no connection between you and anyone in his lordship’s household?”

  She paused to think carefully. “One or two of Arthur’s relations are in service, but none in Lord Bennington’s employ. At least, he has never mentioned it. You could ask him.”

  I looked at the pyramid-shaped clock on the mantelpiece and thought that we would be hard pressed to fit in a visit to Mr. Creevey’s workplace and get home again before two o’clock.

  “Let me go see if he is awake,” she said, just as the door opened upon the maid bearing a tray with the coffee service. “I will tell him you are here.”

  Seeing our looks of surprise, she explained, “My husband awoke with a cough. I’m sure it was caused by wandering around on such a horrible, foggy night. I insisted he stay home, keep warm, and try to recover. That office of his is very drafty, and if anything happens that he needs to know about, one of his men can telephone to him.