The Curious Affair of the Somnambulist & the Psychic Thief

by Lisa Tuttle

  “Please, help yourselves to coffee,” she urged as she stood up. “I’ll be back very soon, but if you want anything, don’t hesitate to ring the bell.”

  “Well, that changes things,” said Mr. Jesperson as soon as we were alone together. He stretched out one long arm for the silver coffeepot and carefully poured the steaming, dark liquid into two delicate white china cups. “Cream?”

  “Yes, please. But what has changed?”

  “Our understanding.”

  “Our understanding? It is kind of you to include me, but I haven’t the faintest idea—you mean you have solved the mystery?” I looked at him in amazement as he handed me the cup and saucer full of fragrant, hot coffee.

  “Certainly I have not solved it, but now we have a clue. We know for certain that this is not a case for an alienist to solve. Creevey is being directed by someone. Whoever made those mysterious phone calls is the hidden hand who controls the somnambulist, sending him out into the night for reasons we can only guess at.” He picked up a ginger biscuit and chewed it thoughtfully.

  “How could a wordless telephone call direct him to do anything?”

  “The caller did not speak to Mrs. Creevey. It does not follow that he remained silent after hearing Mr. Creevey’s voice. I suspect the caller uttered a word or phrase that would set off a command implanted earlier, under hypnosis, then gave some brief instruction as to where to go and what he must do there.”

  “But he did nothing.”

  “I know. It is likely that he was primed to walk away if apprehended. He may attempt to carry out his instructions again tonight.”

  I thought of our first visit to this house, how Mr. Jesperson had emphasized the importance of noting anything that was different on the days before every instance of somnambulism, and I said, “You expected something like this.”

  Swallowing the remains of another biscuit, he shook his head. “No…I only hoped to find a pattern in what appeared random behavior. If he walked after rich, heavy food or an evening spent listening to sentimental songs…but instead we have found it has nothing to do with his own life. He is under the control of a person unknown. At some time in the past Mr. Creevey has been hypnotized and instructed to await his instructions from a voice on the telephone.”

  Bizarre as it sounded, the theory made sense. “Will you tell him?”

  “Not just yet. We will say nothing to him or his wife. The idea is a disturbing one, and until we have some idea of who is behind it, I don’t think it would do any good to cause alarm, as it surely would.”

  Mrs. Creevey soon returned with an invitation for Mr. Jesperson to attend upon the invalid. As a female unrelated to the family, I did not expect to be welcomed to her husband’s bedside; I hoped I might learn something useful by talking with her.

  I had been too caught up in our conversation about the mysterious person behind Arthur Creevey’s somnambulism to drink my coffee or to taste one of the biscuits. I was glad that my partner had left a few.

  “They are good, aren’t they?” Mrs. Creevey poured herself a cup of coffee, with a nod toward the depleted pile of biscuits. “We are so lucky with our cook! She is a pearl above price.”

  Small talk is not one of my gifts, so with a speed that I hope she did not find brutal, I plunged right in and asked if her husband had ever been hypnotized.

  She gave a startled laugh. “Heavens, no! Did I not tell you how forcefully he rejected that very suggestion from Dr. Linton?”

  “Oh, yes,” I said, although I did not remember it. “But considering Dr. Linton’s ideas about your marriage, Mr. Creevey was not likely to trust him sufficiently to make an attempt at hypnosis successful. Perhaps earlier, under different circumstances…?”

  “Certainly not,” she said firmly as she stirred a spoonful of sugar into her coffee. “My husband would never agree to such a thing.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Goodness, I should think a better question should be: Why ever should he wish to be hypnotized?”

  “Considering that your husband suffers from somnambulism—has done since he was a child—someone along the way might have suggested it, for there is in fact a close connection between the somnambulistic state and the trance state induced by hypnosis.” I felt confident in this, thanks to my recent reading on the subject.

  “You don’t say. Well, that is very interesting,” she said politely. She shook her head. “But so far as I know, no one ever tried to hypnotize Arthur out of his sleepwalking in the years before I met him, and it would be of no use to try to talk him into trying that now.”

  “You are very certain.”

  She smiled over her coffee cup at me. “I do know my husband. And for as long as I have known him, he could never bear the notion of someone taking control of him, making him act the fool, prance about on stage under the impression he was in a ballroom or being pricked with burning needles while the audience roared.”

  I restrained a smile. “But that is stage hypnotism. Hypnotism used for a serious purpose, performed by someone who knows what he is doing, is very different.” I sensed I was losing her and switched tracks. “But I suppose you have seen some sort of show like that?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact; in Paris, on our honeymoon. The show had been recommended to us—we didn’t really know what we were in for.” Her silk dress rustled as she leaned forward. “It was a very high-toned affair—all the best people went to it—variety acts, you know, some very elegant. There was a comic song that may not have been so…but we couldn’t understand it, anyway. There were some wonderful singers, lovely music, some dancers, and then the hypnotist-magician. He had a rather sinister aspect and wore a long black evening cloak, lined with red silk. He did a few conjuring tricks, and then he said he would need a volunteer for the next part of his act. We had seats near the stage, and the man noticed us—noticed Arthur, I should say, and no wonder, for he does stand out, being so big and tall and manly.

  “I suppose the performer thought it would be amusing to make such a powerful-looking gentleman dance to his tune…but Arthur would not be tempted onto the stage—thank goodness! We had no idea, really, what the act would involve, and when we saw what the magician did to his victim…” She frowned sympathetically. “I couldn’t bear to laugh, for thinking how easily it could have been my Arthur acting the fool.”

  “On stage, hypnotism may seem a joke,” I said. “But when used properly, it can be a powerful force for good. It can ease suffering, take away pain, and may in the future be seen as better than drugs for at least some types of surgery.”

  “Really?”

  Recalling a book published fifty years earlier—John Elliotson’s Numerous Cases of Surgical Operations Without Pain in the Mesmeric State—I invented a story about a dentist who was able to put his patients into such a state of relaxation by means of hypnosis that they were no longer frightened to visit him, and many said tooth extraction was utterly painless. Seeing a change in her expression, I stopped. “You’ve remembered something.”

  She stared into her lap and smoothed the folds of her skirt. “Yes…your dentist reminded me…How strange…but the morning after we saw that variety show, very early in the morning, dear Arthur woke with a raging toothache.” Her eyes flashed up to meet mine. “It was odd, because that stage hypnotist had made his poor fool of a volunteer believe he was suffering with toothache, and then pretended to pull about half his teeth. When I heard my Arthur moaning in his sleep, I thought he was dreaming about that—for I’d had a similar bad dream myself. But when he woke, his face was swollen, and he was in dreadful pain. There was nothing for it; he went off in search of a chemist’s shop.”

  She paused. “When he returned, he was a changed man. No—that’s wrong. The pain was gone, and Arthur was himself again. The toothache did not return, and by the time our honeymoon was over, he’d forgotten all about it.”

  “The chemist must have given him some very powerful medicine.”

  “There was no m
edicine. It was too early; the first shop he came to was not yet open, so he went to wait in a café nearby and ordered a brandy. A man at the next table asked if he was unwell. He spoke in English. Pain makes one so vulnerable…My husband thanked him for his concern, explained he had a toothache, and said he thought the brandy he’d ordered was probably the best remedy available, unless he could direct him to a dentist.

  “The man said he could do better than that. He claimed to be a healer, said that by the power of God he could take away pain by simply touching the afflicted person. All Arthur had to do was give him permission.

  “As he told me later, my husband did not really believe; he thought the man probably only wanted an excuse to pray over him and try to convert him to his church, but in pain we reach for any possibility of succor, so he told the gentleman he was welcome to try.”

  “What did he do?”

  Mrs. Creevey screwed up her face with the effort of remembering, then slowly shook her head. “I cannot recall. Some words were spoken, I suppose prayers, and when he told Arthur the pain was gone—it was.”

  My heart pounded with excitement. “What was the man’s name?”

  She smiled and shook her head. “I’m sure he never mentioned it. Arthur described him as a ‘small man’—but to my husband, most men are.”

  “English?”

  “I’m not certain. He spoke in English, but…I have the idea it was with some faint accent.” She shrugged. “Arthur said very little about him. It was selfish, perhaps, but once the pain was gone, neither of us gave it much thought.” She brightened then, recalling a redeeming fact. “Of course, Arthur was most grateful and gave the man his business card with the promise that if he ever needed anything moved in the London area, he would supply his services free of charge.”

  “But you never heard from or saw him again?”

  “I never saw him at all. So far as I know, Arthur has not either—I’m sure he would have told me.”

  She could not remember the name of the hypnotist they had seen perform; just one act among many, after so long, it would have been surprising if she had. The venue had been the Variétés on the Boulevard Montmartre, and she was able to give me a rough idea of the date.

  By the time Mr. Jesperson rejoined us, I was feeling well satisfied and eager to get back for our meeting with Signora Gallo, so we did not linger.

  As we marched briskly through the fog-shrouded streets to South Kensington station, Mr. Jesperson told me he had learned nothing useful from Arthur Creevey. He knew nothing about Lord Bennington, Belgrave Square had no emotional or autobiographical significance, and he could not recall ever having visited any of the houses or offices there.

  “As for the ’phone calls, he could not remember them. Which is interesting: Hypnotic suggestions are often masked with the command to forget all about the surrounding circumstances,” he told me.

  “Did you ask if he’d ever been hypnotized?”

  “He was most vehemently opposed to the very idea. When I tentatively suggested that a qualified, trusted hypnotist—I did not admit I was speaking of myself—might be able to uncover the roots of his somnambulism, I thought he might get up and throw me out!”

  I smiled to myself. “Did he mention the show he saw on his honeymoon, at the Variétés in Paris?”

  “Oh, I gathered he must have seen some such performance at some time. It hardly matters where or when.”

  “Oh, I think it does. What about the mysterious toothache?”

  He looked down at me at his side, matching his pace, and smiled. “What have you learned from his wife?”

  I gave him all the details, finishing just as we reached the station.

  There was a pause to purchase tickets and descend to the platform. Then, as we waited for the arrival of the train, he asked if I thought the man in the café was the same person as the stage hypnotist.

  “I do. If Mr. Creevey was sufficiently suggestible to believe he would wake with a dreadful toothache, he may also have received a subliminal suggestion about which café to take his brandy in. Or the man may have followed him. It was no chance meeting. I suppose he picked Mr. Creevey because he wanted someone to do his bidding in London. It’s too bad Mrs. Creevey couldn’t remember the hypnotist’s name.”

  “We’d be no wiser if she had. Odds are, he called himself Mister Mysterioso.”

  I objected. “Monsieur Mysterioso, surely, in Paris?”

  “In Paris, he’d be a romantic Mister—the exotic foreigner from Birmingham.”

  Giddy with the feeling that we’d had a glimpse of our villain at last, we began to laugh and were smiling still when our train drew in.

  Chapter 11

  Preparations

  Returning to the house on Gower Street, we were met by the delicious scent of baking pies and, less happily, by a letter addressed to both of us in Gabrielle’s familiar hand.

  “Oh, no,” I said, knowing at once she must be writing to cancel our meeting.

  In her note, Gabrielle said Fiorella was too exhausted by her mental and spiritual exertions of the night before to do anything today. Her “reading” of Miss Jessop’s belongings would have to wait until she was rested.

  “Oh, it is too bad of her!” I exclaimed, thrusting the page at Mr. Jesperson.

  “You do not believe her?”

  “She is up to something,” I said darkly.

  “Feminine intuition?” He grinned teasingly.

  “Deductive reasoning,” I responded crisply. I folded my arms and gave him a look. “Go on, see if you can work it out.”

  He glanced again at the brief letter and nodded. “Psychic powers may need rest and renewal just like physical strength. Yet Signora Gallo did not appear worn out at the end of her performance last night; despite her claim, I should have said she stopped out of boredom, not weariness. Nor did Miss Fox voice any concerns before agreeing to come. Which might suggest that something happened this morning to drain the signora’s powers—but you find it more likely that your old friend is not being honest…interesting.” He cocked his head.

  “I have known her a long time,” I replied. “If something had happened this morning, why not say so? It’s the tone of her letter that suggests to me that she is hiding something.”

  “Another missing medium?”

  “You mean Signora Gallo?” I shook my head. “There is no sense of strain in her writing. She is keeping a secret, but only a small one. She worries I might find it out before she is ready, if they came here today.”

  He gazed at me with frank interest, a slight smile on his lips. “How long, do you think, before we learn what secret lies behind the letter?”

  “Not long,” I said, with perfect confidence.

  “Intuition?”

  “Everything I have said is based on my knowledge of her character. Miss Fox is impulsive. She learned something no earlier than last night and no later than this morning. Deciding to act upon it, she canceled our meeting, aware that I might try to dissuade her if I knew her intent. Whatever it is will take place very soon.”

  Mrs. Jesperson came into the hall. “I thought I heard you come in. Why are you still standing out here? The pie is ready; come have your dinner.”

  —

  Afterward, with a French dictionary close by, I wrote a letter in my most careful hand and best schoolgirl French to the management of the Variétés, Boulevard Montmartre 7, Paris. (I had confirmed the address in a recent edition of Baedeker’s Paris.)

  I represented myself as a partner in a theatrical agency who had heard good reports of a stage magician and hypnotist who had once appeared at their theatre. Alas, the man’s name was unknown to me, but I provided the dates of his engagement and hoped they might oblige with details of the hypnotist’s manager, agent, or address. Then I walked down to the post office and sent the letter on its way.

  The letter and short walk had not quenched my need to be active. There were still some hours to fill before we could leave for Belgrave Squar
e, and I paced the room and tried to think of something to do while Mrs. Jesperson did some mending before the fire and Mr. Jesperson sat absorbed in his newspapers. He was always on the lookout for some interesting crime, but most criminal events that were reported had no real mystery about them, being acts of violence performed by young toughs, thugs, and petty villains who went after what they thought of as easy prey and were soon caught.

  My train of thought led me back to our recent encounter with the knife-wielding young thug whom Mr. Jesperson had disarmed by use of what he liked to call his “snake charming technique”—hypnotism, mesmerism, mind control, call it what you will—it was a most remarkable power, and more terrifying than any weapon one could see. Much as I trusted him and believed him to be a good person, I still found it disturbing to realize that my partner was capable of exercising that same dark art with which an unknown villain had ensnared Mr. Arthur Creevey.

  And yet Mr. Jesperson’s practical knowledge of the subject could give us a better chance than most of solving the mystery behind Mr. Creevey’s somnambulism.

  “Miss Lane, forgive me, but is it truly necessary for you to pace up and down like that?” I stopped, surprised, and turned to face Mrs. Jesperson, who immediately tempered her complaint with a forced smile. “I fear you will wear through the carpet, which we cannot afford to replace.”

  “Forgive me.” I dropped down in the empty chair beside her, but once there, I fidgeted uneasily. “I’m full of restless energy. I should go out for a walk if not for the fog. I don’t like doing nothing. I hate being useless.”

  Mr. Jesperson looked up from his papers and said pedantically: “Do not confuse motion with utility. After all, there are times when inaction is the correct response—when the wisest and most useful thing one can do is—nothing.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Is that a bit of eastern wisdom you picked up on your travels?”