by Lisa Tuttle
“He was not there because he was never there,” I said crisply. “Your theory fails. Who would expect me to run outside for help. In my nightdress? With other people in the house? It makes no sense.”
“It makes no sense,” Mr. Jesperson repeated, giving me a curious look. “You are right—and you never behave irrationally. Until last night. You would have rushed out into the street in your bare feet if I had not stopped you in time. And again, perhaps, tonight, if you had not had the foresight to remove the key from your locked door before you went to bed. You know that is so. Can you explain why we both had to stop you from behaving in such an irrational manner?”
I shook my head. I was a puzzle to myself. “People do foolish things when they are frightened. But it could not have been predicted.”
“He could predict your behavior because he had suggested it.”
“Suggested?” I suddenly understood the connotation of the word in connection with previous discussions on the topic. Mr. Creevey’s somnambulatory destination had been the result of “suggestion.” I exclaimed, “You have hypnotism on the brain. What a ridiculous idea.”
“Perhaps. But why does my ridiculous idea make you so angry?”
I realized then that it was not anger that I felt but fear—and disgust—at the idea of being secretly controlled by a stranger. If someone could make me behave so irrationally as to run away from the person I most trusted to help me, what other unwanted and harmful “suggestions” might be waiting like traps to be set off? I said none of that aloud, but only declared, as if saying it could make it true, “I have not been hypnotized.”
“There is no shame in it—anyone may be hypnotized. Well, almost anyone. And Chase is so cunning and sly…You know, it had occurred to me that one way he might work his psychic tricks is through hypnosis. Of course, mass hypnosis is another thing—but Chase had a chance to speak to everyone in the room beforehand. If he had an accomplice to help him—perhaps secreted in the cabinet—and we were all prepared in advance to ignore this helper when he appeared, he would seem to be invisible, and the things he lifted or played would seem to move on their own. I have seen hypnotists do something like that—of course, they are able to choose their subjects, whereas Chase—”
With what dignity I could muster, I rose, wrapped my dressing gown more tightly about myself, and declared the discussion at an end. “I’m going to bed. We can talk more about this tomorrow, when I hope we may all be thinking more clearly.”
Chapter 19
Sunday in Gower Street
The next morning, Edith went to church after breakfast as usual, leaving us reading quietly by the fire in the front room.
There was no mention of the events of the previous night, and I felt sure Mr. Jesperson had decided, in his gentlemanly way, to leave it to me to decide when I felt ready to talk.
Of course, I could think of nothing else.
While my partner sat reading yesterday’s newspapers, I skimmed through Phantasms of the Living, searching in vain for a reference to any medium who might have demonstrated the ability to cause a spirit form to appear in another room at a distance from himself. I wondered if I had been too hasty in discarding the idea that the room itself was haunted. Or was it possible that somewhere in the world, an aged, forgotten relative, lying on his deathbed, was thinking about me? No, that was the least likely explanation of all. Although I was desperate to find some alternative to Mr. Jesperson’s idea that I was under the hypnotic control of Mr. Chase, there were limits to what I might believe instead.
“Aha!”
I looked up to see Mr. Jesperson peering at an article in his paper. “Another jewel theft. But there is something mentioned…Is it different, I wonder, or is this the thread that links them all? But if so, why has it not been mentioned before?”
“Are you only speaking to yourself?”
“Oh! I beg your pardon.” He cleared his throat before describing what he had just read. “Mrs. Davenport, widow, of St. John’s Wood, discovered her diamond necklace missing on Friday morning. A very valuable item, not only in monetary but in sentimental terms, for it had been an engagement present from her late husband. She did not wear it often, for since the death of her husband she seldom went out in public, and least of all to the sorts of events calling for the display of such a necklace.
“She knew it was safe when she went to bed on Thursday, for her maid helped her undo the clasp, and then she put it into its box, and the box into the drawer of her dressing table. As always, Mrs. Davenport locked the drawer, then put the key beneath the clock on her mantelpiece.”
“Where any thief might look.”
“The hiding place was known to her maid, and also to the ‘tweeny’ responsible for dusting said mantelpiece and cleaning the grate and setting the fires.”
“The police think it was an inside job?” Suspicion had fallen upon the servants in the other houses where jewelry had been stolen, but nothing was proved.
He nodded. “There was no sign of a break-in, and the theft can only have been during the night, while she slept, or on Friday morning. She discovered it was gone at about eleven o’clock.”
“Did she usually inspect her jewelry in the mornings after wearing it?”
He smiled and shook his head. “A sudden whim to hold the necklace in her hands.”
“That sounds unlikely.”
“Not when you know her reason for having the diamonds on her person on Thursday evening…an evening when she did not go out.”
“The anniversary of her engagement to her late husband. She wore them in his honor.” I thought that was a clever deduction, but he shook his head.
“No. She took them out for a visitor who came to her house that afternoon. Described as a foreign woman who had the power of channeling the spirits of the departed through precious stones, who was able, by merely holding the diamond necklace, to transmit a most touching and welcome message from the late Mr. Davenport to his still-grieving widow.”
I felt a queasy, sinking sensation.
“After that,” Mr. Jesperson went on, “Mrs. Davenport could not bear to put the diamonds away, but wore them for the rest of the day, feeling that as they touched her neck they continued to keep her close to her late husband. The next morning, she had the desire to touch them again, but…” He raised empty hands.
“Do the police suspect Signora Gallo?”
“Mrs. Davenport was quite clear that she’d had the diamonds in her own possession for many hours after the medium left.”
“But you think she did it.”
He shook his head. “If she returned to the house later that day, or the next morning…She would not have needed the key. We have seen for ourselves that material barriers are no obstacle to her talent: The brooch that was pinned to your jacket beneath your coat, the watch or cigarette case hidden in an inner pocket…they would seem to dematerialize and then materialize again in her hands. What are her limits? Could she draw a necklace to her through the solid walls of a house?”
“Oh, what are we to do?” I cried.
He looked at me, surprised, and scratched his head. “Why…nothing. No one has asked us to find the missing diamonds. It’s not our case.”
“But she must give them back. And stop her thieving. I think she has no more moral sense than a magpie. I’m sure you noticed…she would have been happy to keep a few things she picked up during her performance, if Gabrielle hadn’t stopped her.”
“Then I think you should speak to her—to Miss Fox, I mean. She is the best placed to discover if there is any truth in our suspicion. For it is only a suspicion.”
“I will speak with Miss Fox,” I said. Yet a worm of doubt crept in. Gabrielle was no thief, but her morality was built on shifting sands, enabling her to justify deceit in a good cause—and her own well-being was the best cause she knew. Might she turn a blind eye to her protégée’s crime? To have diamonds in her possession, believing no one suspected, might be a temptation too great to
resist.
—
Shortly after dinner (ham and leek pie served with cabbage and a carrot-and-onion chutney, with apple tart for afters), there was a knock on the door. It was a young lad from Lord Bennington’s house, with a letter for me from Mrs. Chase.
“I’m to wait for a reply,” he told me.
Holding the envelope, still unopened, I bit my lip at the thought of the time it would take me to compose a suitable response in French and, as if my thoughts were written on my face for him to read, the boy added quickly, “You don’t have to write nothing. He said you could just tell me a time, and if it’s today or tomorrow.”
He said? I looked again at the front of the envelope where my name was written; I thought it was her handwriting…Was it a slip of the tongue, or a reminder (as if I needed it) that anything this woman wrote or said to me was likely to be at her husband’s behest?
“I still have to read it and consider my answer,” I told him. “Won’t you come in out of the cold to wait?”
Hearing our voices in the hall, Edith emerged and invited the boy into the kitchen. “You can get warm by the stove,” she told him. “Have a cup of tea…and I think there’s a nice bit of apple tart for you.”
I went back into the front room, explained the letter to Mr. Jesperson, and then read it. In response to my invitation to her to call on me in Gower Street, Nadezhda Chase regretted to inform me that as her husband would not be available to accompany her, it would not be possible for her to go anywhere all week. Mr. Chase was entirely occupied with the preparations for his debut on the London stage. The Alhambra had been engaged for a single performance, now less than a week away, and he must supervise every aspect, down to the smallest detail of the stage sets.
The Alhambra. I paused as the image of that enormous theatre, dominating Leicester Square, filled my mind’s eye. It cast Fiorella Gallo’s London debut into the deepest shade.
Yet I did not doubt that the large hall would be filled to capacity, for Mr. Chase’s plan, aided by Lord Bennington, of demonstrating his powers to a select few in advance of his one night only public performance had been as shrewd as his selection of guests. Word had spread rapidly; already the American medium was the talk of the town. Not only had there been notices in the newspapers and excited gossip from everyone who knew anyone who had been at the séance in Belgrave Square, there were also the advertisements on the sides of omnibuses and on hoardings in public places…By comparison, how pathetic, the few, limp handbills to promote Signora Gallo.
Mrs. Chase beseeched me to take pity on her lonely, solitary state. She had felt a bond of sympathy between us and felt sure we would manage perfectly well without a translator—even ventured to suggest that in the absence of her husband our friendship would have more room to flourish. There were some things (she was sure I would agree) that could only be said from one woman to another…things she did not wish her husband to hear…something she dared not write, but must speak to me about.
How soon could I call upon her? Was it too presumptuous to hope it might be this very afternoon? She found the hours so difficult to fill when her husband was away. She understood I had many claims upon my time. Tomorrow? A carriage could be sent for me. Reaching the end of the letter, I could not resist a shudder.
“She sounds quite desperate,” I said.
“He is the desperate one, and no wonder,” he answered promptly. “He thought he would have caught you before now, but his plan failed. He wants another chance, so he has set Mrs. C as a lure…or a Judas goat.”
I thought of my vision of her as a beautiful little marionette whose limbs twitched and mouth moved accordingly as her husband pulled the strings. Had he set her to write this letter? Sensing my distrust, he wanted me to think he was spending all his time backstage at the Alhambra, so I should feel it safe to visit his wife in Belgrave Square.
And yet…what if she really did have a secret to confess? What if she needed my help?
I proposed to Mr. Jesperson that we should go there together, straight away, but he was unwilling. Turning to the window, he indicated the icy rain. “I’d rather wait for better weather. Besides, you don’t imagine you could hide me about your person?”
His comical look made me laugh. “No, but if we turn up together they can hardly refuse to let you in. If Mr. Chase really is not there, you can go away on some excuse.”
“Tomorrow, perhaps.”
I went back to the kitchen, where the boy was licking sugar from his fingers, looking much happier than when he had arrived. He jumped to his feet when he saw me. I told him to tell Mrs. Chase that I would try to call on her tomorrow morning. “Say that I am sorry not to be able to fix a time, but I’m sure she’ll understand that, in my business, things sometimes come up…Tell her I will do my best. If I cannot make it on Monday, I’ll surely call on Tuesday. Do you want me to write it down?”
He shook his head. “I’ll remember. I’ll tell him all that.”
I frowned. “The message is for Mrs. Chase, not her husband.”
“I know, Miss, but she don’t speak our language. She wouldn’t understand, unless I tell him and he tells her—see?”
I saw too well—and again I wondered if it would be better to give him a letter to be put directly into her hands—but it was too late; the boy was already in the hall, eager to be on his way.
Chapter 20
A Telephone Call
The only disturbances to my sleep that night were caused by my own anxiety. I woke several times with a pounding heart, fearful that my unwanted visitor had returned, but never saw anything amiss.
The next morning, over an unexpectedly lavish breakfast of eggs scrambled with butter, onions, and cheese (one of Edith’s friends from church had made her a gift of freshly laid eggs and a parcel of butter from a country farm), Mr. Jesperson and I fell to arguing over our plans for the day. I thought we should go to Belgrave Square; he was keen to dissuade me and said my time would be better spent reading a recent study of hypnotism.
“Or if you like, I could hypnotize you…no? Perhaps I might be able to put some defenses in place? Well, suit yourself. Depend upon it: Chase has hypnotized you once, and since it did not allow him to achieve his aim, he will want to try again. You should avoid him at all costs; that you are so eager to rush back there suggests that he still has some hold on you.”
I scowled at him as he calmly buttered another slice of toast. “It is not Mr. Chase I want to see, but his wife. After all, if he is such a threat, shouldn’t we find out if she needs our help? She did say she had something important to tell me…”
“In a letter written to his dictation? You told me yourself what an adoring, loving couple they were.”
I decided to ignore that. “You will be with me. Surely, even if Mr. Chase is waiting there for me, like a big spider in his web, I will be safe with you at my side.”
“Your faith in me is touching,” he said with a smile. “I should do my best, of course, but…naturally, I never like to admit to any gaps in my ability. You should read more about hypnosis, so that you may understand. Having once been hypnotized, the subject is more vulnerable to the hypnotist—although it may have taken him quite some time and effort to entrance you in the first instance, upon a second meeting he may need nothing more than to say a particular word to have you again under his spell.”
I looked down at my plate. Although there were a few morsels left, I found I had lost my appetite. I hated to think of being under the influence of Mr. Chase—or indeed of anyone.
“I’m only proposing that we put off this visit a little longer—to arm ourselves as best we can,” he said gently. “More tea?”
—
Perhaps an hour later, as I was plowing my way through the stodgy prose of an essay titled “An Experiment in Hypnotic Suggestion,” a telegram arrived.
It had been sent by Mr. Creevey’s office boy, informing us that his employer had been in receipt of a brief, mysterious telephone call barely ten m
inutes ago.
“At last!” Mr. Jesperson seized his coat and hat, then turned to me with an impatient look. “Come along, come along! There’s no time to waste! Or will you stay here?”
I looked at him stupidly. “Where are we going?”
“To the telephone exchange!” With that, he was out the door. Still not understanding, I snatched my coat and trotted after him.
“I don’t understand…Do you mean to speak to Mrs. Creevey?” I panted out my question as soon as I caught up to him.
“Why should I do that? We want the Lime Street exchange. There—that ’bus—” He seized my arm and pulled me along with him, running for the approaching omnibus.
Once we’d managed to board, he said, “This may be a fool’s errand. But if we can get there quickly enough, I hope one of the telephonists may remember directing a recent call to Creevey’s Careful Removals—and where the call came from.”
After the rush of excitement that had propelled me thus far with him, I felt let down. “Think of all the call offices available in this city; if the villain—whoever he may be—has telephoned from a major railway station, or a tea shop, how will that help us?”
“Don’t always expect the worst,” he said, smiling down at me. “You never know where a clue may lead. We know when the call was made; if we discover where from we’ll have a chance to find a witness. Someone may have noticed and be able to describe him.”
He was clutching at straws. I thought of the A.B.C. cafés with their spanking new call offices and how busy they were likely to be at this time of day. The girls who worked there would never notice a man who slipped in and then quickly out again after making his call, and as for a witness at any of the tables—they would be long dispersed. We would never find our man this way. It was pointless—not so much a fool’s errand, as he had said, but an excuse he’d seized upon to get out of the house. He would rather gallop around London all day and play at detecting than be bored at home.
“I know it seems—indeed it is—a very long shot, but that doesn’t mean it will be a waste of time,” he said, once again disconcerting me by the ease with which he followed my thoughts. “We’ve had so few clues in this case that we cannot afford to pass up a single scrap without picking it up, examining it beneath a magnifying glass, and squeezing it for any tiny droplets of information that might emerge.”