The Problem of the Spiteful Spiritualist

by Roberta Rogow

  Together, the two men mounted the stairs and went to their rooms.

  Mr. Dodgson opened the door to his room and tried to take in the scene that greeted his eyes.

  “Mr. Hill!” he exclaimed shrilly. That worthy man erupted from the nether regions of the Bush Hotel, where he had been relaxing with a comfortable bottle of his best cognac, a reward for having successfully brought off the coup of the year: the meeting of the Portsmouth Literary and Scientific Society graced by none other than the Reverend Charles Dodgson, known to the literary world as Lewis Carroll.

  Mr. Hill joined his notable guest in staring at the room. The bedding had been stripped from the bed and the mattress had been slashed several times. Mr. Dodgson’s belongings had been tossed into a heap on the floor. His diary was open, and his few books had been added to the pile of clothes. His own razor had been left on the mattress, as if to mark the spot.

  Mr. Hill turned purple with mortification. “This must have happened while you were addressing the meeting,” he sputtered. “My chambermaid turns down the beds at eight o’clock each night promptly, unless the room is already occupied. I can assure you, Mr. Dodgson, nothing like this has ever happened in my hotel before!”

  “I would never accuse you of keeping a disorderly house,” Mr. Dodgson said. “But this does make one consider.”

  “I shall see to your clothes immediately,” Mr. Hill said, gathering up the scattered garments. “If I have to press your trousers myself! I would never treat a guest in this fashion, sir! I shall send for the police at once!”

  “What’s all this about?” An all-too-familiar voice broke in.

  “Inspector O’Ferrall? I would have thought you had gone home by now,” Mr. Dodgson said.

  “I was just having a drink at the bar before closing,” O’Ferrall explained. “It seems you’ve attracted attention in more ways than one, Mr. Dodgson.”

  “Indeed,” Mr. Dodgson replied. “If I had not stopped at Dr. Doyle’s establishment for a last cup of tea, and if Mr. Monks had not detained me with conversation, I would have walked into this room while whoever did this was doing it.”

  “Whatever were they looking for?” Mr. Hill asked.

  “I suspect my remarks this evening led someone to believe that I was in possession of certain items which, in fact, I do not have.” Mr. Dodgson sighed. “Inspector O’Ferrall, I hope your man is alert at Treasure House. These people are getting desperate.”

  “Which people?” Mr. Hill wanted to know.

  “The ones who think I have the items.”

  “But you don’t have them.”

  “But they think I do.”

  “In that case,” O’Ferrall said, “perhaps I should station a guard on you, Mr. Dodgson. You seem to be the key to all of this. Nothing happened until you came to Portsmouth.”

  Mr. Dodgson shook his head. “Inspector, you do not understand. All of this would have happened whether I came to Portsmouth or not. Captain Arkwright was already dead when I arrived, and Mrs. Cavanaugh would have had to be next. As it is, I hope to prevent another murder. There is a desperate person in Southsea, one who will stop at nothing to gain a fortune.”

  “Then it’s a good thing I’ve got Mrs. Pilkey at Treasure House, whether Miss Arkwright wants her there or not,” O’Ferrall said grimly. “And I’ve posted a pair of constables on the grounds. The two Miss Arkwrights can rest easy tonight.”

  “Undoubtedly.” Mr. Dodgson turned to the hotelier. “Mr. Hill, with all respect, I think I shall have to impose upon my friend Dr. Doyle for lodgings this evening.”

  “But—”

  “It is not your fault, but I would prefer my whereabouts are not known until after Captain Arkwright’s funeral tomorrow,” Mr. Dodgson said. He found a nightshirt and his extra set of undergarments, and stuffed them into his Gladstone bag, clutched Dr. Doyle’s manuscripts, and headed back across the pavement.

  Dr. Doyle was just locking up when he answered his friend’s knock. “Mr. Dodgson! What is wrong?”

  “My room has been searched. My very belongings have been ransacked.” Mr. Dodgson waved the manuscripts at his protégé in his agitation.

  “What!”

  “May I remain here tonight?” Mr. Dodgson asked. “The hotel is too … too public a place.”

  “Of course! I suppose you can take my brother’s room ….” Mr. Dodgson followed his host up the stairs, while Touie, in her nightdress and dressing gown, hovered in the background.

  “Dr. Doyle, I must think, and I cannot do it if I am imagining brigands and robbers in every corner.” Dr. Doyle led the way up a second flight of stairs to a narrow bedroom furnished with an iron cot and a washstand. An oil lamp on a bedtable completed the ensemble.

  “My brother Innes is at school,” Dr. Doyle explained, as he lit the lamp. “I sometimes keep patients here …. I thought you would be happier at the hotel ….”

  Mr. Dodgson tried the bed. He sat down, still holding on to Dr. Doyle’s manuscripts.

  “I shall read your stories, sir,” he decided. “And then I shall put together the various elements of this problem. It seems to me that there are two different hands in this business, but which is doing what I cannot say at this time. I must consider all the possibilities. Good night, Dr. Doyle. It has been a most … interesting visit.”

  CHAPTER 24

  The turmoil in the minds and hearts of the good people of Southsea was echoed by the very elements. The deceptive warmth of St. Martin’s Summer was blown away by the wind coming off the Solent, which began to churn into an autumn gale, punctuated with gusts of rain that hammered the remaining flowers in the neat beds on Elm Grove and sent the leaves whirling in the streets of Southsea. The fishing-boats lined up at the Camber Docks bobbled on their lines, while the yachts farther out in the harbor were tossed on their anchor-lines like so many toy sailboats.

  At Number One Bush Villa, Mr. Dodgson was wakeful. Innes Doyle was not a large boy, and his bed was correspondingly short. Mr. Dodgson’s feet tended to hang over the foot, while his head kept banging against the wall behind him. He had attempted to read Dr. Doyle’s novel The Firm of Girdlestone, which would ordinarily have put him to sleep, but stray thoughts kept interfering with the flow of the story, which was slow in any case. Who had ransacked his room if everyone connected with the case was presumably under the eyes of the police? Who thought he had the Rajitpur Treasure, if not Ashok Ram and the Rajah Jahal? And most importantly, why was Mrs. Cavanaugh murdered at all, when it was in the best interests of everyone connected with the treasure to keep her alive?

  Mr. Dodgson closed his eyes and took refuge in divine guidance. It had never failed him yet. Indian treasures, elopements, spiritualists, and robberies all seemed to mix in a wild jumble, a nightmare of incongruities, and there did not seem to be any reasonable explanation, yet reason there must be.

  “Logic,” he said aloud, sitting up in the narrow bed and staring into the darkness. He scrabbled on the table next to the bed for the matches to light the lamp. “Time,” he said again. “Dates! My wretched memory! It all hinges on the dates!” Mr. Dodgson drew the manuscript to him, found that one of the pages was blank on one side, and began to do some calculations.

  Dr. Doyle was also awake in the bedroom he shared with his bride. Touie snuggled more comfortably against him and slept the sleep of the innocent. He, on the other hand, could not keep his brain from functioning, and his thoughts from turmoil.

  Was he wrong in thinking that Captain Arkwright had died from other than natural causes? Had he precipitated Mrs. Cavanaugh’s murder by his announcement? Where was the fabulous treasure, and why did Mr. Dodgson think he had found it?

  A sound in the surgery below roused him into total alertness. A board creaked, and a shutter slammed against the outside window. No one should be creaking boards in the surgery at this time of night. The Doyles did not even keep a cat against the mice.

  Dr. Doyle threw the bedclothes off and tried to find his dressing gown i
n the dark. He eased out of his side of the bed and reached for the poker leaning in the fireplace.

  Stealthily, he crept to the bedroom door. He flung it open, only to see his visitor, Mr. Dodgson, draped in a voluminous nightshirt, topped with a tasseled nightcap.

  “Sssh!” Mr. Dodgson hissed. “There is someone downstairs!”

  “I know. I heard him, too.” Dr. Doyle led the way through the darkened dining room to the stairs and peered into the gloom. The faint glow from the gas-lamps on King’s Road filtered through the curtains of the front sitting room. From the office below came the unmistakable sounds of breaking glass and furniture being over-turned.

  Dr. Doyle took a firmer grip on the poker. His mustache bristled pugnaciously as he prepared to deal with the housebreakers. Mr. Dodgson followed him, careful not to trip over the hem of his night-shirt.

  “How many of them are there?” Mr. Dodgson whispered.

  “Only one, I think,” Dr. Doyle told him. “He must have come in through the front windows, not that it matters. I don’t have anything worth stealing.”

  “No drugs or poisons, or anything of that sort?” Mr. Dodgson asked.

  “Nothing worth breaking into a house for. Look here, I don’t want him waking up Touie or Mother Hawkins. What we’d better do is capture this fellow and make him tell us what he wants.”

  “Excellent idea. I leave the fisticuffs to you.” Mr. Dodgson let his young host take the lead down the stairs, poker in hand.

  The burglar had apparently tired of looking for whatever he wanted in Dr. Doyle’s sparsely furnished surgery. He now stepped into the hall. They could see his outline by the faint light coming in through the transom, short and wiry. His face was in shadow, his head covered by a woolen sailor’s cap.

  Dr. Doyle rushed forward, slashing wildly with the poker like a latter-day Crusader after the Saracen foe. The burglar gave a startled gasp and made for the door.

  Mr. Dodgson shouted, “Hold him!”

  Startled, the burglar made for the surgery again. Dr. Doyle followed, poker in hand.

  The surgery was even darker than the hall, with little light from the street coming through the shuttered windows. The burglar tried to get out by the window through which he had come into the house. Dr. Doyle ran after him and tripped over a chair, apparently overturned by the burglar in his search.

  The poker fell with a resounding clatter. Dr. Doyle grabbed for the burglar’s jacket, got a tight grip, and pulled. The burglar, more agile than the burly Dr. Doyle, wriggled out of the jacket, dove for the window, and scrambled out, leaving Dr. Doyle holding the jacket in one hand, while Mr. Dodgson peered out the window after him. Dr. Doyle recovered his equilibrium, while the burglar ran out onto King’s Road.

  Dr. Doyle ran into the courtyard, then realized he was in his nightshirt and dressing gown. By the time he had done that, the burglar had vanished.

  “Missed him!” Dr. Doyle swore under his breath, and shook his trophy in disgust. “I nearly had him!”

  “But he has left a calling card,” Mr. Dodgson consoled him. “And, with this in hand, we may be able to ascertain exactly who we are dealing with.”

  Dr. Doyle lit the lamp in the surgery to examine the jacket. “Hmmm … a sailor’s pea jacket. Not new … this has seen a bit of wear,” he said, pointing to the worn collar.

  “Not uncommon in Portsmouth,” Mr. Dodgson remarked. “Now, this, however, is quite interesting. Look here, Dr. Doyle. You may need your glass to determine whether or not the initials imprinted here are authentic …”

  “Very interesting,” Dr. Doyle agreed, peering at the collar of the coat. “I can make out the words ‘Republica de Chile.’ This coat comes from Chile—”

  “And our boisterous friend Cavanaugh has spent some time in Chile,” Mr. Dodgson finished for him. “But that certainly was not Cavanaugh!”

  “More likely his silent partner,” Dr. Doyle said. “I think I will have a word with Captain Cavanaugh tomorrow morning.”

  “This has gone far enough!” Mr. Dodgson decided. “Dr. Doyle, you and I must finish this business tomorrow, before anyone else gets murdered. Mr. Hill has promised to have my clothes mended and pressed by tomorrow. I shall return to Treasure House tomorrow and deal with this business of the jewels as soon as the will has been read.”

  “Then you do know where they are,” Dr. Doyle said.

  “I do,” said Mr. Dodgson, as he and Dr. Doyle climbed up the stairs to return to their respective beds. “I am also convinced that the deaths of Captain Arkwright and Mrs. Cavanaugh are connected to the sudden reappearance of the Rajitpur Treasure. However, I must have more facts to be absolutely certain. As long as Miss Amelia and Miss Bedelia are in the house alone, they are in terrible danger. I sincerely hope Inspector O’Ferrall has sent for the matron of the jail and installed her in the house, as he said he would.”

  “The matron …?”

  “Not that your good wife would not have been as useful,” Mr. Dodgson assured his host. “But I feel much better knowing that a female who has been to the Crimea and back is on the premises.”

  “In case the burglars return to Treasure House?”

  “Oh, they will not return, since they found nothing on two previous visits. They apparently believe that I have the jewels.” Mr. Dodgson seemed serenely pleased about this. “No, it is the safety of the ladies I am concerned about. Think, Dr. Doyle, and do not assume!” With these words, Mr. Dodgson ascended the stairs. Divine guidance had come through, as it always did. He was now sure who was behind the deaths of Captain Arkwright and Mrs. Cavanaugh. Tomorrow he would set a trap, and by the end of the day he would be on his way back to the security of Oxford.

  At his lodgings in a neat house on the narrow street that marked the border between Southsea and Portsmouth, Inspector Patrick O’Ferrall sat in his nightshirt and contemplated his case-notes. He hated the idea of Fletcher taking the case away from him, but the facts pointed to Ashok Ram as the instigator of the burglaries at Treasure House. Cavanaugh had mentioned jewels, and so had Mr. Dodgson. A clever man, this Dodgson, in spite of his stutter and his fussiness, or so Dr. Doyle had said. What had the old boy seen that he, a trained observer with several closed cases to his credit had not?

  At least, O’Ferrall thought, as he eased himself into his bed and turned down the flame on the bedside oil lamp, he had taken the proper precautions. If anything else happened to the Arkwright sisters, it would not be his fault. He had the constables outside and Mrs. Pilkey inside, and that would certainly deter any of the local riffraff. He had seen Mrs. Pilkey in action. She had subdued hefty prostitutes, drunken fortune-telling Gypsies, and even a raving lunatic, far gone in laudanum. If anyone so much as stepped foot in the Treasure House garden, Mrs. Pilkey would be on hand to remove the intruder bodily. Amelia would be safe.

  He sighed deeply, and thought about the future. Amelia would inherit Treasure House, of course; as far as he knew, there was no one else, and the place was a freehold. He and Amelia could be married next year, as soon as she was out of her blacks. Bedelia would make her home with them, at least until they could find a husband for her. Plenty of stalwart young men in Portsmouth for her to choose from: army, navy, merchanters … Dreaming of wedded bliss, O’Ferrall found oblivion at last.

  Miss Amelia Arkwright and Miss Bedelia Arkwright had accepted Inspector O’Ferrall’s offer of a guardian angel in the person of Mrs. Grace Pilkey, a stout woman in a brown dress and orange bonnet, who had been roused from her home to take over the position left vacant by the late Mrs. Cavanaugh.

  “Them pore lambs, left all on their lonesomes,” was Mrs. Pilkey’s comment when Sergeant Stafford had arrived with Inspector O’Ferrall’s summons. “Emma Cavanaugh was no better than she should be, with a mort of ideas in her head which was no business of mine, but taking up talking with spirits was the last thing I’d have thought she’d do. And now one of ’em took her!”

  “If that was so, it would be Vicar Inspector O’Ferrall
’d send for,” Stafford said. “It’s flesh and blood that’s after those two ladies. The house has been broke into twice already, and Miss Bedelia’s been struck down.”

  “Well, they won’t get by me!” Mrs. Pilkey had folded her meaty arms defiantly.

  Amelia was less impressed, but allowed the matron into Treasure House. “You may sleep in Mrs. Cavanaugh’s room, if you like,” she offered.

  “No need, Miss Arkwright. I’ll make myself comfortable here on the sofy in the sitting room. Anyone who tries to break in will have me to deal with!”

  Amelia returned to her own room, feeling sorry for any burglar who tried to get into Treasure House tonight.

  Amelia sat on the straight chair in her spartan chamber and looked down into the garden, now filled with straggling remainders of the summer’s annuals. The rosebushes were nearly bare; only a few blooms held on this late into the year. She would have to speak to a jobbing-gardener about clearing the beds … Papa used to take care of that. Papa was gone. Emma used to deal with the tradesmen, and now Emma was gone.

  Tomorrow Papa would be buried. There would have to be an inquest on Emma …. Amelia tried to think. What should she do? What would happen to Bedelia if …? She forced herself to lie down on her bed. Mr. Lindsay-Young had told her to pray for divine guidance, but she could not hear anything but her own beating heart. With Papa and Emma gone, there was no one left to tell her what she should do.

  Bedelia wanted to go to London, to complete Emma’s mad plan of social advancement. Inspector O’Ferrall was on the brink of proposing marriage. And lurking in the background was the mysterious Uncle Moncrieffe from India, who might or might not leave the two of them a fortune.

  Emma had wanted Bedelia to marry into Society. Papa had not wanted Bedelia to marry at all … just as he had not wanted Amelia to marry. But now Papa was dead … Somehow Amelia drifted off into a troubled doze.

  In her beruffled bed, Bedelia heard Mrs. Pilkey snoring downstairs. She sounded just like Papa, Bedelia thought. Her head hurt. She had been so certain of the rightness of her cause. Emma had always told her what she should do, but Emma was dead, and Bedelia would be all alone … except for Amelia. Yes, she would have to think about Amelia. Perhaps it would be better if Amelia married her policeman … but then Bedelia could not go to London, because a policeman could not be the brother-in-law of a peer. And she had forgotten all about having to go into mourning for Papa. A whole year wasted!