by Dianne Day
“Now, Fremont,” Frances prompted as we resumed our seats with cups and saucers balanced on our knees, like ladies at a tea party, “you were saying?”
“I was saying that I found the waiting difficult, considering what we knew. I must say, you appear remarkably serene in the circumstances, Frances.”
“I am receiving help,” she said, and two spots of pink bloomed beneath her cheekbones. “It is a great comfort to me, though it comes from a … you might say, a far and lonely place.”
“I beg your pardon?” I paused with the cup partway to my lips.
With a dreamy expression on her face, Frances said: “From beyond the grave.”
8
———
A Ghostly Advent
An unpleasant chill settled in my bones. “You must tell me more,” I said.
Frances seemed calm to the point of serenity. Her hand on the coffee cup was as steady as a rock. “I have a new ally,” she said, “if you can make an ally of a ghost.”
“A ghost.”
“A disembodied spirit, a ghost, it is all the same.”
“You have seen this ghost?”
Now, for the first time, Frances wavered. “I’m not sure. I think I did, in the middle of the night. He was trying to talk to me. I was in bed asleep … You understand, I presume, that like most decent couples my husband and I do not sleep in the same room?”
I nodded. I did understand, though my mother and father—at least until she took so very ill—had slept not only in the same room but in the same bed, and I considered them to be a decent couple.
With that cleared up, Frances resumed: “Well, as I was saying, I was in bed asleep, but I kept hearing this voice. A sort of hearty, masculine, good-natured voice. I assumed I was dreaming that some good, decent man had come to rescue me.”
“Oh really?”
Frances went on: “And then I woke up. When I first opened my eyes—of course it was dark in the room—I thought I saw a figure standing not far from my bed. It frightened the dickens out of me, of course, but only until I’d realized it could be the good man from my dream. By then the figure had started to just … fade away. I called for him to come back but it was too late. He was gone.”
I deduced from the way the pink spots on her cheeks burned so brightly that this ghost had not stayed gone, and said as much.
“That’s true.” She nodded vigorously, setting her now empty cup aside. She lowered her voice, leaning toward me, and I leaned, too. Frances’s eyes were sparkling. “Fremont, have you heard of automatic writing?”
With my face only inches from hers, it was all I could do not to roll my eyes. “You mean where the spirit takes over your hand? Supposedly? Yes, I’ve heard of it.”
She nodded again, the curls bouncing prettily on her shoulders. “I tried it, and it works!”
This was too much for me. I could restrain myself no longer. “Of all the—the—what shall I say—methods for contacting the spirit world, Frances, that one seems to me to be the most open to self-delusion.”
“Not if one’s heart and mind are in the right place, Fremont! Really, he has saved my sanity. When Mrs. Locke was, um”—she bit her lip, not wanting to say any of the obvious words, until she settled upon—“rendered unable to help me, I was almost in despair. You remember.”
I nodded. Yes, I remembered how desperate she’d seemed, and how she’d almost fallen apart when we discovered the body.
“I needed someone so badly.”
“Frances, what exactly was it that you needed help with? You never said.”
“I was having these experiences. I didn’t understand them myself. Hearing things right on the threshold of audibleness, but not able to quite make them out—it was truly maddening. Then I started losing time.”
“Losing time?”
She nodded. “Whole chunks of it. No warning, not even any memory after.”
“Hm,” I mused. “As if you’d been in a trance, the way you were that night we went to the séance together?”
“Yes, precisely, and I was dreadfully afraid of what would happen if I went into one of those trances when my husband was with me.”
“Yes, you did say that. The automatic writing has helped? How?”
“Oh yes. He’s explaining everything.”
“He, who?”
“The Emperor,” said Frances, glowing. “His name is Norton.”
“Emperor,” I said. “Norton.” I managed not to hoot, but only with the greatest difficulty. Really, this was much too much!
She nodded vigorously and smiled an absolutely dazzling smile, while I feared she had lost her mind.
“Frances, what country—er, empire—was this Norton the Emperor of?”
My question got rid of her smile, at least; I considered that a kind of progress.
“He hasn’t said,” she replied, “but then, I haven’t asked him. We’ve been conversing about other things.”
I placed my cup and saucer carefully on the floor by my feet. This was no time to be juggling crockery. “I’m very interested in this. Tell me, Frances, how does one converse through automatic writing? Doesn’t the spirit have to—as it were—take over your hand? Yet words have their origin in the mind; does that mean this Norton is taking over your mind, too? That hardly would seem to facilitate two-way communication.”
Frances had not been highly educated, but she was shrewd, and she did not appreciate my skepticism. Her posture before had been alert, lively, and yearning; but now her backbone turned to steel, she seemed an inch or so taller, and her voice grew a frosty edge. She said: “You don’t believe me.”
“No,” I shook my head, “that’s not it. I do believe you. I just am not so sure as you are that this Norton—”
She interrupted me. “That’s the second time you’ve called him ‘this Norton’ in that tone of voice. He’s an emperor, he deserves more respect, Fremont. He’s a good spirit, but I don’t think it would do to make him angry. Emperors are powerful personages. You never know what he might be capable of.”
“All right.” I felt as if I were in one of Sutro’s deepest baths, treading water as fast as I could, yet barely able to keep my nose clear of it. “I apologize to you and to Emperor Norton. I meant no disrespect. I was about to say, I’m not as sure as you seem to be that he has come to help you.”
She arched her neck and turned her head slightly so that she regarded me out of the corners of her eyes. “What would convince you?”
“A demonstration,” I said suddenly, with conviction. “I should like to observe the automatic writing. Also I think it would be a good idea for us to find another authority in the field, now that Mrs. Locke is no longer available. You mentioned Ingrid Swann—”
“Yes, but she’s a charlatan, or so they say. She’s a celebrity, and charges quite a lot of money for anything she does. Mrs. Locke was supposed to be the most honest and reliable. But really, I don’t think I need an intermediary any longer, Fremont. I’m sure the Emperor himself will teach me, through the messages in the automatic writing. We have made a bargain, you see.”
Oh Lord, this was getting worse and worse. Dr. Faustus bargaining with the Devil could not have worried me more.
Frances continued: “He is to teach me about the spirit world, and I am to do something he was unable to do when he left the land of the living.”
“Which is …?” It gave me chills to ask.
“I don’t know yet, he hasn’t said. The Emperor has very graciously decided to teach me first what I need to know, to perfect our communication. Then he will tell me what it is that I’m to do.”
“Very gracious indeed,” I said, and if Frances heard the irony in my voice she gave no sign of it. Talking about the Emperor had restored her serenity. “So, Frances,” I asked, “may I be allowed to observe when you next attempt the automatic writing?”
She smiled again, very sunny. “Well of course, Fremont. You’re my friend, I’m sure you can be his friend, too.”
<
br /> “And when might we do this?”
“Tomorrow after luncheon, I should think. Jeremy is seldom at home at that time, and I can say to Cook and Cora that I’ve gone to my room for a rest. There’s just one problem …” Her voice trailed off.
I waited impatiently, thinking there were far more problems than just one, and how I could solve any of them I had no idea whatever.
Frances rose from her chair. “Come and stand by me at the window, Fremont. There is something I want to show you.” Beckoning, she went to a long casement window that looked out over a narrow strip of grass between her house and the one next door. Though the houses along this section of Broadway are rather grand, they have no yards to speak of.
When I was standing next to her, she put her hand on my shoulder and her face near mine. “I don’t really have anything to show you,” she said softly, “but I want to tell you something that absolutely no one else must hear.”
I nodded, my eyes fixed on a leafy bush clipped into a round shape just outside the window. A tiny bird, a finch with gray and yellow markings, landed in the bush and began to sing, but I could scarcely hear him through the glass.
“I have my own key to a side door,” Frances said, “the one the gardener uses. No one else comes or goes that way. It’s how I was able to get out the day I came to you.”
I nodded again. I could hear the bird better now, but still faintly. It stopped in mid-trill, hopped a bit, and cocked its head, fixing me—or so I fancied—with its beady black eye.
“I carry the key to that door with me always.” Turning slightly, she darted a glance over our shoulders toward the door, then plunged her hand deep into the pocket of her skirt. She whispered, “Give me your hand!”
I did as she asked, and felt the cool slickness of metal in my palm. My fingers closed over the key, and I looked into Frances’s hazel eyes, so close to mine.
She continued swiftly, “You can have a copy made, and return the key to me when you come tomorrow. I want you to come in secret, through that side door.”
“If you are completely certain it’s necessary,” I agreed, also whispering. “Where, precisely, is the door? And when I am through it, where do I go?”
“You will enter the small room I told you about, with a sink and storage for outdoor equipment and so on, where I arrange flowers. That room is at the end of the backstairs hall, at right angles to the kitchen. If you’re careful, you can go quickly to the stairs without being seen. As for how to find the door from the outside—”
Frances stopped abruptly. For a moment I thought I was again hearing the little bird, but much more clearly; then I realized it was Michael, whistling as he came down the hall … and very considerate it was of him to warn us, too.
“Come tomorrow at two o’clock!” Frances quickly concluded. “Now, I’ll draw you a diagram for finding the outside door.”
She could be quite an actress when the occasion required. I watched with an odd mix of concern and admiration as Frances became the considerate hostess, warmly welcoming Michael again to the room, inquiring as to how he had enjoyed the library and listening to his reply with a rapt expression on her face. Then with a graceful gesture toward the little lady’s desk beside that same window where we’d just stood, she said, “If you will excuse me, Mr. Kossoff, there is a recipe I’ve promised Fremont. I’ll just take a moment to write it down and then you can be on your way.”
At the word “recipe,” Michael flashed me a skeptical look, with one side of his mouth curving and one eyebrow arching upward. I merely smiled enigmatically and shrugged, as if to say, “Who knows? Maybe I’ve suddenly become interested in cooking.”
———
I decided, on the way home, that I should have to confide in Michael. Selectively, of course. I said, “I’m concerned about Frances. I fear we were on firmer ground when she was going to séances at night, even if that did mean leaving the house against her husband’s wishes.”
“What do you mean, Fremont?” Though his attention had to be primarily upon his driving, as the Maxwell had a steep section of hill to climb, he turned his head toward me for a moment.
“She is making contact without the medium now,” I said, stressing the “without.” “Frances has taken up automatic writing.”
“Well, I can’t see the harm in that.”
“She believes she is being visited by a spirit, who calls himself Emperor Norton.”
“Did I hear you right? Did you say Emperor Norton?”
“Yes, as odd as that may seem, it is what I said.”
To my great surprise, Michael burst out laughing. He laughed so hard that, at the top of the hill, he did not keep enough pressure on the brake and we began to slide backward.
“Michael!” I said sharply. “I cannot imagine what’s so funny, but if you don’t pay attention to your driving we shall crash.”
He rolled his eyes, still laughing, and performed some maneuvers with hands and feet that had poor Max bucking back up and over the top of the hill. As we proceeded down the long slope at the other side, Michael’s laughter subsided to snorts and burbles. By the time he had turned left, to take us up to Divisadero and home, I was wanting to laugh, too—laughter being catching, like a disease—if only he would let me in on the joke.
“Well,” I urged, “are you going to tell me?”
“I’m sorry.” He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “It’s just that the idea of that old reprobate coming in spirit to visit your fair friend Frances …” Michael gave one last whoop and then sobered. “You know, if she’s making it up, she’s made an exceedingly odd choice.”
“I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about.”
“Emperor Norton was a real person, though not, of course, a real emperor. He lived here in San Francisco during the previous century; arriving, I think, during the second wave of Gold Rushers. He made a lot of money somehow. I’m not up on all the details. He got in over his head, though, on some speculation—having to do with rice. And he lost all his money, after which he disappeared for two years. When he reappeared, he was wearing an outlandish sort of military costume with epaulets and gold braid and a crosswise sash, a high hat with ostrich plumes in it, and a sword in his belt. He said he was Norton I, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico. He’d lost his mind, poor fellow.”
I began to smile. Though of course there is not much to smile about in a man’s losing all his money and then his mind, still there was something amusing in the story.
Michael continued: “The whole city adopted Norton. He printed his own currency, and merchants and restaurateurs accepted it as if it were legal tender. He used to write proclamations, and would stand in Union Square and read them to all passersby. He kept up a correspondence with various politicians and heads of state, including Tsar Nicholas, as I have good reason to know.” At this point, we pulled up alongside our double house on Divisadero and Michael tugged at the hand brake and cut the motor.
I did not inquire how Michael would have known that this Norton fellow had written to the Tsar, as I have not at all made my peace with his continuing Russian connections. I simply sat where I was and waited for Michael to finish the story.
Which he did: “Norton even traveled by train regularly to Sacramento, and had a seat reserved for him in the gallery in the state senate.”
“Perhaps he was not so crazy after all,” I said.
“Some people said the same,” Michael acknowledged, “and after his death there were those who insisted he had not lost all his money but merely, in his madness, misplaced it. But I’m getting ahead of myself. I wanted to say that he was, by all accounts, a good fellow. One of his proclamations was that the children of San Francisco should have a Christmas tree in Union Square every year—it was Norton who began that custom, which of course we still follow. And he was devoted to his two dogs, Lazarus and Bummer—”
“Lazarus!” I exclaimed. “Did you say Lazarus?”
�
�Why yes,” said Michael, looking puzzled, “that was the name of one of Norton’s two dogs. They went with him everywhere.”
“Even in death, they are still with him, apparently,” I said. And then I told Michael about the medium’s barking, and how the voice had come out of Frances’s mouth at the séance, saying, Lazarus, come away from there!
I went chilly all over as I said it. Perhaps Michael did too, for the depths of his eyes seemed to swirl and became unfathomable, as they do when he does not want anyone to know what he is thinking. And then he said, “That is very, very strange.”
———
These odd developments with Frances gave me an added incentive, as an investigator with the J&K Agency, to carry through on my plan to free myself of Michael’s supervision. I needed freedom to do investigations on my own. To invent a case even, if necessary, to give me time away from the office.
An opportunity presented itself much sooner than I could have hoped. That very afternoon, in fact. Over our lunch at home of soup and bread, Michael casually mentioned that he had made an appointment, under an assumed name, to meet with Wish Stephenson at the shipping company at 3 P.M. Wish had managed to get hold of some papers he wanted Michael to see, but did not dare to bring them out of the building.
“That’s nice,” I said idly, as if my mind were elsewhere. Which in fact it was—I was already mentally running through the various pieces of my new disguise, making sure I had forgotten nothing.
Michael left in due course, and at two-thirty I went upstairs to my own part of the house. I began to get ready, while keeping my ears, as it were, cocked for the sound of either telephone or doorbell. I did have to go down and answer the telephone once, but otherwise I was not interrupted. When I had finished, the transformation was astounding.
“Fremont,” I said to myself in the mirror, chuckling, “you are a rascal!”
Fremont Jones had become a young man.