Thus united, we waited with varying degrees of hushed expectancy. I could scarcely make out the faces of the five mediums in the gloom, but their eyes were all directed towards Swami Dhokha and I sensed the intentness of their stares. The séance, as far as they were concerned, was a kind of test. To pass it the Swami would need to produce the same effects they could, with as much, if not greater, adroitness.
I myself was fascinated to see what Holmes, in the guise of Swami Dhokha, was capable of. To the best of my knowledge he had no experience as a medium. Conversing with spirits was far from his forte. Somehow, he had to prove himself before this audience of specialists, and at the same time provoke the absent Alec Carstairs into an admission of guilt. It seemed a tall order; yet I thought that if anyone were capable of such a feat, it was he.
I should not have worried, at least about the first part. What ensued was a quite spectacular display of spirit activity.
Swami Dhokha began murmuring to himself in a foreign tongue which resembled some dialect of Hindi. Then, switching back to English, he invoked the spirits, asking them to announce themselves.
Immediately, the tambourine on the shelf shook, for all that no hand touched it – certainly not Holmes’s, for I was clasping his left wrist with my own hand, while his right hand was clasping Ventnor Brown’s wrist. The instrument’s shivering rattle sent a small frisson through me.
Next, the hand-bell rang, which was even more unnerving than the rattling of the tambourine because the bell never left the confines of the glass jar. Its chime was muted, as the chime of a hand-bell inside a glass jar would be.
Then, after a minute’s pause, we heard the violin play. One could not call the result tuneful. Rather it was a faint, atonal scraping which sounded, I suppose, as music from a higher plane of existence might.
From what little I could see of them, the five mediums had yet to be swayed by Swami Dhokha’s accomplishments. With her half-veil, Miss Efralstein was the most enigmatic of them all, but her mouth remained set fast, very much the mouth of someone unimpressed.
“I shall now, with the spirits’ aid, make the table levitate,” said Swami Dhokha. “To prove that I shall achieve this feat through their agency rather than my own, I am about to lodge my left foot on Dr. Watson’s foot and my right on Mr. Ventnor Brown’s. Gentlemen, will you both agree that I have just done so?”
The weight of his foot bore down firmly upon mine. “I do,” I said.
Ventnor Brown also affirmed it.
“Should either of you feel any undue pressure placed upon your foot, as if I am using my knees to lift the table, I expect you to announce it to everyone. Do you promise?”
We did.
Swami Dhokha closed his eyes. “Come, beings from beyond,” he intoned. “Imbue this table with your evanescence, that it might defy gravity and rise.”
Moments later, the table rose, hovering some six inches or so from the floor. I felt no exertion through Swami Dhokha’s foot. The piece of furniture appeared to be floating in midair, unaided. It was quite uncanny.
After the table had returned to earth, Swami Dhokha informed us that the spirits were being unusually cooperative tonight. Indeed, he would not be surprised if visible manifestations appeared soon.
And appear they did. First, a pair of glowing eyes gazed down at us from somewhere near the ceiling. Then a five-inch-tall sprite flitted across the table, bright green in the darkness. Finally, a nebulous spectral apparition bobbed from one side of the room to the other, much as though it were dancing.
This was followed by a great effusion of ectoplasm from the Swami’s nose. The viscous substance was just visible in the dim light, pouring out of him in pale, sticky coils. He shuddered as it emerged, as though producing the spirit secretion was deeply uncomfortable, which I could only imagine it was.
At last, Swami Dhokha proclaimed that messages were coming through from the dead. “It is a whole babble of voices. They have so much to say. For you, Mr. Ventnor Brown, they have this to impart. You should be more honest when making your tax declarations. It is not right when others pay their dues and you do not.”
“I beg your pardon!” Ventnor Brown exclaimed. “What did you just say?”
“And you, Mr. Lapham,” the Swami continued. “Is there not a certain lady whom you have left in an inconvenienced situation? I believe the phrase ‘doing the decent thing’ applies here.”
“I have no idea what you are talking about,” Lapham said, but I could tell, from his tone of voice, that he was taken aback. “Lady? What lady?”
“Her name is… The spirits are telling me… Miss Violet Yelland.”
I heard Lapham gasp, more in alarm than surprise.
“And as for you, Mrs. Potts,” Swami Dhokha said, “you should look to your husband. He is not as respectful of his marriage vows as you would believe. Or perchance you know this already and have chosen to turn a blind eye. Yes, that is what the spirits say. Publicly the two of you maintain the sham of wedded bliss, but privately all is awry. Mr. Potts dallies with several women, not least your own housemaid, Sally.”
A sob escaped the frail-looking little woman.
“And Mr. Guthrie—”
“Stop this now, sir!” Guthrie thundered. “Stop this at once. What is going on here? This is no séance. This is a series of low personal attacks.”
“Would that your appetites were confined to mere gluttony,” the Swami said, unabashed. “How many times have you visited clients at their homes, only to depart with more than just their money in your pockets? A trinket here, a valuable there. Anything your pilfering fingers may happen upon, while the client sits dazed by whatever revelations you have furnished from the spirit world. You count on your victims being too stunned to notice the thievery, and later they are likely to ascribe the loss to the actions of discarnate entities.”
Guthrie spluttered like a blocked drain. “You have no right… I mean, to bandy about such baseless accusations… It is unconscionable, sir. Unconscionable!”
“I am merely a vessel for the spirits, Mr. Guthrie. They are the ones purveying these truths, not I. And the spirits have a truth for you too, Miss Efralstein. I hear a lone voice coming through now. It is calling to me from far away, as though deep underwater. It belongs to… to your son, madam. Your son, Jim. Jim Leinster.”
“No!”
Ellen Efralstein did not shout the word so much as scream it. The séance collapsed into chaos. There was a massed hubbub of yelling and objections. Ventnor Brown accused Swami Dhokha of slander and threatened legal action. Mrs. Potts broke down in tears. Lapham shook his fist, averring that he would take this sort of calumny from no one, least of all “a curry-eating colonial”. He invited the Swami to step outside so that they could settle things “like men”.
Guthrie, meanwhile, boomed complaint, his enormous double chin quivering like jelly.
“Fakir?” he said. “Faker, more like! You have summoned us all here under false pretences. You are no medium. You are quite the humbug. Take it from me, if you meant to discredit us and usurp our position, if that has been your plan all along, then you have failed. Failed dismally. Mark my words, you will never hold another séance in London. In all of England, for that matter. I shall see to it personally. No self-respecting spiritualist will give you the time of day. You will be drummed out of the country.”
Swami Dhokha sat serene throughout this barrage of vituperation, his mouth twitching as though he were having difficulty suppressing a smile.
At that point, Alec Carstairs re-entered the room, as if taking his cue from the ruckus. He turned up the gas, and the increase in light proved to have a calming effect. All at once the mediums felt exposed, in more senses than one. Tempers abated. Puffed-up chests subsided. Furtive glances passed amongst them, in a way that reminded me of children who have been caught stealing sweets.
“Ladies, gentlemen,” Swami Dhokha said, “it is time to confess all. I am no medium. My name is not Dhokha, which, you will fi
nd, is the Hindi word for deception. My name is, in fact, Ishaan Bakshi. I am a full-time barrister at the Inns of Court with a part-time passion for amateur dramatics. Both activities, advocacy and acting, have stood me in good stead for this particular role.”
I gaped at him. Swami Dhokha was not Holmes? Then where was—?
As if in answer to this unspoken question, Aloysius Guthrie reached up to his own face and tore away several layers of rubber. Gone were his double chin and piggy cheeks. In their place were those gaunt, intelligent features I knew so well.
“And my name,” said he, “is Sherlock Holmes. I am no medium either. It is my business to know what other people do not know, but I do not require the souls of the dead to supply that knowledge. All I require is observation, research, and analysis.”
“Mr. Holmes.” This came from Miss Efralstein, couched in a tone of cool reproach. “I should have realised.”
“I pride myself on being able to alter my appearance to the point of being unrecognisable,” said Holmes. “But then, in that respect I am not alone, am I, madam?”
Miss Efralstein, ignoring the remark, turned to me. “And I suppose you, Dr. Watson, are in on this charade with him?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “Not as much as you might imagine.”
“No, indeed,” said Holmes, “if anyone here may be said to be my collaborator, it is not even Mr. Bakshi, for all that he has discharged his thespian duties with the greatest of aplomb. It is young Mr. Carstairs.”
Carstairs gave a nervous bow. “I trust I have done my bit.”
“Admirably, sir. Admirably.”
“But what is this all about?” said Ventnor Brown, jabbing an accusatory forefinger at Holmes. “What in the name of God have you been hoping to achieve?”
“Primarily, to show up the four of you for the swindlers you are,” said Holmes. “Mr. Bakshi has, with very little trouble, been able to perform feats of mediumship as convincingly as any of your kind. Under my tutelage he has learned how to play musical instruments without appearing to touch them. He has made the table levitate. He has produced ectoplasm. He has made glowing ghostly entities move around. These are the simplest of conjuring tricks. You mediums may dress them up in paranormal trappings and mutter mumbo-jumbo about ethereal emanations and the like, but they are nothing a stage magician could not replicate with ease.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” said Ventnor Brown. “I cannot speak for anyone else here, but everything I do at a séance, I do under the influence of the spirits. Even I am not sure how my abilities work. I just let the spirits’ power flow through me. Whatever effects ensue are wholly spontaneous.”
“Oh come now, Mr. Ventnor Brown,” Holmes scoffed. “Don’t talk rot. Your methods may not be exactly the same as those I have employed, but I am sure you are familiar with the basics. Mr. Bakshi? Perhaps you can demonstrate.”
The man who had purported to be Swami Dhokha produced a false arm from under the table.
“This is the wrist which Dr. Watson was holding throughout the sitting,” said he. “It belongs to a tailor’s mannequin. I substituted it for my forearm at the last second, and Dr. Watson clung on to it blithely, quite unawares, while my real left arm was free to emerge from a slit in the back of my robes, thus.”
So saying, Bakshi slipped his arm out behind him through the folds of the robe.
“By this means I was able to carry out various operations surreptitiously. Here, you will see, is a length of fishing wire, attached to the tambourine.”
He plucked at the slender, near-invisible thread, and the tambourine shook.
“Here is another. It is stretched across the strings of the violin. Sawing it back and forth, like so, yields a thin-sounding note or two. As for the bell…”
“That was me,” said Carstairs, brandishing a hand-bell identical to the one in the jar. “Peering through a chink in the curtain, I waited for my moment, then rang this bell. The clapper is wrapped in ribbon to muffle it. The sound that seemed to be coming from the bell in the jar was actually coming from the adjacent room.”
“In order to create the illusion of the table levitating,” Bakshi said, “all I had to do was lodge a pair of false legs, one atop Dr. Watson’s foot, the other atop Mr. Ventnor Brown’s. Then I lifted the table using the knees of my real legs.”
“It really is a quite elementary piece of legerdemain,” said Holmes. “The ectoplasm likewise. One pulls a volume of cheesecloth from inside one’s collar in such a way that it seems to be coming from one’s nose, shuddering all the while in order to conceal the sleight of hand and make it look as though strenuous effort is entailed. Mr. Bakshi, you are to be commended on the dexterity and flair with which you pulled it off.”
“You are too kind, Mr. Holmes.”
“As to the glowing apparitions… Well, it is wonderful what one can do with a bit of phosphorescent paint, some card, a balloon, and a willing accomplice padding about the room in his socks. Eh, Mr. Carstairs?”
The young fellow, grinning sheepishly, showed that he had no shoes on. He held up pieces of card with eyes and a sprite painted on them, and a balloon draped in muslin.
“There are any number of other stunts that could have been arranged,” Holmes said. “Thumping one’s knees on the underside of the table, perhaps, or cracking one’s toe joints, for spirit ‘knocking’. I understand there is some business one can do with a writing slate, a cloth and a sliver of chalk lodged beneath the fingernail, to produce written messages. Pincers on extendable arms may be used to make objects seem to fly around. I could go on, but there is no need. You know as well as I do, ladies and gentlemen, the full panoply of methods available to you for gulling your victims.”
There was no denying that the four mediums were chagrined. Whether they would admit it or not, Holmes had demonstrated a clear understanding of the tricks of their trade. Clifton Lapham made one last vain attempt at protest, but even he seemed to know the game was up.
“But why stoop to divulging secrets about us?” he said. “What did you hope to gain by that?”
“Beyond hurting our feelings,” said a tearful Isolde Potts.
“Not that I’m saying there is any substance in your assertions,” Lapham added. “I mean, Violet Yelland and I… Well, I barely know the girl.”
“Why did I do it?” said Holmes with asperity. “I shall tell you why. To give you a taste of your own medicine. Frankly, to shame you, if that is possible with people so devoid of shame. You mediums disgust me. You toy with your clients’ sensitivities. You prey upon the weak. You lead them on with false hopes, and that can be damaging.”
“Damaging?” said Ventnor Brown. “How can it be damaging to bring consolation to the grieving?”
“I am all in favour of consoling the grieving, but not by feigning communication with the dead, and not with the aim of lining one’s own pockets. What you do is an affront. If I had my way, it would be an offence against the law, in common with other forms of fraud, but as things stand the only punishment I can mete out is humiliation. I chose the four of you carefully. You may be foremost exponents of your profession, but a little checking into your backgrounds yielded skeletons in the closet. Detective work is my profession, you see, and I use it, I hope, for the benefit of all, and not for personal gain.”
“You are a cruel, cruel man,” said Mrs. Potts, “and I cannot bear to be around you any longer.” She gathered up her skirts and flounced out of the room, handkerchief to mouth.
Ventnor Brown was close on her heels.
“And you, Mr. Lapham?” said Holmes. “Are you still spoiling for a fight with Mr. Bakshi, this ‘curry-eating colonial’ as you so insultingly put it? Or would you rather engage in combat with your true tormentor, me? I should have you know, I am adept at the martial art of baritsu, and quite handy, too, when it comes to good old-fashioned fisticuffs. Perhaps you are less inclined to bully an Englishman whom you must see is your physical superior, rather than a man of Indian origin whom you assume
to be your inferior in every way.”
Lapham harrumphed, and then he, like the other two, quit the flat in high dudgeon.
This left just Miss Efralstein. Of all the mediums, she seemed the one least offended by Holmes’s tirade against their profession. That is not to say that she was not upset.
“Jim,” she said softly. “You used my son, Mr. Bakshi. You used my own dear son against me. How could you?”
“Do not blame Mr. Bakshi, madam,” Holmes interjected. “That was my doing, not his. And you must forgive me for it. It was perhaps unnecessary, but it made the point, did it not?”
“And what point would that be?”
“That I know who you really are, Miss Ellen Efralstein. Or should I say, Mrs. Fenella Leinster.”
* * *
“There is no need for this any longer, then,” said the woman, lifting her veil. The face it had masked was not unhandsome, albeit etched with lines that betokened sorrow more than age. “Nor this.” She grasped her hair and pulled it off, revealing it to be a wig. Beneath those luxuriant black tresses her real hair, which lay pinned tightly to her scalp, was ash-blonde with streaks of grey.
“Neatly done, that disguise,” said Holmes. “The veil, the wig, the exotic surname, posing as a medium – all of it a trap to ensnare Sir Hubert Cole.”
“I did not mean for him to die, Mr. Holmes,” said Mrs. Leinster. “Please be assured of that.”
“You are not wholly sad that he did, though.”
“It was as much as he deserved. You must think that makes me sound like a hard woman, but I am not.”
“No, on the contrary. You are a wronged woman, Mrs. Leinster,” said Holmes. “Sir Hubert took your son from you. Even Mr. Carstairs here, who is blood kin to him, would have to admit as much.”
Carstairs gave a soft murmur of assent.
“As good as murdered my Jim, that’s what that vile man did,” said Mrs. Leinster. “Him and his ships that ought not to be at sea. All Jim wanted, growing up, was to be a sailor. His father, the Lord rest his soul, was an officer with the Mediterranean fleet. He was killed aboard HMS Sultan during the bombardment of Alexandria in ’eighty-two – one of the few British casualties of that exchange. Still, Jim could think of no other life for himself but that of a seaman, and I could not dissuade him from it. All I could do was insist that he sign up as a merchant mariner rather than a naval rating, so that he would never face enemy guns. A life at sea is hazardous enough without the added peril of cannon fire.”
Sherlock Holmes Page 13