A Case of Spirits sc-6

by Peter Lovesey

  ‘I’m glad to hear it, sir. It’d be a dull world if all of us were sceptics. Personally I’m looking forward to meeting young Brand.’

  ‘You’re going to meet him?’ said Miss Crush, in horror. ‘Sergeant, I don’t think that is wise.’

  ‘Why not, ma’am? He doesn’t frighten me.’

  ‘No, but you will frighten him. He is such a delicate young man. So impressionable. And his heart is not strong, you know. I should hate him to think he is under suspicion of removing that wretched vase from my house. The shock might be enough to put out the spiritual fire in the boy.’

  ‘Good gracious, yes,’ said Strathmore. ‘We can’t let a piece of porcelain spoil a chance of unravelling the mystery of the Universe.’

  ‘Ah, but there’s the matter of another mystery as well, sir. A missing Nymph and Satyrs. Property of your friend, Dr Probert. I’m bound to ask Mr Brand if he can help me over that. I’ll treat him gentle, ma’am. Rest assured of that. I’ve heard so much about him that I’d rather like to sit in on one of his seances myself.’

  ‘That could be arranged, I’m sure,’ said Miss Crush. ‘One simply wishes to spare him the embarrassment of questions from the police.’

  ‘He’s subject to the law, like any one of us, ma’am,’ said Cribb solemnly.

  ‘Oh dear, this is very upsetting,’ said Miss Crush. ‘It might discourage him from ever coming here again, or going to Dr Probert’s. I think I must insist that you forget about the missing vase, Sergeant.’

  ‘Drop the investigation, d’you mean?’ said Cribb in disbelief.

  ‘Call the hounds off, so to speak,’ Strathmore explained, putting a hand on Cribb’s shoulder.

  ‘Can’t do that, sir.’

  ‘Why ever not?’

  ‘It’s a criminal matter. The thief who took the vase might take something else from another member of the public. Someone made off with Dr Probert’s nymph, after all. No, I shall need to talk to Mr Brand, same as I’ve talked to you. I haven’t been uncivil, have I?’

  ‘Quite the reverse, Sergeant,’ answered Miss Crush, pulling open the sideboard door. ‘I was about to offer you a sherry.’

  ‘Never touch it, thank you, ma’am.’

  ‘Something stronger, perhaps?’

  ‘No, ma’am. I don’t get on with spirits.’ He paused. ‘Of the alcoholic sort, that is.’

  Strathmore’s mouth formed stiffly into the shape of a smile. ‘Spirits. Ah ha! You’re a sharp one, Sergeant, very sharp.’

  Cribb smiled back. It was the confident smile of a man in control. These people would laugh at any quip he made, however excruciating, because they wanted his co-operation over the matter of Brand. It would be dereliction of duty not to press his advantage. ‘Not sharp enough, I’m afraid, sir.’

  Strathmore pricked up the eyebrow that was not holding his monocle in place. ‘What do you mean by that, Sergeant?’

  ‘Well, sir, a detective should know what’s going on. When I walked in here just now I had not the slightest suspicion that you were under the table. Dr Probert’s table I could understand, but not Miss Crush’s.’

  ‘Ah. You mean that I was present at the seance which took place at Richmond, but you had not connected me with this good lady’s house?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘The explanation is quite simple,’ said Strathmore. ‘Dr Probert’s party was the first opportunity one had of seeing young Brand at the table and one was sufficiently impressed by the phenomena he produced to make further investigations. Miss Crush most kindly proposed a visit to her house to examine the scene of the previous seance, where the spirit hand was alleged to have materialised. Only when we have eliminated every possibility of trickery and deception can we begin to take a medium seriously, you see.’

  ‘And have you discovered anything suspicious?’

  ‘Nothing at all. The table is perfectly in order, as was Dr Probert’s. One hesitates to say it, but I think we may have found-’

  ‘A second Home, sir?’

  ‘It would be premature to say as much as that, Sergeant. It is sufficient for the moment to state that one has found nothing to suggest that Mr Brand is fraudulent. And that, I may say, is remarkable. You would be surprised how blatant the deceptions are that the majority of so-called mediums practise on the public. I have myself seen an apparition materialise in a drawing-room two streets away from here which when one unexpectedly turned up the gas was all too tangibly revealed as a young woman dressed in a cheesecloth shift with-pardon my explicit language, Miss Crush-the unmistakable outlines of a corset underneath.’

  ‘The hussy!’ whispered Miss Crush.

  ‘So you see that my Society has to be unceasingly vigilant,’ said Strathmore, folding his arms.

  ‘I expect you made a full inspection of Dr Probert’s house,’ said Cribb.

  ‘Not the whole of the house, Sergeant. Merely the room where the seance took place.’

  ‘I see. Dr Probert didn’t show you his picture-gallery, then?’

  ‘He most certainly did not.’ It was difficult to tell from Strathmore’s emphasis whether he was scandalised at the suggestion that he might be interested in looking at Dr Probert’s naked ladies, or whether he thought the question sought to implicate him in the theft of the Etty.

  ‘But I expect you stayed behind after Mr Brand had left?’

  insisted Cribb.

  ‘Of course. It was my duty as an investigator to look under the table.’

  ‘I stayed afterwards, too,’ said Miss Crush. ‘I was far too excited by what I had seen to go home immediately. Miss Alice Probert arranged for some cocoa to be served, as a nightcap, she said. It had a very calming effect on the nerves.’

  ‘I drink it myself, ma’am. So Mr Brand left the house at what time, would you say?’

  ‘Half past ten,’ said Strathmore. ‘I keep a meticulous record of every seance I attend. He had a hansom waiting for him.’

  ‘At what time did you leave, sir?’

  ‘It was twenty minutes to twelve. I left a few minutes after Miss Crush. Mr Nye, Miss Probert’s fiance, had very decently gone out to call carriages for us.’

  Cribb turned to Miss Crush. ‘So Mr Brand left at least an hour before you did, ma’am, and when you got home you discovered that your vase was missing. Now do you understand why I must put some questions to him?’

  CHAPTER 4

  To the promised land; join those who, Thursday next,

  Meant to meet Shakespeare;

  The notices outside the Store Street Hall in Bedford Square were persuasively worded: THE WORLD BEHIND THE VEIL

  A Public Address and Lantern Show upon the Revelations of the Life to Come vouchsafed in recent years to such celebrated mediums as Mr D. D. Home, Mr Stainton Moses, Miss Florence Cook and the Speaker himself, Professor Eustace Quayle, in which Genuine Spirit Photographs will be projected on to a screen Eight Feet Square, and introducing the remarkable young medium, Mr Peter Brand, whose seances at a number of distinguished houses in London of recent weeks have been attended by the most sensational phenomena.

  Seating for 600 persons.

  Admission Threepence. Gallery Twopence.

  Thursday November 12th, 1885, at 7.30 p.m.

  Inside, as the converted and the curious assembled, a harmonium was playing Who are these, like stars appearing, and towards the back of the hall Constable Thackeray was reporting confidentially to Sergeant Cribb on the results of his visits to police stations in Richmond and Belgravia.

  ‘I might say, Sarge, that I got a pretty cool reception at both places. The local blokes think they was perfectly capable of catching the thief, and I don’t blame ’em.’

  ‘Nor I,’ said Cribb, ‘but the plain fact is that we’re accountable to Jowett, and if I were you I wouldn’t question the whys and wherefores of it. He’s in thick with Dr Probert, and Probert wants it handled by the Yard and that’s the end of it. He’s coming tonight, by the way.’

  ‘Dr Probert?’


  ‘Inspector Jowett. Better get your feet off the seat in front and try to look a credit to the Force. Did you get anything of interest from B Division?’

  Thackeray took out his notebook and consulted it discreetly under cover of his overcoat. ‘October 31st. Theft of Royal Worcester vase, Hereafter House, 92, Eaton Square, Belgravia. Property of Miss Laetitia Crush.’

  Cribb raised an eyebrow. ‘Lettie, eh? Suits her. Carry on.’

  ‘Estimated value thirty pounds,’ continued Thackeray. ‘Japanese in style, made by one James Hadley-’

  ‘Cut the description,’ ordered Cribb. ‘What about the means of entry?’

  ‘A glass pane nine inches by eleven was broken in the rear door,’ read Thackeray. ‘It appears to have been accomplished with a brick which was found nearby. The glass fell on to a piece of coconut matting, and the servants heard nothing.’

  ‘Clumsy, even so,’ said Cribb.

  ‘Yes, Sarge, particularly as there was a window with a broken sashcord not ten yards away. He could have got through there, easy.’

  ‘What about the Richmond job?’ said Cribb. ‘How does the method of entry compare?’

  ‘Oh, that was uncommon crude as well, Sarge.’ Thackeray thumbed the pages of his notebook to check the damage inflicted on Dr Probert’s property. ‘The felon made a number of unsuccessful attempts to prise the bars off the pantry-window with a pick-handle before seizing on the notion of using it in conjunction with a thong. He made a shocking mess of the pantry, climbing in, too. Knocked over a tin of Bath Olivers and scattered a packet of pearl barley all over the floor. We’re not exactly dealing with a Charlie Peace, Sarge. That’s what so infuriates the bobbies on the spot. They reckon they could run the man to ground in a matter of hours, given the chance. It’s obviously someone who knew the nights when Miss Crush was out at Dr Probert’s, and Dr Probert was giving his lecture at University College Hospital. A dabbler in this table-tapping nonsense and a pretty poor hand as a burglar.’

  ‘Inspector Jowett,’ said Cribb.

  ‘Eh?’ ejaculated Thackeray.

  ‘Good evening, Officers,’ said Jowett, at his side. ‘You don’t mind if I join you? I think the lecture is about to commence.’ He just had time to take the seat on Cribb’s other side. The harmonium strains gave way to polite applause as the chairman for the evening stepped out from behind a tub of pampas grass to occupy the centre of the stage.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, it is my privilege tonight. .’ he began.

  ‘This promises to be instructive,’ said Jowett in Cribb’s ear. ‘Professor Quayle has had his palms on the tables of some of the best addresses in London. He stepped into D. D. Home’s shoes in the seventies. In demand everywhere. Now it looks as if young Brand is ready to eclipse him. Decent of Quayle to include the boy in his lecture.’

  Cribb gave an affirmative grunt. He was getting used to hearing mediums discussed as if they were tenors or fiddle-players. It didn’t matter to the well-to-do whether there was anything in spiritualism or not; mediums were drawing-room entertainers, as ready to be hired for an evening as the latest velvet-voiced Italian over for the season at Covent Garden.

  ‘. . I give you Professor Eustace Quayle,’ concluded the chairman, neatly stepping back behind the pampas grass.

  The professor, a man of commanding height and total baldness, advanced to the lectern, propped his elbows on it and leaned forward until his head and shoulders loomed over the front rows like a figurehead. ‘Who will deny that there are visitors from the Other Side in this place tonight?’ he demanded in a voice that rang through the hall. There was not a whisper from the audience as he cast his eyes challengingly along their stunned rows. It was not notably his baldness that intimidated, nor the extreme hollowness of his cheeks. It was the intensity of his eyes, so deep-set as to be fathomless under the gas-burners, and topped by a prodigious growth of eyebrow. ‘They are everywhere about us, are they not?’ he continued, with a glance which seemed to take in the back rows.

  Thackeray shifted in his seat, turned slightly and found himself eye to anxious eye with his neighbour, a grey-haired lady in a racoon fur hat.

  ‘Invisible presences,’ said Professor Quayle. ‘The unseen spirits of the departed. Unseen? Oh, I have seen them, my friends, seen them and spoken with them, as any of you may do if you wish. Tonight I shall show you photographic plates that will satisfy the most sceptical among you. But I am not here to persuade you that beings exist outside the material world. You are free agents. You think, and act upon the promptings of your thoughts, and we call the faculty within you that determines those thoughts your inner being, your soul, your spirit. I tell you, friends, that the spirits that a medium makes contact with are nothing but the souls of men and women like yourselves extracted from their envelope of gross, terrestrial matter.’

  ‘Isn’t that Dr Probert there, second row from the front and two from the end?’ Jowett unexpectedly asked Cribb.

  ‘You’re right, sir! And Miss Crush sitting next to him.’

  ‘Ah, you’ve met the lady already. She was gratified to learn that Scotland Yard are on the track of her stolen vase, no doubt.’

  ‘That wasn’t my impression, sir.’

  ‘No?’ Inspector Jowett turned in surprise.

  On the platform, the professor had finished talking about the spirits in the hall and had reached the less disturbing matter of his conversations with famous historical personages from St Peter onwards.

  Cribb waited till the roll had passed by way of Julius Caesar and William Shakespeare to George Washington.

  ‘Miss Crush would like us to abandon the case, sir. Says she doesn’t mind about the vase.’

  ‘Good Lord!’ said Jowett loudly.

  The man on his left frowned and leaned forward in an attitude plainly conveying that if he had to listen to blasphemies he preferred them to come from the platform.

  ‘I think she doesn’t want to upset the people she knows, sir. It’s not worth the price of the missing vase to have her spiritualistic friends investigated.’

  ‘Understandable, I will admit, but quite impossible. You told her that you have your job to do, I hope?’

  ‘Left her in no doubt at all, sir.’

  Below, the professor quoted from a conversation he had recently had with Napoleon, ‘ “March forward, children! You do not need the aid of bayonets to sustain your cause. Truth is more powerful than armies, fleets, cannon and grape-shot.” ’

  ‘Hear, hear,’ someone shouted in the middle of the hall, and there was a nervous burst of applause in which Miss Crush could be seen to be joining energetically.

  ‘I trust you didn’t threaten the lady,’ said Jowett. ‘People of her class aren’t accustomed to bullying methods, you know. To be frank, I was somewhat disturbed by something Dr Probert repeated to me this afternoon, that you were planning to “put the screws on Miss Crush”. That’s not the way we conduct our investigations is it, Sergeant-not where people of refinement are concerned?’

  ‘Slip of the tongue, sir. Nothing sinister intended.’

  ‘I can vouch for that, sir,’ added Thackeray, leaning forward to catch Jowett’s eye.

  ‘Good God! I hope you weren’t there,’ said the inspector, as if that would have confirmed his worst suspicions of police brutality.

  Remarkable as they were, Professor Quayle’s conversations with the great would undoubtedly have taken a stronger grip on the attention of the audience if they had been extensively edited. There was a disappointing sameness about them. There seemed to be a conspiracy on the Other Side to give nothing away about the life hereafter. The communications consisted in the main of expressions of goodwill and exhortations to keep getting in touch, not helped by the professor’s delivery, which was strongly reminiscent of the Best Man at a wedding reception reading out the messages from absent guests. When Lord Beaconsfield was reached, and the audience realised that his recent decease almost certainly made him last on the list, an unmistakable sensation of r
elief spread through the hall.

  It was a critical phase in the proceedings. The moment the references to primroses and the Conservative Party were rounded off with applause, a strong injection of interest was wanted if the lecture was to be kept alive. Happily it was available. ‘At this juncture, ladies and gentlemen,’ said the professor, ‘I beg leave to introduce a young medium whose seances in recent weeks have been attended by phenomena of a most exceptional character and variety-so exceptional, in fact, that he is rapidly becoming the talk of the metropolis. Noises and rappings under a table in the suburbs are nothing new, but what do you say to the materialisation of a spirit hand in Kensington, the levitation of the entire furniture of a room in Hampstead and the writing of a message from the late Duke of Wellington in a private house in Camberwell-writing, I may say, that has been verified as authentic by the foremost graphologist in London? These are examples chosen at random to convey an impression of the scope of this young man’s powers-or rather, his faculty for concentrating the powers of the spirits to produce such prodigious phenomena. Ladies and gentlemen, he is young and unused to the public platform, but he has generously consented to appear beside me here tonight-Mr Peter Brand.’

  For a novice, Peter Brand had a nice sense of timing. There was sufficient delay in his appearance for a germ of anxiety to flit momentarily into the minds of the audience. Then he stepped round the pampas grass, bowed humbly and shook Quayle’s hand. He was notably shorter than the professor, slightly built and pale of face, with a misty uncertainty in his eyes likely to cause maternal flutterings in every bosom in the hall. He had long, black hair and wore a navy blue velveteen suit and a white cravat.

  ‘He doesn’t look like Charlie Peace,’ Cribb remarked to Thackeray. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Shifty little beggar, Sarge. I wouldn’t trust him.’

  ‘You will appreciate, ladies and gentlemen, that this is not the occasion for a seance,’ announced Professor Quayle, ‘and Mr Brand is not one of those so-called mediums who produce unusual effects for no better reason than to demonstrate their powers. Like me, he respects his mediumship as a gift from the Almighty, and he employs it only in humility and out of respect for the souls of those who have gone before on the Great Journey, but care to linger awhile and offer comfort to we who follow.’