The Spirit Photographer

by Jon Michael Varese

  “Continue,” Joseph said. “Does she speak to you?”

  “She does. The light is bouncing off a shiny object in her hands. Her voice is beautiful … so beautiful. I hear the request—I hear her words. But I am blinded by her face, and the bright light shining in her hands. She reaches out toward me. She is holding a light, and she offers it to me.”

  Moody gasped—as if he were trying to catch his breath.

  “Then … then … she hands it to me. I take the light in my hands. It is a rattle—a child’s rattle—crafted of the finest silver. She asks me to engrave it for her, and I say that I will do it. The rattle is for a boy very dear to her heart, a boy she fears may not be long for this world. I ask if the rattle is for her own boy, and she tells me no—the boy is one she cares for.”

  “The boy,” Joseph said. “Who is the boy?”

  “I do not know. I do not ask her anything else. I am only anxious to oblige her request and I offer to engrave the rattle right away. Her request is a simple one, merely three letters. I perform the engraving on the spot.”

  “Engrave it for me, Mr. Moody, if you please.”

  Joseph placed a fountain pen in the spirit photographer’s hand, and laid Moody’s other hand upon a clean sheet of paper. Moody gripped the pen as if it were his old engraving tool. Then he carefully “carved” three letters into the blank sheet before him.

  WJG

  Joseph studied the three letters.

  “W-J-G,” he mumbled. “W-J-G …”

  The hypnotist snapped his fingers, and the spirit photographer awakened. Moody held keys to locks. It was simply a matter of finding those keys.

  “These letters,” Joseph said. “What do these letters mean to you?”

  Moody inspected the paper. He had never seen it before. And yet, it was as familiar to him as anything else he might have written.

  “They’re initials of some sort,” Moody said. “They could be—”

  “She came to you with a rattle,” Joseph said. “Isabelle. This is what you engraved for her—W-J-G—on a rattle.”

  “Yes, I remember the rattle,” Moody said, “and I do remember the lettering, now. But I never asked whom the rattle was for. I never presumed to ask her questions.”

  Then he eyed the paper again.

  “W-J-G.”

  Moody looked at Joseph.

  “The boy,” Moody said. “She—”

  “William Jeffrey Garrett!”

  “The boy’s nurse,” Moody said.

  “She must have come on an errand for the Garretts! As the boy’s nurse, she may have even lived in the house with them. No doubt she knew things, saw things …”

  And then, the strangest feeling overcame Edward Moody—an inexplicable weakening. The negative’s return.

  “What happened to her?” Moody said.

  He held his heart. He was breathing heavily. Once again she was pulling him back.

  “The Garretts are terrified of this photograph,” Joseph said. “She had a power over them then, as she has a power over them now. They will want this photograph destroyed.”

  “Destroyed!”

  “Yes—destroyed. The photograph unearthed something for them—something they had no intention of admitting.”

  Moody again picked up the negative. Isabelle’s stare was dark and mournful. No sleight of hand could ever have recreated such an expression. It did not matter who Joseph Winter was at this point. Other things needed to be done.

  “We must go to Fanny Van Wyck,” Moody said. “We must have her examine this negative.”

  But before Joseph could respond, a loud commotion outside distracted them. Downstairs, in the street, two carriages had pulled up in front of the store.

  “Wait here,” Joseph said.

  And he fled from the gallery as Moody moved closer to the window. Outside, two plainclothes men were stepping out from a hansom cab, and two uniformed police officers from another. Across the street sat a third carriage—a brougham—its windows shadowed by the buildings.

  So, they’d come for him after all.

  Moody wrapped the negative in brown paper and slipped it into a small leather-bound case. He could not allow anyone to capture it. He had loved her too much to give her up again.

  Joseph returned and locked the gallery door behind him.

  “We have very little time,” he said.

  “They have come to arrest me.”

  “Yes,” Joseph said. “Mrs. Lovejoy did what she could, but they are on their way up to the gallery.”

  “Garrett is parked across the street.”

  Joseph nodded.

  “It is certain, then,” he said. “They have come here to seize much more than you.”

  Joseph had not yet finished his words when the heavy thud of boots sounded on the staircase.

  Then, a pounding on the door.

  “This is the Boston Police.”

  The boots stopped, and for a brief moment there was silence.

  “Mr. Moody,” Joseph whispered. “You have the negative there?”

  Moody clutched the negative to his chest.

  “They must never get their hands on this.”

  Then the walls of the gallery shook as someone again struck the door.

  “I COMMAND YOU TO OPEN THIS DOOR.”

  Moody looked about the room. The police would tear apart the gallery. There was no safe place for the negative. And there was no other way out of the room.

  “Mr. Moody—quickly. This way!”

  And there, at the far end of the gallery, was Joseph Winter, standing near one of the wall panels. He was prying at it, as if trying to strip the panel from the wall, but in a moment had released the panel, which swung out toward him on hidden hinges.

  “Mrs. Lovejoy,” a voice said outside in the stairwell. “If you please, open this door.”

  There was the jangle of Mrs. Lovejoy’s keys, and there was Joseph’s urging near the opened panel.

  “Quickly!” Joseph repeated.

  It was an impossible thing—a trick of Moody’s troubled vision. Could such a convenience ever have been true?

  Moody ran toward Joseph, and Joseph shoved him into the passage. For that was indeed what was waiting for him: a passage within the walls of the gallery. Then Joseph himself jumped through the wall’s opening and pulled the panel shut behind him.

  “Go …” Joseph whispered. “Go forward, quickly now.”

  Moody hurried across the passage’s rickety floorboards—a secret set of floorboards that had been living there all this time. The passage was dark and narrow, illuminated here and there by stray bands of light that seeped in through cracks in the plaster. Soon Moody arrived at the top of a set of stairs, where the passage widened slightly. Joseph moved around in front of him.

  “We’ll go down,” Joseph said. “They should not be able to hear us. We are now deep inside the walls of the next room, but still we must take care.”

  Joseph then began inching his way down the steps—a crooked pathway descending into the cold and the must. The wood was brittle and Moody tried to step down …

  But then he stopped.

  “Mr. Moody,” Joseph said. “Mr. Moody, you must come!”

  Moody’s legs had grown heavy—he tried to lift them, but couldn’t. A coldness rushed into his lungs—so forcefully that his next breath caught in his throat. His legs had become chained to the top step of the staircase. It was not possible for him to continue.

  Joseph struck a match, and the smell of sulfur suffused with the must.

  “Mr. Moody!” Joseph said.

  But still Moody did not move.

  “Edward!”

  Joseph was already farther down the staircase, his free hand stretching up toward the spirit photographer. Moody extended his arm—he could not quite reach Joseph Winter.

  Then at last their fingers touched, and Joseph’s hand inched forward.

  “Joseph—” Moody said, his feet unfreezing. “How … how did you know?”<
br />
  The match’s light cast a menacing glow over Joseph’s face.

  “This is not my first escape,” Joseph replied. “And this is not my first time running from the law.”

  XI

  IT HAD BEEN eighteen long years since his seclusion in the passage, but for Joseph the memory was as clear as if it had all happened the day before. For three days Joseph had remained in that dark, narrow passage, while the advertisements for his reward ran in the faraway southern papers. “Very dark, with a surprisingly narrow nose,” one of them had read, “and of remarkable intelligence for a negro.”

  Three days in absolute darkness, save for a few thin cracks of light. Mrs. Lovejoy had brought him food, and a bucket, and a small canteen of water, which he drank from sparingly. For the most part, he remained still—crouched and hugging his knees on the steps, or lying flat on the floorboards where the passage led to the secret panel on the second floor. Sometimes though, the restlessness had surmounted him, and at night, when he was sure that all people had gone from the store, he would pace the pathway of the passage. Up the steps and down the steps, along the interior floorboards of the second floor and the basement … up and down and back and forth, like a bewildered animal trapped within the walls. It was not until the third day, after sparing replenishments from Mrs. Lovejoy, that another woman came to lead him from the place. Not only did the light of the lantern blind him when she opened the passage, but she herself was a vision—a flaming angel from Holy Scripture. She was incandescently beautiful, and she held his hand as he crept out from his hole. Her touch gave him the strength that he needed to continue, and yet he never learned her name.

  To his surprise, the woman revealed yet another passage connected to the one he had been in—a tunnel, hidden by another false door that led underground, into blackness. He had never expected to be in this tunnel again—to smell its dampness, feel its walls, hear the echoes he had fled from. But now, here he was, this time with Edward Moody, on an escape that was not so different.

  Once underground, the tunnel widened considerably, though it was so dark that Joseph and Moody could only sense this by feeling. The walls and ceiling of the tunnel were formed from hard, packed earth, as was the dirt floor beneath them. Carriage wheels creaked and horse hooves clapped above their heads. The sounds were muffled yet distinct.

  “We are beneath Washington Street,” Moody said.

  “Indeed,” Joseph replied. “We are crossing it.”

  Joseph and Moody soon emerged in the dusty basement of Smith’s Apothecary—the building across from Mrs. Lovejoy’s that had been vacant since the end of the war. Upstairs, on the first floor, the grimy windows of the building’s storefront provided a camouflaged screen from which the two fugitives could look out. One or two of the panes were broken, letting in the noise of the street.

  Garrett’s shiny black brougham, with its burnished brass trim, was parked directly in front of them.

  “I told you,” Moody said, “It is Garrett. He has come to witness my arrest.”

  Joseph continued to peer through the windows.

  “There’s something more to it than that,” he said.

  The police carriages remained parked across the street at Mrs. Lovejoy’s, and inside Garrett’s carriage there were two silhouettes. Neither of the figures showed any sign of motion until a plainclothes man, rather young and with a moustache, came out from Mrs. Lovejoy’s and crossed the street.

  The man circled around the rear of Garrett’s carriage and—

  Looked straight at Joseph Winter.

  Or, rather, the dirty window.

  Had they been discovered? The man’s gaze lingered. He could not have been looking at his own reflection.

  Then the man turned his back, and addressed the other men inside the carriage.

  “Senator Garrett—” he said, “I’m afraid there is a complication.”

  Garrett’s companion leaned forward.

  “What sort of complication?” he asked.

  “Well,” the young man answered, “Mr. Moody seems to have—”

  He paused, and Garrett’s companion bent closer toward him.

  “Yes?” the other man said. “Moody seems to have … ?”

  “Vanished.”

  “Vanished? Bolles, what on earth are you talking about?”

  “The man has vanished. He was scheduled to see a Mr. Bronson for a picture—we confirmed the time with Mr. Bronson himself. Moody was in the gallery. The proprietress led us up the stairs. The door was locked from the inside, and …”

  “And?”

  “And he vanished.”

  “Of all the nonsense!” the man in the carriage exclaimed. “We’ve not let our eyes off the front of that store since you entered. Are there no back stairwells? Alleyways? Windows, for heavens sake?”

  “None, sir. And all of the gallery windows were locked from within.”

  “Have you scoured the room for closets? Loose floorboards? The scoundrel may still be hiding.”

  “We have, sir, and I am sorry. Mr. Moody is simply … gone.”

  The gentleman opposite Garrett struck his cane hard on the floor of the carriage.

  “So you don’t have the man,” Garrett said, “but you do have access to the gallery.”

  “We do.”

  “Unlimited?”

  The man nodded.

  “Then Mr. Dovehouse and I can still make our inspection.”

  “You can, sir. My men have not yet begun the search for evidence, and are awaiting my orders outside the gallery.”

  The young man opened the carriage door for the senator, and all three men crossed the street.

  “So,” Joseph said, “Senator Garrett has made his own private arrangements with the police.”

  “Search as they will,” Moody responded. “They will not find the negative.”

  And he held his hand to the breast of his coat, where Isabelle’s likeness was hidden.

  “Were it not for you,” Moody said, “I’d have been forced to surrender.”

  But to Joseph it seemed Edward Moody had already surrendered. Not to him or to the police or to any other man, but to the power of the negative and all that the negative represented.

  “Darkness is at work here,” Joseph said. “It is my duty to counter it.”

  The two men waited in the gloom—the filth of the place was staggering. A rat scurried by, followed by two others. Eventually the carriages and their men would depart.

  “We must remain here until nightfall,” Moody said. “I’ve had a round or two with them before. There are conspiracies against me, and these men have been persistent. There’s no telling when they will go, but when they do we’ll ride out to see Fanny Van Wyck. She has had qualms with me in the past, but—”

  “Qualms?” Joseph asked.

  “Yes, qualms. It will not take you long to understand that Fanny has little tolerance for … our kind.”

  The sun was not long in setting, for Inspector Bolles had come to make his arrest late in the day. Moody and Joseph watched from the windows until the carriages departed. Then, as the last line of sunlight disappeared, they heard something sounding in the basement. Footsteps—soft footsteps—were coming up the steps. The room had grown dark. It was difficult to see—

  “Ah,” Mrs. Lovejoy said. “Thank heavens you are safe.”

  She offered them two of her strongest horses, which she kept in the stables behind the Old South Meeting House. She’d take them there later, when it would be much safer to leave the city—on horseback, she said, as the police would be watching every hackney cab and public vehicle.

  THAT EVENING THERE was a great white moon in the sky, lighting Mrs. Lovejoy’s way as she returned to her store. By the time she finished retracing her steps from the stables, Joseph and Moody would be out of the central district, nearing the outskirts of the city. The night was warm, yet Mrs. Lovejoy shivered. It had been many years since she had aided in an escape, and her own ghosts seemed to have com
e back.

  Inside the store, the glow of silver bestowed strange greetings—the mouths of vases, cups, and teapots stretching and groaning in the blue light of the moon. Mrs. Lovejoy might have gone to her nearby apartments straightaway, but she would secure the store once more before retiring.

  No lamps were necessary, as the moon provided sufficient light, and besides, she wouldn’t stay in the store too much longer. A quick check to ensure that the lids of the music boxes were closed, and that the fine cutlery was lined up and on proper display for the morning. There was no pressing need for her to return upstairs that night—it would require days, rather than hours, to make the gallery presentable again. The police had spared no effort in turning Mr. Moody’s workplace upside down, and Mrs. Lovejoy would decide how to deal with it in the morning.

  But then there was the noise.

  It was a muffled thud above her head—not unusual, since the building was old, and had a character of its own. But then the sound came again, and Mrs. Lovejoy held her breath. Perhaps Mr. Moody and Mr. Winter had returned …

  Unlikely, she thought. She had loaned them the horses, and plenty of money, and they had been anxious to get on their way. Still, she knew there was this business about the negative, and maybe they had returned, for some reason, through the tunnel.

  The building remained quiet as Mrs. Lovejoy ascended the steps.

  “Mr. Moody—Mr. Winter. Is that you?”

  The gallery door was unlocked, as Mrs. Lovejoy had left it earlier, and moonlight streamed in upon the cheerless sitters in their picture frames. One of Mr. Moody’s finest pieces, the portrait of Mrs. Bobbin with her deceased husband, glowed with pronounced sadness—the face of a widowed bride. The spirits kept close watch over that room. The police had left it in such disarray.

  Then the smell hit her, and she recognized it immediately—a hideous odor that rose from a faraway place within her memory. It was the smell of moist tobacco, almost vinegary in its wetness, reeking with traces of whiskey and other things sour on the breath.

  A ghastly face flashed inside her head.

  It did not take her eyes long to fully adjust to the darkness, and in the dull moonlight the spirits’ faces grimaced. He had heard her approaching, and so he was already standing near the door—his enormous, hulking figure towering over her like a demon.