The Ghost Hunters

by Neil Spring

  Placing her left hand on Joanna Southcott’s locked casket, Velma closed her eyes. Slowly, she bowed her head.

  ‘Sarah,’ Price whispered, ‘I want you to observe very carefully and take notes on everything that Velma tells us – all right?’

  I nodded, attempting a smile, then asked Velma, ‘What are you going to do? Communicate with the dead?’

  ‘The dead and the living,’ she said in a low and tremulous voice. ‘We are all connected, Miss Grey. Our souls bind us together. Those with the ability – the gift – can know the present, the future and the past.’

  Her head was now resting on her chest and her breathing had become short and spasmodic. She seemed to be concentrating very hard.

  ‘Tell us, please, what you see, Velma. What is inside the box?’

  ‘I see many little objects …’ she said slowly, her eyelids fluttering. ‘Dates … something metal … a book … written in French … I get a tremendous warmth; also dread.’

  It was as I suspected – vague and ridiculous.

  ‘Three documents … one bound as a book … drawings … something long … symbols … a crest … a medal.’

  ‘What sort of medal?’ Price queried. ‘Can you describe it?’

  ‘Old … so old … it carries the face of a saint.’

  Her eyes snapped open suddenly and she reached forward, taking up a spare pencil and stabbing it into the desk with short, violent motions. ‘The force!’ she cried. ‘It has taken hold of me. It has never been as strong!’

  ‘Let the record show that Miss Crawshaw does not appear to be in full control of her actions,’ said Price, clearly a little alarmed. ‘Write it down, Sarah.’

  This is absurd, I told myself. But in truth I was less than certain. ‘Harry, she’s putting it on! Stop this nonsense, Velma, for pity’s sake – stop it at once!’

  But the woman did not stop. Angrily, Price banged his hand down onto the table. I thought he had done it to calm her. It was only when I glanced up from my notes and caught his expression that I realised he was addressing me. ‘Write. It. DOWN!’ he ordered.

  I wanted to retaliate, to protest, but suddenly Velma was stabbing the table so energetically that her hand did indeed appear possessed. Only when Price asked whether she could get spirits to help her did she appear to regain some control.

  ‘I … I have a message,’ she said slowly, becoming still, her voice quiet. ‘A message from the other side.’ It might have been my imagination, but that at instant I detected a faint smell of lavender in the air and a chill which brought gooseflesh to my arms.

  Seeing my reaction, Price spread his arms out by his sides and patted the air, cautioning silence in the manner of a schoolmaster. ‘Go on,’ he prompted Velma. ‘Tell us, what is the message?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I interrupted, ‘but I think this is totally ridiculous.’

  ‘You’re not paid to think,’ Price said sharply. ‘Now be quiet!’

  I swallowed my anger, appalled by his rudeness.

  And then I saw Velma staring straight into me, her eyes radiating fire. I flinched away from her gaze. ‘What … what is it?’

  ‘Oh my, Miss Grey,’ she breathed. ‘You are such a very old soul.’

  ‘What are you talking about? Harry, what does she mean?’

  ‘You are a wise old soul on her last journey in this life.’ Her eyes floated down to my neckline. And an expression of alarm flashed across her face.

  ‘Oh!’ Her hand flew to her mouth. ‘Oh no!’

  ‘What?’ I demanded.

  ‘No more, please, no more!’ she exclaimed, her eyes suddenly clear and penetrating. ‘There is a mark upon you. Sarah Grey, the woman with two paths and one regret. You must not go!’ Velma commanded me. ‘Do you understand? You must not agree to go back, not ever!’

  ‘What do you see?’ Price asked softly.

  ‘No, please, no more today!’ She rose quickly from the table, tipping it over. The locked casket crashed to the floor.

  I leapt up.

  ‘Sarah …’ The warning was implicit in Price’s tone. But I was adamant I would speak.

  ‘Miss Crawshaw – I don’t know what that little spectacle was all about, but I have a question for you.’

  ‘Sarah!’

  Ignoring Price’s interruption, I demanded, ‘Why don’t you tell us about your own future?’

  Velma’s mouth fell slightly open and she backed away. ‘I … I … what? This isn’t about me, Miss Grey. You have to understand. You have to be careful. Are you listening to me?’

  ‘No,’ I replied. ‘Now it’s your turn. Tell us about you. Your future.’ I raised my eyebrows. ‘If you can.’

  ‘You sound as if you don’t believe me.’

  ‘That’s right, I don’t believe you. If you could see the future – well then, you could change your life! But here you are, traipsing all over London, earning pennies to give advice to strangers. If I were psychic, I would want to know everything I could about my future.’

  Velma regarded me with the darkest of expressions. ‘Are you sure about that, Miss Grey?’

  ‘Sarah has asked a perfectly legitimate question, Velma,’ Price said calmly and to my relief. ‘Aren’t you going to answer it?’

  Velma nodded and crossed to the window where she stood motionless, silent, for some ten, perhaps twenty seconds, wringing her hands and twisting one of the cheap rings she wore. Finally she said, ‘The truth of the matter is, I see nothing of my own future.’

  ‘Nothing?’ I queried. Now it was my turn to be sarcastic, though I was also intrigued now, more so, certainly, than I would have admitted. If Velma was an actress, she was a good one. ‘Surely that’s a little odd for a psychic of your … ability?’

  She flinched, turned her head away. ‘I have tried, Miss Grey; of course I have tried to see my own fate.’ She looked back at us from the window, on her face a pallid, frozen expression of fear. ‘But I see nothing of my own future. That’s the truth of it. I see nothing at all.’

  *

  Amy’s big day had arrived. I usually relished the prospect of a wedding, but the knowledge that I hadn’t spoken to my oldest friend for sixteen months tempered my excitement with anxiety as I went with Mother to Chelsea Town Hall.

  As the ceremony commenced, my gaze roamed over the ornate vaulted ceiling, brass chandeliers, a marble fireplace adorned with shimmering white flowers.

  I imagined Amy would be fraught with bridal worries: her hair, her make-up, every detail. I pondered on her choice of bridesmaid until fleeting envy chased the question away.

  ‘Doesn’t she look beautiful?’ Mother whispered.

  All eyes were on the bride, resplendent in white lace and satin, as she made her way down the aisle. Her face glowed golden, her smile glittered red. By the time she breathed ‘I do’, my feelings were alternating between pride and embarrassment. Why hadn’t I kept in touch?

  The question dogged me until ceremony gave way to celebration. The table plan surprised me. We weren’t seated at the back of the room, but neither were we at the front.

  ‘You should think about finding your own husband,’ I heard Mother say. Irritation displaced guilt for an instant, but even that was washed away by flowing champagne and rising jubilation. Until Amy targeted me with a precisely calibrated smile all the way from the top table, skewering my conscience. I could only smile falteringly back, painfully aware of my dereliction of friendly duty.

  Throughout the meal, beneath the laughter and tinkling cutlery, unspoken questions bubbled through my mind: how much had this lavish affair cost? Where had she planned the honeymoon?

  My ignorance of these details underlined the distance between us. Was this what I had become – an interloper at my best friend’s wedding?

  ‘Sarah!’

  Halfway through dessert Amy approached, laying a gentle hand upon my shoulder.

  ‘And Mrs Grey! How wonderful of you to come.’

  I studied my friend’s smile for insincerit
y, then stood quickly, folded her in a hug and kissed her cheek. She looked more beautiful than I could have imagined, and I told her so.

  ‘How’s the new job?’

  ‘It’s good, it’s good,’ I said quietly, cautious of being overheard. I was deeply reluctant to talk spooks in front of a crowd of new acquaintances.

  It wasn’t just my odd reticence that marked the change between us. I saw now the fault-lines in her expression, the puzzled scrutiny that glimmered through her hostess smile.

  I thought about this as she led me to a table nearer the front of the room and introduced me to some people I didn’t recognise. New friends – all smiles and shrill voices, feathers and rhinestones. After long introductions, we settled into a private moment near the fireplace.

  ‘Where have you been hiding?’ Amy demanded.

  I gave a bright smile. ‘Oh, you know, it’s been a nightmare really. We have this case at the moment – a locked casket. Harry’s kept me tremendously busy preparing for the public opening next week. So much to do!’

  Amy nodded awkwardly and said finally, ‘Planning a wedding takes time too.’

  At once I felt both defensive and ashamed for not having helped with the preparations. Then I tried diversion: ‘You’ve done such a wonderful job! The cake is simply perfect. Is it for eating or just for show?’

  I groaned inwardly at my clumsiness.

  Amy looked surprised; clearly she suspected sarcasm. Did she think I was jealous? ‘Amy, please, I never meant to neglect our friendship,’ I hurried to assure her. ‘I’ve just been so frightfully busy.’

  At last my friend dropped the pretence and spoke in a sharper tone. ‘I don’t understand! Why say you’ll do something, and then disappear completely? It wasn’t just the wedding invitations, Sarah – I haven’t seen anything of you! What’s been so important to have kept you away?’

  My gaze faltered and I felt my cheeks colour. There was no excuse I could offer. She was right, yet I was lost for words. How could I explain that for sixteen months I had been driven to distraction with locked caskets and people who communed with the dead?

  ‘I am sorry, Amy. And I’m so, so proud of you.’

  She nodded and smiled, seeing clearly now my sincere contrition. ‘Are you finding it interesting?’ A brief pause. ‘Is he interesting?’

  Recollections of the past sixteen months at Price’s side flicked through my mind, a montage of uncanny memories: the sun glaring on us at the Colosseum in Rome; damp, frigid mornings on the banks of Loch Ness; the teenage girl we encountered in Berlin who made knives and forks stick to her flesh as magnets grip metal. I doubted anyone in London had experienced a more thrilling, more adventurous or more peculiar year. There was no one more mysterious than Harry Price.

  I nodded slowly, not wanting to appear too eager. ‘He’s taking me to Vienna next year, to a conference. And he’s teaching me to drive. Sometimes he even lets me bring the saloon home.’

  She took my hand and squeezed it gently. ‘Is he worth it, Harry Price?’

  Before I could answer, laughter erupted at the next table as another champagne cork popped.

  ‘Don’t be a stranger, Sarah.’

  I wondered: was my life so empty before Price that it had come to this – hunting the dead when I should have been caring for the living?

  ‘I won’t,’ I promised.

  And I meant it too. But by the following week, I was already wondering if this was a promise Price would allow me to keep.

  *

  Seven days later, some of Britain’s greatest scientists and historians and a crowd of eager newspaper reporters arrived at Church House, Westminster. On all their lips was the same question: what was inside the locked box? Nothing, not even the violent thunderstorm that evening, could keep them away.

  Mother and I took our places in the stalls to the left. Glancing to my right, I caught sight of Velma Crawshaw at the end of the opposite aisle. Her hair had been restyled for the occasion, cut closer to her face in a more modern fashion, and she was wearing a long-sleeved pale grey dress so surprisingly elegant that I wondered cynically where she had found the money to pay for it.

  At the top of the room, in the centre of a wide stage, was the mysterious locked casket, picked out by a bright spotlight from above.

  ‘What do you suppose is inside it?’ Mother asked with a thrill in her voice. ‘They say it contains the salvation for any nation in crisis.’

  ‘That is what they say,’ I replied doubtfully, glancing over at Velma again.

  And then Price was marching down the centre aisle, his black frock coat flapping behind him. From the front of the stage he looked out with severity, his eyes steady, set firm ahead. He didn’t look once at Velma. He didn’t even look at me.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ his voice boomed in the crowded hall, ‘we are gathered here tonight for a momentous occasion.’ He proudly took up his place next to the locked box as a wave of excitement rippled through the sea of onlookers. ‘Many of you will be wondering why I decided to conduct this investigation in public. You will have heard that I intend to solve the myth surrounding the contents of this box, which once belonged to a great seeress. Let me tell you now that I am here tonight not to verify this myth but to explode it!’

  There came from the audience a hurried exchange of whispers.

  ‘In the last few days I took the liberty of asking one of this country’s most talented mediums, who is here among us this evening, to tell me by psychic means what this curious chest contains.’

  Surely, I thought, he isn’t going to tell them all now, here, like this? What if Velma were mistaken? She would be ruined. I didn’t care for the woman, but the idea that I was about to witness her public humiliation made me feel extremely uncomfortable.

  From his jacket pocket Price produced a slip of paper and held it aloft. ‘I can now reveal what was predicted.’

  Velma looked totally dejected. And when Price had completed reading aloud the poor woman’s vague list of predictions he raised his eyebrows and said, ‘Well then, we shall see, shan’t we, how accurate the means of the modern psychic really are?’

  The great moment had arrived.

  Picking up a pair of heavy metal shears from the table, he cut the seals that had secured the box before prising the lid open. From somewhere at the back of the room someone – probably a follower from one of the Southcott societies – cried, ‘Sacrilege!’

  But of course that didn’t stop him.

  As he reached inside the casket, his fingers trembling, you could have heard a pin drop. Each curious item was produced slowly, carefully, with wonderful drama for the benefit of the cameras: a horse pistol, some coins, a pair of earrings, two religious pamphlets and a booklet entitled The Remarkable Prophecies and Predictions for the Year 1796. Just a curious assortment of worthless bric-a-brac that was clearly never going to be of any use to anyone whatsoever, let alone a nation in a crisis!

  ‘Well then,’ said Price, his sarcasm obvious, ‘imagine that!’

  The affair was a well-staged sensation. It was not, however, a performance to be relished by Velma Crawshaw, whose face, I could see, was flushed with embarrassment. She must have cared for him dearly to have trusted him so. And now she had been vilified.

  When the audience finally saw the objects inside the box they burst into hysterical laughter, enthusiastically thanking Price for arranging such an entertaining evening, many of them grateful for the opportunity he had given them to witness close up the results of his method of applying precautionary scepticism to psychic matters.

  But not everyone was as satisfied with the night’s proceedings. Mother never returned to the Laboratory after that. For her, and hundreds of other ardent spiritualists, it was just too much. ‘He has no respect,’ she complained to me afterwards, ‘no class or nobility. You would do well to get away from him, Sarah.’

  In the end, of course, she was right; mothers usually are.

  *

  ‘It’s a
bout last night,’ I said flatly, eyeing his desk, which was covered with newspaper cuttings.

  ‘Yes, it went well very well, didn’t it?’ Price said cheerfully. ‘The public has always been fascinated by mysterious boxes. Pandora’s box, the Ark of the Covenant – one has only to possess a box with history and one immediately becomes a headliner. But a locked box! That’s much more exciting. Thank you so much for your wonderful efforts, Sarah.’ He glanced down at his newspaper cuttings. ‘Really, there’s hardly a journalist in London who isn’t talking about our little show!’

  The way he was revelling in this attention made me feel somewhat nauseous.

  ‘Sarah, what’s the matter? You seem displeased.’

  ‘You didn’t seem surprised,’ I remarked, remembering his reaction to the objects he had drawn out of the casket. ‘It was as if you already knew.’

  ‘Was it?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said sternly. ‘It was.’

  Price held my gaze with a steady concentration, as though he were expecting me to look away. I didn’t.

  ‘Well, did you already know?’

  ‘Of course I knew,’ he snapped. ‘I had to know! Did you really imagine I wouldn’t have taken the precaution of checking in advance?’

  ‘But why? How?’

  ‘By applying the weapons of secular science, of course.’ He grinned. ‘The X-ray.’

  ‘Then you wanted to humiliate her?’ I asked.

  ‘You call it humiliation; I call it making a point. By X-raying the box I was taking no chances.’

  ‘But I thought that you and she …’

  Price’s face was blank. ‘You thought … ?’

  ‘I thought you were friends.’

  ‘It was vital that I control the proceedings in the manner which people have come to expect from me.’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  Price stood up and moved to the front of his desk. ‘Sarah, you know your work means the world to me, but I am in charge. I decide what we investigate and what we don’t, like that house you told me about – that rectory.’ He shook his head. ‘I decide. That is the way it has to be. Always. All right?’ He left an expectant pause, searching my face carefully. Perhaps he could see that I wasn’t convinced, that I was about to challenge him still further, because he continued: ‘So, why are you really here?’