The House of Hidden Wonders

by Sharon Gosling

  “No,” said Mr Danvers, looking a little awkward. “Begging your pardon, Lady Sarah, but myself and Arbuthnot here both judged this no suitable place for a lady.”

  “I take no offence, my dear man,” said Lady Sarah cheerfully. “No doubt, had he been alive, my husband would have held the same opinion. One of the advantages of having been left alone in life is the luxury to do just as I please.”

  A final carriage appeared. The hard knot in Zinnie’s stomach tightened even further, for it could only belong to one person. A moment later and MacDuff himself stood with the rest of the party, his dark eyebrows drawn together in a forbidding frown.

  “Well, Conan Doyle,” he said in that broad American accent that Zinnie was sure was not even close to being his own. “You were keen for me to attend this – whatever it turns out to be – and here I am. I pray it will be nothing worse than a waste of time.”

  Zinnie’s skin crawled as she looked at the man who had killed at least one person and been so eager to reduce Aelfine to nothing more than an animal in a cage. Part of her wanted to plunge her knife into his belly, but more than anything she wanted justice for Aelfine and Eliza. She had to get this evening right for it all to work the way she had planned.

  “Are we sure about this?” Arbuthnot spoke up. He looked Zinnie and Sadie up and down. “I for one am not at all convinced that putting ourselves at the mercy of the sort of … person we shall find in these parts is a good idea.”

  “Oh, but there will be surely none of us who wish to turn back now,” said Lady Sarah, looking round the little semicircle. “We are all here and ready to go, after all. Who would want to waste the journey?”

  Zinnie noticed a look pass between the gentlemen which suggested that they would have happily done just that, but neither of them wished to appear less courageous than the women in their midst.

  “Excellent,” said Lady Sarah, after the moment had passed in silence. “I’m sure you menfolk can protect Sophia and I should the need arise, eh? So, let us be away.”

  “I’m not coming with you,” said Sadie. “I’ve got to get back to the clinic, to Nell.”

  “Oh,” said Doctor Jex-Blake. “I’m sure that’s not necessary, Sadie. Mrs Collins will see to your sister.”

  “I know, but I want to be with her,” Sadie said. “And to be honest –” she bit her lip – “it scares me, so it does. The ghost…”

  Zinnie gave her a hug. “Not to worry. Go – be with Nell. Give her a kiss from me and tell her I’ll see her soon.”

  “Oh, do let’s get on with it!” MacDuff huffed. “Do we really need these ragged excuses for children as guides? Surely we can find our own way. Let them both go.”

  “I wouldn’t advise that, MacDuff,” said Conan Doyle, before Zinnie could turn on him. “I’ll wager these girls know this place better than you know your own moustache.”

  Sadie let Zinnie go and disappeared into the bustle of the street. Zinnie turned, gave MacDuff the sweetest smile she could muster and led the peculiar assembly down the Mile.

  “Light your candles now, please,” she said, as she stood on the top step of the entrance into the underground closes. “And stay together. Below lurks danger, but also Madame Khartoubian and the absolute truth.”

  She thought she heard a small snort of derision coming from MacDuff’s direction, but ignored it and began to descend the steps.

  Zinnie and Sadie had spent most of the day attempting to make the path down to the deepest recesses of the close as clear as possible. There was nothing they could do, however, about the destitute inmates of the place, or the filth that was ingrained in the walls and – where they were still intact – the floors.

  Zinnie, looking back from the head of the column as they moved out on to the close itself, saw Mr Danvers holding a kerchief over his nose and mouth to counteract the choking smell. Zinnie couldn’t blame him and, as she saw MacDuff search for his own handkerchief, she thought again of little Nell, looking so radiant with health in her clean hospital bed. I can’t bring her back here, she thought to herself, yet again. I just can’t. She saw MacDuff frown a little as he realized his handkerchief was missing.

  “Mind your step, if you please,” she called back up the hill. “The path is steep and uneven. Don’t want you all going teeth-over-toes.”

  When they reached the ruined room in which the seance would be held, Zinnie stood aside.

  “Please, place your candles with the others,” she said, ushering her ‘guests’ inside, “and stay on the path until you reach the table. The floor is dangerous anywhere else.”

  The ‘path’ had been Sadie’s idea – a line of fallen house bricks and chunks of half-rotten timber laid in two parallel lines around the near edge of the great hole in the floor. Between them had been created a narrow space to walk, lined with as many lit candle stubs as the girls had been able to collect. The dim light these gave off flickered yellow and was just enough to lead their guests towards where Constance McQuirter, now fully transformed into Madame Khartoubian, sat at a round ‘table’ that the girls had cobbled together from scavenged planks. From the ruined doorway, it seemed as if the medium were sitting on the last tiny outcrop of solid ground hanging over the edge of a bottomless abyss surrounded by darkness.

  “My goodness,” murmured Lady Sarah, pausing at the start of the path and gazing upon the setting for this most unusual of evenings.

  Zinnie had to admit that even knowing what she did the effect was striking. If ever a spirit were to inhabit a place on earth, this would surely be it.

  “Please,” called Madame Khartoubian in her soft French accent, strange shadows cast by the candlelight dancing across her face. “Be not afraid. Approach, my friends, for the spirits of this place are waiting for us. I feel them pressing in, trying to find a conduit into our realm.”

  One by one, the party added their candles to the stones and made their way down the path, into the darkness.

  With everyone seated, there was just one space left at the table. This Zinnie took herself.

  “At last,” said Madame Khartoubian, “we are all assembled. The spirits are restless: the witching hour will soon be upon us. Let us begin.”

  The Ouija board came first. Madame Khartoubian asked questions, trying to call out to the ghost that had been haunting the close. But instead of answers there was silence. The medium was not to be bested, however – she filled the pauses with messages for those at the table, answers to questions that had not been asked, purportedly from ‘beyond the veil’.

  “Please, ladies and gentlemen, the spirits are waiting,” she crooned at one point. “What questions would you have them answer?”

  Clearly, Zinnie thought, Constance had run out of ideas of her own. More than once, she glanced at Zinnie, as if to ask what she was waiting for. Zinnie could not have told her, even if she’d been so inclined. Aelfine and Sadie were working to their own cue, and not even Zinnie knew what that was. She’d told them it would work better that way.

  “If I look as surprised as the rest, so much the better,” she’d said.

  Still, it must be getting towards midnight now, she thought, anxiety twisting in her gut. What if something’s gone wrong? What if Aelfine is refusing to do it without Ruby or—

  Then a gasp went up from Lady Sarah.

  “It rises!” she cried. “The spirit is there, see!”

  The heads of all those at the table turned. The ‘spirit’ shimmered in the darkness, floating in mid-air. The black hood was dipped low over its darkened face, only its flickering lips visible. Gasps rippled round the table.

  “Holy Mother,” cursed Constance, momentarily losing control of Madame Khartoubian’s careful French accent. “It truly is a spirit of the dead!”

  Zinnie shot a quick glance at MacDuff, who was sitting with his lips in a firm line, his eyes narrowed.

  He’s been waiting for this, Zinnie realized, her stomach twisting.

  “Talk to us, spirit,” Constance cried, sliding
into her rehearsed lines. “Tell us what troubles you!”

  “I am the ghost of Mary King’s Close,” came the answer in Aelfine’s rough voice, echoing across the void as if coming from all places at once. “Great injustice calls me forth. I am unsettled and wander, restless—”

  A commotion behind them interrupted Aelfine’s speech. Zinnie turned towards the end of the lit path. A figure had appeared, a sack wriggling in its arms. It was Talbot!

  “Finally,” said MacDuff loudly, from across the table. “Let this ridiculous farce be ended!”

  Talbot laughed, an ugly sound. He opened the sack a fraction and something within screeched and shrieked, a horrible demonic sound that grated against the nerves. Ruby struggled and squalled, but Talbot held her fast, shaking the poor little monkey with vicious glee.

  Oh no, Zinnie thought. No!

  “Ruby! ”

  Aelfine’s scream cut across the void, as if a firecracker had been lit in the darkness. The ‘spirit’ vanished and there came the sound of scrabbling.

  “Ruby!” Aelfine cried again, and the monkey screeched back even as the sound of swiftly clambering footsteps grew nearer. “I’m coming!”

  “No!” Zinnie shouted, lurching to her feet as she realized what was about to happen. “Aelfine! No, don’t! Stay away!”

  But it was too late. MacDuff was already out of his seat and ahead of Zinnie. Aelfine appeared from the darkness, thinking of nothing but her poor captured pet. MacDuff reached out and grabbed her by the back of the neck.

  “Here!” he cried. “Here is your so-called ‘spirit’!” MacDuff thrust Aelfine towards one of the candles so that her face was illuminated for the other guests to see.

  “What?” gasped Lady Sarah. “What is this?”

  “This is the idiot wretch who stole my monkey!” MacDuff bellowed, shaking Aelfine as if she were an errant dog. “Look at her, the ungrateful whelp!”

  “Let her go!” Zinnie yelled.

  “I will not!” MacDuff shouted, backing away towards the edge of the hole as Zinnie approached. “That she should steal from me, who clothed and fed her! Who gave her a home away from the circus instead of sending her to an asylum, where she rightfully belongs!”

  “Mr MacDuff, please!” This time the voice came from Doctor Jex-Blake. “Whatever she has done, she is also just a child!”

  “She’s done nothing!” Zinnie cried, as Aelfine sobbed and Ruby continued to screech. “Nothing except escape a prison he made for her. Nothing but run from a—”

  “And these disgusting, ragged reprobates,” MacDuff bellowed again, drowning out Zinnie’s voice, “these vagrant excuses for children who helped her! I will have them all jailed for their crimes!”

  “Let me go!” Aelfine screamed, struggling. “He killed my mother! He wants to kill me too! Help me! Help—”

  “See what absurdities the idiot spouts!” MacDuff shouted. “More proof that she should be locked away with a gag about her mouth for the rest of her days!”

  Zinnie rushed at MacDuff with her knife drawn, but Conan Doyle saw what she meant to do and grabbed her before she could reach him, trying to pull her back.

  “She’s telling the truth!” Zinnie shouted. “MacDuff is a murderer! He killed Aelfine’s mother and—”

  MacDuff silenced her by striking Zinnie across the mouth with the back of his closed fist. Pain exploded along her jaw as her head jerked back and she tasted blood in her mouth.

  “MacDuff!” Conan Doyle protested. “How dare you—”

  Another scream, far louder than the rest, split the pandemonium. It was Constance McQuirter.

  “Another ghost!” she shrieked, in real terror. “A true spectre! See!”

  Zinnie lifted her head, blinking, as MacDuff swung round to look. There, floating above the non-existent floor, was the pale, flickering figure of a woman. She wore a striped dress and her hair was hidden beneath a red scarf, her face indistinct in the shadows.

  “Ma!” Aelfine screamed, and then fainted clean away.

  “It’s another trick!” cried MacDuff.

  “Miss Zinnie –” Conan Doyle gripped both of her shoulders – “is this more play-acting?”

  “No, I swear,” she told him, staring at the ghost as she sank to her knees.

  “She’s lying!” MacDuff spat.

  Conan Doyle didn’t believe it. “Look at her, man! She’s terrified. Whatever this is, I don’t think—”

  “Hush,” Lady Sarah cried, pointing towards the ghost. “It wishes to speak!”

  The ghost opened its mouth, weaving its head from side to side as if it were searching the darkness for something familiar. “My daughter,” it moaned in a voice that drew out each syllable as if it were a song. “My poor, dear daughter, where are you? Aelfine! Aelfine!”

  At the sound of her name, Aelfine stirred and came to herself. Weakly, she looked up into the darkness and cried out again. “Ma! That’s my own dear ma!”

  “It’s a lie!” MacDuff snapped, shaking Aelfine again, but the others of the party shushed him into silence. Doctor Jex-Blake stepped forward and forced MacDuff to loosen his hands from round the girl, gently helping her to her feet.

  “What makes you think it is your mother, child?” she asked. “How do you recognize her? Her face is not clear.”

  “It’s her dress,” Aelfine sobbed. “The dress she always wore when telling fortunes. And she wrapped her head so, always.”

  “Rubbish,” spluttered MacDuff, and Zinnie could hear the change in his accent. His words no longer held the broad twang of American. “The idiot is lying, I tell you! Surely you’ll not believe the words of this degenerate girl over mine?”

  “I believe there is no harm in listening, MacDuff,” Conan Doyle said. “After all, something has brought this restless spirit from the hereafter. By the way, you seem to have become Australian all of a sudden.”

  MacDuff opened his mouth, blinking in shock, and then collected himself. “I will stay here no longer and listen to this!”

  The ghost gave a pitiful moan, raising her hands to her neck and then pointing at MacDuff. “Murderer!” the apparition cried. “My murderer is at hand!”

  MacDuff spun on his heels to leave, but Danvers and Arbuthnot stopped him.

  “Get out of my way!”

  “We cannot simply ignore an allegation of murder, MacDuff,” one of them said. “Even if it comes from beyond the grave.”

  “This is absurd!” MacDuff spluttered. “You’re all being taken in by a trick, nothing more!”

  “Murderer!” cried the ghost again. “He wrapped his hands about my neck when I said I would leave. He squeezed the life from my body without a single thought of remorse in his ungodly mind, because I knew the truth of his past and he wanted my daughter for his terrible house!”

  “Where are you?” Aelfine begged, reaching out her arms as if her mother could pick her up. “Where is your body?”

  “Lying in unconsecrated ground,” the ghost moaned. “Unmarked, discarded like so much waste.”

  “But where?” asked Lady Sarah. “Where would we find your body, were we to look for it?”

  “I lie beneath the bridge they call Dean,” said the ghost. “Beside the Water of Leith there is an oak tree with branches broken on its eastern side. Between it and a fallen slab of sandstone you will find me in a shallow grave.”

  Zinnie looked at MacDuff, who was staring at the apparition with a new kind of horror. “It’s not possible,” he whispered.

  “What is not possible, MacDuff?” asked Conan Doyle.

  MacDuff came to his senses and shook his head, puffing out his chest. “It’s not possible that sensible citizens such as yourselves have been taken in by such trickery. I even unmasked the culprits, yet still you are gullible enough to believe these inbred fools.”

  “Well, I believe there is but one way to be sure of the truth,” said Conan Doyle. “And that is for us to journey to the Dean Bridge this instant and see whether the spirit is speaking
the truth.”

  “What?” MacDuff said, flabbergasted. “You would have me, an upstanding citizen, dragged through the night to traipse about a riverbank on the whim of an illusion?”

  “How do you know it’s an illusion?” asked Doctor Jex-Blake.

  “I will prove it to you!” MacDuff snarled, and with that he snatched up one of the candles and tried to pick his way over the broken floor. The void prevented him, however, and though he tried to find a way across, he could not. Still the ghost of Aelfine’s mother lingered, flickering and floating in the midnight dark.

  Eventually, MacDuff came back, defeated yet still defiant. “It is no matter,” he said. “I have had enough of this ridiculous charade. I am leaving and I’m taking my property with me. Stop me and there’ll be hell to pay.”

  He moved towards the door again, grabbing at Aelfine to drag her with him.

  “You can’t take her,” said Doctor Jex-Blake. “No person is property and that child especially is not.”

  “Oh, do shut up, woman,” MacDuff growled, his accent slipping again in the heat of the moment. “Go and play at some new profession. There is no court in the land that will say I’ve not been wronged.”

  “Maybe not in this land yet,” said a new voice from the doorway. “But in another you are most definitely the villain, Phineas MacDuff. Or should I say … James Fowler?”

  A sudden hush fell over the assembled company. Zinnie turned. The newcomer was tall and wore a wide-brimmed hat tipped to one side, a gold earring in his single ear.

  “Hobart!” hissed MacDuff.

  Zinnie stared in shock. She recognized that name! The young lawman who had tried to stop the Queensland Kings from robbing the train – and had paid the price for standing up to them by losing his ear.

  The man tore his hat from his head and a gasp rippled round the room at the sight of the ugly scar where his right ear should be. “Twelve years I’ve spent tracking you, Fowler. When your old muckers got out of jail, I knew they’d want to find you too. I followed them – could have had them locked up again at any time, but I let them find you for me instead. No way I was going to let the Queensland Kings escape justice a second time. Even if I had to deliver that justice with my own hands.”