Breaking the Circle, page 22
Margaret looked up to the fine old grandfather clock at the top of the stairs. ‘It’s a quarter past nine. I expect the butler will …’ But her words were drowned by a gong that sounded as if it were being struck in her head rather than in the hall. When the echoes had died away, the guests began to make their way to the supper rooms, the general twitter being about what could possibly be in these too discreet little envelopes. Who would be the lucky ones? And what would happen at the séance? Who would Come Through? Almost everyone had a relative who had passed over in the last year. One woman, whose nod towards mourning was a velvet shrug over her evening dress, could claim a mother-in-law dead only three months. Another, a grandfather who had succumbed to extreme old age only last week, but she had to concede that he hadn’t spoken a word of sense for the last ten years, so he would not be much of an ornament to any turning table.
The food was as spectacular as food always was at a soirée of Lady Sylvia Brooks, and some envelopes were soon abandoned on tables as their putative owners concentrated on their brandade de morue and coquilles Saint-Jacques. It seemed no time at all before the sound of distant corks popping made all heads come up, and everyone who had put their envelopes down somewhere scrambled to find them again.
Lady Sylvia stood in the hallway between the two supper rooms and beat one palm gently with the fingers of her other hand. The sound it made was minuscule but, even so, every head turned in her direction.
‘I hope you have all had a good evening,’ she said. ‘Miss Palladino is being escorted to the séance room as we speak, so I would ask you now to produce your envelopes. Please display them to your supper partners, so we can be sure no one has tampered.’ She gave them a moment and from here and there came a cry of ‘You’ve opened it!’ or ‘You are so naughty!’
‘Dear me,’ she said, with a laugh. ‘It seems some of you couldn’t wait. I hope none of the opened envelopes contained the golden ticket, because if they did, they are null and void.’ She looked around and the miscreants shook their heads – all of the broached tickets were blank.
‘Excellent. Well, on the count of three, everyone open their envelopes. And those with a golden cross on their ticket, please make their way to the head of the stairs, where Jack will escort you to the séance. Good luck. One.’
Thumbs were under the flaps.
‘Two.’
There was a crumpling of stout parchment as some people tore their envelopes, just a little.
‘Three.’
There were cries of excitement, happily spread throughout the two rooms more or less evenly, to Lady Sylvia’s relief. She wasn’t a mathematician, but she had had slight horrors when working out the possibility of having all eight tickets at two adjoining tables! The disappointed majority were soon back at the buffet tables, while the exalted eight made their way up the stairs to where Jack Brooks stood, arms wide. He had promised his mother to be suitably serious, because this was where the proper business of the evening began, so he just muttered under his breath, ‘Roll up, roll up. All the fun of the fair.’
Eusapia had been ensconced in her chair before anyone else was let into the room. The curtains on the floor-to-ceiling windows were drawn against the silver of a London twilight, and even the birds outside had caught the mood and were silent. There was a candle burning on each end of the mantelpiece, throwing the medium’s face into deep shadow. Her black lace veil was thrown back for now, so she could watch with her deep-set eyes as each person came into the room, allowed in one by one by the ever-vigilant Jack Brooks.
First into the room was General Boothby. This was a deliberate decision by Andrew Crawford. Although Boothby was an outsider when it came to betting on the murderer, he was a member of the Rag which was a stone’s throw from the murder site of Florence Rook. This was of no significance as such, but he was also in need of watching when it came to grabbing handfuls of passing pulchritude, so next to Edmund Reid and his size nines was a sensible place to put him.
Because he was General Boothby, he couldn’t help but give Eusapia a bit of a once-over but decided immediately that she didn’t come up to his admittedly somewhat low expectations. She was deep in the chest and he did like that in a woman, but there was something about the set of the shoulders and the implacable rat-trap mouth which did not entice. Also, there was quite a whiff of pipe tobacco and a man had to draw a line somewhere. He took his seat to the medium’s left and looked down the table, to see who might be next, crossing his fingers that it might be a little bit of all right. Or failing that, Margaret Murray.
Next through the door was a woman who was so far from a bit of all right that Boothby almost laughed aloud. She had ‘seamstress’ written all over her, for the extremely good reason that she was one. Hilda Ransom was in seventh heaven. She had dreamed for so long of meeting a famous medium, a proper medium, not just a local freelancer like Florence Rook, although Florence had a certain unschooled talent. But now, here she was, little Hilda Ransom from the Havelock Street Orphanage, about to be within touching distance of the great Eusapia. Jack had shepherded her up the side of the table which would have brought her to sit on Boothby’s left, but Hilda Ransom was having none of that. She evaded his gentle guiding arm and positively ran up the other side, to take the chair on Eusapia’s right hand. Jack Brooks moved to stop her, but the medium gave an imperceptible shake of the head. No harm would come if Hilda Ransom sat on the right. General Boothby gave a sigh of relief.
The next person through the door was a tall, uncompromising-looking woman who had received one of the golden tickets. She looked less than impressed to be there and, rather to Jack’s annoyance, took a random seat about two thirds down the table. This had seemed a simple task when he had volunteered for it; the very reason he had volunteered for it was its innate simplicity. Yet it immediately struck him that making the occult lot – as he thought of them – do what you wanted them to do was a bit like trying to herd cats. He closed the door again and had a muttered conversation with Andrew Crawford, many words of which could not have been repeated in polite society.
In the end, rather than have to wrestle with a rather large policeman in immaculate evening dress, Jack opened the door and announced in subdued tones, so as to not disturb the great Eusapia, ‘Please, ladies and gentlemen, one by one and without speaking, please enter the room and take a seat, respecting the reserved ones at this end, which are for some special guests. Thank you.’
When everyone but Crawford was inside, he turned to the sergeant. ‘Well, what was I supposed to do? Drag them out of their seats? It will still work, surely? Or does the great Eusapia need her zanies, assuming she is the mountebank?’ Jack Brooks was usually placid, but those women had got his goat.
‘Darling.’ His mother had come up the stairs as silently as a ghost. ‘I’m sure it doesn’t matter. Now, Papa has decided to sit this one out, so I have brought Bennett up to take his place, as a treat.’
Bennett stood by her side; if it was indeed a treat, he was keeping the knowledge to himself. He also resembled a phantasm of the dead already.
‘We’ll all go in now, shall we? Sergeant Crawford, will you close the door to as you come in. Apparently, Eusapia needs a very dim light.’
It seemed to take forever for everyone to stop shuffling, but eventually the room was silent. Margaret Murray was sitting three seats down from Boothby, directly opposite Robert Grimes. She had seen Mr Justice Grosvenor in the newspapers and his hatchet profile couldn’t be mistaken. The eight guests who had drawn lucky tickets were easy to spot. For a start, they were wearing proper evening dress, not the nearest they could manage as was the case with the Circle adherents. Veronica Makepeace made an arresting sight, with a décolletage so low it was almost a belt, the corsage she wore all but engulfed by her breasts which jutted uncompromisingly only inches from Bennett’s disapproving chin. She was looking rather pleased with herself, as well she might. Tucked into her barely adequate stays were the cards of enough gentlemen to keep her in clover until Christmas, General Boothby’s foremost among them.
A long shuddering breath came from the head of the table. Eusapia spoke. The tone was arresting, even if the English was a little stilted.
‘Good evening,’ she said, her voice seeming to vibrate along the table and up the arms of those unwise enough to be lounging. Everyone sat up that bit straighter. ‘I thank you for attending this little soirée tonight and with so many sensitive souls about us, we can perhaps pierce the veil before we are done.’ She reached up and flipped her own veil over her face and extended her arms in front of her. ‘Do as I do,’ she said. ‘Put out your hands in front and to the side, your fingers spread, like so.’
General Boothby looked at the woman’s hands. God, these peasants let themselves go. The woman had hands like a docker. They looked as if they could squeeze the life out of anything they got a grip on. He felt himself go pale.
‘Do you all see?’ the medium said, spreading her fingers wide. ‘As I do, see?’
All hands reached out and spread their fingers.
‘Now, touch the little finger of your neighbour with your own little finger. Just a touch, no more. You have that done?’
She looked down the table, peering in the dim light.
‘You have it. Good.’
And with no warning, the candles went out and left them in the warm, beeswax-scented dark. There was a small scream from the far end of the table as one of the ticket holders realized that perhaps ‘lucky’ was not the right word to describe her situation.
‘Silenzio!’ the medium barked and the woman gave a small sob and was hushed by her neighbour, Andrew Crawford. He sighed to himself. He was supposed to be keeping a watch and there they were, in the pitch dark, and he had a milksop to his right.
‘If anyone thinks they cannot keep silent, I must ask them to go,’ Eusapia said. ‘The spirits are not to be trifled with. A sound, a gesture and pouf!’ as she spoke, a small luminescent cloud burst over the table, ‘they are gone.’
Edmund Reid gave himself a metaphorical pat on the back. That had given them all a bit of a turn and also had stopped their eyes from getting used to the dark. As long as he kept his eyes shut during the flare, he had a distinct advantage which could prove to be vital.
The medium waited, tapping her slippered foot. ‘Cominciamo, let us begin.’ She began a low humming, which began on one note and then, almost imperceptibly, began to rise and fall, like the breaking of oily waves on the beach of an invisible sea. Everyone around the table began to feel slightly mesmerized, out of their bodies and yet still very aware of the slight pressure of their neighbours’ little fingers. Even Margaret Murray and Andrew Crawford, who knew exactly what was going on, felt themselves sliding under.
Suddenly, the humming stopped. The candles burst back into life and the medium’s face behind the veil was dimly visible. She dropped her chin to her chest and a guttural voice informed the company, ‘They are here.’
Every hand stiffened as they waited to find out just who ‘they’ were. They didn’t have long to wait. Slowly, one by one and then in soft drifts, feathers fell from the ceiling. One caught in a candle flame and there was a brief stench of burning, quickly over. The table lay thick with black down before the last feather spiralled from above.
Margaret Murray and Andrew Crawford locked eyes. How on earth had he done that was the first question. And how were the assembled guests reacting was the second. Everyone seemed to be transfixed. Crawford’s naïve neighbour was blowing gently, making the feathers move and smiling like a child.
Eusapia drew in a breath that seemed to take an age to end. ‘Uccelli della morte; the birds of death.’ She raised her head and this time looked towards the ceiling. ‘They have come to me only once before.’ Again, the sound of her shuddering breath seemed to fill the room. She dropped her head and her eyes, though deep-set in her head, seemed to glow. ‘For one, it did not end well. If there is a liar here, they would do well to leave us, while it is possible still.’
She waited and no one moved, though somewhere, someone sobbed.
‘I continue,’ the medium said, still staring down the table. Margaret Murray and Crawford felt the atmosphere almost crackle with tension and, at the bottom of the table, Bennett the butler sat as if he were frozen to the spot. Crawford, to his right, could feel him tremble. The humming started again and the tension lessened as everyone began to march inwardly to Edmund Reid’s drum. Just when it seemed inevitable that someone would fall asleep, there was an indescribable sound which only Edmund Reid, watching the Billingtons at their work in Wandsworth, had ever heard. It was the sound of a heavy object, falling through space to oblivion, being fetched up short by six feet of hemp and a solid knot behind the ear. There was something about the noise which, though unknown to all but one in the room, still made the blood pound in everyone’s ears and made Crawford’s right-hand neighbour grip his hand, digging in her sharp nails until he shook her free and resumed the slight fingertip pressure.
‘Chi est?’ Eusapia cried, with all the superstitious terror of an Italian peasant in her voice. Still leaning on the table so she didn’t break contact with Boothby or Hilda, she stood and called to the sky, ‘Who are you, who are you, l’impiccato, the hanged man?’
She flopped back into her seat, her head back, her eyes wide, her breath coming in short grunts.
‘The poor woman!’ Lady Sylvia was the consummate hostess and wasn’t going to have the great Eusapia pass Beyond the Veil in her house, not with a hundred guests downstairs at any rate. ‘Loosen her stays, someone. Give her air.’
‘No, no.’ Eusapia came round with almost uncanny speed. ‘I am not passing beyond, do not worry. I have a shock, that is all. Let us re-form the circle. Any who wish to go, go now. I have never known such energy.’
Somewhat rattled, the sitters stretched out their hands again and touched fingers. Crawford was surprised to find that the table surface where his hands had rested was wet with sweat, and he wondered how those not in the know were faring. He had no idea how long they had been in the room. He could hear, in what seemed like the far distance, the hum of the people still enjoying the Brookses’ hospitality below but that was nothing to go by. He had known parties like this go on until dawn. He glanced at Margaret Murray, who was looking at Edmund Reid; what was he going to do next? He realized that he had been secretly hoping that she knew, but from the look on her face, he could tell that she was as much in the dark as he was.
The humming began again, but this time, it didn’t seem to come from the medium at all, but from all around. There was more than one voice, some higher, some lower. Behind the humming were words, but he couldn’t make them out. In the air there were little sparks. Crawford remembered his honeymoon with Angela, an idyllic time on a Greek island, where there was no one but them, a housekeeper-cook and about a million fireflies. This was like that. If you concentrated on a spark, it seemed to go out or move. The air was alive with them but there was no heat and no real light. He tried to concentrate on Reid’s face but it was all but impossible now. Suddenly, Reid arched in his chair, the veil falling off his head and the room re-echoed to a boom that was beyond voice. If asked, Crawford would have sworn that no vocal chords had made that sound.
‘Rapinatore! Voleur! Robber! Thief!’
With a scream, Reid fell forward across the table and everyone pushed their chairs back, eyes wide. All but one. Bennett, the perfect butler, had screamed louder than Reid and, batting his employer aside, had raced for the door.
In the stunned silence, Crawford kept his head.
‘It seems that Mr …’
‘Bennett,’ Lady Sylvia told him. She was being helped back into her chair by Margaret Murray who was signalling with frantic eyebrow semaphore to Crawford to bring the whole thing to a close.
‘Mr Bennett has perhaps a less than clear conscience. However, I am sure that Eusapia will be happy to continue, if anyone wishes it?’
‘Do what?’ A voice echoed round the room and everyone looked around puzzled.
‘I wonder,’ Margaret Murray said, hurriedly, ‘whether perhaps Eusapia is exhausted by all this. Are you exhausted, Miss Palladino?’
The medium raised and let fall a languid hand.
‘I think we have to all say,’ Lady Sylvia said, herself again after the flight of her butler, ‘that we have all had a very exciting evening.’ She leaned down to Margaret and asked, under her breath, ‘Do we clap?’
Margaret shook her head. ‘I think if we leave Eusapia to recover,’ she said loudly, ushering the people she could reach from the room, ‘she may be able to join us in the supper room later. Perhaps she will get some … vibrations?’
The medium’s head came up an inch or two and a baleful eye fixed the archaeologist through a tangle of hair.
‘Well, anyway, we’ll see. If you could all just file out …’ She flinched as someone grabbed her arm.
‘Henrietta.’ Mortimer Mortimer was clearly moved, but still kept up her persona, to the confusion of Lady Sylvia. ‘I have never seen anything so wonderful. The woman is genuine, of that I have no doubt. I will be reporting to the Society forthwith.’ To everyone’s surprise, he threw his arms around her and hugged her. ‘Thank you,’ he breathed, ‘Thank you for this unique experience.’ He stumbled to the door, like a man finally arriving in Damascus.
‘What an extraordinary chap,’ Lady Sylvia muttered. ‘Why did he call you Henrietta?’
‘Poor man,’ Margaret said, watching him go. ‘He clearly is off his head with excitement.’
One by one, the company melted away, General Boothby the last to leave and trying a final grab at any handy part of Lady Sylvia, promptly had his collar felt by John Kane, waiting on the landing outside. It had been very annoying, listening to all the racket coming from the other side of the door and being able to do absolutely nothing about it. He was going to arrest someone, he didn’t care who it was, nor why.
