A Case of Spirits

‘Not significant, in my opinion,’ said Jowett, after a pause. He turned the photograph over, blushed, and handed it back to Cribb. ‘Carry on, Sergeant.’

‘Top pocket: nothing, sir. Waistcoat, left hand side: nothing. Right hand: silver watch and chain, inscribed “P. B.” That’s all, sir.’

Cribb put the objects in a neat arrangement on the table at the dead man’s feet. Mrs Probert came forward with a sheet and draped it over the body.

‘That seems to answer your point, Mr Strathmore,’ said Jowett. ‘There’s nothing here to suggest he was a fraud.’

‘I hope certain people feel suitably ashamed of themselves,’ said Miss Crush in a stage whisper.

‘Very well, the medium had no evidence of trickery on his person,’ Strathmore conceded. ‘That is not to have prevented him from passing things to his collaborator. I suggest we make a similar search of Quayle.’

‘Done, sir,’ said Cribb. ‘He’s carrying a railway ticket, twelve and sixpence and a hip-flask of gin, which fortunately survived his fall.’

Jowett gave the sort of cough a chairman gives to call a meeting to order. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I think we have explored this avenue of inquiry for long enough. It has produced nothing of consequence. I propose that we now confine ourselves strictly to the circumstances of Mr Brand’s unfortunate demise. Do I understand that you have something to contribute, madam?’ He peered warily at Miss Crush, who had been waving her hand throughout his speech.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Shouldn’t somebody go and fetch a policeman?’

Even in the presence of death, unforced laughter is difficult to suppress. It took several seconds for Jowett to restore order. ‘I believe, madam, that you were insensible when I introduced myself just now. I am Detective- Inspector Jowett of the Criminal Investigation Department, Great Scotland Yard, and I will suffice for a policeman. My assistant here is Sergeant Cribb, whom I was led to believe has already interviewed you at your house. He is a policeman, too.’

‘I should have remembered,’ said Miss Crush, flapping her hand at the inspector. ‘I think of him as a sensitive, you see, not an officer of the law. It would help if you both wore uniforms.’ She sighed and looked misty-eyed. ‘I think tall helmets are very chic.’

Jowett closed his eyes, and said with deliberation, ‘I need to determine the circumstances leading to Mr Brand’s decease. I shall require a statement from each of you, but before we begin the formalities, is there anyone with anything to say bearing on the accident which has not been mentioned already?’

‘I think so, sir,’ said Cribb. ‘If you’ll step into the study, I can show you.’ He crossed the room with Jowett following and crouched in front of the chair in which Brand had died. ‘Put your hand on the carpet here, sir. Feel it? It’s damp over quite a large patch eighteen inches in front of the chair. When we found the body the feet were positioned on this patch. I don’t regard myself as much of a scientist, but I know that water can conduct electricity, and that electricity tends to go to earth. If Mr Brand started with his feet under the chair on this dry area, but moved them forward during the experiment, mightn’t it have diverted the path of the current so that it flowed through the length of his body to earth? I think it’s pertinent to ask how the wet patch got here.’

‘That’s no mystery,’ said Probert at once. ‘I kicked over a bowl of salt solution we used to make a good contact for the terminals.’

‘When did this happen, sir?’

‘Halfway through, when Brand called me from behind the curtain. We were totally in darkness, if you follow me, and I blundered into the thing. It made no difference, though. He didn’t get a shock, or anything.’

‘Probably not, sir, if his feet were on the dry part of the carpet. He’d get his shock when he moved them forward.’

‘I see your point, Sergeant, but it still doesn’t explain how the shock could have killed him. The current couldn’t change, you see. It was no more than a tickle. Several of us tried it.’

‘Couldn’t feel a thing,’ Nye confirmed.

‘The transformer was the safeguard, you understand,’ continued Probert. ‘It reduced the electro-motive force to twenty volts, and that won’t kill a man, I assure you.’

Cribb looked thoughtfully at the wooden box from which the wires trailed. ‘This cable connected to the other side of the transformer leads up from the batteries in the cellar, does it, sir?’

‘Yes, that’s the main lead. It carries 416 volts. If I’d connected that to the chair it would have been lethal.’

‘And if there was a fault in the transformer?’

Probert shook his head emphatically. ‘I’m damned sure there wasn’t, Sergeant. Have it checked, by all means, but you’ll find it’s working perfectly. Otherwise we shouldn’t have got the galvanometer readings we did. Heavens, at 416 volts the blasted galvanometer would have been burnt out!’

Cribb stood up and massaged the side of his face, a tactful way of indicating to Jowett that he was at liberty to take over the questioning if he wished. There was silence except for the rasp of Cribb’s side-whiskers, so he began again. ‘Dr Probert, you mentioned that Brand called out to you, and that was how you came to overturn the bowl of water. What did he want?’

‘He claimed that somebody had come into the study while he was in trance. He was most indignant about it, and only calmed down when we suggested it must have been a spirit. All the people in the house except my wife were present in the library, you see.’

‘That was what you supposed at the time, sir.’

‘Good God, I’d forgotten! It could have been Quayle who interrupted him-or even you!’

‘Not me, sir, I assure you, but Professor Quayle is a possibility. Quite an engaging one. I followed him into the house through the back door. You ought to have a word with your servants about that, sir. We spend a lot of time in the Force reminding people about doors they haven’t locked. Anyway, I think the professor must have heard me in pursuit, because he was nowhere to be seen by the time I got up here from the basement. It’s my guess now that he let himself in through the study door to give me the slip. He probably couldn’t see a thing when he first came in.’

‘Of course!’ said Nye excitedly. ‘The silly blighter cracked his foot against the transformer and shot 400 volts into Brand, poor beggar.’

‘Impossible!’ said Probert with a glare. ‘Brand was perfectly all right when we pulled aside the curtain. The accident happened later, between the time when we withdrew and closed the curtain for the second time and when the Sergeant came in through the library door. At that time Quayle was definitely not in the study.’

‘He’d given me the slip, sir,’ said Cribb. ‘The next I heard from him was the creaking of a floorboard upstairs after we discovered what had happened in here. He couldn’t get out through the basement because Captain Nye was down there switching off the current, so he went upstairs instead.’

‘As we discovered,’ said Probert.

‘As I did,’ his wife corrected him.

‘What nobody has made clear,’ said Alice, ‘is why Professor Quayle came into the house at all. If it wasn’t to assist Mr Brand, as now seems clear, what was the purpose of his presence here?’

Cribb shot an inquiring glance at his superior. ‘I was rather hoping to extract that information from the professor himself, miss. If Inspector Jowett was proposing to collect statements from you all, I wondered if I might be spared to put some questions across the kitchen table downstairs. Only, of course, if you were planning things that way, sir.’

Jowett nodded, the first positive thing he had achieved in ten minutes. ‘That was precisely what I was coming to, Sergeant.’

‘Thank you, sir. It looks like being a long night, so while I’m down there, I’ll put the kettle on, if I may. I’ll stand it on the range beside the professor and see which one sings first.’

As it turned out, the interview could not take place in the kitchen. Hitchman, the Proberts’ deaf maidservant, had returned from her evening off and was threatening the professor with a meat-hook when Cribb got down there. The kitchen was her domain and she was clearly quite intractable, so he side-stepped her, unlocked the professor, marched him upstairs and obtained the key to the picture-gallery from Probert.

‘Sit down, sir,’ he said, poking the professor in the chest with sufficient firmness to park him in the flirtation settee. ‘I shan’t join you. Nothing personal intended, but I like to see a man’s eyes when I ask him questions. In