A Case of Spirits

their meaning. They were the two most important numbers in his life.’

‘How on earth do you deduce that?’ asked Jowett.

‘By taking the second number first. It’s the one with the square beside it, and that’s helpful. I had to say it to myself a dozen times before I got it. 9281 square. You say the digits one by one, as an illiterate would. 9 and 2 are numbers, but 8 and 1 are words, eight one, the nearest he could get in numbers to Eaton. It’s an illiterate’s way of writing 92, Eaton Square. And that, if you remember, sir, is Miss Crush’s address in Belgravia.’

‘Eight one square,’ said Jowett. ‘It doesn’t sound like Eaton Square to me.’

‘Not the way you say it, sir,’ conceded Cribb. ‘But Peter Brand wasn’t taught to speak the way you was. Let’s hear you say Eaton, Thackeray.’

‘Eaton,’ said Thackeray with more than usual care.

‘I take your point, Cribb. But if that set of digits represents Miss Crush’s address, what is the significance of the others? 469 doesn’t sound like anything to me and I don’t think it would even if Thackeray said it.’

‘It stands for the other important person in his life, sir. I looked it up in the Hackney Carriage Licensing Department. 469 is the license number of one Charles Brand, cabman.’

‘His father! Good Lord! Are you suggesting that Miss Crush might be his-’

‘Must be, sir. I’ll be confirming it this evening. Now, Thackeray, you had something to contribute, I believe.’

Thackeray had parted with ten shillings for the same information on the Charing Cross cab-rank that morning, but now he shook his head. ‘I think you’ve said all there is to say, Sarge.’

In the interests of decorum Miss Crush had left her bed, in which she had been confined in a state of shock since Saturday with orders that the servants were not to disturb her except for meals. She had put on a black velvet dressing-robe and positioned herself on the chaise-longue in her drawing-room. Cribb, who had adventitiously arrived as the apple charlotte was going upstairs, sat at a discreet distance in an upright chair and expounded his theories much as he had at Scotland Yard, with some concessions to the delicate state of his listener.

‘I knew that you were a sensitive,’ said Miss Crush when he had finished. ‘Didn’t I recognise you as one the first moment you came into my house? You can look into a woman’s eyes and see the secrets of her life laid bare, can’t you? Oh, they must have jumped for joy at Scotland Yard the day they recruited you, Sergeant.’

‘I don’t recall it, ma’am,’ said Cribb. ‘But I think you should understand that I didn’t uncover these personal matters through guess-work. It was a process of deduction.’

‘Seduction?’ said Miss Crush. ‘Oh no, it was not that. I might have been an ingenue twenty years ago, but I was not so ill-bred as to allow myself to be seduced by a common cabman. I seduced him.’

‘You did, ma’am?’ said Cribb, grateful for this unsolicited information.

‘I did, most certainly. I was one of the New Women. It was the time when dear Mr Mill was holding up the banner of emancipation. I listened to a speech he made in the election of 1865 and it transformed my life, Sergeant. I decided on the spot that I should never be the slave of man and I have not faltered in that resolution since. But so that I should know what I was to devote my life to fighting against, namely the power man has to enslave my own poor sex, I resolved to make one foray into the enemy camp. If I got to know the contents of his armoury he would be powerless ever to take me by stealth, you see. It was sound strategy, as you must appreciate.’

‘Very sound, ma’am.’

‘I had to choose a man of suitable age and physical attributes, but of course it needed to be someone quite outside my social circle. That made it very difficult, but then I had an inspiration. There were rows of men sitting on view at every cab-rank in London. I took a walk along The Strand one morning and selected a subject at my leisure.’

‘Number 469.’

‘That was he. I noticed that his horse-which I think he called Deuteronomy or something from the Bible-was conspicuously underfed, even for a cab-horse, so I made that the reason for my interest. I sent my servant back to hire him and that was the first of several excursions in the cab.’

‘Several, ma’am?’ said Cribb, lifting an eyebrow.

‘It was necessary to undermine his defences first, Sergeant.’

‘Of course,’ said Cribb. ‘Did you-er-gain access to the armoury?’

‘Within a week. It was the only occasion I assure you, but unhappily for my plans there was a consequence.’

‘Young Brand?’

‘Yes. In the true emancipating spirit I made quite sure that it was his father who raised him. I provided money for his upkeep until he was old enough to earn for himself.’ Miss Crush sighed. ‘I am afraid the boy was shamefully neglected. If I had thought there would be a child I should have selected a cabman with a better looking horse. People who treat animals well are usually tolerant of children. The truth of it is that the boy got into odious company, thieves and tricksters and probably worse. I believe his father lost touch with him altogether.’

‘You lost touch too, I gather, ma’am.’

‘Goodness, yes. It would have been most imprudent of me to have anything to do with the boy. He thought I died of cholera when he was a child. He thought so at least until one afternoon last year, when he met his father on a race-course and the silly man must have drunk far too much, because he told Peter the whole story. The rest must be obvious to a man of your insight. Peter took some months to trace me, but he did, early this year. It was a terrible shock, Sergeant, unforgettable. Oh, he was very charming in his way, and disarming too. From his unwholesome friends he had acquired the art of winning a lady’s confidence, as I learned to my cost. Weeks passed before he suggested anything irregular, but for him the time was not wasted. He used those weeks, I now realise, to learn about my way of life, my friends and my social engagements. He took particular interest in the seances I attended and he made me tell him everything that happened, time and again. Foolishly I allowed myself to be flattered by his interest, and I never tired of answering his questions. You can see what was happening, can’t you? I see it in your eyes.’

‘It’s the way these people work, ma’am. We get to know their methods.’

‘Well, one evening he suggested we should play a prank on my friends, the Bratts. Sir Hartley and his wife are somewhat elderly and Penelope, their daughter, is easily taken in. The plan was that I would arrange a seance, which was certain to interest them because they like nothing better than to get in touch, and I would introduce Peter as a medium. With my help he would then produce some marvellous phenomena. At first I would not agree, on the grounds that it was uncharitable, and might even provoke hostility on the Other Side, but Peter said it was like a parlour-game, and there was no harm in it. He promised never to attempt anything of the kind in a genuine seance. In short, Sergeant, he was so enthusiastic that I found it impossible to disincline him from the plan. We invited the Bratts, and they were totally convinced that he was genuine! The pity of it was that the deception did not end there. He made me introduce him to more of my friends in the spiritualist movement and he repeated his performance, never telling them, of course, that what we did was fraudulent. It is a strange thing, but the more mystified they were, the more impossible it became to tell them the truth. It would have upset them so.’

‘I can see that,’ said Cribb.

‘In a surprisingly short time he was beginning to gain a reputation as a successful medium. I believe he appeared at houses in other parts of London and produced some quite extraordinary phenomena, which I can only presume were engineered with the help of some of his vile acquaintances. He was not a genuine sensitive, I assure you of that. Well, Sergeant, the rest of the story I need hardly recount. Peter became established as the most gifted medium in London and everyone was clamouring to engage him. I confess to you that I participated fully in his deceptions: I pretended to see and hear phenomena that never occurred; I simulated rapping sounds under the table by knocking the heels of my boots together; and I carried things for him under my clothes and passed them to him during the sittings.’

‘What kinds of things were they, ma’am?’

‘Ah, you are thinking of what we in the movement call “apports”, Sergeant, objects that miraculously appear during seances. At times a seance table has been known to be entirely covered by flowers or fruit introduced by the spirits. But Peter would have nothing to do with apport phenomena. He said that it was too open to assertions of trickery. The only objects I carried for him were small boxes containing chemicals which he used to produce