A Case of Spirits

visitor with us.’

‘And I can feel my hair being stroked,’ said Alice, whose memory was more reliable.

‘Wasn’t this the moment when we heard the footsteps from behind the curtain?’ asked Strathmore.

‘It is all arranged,’ said Jowett. ‘Please behave exactly as you did on Saturday.’

A log subsided in the grate. There was a whimper from Miss Crush.

‘Do you have your sal volatile with you, madam?’ Probert inquired.

‘In my hand, Doctor, in my hand.’

‘The galvanometer is quite steady,’ announced Jowett by way of reassurance.

Then they heard the door in the study open and the unmistakable sound of footsteps starting across the room and just as quickly returning.

‘It’s a bloody liberty,’ called Cribb’s voice, from behind the curtain.

‘Shall I go to him?’ asked Probert.

‘No,’ said Strathmore. ‘If you remember, you asked me to go to the curtain first.’

‘Please do so,’ said Jowett.

Strathmore advanced to the curtain and opened a gap wide enough to peer through. ‘Is everything in order?’

‘No it ain’t,’ said Cribb’s voice. ‘Ask Dr Probert to come through.’

‘Remember to kick over the bowl of water, Papa,’ Alice helpfully advised.

Probert played his part with less zest than he had on Saturday, but everyone heard the bowl of salt solution being overturned, followed by his appeal for candles. Jowett lighted two and led the others through to where Cribb was seated.

‘What the bleeding hell-’ began Cribb.

‘Very well, Sergeant,’ interposed Jowett. ‘We can afford to omit the unparliamentary language. Ladies present, you know. Is everything in order so far?’

‘Yes, sir. The professor entered on cue and went out again.’

‘Very good. Dr Probert, has Captain Nye gone downstairs to turn off the current?’

‘He has, Inspector.’

‘Splendid. What happened at this stage, then?’

‘We tried to pacify the medium,’ said Probert.

‘So we did. Do you consider yourself pacified, Cribb?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And ready to die-in simulation, of course?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Stout fellow! Ah, I can hear Captain Nye approaching. Kindly ask him to go downstairs again and restore the electricity, will you, Miss Probert? I believe I returned to my galvanometer at this point in the proceedings.’ Jowett was sounding increasingly like a host determined to inflict party games on unconvivial guests. He left the others standing woodenly round the chair and bustled through the curtain. ‘Capital!’ he presently announced. ‘I have a reading of 195. We now commence the last phase of the exercise, ladies and gentlemen. Take your places, please.’

They filed silently through to the library, leaving Cribb to his simulated fate.

‘I have a reading of 200 divisions, Mr Strathmore,’ said Jowett, when everyone was seated.

Strathmore’s co-operation in the reconstruction had not extended to copying the readings into a notebook, but he nodded, since his name had been mentioned.

It was the last movement in the library for an appreciable time, except for the flickering of the fire. Even Jowett had succumbed to the tension now, and was standing by the galvanometer with his hands locked tightly behind his back. Alice, on the edge of her chair, was poised to give support to Miss Crush, who was holding her bottle of sal volatile six inches from her nose. Somewhere in the house a grandfather clock chimed the half-hour.

‘Half past ten. The needle is at 196, a slight drop, I think,’ Jowett observed.

‘Something is moving somewhere. I know it,’ said Miss Crush.

‘Steady, madam!’ growled Probert.

‘That man behind the curtain is a sensitive,’ she insisted. ‘Dear God, the room is getting colder! What is it, Captain Nye, what is it?’

Nye, apparently unwilling or unable to respond, lifted his arm to point ahead of him. His eyes stood out like two half-crowns in a penny bazaar. They were focused on an object which had appeared between the two sections of the curtain. It was a white, moving hand.

‘God preserve us!’ cried Miss Crush, pushing the sal volatile against her nose.

The hand came further round the curtain, exposing a wrist and forearm, partially draped in white.

Captain Nye slumped over the table in a dead faint.

‘The galvanometer reading is the same!’ said Jowett. ‘Look at the needle, Strathmore!’

But Strathmore, like the others, had eyes only for the apparition which was gliding clear of the curtain and into the library. Its face and hands were as pallid as the shroudlike garment which enveloped it, but Miss Crush’s perceptions had been sharpened by the sal volatile. ‘I recognise it!’ she said. ‘Look at the nose and side-whiskers. It is the spirit of that poor man Cribb, passing through on its way to purgatory. The chair has taken him from us, as it did poor Peter.’

‘Not so, madam!’ said Jowett, in a dramatic intervention worthy to rank with anything Irving ever did on the boards of the Lyceum. ‘That will do, Sergeant.’

The figure halted.

‘Dear God!’ exclaimed Miss Crush. ‘It still obeys commands, poor, hapless thing. It has not yet freed itself from its mortal obligations.’

‘I’m afraid not, ma’am,’ said Cribb’s voice. ‘You can’t give up the Force as easy as that.’ He wiped some talcum powder away from his lips with the sleeve of his nightshirt. ‘I seem to have alarmed Captain Nye, sir.’

‘Not only Captain Nye,’ said Probert. ‘What the devil is this charade all about, Inspector?’

Jowett was quite unperturbed. ‘I shall tell you, Doctor. I arranged this as a demonstration. This evening you have seen what Peter Brand intended you to see on Saturday evening: the apparent manifestation of a spirit. After his death we discovered that he was wearing a full-length nightshirt like this one of Cribb’s under his outer clothes. In the pocket was a small bag of talcum powder for application to the face and hands, to give the ghostly pallor, you understand. It sounds like a parlour game, I admit, but in the uneven light of a fire and before sitters who have already witnessed other phenomena, it could, I believe, carry some conviction. Even Cribb’s unrehearsed performance tonight seems to have impressed some of you. Are you feeling better, Captain Nye?’

‘Perfectly well,’ retorted the Captain over the bottle of sal volatile. ‘Haven’t had enough sleep lately.’

Alice was frowning at what Jowett had said. ‘But if Peter Brand had dressed up-or, rather, undressed-like this, and left the chair, we should have known as soon as he took his hands away from the brass handles and broke the electrical circuit.’

‘A valid observation, Miss Probert,’ said Jowett, obviously relishing his role as unraveller of the mystery. ‘Won’t you kindly come over here and examine the galvanometer?’

The invitation was to Alice, but she was joined there by everyone else.

‘Damn it, the confounded thing is still registering 196!’ said Probert. ‘There’s something amiss.’

‘There must be somebody else in the chair!’ said Alice. ‘An accomplice! That large policeman with the beard.’

‘No, Miss Probart. You are quite mistaken,’ said Jowett. ‘Come and see for yourself.’ He walked to the curtains and drew them emphatically apart.

There was nobody seated in the chair. Stretched between the handles was a white handkerchief.

‘What’s a blasted wipe doing there?’ demanded Probert.

‘Standing in for Sergeant Cribb, Doctor,’ said Jowett. ‘You wouldn’t think a pocket handkerchief could stretch that far until you held it by opposite corners and saw the length of it. It tucks in nicely where the handle is screwed to the wood.’

‘A handkerchief won’t conduct electricity,’ said Probert.