The Death Collector

with the whole thing, but Madame Sophia herself was rocking backwards and forwards and keening like a child at Christmas.

After a while they seemed to decide that the table had stopped moving and some semblance of order was restored. Husband Gerald suggested in a strained voice that perhaps they might try something else. He excused himself from the table for a moment, and turned up the lights. Liz guessed this was as much for his own peace of mind as anything.

Madame Sophia was also in something of a state, but in her case it was closer to euphoria. The notion that the spirits actually had visited her seance seemed almost too much for her, turning her into a bundle of nervous excitement and bubbling enthusiasm.

‘The glass, Gerald dear, the glass. And the cards. I shall do the cards.’

Gerald soon gave up trying to persuade her that perhaps they had entertained enough spirits for one night, and fetched a glass tumbler. This was placed upside-down in the middle of the table. Then Gerald, with help from everyone else, arranged a set of cards — a letter printed on each — in alphabetical order clockwise round the table.

‘Now,’ Madame Sophia said in a stage whisper, ‘who shall we contact?’

Liz glanced at George. This was obviously a complete waste of time, but George was watching with interest and enthusiasm. There was no way to tell him that she, Liz, had orchestrated much of what had happened while the rest was simple stage trickery.

‘Albert Wilkes,’ George said. ‘We want to make contact with a gentleman who recently departed this life named Albert Wilkes.’

Madame Sophia smiled confidently. ‘And so we shall,’ she said. ‘Do you have any small thing, some personal possession or other that I may use to focus my communications.’

Liz sighed. Probably she wanted it to glean any clues about the dead person. Perhaps, since George had nothing that had belonged to Wilkes, this would soon be over.

But to Liz’s surprise and horror, George had taken out his wallet. He passed the scrap of paper from Glick’s diary carefully across the table to Madame Sophia. She inspected it somewhat dismissively.

‘It’s worth a try,’ George mouthed to Liz. She sighed.

‘I suppose this will have to do,’ she decided, and set it down on the table in front of her, next to the letter ‘A’. ‘Fingers on the glass,’ she instructed. She kept one of her hands pressed down on the fragment of paper. Her eyelids fluttered.

‘Don’t be disappointed if we fail to make contact,’ Gerald warned.

‘We won’t,’ Liz assured him.

But her words were drowned out by Madame Sophia’s sudden shriek. ‘He is here,’ she exclaimed in surprise and delight. ‘Albert Wilkes. His spirit is still in the land of the living. He is with us now!’

In the laboratory at the back of a large house, Albert Wilkes sat up. His movement was stiff, his eyes were unseeing pearl-like marbles.

‘The vocal cords have atrophied,’ the man standing beside the workbench said. ‘But he should still be able to write.’

‘We got no sense out of him last time, sir,’ Blade observed. ‘That was why we sent him off to the Museum for the diaries. Except he ignored us and went home instead.’

The other man was nodding. ‘I am aware of the problems. But despite Sir William’s meddling, I am optimistic. Now that we have a little more time, the bones have been properly replaced, and while they are not actually his own they will more than suffice. The brain has been subjected to an improved form of electrical stimulation which I hope will this time have shocked it into some semblance at least of sense as well as life. I need sentience as well as instinct.’

‘Speak to us,’ Madame Sophia intoned. ‘You are troubled, I can sense that. Do you have a message for anyone here? For Mr Smith perhaps? Anything?’

Beneath her fingers, Liz felt the glass tumbler tremble. She looked round at the others seated at the table. They all seemed equally surprised. Then the glass began to move.

‘A pen, sir?’ Blade offered. He was unable to take his eyes off the dead man.

‘If you please. Of course,’ his master went on as Blade took a pen from the desk and dipped it in an inkwell, ‘despite my best efforts, the brain may be damaged beyond the point of repair.’

‘He has been dead rather a long time, sir.’

The lifeless fingers closed coldly on the pen, and Blade suppressed a shudder. He placed a sheet of paper on the workbench under the poised, dead hand.

Liz was as sure as she could be that it was not movement caused deliberately by anyone there. The glass quivered and shook like a struck tuning fork. It circled slowly, as if trying to make up its mind which letter it wanted.

‘Yes?’ Madame Sophia hissed excitedly. ‘Yes? Tell us, please. What is your message, you poor tortured soul?’

‘Now, Mr Wilkes,’ the man said gently, ‘you are quite aware of what I want to know. Be so good as to write it down would you?’

Nothing. No flicker of understanding or tremor of movement from the corpse.

‘Write it down!’ the man shouted with a ferocity that made the windows rattle. ‘Or would you rather Blade returned you to the ground?’

Slowly, deliberately, the pen stroked at the paper.

The glass paused, then trembled again. It moved directly across the table towards George, stopping by the card imprinted with the letter ‘O’. It hesitated only a moment, then it moved again. Not far, just a few letters clockwise round the table: ‘R’.

Wilkes’s fragile hand continued to move slowly over the paper. His dead eyes did not look down. Another letter was slowly inked on the page.

Next was ‘I’. Liz could almost feel the tension in the room. Everyone seemed to be holding their breath.

‘O R I,’ Gerald said quietly. ‘What can it mean … Origin?’

‘Hush,’ Madame Sophia said, surprisingly gently. The glass trembled again.

‘Thank you.’ The man’s breath misted the cold night air. It didn’t do to mix warmth with death.

Blade waited for Wilkes to finish. Then he took the sheet of paper. He swallowed dryly when he saw what was on it. He handed it to his employer without comment.

Next was ‘M’. Liz’s throat was dry. It was just a trick, she kept telling herself. But both Gerald and Madame Sophia seemed as caught up in it as anyone. Just a trick — surely it was just a trick.

The glass moved again, heading for another letter.

The man stared at the paper for several moments, breathing deeply as he struggled to keep control. Five uneven characters were scratched into the paper. Ragged and useless:

O R I M O

‘Another O,’ George said out loud.

The glass stopped. It wasn’t trembling any more. The strange life it had taken on seemed to have deserted it again.

As if to confirm this, Madame Sophia let out a long, deep sigh. ‘He has gone,’ she announced. ‘He has left us. The link is broken.’ She lifted her hand from the table and carefully passed the scrap of paper back to George. But despite the disappointment of contact being lost, she was smiling.

He crushed the paper into a ball and hurled it across the laboratory. The man was trembling with anger, but when he spoke his voice was cold and controlled.

‘Dead too long, it seems. There is something lingering, but not enough. I think, Mr Blade, we shall have to try a different approach.’ He snapped his fingers impatiently. ‘Paper and pen. Quickly, man.’

Blade hurried to oblige. He took the pen from Wilkes, dipped it in the ink again, and returned it to the dead man’s grasp.

‘Not for him, you dolt! Give it to me.’