Chapter 11
Madame Sophia seemed still in a daze. Mrs Paterson was pale and shocked, her husband blinked when the lights were relit, as if he had just woken up. Without ceremony, Husband Gerald ushered the Patersons to the door and out into the hall. Liz could hear him talking to them in a low voice — accepting their money or making an appointment for a further consultation no doubt.
‘The table,’ George said in disbelief. ‘That was incredible.’
‘Thank you,’ Liz said with a smile.
But before she could explain, Husband Gerald was back. He stood in the doorway, staring at Liz and George. He did not look happy, and he had undergone a transformation. No longer was he the dithering, ineffectual little man dancing to his wife’s instructions. To George, the man seemed bigger than before. His eyes were cold and hard.
‘How much of that was real?’ he asked.
George frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You know very well what I mean,’ he snapped back. ‘But I wasn’t asking you. Sophia?’
‘Oh the spirits came,’ Madame Sophia told him. She still seemed to be in a state of near rapture. ‘No doubt about it. They touched my mind — just like in the old days. Just like they used to.’
‘Are you telling me you really used to be able to communicate with the spirit world?’ Liz asked.
‘But of course. Though you must be very powerful, my dear.’ She got up from the table and walked slowly towards Liz and George. There was something menacing about her movement. ‘Very powerful indeed to levitate the table like that. I know it wasn’t me.’
‘It wasn’t me either,’ Liz said quietly. ‘The table didn’t levitate.’
Husband Gerald was nodding as if he had guessed as much. But it was news to George.
‘People will believe what they want to,’ Liz admitted. ‘I told you the table was levitating and that was what you, and that poor gullible Mrs Paterson wanted to hear. It didn’t lift at all really.’
‘Oh,’ Madame Sophia said quietly. ‘So it was a trick. That really is most unfair.’
Liz gave a short humourless laugh. ‘It’s all right for you to trick Mrs Paterson, though isn’t it? How much did you want from her? How much does it cost to believe you’re communing with the spirits of lost loved ones?’
‘That’s no concern of yours,’ Gerald told her sharply. He was standing in the doorway and he did not look like he was going to move for them.
‘I think it’s time we were leaving,’ George said. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of the evening, but he was sure he wanted to get out of this house as soon as he possibly could.
‘Oh I think you should stay a while yet,’ Gerald said. His voice was low and threatening. ‘My wife has some questions she would like to put to you. If you really do have the ability …’
‘We don’t,’ Liz said. ‘Look, I’m not sure what happened there with the glass and the letters, but it was nothing to do with us.’
‘His spirit felt so strong,’ Sophia said. ‘I could feel it here, almost in the room with us. You have to tell me how you made such close contact.’
George was beginning to think he would have to physically move Gerald out of the doorway. He hoped the man wouldn’t call for help from some burly servant or claim he had been assaulted. ‘Let us pass, please,’ George said in what he hoped was a menacing voice.
‘No,’ Gerald insisted. ‘You came here under false pretences, and obviously under false names. You are not leaving until we have a satisfactory explanation of your conduct this evening.’
George looked at Liz, and he could see in her face that she was ready for whatever unpleasantness might follow.
But before either of them could do anything, there came an urgent shout:
‘Fire!’
George flinched. For a moment he thought Gerald was ordering them to be shot. But the shout had come from outside the room — loud and urgent.
‘There’s a fire. Everyone out, quick. Get the brigade! Hurry!’
Distracted, both Sophia and Gerald turned towards the sound. Coiled up and ready to move, George did not waste the moment. He shoved Gerald aside, out of the doorway. Liz was with him immediately, and together they ran down the hall to the front door. A maid was already there, pulling the bolt across and unlocking the door.
‘Where’s the fire?’ she asked, her eyes wide with anxiety. She looked deathly pale. ‘Where’s Mrs White?’
George did not pause to answer. He heaved open the door and dragged Liz through. They did not stop running until they reached the end of the street.
‘Theatre?’ The surprise was evident in George’s tone.
‘What’s wrong with that?’ Liz demanded, at once on the defensive.
‘Nothing. I was surprised, that’s all. Though …’ He shrugged and walked on.
‘Though what?’ she asked suspiciously.
‘Though, I suppose I shouldn’t be. Not after tonight’s performance.’ He paused under a lamp-post, grinning in the diffuse light. ‘I was quite taken in by that table routine, you know.’
Liz glanced back as they walked on. Just for a second she had thought there was someone behind them. Someone following. But she could see no one, and hear nothing save the distant chimes of a clock and the clatter of a carriage in a nearby street.
‘I’ve never really been interested in the theatre,’ George was saying. ‘Well, not really. Not the plays anyway. I’m interested in the mechanisms.’
‘Mechanisms?’
‘The way the curtains are operated. The manner in which scenery is changed, backcloths dropped in. Trap doors. That sort of thing. I am an engineer, after all.’
‘You might be able to help with a theatrical mechanism of ours, actually,’ Liz realised. ‘Mr Jessop, our producer, is having some trouble with an ashtray.’
‘An ashtray?’
‘A silver ashtray. It has to fly across the stage from a table and land in a person’s lap several yards away. It is presenting something of a problem.’
George thought about this for several moments. ‘I would need to know the size and weight of the ashtray,’ he decided. ‘And the distance it must travel. But I imagine a simple spring and a hair trigger release would do the trick.’
At some point during their conversation, Liz had taken George’s arm. She was not sure exactly when this had been. She squeezed it to be sure that he had noticed.
George stiffened. ‘What was that?’ He pulled his arm gently free from hers and held up his hand to silence her. ‘I heard something. Behind us.’
‘I did think we were being followed earlier,’ Liz admitted.
‘Yes. There’s someone there, in the shadows, look.’ He raised his voice, calling: ‘Come on out, whoever you are.’
‘We know you’re there,’ Liz added, trying to keep the nerves out of her voice.
A small dark figure detached itself from a different shadow to the one Liz had been shouting at. ‘Cor blimey!’ it exclaimed. ‘It’s taken you long enough, ain’t it?’
‘I thought you promised not to leave the room,’ George spluttered.
‘I promised not to go out the door,’ Eddie corrected him. ‘And I didn’t. I climbed out the window,’ he explained, as if this was completely reasonable. ‘How was the seance then? Did you talk to the spirit of Mr Wilkes?’
