Should I invest in this or that? The answers to these questions, I noted, were vague and “mystical,” sometimes in rhyme. The otherworldly visitors were more specific when someone asked about a deceased relative: the loved one was always happy and always wished the survivor well. A few people, not all of them female, wept at this information. I felt myself growing angry and rather hoped Sherlock would have one of his impulsive urges and dart forward to unmask the impostor, but he remained still, indeed almost rigid, his attention fixed on the proceedings.
Apparently to vary the mood, some of the apparitions performed a trick by agreeing to improvise in rhyme on any subject. A number of these efforts were surprisingly agile and amusing, but most were on the level of these few lines, which I regret to say have stuck in my head:
Corn
Is when summer is born
On a hot July morn
Or earlier too
Depending on rain.
And it comes without pain
As a gift from the loving Lord to us.
At one point, a child “spirit,” a little girl of seven or so with fluffy golden hair and dressed all in white, attempted to rhyme on the word “love” but, charmingly I must confess, collapsed in giggles and had to be led by William Eddy back inside the cabinet. Afterward, Colonel Olcott asked us whether we had not found her endearing: “I am always delighted by her.”
“She comes often, then?” said Sherlock politely.
“Indeed, yes. She is a playful little thing.”
We were on the porch again, with people hurrying to their horses or conveyances, as the Green Inn has only eleven rooms and most of the visitors were lodging with other residents of Chittenden who had a bed and a corner to spare. The night had grown chilly, and in the lantern light the colonel’s face was flushed with cold as well as excitement. I did not know what to say to him, and I’m sure neither did Sherlock, but fortunately he was surrounded by people eager for his conversation. Soon, he was quietly but passionately addressing a small crowd, speaking of the “self-complacent disdain” of scientific men: “Last summer, at a meeting of this country’s most prestigious scientific association, hours were devoted to a discussion of the habits and characteristics of the
10 October-Sherlock and I did not have much to say to each other as we retired last evening in a small stuffy room at the Green Inn. I wrote in this journal while he went immediately to bed. This morning, the Colonel stayed on at Chittenden and we returned to Manchester on our own, though surrounded by enthusiastic and wondering spectators from the night before. It was not until we were walking from the train station back to our inn in Manchester, that Sherlock spoke. I was by now frankly bored with the whole matter, but he appeared disturbed, or at least distant. As we talked, he exhibited none of his usual eagerness and kept his eyes uncharacteristically down, watching the yellow leaves we scuffed from our path.
“The whole village is in on it,” said he, “because the whole village benefits.”
I nodded. “The Eddys’ inn isn’t large enough to accommodate or feed all the visitors, and the other residents take them in-”
“-And charge them well for a hard bed and a plain meal. Some of the villagers sit in the audience and assist with the ‘ghostly’ touches-”
“-Probably accomplished by nothing more complicated than an extending rod. Horatio Eddy escapes from his ropes with the ease of the practiced conjurer-”
“-And plays, after his fashion, the violin, as well as the tambourine. The spirits, in their costumes and phosphorus makeup, are the populace of Chittenden.”
“They don’t use the window, you say.”
“Unnecessary. They come up through the floor in the cabinet.”
“A possibility the colonel thought he had eliminated when he discovered no trap doors.”
Sherlock snorted impatiently. “He looked for what he thought he ought to find and then didn’t find it. It’s a classic case of overcomplicating a situation. What need of trapdoors when you can merely lift the floorboards? The nailheads were worn, and the wood around them scarred, from repeatedly being hammered in again.”
“Doubtless the nails had been shortened so that the boards pulled up as easily as opening a box.”
“I am certain that was the case.”
“The ceilings of the butteries were open to the beams above that supported platform and cabinet, you know.”
He smiled at me. “Excellent, Mycroft. That answers the last of our questions. The ‘spirits’ climbed up on the beams and out through the floor, after being smuggled into the kitchen while everyone was upstairs. William Eddy, with his pacing and speeches, made enough noise to cover any sounds from below.”
We walked on for a moment in silence.
“Well,” said I at last, “no great mystery there.”
“On the contrary,” said he soberly, “there is a very great mystery indeed.”
11 October-Much against my will, Sherlock inveigled me into accompanying him on a walk. I could tell he had something on his mind and was perfectly willing to hear him out, but I saw no reason we could not sit comfortably, possibly enjoying cigars, while he unburdened himself. He, however, was restless and tense and no sooner would he sit then he would be up and pacing, so I finally got up myself and we went through the village and south along the verge of the road.
Having got me to go with him, he perversely fell silent. I put up with this for a few minutes before coming to the point. “It’s this Olcott business, isn’t it?”
He nodded. “I cannot understand it.”
“But you’ve explained everything.”
“Not
“Then what?”
He looked at me seriously. “Surely you agree that Colonel Olcott is a highly educated and intelligent man.”
“Of course.”
“Nothing of the flighty about him.”
“Nothing at all. Except this strange belief in spiritualism.”
“Exactly! It hardly seems in character, does it?”
I acknowledged that it did not. “But most people are not rational, Sherlock.”
“This is worse than that,” he insisted. “Here we have a man who rose to the rank of colonel as an investigator of fraud, whose observational and analytical skills were so prized that he was chosen to serve on the committee that investigated a president’s assassination. He clearly has a first-rate mind. And a mind is a machine. You cannot gum it up with shoddy ideas and expect it to keep functioning optimally. This is some morbid form of self- betrayal.”
The passage along the main road was not particularly pleasant, the verge being narrow and the traffic heavy and dusty, so when we came to a pair of gateposts surmounted with marble figures of a sorrowing angel and a mourning woman, we turned in immediately. “Dellwood Cemetery,” a sign read, and we found ourselves in a place more like a park than a graveyard, with winding lanes and handsome trees and example after example of memorial statuary: angels wept, families prayed, small children gazed down at stone lilies in their hands. Nothing further from the crowded church and city cemeteries of England could be conceived, and we wandered among the tombs in uneasy fascination. Somehow, I was not surprised when, in the distance, we saw Colonel Olcott.
He was standing in front of a pair of simple stones, and his attitude suggested contemplation rather than personal grief. I made to turn aside and leave him with his thoughts, but he saw us and waved in a comradely fashion. I glanced at Sherlock as we approached; his profile was hard and set. I sighed to myself. He had decided
