Trick of the Light

startled spiritual questors who were milling around like a shoal of confused herring.

‘We shall meet again,’ he assured them. ‘There will be other times. If you have received a message from the unseen world, count it your fortune; if not, then be of good cheer and cultivate patience. Your time will come.’

He shook his mane of dark hair as if in wonder at what he had witnessed and walked with great dignity to disappear through a door behind the small stage.

Roach, attempting to hustle his excitable spouse away from the scene in unobtrusive fashion, found himself face to face with the hero of the hour and muttered a greeting of sorts to Doyle before taking his wife and indigestion home.

Arthur walked up to where the small formidable figure of his mother stood amongst the distracted crowd who were being gently guided to the door by members of the Society.

‘Well, Mam?’ he demanded with a twinkle in his eye. ‘What do you think to all that?’

Mary Doyle nodded solemnly. She had raised this great oak from an acorn and filled his thought with chivalric purpose to shield them both from the terrible strains of a bleak reality; scrimping every penny to keep the home from breaking apart as her husband Charles slid inexorably from a gentle artistic man to a bitter alcoholic wreck.

The Catholic clergy had taken the male side, advising her to bear and suffer, for that was her lot in life. And so she created a sword in her mind then cut fiercely through the thin cord that bound her to Romanism.

Her children were everything. Especially Arthur.

In common with the Camelot king, he aspired to noble deeds and though no-one’s fool in terms of the pragmatism of daily life and the vicious twists of humanity, yet he yearned to soar like an eagle above the grinding banality of everyday existence.

The idea of spiritualism chimed mightily with these high-flown idealities.

A higher plane. And in the case of Sophia Adler, a striking beauty to light the way.

Mary’s lips quirked in amusement but held a trace of concern. The Anglican Church might attract her in the future but it would not do for Arthur.

He had an inbuilt resistance to the authorities, except perhaps the sporting ones, because they spawned injustice of which he was a ferocious, implacable opponent.

All this had flashed through her brain as she gazed from her small stature up at his giant frame.

Her knight in shining armour.

She had created him so.

And now he was his own creation.

Mary realised that she still had not answered his question, and so like many an intelligent woman, took refuge in Shakespeare.

‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio –’ she began.

‘Than are dreamt of in your philosophy,’ he ended.

Although both of a questing, combative nature, they knew enough of each other to leave it there for the nonce and turned of one accord to regard the shaken Muriel.

‘I shall never again attend to one of these events,’ she declared. ‘The language was deplorable.’

Conan Doyle burst out into a loud guffaw and Mary tried in vain to hide a smile.

‘I don’t think the bad language came from the spirits, Muriel,’ she remarked equably. ‘More from a badly raised pair of mislearnit young brutes.’

Muriel bit her lip. She had wondered whether to present herself after the day so far and now wished she had stayed put. The others had convinced her that it might take her mind away from things but the opposite had occurred.

The whole world was laughing at her.

Ravaged by burglars, accused by voices in the dark.

Luckily the shaft of Jezebel that she had felt aimed so precisely at her blameworthy core seemed not to have been heard by her companions.

She turned to Conan Doyle but he was no longer on hand. Disappeared into thin air.

This stuff was catching.

12

What in the midst lay but the Tower itself?

The round squat turret, blind as the fool’s heart.

ROBERT BROWNING, ‘Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came’

Magnus Bannerman carefully poured out a measure of whisky into a large tumbler and sniffed in appreciation before downing half the liquid in a fiery gulp.

It had taken him a time to accustom his Pittsburgh taste buds to liquor other than bourbon, but malt whisky slid down a subtle treat and had a kick like a mule.

By God he needed the drink. It was nerve-shredding when Sophia went off on these excursions into a shipwrecked sea of souls; to this day Magnus did not know whether she was just a brilliant operator who could deliver generalities, then hone them as reaction from the audience dictated, or had some genuine connection to the supernatural.

But he had recognised her talent for connecting with people and the curious enchantment she could lay upon them. Magnus had poured all his energy into promoting that talent and they had become successful in an amazingly short time.

All due to his efforts.

It is thus we take credit for filling our own emptiness with another’s ability.

What had never occurred to Magnus, however, was the fact that since their meeting in San Francisco, Sophia had used him, not the other way around.

It is often so with men and women.

As Magnus lifted his glass he noted that so far Sophia had not said a word and seemed disturbed by manifestations of this night; though that was not unusual, these ‘trips’ to the other world were a rocky ride.

Either that or, like a finely tuned actress, she was exhausted by the performance.

He never knew. That was half the fun. The other half was yet to come because after exhaustion, appetite ensued.

Carnal hunger. But not right now.

She was standing, staring out of the window at a brick wall that surrounded the stone yard to the rear of the hall.

Yes siree. A brick wall.

He sank the rest of the whisky, lit up a cheroot and laughed quietly.

‘That was hell on wheels when these two godforsaken ghosts came shooting through the door.’

Sophia made no response.

‘Hell on wheels,’ he agreed with himself, pouring out a smaller shot.

A restrained tap at the door signalled the advent of the members of the Society no doubt, with a discreet payment to pass over for the guided tour.

‘Enter!’ he called commandingly, sliding the glass a modest distance away as if it was still untouched.

But it was not one of the shrivelled, serious folk who made up the committee. This was a fellow as large as Magnus himself, who filled the doorway like a bear in a cave.

Of course. The behemoth that had scooped up those two little bastards and marched them out into the darkness.

Magnus laid down his cigar and stood up, all civility and gallant as hell.