“A bunch of crack-pots!”
He shrugged.
“I have attended several meetings, at the first of which I was initiated. In consequence, my membership gives me the entree, as a distinguished guest, to almost any seance in London, genteel or fraudulent.”
So that was it!
“This is still about those confounded apparitions, is it not?”
He occupied himself with a lighted match, drawing smoke from his pipe. Shaking out the flame, he looked across at me thoughtfully and said,
“We are to be in Kensington by eight-thirty this evening. If all goes as I intend, I shall present an apparition that will put to shame Peter Quint and Maria Jessel. By the way, old fellow, in these arcane circles I am known only as Professor Scott Holmes.”
“A seance in Kensington, to which you will be going under a false name and title?”
It was one of the rare occasions when I saw him wince. He said, “It is commonplace for members of such societies to adopt a
“Ghosts!”
“Oh, let us call them spirits. It sounds so much more polite.”
“If they did not manifest themselves to us at Bly, you may be sure they will not condescend to appear in West London!”
“There I think you may be mistaken.”
“So you expect to raise Peter Quint or Miss Jessel from the dead?”
“My sights are set higher—on an Egyptian courtier of the Eighteenth Dynasty.”
This was far beyond a joke. I scented real danger and made one more effort. I spoke quietly and, as it seemed to me, sensibly.
“Holmes, we have done our duty to Miss Temple. A favourable outcome to her case is in sight. Do you not see that if we are now known to dabble in nonsense of this kind, we shall make complete fools of ourselves? We have nothing to gain from it and everything to lose. If the story gets around, as it is bound to, we shall be lucky if we have a single client left.”
There was a disconcerting merriment in his dark eyes.
“You must not come, old chap, if it will embarrass you. I have undertaken to conduct a most important experiment and I am obliged to be there. It is only my second visit to this suburban villa and its clientele. I had not been there at all until I called to make myself known and to offer my services last week. Happily, my fame as Scott Holmes went before me. So I made a promise. Now I have a reputation to preserve—or lose.”
Before I could reply, he walked from the room and closed the door gently behind him. I heard him stride up the next pair of stairs. There were sounds of banging about in the attic. He was up there for more than an hour, before coming down with a brown leather hatbox and a large basket, better employed for a riverside picnic. He was formally suited, as if he might be attending a recital or an opera.
Without a glance in my direction, he took a flimsy telegram form across to the bureau and began to write. I could not read the words of the message from where I sat. When it lay folded on the table, I was able to glimpse a name on the envelope, “Inspector Tobias Gregson” and the address “Criminal Investigation Division, Scotland Yard.” He had once assured me that Gregson was the smartest member of the Yard’s detective force. This, at least, gave me some reassurance.
He rang for Mrs Hudson’s Billy, gave the lad a coin and despatched him with the electric message to the post office at Baker Street Underground station. Sitting down, he yawned, opened the evening
As a medical man I was trained in scientific habits of thought. I had always regarded spiritualist mediums as dupes or swindlers. Their seances were surely meetings of deluded believers preyed upon by avaricious charlatans. I had good reason to abhor the heartless exploitation of grief by wraiths of ectoplasm or greetings from the after- life. The reader must remember that I had lost my own young wife seven years earlier. Hints from well-meaning friends had nudged me towards the possibility of communication with the dead. The closer I came to the magicians, the more strongly was I repelled.
As I gazed towards the park trees at the end of our street, I had no doubt that Sherlock Holmes had produced a diagnosis of diphtheria which must soon establish the innocence of Victoria Temple. Having won his case, why should he care about the poor young woman’s hysterical visions?
Just before eight o’clock, Mrs Hudson’s long-suffering Billy was sent to call our chosen cab off the rank. In the thickening summer twilight, we pulled out along the Marylebone Road towards Sussex Gardens and Hyde Park. A last golden glow darkened along the cream terraces of the Bayswater Road. Lamps were lit in the little shops of Kensington Church Street.
Our destination was Sambourne Avenue, a secluded street of double-fronted villas, built ten years earlier in mellow red brick with white-painted gables. They rose three storeys above the broad tree-lined thoroughfare, each with a spacious area and basement below. These were substantial homes with bay windows and conservatories. By contrast, they made our old-fashioned quarters in Baker Street appear cramped and gloomy. Yet I felt no envy. Suburban houses of this type too often attract rackety people with more money than sense.
Our brown-whiskered cabman, whom I now noticed for the first time, unloaded the leather hatbox and picnic hamper. I know most of the drivers on the Regent’s Park rank, but this one was unfamiliar. Perhaps he was not a regular, just a supernumerary who must work when he could. It seemed he was obliged to take his child with him on the cabbie’s perch, as if having no one else to look after her. In response to his knock, the hatbox and hamper were taken in by a manservant at the door of the basement kitchen. Holmes turned to our postillion.
“You will wait, my man. I may be some time. You shall be well remunerated on my return. If it should be a long visit, I shall ask them to give you and your little girl something in the kitchen.”
The wiry, gnome-like fellow began to grumble.
“I don’t know so much, guv. I brought you here fair and square. I can’t spend all evening sitting about with no chance of another fare.”
“Very well,” said Holmes impatiently. “Take this and get refreshment for yourself and the child at the coffee stall off Kensington High Street. No beer—no gin! And be back here no later than an hour from now.”
He handed the man a shilling. We left this Jehu muttering to himself that “proper toffs” would have treated him more handsomely.
The whole of this pantomime was witnessed by a maid in a plain cap and apron. She had come to the front door in response to Holmes’s ring at the bell. We went up the glossily-blacked steps and were admitted.
To begin with, I thought we had come on the wrong evening. There was not a sound to be heard, even though it was half-past eight. The maid led us down the hallway to a baize-covered door. There was far more depth to this house than I had supposed, covering a larger area than appeared from the street.
We crossed a dark-curtained and over-furnished reception room. Its olive-green walls were hung with oil- painted figure-studies of women, done in a questionable taste. So much for spirit portraits! A black-leaded fire-place was lined by hand-painted Dutch tiles of a similar nature. Above the mantelboard with its green leather and brass- headed nails, the wall was fitted with shelves displaying curious little terra cotta figurines and Chinese jars. On the mantelshelf below, an ornate gold-and-enamel Buhl clock backed by a mirror ticked time away with a soft uneasy beat.
All this nick-nackery seemed contrived to impress upon the gullible that they were entering a world of exotic possibilities. There was a hint of the improper without anything that could be defined as downright objectionable. One breathed deceit and depravity in that curtained space, almost hinting at bizarre rituals or white-slave scandals. By contrast, a business-like alcove contained a plain chair and a small table with an upright telephone upon its stand. All in all, the place looked like the parlour of a very select and expensive house of ill-repute.
A varnished scrapbook-screen concealed the far end. As we stepped round it, I saw the reason for such silence. We were on the threshold of a spacious and plain-walled music-room, to judge at least from the modest- sized Bechstein grand piano, wheeled aside and folded up against the wall. In its place, fifteen or sixteen faces
