anything.
“It is not just the average person, Watson. Take the great Lombroso himself, one of the great minds of Europe, taken in by this tawdry medium, Isadora Persano.”
Holmes had mentioned La Persano, as she was known, on previous occasions, and indeed it was through Professor Cesare Lombroso that the name of this now famous lady first came to the attention of my friend. As the reader may know, Lombroso had become interested in spiritualism in his later years, and he and Holmes were often allied in their relentless exposure of those cases that involved fraud and chicanery. Holmes, of course, was of the opinion that all cases of reported spiritualism were by their very nature fraudulent. In this way, he differed from Lombroso, who felt more and more that there were realms of supernatural experience that went beyond the conventional and therefore were without the ability of science to explain them. In following assiduously one of the cases that had come to him in recent months, Lombroso had heard the name of Isadora Persano, a medium whose powers had begun to spread her fame beyond the confines of her native city, Naples. He then participated in several seances with her and became convinced that of all the mediums that he had met, she was by far the most gifted. Perhaps the most telling episode was how she brought the spirit of Lombroso’s own mother to one of her seances. In every detail of speech and family history, according to Lombroso, La Persano was absolutely accurate. Lombroso told Holmes that he had come away from the seance emotionally overwhelmed by his conversation with his mother, who had died three years before. So taken was he with the abilities of this young medium that he refused even to listen to Holmes’s irrefutable explanations.
“For reasons of his own, Watson,” said Holmes to me that evening, “Lombroso wants to believe this nonsense.”
“The woman must be extremely clever,” I said.
Holmes smiled. “And quite beautiful, judging from Lombroso’s hymns of praise. I am sure,” he continued, “that if I investigated I would find that some old family records were closely studied and relatives of Lombroso were carefully interviewed and paid off handsomely by Persano’s agents. No medium I know in Europe or England exists without a large group of paid supporters. In this, the mediums resemble the divas of the opera. Couple this with the inevitable dimming of one’s memory over time—Lombroso would be no exception to this—and we have a most convincing and cunning course of fraudulence. But how to persuade Lombroso, who is already abandoning his scientific career for these pernicious forms of skullduggery?”
Our discussion ended there for the time being, and I heard little more of Isadora Persano at the time. A week later, I left for England to attend to business, leaving Holmes alone with two cases that he wished to complete before his own return to London.
My return to England had been occasioned by letters received from lawyers of a deceased uncle of mine who wished to discuss some points of law before his estate could be finally disbursed. They thought a face-to-face meeting necessary since my signature would be required on a new sheaf of papers the case had generated. I confess that I knew nothing of this uncle, Mr. Peter Tomkins by name, but the terms of the estate were so favourable to me that I deemed it would be foolish of me to ignore the communications from his lawyers. And so, a few days after my arrival in London I found myself seated in our quarters on Baker Street, before Mr. Charles Herriot, a rather rotund and prosperous-looking gentleman, the senior partner in the distinguished firm of Combs and Herriot.
“I hope that I haven’t inconvenienced you in asking you to return to London, but there are some aspects of the Tomkins estate that warrant discussion. In fact, Dr. Watson, your uncle’s will stipulates that certain portions of it be communicated to you orally.”
“I understand,” said I. “I take it that my inheritance is still intact, however.”
“Indeed, as far as I can see it is, though it may be smaller than we had previously calculated. But let me leave that for the end of our conversation.”
The conversations went on for several hours and I was touched by the care that Mr. Herriot displayed with regard to the substantial estate I was about to inherit. It was but a week after I had arrived in England that an urgent telegram from Holmes asked that I return to Italy at once. His message read in part:
I did not relish the sudden return journey, but I could not ignore my friend’s entreaty. And so once again, putting my practise into the hands of two trusted colleagues, I left for Rome, arriving three days later. Holmes was at the station to greet me.
“Just in time, dear Watson, for we leave for Florence in the early morning.” Holmes appeared excited. As the cab took us to our lodgings, he related the latest developments.
“Lombroso is making a fool of himself, and I am almost powerless to stop him, but I must try. Last week I attended a seance with him at La Persano’s. She began by explaining one of Lombroso’s dreams. So accurate was she that he almost fainted on the spot. He said that it was as if he had been invaded by the woman and that she knew his most intimate thoughts, things that he had confided to no one. She is most clever, and so are her mentors. She has now challenged me to expose her in one more seance. It is to take place in Florence tomorrow night. I will then be asked to prove her a fraud. I suspect that I shall be severely restricted in my investigations.”
“Little do they know what they are up against,” said I.
“My blushes, dear fellow,” said he with his usual chuckle.
The morning train was on time. Lombroso greeted us at the station. He was a tall man, now stooped and hunched after so many years of reading and research. He appeared elated to see us.
“I am happy that both of you have come,” he said in French, anticipating my difficulty with Italian.
“Have you overcome your disbelief as yet?” he asked, directing his question to Holmes.
“No, I am merely interested in how she does it,” Holmes replied. “And to convince Professor Lombroso of the charlatanry of la signora Persano.”
“You are mistaken,
We entered a waiting coach and began our trip west towards Pisa.
“We will go to Fiesole, where the meetings will take place, in a villa of the Medici.”
“Splendid,” said Holmes. “And who else will be there to hold hands around the table?” he asked sardonically.
Lombroso smiled. “Even you will be impressed, Holmes. There is a contingent of three from Oxford—the well-known physicist, Professor Oliver Lodge; the Indian thinker B. K. Mallik, and his companion, Winifred Lewis; the writer Arthur Conan Doyle, someone not unknown to you, I trust; and, finally, Madame Blavatsky, the president of the Theosophical Society.”
“Ah,” said Holmes, with a smile, “
He looked directly at Lombroso as he continued.
“Dear Professor Lodge has moved in recent years from true if narrow problems of physics to the drivel of theosophy. Hence I am not at all surprised at his attendance. Mallik is a charlatan, a lucky refugee from Calcutta, who lives off the labours of a few innocent but impressionable females, among whom my friend Winifred is one; he specializes in the writing of great tomes with pretentious titles, the most recent being a never-ending treatise entitled “The Towering Wave.” As to my friend Doyle, he has lost his judgement, poor fellow, and as to La Blavatsky, she is the only new character in the bunch. She brings with her the tawdriest of reputations.”
“I am sure there will be others, perhaps some surprises,” said Lombroso not without some pique at Holmes’s sardonic remarks.
The good professor then explained that the villa where the seances were to take place was built by Lorenzo de’ Medici himself and that it had been in the Medici family for generations. Towards the end of the eighteenth century it had begun to deteriorate badly, and the family finally sold it to the Gozzoli family, who found it more than they could bear. They in turn sold it to an American millionairess who had moved to Italy after the death of her husband. She came from a wealthy family from New York, the Macphersons, and had married an Italian nobleman, one Marchese dei Arrighi, a member of the Italian parliament. The death of her first husband had led La Macpherson to spiritualism and its accompanying experimentation, and she had been one of the first to support Isadora Persano in her work.
