A Rich Full Death

table lay a semi-circular cloth with the letters of the alphabet inscribed around its rim, and two spaces within, marked respectively Yes and No. Nearby stood the small heart-shaped board mounted on rollers which the spiritualists term a ‘planchette’.

When we had taken our places-this operation being supervised by Miss Kate-Miss Chauncey directed us to take the hand of the person sitting to either side of us. I complied with no very great enthusiasm, placed as I was between Miss Jessica Tate and the Very Reverend Tinker. Miss Tate’s member proved to be clammy, and given to frequent and presumably involuntary spasms; the man of religion had an almost fiercely positive grasp, which may have been intended to conceal the underlying tremor which I nevertheless detected.

We were now directed to close our eyes, and to concentrate all our thoughts on Isabel. This I duly tried to do, but I found to my consternation that every image came out first as stiff as a waxwork, and then began to melt and run, producing that hideous discoloration and rictus of the corpse I will never be able to forget. To rid myself of these visions I opened my eyes-and was unnerved to find Edith Chauncey, who was sitting opposite, staring fixedly back at me with unblinking insistence, as though inspecting some interesting detail etched on the interior of my skull.

I immediately assumed that I had incurred her displeasure by disturbing the ectoplasmic vibrations, or whatever. A moment later, however, I realised that her stare was too intense and unyielding to be a glare of disapproval, however strong. What was disturbing in her expression-as with that of a blind person — was what was not there: direction, focus, intent. Those eyes did not see me, did not see any of us. Edith Chauncey had entered her trance.

Her sister now instructed us to open our eyes, release our hands, and place the index finger of our right hand on the planchette. The little board rolled idly about for a moment or two under the various impulses it received, and was still.

For a few minutes nothing whatever happened. Then, so faintly at first that it was only after hearing it for some time that I understood what it was, a voice became audible in the room: a low resonant voice, unlike any I had heard so far. But I soon realised that it was emanating from Miss Chauncey’s throat, although at least an octave deeper than her usual organ.

‘Isabel … Isabel … Isabel …’ she intoned, drawing the word out so lengthily that it sounded as though she was about to formulate a question concerning the nature of bells.

My feeling had at first been one of lively interest, coupled with a little natural apprehension. However, as time went by, and Edith Chauncey’s trance-voice droned on, repeating Isabel’s name over and over again, with intervals of silence during which I became uncomfortably aware of a dull ache in the arm which was extended to touch the planchette, it all began to feel like one of those ‘improving’ Saturday evenings which my mother and her cronies used to get up for the Boston Women’s Guild, when someone would recite half of Southey’s ‘Vision of Judgement’, and you had to sit very very still and try to look as if you didn’t care how much longer it went on.

Then, quite suddenly, the planchette, which had been immobile all this time, jerked violently first to one side of the cloth and then another. I was far too much amazed at the way the thing moved-as though with a will of its own-to consider where it was going, but Kate Chauncey kept careful watch, and at length spelled out the word made up of the letters over which the tip of the board rested for an instant at the culmination of each spasm that shook it.

‘D,e,v,e,r,e,’ she murmured. ‘Surely that is the name of the young diplomat who passed over so tragically the other day?’

She went on to mutter something I did not quite catch about ‘interference’.

‘Where is Isabel?’ her sister meanwhile demanded, slightly querulously. ‘Come to us, Isabel. Come! Come!’

The board twitched a few times, and then moved to indicate the word No.

‘Why have you come, Mr DeVere?’ Miss Chauncey returned-a shade tactlessly I thought, though it is difficult for a novice to know what is or is not acceptable in this novel form of social intercourse. At all events, the spirit did not appear to be offended. Perhaps the dead are above such things.

I speak for Isabel, the planchette spelt out.

‘Will Isabel not come herself?’

Not in this way.

Edith Chauncey pondered this cryptic reply for what seemed like a very long time. I took the opportunity to glance quickly around the table: everyone was staring fixedly at the little wooden trolley which had so swiftly established itself as an eighth presence in the room.

‘Perhaps the vibrations are not yet in harmony,’ Miss Chauncey murmured at last. ‘And yet we have made all due preparations. The doors and windows have been locked and bolted, to ensure continuity; the lamps have been dimmed and the circle of hands formed. We are seven, a holy and mystical number: the gifts of the Holy Ghost are seven, Our Lord spoke seven times upon the cross, there are seven phrases in the prayer He taught His disciples, and His Holy Mother had seven joys and seven sorrows, while scholars both Christian and pagan inform us that there are seven saving virtues and seven sins that damn. Why will Isabel then not come?’

Not worthy of her perfect spirit.

‘This means of contact is not to her liking?’

With her voice she would speak.

Apparently this all made some sense to Edith Chauncey-to me it seemed merely another example of something I have often observed in published accounts of spirit-conversations, namely that those on ‘the other side’ seem to be as unwilling as Shakespeare’s tiresome Clowns to give a straight answer to any question. My interest was once again beginning to wane. What with the ‘stagey’ nature of the dialogue-in particular Miss Chauncey’s plum speech, clearly got by heart beforehand-I began to feel pretty certain that the whole business was a hoax- and not a very good one.

‘But why have you come?’ pursued Miss Chauncey.

I bring a message.

To whom?’

To all and to none.

‘And what is your message?’

I died too soon.

At this, as you can imagine, I pricked up my ears.

‘Poor spirit!’ Edith Chauncey commented. ‘Indeed, a tragic accident freed you from the burdens of material existence before your term.’

No accident.

‘Was it then your own unhappy hand which removed you from this vale of tears?’

I was murdered.

I looked around at my companions, just visible in the candlelight which stirred up the shadows like shapes underwater. Baron Kirkup sat staring up at nothing in particular, a little smile playing about his lips-whether ironical or merely senile I could not tell. Miss Jessie Tate looked intense, as usual, but also harrowed, and rather furtive. The Reverend Tinker’s enormous features were illuminated by a look of beatific benevolence which looked as though it had been obtained wholesale from a five-and-dime emporium in his native city; while Charles Nicholas Grant exuded an air of well-bred embarrassment, as though we were all sitting over dinner and someone had said something faintly indelicate.

‘And who did this terrible thing?’ continued Miss Chauncey-who did not seem particularly surprised by this development. But the spirit was being coy again.

I cannot say.

‘You must say! Both for our sakes and for yours, you must reveal the name of this evil person. For our sakes, because he may strike again. For yours, because until he is brought to justice your spirit will remain blocked by Desire for Revenge, and will be unable to ascend beyond the Fourth Level. Tell us his name, therefore-you who see everything that has been, is, and will be! Who murdered you? What is his name?’

We all stared fixedly at the planchette as though our lives depended on it. The board stirred beneath the seven fingers resting on it, and with a mighty impulse shook off our restraining control and flew clean off the table into the corner of the room-where I for one should not have been particularly surprised to see it scuttle away into the wainscotting like a rat.