A Rich Full Death

Jessie Tate rose.

‘We had best stop,’ she said curtly. ‘Something is wrong. No good can come of this.’

‘I’ve never known such a thing to happen before!’ Kate Chauncey replied. ‘That poor spirit must be filled with negative energies.’

It seemed as though the ‘seance’ was at an end, when suddenly the most extraordinary thing happened. I felt a rush, as of air moving in a body; the candle was instantly extinguished, but instead of total darkness there came a weird unearthly glow in the air … and all at once I heard Isabel speaking!

There was no ‘like’ or ‘as if. It was Isabel herself: that unmistakable, thrilling voice I had never thought to hear again!

‘I have come,’ she said. ‘Not with the spirit board, but with my own voice would I speak. I too have a message for all and for none. I too have been taken from your midst, not by my own sinful act, but cruelly slain by an evil hand!’

Now I am fully aware that these words, set down in black and white and read by you sitting comfortably in your armchair, will appear no less contrived than the earlier utterances I recorded, ascribed to DeVere, which had totally failed to convince me of their authenticity. I must therefore ask you for the moment to take on trust the fact that I did not for one single moment doubt that I was now listening to the real and true voice of Isabel Allen, speaking to me from beyond the grave.

The reason for this sudden access of faith is simply explained: it was the voice itself which convinced me! All the apparatus of spiritualism-the boards and apparitions, turning tables and rapping panels-has always served merely to increase my scepticism. The more complex the machinery, the more easily the effect may be faked. I may not know precisely how any more than I know how a conjuror makes a dozen rabbits appear in his hat, and then changes them into so many doves. But it is of no account: I know the trick can be worked, and clearly perceive the margin where the fudging takes place.

But what margin was there here? There was nothing but a voice, as unmistakable as a touch or a forgotten scent, coming at you under the skin, behind the brain, circumventing the reason (so easy to deceive with its own cleverness) and breaking straight in upon the spirit to proclaim in accents clear and absolute that Isabel was there among us. Oh, I believed! I had no choice.

But where was it coming from? Had there been some mystery about that I might still have doubted-if I had traced the sound behind some hanging, or inside some piece of furniture, or under the floorboards. Instead, by the strange half-light glimmering down from the lamp-bowl above our heads, I made out quite clearly that it was Edith Chauncey herself who was speaking.

‘Aha!’ I hear you say, ‘so that was the trick!’ But no, don’t you see? My point is that there was no trick-that no attempt was made to disguise or dress up this plain fact, as would have been so easy to do: the usual farce, with the Chaunceys’ maid wandering about the room with a white sheet draped round her shoulders. None of that! Just that elderly woman sitting in her place, as majestic and imposing as a Sibyl, through whose throat Isabel spoke to us in her own voice. And if I had still harboured any doubts, what she said would have clinched the matter-for it was the terrible truth.

‘I too have been the victim of a criminal plot, like that other spirit who spoke to you. But unlike him I am not tied by thoughts of vengeance to this earthly sphere, nor would I obstruct my spirit’s passage to the higher realms by dwelling on such unworthy matters. Thanks to my spiritualist training with you, dear Edith, I was already prepared to pass over, and I left my earthly life behind without regrets. But while that unhappy soul is at large, others may be forced to transit before their time. Prepare yourselves, therefore, to learn who took my life. The name will amaze you, yet I speak the truth, for we spirits cannot lie. Know, then, that I was horribly murdered and done to death by-’

All the while Isabel was speaking I had gradually become aware of a strange turbulence-I know not how else to describe it-of the table about which we were all seated. It was as if the thing were afloat, at first upon a sea almost dead calm, with just the slightest swell betraying the mighty potency beneath; then somewhat choppier, frisking on little wavelets; and finally swaying up and dipping down, as though impelled by the passage of long ocean rollers, outriders from the storm that suddenly broke, without warning, cutting off Isabel’s final words as the table reared up and crashed down upon the speaker amid the cries and exclamations of all the assembled company.

Well this time of course it was the end-for by the time the maid had come running, and the lamps had been lit, and Miss Chauncey had been extricated, and we had assured ourselves that she had sustained no serious injury, there was clearly no possibility of restarting the ‘seance’-and precious little desire, either, if most people’s expressions were anything to judge by. Even those with considerable acquaintance of supernatural experiences seemed to be badly shaken by what they had witnessed. Seymour Kirkup, for example, was grey and drawn.

‘We have indeed had a fortunate escape,’ he pronounced in his strange cracked voice. ‘There was an evil presence in this room, of that I have not the slightest doubt. Rarely have I sensed the power of Satan more palpably.’

Miss Chauncey appeared at first to be completely ignorant of the astonishing results of her spirtual exertions, but as soon as these had been explained to her she announced her determination to make another attempt to contact Isabel’s spirit later that night, and try and learn the identity of her murderer.

Rather to my surprise, both Seymour Kirkup and Miss Jessie Tate went out of their way to try and dissuade her from doing so.

‘I really must beg you not to meddle any further with this matter,’ Kirkup implored. ‘The forces involved are more powerful and more malevolent than you can conceive. Spiritualism is all very well, Miss Chauncey, but we must acknowledge its limitations. Here I sense the presence of Powers of Darkness which can be manipulated only by the exercise of certain esoteric arts of which, forgive me for saying so, you are utterly ignorant.’

But the indignant ‘medium’ did not forgive what she clearly saw as an insult to her skill and professional standing.

‘No one is more powerful than the spirits, except for God Himself-and I need not fear Him,’ she proclaimed boldly. ‘Were all the forces of hell ranged against me, Mr Kirkup, I should not shrink from my duty to Isabel, who spoke of me so kindly just now. Nor do I need to know any heathen spells or mumbo-jumbo filched from musty old books to confront the spirits, who are my friends. We meet together naked, face to face, and know no shame,’ she concluded blithely.

Kirkup merely muttered something in a language I did not recognise, and made the sign of the cross. Jessie Tate also tried to persuade her friend not to exert herself any more that night, using more homely arguments-she would over-exert herself and impair her health. But Miss Chauncey remained admirably firm in her resolve, saying only that she would rest for a short while before making a fresh attempt to wrest the name of Isabel’s murderer from beyond the grave.

By now, I could quite frankly stand no more. I hardly heard what was going on any longer. My brain was reeling from the knowledge that Isabel had spoken from the dead, that the dead do survive, that death is not just a hole into which we drop and are no more, that there is a meaning and a plan to everything, as Mr Browning plainly believes. Why did this revelation-which I had so often fervently sought and prayed for-now seem more dreadfully depressing than my blackest nihilistic nights had ever been?

Obsessed with these and other matters, I took my leave with almost brutal haste. Social niceties were, however, the last things which anyone was concerned about at that moment, and my perfunctory farewells-indeed, my very departure-passed almost unnoticed.

It would be vain even to attempt to describe my state of mind that night in any detail. If I told the truth I should scarcely believe myself, never mind expect anyone else to do so. Besides, the whole affair was very shortly destined to become the subject of a quite different kind of examination, as you will see, and there is no point in anticipating that event. Let me therefore say only that when I returned home I was so utterly exhausted in both mind and body that I simply fell into bed and passed straight into a fitful sleep, crammed like a bolster with the rags of scrappy dreams.

I was awakened at ten o’clock the next morning by Piero, who-when I asked him angrily why the devil he had ignored his standing orders to leave me undisturbed-replied that there was a policeman at the door with a message for me. Before I had a chance to say anything a burly individual of unpleasing demeanour pushed his way into the room, and informed me, without any over-indulgence in the more rarefied forms of politeness, that my presence