Once he had checked that the various machines were functioning properly, the inspector contemplated the medium. She was sitting opposite him, her eyes gently closed, bound to her chair and with two short chains, each equipped with a padlock fastening her wrists to those of Doctor Ramsey and Colonel Garrick. As Clayton cast his gaze over his fellow committee members, he was unable to detect on their faces any trace of the skepticism they had shown moments before. Their fingertips touching those of their neighbors, they all seemed absorbed in an almost pious meditation, convinced something was about to occur that would shake them to the core, whether it came from this world or the next.
Sinclair’s voice suddenly boomed out, causing them to jump out of their skins. Without warning, the captain had launched into his record of the séance, in a voice loud enough to be picked up by phonographs as far away as Paris. Having recovered from the shock, the committee members hurriedly resumed their frozen postures. Only the medium remained as motionless as a sphinx, deep in the supposed trance she had entered into as soon as the séance began. The young woman’s lips were parted, and she was breathing slowly and deeply, her small breasts lifting at regular intervals, constrained by the fine silk gown, attracting the furtive glances of the men around the table like moths around a fire. Breathing too regularly, Clayton thought skeptically.
“Subject: séance of twelve September 1888. Time: nine o’clock p.m. Place: Madame Amber’s residence, number twelve Mayflower Road, London. Monitor on the right side: Colonel Garrick; monitor on the left side: Doctor Ramsey. Assistants: Mrs. Holland, Mr. Holland, Professor Crookes, Count Duggan . . .”
And while Sinclair continued his breakdown of the rigorous scientific conditions under which the séance was being monitored, Clayton’s eyes alighted on the three objects in the middle of the table awaiting telekinetic experiments: a small gilt bell, a gardenia, and a lace handkerchief. They were still immobile, and might continue to be, and yet the inspector had the impression they were charged with an air of anticipation, as if they had already secretly decided to move and were simply awaiting Madame Amber’s command. He shook his head, attempting to rid himself of such an absurd idea, no doubt a result of his mind playing tricks on him.
Captain Sinclair’s presentation ended as abruptly as it had begun, and silence once again fell on the gathering. Moments later, Madame Amber, her face still registering a look of intense ecstasy whose alchemy none of the mortals gathered around would ever comprehend, gave a succession of faint moans from her parted lips. Soon afterward, her lovely brow wrinkled, then gradually recovered its original smoothness, as though a light breeze had rippled the calm surface of a lake. This caused an almost electric shiver to pass through the human circle. Although everything about the medium’s face appeared genuine, Clayton was certain that she was faking: something deep inside him insisted that a woman that beautiful couldn’t possibly be honest, couldn’t possibly be at the service of truth. No supreme power was whole and incorruptible, and was there any power greater than that possessed by a beautiful woman? He glanced around him and discovered four pairs of eyes belonging to four of the men around the table—including, to his astonishment, Captain Sinclair—descending lasciviously toward Madame Amber’s pulsating cleavage. None of the men concentrated on monitoring the séance, unable to tear their gaze from the slow rise and fall of the medium’s fragile, provocative, almost girlish breasts. His eyes then crossed those of Count Duggan, who gave him a knowing wink. Disgusted by the thought that this eccentric character assumed he was prey to the same lustfulness as the others, Clayton considered calling them to attention but then thought better of it. He didn’t relish the idea of the cylinder preserving in time one of his admonishments, which might even offend the ladies. He frowned at the count and concentrated once more on the medium.
It was then that the little bell on the table started making a noise, emitting several short, loud tinkles. All eyes fell on the completely mundane object that had suddenly been transformed into a bridge between two worlds. Following the brief call to attention, the bell was silent again. Then Madame Amber resumed her moaning, arching her back and shaking her head violently from side to side; her platinum hair lashed her face like a seagull trying to peck out her eyes. At that moment the bell began to lift very slowly into the air until it was floating about eight inches above the tabletop, where it began to ring furiously, as though shaken by a relentless, invisible hand. At the same time, a series of loud thuds rang out quite clearly, although no one could quite make out which part of the room they were coming from. Clayton had read numerous accounts of loud noises, like huge fists pummeling the walls, but these sounded more like knitting needles dropped on a marble floor, only painfully amplified. As though competing with the thuds, the bell continued tinkling hysterically, and in the midst of that cacophony the gardenia began sliding toward the edge of the table, where it toppled into Nurse Jones’s lap, causing her to throw herself back in her chair with a look of horror, as though a scorpion had just landed on her skirts. It was then that the lace handkerchief took to the air with a delicate flourish and began to float past the flabbergasted onlookers like a jellyfish.
In the meantime, Clayton’s eyes darted frenetically around the room, checking the different monitors again and again. He was certain the bells attached to the curtains hadn’t made a sound before the hubbub had started, although he had to admit that they were of no use now. If anything was moving the weighty hangings, there was no way he could have heard, or indeed seen anything through that bloodred half-light. However, from where he was sitting he could glimpse the recording thermometers, the infrared apparatus, and the other devices set up around the room, none of which appeared to detect any movement in their immediate vicinity. Leaning away from the table just far enough so as not to break the human chain imposed by his neighbors’ hands, Clayton noticed the sawdust was undisturbed, as was the plank blocking off the chimney opening and the seals around the windows. As for his fellow participants, most of them had eschewed their role of strict observer and were gazing spellbound at the riotous activity of the bell, the leisurely progress of the handkerchief, or at Madame Amber herself as she writhed on her chair in a manner as lewd as it was hair-raising.
Where was the contemptuous skepticism they had exhibited only moments ago? Clayton wondered. When it was all over, these staunch disbelievers would doubtless pooh-pooh what happened during the séance with one of those vague, disdainful phrases they had read in the newspapers, but there was no denying that at that moment they resembled a group of schoolchildren mesmerized by a fireworks display. Crookes in particular was exhilarated: his offended expression had given way to a beaming smile, and he even urged his colleagues to smell the handkerchief, assuring them the strong perfume impregnating it hadn’t been there before the séance started. Clayton sighed inwardly. It seemed Crookes’s broken heart was easier to mend than his own. Vexed, he tried to catch the captain’s eye, but Sinclair ignored him. When the bell first started ringing, Sinclair had backed up Clayton’s visual monitoring of the situation, but since a particularly violent spasm had caused Madame Amber’s gown to slip off one of her shoulders, revealing the outline of her breast, pale and delicate as a snowflake, Clayton had given up on his superior. Of all the people around the table, only one seemed as poised as the inspector: Mrs. Lansbury, who was observing the scene with what appeared to be a cold, professional eye. Clayton studied the frail old lady, wondering whether her attitude was a sign of unflinching belief in spiritualism or bitter disappointment. It could have been either of those two things, and yet something told him the old lady shared his misgivings.
All at once, the thudding stopped so abruptly that the ensuing silence seemed to burst everyone’s eardrums. A second later, the bell crashed onto the table, bouncing several times before finally rolling around forlornly on the same spot, as though lulling itself to sleep. The handkerchief floated toward Madame Amber, who had ceased convulsing and was staring straight ahead with glazed e
yes, and settled on her face with the milky softness of a bride’s veil. The effect of the delicate caress on her was overwhelming: her body tensed with such force that the chair she was seated on lifted off the ground, and her head snapped backward, as though someone had yanked her hair violently, and then forward, causing her mane to trace a silvery streak of lightning in the air as the handkerchief slipped into her lap. She remained motionless, her chin pressed to her chest, her hair obscuring her face like an ivory mask, while strange gurgling, rattling sounds came from her throat. Beneath the pale skin of her forearms, her veins and muscles appeared grotesquely swollen, as if her body were being subjected to some inhuman pressure.
“Good God, she’s suffocating!” Nurse Jones squawked, her voice faltering.
But before anyone could react, the strange panting noises stopped. Madame Amber’s body relaxed visibly, and behind her a new, startling phenomenon began to take place. A row of phosphorescent lights, like minute, inexplicably beautiful shimmering dragonflies appeared, hovering above her head, then immediately started to move about, swirling in a tiny constellation, before melding into a luminous, effervescent mass that began to grow more dense and to expand. The resplendent cloud appeared to be feeding directly off Madame Amber’s head, like a phantom leech, or perhaps it was coming from there, as though distilled through her hair. Clayton understood that Madame Amber was preparing to perform one of her celebrated materializations, the phenomena that brought mediums the most prestige and whose complexity posed one of the most dangerous challenges to a charlatan.
“Look, a face is forming!” Crookes exclaimed excitedly, blinking again and again as though attempting to discern the features of the beautiful pirate’s daughter through the mist.
Clayton saw that he was right. Amid that nebulous cloud he glimpsed a vague shape emerging. However, disappointingly for Crookes, it appeared to be the three-quarter profile of a man. All that was visible of him was his nose, whiskers, and fleshy lips, which looked as if they were poised for a kiss or to start whistling.
“I can feel his breath on my hand!” Colonel Garrick, who was closest to the materialization, declared half in terror, half in awe.
Two stark white hands then appeared on either side of the face; they seemed more solid, less ethereal, than the face, and their fingers moved with an odd grace, although at the level of the wrists they became more vaporous, merging with the luminous cloud encircling the ghostlike profile. Clayton studied the face and the hands with mounting rage. His only desire was to leap to his feet and grab hold of those nebulous forms, convinced the ingenious fraud would instantly be exposed. But he forced himself to remain seated, for Sinclair had commanded that under no circumstances should they interrupt the séance, no matter what suspicions they might have while it was going on. Their mission was limited to making sure the séance was correctly monitored, studying the medium’s modus operandi, recording the séance, and analyzing the data on the various devices so as to be able to arrive at relevant conclusions, which would enable them to decide whether or not to take any further action. In short, they must be alert to everything that went on but were forbidden to intervene. That being so, Clayton had no choice but to be patient and hope that Madame Amber slipped up, or that one of the devices registered some anomaly that would allow them to bring her to justice. He sighed impatiently, focusing his attention on the wraithlike figure that had emanated from the medium, which suddenly started to dissolve. The face and hands gradually became elongated, distorting, as though the figure were melting, and in a matter of seconds it spilled onto the floor and vanished beneath the table like a gelatinous drizzle.
Everyone sat expectantly, watching Madame Amber in strained silence. She seemed to be asleep or unconscious, her head tilted slightly forward, her limp body apparently held up only by the two monitors. Doctor Ramsey and Colonel Garrick exchanged worried glances above the medium’s blond locks. Just then, Madame Amber tried feebly to raise her head. Ramsey called her name gently, and she responded with a drawn-out moan, as though awakening from a deep sleep. After several attempts, she managed to sit up straight, blinking as she looked around her in bewilderment. She frowned, coughed a few times, and then slumped onto Colonel Garrick’s shoulder, apparently exhausted.
“We ought to give her some water,” advised the doctor, “and I’d like to check her pulse.”
“The cords are chafing her skin,” Colonel Garrick remarked in a tone far less professional than that of Ramsey, doubtless enchanted by the sweet weight of that head nestled on his shoulder.
“I’m afraid all that will have to wait,” Clayton snapped.
“The water will have to wait,” Captain Sinclair corrected calmly, glowering at his subordinate. “No one must leave the table until Clayton and I have checked the readings on the monitors. But you can start untying her, and by all means check the young lady’s pulse, Doctor Ramsey, and perhaps see about, er . . . covering her up.”
Clayton looked at the captain without responding, and at Sinclair’s signal, the two men stood up at the same time, lifting their chairs so as not to drag them through the sawdust. In the meantime, Garrick and Ramsey assisted Madame Amber as the others looked on in concern. While the doctor began untying her wrists, the colonel gently patted her cheek, encouraging her in the gentlest of voices to tell them how she was feeling. The medium tried to do as he asked, opening her mouth a few times, but was unable to utter a sound. She raised a pale hand to her throat and gave a faint smile, as though apologizing to everyone for her tiresome, inopportune exhaustion. And then her expression, which Clayton had been observing closely, became transfigured: the smile froze on her lips, and a sudden terror crumpled her delicate features like paper, twisting them into an unrecognizable mass. Bewildered, the inspector turned to where Madame Amber’s gaze was fixed.
In a corner of the room, shrouded in the reddish half-light, stood the motionless figure of a man. He was clad in a dark suit, torn in places, beneath which a powerful body was visible. Due to the distance, and the opaque gloom, Clayton could only just make out a coarsely featured face, crowned by a pair of wild eyes, and underscored by a powerful chin covered in an unkempt beard. But besides his appearance, there was something else about the man that startled the inspector: his figure appeared not to possess the luminous, vaporous quality attributed to spirits, but rather seemed perfectly outlined and consistent, as if he were made of the same stuff as any normal human being, except in one respect: he was transparent. The man’s body, although it gave the impression of being solid flesh and blood, seemed to let the light through, or in this case the semidarkness.
The supposed spirit did not say or do anything. His posture oozed menace, and his eyes glinted with an almost inhuman hatred. Clayton contemplated him with growing astonishment, then wheeled round to look at Madame Amber, who was quaking in her chair, her mouth open in a soundless cry of terror. Without knowing why, Clayton sensed this time that her emotion was genuine. The rest of the group was also staring toward the corner, without daring to rise from the table. They all appeared visibly alarmed by the apparition, but above all by the dense atmosphere of impending doom. Then Clayton noticed Mrs. Lansbury. Like the others, the old lady was contemplating the looming figure with terror, yet her eyes betrayed something different, something that looked like defiance.
“You! It’s you!” the apparition suddenly bellowed, shaking with anger and pointing at one of the people at the table, arm outstretched.
They all looked at one another, scared and confused, trying to discover whom his words were intended for, all except Madame Amber and Mrs. Lansbury, who kept on staring intently at the stranger.
“I’ve found you! At last, I’ve found you! And this time you’ll give me what is mine!” roared the apparition, his words giving way to a bloodcurdling howl.
His rage was so intense it twisted his mouth into a hideous snarl, like a ferocious gargoyle, through which, absurdly, the pattern of the wallpaper was visible. Then, to everyone’s as
tonishment, the diminutive Mrs. Lansbury stood up from her chair and confronted the figure, with only her trembling dignity as protection.
From then on, events took place at breakneck speed. The stranger yelled a curse and instantly charged at the group, flying past Clayton, who received a sharp blow to the shoulder. Then he leapt onto the table and hurled himself at poor Mrs. Lansbury, who had no time to escape. Everyone jumped to his or her feet, no longer worried about disturbing the sawdust. Some screamed, others uttered words of disbelief. Madame Amber flung herself to the floor and began crawling toward the Japanese screen. Clayton and Sinclair grabbed hold of the stranger, who had managed to seize the old lady by the throat. However, with an astonishing display of agility, the man jerked his head back violently, hitting the captain square on the nose. Sinclair fell to the floor, tracing a bloody arc that spurted from the middle of his face and dragging Clayton along with him. No sooner had the inspector landed on the floor than he leapt back to his feet, looking around for his gun, which had slipped from his hand. But he realized instantly there was no time for that: Mrs. Lansbury’s life was ebbing through her assailant’s powerful fingers, and so he hurled himself once more at the apparition. He managed to grip the phantom’s powerful neck in a lock, hoping to force him to release his prey. Glimpsing his own arms through the body he was trying to overpower, which felt completely normal to the touch, startled him momentarily, but he quickly tightened his hold again. However, despite straining every muscle in his body, and no doubt inflicting great pain as he dug his metal hand hard into that transparent throat, the stranger seemed to possess the invincible strength of a madman, and the inspector could not make him release his deadly grip on the old lady’s throat. Her face was turning purple, and there was nothing else he could do. The man was going to kill her before Clayton’s eyes.
The Map of Chaos Page 12
