Uneasy Spirits: A Victorian San Francisco Mystery

by M. Louisa Locke

  Esther Stein, a wealthy merchant banker’s wife, and Beatrice O’Rourke, a cook and housekeeper, could have been sisters; they were of such a similar build. Neither stood much taller than four and a half feet, and both had figures that once had been called “fine” but now reflected the spread that came with maturity and years of good food. Esther, in her mid-sixties and the older of the two, had hair that was pure white, while Beatrice’s gray still permitted glimmers of the redheaded girl she had been. Esther’s German heritage and Beatrice’s Irish roots had produced blue eyes of a similar shade, and you would be hard-pressed to determine which woman’s smile was more good-natured. Only their clothing and the tiredness in Beatrice’s stance revealed their very different life experiences. Annie loved them both equally.

  Oblivious to the comparisons Annie was making, Beatrice bustled back to the sink and Esther sank down in the chair with a sigh, saying, “Thank you, Beatrice, tea would be much appreciated. Now Annie, Miss Pinehurst confided in me this morning that you are helping her out with her poor sister. She said that you hoped by attending one of their séances to find out just how these awful people have gotten such a hold on Mrs. Vetch. She wasn’t clear at all on the exact details. Tell me all.”

  “I wish I could say I had a well-developed plan,” Annie said. “I thought that if I became a regular member of one of their ‘circles,’ as they call them, I could find out just what sort of tricks they were up to. Then I could use the information to convince Sukie, Miss Pinehurst’s sister, that they are frauds. When I lived with John’s Aunt Lottie, I read a number of articles in the Boston papers that exposed the methods of some of the most famous local mediums. Some are really quite simple. It is amazing what kind of shenanigans people can get up to in a darkened room. One article even showed how a famous trance medium joined together the hands of the two people on either side of her, so that she was free to lark around the room blowing on trumpets, whispering in people’s ears, and generally making a ruckus while the people at the table swore she was sitting with them the whole time. She was exposed when one of the members of the circle pulled the same trick and turned up the gas-jet, so everyone could see the spirit was the medium herself.”

  “Do you think that is all that it will take?” Esther said.

  “Probably not.” Annie thought about how resistant Lottie had been when she had tried to point out some of the fraudulent tactics she’d read about.

  “Ma’am, aren’t you going to tell Mrs. Stein about tricking those Framptons with your made-up son?” Kathleen practically wriggled with the excitement of revealing her role in the plans.

  “You tell her, Kathleen; it’s really your story to tell,” Annie said.

  So, Kathleen told Mrs. Stein all about her conversation with Mrs. Frampton, and how she had cleverly revealed the existence of a son called Johnny who had passed away, in order to trap the Framptons into creating a spirit of a child who had never existed. When she finished, Kathleen again looked to her for reassurance, so Annie smiled at her. She had been taken aback when Kathleen had first recounted the story to her on the trip home yesterday. But she was telling the truth when she said those six years had done much to ease the pain of her marriage. Of course, Kathleen probably thinks that John’s death would be the source of that pain, not the marriage itself. Annie had talked to both Beatrice and Esther about the financial problems John had caused, and his suicide, but she hadn’t revealed much to them about the actual marriage. Annie feared these two women, who had had the good fortune to find men who loved them, might not understand.

  “I am sure you did just fine, Kathleen,” said Esther. “I am also glad that Mrs. Fuller took you with her when she went, you have a good sensible head on your shoulders. Now, Annie, while I can quite understand your desire to help Miss Pinehurst, are you sure it is a good idea to try to fool people who are, at the very least, shady characters, and may be outright villains? You will be threatening their livelihoods if you are successful.”

  “Oh, Esther, I expected to hear something like that from Mr. Dawson when I explained to him what I am doing, but not from you! The most that will happen if I am successful in proving that the Framptons are frauds is that they will move on, which happens all the time with these sorts of people. I expect this is why they moved out of England in the first place and then moved out west.”

  Esther Stein frowned but changed the topic. “Beatrice said you asked Nate Dawson to help you.”

  “I asked him to look into the Framptons’ backgrounds and bring me some information about one of the people who will be attending the séance with me tomorrow, a Judge Babcock. You haven’t heard of him by any chance?”

  “Babcock? Hmm. No, my dear. Do you know who else is going to attend the séance?”

  “Actually, yes I do. Simon Frampton mentioned one or two others, and I thought you or your husband might know them. There is a Mrs. Larkson, who is married to a businessman, William Larkson, of the Larkson’s Woolen Mills. A good old family-owned firm, I believe. Do you know anything about him or his wife?”

  “I know William Larkson recently inherited the company from his father. Herman thinks he will do well. He married late in life, and his wife is a good deal younger than he is. They live in Pacific Heights, and I believe that Hetty, my youngest daughter, may know the wife; they are more of an age. I will ask her Sunday when I see her. Another birthday party. I swear, with thirteen grandchildren, there isn’t a week that goes by without one or the other of them having a party.”

  Annie, who knew that Esther doted on every one of her grandchildren, ignored this complaint and got right to the point. “That would be wonderful. I figure the more I know about who is sitting around the table with me, the more I will be able to judge how the Framptons keep their clients coming back. There is one other name I have, Mr. Ruckner, a banker, and I felt sure that Herman would know him.”

  “Abraham Ruckner, of course we know him! Oh dear, poor man, he lost his wife two months ago, left him with six children, all still at home. I hate to think of him getting involved with mediums. I wonder if Herman knows that? My goodness. He is a partner in the San Francisco Gold Bank and Trust, and, if I am not mistaken, that is the bank that Miss Pinehurst’s brother-in-law works for as a clerk. You don’t think there is a connection do you?”

  “There very well might be,” Annie replied. “Although I am quite sure Mr. Vetch would not have gotten his employer involved with the Framptons. It may be that the Framptons are using Sukie in some fashion to gain information about him or the bank. In any event, this is very helpful.”

  “I can tell you, Herman has a good deal of affection for Abraham. If there is anything he can do to help you expose them and protect his friend, he will be more than willing to help. You know this really distresses me. To think of this couple preying on poor souls like Sukie Vetch and Abraham Ruckner. I think I will just go up now and tell Herman about this. Dear me, what is the world coming too, when the dead are used to hurt the living.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Friday evening, October 17, 1879

  “J. J. Jackson, Medium. No 16 Stockton: circles Wednesday and Friday evenings; sittings daily.”

  —San Francisco Chronicle, 1879

  Although the circle was not supposed to start until eight p.m., Simon Frampton had instructed her to arrive by seven-thirty at the latest. Annie now saw why, as a number of the occupants of the room were imbibing liberally of the brandy and sherry that stood on a sideboard. Spirits to help prepare for the spirits, she thought. Once an imposing formal parlor, the room’s shoulder-high wainscoting and paneled wooden ceiling continued the decorative style of the hallway. The wallpaper, however, was a nightmarish pattern of tiny gilt flowering vines against a dark green, and the marble from the hallway gave way to a parquet floor. A thick piled carpet covered the center of the floor, and there were matching dark green velvet curtains pulled over the windows. The better to muffle the footsteps of any ghosties who might be running around.


  Annie found the color scheme of dark green and even darker wood, which had seemed elegant in the hallway, oddly oppressive in this room. The incongruous placement of a large oval table and chairs in the middle of the room added to her sense of discomfort. Parlors were supposed to have open floors, with the furniture in conversational groupings around the walls. Instead, this room was some strange hybrid, with dining room table and sideboard mingling uneasily with a brown velvet sofa, a pair of floral armchairs, and four ladder-backed chairs placed at the corners of the room.

  Sitting stiffly in one of those chairs was a Mr. Hapgood, whom Frampton had pointed out to Annie as they entered the room. He had said, “Harold over there has been fortunate enough to contact his father and some of his brothers, who have been very helpful in offering suggestions in how to run the business. You may have heard of Hapgood and Sons, one of the first successful grocers in the city.”

  Annie had indeed heard of Hapgood’s grocery store and even shopped there a few times as well, since it was only a few blocks from her boarding house. Mr. Harold Hapgood, a weedy sort of man, whose head looked too large for his thin neck, didn’t seem all that excited about another evening of advice from his departed relatives. Another man stood staring down at the fire that blazed in a fireplace with an oversized green marble mantel that clashed with the wallpaper. Annie was beginning to suspect that the original owners of this mansion had more money than taste. According to Frampton, the somber gentleman decked out in evening dress was Judge Zebulon Babcock. Zebulon! She hadn’t heard that old Puritan name for ages. She hoped that Nate had found out something about him, because he seemed an odd sort of person to be attending a séance. This thought was interrupted by a peal of laughter coming from the sideboard, where a young brunette in a gorgeous, dark bronze silk with brown velvet trimming, stretched out her empty glass.

  “Oh, Jack. Do pour me a drop more of that sherry. I declare that I can feel the chill of the graveyard already,” the woman said, tilting her head quite charmingly.

  Well, my goodness, this must be Mrs. Larkson, the wife of the new owner of the Larkson Woolen Mills, Annie concluded. But the handsome young man pouring her more sherry is certainly too young to be Mr. Larkson.

  As if he had read her mind, Frampton leaned towards Annie and murmured, “Mrs. Larkson and Mr. Sweeter.”

  As Annie watched Mrs. Larkson tease Mr. Sweeter about his mustache, which framed very pink lips and nicely matched his mutton chop sideburns, she wondered if the two were long-standing acquaintances or had developed a flirtation as a result of attending a regular séance together. Maybe it was harmless; Annie knew that some women saw this sort of arch banter as the only way to communicate with someone of the opposite sex. Yet she was curious if Mr. Larkson ever attended these Friday night gatherings with his young and extremely beautiful wife.

  Simon Frampton excused himself, saying that there were some preparations that needed to be attended to before he had finished introducing everyone to Annie. This left only one other unidentified male in the room, and Annie assumed he was the banker, Mr. Ruckner, who was having a very large brandy. Harried was the only word for him. He was formally dressed as befitted a man of his wealth and stature, but his collar looked wilted, and she could see that the cut of his suit coat was being ruined by something shaped suspiciously like a small doll stuffed into his pocket. If he had been consulting Madam Sibyl, she would in an instant have declared the problem domestic difficulties.

  This left two unnamed women. One who was delicately sipping sherry, while the other was making her way over to stand and chat with Mr. Hapgood. The sherry sipper was rather overweight and tightly corseted, probably in her mid-to-late fifties if the gray in her hair was any indication. If Annie had to guess, she would say this must be Mrs. Daisy Mott, since Frampton had described her as motherly. Her smile as Annie made her way across the room was certainly warm.

  “Hello, I’m Mrs. Fuller,” Annie said, holding her hand out. “I am the new member of your circle, and I can tell you I am feeling a little frightened. Have you been attending these meetings long?”

  “Quite some months, actually. My name is Miss Herron. I find that my profession, I nurse the ill and dying, you see, brings me closer than most people to that frail boundary between the dead and the living. I was with Miss Barton on the battlefields during the war, and ever since then I have felt it is my duty to try to comfort my patients, even after death.”

  Not the motherly Mrs. Mott! This couldn’t be the nurse who got Sukie Vetch involved with the Framptons, could it? No, I think her name was Hoskins. Annie nodded and smiled, trying to cover her surprise.

  Miss Herron suddenly pointed, saying, “Mrs. Fuller, look, Mrs. Frampton has arrived! It must be time for us to form the circle.” She then put her glass down on the sideboard and ran towards Arabella Frampton, uttering small cries, rather like an excited schoolgirl.

  Tonight the medium was dressed in an exquisite outfit of pale green. The embroidered cuirass-style top was quite long, leaving room for only two deep flounces in the skirt, and its collar was lined with lace, dyed a darker hue, which drew the eye down to a rather daring décolletage, which revealed her quite substantial natural attributes. Annie fought off a stab of real jealousy at how beautifully the ensemble complimented Arabella’s coloring and how dowdy her own refurbished brown striped camel’s-hair suit, with its single flounce and braiding, was, in comparison.

  She then heard Mrs. Larkson, who had been abandoned by Mr. Sweeter as rapidly as Miss Herron had abandoned her, mutter under her breath, “Oh, goody. Our resident witch is here.” For some reason this made Annie feel much better.

  “Mrs. Fuller, if you would please come and sit by me at this end of the table,” said Simon Frampton, who had slipped up behind her while she had been eavesdropping on Mrs. Larkson. He took her arm, gently guided her past the fireplace, and pulled out a solid-looking chair for her near the end of the table. As she sat down she saw that the arms of the chair pinned her in. No running around in the dark to catch out their tricks for me! She looked to her right and into the hallway, since the pocket doors had not yet been closed, and saw Kathleen sitting on a chair near the front door. Annie had the unexpected impulse to take out her handkerchief and wave at her, rather as someone who was standing on the bridge of a departing ship might do to a friend on shore who had come to see them off.

  Simon Frampton sat down next to her at one end of the large oval table while his wife sat at the other end. Just as if they were father and mother to this little gathering. Sitting on Annie’s left was the banker, Mr. Ruckner, then came Mrs. Larkson, followed by Mr. Sweeter, who seemed very pleased to be seated next to Arabella. Sitting with their backs to the hallway were Mr. Hapgood, then the nurse, Miss Herron, Judge Babcock, and finally on Simon’s right, the woman who Annie had to assume was Mrs. Mott. This woman looked to be in her sixties, at least, with thin gray hair pulled back into a simple circled braid. Her face was long, with deep lines that pulled down the corners of her mouth. She had a square chin and a decidedly long nose, on which perched a pair of thin wire spectacles. Hatchet-faced was the term that came to mind. Two pink splotches on her cheeks and the faded blue of her eyes were the only color about her person, since she was wearing a severe black silk, that, while of excellent material, hung loosely from her spare frame. The woman noticed Annie looking at her and used this as an invitation to reach across Simon to shake her hand, saying, “My dear, I don’t believe we have met. I’m Daisy Mott.”

  Her smile transformed her plain features, and Annie, her hand being warmly shaken, now understood why Frampton had called Mrs. Mott motherly.

  While everyone had been taking their chairs, Albert, the butler, had been moving around the room, extinguishing the lamps. He moved to the pocket doors that led to the hallway and pulled them shut, plunging the room into almost total darkness. There was only a faint glow around a screen that he placed in front of the fireplace. As Annie’s eyes began to adjust, she heard a noise behi
nd her. Twisting around, she saw that Albert had opened a set of doors that led to a smaller parlor behind her, which contained a tall cabinet. In that cabinet sat a girl, illuminated by a lamp sitting on the room’s fireplace mantel. This young girl was all dressed in white, including some sort of gauzy scarf that was draped over her head and fell down almost to her waist. She appeared immobile, her eyes cast down. Annie was just thinking that this must be the young medium, Evie May, when the girl raised her baleful pale eyes and looked straight at her, causing Annie’s heart to constrict in fear.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Carrie M. Sawyer. Materializing and physical medium. 115 Eddy. Séances every evening except Saturday.”

  —San Francisco Chronicle, 1879

  Albert extinguished the lamp on the small parlor mantel, plunging both rooms into semi-darkness. He then went into the hallway, causing a brief flash of light as the door from the smaller parlor to the hallway opened and closed.

  No longer being able to see the girl or the cabinet, Annie turned back around, relieved when Simon Frampton claimed her attention by saying, “My dear Mrs. Fuller, it is now time for you to take my hand and join the circle.”

  Listening to the rustling of the other people around the table and the hiss of embers in the fireplace, she thought how effective séances were in establishing an atmosphere of anticipation. Annie had attended several in her days in Boston as Lottie’s companion, and she realized now that she had copied a number of their elements when she set up Madam Sibyl’s parlor. While she didn’t turn out all the lights, she did keep the windows closed and curtains pulled, creating a profound silence in the room; and she placed the lamps around the room so their light left her, as Madam Sibyl, in shadow. This arrangement forced clients to focus on Madam Sibyl’s hands, making it difficult for them to see the way that a wig and make-up obscured Annie’s true features.