The Royal Ghost

by Linda Stratmann

  ‘Miss Bland, please take my advice. First satisfy yourself that everything I have said is true. You will see that he is a villain beyond redemption and nothing can excuse his actions. Then consult a solicitor.’

  ‘I suppose you mean to see James convicted?’ she said accusingly.

  ‘That will take care of itself. I have another matter in hand.’

  Thirty-Eight

  It was a fine but gusty evening as the Lord Mayor of Brighton, his aldermen and their wives arrived at the Pavilion for Mr Hope’s special demonstration. Mr Hope himself conducted them into the chess room, promising them a very remarkable entertainment. The screens, with their delicate oriental traceries, were draped even more lavishly than before in brightly coloured silken shawls and in front of them, the Wondrous Ajeeb’s devoted attendant Mr Franklin was fussing about the towering figure of the automaton, ensuring that it was beautifully presented, the chess board fully laid out ready for a game. On the wall there hung an engraved portrait of the statue of Captain Pechell, and a photograph of the man himself on the battlefield together with some of his men of the 77th Foot. In addition, and what the visitors might have found slightly more interesting, a side table had been furnished with bottles of wine and glasses, with water for the more abstemiously inclined. A lady, demurely dressed, was standing near the table, eyeing the refreshments with anticipation.

  ‘Before we begin,’ announced Mr Hope to the assembled notables, ‘there is someone I would very much like you to meet, a lady who I believe will one day be feted worldwide as a great visionary and seeker after the truth. Allow me to introduce Miss Bertha Bland.’ Mr Hope offered his hand to the demurely dressed lady and brought her forward to present her to the distinguished company.

  The Lord Mayor, aldermen and their wives were understandably startled to be confronted by so controversial a figure, but after a moment’s hesitation, made the best of it so as not to offend their host or his guest. Cool greetings were exchanged.

  ‘As you know,’ continued Mr Hope cheerfully, ‘Miss Bland and her sister have been the object of some unwarranted publicity and vile allegations which have no foundation whatsoever in fact. Proof of this will be provided very soon and their accusers will live to regret their words. One day we will all feel most privileged to have made the acquaintance of the Misses Bland.’

  The Lord Mayor, aldermen and most especially their wives looked unconvinced, but did not comment.

  ‘I am afraid,’ Hope went on, ‘that I must apologise for the absence of Miss Ada Bland, who is unfortunately indisposed. But have no fear, Miss Bertha Bland reassures me that such is the intimacy of her mind’s connection with that of her beloved sister that she can achieve all that is necessary during tonight’s entertainment through her very remarkable skills.’

  ‘I hope there will be none of this psychic trickery,’ said the Mayor, with a worried look.

  ‘There will be no trickery at all,’ Mr Hope reassured him.

  Dr Hamid and Anna arrived, both looking rather uncomfortable at being there, and Mr Hope, leaving the dignitaries to further acquaint themselves with Miss Bland, went to greet them. Anna, after the briefest possible acknowledgement of their host, excused herself and went to pour a glass of water. ‘My dear Doctor,’ said Hope, unabashed, ‘it is always a pleasure to see a respected man of science at my gatherings. I believe that most of the eminent men of Brighton are now present in this very room!’

  ‘But not all of the eminent ladies,’ Dr Hamid observed. ‘I would have expected you to invite Miss Scarletti.’

  Hope had the good grace to look slightly embarrassed at this question and did not try to evade it. ‘To be perfectly honest, Dr Hamid, I believe that Miss Scarletti’s presence here would not assist in the success of the demonstration. It was my choice that she should not be invited, and if she attempts to gain entry she will not be admitted. In fact, I have increasingly suspected of late that she might not be altogether in her right mind. I have consulted a London specialist on the subject, who agrees with me.’

  ‘What is the name of this specialist?’

  Hope smiled. ‘We must talk about this on another occasion.’

  ‘Indeed we must,’ said Dr Hamid with a frown. Mr Hope returned to the side of Miss Bland, who was eagerly telling an alderman’s wife about her wonderful ability to read what was in her sister’s thoughts and know exactly where she was at all times. At present her dear Ada had a slight cold and cough, and, claimed Bertha, she could actually see the poor invalid in her mind’s eye, resting before a warm fire, with a bottle of physic by her side, reading an improving and moral volume by that wonderful Brightonian author Mr Tainsh.

  The Lord Mayor was standing before the figure of the mighty Turk, gazing up at the calm wooden face. ‘I came here to see him demonstrate last year and even challenged him to a game,’ he told one of the aldermen. ‘I was most soundly beaten, though I am no beginner at chess. But Mr Hope promises we will see something even more extraordinary tonight.’

  There was a metallic grinding sound and very slowly the wondrous Ajeeb bowed his head. The Mayor was disconcerted for a moment, then chuckled. ‘He is certainly a respectful fellow. One might almost imagine him to be alive.’ He turned to Mr Franklin. ‘How does he work?’

  ‘By clockwork, sir,’ said Franklin, with a worried look, ‘although I don’t remember winding the key this evening.’ Ajeeb turned his head creakily to look at him and nodded.

  The Mayor laughed, ‘Well it seems you did and forgot.’

  Mr Franklin did not laugh.

  ‘If you will kindly take your seats, ladies and gentlemen,’ announced Mr Hope, ‘the demonstration is about to begin.’ Everyone complied and Hope surveyed the distinguished company with great satisfaction. ‘I would like to start with a short prayer. Let us give thanks for the lives of those noted citizens of Brighton who have gone before us across the great veil. I most especially pray for eternal blessings on the soul of Captain Pechell whose portraits grace this apartment. He was my comrade and my friend, a brave soldier and a fine example to all who knew him.’

  With the brief homily done, Hope turned to Mr Franklin. ‘It is time to turn the key so we may view the great mysteries of the Wondrous Ajeeb.’

  ‘I am not sure, sir, if he has not already been wound,’ said Franklin, but he tried the key and found it turned easily, which further puzzled him. He continued to wind until the mechanism was fully primed. ‘We are ready now, sir. Ajeeb will be pleased to challenge any gentleman present to a game of chess.’

  To his astonishment, however, Ajeeb shook his head and the onlookers laughed. ‘Is he too tired to play chess today?’ joked one of the aldermen. ‘That is a fine thing from a machine.’

  ‘Ajeeb, will you not play chess?’ asked Franklin, mystified. Once again the wooden head indicated he would not. ‘Would you prefer draughts? I will put the pieces in place.’ Franklin hurried to get the basket of draughts, but again Ajeeb declined.

  ‘What is happening?’ asked Hope.

  ‘I don’t know, sir, I don’t understand it, he has never done this before.’

  Hope gave a grunt of impatience, which was not improved by the amusement of the audience.

  ‘Your Turk is misbehaving tonight,’ chortled the Mayor.

  Hope faced the giant figure. ‘Ajeeb!’ he cried commandingly, ‘I order you to play chess for the Lord Mayor and aldermen of Brighton!’

  Ajeeb’s reply was swift. With a sweep of his arm the chess pieces were knocked from the board and tumbled across the floor. ‘Franklin, deal with this!’ demanded Hope.

  ‘I’m really very sorry, sir,’ said Franklin, with growing concern. He picked up the chess pieces and tried to replace them on the board, but the insistent Turk merely swept them away again, and he had to back away to avoid being struck by the mechanical hand.

  ‘Is there nothing you can do, man?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Franklin helplessly. ‘Once it has been wound I cannot unwind it, one must just
let the clockwork run down and that could take several hours, but then I didn’t think it was wound before and it still moved.’

  ‘Well if this is all a part of the show it is very entertaining,’ said the Mayor. ‘I must say we had not expected a comedy.’

  Franklin tried to approach his charge once more, but was defeated as Ajeeb’s body began turning from side to side, both his wooden arms waving with increasing wildness. It almost looked as if the giant form was preparing to leave his plinth and wreak havoc amongst the onlookers, whose exclamations started to tell more of alarm than amusement.

  ‘This has gone far enough,’ said one of the aldermen at last, getting to his feet. ‘Your machine is frightening the ladies! Make it stop!’

  Franklin ran his hands through his hair distractedly. ‘Mr Mott! Mr Mott!’ he cried. ‘Stop this at once, I beg of you!’

  At the back of the room Mr Mott rose to his feet. ‘Might I assist you, Mr Franklin?’

  Franklin turned and stared aghast at the chess champion of all Sussex. ‘But, but – who – I mean how —’

  ‘Stop the thing now!’ shouted Hope, coming forward and receiving a blow on the forehead from a thrashing mechanical hand.

  ‘It’s alive, it’s alive!’ wailed Franklin, his hair in a state of unaccustomed dishevelment, flopping alarmingly over his forehead.

  ‘It is possessed!’ cried Miss Bland dramatically, rising to her feet.

  As if in response Ajeeb turned and, making a large gesture with one arm, struck the draped screen, which teetered and collapsed in folds, revealing the figure of Mystic Stefan crouching behind it. He was clearly unprepared for this exposure, since he was holding some images of the Prince Regent and Mrs Fitzherbert, which had been fastened to poles and draped in transparent veils.

  All the invited dignities now roared with laughter.

  Stefan quickly dropped the poles on the floor and rushed to tackle the Turk, which struck him across the face. As he stood dazed and surprised, Ajeeb seized hold of the dark wig and tugged it off, revealing a more natural looking set of Byronic curls. The conjuror clapped his hands to his head in dismay, then tried to retrieve the wig, which was being waved in the air like a dead rat, but the mechanical arm flung the hairpiece across the room and, turning back, began tugging at the false beard, which led the previously mute magician to cry ‘Ouch! Stop!’ in a very un-Hungarian accent.

  ‘Wait – I recognise that scoundrel!’ exclaimed an alderman. ‘He is Mr Clee, who was arrested here only a matter of months ago, and a most contemptible fellow. I thought he was in prison.’

  Clee, his beard now half hanging from his face, looked wildly about him, then quickly pushed Mr Franklin out of his path and made a rush for the door, where Mr Mott and Dr Hamid barred his way and smartly apprehended him.

  The Mayor turned to a thunderstruck Hope. ‘What is the meaning of this? I am shocked and amazed that you have anything to do with this villain, and have the effrontery to invite us and our lady wives here to see some fakery which you have no doubt cooked up between you. This is the grossest possible insult. Gentlemen, ladies, we will see no more of this farrago.’

  The Mayor, aldermen and their wives all prepared to depart in a body, with Hope vainly begging them to remain, protesting that there had been a terrible misunderstanding, but before they could reach the door it burst open and Miss Ada Bland marched in accompanied by two constables and waving some documents. She pointed to Mr Clee, who was being held very firmly by the arms. ‘There! That is the monster who deceived me, the vile criminal who took my honour and my money too. I see you have been unmasked at last you horrid fiend,’ she shrieked. ‘I wish I could mark you as I am marked so you could never again work your wiles on a trusting woman.’ For a moment it looked as though she might launch herself at him and make good her threat, but her sister hurried to her side and embraced her and she dissolved into sobs of anguish.

  ‘Disgraceful!’ said the Mayor’s wife as the dignitaries all left. Mr Hope, speechless, sank into a chair and buried his face in his hands as the constables took Mr Clee away and the Bland sisters quickly departed.

  ‘Well done, Miss Scarletti,’ said Mr Mott, ‘you astonish me, you really do.’

  Mr Hope’s head jerked up. He turned around and saw an unexpected tableau – the towering figure of the wondrous Ajeeb, now stilled, the maniacally giggling Mr Franklin, and beside them, the unmistakable diminutive, lopsided form of Mina. Anna Hamid had already run forward to envelop her patient in a cloak since Mina had no desire to appear in public wearing her callisthenics costume. ‘But – how can that be? Where did you come from?’

  ‘Really, Mr Hope; use your intelligence; where do you think I came from?’ Mina gasped from exertion and dabbed her brow with a handkerchief. Anna quickly assisted her into a seat and Dr Hamid brought her a glass of water.

  ‘I see the exercises have been of benefit,’ he said dryly, ‘but now I insist you rest.’

  Hope, with the obvious staring him in the face, stood and turned about as if searching for another way into the room. ‘But that is impossible unless – unless Miss Scarletti is a second Mrs Guppy. Of course! I knew it! I always knew it!’

  ‘No, Mr Hope,’ sighed Mina. ‘I am no medium, no psychic, no seer, and I cannot fly through the air or pass through walls. All I have is common sense. You have been duped by a clever trickster, who seeks out the gullible and the credulous. You are not a fool; you are just too willing to believe. Does Mr Clee claim to be able to move objects through the ether? Has he told you that he is sending needful supplies to Africa for the succour of Dr Livingstone?’

  ‘How could you possibly know that?’ demanded Hope, turning pale.

  ‘Well it wasn’t by reading minds. I didn’t need to. Clee and his accomplice in crime Miss Eustace see people’s weaknesses and use them to extort money. I won’t ask how much he has taken from you. If this scheme is ever revealed in court you would, I am afraid, become a public laughing stock. Perhaps, Mr Hope, from now on no more will be said of my having to sign any papers, neither will you pay some London doctor to declare me insane, or work your wiles on my family. Do I have your promise before these witnesses?’

  Confronted by Dr Hamid, Anna and the all Sussex chess champion, none of whom from their expressions looked inclined to accept a refusal, Mr Hope promised.

  Thirty-Nine

  Against all Mina’s expectations, Richard’s play had survived its many setbacks and was due to be performed in the Pavilion as planned. The fracas at Ajeeb’s demonstration, which might have prevented it by the loss of Mr Hope’s sponsorship, had not done so. The cost of the room hire, which, Mina suspected, Hope would have withdrawn had he been able to, had already been paid and could not be unpaid. Whether he had ever made good on his promise to buy ten tickets she did not know. Even had he chosen to raise an objection to the performance, his protests would not have been listened to, since the Lord Mayor, aldermen of Brighton and the Pavilion management committee were of one mind on the subject of Mr Hope. Like the fabled Emperor who had paraded in supposedly invisible garments that only the wise were able to see, he had been revealed in his naked obsession and was now acknowledged to be a well-meaning but sadly flawed man. Worse still, an ugly rumour was busily circulating in town that Mr Hope had, during his residence, been conducting an intrigue with a married woman. This last allegation was too much for Enid and Louisa, both of whom emphatically refused to believe it. Mina was anxious to know what Mr Phipps had discovered, but dared not show her hand by questioning him. Word had it that the tainted hero was preparing to leave Brighton and might already have left.

  One of the fruits of Mr Hope’s patronage was a set of nicely printed handbills, which Mr Merridew had volunteered to design. Decorated with a pretty border, they read:

  The Famed Exponent of Shakespeare

  Who has appeared before Royalty

  MR MARCUS MERRIDEW

  Will grace the Pavilion in a leading role

  in

 
THE COURTLY PRINCE

  a diversion

  by

  Richard Scarletti

  On seeing the handbills, Richard had been slightly taken aback by the fact that it was the actor and not the writer who was so prominently featured. However, Mr Merridew explained to him that the audience always came to see the actors and never took any note of the author, and that his wording would undoubtedly sell more tickets. So it was to prove.

  Louisa was impressed to learn that Richard had penned a play that was to be performed by a famed professional actor, but she had not appreciated and had certainly not been informed that he also planned to appear in it. She was aware that her dear Henry had written some of the stories he published, and then there were Mina’s little homilies for children, and of course the late Mr Dickens had been a good and charitable person by all accounts, and very rich. Louisa had therefore convinced herself that the business of playwrighting was a good one, and perfectly respectable as long as the writer did not have anything to do with the performers. This entertainment, she felt assured, was only the start of Richard’s new career, which would lead to fortune and fame. She had been busy calling on all her friends insisting that they buy tickets and accepting no refusals. Several, who recalled Marcus Merridew in his heyday as the darling of the ladies, needed no persuasion. As a result, the performance, which was to take place before a potential audience of some fifty persons, which was as much seating as the apartment could accommodate, was quickly sold out.

  The space available for the actors was not large and there was no furniture or properties of any sort, but Mr Merridew had taken great care in arranging the room, and it looked very elegant. Two of the ornate pillars – delicate looking yet strong – which supported the roof of the music room gallery, served to mark the boundary of the acting space, framing it like the feet of a gilded proscenium arch in a London theatre, while the deep drapery of the window curtains formed an opulent backdrop. Chinese screens had been placed discreetly to the right and the left to act as wings.