A Case of Spirits

by Peter; Peter Lovesey Lovesey

  ‘Oh no,’ said Probert. ‘This wasn’t party games. It was a scientific experiment, the first of a series I have undertaken to conduct with the medium concerned. The next one is taking place on Saturday. We are merely searchers after the truth.’

  ‘I see. Who are these searchers, sir?’

  ‘Oh, I can vouch for every one of them.’

  ‘I should like to know their names, even so,’ said Cribb.

  ‘No, no, these were my guests. Respectable people, every one. I’m not having them subjected to an inquisition simply because they visited my house in the interests of science a few days before it was burgled. Blast it, I’d rather forget the whole damned thing!’

  Cribb was not so lightly brushed aside. ‘One was Miss Crush, whose house you visited for a similar purpose on—’ he took out his notebook ‘—the 15th October. I shall be seeing Miss Crush this afternoon, sir. I expect she’ll give me the names, but I do dislike having to press a lady for information. It’s even more distasteful to me than bribing the domestics. But there you are—it’s my living.’

  ‘Bribing the domestics?’ repeated Dr Probert, aghast.

  ‘We only do it if the information ain’t forthcoming as it should be. No, I’ll put the screws on Miss Crush before I resort to that.’

  ‘Good Lord!’ said Probert. ‘Jowett promised to send somebody discreet. Look here, I’m not having that good lady victimised.’

  ‘Better tell me who was at the seance, then, sir,’ said Cribb in his most reasonable manner.

  ‘Very well, Policeman, but don’t push me too far. There were five people round the table that evening in addition to myself: Miss Crush; my daughter Alice and her fiancé, William Nye; Henry Strathmore, a fellow scientist; and Brand, the medium.’

  ‘Wasn’t there someone else, sir?’

  Dr Probert frowned. ‘I’m damned sure there wasn’t. Oh, I see!’ He gave a sheepish smile. ‘You mean the spirit visitor?’

  ‘No sir,’ said Cribb. ‘I was thinking of your wife.’

  ‘Winifred? She wasn’t there. She refuses to have anything to do with our experiments. She’s terrified of the supernatural. Won’t even walk through the churchyard to the Parish Church on a Sunday morning unless I take her firmly by the arm. She spent the evening of the seance locked in the bathroom reading back numbers of The Tatler. She said it was the place where a ghost was least likely to manifest itself.’

  ‘But your daughter must be made of sterner stuff.’

  ‘Ah, yes. You won’t have met Alice.’ Dr Probert’s face lit with pride. ‘There’s no question of it. She takes after me. She has the inquiring mind of the Probert side. No nonsense about Alice, I can tell you. She’d make a first-rate scientist, given the opportunity.’

  ‘I take it that she has some other occupation then, sir?’

  ‘Good God, no. She isn’t in employment, if that’s what you mean. She’s very active in the parish. Charitable work: distributing the produce of the Harvest Festival to the poor, and so forth. My word, yes. To see young Alice striding down the Hill with a marrow under her arm in search of a destitute family is a stirring sight, I promise you.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought there were many families of that sort hereabouts,’ said Cribb.

  ‘Quite so. She has the devil of a job locating them in Richmond. But she’s inexhaustible. And what she can’t dispose of we put to good use here. Nothing is wasted, I assure you. Look here, if you’ve finished looking at the window we’ll go upstairs to the civilised level of the house.’

  They returned to the drawing-room where Mrs Probert was still seated. True to her account of things, Dr Probert ignored her presence altogether. ‘D’you smoke, Policeman? No? Then you won’t mind if I light a cigar, I dare say. Yes, I’m sorry you haven’t met Alice, but she’s already out on some charitable excursion, I dare say.’

  ‘Buying a hat in the High Street,’ said Mrs Probert.

  ‘Her fiancé William is a public-spirited young fellow, too,’ continued Probert, as if nothing had been said. ‘Bought himself a commission in the East Surreys. That boy would be an asset to any regiment. Carries himself immaculately. I’m always reminded of a camel when I look at him—the supreme dignity of its bearing, you understand, nothing else.’

  ‘I shall make a point of looking for it if I meet him, sir,’ said Cribb. ‘You mentioned another guest—Mr Strathmore, was it?’

  ‘Yes. A highly respected figure in the field of psychical investigation. He is one of the LADS.’

  ‘The fast set, sir?’

  ‘No, the Life After Death Society. The members are all men of science interested in investigating the occult. I believe Strathmore is the secretary. He also happens to be the leading craniologist in London. I know him professionally, you see.’

  ‘Had he been to your house before last week, sir?’

  ‘No, there was no occasion for it. We took drinks together in our clubs and discovered a mutual interest in spiritualistic phenomena. When I decided to hold a seance at my house, I invited Strathmore. It was the obvious thing to do. He’s not the sort to help himself to another chap’s pictures, if that’s the way your suspicious mind is drifting. He’s a gentleman, damn it.’

  So were several others Cribb could name languishing in Newgate, Wormwood Scrubs and Coldbath Fields, but he declined to mention them. He would form his own assessment of Strathmore later. ‘And was the seance worthy of Mr Strathmore’s visit, sir?’

  ‘Eminently worthy. We had the most impressive sequence of phenomena—table-rapping, voices, messages pertaining to be from the Other Side. I preserve an open mind, of course, and so does Strathmore, but one cannot deny that certain things happened that night which are devilish difficult to explain.’

  ‘Devilish is the proper word for it,’ commented Mrs Probert, looking into the fire.

  She seemed to expect no return for her utterances, so Cribb went on: ‘I’ve one other question about that night, sir. It doesn’t concern the table-rapping or the voices. It might be just as significant to my inquiry, though. Did you by any chance mention to the guests your forthcoming lecture at University College Hospital?’

  ‘Certainly I did,’ said Probert. ‘It’s the sort of thing that comes up naturally in conversation.’

  ‘Of course, sir. Let’s return to Mr Brand. I believe he’s making quite a reputation as a medium. He’s much in demand, from what I understand.’

  ‘The whole of London will soon be clamouring to see him,’ said Probert. ‘And no wonder. He is the most promising member of his profession since D. D. Home. I had the greatest difficulty engaging him for my series of experiments. We have only got him next Saturday thanks to an outbreak of scarlet fever at Lady Millmont’s. He restricts his engagements to two a week because of the strain on his vital powers.’

  ‘Yet he is quite young, I understand,’ said Cribb.

  ‘Twenty-two, but communicating with the spirits takes a dreadful toll of a man, whatever his age. And Brand is not robust. He is quite humble in origin, the son of a Blackheath cabman, I am told, and he has the under-nourished look of the less fortunate class. It would not surprise me if he died young.’

  ‘Nor me,’ added Mrs Probert. ‘It would be a judgment.’

  ‘Where did you first meet him?’ Cribb inquired.

  ‘At Miss Crush’s house in Eaton Square,’ said Probert.

  ‘Ah, yes. The first seance. And was that just as successful as yours, sir?’

  ‘I’m bound to admit that it was. Some of those round the table even spoke of witnessing a materialisation, a spirit hand hovering in the air, but I missed it myself. All the audible phenomena were present. It was because they so impressed me that I invited Brand to my own house for a programme of seances on scientific principles. Naturally I invited Miss Crush, my hostess, as well.’

  ‘Did you invite any other members of her party?’

  ‘Brand, of course. Nobody else. The others at Kensington were neighbours of Miss Crush, the Bratts.’
/>
  ‘I beg your pardon, sir.’

  ‘The Bratts, I said. Sir Hartley Bratt and his wife and daughter. Sir Hartley is ninety years of age and wouldn’t want to drive as far as Richmond even if I asked him. He has a suspect heart.’

  ‘At ninety, that’s not surprising,’ said Cribb. ‘I shouldn’t think communing with the spirits would be good for him either.’

  ‘On the contrary. He is a confirmed spiritualist. Most of his friends have passed over and keeping in touch gives him an interest in life. Well, Policeman, we seem to have ventured a long way from my stolen Etty, unless you are proposing to arrest Sir Hartley Bratt. What conclusions have you reached?’

  ‘Only one of any note, sir. For the present I’m assuming a connection between the thefts of your Etty and Miss Crush’s Royal Worcester vase. Each took place a matter of days after a seance at the house in question. Now lifting a picture ain’t quite the same thing as lifting a vase, I’ll admit, but it might be of significance that the thief in each case had the chance of taking something more valuable, and missed it.’

  ‘That’s very pertinent, now you mention it,’ said Dr Probert.

  ‘If it is significant, sir, the list of guests at those two seances is crucial to my inquiry. From what you tell me there was one person, and one only, who attended both seances, apart from Miss Crush and yourself.’

  ‘Brand,’ said Mrs Probert from her place under the palm. ‘Peter Brand, the medium.’

  CHAPTER

  3

  Pray do you find guests criticize your wine,

  Your furniture, your grammar, or your nose?

  Then, why your ‘medium’? What’s the difference?

  MISS CRUSH WAS MORE observant of rank than Dr Probert. ‘Sergeant,’ she said, as Cribb was announced by the maid. ‘Such excitement! Do come in, Sergeant, and let me look at you.’

  He took two short steps into the room—short not from shyness, but because a rosewood table, circular in shape, barred his way. At the centre was a tall Copeland vase containing pink chrysanthemums a little past their prime. From where he stood, Miss Crush’s face regarded him through a space between the blooms. It was delicate, compact and fringed with fair, slightly dishevelled hair.

  ‘You have the look of a sensitive,’ said Miss Crush.

  ‘A detective actually, ma’am,’ Cribb gently explained.

  ‘Yes, but there is definitely something about you. I felt it as soon as the door opened and I feel it more strongly now. You must be a sensitive. It doesn’t prevent you from being a detective as well, you know. I should think it would be a positive advantage. What did my maid say your surname was?’

  ‘Cribb, ma’am.’

  ‘Superb! Sensitive Sergeant Cribb—how do you like that?’

  ‘If I’m honest, ma’am, I prefer my official rank. I’m here about your vase.’

  ‘Never mind that,’ said Miss Crush. ‘Do you ever notice atmospheres—when you first enter a room, for instance?’

  It seemed she was not referring to the faintly stale scent of the chrysanthemums.

  ‘Or do you feel invisible presences?’ Miss Crush continued.

  Cribb shook his head. ‘I’m strictly interested in facts, ma’am. Feelings don’t enter into it much in my job. The vase was taken last Friday evening, I believe.’

  ‘Yes, but it’s of no consequence now. It was not one of my better pieces. I gave a description to the young constable who called on Saturday. He was perfectly civil, but he was not a sensitive. Do you ever have visionary experiences?’

  ‘Not in the course of duty, ma’am. Was the vase taken from this room?’

  Miss Crush got to her feet and came round the table to place a hand on Cribb’s sleeve. She was small and fortyish. She either used rouge, or the excitement of discovering a sensitive had gone to her cheeks. ‘If you will persist with your questions I shall try to answer them, but I really do not mind about the vase. It was taken a week ago last Saturday from the sideboard over there while I was at Dr Probert’s for a seance. The thief got in through the mews at the back of the house and opened a door by removing one of the panes, putting his arm through and unfastening the latch. The servants were in the kitchen and didn’t hear a thing— playing cards, I shouldn’t wonder. I got home shortly after midnight and heard about the broken pane when Annie, my parlour-maid, was locking up half an hour later. It wasn’t until morning that we found the vase had gone.’

  ‘Didn’t you check to see if anything was stolen after you found the window broken?’ asked Cribb, incredulously.

  ‘You know how it is, Sergeant. One is always wiser after the event. I was already in bed when Annie came to tell me what she had found, and I must confess that I was in a state of some perturbation about the manifestations the medium had produced at Dr Probert’s. To be frank, I was disinclined to venture downstairs by candlelight. I directed Annie to look into each of the rooms, thinking that if a burglar had visited us the fact would be only too apparent. I never suspected he would be content with a single vase, and a common piece of Worcester at that.’

  ‘It was still worth thirty pounds, I understand, ma’am. That’s as much as your Annie would earn in a year, I dare say.’

  ‘Quite true, but I’m sure she didn’t take it. I allowed the constable to search her box, just in case. Besides, why should she want to break a window?’

  ‘I wasn’t venturing to accuse your servant, ma’am,’ Cribb primly said. ‘I was simply trying to make the point that thirty pounds is a tidy sum by ordinary people’s standards. You had quite a lively seance at Dr Probert’s then, if lively is the word to use in the circumstances.’

  Miss Crush started to giggle and stifled it with a lace handkerchief. ‘My word, yes. The dear departed were coming through very clearly. Mr Brand is set to become the most successful medium in London. The evening began with table-tapping, which is quite usual, but by the end of the evening the spirits were speaking through his voice, a man and a woman coming through very distinctly.’

  ‘Remarkable,’ said Cribb.

  ‘Indeed, yes. They conveyed a message to me.’

  ‘Nothing to do with your house being burgled?’

  Miss Crush frowned. ‘No. They are not concerned with worldly matters once they have gone over to the Other Side. It was to tell me that my late Uncle Walter is well content where he is. He made an unfortunate marriage, poor man, and my aunt frequently drove him to distraction. There was no mention of her in the message, although she followed him only two months after his going.’

  ‘It’s an extensive place, I understand,’ said Cribb. ‘If your uncle kept moving . . .’

  ‘Quite so.’

  Cribb skirted the table to examine the sideboard where the stolen vase had stood. At least a dozen others were on parade there in two ranks.

  ‘It isn’t missed,’ said Miss Crush, following him. ‘I simply changed the positions of the others and now you wouldn’t know that the Worcester had ever been there.’

  For a collector, her unconcern was baffling.

  ‘I believe it was Japanese in style,’ said Cribb.

  ‘Yes. One of Hadley’s pieces. I gave a description to the constable.’

  ‘Thank you, ma’am. I’ve got a note of it.’

  ‘There are lots of them about, you know. I can find a replacement if I want one, and I’m not sure whether I do.’

  ‘Was it on display here on the evening when you had the seance with Sir Hartley Bratt and his family and Dr Probert?’

  ‘Oh, yes. I asked Mr Brand whether it was safe to keep the vases out during the seance. One frequently hears of articles being moved by the spirits—poltergeists do such things, you know. But Mr Brand assured me that the collection would be safe. I could see that he had a proper respect for my bits of crockery, because he couldn’t resist handling some of them as we were talking. That is the way they affect a man of taste. You need not hesitate to do the same.’

  ‘My thanks, ma’am,’ said Cribb, retaining a firm gr
ip on the edge of the table behind him. ‘If I may, I’d like to put a question to you that you might consider impertinent.’

  ‘I don’t expect I shall,’ said Miss Crush, with an encouraging smile.

  ‘Very well. How much did you pay Mr Brand for his services as a medium?’

  ‘His fee was ten guineas. I gave him a little extra because it was such a productive seance. Lady Bratt saw a spirit hand, you know.’

  ‘And were you satisfied that all the phenomena were genuine?’

  ‘Absolutely, Sergeant. Well, I will admit that Lady Bratt is an excitable person and might have been mistaken about the hand, but we all felt the table move and heard the tapping.’

  ‘It feels a pretty solid piece of furniture to me,’ said Cribb, turning to examine the understructure. He stopped, peered underneath and was so unprepared for what he saw that he rapped his head on the underside of the table. ‘God help us, ma’am, there’s a man under here!’

  ‘I know,’ said Miss Crush, matter-of-factly. ‘You may come out now, Mr Strathmore.’

  Strathmore! The man from the Life After Death Society.

  He emerged slowly on all fours like an exhibit at the zoological gardens coming out to sun itself. The brown worsted of his suit encompassed his bulk, but not without definite indications of strain from the exceptional posture. Upright, he was revealed as a short man, burly, not obese. He jammed a monocle over his right eye and said, ‘There is absolutely no need to go for your truncheon, Sergeant. One had a very good reason for being where one was. I am not your burglar, I promise you. Search me if you like. All you will find are my watch, a notebook, two pencils, a magnifying glass and a tape measure.’

  ‘I’m sure it isn’t necessary, sir,’ said Cribb. ‘I was just a little unprepared to find—’

  ‘A man under my table?’ said Miss Crush. ‘I thought of telling you when you first came in, but it is not the sort of thing a lady cares to mention the moment after a policeman is shown into her room. What constructions you might have put upon it! How was I to explain that Mr Strathmore is a distinguished investigator of spiritual phenomena who had come by appointment to inspect my table? He had just got underneath when you arrived.’