A Case of Spirits

by Peter; Peter Lovesey Lovesey

  ‘Eaton,’ said Thackeray with more than usual care.

  ‘I take your point, Cribb. But if that set of digits represents Miss Crush’s address, what is the significance of the others? 469 doesn’t sound like anything to me and I don’t think it would even if Thackeray said it.’

  ‘It stands for the other important person in his life, sir. I looked it up in the Hackney Carriage Licensing Department. 469 is the license number of one Charles Brand, cabman.’

  ‘His father! Good Lord! Are you suggesting that Miss Crush might be his—’

  ‘Must be, sir. I’ll be confirming it this evening. Now, Thackeray, you had something to contribute, I believe.’

  Thackeray had parted with ten shillings for the same information on the Charing Cross cab-rank that morning, but now he shook his head. ‘I think you’ve said all there is to say, Sarge.’

  IN THE INTERESTS of decorum Miss Crush had left her bed, in which she had been confined in a state of shock since Saturday with orders that the servants were not to disturb her except for meals. She had put on a black velvet dressing-robe and positioned herself on the chaise-longue in her drawing-room. Cribb, who had adventitiously arrived as the apple charlotte was going upstairs, sat at a discreet distance in an upright chair and expounded his theories much as he had at Scotland Yard, with some concessions to the delicate state of his listener.

  ‘I knew that you were a sensitive,’ said Miss Crush when he had finished. ‘Didn’t I recognise you as one the first moment you came into my house? You can look into a woman’s eyes and see the secrets of her life laid bare, can’t you? Oh, they must have jumped for joy at Scotland Yard the day they recruited you, Sergeant.’

  ‘I don’t recall it, ma’am,’ said Cribb. ‘But I think you should understand that I didn’t uncover these personal matters through guess-work. It was a process of deduction.’

  ‘Seduction?’ said Miss Crush. ‘Oh no, it was not that. I might have been an ingénue twenty years ago, but I was not so ill-bred as to allow myself to be seduced by a common cabman. I seduced him.’

  ‘You did, ma’am?’ said Cribb, grateful for this unsolicited information.

  ‘I did, most certainly. I was one of the New Women. It was the time when dear Mr Mill was holding up the banner of emancipation. I listened to a speech he made in the election of 1865 and it transformed my life, Sergeant. I decided on the spot that I should never be the slave of man and I have not faltered in that resolution since. But so that I should know what I was to devote my life to fighting against, namely the power man has to enslave my own poor sex, I resolved to make one foray into the enemy camp. If I got to know the contents of his armoury he would be powerless ever to take me by stealth, you see. It was sound strategy, as you must appreciate.’

  ‘Very sound, ma’am.’

  ‘I had to choose a man of suitable age and physical attributes, but of course it needed to be someone quite outside my social circle. That made it very difficult, but then I had an inspiration. There were rows of men sitting on view at every cab-rank in London. I took a walk along The Strand one morning and selected a subject at my leisure.’

  ‘Number 469.’

  ‘That was he. I noticed that his horse—which I think he called Deuteronomy or something from the Bible—was conspicuously underfed, even for a cab-horse, so I made that the reason for my interest. I sent my servant back to hire him and that was the first of several excursions in the cab.’

  ‘Several, ma’am?’ said Cribb, lifting an eyebrow.

  ‘It was necessary to undermine his defences first, Sergeant.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Cribb. ‘Did you—er—gain access to the armoury?’

  ‘Within a week. It was the only occasion I assure you, but unhappily for my plans there was a consequence.’

  ‘Young Brand?’

  ‘Yes. In the true emancipating spirit I made quite sure that it was his father who raised him. I provided money for his upkeep until he was old enough to earn for himself.’ Miss Crush sighed. ‘I am afraid the boy was shamefully neglected. If I had thought there would be a child I should have selected a cabman with a better looking horse. People who treat animals well are usually tolerant of children. The truth of it is that the boy got into odious company, thieves and tricksters and probably worse. I believe his father lost touch with him altogether.’

  ‘You lost touch too, I gather, ma’am.’

  ‘Goodness, yes. It would have been most imprudent of me to have anything to do with the boy. He thought I died of cholera when he was a child. He thought so at least until one afternoon last year, when he met his father on a race-course and the silly man must have drunk far too much, because he told Peter the whole story. The rest must be obvious to a man of your insight. Peter took some months to trace me, but he did, early this year. It was a terrible shock, Sergeant, unforgettable. Oh, he was very charming in his way, and disarming too. From his unwholesome friends he had acquired the art of winning a lady’s confidence, as I learned to my cost. Weeks passed before he suggested anything irregular, but for him the time was not wasted. He used those weeks, I now realise, to learn about my way of life, my friends and my social engagements. He took particular interest in the seances I attended and he made me tell him everything that happened, time and again. Foolishly I allowed myself to be flattered by his interest, and I never tired of answering his questions. You can see what was happening, can’t you? I see it in your eyes.’

  ‘It’s the way these people work, ma’am. We get to know their methods.’

  ‘Well, one evening he suggested we should play a prank on my friends, the Bratts. Sir Hartley and his wife are somewhat elderly and Penelope, their daughter, is easily taken in. The plan was that I would arrange a seance, which was certain to interest them because they like nothing better than to get in touch, and I would introduce Peter as a medium. With my help he would then produce some marvellous phenomena. At first I would not agree, on the grounds that it was uncharitable, and might even provoke hostility on the Other Side, but Peter said it was like a parlour-game, and there was no harm in it. He promised never to attempt anything of the kind in a genuine seance. In short, Sergeant, he was so enthusiastic that I found it impossible to disincline him from the plan. We invited the Bratts, and they were totally convinced that he was genuine! The pity of it was that the deception did not end there. He made me introduce him to more of my friends in the spiritualist movement and he repeated his performance, never telling them, of course, that what we did was fraudulent. It is a strange thing, but the more mystified they were, the more impossible it became to tell them the truth. It would have upset them so.’

  ‘I can see that,’ said Cribb.

  ‘In a surprisingly short time he was beginning to gain a reputation as a successful medium. I believe he appeared at houses in other parts of London and produced some quite extraordinary phenomena, which I can only presume were engineered with the help of some of his vile acquaintances. He was not a genuine sensitive, I assure you of that. Well, Sergeant, the rest of the story I need hardly recount. Peter became established as the most gifted medium in London and everyone was clamouring to engage him. I confess to you that I participated fully in his deceptions: I pretended to see and hear phenomena that never occurred; I simulated rapping sounds under the table by knocking the heels of my boots together; and I carried things for him under my clothes and passed them to him during the sittings.’

  ‘What kinds of things were they, ma’am?’

  ‘Ah, you are thinking of what we in the movement call “apports”, Sergeant, objects that miraculously appear during seances. At times a seance table has been known to be entirely covered by flowers or fruit introduced by the spirits. But Peter would have nothing to do with apport phenomena. He said that it was too open to assertions of trickery. The only objects I carried for him were small boxes containing chemicals which he used to produce luminous effects.’

  ‘Were you carrying one of them for him on the night of his deat
h?’

  ‘No. By then he had refined his methods. Anything he used in his more recent appearances he carried himself.’

  ‘He had fluor-spar on his hand, ma’am, but we found no box upon him. What did he do with it, do you think?’

  ‘I believe he must have chosen the time before the seance began to spread the chemical over his hand. Then all he had to do was throw the empty box into the fire. He needed to stand near the fire to heat the substance on his hand. If you remember, he placed a fire-screen in the grate shortly before the seance began. Any small amount of the chemical still in the box would not have been noticed burning.’

  Cribb nodded. ‘That sounds to me like the way he did it, ma’am. It would have seemed quite innocent at the time, even if someone had noticed him. You didn’t carry anything for him on Saturday evening, then?’

  ‘Nothing at all, Sergeant. My participation was limited to claiming that I could sense the presence of a spirit and that it actually touched me. And, of course, I was sitting next to Peter so that he could break the link in the chain of hands to produce the various effects.’

  ‘You weren’t the only one who claimed to have been touched. Alice Probert said she felt a spirit hand upon her. That was the occasion for Captain Nye’s outburst, I believe.’

  ‘I cannot answer for Miss Probert or Captain Nye,’ Miss Crush primly answered.

  ‘I suppose not. Did your son—did Peter Brand throw the oranges at Captain Nye himself?’

  ‘I can assure you that I didn’t throw them, Sergeant.’

  ‘I’m sure you didn’t,’ said Cribb hastily, ‘but I don’t believe a spirit visitor threw them either, and from what you tell me of Brand’s methods I don’t think he would resort to anything as crude as that. You don’t suppose that someone else had broken the link in the chain as well as yourself?’

  ‘I don’t know what to suppose,’ said Miss Crush. ‘A number of things happened that evening that I find it very difficult to account for, but supposing isn’t going to help, is it? You know what happened, anyway, don’t you?’

  Cribb ignored the question. ‘There’s one thing more, Miss Crush. I believe that you are quite well known in what you call the spiritualist movement.’

  ‘I flatter myself that I am, Sergeant. I have devoted myself to it with all the energy I lavished on the women’s movement in my youth.’

  ‘The thing that puzzles me, ma’am, is why you went so far with Peter Brand in his deceptions. It was one thing to play a joke on the Bratts, but quite another to create a fraudulent seance in Dr Probert’s house in front of an investigator from the Life After Death Society. These men were scientists, ma’am, seekers after truth. Sooner or later they were going to find you out and it was certain to destroy your reputation. As well as that, it would do irreparable harm to the cause of spiritualism.’

  ‘I was well aware of that, Sergeant. There have been exposures enough of fraudulent mediums in recent years. The movement could not afford another.’

  ‘Then why did you persist with it?’

  ‘Why do you ask me what is obvious? I had no choice. I was under threats from my son. He was blackmailing me, Sergeant. If I didn’t help him in his infamous deceptions he would have told the world what happened twenty years ago between a cabman and a rather rash disciple of Mr John Stuart Mill.’

  Before Cribb left Eaton Square that evening he looked back through the trees at the long white terrace, its windows ablaze with light, spacious windows draped with elegant curtains. Behind them was what Miss Crush called ‘the world’, and it was not difficult to imagine how her youthful indiscretions would have been received there if she had refused to submit to Brand’s blackmail. She was undeserving of pity; he knew that he had only to pass a few hundred yards southwest into Ebury Street and look at the dimly-lit windows of Pimlico with their cheap hangings to banish any pangs he might feel on Miss Crush’s account. But he understood her, and that was what mattered. And he detested blackmail in any form. It was indefensible, whatever the victim might have done. It could also provide a motive for murder.

  CHAPTER

  10

  A right mood for investigation, this!

  AS A CORPSE, THACKERAY was less than satisfactory. There were plenty in the Force more lean, pale and passably cadaverous than he. Years of beat-pounding by night left some officers looking like that, while others seemed to put on flesh and get redder in the face with every duty they were ordered to perform. Thackeray was among the latter, and this morning he was the only one available.

  ‘You might at least try not to look so comfortable in the chair,’ complained Cribb. ‘The body was rigid when we found it, and the hair was standing on end.’

  ‘Sorry, Sarge. Electrocutions are something new in my experience.’

  The apparatus was now restored to its original position in the library, Dr Probert’s transformer having passed all the tests Mr Cage had devised for it. Cribb had been assured that the chair was in good working order. No more than twenty volts could possibly pass through the body of anyone who gripped the handles when the current was switched on.

  Cribb had a vivid recollection of the position and appearance of Peter Brand when they had pulled back the curtain on the night of the tragedy, and he was doing his best to recreate the scene with Thackeray’s assistance. Mr Etty must have gone through a not dissimilar procedure each time he set the mode in position for the Sleeping Nymph and Satyrs. Mr Etty, of course, did not have Thackeray to sit for him, but it was Cribb’s opinion that if Thackeray was posing for you it did not matter much whether your subject was a sleeping nymph or a dead medium; you were defeated before you started.

  ‘You’re still too central,’ he said, regarding Thackeray out of one eye, as if using two would cause him distress. ‘Turn your legs to the right and get your back into the left hand side of the chair and bring your weight forward.’

  Thackeray wriggled helpfully.

  ‘That’s more like it. What are you holding the handles for?’

  ‘He must have been holding the handles to get an electric shock, Sarge.’

  ‘He should have been,’ said Cribb. ‘The muscles contract at the moment of shock. His hands should have taken an iron grip. But they didn’t. His left arm was hanging down on the left side of the chair. You’ve raised an interesting point there, Thackeray.’

  ‘Thank you, Sarge,’ beamed Thackeray. Praise from Cribb was too rare to pass unacknowledged.

  ‘Well, get your arm down, man! Didn’t you hear what I said?’

  The beginning of a theory was forming in Cribb’s brain. If Brand had moved his left hand off the handle, perhaps to tamper with the transformer behind him and alter the connexions of the wires in some way, might he not have touched the positive terminal in error and electrocuted himself?

  ‘See if you can touch the transformer from there, Thackeray. You’ll need to slide further down than that and get your armpit over the chair-arm.’

  Thackeray manoeuvred his rump towards the front of the chair and stretched behind with his arm, like a prize-fighter reaching from his corner for a bracer. Unhappily for the theory, his fingers stopped some inches short of the transformer; and unless Brand had got the physique of a gorilla, his arm must have been shorter than Thackeray’s.

  Cribb frowned and got on his knees to check that the chair and transformer were correctly placed. Mr Strathmore had efficiently marked the carpet with chalk shortly after the body had been taken from the chair. The present positions corresponded exactly with the outlines.

  Before Cribb got up, he picked two small filmy wisps from the carpet near the transformer and held them in the palm of his hand.

  ‘What have you found, Sarge?’ asked Thackeray.

  ‘They look like flower petals to me,’ said Cribb. ‘Chrysanthemums probably. There was a vase of them turned over next door.’

  ‘Somebody must have brought them in on his shoe,’ suggested Thackeray.

  ‘Possibly,’ said Cribb, placing them ca
refully between the leaves of his notebook. ‘Are you quite sure you can’t touch the transformer from there?’

  ‘It’s impossible,’ Thackeray declared. ‘Besides, I’ve thought of something else, Sarge. If he was reaching behind like this, he must have broken contact with the circuit, and that would have been recorded on the dial next door.’

  ‘That’s a fair observation,’ said Cribb, ‘but what you must remember is that Peter Brand wasn’t noted for playing fair. A man used to working the three card trick isn’t going to let two scientists and a galvanometer get the better of him. If he wanted to free his hand he had only to rest his chin on the handle, and the contact would remain unbroken. Try it.’

  Thackeray’s face was already practically in contact with the handle. By turning it an inch or two to the left he achieved the position Cribb had described.

  ‘The strength of the contact would have changed, of course,’ Cribb went on, ‘but they were looking for a break of contact on the galvanometer, and that didn’t happen because he didn’t take his hand off the handle until his chin was in contact. From what I’ve heard from Inspector Jowett there were several variations in the readings, but nothing suspicious enough to bring anyone in here until the needle suddenly indicated a complete break of contact. When we pushed aside the curtain he was dead from a huge electric shock and his hand, or whatever part of him it was that came in contact, had been forced clear by the contraction of the muscles.’

  ‘It couldn’t have been his hand, Sarge. Look, mine couldn’t possibly reach the transformer,’ said Thackeray, demonstrating by pawing the air with his left hand a good six inches short of the deadly terminal on the cable side of the transformer.

  ‘If it comes to that,’ said Cribb, ‘there ain’t any part of his body that could have reached that far, unless he was a contortionist as well as a card-sharp. But he must have touched something that gave him a lethal shock.’