by Richard Peck
First week of December
No admission fee charged whatsoever
Skeptical persons invited, as well as the sincere
“Did you ever hear tell of such gibberish?” said Miss Dabney with her mouth pulled way down. “This sort of chicanery is all the rage. Common criminals roaming the countryside offering the snake oil of false promise to gullible people.
“‘Crowned Heads of Europe’ indeed! Anybody who has performed for them will not be bringing his road show to Bluff City. The idea!”
What this had to do with her and me I did not know, but was soon to learn. “Why, child, you have the true Gift! You’ll be able to see through this . . . humbug sorcerer with no trouble.”
“But what if he’s the real thing?” I asked, knowing such things are possible.
“Then I will eat my hat!” Miss Dabney said. I thought briefly of her hat before she went on. “You and I will attend one of these so-called seances, Blossom. Between us, I see no reason why we cannot rid Bluff City of a sham and a faker! We do not need any of these types from outside, as there are already enough shifty people right here in town and always were!
There’s no stopping Miss Dabney once her dander is up. We went to the first seance.
Riding in her Pope-Detroit Electric is an experience in itself. People will stop and stare, some in alarm. The passenger in a Pope-Detroit sits facing the driver. This requires Miss Dabney sitting behind the tiller to look around you to see the road. This she sometimes forgets to do, and we hit several curbs. What with these delays, we were the last two at the seance.
We climbed creaking stairs to the darkened Odd Fellows Hall, where the forms of fifteen or twenty people were barely visible, gathered into a horseshoe of chairs. At the far end stood a tall double-door cabinet, like an ordinary bedroom wardrobe. Before it stood a dwarfish, round man, already talking. His hands were planted on a bare wood table. Miss Dabney and I settled into chairs, though they were hard to see.
“That will be the so-called Professor Regis,” Miss Dabney hissed loudly. “Keep your eye on him.” Many people looked her way, but they couldn’t have seen much more than her motoring veil and the egret feather high over her Queen Mary hat.
“As I was saying,” Professor Regis said, “we must all release ourselves from the concerns and frippery of daily life to free our souls. Only an unfettered, unthinking soul will rise to the Astral Plane of the Spirit World. Be gone, Earthly Concerns! Be gone, Doubting Thoughts!”
You couldn’t make out the Professor’s features, but like many little men a booming voice made up for small stature.
“Some out-of-work Shakespearean actor, I suppose,” remarked Miss Dabney.
“Hush up,” said one of the forms near us.
“This world is full of Doubting Thomases,” Professor Regis went on, “some of them of the female gender. But the Spirits come to us to dispel doubt and bring fond messages from them translated to a Better World. Let no one gathered here break the sacred flow of communication!”
“Horsefeathers,” Miss Dabney said.
“Compose your souls in patient contemplation,” Professor Regis urged. His voice lulled many in the room. People swayed. “Is anyone on the Other Side?” he asked in a hollow voice. There was dead silence. I have no doubt Miss Dabney could have crabbed his act with louder remarks, but she held her tongue.
A scent of incense curled up from the cabinet. The hall, which already smelled of cheap whisky coming from the Professor, took on a different atmosphere. “Draw nigh, Spirit of Mystery, Light-Bringer from a Better World!” Still, nothing happened.
“Is anybody there?” he thundered. “If you’re in our midst, make a sign. Rap on this here table. One rap for yes, a couple for no.”
He held his little pudgy hands up, to demonstrate that he wouldn’t be doing the rapping. At once there came a single rap like gunfire. A female voice cried out in the audience. It was Miss Dabney.
“Aha!” said the Professor. “Now we are moving in the Celestial Rhythms and mingling our fates with the Immortals!” He seemed to be rubbing his little hands together. “Tell me, who has come to lift the veils of darkness from our poor blind mortal eyes? Is it Cassandra of Fearful Prophecy?”
Two raps followed, making us all jump.
“I see. Well, then, is it the Oracle at Delphi?”
Two more raps, still nerve-racking.
“Well, then, it can only be her who favors me, Professor Regis, personally with her Unclouded Vision. Is it Little Sybil, whose untimely death generations ago has been conquered by her Great Gifts? Is it you, dear Little Sybil, Child of Two Worlds?”
It was Little Sybil all right, for one rap followed.
At this news Professor Regis threw up his arms. His billowing cape covered the cabinet doors behind him for a second. A ghostly presence rose up from somewhere. I was reminded of myself disguised as the Ghost in the Privy last Halloween night. The figure was small and white, wrapped in glowing gauze.
“Dare we to hope that you are here, dear Little Sybil?” The thing in white said nothing, but the table rapped once of its own accord. “Ah, then we are favored indeed,” said the Professor, “for it is not at every seance that Little Sybil will materialize. Have you got a message for anyone here?” The table rapped yes, for Sybil seemed not to have a mouth.
“Then speak in whatever manner you choose and bring comfort to one in this company.” The table rapped twice for no, and the Professor sighed. “You withhold your message because there are low-minded skeptics in this room who stifle your powers?” Yes, the table knocked. “Then dispel all doubt, dear Sybil!”
We’d all been concentrating on the Professor’s words. For Little Sybil was suddenly standing at the back of the room, near us. She was certainly light on her feet, and many swore later they’d seen her flying overhead.
“Well, Sybil, have you found an earthling divided by death from a loved one?”
The table rapped once, and Sybil made her move. Sweeping a white veil, she seemed to float along behind the chairs, though she’d pop up and down behind people. Some spoke of hearing the rush of wings. Her long sleeves swept my arm. I noticed a white hand touch Miss Dabney’s cheek. The plume on her hat jerked.
“Dear Sybil,” the Professor sang out, “is there one here who’s suffered a loss and a wound never healed?”
The table rapped yes, and Sybil came to rest behind Miss Dabney’s chair. I could have reached out and touched her, but didn’t. “And is this same member of our Sacred Circle a doubter of your powers and mine?” asked the Professor.
Yes, the table rapped, but softer.
“And is the doubt draining from her mind and heart?”
Yes, said the table quietly. A bluish-white finger reached out and explored Miss Dabney’s hand, but was soon gone. Miss Dabney seemed not to be breathing right.
“And is this poor soul a distressed lady?”
Yes, the table replied.
“And is it her husband for whom she mourns?”
Two quick raps of the table denied this.
“Aha! I have it now, straight from your sweet spirit, Sybil. This lady mourns her dear papa, is it not so?”
One rap thundered through the hall, followed by deathly silence. Several people whimpered. The Professor listened to unspoken words. “And is there a sacred memento of the Dear Departed that this sad lady carries on her person or anywheres about her?”
The table replied in the affirmative.
“Hold up the memento, the souvenir of happier days, dear madam!”
Miss Dabney’s fingers fiddled on the catch of her reticule, and I wondered if she knew what she was doing. She fumbled around and held something up. It appeared to be a man’s watch and fob. A white hand appeared in the air and drew it out of her fingers.
“Oh, what a thing is a divine keepsake that binds two souls across the Great Divide!” the Professor intoned. His hands were outstretched. And then Miss Dabney’s papa’s gold watch was suddenly swingi
ng in the Professor’s grasp up at the front of the hall. Fleet-footed Sybil had vanished.
“And is there a message from the dear papa who lives eternally on Your Other Side, all-wise Sybil?”
Another single rap responded, but it was not the table talking. It came from inside the cabinet. Professor Regis whirled around, seeming astonished, and the gold watch winked once and vanished. “Then let this departed papa send word to his dear daughter, whose name swims before my face, but I can’t see it clear. Is this devoted daughter named Ida?”
The cabinet knocked twice, after a pause.
“Might it be Maud?”
No, rapped the cabinet.
“Then it must be—”
“Gertrude!” shouted Miss Dabney, half out of her chair. “Oh, Papa, it is I, Gertrude!”
“Gertrude, of course,” rasped Professor Regis in his whisky voice. “O Spirit of Gertrude’s Papa, speak in the still, small childish voice of Dear Sybil, the Lasting Link!”
The cabinet began to speak in the hush that followed. Sybil had a whining voice, echoing and somewhat foreign. It would have given a heavyweight wrestler nightmares. “Oiuwwww, Gertrude, my little love, art . . . thou . . . happy?”
Miss Dabney wobbled in her chair, and her reticule skidded off her knees. “Oh, Papa!” she shrieked. “Yes, I am as well as can be expected. And hope you are the same!” Her whole body was as taut as a guitar string.
“All in these Blessed Isles are well and happy, dear Gertrude,” came Sybil’s distant voice. She was belting out her words somewheres inside the cabinet. “And remember, Gertrude, to show charity to them who’s brought us together for this precious moment which is . . . beyond . . . price. . . .” Sybil’s voice died away, and more incense curled from the cabinet top.
“Praise his name!” said some in the audience, and others said, “Amen!”
Then there was a crash and a thump. Somebody called for the lights to be put up. But somebody else discovered all the bulbs were taken out of the sockets. By the light of several matches, we all saw what happened. Miss Dabney had passed out. She’d pitched out of her chair and lay flat on her face with her hat still on.
Many were convinced and converted by the sight of Miss Dabney measuring her length on the Odd Fellows floor. Professor Regis doubtless strolled back to his room at the Cornhusker Hotel well pleased with himself. It was clear why he charged no admission to his seances. He could make a good living from the items light-fingered Sybil lifted off the public. The pair of them had Miss Dabney’s papa’s watch off her with ease.
I was reminded of the murdering bridegroom Mama had fingered down home in Sikeston, the Bluebeard who killed several wives for their personal jewelry. There was no knowing the haul Professor Regis could make in Bluff City without even violence. If he was allowed to finish out his week.
Miss Dabney was taken home on the back of a buckboard, stunned. She come out of her swoon halfway there with me at her side. Her hat was over her ear, and she babbled about her papa all the way up the porch steps. I dealt with her like I would a child in getting her upstairs and into a nightgown. There was a glass of hot milk on her nightstand and a hot-water bottle in her bed. So Minerva had been quick to do what she could.
“Oh, I do not know what’s come over me,” Miss Dabney lamented repeatedly. “Where am I, and what is the hour? Look in my reticule for Papa’s gold watch. I carry it everywhere, for it keeps perfect time.” I calmed her by making a guess at the time. Finally she drifted off, with her mouth working.
She looked old and shriveled there in her nightcap with a few gray strands of hair escaping. Her veined hands plucked at the counterpane long after she slept. This is often the way with strong-minded people. When they snap, they snap. While polishing off the last of the hot milk, I began to think of revenge on Miss Dabney’s behalf. Professor Regis would not prey on any more susceptible people, or my name was not Blossom Culp.
At last I had my plan of attack pretty well worked out. I tiptoed out of the weird house. The courthouse bell had chimed one o’clock before I was standing on the grounds of the Armsworth mansion, under Alexander’s window.
9
I LIKED TO FREEZE before I raised Alexander. Whistles and soft calls did nothing. He must have a wondrous clear conscience to sleep that deep. A handful of gravel from the drive finally brought him around. His hair was on end when he threw up the sash and peered out. I’d scared the daylights out of him. Ever since he saw that ghost in his barn, he’s been nervous of night sounds.
When he saw it was me, he started to shut the window. But I hauled off like I would throw more gravel. “Put on some clothes and come down because me and you have got some business.” I yelled softly for fear of raising his mother, who is a terror.
Alexander took his time dressing, as I knew he would. Presently he stepped out of the back door in a mackinaw and knickers, with boots laced. I was glad he’d dressed warm, for I’d have had to send him back if he hadn’t. “Well, Blossom, what now?” He swaggered over my way. “And make it snappy because tomorrow’s a school day, and I need my rest.”
I didn’t dignify this greeting with an answer. I bided my time, for I was about to play on a weakness of Alexander’s, one of several. There was no point asking him to stick up for the rights of a poor old lady like Miss Dabney. Chivalry is dead, and Alexander’s the proof.
So I said, “You know how to drive an automobile or don’t you?” I knew he once served a short apprenticeship at the Apex Garage. Consequently he thought he was the last word in auto mechanics, though he’d been sent away from the garage in disgrace.
“You get me out of a warm bed to ask fool questions? You’ll go too far one of these days, Blossom.”
“I will go far all right,” I agreed, “but answer my question.”
“I can drive anything on four wheels. My dad owns a Mercer, you know.”
“I got no business with your paw. Can you drive an electric?”
“Miss Dabney’s, you mean,” he said, suddenly wise. “You aim on stealing it?”
“I aim to keep it from getting stolen. It’s setting unprotected in front of the Odd Fellows Hall. And this town is full of thugs and lowlifes with no respect for property. The same type that pushes over privies on Halloween.”
He let that pass. “Why doesn’t Miss Dabney drive it home herself?”
“Because she’s at death’s door this minute, suffering a nasty shock.”
“What could shock her?”
“I’ll explain on our way down to the Odd Fellows Hall. But only if you’re sure you can drive an electric auto. I wouldn’t want it turned over in a ditch.”
“Come on,” Alexander said importantly, “before we raise my folks with all this jabbering.”
He paced along ahead of me. Still, I managed to tell him all about Professor Regis and the Spirit Sybil and what a fake seance was. He showed interest in how the Professor took valuable items off the public. He mentioned several times that if Miss Dabney and me had kept our minds off the Spirit World like he did, we wouldn’t have got into this mess.
But he was listening all right. “What makes you so sure this Sybil you keep talking about isn’t a . . . genuine spirit?” he finally had to ask.
“Because I didn’t need my Second Sight to see her. I seen her like everybody else with my regular eyes. People with the Gift like you and me, Alexander, can tell the difference easy.” I paced along, a step nearer him, and he didn’t seem to mind.
There’s nothing darker than a town at two in the morning. When we drew nigh the hall, the Pope-Detroit parked out front looked like a big black parcel, cast in shadow.
“I’ll have to spark it to start the thing,” Alexander explained. “Then if the batteries aren’t down, there’ll be enough juice to drive it to Miss Dabney’s.”
I let him fiddle because I hadn’t lured Alexander Armsworth out of bed just to take care of an automobile. I wanted him with me to scout around in the Odd Fellows Hall and to have a good lo
ok at that double-door cabinet. The auto was just an excuse I knew Alexander would fall for.
He had the lid off the battery box and was learning about electric power as he went. Pretty soon I said, “You any good at forcing doors?”
Alexander’s head rose up. “What kind of doors?”
“Oh, like that there door on the Odd Fellows Hall.”
“Why would we want to do any such a fool thing as that? It’s against the law.”
“So is robbing the public at a seance.”
I was another five minutes convincing Alexander to force the door with a tire iron from Miss Dabney’s tool kit. I could have forced it myself, but if we were surprised by a night watchman, I saw no advantage in being the one holding a tire iron. Many’s the farfetched appeal I had to make to Alexander’s manhood before I convinced him we were going to climb dark stairs in a dark building in the darkest hour of night. If there’d been a hint of a real haunt around, you wouldn’t have seen Alexander for dust.
But the notion of breaking and entering appealed to him. After much muttered backtalk, he took on the door of the hall with the tire iron. The sound of the padlock dropping on the step rang out. Everything’s noisier at night.
As we felt our way up the stairs, Alexander remembered his manners and let me go first. It was dark as a pocket up there, but I was easy in my mind, thinking that we two were the only ones in the place.
There was a small vestibule at the top. Professor Regis had not thought to remove the bulb from the socket there. When I turned the switch, a wedge of light fell across the seance room. All the chairs stood around empty, like leggy spiders.
Light struck the cabinet beyond the table. Something held me back then. And I do not mean Alexander’s cold hand plucking at my sleeve. On my own, I’d have retraced my steps, and I admit it.
But I tiptoed across the room, shadowed by Alexander. When we stood before the cabinet, I could all but hear Professor Regis’s convincing voice calling for the spirit of Sybil. I tried to pull the doors open, but they were locked from inside. Running a hand over the smooth panels, I discovered a hairline break in the wood.
