The Curious Affair of the Somnambulist & the Psychic Thief

by Lisa Tuttle

  “About your nightmare.”

  My heart beat a little faster. “Yes?”

  “I know you have said you could not see the man in any detail. Even so, you felt quite certain who it was not. Not me, and not Mr. Creevey, although it was a man of a similar size. Did you instinctively feel that the man was a stranger? Or was it someone you might have recognized in the light?”

  My skin prickled with horror as the answer came into my mind. I had not thought it before—perhaps had not let myself think it—but at his question, the huge, hulking figure and smooth, gray-white face of the Cossack appeared before my mind’s eye.

  I could not speak, but I managed to nod.

  A little frown line appeared above Mr. Jesperson’s elegantly long nose. “Who?”

  “It was…the Cossack.”

  “One of those Russian warrior chaps?”

  “No…yes…It’s what they call the man who works for Mr. Chase. His servant. He must be seven feet fall and has the palest skin—frightened the life out of me when I nearly ran into him in Lord Bennington’s house. I—I may not have mentioned this before.”

  “No, you did not.” From his tone, I could not tell if he considered my reticence natural or to be apologized for.

  But I suddenly felt much easier as I made this connection, and I paced the kitchen, thinking aloud. “Oh, well, he is a scary-looking fellow, but he can’t help the way he was born. Real name is Pyotr—that’s Russian for Peter, I suppose. Makes a most unlikely valet, but has worked for Mrs. Chase’s family for too many years to turn him out, so I suppose Mr. Chase is stuck with him. Anyway…he gave me a fright and I put it out of my mind—I didn’t want to think about it because my fear embarrassed me; it was disproportionate;. I could not explain why a glimpse of a passing stranger—however large and weird in appearance—should have instilled such an extremity of terror in me, so it is hardly surprising that he should have haunted my dreams.”

  “Hmm,” said Mr. Jesperson. “Perhaps.” His face was unreadable.The front room was colder than the kitchen. The fire had gone out, or perhaps it had not yet been lit. In a house without servants, it is never possible to take simple comforts for granted. Mr. Jesperson spent some time creating a crackling blaze in the hearth, but although it looked comforting, it made little difference to the chill of the air.

  “Now,” he said when he had done what he could with the fire, “there was no time, when I saw you yesterday, for you to tell what you gleaned from your ‘gossip’ with Mrs. Chase.”

  My skin prickled again. I remembered using that word, and how he had taken me up on it. “You will be disappointed.”

  “How so?”

  “I’m afraid that they learned far more about me than I about them.”

  “They?”

  “Mr. Chase did not leave us alone for a minute.”

  “Ah! Interesting.” He frowned at the flames and stroked his chin. “For what reason, do you think?”

  I thought of the looks they had exchanged, and how Mrs. Chase had gazed at her husband. She did not exhibit that cowed, submissive aspect that you see in women who go in fear of their masters. She loved him and would never betray him.

  “It could be that he was afraid she might say something that would reveal something he wished kept secret, either deliberately or inadvertently,” I said slowly. “After all, I went there believing she might be ready to confide in me, to ask us to investigate something that worried her.”

  “But you no longer think that.”

  It was not a question, but a different question lay behind that assertion. I nodded, but could not bring myself to share my uncomfortable feeling that, despite the display of marital harmony I had witnessed, there was something excessive and wrong about Mr. Chase’s interest in me. To put it into words would give it even more weight. I hoped I was oversensitive or had misinterpreted his manner.

  Mr. Jesperson fixed me with that unnervingly penetrating gaze that made me feel transparent. “If he had no reason to fear what his wife might say to you, why not leave you alone with her? Did he have nothing better to do? Is he so fascinated by female gossip that he would stay where he was not wanted?”

  Put on the defensive, I said that Madame Chase did not speak English, and my French having let me down, he had volunteered to serve as translator. “Besides, I think she was happy to have him there.”

  “All the more reason to separate them. Divide and conquer. Invite her to visit you. You must speak to her privately, find out what it is he does not wish her to tell us. I am sure your French will do well enough…and she may have more English than you suppose.”

  “She will not come. She is not strong. She scarcely leaves the house.”

  “You seem very certain. Will you not try?”

  “Of course I will try.”

  —

  I spent some time swotting over an old French grammar determined to improve my vocabulary and conversational skills before my next encounter with Mrs. Chase. I also had another lesson in unarmed combat and learned more of the theory behind this oriental art. Sometimes it was necessary to stay in place, standing firm as a rock; at others, to yield, to bend and flow like water. The decision must be made in response to the attack, without pause for thought.

  “But how is that possible?” I asked, frustrated once again by the way both of them made it look so easy. “I have to think to work out the best way to respond—”

  “But then it is too late,” Mr. Jesperson said. “You must not think—not in the head. Let the body think for you. Don’t look like that; I know you don’t understand, but with practice it will come. You already know how—you just don’t know you know.”

  “That’s nonsense.”

  “No. We are taught to think, to observe and learn in a certain way, but there are other ways not dependent on the slow process of rational thought.”

  “Instinct?”

  “The knowledge of the body. When you sense someone coming toward you before you can see them—and know if they mean you harm. What is it that lets you know, within moments of meeting someone, that you want to know them better—or would rather not? You feel someone is dishonest, not to be trusted, yet the world says he is a model of rectitude, a pillar of the church…Whom do you believe? I say you should trust your own feelings. We say sometimes that someone has a ‘sixth sense’—but I think we all have that sixth sense…and maybe a seventh and an eighth. Only we haven’t learned how to develop those senses properly.”

  I’d had similar discussions with others in the SPR, but never with anyone who had been able to demonstrate what they meant. Mr. Jesperson had actually learned another way, developing a sort of hyper-alertness in himself, a connection between his conscious and unconscious thought processes.

  He did not claim to have developed any psychic talents, and yet—I couldn’t help suspecting there might be a very close link between what others labeled “clairvoyance” or “telepathy” and this nameless knowledge of the body, this ability to be in tune with the world around you.When I went to bed that night, I confess I felt a pang of unease, remembering my vivid nightmare. What if my room was haunted? I scoffed at the notion, but made sure to look under the bed and behind the curtains; tested the window latch, and then locked the door and put the key under my pillow. I made sure there was a candle and a box of matches on the bedside table, close to hand, before I put out the lamp. My bed was warm and comfortable, and, convinced I was safe and determined to have only good dreams, I soon drifted off to sleep.

  But it happened again.

  I woke with a start, certain there was an intruder in my bedroom.

  I thought of Mr. Jesperson’s words earlier in the day, about knowledge we have through extra senses, and although I also remembered that last night’s fearful certainty had proved false, yet the pounding of my heart and my screaming nerves insisted I was in danger.

  I held my breath and strained to hear any sound that might alert me to the position of an intruder—a creaking floorboard
, movement, breathing. Last night, my nocturnal visitor had seemed to stand at the foot of my bed, but I was looking in that direction now, and I could see the lighter space within the darkness that was the window; there was nothing in front of it.

  I turned my head—and saw a ghastly pale face, like a moon floating in the dark. The head was so close beside the bed that I knew the Cossack must be leaning down to grab me.

  I screamed—at least I tried. My mouth was open, and I strained in terror, but there was no sound.

  It’s a dream. But reason had no effect on my terror. Every nerve in my body implored: Get out get out get out!

  I rolled away, scrambled off the bed, rushed to the door—and uselessly jiggled the knob. The door would not open.

  This is a nightmare. How could I be locked in?

  Then I remembered: I had locked the door myself and put the key beneath my pillow.

  It meant I had to go back to the bed to get it. Through my panic, a voice was telling me that I must get out of the room—and out of the house. It told me that I would not be safe from the creature who menaced me until I was away.

  But I did not trust that voice. It was not instinct but panic. Panic was not to be trusted. I knew I must stay, confront my demon, and deal with it now.

  So, although I moved back toward my bed, when I reached the little table I located the box of matches, and managed, with shaking fingers, to strike one and light the candle.

  Light will banish him. I held it out and saw the flame trembling like my nerves.

  But I was wrong. I was wide awake, and the nightmare was still there.

  A man’s head, bodiless, floated in the air like a miniature moon, four or five feet above my bed. It was ghastly pale, and the eyes were closed—it did not look alive, but reminded me of a death mask, one of those horrid souvenirs taken from a hanged criminal. It bore some resemblance to the Cossack’s grim countenance.

  It was a hideous, unnatural thing, but how could a mask, or a disembodied head, harm me? Knowing I was not menaced by a living intruder, I felt my curiosity engaged, and it was easier to ignore the part of my mind exhorting me to run away.

  I was thinking more clearly now, and I had slept in this very room too many nights to believe it was haunted. This was no ghost, therefore, like the apparition in Wilkie Collins’s The Haunted Hotel, but must be some trick or illusion, and I was determined to get to the bottom of it.

  Taking a deep breath, I went very slowly around and behind the bed to approach the ghastly thing, candle in my hand. As I went, although I tried to keep my eyes fixed on it, I was also scanning everywhere—the floor, ceiling, and air around me—for hidden wires or anything else that didn’t belong. That was one reason for moving slowly; the other was that I still did not know what I would do when I reached it. Did I dare to touch it?

  My progress was interrupted by a sudden, sharp rapping. I cried out, so startled by this unexpected noise that I could only associate it with spirit communications.

  “Miss Lane? Are you all right?”

  Mr. Jesperson’s voice was followed by the vigorous rattling of the doorknob.

  “Yes! Wait and I will let you in.”

  I hurried to fetch the key from its hiding place and unlocked the door. There stood Mr. Jesperson in his dressing gown, his red curls wild, a lamp in his hand.

  “I hope I haven’t disturbed you, but I thought I heard—”

  “Come in—you have to see this!” I stepped back to allow him entry.

  “See what?”

  I turned and gasped with dismay at the sight of—nothing. The head was gone!

  “It was there—on the other side of the bed—an apparition—a head, hanging in midair.”

  “You should have called me at once.”

  Already he had crossed the room and was now crouched down, looking at something on the floor. I hurried to join him and saw what appeared to be a crumpled bit of linen, just as Mr. Jesperson touched it.

  His finger sank into it and the stuff dissolved. It shrank rapidly, like a pile of soft snow melting away to nothing. In a matter of moments there was nothing left but a smear on the carpet that glinted in the lamplight, and then that, too, was gone.

  “What was it?” I asked in a whisper.

  “Some call it spirit matter. A gentleman in France—Dr. Richet—has proposed the term ectoplasm. The stuff from which genuine materializations are formed. Theory has it that this mysterious matter, something between gas, fluid, and solid, is produced, and extruded, from the bodies of a certain class of medium, for the temporary use of visiting spirits. After all, spirits, being naturally insubstantial, must get the material for their occasional appearances from somewhere. I’ve read about it, but never actually encountered it before—have you?” He rose to his feet, gazing at me with bright-eyed fascination.

  The horror had come back. I had a great internal struggle to speak normally. “Yes. At least, I think so. Only once. I saw a medium produce the stuff. I confess, I suspected her of fraud. But it was difficult to prove. The very manner of its production from her person, and the unpleasant nature of it, made one disinclined to probe…”

  As I spoke, I turned and went to light my own lamp and extinguished the candle, which was dripping inconveniently. Then it struck me how improper it would undoubtedly appear to any outside observer for me to be entertaining a young man in my bedroom and I hastily wrapped myself in my dressing gown.

  “I wish I could have seen it,” he said wistfully. “I do think you might have called for me…if you had only screamed—”

  “Believe me, I should have liked nothing better! I tried with all my might to scream, but as in a dreadful nightmare, I made not a sound. Which naturally made me wonder if I was truly awake. If I had not locked the door and hidden the key last night, I should have run away, like before. I don’t understand why…Of course, I was frightened, to see such a thing in my own bedroom, and yet…haven’t I made a career out of investigating such things? My curiosity, and the chance to prove the existence or not of such physical manifestations of spirits should have made me eager to investigate.Yet every nerve in my body screamed at me to run away, and I nearly did.”

  He gazed at me intently, then suddenly caught his breath and exclaimed, “Of course! He meant you to run away! He wanted to frighten you into running outside.”

  “Who?”

  But with a muttered oath, he ran from the room, and I heard him galloping down the stairs to the front door.

  I went into the hall, where I met Edith, candle in hand, wearing an unusually fierce expression on the face below her nightcap. “What on earth is going on?”

  I gave a small shrug. “Mr. Jesperson had an idea.”

  “He couldn’t wait until a decent hour to discuss it with you?”

  “I’m sorry if we disturbed you, Edith,” I said apologetically. “But I was frightened by another apparition in my room—this time I could see it was no real, solid person—but then, after we’d talked about it, your son thought—”

  “I see: He is ‘your son’ when you disapprove, but ‘my partner’ when he has done some clever bit of detecting.”

  I saw from the softening of her features that she was joking, and I smiled back at her. “It may be that he’s done another clever bit of detecting—I don’t know; I’m still in the dark about it.”

  “As are we both—and in the cold,” she said. “Come into my room, dear; we might wait somewhere more comfortable than this drafty hallway for Jasper to come back and enlighten us.”

  We were sitting up snugly in his mother’s bed, and I had described my encounter with the ghastly head, when we heard Jasper come back into the house; Edith called out to him when he reached the top of the stairs.

  “No luck,” he said glumly as he entered. “I was too late. He has gone.”

  “Too late for what? Who?”

  He looked at me. “Have you not worked it out? Who is the most powerful medium in London? Also the one most given to malicious displays o
f power?”

  I scowled. “Leaving aside the question of how for the moment—why?”

  “Why did he play that nasty trick on Signora Gallo?” he shot back. “Yes, Miss Fox says it was to discredit her, but that is no real answer. With his abilities compared to hers, surely there was no need to make her appear a hopeless inebriate? As for you—“He stopped looking at me and stared down at his feet, letting his shoulders slump. “I’m sorry. You will not like to hear this, I know, but it is true: Mr. Chase has taken a very great interest in you, from the very first moment he saw you. One might even call it something worse. You have done nothing to encourage it—no one could imagine that!—but it could be a dangerous fascination for you.”

  I took a deep breath against the anger that rose in my breast. I knew I had no cause to be angry with Mr. Jesperson, even if I disagreed with him. And I did not disagree—not entirely. Yet it was a very great leap between knowing I exercised a strange fascination over Mr. Chase and thinking that he was haunting me in this fashion.

  “I am aware of his interest, and I do not like it,” I said quietly. “But that manifestation…if Mr. Chase was responsible for it, what was its purpose? Might it not have been unintentional? If he dreamed of me, and reached out in some immaterial way…You must agree, as everyone does, that the control any medium has over the spirits they channel—”

  “It’s nothing to do with spirits!” Mr. Jesperson looked angrier than I felt. “Please do not take refuge in dogma you do not believe. He did it on purpose, to frighten you—to scare you into running right out of the house and into his waiting arms. If you refuse to see that—”

  Edith suddenly entered the argument, and just as well, for otherwise I might have responded most intemperately. “But, dear, he was not waiting,” she said gently. “As you discovered—no one was—with open arms or otherwise.”

  “No, Mother. He had gone by the time I went outside—of course he had,” he said impatiently. “He was watching the house. He would have realized, when he saw my lamp or my shadow against the curtain that he had failed in his aim for a second time.”