by Lisa Tuttle
I will inform all 13 potential victims to take extra precautions for their safety over the few nights remaining. If they manage to foil him, all to the good, but it will make no real difference if he has 6 captives hidden away or only 5.
The end result will be the same. I must defeat him once and for all, in public, before a large audience, on the very stage where he imagines himself to be in control. But I will make him helpless—steal his secret weapons—and reveal him for the charlatan and parasitical thief that he is.
But I need help with the preparations. Particularly, I need someone backstage. What a time to be deprived of my partner!
Chapter 25
Another Prisoner
At his command, I had retreated to the bed, put my head on the pillow, and closed my eyes, but sleep was impossible; the feelings of horror and terror his little “demonstration” had aroused in me were not conducive to relaxation. I felt light-headed and breathless, and my heart was beating like a wild bird in a net.
He had made me say those words, but he could not make me mean them.
But although that distinction mattered to me, it was not helpful. Mr. Chase had just shown me—through hypnotism or sorcery—that I was his puppet. If he made me perform like that before the police, they would certainly believe I had made my own choice and was not in need of rescue. And Mr. Jesperson? What would he think?
Oh, if only I could write him a letter!
But there was nothing in this bare room with which to write—no pen, ink, or paper; and even supposing Mr. Chase should be so “kind” as to allow me a sketch pad and pencil, or a book to read, there would still be the much greater problem of how to smuggle it out of the house and how to ensure it reached the intended recipient.
So I went on thinking, going over and over the details of my situation, searching for a way out, for the next several hours, until finally I heard the footsteps I recognized as belonging to the Cossack (an astonishingly light tread for such a large man) and sat up, tensed and ready for anything, by the time he opened the door.
But this time he had come to bring me the items Mr. Chase had promised: a thick, warm dressing gown and two pairs of heavy socks. He put them down on the end of my bed, and then he took away the two empty jugs.
As soon as he was gone, I examined my new garments. The dressing gown had a label inside and appeared to be new. I wondered who had purchased it. The Cossack would surely attract too much unwanted attention if he bought a woman’s dressing gown in Oxford Street; perhaps Mr. Chase had ordered it to be delivered, although I had not heard knocking or any of the minor commotion that usually accompanies deliveries. Of course, I didn’t know how big this house was, or if there was more than one staircase. It was possible that Mrs. Chase’s maid was in on the secret and served as a messenger and delivery girl; for if the Cossack really was the only manservant, it was unlikely that Mr. Chase would wish him to leave our prison unguarded, even for an hour.
I thought of the excessive caution Mr. Chase displayed in his refusal to allow me clothing I could wear out of doors or hairpins. Yet I had encountered the Cossack in Belgrave Square on the night of the séance—who then had guarded the house? Had Mr. Chase felt easier when he knew no one suspected the various disappearances were connected? Or was it me—did he think his other prisoners lacked the courage and strength to escape?
I felt a bit more hopeful then. If Mr. Chase thought there was a way, I must find it.
I wished I could speak with the others. Together, we might have been able to concoct a plan of escape. The Cossack surely slept sometimes and with both eyes closed like any other man. And if he left the house, we must take advantage of his absence. I would have to listen even more carefully and notice every sound, every change of atmosphere.
When the Cossack returned I was sitting on the edge of the bed wearing my new dressing gown and socks. He brought a bowl of beef stew, and as I settled down to eat it, he retreated, leaving his lamp behind and taking mine.
I tasted a piece of meat cautiously. It was flavored in an unusual way, the red sauce peppery and spiked with dill and caraway seeds. Was it a Russian dish? The Cossack probably was cook as well as guard, and he might not hear what was happening upstairs when he was occupied in the kitchen.
When he returned for my tray, I said that I did not find it comfortable to eat all my meals in bed, and asked if a chair could be brought to my room so I could sit at the table. He stared at me with his usual stolid expression and made no reply.
—
So it went on for another day, the Cossack my only visitor. I was not sorry to be left alone by Mr. Chase, but I found my solitary confinement deeply boring. There was nothing to do but think, and without outside stimulus, thinking itself became a trap, my thoughts as limited in scope as the room around me.
Then everything changed.
I was asleep until the clatter of the key in the lock woke me, and as the door opened I saw the enormous figure of the Cossack clutching a bundle of blankets close to his chest.
As was his custom, he said nothing, merely entered and dropped his burden upon the spare bed before making a swift retreat. He shut the door, plunging the room once more into darkness.
I would have liked to call a curse down on his head for disturbing my sleep but was too much of a coward to do more than mutter under my breath.
On the other bed the bundle moved and called upon Jesu e Santa Maria la Madonna for protection.
I sat bolt upright. “Signora Gallo?” I exclaimed. “Let me get a light…” I was glad now that I had moved the lamp and box of matches to the floor beside my bed, and it was only a matter of seconds before I had it lit. I scarcely had time to put it down safely before the excitable little woman had her arms wrapped around me, weeping and exclaiming.
“Hush, hush,” I whispered urgently and gave her a warning shake. “Quietly! If he hears us, that beast will come back and bind and gag us both.”
She quieted at once. We stood there in the lamplight, tense and alert, holding hands and listening. When I felt sure the Cossack was not coming back, I said, “Come and sit with me in my bed—we’ll be warmer that way, and you can tell me everything.”
“Ah, Miss Lane! Miss Lane…so happy to see you, and I not be here all alone. Also, I am so, so glad you are not murdered as I fear.”
After she had hugged and kissed me again several times in the overflowing of her emotional nature, we snuggled beneath the blankets to keep warm, as I assured her that I was indeed unharmed, safe, and well. I also informed her that there were three other kidnapped mediums in the room across the hall, who had also been well treated. “Whatever Mr. Chase has planned for us, I do not think it involves death or injury. Although I am still at a loss to know why he keeps us imprisoned, he feeds his prisoners well and even supplied me with a dressing gown and socks when I complained of the cold. Now, tell me what has happened to you—how did it come about that you were snatched from your bed?” Her nightdress, as well as the lateness of the hour, told me that was how it must have been.
She confirmed my suspicion, explaining in a low, hesitating voice how she had been fast asleep in her bed, in the room she shared with Gabrielle, when something—she knew not what—caused her to swim up out of sleep and open her eyes upon the terrifying sight of the pale, white, moonlike face of a strange man looming over her in the darkness. When she opened her mouth to scream for help, a thick cloth, smelling pungently of ether, was pressed firmly against her face; she could not help but breathe in the fumes, and so she passed into unconsciousness.
Listening to this description of her dreadful experience gave me gooseflesh,as it triggered memories I had rather have forgotten, but there was something even worse than that, for the very fact that her abduction had been carried out so easily showed something else—Mr. Jesperson was failing in his task.
One might argue that London was full of psychic mediums, many of whom Mr. Chase must have had occasion to encounter, and therefore no one could have pr
edicted which, if any, he would have made his next target, and yet I could not help feeling that Mr. Jesperson should have known—should have deduced, from a dozen small signs that no one else would have noticed—and having made this deduction, he should have made arrangements that would have foiled the attempt, landed the Cossack in police custody, and led to a swift resolution and freedom for all Chase’s prisoners.
Perhaps I was too easily impressed and too much inclined to take Mr. Jesperson at his own valuation.
I thought of how often during the nearly five months of our association it had occurred to me that this undeniably talented man had something childish in his nature. He had grown up nourished by his doting mother’s belief that her son could do and be anything he wished. Now it seemed I was the childish one, having placed my trust in him, believing he could solve any mystery to which he set his mind, believing he could triumph over the villainous Mr. Chase with ease, and rescue me—rescue us all—from danger.
What a fool I was, to trust in anyone but myself. How often must I be disappointed before I would learn that obvious lesson?
I dragged my attention back to Signora Gallo. “So, your experience replicates mine, I suppose, and you knew nothing more until you regained consciousness lying on that bed—”
“No, no, no!” She shook her head so hard in denial that a shudder rocked the bed. “I wake up inna coach…cloth fall off, I think so, and I inna coach where dat bad man put me.”
“Alone?” A sudden hope seized me. “Could you look out the window? How long was the journey? Did you see where you went?”
“I not alone, no. He was dere, too—Case, Meester Case.”
“Chase,” I corrected her without thinking. “You spoke with him?”
“No.” She reared up indignantly, and even though her face was in shadow I saw the sparkle in her eyes. “I not talk—I pretend I still…” She made a snoring noise. “I not want him put that cloth back on face. So, keep eyes shut, not say nothing, not see nothing. About…ten minutes? Den de coach stop and dat….monster…come down, and Meester Case he push me toward him, and monster pick me up and carry me like sack of clothes, you know?”
She told me she had continued to pretend she was unconscious, although it clearly had been a great effort not to struggle and scream for help, and as she was borne away, helpless, into the house, she’d heard the clatter of horses’ hooves and the wheels of the carriage as it rolled away.
I gave her a hug. “You poor thing. I know just what you have been through, but I am glad to hear your story, for it confirms me in my idea that Mr. Chase has no one to help him, now Mr. Creevey is in jail, except his servant, the man you call ‘monster’ and others know as the Cossack. He’s the one who snatched you, and he would have been driving the carriage when Mr. Chase was inside with you, and then Chase will have driven back to Belgrave Square, leaving him here to guard us overnight. If only I had known that he left us here unguarded. Perhaps it was for no more than half an hour, but—it could have been a chance.”
I sighed, thinking that it was not enough of a chance unless I had some means by which to pick the lock, and then I peered more closely at Signora Gallo. Like mine, her hair had been tied back in a long, loose braid, with no hairpin in sight. It seemed unlikely that her heavy gray flannel gown had pockets filled with hidden treasures, but there was no harm in asking.
“If I only had a hairpin, or something similar, small and flexible, I think I might be able to pick the lock on that door,” I told her. “Do you have anything? A piece of jewelry, or anything at all?”
With a sly, triumphant smile she opened her hand to reveal a diamond tiepin. I had seen it before, adorning Mr. Chase’s elegant shirtfront.
“You clever girl,” I said admiringly. The diamond was ostentatiously large, but the pin itself was rather short, and as it was gold, it might be too soft for a useful lock-pick. But I was happy to see it for another reason. Signora Gallo’s special talent might make it useful to us in another way.
“Dear Signora Gallo, can you read something about Mr. Chase in that gem? Can it tell you what he means to do with us? Why did he kidnap you, and the other mediums? Why does he want me?”
Then I clamped my lips together, knowing it was not good to overwhelm her with too many questions all at once.
She nodded and concentrated her attention on the diamond in her palm. A rapt, contemplative expression appeared at first, but soon her face darkened in a scowl.
“Bad man,” she muttered. Her chin came up and her eyes blazed. “He is a thief!”
“Oh? Well, we’ll get to that in a moment—do you know why he’s kidnapped so many mediums?”
“Because he is thief,” she repeated impatiently. “He want what we have. Not like ordinary thief, who steal money and jewels—but he do that, too! Mr. Chase kidnap us because he wants us power.”
She saw that I did not understand and expanded: “Mr. Chase is psychic thief. He feel when somebody is like me—when we have power, he know, like I know from diamond!”
I stared at her in astonishment. I suddenly understood what Mr. Chase’s singular power was. In addition to the hypnotic abilities he had trained himself to use, he had been born with an additional sense, the ability to sniff out psychic talents in others.
And then, having discovered them, he stole them. That was the meaning of her phrase “psychic thief.”
“But how?” I asked, bewildered. “How can anyone steal something so…so intangible?”
She shrugged and shook her head with a dark, glowering expression. “You see what he do to me at Belgrave Square.”
“Ah…yes,” I said slowly. It began to make sense. “He used your talent against you. Maybe he deflected it in some way, or…”
“He steal it,” she said emphatically and waved the little stickpin so the diamond head sent out flashes of brilliance as it caught the light. “Not like I steal from him, but…he take it from me, and take and take and take until…” She mimed collapse.
“Like pumping water from a well,” I guessed. “At first there’s plenty, a steady stream, but gradually it dies away to a trickle. It is not exhausted, though, not forever, because it restores itself, and after a few hours there is more.”
“Not like water,” she corrected me solemnly. “Like blood. Case like a flea who drinks blood. Take a little bit, not so bad.” She shook her hand from the wrist. “Flea only little, can’t drink too much. But him…” She let her hand flop.
“When I feel it first, I not know what he do to me. I not know why I so tired, why I can’t do what I try. Now, I understand. Now, he tell me.” She waved the diamond pin.
The diamond had told her its owner’s story, and, thanks to Signora Gallo’s talent, now I understood, too. Chase was a fake, a liar, and a parasite. He had no “spirit helpers” and no great gift of his own. Signora Gallo did not know when or how he had discovered he had the ability to sense psychic talents in others; she thought he must have been born with it, but he had made his living as a conjurer and a hypnotist until he met the lovely young Russian princess who had fallen head over heels in love with him.
It was she who gave him the diamond tiepin, and she who had given him access to her own powers—consciously, gladly, a gift of love.
“She a silly little girl, afraid of her own powers,” said Signora Gallo, clutching the tiepin and frowning with concentration. “She think God put her on earth to serve one man—she give herself to him, she give him everything.”
“Why couldn’t he be content with her sacrifice? Why wasn’t that enough for him?” I asked bitterly. “Greedy, I suppose.”
She shook her head slowly. “No, not that. Remember what I say about flea? A few bites from a flea, no great matter. But if something much bigger than a flea should drink—and drink and drink and drink, for hours at a time, night after night…”
“You mean, he’s killing her?” I recalled how Chase had spoken to me of “sparing” his wife—and I felt the heat of a blush rise again at
the memory of how I had misunderstood his meaning. “But…it’s not blood that he’s taking from her—or from you—”
“Not blood, but is life, even so. Is life,” she repeated solemnly.
Any effort, any exertion took something from one, I reflected. It was natural, and people recovered their powers after resting, eating, replenishing the body and mind. But if forced to go beyond their natural limits…pushed to destruction…Probably Chase had not realized at first what he was doing to his spouse, for I believe he loved her; and she adored him too much to complain when his demands made her ill. In the heady delight of exploiting his newfound abilities, Chase had severely and permanently damaged Nadezhda’s health.
He would not consider giving up his promising career. If the task was too great for his wife, he must find other sources of power. And thus he had evolved his plan of kidnapping mediums.
“He must have started preparing for this in Paris, when he hypnotized Mr. Creevey,” I said.
“And the others.”
“Others—you mean his horrible Russian servant?”
“No, not him. There are more, more peoples he meet in Paris, that now are living in London, not knowing that they do his bidding.” She winked at me. “I say he is thief, and he is; he thieves jewels, too.” She told me that in addition to Creevey—chosen for his size and strength as well as his susceptibility to hypnosis—Chase had also hypnotized several young ladies, all now serving as maids in London households—and there was even one respectable London matron who was responsible for robbing herself. Individually, and completely unconscious of their criminal activities, they had stolen diamond rings and necklaces from a half dozen houses and passed them on to Chase’s manservant.
Creevey had aided Chase in the kidnappings of Miss Jessop—who took him for an angel—and the De Beauvoir girls. Chase had used his own hypnotic powers to spirit Monsieur Ribaud away and employed the Cossack to abduct Signora Gallo and me. This brought me up short.
