The Curious Affair of the Somnambulist & the Psychic Thief

by Lisa Tuttle

  I looked anxiously at Gabrielle, whispering into Lord Bennington’s ear, and then at Nadezhda Chase, a small figure dressed in cream-colored silk, seated at the very front of the box, alone, leaning forward, all her attention fixed on the stage. To anyone else it must have seemed she was gazing adoringly at her husband, but I guessed at the power contained in that gaze, and it made me want to scream at Gabrielle to hurry. But the last thing I wanted was to alert Mr. Chase to my presence, and so I hung back, remaining still and silent.

  But Chase had misjudged the mood of the audience, whose affection he risked alienating. The music had changed to something more darkly sinister, and only a fool could have imagined that Mr. Jesperson was the villain in this scene.

  “Beg pardon, old man,” Chase exclaimed with false bonhomie as he began a gradual descent. “I expected you to block that kick, or at least step aside. You are a little off your game tonight, aren’t you? But I’m sure your head is hard enough to take a few knocks.” By the time he got to the end of this wheedling, conciliatory speech, Chase was again standing on solid ground, directly confronting his enemy—and exaggerating the effort required of him to look up at the taller man.

  “Now, sir, your head is higher than mine, but I don’t complain. We are as equally matched as nature allows, and our only weapons will be those we have by birth or training, and whatever powers God or spirits or unknown forces grant us…Agreed?”

  “Stop your buzzing,” Lord Bennington exclaimed irritably,, pulling away from Gabrielle. “We are trying to watch the show. Either sit down and be quiet, or get out.”

  She fluttered about him anxiously, insisting on the importance of her errand, but annoyed him more with every word. “I fear I must ask you to leave, Miss Fox.”

  My greatest fear was that Mr. Chase would become aware of my presence and once again use me as a weapon against my partner. If Mrs. Chase saw me, and if I was right in thinking that she would be able to transmit her own perceptions to her husband instantly, it would be just as bad…But it was a risk I had to take, or I might as well have stayed away. So I stepped out of the shadows and interrupted the angry tête-à-tête. Lord Bennington nearly jumped from his seat at the sight of me. “Miss Lane, where have you been? What—”

  “There is no time to explain. You must trust me,” I said hastily. “It is truly a matter of life and death. Mrs. Chase must leave this building at once.”

  A puff of white smoke appeared center stage, and rapidly thickened and formed into a face as white and still as a death mask. The audience gasped and murmured with pleasure—this was more the sort of thing they had bought their tickets to see.

  Below the face was more smoke, and it formed into two quite solid-looking hands. They flew like predatory birds toward Mr. Jesperson’s throat.

  Lord Bennington looked distrustfully from me to Miss Fox and back again. “Can you explain this extraordinary demand?”

  As my partner glided and turned on the stage, evading the threatening hands with a grace and economy reminiscent of the stylized movements of a Spanish toreador, I managed to summon something of his powers of invention. “I have been sent to you by Mr. Chase, who fears for the life of his wife. He has learned that there are certain vapors in the air of this theatre—quite harmless to us, but to one suffering a congenital condition of the heart, like Mrs. Chase, they could provoke a crisis and kill her. He warned her, but the brave, foolish, stubborn girl was determined to witness his triumph on the stage. He has begged me, and he begs you, to save her life by taking her outside.”

  Had it been anyone else spouting such nonsense he might have argued and refused to believe, but my reputation for unadorned, unimaginative honesty worked in my favor. Casting an uneasy glance at the stage he muttered, “That smoke…it will not harm my daughter?”

  “Certainly not. Everyone else is safe. It is a weakness peculiar to her.”

  “Very well. Since her husband wishes it…You must have a word with her.”

  My heart sank just a little. Lord Bennington was large and strong enough to be easily capable of picking up the little Russian princess and carrying her away at speed, even if she put up a struggle, but it was clear from his manner of speaking that he would do no such thing. Perhaps he had his doubts about my story. With an inclination of his head, he indicated that he would not interfere.

  “Why don’t you engage, sir? Are you a coward?” Mr. Chase’s petulant demand rang through the theatre.

  A balletic leap from Mr. Jesperson won him a little burst of applause. He laughed. “If you call it cowardice to avoid strangulation.”

  “I do, sir. You must engage. Here are my hands. Now put up yours.”

  The spirit hands ceased their pursuit and curled into fists, pugilist style. At Chase’s demand, Mr. Jesperson displayed his own fists.

  Gabrielle and I looked at each other and agreed without words that there was no time to be wasted. Our only hope was to drag Mrs. Chase away by brute force.

  The small, slender figure trembled but made no resistance as I seized her by one arm and my friend grabbed the other. Her attention remained fixed upon the stage as we pulled her out of her chair. Although she did not struggle, neither did she help, and it was not an easy task to get her to her feet.

  Her breathing was labored and I was aware of a film of perspiration over her pale face with its fixed, staring eyes. Briefly, I followed her gaze. That one glimpse was enough to show me how far Mr. Jesperson’s strength had been sapped while the smirking Chase stood observing the fight waged by the spirit fists.

  The impossibility of ever winning against an invisible, bodiless opponent was obvious. With no head or body to be hit, there was no target for Mr. Jesperson’s blows except the smoky white hands. Fighting them was like punching clouds: It did no damage. Yet, although they seemed to be without substance, they possessed enough force to wound. Eventually they must wear him down. And although it seemed most unlikely to me that Chase would dare kill anyone—even by spirit hands—in such a public manner before so many witnesses, I was equally sure that he was determined to inflict a painful, lasting punishment on my friend.

  With a rough jerk I pulled the princess closer to my side and clutched her hard. I led the way, and with Gabrielle helping to lift her we managed to haul her unresisting yet unwieldy weight into the aisle and up the two steps inside the box toward its exit.

  Disturbed by this unexpected activity, the other ladies in the box buzzed and clucked, but I had no attention to spare for them, or whatever explanation Lord Bennington was giving, for I had more urgent matters on my mind.

  Suddenly I felt a change: a crawling sensation that warned me of Chase’s psychic presence. Had he sensed mine? We had almost reached the door. In just a moment we might pass through the curtained alcove and reach the corridor beyond, where no one would see us. An inner sense of urgency directed me to continue, not to pause and certainly not to look back—but, as foolish as Lot’s wife, that is what I did.

  I did not think he could have seen me; I knew how unlikely it was that anyone on the stage below would even notice, let alone be able to recognize the three figures in the shadows at the back of the box, but he might well have missed his wife, for I had noticed him occasionally casting a glance up at her where she leaned over the rail. If he saw she was gone, he would be on the alert.

  One swift look at the stage told me what I needed to know. Chase looked up, not at Lord Bennington’s box, but rather at Aphrodite’s column. He had sensed my presence—perhaps my proximity to his wife had made that inevitable—but he did not know where I was. For a time, my energy had been beyond his reach, but he sensed it now, and he assumed I was where he had put me: inside the hollow statue of Aphrodite.

  He moved away from the boxing match at center stage, stepping farther back and sidling closer to the statue.

  Any moment now I knew he would relinquish the connection with his wife and seize control of me. He had the wrong idea of where I was, but I was not beyond his reach. Th
e thought spurred me on; as I moved toward the exit I heard Mrs. Chase give a great wheezing moan.

  Abruptly I was in darkness.

  I froze and put out my free hand to feel for the heavy velvet draperies I knew hung across the doorway. My knuckles grazed bare boards. I tried to step back, but there was nowhere to go; my back pressed against satin that had first appeared to me like the lining of a coffin.

  I was back inside the Aphrodite, trapped once more in the piece of stage scenery Chase had had built to hold me. Through its thin walls I could hear the muted roar of the audience, whose bloodlust had been roused.

  Nearer to me, I could hear the light, bounding footsteps of Mr. Jesperson as he dodged and parried and desperately tried to avoid punches thrown by the spirit hands. There was a meaty smack of fist against flesh and the audience roared. I ran my fingertips over the front of the narrow enclosure, trying to find a different texture, seeking the piece of cloth that covered the two eye holes.

  It was not there. The holes were not there.

  This was not my Aphrodite, altered as it had been by my friend to give me a view of the stage. I knew then that this was a psychic trap; my physical body was still above the stage in Lord Bennington’s box, and only my mind was held captive inside an imaginary wooden statue.

  I felt him coming for me. As before, we were near each other in a small space, blind yet aware of each other. He sought me and I evaded him, moving to one side then wriggling to the other. I thought of Mr. Jesperson dancing lightly on the stage. I remembered how I had seen Mr. Chase edging closer to the statue, and I knew almost exactly where his physical self would be at that moment.

  All this in less time than it takes to write.

  I felt him coming for me and I kept still, as if unaware of my danger, until at the last possible moment I moved, flinging myself hard against the front of the cabinet, just to the side of where I expected his attack. I heard a crack and felt myself falling.

  I opened my eyes to find myself above the stage, looking down, watching as the tall wood-and-plaster hollow statue of Aphrodite rocked forward, unbalanced, and came crashing down on top of Christopher Clement Chase.

  As he vanished from view, the pale white hands seemed to freeze for a moment, then they turned to misty swirls, glittering in the footlights.

  Chapter 31

  Afterward

  My senses rushed back. There was confusion and noise everywhere, but closer at hand there were quieter voices, the sharp odor of sal volatile, and the uncomfortable sensation of having my wrists chafed by Gabrielle, who repeated, “Are you unwell?”

  I pulled away from her. “I hate smelling salts.”

  She looked at me sadly. “Well, they brought you round, at least. Poor Mrs. Chase—God rest her soul—is beyond our help.”

  “Oh.”

  I saw the small, crumpled form of Nadezhda Chase in her cream and ivory gown through the figures of Lord Bennington and one of his lady guests who crouched over her, searching in vain for signs of life.

  Gabrielle helped me to my feet and I pulled away from her, eager to see the stage. Mr. Jesperson stood beneath a spotlight, wiping blood from his lips with his sleeve. Not far away, a couple of stagehands were extricating Mr. Chase from the wreckage of the fallen Aphrodite. He was covered in plaster dust and looked shaken but unharmed.

  Four uniformed policemen thundered onto the stage like inexperienced extras who have missed their cue, and their commanding officer, more attuned to the drama of the situation, strolled on after them. In a loud and carrying voice, he announced that he was arresting Mr. Christopher Clement Chase on six charges of abduction, six charges of false imprisonment, and other charges including coercion, fraud, and receiving stolen property.

  The orchestra and audience had fallen silent as they witnessed this curious departure from the show they had expected.

  Mr. Chase did not protest nor try to make his escape; he only asked if he might say goodbye to his wife before he was taken into custody. He spoke politely, and, criminal though he was, received the respectful response due a gentleman:

  “And where is your wife, sir?”

  I shrank back, out of sight, as he turned to indicate our box. “She is a guest of Lord Bennington.”

  Hearing his name, Lord Bennington came forward and looked down with a long, mournful face. “I’m afraid she is no longer with us. She…I am most dreadfully sorry, old chap.”

  Chase did not flinch; I think he had already known it was too late. More than that, I believe he had felt it the very moment she ceased to exist, and that it was the painful, sharp, sudden awareness that he had lost her that fueled his last, desperate attempt to capture me.

  Looking up at Lord Bennington, his sponsor and host in London, Chase said, “You will arrange for…whatever needs to be done? If I cannot?”

  “Of course, of course! Don’t give it a second thought! But I’m sure this…misunderstanding will soon be cleared up, and you’ll be back in Belgrave Square very soon,” said that trusting, innocent man. “My solicitor is at your disposal. Do ask for anything you might need.”

  “Thank you.” Nodding vaguely, Chase turned aside and held out his hands to be cuffed. “You may take me now.”

  I watched the police lead him away and wondered rather resentfully what had taken them so long. Had they been quicker off the mark, Mr. Jesperson would have been spared a beating, and perhaps Mrs. Chase need not have died.

  —

  Back in Gower Street, much later that night, Mr. Jesperson told me not to be so hard on the police. Once the prisoners had been released and their statements were taken, the police had gone to the Alhambra to take Mr. Chase into custody. They were inclined to break up the show the moment they arrived, but Mr. Jesperson had left instructions at the stage door, asking them to wait. He’d had a somewhat different conclusion in mind, which would have seen Mr. Chase dropped through the trap door to the accompaniment of demonic laughter and the distant screams of the damned, while special lighting effects would have made it appear that he was falling into the fiery pits of hell.

  “I thought, as I had deprived Chase of the power to give it to them, I owed his audience a memorable conclusion,” he said, ruefully admitting he had been overconfident in his belief that he had rendered his opponent helpless.

  He had certainly been punished for making that mistake, as the swellings and cuts on his poor, battered face bore testimony. He leaned back in his chair, cradling a medicinal brandy, the bottle of which had been a gift from the police surgeon who had patched him up while I was giving my statement. “No one else is to blame for the death of Mrs. Chase, and certainly not the police. She had a weak heart. She knew it and her husband knew that he was putting an intolerable strain on her constitution, yet he continued, and she allowed him to. One is forever being told not to speak ill of the dead, but she was his willing accomplice.”

  “When did you first suspect her?”

  He gulped down his brandy and reached for the bottle to pour another measure into his glass. “I was quite certain that it must have been she who was inside the spirit cabinet. The cabinet had been constructed with a false back; only quite a small and flexible person would be able to squeeze inside the hidden compartment—not the Cossack, whom I should otherwise have been inclined to suspect as his invisible assistant, but only little Madame Chase.

  “Of course, at that point my theory was that Chase accomplished his wonders by means of hypnotism and an accomplice. I dismissed the idea that spiritualistic powers had anything to do with the matter—I had decided he was a complete fraud.

  “But how to account for the kidnappings? It was clear from the start that the only thing that linked the sudden disappearances of the Misses De Beauvoir, Monsieur Ribaud, and Miss Jessop was that they all possessed some genuine psychic talent. If Chase had been bent on eliminating the competition, he would not have chosen those particular females; Miss Jessop had retired from public view since being exposed as a cheat, and the young ladi
es were as yet unknown to a wider public—unlike at least half a dozen others who attract audiences he might have envied. No, if he was kidnapping mediums—and after the drama he staged for our benefit there could be no doubt who was behind the abductions—it could only be because he needed them for what they were.”

  “And did you reach this conclusion before I was kidnapped? Why did you not share it with me?” Perhaps it was ungrateful of me, but I felt rather hurt, thinking his silence on the matter indicated a lack of trust. “Aren’t we partners in this business?”

  He sighed and took another careful sip from his glass. “Please…it was hardly a conclusion, at that point, but a possibly hare-brained idea. If I shared every thought that passes through my head while I’m trying to work something out, you would think me a complete idiot.”

  “I doubt that. I am very impressed that you managed to figure out how Chase worked. Even after I was his prisoner, I still had no idea—not until Signora Gallo told me—and our good thief had the story from his diamond tiepin.”

  Mr. Jesperson laughed, then flinched and touched his lip. “It’s nothing,” he said quickly. “I am lucky to have suffered no broken bones, nothing but bruising and a few minor cuts. It looks worse than it is.”

  “Are you sure of that?”

  He gave me a look. “The police surgeon said I’ll be as good as new after a night’s sleep. Anyway, as I said before, it was my own fault for not making certain of Mrs. Chase. I had already concluded that his only possible conspirator and aid in fraud was his wife…and if it was not fraud, but genuine psychic power, then she must be a genuine medium, and he the poser who took credit for her abilities, keeping her close at hand but out of sight of the audience.”

  He sighed and looked sheepish. “I was a fool. Everyone said how ill she was, too ill to go out in public—even to travel to Gower Street at your invitation—I thought this meant she would not go to the theatre. I even checked with Lady Florence, who told me that Mrs. Chase would not be attending; she herself had agreed to forgo the theatre, to keep the poor invalid company. It should have occurred to me that a loving wife would surely never miss her husband’s debut upon the London stage…and that I should not have been so quick to trust in Lady Florence.”