A Case of Spirits sc-6

by Peter Lovesey

  ‘If that’s all it is, let’s keep the five shillings a week and have a bottle of champagne on Saturdays,’ said Mrs Probert.

  ‘Mama, that’s a dreadful thing to say in front of the sergeant!’ Alice chided her. ‘Don’t take any notice, Mr Cribb. You can’t rely upon a quarter of the things she says.’

  ‘If my arithmetic is right, that means three-quarters of the things I say are reliable,’ said Mrs Probert without a glance in her daughter’s direction. ‘If the words of other people in this house-not to say their conduct-could be relied upon to that extent, the sergeant would have an easier task.’

  Alice turned from the mirror to look at her mother, an action insignificant in normal circumstances, but noteworthy in this family, whose members seemed to have evolved monolithic existences based on the least possible acknowledgement of each other’s presence. ‘What are you insinuating by that remark, Mother?’

  Mrs Probert continued to look at the carpet. ‘That’s a bold new hat you are taking so much care over arranging, my dear. If the hat fits, wear it, I say,’ she said mysteriously.

  Alice indulged in another long look at Mrs Probert, a look singularly devoid of the regard a daughter might be expected to feel for her mother. Then she addressed Cribb. ‘Wouldn’t you prefer to speak to Papa in private?’

  ‘Not at all, miss, but if I’m delaying you-’

  ‘I can wait a few minutes.’

  ‘In that case, miss, I’ll presently escort you down the hill. I’ve got a constable sitting in the hall who can carry your gifts for the poor.’

  ‘That’s very obliging of you. It’s a shopping-basket, you know, not the sort of thing one generally sees a policeman carrying.’

  ‘Don’t concern yourself, miss. I’ll see that he keeps a respectable distance behind us. Now, Doctor, if I may. .’

  Probert turned at last from the window. ‘What is the trouble then?’

  The phrase came so readily that Cribb suspected it was the one the doctor used in consultations.

  ‘No trouble at present, sir. I’m merely wanting to establish certain facts touching on the death of Mr Brand. That apparatus in the library, sir: when did you get it ready?’

  ‘The chair, you mean? On Wednesday of last week, I believe. Strathmore came to help me. It didn’t take long. We had to screw on the brass handles and connect the various wires, but to a scientist it’s a very elementary piece of wiring. There really wasn’t much to go wrong, which makes the accident all the more baffling.’

  ‘It’s a puzzle indeed, sir. Mr Strathmore helped you, you say?’

  ‘Helped him drink his claret,’ put in Mrs Probert.

  ‘That was after we had set up the experiment,’ said Probert, sensitive, for once, to an interruption from his wife. ‘It is not done to offer muffins and tea to a professional acquaintance. The answer, Sergeant, is yes. Mr Strathmore helped me. It was fortunate as it turned out. We can both vouch for the safety of the apparatus. I believe your expert from the Home Office was unable to detect any fault in the wiring.’

  ‘That’s correct, sir.’

  ‘The transformer was found to be in good order?’

  ‘Perfect, sir.’

  ‘I thought so. The wire and the galvanometer were new. I purchased them from Mr Cooper, who owns the supply station. It’s a rum go, is all this. You know, I’ve been trying to decide whether it was Brand’s dickey heart that did for him. He looked as though he’d been subjected to a powerful shock. I’d have staked my reputation on that, but I suppose twenty volts or so of electricity could be just as destructive to a chap in his condition as several hundred to you or me.’

  ‘That may be so, sir, but it doesn’t account for the fracturing of several of his bones. Do you mind if I continue with my questions? Did Mr Brand by any chance inspect the apparatus before Saturday night?’

  ‘No,’ said Probert firmly.

  Alice turned from the mirror. ‘But Papa-’

  ‘Brand did not inspect the apparatus before Saturday night,’ Probert insisted in a way that brooked no challenge from his daughter. ‘Without wishing to denigrate Mr Brand, I think it must be obvious that he was not the class of person one invites to one’s house except in a professional capacity.’

  ‘I was thinking that for professional reasons he would have wished to come in advance, to view the room where the seance was to be held,’ said Cribb.

  ‘You have obviously forgotten that Brand came here previously for a seance,’ said Probert. ‘It was on October 31st, the night the vase was stolen from Miss Crush’s residence. He had an ample opportunity then to inspect the room.’

  ‘But he didn’t see the chair before Saturday?’

  ‘That is so. If we’d given the fellow a chance to make preparations, it would have invalidated the blasted experiment. Is the interrogation over?’

  ‘For the present, sir, I’m obliged to you,’ said Cribb as if it was a wrench to take himself away from such congenial company. ‘Now, Miss Alice, where’s that basket?’

  Half way down Richmond Hill, with Thackeray ten yards in the rear carrying a shopping basket topped with oranges, Alice Probert said to Cribb, ‘You believe Peter Brand was murdered, don’t you?’

  ‘It’s a possibility, miss.’

  ‘Papa thinks so, too. He thinks Professor Quayle did it.’

  ‘I thought he put it down to the weakness of Peter Brand’s heart,’ said Cribb.

  ‘Oh, he wants to. That’s the explanation that will cause the least offence all round. He doesn’t want the opprobrium of a public murder trial, with us all appearing as witnesses, but he is not such a fool as he seemed this morning, Sergeant. He knows very well that the shock that killed Mr Brand would have killed anyone sitting in that chair at that moment. He is quite convinced that somebody tampered with the apparatus.’

  ‘And he suspects the professor?’

  ‘Papa’s argument is that Professor Quayle was the only person in the house that night with a motive for murdering Mr Brand-professional jealousy. That was the explanation of the burglaries, was it not?’

  ‘Broadly speaking, yes, miss.’

  ‘Well, my father reasons that the professor must have been the person who crept into the study while Mr Brand was sitting in the chair and caused him to call out and interrupt the seance.’

  ‘I think he’s correct in that, miss.’

  ‘He believes that in those few seconds the professor did something to ensure that within a very short time Mr Brand would be subjected to a huge electric shock.’

  ‘And what was that?’

  She smiled. ‘Papa doesn’t know. He says that he is not a policeman. Of course, Mama and I have our own suspicions. We don’t subscribe to Papa’s theory at all.’

  ‘No, miss?’

  ‘No, we’re perfectly sure that Professor Quayle is not a murderer. He’s an old friend to us. We’ve known him for a long time, and he often visits us.’

  Cribb’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Now that’s a thing I didn’t know.’

  ‘Oh yes. Papa has been interested in spiritualism for at least ten years. He invited the professor home for dinner after he met him once at a lecture, and he calls socially quite often. When I was younger he always used to bring me sweets-pan-goods and surprise packets-so I can’t think of him as a murderer.’

  ‘With respect, miss, I don’t suppose you could think of him as a house-breaker either, but he is. He admits to it.’

  ‘Yes, but he isn’t a hardened criminal. You got the stolen things back, didn’t you? I hope he gets a light sentence, poor duck. Mama is exceedingly upset about the whole episode.’

  ‘I thought your mother disapproved of spiritualists. She didn’t have much time for Peter Brand, if I understood her correct.’

  ‘Oh, Professor Quayle is as different from Peter Brand as chalk from cheese. A charming man. Besides, he never discusses the spirits with Mama. She has a high opinion of him, I assure you. Do you like hot chestnuts? There’s a man who sells them at the botto
m of the hill, near the bridge.’

  ‘It’s a shade too early in the day, thank you,’ said Cribb.

  ‘I’ll buy some for your man, then. I hate to walk straight past street-vendors, don’t you? Mama is quite wrong about the spirits, of course. It’s really awfully jolly to get in touch. William, my fiance, isn’t much better. He gets positively liverish when the lights go out.’

  ‘So I’ve heard, miss. But you don’t get alarmed, I gather. I understand you felt your clothes being tugged and your hair touched on Saturday, is that so?’

  ‘It’s not at all unusual in a seance,’ said Alice, without really answering the question. ‘There’s no need to agitate oneself about such things, as William did.’

  ‘Perhaps there’s a natural explanation for what happened, anyway,’ suggested Cribb.

  ‘I trust not. What a disagreeable thought!’ Alice’s hand went to her hair and rearranged it over her collar.

  ‘You’re quite convinced that the spirits touched you on Saturday?’ asked Cribb, determined to pin Miss Probert down.

  ‘I’m sure it wasn’t anybody else in the room.’

  ‘But you’re equally sure that it happened?’

  ‘I don’t imagine things, Sergeant.’

  ‘No, miss.’ It was the nearest he would get to an answer. They were fast approaching the chestnut stall, and he had something else to ask. ‘You said just now that you and Mrs Probert have your own suspicions about Saturday. Might I inquire whom you suspect?’

  ‘Mr Strathmore.’

  ‘The scientist?’

  ‘He is a dangerous man, Sergeant. Papa should never have associated with him. One looks for a degree of detachment in a scientist, a commitment to proceed by the scientific method of hypothesis, investigation and proof. When Mr Strathmore came to the house on Wednesday to prepare the experiment, he revealed himself as anything but detached. His sole object was to set traps and snares, in the conviction that the medium would fall victim to them and show himself to be fraudulent. If Papa had not been firm with him he would have smeared the handles of the chair with carbon so that anything the medium touched would be marked, and he had brought cotton thread with him to weave a giant cat’s cradle around the room, if you please, in the belief that it would snap and prove that the medium had left the chair. Imagine the impression such stratagems would have made on a medium of Mr Brand’s standing!’

  ‘It might have led to an ugly scene, miss.’

  ‘Exactly. He was totally fanatical in his determination to prove Mr Brand a charlatan. It was odious to see the way he calculated the position of the chair to the nth degree, just as if he was Sweeney Todd, the infamous barber. It had to be so far back from the curtain so that he couldn’t lean forward and touch it, and the transformer had to out of arm’s reach, and the handles screwed in with screws an inch and a half in length. It makes me shudder to think of it now. He should be a public executioner, not a man of medicine.’

  ‘That may be so, miss, but I can’t arrest him for that. What you’ve told me doesn’t endear Mr Strathmore to me, but none of it’s against the law.’

  ‘Don’t you see, Sergeant? He and Papa were the only ones who knew what the chair looked like before Saturday. Between Wednesday and Saturday he must have thought of something else, some horrible appendage to the experiment that turned the chair into an execution chair the moment poor Mr Brand moved his arm or shuffled his foot.’

  ‘What sort of appendage exactly, miss?’

  ‘I’m not certain, but then I’m-’

  ‘Not a policeman, miss? That’s not such a bad thing, if I might say so. Mr Strathmore and your father weren’t the only ones who had a chance to see that chair before Saturday. From what you tell me, I’m bound to suppose that you saw it yourself. And if your mother agrees with you about Mr Strathmore, it’s reasonable to presume that she saw it on Wednesday too. Now I gather also that Mr Nye is a frequent visitor to the house. Would it be too presumptuous to suppose. .’

  She smiled. ‘All right, Sergeant. William saw it too, on Friday, when Mr Brand came-’ She stopped, the colour rising in her cheeks.

  They stood still by a pillar-box, only a few yards short of the chestnut stall, the fumes of burning nut-shell and coke wafting towards them. ‘Mr Brand, miss?’ said Cribb. ‘That’s a funny thing. I rather supposed that he must have had a look at the apparatus, but your father didn’t seem to remember the occasion. It was Friday, then.’

  ‘Friday,’ she confirmed in a low voice. ‘He came to make arrangements about the seance.’

  ‘That’s understandable, miss.’

  ‘Please don’t let Papa know I told you. I really don’t know why he was so unwilling to tell you about it.’

  ‘It’s our secret, miss. Hello, here’s Thackeray. Miss Probert wants to buy you a bag of chestnuts, Thackeray.’

  ‘That’s very generous, miss.’

  The chestnut man touched his cap as Alice approached him. She proffered twopence and said, ‘I believe these gentlemen could catch a bus from here to Charing Cross, is that right?’

  It was as neat a way as she could have contrived to terminate the interview.

  ‘That’s right, miss. Cost ’em a bob each.’ He shovelled a large helping of chestnuts into a bag. Cribb stepped forward to take them, since Thackeray was still holding the basket and they were clearly too hot for a young lady to handle. He passed them to Thackeray in such a way that his back was towards Alice as he deliberately tore the side of the paper bag and dropped the still smoking nuts among the oranges in the basket.

  ‘Moses, Sarge!’ said Thackeray in bewilderment.

  ‘Another bag, if you please,’ called Cribb to the salesman.

  It was the work of a few seconds to retrieve the hot nuts, and no visible damage was done to the fruit or the basket. To Thackeray it was a wholly mysterious incident, but he contained his curiosity until Miss Probert had set off again along Hill Street on her errand. ‘Why did you do it, Sarge?’ he asked, biting with relish into a chestnut.

  ‘I wanted to see what was under that layer of oranges. Didn’t you notice?’

  ‘Yes, Sarge. A lady’s hairbrush and comb. There’s nothing extraordinary in that, is there?’

  ‘That’s a matter I want you to investigate, Constable. Follow Miss Probert and find out where she goes. You’d better leave the nuts with me, or she’ll smell you coming a mile off.’

  CHAPTER 11

  Now mark! To be precise -

  Though I say, ‘lies’ all these, at the first stage,

  ’Tis just for science’ sake:

  Cribb had secured an inside seat between a large woman muffled in furs and a small boy occupied in scooping straw off the floor, shredding it and depositing pieces on the other passengers’ clothes. It was not the best position on the bus, but it was preferable to the knifeboard upstairs. Common courtesy threatened to deprive him of his seat before long; there was sure to be some shopgirl late for work waving the driver down in Kew or Turnham Green. But he had privately resolved to see the small boy sitting on his mother’s lap first. With that satisfying thought, he started on Thackeray’s bag of chestnuts.

  He considered what he had learnt from Alice Probert. In some particulars she was not to be relied upon-notably her experiences with invisible hands-but this morning’s revelation that Brand had visited the house on Friday had escaped her lips before she realised its significance. Her consequent embarrassment had been genuine, no doubt of that. What she had said stamped Dr Probert as a liar. He had firmly stated that Brand did not visit the house to examine the chair before Saturday.

  The difficulty in dealing with Probert was that he was so easy to dislike. Cribb had handled him with kid gloves so far not because he was a friend of Inspector Jowett, but because antagonism towards a witness could lead to errors of judgement. It wanted guarding against. Probert was a liar, but that did not necessarily make him a murderer.

  But why should he have lied at all about Brand’s visit to the house?
On the face of it, there was nothing sinister in a medium taking a preview of the place where he was to conduct a seance, particularly when the conditions were so unusual. It was questionable whether anyone would consent to being part of an electrical circuit without inspecting the apparatus first. People like Strathmore, dedicated to eliminating every possibility of fraud, might argue that seeing the apparatus in advance gave the medium the opportunity of devising some means of cheating science, but Cribb was not Strathmore; he was investigating a possible murder, not a manifestation. There were more important things at issue now than the validity of an experiment.

  Obviously there was a reason why Probert did not wish it to be known that Brand had come to the house. The visit showed Probert-or someone he wished to protect-in an unfavourable light. It could well be connected with something Cribb had turned over in his mind repeatedly since the post mortem. There was reason to suspect that Dr Probert, like Miss Crush, had knowingly assisted Peter Brand in his deceptions.

  Anyone unacquainted with Cribb’s reasoning on this question could be forgiven for regarding the suggestion as monstrous. Would Probert have gone to the trouble of setting up an elaborate experiment in order to nullify its results by cheating? Cribb’s understanding of events suggested exactly that. At the seance when the spirit hand had seemed to materialise, Probert had been seated next to the medium, holding his left hand. Was it not likely that whilst Brand’s right hand, coated with Blue John, and helpfully liberated by Miss Crush, was describing convolutions in the air, slight pressures and tensions would have been transmitted by his left? And even if Probert could not see the rest of Brand’s arm from so close a range, would he not have heard movements of his sleeve and shirt-cuff? More suggestive still were the oranges that had been flung at Nye. If it was accepted that they were not propelled by some supernatural agency, then either Miss Crush had thrown them with her left hand (an unlikely achievement), or Brand had used his right and nobody had noticed the Blue John on it (equally unlikely) or Dr Probert had something to do with it. The bowl containing the oranges had rested on a tripod table within reach of his right hand or Brand’s left.