The Guilty Abroad

by Peter J. Heck

  “I suppose it would,” I said. “But surely you don’t take the McPhee’s séance as the typical case. By now, there must be hundreds of reports of mediums, many of them observed by very reputable witnesses . . .”

  He waved away my protestations. “Sure, though a reputable witness ain’t necessarily a smart one. That’s what’s wrong with the Society for Psychical Research that’s been looking into these questions over here. They’ve had some of the best-known men in the nation as members over the last decade or so—Tennyson was one, and so’s Ruskin, fine upstanding folks. But I wouldn’t give either one of ’em an even chance to spot Slippery Ed palming a card in broad daylight, with advance notice. And they’re miles smarter than this stupid Spiritualist Society with its cock and bull about an ectoplasmic pistol. What it boils down to is, a lot of these mediums are nothing more than glorified sleight-of-hand artists. Enough of ’em have been caught cheating to prove that.”

  He gazed out the window a moment, then turned back to me and continued. “Still, maybe a few of ’em really do have some of the powers they claim. I’ve heard that Daniel Dunglas Home did things that have never been explained away, and if anybody ever caught him rigging any of his tricks, I haven’t heard about it. But Slippery Ed, or that Blavatsky woman, or the Fox sisters, who started the whole fad by learning how to crack their toe joints, are a lot closer to the run of the mill. Frauds from start to finish, though some are smoother at it than others.”

  Just as I was about to answer, the train lurched, then plunged us into darkness for a moment as it entered a short tunnel under a block of buildings. When we emerged into the light again, I said, “Set the proven frauds aside—they’re not at issue here. What about Daniel Dunglas Home? You admit that his feats appear to have been genuine—levitation in front of large crowds, not on a stage but in private homes where he couldn’t set up apparatus or tricks in advance. What do you make of him?”

  Mr. Clemens tapped his fingers on the window glass for a moment, then answered. “Home’s a tough case. Maybe he was smarter than the rest—or just luckier. There are supposed eyewitness accounts of him levitating, even lifting heavy furniture with him. He got run out of Italy when they got a hint that he was trafficking with spirits. So they took him seriously. But a lot of lot those witnesses wanted to believe, and that’s the first step to being fooled.

  “I don’t think he ever got caught with his pants down, though. Browning saw him and thought he was a fake, and said so in a poem, but that’s no better proof than what his supporters put forward. My main objection to him is the same as to all the others: even if they’re real, they’re dull as dishwater. I wouldn’t walk across the street to see the best of ’em. Hell, I wouldn’t have gone to see Martha McPhee’s setup if Susy hadn’t asked to go see what it was about.”

  “How can you call it dull? I’d think word from the world beyond would be the most exciting news we could have.”

  “That’s what you’d think, ain’t it?” He rested his chin on his right fist, peering at me. “Remember what Horatio tells Hamlet: ‘There needs no ghost come from the grave to tell us this’? That describes every single thing I’ve heard of the spooks saying at a séance—or at least, every thing I’ve heard them say. It’s all drivel, not worth a minute of a grown man’s time.”

  “I’m not sure I follow you,” I said. “Isn’t the evidence of a life after this one a significant fact?”

  “I guess it would be, if it were a fact,” said Mr. Clemens. “But as far as I can see, the jury’s still out—even if you ignore the obvious hoaxes. I went to a séance some years back, where the medium called up a fellow my friends and I had known pretty well, a real hell-raiser off the riverboats. We asked the medium all kinds of questions, and we kept getting the same kind of answers: ‘We are very content here,’ ‘We are at peace,’ ‘We want for nothing here.’ We knew damn well that the first thing our buddy would have asked for at the Pearly Gates was the way to the best saloon in the place. The spook didn’t cuss like him, it didn’t crack jokes or laugh at ’em, it didn’t even know how he had died—which was spectacular enough that I think he’d have remembered that. I finally asked if there was any way of life I could adopt to guarantee that I’d end up someplace other than where he was, because if that was Heaven, I didn’t want any part of it.”

  “I suppose that is consistent with your opinions,” I said, unable to repress a smile. “But isn’t it possible that death so transforms us that all these mortal concerns lose their meaning?”

  “Sure it’s possible,” he growled. “It’s also the easiest way for the medium to dodge any test that could prove or disprove the whole business. All we ever get are generalities. Or if an actual fact ever gets mentioned, it’s something the medium could have found out with a little research from local newspapers, or even from a bit of gossiping. As for the advice the spirits give . . . If all they have to tell us is to put on our woolen caps and mittens when the weather’s cold, why don’t we just let the poor things rest?”

  He took out his pipe and tobacco pouch, and I could see from his expression that he had said all he was about to say on the subject. So I turned to the window and the English countryside, and let the matter drop.

  21

  Our train gradually left the built-up areas of London behind, and we found ourselves in the English countryside. For once, it was not raining, though the sky was overcast and there was more than a hint of chill in the air. The train made stops in several towns along the way, letting off the occasional passenger. Not many got on to replace them, no real surprise considering we were going away from rather than toward the metropolis.

  For the most part, our view was green fields and bare autumn trees separated by hedgerows, with a thatched roof and a smoking chimney occasionally visible in the distance. When we stopped in the villages, we got a glimpse of quaint-looking cottages and an occasional stone church of evident antiquity. Once or twice I spotted a manor house or some such larger residence, usually surrounded by a substantial greensward and stately trees of considerable age. But English cattle and horses looked much like American cattle and horses, I thought to myself.

  Finally, the conductor knocked on our compartment door and announced that we were pulling into Varley, where Sir Denis had promised to meet us. Mr. Clemens and I put on our overcoats and made our way to the door at the end of the car just as the train began to slow down. Through the window, Varley appeared much like the other little villages the train had passed through, with tidy-looking houses, a few small shops, and an unpretentious train depot. The train came to a stop, and Mr. Clemens and I stepped out onto the platform and looked around.

  A porter stepped off the train onto the platform ahead of us, ready to assist any passenger with luggage. Another fellow in uniform was handing down a heavy pouch from one of the rear cars—the day’s mail, I surmised. A couple of other passengers had gotten off the train at the same time we did; a young woman with a small boy. An older man—her father?—met her, picked up the boy in one arm, and took them off to a waiting carriage. I expected to find Sir Denis, or possibly one of his servants, waiting for us; but there was nobody I recognized on the platform. “I hope we haven’t been stood up,” I said, remembering Mr. Clemens’s urging me not to dawdle in fear of keeping Sir Denis waiting.

  “Well, maybe he’s been delayed,” my employer said. “Let’s go in the station and get out of the cold. I reckon he knows to look inside if he doesn’t see us out here.” He pointed to the building at the end of the platform, and the two of us began walking in that direction.

  Near the track was harnessed a horse and a cart very much like an American buckboard. A lanky fellow with a long face and a dark knitted cap pulled low on his forehead sat on the driver’s seat, his hands thrust into the pockets of his long overcoat. “Hold on a second,” said Mr. Clemens. “Let’s see if this fellow’s rig is for hire, in case Sir Denis doesn’t show up.”

  The man looked up at our approach, and gave a sort of
salute. “Need a ride, sirs? Yer can’t do better nor Ned Perkins, no sir,” he said. His accent was distinctly different from anything I had heard on the streets of London.

  Mr. Clemens said, “Good to know that. The man we’re visiting said he’d meet us at the train, but he’s not here yet. Do you know where Sir Denis DeCoursey lives?”

  “Aye, that I do,” said Perkins. “Took hanother gen’l’man hout that way just this mornin’.”

  “Good,” said my employer. “About how far out of town is he? We may have to hire you if he isn’t here fairly soon.”

  “Oh, vive or six mile, thereabouts. ’Alf an hour or so to Sir Denis’s vront door. I’ll take the pair of ye vor a shilling, seein’ as how ye’ve no baggage.”

  “Well, that’s good to know,” said Mr. Clemens. “We’ll give him a little longer to get here, and if he doesn’t show up, we’ll ride with you. If he meets us on the way, we’ll pay you the full price.”

  “Vair enough, sir,” said the driver. “Won’t be another train for an hour, noways, so I can wait.”

  “Tell you what,” said my employer, reaching in his pocket and tossing the man a small silver coin. “Here’s something to hold the ride. If Sir Denis comes for us after all, you can go ahead and keep it to cover your waiting time.”

  Perkins caught the sixpenny bit and saluted again. “Right decent of you, sir. I’ll be waitin’ if you needs me.”

  Mr. Clemens waved back to the driver, and then we turned and headed for the station house again. But we had not gone more than a few paces when a loud report rang out, and I almost instinctively dodged behind a wooden bench on the platform. Mr. Clemens gave a jump, but then stood looking around for the source of the sound. I peeked up over the top of the bench and called to him, “Get down, for God’s sake! For all you know, they’re shooting at you.”

  “That didn’t sound like a gun to me,” he said, peering off toward the main street of the little town, Sure enough, the loud noise seemed to be coming from that direction—some sort of mechanical noise, I realized as I stood up, feeling rather foolish. The source of the sound became obvious as an outlandish contraption pulled into view: a bright green motorcar, the first I had ever seen actually running. The machine veered around the corner into the station at what I thought was an irresponsibly high speed, and came to an abrupt halt a short distance from where we stood. Ned Perkins had hopped off the seat of his rig and was holding his horse’s head, glowering at the machine, but the animal seemed to have calmed down quickly enough, after his initial startlement at the machine and its noise.

  One of the two men in the front seat stood up and waved in our direction. “Clemens!” cried a familiar voice—I now recognized Sir Denis DeCoursey despite the large goggles and muffler obscuring his features. “Jolly good to see you here!”

  “I’ll be damned,” muttered my employer, wrinkling his brows. “I’ve never ridden in one of those things before in my life. Looks like today’s the day, whether I feel like it or not.”

  Sir Denis clambered up to the platform, grinning broadly. He shook hands with both of us, chattering all the while. “Sorry not to be here earlier,” he said. “The silly thing has its own mind about when it wants to run, especially when the weather’s a bit cool. But she’ll be fine, now she’s warmed up. Climb aboard, I’ll show you how she runs.”

  “How fast does this thing go?” said Mr. Clemens, walking off alongside Sir Denis. For a moment, I was left standing on the platform. What little I knew about motorcars suggested that they were unreliable, and prone to spectacular smashups along the roadway. It was one thing to rip along at high speed on well-maintained railroad tracks, but quite another on a rutted country road, barely wide enough for two wagons to pass. On the other hand, it did look like an exciting way to get from one place to another, providing one did get there . . .

  Then Mr. Clemens turned and looked back at me. “Come on, Wentworth, you’ll miss all the fun,” he said in a jocular tone. “Or would you rather play it safe and ride with old Ned?” I snapped out of my moment of indecision, and followed my employer toward Sir Denis’s machine.

  Sir Denis introduced Mr. Clemens and me to Osmond, his driver and mechanic, who favored us with a few mumbled words that I could barely make out over the noise of the engine. We climbed into the seats, and Osmond adjusted a button similar to one of the stops on an organ, pushed on a large lever, and the vehicle gave a mechanical cough and lurched backward. At first I thought this was some kind of mistake, but the driver had turned around to look behind the vehicle, and so I decided it was probably intentional. The car abruptly came to a halt. Osmond threw the lever into a different position, then reached out and squeezed a rubber bulb on the right side of the car, which made a raucous horn blare out, startling Ned Perkins’s horse yet again. Paying no attention to the poor animal, Osmond took off with another lurch, this time in the forward direction.

  We rolled past the houses and shops of the little village at an astonishing rate. The inhabitants were evidently already used to seeing this contraption on their main street—we passed several people who barely spared a glance at us. Two local dogs did decide to make it their business to chase us out of town—at least, I assume they weren’t actually trying to catch us. Then, almost before I could get a proper look at the town, we were on a country lane, whizzing past fields and little groves of trees.

  The road out here was much rougher than in town, and we were kicking up far more dust than a horse-drawn vehicle would have. I felt that I might be thrown loose at every curve. Fortunately, there was a sturdy brass rail mounted on the back of the front bench of the motorcar, and I held on to it as if my life depended on it—which it quite possibly did. But for sheer dread, nothing matched the moment when we crested a hill only to see an enormous farm wagon and a straining team of oxen on the road directly in front of us. To this day, I could not tell you how we missed it—I fear my eyes were closed tight at the crucial instant—but when I opened them, I found that either by Osmond’s skill or by the grace of God, we were still alive. I knew then that the future held no further terrors for me. I had ridden in a motorcar driven by a madman, and I had lived to tell the tale. Not even the prospect of returning to town by the same conveyance could intimidate me now.

  Shortly after that, the driver slowed down and made a turn between two rugged stone pillars into a tree lined lane. Sir Denis turned around and shouted something at us, but I could not make out what he said. Then I looked where he was pointing, and between the trees I could make out the front of a large stone building directly ahead of us. His home, obviously—and the closer we got, the more impressed I was.

  Finally, we cleared the trees, and I could see the entire building. It was symmetrical, three stories high in the center and two on each wing. It was made of a reddish stone, perhaps sandstone, with a slate roof and numerous light pink chimney pots. In front, there was a large greensward, with boxwood hedge cut into fanciful geometric patterns. The driveway curved around the central lawn in a large circle, broad enough for three coaches to pass. The windows were large and numerous, set off with slate-gray shutters. To judge from the number of windows, the center portion was three rooms wide, and the wings the same (though a bit smaller). A gilded weathervane in the shape of a hunter aiming his gun decorated the central portion of the main roof. And, despite its rural location, a line of wooden poles carried electrical service to the house. I had seen plenty of fine homes in America, but nothing quite so impressive as this. And I could not help but think—if this was where a baronet lived, what must a duke’s palace be like?

  The driver took us around the driveway in a clockwise direction, and came to a stop near the large front door. This was in proportion to the rest of the building—in other words, of a size I associated more with public buildings than with private homes, with heavy brass hardware and a knocker shaped like a bearded Turk’s head. Osmond touched a button and the sound of the engine died. The sudden silence was as startling as the noise had be
en when first I heard it. Two large dogs—pointers, I thought—had come loping around from the side of the building to meet us, and stood waiting eagerly for Sir Denis to descend from the car.

  “So, Clemens, how do you like her?” cried Sir Denis, turning around to face us. “Isn’t this a smashing way to ride about?”

  “I guess so!” said my employer, with an enthusiasm I did not entirely share. “I’d buy one of these babies in a minute if I was in my home in Hartford. Where’d you get this thing, anyhow?”

  Sir Denis patted the engine housing and said, “The mechanical part’s German-made, by a fellow named Daimler. He’s supposed to be a wizard—I read about him in the Times, and ordered up a motor and all that. It came in five different crates, and Osmond had to put it together from odd little pieces. But I wanted good British workmanship for the body—there’s a carriage maker down in Ashford who does wonders with wood and metal, and I gave him some drawings out of a magazine. It took a couple of tries before he and Osmond got everything fit together just so, but it was worth it. In ten years, everybody will have one of these, I’ll wager, but I’ve got mine now.”

  Mr. Clemens laughed. “I know how that feels,” he said. “I was one of the first men in America to have a telephone in my house, back in ’seventy-four. The damned thing was more a nuisance than any practical good—there wasn’t much of anybody I could call, at first—but I had it before anybody else, and that sure felt good.”

  “Well, I don’t hold with telephones,” said Sir Denis firmly. “I don’t want to make things too easy for just any rascal who takes the notion to try to sell me something, or badger me some other way. If someone’s going to waste my time, I want him right here where I can give him a good kick in the arse when I get tired of his jabber. But we needn’t stand here in the open—come on in, and we’ll have a nip of something to take off the chill.”