The Spiritglass Charade (Stoker & Holmes 2)
Page 17I was on my feet as well, dashing over to turn on the gas lamp. Our guide’s face returned to normal, and although her mouth gaped open and her eyes were closed, she now breathed normally.
“Mrs. Yingling.” Mina gently shook the elderly woman. “Are you quite all right?”
The medium blinked, then her attention darted about. “What are you doing out of your seats? Why have you broken the circle? Why have you turned the lights on? The spirits cannot cross over into our world in such bright light!”
Mina and I exchanged glances, then my companion continued to lean over the old woman. “You appeared to be in distress, madam.”
I could hear the skepticism in her voice. Mina took the opportunity of her proximity to feel around the woman’s chair and beneath the table in front of her. Searching for trick wires, no doubt.
Then, realizing my knees were a trifle wobbly and my palms a bit damp, I turned to see how the others were faring. Miss Norton appeared to have gotten herself under control with the assistance of Miss Rolstone and Aunt Geraldine. But Miss Ashton didn’t seem to have moved from her place at the table.
In fact, she was staring at something high above. Her lips moved silently, and I could make out the word “Mother.”
In the shadows of the inset ceiling, I saw the faintest wisp of a gaseous shape . . . glowing, faintly sparkling, like a soft green cloud.
And then it was gone.
Miss Stoker
In Which Our Heroines See Different Sides of the Same Coin
“Diversion, Miss Stoker,” said my companion crisply as we rode away from Miss Ashton’s home. It was nearly two o’clock, and heavy rain clouds rolled in.
Mina had her long nose lifted slightly, which was the sure sign of a coming lecture. “Performances such as the one we were subjected to are all a matter of diversion and timing. Trip wires, mirrors, tricks of light, special shoe-pads to make the rapping sounds, and other mechanisms your medievalist brain cannot conceive. When one is distracted by a noise or sight, another play is set in motion. Spiritualism is nothing more than sophisticated sleight of hand.”
I was in no mood to listen to her. What had happened in Miss Ashton’s parlor left me unsettled and jumpy. I wasn’t going to let my companion dismiss it with a wave of her gloved hand and her so-called deductions. “Did you find any trip wires when you were examining Mrs. Yingling? Or any shoe-pads?”
“I didn’t have the opportunity to fully investigate. But I did find,” she raised her voice over my snort, “a length of black thread—precisely where Mrs. Yingling was sitting. Along with another dead cricket.”
“Are you suggesting that tiny woman somehow moved a massive table with a piece of thread and a dead bug?”
“Of course not. But the thread was likely part of some other mechanism that caused the rapping. Either that or, as the Fox Sisters did, she may have simply been cracking her joints.”
“That’s how they do it. For certain people, cracking a toe or ankle or knee joint can make a noise resembling rapping. If I had more opportunity to examine the chamber we were in, I’d be able to tell you precisely how it was done. All of it. It was all fakery and fraud.”
“No mechanical device caused Mrs. Yingling to speak in that strange, dark voice, and—”
“On the contrary. It could easily have been some sort of voice-altering mechanism attached to her throat—did you notice how high her lace collar was? And how thick the column of her neck appeared? Of course you didn’t.” She tsked and I rolled my eyes as she launched into her familiar speech. “The art of observation is lost on the average individual—no, it is lost on every individual I have ever met—with the exception of my uncle and my father.”
“What about Inspector Grayling? As I recall, he matched you fact for fact at the crime scene inside the British Museum.”
As I hoped, my own diversion derailed her. Mina gave her little sniff, as she often did when she had no response to something. But the reprieve didn’t last long, and she continued her lecture without even acknowledging my jibe about Grayling.
“I had been expecting some sort of occurrence in which the medium pretends to take on the spirit of a deceased person and speaks in an altered voice. The combination of a vibrating device that changes the pressure on the larynx with excellent playacting skills easily explains what you saw and heard today, Miss Stoker. And that is why I am certain Mrs. Yingling is taking advantage of our grieving friend Miss Ashton to extort great amounts of money from her. No wonder the princess is concerned.”
I leaned across the carriage toward her. “Then explain, Miss Alvermina Holmes, if you are so accomplished at deduction and observation, how that elderly woman knew an old man’s pet name for me. And how she even knew of the old man—Mr. O’Gallegh.” I used Mina’s full name purposely, and was rewarded as she winced. But to my surprise, she closed her mouth and blinked, as if my words had finally penetrated.
“Hm.”
“A simple matter of research.” She waved away my question with a flap of her hand. “Mrs. Yingling is obviously well versed in her performances, and she wouldn’t have come ill-prepared. She would have spoken to people, learned all about you—”
“But, Mina.” I spread my hands wide. It was better than trying to strangle her. “Not only did Miss Ashton not know I was to attend, but there is no one who could have told her—or anyone—that Mr. O’Gallegh called me Linny-Lou.”
“What do you mean?”
“Mr. O’Gallegh . . . he was the cog-filer near our old street in Bloomsbury, before we moved to Grantworth House more than a year ago. Who knew I was friends with an old merchant man who died twelve months ago, and especially who called me a pet name no one else had ever heard? There is no one who would know or care.”
“Someone must have told her. Or told someone who told her.”
Her words were stout, but for the first time, she seemed uncertain. I pressed my advantage. I needed her to understand. Something real had happened in that parlor. “I know there are many mediums who’ve been proven to be frauds—but I don’t think she’s one. Mr. O’Gallegh was killed by a vampire. I was there the night he died. No one but he and I and my mentor knew what happened. Did you hear him—the voice, I mean—tonight? He spoke of Judas’s minions. He meant vampires. No one else could have known about that night.”