me sit at the table and place my hands on it. “Wait,” she said, “until
you are sure that the spirits are present, and then ask them aloud to
raise the table from the floor.”
She went over to the other end of the room and turned out the lamp;
then she lit a lamp that gave a little blue flicker, by which I could
distinguish nothing except the face of Mrs. Dentry standing beside it.
For a few moments nothing happened; then loud raps came from all
parts of the room, and the pictures rattled on the walls, and a cold
wind blew sharply across my face and hands. I was astounded. Mrs.
Dentry had not moved from her position at the other end of the room,
and I could just see that she was smiling.
“I knew it would be all right,” she said softly. “Go on, please.”
“If there are spirits here,” I said--and somehow the voice hardly
sounded like my own--“I ask them to raise this table from the ground.”
Very gradually I felt the table--which was fairly solid and
heavy--begin to rise. It rose about two feet in the air and
remained suspended. I pressed on it with my hands and could not
force it down. After a moment or two it fell to the ground with a
bang, and I removed my hands.
“That will do,” I said faintly, and Mrs. Dentry struck a match and
re-lit the lamp. Then she and I sat on the sofa and talked. She
said that I was wonderful and must certainly come and help them. If
she might mention terms, she knew that her husband would pay a guinea
for each sitting; at any rate I must come while the Wentworth Holding
business was on. She urged that I owed it to myself to develop my
marvellous powers. As she was talking I heard the click of a key in
the front door and Mr. Dentry entered, his hat and gloves still in
his hands.
“Well?” he said eagerly. “Did you get anything?”
“Anything?” said his wife. “Everything. Miss Castel is a really
wonderful medium.”
We talked on for some time. I would promise them nothing definitely.
But I gave them my address, and said that I would probably come once
again at any rate. They were in despair that I would not give them
any further assurance, but I was obstinate. I regarded the whole
thing with a curious mixture of curiosity and repulsion.
* * * * * *
Next morning Mrs. Dentry called to see me. Wentworth Holding was
sending a man of science that night to examine into the whole thing;
it was essential that I should be there.
“If I go,” I said, “I do not want my name given.”
“Certainly,” said Mrs. Dentry. “You will be addressed as Una.”
“Then,” I said, “Mr. Holding’s tame investigator would be made to
believe that I was the same medium that foretold the fall of the
stock. I don’t like that.”
“True,” said Mrs. Dentry. “I hadn’t thought of that. It doesn’t
really much matter. But you’d better be called Una all the same;
there’s no cheating about it, because you’re ever so much better than
the original Una.”
“I don’t think so. This morning, for instance, I tried the automatic
writing and got nothing.”
“That’s because you don’t know how to set about it. My husband will
show you. I myself failed scores of times at first. But as for the
name, that must be just as you wish. You may be quite nameless if
you like.”
“I should prefer it.”
“And please don’t make any more experiments without us. If the
conditions are not right you will get no results, and in any case you
will be tiring yourself. We want you to-night to be as fresh and
full of vitality as possible. If you could get an hour’s sleep this
afternoon it would be all the better.”
But I could not sleep that afternoon although I made the attempt.
There were things in my interview with Mrs. Dentry that I did not
quite like. I began to wish that I had never gone into the business
at all.
* * * * * *
I kept my appointment at nine that night, and the Dentrys’ rather
frowsy maid showed me into the room where I had been on the previous
evening. Two men in evening dress stood by the fireplace. One was
Dentry; the other was a short, solid-looking man with a closely
clipped grey beard. At the table sat an elderly lady in black, with
tight lips and a proud, disapproving face. Dentry thanked me for
coming, and explained that his wife could not be present. “She is,
in fact, taking some of my regular work in order that I may be free.”
The grey-bearded man was introduced to me as Dr. Morning. The
elderly lady, to whom I was not presented, was his wife.
“The doctor and Mrs. Morning are acting for Mr. Wentworth Holding,”
said Dentry. “They are here to find out whether we cheat. I admit
the unfortunate necessity of such an examination, and I may add that
I welcome it. How will you begin, Dr. Morning?”
“With the walls.”
“Certainly,” said Dentry. He changed his position and leaned against
one of the panels. The doctor began with that panel, but neither
there nor in the rest of his thorough examination of the room did he
seem to come across anything of a suspicious character. This part of
the business rather bored me. I wanted to get on and see what would
happen.
The doctor produced several straps with bells attached to them, and
Mrs. Morning fastened a couple of these on my hands and wrists. She
did this without speaking a word to me, and as she tightened the
strap on my wrists she looked as if she wished they had been
handcuffs. The doctor secured Dentry in a similar manner. If either
he or I moved hand or foot the sound of the bells would betray us.
The doctor, Dentry and myself took our seats at the table in the
usual way. Mrs. Morning sat at a little distance. All the lights
were put out, but there was an unlit candle on a little table beside
Mrs. Morning, and she held a box of matches ready in her hand.
Almost immediately Dentry asked, in a clear, loud voice, “Is there
any spirit here present? From a far corner of the room came a low
snarl as of some wild beast.
“The spirit present,” said Dentry, “is an evil spirit. It will be
safer not to go on with the sitting.”
“We will go on, please,” said Dr. Morning.
“Very well,” said Dentry. “I disclaim all responsibility.”
“Of course,” said the doctor. There was distinctly a note of
contempt in his voice.
For a few slow minutes we went on sitting in silence, and then I
heard a crash. Mrs. Morning struck a match and lit the candle at her
side. I could see that the doctor had been thrown violently to the
ground. “All right, all right,” he said to his wife. “I’m not hurt.
Let me have a little more light, please.”
He remained seated on the carpet while his wife lit the lamp and
Dentry stood over him expressing his regret for what had happened.
The doctor took no notice of Dentry. He put on a pair of gold-rimmed
spectacles, and as soon as the lamp was lit put his head down so that
his eyes were nearly level with the carpet. Then he got up briskly,
brushing the dust from his clothes. “That will do,” he said. “We
will be going now, and I will call on you, Mr. Dentry, to-morrow
morning at ten o’clock, if that suits you.”
“Certainly,” said Dentry. “Any time you like, Dr. Morning.” He
seemed to me to be trying to cover with an attempt at swagger some
real uneasiness. He kept on pointing out to the doctor how severe
the test conditions had been.
I was left alone when they had passed out into the hall, but the
doctor came back almost immediately on the plea that he had left his
spectacles. He turned to me at once. “Know these people well?” he
said.
“No; my acquaintance with Mrs. Dentry was a chance one.”
“Done this kind of thing often before?”
“Only once, on the one occasion when I was here before. Mrs. Dentry
told me I was a medium.”
“She would,” said the doctor grimly. “Well, you’re not. You’d
better leave it.”
“I will.”
“I believe,” he said meditatively, “you are all right. Good night.”
And he held out his hand to me. I followed him into the hall, and I
noticed that he did not shake hands with Dentry.
After the doctor and his wife had gone Dentry pressed me to wait for
a few minutes to see his wife. She would be certain to return in a
few minutes.
I refused, and I also refused to let him escort me home. But, as it
chanced, I had an escort all the same. For just outside in the
street I happened to meet Minnie Saxe.
“I didn’t know you went to that place, miss,” said Minnie Saxe
severely.
“What’s the matter with it?” I asked. And Minnie Saxe told me what
was the matter with it.
* * * * * *
After breakfast next morning I sat and thought it over. Minnie Saxe
and her father had been employed as caretakers at 32 Hanford Gardens.
Her father had been also employed to repaint some of the rooms. Thus
Minnie Saxe knew that the wainscot in the recess on the left of the
fireplace in the front room was removable. It was impossible for
anyone in the front room to detect this. On that side it appeared to
be tightly nailed and solid. But anyone in the back room could slide
a couple of bolts and find a way open into the front room. Also,
nobody knew how Mr. and Mrs. Dentry made their money. Also, Mr.
Dentry drank. And it was Minnie Saxe’s belief that they were engaged
in the manufacture of false coin.
It was all quite clear to me now. The Dentrys had required an
accomplice. And an accomplice is a very dangerous person. If they could
get some simple, honest fool, like myself, to believe she was a medium
and that she was in reality responsible for the manifestations, all
would be safe. The accomplice would not even know that there was any
trickery. On the first occasion when I was at Hanford Gardens, Mr.
Dentry had not left the house. A front door may shut heavily though no
one goes in or out. And I could see that Dentry had brought his hat and
gloves into the room instead of leaving them in the hall, with a view
to impressing me with the idea that he had not been in the house. Of
course he had been in the back room and had entered by the wainscot.
There was a reason doubtless for that thick and noiseless carpet. At
the next sitting Mrs. Dentry had simply taken the place of her husband.
I knew that Dr. Morning had discovered the trick, but I could not make
out how he had discovered it. He had removed a couch and examined that
particular piece of wainscot with the utmost care, and I am sure that
he had been perfectly satisfied with it.
In the meantime, what was I to do? Ought I to inform the police, or
to write to Mr. Wentworth Holding, or to call on Dr. Morning? Great
though my disgust with the Dentrys was, I had a stupid woman’s
reluctance to get them into serious trouble. As I was thinking over
these things there came a tap at my outer door. Minnie Saxe had gone
and I opened the door myself. Mrs. Dentry stood there, looking very
nice and fresh and neat.
“Have you just a few minutes to spare?” she said.
I asked her to come in.
“It’s such a disappointment,” she began. “Dr. Morning was quite
satisfied--indeed, under his conditions any trickery would have been
impossible. But Mr. Holding has developed religious scruples. He
won’t go on. So I fear I have no more work of the kind to offer you.
In fact, we are leaving for Liverpool to-morrow ourselves. We have
heard of an opening there. But I have brought your fee.” She began
fumbling with her purse.
“I shall not take your money, Mrs. Dentry,” I said. “I know exactly
how the swindle is worked. Minnie Saxe, who was once employed by you
as caretaker, is at present my servant. And she is a very observant
and intelligent child. But there are two things I don’t understand,
and I should like you to explain them.”
Beyond the fact that she breathed a little quicker, Mrs. Dentry
seemed quite unput out. “What are your questions?” she asked.
“I have never given you my address. How did you know it?”
“My husband followed you home last night. He was afraid of any
communication between you and the doctor. He did not recognise
Minnie Saxe, nor do I think he knows how much she has found out. And
the other question?”
“How did Dr. Morning find out? I am sure his examination of the
walls of the room told him nothing.”
“You are quite right,” she said. “It was only at the last moment
that he discovered anything.”
“You mean that he saw you under the sofa, or that you had not time to
replace the wainscot?”
Mrs. Dentry smiled sadly. “Oh, I’m not quite so clumsy as that,” she
said. “I was out in the other room and the wainscot was in its place
even before the match was struck.”
“You had left something behind you, perhaps? A handkerchief?”
“No, I don’t leave things behind me. I wear a dress the colour of
the carpet and specially suited for quick, athletic movement. It has
no pockets in it. I’m not sure if you’d call it a dress at all. The
thing was simplicity itself. I had warned my husband against it
before. The carpet has a long thick pile. When anybody crawls
across a carpet of that kind they leave a trail that it does not take
an Indian to discover. Dr. Morning chanced to think of that, and saw
that the trail led directly under the sofa. He began this morning by
saying to me, ‘If you will not let me see the room on the other side
of this wall, the whole thing is a swindle, and I shall give Mr.
Holding my reasons for thinking so.’ I tried to bluster it out. The
game was lost, but I might at any rate have managed to put a good
face on it. Unfortunately, my husband came in. He’d been drinking.
It was too awful, and----”
Here Mrs. Dentry collapsed suddenly and burst into tears.
It is not very easy to be severe with a woman who is crying because
her husband is a blackguard and she is a failure. I, at any rate, am
not clever enough for it. Before she went she gave me some curious
scraps of her personal history. She and her husband had always been,
and still were, firm believers in spiritualism. When she wrote down
the fall of the stock about which Mr. Holding was inquiring, she was
convinced that her hand was really controlled. In order to make a
living though, and to attract the public, more was required than
could legitimately be obtained. It was necessary to supplement.
This struck me as a nice euphemism.
I gave a sigh of relief when she had gone. I was glad to be quit of
that business.
VI
UNREWARDED
As I have already explained, my adventures with the spiritualists
were more interesting than remunerative. I contrasted rather
bitterly my light-hearted start upon my career in London and my
present condition. It had seemed so simple to forsake the usual
futile and ill-paid lines of women’s work and to find a new and
better way for myself. I had found nothing. It was due more to my
luck than my judgment that I was not already at the end of my
resources. As it was they were fast dwindling.
Every day I made a point of going out into the stimulating life of
crowded London streets. Somewhere in them I felt that I should find
my chance. Amid so much that was happening there would be some
circumstance that I could use to my profit. I trained myself to
observe. Whether it was by day or by night that I had taken my walk
I always sat down on my return and reviewed in my mind what I had
seen and wondered whether there were anything that I could turn to
account.
One morning after breakfast, as I picked up my newspaper, my eye fell
on an announcement that a lady had lost a pug-dog and would pay one
guinea for his restoration. It seemed to me queer that I had never
thought of this before. Why should I not find things and get
rewards? Pug-dogs at a guinea a time did not represent wealth, but
there were more serious losses that brought higher rewards. The same
paper provided me with an instance. On the evening of the 20th
inst., in or near Erciston Square, West, Lady Meskell had lost a
pearl necklace. A description of it was appended and a reward of
four hundred pounds was offered.
I knew Erciston Square very well. It had been rather a favourite
place with me in my wanderings. I liked to see the arrivals and
departures at dinners, dances and receptions. Sometimes great people
were pointed out to me.
“That’s the Spanish Ambassador,” I heard one ragged boy say to
another. I have not the least conception how he knew, but I am quite
certain he was right. That was at No. 14, and it was to No. 14 that
the pearl necklace, if found, was to be restored. It struck me that
the reward offered was unusually large. I had seen pearl necklaces
in shop windows which could be bought for less. Still, undoubtedly
their value might mount to almost any figure.
A paragraph in the paper threw a little more light on the subject.
Lady Meskell was a fashionable woman, and was always taking stalls at
bazaars, or acting in amateur theatricals on behalf of different
charities. She affected to treat her loss lightly. “The necklace
was not really very valuable,” she said, “but I prized it for its
associations. It was given me by my husband. On Wednesday night I
was walking in the garden of the Square, as I often do on fine summer
evenings. I believe,” she added, “that I am the only resident who
makes any use of the garden at all, except perhaps a few children in
the afternoon. My necklace must have dropped either in the garden or
the street. As soon as I discovered my loss I had the garden, which
of course is not accessible to the public, thoroughly searched from
end to end, and nothing was found. I’m afraid it must have dropped
in the street, where, of course, it would have been snapped up at
once.” She had communicated with the police and was quite hopeful
that the necklace would be recovered. “You see,” she added, “I am
offering a reward which is really more than a thief would be able to
get for it.”
There were one or two points about her statements which seemed to me
rather curious. I turned up a very rough and abbreviated diary that
I was in the habit of keeping, and found, as I had expected, that on
the evening of Wednesday the 20th I had walked through Erciston
Square. The time must have been between six and seven. I lay back
in my chair and closed my eyes and conjured up a picture of Erciston
Square garden as seen by the public from outside. It was much like
any other of the square gardens. Masses of sooty evergreens gave it
a decent privacy. Geraniums and blue lobelias struggled for life in
a prim bed that skirted a formal and shaven lawn. There were a few
big plane trees, and in the middle of the garden there was a kind of
summer-house or shelter. What had I seen in Erciston Square on
Wednesday evening which would throw any light on the matter? I had
seen something; I had seen somebody leave the garden, and that
somebody was most certainly not Lady Meskell. A faint idea came to
me--it was hardly a theory as yet.
I went to the public reading-room next day and looked over those
papers which purvey fashionable intelligence and personal paragraphs,
and as Lady Meskell had been brought into the public eye by the loss
of her pearls I found a good deal about her. Her present age was not
given, but she was spoken of as being young. And there were the
usual rhapsodies about her beauty. She was of mixed parentage, her
mother having been Spanish and her father English. She had inherited
fortunes both from her father and her husband. The latter had been
dead about three years, and she had not re-married. She had one
daughter, a girl of nine. She was generous, particularly to her
favourite charities, and her dramatic abilities were spoken of in
terms that the Press do not often spare for amateurs. Well, there
was nothing here to contradict the idea that I had already formed.
Indeed, there was one detail that confirmed it.
For a week I hesitated. Every day I saw in the paper Lady Meskell’s
announcement of the reward of four hundred pounds. I wanted those
four hundred pounds rather badly. Suppose I called at No. 14
Erciston Square? If my guess was wrong as it might very easily be, I
should make Lady Meskell exceedingly angry. Need that concern me
very much? If I were right, then the possibilities were great.
That afternoon I bought a new hat, which suited me. That always
gives me courage. And I took a hansom. Nothing keeps one’s nerves
steadier and raises one’s self-respect more than a little
extravagance, and I could not afford either the hat or the hansom. I
drove to No. 14, and demanded in a clear and unfaltering voice if I
could see Lady Meskell.
“Her ladyship is not at home,” said the butler. And I own that it
was some relief to me to hear it.
“Will you tell her ladyship,” I said, as I handed him my card, “that
I called with reference to her pearl necklace?”
The man hesitated. “It is just possible that I may be mistaken,” he
said. “If you will wait for one minute I will inquire.”
He showed me into a big, over-furnished and over-decorated
drawing-room. As I was looking at rather a nice copy of a well-known
Rubens, the door opened and Lady Meskell came towards me.
Lady Meskell was anywhere between thirty-five and forty-five. She
was still distinctly beautiful. Her eyes and hair were very dark.
Her complexion was perhaps a little too pale, but I liked it. Rouge
would not have suited her. Her general appearance seemed to suggest
a curious association of poetry and commonness. The commonness was
not in her dress, which was very quiet, very expensive, and in the
fashion of the day after to-morrow. I think it lay in her mouth (she
had a brute of a mouth) and in her rather podgy white hands. Her
smile of welcome showed perfect teeth--perhaps it was intended to
show them. The fat fingers of one hand twisted up my card.
“This is very good of you, Miss Castel,” she said at once. “Do sit
down and tell me all about it. And first of all, have you got my
pearls?”
“No, Lady Meskell,” I said, “I have not got them.”
Her expression did not change at this. She still listened with an
air of polite attention.
“But,” I continued, “I have thought over the case and I have formed a
theory. If the theory is correct I can tell you where your pearls
are.”
“How interesting! The police, you know, have been no good at all. I
shall be so glad to have some fresh light on the subject, even if it
does not actually lead to anything.”
I felt convinced that she did not expect me to be able to tell her
anything at all, and that, as a kind-hearted woman, she meant to let
me babble for a few minutes and then get rid of me.
“On the other hand,” I said, “if my theory should happen to be wrong,
you will be exceedingly angry with me.”
Lady Meskell laughed. “Oh, I hope not,” she said. “I am very seldom
angry, but when I am I become rather awful.”
“The Spanish are privileged to have passions,” I said, “and you, I
think, are partly Spanish. You begin to frighten me.”
Again she laughed. “You needn’t be afraid really. How did you know
I was partly Spanish? Oh, yes, it was in the papers, of course.
Whatever your theory is, I want to hear it. And I will take all the
responsibility of making you tell me it.”
“That’s very kind of you. Your pearl necklace was not lost at all.
It was stolen by a man of about forty. He was wearing a dark suit, a
dark blue overcoat with a velvet collar, and a hard felt hat. He
left the Square garden at five-and-twenty minutes to seven by the
gate on the other side of the Square. He was a foreigner and is
almost certainly employed in some menial capacity. I cannot tell you
his name, but I have no doubt that further information could be
obtained at the Spanish Embassy. Although I have brought you here
the information which may enable you to recover your necklace, it is
information that you had in your possession all along. You know more
even than I do, for you know both the names of this man.”
“This is really very interesting,” said Lady Meskell. “You saw this
man leave the garden, I suppose?”
“I did.”
“And you have remembered it all this time?”
“I have trained myself to remember.”
“You are right in your description of his appearance. He is a
foreigner, and he is--or was--a servant. What made you suggest that
anything could be heard of him at the Spanish Embassy?”
“Your mother was Spanish. The Spanish Ambassador attends your
receptions. His carriage was pointed out to me.”
“A mistake,” said Lady Meskell bluntly. “He has never been here, and
I know no Spaniards. Deduction is a dangerous game, and it seems to
me that you’ve been playing it rather freely. You deduced, for
instance, that what you said would make me extremely angry. Now,
nothing that you have said could possibly make anybody angry. Not
even your suggestion of complicity. But I can quite imagine that
something which you thought might annoy a woman in my position
extremely. Now tell me what you thought.”
“I have made a mistake. I am sorry to have troubled you, and I will
go now, please.”
“Please don’t. You won’t tell me?”
I shook my head.