Part 4

“But why does all this make you wish you were I?”

“That’s soon told. Holding has written again and wishes to engage the services of my husband and his medium exclusively. My husband has warned him that the spirits will not continue to interest themselves in his business, but he says that he does not mind that and that there are other things that interest him as much as business. The terms he offers are princely. The work would delight us both. And here comes the trouble: from the moment that I answered that question about the stock--perhaps because I answered it--I have lost power. My husband has searched London for a medium to take my place and can find none. Some of them drink, and very many of them cheat, and those who are decent and honest very often fail to get the results. And that is why I wish I were you; for I feel just as sure that you are an excellent medium as I am that you are good and above any kind of trickery. You won’t think me impertinent? I’ve always studied faces, you know.”

“But how can I be a medium? I have never done anything of the kind in my life.”

“But that does not matter--not in the very least. I am quite sure of what I say. I only wish you had some spare evenings, and wanted to make money, and could help us.”

“All my evenings are spare evenings, and I do want to make money. But I fear my help would be worth nothing.”

“Come and see at least.” She glanced at her watch. “My husband will be back in a few minutes. We live at 32 Hanford Gardens--quite near here.” Perhaps she noticed the look of cautious hesitation on my face. “Or would you rather come later? You might prefer to----”

“No,” I said, “I’ll come now.” I confess that I felt rather curious. I was not in the least a believer in spiritualism, but I did believe--and do still believe--that things happen for which no known law supplies the explanation.

No. 32 Hanford Gardens was a little box of a place with a small walled garden. It was an old house, and the tiny room into which my new friend brought me was panelled. The panels had been painted a dark green, and the thick noiseless carpet was of the same colour. It struck me, I remember, that they must have given a good price for that carpet. It was scantily furnished with a square table, a few solid mahogany chairs, and a couch in the recess by the fireplace. A man sat by the table, and in front of him was what looked like a glass ball, the size of a cricket-ball, resting on a strip of black velvet. He rose as we came in. The light was dim--for the room was lit only by one small shaded lamp in a sconce on the wall--but I could see that he was a gaunt man of forty, hollow-eyed, with a strong blue chin, looking like a tired actor.

I had already given my new acquaintance my name and learned that she was Mrs. Dentry. She presented her husband, and in a few words explained the situation. He had a pleasant voice and rather a dreamy, abstracted manner.

“It is very kind of you,” he said hesitatingly. “I do not know, of course, if you have a spiritual power, and one meets with many disappointments--as I have already done this evening. Still, one can try.”

“My husband,” said Mrs. Dentry, in explanation, “has been to-night to see a medium who professed to get most wonderful results. So he was no good, Hector?”

“Worse than that. Conjuring tricks--and not even new conjuring tricks.”

Then he turned to me with a host of rapid questions, and seemed satisfied with my answers. “We may have no results, but at any rate there will be no trickery.” He glanced at his watch. “Unfortunately, I have to go out for half an hour to see a client of mine. But my wife knows what to do--you will be able to make your first experiments without me.”

He went out and presently I heard the front door bang. Mrs. Dentry made 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.