Séance for a Vampire by Fred Saberhagen (top ebook reader TXT) 📗

the former are built in the darkness of the womb of the animal body, and the latter within the darkness of the soil.”

Armstrong did not appear to be impressed. “I suppose that where it is necessary to produce phenomena in this manner, fraud may find a ready entrance.”

Her smile did not waver. “I feel confident we can all depend on you, sir, and on these other gentlemen from London, to make sure that nothing of the kind occurs.”

Mrs. Altamont was delighted with this answer, and applauded. Obviously this lady, even prior to Louisa’s drowning, had already developed an enthusiasm for séances, for she spoke of having attended several at other people’s houses. And when tragedy struck her family, the lady had been ripe to be “helped.”

One strong objection to the theory that we were about to witness a simply fraudulent performance was the problem of where, if some accomplice was intended to play the role of Louisa, such an impostor might currently be concealed.

Ambrose Altamont had joined us before dinner. Afterward, to help Holmes and myself find answers to this and other difficulties, our host took an opportunity to conduct the two of us on a short tour of the house and the immediate grounds, under the guise of simply showing us the gardens.

Proceeding slowly, we three circled the house. There were no dogs to be concerned about, both of the senior Altamonts having a general dislike of the species. Ambrose also claimed to suffer a physical sensitivity to the animals. That, I thought, might make matters easier both for impostors–if any–and investigators.

Holmes took the opportunity to ask what room or rooms were immediately above the parlor or sitting room in which the séance was to be held. Two bedrooms, our host replied, but in that part of the house, there was no direct communication between floors.

During the course of this tour, Ambrose Altamont suggested to us that the house and the grounds could be swiftly searched, without warning, before darkness descended upon us entirely, in hopes of exposing any planned trickery before it came about. The master of the house assured us that he had a couple of trusty servants ready to undertake the task.

Holmes expressed his opinion that such a search was unlikely to discover anything useful.

When we had returned to the house, Mrs. Altamont remarked worriedly in my presence that today the Kirkaldys did not seem quite their usual selves.

“I thought the young woman gave quite a good account of herself when questioned.”

“True enough, Dr. Watson, but to me–and I know her better than you do–Sarah looks quite haggard, as if some new problem had come up just this afternoon. but she says there is nothing.”

“I suppose it could be the presence of Mr. Holmes and myself.”

“She says not. Oh, I hope devoutly that the strain, whatever it is, will not prove too much for the poor girl.”

I commented that I thought that unlikely; still, I thought that both brother and sister did look rather worn.

Sarah spoke rather mechanically of the possibility that no manifestations would occur at tonight’s sitting. She said that such a negative result was frequently the case when conditions were not right.

Privately I was quite ready to attribute this seeming reluctance to perform to the presence of investigators–ourselves. but Holmes was not so sure.

So far, at least, tonight’s sitting had not been canceled. Still, I could not escape the feeling that if the two mediums had felt themselves perfectly free in the matter, they would have preferred at least to postpone it.

Mrs. Altamont in conversation informed me that the S.P.R., or Society for Psychical Research, had been founded in England in 1882. Its purpose, she stated, lay in pursuit of objective research, not worship or the giving of spiritual solace.

Actually, as Holmes himself later pointed out to me, the practitioners and enthusiasts of mesmerism (or “hypnosis” as certain medical men had called it for a generation) were not likely to support the S.P.R., for they generally regarded spirit-rappings and table-turnings as fraudulent or foolish.

I commented that Holmes must have been doing a good bit of private research into these matters since 1897. He replied that he had begun his studies in the subject considerably earlier: “My two years in Tibet were not wasted, Watson.”

“You have never spoken to me at length of what happened during that time.”

“Your enthusiasm for such matters, old fellow, has been remarkably restrained. Suffice it to say that I thought the time not wasted when we had to face our peculiar difficulties of eighteen ninety-seven.”

With the onset of the long summer twilight, and the drawing near of the hour for our appointed confrontation with the spirits, the physical atmosphere in and around the house seemed ever to grow more oppressively sultry. The rain that had threatened earlier did not come. Louisa’s mother, all eagerness to begin the sitting, beseeched and encouraged her reluctant pair of sensitives to bring her daughter once more before her.

When Mrs. Altamont, reminded of Louisa, wept, one of the mediums told her: “The veil, as we know, is very thin, and you must let yourself be comforted with the certainty that she is not far away.”

And suddenly Abraham gave indications of an extreme reluctance to conduct the séance at all. I saw and heard him, looking and sounding rather ill, propose quietly to his sister that they abandon the plan and leave the house at once.

Sarah Kirkaldy needed several minutes to argue and cajole Abraham into going on.

Listening, while trying not to appear to do so, I heard her last remark, which seemed to clinch the case: “Remember a’ the chamber pots an’ dirty boots!”

Five

At five minutes before eleven o’clock, the appointed hour for the sitting, we all heeded the increasingly impatient, though still polite, urging of our hostess and assembled in the library.

This was my first opportunity to inspect the room where the séance was to take place, and once inside I gazed about with considerable interest. I wanted to