Mr Scarletti's Ghost (40 page)

‘Well, here is a to-do!' said Mina's mother on her return. All of Brighton, it seemed, was buzzing with the news of Mrs Parchment's nuptials, and the general view was that she had lied in court to extricate Mr Clee from Miss Simmons's suit, and gained a husband as her price. The happy couple were spending their honeymoon at the Grand Hotel. ‘What can the silly woman have been thinking of? And he seems to have got a very poor bargain.'

‘He has a wealthy wife,' said Mina, ‘and for some men that is all that matters.'

‘Nonsense, Mrs Parchment doesn't have a penny to her name. I told you so myself, Mina, but you cannot have been listening to me.'

‘I thought – I believed that her late husband died a wealthy man,' said Mina. ‘Was I mistaken?'

‘No, he had made himself rich on the vanity of others. But he and his wife were on bad terms and had separated long before his death. He left all his fortune to a nephew, who out of charity made a small allowance to his aunt. Now that she is married, I expect that will cease. If Mr Clee expected to live in luxury from the proceeds of Parchment's Pink Complexion Pills he is in for a very unpleasant shock.'

With the possibility that Mr Phipps might take several weeks to obtain firm evidence of the duplicity practised upon Miss Whinstone, and Mr and Mrs Clee about to leave town, Mina realised that she had a very short period of time to put her plan into action. She wrote two notes and the next day there was a meeting.

‘The thing that makes it especially difficult to expose fraud is that if it takes place it does so before hardly more than ten people, most of whom are devotees of the medium,' said Mina. ‘Whatever happens and whatever is said, the thing that counts is how the event is represented to the wider public. The only advantage we have is the fickleness of popular opinion. Just as people may flock to the latest fashion so we may also expect that they will be as quick to abandon it and find the next sensation to amuse them.'

‘But if what you say is true,' said Dr Hamid, in whose parlour the co-conspirators were assembled over a pot of tea and a large plateful of Eliza's favourite almond biscuits, ‘as soon as Mr Phipps has his evidence Miss Eustace will be found out.'

‘I cannot help but think that she will find some way to extricate herself,' said Mina. ‘There are any number of people who would lie or blind themselves to the truth in order to protect her. And we must catch Mr Clee, too, and soon, or he will disappear. We can't wait for Mr Phipps to complete his enquiries.'

‘Then what do you suggest?' asked Richard. ‘I suppose I could always break into her apartment again and declare my undying love. That should work. I'd have all her secrets in an hour!'

‘Promise me that you will not,' said Mina. ‘No, we must engage that great and noble personage, Lady Finsbury.'

Nellie, who had been admiring her new pair of lace gloves, laughed.

‘Lady Finsbury,' Mina pointed out, ‘is an admirer of Miss Eustace, so much so that she wishes to be her patroness, and use her influence to enhance her protégée's fame. Lady Finsbury will hire a hall, she will engage a man to sell tickets and keep undesirables from the door, pack the room only with the most dedicated believers, guarantee that she will purchase a dozen or more tickets for herself and her fashionable friends, and she will promise Miss Eustace a generous extra payment if she can only produce a full form manifestation of her beloved great uncle Sir Mortimer Portland.'

‘Do you expect Miss Eustace to personate a man?' said Richard.

‘Not at all. I expect her to get Mr Clee to personate Sir Mortimer. Mr Clee is well known by sight to all of Miss Eustace's circle. Only unmask him and the imposture will be apparent. Remember, in her previous séances, Miss Eustace, through the Gaskins, had full command of all the circumstances. She will imagine that on this occasion she enjoys not only the approbation but the protection of Lady Finsbury. Miss Eustace will undoubtedly make many conditions for her appearance, and Lady Finsbury will agree to them all, but it will be we who have the control.'

‘If she should suspect anything …' said Dr Hamid.

‘I know,' said Mina. ‘If she does then the event will be a failure. She dare not risk a complete failure before such a large gathering, and will produce some slight effects to please the crowd, but there would be nothing we can use to prove fraud beyond a doubt. She has escaped so many times, she knows what to do. The important thing for our purposes is the production of the spirit form of Sir Mortimer Portland. Lady Finsbury must make a very valuable offer to tempt her to do that.'

‘Has she brought out a male spirit before?' asked Richard. ‘I mean a whole body that walks about, not just a mask and a false beard on a stick.'

‘It seems she has. Mother swears that at a private séance she saw Father actually standing before her in the room, and conversed with him and even touched him. It is my belief that it was Mr Clee, as they are of similar height and build, perhaps with a scarf or shawl around his face, as they do not look very alike, but Mother insists that she saw Father clearly and cannot have been mistaken. Lady Finsbury has provided Miss Eustace with a portrait of her great-uncle, and if asked about his height and build, she should mention something very like Mr Clee. That will be enough to tempt them to try the imposture, if, that is, Mr Clee can bear to leave the arms of his new bride.'

It took several days to make all the arrangements. Mina hired a suitable meeting hall, and hoped that with the sale of tickets, which were deliberately priced at a very reasonable level to encourage the maximum possible attendance, she would not be greatly out of pocket. Fortunately Miss Eustace's circle was so well known that there was no difficulty in securing considerable interest in the event, which it was promised would be the most astounding séance that the renowned medium had ever conducted, with the added relish that it would be graced by a noble lady celebrated for her beauty and taste, and her glittering entourage.

Mina, though not Miss Eustace's most favoured person, was fully intending to be there to both witness and oversee the course of events, and since Richard was acting as doorkeeper there would be no difficulty over her gaining entry, but she thought it best to conceal herself at the back of the room in case Miss Eustace was to spy her and take alarm, which would give her the opportunity of casting the blame for any failure on Mina's bad influence. Once the room was in darkness, Mina intended to creep forward and secure a better position in a seat reserved for her at the front.

On the day of the event another package arrived from Mr Greville, and Mina was just about to open it when Richard, who had hired the cab to take them to the hall, arrived with a downcast expression.

‘What is the matter?' asked Mina. ‘Has Miss Eustace taken flight? That would be almost as good a result if we were never to see her again.'

He shook his head. ‘No, she is here and Lady Finsbury is fawning on her and promising the most astonishing wealth, but I do not think we will see Sir Mortimer, in fact without her accomplice it is doubtful that anything of note will happen, and we will have spent our money in vain.'

Mina ignored the suggestion that he had had any share in the financial arrangements. ‘Has Mr Clee left Brighton?'

‘Oh, he is still in Brighton,' said Richard, ‘very much so, and unable to leave it if he wished, but he and his lady wife have had a disagreement which took quite a violent turn. I am surprised that it did not echo all over town. The subject of their dispute was, I believe, which one of them was able to pay the bill at the Grand Hotel, and the only thing they could agree upon was that it was neither of them. Mr Clee has by now discovered that his wealthy bride has not a copper coin to her name. There was a great deal of shouting and epithets and some broken furniture, and the manager had no choice but to call the police. The two lovebirds are currently cooling their heels in the cells, and will come before a magistrate tomorrow. What shall we do?'

Brother and sister sat together and considered the sad wreckage of their plans.

‘There is nothing we can do,' said Mina, eventually. ‘All is arranged and must be paid for, but I think now that we will get little result from it. It is my fault, I am afraid, I have been too ambitious. Well,' she said, folding the unopened package and pushing it into her reticule, ‘let us go.'

T
hey arrived at the hall shortly before the main crush was expected. Richard and Dr Hamid, while reserving for themselves seats on the front row, had taken on the role of doorkeepers, supposedly to ensure that pressmen and other undesirables were refused admission, but actually only to make Miss Eustace believe that this was taking place. The medium had also been reassured that when a volunteer was asked for from the company to check that all was genuine, the person who would step forward would be a friend of Lady Finsbury who was a firm believer in spiritualism.

Professor and Mrs Gaskin were early arrivals. Although they had relinquished their supervision of Miss Eustace to Lady Finsbury and her agents, they remained close by the medium's side, perhaps hoping that some of the glamour of her noble patron would touch their garments, and brush them with a little glossy stain. Nellie was impeccable in her role; her dress, deportment, manners, and mode of speech were exactly as someone who had never met a titled lady would imagine one to be.

Mina took care to make herself inconspicuous, which for the most part meant sitting behind a person of a larger stature, there being more than sufficient to choose from. As the audience arrived, in a steady but powerful stream, all chattering with excitement, Mina was able to see each individual as they entered; her mother, Mrs Bettinson, Mrs Phipps and her nephew, Mrs Langley, Miss Simmons, Mrs Peasgood and her sister and friends, Mr Jordan and Mr Conroy. The crowd was, she knew, salted with representatives of every leading newspaper in Sussex, and there was a local artist specially hired by the
Illustrated Police News
to record the event, and several plain-clothes detectives. The unfortunate Miss Whinstone had, Mina had recently learned, gone away on a sea trip to recuperate from her upset. Mr Clee and his wife were presumably still incarcerated, and did not make an appearance.

As the room filled she remembered that she had not yet looked at the item she had received in the post from Mr Greville, and so pulled it from her reticule and opened the packet. It was another copy of the
Illustrated Police News
from October 1869, and this one included a small picture of Miss Eustace and her husband on trial. It was cruder than the paper's usual portraits, and the likeness of Miss Eustace was only fair while the man in the dock beside her looked nothing like Mr Clee. Mina wondered if the artist had been in court at all.

A theatrical-looking gentleman with a colourful cravat and a flower in his buttonhole strode into the hall and looked about him with an air of aristocratic confidence. He clearly expected to be and indeed was directed to one of the reserved places. Mina was a little mystified at first as to who he might be, although there was something a little familiar about his appearance. He clearly knew Lady Finsbury for he greeted her in a warm but respectful manner. Mina suddenly realised that this must be Rolly Rollason, the man who had posed for the portrait used for Sir Mortimer Portland. In his own person he was a remarkable-looking individual, a giraffe of a man, well above six feet in height, with a long neck and prominent Adam's apple but without the bushy hair and long nose of the character he had portrayed. He seemed to be formed almost entirely of arms and legs with prominent knees and elbows attached to a small body. Mina felt some curiosity to see him as the Caledonian Marvel.

It was time. The hall was filled and the doors closed. Richard and Dr Hamid came forward to take their reserved places, and Richard took Lady Finsbury by her tiny fingertips and drew her to face the assembly. All grew silent in anticipation of her words.