The Map of Chaos (15 page)

“And don't forget, Crookes,” Holland piped up, “that Margaretta Fox herself sent a letter from New York proclaiming that all her séances had been hoaxes. What further proof do we need that mediums are a bunch of charlatans who prey on people's tragedies and hopes in order to line their own pockets?”

“The press only know how to feed drivel to the public!” said Crookes with disdain.

“I have to agree with you there, Crookes,” said Colonel Garrick. “Let's be fair, gentlemen: if a member of the public goes to any newspaper with a story about exposing a fraudulent medium, they publish it amid great fanfare; but if the same individual proclaims the truth of some supernatural phenomenon they have witnessed, it barely gets a mention.”

Crookes gave a nod of gratitude, although it was clear from his stony expression that he hadn't forgotten the colonel's earlier remarks, or the hilarity they had produced.

“I agree that the press isn't what it used to be,” complained Burke. “Look at the way they are treating the murders of those two prostitutes in Whitechapel . . .”

The conversation then turned to the two horrific crimes, whose grisly details the press had revealed without caring how accurate they were, thus hindering the police investigation, with the sole aim, Sinclair hastened to add, of satisfying their readers' morbid appetites. Everyone gave their opinion on the matter, apart from Clayton. Once he had finished investigating Madame Amber, he would study the reports on those ruthless killings written up by Inspector Reid of the Criminal Investigation Department and draw his own conclusions.

Like Ramsey and Garrick, Clayton believed that the majority of mediums were impostors, but that didn't mean there weren't any genuine seers capable of producing true miracles, as Crookes claimed. That was something he, who wore around his neck a key to a secret chamber full of miracles, was in no position to deny. Not to mention the fact that every morning he knotted his tie with a mechanical hand that constantly reminded him that the fantastical existed. Thus his misgivings about Madame Amber were not the result of any prejudice toward the supernatural: a certain countess had immunized him against that for life, although it seemed she had also prevented him ever again from believing in the innocence of a beautiful woman.

The door then opened, and the medium reentered the room, the humiliating examination to which she had just been subjected having failed to wipe the virginal smile from her lips. Seeing her appear like a delicate butterfly after its wings have been plucked by a cruel child, Captain Sinclair steeled himself and gave Clayton a meaningful look, silently ordering him, with the wrath of his one good eye, to think twice before inventing some fresh demand. Then, smiling gallantly at Madame Amber, he invited everyone to be seated at the table.

The séance would now begin.

F
OR SEVERAL MINUTES NOT A
living sound was heard in the spacious room bathed in the dim light of an infrared lamp, not even the breathing of the twelve people seated around the table. From the moment when Captain Sinclair had commanded silence and they had all obediently joined hands, no one dared to move or make the slightest noise. Even the captain's glass eye appeared to have stopped its habitual flashing and buzzing like an ember slowly fizzling out as it sinks into water. The twelve remained suspended in that silent glow as though frozen in time. Only two things betrayed life's unceasing flow: the placid hum of the phonograph working away in a corner of the room, its spinning cylinder oblivious to the wound inflicted on it by the stylus, and Clayton's eyes, which despite his motionless body flitted around the room, examining every corner.

Once he had checked that the various machines were functioning properly, the inspector contemplated the medium. She was sitting opposite him, her eyes gently closed, bound to her chair and with two short chains, each equipped with a padlock fastening her wrists to those of Doctor Ramsey and Colonel Garrick. As Clayton cast his gaze over his fellow committee members, he was unable to detect on their faces any trace of the skepticism they had shown moments before. Their fingertips touching those of their neighbors, they all seemed absorbed in an almost pious meditation, convinced something was about to occur that would shake them to the core, whether it came from this world or the next.

Sinclair's voice suddenly boomed out, causing them to jump out of their skins. Without warning, the captain had launched into his record of the séance, in a voice loud enough to be picked up by phonographs as far away as Paris. Having recovered from the shock, the committee members hurriedly resumed their frozen postures. Only the medium remained as motionless as a sphinx, deep in the supposed trance she had entered into as soon as the séance began. The young woman's lips were parted, and she was breathing slowly and deeply, her small breasts lifting at regular intervals, constrained by the fine silk gown, attracting the furtive glances of the men around the table like moths around a fire. Breathing too regularly, Clayton thought skeptically.

“Subject: séance of twelve September 1888. Time: nine o'clock p.m. Place: Madame Amber's residence, number twelve Mayflower Road, London. Monitor on the right side: Colonel Garrick; monitor on the left side: Doctor Ramsey. Assistants: Mrs. Holland, Mr. Holland, Professor Crookes, Count Duggan . . .”

And while Sinclair continued his breakdown of the rigorous scientific conditions under which the séance was being monitored, Clayton's eyes alighted on the three objects in the middle of the table awaiting telekinetic experiments: a small gilt bell, a gardenia, and a lace handkerchief. They were still immobile, and might continue to be, and yet the inspector had the impression they were charged with an air of anticipation, as if they had already secretly decided to move and were simply awaiting Madame Amber's command. He shook his head, attempting to rid himself of such an absurd idea, no doubt a result of his mind playing tricks on him.

Captain Sinclair's presentation ended as abruptly as it had begun, and silence once again fell on the gathering. Moments later, Madame Amber, her face still registering a look of intense ecstasy whose alchemy none of the mortals gathered around would ever comprehend, gave a succession of faint moans from her parted lips. Soon afterward, her lovely brow wrinkled, then gradually recovered its original smoothness, as though a light breeze had rippled the calm surface of a lake. This caused an almost electric shiver to pass through the human circle. Although everything about the medium's face appeared genuine, Clayton was certain that she was faking: something deep inside him insisted that a woman that beautiful couldn't possibly be honest, couldn't possibly be at the service of truth. No supreme power was whole and incorruptible, and was there any power greater than that possessed by a beautiful woman? He glanced around him and discovered four pairs of eyes belonging to four of the men around the table—including, to his astonishment, Captain Sinclair—descending lasciviously toward Madame Amber's pulsating cleavage. None of the men concentrated on monitoring the séance, unable to tear their gaze from the slow rise and fall of the medium's fragile, provocative, almost girlish breasts. His eyes then crossed those of Count Duggan, who gave him a knowing wink. Disgusted by the thought that this eccentric character assumed he was prey to the same lustfulness as the others, Clayton considered calling them to attention but then thought better of it. He didn't relish the idea of the cylinder preserving in time one of his admonishments, which might even offend the ladies. He frowned at the count and concentrated once more on the medium.

It was then that the little bell on the table started making a noise, emitting several short, loud tinkles. All eyes fell on the completely mundane object that had suddenly been transformed into a bridge between two worlds. Following the brief call to attention, the bell was silent again. Then Madame Amber resumed her moaning, arching her back and shaking her head violently from side to side; her platinum hair lashed her face like a seagull trying to peck out her eyes. At that moment the bell began to lift very slowly into the air until it was floating about eight inches above the tabletop, where it began to ring furiously, as though shaken by a relentless, invisible hand. At the same time, a series of loud thuds rang out quite clearly, although no one could quite make out which part of the room they were coming from. Clayton had read numerous accounts of loud noises, like huge fists pummeling the walls, but these sounded more like knitting needles dropped on a marble floor, only painfully amplified. As though competing with the thuds, the bell continued tinkling hysterically, and in the midst of that cacophony the gardenia began sliding toward the edge of the table, where it toppled into Nurse Jones's lap, causing her to throw herself back in her chair with a look of horror, as though a scorpion had just landed on her skirts. It was then that the lace handkerchief took to the air with a delicate flourish and began to float past the flabbergasted onlookers like a jellyfish.

In the meantime, Clayton's eyes darted frenetically around the room, checking the different monitors again and again. He was certain the bells attached to the curtains hadn't made a sound before the hubbub had started, although he had to admit that they were of no use now. If anything was moving the weighty hangings, there was no way he could have heard, or indeed seen anything through that bloodred half-light. However, from where he was sitting he could glimpse the recording thermometers, the infrared apparatus, and the other devices set up around the room, none of which appeared to detect any movement in their immediate vicinity. Leaning away from the table just far enough so as not to break the human chain imposed by his neighbors' hands, Clayton noticed the sawdust was undisturbed, as was the plank blocking off the chimney opening and the seals around the windows. As for his fellow participants, most of them had eschewed their role of strict observer and were gazing spellbound at the riotous activity of the bell, the leisurely progress of the handkerchief, or at Madame Amber herself as she writhed on her chair in a manner as lewd as it was hair-raising.

Where was the contemptuous skepticism they had exhibited only moments ago? Clayton wondered. When it was all over, these staunch disbelievers would doubtless pooh-pooh what happened during the séance with one of those vague, disdainful phrases they had read in the newspapers, but there was no denying that at that moment they resembled a group of schoolchildren mesmerized by a fireworks display. Crookes in particular was exhilarated: his offended expression had given way to a beaming smile, and he even urged his colleagues to smell the handkerchief, assuring them the strong perfume impregnating it hadn't been there before the séance started. Clayton sighed inwardly. It seemed Crookes's broken heart was easier to mend than his own. Vexed, he tried to catch the captain's eye, but Sinclair ignored him. When the bell first started ringing, Sinclair had backed up Clayton's visual monitoring of the situation, but since a particularly violent spasm had caused Madame Amber's gown to slip off one of her shoulders, revealing the outline of her breast, pale and delicate as a snowflake, Clayton had given up on his superior. Of all the people around the table, only one seemed as poised as the inspector: Mrs. Lansbury, who was observing the scene with what appeared to be a cold, professional eye. Clayton studied the frail old lady, wondering whether her attitude was a sign of unflinching belief in spiritualism or bitter disappointment. It could have been either of those two things, and yet something told him the old lady shared his misgivings.

All at once, the thudding stopped so abruptly that the ensuing silence seemed to burst everyone's eardrums. A second later, the bell crashed onto the table, bouncing several times before finally rolling around forlornly on the same spot, as though lulling itself to sleep. The handkerchief floated toward Madame Amber, who had ceased convulsing and was staring straight ahead with glazed eyes, and settled on her face with the milky softness of a bride's veil. The effect of the delicate caress on her was overwhelming: her body tensed with such force that the chair she was seated on lifted off the ground, and her head snapped backward, as though someone had yanked her hair violently, and then forward, causing her mane to trace a silvery streak of lightning in the air as the handkerchief slipped into her lap. She remained motionless, her chin pressed to her chest, her hair obscuring her face like an ivory mask, while strange gurgling, rattling sounds came from her throat. Beneath the pale skin of her forearms, her veins and muscles appeared grotesquely swollen, as if her body were being subjected to some inhuman pressure.

“Good God, she's suffocating!” Nurse Jones squawked, her voice faltering.

But before anyone could react, the strange panting noises stopped. Madame Amber's body relaxed visibly, and behind her a new, startling phenomenon began to take place. A row of phosphorescent lights, like minute, inexplicably beautiful shimmering dragonflies appeared, hovering above her head, then immediately started to move about, swirling in a tiny constellation, before melding into a luminous, effervescent mass that began to grow more dense and to expand. The resplendent cloud appeared to be feeding directly off Madame Amber's head, like a phantom leech, or perhaps it was coming from there, as though distilled through her hair. Clayton understood that Madame Amber was preparing to perform one of her celebrated materializations, the phenomena that brought mediums the most prestige and whose complexity posed one of the most dangerous challenges to a charlatan.

“Look, a face is forming!” Crookes exclaimed excitedly, blinking again and again as though attempting to discern the features of the beautiful pirate's daughter through the mist.

Clayton saw that he was right. Amid that nebulous cloud he glimpsed a vague shape emerging. However, disappointingly for Crookes, it appeared to be the three-quarter profile of a man. All that was visible of him was his nose, whiskers, and fleshy lips, which looked as if they were poised for a kiss or to start whistling.