The Death Collector Read online

  Mrs Paterson clapped her hands together in delight. ‘A ghost. Oh, do say I have seen one of the spirits.’

  But Madame Sophia did not answer. She was staring open-mouthed across at the dresser. ‘I don’t …’ she muttered. ‘I never …’ She turned white-faced towards Husband Gerald. But he too seemed pale and shocked.

  ‘Is that the end?’ Mr Paterson demanded. ‘Show over, is it? Can we go home now?’

  George was about to say that he thought they probably could. But then, the table levitated. He was not actually aware of it happening until Liz gave a startled gasp. ‘The table,’ she cried out. ‘It’s moving. Can’t you feel it?’

  Her eyes were wide and pale in the gloom as she looked round at them. ‘There it goes again. Oh, my goodness – it’s rising up. You must be able to feel it.’

  George could indeed. And by the ashen expressions on the dimly lit faces of everyone else so could they.

  ‘You can tell it’s moving, can’t you, Mr Smith, dear,’ Liz said to George. He nodded dumbly, really nervous for the first time since they had sat down. But despite her apparent anxiety, she winked at George. ‘Oh my goodness,’ she said as she did so. ‘Here it goes again.’

  The new delivery boy was charming, if rather scruffy, Mrs White decided. She was surprised he had been sent out so late, but the lad insisted that this was his last delivery of the day and he would be off home soon. But could he beg a quick cup of tea before he went – just to keep out the cold of the night?

  Mrs White was the cook, not a maid, so she wasn’t in the habit of making tea for delivery boys. But he seemed so cold and exhausted that she made an exception. And after all, he had come out late in the night to her kitchen. He was a chatty boy. Well, he didn’t talk an awful lot, but he was interested.

  He told Mrs White that he had heard that the house was used for séances and the like. ‘Are you a believer in the afterlife and all that?’ he asked her.

  So she told him. Yes, she thought there was probably something in it. So many people thought so, after all. Not that you would want to come here to find proof, she told him.

  ‘Oh?’ He seemed surprised.

  Mrs White shook her head. ‘Madame Sophia, she calls herself. Sophie Southgate’s her real name, but she never uses that. No, nothing’s real here.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  But Mrs White refused to be drawn. ‘It’s not my place to say, young man. More than my job’s worth.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ the boy assured her. He finished his drink. ‘Thanks for the tea.’

  The boy handed her his cup, and Mrs White took it over to the sink. When she turned back, the boy was gone. Funny, she thought – she had not heard the outside door. He was a strange one, working all hours, demanding tea, then just slipping away like that. Still, it was kind of him to bring the …

  Mrs White frowned. What was it the boy had delivered? For the life of her she could not remember. She blew out a long breath. It had been a tiring day. She locked the outside door before making her way up to the servants quarters, and bed.

  Liz was having fun. She had realised almost at once, just as she assumed George had, that it was all a fake. At first she had considered going along with it, appearing to be impressed, then making as early an escape as possible. But soon she decided that if she was wasting her time she might as well enjoy herself while she did it.

  Husband Gerald was sitting next to her, and Liz could see his leg jerk every time the bell rang. It did not require much imagination to work out that there was – literally – a connection. The face painted on the door had provoked a quick frisson. But again, she knew all about luminous paint from the theatre.

  Confusing and misleading Madame Sophia was almost too easy, so Liz tried to think what else she could do to liven up the proceedings. It was a challenge, to see if she could beat Madame Sophia and Husband Gerald at their own game – could convince them that they were experiencing genuine spiritual moments through the simplest of tricks. Throwing her handkerchief across the room with the same movement as pointing had worked well. The lacy material seemed almost to hang in the air before landing on the dresser and – with a stroke of good fortune – knocking the bell. But Husband Gerald had glared at her, evidently not convinced.

  So she turned her attention to the table. It was not really levitating. She nudged and jiggled the heavy wooden table with her knees, just enough for the séance participants all to feel some slight movement. In the darkened room, their minds attuned to the possibility of mysterious happenings, Liz’s insistence that the table was levitating might be enough for their imaginations to do the rest.

  It worked better than she had hoped. Even Husband Gerald gasped in surprise, and seemed to be trying to push the table back down – into the floor. George too seemed taken in, bless him. His eyes were wide with amazement. Mrs Paterson was shrieking with a mixture of delight and fear. Mr Paterson was grumbling as if bored with the whole thing, but Madame Sophia herself was rocking backwards and forwards and keening like a child at Christmas.

  After a while they seemed to decide that the table had stopped moving and some semblance of order was restored. Husband Gerald suggested in a strained voice that perhaps they might try something else. He excused himself from the table for a moment, and turned up the lights. Liz guessed this was as much for his own peace of mind as anything.

  Madame Sophia was also in something of a state, but in her case it was closer to euphoria. The notion that the spirits actually had visited her séance seemed almost too much for her, turning her into a bundle of nervous excitement and bubbling enthusiasm.

  ‘The glass, Gerald dear, the glass. And the cards. I shall do the cards.’

  Gerald soon gave up trying to persuade her that perhaps they had entertained enough spirits for one night, and fetched a glass tumbler. This was placed upside-down in the middle of the table. Then Gerald, with help from everyone else, arranged a set of cards – a letter printed on each – in alphabetical order clockwise round the table.

  ‘Now,’ Madame Sophia said in a stage whisper, ‘who shall we contact?’

  Liz glanced at George. This was obviously a complete waste of time, but George was watching with interest and enthusiasm. There was no way to tell him that she, Liz, had orchestrated much of what had happened while the rest was simple stage trickery.

  ‘Albert Wilkes,’ George said. ‘We want to make contact with a gentleman who recently departed this life named Albert Wilkes.’

  Madame Sophia smiled confidently. ‘And so we shall,’ she said. ‘Do you have any small thing, some personal possession or other that I may use to focus my communications.’

  Liz sighed. Probably she wanted it to glean any clues about the dead person. Perhaps, since George had nothing that had belonged to Wilkes, this would soon be over.

  But to Liz’s surprise and horror, George had taken out his wallet. He passed the scrap of paper from Glick’s diary carefully across the table to Madame Sophia. She inspected it somewhat dismissively.

  ‘It’s worth a try,’ George mouthed to Liz. She sighed.

  ‘I suppose this will have to do,’ she decided, and set it down on the table in front of her, next to the letter ‘A’. ‘Fingers on the glass,’ she instructed. She kept one of her hands pressed down on the fragment of paper. Her eyelids fluttered.

  ‘Don’t be disappointed if we fail to make contact,’ Gerald warned.

  ‘We won’t,’ Liz assured him.

  But her words were drowned out by Madame Sophia’s sudden shriek. ‘He is here,’ she exclaimed in surprise and delight. ‘Albert Wilkes. His spirit is still in the land of the living. He is with us now!’

  In the laboratory at the back of a large house, Albert Wilkes sat up. His movement was stiff, his eyes were unseeing pearl-like marbles.

  ‘The vocal cords have atrophied,’ the man standing beside the workbench said. ‘But he should still be able to write.’

  ‘We got no sense out of him last ti
me, sir,’ Blade observed. ‘That was why we sent him off to the Museum for the diaries. Except he ignored us and went home instead.’

  The other man was nodding. ‘I am aware of the problems. But despite Sir William’s meddling, I am optimistic. Now that we have a little more time, the bones have been properly replaced, and while they are not actually his own they will more than suffice. The brain has been subjected to an improved form of electrical stimulation which I hope will this time have shocked it into some semblance at least of sense as well as life. I need sentience as well as instinct.’

  ‘Speak to us,’ Madame Sophia intoned. ‘You are troubled, I can sense that. Do you have a message for anyone here? For Mr Smith perhaps? Anything?’

  Beneath her fingers, Liz felt the glass tumbler tremble. She looked round at the others seated at the table. They all seemed equally surprised. Then the glass began to move.

  ‘A pen, sir?’ Blade offered. He was unable to take his eyes off the dead man.

  ‘If you please. Of course,’ his master went on as Blade took a pen from the desk and dipped it in an inkwell, ‘despite my best efforts, the brain may be damaged beyond the point of repair.’

  ‘He has been dead rather a long time, sir.’

  The lifeless fingers closed coldly on the pen, and Blade suppressed a shudder. He placed a sheet of paper on the workbench under the poised, dead hand.

  Liz was as sure as she could be that it was not movement caused deliberately by anyone there. The glass quivered and shook like a struck tuning fork. It circled slowly, as if trying to make up its mind which letter it wanted.

  ‘Yes?’ Madame Sophia hissed excitedly. ‘Yes? Tell us, please. What is your message, you poor tortured soul?’

  ‘Now, Mr Wilkes,’ the man said gently, ‘you are quite aware of what I want to know. Be so good as to write it down would you?’

  Nothing. No flicker of understanding or tremor of movement from the corpse.

  ‘Write it down!’ the man shouted with a ferocity that made the windows rattle. ‘Or would you rather Blade returned you to the ground?’

  Slowly, deliberately, the pen stroked at the paper.

  The glass paused, then trembled again. It moved directly across the table towards George, stopping by the card imprinted with the letter ‘O’. It hesitated only a moment, then it moved again. Not far, just a few letters clockwise round the table: ‘R’.

  Wilkes’s fragile hand continued to move slowly over the paper. His dead eyes did not look down. Another letter was slowly inked on the page.

  Next was ‘I’. Liz could almost feel the tension in the room. Everyone seemed to be holding their breath.

  ‘O R I,’ Gerald said quietly. ‘What can it mean … Origin?’

  ‘Hush,’ Madame Sophia said, surprisingly gently. The glass trembled again.

  ‘Thank you.’ The man’s breath misted the cold night air. It didn’t do to mix warmth with death.

  Blade waited for Wilkes to finish. Then he took the sheet of paper. He swallowed dryly when he saw what was on it. He handed it to his employer without comment.

  Next was ‘M’. Liz’s throat was dry. It was just a trick, she kept telling herself. But both Gerald and Madame Sophia seemed as caught up in it as anyone. Just a trick – surely it was just a trick.

  The glass moved again, heading for another letter.

  The man stared at the paper for several moments, breathing deeply as he struggled to keep control. Five uneven characters were scratched into the paper. Ragged and useless:

  O R I M O

  ‘Another O,’ George said out loud.

  The glass stopped. It wasn’t trembling any more. The strange life it had taken on seemed to have deserted it again.

  As if to confirm this, Madame Sophia let out a long, deep sigh. ‘He has gone,’ she announced. ‘He has left us. The link is broken.’ She lifted her hand from the table and carefully passed the scrap of paper back to George. But despite the disappointment of contact being lost, she was smiling.

  He crushed the paper into a ball and hurled it across the laboratory. The man was trembling with anger, but when he spoke his voice was cold and controlled.

  ‘Dead too long, it seems. There is something lingering, but not enough. I think, Mr Blade, we shall have to try a different approach.’ He snapped his fingers impatiently. ‘Paper and pen. Quickly, man.’

  Blade hurried to oblige. He took the pen from Wilkes, dipped it in the ink again, and returned it to the dead man’s grasp.

  ‘Not for him, you dolt! Give it to me.’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir. I thought—’

  ‘You are not paid to think,’ Augustus Lorimore said, snatching the sheet of paper that Blade offered him. ‘Now leave me in peace for ten minutes. Then I will have a letter for you to deliver.’

  Chapter 11

  Madame Sophia seemed still in a daze. Mrs Paterson was pale and shocked, her husband blinked when the lights were relit, as if he had just woken up. Without ceremony, Husband Gerald ushered the Patersons to the door and out into the hall. Liz could hear him talking to them in a low voice – accepting their money or making an appointment for a further consultation no doubt.

  ‘The table,’ George said in disbelief. ‘That was incredible.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Liz said with a smile.

  But before she could explain, Husband Gerald was back. He stood in the doorway, staring at Liz and George. He did not look happy, and he had undergone a transformation. No longer was he the dithering, ineffectual little man dancing to his wife’s instructions. To George, the man seemed bigger than before. His eyes were cold and hard.

  ‘How much of that was real?’ he asked.

  George frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You know very well what I mean,’ he snapped back. ‘But I wasn’t asking you. Sophia?’

  ‘Oh the spirits came,’ Madame Sophia told him. She still seemed to be in a state of near rapture. ‘No doubt about it. They touched my mind – just like in the old days. Just like they used to.’

  ‘Are you telling me you really used to be able to communicate with the spirit world?’ Liz asked.

  ‘But of course. Though you must be very powerful, my dear.’ She got up from the table and walked slowly towards Liz and George. There was something menacing about her movement. ‘Very powerful indeed to levitate the table like that. I know it wasn’t me.’

  ‘It wasn’t me either,’ Liz said quietly. ‘The table didn’t levitate.’

  Husband Gerald was nodding as if he had guessed as much. But it was news to George.

  ‘People will believe what they want to,’ Liz admitted. ‘I told you the table was levitating and that was what you, and that poor gullible Mrs Paterson wanted to hear. It didn’t lift at all really.’

  ‘Oh,’ Madame Sophia said quietly. ‘So it was a trick. That really is most unfair.’

  Liz gave a short humourless laugh. ‘It’s all right for you to trick Mrs Paterson, though isn’t it? How much did you want from her? How much does it cost to believe you’re communing with the spirits of lost loved ones?’

  ‘That’s no concern of yours,’ Gerald told her sharply. He was standing in the doorway and he did not look like he was going to move for them.

  ‘I think it’s time we were leaving,’ George said. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of the evening, but he was sure he wanted to get out of this house as soon as he possibly could.

  ‘Oh I think you should stay a while yet,’ Gerald said. His voice was low and threatening. ‘My wife has some questions she would like to put to you. If you really do have the ability …’

  ‘We don’t,’ Liz said. ‘Look, I’m not sure what happened there with the glass and the letters, but it was nothing to do with us.’

  ‘His spirit felt so strong,’ Sophia said. ‘I could feel it here, almost in the room with us. You have to tell me how you made such close contact.’

  George was beginning to think he would have to physically move Gerald out of the doorw
ay. He hoped the man wouldn’t call for help from some burly servant or claim he had been assaulted. ‘Let us pass, please,’ George said in what he hoped was a menacing voice.

  ‘No,’ Gerald insisted. ‘You came here under false pretences, and obviously under false names. You are not leaving until we have a satisfactory explanation of your conduct this evening.’

  George looked at Liz, and he could see in her face that she was ready for whatever unpleasantness might follow.

  But before either of them could do anything, there came an urgent shout:

  ‘Fire!’

  George flinched. For a moment he thought Gerald was ordering them to be shot. But the shout had come from outside the room – loud and urgent.

  ‘There’s a fire. Everyone out, quick. Get the brigade! Hurry!’

  Distracted, both Sophia and Gerald turned towards the sound. Coiled up and ready to move, George did not waste the moment. He shoved Gerald aside, out of the doorway. Liz was with him immediately, and together they ran down the hall to the front door. A maid was already there, pulling the bolt across and unlocking the door.

  ‘Where’s the fire?’ she asked, her eyes wide with anxiety. She looked deathly pale. ‘Where’s Mrs White?’

  George did not pause to answer. He heaved open the door and dragged Liz through. They did not stop running until they reached the end of the street.

  ‘Theatre?’ The surprise was evident in George’s tone.

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’ Liz demanded, at once on the defensive.

  ‘Nothing. I was surprised, that’s all. Though …’ He shrugged and walked on.

  ‘Though what?’ she asked suspiciously.

  ‘Though, I suppose I shouldn’t be. Not after tonight’s performance.’ He paused under a lamp-post, grinning in the diffuse light. ‘I was quite taken in by that table routine, you know.’

  Liz glanced back as they walked on. Just for a second she had thought there was someone behind them. Someone following. But she could see no one, and hear nothing save the distant chimes of a clock and the clatter of a carriage in a nearby street.