Séance for a Vampire Read online

  She added wistfully: "That day would have been Louisa's twentieth birthday."

  Sarah looked at the speaker sweetly. "What are birthdays on the other side? It is the death day that is the real birthday."

  Mrs. Altamont was thrilled. "My dear, what a beautiful way to look at it! Thank you. Let us go on with it tonight."

  Then talk at the dinner table returned to harmless social generalities and remained for a few minutes on that level.

  I did my best to maintain a polite standard of conversation while remaining alert for any signs of fraud. But with my experiences of six years earlier never far from my thoughts, I could not be other than open-minded on the subject of supernatural manifestations.

  Soon enough, the subject of spirit sittings again engaged the dinner table. The Kirkaldys were willing to talk in general terms about some of their past successes—without revealing names or dates—though they were reticent about any other aspect of their history. They were orphans, they said, and their family was a painful subject; they begged to be excused from any discussion on that topic.

  The subject of materializations came up, and Martin Armstrong, adopting the manner of the investigative reporter, asked Miss Sarah Kirkaldy why darkness seemed to be required.

  I remember that she smiled sweetly at her questioner as she produced a ready answer. "The necessity for darkness during materialization is in harmony with the creation of all animal and vegetable structures, as 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 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 for investigators.

  Holmes took the opportunity to ask what room or rooms were immediately above the library 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 on 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 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 the 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 had not been 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!"

  5

  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 see whether the mediums intended to use some elaborate wooden cabinet, or framework, as a so-called "spirit cabinet." I had heard such devices described and knew that they were favored by certain of the Kirkaldys' rivals; other psychic practitioners adopted an alternate method and simply curtained off a corner of a room by a suspended sheet or blanket, thereby achieving the same end of concentrating the "spirit force."

  When I commented on the absence of any such device, Mrs. Altamont informed me that she had seen them used by others, but added—rather proudly, I thought—that the Kirkaldys could readily open the necessary pathways to the other world without such aid.

  Nevertheless I remained
alert to the possibility of physical trickery. The old oak wainscoting of the walls, and the extensive built-in bookshelves, formed ideal places, I thought, for concealing a secret door. I considered trying to make a careful examination—but surely Altamont himself would have been aware of any such contrivance had it existed in his own house.

  The library was, as in most houses, on the ground floor. It communicated with the rest of the house by two interior doors. It was by one of these doors that we entered the room from the main hall, while the other, in the opposite wall of the library, opened into a narrow passage leading toward the kitchen and the servants' quarters.

  Thunder grumbled in the distance as we assembled near the massive round table of dark wood which occupied the center of the room. Meanwhile the servants, following the orders of their mistress, were closing all the room's windows and drawing thick draperies over them. The electric chandelier had been switched on—Norberton House boasted a modified Swan System, dating from the 1880s, for the private generation of electricity—but even so, the corners of the room were dark and I began to find the atmosphere intensely oppressive.

  Two large old mirrors, one framed in gilt and one in silver, both of which hung upon the east wall, were now starved for light. The room, being at the southwest corner of the house, would have been bright in ordinary daylight, for it was well supplied with windows. The three in the south wall were really French doors, extending almost from floor to ceiling and giving on a narrow terrace, beyond which I could glimpse the shrubbery forming part of the extensive garden through which Altamont had conducted Holmes and myself.

  Thunder sounded again, closer this time.

  The room contained comparatively little furniture. In the center of the broad red carpet, as I have already mentioned, had been placed a round table of dark wood, large enough for all of the participants to take their seats around it—and, as I thought, heavy enough that any experiments in psychic table-tipping would be truly impressive if they succeeded. In the center of the table, a single candle of red wax burned in an antique silver candlestick.

  Holmes and I had already discussed in private, and later in the company of Altamont and Armstrong, the common varieties of tricks to be expected on such occasions. Our list, by no means complete, included the wind-up music box concealed in a spirit guitar, the musical instrument extended on a black folding pole from the spirit cabinet and seen to hang glowing in midair whilst being played supposedly by some spirit's fingers. Other tools of the trade included luminous paint, loops of dark thread for moving objects, and entire white, gauzy costumes, capable of being folded into incredibly small spaces for concealment. There were also telescopic reaching rods, and specially built shoes, easy to slide off and on again, allowing use of the medium's feet in various manipulations.

  All of these preliminary arrangements having been completed to the Kirkaldys' satisfaction, the servants were sent out of the room. I thought I observed Cooper exchange a meaningful glance with the master of the house; I strongly suspected that one or more servants had secret instructions from Altamont, to keep guard, to be prepared to capture and hold any intruder.

  The Altamont servants, as I had already begun to realize, were as sharply divided as their employers on the matter of spiritist phenomena, and some of them had no liking for the mediums and were eager to detect fraud.

  At the request of Sarah Kirkaldy, Holmes and I made sure that both interior doors leading out of the room were bolted shut. We then moved on to examine the windows, satisfying ourselves that they were tightly closed and locked.

  The hour of trial was now at hand, for the eight of us who had gathered in the darkened library. Besides Holmes and myself, our party included both parents and the sister of the recently interred girl, and the two Kirkaldys, as well as Martin Armstrong.

  Holmes had already given me (and later Altamont and Armstrong) our final instructions, which in my case included orders not to try to seize any apparition—unless Holmes did so first.

  The late twilight had been deepened, the fall of night hastened, by heavy clouds. Following our preparations, the time was a few minutes after eleven.

  The Kirkaldys cautioned us against trying to turn on a light during the séance, or trying to touch any figure that might appear. They said they had good spiritualist reasons for these cautions.

  I had expected the mediums to specify the seating arrangements, but neither of the Kirkaldys had any specific plan to propose. They deferred the question to the lady of the house, and Madeline Altamont, as a gesture of goodwill, left the decision to her husband. He in turn followed a plan which Sherlock Holmes had earlier suggested we should try, if possible, to follow.

  I found myself seated directly facing the south wall with its three French windows. Young Rebecca Altamont had the chair immediately at my right. Beyond her was Martin Armstrong, and after him, Mrs. Altamont. Proceeding counterclockwise around the circle, Ambrose Altamont sat next to his wife. Then the young woman who claimed psychic powers, Sarah Kirkaldy, took the place where her left hand would be held by Louisa's father—secretly still the most determined skeptic. Next was Sherlock Holmes, who sat facing directly west. Abraham Kirkaldy completed the circle, being seated between myself and Holmes.

  Sarah, as soon as we were all in our places, signaled to her brother with a small nod.

  Before sitting down, Abraham Kirkaldy, suddenly assuming a look of dignity that belied his youth, stood gripping the back of his chair and gave a little speech. His Scottish accent, normally not very noticeable, grew stronger under stress.

  "Ladies and gentlemen, I find m'self possessed o' certain powers—" here the youth paused momentarily, casting his gaze from one of us to another, not so much in challenge, I thought, as in a pleading for acceptance "—and these I shall be pleased to demonstrate, if it be possible, tonight. I shall be glad if you can throw any further light upon them. I hae little or nae control o'er them. They use me, but I dinna use them."

  I thought this utterance had something of the air of a memorized speech, but it was delivered with real solemnity.

  We settled into our chairs. Only one light now remained in the library—the single candle in the middle of the table.

  Sarah Kirkaldy turned a pale face toward me. "Dr. Watson, will you blow out the candle, please?"

  Without releasing my grip on either of the hands I held, I leaned forward and complied. Instantly, deep darkness engulfed us, moderated only by a faint ghost of illumination that entered the room from the nighttime garden, traces of light creeping in past the edges of the heavy drapes covering the mullioned windows in the west wall and the large glass folding doors in the south.

  My last impression of the Kirkaldys, before the candle went out, was that they were both actually frightened, more excited than anyone else in the room, with the exception of Mrs. Altamont. Abraham's hand in mine twitched and trembled slightly.

  "Hold the circle tightly . .. the power is here..." Again it was Sarah's voice we heard, while I thought that Abraham, just at my left, moaned slightly. Peering as accurately as I could toward him in the heavy darkness, I could see only a white blur of face. I could not tell whether or not his eyes were open, nor indeed could I have relied upon my eyes to determine who sat beside me. His hand now lay limp and dry in mine, as if he had fallen asleep.

  I had been expecting something in the way of preliminary effects, and for all I know now, the Kirkaldys had indeed planned some fraudulent demonstration—but nothing of the kind took place. The deep darkness had endured for perhaps five minutes, perhaps longer, before an event occurred which was very strange indeed, though perhaps few or none of our party found it totally unexpected.

  Though I was absolutely certain that neither of the hands I held had escaped me for an instant, despite all of our precautions, someone—or something—else, besides we eight who sat at table, had now come into the room.

  In the near-perfect darkness, it was naturally impossible to be sure of any but the crudest contours
of this figure; but what appeared to be a real, material form, that of a young girl in some kind of loose, flowing white garment, was certainly now standing, motionless, just inside the central pair of French doors. I was facing in that direction, and had been watching alertly, but still, except for the sudden appearance of the figure itself, I had seen no telltale sign that any of those windows might have been opened, or any disturbance of their draperies, which were outlined by a very faint illumination from outside.

  In the gloom, I could not clearly see Louisa's mother, seated three spaces to my right, nor could I be certain that she had turned her head toward the visitor. But I could tell from the sharp sound of her indrawn breath that she had immediately become aware of the new presence.

  A moment later, Mrs. Altamont began a joyful, almost hysterical though low-voiced, sobbing and keening.

  The general reaction around the table was expressed by a louder sound, a rustle of clothing, a sharp tug that came transmitted like a galvanic shock round the circle of clasped hands, and the heavy scrape of chair legs on the carpet. I thought that Mrs. Altamont would have leaped to her feet, but a girl's or woman's voice, one I did not recognize, commanded sharply: "Don't break the circle!"

  At the same instant the soft grasp of young Rebecca tightened upon my right hand with convulsive force; and I recall making a mental note of the fact, as a peculiarity to be remembered, that through all this, the right hand of Abraham Kirkaldy remained limp in my left.

  "Who are you?" The question was put sharply, in the voice of Sarah Kirkaldy, and the fright in her voice was chilling.

  To me, the soft answer, in a clear, new voice, was more frightening still: "I am Louisa—Louisa Altamont."

  At that, both of Louisa's parents uttered incoherent sounds. Martin Armstrong also began to speak, but fell silent again before I could be sure of even his first intended word.