Between the Thames and the Tiber (25 page)

“I am happy that both of you have come,” he said in French, anticipating my difficulty with Italian.

“Have you overcome your disbelief as yet?” he asked, directing his question to Holmes.

“No, I am merely interested in how she does it,” Holmes replied. “And to convince Professor Lombroso of the charlatanry of la signora Persano.”

“You are mistaken,
mon ami
, she is a true medium, able, I am convinced, to communicate directly with the spirit world. But come, we have about an hour’s journey before the meeting.”

We entered a waiting coach and began our trip west towards Pisa.

“We will go to Fiesole, where the meetings will take place, in a villa of the Medici.”

“Splendid,” said Holmes. “And who else will be there to hold hands around the table?” he asked sardonically.

Lombroso smiled. “Even you will be impressed, Holmes. There is a contingent of three from Oxford—the well-known physicist, Professor Oliver Lodge; the Indian thinker B. K. Mallik, and his companion, Winifred Lewis; the writer Arthur Conan Doyle, someone not unknown to you, I trust; and, finally, Madame Blavatsky, the president of the Theosophical Society.”

“Ah,” said Holmes, with a smile, “
I Soliti Ignoti
, the usual suspects.”

He looked directly at Lombroso as he continued.

“Dear Professor Lodge has moved in recent years from true if narrow problems of physics to the drivel of theosophy. Hence I am not at all surprised at his attendance. Mallik is a charlatan, a lucky refugee from Calcutta, who lives off the labours of a few innocent but impressionable females, among whom my friend Winifred is one; he specializes in the writing of great tomes with pretentious titles, the most recent being a never-ending treatise entitled “The Towering Wave.” As to my friend Doyle, he has lost his judgement, poor fellow, and as to La Blavatsky, she is the only new character in the bunch. She brings with her the tawdriest of reputations.”

“I am sure there will be others, perhaps some surprises,” said Lombroso not without some pique at Holmes’s sardonic remarks.

The good professor then explained that the villa where the séances were to take place was built by Lorenzo de’ Medici himself and that it had been in the Medici family for generations. Towards the end of the eighteenth century it had begun to deteriorate badly, and the family finally sold it to the Gozzoli family, who found it more than they could bear. They in turn sold it to an American millionairess who had moved to Italy after the death of her husband. She came from a wealthy family from New York, the Macphersons, and had married an Italian nobleman, one Marchese dei Arrighi, a member of the Italian parliament. The death of her first husband had led La Macpherson to spiritualism and its accompanying experimentation, and she had been one of the first to support Isadora Persano in her work.

“I assume that the Marchese is complaisant with his wife’s interests in her former husband,” said Holmes wryly.

I could see that Lombroso was increasingly annoyed with Holmes. He said nothing more.

When we arrived, we were immediately led to a great hall bright with candlelight.

“Note the coming darkness, Watson. The darker the better for our adversaries.” He pronounced the last word with a soft chuckle. We took our seats together.

Professor Lodge spoke first.

“I welcome you, both sceptic and believer, to this historic meeting. All of you, with the exceptions of Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson, believe in the reality of the spiritual world and our undeniable abilities to make contact with those of our loved ones who are now there. What make these contacts possible are the extraordinary abilities of the young woman who sits next to Madame Blavatsky. I refer of course to Isadora Persano, the great medium from Naples. We are ready to begin. Are there any other observations to be made?”

Mme. Blavatsky immediately stood up. “It is,” she said in her deep voice, “a matter of sorrow as well as anger that the great traditions of spirituality represented by most of us here have to suffer the infantile skepticism of the world’s so-called greatest detective, but he has gone too far in his criticisms of me. Perhaps we should have disallowed his presence and not attempted this contest, but if he stays, I hope that this experience may change his mind. I hope too that he will judge impartially what is about to transpire in this room.”

Holmes answered immediately. “Dear Madam, I am here at the invitation of Professor Lombroso. I understand that he is chairman of your committee. And so I shall stay unless he asks me to leave. As to my severe criticism, it has not been answered by any one of you satisfactorily. Let me add that I am here to be shown the veracity of your experiences. You believe that the world contains a spiritual aspect. I must say to you all that I sincerely hope you are correct and I am wrong. Unfortunately, I must remain unconvinced until you demonstrate clearly this young woman’s powers.”

Conan Doyle rose and said, “We have in this young woman from Naples the most convincing example of spiritualism that I have come across in my long researches into the subject. Holmes may be skeptical, but I know him to be among the most fair-minded of men. And I must say that he has uncovered a good deal of spiritual charlatanry over the years. My feeling is that Holmes should restate his position after the séance and in the discussions that normally follow.”

“Good, a very strong point, my dear Doyle,” said Professor Lodge.

“Shall we begin then?”

Doyle proposed a brief toast, and we took each other’s hands. No one closed his eyes. Isadora Persano let out a deep groan of pain, her face contorted, her body twisted out of shape. I became suddenly overwhelmed by her monstrous appearance. Holmes was impassive, inscrutable, concentrating on the woman’s every move. Then it happened: instead of running from the room I began to laugh uncontrollably and so did the others, a chuckle at first, and then almost a roar. Isadora gave out an unearthly scream and said, “Someone is coming into me, someone I do not know.”

A strange sound came from a box that rested on a nearby table. It was a sound that I had never heard before, like the crackling of flames.

The room became silent and a man’s voice came from her throat.

“John, are you there? This is your long-lost uncle, Peter Tomkins. Can you hear me? Your mother and father are standing beside me, waiting to speak to you.”

At this moment, I was overcome and I began to sob loudly. While the voice was unknown, the accent was the one that I had grown up with.

“Who the devil are you?” I asked, wiping my eyes, which were now drenched with tears.

“I am your mother’s brother. Let your friends know what I have done for you. And tell them why you went to London last week. And be aware of false friends.”

I suddenly felt compelled to give in detail a description of my uncle’s estate and the monies that he had left to me. I went on, unable to stop the flood of sensations that passed through me.

“Where are you, Peter?” I asked, trying to hold on to my emotions. There was only silence, however.

Isadora slowly resumed her normal shape and walked from the room.

“Are you satisfied?” asked Lodge.

I was about to nod in assent, when I felt Holmes’s strong fingers pressing into my arm.

“I am afraid, Professor Lodge, that you will be disappointed with my verdict, but even more so with my explanation. Where shall we start?”

There was a deep silence. Holmes waited for a moment, looking deeply into the eyes of each of the participants.

“First, then, let me begin my explanation. I must say that the small toast we imbibed at Professor Lodge’s suggestion contained a very small amount of datura, the Indian drug that causes, in order, hysterical laughter, then tears, then a freedom of the word and the inability to lie. This was supplied by Madame Blavatsky, who first received it from Professor Mallik. Is it not so?”

Malllik stood up and confessed. “But its use here was only to make us all feel relaxed. The séance was not influenced by it.”

“Well then, Professor Mallik, do you believe that the voice you heard was that of Dr. Watson’s long-lost uncle?’’

“Of course I do. Why are you not convinced?”

“I remain unconvinced because my dear friend, John H. Watson, M.D., resident at 221b Baker Street, London, does not have, nor has ever had, an uncle named Peter Tomkins. Nor an uncle by any other name. The voice that you heard is therefore that of someone else.”

“But Holmes, what I said about my uncle and his fortune is all true—”

“Indeed, Watson, as far as you are concerned, it is true, but unfortunately it is all false.”

Lombroso was now on his feet, shouting at Holmes. My friend waited patiently until the good professor’s anger spent itself.

“You demand too much, Holmes. You have seen before your very eyes an experiment as successful as any in your own laboratories. Your closest friend was moved to tears by what he heard. How much more would we have learned had it not been for your unjustified scepticism.”

“Professor Lombroso, I ask that you allow me to explain my judgement. You will find in this folder all that you would need to know. The explanation is quite simple: Peter Tomkins does not exist and never has. How do I know that? Because I invented him and supplied the gang that control the Signorina, who is an innocent, with the information for them to use. Please forgive me, dear Watson, for there is no inheritance either. The supposed existence of a large sum of money to be collected by the Palladino gang from your uncle and you was an irresistible lure for them. It is with this promise of ill-gotten gain that they were willing to allow their greatest asset—la signorina here—to participate.”

“But the lawyers, Holmes, they were real and quite emphatic about Tomkins. Why, I returned all the way to London to meet Herriot, a partner in the firm.”

It was as I uttered the last sentence that I saw the lawyer in Holmes’s eyes and the unmistakable look of Mr. Herriot, the advocate I met in London.

“Holmes,” I cried, “it was you all along.’’

“Yes, old fellow. It was the clearest way I could make my point. Should any of you doubt my word, you are welcome to make any inquiries you like at the office of Herriot and Herriot, in Cornwall or London. Since the material of the case is false, the Herriots will have no problem in discussing it at length with anyone around this table. And I am sorry, old boy, that I had you make an extra trip to England, but I had no other way of your hearing the story directly from your lawyers without considerable risk of my plot being found out before our séance here. I see that Madame Blavatsky is trying to get our attention. Let us hear her out.”

The leader of the Theosophical Society was visibly angry.

“Clever, Mr. Holmes, but not clever enough. This is another of your outrageous accusations against people of good will. If you cannot believe in the spiritual, then leave it to those of us who see an awakening of mankind in its possibilities. How do I know, Mr. Holmes, that you did not concoct this scheme with the knowledge and cooperation of this man seated beside your closest friend?”

“Permit me, Madam. I have no objection to your attempts to awaken mankind to its spiritual nature. I merely object to the means, which are false and quite frankly faked by an unsavory group of thieves who are using this poor young woman for their own ends. I do not include you in that group, Madam. You are not a criminal, you are merely the gullible minister of her cynical bosses. As to any falsity in my account, you may discuss the matter with Mr. Herriot of Cornwall for evidence of my honesty and goodwill in the matter.”

There was a sudden emanation of sound from the wooden box that sat behind us. There was a crackling quality to it as if flames were being fanned by the argument we had just heard. Blavatsky smiled. “You hear, Mr. Holmes, the flames of Hell about to envelop us.”

“Not at all, Madam. What you call flames are the static produced by radio waves. The box was shown to me by its inventors, Marconi in Italy and Tesla in New York. I have worked with these gentlemen and indeed am responsible for several improvements in the clarity of reception. You see, Madam, I must keep abreast of new developments in knowledge in order to continue the struggle with human ignorance. You, on the other hand, appear to be content to maintain the old feudal order, of which you are one of the few literate members. It is you, not I, who help to keep mankind in the throes of poverty and unending subservience to those in power.”

Mme. Blavatsky took her seat, apparently chastened by Holmes’s rhetoric. No one else ventured any comment. Holmes nodded toward the chairman and we parted, leaving the rest of the assembled to their own judgements of what had just happened.

As we walked through the front hall, I heard Lombroso calling to us. As he approached us I could see that he had been quite taken aback by Holmes’s performance.

“Well?” said Holmes.

“I believe you now,” said Lombroso. “Isadora now admits that she was coached by Nicola Ciocchi, a valet for my father. He knew everything about us, and fed it all to the Palladino gang.” He extended his hand and we reciprocated.

“It is almost seven. Let us have dinner together in the Piazza,” said I.

“
Benissimo
,” said Lombroso. “We shall dine at La Sonnambula, which has the best food in all of Tuscany.”

We walked together and gazed at the crowd of people before us and the darkening sky above. The conversation at dinner was mostly about La Persano. Lombroso was excited, for not only did he believe that Holmes was right, but that he himself had thought of a new way of looking at mediums that was worth exploring.

“The whole question, Holmes, is how La Persano and others like her obtain such detailed and minute information concerning the lives of their clients. In my own case, I can see how. We were a household of many people. My parents loved to have guests, we were surrounded as children by servants with whose children we played constantly. Is it not possible, therefore, by as yet some unknown mental power that we absorb much of each other’s personalities in addition to what enters our brain through the senses? I do not mean any mystical power but a perspective of the brain itself that enables the individual to recall large parts of the past that were thought to be inaccessible. I hope, my dear Sherlock, that you understand that I am not speaking of what they call in your country channeling.”