The Ghost Hunters (10 page)

To my bemusement, Price was distinctly uninterested in the content of this letter, saying it was ‘no different’ to the plethora of other rantings he received. ‘Our work here with the mediums is far more important than trekking out to some remote house on some wild goose chase.’

I thought this a peculiar reaction from a man who presented himself as a ghost hunter, and pressed him on the point.

‘Do you think I haven’t been seduced by such stories before now?’ he protested, still facing away from me. ‘I’ve been investigating so-called haunted houses for nigh on twenty years. All of them nonsense!’

I myself, however, felt certain that this story was different – the witness sounded reliable, well-educated. At the very least he deserved a respectful reply.

This is the letter I wrote:

From the windows of my office on the top floor I had a perfect view over the rooftops of South Kensington to the spires of the Natural History Museum, but it wasn’t a view I ever had much time to enjoy. When we weren’t out on field investigations, my mornings were preoccupied mostly with librarian duties, which I carried out on the ground floor in a large, comfortable reading room located to the left of the main hallway. The lofty walls of this carpeted room were lined with grand portraits of famous psychologists, philosophers and scientists, each splendidly showcased with ornate frames.

After two months working with Price, he still possessed a frustrating ability to defy my expectations and to keep me guessing at every turn. Like the dreary afternoon in February – Valen -tine’s Day – when I made the mistake of asking him whether he had any arrangements for that evening. He looked awkward.

‘Arrangements?’

‘Yes … umm, you know, dinner arrangements perhaps.’

‘Why would you ask that?’

‘Why?’ My mind started racing. ‘I … well, I don’t know why … I suppose I was just interested, that’s all.’

He stared. ‘Interested?’

‘Yes.’

‘This evening I have a meeting,’ he said somewhat petulantly.

‘With whom?’ I wasn’t aware of any meetings. I certainly hadn’t cleared any space in his diary for meetings that day.

‘A meeting. With my wife, if you must know.’

‘Your wife!’ I exclaimed. ‘But – I mean, you never
said
.’

‘Am I obliged to tell you everything about my personal life?’

‘Well, no, obviously not. But—’

‘Then kindly rein in your indignation every time you see
or hear something about me that you didn’t know already.’

I felt my face flush with embarrassment, but of course I couldn’t stop myself asking the obvious question: ‘How long have you been married?’

The question was met with an immediate glower of resentment. ‘Twenty-one years.’

‘Oh.’

‘Is there something the matter, Sarah?’

‘No,’ I said tersely. ‘Of course not. I suppose I just assumed you were … well, a bachelor.’

‘A
bachelor!
’ He looked gravely offended. ‘Good grief, woman, no! I wouldn’t wish that upon anyone.’

My embarrassment heightened still further. He thought I meant homosexual. ‘No, no,’ I said quickly, ‘I didn’t mean
that!
I just …’ I paused to collect myself, then continued in a firmer voice, ‘What is your wife’s name, may I ask?’

‘Constance.’ The name rolled from his lips without any trace of affection.

‘And what is her occupation? What does she do?’

‘Do?’ Price issued an abrupt laugh. ‘As little as possible. Her late father was Robert Knight, the jeweller.’ He frowned and looked away. ‘Ours is, as I say, a fortunate predicament, and she is an excellent woman in most respects. She adores her charity work …’

‘But … ?’

He gestured towards the seance room. ‘Sad to say her interests do not stray quite as far as this Laboratory. Not nearly as far.’

I relaxed slightly, my gaze returning to his naked ring finger. He caught my glance and quickly clenched his hand. ‘Anyway,’ he continued, ‘what’s next on our agenda today?’ Conversation on the matter, at least for the moment, was closed.

But that did not stop me thinking about the singular oddness of this exchange during the weeks and months that passed, nor wondering why he never mentioned his life at home with his wife, why he never involved her in any of his social engagements, why he never mentioned her at all.

*

Much to my annoyance, it had become part of Mother’s routine to rise early and open the post – even letters addressed to me. On the first day of May, over breakfast in our kitchen, she presented me with the invitation to Amy’s wedding.

‘She’s planned it precisely twelve months from now,’ she said with delight.

The invitation card was exquisite: elegantly printed and tied with lace. As I stared at it over the breakfast table it made me think of another more innocent time, long before I had taken the job with Price.

‘And in Chelsea Town Hall, Sarah. How splendid! A spring wedding. We must go shopping for hats.’

I agreed to meet her that afternoon at three o’clock in the pleasure garden at the top of Selfridges on Oxford Street. I don’t know what I was expecting when I arrived: air vents and piping perhaps, certainly not stone-flagged floors and a gazebo covered in climbing clematis!

‘Quite something, isn’t it?’ said Mother, as I joined her under the flagpoles, near the entrance to the secret garden. Close by, pigeons nested in ornate dovecots. Linking arms, we looked north to Hampstead Heath in silence.

‘I used to come up here with your father,’ said Mother quietly. A smile covered the sadness of her memory and she said nothing else. Now, thanks to Harry Price, our lives were becoming easier. We could afford to visit places like this.

We took the escalator down to Ladies’ Wear and I watched Mother’s eyes moving lovingly over the new streamlined fashions. Her gaze settled on a wide pink hat with an upturned brim before she looked away, discouraged by its obvious expense.

‘Have it,’ I said.

She gave me a quick look of surprise.

‘Please,’ I urged, ‘treat yourself. What good is it me working such long hours if I can’t make our lives a little easier?’

As the shop assistant boxed and wrapped the hat, Mother squeezed gentle thanks into my hand.

*

One morning in August I was at work in the library on the ground floor of the laboratory when a loud bang from Price’s office upstairs disturbed me and I heard my employer raise his voice in a cry of anger. A door slammed, and seconds later an elderly, sturdy-looking man dashed down the main staircase. As he reached the hall he saw me and entered the library, projecting the full force of his anger. ‘I say, young lady, do you work here?’

I introduced myself as Price’s new assistant.

‘His assistant? Whatever happened to Mr Radley? He was a gentleman with whom I could do business.’

‘You can do business with me,’ I said shortly.

My inquisitor was tall and distinguished-looking, with a great bristling moustache. His face carried the traces of a hard life but was not unkind. Beneath his discontented gaze I stood firm in my resolve to defend my employer. Something about him was familiar.

‘Would you like to tell me what the matter is?’ I asked.

‘The problem is Mr Price! His tests are going too far. If he carries on like this, there isn’t a medium in London who will want to be tested!’

I leapt to my employer’s defence, almost without a second
thought. ‘You must appreciate that his work has some merit, surely?’

‘Of course I recognise that these claims of spiritualism need to be most carefully put to the test. There are many dishonest and clever people who would wilfully take advantage of those who believe in an afterlife.’

I wanted instinctively to tell this stranger that I agreed with him, because I now realized who he was. It wasn’t just his light Scottish accent that had given him away. I recognised him from Price’s opening night. I decided to take the heat out of our exchange.

‘May I say, Sir Arthur, it’s a great pleasure to meet you. I adore your writings.’

He seemed warmed by the comment and his face softened. ‘In truth,’ he sighed, ‘I was glad to remove Holmes before the public became tired of him, but I am pleased, at least, to have entertained you.’

‘Shall we start again?’ I smiled, leading him to a leather sofa where we sat by a huge window overlooking Queensberry Place.

He apologised for what he called his ‘rough temper’. ‘But I feel my frustration with Mr Price grows daily. My efforts now,’ he continued, ‘must be to promote the great movement of Spiritualism and to defend it from the activities of your infernal employer.’

‘You know him well?’

‘I’m not sure that anyone can truthfully claim to know Mr Price well. I have always felt there was something not quite right about him.’

‘Not right … ?’

‘Something dangerous.’ Sir Arthur nodded. ‘When I watch him tie up mediums, I think he is the sort of man who is lacking
in all boundaries. The fellow’s a showman. We all know what they do – shock, my dear lady! As old Harry indeed shocked us all at that lecture of his.’ As he spoke he was shaking his head. ‘He fails to realise that the biggest mystery awaits us all: that of the Great Beyond.’

‘So you actually believe—’

‘That when the body dissolves, the spirit endures.’ He nodded and smiled kindly. ‘Yes, that is what I believe.’

‘But how can you believe that? A man of your medical background.’

‘You think it foolish of me?’

I chose my words carefully. ‘I’m surprised that a man of your shrewd intellect would be taken in by stories of mental projection, automatic writing and the like. You have to admit it all sounds rather far-fetched.’

‘When you have eliminated the probable, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, has to be the truth.’ He smiled. I did too, recognising the comment from one of his novels. It created a greater familiarity between us, and he immediately elaborated. ‘To be very clear, young lady. I have arrived at my position through treading the stepping stones of empiricism and logic. It might surprise you to learn this, Miss Grey, but Harry Price isn’t the first man to set out on a sceptical quest. The chief judge of the French Colony of Crandenagur in India, Monsieur Jacolliot, travelled a very similar path. His legal mind was against spiritualism. Using a series of complicated experiments designed to root out fraud, Monsieur Jacolliot studied native fakirs who claimed the same abilities as today’s mediums. What he found changed his mind: the movement of objects with the power of the mind, levitation, the handling of fire. He concluded that spirits are very real.’ He paused, reflecting. ‘Afterwards I read
countless books on the subject, met hordes of witnesses. They impressed me greatly. The most famous medium of all, Mr. D. D. Home, demonstrated his powers in the cold light of day, and was willing to undergo whatever test was put to him. Of course the occasional scandal is to be expected, but that shouldn’t mean we dismiss the rest of the evidence as easily as Mr Price would. Haven’t you seen any evidence of the supernatural?’

‘Not a scrap.’ I looked into his eyes, which shimmered with hope. Then a memory slammed back: the letter mentioning a haunted rectory.

‘Except …’

‘Except what?’

Borley Rectory. I held in my mind a romanticised conception of the place: a rambling mansion set on a desolate hill beneath scudding clouds and wind-tossed trees. The letter I had opened, and which Price had so quickly disregarded, still provoked within me a latent sense of purpose. ‘It’s nothing, really –
probably
nothing. Harry thinks so.’

He let out a hearty laugh. ‘Now, why doesn’t that surprise me? You listen to me, Miss Grey: he can teach you everything, I’m sure, except how to recognise a real ghost when you see it.’

Though I didn’t share his faith, I couldn’t help admiring Conan Doyle’s passion.

‘Detection and deception … those are two subjects you know a great deal about, sir – both opposed, yet both giving meaning to the other. Like you and Harry.’

The author smiled gently, keeping his eyes on mine as I spoke. ‘You’re clearly a very intelligent woman, Miss Grey. What led you to work here? Have you, like me, lost anyone close to you?’

‘We all lose people,’ I said shortly, ‘in the end.’

‘But are you not curious?’

‘Curious, yes. Foolish, no.’ The words came out rather too quickly. ‘I’m sorry, sir – I didn’t mean …’

To my relief, Sir Arthur broke into laughter. ‘Oh, it’s quite all right, Miss Grey.’ But he saw I was mortified with embarrassment and rested one hand on mine. ‘Please, don’t worry. Your remarks are nothing compared to Mr Price’s bullish attitude.’

‘Yes,’ I acknowledged, remembering the door he had slammed in my face.

‘The man is ruthless, Miss Grey, utterly ruthless; there’s nothing he wouldn’t do in order to get what he wants. Harry Price needs someone to balance him, soften his edges. Someone rational but open-minded.’ He nodded at me. ‘Someone in your position could be very useful to me.’

‘You want me to spy on him for you?’

‘Oh no, no. I meant someone to help me better understand the man. That’s all.’

But something in his expression told me that wasn’t all he had meant.

‘Perhaps you might remind your employer that this building is owned by the Spiritualist Alliance, and that his tenure depends on his good behaviour.’