Authors: Neil Spring
It wasn’t only the expense of this equipment that impressed me, but the sheer amount of it. So many cameras! Even video-cameras. I loved the cinema and had always been curious about how films were made, which might explain why, at that moment, I found myself becoming even more fascinated by the man who had created this place.
‘What’s that?’ I asked Radley, pointing at a large machine in another corner.
‘That’s an X-ray machine, Miss Grey. We use it to see into the stomachs of mediums.’
The Laboratory seemed complete, except for one curious absence.
‘Everything in this room is designed to help us detect alleged psychic forces or impressions of spirit intervention. The rest of the Laboratory, which you will see shortly, includes a seance room, baffle chamber and dark room.’
‘Is there an office too?’ I asked.
‘That’s out of bounds,’ Radley replied curtly. ‘But as you can see, we do everything we can to control the environments in which the deceivers perform for us.’
‘What did he say?’ Mother asked, in a flutter of alarm. ‘Deceivers?
Impressions
of spirit intervention?’
‘Now, if you would please follow me.’
We were led back out into the corridor and into the adjoining room.
‘In here, ladies, is where the true thrills happen. The electric lights in this room are temporary and have been installed for your benefit this evening.’
‘Look,’ Mother exclaimed. I tracked her gaze to a tall wooden cabinet lined with a black curtain. I stepped forward, but as I did so something else struck me as unusual – the floor.
‘It’s made of cork,’ I remarked. ‘Why?’
‘Cork and linoleum,’ our guide corrected. ‘This is the seance room. In here we control all conditions, including temperature. Cork is a bad conductor of heat. In this room we invite mediums to enter trance-like states and attempt to channel messages from souls of the dead.’
‘What about physical seances?’ Mother asked sharply.
‘Yes,’ Radley nodded, ‘we control those as well, requesting spirits to communicate via knockings or by levitating tables or objects.’
It was a gloomy space, not clinical at all. Sadness lay heavily on the air.
‘How can you possibly see what’s going on in darkness?’ I asked, noticing the wide mahogany shutter which covered the window. And then I remembered the luminous paint.
‘We miss nothing, monitor everything with state-of-the-art equipment. And we normally catch our culprit.’
I caught an expression of profound disappointment on Mother’s face. Then she sent me a look that was muddled and somehow distressing:
What happened, Sarah? I brought you here to find your father.
My thoughts quickly turned to the enigmatic person whose name and work had drawn disparate crowds from across London
on this freezing, murky night. This was his big opportunity. His lecture was over. Why wasn’t he up here, with us?
After only a moment of irresolution I decided I would seek him out, and waited while Radley demonstrated the ways in which mediums concealed items about their clothing, moved objects in the dark and produced ghostly rapping noises with their feet. Mother was watching, shaking her head in stark disagreement. And at last, when I was confident I would not be missed, I slipped quietly away.
*
The corridor outside was deserted. I walked back down it and came to the door I had noticed earlier: the one without a name-plate. I tried the handle; it clicked and the door creaked open.
The only light came from a log fire crackling in the hearth and there was an overpowering scent of tobacco. As I stepped forward, my eyes moved from the sash windows to a hatstand before settling on an enormous desk strewn with papers, journals and unopened letters that overflowed from its surface onto a chair and the floor.
Harry Price’s private study. But my goodness, what a mess! My sympathy went out to any secretary who had to contend with such chaos. But perhaps I was over-hasty, for as I looked more carefully at my shadowy surroundings – the tea table spread with scones from Fortnum’s, jam, clotted cream and pastries, the well-stacked bookcase, the vast array of fountain pens and sharpened pencils, the filing cabinet – it occurred to me that this was a peculiar, ordered chaos: a faint clue to the man I was destined to know.
My attention was drawn to a substantial glass cabinet secured with a heavy lock. I pressed my palm against the surface of the cold glass and peered in at the intriguing collection of items inside – a bunch of roses, a trumpet, strings of pearls, decks of
cards and various other items of bric-a-brac. Especially interesting were the photographs, black and white images of men and women huddled tightly together around seance tables, heads lowered in semi-darkness as ghostly forms and faces of the dead floated in the void surrounding them. Yet more faces stared out from the other photographs: once-popular mediums, exposed and disgraced by Harry Price, together with the signed confessions in which they admitted their trickery. Above these, placed neatly on top of the cabinet, a single wooden frame displayed a photograph of Price himself standing proudly in a black frock coat, high-collared shirt and black necktie. A handkerchief in his breast pocket completed the look.
‘Young lady, what the devil are you doing in here?’
The voice, deep and commanding, made me jump.
I turned with alarm to see the man I had sought.
*
Harry Price was standing in the open doorway, looking straight at me with an expression that was deeply hostile. I did my best to look as though I had a right to be there, extending my hand, which he ignored.
‘Mr Price,’ I said awkwardly, feeling my face flush, ‘it’s a genuine pleasure to meet you. Your lecture just now was truly—’
He began to take slow, deliberate steps towards me. ‘I’ll ask you again, what are you doing in here? Are you with
them
?’
I felt helpless, as though I were trapped in a cage. Then a new, more alarming realisation:
No one knows I am in here
.
‘Are you with them?’ he asked again, louder this time.
‘Them?’
‘
Them
. The rival camp. The Society for Psychical Research.’ He was so close now that I could see the dark cigarette stains on his teeth.
‘Oh. No, no I’m not with them,’ I managed in a somewhat tremulous voice. ‘I’m Sarah Grey. Hello.’ I offered him what I hoped was a genuine smile. ‘Sorry – I’m afraid I wandered away from the rest of the group. I’m not sure how I—’
‘Afraid?’ He stopped just a stride’s length before me, and now I had to look up to meet his piercing gaze. ‘Why are you afraid, Miss Grey?’ he said with quiet menace. ‘A woman who is not an intruder, a thief, a spy – a woman who has nothing to hide – has no need to be afraid, surely?’
‘I am certainly not a thief, Mr Price! As I was saying, I …’
But he had looked away from my face and was surveying me slowly from top to toe. I suddenly felt like a guilty child caught in a wayward act of disobedience. A distant memory jumped into my head: my best friend Amy and I sneaking into a late-night showing at a cinema on Leicester Square. We couldn’t have been much older than fifteen. The usherette had caught us crouching in the flickering glow behind the seats in the back row. There was something reassuringly familiar about this memory as I stared at Price. It reminded me of a time when daring to take risks could be both thrilling and safe, like getting on a fairground ride you knew would eventually end.
Finally, he said, ‘Then could it be that – by some wonderfully convenient coincidence – you are merely fond of books which do not belong to you?’
I realised I was still holding the tattered volume I had only moments before removed from the shelf. ‘Yes!’ I exclaimed with great relief. ‘Yes, that’s it.’
‘So you wandered in here merely by
accident
?’
‘By no means.’
‘Then you are … curious?’
‘Yes! I am curious – about books especially. And may I say, Mr
Price, you have quite a collection here,’ I went on, deciding that flattery was the best course of action. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many books.’
He beamed at me suddenly, with great energy, and I watched the curve of his lips as he spoke. ‘Well, there are many more downstairs. Four thousand, three hundred and seventy-six books, to be exact, not to mention the five thousand, three hundred and forty-three pamphlets and seven hundred and twenty-five columns of periodicals. The books in this room are the oldest in our collection.’ His eyes twinkled as they moving lovingly over the volumes, then returned to me. ‘The title you hold in your hands is a first edition of 1762, one of Oliver Goldsmith’s finest. It contains the first recorded account of a seance.’
He let a moment pass and once more I was subjected to his trenchant stare. ‘But yes, of course you would have known all of that if you
were
a spy, wouldn’t you? And from the expression on your face, it is very quickly becoming clear to me that you did
not
know that – which means, Miss Grey’ – he pointed at me in triumph – ‘that I can
trust
you!’ He squinted. ‘Possibly.’
His cologne was too strong, his suit crumpled, but I found myself moved by his passion and by my memories of Mother’s suffering down the years at the hands of tricksters. My initial intimidation had quite left me, replaced by an unexpected desire – I might almost say a need – to impress him.
‘This building,’ I remarked, ‘it’s beautiful. How does one afford to keep such grand premises dedicated to such an … alternative … subject?’
My curiosity seemed to please him for he smiled and said with little modesty, ‘I am a fortunate man of some means who has enjoyed success in business, Miss Grey – this much is true.’
He sighed heavily. ‘But this building does not belong to me.’
‘To whom does it belong?’
‘The Laboratory is held on lease from the London Spiritualists’ Alliance. I persuaded them to let me have it for a time to see if I could shed some light on their mysteries. I told them I would use the Laboratory to help develop mediums’ powers in communicating with the dead.’
So that was why Mother had been so keen to attend.
‘You lied to them?’
He hesitated and said with boyish charm, ‘I was perhaps a little hazy with the truth.’
‘And what is the truth?’ I asked him. ‘Even I was under the impression that you were a believer.’
‘I did believe. A long time ago.’ His eyes slid to a small framed photograph on his desk: the picture of a young man with dark hair and sideburns joining a moustache.
‘What made you change your mind?’
‘The fear of all reason falling out of it, my dear.’ His answer came so swiftly it sounded rehearsed. His eyes flicked back to me and he smiled, the gesture tempering his introspection. ‘You’re very fond of asking questions, aren’t you?’
‘It helps me learn,’ I said, shrugging, taking in the room’s curiosities: an ancient typewriter with some missing keys and next to this, resting on his desk, a china human hand that served as a paperweight.
‘Isn’t there another group – a rival group – the Society for Psychical Research?’ I asked carefully. ‘I shouldn’t think they’re terribly pleased with the rival institution.’
Price gave a thin smile. ‘So – you
do
know something about the subject?’
‘I wouldn’t say that, exactly. I’m … well, I’m a good listener.’
‘Both organisations are important to my work as regards my reputation, and financially, but they are also rivals.’
‘So you’re rather caught in the middle?’
He nodded and flashed me a smile as charming as it was sudden. ‘The Spiritualists think I’m a paranoid witch finder; the scientists think I’m a crank with unconventional methods.’
‘
Aren’t
your methods unconventional?’
‘Observe the masses and do their opposite,’ he quipped, loosening his black necktie. ‘I like unconventional.’ He saw my concerned expression. ‘Oh, I wouldn’t worry too much, Miss Grey. I don’t. Life’s too short. And being a man who spends every hour of every day delving into the possibility of the afterlife, I should know!’
I nodded my agreement, beguiled by his strange presence, and said airily, ‘This must be a fascinating place to work.’
Price’s eyes gleamed with interest. ‘Is that really what you think, Miss Grey?’
‘I wouldn’t have said so otherwise.’
‘Well, why don’t you?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Why don’t you come to work here? You can see I need help.’ He nodded self-consciously towards his desk and the pile of papers and unopened letters on top of it.
Letters.
The sight of them grounded a lightning flash of memory to a miserable night in early 1914: my father as I had never seen him before, crying as he crouched furtively in the darkness next to his bed. He was holding something I couldn’t see.
What was it?
‘Miss Grey?’
I snapped back and saw that Price was smiling at me. The
rapidity with which his mood had softened was astonishing.
‘The position will be well paid, of course.’
‘I’m … hardly an expert in these matters,’ I protested, struggling to find my words.
‘You can learn, can’t you? I need an astute assistant.’
‘But you already have an assistant.’
‘Why don’t you let me worry about him?’ Price cut in, his eyes never leaving my face. ‘My, I sense in you so much doubt.’ He nodded and said with a confidence that made my neck tingle, ‘I can make that doubt go away.’
I didn’t know how to respond, so instead I asked him what the role would entail.
‘That’s the best part,’ he breathed. ‘In this line of work, one never quite knows …’
For a moment I felt as though all the air had been sucked out of the room, taking all rational sense with it. Of course I was tempted, yet a large part of me was floundering for an excuse to say no.
‘Can you drive?’ he asked hopefully.
‘I have no intention of becoming your chauffeur!’ I said sternly, and from the way he cowered immediately behind outstretched arms, smiling broadly, I could tell he was only half serious. ‘Anyway,’ I added, ‘if it’s a secretary you want, I don’t do shorthand.’