The Ghost of the Mary Celeste (25 page)

Doyle turned the card over, rubbing his finger against the embossed name on the front. “I suppose I could go tomorrow. Is it far from here?”

“A ten-minute walk. If that sort of thing interests you, you might go. You’ll enjoy Bishop. He’s a brilliant fellow, in his way, and a great sportsman. He was quite a boxer in his youth.”

“Was he?” Doyle raised his eyebrows at his brother, who drew down the corners of his mouth and shrugged.

“Very well,” said Doyle. “I’ll go along and see these gentlemen and their psychic wonder.”

All morning long a sullen mass of slate-blue clouds brooded over the rooftops of Philadelphia. As Dr. Doyle set off from the Lippincott mansion for his appointment at Dr. Bishop’s, the first patter of drops struck his hat. He’d just passed an hour with an enthusiastic journalist from the
Philadelphia Times
who asked him for his impression of America and urged him to bring Sherlock Holmes back from the dead. “So you believe the dead can return,” Doyle replied cheerfully.

“Well, no. I mean, not really,” the young man demurred. “But he might not really be dead, you know.”

“I think it’s safe to say he may never really have been alive,” suggested the author.

“Of course,” the flustered reporter agreed. “I know that.”

It was tiresome, the daily interview, and he did his best to liven it up, but the newspapers wanted pap for the masses, and he dutifully supplied it. So steadfastly did he decline to speak ill of America that his refusal had been noted in the press. He was the rare British writer who admired America, who had always wanted to visit, who vowed to return.

He had scarcely walked a block when a low, distant rumble announced the imminence of the storm. In the second block, as if some frayed seam in the clouds had split, a great sheet of water swept down from above. Doyle was not much given to regarding the weather—one went out in it, no matter what—and his pace was naturally brisk. As the puddles quickly gathered underfoot, he charged along the pavement, oblivious to the weight his woolen
tweeds were taking on and the sodden condition of his stockings. In fact, this thorough soaking suited him, as it constituted a change, something unexpected in the tedium of his schedule. The American rain, at least, wouldn’t ask him how he felt about American rain.

He was also enlivened and pleasurably engaged by the nature of the coming interview, the only one in over a month in which he was not the subject. The role of psychic investigator appealed strongly to his sense of himself as both a scientist and an adventurer in the realms of psychological possibility, of thorny questions, which, in his view, might yield solid, empirical answers. He was a good judge of character and not easily duped. Many of these mediums and clairvoyants were doubtless frauds, so his mission was a complex one—to be circumspect and alert, yet open, to outfox foxes, to separate the true gold from the dross. He had a limited experience in the field, some thought transference exercises, which had persuaded him that such phenomena were indeed possible, a séance or two, unrewarding but not entirely discouraging, and an investigation of a haunted house he had undertaken with Major Podmore, which had proved no more haunted than any house in which an unhappy young woman resides with her repressive family.

As he approached the stern gray stone façade of Dr. Bishop’s town house, he had, he assured himself, no expectation that anything extraordinary would happen within its precincts. This was the correct attitude to take. Americans were a credulous race; they wrote letters to fictional characters, they coined religions as if there were a shortage on the market. He vaulted up the few steps and turned the bell.

Dr. Bishop himself greeted Doyle at the door, relieved him of his coat and waterlogged hat, and ushered him into an overheated parlor where a tall, sallow-faced young woman seated near the requisite blazing fire jumped up from her chair and stood stiffly, nervously blinking her eyes like a daydreaming student who has been called upon in class. Was this dreary personage the renowned clairvoyant?

She was not. Dr. Bishop acknowledged that it was his pleasure to introduce his distinguished guest to Miss Constance Whitaker,
who would be the registrar for the sitting this afternoon. Miss Whitaker held out her hand in the automatic fashion of Americans, and Doyle pressed it briefly in his own. “I’m so thrilled to meet you, sir,” she said, blushing urgently.

As Miss Petra was not in evidence, the three stood talking about the weather; it had been a wet fall in Philadelphia and an unseasonably cold one. Dr. Bishop praised Miss Whitaker’s abilities at transcribing the sittings of their subjects. Today’s report would be the seventeenth they had carried out with Miss Petra, and some excerpts were to be published in the Boston Society’s proceedings in the coming months.

Doyle hid his astonishment at being kept waiting beneath the set smile and amiably quizzical manner he had perfected for all such uncomfortable moments. He asked Dr. Bishop questions about his boxing enthusiasm and found him to be, as advertised, quirky and intelligent. He was also hard of hearing. Doyle found himself raising his voice and speaking with exaggerated care. At last the bell sounded and his host rushed off to the door, leaving him to contemplate Miss Whitaker’s awed and awkward silence.

“Have you been assisting Dr. Bishop very long?” he asked kindly.

She started, as if pinched. “Oh,” she said. “I’m not sure.”

They both heard the rustle of movement and exchange of voices in the hall, and then Miss Petra appeared in the doorway, where she paused a moment, as if offering herself for viewing. Dr. Doyle, the investigator, took her in closely. She was a very small, slight creature, not in her first youth. Not at all what he had expected. She was dressed neatly, though oddly, in muted colors, a pale lavender silk blouse beneath a tight-fitting mauve velvet jacket of a stylish cut. Her gray silk skirt, rucked up at the back and sadly out of date, was too short, so that an inch or two of her black stockings showed over the tops of her neat black boots. Her hair was artfully arranged and pinned tightly at the back. The loose curls at the front, he noted, were shot with silver. Her eyes, large, of a translucent gray that seemed to give off light, frankly studied him. He noted a slight protrusion of the soft tissue in the left eye, possibly an orbital pseudo-tumor—no
treatment for it, and none necessary for the most part, but it could be painful. She had good posture, her long neck was extended, her chin lifted to hide the weakness in the jawline. She’d applied a touch of rouge to suggest the blush of youth on her cheekbones, but it didn’t succeed in hiding from Dr. Doyle the likelihood that Miss Petra was over forty.

Dr. Bishop came up behind her as she advanced into the room, her hand outstretched; her smile, parting her lips over straight, even teeth, was charming. “Dr. Doyle,” she said. “What a pleasure to meet you here. Your wonderful books have given me so much pleasure.”

He took her hand, holding it a moment and fixing her with his twinkling ready-to-be-delighted expression, which reliably disarmed the ladies. “I’m pleased to hear it.”

“
The
White Company
,” she continued, “I believe that one is my favorite. It so put me in mind of Walter Scott—I love his novels too. But yours was different, just as noble but somehow more relevant, less obscured in the mists of time. I’m not sure how you did it, but I found it tremendously moving and powerful.”

This comparison to his own favorite author, as well as praise for his favorite among his own books, filled Doyle’s senses like a perfume. And there was an actual perfume working on him as well—Miss Petra must be wearing it—a scent he associated with his childhood, the white heather of Scotland, which, a schoolmate had once told him, only grows over the graves of fairies.

Having entirely disarmed Dr. Doyle, Miss Petra turned the force of her presence upon Miss Whitaker. “Constance,” she said. “Here you are with your notebook. How is your mother faring?”

“She’s better.” Miss Whitaker stepped cautiously closer to the medium, as if to warm herself by a fire. Doyle exchanged a look of medical superiority and confidence with Dr. Bishop as he came into the room. “I’m sure you know Dr. Doyle’s reputation as an author,” he said to Miss Petra, “but you may not know that he is a member of the British Society for Psychical Research.”

“Indeed,” Violet replied, looking from the resident doctor to the visiting doctor, while Miss Whitaker sank into a chair and opened
her leather-bound notebook. “And you are enjoying your first visit to America, Dr. Doyle.”

“I am,” he replied. “I’ve been gratified by the hospitality of Americans. They make one feel so welcome.”

She nodded, as at common knowledge. “You’ve experienced no anti-British sentiment.”

Doyle chuckled, as a recollection surfaced. “There was an excitable gentleman speechifying at a dinner in Detroit. It was after many rounds of toasts.”

Dr. Bishop frowned so that his beard moved down his chest. “He spoke against Britain?”

“He spoke against the Empire,” Doyle replied.

“In Detroit?”

Doyle glanced at Miss Petra, who appeared interested in his reply. “The wine flows very freely in Detroit,” he said.

“Your schedule has been hectic, I believe,” Miss Petra observed.

“I’ve spent many a night sleeping in your excellent Pullman cars.”

“You prefer our trains to those on the Continent.”

He nodded. It struck him as odd that Miss Petra seemed incapable of asking him a question. She made pronouncements with which he was invited to agree. It was like being fed one’s lines by a fellow actor. “The Pullman car is more commodious and more private than any I’ve seen there.”

“I should think privacy would be welcome on such a tour. You are much in the public eye.”

“Well, I don’t mind that. I came to see America. My lectures are the price I pay, and it’s not a steep one.”

“As Americans are so hospitable,” she finished for him.

“Shall we sit down?” their host suggested, taking for himself the armchair nearest Miss Whitaker. Miss Petra settled in the chair facing Miss Whitaker, leaving to Doyle the hulking Pembroke nearest the fire. When his legs were pressed against the smooth leather of the seat, he realized his trousers were soaked from the
thighs down. The heat from the flames made him feel like a sheep in a steam bath.

Miss Petra observed him shifting his weight from one hip to the other. “I confess that I was surprised you should find time in your schedule to come and see me,” she said.

Doyle crossed his feet at the ankle, then uncrossed them. “Dr. Mitchell assured me I shouldn’t miss the opportunity.”

“Ah yes, Dr. Mitchell,” Miss Petra said softly.

“He speaks highly of your gift.”

“Does he?” She appeared surprised. “I haven’t seen him in years.”

“Weir Mitchell keeps up with everything,” Dr. Bishop put in. “He’s not a member of our society yet, but I know he reads the proceedings.”

This reminder of his official capacity as a psychic investigator and the duties attendant upon it distracted Doyle from his skirmish with the chair. “I hope you won’t be offended if I take the liberty of examining certain particulars of this room.” He turned to Miss Petra, as if she needed reassuring. “It’s purely a formality.”

“Of course,” said the doctor. “That would be proper.”

“By all means,” said Miss Petra.

Doyle stood up and strode about the room, peering under tables and behind the chairs. The Pembroke was open beneath, so a glance assured him of its uselessness as a place of concealment. He glanced overhead at the chandelier and down at the plush, expensive carpet.

“I believe Mr. Sherlock Holmes often finds useful clues behind the curtains,” Miss Petra observed drily.

Doyle gave her a chilly look. She was too flippant for his taste. He liked a woman with spirit, but there was something confrontational about this one that repelled him. “I’ll forgo the curtains,” he said. “As no crime has been committed here.”

“Not yet,” she said cheerfully.

“What did you say, my dear?” asked Dr. Bishop.

She leaned toward him, speaking clearly. “I said no crime has been committed here yet,” she replied.

Doyle wandered back to his chair, sitting down disconsolately.

“Crime,” exclaimed Dr. Bishop. “I should hope not.”

“Poor Constance,” Miss Petra said. “She is taking down all this idle chatter.”

The gentlemen turned their attention to the young scribe, who raised her pen, but not her eyes, which were firmly fastened to the open page of her notebook.

“That’s true,” said Dr. Bishop. “Perhaps we should begin.”

“Do we sit at the table?” asked Doyle.

“No,” said Miss Petra. “But you should be comfortable and I’m sure
you
are not. Dr. Bishop, would you be so good as to change chairs with Dr. Doyle. He is burning up next to that fire and you are always chilly.
Frileux
—I believe that’s the French word for your temperament.”

Doyle rose at once, looming over his host, who took a moment to grasp the suggestion. “Change chairs,” he said. “What. Does that suit you, sir?”

“It does,” said Doyle.

As the large men followed her instructions, Miss Petra pursued her observations of their physical types. “You are of an igneous constitution, Dr. Doyle. The Arctic must have suited you perfectly.”

Dr. Bishop, subsiding into the depths of the oversized chair, crossed his legs toward the fire. “Have you been in the Arctic, Doyle?”

“I was ship’s doctor on a whaler, fresh from my medical studies,” Doyle announced to the doctor. To Miss Petra he added softly, “You’ve done your research.”

“I would be remiss if I didn’t,” she replied. “I make no secret of it. You understand that I may be of little or no use to you today. I expect your reputation has preceded you right out of this world, and the spirits may be intimidated.”

“Do you think so?” asked Dr. Bishop. “Is that possible?”

Doyle detected the edge of irony in Miss Petra’s tone, and it struck him that she was enjoying herself at the gentlemen’s expense. “Miss Petra is joking, I believe,” he said.