The Shadow in the North (5 page)

Chairs were drawn up, and the spiritualists and their guests jammed themselves as comfortably as they could around the table. Frederick sat on one side of Mrs. Budd with the electrodermograph in front of him, and

before he could escape, Jim was seized by a strong, beringed hand and planted firmly on the other.

"Lights, Mrs. Wilcox, if you please," said Mr. Freeman Humphries, and the hostess turned down the gaslights one by one before taking her place. Only the faintest glow now filtered down. A hush fell over the company.

"Can you see your apparatus, Dr. Semple?" inquired a spectral voice.

"Perfectly, thank you. The needle is coated with luminous paint. Ready when you are, Mrs. Budd."

"Thank you, dear," she said placidly. "Join hands, ladies and gentlemen."

Hands felt for one another and lay palm to palm around the edge of the table. The circle was joined. Frederick peered down at the box, his right hand folded in Mrs. Budd's warm, moist one, his left clutching the bony fingers of the pallid young woman on his other side.

Silence fell.

After a minute Mrs. Budd gave a long, shuddering sigh. Her head had fallen forward and she seemed to be slumbering. Suddenly she woke up and began to speak—in a man's voice.

"Ella?" she said. "Ella, my dear?"

It was a rich voice, a fruity voice, and more than one person in the circle felt the hairs prickle on their necks in response. Mrs. Jamieson Wilcox started and said faintly, "Oh! Charles—Charles! Is it you?"

"It is indeed, my dear," answered the voice—a mans voice, a voice no woman could imitate, a voice with sixty-seven years of port and cheese and raisins in it. "Ella, my dear, though the veil has parted us, let not our love grow cold. ..."

"Oh, never, Charles! Never!"

"I am with you night and day, my dear. Tell Filkins in the shop to mind his cheese."

"Mind the cheese—^yes—"

"And pay heed to our boy Victor. I fear he may be falling in with low companions."

"Oh, dear! Charles, what can I—"

"Fear not, Ella. The blessed light is shining—the golden land beckons, and I must depart. Remember the cheese, Ella. Filkins is not sufficiently careful with his napkins. I go ... I depart..."

"Oh, Charles! Oh, Charles! Farewell, beloved!"

A sigh, and the spirit of the grocer departed. Mrs. Budd shook her head as if to clear it; Mrs. Jamieson Wilcox wept discreetly into a black-edged handkerchief, and then the circle was resumed.

Frederick looked around. In the dimness it was impossible to make out anyone's features, but the atmosphere had changed: people were excited now, tense with expectation and ready to be convinced. This woman was good. Frederick had no doubt she was faking, but he hadn't come here to listen to dead grocers talk about cheese.

And then it happened.

Mrs. Budd gave a convulsive litde shudder, and began to talk in a low voice—her own voice, this time, but brimming with fear and horror.

"The spark... ," she said. "There's a wire, and the counter going round—hundred and one, hundred and two, hundred and—no, no, no . . . Bell. Bells. The bellman. Such a pretty ship, and the little girl dead ... It isn't Hopkinson, but they're not to know. No. Keep it in the shadows. Sword in the forest—oh, blood on the snow, and the ice—he's still there, all in a glass coffin . . . The Regulator. Three hundred pounds— four hundred—North Star! There's a shadow in the north ... a mist all full of fire—steam, and it's packed with death, packed in pipes—steampipes—under the North Star—oh, horrible ..."

Her voice trailed away, with infinite sadness, into silence.

This was what Frederick had come to hear, and though he didn't understand it, her tone made his flesh creep. She sounded like someone in the toils of a nightmare.

The other spiritualists sat with reverent attention. No one moved. But then, with a loud sigh, Mrs. Budd woke up, and took charge again.

A loud chord resounded from the piano. Everyone jumped, and the three silver-framed photographs on the top vibrated in sympathy.

A fiirious rapping came from the center of the table.

Heads jerked in surprise, only to be lifted upward toward a pale, tremulous glow that was materializing on the ceiling. Mrs. Budd, eyes closed, seemed to be at the center of an invisible storm. Frederick was aware that she was controlling it all, but it was still impressive: the curtains waved, the strings of the piano jangled wildly, and then the heavy table under its damask cloth began to heave and sway like a boat on a surging sea. A tambourine on the mantelpiece jingled once and then fell with a crash onto the hearth.

"A physical manifestation!" cried Mr. Humphries. "Keep still, everyone! Observe the phenomena! The spirits will not harm us—"

But evidently the spirits had other intentions regarding the electrodermograph, because there was a sudden blinding flash from it, with a loud crack and a smell of burning. Mrs. Budd cried out in alarm, and Frederick leaped up hastily.

"Lights! Lights, if you please, Mrs. Wilcox!"

As the hostess, in all the conftision, turned up the nearest gaslight, Frederick bent over the medium, unfastening the wires from her wrists.

"Wonderftil result!" he was saying. "Mrs. Budd, youve surpassed all my expectation! An unparalleled reading—^youre not hurt? No, of course you're not. Machines broken, but that doesn't matter. Couldn't take the reading! Went right off the dial! Marvelous!"

Beaming with triumph, he nodded at the bewildered

spiritualists, who were blinking in the light. Jim disconnected the wires from the battery while Mrs. Budd rubbed her wrists.

"Sorry and all that, Mrs. Wilcox," Frederick went on. "Didn't want to break up the seance, but d'you see, this is scientific proof! When I publish my paper, this meeting of the Streatham and District Spiritualist League will be seen to mark a turning point in the history of psychical research. No, that wouldn't surprise me at all. Wonderfiil result."

Gratified by this, the circle broke up, and Mrs. Jamieson Wilcox, whose nature turned automatically to sustenance at moments of crisis, suggested a nice cup of tea all around. It was soon brought in; Mrs. Budd was surrounded by a small group of admirers, and Frederick and Mr. Humphries conversed earnestly by the fire while Jim packed the electrodermograph away, with the help of the prettiest girl in the room.

Presently some of the guests rose to leave, and Frederick rose with them. He shook hands all around, detached Jim from the girl, and paid an especially appreciative tribute to Mrs. Budd before leaving the house.

A thin, nervous, middle-aged man left at the same time, as if by chance, and walked with them toward the station. As soon as they turned a corner Frederick stopped and took off his glasses.

"That's better," he said, rubbing his eyes. "Well, Mr.

Price. Is that what you expected? Does she always do that?"

Mr. Price nodded. "I'm sorry about your machine," he said. He had the air of being sorry about most things.

"Nothing to be sorry about. What d'you know about electricity?"

"Nothing at all, I'm afraid to say."

"Nor do most people. I could wire up this box to a cucumber and tell 'em it contained the soul of their uncle Albert, and if the needle jumped, they'd never know the difference. No, this is a camera."

"Oh! But I thought you had to have chemicals and all sorts ..."

"Used to with the old wet-collodion plates. Had to slap the stuff on fresh every time. This is loaded with a gelatin plate—new invention. Much more convenient."

"Ah."

"And the flash was deliberate. Can't take photographs in the dark. I look forward to seeing Nellie Budd up to her tricks when I develop the plate. . . . But that stuff about sparks and shadows and the North Star. That was different."

"Indeed, Mr. Garland. That was what alarmed me in the first place. I've seen Mrs. Budd four times now, and each time she's gone into a trance like that, quite different from the rest of the performance, and she's come out with details of matters I know about in the city—

The Shadow in the North

financial dealings, things like that—highly confidential, some of them. It's inexplicable."

"Did you recognize any of that stuff tonight? Whos this Hopkinson, for instance?"

"That name means nothing to me, Mr. Garland. Her colloquy was dark and obscure tonight. Only the business about the bells, and North Star ..."

"Well?"

"She said the bellman^ if you remember. Well, that's the name of my employer—Mr. Bellmann. Axel Bell-mann, the Swedish financier. And North Star is the name of a new company he's formed. What I fear is that word will get out, you see, Mr. Garland, and suspicion attach to myself. ... A clerk has only his good name for recommendation. My wife's not very well, and if anything should happen to me, I dread to think ..."

"Yes, I understand."

"I'm afraid the poor lady—Mrs. Budd, I mean—is under the control of a disembodied intelligence," said Mr. Price, blinking under the gaslight in the slight drizzle.

"Quite possibly," said Frederick. "Well, you've certainly shown me something interesting, Mr. Price. Leave it with us—^and stop worrying."

"All right," said Jim in the train, ten minutes later. "I changed me mind. There /j something in it."

Frederick, balancing the camera on his knees, had just written down what Nellie Budd had said in her

strange trance, at Jims dictation. Jim was good with words; he'd remembered it all. And he'd spotted something odd.

"It links up with Mackinnon!" he said, reading it back.

"Don't be daft," said Frederick.

"It bloody does, mate. Listen. Sword in the forest — oh, blood on the snow, and the ice — he's still there, all in a glass coffin ..."

Frederick looked doubtftil. "Could be. I don't understand the glass coffin, though. I thought that was the Sleeping Beauty. Blood on the snow. . . that's what's-her-name, Snow White or Rose Red or someone. Fairy tales. But I thought you didn't believe him?"

"You don't have to believe it to see a connection, do you? It is part of the Mackinnon business. Betcher ten bob."

"Oh, no. I'm not taking bets where Mackinnon's concerned. He sounds as if he's likely to pop up all over the place. Look, I want to get this plate developed. You take the batteries to Burton Street, and I'll take a cab to Piccadilly and call on Charlie."

(A9^nanc^al(Sonsuhal^on

S. LOCKHART, THE FINANCIAL CONSULTANT, WAS WORK-ing late. The city outside her office was dark and quiet, and her coal fire was burning low. A great deal of paper was scattered about the carpet, some of it crumpled and thrown toward the wastepaper basket, the rest of it arranged in rough piles according to some complicated system. Sally herself sat at the desk, scissors and paste at one elbow, a mass of newspapers, letters, certificates, and files at the other, while an atlas opened at a map of the Baltic countries occupied the blotting pad.

Chaka lay in his place in front of the fire, his great head lolling sideways, his forefeet occasionally twitching as he dreamed.

Sallys hair was giving her trouble; it would not stay up, and she frequently had to push it out of her eyes with an impatient hand. Her eyes were strained. She looked up for the twentieth time at the gaslight, measuring its distance from the desk and wondering whether it would be worth the effort to push the desk closer and disarrange the papers on the floor, and then

decided it wouldn t. She turned back to the atlas with a magnifying glass.

Suddenly the dog sat up and growled.

"What is it, Chaka?" she said softly, and listened. After a moment there came a knock on the distant street door, and Sally got up, lit a candle from the gaslight, and fitted it into a little lantern to keep it from drafts.

"Come on, boy," she said, taking a key from the table. "Lets go and see who it is."

The massive creature got to his feet and stretched, yawning redly, before padding after her down the two flights of stairs. The empty building loomed dark and silent around the little moving pool of light, but she knew it well; it held no terrors.

She unlocked the street door and looked coldly at the figure on the step.

"Well?" she said.

"Do you want me to go through it all on the doorstep?" said Frederick Garland. "Or am I invited in?"

She moved aside without a word. Chaka growled, and she put a hand on his collar as Frederick moved ahead of her up the stairs. Neither of them spoke.

When they reached her office, Frederick dropped his hat and coat on the floor and put the camera down carefully before pulling one of the chairs closer to the fire. The dog growled again.

"Tell that brute I'm friendly," he said.

Sally stroked the dogs head, and Chaka sat down alertly by her side. She remained standing.

"I'm busy," she said. "What do you want?"

"What do you know about spiritualism.^"

"Oh, really, Fred," she said in exasperation. "Is this some silly game? I've got work to do."

"Or a man called Mackinnon? A magician?"

"Never heard of him."

"All right, another man. His name's Bellmann. And something called North Star."

Her eyes widened. She felt for her own chair and sat down slowly.

"Yes, I've heard of him," she said. "What's it all about?"

He told her briefly about the stance in Streatham and handed her the paper with Jim's writing on it. She blinked and screwed up her cyts.

"Did Jim write this?" she said. "I can usually read his writing, but—"

"He wrote it on the train," Frederick told her. "You ought to get this place fitted out with some decent lights. Here, let me read it to you."

He did so. When he'd finished, he looked up and saw an expression of distant excitement on her face.

"Well?" he said.

"What do you know about Axel Bellmann?" she said.

"Hardly anything at all. He's a financier, and my client works for him. That's all I know."

"And you call yourself a detective?"

She spoke scornfully but without malice and bent to sort through some papers at her feet. Her hair fell forward again; impatiently she shook it out and then looked up at him, her cheeks flushed and her eyes bright. He felt the familiar wave of helpless love, followed by the equally familiar wave of angry resignation. How could this untidy, half-ignorant financial obsessive have such a power over him?