Sherlock Holmes and the Ghosts of Bly by Donald Thomas

Author:Donald Thomas [Thomas, Donald]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Mystery
ISBN: 9781605981345
Publisher: AudioGO
Published: 2010-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

*“The Case of the Yokohama Club” in Donald Thomas, The Secret Cases of Sherlock Holmes, Carroll & Graf, 1998.

8

In the next few hours, the mystery of the ghosts at Bly moved to a conclusion. Its crime had little to do with diaphanous spirits or celestial voices but much to do with bludgeons and blackguards. Before the continuation of Madame Rosa’s pantomime, there was a brief interval while we each took a cool glass of lemonade from the sideboard. I kept my eye on Miss Shelley as she carried a tray among the guests. I was right. She was here to serve, not to command.

Holmes had disappeared behind the curtain and I knew not a soul in the room. Some had a sheepish air, as if half ashamed of having come. The rest put on confident smiles, ready to treat the whole thing as a West End show. For entertainment, they could not have done better with the Davenport Brothers or Monsieur Houdin at the Alhambra. To Madame Rosa and her confidantes, every simple-minded convert would return a profit.

Excited chatter broke out here and there but most of us kept ourselves to ourselves, sipping the cool sweetness of the lemonade. When we were called together, the curtain was still closed across the arch of the conservatory. The music-room became the darkened stalls of an intimate theatre. The blacked-out conservatory was our stage.

Madame Rosa stood before us in the gloom. She promised that an attempt would now be made by “the eminent Professor Scott Holmes” to invoke the spirit of the Lady Teshat. This obliging ghost had materialised at several London séances and answered questions put to her. Absolute silence and concentration were necessary. Our distinguished visitor came to us from the Hermetic Order of the Golden Light. His experiment carried the approval of the Society for Psychical Research. That, of course, was a downright lie.

For good measure, our hostess promised that the professor would stand well back among the onlookers. He was anxious that no grounds should be given for suspecting ventriloquism.

With a rattle of brass rings, the curtain was at last drawn back. It was difficult to see very much, though I could make out the unmistakable profile of Holmes against starlight in the conservatory windows. At that moment, he was not looking at the stage but facing his audience. His large round hatbox of polished leather was somehow fixed open upon its side on a table so that we gazed into its depths. As I grew used to the darkness, I saw by dimly reflected light that it contained an object of some kind. Perhaps it was a simple block of wood but shaped like a human head. It might be an artificial head, for no body could be attached to it. Every side of the isolated hatbox, as well as the space above, below and at the rear, was on view to some part of the audience.

The voice of Sherlock Holmes commanded attention with quiet authority.

“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert.

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