The Ectoplasmic Man by Daniel Stashower

Author:Daniel Stashower [Stashower, Daniel]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781848569041
Publisher: Titan
Published: 2010-12-26T16:00:00+00:00

* Very briefly. It was almost immediately smashed by a bullet from Colonel Sebastian Moran’s airgun.

Fourteen

A SEANCE ON THE PALACE PIER

THe Journey By Train To Brighton Is A Pleasant One, Made More So By Anticipation Of The Hospitable Seaside Resort At Its End. When Mary Was Alive, She Would Frequently Bring Me Down To Take The Sun And To Visit The Brighton Lanes. There, In That Twisting, Narrow Course Of Antique Shops, We Would Spend Many Happy Hours Among The Dusty Bricà-Brac Of The Previous Century. It Was These Memories Which Engaged My Thoughts As I Alighted In The Brighton Station, Taking My Mind From The Less Congenial Purpose Of My Present Visit.

Leaving the station through the south gates, I strolled briskly dthe chamber had been sealedthe chamber had been sealede the room while the vault door was open. That way I could break out from inside once the chamberown the Queen’s Road, pausing only momentarily to glare at the monstrous Royal Pavilion,* and soon I had arrived at the well-known Brighton seashore.

The better travelled of my readers may scoff at the very notion of England boasting a seaside resort, given our rather temperate climate; but on this day the sun was bright, if not actually hot, and I was pleased to find several hundreds of my countrymen disporting themselves there upon the beach. While it is true that Brighton’s beach is composed of hard pebble and rock, rather than sand, if one lies out on a wooden deck-chair, wrapped in a wool blanket against the sea chill, it is possible to get a good bit of colour in one’s cheeks. Or so my wife always contended, and I never chose to dispute her.

The heavily trafficked section of the Brighton shore is flanked by two marvellous wooden piers, which extend some hundreds of feet into the Channel and are supported by stout wooden piles. The first of these is the West Pier, whose trim, elegant ballroom has housed some of society’s grandest summer affairs. The newer of the two, the Palace Pier, has attracted a less desirable patronage. Built at the turn of the century, it has become a haven for gypsies and charlatans, who, in hastily constructed booths ranging up and down the length of the pier, display dubious feats of skill or aberrations of nature, offered less for amusement than for the purpose of separating the labourer from his wages. It was here, amid this mean and squalid bluster, that I was to seek the mysterious Kleppini.

Paying my three shillings at the rotting turnstile, I pushed my way into the crowd and out onto the pier. Among the diversions available that afternoon, each heralded by a garishly painted signboard, were a “pulse-quickening” display of snake charming, a “mystic fakir” asleep on a bed of nails, and a burly fire-swallower whose demonstration carried the warning: “Not for the faint of heart.” Picking my way through the eager couples and boisterous youths, I had travelled nearly to the far end of the pier before locating Kleppini’s booth.

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