The Guilty Abroad: The Mark Twain Mysteries #4. Peter J. Heck
new voice replied by laughing, long and loud. Not a joyous laugh, but a wicked one—the laugh of someone rejoicing at the destruction of a foe, or at some ill-gotten gain. It made the hair stand up on the nape of my neck. What sort of spirit had come among us now?
“Speak to us,” said Sir Denis again. “Have you a message for anyone here?”
The laughter was repeated, and then a voice spoke. “I have no message for you,” it said. Unlike the previous voices, this new one was unmistakably that of a woman—although it was as different from Martha McPhee’s natural voice as the others had been. For a moment, I thought I recognized it—but the person of whom I was thinking was thousands of miles away, and to the best of my knowledge still among the living.
“Why have you come among us, then?” asked Sir Denis.
“I come because I am compelled,” said the voice, significantly. There were more rappings, interspersed with the high-pitched tinkle of what sounded like small silver bells.
“How compelled?” asked Sir Denis. “Is it we who have compelled you, or some power on the other side?” To this the voice responded only with a deep sigh. A silence followed, although I had a strong sense that the entity behind the voice was still present in our midst.
“If you have no message for us, will you answer a question?” It was Susy Clemens who broke the silence. I felt her grip on my hand tighten, as if to gather reassurance.
“I will answer what I may,” said the voice, its tone somehow gentler. “There are many things I am not permitted to speak of. And you may not understand some of the things I am permitted to answer. There are realms beyond the ken of mortals.”
“I can accept that,” said Susy, in a quiet but confident voice. “Tell me, please, can you foretell the future?”
“Past and future mean nothing to us,” said the voice. “We see many things, some that have already happened, some that may happen, and some that may never come to be. Which are which we cannot always say.” The small bells tinkled again, sounding closer now.
When the tinkling had subsided, Susy continued. “Would you please answer a question for me and my sisters? Which of us will be the first to marry?”
I heard her father’s soft chuckle as she finished the question. The female spirit responded with a gentle laugh, as well—it would have been a warm, friendly sound, had I heard it in any other setting than this. “The first to marry will be married the longest,” it said.
“But which of us will it be?” said Susy, pressing the question. “Surely, it cannot be forbidden to tell me that.”
“What is forbidden and what permitted is not yours to judge,” said the voice, now not as friendly sounding. The silver bells began jingling in a slow, steady rhythm.
“Why can’t you ever give a plain answer to a plain question? Papa thinks you’re just a humbug, and I’m beginning to think he’s right,” said Susy, now sounding distinctly cross.
“You do not know whereof you ask,” said the voice, distinctly angry. “You mortals cannot see what is before your faces. How should you presume to quiz those who can see more clearly? Why should I deign to answer you?”
An ominous volley of raps came from every corner of the room, growing to a thunderous crescendo, and the slow tolling of a distant church bell began again.
“Stop trying to scare the girl,” said Mr. Clemens, sharply. “She asked you a polite question, and you dodged it. She asked you again, and you still haven’t said anything worth listening to. If you can’t give us good answers, why don’t you just say so, without all the damned noises and mumbo jumbo?”
As if to spite him, the knocking continued just as loud, now joined by rattling chains. I braced myself for an outburst from my employer—or perhaps from the “spirits,” who seemed to be building up to some sort of culmination. I cannot say exactly what I expected to happen—but surely it was not the sudden groan that came from across the table, followed by a piteous cry.
“Oliver! Oh, dear Lord, what has happened? Oliver, give me your hand again!” It was a woman’s voice, obviously in utter terror, and there was no question of its being from any otherworldly source. This was flesh and blood, in deep distress. I opened my eyes, which had been tightly closed in concentration during the séance, and realized that I could dimly make out shapes and movement across the table.
A confused babble of exclamations followed. “What the devil?” “Cornelia, what is wrong?” “Oh, Oliver!” I heard chairs scraping back from the table, then the rapping and ghostly noises stopped abruptly, as if someone had thrown an electrical switch. “Somebody strike a light,” said another voice, urgently. Someone was sobbing.
It was Mr. Clemens who was the first to find a match and strike it. In the wavering light I could see Martha McPhee sitting next to me, looking about her as if just awakened from a dream. Across from me several people were on their feet, frightened expressions on their faces. “Someone light the gas,” said Sir Denis, leaning forward intently, his own match illuminating the tabletop.
Mr. Clemens reached me his matchbox, and I turned to find the light. But I did not need any more light than I already had to see the dark form slumped back in a chair on the far side of the table. There was more than enough light to recognize it as a limp human body. “It’s Dr. Parkhurst,” said Sir Denis. “Good Lord, the man’s bleeding. It looks as if he’s been shot!”
There was a chorus of gasps and shrieks at Sir Denis DeCoursey’s announcement that Dr. Parkhurst was bleeding—and then, even as we watched, the doctor fell slowly sideways out of his chair onto the floor. Several of us were already on our feet, Mrs. Parkhurst was still in her seat, leaning sideways and imploring her husband to say something. Her sister, Miss Donning, recoiled as if in honor at the limp form on the carpet. I turned up the gas and lit it, then hurried back to the table to see what else I could do.
“Shot?” said Cedric Villiers, for once not looking bored. “How the devil could he be shot? I didn’t hear any gun go off.”
“With all that knocking and bell ringing, who could have heard it?” said Mr. Clemens, who had sat back down and put his arms around his wife and his staring daughter. He turned to look at Sir Denis DeCoursey, who was kneeling over the limp form. “Is he dead?”
“Youth!” said Mrs. Clemens, plainly shocked—at what, I wasn’t quite certain, but her use of her habitual pet name for her husband struck an incongruous note to my ears. Then, after a moment, she said quietly, “Oh. I suppose it is an appropriate question, in the circumstances.”
“He’s just barely breathing. We must try to find a doctor, though there’s not much hope with a head wound like that,” said Sir Denis, and even from across the room I was inclined to agree with his grim prognosis. With the lights up, I could see quite clearly. Too clearly; I wanted to turn my eyes away from the grisly spectacle.
“Someone help me move him to the sofa,” said Sir Denis. Cedric Villiers was closest, but he made a face, and so I stepped around the table to help. I took the legs while Sir Denis grasped the wounded man under the armpits, and between the two of us, we managed to get the limp bundle over to the nearby sofa. He was surprisingly heavy—Dr. Parkhurst had not looked that large when he had been standing on his feet. Sir Denis knelt down next to him, then looked up and said, “Someone fetch some water, and some cloths we can use as bandages. We must do whatever we can to give the poor devil a chance to live.”
Lady Alice, who had stood up almost as soon as the lights came on, nodded and went off with a purposeful look on her face, Most of the others, I noticed, were doing their best to look away. Mrs. Parkhurst had now fallen on her sister Ophelia’s shoulder and was sobbing loudly. She reached out toward her husband and cried, “Oh, help him! Someone please help him! Dear Oliver,