The Clairvoyant Curse (6 page)

“You failed to mention my
favourite - placing the cloth on top of a heated bas-relief to
produce a 3 dimensional scorch mark that cannot be washed out.”

“Well, that’s a new one on
me!”

“I haven’t studied any of the
latest theories, and I’m not saying I could offer a better
explanation than the ones already offered, but I’m fairly certain
if I turned my mind to it I could probably work out how
that
ghost image ended up on
that
bit of flax.”

“The crucifixion image has kept
the best minds baffled for centuries and that ghost image looks to
be of the same provenance. Heaven knows where Madame Moghra came
across it, though I wouldn’t be surprised to learn she had pilfered
it from some filthy unconsecrated grave which would account for the
bad smell. You’ll never manage to work it out. Besides, we’re only
here for a few hours.”

“That should be enough
time.”

It was his turn to laugh.
“What! A few hours!”

“What are you willing to
wager?”

“Wager?”

“Yes, let’s make it
interesting. Let’s make a bet,” she dared. “You say I cannot work
out how the image was put on the cloth and I say I can.”

“Before we leave here tonight?”
he tested.

She nodded.

“Let’s say by midnight,” he
qualified just to be on the safe side, glancing at the old
grandfather clock leaning against the linenfold panelling.

“Midnight it is. If I win you
will travel on the SS Pleiades to Biarritz,” she asserted
confidently.

He glanced back at the longcase
clock. It was twenty minutes past seven. She had less than five
hours. His sour face cleared to a winning smile. “And if I win we
return to London straight after breakfast.”

They shook on it.

Unbeknown to the doctor, she
had more at stake than he knew. She had already purchased two first
class seats in a private smoker on tomorrow’s train, plus two
second class tickets for her maid and manservant, arranged
accommodation at the Mungo Arms Hotel in Glasgow for four, and
reserved four tickets for the inaugural voyage on the SS Pleiades –
two luxe cabins on the Promenade deck and two superior cabins on B
deck. Oh, well, nothing ventured, nothing gained. Besides, she had
not revealed to the doctor the latest information pertaining to the
Torino Shroud.

Last year an amateur
photographer by the name of Secondo Pia had photographed the shroud
for the first time in its long history and discovered something
startling. The black and white tones on the photograph turned out
to be more distinctive than the actual sepia tones on the cloth. In
other words, the negative image was more vivid than the positive
image. That little known discovery germinated in her mind an
intriguing idea that the ghost image was somehow linked to the
camera obscura.

As they were shaking hands, a
tall shadow loomed up behind them.

“Good evening,” the shadow said
hypnotically with the hint of a French accent.

They turned to find the
charismatic Master of Ceremonies, Monsieur Croquemort, looking
decidedly shorter minus silk top hat, though still tall enough to
tower over them. His height would have been on a par with
Sherlock’s and it enhanced the striking effect of his supernatural
persona. He was endowed with an impeccably groomed moustache, thin
and curling, pomaded black hair, and magnetic black eyes that
gleamed with the promise of the power of black magic. He had teamed
a maroon velvet smoking jacket with a chartreuse silk cravat and
black velvet trousers. On most men the outfit would have looked
foppish, possibly even vulgar. Perhaps because he was a Frenchman
he could pull off the dandy look without appearing anything of the
sort.

“I couldn’t help overhearing
your conversation just now,” he continued with the confidence of
the conjuror performing a trick. “You are in two minds whether to
travel to Biarritz or return to London. I do not think you will
regret sailing on the SS Pleiades. I am Monsieur Champollion
Croquemort, but you know that already. The steam ship is the latest
design and even features a ship to shore wireless device. She has
been fitted with every luxury and will cruise the French coast and
La Manche
after she deposits us in Biarritz.”

“I was in Biarritz last
summer,” returned the doctor peevishly, doing his best to ignore
the velvet smoking jacket. “It was overrun with Swiss and German
tourists. There was a bout of Spanish flu going about. I picked up
a chest infection that has stayed with me all autumn and I have no
intention of returning any time soon for more of the same now that
winter is almost upon us.”

“I’m not surprised you did not
enjoy your sojourn, Dr Watson,” the velvet patterer returned.
“Summer is the worst time to visit Biarritz. Late autumn is
perfect. The weather is milder.” He saw the doctor’s eyes steal
toward the bay window. “Have you had a chance to inspect the
levitating chair? Are you interested in such things?”

The doctor noted that the
odious medium and her sycophants had moved on. The chair was
currently free from nosy parkers. “Keenly interested,” he admitted
freely. “I shall go straight over. It was a pleasure to meet you,
Monsieur Croquemort.” He delivered that last briskly and
deliberately pronounced the ‘t’. It was a blunt hint that he did
not want company.

The Countess did not want
company either. She had also noted that the musicians had recently
vacated the gallery. There was no time to lose if she wanted to win
that impulsive wager. “It has been lovely talking to you, Monsieur
Croquemort. Do excuse me,
s’il vous plait
.”

Determined to locate the stairs
leading up to the minstrels’ gallery, her eyes had already scanned
the great hall whilst they had been conversing with the Master of
Ceremonies. She had spotted no doorways leading to stairwells.
However, a quick inspection of the adjoining library revealed a jib
door in the book-shelving. Through the open door she could see a
narrow passage leading to a set of spiral stairs.
Voila
! She
was on her way, tripping up the stairs as fast as her silk
petticoats would allow whilst at the same time fumbling for the
magnifying glass buried at the bottom of her beaded evening
purse…

“Do you believe in ghosts?”

Startled, she dropped the
glass. It thudded to the floor and made a dull thwack on the bare
oak boards. The minstrels’ gallery appeared empty so where did the
voice spring from? Perhaps Marsh House really was haunted!

“Do you believe in ghosts?” the
fairy voice repeated.

The Countess spun round and
there, perched on a bench in a niche like a pixie on a toadstool,
was the sublime young songstress.

“You must be psychic,” the
Countess responded flippantly, checking to make sure the magnifying
lens wasn’t broken – fortunately such lenses were extremely hardy.
“I have been pondering that very question all evening,” she
invented artlessly. “I thought I might satisfy my curiosity by
taking a close look at the ghost shroud. It has been fascinating me
ever since I saw the performance last night.”

“Did you enjoy it?”

“The performance?
Bien
sur
, it was
extraordinaire
!”

“You speak French,” observed
the fey creature. “I wish I could speak French. I can sing French,
of course, how do you say? –
bien sur
- but I haven’t a clue
what I’m singing. It’s just tuneful words. I can sing Latin too.
And Gaelic. That’s my favourite. Everything Gaelic sounds heavenly.
Moghra is Gaelic. It means love.”

“I think anything you sing
would sound heavenly. You have a sublime voice. My travelling
companion, Dr Watson, and I were just saying so, admiring your
voice yet again.”

The fairy glided straight over
the compliment as if she had heard it a thousand times. “Oh, I’m
glad he’s not your husband. He’s too old and not very handsome, or
even very rich by the looks of it. I saw when the two of you came
in and I thought you could do better.”

“I was married once to an older
man. They’re not all bad. Some can make quite good husbands.”

“Only if they’re rich. Was your
husband rich?”

“Yes, he was quite wealthy. I’m
a widow now.”

“Did he leave you all his
money?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, you are sooo lucky! I wish
I were lucky! I wish I had a rich husband who would die and leave
me
all his money. Life is sooo unfair. Especially for women.
Men make all the rules and they make them to suit themselves. Do
you think that is true?”

“Yes, quite true.”

“It’s sooo unfair, don’t you
think?”

“Yes,” agreed the Countess,
“most unfair.”

“Sublime – I like that word.
Some men say my voice is a gift from God. I think it’s a gift from
the angels. What do you think?”

“I really cannot say either
way. Does it matter?”

“Oh, yes! I speak to angels,
you see. I think they might stop speaking to me if I turned my back
on them. I see auras too. You have a lovely aura, all yellow and
blue, like fields of sunflowers and stretches of summer sky.”

The grandfather clock chimed
the hour. It was eight o’clock. Time was ticking away, but the
observation of sunflowers and blue skies pulled the Countess up
short – yellow and blue - the colours of the Ukrainian flag. The
Countess urged herself to get a grip before her fertile imagination
got the better of her. It was time to get to work.

“Do you mind if I take a closer
look at the shroud?”

“Oh, not at all! Here, let me
help you.”

In the blink of an eye the
diaphanous fairy leapt off her perch and caught hold of the shroud.
It fluttered over their heads like a giant butterfly before coming
to rest on the floor of the gallery. Before the Countess could
thank the sprite she had disappeared. Thank goodness for that, she
thought, happy to be able to examine the ghost image without
interruption. But just as suddenly as the sprite had disappeared
she suddenly reappeared, this time with a glittering silver
candelabra in her hand.

“I thought you might need more
light,” she said helpfully, placing the candelabra carefully on the
bare boards.

The Countess was on her hands
and knees going over the every inch of the ghost image while the
fey creature garbled on about angels and auras. She had a
heart-shaped face and lips that formed a perpetual smile that would
have looked happy even when the person inside was sad. Hundreds of
women would have killed for that smile. One of the Countess’s
tutors had once informed her that the size of our eyes at birth,
are the size they will always be. The fairy creature had eyes so
large she looked like she’d just been born. They sparkled
incessantly and looked so full of wide-eyed innocence they charmed
without even trying. It was impossible to imagine them ever looking
dishonest or coquettish which made them even more irresistible.

“Your companion has a pale
aura. He must be suffering poor health. There is an unhealthy cloud
hanging over him.”

The fairy expressed her
personal opinions with all the candour and youthful naivety of a
girl-child, refreshing at first, but after a short time the sweet
sing-song voice began to grate. There were several times during the
one-sided colloquy the Countess wanted to stop what she was doing,
take the young woman by the shoulders and give her a violent shake.
In the end she simply stopped listening and gave her concentration
over to the shroud.

After a brief examination it
became obvious that it was not a scorch mark that had produced the
image and that meant her initial germ of an idea was all wrong. The
image could not have been achieved by placing the wet cloth on a
heated bas-relief in order to transfer the likeness of the 3
dimensional carving onto the cloth. Back in Odessa she had had free
run of the estate of her step-father and had often visited the
serfs at their labours. One of her favourite serfs was Xenia’s
godmother who worked in the ironing room. It was a prestigious
position. To iron the damask tablecloths, the fine bed-linen, and
the expensive dresses of the ladies of the house without scorching
the garments required great care and not a little knowledge of all
the different delicate fabrics such as satin, silk, taffeta,
velvet, muslin and linen, and in particular their different
reactions to heat. There were dozens of irons, some hotter than
others, some heavier, some bigger and some smaller. Too hot and the
fabric was ruined, too cold and the creases remained. On a
neighbouring estate a female serf had been flogged to death for
scorching some new Brussels lace. Usually the garments were hung in
the steam room while still wet and the creases fell out as the
garment dried but occasionally dresses would need ironing without
being washed, especially after being packed for long periods in
travel trunks, especially if they belonged to her peripatetic aunt.
Frequent washing was the ruin of garments. Everyone knew that. The
poor did not wash their clothes often because it wore the clothes
out. They had to make their garments last longer. Even the rich
understood it was better to air clothes and brush them and iron
them than to wash them. Things were folded carefully into chests or
rolled up so as not to cause creases. But sometimes they needed
ironing despite all these precautions. Xenia’s godmother used an
old linen cloth to stop the clothes from scorching. She never
ironed directly onto the garment itself, hence the Countess had
seen the effects of scorch marks on linen, she had smelled it, she
had remembered it, and this ghost shroud did not look or smell like
the cloth in the ironing room. Her hopes were dashed. Her Faustian
bargain lost.

“Do you mind if I ask what
you’re looking for?” said the fairy.

The Countess sat back on her
haunches. “I was trying to work out how this ghost image came to be
on the cloth.”