The Clairvoyant Curse (8 page)

“Looking for ghosts,” she
said.

His next laugh was less
sarcastic but still mocking. “Well,” he said, gesturing with both
hands, “you struck it lucky! Here be ghosts!”

She took another gulp. “Why so
many?”

He gave a lazy shrug of his
shoulders. “Why not?”

She gazed at the floating
shrouds, took another swig of wormwood to aid imagination then
handed back the bottle and tried to reason, but her conjecture was
really nothing more than a wild stab in the dark. “This is your
domain, your little workshop. You’re creating these ghosts. You’re
experimenting, working out how to perfect the images.”

“They’re already perfect,” he
boasted, meeting her gaze for the first time.

“Then why make so many?” she
challenged, looking him in the eye, and seeing once again the empty
ache of the poet blurred with the cold truth of the scientist.

He immediately averted his
wretched gaze, moved away from the window and fought his way
through the hanging ghosts back to the bench by the door where he
put the lid on the bottle and hid it behind some bottles of
chemicals. The absinthe had clearly loosened his tongue, and the
taciturn broody Byron had turned into a talkative Royal
Academician, keen to share his knowledge.

“They’re going to be used in
America. Instead of one ghost shroud we’ll do dozens of them.
They’ll float all around the hall, over the heads of the audience,
on invisible wires. The crowd will go mad. It will be pandemonium.
The publicity will be enormous. We’ll set up dozens of camera
obscuras and project dozens of ghosts onto the walls and ceiling at
the same time. Camera obscuras can be made from cardboard boxes.
I’ve got several on the go, trying to work out the best size. But
we will need to hire the right hall and train enough operators. I’m
instructing Reverend Blackadder at the moment but he’s proving to
be a slow learner. He doesn’t have a scientific brain. He’s a
Theosophist,” he said, as if that explained it.

“Whose idea is it? All the
ghosts, I mean? Madame Moghra’s?”

He shook his head in disgust
and his untidy blond hair kicked in wild unison. “No, she’s good at
what she does, the spiritual stuff, but she hasn’t got the sort of
imagination that can dream up the truly dramatic. That’s
Champollion’s metier. Croquemort is a genius at that sort of thing.
He used to be a magician.”

“And now he’s a hypnotist.”

“Mesmerist,” he corrected,
lighting a candle in a wooden holder. “A hypnotist can actually put
someone in a trance and make them recall things from the dim dark
depths of their memory, or make an auto-suggestion that will be
acted upon once the subject wakes from their trance, such as no
longer being terrified of spiders or dogs or ghosts. A mesmerist is
a showman. It’s an act. You’ve met Sissy. She wears different wigs
and can act out almost any part you want. You should see her as an
old cripple. She’s got a gift. Reverend Blackadder isn’t half as
good but he’s passable. Sometimes Champollion hires an actor or
actress so that the routine doesn’t get stale, especially if we
stay in a city longer than planned.”

The Countess turned to study
one of the shrouds in the candlelight, letting the cloth run
through her fingers. Was it still a fair bet if she found out how
the shroud was created, not by using her own imagination or brain,
but by simply asking the creator? She would win the bet, yes, but
might she hate herself later?

“Dr Watson and I have made a
wager that I cannot work out how the ghost image was created. I
don’t want you to tell me how it was done, but could you nod if I’m
right and shake your head if I’m wrong.”

“Is that the same Dr John
Watson who is the friend of the great consulting detective Mr
Sherlock Holmes?”

She wanted to say: And I’m the
daughter of the great consulting detective Mr Sherlock Holmes, but
managed to bite her tongue and nod at the same time. “Dr Watson and
I are travelling companions. I’m Countess Varvara
Volodymyrovna.”

“That’s a good stage name. Go
ahead. Ask away.”

“First of all, Dr Watson
wondered how the shroud that first appeared in the graveyard scene
had no image and then suddenly did have an image. I’m guessing you
used one of the blank shrouds and then whipped it away as it was
flying back and forth, and had the other one, possibly underneath,
ready to take its place.”

He nodded. “It’s the standard
illusionist’s sleight-of-hand. Direct the audience’s attention
elsewhere while you perform the magic.”

“You used the lovely harpist to
divert the eye while the first cloth flew out of sight and the
second cloth with the image appeared.”

He nodded. “Miss
Morningstar.”

“She of the sublime singing
voice and irritating speaking voice.”

“Ah! I see you’ve met her too.
I’m guessing she was the one who led you here?”

“Please don’t hold it against
her. I can be very persuasive.”

“And she can be very
naïve.”

“Let me go back to my train of
thought before I lose it. How is the image created on the cloth? It
reminds me of the Shroud of Turin and no one has been able to
figure it out for centuries but I wondered if it had something to
do with a camera.”

“You’ve read about Secondo
Pia’s photograph then?”

“Yes, though I haven’t actually
seen it for myself - only a photo of the photo.”

“Same here, but I’ve seen the
Shroud. I lived in Italy for several years. It was Champollion’s
idea to make a shroud for the show. We could have merely used a
slide as most of the magic lantern shows do but Champollion likes
to give the audience something tangible to touch afterwards, hence
the levitating chair and the camera obscura. He asked me to come up
with something similar to the Shroud. I’d already spent years
wondering about the Turin Shroud and rose to the challenge.”

The Countess put up her hand to
stop him. “Let me guess from here. You dipped the linen in a
solution of silver sulphate and hung it up to dry.”

He nodded.

“The silver sulphate gave the
linen cloth the same properties as photographic paper and that’s
why the images on the shroud look like negatives.”

Again he nodded.

“You used a camera and set it
on long exposure, possibly for six hours.”

He gave a wave of his hand to
indicate more, like a conductor waving a baton or a magician waving
a wand.

“Seven hours.”

He waved his wand-like hand
higher.

“Eight hours.”

He nodded.

“That means you had to have
something to photograph such as a human female form, but as it was
long exposure and no one would be able to stand motionless for
eight hours, it suggests you used a life-size statue. You
photographed through the cloth so that the image appeared on the
cloth without using any pigments.”

He nodded.

“Next, you washed the cloth
with the negative image on it in a solution of ammonia to remove
the silver so no one would ever associate it with a
photograph.”

“A woman with an algebraic
brain,” he noted not unkindly, “that’s rare.”

She accepted the back-handed
compliment with good grace. “Do you think the Shroud of Turin was
made the same way?”

“It’s possible. Magic lanterns
were in use by the 1650’s using an oil lamp or candle so it’s not
improbable that they might have been used by some clever forger. In
fact there are stories of forgers being tortured to confess the
shroud is a forgery. Later, it’s the opposite. What did Calvin say:
St John must be a liar!”

“That reminds me of Pope
Gregory’s tenet: The more outrageous the religious claim the more
the people must rely on faith.”

“And the less they will apply
any logical thinking,” he finished for her as people do who are
following the same thought.

“How about some more of
la
fee verte
before I leave?” proposed the Countess. “I’d like to
toast my success in advance.”

“Artemisia wins the day yet
again!” He retrieved the bottle and removed the cap. “But you still
don’t know what the image was.”

“Not yet,” she said
confidently, “but I think I might find it Madame Moghra’s bedroom
and that’s where I’m going when I leave here.”

He raised the bottle high in
the air in the form of a mock toast and passed it to her.
“Congratulations on your success, Artemisia. I hope your wager was
for something substantial.”

She took a swig of absinthe. “A
cruise on the SS Pleiades.”

Shaggy blond brows registered
his surprise. “I predict we will meet again in the not too distant
future, Countess Varvara Volodymyrovna.”

“You have the gift of second
sight, Mr Ffrench,” she teased as she turned her back on the room
full of ghost shrouds and the poet-scientist who had probably
solved a religious mystery without anyone ever knowing it.

Unsure of the time, the
Countess was hurrying back to the minstrels’ gallery, concentrating
on remembering the labyrinthine twists and turns, dizzy with
success, when a small man wearing a clerical collar and a tight
dinner suit that looked as if it was wearing him rather than the
other way around stepped directly into her path. His pipsqueak
voice matched his pipkin frame which was topped off with flat
yellow hair centred with a bald patch that looked like a halo stuck
on the back of his little, round, bowl-shaped head. His face
possessed no distinguishing features and resembled every other
nondescript cleric she’d ever met.

“Are you lost?” he
squeaked.

“No, er, yes,” she replied,
feeling suddenly woozy and lightheaded - the after-effects of too
much wormwood on an empty stomach. “I was looking for Madame Moghra
but I think I took a wrong turn. All these dark corridors look
alike. I’ve been trying to find my way back to the minstrels’
gallery for the last ten minutes.”

“You are nowhere near the
minstrels’ gallery,” he said, watching as she appeared to sway like
a bobble toy in a bath, “and Madame Moghra is in the great hall
where she has been all evening.”

“Oh, yes, quite, well, I was
not entirely honest with you,” she confessed sheepishly. “I
actually have in my possession a valuable gift for Madame Moghra
from Lady Moira Cruddock and I didn’t want to deliver it in front
of all her guests. I thought I might leave it in her bedroom. You
must be Reverend Blacksnake?”

“Blackadder, and you must be
the Countess, this way to Madame Moghra’s bedroom.”

She used the hollow halo at the
back of his head as a point of reference. It was glowing like a
corpse candle in the dark, lighting the way to beautiful death as
she trailed after him, trying to think of something to say, though
she was not normally lost for words and found making conversation
with total strangers extremely easy.

“Have you been long with Madame
Moghra’s menagerie?”

He stopped abruptly and she
almost ran into him. Before she could apologize he aimed a venomous
look over a tightly upholstered shoulder. “Menagerie?”

Oh, dear, that was clumsy and
tactless.
La fee verte
was playing havoc with her
tongue-tied brain. Reverend Blackadder was clearly the sort of
little man who took offence easily. The slightest slight probably
got his back up. “I’m, er, sorry. I, er, meant…” she began
stutteringly before he cut her off.

“Don’t bother apologizing – I’m
guessing you heard that term from the white witch. That’s how she
usually refers to us. She makes us sound like a bunch of circus
freaks who have escaped from a zoo.”

“Speaking of zoos - I enjoyed
your performance last night. Moliere’s
cheval
, wasn’t
it?”

He beamed, and walked on. He
had a light, quick, bouncy step that favoured his toes - his heels
hardly touched the ground. “Moliere was a genius. I used to be on
the stage before I found God and then Madame Blavatsky.”

“You’re a Theosophist,” she
said, following the bouncing beacon - it was like following a will
o’ the wisp through a dark swamp.

“Yes, how did you know?”

“Someone mentioned it,” she
replied vaguely, unable to remember who. The white witch? The
singing fairy? The death-eater? The ghost maker?”

The corridor widened and she
caught up to him so they could walk abreast and avoid any more
collisions.

“It’s an interesting religion,”
she said when her brain caught up to her feet.

“Theosophy is a philosophy,” he
corrected acerbically, “not a religion. Do you know much about
Madame Blavatsky?”

“I can’t say that I do.” Right
now she didn’t know much about anything at all and was having
trouble putting one foot in front of another.

“It’s a shame we don’t have
more time. I could enlighten you. It could change your life. But
getting back to your original question - it is not Madame Moghra’s
menagerie
even though she likes everyone to think so and is
careful to cultivate that impression. It is Monsieur Croquemort’s
troupe.”

“I thought he was simply the
Master of Ceremonies. She gets top billing and the show seems to
revolve around her.”

“Yes, that’s how it seems, but
he actually formed the group more than fifteen years ago. He was a
magician back then, quite a good one, but something tragic happened
and he was forced to step aside. Madame Moghra worked for him. She
was just a second rate crystal ball gazer so out of tune with the
nuance of the spirit world it made you weep. But he needed someone
to take over the top billing. He built her up, gave her finesse,
made her famous. At the same time he stepped back, stepped into the
role of Master of Ceremonies and hypnotist.”

“Mesmerist.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“A hypnotist is different to a
mesmerist.”

“Oh, yes, quite right, but most
people don’t know that. Yes, he’s a mesmerist, and like all the
things he puts his mind to, he is a maestro.”