The Daffodil Affair (11 page)

The cabin door opened and Hudspith came in – Hudspith fresh from the rising and falling prow. And Appleby spoke at once. ‘It’s Wine,’ he said. ‘It’s Wine who has made off with those women. He’s forming a monstrous museum of ghosts and marvels the Devil knows where. Mediums and Medicine Lodges, bugs and bogles.’

Hudspith sat down; his eye, returning from remote distances, focused slowly on Appleby; and almost as slowly his mind focused on the significant word. ‘A museum? I shouldn’t be surprised. You’d hardly believe what some of them collect. There was an old man in Brussels–’ He checked himself. ‘Did you say Wine?’

‘Emery Wine.’

Hudspith shook his head; his eye could be seen setting out again on its jong journey. ‘Impossible. He’s not the type – or rather not one of them. There are three types of man that traffic in women–’

‘But I tell you this affair has nothing to do with trafficking in women. It has to do with trafficking in marvels. This museum–’

Hudspith nodded – very absently. ‘I could tell you things about museums. There was an old man in Brussels–’

‘My dear Hudspith, keep him for a limerick. We’re confronted with something quite different. Wine, or somebody for whom Wine is acting, is assembling a museum of the uncanny in general. Anything within that category is welcome and no expense is being spared. And now I’ll ask you two questions. Do you know why Wine has a secretary called Beaglehole?’

‘Of course I don’t. The question’s idiotic.’

‘It’s an etymological matter. Beaglehole is a corrupt form of Bogle Hole, which is good Scots for the lair of the demon. Wine is very choice in everything he gathers round him, and always on the look-out for a good specimen. And that brings me to the second question. Do you know why he’s particularly interested in you?’

‘In me? He’s nothing of the sort. I’ve scarcely exchanged a word with him.’

‘But I have. We’ve become quite friendly and I’ve told him about your visions.’

‘Visions!’ Hudspith sprang to his feet. ‘Is this a joke?’ He sat down again abruptly. ‘I don’t have visions. I may look as if I do, but I don’t.’

‘So much the better. This is a matter in which the appearance is all. And I have assured Wine that you have visions as a regular thing – largely because of the lonely life you led among the sheep up Cobdogla way.’

‘Wherever is that? And why ever–’ Hudspith was staring at Appleby with the expression conventionally called open-mouthed.

‘Australia, I should think. Or perhaps Tasmania or New Zealand. We must look it up at once. Anyway, that’s your background.’

‘I think you’ve taken leave of your senses. And I don’t know anything about colonials.’

‘Well, to begin with, they don’t call themselves that. And for the rest you have just to remember that they are people of open hearts and closed minds. Stick to that and the impersonation ought to hold. And if you can really make an impression in the visionary way, I think there’s a good chance of your getting an invitation.’

‘Do you mean that I’m to endeavour to step into a showcase in this museum you’re imagining?’

‘I do.’ Appleby was matter of fact. ‘Simply because it’s your shortest route to Hannah and Lucy – to say nothing of Daffodil. You see?’

Hudspith was far from seeing, and it took Appleby a further half-hour to expound his case. Even then Hudspith was dubious. ‘It’s all very well,’ he said, ‘but you must remember I don’t know anything about visions. And if this fellow is what you take him to be he’s likely to have the whole subject at his fingertips.’

Appleby nodded, and once more felt that he had, perhaps, been decidedly rash. ‘Of course any analogous phenomenon would do. I suppose you couldn’t levitate? Float out of one window, you know, and in at another.’ He tapped the drawer before him. ‘That’s what the celebrated Home did in the presence of the Master of Lindsay and Lord Adare.’

‘Ships,’ said Hudspith tartly, ‘don’t have windows.’

‘Or there was Lord Orrery’s butler. He showed a marked predisposition to turn himself into a balloon. They locked him into a room and could hear him bumping about the ceiling. They went in and found that several people clutching his shoulders were insufficient to hold him down.’

‘Look here,’ said Hudspith, ‘do you believe all that?’

‘I do not. But does Wine? And then there was St Joseph of Cupertino. Any chance pious remark would set him off. He would give a loud yell, bound into the air and float about indefinitely. At first his superiors took a dark view of it. But later it was officially decided to be extremely edifying.’

‘It had better be visions,’ said Hudspith resignedly. ‘Though I don’t see why we shouldn’t simply follow Wine up in a more regular way.’

Appleby shook his head. ‘The truth is that we have only the most tenuous line on anything criminal so far. Hannah Metcalfe is of age, and at a pinch they could probably square Mrs Rideout. That means that if the girls were free agents and there was no intent to exploit them sexually there just isn’t a case at all. Of course people aren’t allowed to steal houses. But it would be hard to persuade a commonsense jury that a house which may plausibly be held simply to have disintegrated through enemy action has really been found at the other end of the globe. And as for Daffodil – well, everybody knows that a horse is almost as chancy a proposition in a law court as on a racecourse.’

‘In other words,’ said Hudspith, ‘this museum may be crazy but can’t be established as criminal. So why fudge up visions? Much better go home and report no go.’

‘Not at all. You may find something decidedly criminal if you get yourself favourably established there. And besides’ – Appleby looked shrewdly at his colleague – ‘we don’t in any case know that these girls aren’t getting a raw deal. Even if they were picked up primarily as museum pieces–’

Literally and figuratively, Hudspith rose. ‘Very well. And as you seem to have brought a good many books on all that–’

Appleby rummaged in his suitcase, ‘I think I can recommend Gurney and Myers. They describe about seven hundred decidedly queer coves, so you ought to find something to suit your type. I’m inclined to recommend bright lights and voices. They seem to crop up at any time, whereas actual phantasms are inclined to save up for special occasions – like announcing some death at a distance.’

‘I see.’ Hudspith, Appleby was pleased to notice, had abandoned his brooding expression for one of much cunning. ‘Well, as it happens, this is a special occasion. It’s your birthday.’

‘It is nothing of the sort.’

‘Look here, if you say I have visions, can’t I say you have a birthday?’

Appleby grinned. ‘I suppose that’s fair.’

‘Good. It’s your birthday. And Cobdogla never knew such a party as there’s going to be tonight.’

‘Well, well,’ said Appleby – and went on deck wondering if he had been inclined to underestimate his colleague. Hudspith in his younger days had doubtless been constrained to drink much beer in the interests of criminal investigation, but that he should plump for conviviality as a means of forwarding the present inquiry was a surprise. Perhaps a party would be a good idea in any case, for there was now something decidedly oppressive in the air.

More than ever the South Atlantic was calm, a sort of channel passenger’s dream. The sun swam copper-coloured in a western sky which had gone strangely olive; it was like a farmer peering through a hedge, only there were no crops visible, nothing but the unharvested sea which lay flaccid and inert about the ship. The ocean, said Appleby to himself, walking aft, is our master symbol of energy. Watching it, we draw into ourselves a pleasing sense of power, as we may do from some vital companion.
There is society where none intrudes By the deep seas, and music in its roar
. And when it fails to roar there may result comfort for our stomach and semicircular canals, but the society lapses and our spirits feel indefinably let down.

The conclusion of this marine meditation found Appleby at the after end of the short promenade deck. Here there was a sort of open-air extension of the smoke-room, glassed in on either side, with a hatch for obtaining drinks behind, and having, as if by way of diversion, a frontwise and elevated view of the little sundeck provided for third-class passengers. Here one could sit before dinner, sip sherry or cocktails and scrutinize the unimportant proceedings of these obscure persons below. The dispositions of the human species are frequently extremely odd, and the curiosity of this instance was perhaps enhanced by the fact that the third-class passengers, like their elevated fellow voyagers, could number no more than some half-dozen. One got to know them quite well; it was like owning an aquarium or a small zoological park. For instance, thought Appleby, settling down without a drink – for the coming party was something to approach with caution – for instance there below him at the moment was the Italian girl. One could see that she was handsome; that she was dirty it was at this distance necessary only to suspect. And in a peasant girl who has beauty a little dirt is of small moment to a well-balanced mind.

Appleby watched the girl. Without positively removing his mind from conscientious reflection on the mysterious proceedings of Mr Emery Wine he watched the girl below him, and rather regretted that daylight was beginning to fail. Eusapia – he knew that her name was Eusapia Something – was alone on the little deck, and she paced it with a lithe restlessness which in this relaxed steamship environment, was extremely fetching. A gluteal type, such as would offend one’s taste in a ball dress. But that was the tyranny of the fashion plate; Eusapia as she was, and with all Calabria behind her, was very well. Would the wife of the Italian servant of Colonel Morell – speculated Appleby, dutifully veering towards business – have been as attractive? And what would the colonel have thought in 1772? And what was Colonel Morell to Mr Wine – or he to the wraith of Mr Smart, who had so amiably sported with his children on the sands at Yarmouth? These were questions more than speculative – they were questions demonstrably meaningless – but meanwhile Eusapia there was a palpable physical fact.

She paced the deck in a white tunic cut low and tight across the breasts and a black skirt that swung to her ankles; she paced the deck with a strange restlessness and a glance that went impatiently now out to sea and now among the shadows that were losing definition and merging at her feet. It was chilly; somewhere on the starboard quarter the great bronze sun had dropped below the horizon, reddening the while; its last segment, as if suddenly molten and flowing, had spread out in a momentary line of fire that heralded the dark. This Appleby knew without turning. He was watching Eusapia still. She had moved to the side, and sat on a bollard with her back to the rail. She sat in the swiftly gathering dusk, still and isolated. Behind her was the bare rail and a sheer drop to the sea; the empty deck was all about her; and above stretched infinite space. She sat very still, and it grew darker, and she was a silhouette against the yet faintly luminous sea. Her hands lay side by side on the darkness of her lap. And Appleby saw that there was something hovering above her head.

It was white and faint, like a puff of vapour; it took more substance and might have been a dove; it circled above Eusapia’s head and poised itself as no bird could do. The thing trembled, vibrated, rose and fell like a ball held in the jet of an invisible fountain. It spiralled upwards and outwards, dropped like a stone and disappeared, showed itself again motionless in air some three feet before Eusapia’s knees; it rose in an arc and hung at the same distance above her head. Again it circled. Eusapia’s hands, pale as acacia flowers, lay motionless on the black stuff of her dress.

Appleby sat as still as the girl below him. His pulse was not quite normal; there was an unusual sensation in the scalp; almost certainly a chemist would find in his bloodstream elements not present a few moments before. Which was interesting – for he had fallen to watching the girl with nothing more perhaps than a fleeting sexual interest; certainly with no expectation of the uncanny. And yet the performance – this performance in a strangely empty theatre – had instantaneously worked. It is strangely easy to penetrate to magical levels of the mind.

The cities of Rome, thought Appleby – keeping his eye steadily on this now so-interesting young woman the while – the cities of Rome – all the cities that ever stood where modern Rome now stands – existing still in perfect preservation, each simply superimposed upon the one preceding it: Freud had said that the human mind was like that. Well, it was possible at times to shoot right down through them like a miner plunging to his seam… Now he could only just see Eusapia by straining his eyes. The thing was circling and hovering still.

It circled and hovered perhaps three feet above her head, and her hands were on her lap. Suddenly, and for a second only, one hand disappeared; and simultaneously the thing rose some three or four feet higher – it would now be touching, perhaps tapping at, the ceiling of a moderately lofty room. Appleby waited for no more; he rose and made his way cautiously forward between the deckchairs and the davits. Perhaps the weather had helped to give Eusapia’s flummery effectiveness. The atmosphere was at once chill, dry and heavy; something was in the air.

From the smoke-room came voices. People were assembling for dinner. But Appleby wanted a few minutes more of solitude, and he slipped into the deck pantry, where he could light a cigarette. It was a cubbyhole of a place, and he paced it restlessly – up and down and a step sideways to avoid the weighing-machine… He stopped. About the weighing-machine there was something suggestive. The man Home again – that was it. When Home had made tables rise in the air without apparently touching them it had been shown that his own weight nevertheless went up by the weight of the table. In fact for all that side of the business there was always a simple physical explanation. Of course the machinery of Eusapia’s little show was of the slenderest importance: still, it would be nice to know.

The bugle sounded and he went below – but still so preoccupied that Beaglehole had to speak to him twice on the stairway. And this pleased Beaglehole, for it opened the way to a joke. ‘Wool-gathering, Mr Appleby? You know, I’ve seldom met a man more devoted to his profession.’