The Last Seance Read online

  ‘The last time,’ murmured Elise with grim satisfaction. ‘Ah, Monsieur, I wish it were over and done with.’

  The sharp ting of an electric bell sounded.

  ‘There she is, that great gendarme of a woman,’ continued the old servant. ‘Why can’t she go and pray decently for her little one’s soul in a church, and burn a candle to Our Blessed Lady? Does not the good God know what is best for us?’

  ‘Answer the bell, Elise,’ said Raoul peremptorily.

  She threw him a look, but obeyed. In a minute or two she returned ushering in the visitor.

  ‘I will tell my mistress you are here, Madame.’

  Raoul came forward to shake hands with Madame Exe. Simone’s words floated back to his memory.

  ‘So big and so black.’

  She was a big woman, and the heavy black of French mourning seemed almost exaggerated in her case. Her voice when she spoke was very deep.

  ‘I fear I am a little late, Monsieur.’

  ‘A few moments only,’ said Raoul, smiling. ‘Madame Simone is lying down. I am sorry to say she is far from well, very nervous and overwrought.’

  Her hand, which she was just withdrawing, closed on his suddenly like a vice.

  ‘But she will sit?’ she demanded sharply.

  ‘Oh, yes, Madame.’

  Madame Exe gave a sigh of relief, and sank into a chair, loosening one of the heavy black veils that floated round her.

  ‘Ah, Monsieur!’ she murmured, ‘you cannot imagine, you cannot conceive the wonder and the joy of these séances to me! My little one! My Amelie! To see her, to hear her, even—perhaps—yes, perhaps to be even able to—stretch out my hand and touch her.’

  Raoul spoke quickly and peremptorily.

  ‘Madame Exe—how can I explain?—on no account must you do anything except under my express directions, otherwise there is the gravest danger.’

  ‘Danger to me?’

  ‘No, Madame,’ said Raoul, ‘to the medium. You must understand that the phenomena that occur are explained by Science in a certain way. I will put the matter very simply, using no technical terms. A spirit, to manifest itself, has to use the actual physical substance of the medium. You have seen the vapour of fluid issuing from the lips of the medium. This finally condenses and is built up into the physical semblance of the spirit’s dead body. But this ectoplasm we believe to be the actual substance of the medium. We hope to prove this some day by careful weighing and testing—but the great difficulty is the danger and pain which attends the medium on any handling of the phenomena. Were anyone to seize hold of the materialization roughly the death of the medium might result.’

  Madame Exe had listened to him with close attention.

  ‘That is very interesting, Monsieur. Tell me, shall not a time come when the materialization shall advance so far that it shall be capable of detachment from its parent, the medium?’

  ‘That is a fantastic speculation, Madame.’

  She persisted.

  ‘But, on the facts, not impossible?’

  ‘Quite impossible today.’

  ‘But perhaps in the future?’

  He was saved from answering, for at that moment Simone entered. She looked languid and pale, but had evidently regained entire control of herself. She came forward and shook hands with Madame Exe, though Raoul noticed the faint shiver that passed through her as she did so.

  ‘I regret, Madame, to hear that you are indisposed,’ said Madame Exe.

  ‘It is nothing,’ said Simone rather brusquely. ‘Shall we begin?’

  She went to the alcove and sat down in the armchair. Suddenly Raoul in his turn felt a wave of fear pass over him.

  ‘You are not strong enough,’ he exclaimed. ‘We had better cancel the séance. Madame Exe will understand.’

  ‘Monsieur!’

  Madame Exe rose indignantly.

  ‘Yes, yes, it is better not, I am sure of it.’

  ‘Madame Simone promised me one last sitting.’

  ‘That is so,’ agreed Simone quietly, ‘and I am prepared to carry out my promise.’

  ‘I hold you to it, Madame,’ said the other woman.

  ‘I do not break my word,’ said Simone coldly. ‘Do not fear, Raoul,’ she added gently, ‘after all, it is for the last time—the last time, thank God.’

  At a sign from her Raoul drew the heavy black curtains across the alcove. He also pulled the curtains of the window so that the room was in semi-obscurity. He indicated one of the chairs to Madame Exe and prepared himself to take the other. Madame Exe, however, hesitated.

  ‘You will pardon me, Monsieur, but—you understand I believe absolutely in your integrity and in that of Madame Simone. All the same, so that my testimony may be the more valuable, I took the liberty of bringing this with me.’

  From her handbag she drew a length of fine cord.

  ‘Madame!’ cried Raoul. ‘This is an insult!’

  ‘A precaution.’

  ‘I repeat it is an insult.’

  ‘I don’t understand your objection, Monsieur,’ said Madame Exe coldly. ‘If there is no trickery you have nothing to fear.’

  Raoul laughed scornfully.

  ‘I can assure you that I have nothing to fear, Madame. Bind me hand and foot if you will.’

  His speech did not produce the effect he hoped for, for Madame Exe merely murmured unemotionally:

  ‘Thank you, Monsieur,’ and advanced upon him with her roll of cord.

  Suddenly Simone from behind the curtain gave a cry.

  ‘No, no, Raoul, don’t let her do it.’

  Madame Exe laughed derisively.

  ‘Madame is afraid,’ she observed sarcastically.

  ‘Yes, I am afraid.’

  ‘Remember what you are saying, Simone,’ cried Raoul. ‘Madame Exe is apparently under the impression that we are charlatans.’

  ‘I must make sure,’ said Madame Exe grimly.

  She went methodically about her task, binding Raoul securely to his chair.

  ‘I must congratulate you on your knots, Madame,’ he observed ironically when she had finished. ‘Are you satisfied now?’

  Madame Exe did not reply. She walked round the room examining the panelling of the walls closely. Then she locked the door leading into the hall, and, removing the key, returned to her chair.

  ‘Now,’ she said in an indescribable voice, ‘I am ready.’

  The minutes passed. From behind the curtain the sound of Simone’s breathing became heavier and more stertorous. Then it died away altogether, to be succeeded by a series of moans. Then again there was silence for a little while, broken by the sudden clattering of the tambourine. The horn was caught up from the table and dashed to the ground. Ironic laughter was heard. The curtains of the alcove seemed to have been pulled back a little, the medium’s figure was just visible through the opening, her head fallen forward on her breast. Suddenly Madame Exe drew in her breath sharply. A ribbon-like stream of mist was issuing from the medium’s mouth. It condensed and began gradually to assume a shape, the shape of a little child.

  ‘Amelie! My little Amelie!’

  The hoarse whisper came from Madame Exe. The hazy figure condensed still further. Raoul stared almost incredulously. Never had there been a more successful materialization. Now, surely it was a real child, a real flesh and blood child standing there.

  ‘Maman!’

  The soft childish voice spoke.

  ‘My child!’ cried Madame Exe. ‘My child!’

  She half-rose from her seat.

  ‘Be careful, Madame,’ cried Raoul warningly.

  The materialization came hesitatingly through the curtains. It was a child. She stood there, her arms held out.

  ‘Maman!’

  ‘Ah!’ cried Madame Exe.

  Again she half-rose from her seat.

  ‘Madame,’ cried Raoul, alarmed, ‘the medium—’

  ‘I must touch her,’ cried Madame Exe hoarsely.

  She moved a step forward.
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  ‘For God’s sake, Madame, control yourself,’ cried Raoul.

  He was really alarmed now.

  ‘Sit down at once.’

  ‘My little one, I must touch her.’

  ‘Madame, I command you, sit down!’

  He was writhing desperately in his bonds, but Madame Exe had done her work well; he was helpless. A terrible sense of impending disaster swept over him.

  ‘In the name of God, Madame, sit down!’ he shouted. ‘Remember the medium.’

  Madame Exe paid no attention to him. She was like a woman transformed. Ecstasy and delight showed plainly in her face. Her outstretched hand touched the little figure that stood in the opening of the curtains. A terrible moan came from the medium.

  ‘My God!’ cried Raoul. ‘My God! This is terrible. The medium—’

  Madame Exe turned on him with a harsh laugh.

  ‘What do I care for your medium?’ she cried. ‘I want my child.’

  ‘You are mad!’

  ‘My child, I tell you. Mine! My own! My own flesh and blood! My little one come back to me from the dead, alive and breathing.’

  Raoul opened his lips, but no words would come. She was terrible, this woman! Remorseless, savage, absorbed by her own passion. The baby lips parted, and for the third time the same word echoed:

  ‘Maman!’

  ‘Come then, my little one,’ cried Madame Exe.

  With a sharp gesture she caught up the child in her arms. From behind the curtains came a long-drawn scream of utter anguish.

  ‘Simone!’ cried Raoul. ‘Simone!’

  He was aware vaguely of Madame Exe rushing past him, of the unlocking of the door, of the retreating footsteps down the stairs.

  From behind the curtains there still sounded the terrible high long-drawn scream—such a scream as Raoul had never heard. It died away in a horrible kind of gurgle. Then there came the thud of a body falling . . .

  Raoul was working like a maniac to free himself from his bonds. In his frenzy he accomplished the impossible, snapping the rope by sheer strength. As he struggled to his feet, Elise rushed in crying, ‘Madame!’

  ‘Simone!’ cried Raoul.

  Together they rushed forward and pulled the curtain.

  Raoul staggered back.

  ‘My God!’ he murmured. ‘Red—all red . . .’

  Elise’s voice came beside him harsh and shaking.

  ‘So Madame is dead. It is ended. But tell me, Monsieur, what has happened. Why is Madame all shrunken away—why is she half her usual size? What has been happening here?’

  ‘I do not know,’ said Raoul.

  His voice rose to a scream.

  ‘I do not know. I do not know. But I think—I am going mad . . . Simone! Simone!’

  In a Glass Darkly

  I’ve no explanation of this story. I’ve no theories about the why and wherefore of it. It’s just a thing—that happened.

  All the same, I sometimes wonder how things would have gone if I’d noticed at the time just that one essential detail that I never appreciated until so many years afterwards. If I had noticed it—well, I suppose the course of three lives would have been entirely altered. Somehow—that’s a very frightening thought.

  For the beginning of it all, I’ve got to go back to the summer of 1914—just before the war—when I went down to Badgeworthy with Neil Carslake. Neil was, I suppose, about my best friend. I’d known his brother Alan too, but not so well. Sylvia, their sister, I’d never met. She was two years younger than Alan and three years younger than Neil. Twice, while we were at school together, I’d been going to spend part of the holidays with Neil at Badgeworthy and twice something had intervened. So it came about that I was twenty-three when I first saw Neil and Alan’s home.

  We were to be quite a big party there. Neil’s sister Sylvia had just got engaged to a fellow called Charles Crawley. He was, so Neil said, a good deal older than she was, but a thoroughly decent chap and quite reasonably well-off.

  We arrived, I remember, about seven o’clock in the evening. Everyone had gone to his room to dress for dinner. Neil took me to mine. Badgeworthy was an attractive, rambling old house. It had been added to freely in the last three centuries and was full of little steps up and down, and unexpected staircases. It was the sort of house in which it’s not easy to find your way about. I remember Neil promised to come and fetch me on his way down to dinner. I was feeling a little shy at the prospect of meeting his people for the first time. I remember saying with a laugh that it was the kind of house one expected to meet ghosts in the passages, and he said carelessly that he believed the place was said to be haunted but that none of them had ever seen anything, and he didn’t even know what form the ghost was supposed to take.

  Then he hurried away and I set to work to dive into my suitcases for my evening clothes. The Carslakes weren’t well-off; they clung on to their old home, but there were no menservants to unpack for you or valet you.

  Well, I’d just got to the stage of tying my tie. I was standing in front of the glass. I could see my own face and shoulders and behind them the wall of the room—a plain stretch of wall just broken in the middle by a door—and just as I finally settled my tie I noticed that the door was opening.

  I don’t know why I didn’t turn around—I think that would have been the natural thing to do; anyway, I didn’t. I just watched the door swing slowly open—and as it swung I saw into the room beyond.

  It was a bedroom—a larger room than mine—with two bedsteads in it, and suddenly I caught my breath.

  For at the foot of one of those beds was a girl and round her neck were a pair of man’s hands and the man was slowly forcing her backwards and squeezing her throat as he did so, so that the girl was being slowly suffocated.

  There wasn’t the least possibility of a mistake. What I saw was perfectly clear. What was being done was murder.

  I could see the girl’s face clearly, her vivid golden hair, the agonized terror of her beautiful face, slowly suffusing with blood. Of the man I could see his back, his hands, and a scar that ran down the left side of his face towards his neck.

  It’s taken some time to tell, but in reality only a moment or two passed while I stared dumbfounded. Then I wheeled round to the rescue . . .

  And on the wall behind me, the wall reflected in the glass, there was only a Victorian mahogany wardrobe. No door open—no scene of violence. I swung back to the mirror. The mirror reflected only the wardrobe . . .

  I passed my hands across my eyes. Then I sprang across the room and tried to pull forward the wardrobe and at that moment Neil entered by the other door from the passage and asked me what the hell I was trying to do.

  He must have thought me slightly barmy as I turned on him and demanded whether there was a door behind the wardrobe. He said, yes, there was a door, it led into the next room. I asked him who was occupying the next room and he said people called Oldam—a Major Oldam and his wife. I asked him then if Mrs Oldam had very fair hair and when he replied drily that she was dark I began to realize that I was probably making a fool of myself. I pulled myself together, made some lame explanation and we went downstairs together. I told myself that I must have had some kind of hallucination—and felt generally rather ashamed and a bit of an ass.

  And then—and then—Neil said, ‘My sister Sylvia,’ and I was looking into the lovely face of the girl I had just seen being suffocated to death . . . and I was introduced to her fiancé, a tall dark man with a scar down the left side of his face.

  Well—that’s that. I’d like you to think and say what you’d have done in my place. Here was the girl—the identical girl—and here was the man I’d seen throttling her—and they were to be married in about a month’s time . . .

  Had I—or had I not—had a prophetic vision of the future? Would Sylvia and her husband come down here to stay some time in the future, and be given that room (the best spare room) and would that scene I’d witnessed take place in grim reality?

  What
was I to do about it? Could I do anything? Would anyone—Neil—or the girl herself—would they believe me?

  I turned the whole business over and over in my mind the week I was down there. To speak or not to speak? And almost at once another complication set in. You see, I fell in love with Sylvia Carslake the first moment I saw here . . . I wanted her more than anything on earth . . . And in a way that tied my hands.

  And yet, if I didn’t say anything, Sylvia would marry Charles Crawley and Crawley would kill her . . .

  And so, the day before I left, I blurted it all out to her. I said I expect she’d think me touched in the intellect or something, but I swore solemnly that I’d seen the thing just as I told it to her and that I felt if she was determined to marry Crawley, I ought to tell her my strange experience.

  She listened very quietly. There was something in her eyes I didn’t understand. She wasn’t angry at all. When I’d finished, she just thanked me gravely. I kept repeating like an idiot, ‘I did see it. I really did see it,’ and she said, ‘I’m sure you did if you say so. I believe you.’

  Well, the upshot was that I went off not knowing whether I’d done right or been a fool, and a week later Sylvia broke off her engagement to Charles Crawley.

  After that the war happened, and there wasn’t much leisure for thinking of anything else. Once or twice when I was on leave, I came across Sylvia, but as far as possible I avoided her.

  I loved her and wanted her just as badly as ever, but I felt somehow that it wouldn’t be playing the game. It was owing to me that she’d broken off her engagement to Crawley, and I kept saying to myself that I could only justify the action I had taken by making my attitude a purely disinterested one.

  Then, in 1916, Neil was killed and it fell to me to tell Sylvia about his last moments. We couldn’t remain on formal footing after that. Sylvia had adored Neil and he had been my best friend. She was sweet—adorably sweet in her grief. I just managed to hold my tongue and went out again praying that a bullet might end the whole miserable business. Life without Sylvia wasn’t worth living.

  But there was no bullet with my name on it. One nearly got me below the right ear and one was deflected by a cigarette case in my pocket, but I came through unscathed. Charles Crawley was killed in action at the beginning of 1918.