He shuffled back out towards the kitchen and left us to wait for Madame Eugénie to arrive. I was just about to get up and help everyone to sandwiches when the door opened again and a tall, willowy woman wafted in. She was clad entirely in black, from the gauzy veil thrown back over her black hair, the darkly-tinted spectacles perched on her long nose, all the way to her black boots. Even her earrings, necklace and rings were of jet.
‘Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,’ she said in a faraway voice. ‘My apologies for my late arrival, but I am bound to the rhythms of the other realm and oftentimes the spirits forget that I have appointments to keep in this world.’ She glided to the empty chair and sat down. ‘Daisy, my dear, have you made the introductions?’
‘I have, Madame Eugénie,’ said Daisy with an eager nod. ‘Would you like me to–’
‘No, my dear,’ interrupted the medium in her dreamy voice. ‘I prefer to let the spirits guide me.’
‘Yes, Madame Eugénie,’ said Daisy, a good deal more respectfully than I’d ever heard her speak to anyone before.
‘So, dear friends,’ said Madame Eugénie, ‘let us begin. We are about to breach the barrier between this world and the next. Most of the spirits that loiter near the border seeking access to the world of the living are benign, they are merely curious to visit once more the world they have left behind. But there are those who are not so well intentioned, who would wish us ill. Alone we cannot fight them, but together we are too strong for them and they can do us no harm. Please take your left hand and hold tightly to the right wrist of your neighbour to form a circle of love and power; only then can our psychic strength combine to protect us.’
After a moment’s puzzled hand waving, we managed collectively to work out what she had in mind. I clasped Dr Fitzsimmons’s right wrist with my left hand and the chain formed around the table so that eventually Madame Eugénie’s slender left hand took hold of my own right wrist.
‘There,’ she said, with satisfaction. ‘Now we are protected. Remember, we must not break the circle, no matter what might happen.’
There were nods and murmurs of agreement from around the table.
‘Daisy, would you be so kind as to extinguish the lamp, my dear. The spirits prefer the darkness.’
Daisy freed her right hand from Dr Fitzsimmons’s grasp and turned down the wick on the lamp until it was extinguished. In the darkness, I could hear the tiny sounds of movement as the doctor tried to find Daisy’s wrist once more. They soon settled and the room fell into silence.
Suddenly, the silence was broken by the loudest and most forceful sneeze I have ever heard. It came from Madame Eugénie.
‘Oh, my dears, I am most dreadfully sorry,’ she said through a slightly blocked nose. ‘I think I must have picked up a chill in this awful weather. Do please excuse me.’
She released my right hand and, after a moment’s rustling, blew her nose with a sound like an inexpertly played euphonium. More rustling while the handkerchief was put away and then she grasped my wrist again.
‘Can you find my hand, my dear,’ she said, presumably to Lady Hardcastle.
‘Yes,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘I have it now, thank you.’
The room was quiet again save for the steadily increasing rain outside, and for a few moments everything was perfectly still. Then, starting with the smallest movement, but with slowly growing strength, Madame Eugénie began to sway back and forth.
‘Come, spirits,’ she said in her faraway voice. ‘Join us. Join us in our–’ I could feel that she had stopped moving. Her grip on my wrist relaxed slightly. Then there was a knocking which sounded for all the world like someone rapping on the table, but with everyone’s hand held firmly by their neighbour’s, it couldn’t possibly be anyone at the table.
‘Is it you, Madame Eugénie?’ she said in a deeper, foreign-sounding growl. ‘You have been gone far too long. I have many here waiting for your call.’
There were questioning murmurs around the table.
‘That’s Monsieur Diderot,’ whispered Daisy, who had clearly done her research. ‘Her spirit guide.’
The murmurers seemed satisfied.
‘There is someone here who wishes to communicate with Dr Fitsimmons,’ said Madam Eugénie. Or Monsieur Diderot, I should say. ‘Her name is… her name is Jane… Jennifer…’
There was no reaction.
‘Juliet? Or is it June?’ he said.
‘My late wife was June,’ said Dr Fitzsimmons, sadly.
‘She says she is happy, and that you must be, too,’ said Madame Eugénie’s growly voice.
‘That’s nice,’ said the doctor, quietly. ‘Thank you.’
‘Is there anyone else there?’ said Madame Eugénie in her normal voice.
‘There are many,’ said the growly voice. ‘I have John here.’
‘Mum?’ said Daisy excitedly. ‘Wasn’t Grandad’s brother called John?’
‘Ohh,’ said Mrs Spratt. ‘He was. Is that you, Uncle John?’
‘He says that the matter that has been concerning you will be settled soon and that all shall be well,’ said Madame Eugénie’s growly voice.
‘Oh, thank goodness for that,’ said Mrs Spratt. ‘I’d been worrying myself silly.’
Suddenly, Madame Eugénie began to convulse.
‘There is someone trying to get through,’ said the spirit guide. ‘He is angry! I cannot hold him!’
I heard the scrape of a chair near the window and turned to try to see what was happening. There was a sudden draught, the coldest of breezes. From the opposite side of the table, a man gasped. Mr Snelson. ‘Something touched me,’ he said in a terrified voice. ‘A hand. Freezing cold.’
Daisy and her mother screamed together. A flash of lightening. Something moved in the shadows. Another flash, and there, standing behind Dr Fitzsimmons was a man. A ghastly white face, a ghostly white suit, his arm outstretched and pointing directly at Mr Snelson. All visible in an instant and then gone. A terrifying crash of thunder, then in the silence that followed, a hoarse, ghostly whisper said, ‘Murderer!’
There was uproar. Mrs Spratt screamed again. Daisy who had seen nothing of the ghost, screamed anyway. Mr Holman yelled in fright and there was a rustle of movement around the table.
‘Do not break the circle!’ shouted Madame Eugénie above the hubbub. ‘We shall be perfectly safe as long as we do not break the circle. If the lady to my right will join hands with the lady to my left, I shall relight the lamp. I shall be perfectly safe with my spirit guide to protect me and the circle will be broken for a mere moment. Not time enough for us to come to harm.’
She released my hand and I scrabbled around in a panic trying to locate Lady Hardcastle’s hand. I felt her grip my wrist and give it a reassuring squeeze as Madame Eugénie stood and leaned forwards towards the lamp at the centre of the table. Some clinking, then a match flared and the gloom was gone. She lit the lamp and refitted the chimney and we were once more in what seemed a bright and welcoming room.
‘The spirits will not trouble us while there is light. Not with so many of the living in the room,’ said Madame Eugénie. ‘Daisy, my dear, would you be so kind as to bring the sandwiches over. And some more drinks? I think we could all do with a bit of a break.’
Daisy did as she was asked and, with the tension broken, the room erupted into nervously excited chatter.