The Spirit Murder Mystery Read online

  “I suppose not,” replied Eileen somewhat listlessly and, after a pause, added, “but now you’re fairly certain that there is such a thing as spirit manifestation, you’ve only got to keep your mind open and you’ll get some actual proof, visual or aural. This old house, in which people have lived continuously for hundreds of years is particularly favourable for such. You’re almost certain to hear the faint strains of music which I’ve repeatedly heard for some time now. I should say a former occupant of this house was a keen musician.”

  “You’re quite sure that this spirit music isn’t just fancy? I often have all sorts of tunes running through my head, but I can’t say I actually hear them. They’re quite different.”

  “No, no, it’s not imagination on my part. I distinctly hear music; it’s very faint, but quite audible.”

  “Can you distinguish the instrument?” asked John Thurlow, after a moment’s reflection.

  “What a strange question to ask!” exclaimed Eileen with genuine surprise. “Now that point never struck me. I was so excited by the manifestation that I didn’t worry about the instrument. When I come to think of it, I must say the music sounded like the faint notes of a church organ.”

  “The church is a mile away, and even when the wind is in this direction, it’s impossible to hear the church organ. Can’t be that, for I’ve checked it up since you first told me of the phenomenon. When did you hear it last?”

  “On Tuesday night and it was particularly clear. I was sitting in this room when it occurred. You were out having a chat with Doctor Cornard.”

  “Yes, I remember. Strangely enough, our talk turned on the subject of spiritualism. I had a hot argument with him. He flatly says he thinks it’s all rot. I mentioned this book of Sir William Crookes’s to him, and he declared that a famous scientist was usually a specialist in one subject and therefore more easily gulled than the average, level-headed person.”

  “He puts himself in the latter category with complacent conceit, I suppose. Did you tell him of this music that I’ve distinctly heard on several occasions?”

  “Well, yes, I did. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all. What did he say?”

  “Hinted that the church organist was practising at the time and that some condition of the atmosphere, or the wind, carried the sound as far as Old Hall Farm. He sought a material explanation and wouldn’t hear of any other.”

  “The church organist wasn’t practising on Tuesday night. I took the trouble to ask him,” replied Eileen quietly.

  “Oh, indeed! That’s a splendid point. I wish I’d known it. I could have flattened Cornard out beautifully,” remarked John Thurlow eagerly.

  “It’s no use arguing with Doctor Cornard, Uncle. He’s one of those men who make up their minds on such a subject without any inquiry. Perhaps it would be fairer to say his education and training have unconsciously made up his mind for him. I think doctors on the whole are a very cynical lot.”

  For some moments John Thurlow sat in thoughtful silence and then remarked: “I wish I could hear this spirit music you talk about. I wonder when it’ll occur again.”

  “I think we might hear it at any time, if we could only get ourselves into the proper mood. You must be en rapport, as they say, or you’ll never hear it. These occult phenomena must be diligently sought for, or they remain beyond your physical senses. It’s a case of seek and ye shall find. I was speaking to Dawn Garford the other day and she made a shrewd remark on the subject. She said that the average man, who figuratively sticks to the tarred highway, certainly won’t find mushrooms. You’ve got to get off the beaten track and hunt for them.”

  “A good illustration. I’ve a great respect for her opinion. She’s always bright and sensible,” said John Thurlow, and asked: “But how am I to get en rapport, as you put it?”

  “Well, you must experiment. Let’s try it out to-night. Put out the light and we’ll sit and listen, firmly believing we’ll get in touch with this discarnate musician. I feel certain that I have the gift of mediumship. When I first heard the music, I was in a very peculiar frame of mind. I wouldn’t call it a trance, but something like the periods of ecstatic reverie which occur to people with psychic gifts.”

  “Do you think it wise, Eileen?” asked John Thurlow, looking at his niece with an air of half-scared hesitancy.

  “If you’re really curious about the matter, there’s nothing like making an experiment, Uncle. No harm can possibly come of it. I’m willing to try it out. All the well-known cases of genuine mediumship began with a home circle, and I should like to convince myself I’ve got the power. Relatives don’t stoop to humbugging one another, even if it were possible.”

  “By jove, I think we ought to try!” exclaimed John Thurlow with sudden eagerness. “I feel a bit nervous, though I don’t just see what there is to be scared about.”

  “If we find that our experiments prove unpleasant or dangerous, we can certainly chuck them up,” remarked Eileen.

  “Of course, of course,” replied John Thurlow and for some moments sat lost in thought. His eyes wandered round the quaint old room with its dark oak beams and wainscoting. Through his mind was passing the thought that for hundreds of years all sorts of people had lived and moved and talked and wept and laughed and loved and quarrelled in that very room. The whole house was impregnated with the spirit of the bygone and bore the indelible imprint of the activities and designs of people long since dead and forgotten. He glanced through the open window at the dark blue sky, now spangled with stars. A vague sense of mystery and wonder stole into his musing. From the particular, his thoughts broadened out to the general. The universe was altogether inexplicable, even to science. How and why did it begin? Whither was it progressing? Where and how would it all end? What relation did this earth and its teeming millions of lives bear to that star-scattered space? Was that vast ethereal sweep peopled by the spirits of all past time? Futile questionings! He turned to his niece and asked: “Shall I put out the light?”

  “Certainly, Uncle. For some unknown reason, darkness seems to favour any kind of manifestation. All spiritualists agree on that score. I daresay there’s some natural law behind it. When you’ve done so, sit perfectly still and listen. I’m going to try and get in touch with what is called a spirit guide. I ought to have a spirit guide; all mediums have.”

  John Thurlow rose from his chair, pressed up the switch on the wall at his left hand, and sat down again. When his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, he could vaguely discern the various pieces of furniture about the room, and, glancing at his niece, he saw her form clearly outlined by the white organdie muslin dress she was wearing. That dress seemed almost luminous as it caught the faint light filtering in through the windows. Her pale face was a grey smudge above the dress.

  “Are you all right, Eileen?” he asked.

  “Yes. Let’s begin. Try and keep your mind quite free from any distracting train of thought. You’ll find it difficult. Now please don’t talk any more.”

  John Thurlow settled himself in his chair and tried to keep his mind quite free from distracting trains of thought. Yes, it was more difficult than he had surmised. His right hand, in his jacket pocket, was fondling the smooth bowl of his briar pipe, and a strong desire to smoke assailed him. Under the urge, he was on the point of asking Eileen whether smoking would militate against favourable conditions, when his attention was suddenly arrested by his niece’s heavy, stertorous breathing. He was on the point of asking her if she were all right, but remembered her strict injunctions against speaking and desisted. He sat and listened to that laboured inhalation and exhalation for some moments and wondered if she had gone into the trance state usual with mediums. He was beginning to feel decidedly nervous. Everything was so still and eerie, and he was slowly being overcome by a strong conviction that at any moment some uncanny manifestation might occur, some horror materialize before his eyes. He resolved to keep a firm control over himself and all his faculties alert. He would con
front any such wonder in a true scientific spirit of observation. He must not allow himself to be disturbed or thwarted by such an infantile thing as fear. What was there to be afraid of, in any case? Eileen was certainly complete mistress of herself. No trace of fear in her behaviour! But perhaps she was now quite unconscious, in that cataleptic state which is the usual trance of the medium.

  He listened again to her breathing. It was painfully heavy, but now quite rhythmic. Had she fallen asleep? He couldn’t resist the impulse to ask her.

  “You awake, Eileen?” he queried in a whisper.

  “Yes, wide awake. Listen attentively!” came the reply in a strained voice, quite unlike Eileen’s.

  John Thurlow experienced a sudden and sharp insurgence of fear. He felt his skin creep and was quite certain that his hair was standing on end. With a supreme effort, he controlled himself and obeyed the summons to listen attentively. Some minutes passed without anything happening. A clock in another room chimed sweetly and faintly in the almost oppressive silence. Then, all at once, very faint strains of music seemed to hover and quiver in the darkened room. They were full of haunting melody and seemed to have that strange sweetness of music that is heard across a sweep of water. Eileen’s breath was now coming in sharp, rasping gasps. John Thurlow sat petrified with amazement. Had he lost touch with reality? Surely his ears, in conjunction with his mental expectancy, had played him some fantastic trick, produced some aural hallucination? He listened again with almost painful concentration. Once more the silence was broken by the ghostly music; at times so faint as to be almost inaudible, and then at intervals so distinct as to render the atmosphere in the darkened room perceptibly vibrant.

  As he sat motionless and attentive, his first sensation of terror gave place to a feeling of entranced awe. He now felt certain that he recognized here and there a familiar musical phrase, but could not place it; for, though fond of music, he never could assign to any particular work or composer an aria or passage which he chanced to hear or transiently remember. At that crucial moment, he wished that in the past he had paid more attention to such detail, instead of pleasurably gulping the stuff without noting its title or the name of its creator. Suddenly the unseen musician stopped and repeated more perfectly a passage, as if dissatisfied with his first execution. This unexpected occurrence seemed so characteristically human, that it at once charged John Thurlow’s attitude with sceptical alertness. Surely there must be some ordinary and natural explanation of this musical phenomenon? Without rising from his chair, he stretched out his hand and quietly switched on the electric light. He glanced at Eileen. Her eyes were closed and her head had sunk forward on her breast. She seemed fast asleep. In a few moments her loud breathing returned to normal, she quietly opened her eyes, and looked across almost vacantly at her uncle. Noticing that he was about to speak, she raised her hand as if to enjoin silence. They both sat and listened. Once more the faint music seemed to surge gently into the room and roll up and recede with alternate strength and diminution. To Eileen it seemed supernal, ineffably beautiful.

  “It’s an organ!” exclaimed John Thurlow, unable to restrain himself any longer and, rising from his chair, he opened a door leading from his study into the garden and stepped out into the night.

  A little later, he re-entered the room by the same door with a look of amazement on his face.

  “It’s certainly not the church organ, Eileen!” he said emphatically. “Outside there’s not a sound to be heard. This is most mysterious.”

  “The music has stopped,” replied Eileen with an air of annoyance. “Immediately you begin to fiddle about for natural explanations of a spirit manifestation, you simply ruin the conditions. You become a hostile influence, Uncle. You must remember that we’re trying to get in touch with a spirit; we’re not in a laboratory or a law court. It’s well known that in an atmosphere of suspicion, with people whose minds are alert for detecting fraud, or intent on material explanations of supernatural phenomena, nothing will ever occur.”

  “I’m sorry, Eileen,” replied her uncle apologetically, “I’ll bear that in mind in future. To-night’s experience has been an eye-opener to me. Positively stupendous!”

  “And it’s only the beginning,” added Eileen enthusiastically. “If we conduct our experiments in the right frame of mind, we’ll get further manifestations, perhaps some kind of materialization.”

  “You mean a ghost?” asked John Thurlow with alarm.

  “Let’s call it a spirit form. I like it better than ghost. The word ghost seems to imply fear, just as the word spook implies fear masquerading as courage. I’m feeling terribly tired. The experience has exhausted me and I’m going to bed. Good-night.”

  Eileen rose languidly from her chair and noiselessly left the study. Hurrying upstairs to her room, she slipped on a light overcoat, descended again stealthily so as not to disturb her uncle, and wandered out into the garden. There was a strange vagueness about her thoughts which she ascribed to the after effects of her trance state.

  On her departure, John Thurlow glanced nervously round his study and then coughed as if to assure himself that he was not altogether scared. Drawing his pipe from his pocket, he lit it, and after a few vigorous puffs, swung round his chair to the table and resumed his reading of Sir William Crookes’s book. He had only read a few pages, when to his unbounded astonishment, he heard again the faint sound of an organ being played. With nervous fingers he closed his book, shut his eyes, and listened attentively. Yes he recognized the air, and as he strove hard to recollect it the name all at once flashed into his mind. It was Handel’s Dead March from “Saul.” He was very familiar with this march, and by some psychological trick his recognition of it at once dissociated the music in his mind from the region of the supernatural. He rose from his chair and, kneeling down, placed his ear to the ground. Surely he could now hear the sounds more clearly! Or was it mere fancy? He could not be certain. Rising to his feet again, he passed once more out into the garden. There, all was silence except for the plaintive hooting of an owl in a fringe of woodland bordering the adjoining paddock. More perplexed than ever, he returned to his study, where the very faint strains of an organ—he was certain the instrument was an organ—were still clearly audible.

  “Most amazing!” he exclaimed and added with a note of rising exasperation. “But I’ll get to the bottom of this thing, or my name’s not John Thurlow!”

  All trace of fear had now seemingly left him, and his face had assumed a look of sullen determination. He had reverted to the John Thurlow, successful merchant and financier, intent on getting the best of a deal, and in such a mood he was a man of unshakable resolution. His first thought was to summon Eileen, but remembering her air of complete exhaustion on retiring, he changed his mind and decided to investigate alone. For some moments he stood hesitant and then, thrusting his pipe in his pocket, crossed to his writing desk. Extracting a heavy army-pattern revolver from a drawer, he began silently to search the whole ground floor of the house.

  Chapter Two

  When Fanny Raymer, one of the maids at Old Hall Farm, entered Eileen Thurlow’s bedroom next morning with her mistress’ morning tea, her ingenuous face was pale and her round blue eyes were starting from her head. Eileen, who was wide awake, knew on glancing at Fanny that something unusual had happened. At first she was not much perturbed, for a very minor catastrophe, such as the breaking of a tea-cup, was sufficient to produce unduly alarming effects on Fanny Raymer’s face.

  “You look startled, Fanny. What has happened now?” asked Eileen in a matter-of-fact tone so as to reassure the girl.

  “I just took master’s tea into his room, miss, and he ain’t there,” replied the maid.

  “Isn’t there? What do you mean?” asked Eileen with a puzzled look.

  “He ain’t in his bed, miss, and he’s nowhere about the house.”

  “Then he’s probably somewhere about the garden or grounds,” remarked Eileen and calmly poured herself out a cup of tea. />
  “What I mean, miss, is that he hasn’t slept in his bed, and when I went to dust his study this morning, the electric light was burning on his desk and the window was wide open.”

  Eileen, who had raised her cup of tea to her lips and was about to drink, suddenly returned the cup to its saucer and hastily put both down on a small table beside her bed.

  “But he must be somewhere about the house!” she exclaimed with growing amazement. “Have you looked in all the rooms?”

  “Yes, miss, even in the wine cellar,” replied Fanny with finality.

  “Then he’ll have gone out with his gun into the paddock after rabbits. Runnacles has been complaining of late about the damage they’re doing in the vegetable garden.”

  “I thought of that, miss, but master’s gun is in the spare room where he usually keeps it. I went out and saw Runnacles. He was busy in the potting-shed, and when I asked him if he’d seen master about anywhere, he said: ‘No, my darling,’ so I ticked him off for bein’ so forward.”

  For some moments Eileen was lost in thought. She had left her uncle immersed in his book at about ten o’clock the previous night. She had a vague recollection of then having gone out into the garden and returned. Her mind, evidently thoroughly exhausted by her attempt at mediumship, had almost been a complete blank for over an hour. She clearly remembered, however, that she had fallen asleep without hearing him come upstairs to his bedroom. It was evident he had not gone to bed at half-past eleven according to his invariable custom. But what had become of him? He couldn’t have vanished into thin air. The power to dematerialize was emphatically not within the scope of her uncle, John Thurlow’s abilities. The affair must have some simple explanation, however preternatural it might appear. The more she thought of it, the more confused and bewildered she became.

  “Was the study door leading into the garden shut, Fanny?” she asked at length.