Mr Scarletti's Ghost by Linda Stratmann Read Free Book Online Page B

implication in her tone that she considered Mina to be a member of that offending class. When Mina suggested that she might venture to experience a séance for herself, her mother was surprised but not displeased, and said that it would be easy to arrange. All her friends had gone there or were about to go; even the nervous Miss Whinstone, who was hoping for a message from her late brother Archibald, had finally been persuaded.

Four
    M iss Eustace held her séances at the simple lodgings taken by Professor and Mrs Gaskin near Queen’s Park. Mina, her mother, Mrs Bettinson and Miss Whinstone travelled there by cab one evening, with Miss Whinstone protesting all the way that she was afraid her heart would stop with fright, and Mrs Bettinson looking as though she rather hoped it would.
    They were ushered into a small parlour arranged in unconventional style. Two rows of five plain chairs had been placed in a semi-circle, sufficiently far apart that no seated person could reach out and touch another, but they might, if both extended their arms, hold hands with those on either side. The chairs faced a corner of the room, which was obscured by a pair of curtains of some dark opaque material that hung from a cord fastened to a bracket on the wall at either end, and overlapped in the centre. Mina found herself curiously attracted to the curtains, and had she been alone in the room would undoubtedly have pulled them aside to make a close examination of what lay behind them and determine for herself whether what was supposed to have been moved by spirits showed evidence of a more corporeal hand. The sun had set and the window curtains had been closely drawn, but the light in the room was fairly good from the gas lamps. The only other furniture was a sideboard on which stood a water carafe, a tray of glasses, a candlestick fitted with a new wax candle, and a box of matches.
    Louisa introduced her daughter and Miss Whinstone to the Gaskins, who received them with friendly but slightly exaggerated politeness.
    The professor was a tall man of about fifty-five, with a cloud of peppery grey hair, eyebrows like the wings of a small bird, and abundant whiskers. One might almost imagine that his head was stuffed full of hair, since it had also sought an exit by bursting through his nostrils and ears, the latter organs being of elephantine construction with undulating edges.
    He both walked and stood with a stoop, not, thought Mina, from any fault with his spine, but from a poor habit of posture. It always surprised her to see a person who was blessed with the ability to walk straight but had chosen not to. Either his head was being borne down by the weight of his powerful scientific brain, or he needed to hover over everyone around him the better to impress them with his superior knowledge. Mina’s diminutive stature was a particular challenge to him, and he raised his voice as he spoke to her, whether to better cover the distance between them, or because he thought that her bodily deformity meant that she also had some defect of the intellect, she could not determine. His artificially bright, almost simpering smile as he addressed her, drew her towards the latter conclusion. Mina gave him only the most perfunctory greeting, and made no attempt to impress upon him the fact that she was not an imbecile; rather she hoped that he might remain in ignorance of this for as long as possible, as it would give her more freedom to observe the proceedings unimpeded.
    Mrs Gaskin, who appeared to be the same age as her husband, was an excessively plain woman, inclining to stoutness and heavily whaleboned. She dressed in an unflattering style suggestive of the most uncompromising virtue and carried herself like a duchess. Her smiles of greeting lacked warmth, and were dispensed by way of charity, serving to enhance her own position. She remained close to the professor, attached by invisible chains of ownership as if his scientific eminence made him a