The Dead Assassin: The Paranormal Casebooks of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle by Vaughn Entwistle Read Free Book Online Page A

to allow light to refract through the lens of a camera and burn their images onto a photographic plate. One figure in particular, a man in a tall stovepipe hat, had turned his head at the vital moment so that his features registered as nothing more than an amorphous gray blur of motion. A caption at the bottom of the photograph identified the committee members, and now Conan Doyle read the names aloud.
    “Look here, our friend, Police Commissioner Burke.”
    Wilde snorted. “There’s a face badly in need of a fist.”
    Conan Doyle chortled at Wilde’s quip and continued reading. “‘The Right Honorable Judge Robert Jordan; Sir Lionel Ransome, financier; Retired Admiral Peregrine Windlesham; Tarquin Hogg, president of the Bank of England; Tristram Oldfield, railroad magnate; George Hardcastle, owner of Oxton Coal…’”
    He reached the stovepipe wearer, who was listed only as UNKNOWN . Seated next to the anonymous figure was a face he knew only too well.
    “‘… and Lord Howell, Minister of War!’”
    Conan Doyle dropped the paper to look at Wilde. “War minister? I could see a reason for the police commissioner, but what has a war minister to do with the issue of fog? It hardly seems a coincidence.”
    Wilde sighed aloud. “Honestly, Arthur, I know that you and your confederates in the Society for Psychic Silliness do not believe in coincidences, but they do happen. My days are full of coincidences. I arrive at my table at The Savoy and there is always a chilled bottle of champagne and a plate of Oysters on Horseback waiting. You call it coincidence. I call it sterling service.”
    “You could be right, Oscar. It could be a coincidence. The war minister’s photograph appears in the morning paper and by the evening he is assassinated.” Conan Doyle’s brown eyes swept the photograph. “But if another of the committee members were to be assassinated, then the odds of coincidence have just greatly fallen.”
    Wilde chuckled. “A war minister? A judge? A banker? If you drew up a list of professions most likely to be assassinated they would all top the list. Who has never had a bank manager they would not wish to murder? I myself would happily strangle mine, would it not leave my many creditors orphaned and inconsolable.”
    There was a long silence, finally broken by Conan Doyle. “I should like to speak to that poor Italian chap, Lord Howell’s valet. As the sole surviving witness, only he knows what really happened.”
    Wilde fixed Conan Doyle with an abject stare. “You speak in jest, I hope. Commissioner Burke warned us in no uncertain terms about being caught meddling.”
    Conan Doyle nodded grimly and tossed off the dregs of his brandy. “That is why it is imperative I am not caught.”
    Wilde said nothing for several thoughtful moments, and then he, too, drained his champagne glass, dabbed his lips with a napkin, and set the glass aside. “You mean, that is why it is imperative we should not be caught.”
    Conan Doyle threw his friend a quizzical look.
    “I am not asking to be included, Arthur. I am insisting. Your tourist’s Italian is clearly insufficient. You are not negotiating the purchase of a gelato from a street vendor in Napoli. You are questioning a man on trial for murder. You shall require my services as translator.”
    Conan Doyle mulled the offer and finally acquiesced with a nod. “Quite right, Oscar, your language skills are far superior to mine. Very well, shall we go tomorrow?”
    “Not tomorrow. Perhaps Friday.”
    “Why Friday?”
    “I have been living at the club of late. I must return to Tite Street to spend a few days in the bosom of my family. I should like to dandle my boys upon my knee one final time before I am tossed into the deepest, darkest, dankest cell in Newgate.”

 
    CHAPTER   5
    RAISING GHOSTS
    The face moves forward through the gloom and presses its forehead to the metal visor, eyes peering through a tiny glass window. One hand gropes the handle of a