The Revenant of Thraxton Hall: The Paranormal Casebooks of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle by Vaughn Entwistle Read Free Book Online Page B

best of both worlds, don’t you think?” Oscar Wilde replied, tendrils of silver smoke wreathing about his brow like a Roman Emperor’s laurel crown. He drew deeply and exhaled a nimbus of smoke out both nostrils. “Imagine the possibilities: male and female in one body. The mind boggles, does it not?”
    Gears jammed in Conan Doyle’s brain. He liked to think of himself as a man of the world. As a young buck he had mixed with some rough sorts: sailors, thieves, ivory smugglers, but Oscar Wilde still managed to shock his middle-class sensibilities to their quivering core.
    “So,” Wilde drawled, “what is this mysterious assignation in Mayfair that drags Arthur Conan Doyle from the domestic idylls of South Norwood into the ‘cesspit of the Empire’ at this hour?”
    Conan Doyle related his meeting of the previous morning. Through it all, Oscar Wilde listened with such rapt attention he neglected to puff even once on his cigarette. “And all this happened in total darkness?” he asked when the tale had been told.
    Conan Doyle nodded.
    “And you never glimpsed the young lady’s face?”
    “Profound darkness—I could not see a hand in front of my face.”
    The Irishman’s eyes flickered as he pondered deeply on Conan Doyle’s tale. “Good Lord,” he said, finally drawing deeply on the stub of his cigarette. “I am envious of you, Arthur, deeply envious. First your literary imagination runs rings around mine—”
    “Oh, I hardly think that’s true—”
    “And now this. You have real adventures to tell. The greatest exploits of my day usually happen at the breakfast table and concern toast and the challenge of which flavor jam to choose. You must allow me to accompany you. I must meet this medium of some renown, if only to hear her voice in a darkened room.”
    For some reason, Conan Doyle did not want to share the experience with Wilde, but he could think of no reasonable excuse to deny him. So in the end he simply muttered, “As you wish, Oscar.”
    *   *   *
    The carriage circulated number 42 ______ Crescent three times. After the third orbit, Wilde glowered at Conan Doyle and said with exasperation: “Arthur, there is only one number 42 ______ Crescent and we have passed it thricely.”
    “But that’s not it,” Conan Doyle insisted. “It doesn’t look right.”
    “Looks right or not, I insist we stop.” Wilde rapped on the carriage ceiling with the head of his walking stick. The carriage pulled up in front of the residence with the bright red door and the two men clambered out. As they walked up the front path, something struck Conan Doyle as wrong. And then, as his fingers grasped for the brass knocker, he realized what it was.
    “It’s gone!” he said.
    Oscar Wilde pointed to the gold numbers above the door lintel with his walking stick. “Number 42, you said, and there we are.”
    “No, there was a door knocker—a brass phoenix. But look—”
    Conan Doyle ran his gloved fingers over ugly scars where screws had been hastily wrenched from the wood. He scanned the door, puzzled. “No knocker,” he pointed out, “and no door pull. How shall we knock?”
    “Loudly,” Oscar Wilde replied, and banged three times on the door with the base of his walking stick. He looked at his friend and stifled a snicker. “I feel rather like Black Rod opening Parliament.”
    Both men waited as the echoes of Wilde’s blows reverberated through the house and died away.
    Nothing.
    The two exchanged glances. Conan Doyle nodded, and Wilde raised his walking stick and once more drove it hard into the door …
    … which swung open and stood agape.
    “Not latched properly,” Conan Doyle observed. He looked at Wilde. “Should we be polite and leave?”
    Wilde chuckled. “An open door is always an invitation. It would be impolite to ignore it.”
    The two men stepped into the gloomy entrance hall. All was marble and stillness. Conan Doyle shouted several “Halloos,” but nothing stirred. “How