Dashiel Quicke sat at the center of the stage, his head bowed, a shimmering stream of ectoplasm flowing from his open mouth. As the ethereal discharge cascaded over his lap, it seemed to borrow its own luminescence from the white-hot arc lamps that blazed overhead. Perspiration prickled his scalp and soaked his shirt collar, but he welcomed the punishing heat of the lights. He’d spent enough time working under the cover of darkness. He was a man with precious little left to hide.
The watchful eyes of his audience bored into him. The atmosphere was thick with their morbid curiosity. Even at a demonstration like this one, Dashiel didn’t shy away from theatrics. If tonight’s crowd of gawkers took nothing else from the experience, they would at least leave entertained. His shoulders heaved and he swayed in his seat as the ectoplasm continued to unfurl, pooling on the floor at his feet in a filmy heap. His hands, resting on his knees with the palms facing up, twitched spasmodically.
Someone in the audience let out a low whistle. Another onlooker, seated closer to the stage, groaned in disgust.
“Holy cats, mister,” said a voice from somewhere in the middle seats. “How much of that stuff you got in there?” A handful of the speaker’s neighbors broke out in raucous laughter.
Dashiel pulled the tail end of the ectoplasm out of his mouth, then rose to his feet and moved to the edge of the stage. He held it aloft in front of him, spreading it out wide between his hands. The ends trailed down on either side of him, sweeping up dust and grime from the battered floorboards as he walked.
“I hope you’re all duly impressed by what you’ve seen here tonight, ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “Your average Spiritualist would tell you that it’s impossible to produce ectoplasm under these conditions. It’s sensitive stuff. Disintegrates under full light, you see. The theory has it that light disrupts the ectenic force that the spirits use to manifest it out of the medium’s body.
“What they won’t tell you is that it’s made of common cheesecloth. Or muslin, if you’re the type of medium who likes to live large and spring for the good stuff. It doesn’t really matter which one you use, though. Either one looks mighty impressive if you’ve got a dark séance room and a strong will to believe. They’re both just about infinitely compressible—perfect for hiding in tight spaces, away from the prying eyes and hands of doubters and debunkers. And to answer your question, young man,” he added, smiling in the direction of his heckler, “unless the fellow at the general store shorted me, it’s exactly three yards.”
Satisfied that everyone had gotten a good look at the ectoplasm, Dashiel walked back to the center of the stage. Like most campus theaters where he had performed, this one was a humble affair. It held enough seats for about two hundred spectators. Only a battered chalkboard sign outside the front entrance served to announce his performance that evening. Paint splatters, scuffs, and the faded remnants of spike marks from past theatrical productions marred the dark floorboards of the stage, which creaked beneath his feet with every step.
“My spiritual instrument is speaking to me again,” he said. With nimble fingers, he wound up the trailing ribbon of muslin ectoplasm as he spoke. The length of cloth vanished within seconds into a bundle small enough to fit between his cheek and his gums. “I’m receiving a very strong impression. The spirits have a gift for someone who is here in the theater tonight.”
Someone in the audience snickered. Dashiel blithely ignored them. He tossed the roll of muslin onto the rickety table that stood at the center of the stage, where it joined several other tools of his trade—a dented tin trumpet decorated with bands of phosphorescent paint, a stack of cards inscribed with forged spirit messages, and a fluffy drift of white chiffon veils. He turned his attention to the audience, squinting at them past the glare of the footlights and the bluish fog of cigarette smoke that hung low and heavy in the air beyond the stage.
The spring had been a cold and dreary one, and that always meant good business. The house wasn’t packed, but there was still a decent crowd. Except for a lone middle-aged gentleman in brown tweeds seated in the front row, the audience was overwhelmingly youthful. Bored college boys and girls filled most of the seats, their dreams of necking with their sweethearts under the mellow April moon dashed by the chilly weather. So far, they had reacted to his routine with rowdy enthusiasm.
“Is there,” Dashiel asked, pressing his fingers to his temples, “a Professor Hermann Goschalk among us?”
It came as no surprise to Dashiel when the man in the tweed suit rose to his feet. He clutched his hat to his chest and cleared his throat, glancing around as if he expected some other fellow to step up at any second and identify himself as the person in question.
“Um, I beg your pardon,” he said at last. “That’s my name. Do you mean . . . me?”
Dashiel smiled. “Unless there is more than one Hermann Goschalk in the audience, then I think I must. Join me on stage, if you please, sir.”
Professor Goschalk made his way to the stage, accompanied by scattered applause, whoops, and whistles. In Dashiel’s experience, there were few things that a collegiate audience liked better than the prospect of a faculty member making a spectacle of himself on stage, and this crowd proved to be no exception. The professor didn’t seem to mind. He trotted up the steps and stood smiling shyly at Dashiel like a starstruck kid meeting a matinée idol.
“Hello!” he said.
“Good evening, Professor,” said Dashiel, with a brief bow. “Please, be seated.” The professor nodded, blinking owlishly under the blazing lights, and took a seat in one of the two folding chairs that stood in the middle of the stage beside the table.
Hermann Goschalk was a little gray mouse of a man, about fifty years old. Dashiel guessed that his well-worn suit was at least half as old as its wearer. His rumpled brown hair was generously streaked with silver, and he had large, uncommonly expressive hazel eyes—an excellent asset in a sitter. The more demonstrative the face, the greater the sympathetic response that the unwitting shill would arouse in the audience.
“Thank you,” said Dashiel. He sat down in the other chair and fixed the professor with a penetrating gaze. “Before we proceed, I hope you don’t mind if I ask you a few questions, just to get my bearings. I want to be absolutely sure I do have the right Hermann Goschalk, after all.”
“Of course!”
“Wonderful. Now, stop me if I’m mistaken in any detail. You are a member of the faculty here at Dupris University, a professor of Ancient Studies, specializing in the language and civilization of the ancient Egyptians. Is that right?”
“Yes, that’s absolutely correct,” said Goschalk, with an enthusiastic nod.
“Very good.” Dashiel inclined his head and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, as if trying to draw his next morsel of information from some deep and inscrutable well of hidden knowledge. “Is it true that you used to keep a black cat in your younger days, back when you worked as an assistant druggist at that pharmacy in—”
“Milwaukee, yes!” Professor Goschalk’s astonished expression couldn’t have been more perfect if he’d rehearsed it. “Good heavens, you even know about old Tybalt?”
“I do,” said Dashiel, nodding solemnly. “He must have been quite the beloved companion.”
The professor chuckled. “Oh, he was a terrible little yungatsh! He’d lie there in the windowsill soaking up the sun and hissing at anybody who dared to get too close. Did a fine job keeping the store free of mice, though.” He smiled fondly. “Papa always said a pharmacy without a cat was a pharmacy without a soul.”
“Ah yes, that’s right. He was the drugstore cat. Your father owned the pharmacy, and he was hoping you’d carry on the family business. But you longed for greater things. You decided to pursue a degree in Egyptology. Once you completed your studies, you came to work here . . . about fifteen years ago.”
“Gracious, yes! But how on Earth did you know all these things?”
“Before a second ago, I knew hardly any of it,” said Dashiel. “All I knew was that you once worked in a pharmacy and had a black cat. Just enough detail to impress you—and get you talking. It wasn’t too hard to put the rest together from there.” He winked and patted the professor on the shoulder. “I daresay you’d be a plum customer in the séance room, Professor Goschalk.”
Goschalk gaped at him. “Well, I’ll be a son of a gun!” he said. A ripple of laughter erupted from the audience.
“Thank you, Professor, you’ve been very obliging,” Dashiel went on. “But if you don’t mind me taking just a little more of your time, there’s one more thing I’d like to ask you before I let you go. At this moment, the spirits are telling me that you recently lost something of great sentimental value. Is that true?”
The professor nodded. “As a matter of fact, I have. Gosh, how uncanny! It was a cabinet card of my mother. I’ve kept it on my office desk for years, but I noticed it was gone not two weeks ago. I can’t imagine what could have happened to it.”
“That is too bad. But perhaps we can help you find it again.” Dashiel rose and moved to stand behind Professor Goschalk, resting his hands lightly on the man’s shoulders. He gazed out at the audience and spoke in a booming, authoritative tone. “Ladies and gentlemen, you are about to witness one of the most powerful forms of mediumistic manifestation. But I must ask for your help in amplifying the potency of our connection to the spirit realm. Please, raise your voices in a hymn of praise.”
He nodded to the elderly organ player stationed at stage right. She curtly returned his nod, then began to grind out a shaky but serviceable rendition of “From the Other Shore.” Three or four voices in the audience piped up with gusto, while a handful of others mumbled along uncertainly. It was hardly the sort of performance he would have gotten from his regular Sunday evening congregation back at Camp Walburton, but it would have to do. Dashiel let his eyes flutter closed and allowed his head to loll back as if he were falling into a trance.
“Dear ones who have passed beyond the veil,” he intoned above the drone of the organ, “we beseech thee to reunite this gentleman with his lost portrait of his beloved mother. Keep singing, ladies and gentlemen! I am sensing a vibration from the other side. The spirits are with us!” He raised his arms in a dramatic, sweeping gesture, and as he did so, an object tumbled into Professor Goschalk’s lap.
“Oh!” said the professor.
“Oooh!” echoed the audience.
Dashiel lowered his arms, letting his hands come to rest on the back of Goschalk’s chair. He nodded again to the organist, who stopped playing. “Thank you, Mrs. Englebert. Please, Professor Goschalk,” he said, “tell us what you have just received.”
Goschalk pulled a pair of wire-rimmed glasses from the inner pocket of his jacket and slipped them on. Slowly, he picked up the item in his lap and squinted at it. He turned in his seat and blinked up at Dashiel in amazement. “Why . . . it’s my photograph!”
“The same cabinet card of your mother that used to sit on your desk?”
“The very same, down to the faded spot in the corner. Oh, that is magnificent. Absolutely phenomenal!”
Dashiel bowed and smiled graciously as the audience burst into whistles and hearty applause. “Thank you, Professor. Ladies and gentlemen, what you have just seen is known in the spook business as an apport. Impressive, yes? But of course, like everything else I have demonstrated this evening, a complete hoax. I hope you’ll forgive me, Professor, when I explain that this photograph was stolen from your desk, in broad daylight, by one of my own personal agents—someone who is, what’s more, entirely corporeal and very much alive.”
“I’ll be damned!” said Goschalk, his eyes more saucerlike than ever.
“It was a simple matter for me to obtain a list of the names of people who bought advance tickets for tonight’s demonstration. Having selected your name from the list, I sent my young assistant to gather some basic intelligence. Your students and colleagues were happy to share a few choice tidbits of information with someone who, they assumed, was a prospective pupil in the Ancient Studies program.
“That’s how I learned of your position in the department, your time as an assistant druggist, and yes—even old Tybalt. As for your photograph, all that my accomplice had to do was to pay a brief visit to your office, posing as a student with a rather vexing academic question. When you got up to consult one of your books, he quietly purloined the cabinet card from your desk. Thank you, Professor. You may return to your seat.”
Professor Goschalk rose, clutching hat and photograph, and toddled off the stage, still looking delightfully befuddled. Dashiel was conscious of a pang of wistfulness. Had he still been in the business of fleecing the rich and bereaved, this was exactly the sap he would have wanted front and center at every service.