Mysir de duke commanded the room. Men cast their gazes down, and women patted their hair into place. Even Doctor LaRue tucked a stray wisp behind an ear.
He was taller than average, with a square jaw, a faint scar across his chin, and wide, sharply defined cheekbones. Wearing immaculate evening clothes of black velvet trousers and matching coat, and a waistcoat that shimmered with its white brightness, it seemed he had just left a social engagement. Opera or theater? I put him down as a music aficionado.
The duke’s entrance lit the room like a spark to gas. The first to recover was Dr. LaRue. She jerked her head toward Madame Nyght. “Remove this person from my morgue.”
“In due course,” the duke replied coolly. His northland burr placed his origin as close to the border of Zulskaya, our country’s closest neighbor. A barely civilized wilderness of snowcapped mountains and thick forests, though I have been told the skiing is enjoyable.
“The Crown appreciates your time and sacrifice, Madame Nyght,” he told her.
I spoke up. “Naturally, I wouldn’t want to disturb Madame Nyght’s session. I can wait my turn.”
The duke’s measuring gaze, if I were a horse, would have sent me to the knackers. “Who are you and why are you here?”
How embarrassing. Apparently, the donkey in the room had gone unnoticed, but before I could introduce myself, Madame Nyght flung an accusing finger at me. “She is a little guttersnipe Ghost Talker who slanders others!”
“Madame Guttersnipe, at your service,” I said, giving a slight bow of my head.
Inspector Barbier explained. “Madame Chalamet helps us with our cases, Mysir de Archambeau. I requested her to come here before I realized you had commandeered Madame Nyght to our service.”
Dr. LaRue fumed. “This is my morgue and my body. You sent this Nyght woman here without my permission, and when you show up, start deciding what to do with a body I haven’t examined.”
We all looked towards the body lying on a metal table in the center of the surgery. A damp sheet clung to it, shielding our delicate sensibilities. Though it was doubtful we needed protection, as we all appeared to be as stout as cart horses. Well, maybe the duke was a nicely bred racehorse, but I could see a bit of mule there. He’d go the distance out of sheer stubbornness.
“I completely understand, Dr. LaRue, and I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience. However, Madame Nyght is here at the request of the government to tell us all she can about this poor misfortunate fished out of the river.”
Madame Nyght showed some fight in her. “Your man sent to fetch me did not give me a choice.”
Perhaps we needed flattery to get things moving along?
“Madame Nyght is much admired by the elite in Alenbonné. It would be an honor to see her work.” I spoke only the truth. She had fleeced most of Glamor Row where the aristos lived and fake Ghost Talking always interested me.
Before Nyght could protest again, the duke said, “Than shall we all watch as Madame Nyght raises the dead?”
The surgery was a working space: walls were of smooth brick, and the floor sloped to a drain that ran along one edge, making it easy to clean up after a session of examining bodies. Metal cabinets with a steel counter ran along one wall. Gas sconces had mirrors behind the flame to increase the light in the room, but at Madame Nyght’s request, these were dimmed.
Using a traditional arrangement of alternating males with females, Nyght placed each of us around the body. It was rather an old-fashioned idea about sexual spiritual energy; that a woman’s undisciplined heat needed the cooling of a man’s or the female flow would grow destructive. It was a foolish notion, but it produced drama when a woman gave her hand to a man.
The duke stepped forward immediately to Nyght’s right-hand side. I ended up between the inspector and the sergeant. Dupont’s hand was icy, almost freezing, while Barbier was warm; I was holding a candle with one hand and a snowball with the other.
Barbier leaned closer to me and whispered, “You don’t do it like this.”
I almost replied, but the duke’s expression at the inspector’s words made me press my lips together. There would be plenty of time to talk afterward. By pivoting my heel, I pressed the heel of my boot onto the inspector’s troll-sized shoe to stop any further commentary. He gave me an offended puppy-dog look.
“Do not break the circle or one of us will die.”
Madame Nyght’s words produced silence; even Dr. LaRue stopped her muttered cursing. Nyght definitely had a flair; I tucked that melodramatic statement under my hat for the next time I had an unruly audience.
“Spirit, hear me! Make yourself known. We desire to speak with you.”
The room was silent now except for our breathing. I didn’t know if mysir de duke was a disbeliever, but even for those who might scoff at Ghost Talking, there was always that niggling doubt that the three planes existed: Earthly, Beyond, and Afterlife. And for those who did not doubt, there was the hesitation of wondering if you wanted to know what spirits could tell us.
Slowly, Nyght began a low chanting that grew in volume. The tone was guttural and the words nonsense, punctuated with her raspy, deep breathing. The air was heavy with a sense of taut expectation and for a moment I wondered if Nyght was indeed the fraud I thought she was, for the hairs on the back of my neck rose and a shiver went down my spine.
Something was happening. A high-pitched, unnatural squeal echoed around the room. The dimness of the room forced me to squint in order to make out her features. She tilted her head back, exposing a pale neck above her lace collar and around her lips, a wispy whiteness appeared.
Really? Ectoplasm?
It took shape, expanding, growing into a gray-white cloud stream.
If the two officers of the law weren’t holding my hands, I might have clapped in admiration at Nyght doing a trick as old as the Zulskaya mountains.
However, one amongst us had had enough of the show and took drastic action. Mysir de duke dropped Nyght’s hand and lunged towards the misty white trail. Grabbing it fiercely, he jerked his fist back, while Madame Nyght clamped down on the wispy fabric she was producing from her mouth.
She tried without success to shove him away but his was the superior strength, and their tug of war made her stagger sideways. Off balance, her out-flung hand contacted with the corpse on the table. Nyght shrieked, and out came the wad of gauze from her mouth. As Dr. LaRue turned up the gas jets, the duke held the incriminating evidence high in the air, triumphant.
Madame Nyght, hand at her throat, cried, “How dare you treat a lady in this manner, sir!”
The duke ignored her outburst and addressed the rest of the room. “I requested Madame Nyght’s help tonight because I wanted to expose her as a charlatan before impeccable witnesses.”
“I am not—” But madame’s protest died off when Mysir de Archambeau shook the length of gauze, the “ectoplasm,” in her face.
To hide my smile, I looked down and saw on the floor a piece of tubing about the diameter of my pinky finger. I picked it up, and squeezing one end of the tin, found it produced a shrill whistle. It was the unnatural sound made during the séance. Releasing the pressure caused the rubber attached at one end to re-inflate.
“Madame Nyght has played on the sorrows of grieving mothers and distraught fathers long enough with her Ghost Talking tricks.”
I was barely listening to the duke as I was busy examining Madame Nyght’s toy whistle. Before I could help myself, I squeezed it again, causing it to emit another eerie shriek. The duke stopped talking, narrowing his eyes as he stared at me. I blushed, putting my hands behind my back.
“You are taking revenge against me for what I said about your wife,” Madame Nyght accused him.
Before Mysir de Archambeau could address the medium’s accusation, the inspector gave a phlegmy cough into his hand. Barbier said, with a note of apology in his voice, “The longer we go without Madame Chalamet Ghost Talking this fellow, the less information we will get from the corpse, mysir de duke. Or that has been my experience.”
The duke's gaze went from the inspector to me. He handed the “ectoplasm” gauze to Sergeant Dupont and told him, “Good. Arrest Madame Nyght and take her down to the station. I shall stay here and see what farce Madame Chalamet can produce.”
This was a night full of entertaining insults!
As bidden, Dupont handcuffed the medium with a pair of come-alongs, and pushed her out the door. Inspector Barbier stayed behind.
Well, time to begin my work.
I asked Dr. LaRue, “Could you move the table over there?”
Uncrossing her arms, she and Inspector Barbier rolled the table with the corpse against the wall. From my satchel, I took out a leather pouch filled with my custom mixture of resins that summoned and protected. Too many forgot the second, but not I.
“Before we begin, since we have a newcomer in our midst, I shall share some information.”
“Someone dies if we break the circle?” asked the duke sarcastically.
“Not at all. However, Ghost Talking produces only limited results, as the inspector and the doctor know. A body quickly deteriorates after death, thinning the tie of the soul to the Earthly plan, and thus it affects the quality of the answers I can gain.”
“Naturally. The perfect excuse.”
If mysir de duke was going to interrupt me at every point, this would be a long night. However, I had faced skepticism before and would again, so I shrugged away his ridicule.
Pulling back the sheet from the face of the dead man, I examined it with a clinical eye. I’d guess about three days or less dead, but Dr. LaRue would know better after her postmortem.
“From my experience, I think we may have time for three questions before the man’s spirit becomes confused. Do you have specific ones you would like to ask?”
“Who murdered him would be a good one,” said the duke, folding his arms. Yes, that mulish side of him was pinning its ears and giving me a kick or two.
“No, that would not be a good one,” I corrected him. “He may not have seen his killer or recognize him. What he doesn’t know, we won’t know. Do we know his identity?”
“No.”
“First, we ask who he is. Obviously he would know this unless he is a mental deficient. Second, a recounting of his last hour alive would provide clues for you to work with. The third question I suggest leaving open-ended until we learn more.”
Because I couldn’t resist, I asked our noble guest, “Do you wish to look down my throat, your Grace, and make sure I haven’t stuffed it full of cotton?”
He folded his arms and glared.
“No? Alright, let the performance begin.”