It was a difficult path to tread, but after some thought she felt she had the answer. It was useless to make accusations of fraud, she could see that now, unless she had some very compelling evidence, which was not as yet in her possession, but there was another course she might take. Mina took up her pen and wrote a letter, which she decided to send to all the Brighton newspapers.
Sir
I have been a spiritualist for many years and have followed with some interest the correspondence on this subject in your pages. There are, as your readers will be aware, two ladies currently residing in Brighton who have been conducting séances. Both have impressed the populace with their sincerity, and the manifestations produced have been of the very highest order; nevertheless I feel strongly motivated to express my concerns regarding the demonstrations by the most recent arrival in this town. The medium who has been holding séances during the last few weeks is a lady of unquestionable respectability, who has always conducted herself with great modesty, and there has been nothing in either her deportment or her exhibitions that could arouse concern. The same, however, cannot be said of the lady who is newly arrived. The apparition which comes at her command and flies about the room in such a remarkable way may well be clad in a manner appropriate to the regions of the spirit, from which she comes, but such a sight is not to be tolerated in a drawing room, especially where there are ladies of quality present. Rumour has it, and I earnestly hope that this is rumour and nothing more, that these demonstrations are largely patronised by single gentlemen, and not a few married gentlemen who ought to know better. Is this true? I hope your readers will enlighten me.
Yours truly
A SPIRITUALIST
Brighton
Mina thought the letter to be of sufficient interest, provoking without being actually actionable, to be taken up by at least one if not all the newspapers in Brighton, but that was only the first part of her plan. She carefully prepared two more letters, which she would send once the first was published.
Sir
I read with considerable concern the attack upon the character of Miss Foxton, who although not named, was undoubtedly the subject of A SPIRITUALIST’s letter in your last issue. The writer claims to have been interested in spiritualism for many years but is quite ignorant of the manifestations that with the natural innocence of the newborn babe may appear. He – or is it a she? – with no understanding of these phenomena, chooses to insult Miss Foxton, who cannot be at fault in this matter. I suggest that A SPIRITUALIST write at once to withdraw the unfounded remarks, which include the vilest of rumours. I do not profess to know who the author might be, but do I perhaps detect a motive for the attack – i.e. professional jealousy?
Yours truly
BRIGHTONIAN
Kemp Town
Sir
I feel I must protest in the strongest possible terms against the tone and insinuations of the letter from A SPIRITUALIST published in your recent edition. The identity and motives of the author are no mystery to me. A fawning acolyte of Miss Eustace, seeking to enhance his own fame by attaching himself to the lady, has misguidedly sought to add to her reputation by insulting another medium. Should material of this nature be tolerated in a respectable publication? I do not believe it should.
I have personally attended the séances of both the ladies referred to and consider them to be of equal merit and interest.
Yours truly
A BELIEVER
Brighton
Mina posted the first letter and awaited developments. She had no concern about mounting an attack on Miss Foxton, which could only add to that young lady’s fame, and she might make of it what she could. Miss Eustace, if she read the newspapers, which Mina felt sure she did, if only to be well acquainted with events and personalities in Brighton, would not appreciate until the second letter was published that it was she who was suspected of having written the first. Whether or not Mr Clee would recognise himself as the ‘fawning acolyte’ of her third letter she did not know. The accusation of indecency had a second purpose for Mina; it ensured that her mother, and quite probably those of her friends who knew Richard by sight, would continue to avoid Miss Foxton’s séances.
Mina received a kind letter from Mr Greville, who thanked her for her new story, which he agreed to publish, but could not immediately recall having seen any item of news about the imprisonment of a medium for fraud. It was the kind of event that might have received only a paragraph, if that, in any reputable paper. He promised, however, that when he had the opportunity he would look into it further.
Mina’s mother returned home, reporting that Enid was fully recovered from a mild attack of hysteria. Curiously, the natural disappointment that must have followed her daughter’s recent discovery that she was not, as she had thought, about to become a mother again, had aided rather than delayed her return to health. Mr Inskip, confident that Enid was now well, had just gone abroad to undertake the negotiation of a property purchase by a reclusive nobleman, a loss which the abandoned wife was facing with commendable fortitude.
By the time Louisa Scarletti was preparing to plunge back into Brighton life, the letter denouncing Miss Foxton had appeared in the Brighton Herald, and was read with the triumphant declaration that she had always known there was something not quite right about Miss Foxton.
‘I have heard,’ said Mina, who was rather enjoying stirring the bubbling pot of suspicion, ‘that the two ladies are deadly rivals and dislike each other intensely. I would have thought that there was room enough in Brighton for two spirit mediums, but they do not see it that way. I believe that the letter was written by an admirer of Miss Eustace – not the lady herself who I am quite certain is above such things – who misguidedly seeks to harm Miss Foxton’s reputation in order to elevate his or her favourite. And you may not yet have heard this, since you have not been in town, but there is a rumour being spread about Brighton that Miss Eustace has once been in prison for fraud. It surely cannot be true!’
Mina waited for her mother’s shocked reaction to this news, but to her surprise she only said, ‘And what if it were? That is just the kind of thing that might be an endorsement rather than proof of fraud.’
It took Mina a moment or two to understand that her mother had already heard the story, and dismissed it. ‘Do you mean to say you already knew of it? Is it true?’
Louisa smiled. ‘I really have no idea. But why should it matter, in any case? Why should it not be true, and no blemish upon the lady? Just because a martyr has been burned at the stake or torn apart by lions it does not make their cause any the less holy, indeed, it becomes more so. I had heard the story from somewhere, and did not trouble myself to enquire further.’
Mina was content. She knew that the seed she had planted would grow, and perhaps in time bear fruit.
Richard did not trouble himself to write to the newspapers in defence of Miss Foxton, but it was with Mina’s second and third letters that interest in the rivalry between the mediums was fully aroused. Professor Gaskin, in his role as Miss Eustace’s patron, wrote to deny in the strongest possible terms that she had written the first letter. Its composer was unknown to him, as was Miss Foxton, and his protégée was too kind and gentle an individual to become embroiled in such unpleasantness. His was not the only letter, however; there were several others supporting A SPIRITUALIST’s contention that Miss Foxton’s exhibitions were indecent, some who agreed with BRIGHTONIAN that the author of the first letter was undoubtedly from the phrasing, female, and a rival who had chosen to offer anonymous insults, and others who agreed with A BELIEVER that the production was that of the ‘fawning acolyte’, who was known to creep into the séances held by his favourite’s rival. While the debate raged through the mails, this was as nothing to the rumours that flowed around Brighton borne by that most ephemeral and rapid means, the spoken word. Mina soon heard her own rumours return to her, but this time she was told with great certainty that Miss Eustace and Miss Foxton had met in the street and almost come to blows, and that the cause was not so much professional jealousy as the fact that both ladies were in love with Mr Clee.
Her mother felt impelled to add her voice to the general furore, and decided that the best mode of protest was for the adherents of Miss Eustace to compose a joint letter to the newspapers and possibly even present the lady with a memorial to show their appreciation. It was for this purpose that a small assembly was arranged in the Scarletti drawing room, to which all interested parties were invited.
Miss Eustace, being the subject of the meeting, was not present, but the throng included Mrs Bettinson, Miss Whinstone, Mr Clee, Mrs Parchment and Mr Bradley, who while prevented from attending séances had expressed himself an admirer of the lady in question. Miss Simmons occupied her usual corner, but instead of the downcast eyes and humble demeanour of a servant, she attended to the proceedings with some interest, as if she was one of the invited guests.
‘You may or may not know this,’ said Mr Bradley, evoking a strong desire in Mina to take one of her dumb-bells and throw it at his head, ‘but spirit mediums are often denounced by the ignorant, who envy their abilities and their fame.’
‘We cannot educate those whose minds are closed to the truth,’ said Mina’s mother, ‘rather I wish to console Miss Eustace that those of greater understanding support her unreservedly.’
The persons of greater understanding populating the room all nodded with expressions conveying relentless wisdom.
‘I hope,’ said Mrs Parchment, ‘that we will be able to dispose of that foul slander on Mr Clee.’
‘Oh indeed!’ said that gentleman with a laugh. ‘Why, I have never even met Miss Foxton, and you are all aware that my admiration for Miss Eustace is as pure as it is sincere. I have no attachment to either lady.’
‘There are also some unpleasant rumours in town concerning an incident in London,’ said Mina, ‘events which are attributed to Miss Eustace, but which must have concerned another person entirely. I know nothing of the detail but it seems to have involved a spirit medium being sent to prison.’
‘Well, I can assure you,’ said Mr Bradley, with a broad smile, ‘that I have never heard anything to the lady’s detriment.’
‘Nor I,’ said Mr Clee. ‘And recall that I have been until recently a most pronounced sceptic concerning mediumistic powers. Why, I used to read everything I could to support that prejudice. I was living in London at the time of that incident, and would most certainly have heard if Miss Eustace had been accused of any wrongdoing.’
‘But these rumours will persist,’ said Mina, ‘and I am concerned that they may do harm to the lady’s reputation. It is nothing short of slander, and must be stopped. I would suggest that our best course is to discover all we can about what occurred in London, and then when we know for certain the identity of the person involved we can publish our proof of Miss Eustace’s innocence, and demand that the whispering stops.’
There was a slight pause, during which Mr Clee seemed about to say something, but restrained himself.
‘That is not an easy thing to do,’ said Mr Bradley, maintaining his smile with an effort. ‘You may or may not know this, but—’
‘Well, since you have both resided in London,’ interrupted Mina’s mother, ‘perhaps you can tell us all if indeed there was any such incident as has been rumoured.’
‘I am not aware of it,’ said Mr Bradley, firmly.
‘Nor I,’ said Mr Clee, with equal conviction.
‘Then that is our proof,’ said Mina’s mother. ‘There is no need to try and find out more if the thing did not happen at all.’
‘I think,’ said Mr Clee, ‘that anyone who is acquainted with Miss Eustace will know that she is incapable of carrying out a dishonourable act. That, I think, should be the whole tenor of our message.’
This was agreed and the meeting fell to discussing the wording of a letter to the press, and whether there should be a memorial or even a pamphlet.
Mina made no contribution to this, since she had her answer. When spreading the rumour of Miss Eustace’s imprisonment she had said nothing about the date of the incident, yet Mr Clee had said he was living in London ‘at the time’. It was a significant slip, which showed that he knew more than he was telling.
The next day Mina visited the reading rooms where she knew that a set of post office directories was kept, including those of both Brighton and the capital. Here she was able to discover a listing for the London business of the Theatrical Novelties Company, proprietor Benjamin Clee, costumiers and suppliers to the trade. Mr Benjamin Clee had been in this business for over twenty years and Mina wondered if he could be the father of Miss Eustace’s new young admirer.
On her way home she thought carefully about the first séance at which Mr Clee had appeared, and the levitating table, and as soon as she was at her desk she drew a circle representing the table on a sheet of paper and marked on it from memory where all the members of the company had been seated. She thought that a great many conjuring tricks were effected by means of black silk threads and thin wires, but the table trick, because it had risen vertically and not tilted, could not be done by a single person. It followed that Miss Eustace had had an accomplice, and that both of them had come prepared with the apparatus they needed, perhaps hidden in the cuffs of their garments. Mr Clee had been seated exactly opposite Miss Eustace, at the furthest distance from her, supposedly to protect her from the interference of a sceptic, but this had actually positioned him where he needed to be to help her. When the table rose, the other sitters had moved back in alarm, but only Mr Clee, the very person who had suggested the test to begin with, had appeared to be holding his hands over its surface.
Mina was now certain that Mr Clee had never been a sceptic; he had been Miss Eustace’s creature from the beginning. The two had probably been acquainted and in compact for some little time. The scepticism and the sudden conversion had been a pretence meant to add a touch of drama to the evening and increase the medium’s fame. Mr Clee, Mina felt sure, was an accomplished conjurer, which explained how he had been able to perform all the mysteries that had appeared at Eliza Hamid’s séance.
The next morning Mina received a letter from Mr Greville. He had found a small paragraph in a newspaper in October 1869 stating that a spirit medium and her husband had both been imprisoned for three months after claiming to have produced the ghost of a client’s deceased child, which had proved to be a real child in white draperies. The fraud had been discovered because the tiny phantom had been unable to maintain the composure proper to such an occasion, gone into a fit of giggles, and dropped the spirit ‘baby’ he carried, which turned out to be a bundle of cloth. The client, outraged at the cruel deception for which she had parted with the sum of five guineas, would not be mollified by any explanation and had brought a prosecution. The medium had practised under the name Madame Peri, but her real name, the court had been told, was Clee.
Mina was unsure what to do with the new information, but decided, after some thought, to take it to Dr Hamid, whom she hoped had not lost his ability to reason. It was some encouragement to her that after she had described her discoveries and the conclusions she had drawn from them, he thought long and hard and even noted down what she had said.
‘So,’ he said at last, ‘it is your contention that the lady called Clee who was sent to prison, presumably a Mrs Clee since the article states that she is married, is none other than Miss Eustace.’
‘Yes,’ said Mina. ‘And since I can make a convincing case that she was well acquainted with and in collusion with Mr Clee long before they went through that theatrical ploy of his conversion to her cause, he must be her husband.’
‘You have no portrait of this Mrs Clee,’ Dr Hamid pointed out,’ so the identification rests solely on the word of Mrs Apperley, and neither do you have the name of the lady she saw, but even if she did see this Mrs Clee, and that is far from certain, she last saw her two years ago. Mrs Apperley was then eighty-four years of age. More recently, when she was in a state of failing health that led to her death soon afterwards, she concluded that Mrs Clee and Miss Eustace were one and the same. I cannot see a court accepting evidence of that nature. And, of course, Mrs Apperley cannot now be consulted on the matter.’
Mina was tempted to mention that Mrs Apperley’s standing as a recently deceased person ought not in some people’s minds be an obstacle to the lady being questioned, but restrained herself from commenting. ‘But is it not a remarkable coincidence,’ she said, ‘that the medium who Mrs Apperley said resembles, indeed is Miss Eustace, was actually called Clee? That is not a common name. And then we have Mr Benjamin Clee of London, who is in the very profession that suggests the family has an intimate knowledge of the stage.’
‘It is certainly possible,’ admitted Dr Hamid, cautiously, ‘that Mr Clee is a member of that family, but the connection may not be a close one. Even if he is the son of Benjamin Clee, that proves nothing. He may well once have been a sceptic but later became convinced. And this Mrs Clee need not be a wife, but a cousin or some other relative, or even not related at all. You don’t know if it is her real name.’
‘But Mr Clee has lied to us,’ said Mina. ‘Whatever the connection he has with Miss Eustace, he has concealed it, represented himself as a new acquaintance and colluded with her in a piece of trickery which they had arranged between themselves before he even came to the séance. If he has been engaged in that dishonesty, what else is he hiding from us?’
Dr Hamid nodded, and for a while Mina hoped that her arguments were having some effect. She could see in his face the struggle that was taking place in his mind. ‘I can understand what you are saying,’ he said. ‘If the levitation of the table was done as you suggest, with some apparatus concealed in the cuffs, then it does need two people standing opposite each other to perform it, and we might view it more as a theatrical demonstration than a communion with the spirits.’
‘Exactly!’ said Mina.
‘But,’ he continued carefully, ‘I would maintain that what we see at the séances performed before an audience is different from what takes place at a private consultation.’
‘In what way is it different?’ asked Mina. ‘We have caught them out in a deception. I know that some people claim that mediums sometimes perform conjuring tricks to please the faithful when their powers temporarily desert them, but do you really believe that?’
‘Perhaps,’ he suggested, ‘we might regard the public séances as if they were only a means of advertising the private ones. Perhaps we cannot blame the medium too much for a little – I would not go so far as to call it fraud –’
‘I would,’ said Mina. ‘The rappings and rattling tambourines and spirit faces made of nothing more than rags dipped in some phosphorus material are all trickery which Miss Eustace wants us to believe proceed from the spirits of the dead.’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t believe she has ever made that claim,’ he said. ‘Even Professor Gaskin thinks that these phenomena come not from some spirit intelligence, but are a manifestation of the medium’s own powers; some force within her own body which she can mould and use.’
‘But the lifting of the table –’ Mina protested.
‘I can see that it is possible that Mr Clee did assist in that, and you may be correct, he may be a relation, but even if he did help, he might have done no more than augment the powers that were already there. Perhaps Miss Eustace was unable to perform it alone. Mr Clee has said he is a strong negative and he might have been needed there to complete the circle.’
Mina stared helplessly at the unhappy man before her. ‘What does Miss Eustace charge for a private séance?’ she said at last.
He looked startled. ‘She asks for nothing,’ he said.
‘Not directly, perhaps, but I know that she does receive payment from grateful clients. I have heard the sum of two or even five guineas mentioned. That is a goodly fee for an evening’s work. Miss Eustace is on her way to becoming a rich woman. How much do you give her?’
He frowned. ‘That is a private matter,’ he said.
‘Then you do give her money.’
‘What I choose to give,’ he said, with some annoyance, ‘– voluntarily you understand – is my concern. Now, if I may, I must return to my work. I have a patient I must see in a few minutes.’
‘I don’t wish to argue with you,’ said Mina, sadly. ‘I have had losses too and know how you feel. We may disagree strongly on this matter but let us at least be friends.’
He looked relieved that the questioning was over. ‘Yes, of course. I am sorry if I spoke harshly. I did not mean to.’
‘After all Mr Jordan and Mr Conroy can be friends and even business partners despite their differences.’
He gave a faint smile. ‘If I might change the subject of our conversation,’ he said, ‘Anna tells me you have been very diligent in your exercises, and I can see that you move more easily than you did.’
‘Yes, I shall soon be like an ape who hangs from the branches, or a man in a leotard who lifts weights, and astonishes the crowds. I shall take a booth on the West Pier and charge sixpence a show like Madame Proserpina.’
He laughed, and it was the first time she had seen him do that in some while.