‘Do you feel anything, Loveday?’ said a woman’s voice.
‘They are not here,’ said the great man. It was a pronouncement of some authority and I could see shoulders slumping and faces falling even from my hiding place yards away.
He pounded his stick on the ground.
‘But they are close!’ A little thrill passed through the group, made up of whispers and darting movements, as the mediums clutched one another. ‘They are all together in a warm place very near here.’
‘All of them, Loveday?’ asked a man. It might have been one of the tall hats with satin piping. ‘Can you feel all of them?’
Mr Merrick drew in an enormous breath, all but snorting, and closed his eyes. He began to sway gently. ‘Mary and Lizzie and Peggy are here,’ he said. ‘And the dear old grandmother and the poor blind child. Joseph the Miller is here.’ The crowd thrilled to hear it. ‘Abigail Simpson, Ann Dougal, Marjorie Docherty too.’
‘What about Old Donald?’ That was Mrs Molyneaux. ‘Is he with them? If we could answer that question, Loveday…’
‘There is an old man,’ said Mr Merrick. He was swaying so far from side to side that the mediums nearest him began to ready themselves to catch him if he fell. ‘A Mr Higgins and his Christian name begins with the letter D. Is it Donald? Donald Higgins? Is that you?’ He was rocking front to back now too. ‘I cannot hear him. Donald Higgins! Come to me! You are with friends. You are safe here. Is it- Is it-’
The cane toppled, the great man crumpled, the companions rushed forward and stopped him from falling. Behind our log Alec and I turned flabbergasted faces to each other. I started to whisper but Alec held a finger to his lips. Out in the clearing, Mr Merrick had recovered. He picked up his cane, swept his hair back into some kind of order and took a flask out of his inside pocket. After a good swig from it, he spoke in what passed for his normal voice again. Still rather grand but not absolutely set to part the clouds and bring God’s ear to the opening.
‘Now then, my dear friends, what did I say?’
There was a clamour of voices, shouting the names. Loveday Merrick counted them off on his fingers. Hastily scrabbling in my bag for a slip of paper and a stub of pencil, I jotted them down too, as best I could.
‘Ten,’ he announced at last when he was finished counting. ‘Ten of them. This is inarguable evidence, my dear friends. This will set the world on its ears. And those who have laughed will be humbled and those who have scorned will be filled with awe.’ He looked around at the upturned faces and clasped hands all about him. ‘Now, let’s go back to the Hydro for a nice cup of tea.’
Alec spluttered, the inevitable consequence of holding one’s breath and then suddenly laughing.
‘What was that?’ It was the gooseberry-eyed girl. She turned those pale green orbs towards the log where we were hiding and all the others followed, swivelling and craning and making me feel like a hare sitting up in a field. I ducked, waiting for the shot to ring. Loveday Merrick strode to the edge of the trees and, shading his eyes, looked straight towards our hiding place.
‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘A bird turning the litter. Nothing at all.’ Then he strode off, his little band of acolytes following after. We waited until we could no longer hear even the echo of their tramping feet before we moved.
‘Did he see us?’ Alec said.
‘I’m not sure,’ I answered. ‘He certainly made that up about the bird anyway. But why would he not stride over here with his big stick, demanding to know what we were doing?’
‘Because it’s common land and he wouldn’t have the authority?’ Alec screwed up his nose even as he said this. ‘Not that he’s a man who has trouble assuming authority. What on earth was all that?’
‘Poppycock and tommyrot,’ I said. ‘I’m ashamed of myself for being rattled earlier. What an old fraud.’
‘I agree, naturally,’ Alec said. ‘But what in particular is it that’s riled you?’
‘The initial D!’ I said. ‘It’s a music hall trick. Someone here has lost a loved one. Name begins with D. “Oh, that must be old uncle Deuteronomy” pipes up a voice from the second row. “That’s right, lovey. Deuteronomy. He’s looking for his niece.” Sensation all round. I’m just surprised he had the gall to wheel it out amongst his own people. One would think they’d see through it, since they must use exactly the same stuff in music halls of their own.’
‘The excitement seemed genuine enough,’ Alec said. ‘And they seemed to recognise the names he was spouting.’
I read them from my slip of paper, once out loud and once to myself.
‘They don’t mean anything to me,’ I said. ‘But one thing does strike me. I don’t see how they could be the ghosts of people who were hanged here.’
‘Oh?’ said Alec.
‘Too many women. Not to say that no women were ever executed but they were the unusual cases. If these ghosts were the spirits of the hanged there’d be Williams and Georges and Jameses to spare instead of all these Anns and Lizzies – I mean, you know, not that we actually believe any of it.’
‘We really should just take that point as established once and for all,’ Alec said. ‘And not repeat it ten times a day. Of course, either someone is causing mischief or these mediums are just making it up entirely, but as to what Mrs Addie came in search of and what she thought she saw… I don’t agree that it couldn’t be the spirits of hanged men, just because so many of them are women.’
‘But-’
‘I think it strengthens the argument if anything. These are the wronged, Dandy. Not the murderers and brigands who deserved their fate, but innocents, wrongly convicted and wrongly hanged. Perhaps that’s why Mrs Addie wasn’t scared to come back for her bag – which I wish we’d found, by the way. So I should say of course lots of them are women. Perhaps they were wise women hanged for witchcraft.’
‘And children,’ I reminded him. ‘Would a blind child have been hanged with his grandmother?’
‘Certainly,’ said Alec. ‘If it was long enough ago. I’m not going to let you spoil my theory with that.’
I did not need to; its despoliation was waiting for us back at the Hydro.
Mrs Cronin must have been watching for our arrival for she was bearing down on us along the passageway when we climbed the steps into the hall.
‘Mrs Gilver, Mr Osborne,’ she said. ‘I’m glad to have run into you. Look what I’ve found.’ She was carrying some sort of bundle, laid across her arms the way that page boys carry cushions with coronets upon them. This was no velvet and gilt-braided object, though. It was a heap of brown tweed with a chamois leather shoe bag balanced on top. ‘Mrs Addie’s clothes,’ she said. ‘After what you told me this morning, I got to thinking.’ The colloquial phrase sounded wooden in her mouth, for her tone was very clipped and formal. ‘And it occurred to me that Mrs Addie’s things must have been sent to the laundry and maybe they’d got forgotten about there. It wasn’t the regular day, you see. And so I checked, and there they were! We can send them to her family now.’
‘Splendid,’ I said. I did not believe a word of it and felt embarrassed for her having to speak the lines.
‘I’m just going to tell Dr Laidlaw,’ she went on. ‘But I have patients waiting, as a matter of fact. So, I wonder if you would be so kind.’ With that she held out the bundle. We are brought up to accept whatever is offered – thus gypsies trick us into buying violets at the railway station and climbers we intended to cut manage still to give us their hands – and so, astonished as I was, I held my arms out like a godmother at the altar and accepted the bundle. Mrs Cronin thanked me, turned on her heels and hurried away. Alec and I were left gazing at the pleats and ruffles of her cap until she whisked around the corner and was gone. Alec was first back into the swing.
‘Quick, Dandy, before someone sees us!’ he said. ‘Let’s get the swag to my room.’