The Problem of the Interrupted Seance
by Edward D. Hoch
The Dr. Sam Hawthorne series having recently reached the early 1940s (with cases related as recollections of an older Dr. Sam), EQMM, founded in 1941, gets a mention in this one as part of the historical setting. Here, once again, Dr. Sam is confronted with an impossible crime of the “locked room” variety. Mr. Hoch is in his thirty-first year of consecutive contributions to this magazine, and the stories just keep getting stronger.
Despite a few morale-boosting events like Doolittle’s April bombing of Tokyo and the RAF’s bombing of German cities, during those early months of 1942 the war was going badly (Dr. Sam Hawthorne told his companion when they had settled down with their usual small libations). The Japanese had taken all of the Philippines, Hong Kong, and most of the East Indies. In North Africa, Rommel’s tanks seemed unstoppable.
In Northmont, in the first six months of my marriage to Annabel, the war and everything else seemed far away. Gasoline rationing had begun in seventeen states in mid May, and was sure to spread soon. But the crime rate in Northmont had actually seemed to fall since the December tragedy that had claimed the life of our maid of honor. Sheriff Lens had his own theory about the improved social climate, attributing it to the fact that many of the town’s young punks had enlisted or been drafted. Some of the enlistments had come following the news that one of Northmont’s own was missing in the attack on Pearl Harbor.
His name was Ronald Hale and he’d been a seaman aboard the ill-fated battleship Arizona. Though the attack angered the entire country, the blow was felt hardest in hometowns such as Northmont, and in families such as Ron Hale’s. His mother Kate, a patient of mine, was devastated by the news. It was early June when she came to me for a checkup, the first since her son had been confirmed dead.
“You’ve had a bad time, Kate,” I told her. “How are you sleeping?”
“Not well, Dr. Sam. I think about him all the time, going down with his ship in what he thought was a safe harbor.”
“I can give you something to help you sleep, but the rest is up to you. How is Art taking it?” Art Hale wasn’t a patient of mine but I knew him from the town council, on which he’d served for several years.
“Better than me, now, but he had a terrible time at first. Back in January and February he just went away for days at a time. Our son’s death was confirmed to us in mid April, before the official casualty list was announced on May first. When Art got the news, he went through it all again. I think he was drinking heavily while he was gone, but he never admitted it.” I took her blood pressure, which was higher than normal, and gave my usual words of caution. But I could see her mind was elsewhere. “Can I talk to you about something, Dr. Sam?”
“Anything at all. That’s what I’m here for.” I expected some sort of sexual secret, which wasn’t too unusual in my experience.
Instead she told me, “I’ve been to Boston to see a psychic.”
“What?” My face must have reflected my surprise.
“A woman there contacted me several weeks ago and claimed she could communicate with the dead. I... I really think she might be able to reach Ron.”
“Kate,” I said, not unkindly, “you can’t believe in such things. People like that are just out to get your money.”
“I know. That’s what Art told me when I suggested the possibility. I didn’t dare tell him I’d already been there for two sessions with this woman.”
“Who is she?” I asked.
“Her name is Sandra Gleam, or at least that’s what she calls herself. ‘Sandra Gleam — Lifting the Veil of the Afterlife.’ She’s a woman in her late forties, about my age, and she does seem to get results.”
“What sort of results?” I asked with more than a little scepticism.
“She’s contacted an Indian guide on the other side who says he can bring Ron to talk to me.”
“And of course you paid her for this?”
“Certainly. I’d give a great deal to actually speak with my son again.”
“And your husband knows nothing of this?”
She took a deep breath. “I haven’t told him, and that’s my problem. Sandra Gleam feels she needs to conduct a small séance at our home, with just my husband and me taking part. She says that would be the most comfortable setting for Ron.”
I shook my head, more in sorrow than in reprimand. “Kate, you don’t know what you’re getting into here. The woman is a charlatan. She’s using all sorts of trickery.”
“How do you know that? You’ve never even met her.”
“I know the way psychics operate.”
“When she was in her trance I could see ectoplasm above her head.”
“Gauze coated with phosphorescent paint.”
“A small seashell appeared on the table as a sign from my son, even though I was holding both her hands.”
“But the room was dark?”
“Mostly,” she admitted. “There was a dim light so I could see there was no one else in the room.”
“She had the shell hidden in her mouth, or perhaps even regurgitated it from her stomach. It’s a trick some mediums are quite skilled at.”
Kate Hale pondered this for a moment. “I have to do it. I have to take the chance that she’s on the level.” An idea seemed to light up her face. “Look here, Dr. Sam, since you know so much about this, could you attend the séance, too? If you’re there to prove she’s not a fake, my husband might go along with the idea.”
I shook my head. “I think I’d have to say no to that, Kate. It falls far outside my duties as a physician.”
She gave a reluctant sigh. “All right. Thank you for listening to me, at least.”
My wife Annabel was Northmont’s only veterinarian, and Annabel’s Ark had become a haven for creatures of all shapes and sizes. That afternoon, following a house call at a farm near there, I stopped by the Ark on my way home and found her removing a painful thorn from a cat’s paw. “Much the way Androcles would have done it,” I suggested.
“I’m far gentler than Androcles, or hadn’t you noticed?”
“I’m on my way home. You coming soon?”
She sighed and glanced over at the row of cages where her assistant was treating a large German shepherd. “I’ve got at least another hour here. Then I’ll be along.”
“I’ve got an idea. Let’s meet at Max’s for dinner. Say, seven o’clock?”
“Sounds perfect!” she readily agreed. Max’s Steakhouse was our favorite restaurant in Northmont, the scene of our December wedding reception.
I changed my clothes and arrived at Max’s about fifteen minutes early. Annabel hadn’t yet come in and I was surprised to see Kate Hale and her husband seated in one of the booths. It seemed foolish to ignore them, so I said hello as I passed. Arthur Hale immediately stood up to greet me. “Hello, Doctor. Could you join us for a drink?”
“I’m meeting my wife. She should be here momentarily.”
“Sit down anyway, until she comes.”
I signaled Max so he’d know where I was and then joined them in the booth. “Nothing to drink for me,” I told them. “I’ll wait for Annabel.”
Art Hale was a scholarly type who wore gold-rimmed glasses and smoked a pipe. He was around fifty, maybe a few years older than his wife, and when he wasn’t busy on the town council he worked at a small printing business he owned that employed about a dozen people. “Kate has been telling me about her visits to this woman in Boston. She said she discussed it with you today. What’s your opinion of it?”