She ordered the drinks from the servant. She didn’t look into the Great Man’s eyes when she gave him the glass of water, but her hand was rock-steady. She handed me the whiskey and water. No ice. The English don’t trust it. “You must meet the other guests,” she told me.
Chapter Four
The gramophone was tinkling out a Scott Joplin rag as she led us from the trestle table. We walked across some Oriental carpets and past a fireplace big enough to roast a woolly mammoth. There was no mammoth inside. There was no fire either, even though the air was chilly. The English don’t believe in heating their homes before January. If then.
Beyond the fireplace, we came to another cluster of people, three men and a woman sitting in a circle around another coffee table. One of the men was saying, “And it is this, you see, this completely wish-fulfilling nature of the dream, that Herr Doktor Freud discovered.”
He was a small, slight man with a thick German accent and a thick beard, neatly cut and shot through with curling wires of gray. His scalp was completely bare and it gleamed as though it had been waxed and buffed. He wore sparkling black pince-nez glasses, a neatly pressed black suit, glistening black patent leather boots, a crisp white shirt with a stiff wing collar, and a tiny, tidy black bow tie. He was immaculate. He was spotless. Dust and disarray would never touch him. They wouldn’t dare.
“Excuse me, Dr. Auerbach,” said Cecily. The flat, weary drawl had returned to her voice. “Daddy’s appointed me hostess. This is Mr. Phil Beaumont, from America, and Mr. Harry Houdini.” I thought she gave the word Houdini a soft, sour spin.
The other men and the woman remained seated, but Dr. Auerbach bounded to his small shiny feet. “Mr. Houdini! he said. He displayed his small shiny teeth as he groped for the Great Man’s hand. The Great Man granted it.
“Dr. Erich Auerbach,” said the doctor. “What a truly gigantic pleasure this is! I witnessed myself your magnificent performance in Vienna several years ago! Astonishing!”
The Great Man looked down at the doctor and smiled his charming smile. “Thank you so much.” Flattery always brought out the best in him.
Dr. Auerbach whirled toward Cecily. His brown eyes were opened wide behind the glasses. “You will please permit me, Miss Fitzwilliam, the introductions?”
She smiled her thin listless smile, and she shrugged indifferently. “Yes. Certainly.”
“Wonderful!” he said. “Thank you so very much. Well, then, gentlemen. Gracious lady.” He bowed toward the seated woman to our right. “Allow me to introduce the extraordinary Mr. Harry Houdini. As you heard, I had myself the honor to witness in Vienna his performance there. Overwhelming, absolutely! Mr. Houdini, allow me to introduce to you first the extremely charming Mrs. Corneille.”
The extremely charming Mrs. Corneille was the seated woman. She was probably over thirty years old and she was probably under fifty. That was all that I could tell about her age and it was probably more than she would ever tell. She wore black high-heeled shoes, sheer silk stockings, and a pleated black silk dress that exposed her long pale arms and her smooth pale shoulders. Her hair was cut like a pageboy’s and it was straight and black and glossy. Her cheekbones were feline, her nose was small, her mouth was red and wide. Beneath long black lashes, her eyes were large and almond shaped. They were the same color as her hair and they looked like there wasn’t anything in the world that they hadn’t seen at least twice.
In her hand, lightly, she held a long brown cigarette. She inclined her head toward the Great Man and she smiled.
“And this gentleman,” said Dr. Auerbach, “is Sir David Merridale.”
Sir David was in his forties. His shoulders were broad beneath his tailored black coat, his stomach was flat beneath his tailored black vest. His hair was black, too, except for the elegant waves of gray that lapped elegantly back over his temples. He had a high forehead, a strong nose, a black mustache, and a dark broad mouth. He sat comfortably, sprawled back in a padded leather chair, his hands along its arms, his legs crossed at the knees. He held a glass of champagne in his left hand, comfortably. He seemed permanently bemused.
Sir David nodded hello. The Great Man said, “And this is my secretary and close personal friend, Mr. Phil Beaumont.”
I nodded and I smiled. Politely. It was easy once you got used to it.
Sir David said, “Do join us. Dr. Auerbach was just explaining psychoanalysis.”
“Oh no, no,” said Dr. Auerbach quickly, and semaphored his small manicured hands. He had obviously taken charge. “We finish this now, with the great Houdini here. Please, Miss Fitzwilliam, you will sit beside me?”
She did, on the embroidered love seat. The Great Man chose the empty leather chair at the head of the table, which wasn’t much of a surprise. The only seat remaining was the one beside Mrs. Corneille, on the sofa, and I took that. She inhaled a puff from the cigarette and exhaled pale blue smoke through her delicate nostrils, and she looked at me from beneath slightly lowered eyelids. She was wearing a perfume that had been distilled from flowers grown in the Garden of Eden.
Sir David was studying the new arrivals. He was still bemused. “So,” said Dr. Auerbach, leaning toward the Great Man, rubbing his hands together. “You are here for a test of the medium, isn’t it? To verify her genuineness, yes?”
Houdini nodded judiciously. “I see you know of my work. Yes, I have had much success uncovering the fraudulent techniques used by these people. But in my youth I was a noted stage medium myself-although only for a brief time, and only for the purpose of healthy family entertainment. Since then, I have made a lifelong study of the occult. I have put together the finest and most extensive library on this subject in the world. And so naturally, Houdini is better equipped than most men to determine trickery and fraud.” He smiled. “Only as we grow older do we acquire wisdom.”
Sir David said, “Do you really think so? In my experience, people seldom actually acquire wisdom. They merely accumulate evidence.”
Houdini put a polite expression on his face. “Oh?” he said.
“Evidence of what, Sir David?” asked Dr. Auerbach.
“Their own fundamental correctness,” said Sir David.
The Great Man kept the polite expression on his face while he waited for the others to stop talking.
Mrs. Corneille glanced at Sir David. “You include yourself, do you, David?” Her voice was dark and thick, like sealskin.
“Certainly.” He smiled. “But of course, my own correctness is more fundamental.”
“Of course.” She turned to the Great Man. “So you’re not a believer then.”
“I am neither a believer nor a disbeliever, madam,” the Great Man announced. “I approach these things objectively, in the manner of a careful scientist. But a scientist who has had much experience in this field.”
“Dr. Auerbach,” said Sir David. “Does your colleague Dr. Freud have an opinion about Spiritualism? He seems to have one about everything else.”
Once again Houdini put a polite expression on his face and waited.
Dr. Auerbach said, “Herr Doktor Freud has yet to write about Spiritualism specifically. But he is rationalist, yes? I think it is not presumptuous of me to say that he would consider it a form of superstition. And as such, he would of course see it as a regression.”
“A regression?” said Mrs. Corneille.
He nodded. “A retreat, so to say, to an earlier level of development. Even the most well-adjusted individual, as a relief from anxiety, does this from time to time. He may bite his nails, for example, or indulge in unusual sexual activities, or read mystery stories.”
“I’m all for unusual sexual activities, of course,” said Sir David, smiling. “But if I were you, I shouldn’t mention mystery stories in the same context to Conan Doyle when he arrives.”
“As a psychic evaluator,” said the Great Man, “I often discover that medical doctors and academic professors, when they approach this field, are the most easily misled of investigators. They work with matter, you see, and with physics. And neither of these, no matter how complicated they might be, possesses an intent to deceive. But all the so-called psychics I have unmasked in my career, they have possessed this.”