The Revenant of Thraxton Hall: The Paranormal Casebooks of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (35 page)

“And yet she lives,” Conan Doyle said calmly.

Seamus Kragan flinched as if struck across the face, but then cold cynicism oozed back into his features. “You lie. I saw two bullet holes, still smoking—”

“Which burned the outer fabric of her dress, but did not so much as break the skin.”

“That’s impossible!”

“I would agree. Impossible … unless some supernatural force intervened.”

Seamus’s eyes lost focus, grew wildly distracted. “Mariah?” The name grunted out of him as if driven by a punch in the guts.

“She betrayed you, Seamus. Lied to you. Just as she lied to Hope. She is a revenant, a thing animated by wickedness and malice to deceive and do harm to the living. When you dug up her coffin and released the copper bands binding her, you sealed your own Fate.”

Behind Seamus, the black lake retreated, sucking back into itself, and then released an eructation of gas that sneezed a fine mist of black slime high into the air, spattering the clothes and faces of the three men.

A shaky laugh tore from Seamus’s lips. “Another fiction, Doctor Doyle? Another story? Too late, I’m afraid.” He wiped the bituminous spray from his face with the back of his gun hand. “I have three bullets left. And there are only two of you.” He raised the revolver and aimed at Conan Doyle with a wildly tremoring hand. “Mariah’s premonition will yet come true.”

Just then the black lake belched up a huge bubble of gas and heaved forward, a tarry black wave surging around Seamus Kragan’s feet. He staggered, fighting to keep his balance, and then his feet shot out from under him. The revolver slipped from his grip and clattered to the ground, He lost hold of the scrying mirror, which hit the stone floor and rolled away. Arms windmilling, Seamus toppled backward into the black lake, slapping the surface with a splash. He plunged beneath the surface for a dozen seconds and then suddenly surged upward again, spitting and choking, his arms trailing glutinous tendrils of black slime. Around him the treacly waters heaved and roiled—the queasy stomach of a giant stone beast vomiting up an indigestible meal.

Conan Doyle and Wilde rushed to the edge, but Seamus was beyond their reach and they could do nothing but watch as he flailed and struggled before the lake sucked him under, headfirst. A turmoil of choking bubbles burst upon the surface, Seamus Kragan’s feet obscenely kicking the air for a few seconds before the lake sucked him under for a final time.

A diminishing trickle of bubbles broke upon the surface. And then, nothing.

“Good Lord,” Conan Doyle said. “That was horrible.”

“Yes,” Wilde agreed. “Brown boots with white spats. A cad to the end.”

*   *   *

The two friends were trudging back up the sloping floor of the crypt, Oscar Wilde carrying the lamp, the revolver in Conan Doyle’s right hand, the scrying mirror clutched in his left hand.

Both men froze at the metallic
ka-chunk
of a shotgun being snapped shut.

When Wilde raised the lamp, the light fell upon the formidable, gray-haired figure of Mrs. Kragan. An extinguished lamp stood at her feet. She cradled the cocked and loaded shotgun under one arm. She had been waiting patiently in the darkness.

“So. My Seamus is dead? You have killed him?”

Conan Doyle and Wilde exchanged a glance. And then Wilde spoke: “We tried to reason with him, but he fell into the lake.”

Her eyes gleamed with tears. Her mouth twisted in a broken scowl. “This cursed house has taken everything from me: my youth, my love, my hope, and now my only child.”

“And what have you taken from it?” Conan Doyle asked in a voice sucked dry of sympathy. “I believe it was your hand that pushed Lady Thraxton down the stairs to her death.”

The matron’s eyes flashed with hatred. “She didn’t love him. Not like I did. And I bore him a son.”

A sudden revelation struck Conan Doyle. “Lady Thraxton was with child at the time, wasn’t she?”

Mrs. Kragan’s eyes widened, her lips compressed to a furious line.

The tissue of lies and murder was at last teasing apart in Conan Doyle’s mind. “And Edmund Thraxton. He didn’t disappear on the moors, did he?”

“You … you … filthy English … You’ve said enough.…”

“And you also conspired to murder the true heir, Hope Thraxton,” Wilde added. “I have little doubt that you were the true mastermind behind this entire plot, not Seamus.”

“They say confession is good for the soul. Here is my confession—both barrels.” She hoisted the heavy shotgun and pointed it at the men. “I will burn in hell, but you two will get there before me.”

“Oscar! Down!” Conan Doyle shouted. He and Wilde flung themselves to the stony floor as she squeezed the trigger and the first barrel fired with a thunderous roar. The shotgun blast hit an antique coffin and tore the rotten side off. A rain of yellowing bones and leathery corpse flesh pattered down upon their heads.

The kick of the shotgun staggered Mrs. Kragan backward. She regained her balance and strode toward them. Conan Doyle had dropped the service revolver as he hit the ground and it skittered away. As he reached for the gun, Mrs. Kragan’s foot pinned it to the flags. He looked up into the twin black maws of a shotgun hovering inches from his upturned face.

She would not miss this time.

“You will join my Seamus in the black lake!” she hissed.

A deafening shot rang out.

Mrs. Kragan’s head jerked violently. Her eyes grew wide. A trickle of blood ran from both her nostrils, and soon became a gush. Her eyes dimmed and went vacant. She toppled forward and pancaked facedown on the stone floor. When Conan Doyle and Wilde clambered to their feet, they saw that the back of her head had been blown away.

Their ears still ringing from the gunshot, the two friends watched as a shadowy figure glided toward them. As the lamplight fell upon it, the figure gained color and substance, but lacked a human face.

Or rather, it possessed a face concealed behind a mask.

CHAPTER 29

THE SHADOW OF DEATH

The Count strode into view, his pistol raised. Smoke tendriled from the muzzle.

Conan Doyle felt a stab of fear. He had never trusted the Count from the beginning and had no doubt that he and Oscar would be shot next. But then the Count slid his pistol back into its shiny leather holster and cinched the closing strap. He clicked his heels and threw them a curt bow.

“I take it ze pretend Lord Webb. He iz dead?”

Wilde rushed forward and threw his arms around the Count in a bear hug. “Well done, Count. You have saved us once again!”

Conan Doyle hesitated and then stepped forward and shook the Count’s hand. “Yes, thank you. We are twice-over in your debt, sir.”

The mask looked from one to the other. “It eeze over zen?”

“Yes, thank goodness,” Wilde said. He turned to Conan Doyle. “It is over, isn’t it Arthur—?” But Conan Doyle had returned to the edge of the black lake. He stooped and picked up the scrying mirror and stood gazing into its depths. For a moment, he thought he saw his own muted reflection. When he returned to join the others, his face was grave.

“I regret to say: No, I believe the danger is far from over.”

*   *   *

Conan Doyle knocked quietly at Daniel Dunglas Hume’s door. “It is Doctor Doyle,” he called out. He listened for a moment and heard no reply. When he entered the room, the Yankee psychic was lying atop his bed, fully dressed, looking straight at him.

“I thought I’d let you know what transpired,” Conan Doyle said.

Hume did not say anything, nor did he move the slightest, and then Conan Doyle noticed the glassy stare and the handkerchief clutched in one hand, stained a deep vibrant red. A rope of bloody saliva dangled from the corner of his mouth. Conan Doyle moved to the bedside and felt for a pulse in Hume’s throat. Nothing. His skin was gelid and plastic to the touch. The Scottish doctor placed a hand on Hume’s face and gently closed his eyes.

Wilde stepped in through the open door and witnessed the tableau. “What? Is he—?”

Conan Doyle nodded sadly. “He has passed.”

“How long?”

“An hour, maybe longer.”

Although not as tall as Conan Doyle, in life Daniel Dunglas Hume had been a physically imposing presence, filled with gravitas. Now, heavy with the inertia of death, he seemed like a stone colossus toppled by an earthquake.

Wilde joined Conan Doyle at the bedside and laid a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “He was truly a marvel.”

“Yes.”

Wilde sniffed the air and made a face. “What
is
that strange smell? Like something burning?”

Conan Doyle tilted his head to one side, sniffing. Suddenly his eyes widened in recognition. “Cordite.”

“Ahhhhh, cordite,” Wilde repeated, then threw a baffled look at Conan Doyle. “What on earth is cordite?”

“Gunpowder, of the kind used in bullets.” On a sudden impulse, Conan Doyle reached down and lifted Hume’s arm. The cold hand was closed about something and rigor was beginning to set in. Conan Doyle had to prise open the tight fist. There, sitting in Hume’s palm, were the lead slugs from two bullets. Conan Doyle and Wilde exchanged an astonished look.

“Two bullets,” Wilde gasped. “So that’s where the shots went!”

“His final miracle was to save Lady Thraxton’s life. He truly was the greatest psychic of all time.”

CHAPTER 30

A REFLECTION NEVER DIES

“I’m afraid Mister Greaves has passed,” Henry Sidgwick said.

“How is Lady Thraxton?” Wilde asked.

“Understandably traumatized. She is resting in her rooms. My wife Eleanor is at her bedside.” Sidgwick’s bloodshot eyes turned to Conan Doyle. “Perhaps you would be kind enough to look in on her, Doctor Doyle.”

“Yes. I would be most happy to do so.”

When he entered Lady Thraxton’s rooms, the young medium was lying atop her bed, still dressed in her black séance robes. Eleanor Sidgwick sat in a chair pulled close to the bedside, holding the younger woman’s hand.

Conan Doyle strode over to the bed and looked down on her.

Her eyes roved his face questioningly.

“What has become of Seamus?” she asked in a ruined voice.

Conan Doyle rocked on his feet, reluctant to add more distress to the young woman. “He has come to justice … by his own actions.”

She thought a moment and then asked, “And Mrs. Kragan?”

Conan Doyle cleared his throat. “I’m afraid she, too, has come to grief.”

Hope Thraxton covered her mouth with a hand, eyes welling with tears.

She turned her head, and lay staring in distracted silence at the far wall.

Conan Doyle paused a moment, looking down at that lovely face, his eyes tracing the slender line of her jaw to the crescent-moon-shaped birthmark at the corner of her full lips. Then he tore his gaze away, breathed a sigh, and turned to leave. As he walked to the door, the portrait of the young girl in the blue dress once again captured his eye. As he examined it at close range, his spine stiffened. He drew out a fountain pen from the inside pocket of his jacket and looked about the desk for a piece of writing paper. He flipped open a red leather stationery box. It held a neat stack of the distinctive notepaper that bore the phoenix watermark. He took a sheet and sketched the crescent moon birthmark on it:

Then he returned to the bedside again, and briefly examined Hope’s face, comparing it to his sketch. She bore the identical birthmark. He left the lady’s chambers a moment later, his face calm and composed, while in his brain, a lightning storm raged.

*   *   *

“Ah, there you are, Arthur.”

Wilde strode across the polished marble of the entrance hall to where Conan Doyle was staring up at the portrait of Mariah Thraxton. “Arthur,” he repeated, touching his friend’s elbow, “are you quite well?”

Conan Doyle turned a grave face to his friend. “When first we arrived at Thraxton Hall, I was immediately struck by this portrait.”

“I concede that it is well executed. Especially for its time.”

“More than that: it has a strange quality to it, almost as if it were alive. When I scrutinized it a second time, in the company of Madame Zhozhovsky, she pointed out a detail that now seems strangely anomalous.”

“Strange? In what way?”

“Look closely at the birthmark on Mariah’s Thraxton’s cheek. It is in the shape of a crescent moon. The scrying mirror she holds in her hand reflects her face, and the crescent moon birthmark. Do you see that?”

Wilde’s brown eyes narrowed as he scoured the portrait. “Yes, yes I believe I see what you’re referring to.”

“How much do you remember from your geometry lessons?”

“I told you I was never much for mathematics.”

“Axes of symmetry?”

Frown lines wrinkled Wilde’s brow. “The term vaguely rings a bell. I’m sorry if I’m being a bit lead-witted, Arthur, but what exactly does all this mean?”

“It means I now understand why Lord Edmund Thraxton feared mirrors.”

Conan Doyle turned abruptly on his heel and set off toward the parlor. “Come, Oscar.”

Wilde hurried to catch up and fell in step. “Where are we going?”

“To arm ourselves with something capable of breaking glass.”

Wilde grabbed his friend’s sleeve and snatched him to a halt. “I don’t understand. Whatever for?”