Prompt: Sherlock Holmes sees a ghost, from Book girl fan
"What would you say if I asked you to accompany me tonight at seven, Holmes?"
My friend's sharp gaze descended upon me from where he stood transfixed by some correspondence he had retrieved from under his penknife on the mantel. "It is not another book signing, is it?" he asked.
"No," I said, chuckling. "It is, well, I hesitate to call it a case, as no client brought it to my attention."
"Interesting. This may mark the first time in our shared history you are the client, Watson," Holmes said. "Pray, tell me what case you have."
"Well, I do not know if it is worthy of the title, as there is no victim, no theft," I said. "In fact, it is so commonplace I expect I would be laughed out of every police station in the country."
"That is why I am here," Holmes said. "You have said yourself I am the last resort for those cases deemed hopeless by the official forces."
"Yes," I conceded. "Well, you know my literary agent, Dr. Doyle, of course."
"I know of him. We have met only twice to my recollection," Holmes said. "An ophthalmologist, a cricket player, avid reader and writer of adventure stories, married yet involved with a woman not his wife."
"Holmes!" I was deeply embarrassed at having my poor literary agent's personal troubles aired like this, even between myself and Holmes. Though of course, he had done as much to any client who had walked through our sitting room door. Flustered, I went on, "Dr. Doyle has always been interested in spiritualism, but as of late his interest has been taking on new life. Each time I see him he mentions some new medium he has seen."
"Ah. I take it he has not converted you?" Holmes asked.
I was mildly insulted before I realized he was joking. "Of course not. I am a rational man. I indulge people their beliefs, so long as they are harmless, which I was convinced this was."
"Implying that you no longer are convinced of the harmlessness of mediums?" Holmes prodded.
"Today, Doyle told me of a medium he had seen, a Miss Ada Robinson and her assistant, Mr. Josiah Abbot. Apparently, they have had great success touring and now have set up in London permanently. They say they have allowed hundreds to communicate with their dead loved ones."
"That seems standard for a medium," Holmes said.
"Apparently they were able to call forth apparitions," I said. "That is not standard, nor is the price. Doyle paid two pounds for his seat! And there were more expensive seats available."
Holmes sat up. "That is dear indeed. You think this medium is conning people, I take it?"
"Well, it must be a lucrative business," I said. "They advertise as wishing to help those grieving to communicate with the dead, yet such a price implies a wish to make money above everything else."
Holmes watched me impassively, then, as was his wont, answered my thoughts rather than my story. "You think they are preying upon those suffering a loss, an easy target."
I confess I had thought of Mary and how heinous it would be to falsely advertise to someone in the fresh throes of grief to defraud them of their hard-earned wages. "If they are defrauding people at the worst times in their lives, surely that counts as a moral crime, if not a legal one," I said. "But I cannot prove it."
"So you wish me to investigate," Holmes said. "I find the matter interesting in itself, Watson. If they cannot truly contact the 'other side,' then the entire matter is one of fraud."
"There are the apparitions, though. I cannot imagine how anyone could convincingly fake such a thing," I said. "Other spiritualists merely acted as conduits, using clues provided for them by assistants or by deducing as you do from their customers."
Of course I did not believe any of these charlatans could really speak to the dead, but the matter of the apparitions left me at a loss. I was certain if anyone could pull back the veil on the matter, it was Sherlock Holmes.
We arrived at the small theatre early to watch everyone else arrive. It seemed to me that most of the other other customers were women in mourning attire, though many seemed to have come night after night. "These women must be giving up their life savings to come here so often," I said to Holmes.
"An expense most of them can ill afford," Holmes said, his keen eyes surveying the crowd and missing nothing. At a signal from a stage assistant, the crowd quieted. The theatre was arranged so the wooden benches encircled the small stage, and soon a tall gentleman with a thick mustache was assisting a tiny woman dressed all in black, with a heavy black veil, up the steps.
"Welcome, welcome!" the man announced. "I am Mr. Josiah Abbot, and my companion is none other than Miss Ada Robinson, the renowned medium. I myself have written many books on the subject of spiritualism, which you will see displayed at the back."
"Not only do they pay for their seats, but they no doubt buy his books as well," Holmes whispered to me. "A lucrative con indeed."
"If you have not attended one of our evenings before, allow me to explain. Miss Robinson is an extremely sensitive medium, and to avoid too many spirits overwhelming her, we will ask each individual to come up to the stage to receive communication. Now, spirits do not often communicate in ways we, the living, understand. Therefore, as a trained spiritualist, I will translate what the spirits communicate through Miss Robinson. I beg you not to be alarmed if her behavior seems unusual - it is merely the spirits."
"Clever," Holmes whispered to me. "It allows them to communicate amongst themselves and agree on a story. They no doubt pick their volunteers carefully. Either they have planted their own agents in the audience or they have some prior knowledge of who will be coming each night."
A squawk from Miss Robinson, and the crowd quieted while Mr. Abbott shushed them theatrically. "A communication! Ladies and gentlemen, we do not often have a spirit summoned before a volunteer! You are here on a special night, indeed."
"I wager they do that nightly," I said.
Holmes, however, shushed me as Mr. Abbott bent close to his companion. "Is there a Mrs. Smith here?"
Several women jumped up in excitement, and Mr. Abbott bent down again to hear the words the veiled woman whispered to him. "A Mrs. Thomas Smith?"
"Oh! Oh, it is my Tom!" a woman in the back row stood up. "Oh, Tom, I have missed you."
"Come up here, my good woman," Mr. Abbott said. "No, no! Not too close!" He added, stopping the woman before she could climb on the stage. "We do not want to frighten the spirits. Now, yes, what is it?" This was to Miss Robinson, who rocked back and forth and whispered urgently in his ear.
"Your son, is he well?" Mr. Abbot asked the widow now.
The crowd gasped at the seemingly correct details, though to me it seemed that they were simply making lucky guesses. Nearly every one of the women here was a widow, and it was likely nearly all of them had at least one son. I was amazed at first at how easily the audience believed, but then reasoned that they have not spent over a decade living with Sherlock Holmes.
"Simple deductions, Watson," Holmes said. "As you had said."
After finishing with Mrs. Smith, Mr. Abbot turned back to Miss Robinson, who gave a scream and fell suddenly off her stool. "Silence! I must ask for silence!" Abbott called. "There is only one reason why Miss Robinson would react in such a way. It is…an apparition."
The excitement in the small theatre was remarkable, and Mr. Abbott waited for it to build - surely, if an apparition were to appear it would not pause for dramatic effect.
Yet, as Miss Robinson moaned in apparent pain, writhing on the floor, pale smoke rose from her prostrate form, gradually coalescing into the ghostly figure of an elderly woman, dressed in black and shimmering. She raised a hand, and several people in the audience screamed. I confess I was shocked as well. I could not imagine how such a thing could be anything but what they claimed it to be, even though I knew it could not.
"I must ask for quiet!" Abbott called. "It is merely Miss Robinson's grandmother. As a family member, she is uniquely sensitive to her. That is the only way an apparition may appear."
"That at least allows them to impress an audience without having to risk incorrect deductions giving them away," Holmes said.
"But how do you explain it?" I asked.
Holmes laughed gently. "Watson, you forget I was once an actor. The use of mirrors, smoke and I daresay some new technology goes a long way in creating a convincing fake." He looked around and finally motioned to a window near the ceiling. "A motion picture camera, Watson, cleverly hidden and modified to project an image. Footage of an elderly woman is easily come by."
"Now that you have explained it, it seems simple," I said, turning to leave the despicable display behind us.
"Simple, indeed, if you wish to defraud the innocent of their money," Holmes said, eyes flashing with anger. "Unfortunately, there is no crime on the books for such a thing, but I shall certainly bring this to Mycroft's attention when next I see him. It is no less criminal than if they stole the money from these people's wall safes."
"Thank you, Holmes," I said. "I would not have been able to prove it myself."
"Yet you knew not to trust it," Holmes said. "That is no small feat, Watson. Those poor fools in there will find they have got nothing for their money but broken promises, including your literary agent."
"Nothing will convince Doyle, I am afraid," I said. "He believes totally. And he is an intelligent man!" I could not understand it.
"Intelligence and gullibility are two different things, my dear Watson," Holmes said. "Particularly if the reason is sound. A good con rests on people's reasons for believing it in the first place."
I assented sadly that Holmes was correct, though I was gratified as well that he believed me and would do his best to ensure Mycroft did something about these fraudsters. It could not come quickly enough.
A/N: Doyle's interest in spiritualism often is said to come from the death of his son in WWI, but according to his official website, the interest preceded that by several decades and ramped into overdrive following the war.
It is also true what Holmes deduces - Doyle was emotionally involved with the woman who would become his second wife long before the death of his first, who had a long-term, debilitating illness (this is likely where the inspiration for the story The Missing Three-Quarter comes from).