The Spirit Room - Act I

In part one of three of this haunting mystery, private investigator Adam Cole is hired to locate a missing woman who, longing for her dead son, is drawn to the Salazar sisters and their Spirit Room...

(Photo: All Is Vanity, Charles Allan Gilbert)

The Spirit Room: An Adam Cole Mystery

London

October 1885

ACT I

            Mr. Edward Sacker, barrister and solicitor, had not been long in his acquaintance with Adam Cole, private enquiry agent, but had already found him capable and had turned enough profit by employing him that he decided to continue to do so.

            In just the past few months alone, Cole had shown good reasoning and logic in his methods and had, with some minor pains, helped a family locate a buried inheritance and absolved a young boy from blame for a series of jewel thefts. Finding distraught and missing people was, for him, quite common-place and rather a matter more of time than serious difficulty. Sacker felt that the case of Mr. Henry Baker and his wife Violet would be much the same – something to keep Cole’s mind and body busy for a day or so, while earning Sacker’s legal chambers a few extra shillings.

            “She has been missing for a week now?” asked Cole.

            “That’s right,” said Baker. “To the day.”

            While Baker was seated across from Sacker, Cole stood behind his employer, gazing out the large French windows and down into the morning traffic of scrambling lawyers and clerks in the Middle Temple Lane. Sacker was seated in his comfortable chair behind his wide desk. All were gathered in his mahogany-panelled and book-lined chambers.

            “Had you been having any disagreements?” Cole asked, appearing to keep his back to his client while he actually spoke to the young man’s reflection, for the passing clouds outside had, for the moment, made the glass less a window and more a mirror.

            “I should say so,” Baker replied, his voice sinking. “You see, three months ago now our only child, Peter, succumbed to fever. He was just three years old.”

            Cole turned from the window, the pangs of a ghostly dagger burying itself into his chest: “You have my sincerest condolences, Mr. Baker.”

            Sacker’s hands scrambled over his desk. “Allow me to fortify you in some way,” he said, offering a glass of brandy to their aggrieved client.

            “Thank you, gentlemen,” the man said, sipping at his drink. “If you think I am depressed by the loss you should have seen my Violet. Losing a son is hard on a father – losing any child is doubly difficult for a mother. From the moment he fell ill, worry etched and aged her pretty face, and when he passed redness and tears swelled her eyes – and neither the worry nor the tears have quit for a moment since.”

            “I cannot imagine the difficulty your marriage must have faced since,” said Cole. “Did it erupt into a falling out that may have caused her to leave, or ---?”

            “Oh no, Mr. Cole, there is much else at play than just our mutual grief, though that has certainly been the catalyst.”

            Cole came around the desk and took up his own brandy glass. He speculated on all that must happen to a relationship following such a tragic loss: the grief that finds no comfort; the distancing and the blame; the failing love; the loss of interest in life; the financial hardship; the spite and anger which turns love into hate. Anything and everything must go wrong in such an event – and any number of horrible outcomes could result.

            “Tell me.”

            “Do you mind if I smoke?” Baker asked, fumbling for a cigarette from a cardboard packet kept in his hip pocket. Sacker had scarcely assented, and Baker had sparked his cigarette and become lost in an ethereal blue haze of cheap tobacco smoke. “It began directly after the funeral,” said Baker. “Bereaved and not wanting to accept our little boy was lost and gone forever, Violet immediately began to seek an answer – that is, a solution to what she perceived as a solvable problem.”

            “A solvable problem?”

            “Yes. In her mind, Peter’s death was but a problem to which an answer must be found. We are a church-going couple, gentlemen, and so had she turned to just our pastor and the Good Book for answers, and had she sought comfort in the faith that we would all unite with Peter once our Earthly time was up, I would have been content. For that is largely how I’ve sought comfort, with our church and our family there.” He drew deeply at his cigarette, exhaled, and went on: “But it was not enough for Violet. The comfort offered by God staled for her, for it offered nothing tangible – nothing instant that could assuage her grief. Indeed, her grief seemed to mount further and further while mine lessened with time. This only served to further irritate her desperation.”

            Cole said: “You fought?”

            “Oh, very much so. When Violet could not find an answer to Peter’s death, she reached for a cause. It must have because of me, she would insist – I must have brought home the dreaded disease that killed him, either from my work or from one of my clubs. Surely, in her mind, I had contracted something and passed it on to Peter when I sat with him on my lap or kissed him goodnight. It could not have been her – not in her eyes, anyway.

            “In hindsight I do not blame her,” Baker went on. “She may well be right. But in my anger at the time, I pushed back with equal accusations – had she not taken Peter to the park amongst all those other dirty children, had she not handed Peter a sweet offered by that foreign vendor at the market, had she not ---” Baker stopped, pinched the bridge of his nose, then quickly drew on his cigarette.  “I am sorry. It just went on and on like that for days.”

            “I understand,” said Cole. “You need not explain further. Her mindset is not unusual given the circumstances.”

            “Yes, and I told myself that again and again while trying to find a middle-ground. But it did nothing to alter the course of her desperate spiral – her need to “solve the problem,” as she began to say. When God and church and indeed when I myself were of no use to her in the matter, she took to more desperate means.”

            “Good God,” added Sacker. He perceived some terrible truth ahead. That Violet Baker had taken to digging up and trying to resuscitate the boy in some Victor Frankenstein manner perhaps, but that was not the case.

            “Such as?” Cole asked.

            “She began to partake in the psychic – in spiritualists or mediums, or whatever they call themselves. She came across an advertisement one morning – a handbill which she had gotten hold of at the market. I have it here.” Baker clenched his cigarette between his teeth as he opened his jacket. From an inside pocket he drew out a folded yellow paper and handed it to Cole.

            Setting his drink down Cole took the bill and opened it. Large, bold ink letters were stamped across the face of it. He read, first to himself and then out loud: “’The Salazar Sisters. Spiritualists and Mediums. Conducting seances and readings. We connect with Summerland and give voice to the Departed and comfort to the Living…’”

            “Summerland?” Sacker asked.

            “Yes,” said Baker. “Summerland is their word for the afterlife. A place of perpetual warmth and peace. No toil, no pain, no fire, no brimstone. A more liberal view of what awaits than the Christian doctrines offer – and Violet took to it.”

            Cole read on: “’Consult us. Connect with your lost loved ones. Visit our Spirit Room.’”

            Sacker cocked an eyebrow: “Spirit Room? My private club has a wonderfully stocked spirit room, but I cannot imagine we’re talking about the same side of the homonym in this case.”

            “Definitely not,” said Baker.

            “And where is this Spirit Room located?”

            “The Whitechapel Road,” said Cole, tapping the bottom of the handbill.

            “Near to the hospital,” added Baker.

            “Rather convenient,” said Sacker. “That hospital is little more than a foyer to the grave.”

            “I assume your poor wife was taken in enough to consult with them?” Cole asked, his eyes still on the handbill.

            “On her own insistence, yes. I admit that I not dissuade her. Not at first. While I do not believe in such people, I thought little harm would come of it at this point. Violet would either see through them, or be satisfied with whatever assurances they gave her and she would then move on. I blame myself, but the attempt seemed worthwhile. At the time.”

            “I take it that it was not?”

            “No,” sighed Baker. He smashed his cigarette into a copper ashtray on the desk. “For one, from the first instant they charged exorbitant rates, which increased with every subsequent visit that Violet made.”

            “When did this start?”

            “A little more than a month ago.”

            “And how many times did she attend?”

            “I cannot say exactly. You see, after her first four or five visits I confronted her about the mounting costs – she had spent well near two pounds in those initial visits, which is very nearly a week of wages for me.”

            Sacker whistled.

            “She must have been convinced,” said Cole.

            “Must have been or wanted to be,” replied Baker. “I am not sure which. She did, however, convince me to go.”

            “You went?”

            “Yes. Just a fortnight ago. By this time, she had been many more times in secret, and when I consulted the bank about some bills that had not passed payment, I was shocked by how much our savings had dwindled. I was alarmed to say the least. Violet had been withdrawing huge sums behind my back all to pay for the services of these Salazar spiritualists or whatever. I very nearly burst when I confronted her. But you should have seen her, gentlemen. Her eyes. So convinced was she that these women were helping her to communicate with Peter – to speak directly with him – that I knew she would spend every last penny for the luxury of what she perceived was contact with our dead boy.”

            Here Baker paused, lips tight. He pinched the bridge of his nose again and collected himself before going on:

            “All I could do was to go with her, to see what it was all about. I’ve said I give no credence to such nonsense, but she was so convinced, so contented by the experience, that I suppose a part of me hoped to be proven wrong. In any case, at worst it would amount to nothing, which would have put me into no worse a state of depression than I was already feeling. By assenting, I at least lifted Violet’s mood, and this in itself may have made the experience worthwhile. And for the first time in many weeks, she and I shared a smile, enjoyed a meal, talked fondly of Peter over tears of happiness, and walked with hands held down the Whitechapel Road to the den of the Salazar sisters.”

            He described the little terrace of flats the sisters occupied, or what he’d seen of it, and described the sisters themselves:

            “Poppy and Rose Salazar. Spanish spinsters in their middle-thirties. They are either twins or very near in age. Dusky with silken black hair. Quite lovely on the eyes, both. But very lofty, yet business-like in voice and manner.

            “They took us into a darkened room where they held a séance. It was as I expected. There were some odd occurrences, some bumps and chills, but nothing beyond what a clever conjurer could do. They did say some remarkable things about Peter – shared some personal details that made me gasp, even smile. But I quickly remembered just how often Violet had been there before me. There’s no telling what spoils she had shared in her clouded desperation – no telling from out of that what the Salazar sisters now exploited for my benefit.”

            “It doesn’t sound as though you were sold on the experience,” Cole remarked.

            “No. As I said, I’d hoped to be. But was not. The sisters evidently sensed this. They were sympathetic. And that was when they and my wife insisted, if I truly wanted to see Peter again, to hear his voice once more, that I must, as they said, “surrender to the Spirit Room.””

            On that note, Sacker poured them each a further finger of brandy. “Go on,” he said.

            “I misunderstood,” said Cole. “I thought the Spirit Room was the name of their entire establishment. You mean to say that it’s….”

            “An actual room,” said Baker. “A place where, apparently, the living may temporarily step off the mortal coil and beyond the bourn of the undiscovered country into Summerland, as it were. And there meet whom they wished – Peter, I was assured, would greet me at the edge. But only briefly. Mere moments, lest the traveller himself never return.

            “And all for the hefty price of one pound. Imagine that! There and then I learned that Violet had paid for the experience several times in the previous few days alone and intended to keep doing so. Our account, I knew, must be very nearly drained because of her unquenchable thirst.”

            “But what of the Spirit Room?” Cole insisted. “Did you give it a go?”

            “Of course not! I knew then how severely we were being haggled. The Salazars were manipulating poor Violet’s grief like common fairground shysters. But I did not explode then. Merely said I would need to steel myself for such an encounter and promised to return later. So I took Violet’s hand and removed us from that awful pair of frauds.”

            Cole nodded. “And this was just days before Violet vanished?”

            “Yes. She knew that I was not happy. We argued. I, at last, burst. I yelled, I threatened, and after several days of this – and of Violet sneaking off with further funds to visit the sisters while I was at work – I went a step too far and struck her out of blind rage.”

            Baker stopped and took a long pull at his drink. Sacker and Cole were frozen, glasses poised in their hands. They gazed at the sad and fallen man before them. A man who, in a few short months, had gone from happy husband and father to a meek wreck.

            “She left, of course,” Baker said. “I could not blame her. Nor did I go after her. Not for two days.”

            “Two days?” Cole asked. “You must have been worried in that time, no?”

            “No,” Baker said. “I was not. I felt relieved, happy for her even. She was away – away from our house with our dead son’s nursery and her bitter and frustrated husband. I was not worried, in fact, until I went to call on her. You see, I’d assumed that she’d gone to stay with her sister Jenny. But when I knocked at Jenny’s door, the sudden confusion and worry she expressed when I asked for Violet told me all I needed to know. She knew nothing of where Violet was – had not seen her since we had all last gathered over supper more than a week before.”

            “And what did Jenny do?”

            “She did not know what to do except to go to the police. I insisted that we wait, search for ourselves, but Jenny wouldn’t hear of it. So we spoke with a detective. That would have been four days ago now. He started his inquiries immediately. Needless to say, I was much questioned and our home examined. I no doubt fell under suspicion, understandably. But the officer did make an interesting discovery. Violet made one final trip to the bank, drew on our account and collected a loan of three additional pounds. After that, and with a total of more than five pounds in her purse, she vanished.”

            “I assume, since you are here, that the police drew to some conclusion or else came to a stalemate in their enquiries?”

            “In a manner, yes.”

            “What did they say?” asked Sacker.

            “They feel that she has gone off to be on her own – at least until the money has dwindled entirely. Then, they say, she shall likely return. They cite her grief, our arguments, as a reason for us to remain parted until Violet herself decides to come back.”

            “And what do you think?”

            Baker sighed. “They may be right.”

            “But that is not what you truly think,” said Cole. “Otherwise, you would not be here.”

            “Truth be told, gentlemen, I do not know what to think. Further to that, I am here more on Jenny’s insistence. She was not as satisfied with the detective’s explanation as I was. She is the one who found your name and had me come here this afternoon. She has even agreed to share in the cost.”

            Cole nodded. “Tell me, did you tell the police about the Salazar sisters and Violet’s sudden urge to obey their every whim? What did they say?”

            “I did. The inspector even went there for himself on two occasions but said no one was about and he was unable to make enquiries. He never returned as far as I know. But Jenny did.”

            “Oh? What did she discover?”

            Baker shrugged: “Again, nothing. She was there just yesterday in fact, but the sisters were not about.”

            “Curious. But I suppose even mediums need a day or two away from work.”

            “Given how weighted down by my life’s savings they’ve become,” Baker said, “they must be very tired indeed. So, what will you do now, Mr. Cole?”

            Cole turned to the window once more, gazing not outward but at the mirage of Baker’s reflection. “I shall do my best, Mr. Baker, to locate your wife.”

            Baker stood and reached into his pocket. He removed and scribbled into a pocketbook, and once done tore out a cheque which he slipped over the desk to Sacker. “I do hope this will suffice,” he said. “As said, my account has grown rather slim, and Jenny can only help so much.”

            Sacker collected the payment. “Very good. I shall see that Mr. Cole does not waste a farthing.”

            “He can do no worse than what those damned sisters have done. Oh, and I have this as well.” He reached into his jacket and removed a leather gatefold wallet in which was kept a cabinet photograph. It displayed Mr. and Mrs. Baker and little Peter in happier times. “So you shall recognise my wife once you find her. But I ask that you please take care – it is the only photograph that we possess of Peter.”

            Cole studied the image, took in every detail of Mrs. Baker’s young and innocent face. After a minute, he handed the wallet back. “I shall know her when I see her. Thank you.”

            When Baker had gone, Cole glanced from the window to Sacker who sat drumming his fingers over top the cheque on his desk.

            “What do you think of it all?” Cole asked.

            “Me? What does it matter what I think? No one wants opinions from a lawyer except when they need to be lied to. It’s your brains that should be earning this.” He hammered a finger into the cheque.

            Arms crossed, Cole again turned to the window and gazed at the low, black-rimmed clouds that hung like leaden curtains over London. He said, “I would normally fear that, given her constitution of late, poor Mrs. Baker may well have made her way to the bottom of the Thames, or found some other means to join her son. But the large sum she took out before fleeing complicates that.”

            “The police theory may well be right,” Sacker remarked.

            “It may – the circumstances do not disallow for it. But I wonder if she purloined the money as a final slight against her husband and took it with her to the grave. Perhaps she felt he cared more about their savings than their son.”

            “Properly vindictive.”

            “Maybe too much so for her. I shall make enquiries with the Thames police – see if they have any recent suicides to match her. And I shall ask for the report Baker filed with the police inspector, if only to confirm his story.”

            “You think him a liar?”

            “No. I just want to make sure that he isn’t.”

            “Very good.” Sacker checked his watch. “If you’re heading that way, then I shall walk with you. It’s very near to supper. Why not join me before you go burning all of that brain power?”

            They left the large, stone building that served as a hive for the chambers of Sacker and a dozen other legal hornets and turned north, following the cobbled laneway out to Fleet Street. There, the late afternoon traffic was steady and the lamplighters had started their work ahead of the impending dusk.

            “Oh! Hello! Is it Mr. Cole?”

            The voice was sure and strong over the rumbling carts and pounding hooves along the roadway. It had caught both men just as they’d emerged from the vaulted passage of the Middle Temple Lane and caused them to spin around suddenly.

            Cole instantly recognised the petite woman who now stood before him – or, that is, he almost did.

            She blinked expectantly at them: “You are Mr. Cole, are you not?”

            He did not reply right away, too caught up as he was in his inspection of the young woman who stood assuredly before them, waiting. Her brown hair was fastened back beneath a bonnet. Her hands pulled down on the thick ulster over her shoulders, meant to keep out the mid-autumn chill.

            Sacker sighed: “Yes – he is. I am Mr. Sacker.”

            “A pleasure, I’m sure. I am ---”

            “You are Jenny,” Cole said. “You look very much like your younger sister. I almost thought ---”

            “That I was Violet? I get that often. Were it only true now.”

            “Of course. I am sorry. I’ve just finished speaking with Mr. Baker.”

            “Yes, I saw him leave just a minute ago. I was waiting for him to be gone before I came to speak with you. That is, if you have the time.”

            Cole read her watchful brown eyes – knew she had something she needed to say.

            “Mr. Cole is about to go off on his enquiries. But we are taking supper first. Would you care to join us?” Sacker smiled. “We can talk in privacy and comfort and get out of this brisk wind.”

            Jenny agreed. Within minutes, they’d crossed along the Fleet and turned up another narrow, covered passage that funnelled them toward a small court. Just prior to entering the court, Sacker pushed open a heavy wooden door recessed into a black-panelled façade along the right side of the passage. Warm air scented with cooking smells and tobacco smoke coughed outward to greet them.

            Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese was a dining institution for many lawyers, judges, clerks, bankers, journalists, and others from the City. The centuries old tavern, rebuilt out of the ruins of the Great Fire, claimed every famous Londoner that had ever existed since the Seventeenth Century had at some point enjoyed a meal and a drink inside.

            They were slightly earlier than the supper rush that would soon pack every bench, stool and stall, and slotted themselves comfortably into a booth near the blaze of the dining room hearth. While Sacker and Jenny warmed themselves with a shared pot of tea, Cole fortified himself with a night-black stout, the tankard brimmed with amber froth.

            The wood-panelled walls and thick, soaped windows echoed with conversation and laughter, securing them from being overheard.

            Over a meal of shepherd’s pie, they spoke.

            Cole explained all he knew so far, and Jenny assured him that Baker’s story and his account of Violet’s decline was, from what she had observed, all true.

            “It has been such a terrible time,” she said. “My poor sister. Poor little Peter. I cannot believe God to be capable of such cruelty.”

            “It was more of nature than of supernatural that is to blame,” said Cole.

            “Whatever the case, I fear that the worst has befallen my sister.”

            “How so?”

            “Well, the way it all collapsed between Violet and Henry. He said he struck her and she ran off. I cannot see her leaving her home, her last memories of Peter. And if she had, she’d certainly have come to me. There’s nowhere else she could have gone.”

            “With over five pounds in her purse, she might ---”

            “No,” said Jenny, “that’s not all true, is it? Henry says it is, but the detective only confirmed money was taken out, but not that Violet was the one who took it. It might well have been Henry. The clerk who conducted the transaction was not in when the police questioned the bank, and the detective never bothered to go back to interview the clerk, having accepted Henry’s assurances that it was not he who withdrew the money.”

            Cole sat back. He was about to open his mouth to justify the police inspector’s lack of attention to detail, but found he could not be bothered.

            “And there was the matter of the life insurance,” Jenny stated.

            “What insurance?” Sacker asked before Cole could.

            Jenny smirked: “Yes. Henry said nothing of it to the police, either. I suppose he felt he was under enough suspicion. I only know of it because just after Peter died, Violet said that she and Henry had taken out policies worth £50 each. To lessen the hardship should one of them pass. With Peter’s death, the funeral costs and Henry’s lost wages during his bereavement made them realise that the loss of a loved one takes many tolls.”

            “I see,” said Cole.

            “Hopefully better than the police could be bothered to,” said Jenny.

            “I hear that often.”

            “If it helps to motivate you further, I have a little more money to offer.” She rummaged amongst her heavy skirts.

            Cole looked at Sacker.

            “It won’t be necessary,” Sacker stated. “Mr. Baker has provided enough of a retainer. For now."

            They ate a little more in silence. There was not an ounce of silence inside Cole’s head however as he turned over fact after fact. “Tell me,” he asked, “what do you know of the Salazar sisters? Did Violet mention them to you?”

            Jenny looked away and sighed. “Yes. I am ashamed to admit that was all my doing. You see, I spent much time trying to comfort Violet. I could see nothing worked. Then, in one day I happened upon a newspaper article about the sisters – how their séances and such had attracted many from the West End. They were becoming celebrities of the spiritualist world. Later that day, while going to market with Violet we happened to see a handbill promoting them further. I told Violet all that I’d read about their supposed success and out of some last desperate urge to help her I suggested that she try it, if only once.” She looked down at her lap. “It was a mistake. I knew it then. I essentially proposed that she commit blasphemy, hoping it might bring some small comfort.”

            “A very understandable gesture,” Cole said.

            “But one that she took much too far. I do not know what they told her to lure her back again and again. She stopped talking about her experiences when she saw how much I disapproved. But I grew to feel guilty that I had set up my sister to be exploited in her weakest moment. I can understand Henry’s outrage. I did not realise just how bad it all went.”

            “Mr. Baker said you went to see them yesterday, but they were not there.”

            “Correct. I knocked at the door, but no one answered. I got the sense someone was in, however. I recall looking up and seeing that the windows in the garret were open, and when I knocked, I heard a dog barking in response. But after several minutes’ effort, that was all I got.”

            “It’s fine,” said Cole. “I shall try them again tonight.”

            “Do you feel they’re worth the effort?” Jenny asked.

            “They may have seen Violet more recently, if only to take more money from her. Even if that’s the case it would be nice to know that she is, at least, still on this side of life.”

            “I pray that it is so, but I’m starting to fear otherwise.”

            “In her talks with you, in her grief, did she ever hint at suicide? I am sorry to ask, but I must know.”

            “That is fair. And no – not directly.”

            “Not directly?”

            Jenny pushed her teacup away and shook her head. “Oh, again it comes back to those mediums. They convinced her she was seeing and speaking with Peter, and not through séances or spirit writing or that sort of thing. But actually stepping into the edge of – what was it? Not quite heaven, but –”

            “The Summerland,” Cole and Sacker said in unison.

            “Quite, yes. She went into some dark room, without windows or anything, all alone – and waited there until, she said, Peter came to her. She was sure of it. They would meet for seconds, a minute at most, and then she would find herself snapped awake and in the care of the sisters. She insisted it all happened, that it was not some dream. I wish I’d found out more, but it was at that point that I showed my doubt and she spoke of it no further. Just that it all happened in the “Spirit Room,” as she called it.”

            “Yes,” Cole said, “I am becoming more and more familiar with the place without ever having stepped foot into it.”

            They talked a little more until their plates and cups were empty. Outside again they shook hands, and Cole assured: “I will do my best to find her, Jenny. I promise.”

            “Thank you, Mr. Cole. Bring her back to me, wherever she may now be.”

            With that, Jenny turned and melted into the growing shadows of the London autumn evening. Sacker watched her vanish. He asked: “What are you thinking now, Cole?”

            Cole let his breath escape between his teeth, watching the crisp air turn it into a wispy wraith that spiralled off into the darkling air. “She,” he said, “would seem to think Henry knows much more than he’s said.”

            “The life insurance adds poignancy to that. He seemed very worried about his money. What better way to recover it many times over.”

            “Perhaps. But life insurance is only good once death is confirmed. No body, no money. And if it looks like murder, the assurance firm will not release a penny to Baker until police clear him.”

            “All good points. Suicide then?”

            “She may still be alive,” Cole uttered. “Hidden away. And still visiting the sisters – and Peter. And will do so until her money runs out and, as the police suspect, returns home.”

            “Hm. What do you make of the Spirit Room anyway? I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

            “Probably because it was just made up by the Salazar sisters,” remarked Cole.

            “Not a believer in ghosts, are you?”

            “Are you?”

            “There are more things in heaven and earth, Cole, then can be dreamed of in your logical mind. But I cannot say for sure. I thought I saw a ghost once, one Christmas, when I was a boy. Just a walking shadow really that crossed a room where I was sat alone. It was there, at the corner of my eye moving toward me, yet gone when I looked at it directly. But I know that it was there. And not just because I saw it, but because I felt it. Like a sudden drop in pressure, along with a chill but not a chill in the air – it came from within me and sent goose-pimples all up my arms. It was like sensing some unseen danger. I just felt something was there – something otherly.”

            Cole nodded. “Maybe it was the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, warning you not to grow into a miserly ass.”

            “Well, it did not work.”

            “No.”

            “Perhaps then, if you see the sisters, you’ll be curious enough to brave the Spirit Room for yourself.”

            “No.”

            “Why not?”

            “Because if it does work, I dread what I might find there.”

            Sacker nodded. “Yes. What was your brother’s name?”

            Cole eyed him coolly: “William.”

            “And how old was he when your father mur… when he died?”

            “Just ten. I was thirteen.”

            “Old enough to remember.”

            “Without quite remembering, yes.”

            Sacker placed a hand on his shoulder. “However you approach these sisters, go carefully.”

            “I am not afraid of them or their ghosts.”

            “No, of course not. But it’s not ghosts I fear. I say it because they’re spinsters – and Spanish spinsters should be feared most of all.”

            With that, Sacker patted Cole’s arm and marched away to the west. Cole faced the great shadowy dome of St. Paul’s and started east.

End of Act I