Séance for a Vampire, Fred Saberhagen [win 10 ebook reader txt] 📗

had called for us to appear incognito, Holmes on reflection had decided that he at least was too well known, and very likely to be recognized, unless we were both of us thoroughly disguised–and disguise too had its disadvantages.

“Upon the whole, Watson,” my friend whispered to me when we had a moment to ourselves, “other considerations being equal, the simpler a plan, the better.”

“I can readily agree with that.”

“Also there is an innate advantage in being truthful whenever possible. Mr. Altamont must simply tell his wife that we, the well-known investigators, are open-minded on the subject of séances, and have persuaded him to be the same. Surely that is near enough the truth that it need not trouble our consciences.”

On entering the house we were greeted good-humoredly by Madeline Altamont, a slender, fair-haired lady of about the same age as her husband. The lady’s figure was still graceful, and her countenance still retained much of what must have been a truly impressive youthful beauty.

Mrs. Altamont met us wearing a white dress, a spring-like and celebrational garment. Smiling and cheerful, she made a point of telling us that she had abandoned mourning. And indeed there was no black wreath upon the door of the house, which was decorated with fresh flowers in almost every room.

Altamont himself was in town on business at the time of our arrival, but when our host appeared, shortly before dinner, we saw that he had given up wearing his black armband.

The servants wore no tokens of mourning either. The butler, Cooper, showed us to our rooms, which were on the first floor just down the hall from Martin Armstrong’s.

“Your mistress seems very cheerful, Cooper,” my friend commented as we followed our guide upstairs. It was a gentle probing, an attempt to sound the dispositions of the servants in the matter at hand.

“Yes sir.” Cooper, with our bags in hand, paused on the stair long enough to look at us carefully, one after the other. “We can only hope that she will remain so, sir. That no fresh occasion for grief and disappointment is going to arise.”

“Amen,” said Holmes, softly. And we left the matter at that for the time being.

A question of my own, on a different matter as we were nearing the top of the stairs, evoked from the butler a more cheerful response. This had to do with the history of the family, a subject in which Holmes and I had conducted some intense research over the past week. The Altamonts had lived in this house at least since the early eighteenth century, before the time of our client’s ancestor and namesake, a certain Ambrose Altamont who was said to have died in London, murdered under peculiar and violent circumstances in the year 1765.

The estate had then passed into the hands of a brother, named Peter, of that ancestral Ambrose. Our research indicated that a rumor about a family treasure had started at about that time.

There were, as so often the case in old houses where one family has remained in occupation for centuries, a dozen or more ancestral portraits, mounted in an ascending line along the stairway. Cooper’s reply to my question confirmed that one of the portraits near the top was indeed that of the Ambrose Altamont who had died in 1765. beside that portrait hung another, of the Peter Altamont who had inherited the estate. The resemblance between the brothers was notable.

As soon as the butler had left us, Holmes privately expressed to me his own concern for Mrs. Altamont’s welfare: “There is one thing we may be sure of, Watson; whether the mediums are pure charlatans as her husband supposes–or whether the true explanation proves to be more outré–her current state of happiness stands on a false basis and cannot last.”

In the circumstances I felt vaguely guilty about practicing even a slight deception upon the bereaved lady, by pretending an innocent enthusiasm for the coming séance. but I was able to reassure myself with the thought that I was doing everything for her own benefit.

Holmes was still keenly interested in inspecting the rowboat which had played such an important part in the recent tragedy, and as soon as we were settled into our rooms, Armstrong undertook to be our guide. He led us down through the garden behind the house, along a path which incorporated rude stone steps built into the gentle slope. Soon this winding descent took us out of sight of the house, among shrubbery and tall flowers to the small dock and boat shed beside the river. Here our guide pointed out to us the boat that had been involved in the strange incident. The small craft, painted a dull and undistinguished gray, lay bottom-up on wooden blocks in the shade of some tall elms, where it had been placed on the day after the drowning. Our guide informed us that the boat had been examined several times for damage, but none had been discovered.

Holmes whipped out his magnifying glass, and after a quarter of an hour of intense effort announced that he was able to detect small scratches left in the gray paint and wood of the gunwales, near the prow.

“The fine indentations are on both sides, and very nearly symmetrical. Of course there is nothing to prove that they were made at the time of the tragedy.”

Armstrong appeared to be strongly affected by Holmes’s discovery and announcement. but the young man made no immediate comment.

I thought Holmes meant to question him further, but before he could do so a fair young woman, of perhaps seventeen or eighteen years of age, appeared descending the rude steps and path from the direction of the house. Martin Armstrong stood up and introduced us to Rebecca Altamont, who unlike her mother was still wearing mourning.

Rebecca bore a strong resemblance to her mother, and later we heard from several people that Louisa also had done so, all three women being slender and blonde.

When Holmes in the course of our conversation