Spiritual Relations

My Dear Gregory,

I’m sure you’re surprised to be hearing from me again already, so soon on the heels of my last letter that I haven’t even received your response to it yet. Well, the fact is that I’m actually writing to tell you about a very strange series of events that has just recently reached its conclusion — events that I feel sure you’ll appreciate, considering your penchant for anything bizarre and inexplicable. I’m quite certain you’ll agree this deserves to be filed away amongst the other stories of baffling and insoluble occurrences that you’ve collected, but you must be the final judge.

I must say I never imagined that I would ever be a witness to something so outside the bounds of ordinary explanation — nor, I suppose, do many other sincere individuals who report such things — but nevertheless what follows is my account as I witnessed it, whatever you wish to make of that:

Seeing as how most major news outlets carried an item about it, you’ve probably read something of the untimely passing, two weeks ago, of the renowned spiritualist and medium known as Madam Urcy. You’re probably also aware that Madam Urcy’s sister had been lost at sea about 16 months prior, during a cruise to Europe for Madam Urcy’s international tour. What you won’t have read, however, is that I was present at the time of Madam Urcy’s own death, and was intimately involved with everything that happened on the night in question. The whole affair was given such a cursory and mundane treatment by the press that the names of those present were thought of as unimportant facts.

There are reasons for this treatment, as I’ll explain, but before I get too far ahead of things, let me go back to how the night began.

First let me say that it was due to constant coaxing by Jennine that I was finally persuaded to accompany her to the seance that Madam Urcy was holding that night of August 23rd. You may recall, whenever our discussions would wander onto the subject, that concerning what’s commonly called the supernatural, I’m hesitant to conform to any one idea or interpretation. As I’ve said previously, since there’s often no way to conclusively prove or disprove the existence of a supernatural agency at work in a given instance, I tend toward indifference, with no conviction either way. Jennine’s views on the subject are even less distinct than mine. She rarely cares enough about such intangibles to bother with the contemplation of matters that exceed the limits of the everyday.

Spiritualist mediums, however, I have strong suspicions about, considering how many of them have been exposed as petty frauds over the years. But since Jennine’s always looking for novel forms of entertainment, she thought attending an actual seance would make for an interesting evening. She’s never even really given any thought to whether she believes in spirits or not.

We were two of twelve guests assembled there that evening, all arriving around eight o’clock. Jennine had received an invitation from Mrs. Atwater, the friend of a friend, whose husband was among the departed souls Madam Urcy had agreed to try to contact that night.

I must say that Madam Urcy’s home was even more than I’d expected, and I couldn’t help but reflect that if such gracious living was afforded by throwing what amounted to evening tea parties for disembodied visitors, I could well understand why someone might decide to take up the practice. Not only was the house large and spacious, but it was exquisitely furnished, and decorated with excellent taste. Chippendale chairs, fine Victorian tables, elegant china, carved moldings, lovely paintings and statuary, etc.

Our hosts, Mrs. Urcy and her husband, Archibald, were both exceedingly well-dressed and well-mannered, courteous and charming without being overly formal or snobbishly sophisticated. They were also both quite becoming in appearance, bearing the burden of their late middle years exceptionally well. She was, I would later learn, a comely 57 years old, with a rather graceful figure and disarming smile, and he a still-sprightly 62, with a square chin and white sideburns. Together they were a very congenial pair, and were I meeting them under other circumstances I’d have had no reason to harbor a certain decided skepticism about the entire proceedings.

By approximately a quarter past eight, all of the guests had arrived. For completeness’ sake I might as well take a moment to document those in attendance:

Aside from Jennine, myself, and Mrs. Atwater, there was Thomas Watts, a prominent architect and self-proclaimed avid fisherman; a young woman named Allison Hopkins, who was a private secretary and professed a strong belief in spirits; Mrs. Wyllie, an ancient lady who kept up a near constant monologue concerning the care and maintenance of her garden; Mr. Sears, a rather stodgy professor of art history at the local university; Mr. and Mrs. Toland, a husband and wife pair who were amicable enough, save for an annoying habit of conversing amongst themselves while ignoring everyone else; a dark-haired gentleman who introduced himself as John Meyerlink, and who largely seemed content to silently observe those around him; and lastly was Mr. and Mrs. Daniel and Anita Zorich, owners of a literary agency, who were both quite vocal in their disbelief in the supernatural, and wanted to see if Madam Urcy possibly “measured up” to her reputation.

Such was the odd assortment of characters that assembled for an odd occasion. Once we had all made our introductions and a brief amount of pleasant conversation, our hosts inquired if anyone was interested in refreshments of any kind before the communing with the spirit world began. Everyone declined, each of us obviously wanting to get on to the whole point of the gathering, though undoubtedly not all for the same reasons.

That unanimous decision reached, the Urcys guided us into a sizable drawing room — the “channeling room,” as they called it.

Here was already arranged a grand, circular table with thirteen chairs positioned around it, and one place setting where, instead of a chair, a tall wooden booth was standing. Of course, you of all people will know immediately that this booth or “cabinet” is one of the many contrivances that have been devised to try to ensure, or “prove,” a medium remains honest and incapable of trickery.

“I sit in here,” Madam Urcy told us as she opened the cabinet, showing us a plain chair that was standing within it. She then invited everyone to examine the cabinet from the inside. She explained how she’d be seated within and the door of the cabinet locked from the outside. Several of us pushed on the wall panels of the booth to see if they were actually secret doors, but to no avail. Everything seemed perfectly solid, and I noted that even the hinges for the door were on the outside, so that they couldn’t be removed from within.

While the lights were up we were also encouraged to scrutinize the rest of the room for hidden wires by which objects might be conveyed to and fro, or for concealed doors that could hide confederates in some secret alcove, whence they could emerge and perform some fakery.

Most of the guests seemed to take this very seriously and spent a fair amount of time looking here and there for anything that might appear suspicious, but I only went through the motions of participating in these inspections, as I saw little point to it all. Even I, a man who knows almost nothing about staging illusions or performing sleight of hand tricks, am aware that if a stage magician suggests you examine something, it means he has already made certain there’ll be nothing untoward for you to find. Unless, of course, you’re dealing with a magician who’s woefully deficient in the execution of his art, in which case you’re not likely to see anything noteworthy in his performance anyway. Madam Urcy had gained enough fame that there was little chance she could be such an amateur. Consequently, I was getting rather bored with these obligatory preliminaries.

At last, when everyone was satisfied as to the legitimacy of the surroundings, Mrs. Urcy seated herself in the cabinet, and her husband bound her wrists with a strong cord. A number of the guests volunteered to test the strength of the knots, and were evidently convinced as to the tenacity of the bonds. Here Mr. Urcy closed the door.

“Will one of you please lock her in?” he asked. Mr. Meyerlink accepted the task readily and applied the padlock that Mr. Urcy handed to him, locking it firmly over the latch. Everyone was then permitted to test the lock for themselves, yanking it this way and that, but it held firm throughout. Mr. Urcy then proceeded to give over to Meyerlink the key — what he insisted was the only key — to the lock and bade everyone take a seat. He occupied the chair to the left of the cabinet, and suggested that Meyerlink sit at the end of the table opposite the cabinet, so that everyone could be confident that Meyerlink had no way of surreptitiously reaching over and using the key to unlock the cabinet door during the seance. This Meyerlink did willingly.

Mr. Urcy now told us to clasp each other’s hands on the surface of the table, ensuring that they formed the typical closed circle in order to certify that no one was able to make any deceitful manipulations in any way. I was holding Jennine’s hand on my left, and Mrs. Atwater’s on my right. At this point Mr. Urcy asked Mr. Toland to dim the lights, he being positioned closest to the knob. Toland’s hand broke the circle only a moment or two as he attended to this, and then the circle was complete again. As soon as the lights had been turned down to the extent that the walls of the room were impossible to discern, and all of us could scarcely see one another’s face even as cast in a dull twilight, Mr. Urcy called out that his wife could begin.

We heard her slightly muffled affirmative reply issue forth from inside the cabinet.

“And please,” her husband then said to all of us, “no matter what you see or hear, please don’t break the circle. I assure you there’s nothing to fear.”

“Silence now, please,” came a prompting to us from Mrs. Urcy. “I’m sending out my astral consciousness, seeking for my control, Tullus, a Roman soldier who lived long ago in ancient Carthage.”

I confess I rolled my eyes a trifle at this, but, since my expectations were so low to begin with, I kept my thoughts to myself and simply let the show proceed. Mrs. Urcys voice called out for Tullus several times, each time sounding more stressed and strident than the last, until suddenly she stopped speaking altogether. Then we heard her moan, softly at first, like someone might who’s in a cramped position and trying to move, but then the intensity of her cries quickly rose to almost a shriek. I felt Mrs. Atwater’s hand tighten and pull on mine, as though she wanted to get up and rush to the cabinet, but she remained seated.

After one final outcry from Madam Urcy, the room fell silent once more. Then, all of a sudden, I heard what I was prepared to swear sounded like a man’s voice, low at first but rising audibly until it was quite distinct. The words were Latin, and, from what I could catch of them, the speaker was making some declaration of having traveled through illimitable gulfs of time to reach us. But then, suddenly, like a switch being thrown, the speech became English. So clear and resolute was the voice, it seemed a virtual impossibility that it could be originating from inside the cabinet.

“Tullus greets you, strangers,” it said. “Who is it that you wish me to fetch and bring among you?”

“My Henry! My husband Henry! Henry Atwater of 364 Flanagan Drive!” Mrs. Atwater shouted with excitement, and her fingers were starting to dig into my flesh.

“Henry Atwater … yes, I will bring him to you,” came the response from the disembodied Roman. After another moment or two, a faint glow appeared high above our heads. As we watched, the radiant ball, for so it looked, expanded to the size of a human head, and all at once floated down to hover in the air over the center of the table. The features of an old man with a mustache, though somehow oddly distorted but perfectly visible, if a bit blurry, shone in the center of the pale luminance.

“Henry!” Mrs. Atwater half rose out of her seat, and it was only with difficulty that I and Mr. Watts, who held her other hand, were able to return her to the chair.

An answer came to her. “My dearest Honoria, how good it is to see you here,” said a new voice. It had the tones of a man much older than those of Tullus, with a completely different timber and slight trembling quality. The way the face floated, and the almost misty quality of the features, made it difficult to be certain that the mouth was moving in accompaniment to the speaking of the words, but the apparition was undoubtedly there in the room with us. There was no denying that. Despite my deep-rooted skepticism, I have to admit it was an impressive sight to see, and might very possibly have convinced me of spiritualism as a reality if I were more credulous of mind.

Mrs. Atwater was beside herself with emotion, telling the image of Henry how much she missed him and how wonderful it was that they could still talk to each other in this way.

“Yes, my darling,” the image replied, “we can always be together so long as — ”

At that very moment the spectral vision’s speech was interrupted by the sound of movement among the members to my left, as suddenly the beam of a small but powerful pocket flashlight was shining up at the floating face, and everyone caught their breath or uttered some wordless exclamation at what we all saw — Mrs. Atwater most especially.

For there hanging over our heads was a kind of inflated balloon painted with some phosphorescent coating, over which in thin black lines was the somewhat faint drawing of an elderly man’s face. And holding the short rod from which the balloon was suspended by a fine black string was Madam Urcy herself, standing half out of the top of the cabinet, the ceiling panel of which no one had thought to inspect when they examined it for secrets. She had been speaking as “Henry” — a masterful job of voice affectation — when the unexpected spotlight burst full on her face, and now she just stood staring with a dumb expression that was a mixed display of surprise and guilt.

“Frauds! Charlatans! Shameless, unmitigated crooks!” someone was shouting as the flashlight was withdrawn and the room lights turned up. It was an infuriated John Meyerlink. He’d broken the circle and thrown the flashlight glare on Mrs. Urcy’s hoax, and he was now storming around the room. Mr. Urcy was trying in vain to offer some form of protestation, but could barely get a word out while Meyerlink went and unlocked the cabinet to reveal Mrs. Urcy standing upon the chair she’d been tied to, with the cords that had bound her to it hanging limply from her wrists.

Meyerlink ordered Urcy to get down, which the lady did in a silent, mechanical manner, stepping out still holding the rod and inflated balloon, looking around the room as if unsure of what to do next. We could see for ourselves that the ceiling of the cabinet was able to be simply slid aside, for it was still gaping it that position, and I realized that Mrs. Urcy’s loud moans when she was “sending out her astral consciousness” were really made to drown out the noise that the panel would make when sliding open.

Meyerlink went over to the chair and explained that its arms weren’t actually affixed to its legs at the point where Madam Urcy’s wrists rested, so it was an easy matter for her to lift the arms up a bit and slip the cords off over them. Then he yanked the rod from Urcy’s slackened fingers with a declaration of, “and this she must have had hidden under her skirt!”

“How could you — either of you?” Mrs. Atwater cried, rubbing tears from her eyes.

“We knew it would be something like this,” Mr. Zorich proclaimed in reference to him and his wife. The Tolands began talking rapidly among themselves. Madam Urcy made her way to one of the seats that had been vacated when several of the guests had gotten to their feet to see Meyerlink’s analysis of the deception. Her head slightly bowed, she sat down, moving carefully, as if ready to dodge a breakable object hurled at her in the throes of anger.

She attempted to stammer out an apology, muttering something about the “ethereal currents being sluggish tonight,” and that she didn’t want to ruin the evening with what might be thought of as feeble excuses, so she and her husband decided that the seance should still go on, even if only as a show. Before anyone else could make any kind of accusation, however, Meyerlink was at her again with a rejoinder of, “Nonsense, Madam! Utter nonsense! A pathetic pretense! You don’t even know enough about what you purport to practice to invent a convincing lie!

“What was your next step going to be afterwards, eh? To lead this poor woman to believe that she would be able to contact her husband whenever she wished, so long as she joined the army of ‘clients’ whose money keeps the two of you in abject luxury?”

Once more the Urcys tried to deny the allegations leveled against them, but Meyerlink’s fury would have none of it. The rest of us, I think, were so swept up in this whole turn of events that we were, for the most part, just watching it unfold in a state akin to a kind of reverie, so curious to find out what would happen next that we barely moved or spoke ourselves. It was as though the scene was a confrontation of sports teams and we mere spectators.

Here Meyerlink took up one of the chairs and placed it further out on the floor in an open space.

“You may be a cheat and a faker, Madam Urcy, but I can assure you that I am not!” he declared. “These good people came to see a spiritual manifestation, and, by God, they’re not going to leave without seeing one!”

With this, he sat down and ordered four of the men to take hold of his wrists and ankles. It took him repeating the command once or twice more before finally Mr. Watts, Mr. Sears, Mr. Toland, and Mr. Zorich were moved to action and proceeded, bewildered, to follow his instructions. I was further away than any of them, so they ended up by reaching him first, though I had begun to comply myself.

“No one touch the lights!” he warned. Once the men had grabbed his extremities as he had directed, Meyerlink closed his eyes and began calling out the name “Agnes.” He was calm at first, but momentarily he began to sway back and forth in the chair a bit, followed by what looked to be painful convulsions, like one might suffer from receiving a severe electrical shock. The men were hard put to keep Meyerlink’s arms and legs from flailing. He was repeating “Agnes” over and over, until, suddenly, his limbs went slack and his mouth hung open.

For an instant or two thereafter his jaws started working and his lips twitching, as though he was trying to form words. And then, all at once, his eyes flashed open and the clear voice of a woman supplanted his own. “Muriel,” the voice said, and Meyerlink’s eyes were fixed upon Madam Urcy as though she were the only person present in the room. A curious change came over Madam Urcy at this, a sort of wild, astonished look, as if she were beholding an impossible sight, like water running uphill.

The feminine tones escaped Meyerlink’s mouth again. “Muriel,” they said, “I’ve been hoping for this.”

With those words spoken, I saw a sort of shimmering come to life in mid-air a few feet from where Meyerlink sat. The men holding him down appeared to notice it too, and they froze with fascination. Somehow — I’m not sure, it seemed like it happened during the blink of an eye — where that shimmering had been there now stood the likeness of a woman. I saw her in profile, but from my vantage her features bore a strong resemblance to those of Madam Urcy, yet looked younger.

I marveled at the sight. Surely, I reflected, Meyerlink must be a far greater illusionist than Mrs. Urcy herself, to pull off such a thing. How he could manage it was completely beyond my conception. But Madam Urcy’s mouth gaped, and her eyes flew wide, and her shoulders were straining against the chair as though she was trying to back away.

The female image smiled. “You should be afraid, sister dear,” it said. “Seeing that I can finally even the score with you for pushing me off the deck! Did you really think I’d forgive you for that, even in death? I’m waiting for you!”

With this last statement the figure stabbed a pointing finger at Madam Urcy, who caught at her chest as if she was hit by something. The apparition visibly faded away, and Meyerlink slumped in his seat in a show of exhaustion, while Mrs. Urcy fell face down onto the table.

Now the room erupted in a great uproar, everyone talking at once, as I rushed over to assess the state of Mrs. Urcy. As I had expected, she was dead. It had looked to me like she suffered a major heart attack, and until I could make a more thorough examination, that would be my conclusion.

Meyerlink, getting tiredly to his feet, revealed to us that his actual identity was John Mayrick, himself a medium. He expressed his sorrow at Madam Urcy’s death, saying that the spirit of her sister had implored him to allow her to confront her murderer, but that he had no notion it would end with Madam Urcy’s own death.

There actually isn’t a great deal more to tell. The police were called and each of us gave our statements, which were surprisingly comparable, including the fact that, strangely enough — or perhaps not so strangely — all of us were evidently reluctant to mention the likeness of Agnes Urcy which Mr. Mayrick had somehow made to appear. After we had all given our statements, we were each allowed to leave. Mr. Urcy seemed dazed, barely moving or saying anything. He was taken away for questioning.

Soon after the initial investigation, it of course fell on me to perform the postmortem. Even after holding this position for 15 years now, I still have a peculiar reaction anytime I have to perform an autopsy upon the personage of someone whom I had personally known and seen alive shortly beforehand. I can’t call it an “unsettling” feeling exactly, because after so long a time, death and its various aspects don’t disturb me as they do people in other, more ordinary walks of life. Nonetheless, it’s always more straightforward when dealing with the earthly remains of complete strangers. The bodies of people I’ve never met are always much more like mere objects to me in this regard. I have no memory of how the individuals walked, the manner in which they spoke, the sound of their laugh, the way their features beamed when they smiled, etc.

With those whom I have encountered when alive, however, even for as little as a few fleeting hours, I am continually reminded of how I knew them in the course of their lives while I work with them after the spark of those lives has ebbed. In the case of Mrs. Urcy, beyond her polite manners, her pleasant appearance, and even the fact that she was, in the end, a hoaxer, swindler, and possibly a murderess, what I could not forget about her most was the look of sheer terror as she saw the image of her sister.

When I began the examination, I had expected that the dazzling illusion of Agnes Urcy that John Mayrick had somehow created was so lifelike to Madam’s Urcy’s guilt-ridden conscience, that the sight of it caused enough stress from a state of fear, anxiety, and perhaps even remorse, that it brought on a fatal heart attack.

I conjectured that Mayrick had suspected, or by some means actually discovered for a fact, that Mrs. Urcy had pushed her sister Agnes overboard during that ocean passage over a year ago. Perhaps, I reckoned, he thought that pretending to conjure up the accusing apparition of Agnes would cause Mrs. Urcy to tip her hand and confess to the crime. I believed him when he said that he’d no idea his actions would bring about Madam Urcy’s death. How would he have been able to predict with any certainty the way it would affect her?

On the other hand, how he would have been able to contrive such an incredible illusion, with all the lights on, his wrists and ankles held fast, and in a room he couldn’t have been able to prepare ahead of time, is quite beyond my ability to fathom. In thinking about this, I went so far as to take a day trip up state to visit a particularly prominent stage magician who lives there — you know who I mean — to put the whole matter to him. After asking me several probing questions as to the layout of the room, the positions of people to the apparition, the lighting, the height of the ceiling, and other similar facts, his answer was that what I described would be impossible for any magician to stage, including himself. He further implied that either I was inaccurate or unobservant in regards to certain details, or that I was actually in the employ of John Mayrick for some kind of publicity scheme.

But I do have a theory of my own that I haven’t told anyone else, except for Jennine.

When I had finished the examination of Madam Urcy, I put down the official cause of death as heart failure, which, I suppose, is close enough to the truth. I say this because there was a detail about the case that I chose not to record in the official report, for which I’m hereby swearing you to secrecy as well. I know I can trust you to keep this in the strictest confidence. You see, from my years of experience, I know this one aspect is a fact that would be too difficult for anyone in the police or the courts to believe, and it wouldn’t make any difference to the case if they knew.

At the outset I made special note that there were no untoward marks of any kind upon the body, no signs of any wound or violence anywhere. I checked this thoroughly because of a nagging thought I had in the back of my mind. An unbelievable thought, but one I felt I should take care not to dismiss out of hand. And so it proved. I was able to rule out a heart attack. You see, the detail that I couldn’t devise a logical, scientific explanation for was that, though the skin, bone, and tissue front and back of it were unbroken, Madam Urcy’s heart bore a lethal puncture wound clear through, as though it had been pierced by a sharp spike about three quarters of an inch thick.