“You know there is something wrong here, and I thought you were going to try to discover it.”
Suddenly she sounded very tired and lonely, and the Saint relented.
“Okay,” he said. “I’d like to show you something. Can we go back to the dining-room?”
Wonderingly, but without hesitation, she moved to the door.
The dining-room, meticulously cleared of all trace of dinner, looked stark and lifeless in the blaze that she switched on. Simon put a match to a single one of the candles in the massive silver candelabrum on the sideboard, and turned off the electricity.
“There, that’s a lot better,” he said. “More atmospheric and misteriose. Now, would you sneak into the nether regions and fetch us a large wine-glass. Empty.”
“But why?”
“I’m going to show you a party trick that I happened to remember.”
When she returned, he had laid out a rough circle of torn pieces of paper at one end of the table top, which he was lightly polishing with a silk handkerchief.
“Of course, Charles keeps this table waxed and shined like a flies’ skating rink,” he remarked, “which makes the trick much easier.” He placed the glass upside down in the center of the paper circle and tested its mobility with a fingertip. “Now, you sit down opposite me—”
“What is this-another séance?”
“With a difference. But we might as well get in the mood.”
As she reluctantly took the chair across from him, he went on:
“I’ve been making use of your library, swotting up on the history of your noble house.”
“And?”
“Your ancestors — and maybe mine — seem to have been a pretty barbaric crowd even for those days. It seems that one of the first Florians, who had rashly promised some characters that they would not be hurt, kept them in the dungeons beneath this very room and simply starved them to death. But every day he had a sumptuous meal prepared and placed outside their cells — just out of reach. ‘They must not be allowed to believe,’ he said, ‘that I am starving them to save money.’ ”
Mimette grimaced. “How horrible!”
“Of course, if you weren’t feeling subtle, there were always the good old fun things to do, like one master of Ingare who used any peasants who complained for crossbow practice.”
“That was a different age, a different world,” she said defensively. “It can’t be blamed on the Florians of today.”
“In another thirty years the Germans will be saying the same about the Nazis. And I suppose they’ll be right, too,” said the Saint philosophically. “All the same, it does make this a place where a spiritualist could expect a good crop of spooks. I wonder how many men have entered Ingare and never left? Just think of the cries of despair and the screams of agony these walls must have heard, the murder and mayhem they must have seen...”
“I don’t want to think about it,” said Mimette obdurately.
She looked at the scraps of paper that he had laid out, and said: “Anyhow, these are all blank, so how is your spook going to communicate?”
“I hope the problem will drive him crazy,” Simon said happily. “Now, let’s see if we can make a contact. Put your finger on the glass.”
The Saint’s voice was quietly authoritative and Mimette obeyed.
In a few moments the glass moved a little.
She looked at him sharply.
“You’re cheating!”
“I am not.”
The movements became more pronounced and erratic.
“According to unbelievers,” Simon said steadily, “one of the players eventually, intentionally or involuntarily, gives the glass a tiny push. The others feel it, and unconsciously resist it or try to change its direction. The conflict of forces leads to stronger and wider movements as the pressures get more unbalanced...”
Even while he was explaining it, the glass began to move more definitely about the table.
The Saint asked no questions as Norbert had done, but simply allowed the glass to go where it seemed to want to. Mimette followed its peregrinations as if mesmerised. The glass moved faster and faster until it was darting to one point after another on the circle of paper scraps.
“Now, are you cheating?” Simon challenged.
As he expected, she snatched her finger indignantly off the glass. The Saint immediately followed suit. But the glass did not stop.
For a few seconds longer it went on moving as if it had a will of its own, until with gathering speed it flew straight off the edge of the table into the surrounding gloom.
“Well,” drawled the Saint, “I guess not finding any letters to spell with did drive our spook of the evening up the wall.”
Mimette had barely stifled a scream. She stared at Simon in wide-eyed disbelief and then ran and switched on the lights. Grinning, the Saint picked up the glass and replaced it on the table before blowing out the candle and collecting his pieces of paper.
Mimette remained standing by the light switch. She was deathly pale and her hands were clasped tightly together to stop them shaking. Despite her efforts at self-control her voice shook.
“It was a trick!” she babbled. “It must have been a trick!”
“It was,” he said cheerfully. “As I told myself when I saw it in the tower. And like most good tricks, so easy once you know how.”
“Please?” she implored. “What did you do?”
On the sideboard there was also an antique silver carrying-stand with a set of small stemless glasses in sockets around its base and a cut crystal decanter in the centre. The decanter held a liquid of encouragingly amber tint. Simon unstoppered it, sniffed the heady aroma of old marc, and poured two generous restorative shots. He handed one to Mimette before continuing.
“It’s all so obvious, really — straight out of the Amateur Sorcerer’s Handbook. First create an atmosphere, which is even easier if you have an old tower once occupied by Satanic knights. Enhance said atmosphere with lack of light. Then make sure everyone is concentrating as hard as possible because when you stare too hard at something for too long you end up not really seeing it at all. That’s why a conjuror always tells you to watch closely — what he wants you to watch. Then it’s easy to perform the required legerdemain.”
“But that glass moved by itself, when we weren’t touching it,” protested Mimette. “So did the one at the séance in the tower.”
“Not quite,” said the Saint.
He held up a single strand of black thread knotted at one end.
“Take a highly polished table and wine-glass, give the rim of the glass a film of oil perhaps, just with a fingertip from your own hair, and the glass will move at the lightest of touches. The pressure it needs is so slight that even the others who have a finger on the glass can’t detect who is starting it. When the glass comes to the edge of the table, slip the thread under the rim and the knot will keep it there. In semi-darkness it’s as good as invisible. When the time is right give the thread a quick tug and the glass flies off the table. Like I said, so simple when you know.”
“But who would go to all that trouble? And why?” she puzzled, and Simon shrugged.
“Who is easy. It’s the why that baffles me.”
“Who, then?”
“If you remember, the glass left the table and hit the pillar I was standing behind. Norbert was sitting at one end of the table and Philippe was facing me. That only leaves one person who was in exactly the right place.”
3
Mimette’s brow furrowed as she worked out the solution. She gave a short and uncertain laugh.