Mr Scarletti's Ghost Read Online Free PDF Page B

purse? By the time Mina had reached the top of the stairs her worries had multiplied to the point where she felt she needed sensible advice, and decided to write a letter to her older brother Edward.

Three
    M ina’s room was a quiet place where the ghosts that lived so noisily in her mind were transferred by the medium of her pen to a new life as dark ink bled on to clean paper. Her desk was set before the window where she might take advantage of the clear brilliant daylight, to compose, or read, or sometimes just to gaze out on to the street and think. There were few distractions. The northern end of Montpelier Road was far enough from the seafront to avoid the worst clusterings of excited visitors, the flowing movements and gentle sounds of passers-by affording an unobtrusive and pleasing reminder of the life of the town.
    Before Mina settled down to write, she tried to stretch her back, reaching around her shoulder with one hand, pushing her fingertips into the sore muscles there and trying to prise the knots apart. Then she sat, tucking a cushion under one hip to help straighten her posture. She knew that Edward would not come to Brighton. He rarely left his business, or, more importantly, Miss Hooper, a young lady of good family he was ardently pursuing with a view to marriage. Rival suitors of similar persistence, lesser charm but greater fortune, ensured that he dared not be out of the capital for long. Mina started the letter with good news, her mother’s improved health and state of mind. She decided not to alarm her brother by revealing that their mother had attended a séance, but wrote instead of the interesting new arrivals in Brighton, Mr Bradley, Professor Gaskin and Miss Eustace, who had recently been in London, and wondered if Edward had heard of them, begging him to tell her all he knew.
    She could not help but hope that Miss Eustace would prove to be a nine days’ wonder, and vanish like one of her own spirits, to be superseded by some other novelty as Brighton, under its surge of summer visitors, blossomed into life.
    Two days later Mina received a small packet from Edward, containing a letter and a booklet, and took them to her room to read. Edward expressed his sincere relief that his mother was so much improved, and reassured Mina that he was in the best of health although hard pressed by business. Unhappily, he wrote that the loveliest girl in the world was sorely afflicted by a cold in the head, which had thrown him into the most perfect anguish. He ended with a stern warning that it would be as well not to meddle in the affairs of people claiming to be in touch with spirits. Mr Bradley was unknown to him, but Professor Gaskin was a respected man of science, the author of many papers on the subject of chemistry and physics, who had lately espoused the claims of spiritualists and had made himself something of a laughing stock amongst his friends and colleagues. The professor had been advocating the claims of a Miss Eustace who had recently appeared in London, claiming that she had triumphantly proved herself to be a genuine medium, and advertised her as such, but the truth, commented Edward, was less convincing.
    There was, he added, a new fashion for spirit mediums in London, and the gullible were willing to pay them any sum for the most ridiculous displays of obvious fakery. Professor Gaskin and his wife, shepherding Miss Eustace, had recently removed to Brighton for the early summer season, where they hoped to have fewer rivals and be more successful. Miss Eustace claimed to accept no money for her séances but it was widely believed that she lived on the hospitality of the Gaskins and accepted payments from her sitters. The enclosed booklet, he added, was a recent publication, and an object lesson, but he felt sorely afraid that it was a lesson many would chose to ignore. He urged Mina to read it carefully and take its message to heart.
    The booklet, some sixteen pages long, was called The