The Revenant of Thraxton Hall: The Paranormal Casebooks of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Read Online Free PDF Page A

for Conan Doyle. He started to get up from his seat, but Wilde pulled him back down. “Stay, Arthur,” Wilde chided. “This is precisely the kind of medicine the good doctor needs.”
    By now Conan Doyle could not take his eyes off the parade of young female flesh and squeezed the armrests of his chair with a crushing grip.
    The girls danced off the stage to a chorus of bravos, yells, and the thunder of stamping feet.
    There was a pause, and then the theater manager, announced by the off-stage emcee’s disembodied voice as “Mister Henry Purvis, Esquire,” stepped to the front of the stage. He was a worn-thin man in a worn-thin evening suit. Purvis had been the manager since the music hall opened, and if anything was in more need of a thorough tarting up than was his establishment.
    The beam of a spotlight meandered across the boards until it found him. “Tonight, Ladies and Gentlemen,” he announced in a basso profundo that was quite surprising, given his lean frame, “Gatti’s has the rare pleasure to present not just a performer, but a unique individual who is one of the true wonders of the age. His name is Daniel Dunglas Hume, the greatest psychic medium in the world. Mister Hume’s abilities have been studied by some of the best scientific minds of our time and have been found to be absolutely genuine.”
    As Purvis spoke, a number of painted backdrops lowered from the fly loft depicting Daniel Dunglas Hume performing feats of psychic wonder. One canvas was painted with the figure of a finely dressed man holding a skull in a Hamlet/Yorick pose, as if contemplating the mysteries of death. The other canvases illustrated a séance with a ghostly apparition of a woman’s face appearing above Hume’s head; a hand bell ringing inside a bell jar, while Hume stood several feet away, his fingers to his temples; and most dramatically, Hume levitating several feet into the air before a group of astonished spectators.
    “Who is this chap?” Conan Doyle asked.
    “One of your fellow Scotsmen,” Wilde muttered. “But grew up in Connecticut. Speaks in an erudite Yankee accent with the odd Scots vowel sound tossed in to season the mulligan.”
    “Oh gawd, a conjurer,” J.M. Barrie said in a dour voice. “I hate bloody conjurers!”
    “Ladies and Gentleman,” the theater manager’s voice rose to a dramatic crescendo, “be prepared to be astonished. I give you, the wonder of the Americas. The wonder of London. The wonder of the world—Daniel Dunglas Hume!”
    The spotlight swerved away from the emcee and focused upon a tall man who stepped from the wings. The crowd did not applaud, but seemed to be holding its collective breath. The band played a restless stir of cellos as the solitary figure strutted across the stage. He wore a full moustache, with no beard or cheek whiskers, and sported a fine head of hair with auburn curls that tickled the collar of his shirt and curled upon his noble brow. Hume was dressed in a black velvet jacket and serge gray trousers, a red jabot tied around his neck. In his right hand, he clutched a fine lace handkerchief, which added to his air of a dandy. His effect upon the female portion of the audience was apparent by the susurration of excited whispers and the way he drew their faces like needles to a lodestone. He stopped at the edge of the stage and bowed, his posture relaxed.
    “Good evening, my British cousins.” His accent was indeed melliflously “Yankee.” “My name is Daniel Dunglas Hume. Tonight, I shall perform—”
    “Levitate!” an uncouth Cockney voice bawled from the cheap seats up in the gods. “Come on, Yank! Let’s see ya fly!”
    Hume’s composure never wavered. He held up a hand, importuning silence and began again. “I shall perform a number of wonders, but I regret to say that I am somewhat fatigued, having only recently arrived in your fine country. Every performance is slightly different and is dependent upon the cooperation of the spirits.” He