The Revenant of Thraxton Hall: The Paranormal Casebooks of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (34 page)

Mister Greaves surged forward and blindly wrapped his arms around Kragan, crashing them both into the wall. The two struggled briefly, and then the younger man wrenched an arm free and viciously pistol-whipped the old retainer. It was a wicked blow, and the heavy revolver opened a deep gash in the butler’s scalp. He let out a moan and slumped to the floor.

“Fools!” Seamus Kragan bellowed as he backed away, brandishing the gun. “I am always one step ahead of you.” He was backing toward the door when:

BOOM!

Blood sprayed the wall. Seamus screamed and grabbed his arm. His knees buckled and he barely managed to stay on his feet. But as he staggered out the door, he raised the Webley and fired a wild parting shot into the room.

BOOM!

And vanished.

Conan Doyle looked around; The Count had remained seated during the whole exchange, which allowed him to quietly draw his weapon, screened from view by the table. Now he rose from his chair, the pistol gripped in his gloved hand, a tendril of silver smoke curling up from the muzzle.

“Good shooting, Count!” Wilde said, clapping a hand on his shoulder.

Luckily, Seamus’s wild shot harmlessly struck the edge of the séance table.

“We must go after him!” Sir William Crookes urged.

“No!”
Henry Sidgwick yelled. “It’s far too dangerous.”

“What about poor Lady Thraxton?” Eleanor Sidgwick added. “Whatever are we to do—?”

A gasp of deep shock rippled through the room as Conan Doyle dropped to his knees and helped Hope Thraxton sit up. “She lives,” he announced. “Both shots did not so much as break the skin!”

“It’s a miracle!”

“It’s the spirits,” Eleanor Sidgwick insisted. “The spirits have protected her.”

Hope suddenly noticed the figure lying slumped on the floor. “Oh, Mister Greaves!” She reached over and gently pulled Mister Greaves’ head into her lap. The scalp wound was deep. Blood ran down the side of his face and puddled on the rug.

“I’m sorry, milady,” he said in a faltering voice, “but I was unable to stop the bounder. I blame myself. I should have recognized Seamus—even without my sight—I should’ve!”

A long, shuddering groan tore from Mister Greaves’ lips. Hope Thraxton looked up at Conan Doyle with an expression of utter despair. “Please save him,” she said, her voice torn to rags, “I fear he is dying.”

Conan Doyle nodded and turned to his friend. “Your silk scarf, please, Oscar.” Wilde handed it over, and Conan Doyle tightly bandaged the old butler’s head. “It will slow the bleeding.” But then he fixed her with a look that confirmed her worse fears. Her eyes pooled and she looked down, biting her lip.

“I fired twice?” Wilde asked in a shattered voice. “How did the Lady survive?”

“The gun was obviously loaded with blanks,” Podmore said.

“No,” Conan Doyle countered. “I loaded it myself. There are two bullet holes in Lady Thraxton’s dress, but not a mark upon her skin. It is as if the bullets vanished in midair.” He looked around at the others, equally mystified.

“Gentlemen,” Sir William Crookes interrupted, “we have a murderer running loose in the house. We must form a hunting party and run the blaggard to ground.”

“No,” Conan Doyle said, taking command. “He is still armed and most of us are not.” He glanced at Wilde. “Oscar and I will go after him.”

“Might I not go, too?” It was the Count. “I am military trained and, as you saw, an excellent shot.”

“No, Count,” Conan Doyle argued. “You have a pistol. We need you to stay here and protect the others.”

Enigmatic as ever, the figure behind the white mask said nothing for several moments, but finally acquiesced with a click of his heels and a bow of his head.

“Come along, Oscar,” Conan Doyle said, “the game is afoot.”

“Ugh!” Wilde gasped, rolling his eyes. “I feared you were going to say that.”

*   *   *

“The bullet has severed a major artery,” Conan Doyle noted as the two men followed a spatter of crimson drops along the hallway. “He won’t get very far.”

Conan Doyle had expected Seamus Kragan to bolt out the front doors, but the blood trail weaved across the marble tiles of the entrance hall and plunged into the portrait gallery. The two friends paused. “He’s gone into the west wing—a place that is perfect for ambushes.”

“At the risk of damaging morale, Arthur, I have to question your strategy. He has the gun and we do not. Shouldn’t we be running away from him?”

“He’s bleeding out. And a wounded animal is always the most dangerous. We need to know where he is.”

The two men dashed through the portrait gallery. Conan Doyle flung open the heavy double doors and they eased cautiously into the ballroom, senses alert, eyes scanning.

“He’s moved on,” Conan Doyle said. The two crossed the ruined ballroom, following the steady drip of blood.

“Where’s he going?” Wilde asked in a whisper.

“He grew up in this house and knows it intimately. I’m sure he’s got an escape route planned.”

They emerged through the doors at the far end of the ballroom into the entropic ruin of the west wing. Both men froze on the spot, listening. The light outside was fading fast and the rooms and hallways seethed with a conspiracy of shadows.

“This is dangerous,” Conan Doyle whispered. “He could be lying in wait for us.”

“You’re right as always, Arthur. Let us go back. I feel a headache coming on.”

They heard the crash of a slamming door.

“That’s him,” Conan Doyle said. “Not far ahead.”

The two men crept along the hallway as quietly as possible, but stealth was impossible with a blizzard of fallen plaster crunching underfoot.

And then they saw her: the luminous figure of a young girl in a blue dress.

“What on earth?” Wilde gasped.

The blue girl stared at them and pointed a finger at a closed door. Her image dimmed and faded from view.

Wilde looked at his friend. “Tell me you saw the same thing?”

“I’ve seen her before,” Conan Doyle said, his voice a ragged whisper. “She’s giving us a sign. Seamus has gone down to the crypt.”

*   *   *

The other members of the Society for Psychical Research kept a respectful distance as Lady Thraxton knelt upon the rug, cradling Mister Greaves’ head in her lap.

“Please, your Ladyship,” the old man croaked. “I’m getting blood all over your fine dress.”

“Shush,” she said. “Mister Greaves, you have looked after me all my life. Now I must look after you.”

“I’m sorry I let him get away, ma’am. I shoulda known it was young Seamus come back. That boy always had the devil in him.”

“Hush,” she said, stroking his wild mane of gray hair, now clotting with blood from the gaping wound.

The Count took a discreet step back from the group. And then another.

“I reckon you’ll be needing a new butler soon,” Mister Greaves said. A melancholy smile creased his lined face.

Lady Thraxton choked out a loud sob. “Please don’t leave me, Mister Greaves. What ever will I do without you?”

The Count took a step to his left. The open doorway was one stride away.

The butler’s glaucous eyes widened. “I feel young again. I feel young. And there’s my Annie. My wife. My lovely Annie.”

“He’s crossing over,” Eleanor Sidgwick said in a choked voice.

“My lovely girl. I’m young again. I’m young again. I’m young…” The smile froze and faded as the last breath slipped from his lungs.

“Oh, Mister Greaves!” Lady Thraxton cried, hugging his neck as she began a keening wail.

The Count used the distraction to step from the room. As he strode rapidly down the hallway toward the west wing, he drew the pistol from its leather holster.

CHAPTER 28

THE BLACK LAKE

They stumbled from the bottom of the spiral stairs into the crypt. Wilde bowled into Conan Doyle and the two men nearly fell.

“Ugh,” Wilde complained. “First I am covered in dust, flailed alive with cobwebs, and now I must endure the stench of corruption. A crypt indeed? What a ghastly tradition. When I die I shall have them bury me in a conservatory of sweet-smelling flowers. My adoring public will water them with their tears.”

“Quiet!” Conan Doyle urged.

The two men scanned the shadows, eyes straining to pierce the darkness, nerves stretched taut. From somewhere, far off, they heard the crash of a coffin lid being ripped off and flung to the ground. Conan Doyle nodded the direction. He snatched up the lamp, and the two men crept in the direction of the sound. As they drew near, they saw a shadowy form crouched over an open coffin.

Seamus Kragan.

A lamp turned low had been set atop a nearby coffin. Seamus had tucked his wounded arm into his waistcoat and was reaching into the coffin with his good arm, rummaging for something.

“This must end now, Seamus,” Conan Doyle called. “Give yourself up.”

Seamus leapt up and wheeled around, revolver leveled. He had something tucked under his injured arm—the scrying mirror.

“No,” Seamus called. “Not after all these years. Not when I’m so close.”

“Close to what? Ruin?”

“I have the mirror. Mariah will help me.”

“Mariah?”

Seamus Kragan stood crookedly, listing to one side. “Hope was not the only one that Mariah spoke to.” He choked out a humorless laugh. “She also spoke to me. It was she who told me to lock Hope in the mirror room. I was nothing but a servant’s child. Mariah promised that if I killed the last remaining heir of Thraxton her curse would be fulfilled. She would be restored, and I would rule at her side as Lord of Thraxton Manor.”

“Lord of the Manor?” Wilde said. “Shared with a dead harpy?”

“If I might drink from crystal goblets and dine on golden plates, I care not whether my bride is an angel from heaven or a demon from hell.”

Conan Doyle stepped forward into the light. “It’s too late for that, Seamus. You’re bleeding to death. I am a doctor. I can still save you.”

He scowled at the offer. “Save me for what? For the gallows?”

Seamus whipped up the pistol and squeezed off a shot that ricocheted off the stone flags in front of them. Stone chips sprayed, peppering their faces.

Seamus Kragan turned and ran, deeper into the crypt.

“Come on, Oscar,” Conan Doyle urged. “He’s bleeding out. In shock. Confused. He won’t be on his feet much longer. And the crypt has changed since he was a boy. He doesn’t realize he’s running toward a dead end.”

The two men hurried along, following the bobbing glow of Seamus Kragan’s lamp in the distance, their pounding footsteps ringing against the stone walls, kicking aside bones as they descended into the oldest and darkest recesses of the crypt. Finally they came upon Seamus standing at the edge of the black lake, staring into its heaving surface.

“So, I’m cornered,” he said in a choked voice. “Like a rat.”

“Surrender peacefully,” Conan Doyle said in a gentle voice. “You may yet escape the gallows.”

Seamus Kragan turned and it soon became obvious he was laughing, not sobbing. He held the revolver loosely at his side and now he raised it and aimed at the two friends. “I won’t be giving myself up to the likes of you two fools. I’m gonna be the Lord of the Manor. It is my Fate. Mariah has looked into the future.”

“You’re deluded, Seamus. You won’t be on your feet much—”

“
No!
You’re
deluded, Mister Conan clever Doyle!
” Seamus’s bellowing voice echoed on for seconds. A tremor rippled through his body—shock setting in. “I was twenty-two when I left Ireland and returned to London—a young man with no money, no education, and no trade. I fell in with a traveling hypnotist and became his assistant. He thought I was nothing more than another dumb Mick—a dogsbody. But I was young and crafty and I watched. Soon I learned his ways, stole his act, and went my own way. From there it was an easy move to spiritualism and false séances. The grieving are gullible victims, eager to surrender their life’s savings to speak one last word with the dead. To be comforted. To believe that life doesn’t end at the cemetery gate.” He cackled a laugh and Conan Doyle recognized who had struck him from behind and tossed him into Mariah Thraxton’s coffin.

“You are everything despicable,” Wilde said.

Seamus spat at Wilde’s feet. “We don’t all come from fine, high-born families like you, Mister Wilde. We may both hail from Dublin, but I grew up south of the Liffey, as you so correctly guessed. And aren’t we both pretending to be something we’re not? So don’t you judge me!”

The black lake at Seamus’s back gurgled and heaved, as if growing agitated.

“So I made a good living as a medium. And then one day, as I pretended to summon my spirit guide, damned if Mariah Thraxton didn’t answer the call. She reminded me of our talks in the mirror maze and promised that I would rule at her side as the Lord of Thraxton Hall. First I had to search Gallow’s Hill, find her coffin, exhume it, and release the bands binding her. Once I had removed the last living heir of Thraxton, Mariah’s curse would be fulfilled and she could return in physical form, as a revenant.”

Seamus released a laugh fraying at the edges into hysteria. The muzzle of the revolver lowered a half foot as his arm drooped beneath its weight. He was weakening by the moment, growing wobbly on his feet.

Conan Doyle shot a quick sideways glance at Wilde that asked:
Should we rush him?
But Wilde urged caution with a slight shake of his head.

“But I needed to kill Hope Thraxton in a very public way that would not cast suspicion on myself—or my mother. And then I chanced to read a story in
The Strand Magazine
. A story about a brilliant consulting detective named Sherlock Holmes. The author was a clever man of great cunning. And so I thought—who better to serve as murderer? How ironic! Obviously, I was disappointed when you proved a poor subject for hypnosis. But then Fate intervened again. You not only brought the murder weapon, but also conveniently supplied the murderer—your friend Oscar Wilde, a most suggestible subject. How can a jury convict me of murder? It was your friend who pulled the trigger. Two bullets in the chest at point-blank range. Before a roomful of witnesses.”