The Séance Has a Spare Detective

How it begins

The dead detective answered twice.

Clara left a space in her notebook between the voices.

The first came from the cabinet behind the medium. Low, rough, perfectly placed for the room's acoustics.

The second came from beneath the table.

It sounded annoyed.

"That isn't what happened."

Across from Clara, Arthur Voss opened one eye.

The medium's hands remained on the cloth. Clara had been instructed to watch them because a police stenographer was considered an unusually discouraging guest for a private séance.

The first voice identified itself as Inspector Hale.

So did the second.

Clara wrote both names.

Then she underlined the second.

The medium began breathing more heavily.

Arthur shifted in his chair.

"Perhaps one of you could provide your service number."

A woman near the window gasped.

Clara continued writing.

The voice in the cabinet supplied a number.

The voice beneath the table supplied an address.

Fourteen Grange Street.

"The woman in the back room," it said. "You ought to go before the fire."

The medium lifted one hand.

Every candle went out.

For a moment, the room contained nothing but the sound of expensive people trying not to move.

Then Arthur struck a match.

The cabinet stood open.

Empty.

The space beneath the table was occupied by six pairs of shoes and Clara's dropped pencil.

The medium asked for water.

Clara looked at her notes.

In the first voice's account of Inspector Hale's final case, one word had been wrong.

Bramble instead of Barlow.

She had made that mistake in a transcript three years earlier.

Only the police copy contained it.

Arthur read the address over her shoulder.

"Grange Street was demolished."

"All of it?"

He did not answer.

Outside, a bell began ringing from the direction of the old district.

Clara closed her notebook.

The medium watched the door rather than the cabinet.

That, more than either voice, persuaded Clara to stand.