The Japanese Devil Fish Girl and Other Unnatural Attractions Read online

  ‘And would you wish to speak with your dear ones again?’

  ‘Would that I could, sir. Would that I could. But these seance-callers and spiritualists are naught but a pack of rogues, to my thinking.’

  ‘And mine too,’ agreed the barker, calling the fellow forwards into the gathering crowd. ‘But within this tent sits a man who can speak with the spirits. A scientist of Christian worth and high moral rectitude. He learned his craft in a secret Government ministry – what think you of that?’

  ‘I think I would care to know more,’ said the fellow.

  ‘Macmoyster Farl,’ quoth the barker, making expansive circlings with his cane, ‘who learned his craft at the secret Ministry of Serendipity where he worked with a team of psychic prestidigitators who were engaged in contacting the dead with a view to extending the British Empire into the realm of the hereafter.’

  ‘Oooh,’ went the crowd, for this was a revelation.

  ‘Yes,’ cried the barker. ‘A revelation, is it not? And whilst on the subject of Revelations, Macmoyster Farl witnessed a seance where the intention was to invoke the Beast of Revelation also.’

  ‘My oh my,’ went some of the crowd. Others expressed themselves more crudely.

  ‘I must add,’ the barker added, ‘that that seance was a French seance.’

  Which caused the crowd to cheer somewhat and blow out raspberries too.

  ‘For a shiny penny, nothing more, my friends,’ the barker continued, ‘you may speak with Macmoyster Farl, who will intercede with spirits upon your behalf. If not entirely genuine and if not every question satisfied with an appropriate answer, your money will be returned to you. What have you to lose, when you have so much to gain?’

  ‘Count me in,’ cried the fellow who had lost both his Marys. ‘I will trust to the words of this eminent fellow. Here, take my penny that I might take a place to the fore of the auditorium before the crowd of hundreds marches in.’

  And with that he tossed his penny to the barker and vanished into the tent.

  George Fox did rootings in his pockets. It was probably all nonsense, he knew. Macmoyster Farl was most likely an impostor, claiming gifts he did not possess. But something was drawing George Fox in, into the tent. Something saying, ‘Come.’

  ‘Come, young master,’ called the barker to George. ‘My senses tell me that you are a young man seeking something. A young man with an itch he cannot scratch. Although not from lice, as I spy you as a clean ’un.’

  George did further rootings in his pockets. He brought to light a piece of string, a hunk of sealing wax, a half-eaten toffee that he really should have finished.

  And a bright and shiny, fine large copper penny.

  George turned this coin upon his palm and, ‘Count me in,’ he said.

  7

  As George entered the show tent auditorium of Mr Macmoyster Farl, ‘The Apocalyptical Examiner’, he became immediately aware of a number of things. That it was a large tent, easily capable of housing an audience of at least one hundred people. That it was a clean and freshly smelling tent and a cool one too. George blew breath from his mouth and saw it steam as on a winter’s day. Now how was that done? George asked himself. And another thing, too – George viewed the quality of the seating. Not your usual benches or bleachers here, but individual chairs and of excellent quality.

  George ran his hand along the back of one. Mahogany.

  To the front rose a stage all lit by new electric. A brass pulpit affair wrought with exquisite craftsmanship into the likeness of an angel, wings spread wide and holding an open book above her lovely head.

  ‘Quality,’ said George in a most approving tone. And he almost made that face again, but did not. Professor Coffin had told him, without uncertainty, that a career in spiritualism was not for George. And although George did not exactly hang upon the professor’s every word, or take each to be the truth of the Gospel, he knew in his heart of hearts that he did not wish to become a spiritualist’s barker, no matter how prosperous that spiritualist appeared to be. Spiritualism was, after all, to do with communicating with the dead, and communicating with the dead did amount to necromancy, no matter how politely you chose to put it.

  George took a seat three rows from the front; many more patrons were bustling in behind him. George folded his arms and glanced all about and wondered, quite rightly, exactly why he had entered.

  Had he felt a compulsion, a fateful compulsion? George simply shrugged and knew not. He would give it a quarter of an hour or so and if it was all a lot of toot and tosh, he would go off about his employer’s business, a penny lighter, but a wiser man.

  Within a few minutes all who were to be seated, were, the tent flap to the outer world dropped down and there was silence. It was an intense silence, a surprising silence considering the racket without. And it clearly had a profound effect upon those present. Toothless cacklings and drunken oaths dropped to whispers and died. George did further glancings around. There were fewer than thirty Rubes, including George himself. No great takings at a penny a piece. A meagre half-a-crown’s worth. And such fine furnishings as these?

  Then George’s thoughts, whatever they were and were about to become, were interrupted by mighty beatings on a gong. A voice – coming, George supposed, through a concealed voice-trumpet – stung the silent air.

  ‘My lords, my ladies and my gentlemen. Discerning and noble patrons, welcome to this Academy of Spiritual Science. He has travelled the inhabited worlds in search of esoteric knowledge. Consorted with the lamas of Tibet, the tribal hexmen of the Kalahari Desert, the monks of Parnassus, the ecclesiastics of Venus, the coenobites of Jupiter. Pythonesses, priests and pujaris have taken him into their confidence and passed on their arcane wisdom. He has daily congress with the Secret Chiefs of the Great White Brotherhood. He is the Ascended Master. He is Macmoyster Farl.’

  The audience, driven to deeper silence by this litany of metaphysical qualifications, were at a loss whether to now applaud, or respectfully steeple their fingers in prayer. So most just simply sat.

  Another intonation of the hidden gong, a fluorescent flash and here he was. Before the crowd, onstage by the brazen angel.

  George was most impressed by this dramatic entrance. The stage looked solid enough, no apparent trapdoors or springboards. A very neat trick indeed, thought George, and a mighty presence too.

  Macmoyster Farl was a most remarkable man. He was of a terrible tallness, a towering terrible tallness, and of a thinness too that hurt the eye to gaze upon. Of the fantastical costume that clothed him, George had never seen the like before. Surely these were the robes of a medieval wizard, adorned with Cabalistic characters, runes and cryptic symbols, wrought silver on a crimson silken background. And oh, of his turbaned headwear. The confusion and profusion of gemstones that speckled this outré bonnet. Chrysoprase and tourmaline and moonstone and jasper, ruby and sapphire and heliotrope. It was a rajah’s ransom and all on a single hat.

  And as to the face of this formidable figure, such a face it was. Bewhiskered with wild white mustachios that flared to either side of a visage so pinched and stretched of skin as to be scarcely more than a skull. But the nose was long and the eyes were bright and bluer than a turquoise to behold.

  Silence, only silence.

  Then he spoke.

  ‘Fellow travellers,’ he said, in a voice so deep of timbre as to be a further marvel, as it issued from so slim and fragile a frame. ‘I am amongst you to pass on the wisdom I have learned. To answer your questions no matter what they be. To speak on your behalf to loved ones on the other side and convey their replies, which are whispered in my ear, unto you. So, hold not to reticence or shyness, ask anything of me. Ask anything.’

  There was a further silence. As if a collective breath had been drawn in and held. At last a fellow spoke.

  ‘My Marys,’ said he, for he was the fellow who had lost his wife and daughter to consumption. ‘I would speak to them. I would know that they are at peace.’

>   Macmoyster Farl raised a long and twig-like finger and put its tip to his left temple. He closed his eyes and rocked gently upon his toes.

  And then he did something that caused a collective gasp to rise from the audience.

  He rose.

  Rose gently upwards, into the air, to hover there in defiance of the well-known law of gravity, a full ten inches above the stage. And all, it seemed, without wires.

  George looked on approvingly. This was worth sixpence on its own. He had at least got value for this penny.

  ‘Your daughter lies at rest in the paupers’ plot at Spitalfields,’ said he. Which caused the questioner’s head to bob up and down. ‘But your wife—’ Macmoyster paused, fluttering slightly in the air, as if caught by a gentle breeze. ‘She lies not within the bosom of soil which is our blessed home.’

  ‘What means this?’ asked the fellow.

  ‘Mars,’ the voice of Macmoyster boomed. ‘She was cremated on Mars.’

  ‘But that cannot be.’ The fellow rose from his chair and wrung his hands. ‘You are mistaken, you speak not of my Mary.’

  ‘Mary Harcourt,’ intoned the voice of Farl. ‘Born third of March, eighteen sixty-two. Died fifteenth of April, eighteen eighty-five.’

  ‘Upon Mars?’ The fellow shook his head again and again.

  ‘She is exalted in spirit.’ Macmoyster’s voice grew even deeper still. ‘Behold and I will bring her to you.’

  Then things, already odd enough, took an odder turn yet.

  The lights within the tent auditorium dimmed, Macmoyster Farl produced a lit candle from somewhere about his person and this presented the only light that there was.

  Now there came a soft and gentle whispering, so it seemed to be, of vespers sung. Or of a choir in a distant chapel, or might it be the angels? Or perhaps the cherubim?

  ‘My Mary,’ cried the fellow, as there on the stage a woman appeared, transparent, a ghost-like wraith. She wore white robes and a coronet of violets upon the languid tresses of her head.

  George’s eyes were all but popping from his head. He knew of the illusion known as Pepper’s Ghost – it was a well-loved, music-hall presentation. But it required a vast sheet of angled glass and a false lower stage with cunning light effects.

  This was none of that.

  The white-robed phantom raised a pale hand and spoke as from a great distance. ‘Shed no more tears for me, Johnny,’ she said. ‘I am part of the one which is all, now. I am at peace, be likewise.’

  With which she was gone. Of a sudden. Just gone.

  The electrical lighting returned to full force. The candle extinguished itself. Macmoyster Farl descended to the stage and folded his hands on his chest.

  Now as George knew well, a crowd can be a volatile thing to handle. One moment in your palm with seeming solidity, the next slipping through your fingers like quicksilver.

  The crowd’s response to the incredible spectacle that had just occurred could go either way, in George’s opinion. Thunderous applause, or screaming fearful flight.

  It was the latter. Indeed.

  The man who had lost his Marys led the way. He ran screaming from the tent auditorium, hotly pursued by the crowd. There were no calls for the return of their pennies but they had seen enough. Felt enough. Experienced enough. The crowd craved the dull safe reality of the outer world. The crowd made a mighty rush for it, overturning quality chairs, tripping over one another.

  Presently George found himself all alone in the tent auditorium. All alone but for Mr Macmoyster Farl, who stood all alone on the stage. George shook his head and offered a shrug. Though George’s mouth hung open.

  ‘Fiddle de, fiddle dum,’ said Macmoyster Farl, his voice now somewhat higher and nearer to the normal. ‘To use the current argot of the showmen’s world, it would appear that I “peaked too early and made a werry ’am-fist of a two-bob cert”.’

  George had no comment to make.

  ‘My first performance, you see,’ explained Macmoyster Farl, removing his gem-spattered turban to expose a baldy head. ‘I will have to pace the presentations more carefully, I feel.’

  ‘It is a remarkably accomplished act,’ said George. ‘The levitation was first rate and the ghostly illusion superb.’

  ‘Act?’ said Macmoyster Farl. ‘Illusion?’ said Macmoyster Farl.

  ‘Very impressive,’ said George. ‘And I speak as one who is in your profession.’

  ‘A medium? Yourself?’

  ‘A showman,’ said George. ‘Though no illusionist, me. I present an educational exhibit.’

  ‘Showman?’ went Macmoyster Farl, and his pale face grew steadily red. ‘No showman, I. All you saw and experienced was one hundred per cent genuine. Will you not believe the evidence of your own eyes?’

  ‘It was most convincing,’ said George, ‘but—’

  ‘But me no buts, young man. I have devoted my life to the metaphysical and I seek now to share the knowledge and wisdom I have attained. You saw that fellow’s Mary, did you not?’

  George now cocked his head upon one side. ‘Now wait,’ said he. ‘I think to detect sincerity in your words. Are you truly telling me that all I just saw was not the polished art of a master prestidigitator, but rather of a genuine mystic capable of communicating with the spirit world?’

  Macmoyster Farl bowed his baldy head and cradled his turban beneath his right arm. He put his long left finger to his temple and once again rose from the stage.

  ‘You,’ and the deep dark voice was back, ‘you, George Geoffrey Arthur Fox, zany to Mr Charles Milverton Snodgrass, who presents himself as Professor Cagliostro Coffin, would you know your future?’

  ‘Well,’ said George. ‘I don’t know,’ said George. ‘Charlie Milverton Snodgrass?’ said George also.

  ‘The book,’ boomed Macmoyster Farl. ‘The Book of Sayito will be opened unto you. You will find Her, young George Fox. Upon your shoulders will rest the future of the planets.’

  Macmoyster Farl took in a deep breath.

  George asked, ‘What do you mean?’

  But before that question could be answered there came a great hustling and bustling into the auditorium tent.

  ‘That’s him,’ a voice called out. And George Fox saw the policemen. They came in a fearsome company, big and bluely clad. And with them came two odd funereal-looking fellows, who appeared to be in charge of what was clearly an arrest. Two Gentlemen in Black were these, and George liked not the look of them.

  Macmoyster Farl was wrestled from the stage. Handcuffs were enclosed about his delicate wrists, and amidst much clamour he was dragged away.

  George looked on, agog.

  Macmoyster Farl’s voice called back to George. ‘The future will depend on you,’ it called.

  And George was left alone.

  But for a moment.

  One of the funereal Gentlemen in Black returned to the tent, leaned low and whispered into George’s ear.

  ‘Forget about all this,’ he whispered. ‘You saw nothing, you heard nothing. Do you understand?’

  George Fox opened up his mouth.

  A pistol clicked at his neck.

  ‘Nothing,’ said George. ‘I saw nothing and I heard nothing.’

  ‘Good boy, then.’

  And George was once more alone.

  Somewhat later and considerably shaken, George Fox left the tent auditorium. There was no sign of Macmoyster Farl, the fearsome policemen or the Gentlemen in Black. George Fox sighed and shivered.

  Then discovered, to greater distress, that Professor Coffin’s handcart had been stolen.

  8

  Professor Coffin was not best pleased at George’s return.

  He was not best pleased by the lateness of George’s return. Nor by the fact that George did not return in the company of the professor’s handcart.

  He did, however, take stock of George’s condition.

  George had an all-in look to him. A down-and-out and all-in look. Certainly George was exhausted physically. He had
dragged upon a wooden pallet, begged from the pharmacist, five cannisters of formaldehyde and ten of distilled water. Violet nosegays, to the number one hundred, and a pair of those new facial masks that were presently quite the thing amongst the surgeons of the London Hospital.

  Professor Coffin asked to be given his change.

  George forked it over with a shaking hand.

  Professor Coffin viewed his glum assistant.

  ‘What ails you, boy?’ he asked. ‘You have a sorry look to you and it’s not for the loss of my handcart.’

  George sat himself down upon the rear steps of the showman’s wagon and buried his face in his hands.