It was silent in Miss Copperwaite’s bedroom. Weak moonlight trickled in from the tall, thin windows, barely illuminating her as she lay in her catatonic state. The door began to creak open and a figure came in quietly. The figure kept to the shadows and looked down at the supine form of Miss Copperwaite.

“You cannot wake, and I cannot sleep,” said the figure. “I keep seeing that man whenever I close my eyes. The terror on his face. And it was my fault. All my fault. What is it, this terrible thing?”

Marie stepped out of the shadow.

“What is this mesmerism?”

She gasped.

“I knew it!” she said, staring at the bed.

The figure of Miss Copperwaite began to rise slowly out of the bed. She made one slow lurching circuit of the bedroom before heading to the window. Suddenly she slumped forward, her hands just inches from the floor. She grabbed the bottom of the sash window and stepped back, pulling it up. Then she placed one hand on the low window ledge. Miss Copperwaite continued to stare blankly as her hand felt around the ledge. Eventually it found some pieces of paper and brought them into the room. She walked clumsily to a desk, sat down and opened a drawer. Again, her hand acted alone as she stared ahead, producing a pen. The hand wrote quickly on the bits of paper, finishing each with a flourish. Then Miss Copperwaite gathered the papers in her hand, and walked back to the window. She put the papers back outside, closed the window then lumbered back into bed.

Marie watched all of this in silence from the shadows. When Miss Copperwaite was back in bed, Marie went to the window. She could see a figure, a short man, scurrying away in the distance. The papers were gone.

Marie carefully open the window again and put her hand out. The ledge was low enough that she could touch the ground, and she picked up a small stone from outside. She brought the stone up to her lips, kissed it lightly and said, “vivre”. Then she held her hand flat.

The stone started to shake a little, then small cracks appeared on its side. There were three cracks on each side and from each a tiny leg came out. Then two cracks appeared at the front and two antennae appeared. The stone insect walked around Marie’s hand a few circuits, trying out its new legs.

“Little one,” said Marie, “I have a job for you. You will be a stone again in a little while, and you will wait outside the window. A man will come in the night and come to this window. When he leaves, you will follow him and then come back to me. Then you will show me where he goes.”

The insect walked around a bit more then seemed to nod. Marie put it gently on the ground. The legs and antennae curled back into the stone and it was normal again. Marie shut the window and stared outside for a while.

“I will find you, you monster,” she said, then quietly left the room.

The Mancunian Mesmerist: Chapter 9

Sir John and Marie both looked silently at their menus as they sat at a table for three in the pleasant restaurant. It was Marie who broke the silence first.

“I keep thinking about that poor man,” she said.

“Yes, it was a shame about that chap. I do hope he recovers,” said Sir John, “but we really weren’t to know. We merely asked him a couple of questions, it’s not like we twisted his arm or anything.”

Marie looked back down at her menu again.

“Still, the maid is coming soon,” said Sir John. “Perhaps we’ll get some information from her.”

“If we don’t kill her too,” said Marie, still looking down.

“And I saw this poster for some chap called Herringbone-Stove. He had a talk on you-know-what a couple of weeks ago. I think I’ll try and track him down too. We’ll get to the bottom of this,” said Sir John cheerily.

The maid from Miss Copperwaite’s bedroom appeared wearing her Sunday best.

“Good evening your highnesses,” she said somewhat nervously and stood behind the vacant chair.

Sir John stood up quickly.

“Please, Miss…” he started.

“Harper,” said the maid. “Mrs Harper.”

“Please, Mrs Harper, take a seat. Thank you for coming, and for your discretion,” said Sir John. “We wanted to talk to you after you mentioned to us… in the room… about… you know.”

“You mean about…” said Mrs Harper.

A waitress walked past with a tray with several bowls of soup.

“Probably best not mention it,” interrupted Sir John. “But please, we’d like to know why you said what you said.”

Mrs Harper looked at the menu in front of her.

“Oh, my… These prices are a little dear for one on my poor income,” she said. “I could barely afford a bread roll.”

“We’ll pay,” said Sir John. “As a thank you.”

“You’re very kind!” said Mrs Harper. “Now, our story begins just over a year ago. I was maid to Miss Copperwaite around that time, and she often confided to me her most innermost thoughts and secrets. Mostly it was sentimental tosh, but she had some unusual interests. She believed that art and religion could raise the common man and woman out of the poverty of their existence. She meant spiritually, of course. I don’t think she was that bothered about raising them out of their actual poverty.”

“I see,” said Sir John. “What manner of interests did she have?”

“May I take your orders?” said a waiter.

“Oh, I’ll take the soup,” said Sir John.

“And also me,” said Marie.

“I’ll have this, and this,” said Mrs Harper, pointing to the menu, “and one of them.”

The waiter left, and Mrs Harper continued her tale.

“She started an organisation that was trying to share art with people. Free galleries, art on a horse and cart, music down those telephonic devices, that sort of thing. Well, it seemed to me to be a great way to throw money away. I had to remind her that most impoverished people don’t have telephonic devices, for example. But she also got involved with what you might call new-fangled religions. Or what my father might have called utter codswallop. She went from group to group until she met this one man. She said he was the real thing. That he had powers.”

“Two soups,” said the waiter to the Jennings’, then turning to Mrs Harper, “and your lobster. The caviar is here in the bowl, and the bottle of champagne should be arriving shortly.”

“We’ll Pay”

“Oh, very nice,” said Mrs Harper. “Very kind of you, Sir Jenkins.”

“You’re, er, welcome,” said Sir John, a little flustered. “Perhaps you can tell us about this man?”

“She’d always meet him at the theatre, he had a box there, said he told her all sorts of things that she couldn’t tell anyone about,” said Mrs Harper.  “Then one night she went to his home. That night, she came back and went to sleep like she is now. The one thing she told me was the name for what he could do… Mesmerism!”

Sir John gasped. He waved a hand in front of his open mouth.

“This soup is rather hot,” he said. “Be careful Marie, dear. Mrs Harper, do you know the name of this mysterious gentleman?”

“That’s the funny thing,” said Mrs Harper. “You know, she told me many a time and not once did I remember his name.”

The Mancunian Mesmerist: Chapter 8

The dressing room was damp, cold and filled with mismatched furniture. A dusty mirror sat on a cluttered desk next to a chair piled up with clothes. The room was silent.

Suddenly the door handle rattled and a muffled voice came from outside.

“Locked,” said Sir John. “Looks like our luck has run out.”

“Let me try,” said Marie. There was a pause and something muttered in French. The door handle turned and the door swung in. Sir John and Marie went into the tiny room.

“How did you do that?” said Sir John. “I was sure it was locked.”

“Oh, it turned the French way,” said Marie absently. Sir John immediately lifted his modified opera glasses and moved around the miserable room.

“No-one!”

“Nothing, nothing,” he muttered. “It’s the same as before. It seems like anything paranormal was coming from that box. Perhaps we should go and look there.”

“It might not be safe to confront something powerful,” said Marie. “We should look around here first and get some clues about this thing of mind control.”

“Mesmerism,” said Sir John and Marie let out a gasp. Sir John turned to look, and saw she was surprised by the stage mesmerist. He had come into the room without making a sound.

“Can I help you?” he said, a half smile on his face. “I’m afraid the show has finished and you’ll have to leave.” He waved his hand quickly in front of his face, his eyes not blinking. Sir John continued to stare through his opera glasses and came close to the man. He stared intently through them at the man’s face then down his body to the hand he had just waved.

“Fascinating,” said Sir John. “You’re utterly normal.” The mesmerist looked crestfallen.

“Who are you?” said the mesmerist. “There’s supposed to be a man to stop people getting back here.”

“We had a bit of luck there in that he didn’t notice us,” said Sir John, who had gone round the back of the man and was examining his hat. “Can you tell us how you do it?”

“The show? No I cannot, it is a trade secret of mesmerists. I am sworn to the darkest of oaths. It would be more than my mortal soul is worth to whisper even a scintilla of the craft.”

“…and, you’re not really a mesmerist, are you?” said Marie.

“I say!” said the mesmerist, whose sinister aura was evaporating by the second. “That’s a bit much.”

“Can you tell us about who is in the box?” asked Sir John. The mesmerist looked shocked.

“Look, steady on. Blimey, you’re a strange pair, aren’t you. Chaps gotta earn a crust you know. We can’t all be, you know…” he indicated Sir John.

“Dire,” whispered Marie. The man gave a sigh, his shoulders sank and he spoke.

“The man in the box is…” Then he stopped suddenly, stood up bolt upright and said, “There was no-one in the box.”

“I’m sorry,” said Sir John. “That was a little confusing.”

The mesmerist’s shoulders slumped again and he said, “The man in the box is…” then he stood bolt upright as before.

“There’s no-one the box.” He face convulsed and twitched. “No-one in the box. No-one. No-one. No-one…”

Marie and Sir John backed away and out of the room as the man kept repeating the words over and over, a trickle of blood falling from his nose.

The Mancunian Mesmerist: Chapter 7