Free Murder Is Academic by Christine Poulson Page B

chapters. I’ll push on with it over the summer. And I’ve got a few weeks’ study leave in the Lent term next year. I’ve got masses of material, some of it partly written up. I’ve never quite been able to work out how to put it all together until now. It could be finished in the spring if I really go at it.’
    I flipped over the pages of Merfyn’s typescript, reading a sentence here and there.
    â€˜This looks absolutely fascinating. Didn’t people like Ruskin and Tennyson and Browning attend séances in the 1860s?’
    â€˜Absolutely right. They really took it seriously. Of course mediums were often exposed as charlatans, but not always by any means. Have you heard of the American medium, John Dunglas Home?’
    I shook my head.
    Merfyn leaned forward, clasped his hands between his knees and prepared to give me a little lecture. ‘He took London society by storm in the 1860s. The most extraordinary things happened at his séances; the room vibrated, objects flew about, people were chilled by cool breezes, music was produced by invisible instruments. On one occasion, reputable witnesses claimed to have seen him float in through a first-floor window.’
    â€˜Some sort of hypnosis?’ I hazarded.
    â€˜Perhaps. Or maybe some sort of superior conjuring trick.’
    Absently, I went on turning the pages. Hadn’t I heard him say something like this before? Something about a conjuring trick? When had that been?
    â€˜Actually,’ he was continuing, ‘in Home’s case, no one managed to prove that he was a fraud.’
    A picture was forming in my mind: Merfyn and I pausing on a threshold, about to move from the brightness of a sunny day into a dim interior.
    â€˜One has to approach all this with an open mind. Just occasionally, the evidence is extraordinarily compelling. In fact…’ His voice trailed away.
    When had that been? And what exactly had he said to me?
    Merfyn was asking me a question.
    â€˜What was that?’ I asked.
    â€˜I said, have you ever been to a séance, Cassandra?’
    I shook my head.
    â€˜You don’t believe that … well, that something of us could survive after death?’ he asked.
    â€˜I don’t say that exactly. But surely the whole spiritualism thing – mediums and séances – that’s all phoney isn’t it?’
    With an air of decision Merfyn sat up straight and said. ‘Can I confide in you, Cassandra?’
    Oh dear, I thought. When someone asks you that, it’s never really a question, is it? He scarcely paused for breath, before plunging on.
    â€˜That’s how my writer’s block was cured, Cassandra. At a séance.’
    â€˜At a séance?’
    My voice carried more disbelief than I had intended. Merfyn flushed.
    â€˜I might have known you’d react like this. Conventional academic thinking is so blinkered. Are you going to let me explain, or are you just going to shoot me down in flames?’
    â€˜OK, OK. All right, go on.’
    â€˜Look, I was desperate. I’d had so many false starts with the book, given up so many times, and then Margaret told me that I was jeopardizing the future of the department, so I had to produce something.’
    â€˜But why did you think going to a séance would help?’
    â€˜I thought I might begin the book with a description of a séance. I was as sceptical as you are. I thought it might be a way in, that’s all. To begin with, nothing happened. There were one or two messages for other people – breathtaking in their banality, to be perfectly honest. And then something quite different happened.’
    Merfyn narrowed his eyes in concentration, as if he was visualizing the scene.
    â€˜What?’ I said. ‘What happened??’
    â€˜The medium started groping around the table. One of the others seemed to know what she wanted. There was a pen and some paper in the middle of the