Free Mr Scarletti's Ghost by Linda Stratmann

her gratitude for the invitation and the hope that she might be allowed to come again. Mrs Gaskin’s sturdy whalebones creaked and strained with the sincere humility of Mina’s appreciation.
    The excitement over, the company had in the meantime settled down to tea and conversation. Miss Eustace had withdrawn, or at least Mina assumed she had done so and not vanished in a puff of smoke, and Dr Hamid had arranged for Miss Whinstone to be conveyed to her home in a cab in the company of Mrs Bettinson. As Mrs Gaskin went to join her guests, Mina crossed the room to where the water glasses on the sideboard had been disturbed, but could see nothing to suggest how they might have moved without human agency. That part of the room smelt slightly of the candle and matches, but nothing more.
    ‘You are new to these gatherings,’ said Dr Hamid, appearing by her side.
    She turned and looked up at him. He was not at all discomfited by recent events and seemed to be the kind of gentleman that one could always rely upon to deal with any emergency without either fuss or self-aggrandisement. ‘Yes,’ said Mina, ‘my mother has taken a very great interest in them and I determined to come and see for myself.’
    ‘This is my third visit,’ he said, ‘and thus far all we have had was a great deal of noise and a few lights. You have been favoured with some unusual manifestations.’
    There was a hint of caution in his voice, a little doubt, perhaps, thought Mina, or at the very least a desire for further enquiry. Hopeful that she had at last met someone capable of exercising a proper sense of proportion, she was emboldened to make a frank declaration, if only to see what would be the result.
    ‘To be truthful, I am not sure of what I have seen and heard today,’ she said. ‘Certainly nothing I have witnessed has convinced me of the existence of mischievous spirits or of powers that extend beyond the human form, or the necessity of founding a new principle of science. If someone was to come to me and demonstrate that it was all a conjuring trick I would be neither surprised nor disappointed.’
    He was a little taken aback at the suggestion, but not repelled. ‘Miss Whinstone informed me that she recognised the shade of her late brother,’ he observed.
    ‘Miss Whinstone is in such a state of nervousness she would have recognised a mop wearing a false beard as her late brother,’ Mina replied, drawing a smile from the doctor. ‘And I for one do not accept Professor Gaskin’s reasons as to why the performance had to be held in the dark. If it had occurred in a bright light I would have been more willing to accept that there was something in it. For all his protestations, darkness is the best means of concealing a fraud, though how it was worked, I cannot say.’
    ‘I think you have the strongest nerves of anyone in this room,’ said Dr Hamid, ‘and as a man of science, I have to confess that I am still unsure of the foundation for these events, although I would not wish to offend our hosts by saying so.’ He slid one of the glasses on the sideboard across the polished wooden surface. It moved with barely a touch of his fingers.
    ‘Where there are simple rational explanations, I prefer them,’ said Mina, ‘and I am suspicious of anyone who professes to be in possession of a new truth for the good of mankind and then uses it to fill their purse or elevate themselves in society.’
    ‘I hope,’ he said, with an unforced humility, ‘that you will not see me in that light. I offer treatments for the afflicted, but I must also necessarily be a man of business, since we must all earn our bread or starve.’
    ‘You will not be surprised to know,’ Mina told him, ‘that I view all medical men with suspicion, and that is not from prejudice, but experience. I hope you are not offended but I must speak my mind on that point.’
    ‘Not at all,’ he said, gently, ‘and I can well understand what events might have led you to that