Free Mr Scarletti's Ghost by Linda Stratmann Page B

that announced itself as ‘Hamid’s Indian Vapour Bath and Medicated Shampoo’.
    Brill’s new baths on East Street was a large and prominent presence in Brighton society, much favoured for pleasurable warm bathing, while offering the subtle suggestion that its waters induced a health-giving effect on the skin and organs of the body, but Dr Hamid’s baths were different. With mysterious unnamed and specially imported Indian herbs infused in its soothing vapours, it was thought of not so much as a fashionable venue for salubrious repose and dismissing the cares of the world, but as a place of resort for the treatment of diseases such as rheumatism. It was therefore much favoured by invalids, the elderly and the afflicted. Mina had been told – another of those private whispers – that if she went to Dr Hamid’s she need have no anxiety that she would be required to share a pool or a vapour room with another patient, as all treatments were given in individual compartments. When she had first been told this she had assumed that the confidence was intended to reassure her that she would not come into close proximity with anyone suffering from an unpleasant disease. On reflection she realised that she was actually being comforted with the knowledge that there would, when she undressed, be no one present who would gaze on her deformity. Mina thought that had she been a person much given to anxiety, which she was not, she would have other things with which to concern herself than whether another lady bather might catch a glimpse of her spine.
    As she approached the entrance door, she was surprised to see a familiar figure emerge, Mr Bradley. She was not especially inclined to speak to him, but was somewhat curious as to the reason he patronised Hamid’s, since it ran contrary to his claims to be a healer, and did not object when he tipped his hat and stopped for a conversation.
    ‘Miss Scarletti, are you here to take a vapour bath? I did not know you were a patient of Dr Hamid!’
    ‘This is my first visit, Mr Bradley, but I could say the same of you. I trust you are well?’
    ‘Oh, I am in the pink of health,’ he assured her, ‘but channelling the powers of the spirits at my healing circles can be very exhausting, and I find the vapour quite restores me. You may or may not know this, but herbs are often held to have beneficial properties.’
    ‘Then I must anticipate my bath with some pleasure,’ said Mina politely.
    He paused. ‘I trust that Miss Whinstone is fully recovered from her recent episode? She spoke to me at church and told me all that had happened. I was quite astonished.’
    ‘Miss Whinstone was so alarmed that she has become an ardent devotee of Miss Eustace and means to go again and have still more experiences that will frighten her from her wits,’ said Mina, who had been told this at very great length by her mother.
    He smiled. ‘And what did you think of the demonstration?’
    Mina was happy to express her suspicions and anxieties to her brothers and a fellow doubter like Dr Hamid, but if she had wanted to share them with another person, that person would not have been Mr Bradley. ‘I found it quite extraordinary,’ she said guardedly. ‘It was impossible for me to explain what I had seen.’
    He nodded knowingly. ‘I can see that you are also becoming a devotee; as most of Brighton will soon be, so I have heard.’
    ‘I can safely say that Miss Eustace arouses my very keen interest, and I shall be eager to see more of what she does, and learn more about her,’ said Mina.
    Mr Bradley seemed not to catch her meaning, but then she did not expect him to. ‘Would you be kind enough to advise your charming mother that I will call upon her to conduct the healing circle again tomorrow?’
    ‘I will certainly do so,’ said Mina, trying to look as if the prospect was one that promised enjoyment.
    They parted with the usual courtesies.
    Mina paused in front of the doors of Dr Hamid’s baths, but