Chapter One, Part Five; Chapter Two, Part One
Mister Sullivan's Mistake; Complete and Total
Mister Sullivan’s Mistake
Unperturbed, Sullivan turned and, with a gesture, invited us into the apartments. The three of us followed Mr. Sullivan as he led us from the foyer and down a brief, finely wallpapered hallway, and into his séance parlor—a small yet opulent room with silk wall coverings and richly carved moldings and wainscotings. Heavy black curtains covered the two windows that would have shown into the building’s courtyard, and a plush oriental carpet, woven of deep burgundy and midnight-blue threads, muffled our footfalls as we took our places around the table.
Candles, not gas, lit the summoning room, while heady incense smoked from three small braziers, presenting an air of exotic mystery. A heavy crystal sphere squatted at the center of the black tablecloth like a pale September moon grown small.
When we were seated at Mr. Sullivan’s table—me to his left, the professor to his right, and Morgan, still squinting with a wary eye, directly across—Mr. Sullivan asked that our hands be joined. There were no questions, for Sullivan claimed to need no information about his subjects: the spirits that followed us would tell him all he needed to know.
After a moment of stillness, when the four of us sat quietly as stones and our breathing fell into a common rhythm, Mr. Sullivan began his recitation.
Sullivan’s fabulist techniques were skilled and well practiced. I soon found myself being carried off by his incantations, imagining that the room was filling up with the shadowed spirits of those who had gone before us. I suspected that Morgan was feeling the same quiet thrill of the unknown as I, for I felt his grip on my fingers slacken.
More probably, Morgan was simply pretending, for while the professor had to repeat his call of “It’s a sham!” for it to reach my ears, Morgan was on his feet in a heartbeat, his chair crashing to the floor behind him with such force that the ornately carved back split in two.
That was but the first of Mr. Sullivan’s possessions that Morgan destroyed.
As I mentioned previously, confidence men are criminals, and while Sullivan and his colleagues may have put off other dissatisfied customers with pleasantries or, in a few extreme cases, by threat, Professor Quay’s excited shouting, joined with Morgan’s sudden action, quickly brought out the worst in our hosts. Instantly, three of Mr. Sullivan’s associates entered the room, while Sullivan himself drew a small silver revolver from his pocket.
As I have said, such violence is always a risk when dealing with confidence men and, since the inclusion of “Savage” Morgan in our group, always a mistake on their part.
The sound of the breaking wood cleared my head, and I heard the professor announce that the room was being infused with some type of hallucinogenic agent. Our later examinations, conducted back at the professor’s laboratory, would reveal that the incense burners had been spiked with an opium derivative blended with more appealing agents to obscure the odor. My disappointment at the discovery of yet another fraud was both acute and short-lived: it is difficult to linger in a state of disillusionment whilst diving for cover, arms held high to shield my head from bullets and debris.
A genius at close-quarters fighting, Morgan was well prepared for Sullivan’s revolver and the appearance of his colleagues. The encounter was over in an instant, save for the shouting and the arrival of the police.
Chapter Two - Complete and Total
Mr. Sullivan began the shouting. “Your man did this,” he bellowed at Professor Quay, his clear, sonorous inflection now fused with a fiery Irish accent as his temper seared away all showmanship, “with his HANDS!” He threw his arms wide to encompass the grand ruin that had once been his parlor.
Groggy from the narcotics and well aware of the hazards of being too near Morgan when his blood was up, I had hidden beneath a side table and kept my head down until the ruckus had ceased. Surveying the place now, Mr. Sullivan’s frustration was easily understood: the room was a complete and total disaster.
The furniture had been smashed to kindling, the ornate crystal lamps shattered. A plaster wall had been torn down, and another interior wall made of brick had been stove in. The well-carved parlor door I had noticed upon entering now bore a neat, round hole where Morgan had hurled Sullivan’s crystal ball with the force of a six-pound gun.
In the corner near the fireplace, the leg of Mr. Sullivan’s butler was visible beneath a pile of bricks. The rest of him was completely obscured by debris, and there was some question as to whether Morgan had left the man alive. Sullivan’s other two conspirators had been hefted by Morgan and tossed through different windows. They were either still lying insensate in the courtyard or had recovered and run off.
Morgan had not touched Mr. Sullivan, other than to relieve the man of his revolver.
He had done this so forcefully that when the plaster dust and gun smoke had cleared, the handle of the pistol could be seen jutting from the plaster of the south wall, like a gas lamp that had been installed upside down.
Now, in the aftermath, Mr. Sullivan hurled insults and indignation at us, but Professor Quay made no reply. Rather, he stood mute, his small, chubby hands resting lightly on his belly with thumbs hooked casually into the watch pockets of his vest.
To an observer less well schooled in the professor’s manner, it might seem as if he were unaware of the rage being directed at him, but I noted the subtle way Professor Quay held most of his weight to his left side. There was a bullet forever lodged near the bone of the professor’s right shoulder. The wound had healed, but the professor would carry the slug to his grave. As his physician, I knew its presence to be a constant irritation to him. His awareness of the injury increased, I also knew, when he was agitated or felt threatened.
Morgan, for his part, rested on an ottoman that had somehow escaped the general calamity. There was blood on his knuckles and a mad, measured look in his bright blue eyes.
He sat with his palms on his knees, shoulders thrust forward, broad chest swelling with each deep draught of breath he drew in. His vest and blouse had been torn from him in some stage of the struggle, so Morgan wore only his undershirt; his hairy shoulders and arms bleached white with plaster dust. Somehow, his rather dandyish coiffure and handlebar mustache had remained intact, although they, too, were covered in dust.
Morgan’s expression said that he was happy to sit for now, but should Mr. Sullivan give him cause to rise, the man would need a true medium for his complaints to be heard in this world.
Thank You for Reading
Part Six Posts Wednesday November 26th