The Revenant of Thraxton Hall: The Paranormal Casebooks of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle by Vaughn Entwistle Page B

and he soon gave up. “I’m lost,” he muttered. “I don’t know how we shall ever find our way back to our rooms.”
    “I should have fetched a ball of twine,” Wilde moaned. “Or left a trail of bread crumbs. I fear we may wander these hallways until our clothes wear to rags. Where exactly are we going?”
    “To meet the other guests … in the parlor. Take note. We are solving a murder in reverse order: meeting the perpetrator before the murder is committed.”
    “What I am supposed to be looking for?”
    “I have no idea,” Conan Doyle admitted. “An individual of questionable character? A devious mind? A personality capable of murder?”
    “You have just described most of my critics.”
    They reached the ground floor, where Mister Greaves eventually led them into a large formal room brightly lit by a pair of giant gasoliers suspended from the ceiling. A suit of armor, ominous and threatening, stood on guard to one side of a fireplace made of huge fieldstones. The room was furnished in a mismatch of armchairs, love seats, fainting couches, chaise longues, cane chairs, and sofas of varying styles and eras, dragged in from different rooms to provide adequate seating for the guests, ten in number, who stood in knots, making conversation. Heads turned as the pair entered. As usual, Wilde drew the most attention, thanks to his greater stature and outlandish style of dress. The enormous yellow sunflower pinned to his lapel helped a good deal.
    “Ah, here is our famous author!” announced a man who broke from the clutch of guests he was chatting with and stepped forward to greet the two, his hand extended for a handshake. He was a man of advanced years with a mane of graying hair and a frizzy salt-and-pepper beard spilling down upon his chest. “You are Arthur Conan Doyle,” the man said, vigorously pumping the author’s arm. “I am very glad to meet you. I am Henry Sidgwick, current president of the Society.” He turned to Wilde, his face lighting up with recognition “And you are Oscar Wilde, the playwright!”
    “It is an honor, sir,” Wilde said, bowing slightly as he shook Sidgwick’s hand.
    “It is an honor for us !”
    “That is what I meant,” Wilde added, setting the group atitter.
    Sidgwick barked a laugh. “There’s that famous wit I’ve heard so much about!”
    “Yes, I have found that my reputation means I must always be witty. Should I fail to perform, I am instantly labeled as an aloof snob or a crashing boor.”
    The room laughed again, and the rest of the guests surged forward, suddenly energized to shake hands with the playwright whose fame in London society was exceeded only by his notoriety.
    “I do hope I did no wrong in inviting my friend along,” Conan Doyle put in quickly. “I know your original invitation was only to me, but Oscar is very much interested in the field of spiritualism.”
    “No!” Sidgwick gushed. “Not at all. Indeed, we are honored to receive the esteemed Mister Wilde as our guest!”
    Conan Doyle hung back as Wilde greeted each person with relaxed grace and good humor. It was in just such social situations that Wilde shone, while Conan Doyle fidgeted, ill at ease at being the center of attention. Plus, it presented an opportunity to study the other guests. Many he recognized from their photographs in the newspapers: the scientist Sir William Crookes, a tall spectacled man of middle years with white hair, a pointed white beard, and elaborately waxed mustachios (and whose breath smelled of top-drawer scotch); Madame Zhozhovsky, the Russian mystic, a lady in her eighties, squat and stout as Victoria herself, with penetrating gray eyes set in a face like an unrisen soufflé. She hobbled about the room on a walking stick made from a staff of gnarled hawthorn, accompanied, bizarrely, by a small monkey perched on her shoulder. To Conan Doyle’s great amusement, the monkey was wearing an embroidered waistcoat and had a tiny red fez perched atop its