“Hm-hm.”
“I know you’re a walking encyclopedia of weird shi—stuff—and that you’ve… inadvertently helped close a few cases in the past.”
“Watch those compliments, Ron. I’m a married man.”
Ferguson drew a deep breath before adding, “It would save me a lot of time and resources if you would look inside the box and tell me what that thing is.”
“I have a consultation fee,” I said.
“And I have your husband’s still-unapproved request for next Monday off.”
“Are you blackmailing me?”
Ferguson shoved the mangled cigarette back between his lips and stared at me.
I huffed, turned to the box, and yanked open the flaps. I carefully removed an item that’d been thoughtlessly wrapped in a few feet of Bubble Wrap, and unwound the packaging just enough to reveal, on first glance, what appeared to be a clockface bolted to a slab of solid wood. I reached into my back pocket, tugged my magnifying glass free, and brought it close to read the inscriptions on the face.
Max leaned over my shoulder and said, “It looks like a clock and Ouija board had a baby.”
“That’s exactly what is it,” I murmured.
“What? Really?” Max asked.
“It’s a spiritoscope.”
“The fuck is a spiritoscope?” Ferguson interjected; more tobacco flecks sprinkled across his tie and shirt as he spoke.
“The layman’s answer: it was intended to disprove the validity of the Spiritualism movement in Victorian America,” I said.
“I don’t need the fucking layman’s explanation,” Ferguson snapped.
“Oh?” I looked at Ferguson and offered a saccharine smile. “I guess I’m used to people telling me to shut up and therefore have to consolidate an entire religious movement that lasted nearly a century, heavily influenced by sensationalism and the mass casualties seen during the Civil War and World War I, into a single sentence.”
“I want to hear more about it,” Max said with a sort of over-the-top enthusiasm clearly meant to be a jab at Ferguson.
“Do you?” I asked, just as fake.
“I sure do!”
“Well—” I began, adding a sort of dramatic, storyteller inflection to my voice, “Robert Hare, a once-prominent scientist from Philadelphia, set out to debunk the table-rappers of the 1850s by conducting a series of experiments with devices he called spiritoscopes.” I held up the item in question while adding, “This was one of several unique designs.”
Max crossed one arm over his chest and used the handle of the duster to tap his chin thoughtfully. “I see, I see. And did they disprove the movement?”
“They did not,” I said brightly. “In fact, Hare ended up converting to Spiritualism after becoming convinced of the mediums’ accuracy. He was shunned by the scientific community for the last few years of his life.”
Ferguson growled before spitting out, “How. Does. It. Work?”
“Hey,” Max chastised, motioning between him and me with the duster. “Respect the process.”
I dropped the bullshit pretense and countered with, “How did it manage to fool Hare? The same sleight of hand required to be a successful magician, I suppose. How did it work from a technical standpoint?” I looked around briefly, then told Max, “Hold out your hands.”
He tucked the duster into his back pocket and held them out, palms up.
I set the still-wrapped base in his hands and said, “Max is the table. The spiritoscope rests on its wheeled base, which allows it to move in a horizontal position—back and forth like this. The medium would rest his or her hands on this board, with the index—that’s the clock-like face—pointed away from them so they couldn’t read the results. As they moved the spiritoscope across the table, a system of pulleys—here on the side—caused this arrow on the index to move.” I picked the antique up and turned to face Ferguson. “It was thought that the spirits used the medium’s hands to spell out messages, or answer direct questions. See on the index, there’s the complete alphabet, zero through nine, as well as a few simple phrases: yes, no, think so, mistake, etcetera.”
Something in Ferguson’s expression had changed. I’m usually not very good at reading people—bad eyesight and all. I mean, if I’ve been around them long enough, consistently enough—like Max, my ex, my dad, my husband—then sure. I can definitely pick out nonverbal cues and surmise what they’re thinking. But Ferguson? I had no inkling, other than something about my explanation wasn’t sitting well with him. Like he’d eaten something sour and it was twisting his guts up.
I carefully rewrapped the spiritoscope and tucked it back into its box. “Where did you find—?”
