Ghosts by Gaslight - Jack Dann [20]
Angelos quickly stopped cranking the generator, holding up his hands with the palms out. “No one’s here, it’s all right, I promise you. No one’s speaking, not now.” He reached out to pat Vordran on the arm, a bit timorously. “Really, there’s no one.”
Vordran stood still, shaking his head heavily, like an exhausted animal. He said, “Not now. But there was. I heard. There were voices, more than one. None of you heard?”
Scheuch said, “No, nothing, I’m sorry,” and could not have said why he had apologized. Vordran continued to stare at Angelos. “You—you yourself—you heard nothing?” Angelos did not respond.
To everyone’s astonishment, it was Griffith who suddenly said, “I did.” Vordran wheeled to look at him in disbelief, and Scheuch jumped to his feet without realizing that he had done so. Only Angelos’s expression remained unchanged.
Griffith had the air of someone who had been shaken out of deep slumber, roughly and without warning. He said dazedly, “How did you do that?”
“What did you hear?” Angelos’s voice was clear and without any particular inflection, but it seemed to Scheuch at the time—though he was never sure afterward—that the medical student was smiling faintly. “Tell me exactly what you heard, Griffith.”
The Oxford man was plainly struggling to retain control of the tone that mattered most to him. Putting the words one after another, like a blind man finding his way down a strange street, he said hoarsely, “There were two of them. I couldn’t understand the woman . . . very faint, you know—rather think she was speaking French, some such.” Vordran nodded. Griffith said, “But the man . . . the man was speaking English, no doubt of it.” After a moment, he added, somewhat more himself, “His speech had a distinct Midlands accent.”
The room was completely silent. All that could be heard was Vordran’s breathing, slow as falling blood. Scheuch said finally, “Old chap, Angelos, I really think you ought to clarify things a bit. Elucidate—I believe that’s the word. What the devil is going on here?”
Angelos sighed. “I don’t know.”
“Not good enough,” Scheuch said, feeling himself flushing in embarrassment. “Really not.”
“How are you making those voices?” Vordran demanded. “Where are they coming from?”
“I don’t know, God’s my witness!” Angelos raised his voice for the first time. “I’d tell you if I knew!” He was alternately twisting his fingers together and hugging himself. “I don’t bloody know!”
Griffith said, surprisingly calmly, “You must have some notion, surely. Are they coming through your electro-thing? Those—what do you call them?—ah, wave things?”
Angelos opened his mouth and then shut it again. He stood silent, regarding the three of them with the air, not so much of an animal brought to bay, but that of a lost child in darkening woods. He said, “I think I can bring them in a trifle louder.”
Vordran said, “No,” but Angelos was already beside the generator, turning the hand-crank notably harder than he had done previously. He used both hands at first; then, as the copper disc picked up speed, he freed his left hand to lift the stethoscope and held the end out toward Scheuch, who took hold of it gingerly. Angelos gestured to him to fit the little rubber earpieces to his head.
At first Scheuch heard nothing beyond the hiss of the disc and an occasional tiny sputter of fluctuating electricity. Then, very slowly, a word, two words, at a time . . . a woman. This one, unlike the woman Griffith had heard, was plainly speaking in English, but Scheuch could make nothing coherent of what she was saying. “. . . Carrots . . . the minister . . . Martin . . . coal chute . . . Martin . . .” Her voice dissolved into crackle and buzz, and Scheuch looked up to meet Angelos’s inquiring gaze with his own wide eyes. He said, “I heard. Not quite sure what, but yes, I did hear . . .” In spite of himself,