The Frankenstein Testament

At the cry of the Banshee, Lady de Lacy looked to the gap in the hedge where the night before the woman in white had disappeared. She screamed. The Death Fairy was back. Its long white dress billowed in the wind. Its face was hidden in the black shadows of its hood.

This sight was too much and Lady de Lacy sank to her knees, shaking her head, sobbing in abject terror, a long trail of drool dribbling from her mouth.

Suddenly, before her eyes, the figure of the woman in white seemed to distort, then she disappeared accompanied by the sound of shattering glass.

"I think we've seen enough of this nonsense." A commanding voice announced in a cultured Dublin accent.

From behind one of the hedges, a tall man dressed all in black appeared. He was middle aged, but lean and fit looking when most men of a similar age were relaxing into corpulence. His hair, which was completely white, was unfashionably long and tied behind his head in a pony tail. His face was clean-shaven. He appeared to have the Banshee by one arm and was dragging her towards Lord and Lady de Lacy. In his free hand he carried a blackthorn walking stick.

Lord de Lacy's chest pain seemed to miraculously vanish and his face now wore a wide grin.

"Allow me to introduce Captain Joseph Sheridan, my dear," he said to his wife. "He's one of those new detective fellows. He specialises in helping people with supernatural problems like ours."

Lady de Lacy still knelt, her face a mask of confusion. She looked pleadingly at her husband for explanation.

Captain Sheridan unceremoniously handed the "Banshee" over to Lord de Lacy.

"Get off me you fat old pig!" the evil fairy shouted in an irate tone that was far from supernatural. "You were supposed to die."

As she shook herself to try to get away from the grip Lord de Lacy's took on her arm her hood fell away to reveal a pretty young girl whose features were twisted with anger and frustration.

"Maria!" Lady de Lacy recognised her niece straight away. "What is the meaning of all this?"

"Maria has already told us the meaning of all this, Madam," Sheridan said. "The whole thing is an elaborate charade, designed to scare Lord de Lacy into a fatal heart attack. When she heard about the perilous state of her uncle's heart this young lady conspired to arrange all this."

"But what about the fog that crept out of the coach? I saw the Banshee disappear into thin air," Lady de Lacy protested. She was unwilling to accept her beguiling niece could be capable of such calculated malice.

"I did say conspired, Lady de Lacy," Sheridan continued as he walked towards the black coach with its ominous open door. "Those strange sights were all the work of Maria's accomplice. Right you. Out." He gestured to whoever was inside the coach.

A fashionably dressed young man emerged. He was pale and his eyes were wide with consternation and fear. In one hand he had a knife that he brandished before him.

"Don't get in my way," he shouted. "I mean it. I'm getting out of here and I'll stick this in anyone who tries to stop me."

Sheridan grasped the top of his walking stick. In one swift movement he pulled it and a long, thin blade emerged from the blackthorn stick. Sheridan levelled the sharp end of the sword-stick at the man.

"Don't even think about it, son," he growled. "I was twenty years in the army. I've stuck more people than you've had hot dinners and if don't drop that blade you'll be the next."

There was a second's hesitation as the young man locked eyes with Sheridan. What he saw there was grim resolution and an emptiness that suggested the detective meant what he said. He opened his hand, letting the knife fall to the ground.

"That's more like it," Sheridan smiled. His demeanour changing from dangerous to pleasant in the blink of an eye. "Maria may be pretty but she's spoiled rotten. Not really worth dying for. Lord and Lady de Lacy, let me introduce Patrick McAlister of the Theatre Royal in Dublin. It was this man's considerable talents at theatrical effects that produced your phantoms."

Sheridan reached into the coach and lifted out a bucket from which spewed forth white smoke. Coughing and wafting his hands to clear the air he set it down on the driveway.

"This, for example, is a bucket of noxious chemicals that produced the ghostly fog." Sheridan said. "The seemingly miraculous appearance and disappearance of the banshee was achieved by another theatre trick: A mirror and a light. The mirror was placed in the gap in the hedge. You were really looking at the reflection of Maria in her costume, not the real thing. When the light was shone on her, she 'appeared' in the mirror. When the light was switched off, she disappeared. When I smashed the mirror with my stick the trick no longer worked. You see, Lady de Lacy, your phantoms were quite literally just 'smoke and mirrors'."

"But what about the awful wailing?" Lady de Lacy asked. "And who shone the light on Maria? The theatre man was in the coach."

"Ah. The Third Musketeer." Sheridan grinned as he walked over to the hedge. "Out you come, Mrs. Doran. The game is up."

The de Lacy's old housekeeper emerged from behind the hedge. Her normal look of feigned obsequiousness had been replaced by an expression of undisguised hatred.

"I hoped you'd die you oul' bastard." She spat at Lord de Lacy.

"Stand back everyone." Sheridan announced and he lifted a sack from behind the hedge. The material bulged and writhed like it was alive. Sheridan opened the neck of the sack and threw it on the ground. Two tom cats leapt out. Their fur was torn, one's ear was little more than a ragged stump and the other had lost an eye. Free at last, both animals took off into the night, running as fast as they could in different directions.

"Two cats fighting in a bag," Sheridan said. "Whenever a chilling Banshee wail was required, your charming housekeeper here shook the sack or administered a swift kick to those poor beasts."

For a few moments, everyone simply stared at each other. Finally Lady de Lacy turned to her niece. "But Maria, why?"

"For the money of course," Maria said, her voice laden with venom and her bottom lip curled in an obstreperous pout.

"Indeed," Sheridan said. "Maria was aware that as you and Lord de Lacy have not been blessed with children, as your ward she stood to inherit a substantial sum on the death of your husband. Mrs Doran was easy to string along on the promise of a cut of the money. This young fool-" Sheridan gestured to McAlister, "-did it for love. His for her, that is, not the other way round. She'd have dropped him like a hot potato when she got the money and his talents were no longer needed."

"But this old fool had enough sense to hire your services, eh Sheridan?" Lord de Lacy said with grin that showed both how satisfied he was with Sheridan's work and how pleased he was with himself. "What do we do now?"

Sheridan stuck two fingers into his mouth and whistled. Two burly men in the uniform of the Dublin Metropolitan Police emerged from their hiding place in the hedgerow. "What's next is up to you, Lord de Lacy," he shrugged. "I brought along two constables in case you want to press any charges. I'm sure there's some crime to answer for here, beyond mere selfishness. If it was up to me I'd disinherit her, sack her and let this fool go." He pointed at Maria, Mrs. Doran and McAlister in turn.

"Great night's work, Sheridan," Lord de Lacy said. "Can I offer you a nightcap?"

"Thank you, but no," Sheridan said. "I'd like to get home before morning, so if you could have my horse brought round?"

"No problem at all, Sir," Lord de Lacy replied, helping his wife to her feet. "I shall send your fee in the morning."