The photographer had been engaged some weeks in advance, and he arrived at Hartfield House on an evening in late October 1884 with a quantity of apparatus and a boy. A grey cloth was hung across the end of the drawing-room; the lamps were banked low, as long exposures require; and the company was arranged in two rows and instructed, with great courtesy, to hold entirely still for the length of each plate. They did so. Whatever else may be said of that household, it holds still when asked.
The plates were made at eight, at half past eight, and at 9:00. Between the third and the fourth, the photographer withdrew to the pantry with his chemicals and shut the door behind him, and was there twenty minutes. In the interval the drawing-room stood in something very near darkness, the lamps being still banked for the work to come.
The company dispersed to the billiard-room. Lady Lavinia, who had sat in the second row for the group, asked to remain behind and be taken alone, in the character of a medium at her table; and Xerxes remained in his chair beneath the grey cloth, with Mabel the cheetah asleep across his boots. She had been fed at half past seven and slept through the whole of the sitting, and did not stir for anyone in the room.
At ten past nine Aziz came in with the coffee, found the room dark and the master not answering, put the tray down without breaking anything upon it, and went for Quill.
Xerxes Hartfield was in the chair beneath the grey cloth, quite composed, as though the exposure were still running and he had been asked once more to be good. His glass stood on the arm of the chair with half its wine still in the bowl. He had been dead perhaps a quarter of an hour when the household came back into the room, and he had the look of a man who had not been troubled by the fact.
Dr Tobias Quill, being present as a guest and also the parish coroner, gave his finding within the hour: a strong sleeping draught, taken in wine, in a quantity no man wakes from. The bottle of it was Quill's own dispensing, made up for Xerxes's insomnia, and it stood where it had always stood, on the sideboard in the drawing-room, where every soul in the house knew to find it. Xerxes slept badly and took his draught in wine at bedtime, never before; the whole household had watched him measure it out at midnight in that very room and count the drops aloud.
There was one glass only under the cloth, and it had been drunk from by two people. The tidemark showed twice, at two different levels, as a tide will show on a harbour wall; and on the far side of the rim from where Xerxes's mouth had been there sat a smear of rouge.
On his waistcoat the watch-chain was fastened as usual, and at his throat the Maharaja's Sapphire in its setting, untouched. Beside the draught bottle on the sideboard lay an empty velvet slip-case, open, from which the stone had been taken that evening to be worn for the plates. No door was forced, nothing was taken, and no hand was laid on him; the chair was not disarranged, and the cloth behind it hung straight.
The plates were developed the same night, and the photographer, who was a conscientious man, brought them through as they came. The first three show the company ranged in two rows, everyone accounted for, Xerxes seated, Mabel across his boots. The fourth shows the chair, the cloth, and Xerxes alone. The fifth plate shows the same — the chair, the cloth, Xerxes — and, at the very edge of the frame, a woman's skirt, blurred by movement, the only thing in six plates that did not hold still.
The house was full that evening and the house was busy. From about ten past eight, Wat and the Colonel were in the gun-room over a chart, in one another's sight until the alarm; the Colonel passed twice through the conservatory in the course of it, being loud on the subject of propriety and rather louder on money. In the conservatory, from just before half past eight, sat Effie with Cousin R, each vouched for by the other and by the Colonel's traverses — Effie much taken with the Sapphire, on which she had asked the value twice; Cousin R arranging the flowers, and the seating, with great care and no warmth. Gaunt walked the terrace in the rain from eight until nine, watched the whole time from the window by the photographer's boy, who had been sent out to mind the flash-lamp. From half past eight, Quill was in the library with the door open, writing a certificate for a fisherman's child, until Aziz came for him. Aziz himself was in the kitchen passage from a quarter past eight, grinding and setting the coffee, with two of the maids in and out. Lavinia was photographed at her table on the sixth plate at twenty past nine, after the alarm.
At Cruikshank Manor, some way off, Nan and the Swain twins passed the whole evening indoors, Fifi and Zane at the linen and Nan at her accounts, all three abed by ten and vouched for by the Manor's household.
Certain matters had preceded that evening, and are set down here in the order in which they occurred rather than the order of their interest.
Lady Lavinia came to Hartfield House four years ago with a trunk and no income. Xerxes pays her dressmaker, her printer, and her doctor, and has never once asked her for a shilling; she has no other roof and no relation in the world but her half-brother. Twice in the last month she had asked Xerxes for money and been refused — kindly, and on the stated ground that he settles her bills himself and will not put coin in her hand for the tables. On the Thursday she asked a third time, and he said no in front of Aziz.
Her takings from her seances had fallen away since Lent, and her printer had stopped her handbills for want of payment. On the Tuesday, Wat called upon her in her own room for twenty minutes; the maid who brought up the tray heard nothing through the door but the word owing, twice, and Lady Lavinia was afterwards ill and did not come down. Wat keeps his ledger in the Kittiwake's chart-locker, where the household's less printable arrangements are written out in a clean hand; against Lady Lavinia's name stands a sum of ninety pounds, advanced over two years, and the entry is marked called in with the date of that Tuesday. On the Wednesday, Gaunt informed his half-sister that if she could not settle her debts honestly he would lay the whole matter before the parish and see her seances stopped, and that he would give her until Sunday. On the Friday she wrote to a Glasgow house, asking the terms upon which they would purchase a private history of a Cairnholm family. The letter was not sent.
In her seances she has for a year told sitters that the spirits will not speak for nothing and require a gift; on the Thursday, at her table, she said aloud that they had asked for blood, and looked at nobody.
There is a closet on the second floor of Hartfield House to which Xerxes alone holds the key, and Lady Lavinia's room is the next door to it. Twice she has been found on the landing at three in the morning with a candle, and both times she said that she had been called there.
Of the rest, little enough. Aziz has been in the house eleven years and has no wages entered in any book; he wears a fez and no jewel of his own. The stone at Xerxes's throat was bought by Xerxes in Poona and given, and then given back to be worn on occasions, the household having been told it is an heirloom. Effie owes ninety pounds in Cairnholm and a good deal more besides, and has twice sent a note to Aziz asking to be shown the Sapphire in a good light. Fifi has three times had a proposal of her own making refused by Xerxes, and speaks of him with a bright, patient malice; the household expects her to try a fourth time.
The sixth plate was developed last. Lady Lavinia sits at her little table with her hands laid flat upon it, the grey cloth hanging behind her; and beyond her, at the edge of the light, the empty chair with a glass on its arm — all of it held perfectly still for the length of the exposure.