Dagger Magic

He paid the bill and accompanied Julia back to the car to pick up his portable sketchbox, continuing on toward the photo shop when she had driven off in the opposite direction. When he collected his enlargements, he continued to the next cross street, where he managed to hail a passing taxi.

He gave the photos a cursory look in the back seat as the driver headed on cross-town to the railway station, but the enhanced detail suggested few further revelations. He closed the prints into his sketchbox as the taxi pulled into Central Station, for he had already spotted McLeod's black BMW standing at the curb, with McLeod and Adam waiting outside so he could spot them, conversing across the roof.

"You're very prompt," McLeod commented, as he opened the rear door for Peregrine and Adam got in on the front passenger side. "It's spot-on half past one."

"Just to show you that marriage hasn't addled my brain," Peregrine quipped. He gave the inspector a grin in the rearview mirror as he settled into the seat. "I figured I'd better be on time, or I might find myself stranded."

"No danger of that," Adam replied, leaning an arm along the back of the seat as McLeod and Peregrine buckled up. "Let's see those photos, so Noel can have a look before we head out."

Dutifully Peregrine produced the envelope containing the enlargements and passed them forward for his superiors' inspection. As Adam handed them one by one to McLeod, the expression on his aquiline face was thoughtful.

"Interesting, that these should come along concurrent with those shots from Carnage Corridor," he observed, with a sidelong glance at his Second.

"Carnage Corridor?" Peregrine echoed, as McLeod nodded his agreement.

"A case we've been working on in your absence," Adam said.

Briefly he summarized how their investigations had led them to become involved with Claire Crawford, directing Peregrine to pull the relevant photographs from his briefcase for comparison.

"It was her astral image appearing in the photographs that supplied us with the vital clue," he explained at the end of his short recap of the case. "Having seen these shots of yours, I'm inclined to think we may be dealing with a different manifestation of the same phenomenon. When we all get back to Edinburgh, it might be interesting to have you take a look at the accident site - though, with Claire just about sorted out now, I don't really expect you'll see very much. Still, one never knows."

"I'm not sure I'm with you," Peregrine remarked as he shuffled through the glossy five-by-eights with Claire's image circled in red. "You say these are pictures of this woman's astral self?"

"That's right." McLeod pushed the aviator spectacles farther onto the bridge of his nose and turned the key in the ignition. "Adam's got a theory about that, but I'd better drive while he explains. We're due in Dumbarton by two."

"Indeed," Adam concurred, as McLeod pulled smoothly into traffic. "As near as I can make out, Claire Crawford's astral presence registered on film because she was generating exceptionally intense emotional resonances at the time. It may be related to the way that ghosts sometimes show up on film."

"Are you saying I saw a ghost?"

"Hmmm, perhaps something more akin to the historical resonances you See when you draw. Going on that assumption, it would seem to follow that this monkish character in your photographs was likewise generating personal resonances of a similarly powerful magnitude, perhaps at the time he killed Scanlan."

"But - " Peregrine glanced at the photos of Claire, then at the ones Adam had handed back. "I don't understand. If you're right about all this, why is her image so distinct, and the image of this monk so misty? And for that matter, why couldn't I See him when I Looked?"

Adam arched an elegant eyebrow and partially turned back toward the traffic ahead as McLeod eased the car onto Waterloo Street, heading for the M8 motorway.

"I have no easy answer for you on that one," Adam said, "but I can speculate. Claire Crawford was acting unconsciously, and for that reason was obviously making no attempt to conceal her presence - hence the projection and transmission of a clear visual image. Your monk, on the other hand, seems to have been operating from behind a screen of psychic defenses, warded in such a way that no Sighted observer - such as yourself, Peregrine - could have perceived who he was. Who could have predicted that his personal emanations might register on some impartially sensitive medium like photographic film?"

"Your theory explains the presence of a ghost-image in my pictures," Peregrine agreed. "But it doesn't even begin to explain who and what this Oriental monk might be, or what he could possibly be doing hovering over the body of a dead Irishman in a survival suit."

"You think that's odd?" McLeod muttered. "Try explaining what either of them could possibly have to do with a German U-boat, supposedly sunk off the Irish coast during the final stages of World War Two."