“I don’t know,” she answered. “The room was always dimly lit; I know how that works from setting up before they come. And putting the chairs right. They sat around the table. It’s perfectly easy to stay in the shadows if you want to. I always set the candles at one end only, red candles, and leave the gas off. Unless you knew someone already, you wouldn’t see who they were.”
“And there was one of these discreet people last night?”
“I think so, otherwise she wouldn’t have asked me to lift the bar on the gate.”
“Was it back on this morning?”
Her eyes widened a little, grasping his meaning immediately. “I don’t know. I never looked.”
“I’ll do it. But first tell me more about yesterday evening. Anything you can remember. For example, was Miss Lamont nervous, anxious about anything? Do you know if she has ever received threats or had to deal with a client who was angry or unhappy about the seances?”
“If she did, she didn’t tell me,” Lena replied. “But then she never talked about these things. She must’ve known hundreds of secrets about people.” For a moment her expression changed. A profound emotion filled her and she struggled to hide it. It could have been fear or loss, or the horror of sudden and violent death. Or something else he could not even guess at. Did she believe in spirits, perhaps vengeful or disturbed ones?
“She treated it confidential,” she said aloud, and her face was blank again, merely concerned to answer his questions.
He wondered how much she knew of her mistress’s trade. She was resident in the house. Had she no curiosity at all?
“Do you clean the parlor where the seances are held?” he asked.
Her hand jerked a tiny fraction; it was not much more than the stiffening of muscles. “Yes. The daily woman does the rest, but Miss Lamont always had me do that.”
“The thought of apparitions of the supernatural doesn’t frighten you?”
A flash of contempt burned in her eyes, then vanished. When she answered her voice was soft again. “Leave such things alone, and they’ll leave you.”
“Did you believe in Miss Lamont’s. . gift?”
She hesitated, her face unreadable. Was it a habit of loyalty fighting with the truth?
“What can you tell me about it?” Suddenly that was urgent. The manner of Maude Lamont’s death surely sprang from her art, real or sham. It was no chance killing by a burglar surprised in the act, or even the greed of a relative. It was acutely personal, driven by a passion of rage or envy, a will to destroy not only the woman but something of the skills she professed as well.
“I. . I don’t really know,” Lena said awkwardly. “I’m a servant here. I wasn’t part of her life. I knew there were people who really believed. There were more than the ones she had here. She once said that here was where she did her best work. The things at other people’s houses was more like entertainment.”
“So the people who came here last night were seeking some real contact with the dead, for some urgent, personal reason.” It was more a statement than a question.
“I don’t know, but that’s the way she said it was.” She was tense, her body straight-backed, away from the chair, her hands clenched on the table in front of her.
“Have you ever attended a seance, Miss Forrest?”
“No!” The answer was instant and vehement. There was harsh emotion in her. Then she looked down, away from him. Her voice dropped even lower. “Let the dead rest in peace.”
With sudden, overwhelming pity he saw the tears fill her eyes and slide down her cheeks. She made no apology nor did her face move. It was as if for a few moments she were oblivious of him, locked in her own loss. Surely it was for someone dear to her, not for Maude Lamont, lying stiff and grotesque in the next room? He wanted someone who could comfort her, reach across the grief of unfamiliarity and touch her.
“Have you family, Miss Forrest? Someone we could notify for you?”
She shook her head. “I had only one sister, and Nell’s long dead, God rest her,” she answered, taking a deep breath and straightening up. She made an intense effort to control herself, and succeeded. “You’ll be wanting to know who they were that came last night. I can’t tell you ’cos I don’t know, but she kept a book with all that sort of thing in it. It’s in her desk, and no doubt it’ll be locked, but she wears the key on a chain around her neck. Or if you don’t want to get that, a knife’ll break it, but that’d be a shame; it’s a handsome piece, all inlaid and the like.”
“I’ll get the key.” He stood up. “I’ll need to talk to you again, Miss Forrest, but for the meanwhile, tell me where the desk is, and then perhaps make a cup of tea, for yourself at least. Maybe Inspector Tellman and his men would appreciate it, too.”
“Yes sir.” She hesitated. “Thank you.”
“The desk?” he reminded her.
“Oh! Yes. It’s in the small study, second door on the left.” She gestured with her hand to indicate where it was.
He thanked her, then went back to the parlor, where the body was, and Tellman standing staring out of the window. The police surgeon had left, but there was a constable standing in the small garden, banked around by camellia and a long-legged yellow rose in full bloom.
“Was the garden door barred on the inside?” Pitt asked.
Tellman nodded. “And you can’t get from the French doors to the street. It had to be one of them already in here,” he said miserably. “Must have left through the front door, which closes itself. And the maid said she had no idea, when I first asked her.”
“No, but she said Maude Lamont kept an engagement diary, and it’s in the desk in the small study, and the key is around her neck.” Pitt nodded towards the dead woman. “That might tell us quite a bit, even why they came here. Presumably she knew.”
Tellman frowned. “Poor devils,” he said savagely. “What kind of need draws someone to come to a woman like this and look for the kind of answers you should get from your church, or common sense? I mean. . what do they ask?” He frowned, making his long face look forbidding. “‘Where are you?’ ‘What is it like there?’ She could tell them anything. . and how would they know? It’s wicked to take money to play on people’s grief.” He turned away. “And it’s daft of them to give it.”
It took Pitt a moment to adjust from one subject to the other, but he realized that Tellman was struggling with an inner anger and confusion, and had been trying to evade the conclusion that one of those he pitied, against his will, had to have killed the woman sitting silently in the chair only a few feet away, having put a knee in her chest as she struggled to breathe, choking on the strange substance clogging her throat. He was trying to imagine the fury that had driven the murderer to it. He was a single man, unused to women in other than a formal, police setting. He was waiting for Pitt to touch the body, reach for the key where he would be clumsy and embarrassed to look.
Pitt walked over and gently lifted up the lace front of the gown, and felt under the sides of the plunging fabric of the bodice. He found the fine gold chain and pulled it until he had the key in his fingers. He lifted the chain over her head carefully, trying not to disarrange her hair, which was absurd! What could it matter now? But only a few hours ago she had been alive, lit by intelligence and emotion. Then it would have been unthinkable to have touched her throat and her bosom in such a way.
He moved her hand out of his way, not that crushing it mattered. It was an automatic gesture. It was then that he noticed the long hair caught around the button on her sleeve, quite unlike the rich color of her own. She was dark, and this shone pale for a moment like a thread of spun glass. Then as he moved it became invisible again.
“What has this got to do with Special Branch?” Tellman demanded suddenly, his frustration hard in his voice.
“I have no idea,” Pitt replied, straightening up and moving the dead woman’s head back to the exact position it had been before.
Tellman stared at him. “Are you going to let me see it?” he challenged.
That was a decision he had not considered. Now he replied without thinking, stung by the absurdity of it. “Of course I am! I want a great deal more out of it than just the names of the people who were here last night. Short of a miracle, we’ll need to learn all we can about this woman. Speak to the rest of her clients. Learn all you can. What sort of people came to her, and why? What do they pay her? Does it account for this house?” Automatically, he glanced around at the room with its elaborate wallpaper and intricately carved Oriental furniture. He knew enough
