few of the old guard trusted them. “That’s right. Any more questions?” Frank added in a tone that said there better not be.
“No, sir. I’ll get Donatelli for you.”
Frank sighed and went back into the room where the body still lay. He’d done no more than glance around the first time to see who the victim was. He’d been in too much of a hurry to get Mrs. Decker out of sight.
The ward detective who’d been called to the scene first was still in there, waiting for Frank to finish with “Mrs. Brandt.”
“How’s the lady doing?” he asked politely.
“She’ll be fine,” Frank snapped, walking over to get a better look at the body.
“We already sent for the medical examiner,” Detective Sergeant O’Toole informed him.
Frank nodded. He hunkered down next to the woman. She looked to be middle-aged. Nothing unusual about her. Well dressed. She’d apparently been sitting in one of the chairs, and someone had slipped a stiletto between her ribs. He couldn’t see the blade, but he could tell by the design of the handle protruding from her back that it would be long, thin, and diamond shaped with a needle-sharp point. The kind of knife made popular by the Italian secret society, the Black Hand. Her body lay as if it had just slid off the chair of its own weight. When he touched her hand, it was only slightly cool and still flexible.
He pushed himself back to his feet and turned to where O’Toole still waited. “What do you figure happened here?”
“Can’t get much sense out of those people in there,” he said in disgust, nodding toward the front room, where the seance participants had been gathered. “Something about talking to ghosts or something.”
“Spirits,” Frank corrected him. “They were sitting around the table holding hands or wrists or something?”
“That’s what they said. Six of them, including that girl they call Madame, although she ain’t like no madam I ever saw.”
“In the dark,” Frank said.
“So they said.”
“Close that door,” Frank said. “Let’s see how dark it really is.”
O’Toole closed the door. He had to use some force. It fit very tightly in its frame. Frank reached up and turned off the gas jet.
O’Toole swore softly. “Can’t see my hand in front of my face.”
He was right. Whatever happened here, no one else would have seen. “Open the door.”
Frank found a match and lighted the gas again. He looked around once more, this time taking in all the details of the room. “There’s no window in here.”
“No,” O’Toole confirmed. “This here’s a false wall.” He indicated the wall opposite the door. “There’s a space about four feet deep between it and the outside wall of the house. Looks like that’s where they store stuff. A lot of junk in there.”
A large cabinet sat against the false wall. “What’s in there?”
“Nothing,” O’Toole reported. “Just an empty cabinet.”
Frank wondered why they had an empty cabinet in the room, but before he could figure it out, he heard a woman start to scream hysterically. Muttering a curse, he went back out into the hallway and into the front parlor. The cops O’Toole had set on guard were just staring helplessly as one of the women was having a fit. Frank had half expected it to be the young one, the spiritualist, but it was the other one. She was a woman about Mrs. Decker’s age and dressed like she had money and lots of it.
The girl was talking to her, holding her hands and trying to calm her down, and by the time Frank got there, she wasn’t screaming anymore, just sobbing uncontrollably. The door to the office opened and Mrs. Decker stuck her head out. Naturally, she’d want to see what was going on.
“Get back in there,” he commanded her in a voice very few people had ever disobeyed.
Her eyes widened in surprise, but she had the good sense to do what he told her. Everyone in the front parlor had looked up when he shouted at her. The three men who had been waiting there instantly all began talking at once.
“See here, you can’t keep us here like this!”
“I have an appointment this afternoon!”
“What’s going on? I have to see Mrs. Gittings!”
“Quiet!” Frank shouted, and they all fell silent, even the hysterical female, who looked absolutely terrified. “I’ve got to ask each of you a few questions, and then you can go. Is there another room where I can meet with you in private?”
“The dining room,” the tall man who’d wanted to see Mrs. Gittings said.
“Do you live here?” Frank asked.
“Yes, I… I work for Madame Serafina. I’m Professor Rogers.” He was very pale and he was clutching his hands together in front of him, as if trying to keep them from trembling.
“I’ll talk to you first,” he said, indicating the hysterical woman. “And then you can go home.”
“But I don’t know anything!” she protested tearfully. “I didn’t see anything. None of us did.”
“Then it won’t take long for you to answer my questions,” he said reasonably. “Come along.”
“You’ll be fine,” the young woman assured her. She seemed very calm for having just witnessed a murder, Frank thought.
The older woman rose uncertainly.
“Come with me, please, Mrs. Burke,” the Professor said, and he escorted her out into the hallway toward the room where the dead woman lay.
She balked, but he took her elbow. “This way,” he said, and steered her toward the room across the hall. Sliding pocket doors led to a large empty room. Dust motes danced in the sunlight streaming through the large windows. Plainly, Madame Serafina had felt no need for formal dining. A chandelier hung forlornly from the center of the ceiling. It was an old one that had been converted to gas. Fortunately, the sunlight made artificial light unnecessary, at least in here.
“Get some chairs, will you, Professor?” Frank said.
He disappeared and returned with two straight-backed chairs that he’d probably fetched from the kitchen. O’Toole wouldn’t have let him into the seance room. Then the Professor closed the doors behind him and was gone.
Mrs. Burke sat down on one of the chairs, and Frank placed the other so he could face her. “I know this has been a shock, Mrs… I’m sorry. What was your name?”
“Mrs. Burke,” she said, her voice a little steadier. “Mrs. Philip Burke.”
Frank pulled a notebook and pencil from his pocket and jotted it down, along with the address she gave him. She was a near neighbor of Mrs. Decker’s on the Upper West Side and a long way from home down here on Waverly Place. “Tell me what happened or at least what you remember happened.”
“Where shall I start?”
“Right before Mrs. Gittings…” He made a vague gesture with his hand.
She nodded and drew a steadying breath. “We were sitting around the table.”
“In the dark, I know. Holding hands. Talking to the spirits.”
“That’s right,” she said with some surprise.
“Who were you holding hands with?”
“Not holding hands exactly,” she corrected him. “We hold each other’s wrists. Madame Serafina was holding mine and…” She had to stop and swallow before she could finish. “And I was holding Mrs. Gittings’s.”
Frank nodded encouragingly. “And what was happening just before you noticed something wasn’t right with Mrs. Gittings?”
She gave a little shudder and for an instant Frank was afraid she would start screaming again, but she got hold of herself and went on. “Mrs. Decker was… Oh, dear! I mean, Mrs. Brandt…”
“I know who Mrs. Decker is,” Frank told her. “I won’t tell anyone. Go on. What was Mrs. Decker doing?”
“She was trying to get her daughter to speak to her.”
“Her daughter?” Frank echoed in surprise, wondering why Mrs. Decker would need a seance to talk to Sarah.
“She has a daughter who died,” Mrs. Burke clarified. “She wanted to contact her.”
