Murder On Waverly Place

She seemed to have recovered from her fit of weeping.

“Did you sense anyone moving around in the room?” Sarah asked. “Maybe you thought it was a spirit.”

“I don’t know,” she said with a worried frown. “Everyone was talking at once, and with that horrible screeching noise, I couldn’t understand anything.”

Ah, yes, Nicola’s violin. “Mother, did you sense anyone moving around in the room?” Sarah suddenly thought to ask.

Mrs. Decker thought for a moment. “I’m really not sure. If someone was very quiet, I don’t think anyone would have noticed them, with all that was going on.”

“But who could have been moving around?” Mrs. Burke asked plaintively.

“The person who killed Mrs. Gittings,” Mrs. Decker said.

Mrs. Burke’s eyes widened again, and the little color left in her face drained away. “Oh, dear.”

“Of course, we don’t know that anyone was walking around,” Mrs. Decker hastened to explain. “But the Professor seems to think the killer was a boy who worked at the house.”

“He does?” Mrs. Burke asked, perking up a bit. “Why does he think that?”

“Because they had an argument the night before, and Mrs. Gittings tried to fire him.”

“She was a terrible woman,” Mrs. Burke reminded them. “But if they had an argument, why didn’t she fire him?”

“Madame Serafina threatened to leave with him,” Sarah said.

“Why would she do that?”

“They were childhood friends,” Mrs. Decker quickly explained, giving Sarah a warning glance. It wouldn’t do to create doubts about Madame Serafina’s character.

“She’d had an argument with the Professor, too,” Mrs. Burke said.

Sarah and her mother looked at her in surprise. “Madame Serafina had a fight with the Professor?” Sarah asked.

“Oh, no,” Mrs. Burke hastened to explain. “At least, not that I know of. I meant Mrs. Gittings had an argument with him.”

“How do you know that?” Mrs. Decker asked.

“Couldn’t you tell?” Mrs. Burke asked. “From the way they acted that day? Well, perhaps it wasn’t an argument, but they were both very angry. The look she gave him when he escorted me into the parlor that day could have burned a hole through him, and he returned it in kind.”

“Oh, dear, I’m afraid I didn’t notice a thing,” Mrs. Decker said in dismay.

“There’s no reason you should have,” Mrs. Burke assured her. “But I was the first to arrive that day, and of course I was anxious about seeing Mrs. Gittings. I didn’t know what terrible thing she might say to me about the money.”

“I wonder if Madame Serafina knows what they argued about?” Sarah asked her mother.

“She did say they had disagreed about something,” Mrs. Decker recalled.

“When did you speak to Madame Serafina?” Mrs. Burke asked with interest.

Mrs. Decker smiled. “She’s staying with Sarah until the killer is caught.”

“How wonderful!” Mrs. Burke exclaimed. “Perhaps she could do a sitting for me. I’ve been afraid to go back to the house on Waverly and-”

“Of course, if everyone was holding hands around the table,” Sarah said quickly, diverting her from this disturbing plan, “then no one could have gotten up without someone else knowing it.”

“Which proves that the killer had to be someone else,” Mrs. Decker added.

“Unless…” Sarah mused.

“Unless what?” Mrs. Burke asked apprehensively, clutching her handkerchief to her breast.

“Unless the killer was sitting right beside her.”

Mrs. Burke stared at her for a long moment before giving a small cry and fainting dead away.

13

“DO YOU THINK SHE REALLY FAINTED?” SARAH ASKED her mother when they were alone in the carriage and heading back to Sarah’s house. After calling for Mrs. Burke’s maid to attend her, they’d felt obligated to leave rather than upset their reluctant hostess further.

“It’s so difficult to really tell,” Mrs. Decker said with a sigh. “Properly bred young ladies cultivate the art of fainting from childhood just in case the need ever arises. One can never be certain of actually being able to faint at the precise moment it would be most advantageous, so learning how to pretend is essential.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Sarah said with disapproval. “I’ve never fainted in my life.”

“Exactly,” her mother said. “Most people never do, not really. But when you want to escape a difficult situation, nothing drives tormentors away more quickly than a well-timed swoon.”

“As we just proved,” Sarah sighed. “Would a cold-blooded killer swoon, do you think?”

“I have no idea,” Mrs. Decker said. “But she might very well pretend to, if someone was questioning her about it.”

“So we’re back where we started. I hope Malloy has had more luck than we have today. So far, all we’ve learned is that Mrs. Burke is very upset by Mrs. Gittings’s murder and that talking about it makes her faint, or at least pretend to.”

“We also learned that Mrs. Gittings and the Professor were angry with each other the day she died,” Mrs. Decker reminded her.

“That’s very interesting but hardly helpful. He’s the one person we know couldn’t have been in that room.”

“But if Nicola could have come in through the cabinet, why couldn’t the Professor have done the same thing?”

“Because Nicola would have encountered him, either in the cabinet or in the space behind it. Besides, the Professor is a large man. I can’t imagine him getting through the false door in the back of the cabinet at all, and certainly not without Nicola knowing about it.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Mrs. Decker allowed. “So the argument between him and Mrs. Gittings is meaningless.”

“Probably,” Sarah agreed. “But I don’t think we can rule out the possibility that Mrs. Burke is the killer. She did act strangely today.”

“Yes, she did. I don’t suppose I can blame her for detesting Mrs. Gittings. In her place, I’m sure I would have felt the same.”

“I hope you wouldn’t have murdered her, though,” Sarah said with a small smile.

“I hope so, too,” Mrs. Decker said, completely serious. “Of course, I’ve never been in such a desperate situation.”

“What would you have done if Serafina had started giving you messages from Maggie?” Sarah asked, matching her mother’s somber mood.

Her mother looked sharply at Sarah, trying to judge if there was any underlying meaning to the question. “Do you mean would I have been willing to sell my jewelry in order to keep coming back to see her?”

“Yes, since you put it that way. I can’t imagine Father cutting off your funds, but he might very well forbid you to go to another seance. That would force you at least to lie in order to conceal your actions from him. Would you do that?”

Mrs. Decker gave her daughter a pitying glance. “I’ve often told your father what he wanted to hear instead of the truth, which he would not have found so pleasant.”

“I’m sure you have, but have you actually lied to him? Outright lied by telling him you would be in one place when you were, in fact, in another?”

Her mother had to give this some thought. “I don’t think so, not outright lied. But if I were desperate…”

“Then you think you could do it?”

“If I thought it was important enough,” Mrs. Decker admitted.

“Would hearing messages from Maggie have been important enough?”