“Of course not,” Mr. Sharpe assured her.
Frank glanced at Serafina and was surprised to catch her eyes burning with anger in the moment before she got control of herself again and smiled sweetly. “We are in no danger here. I told you, the spirits are surrounding us with protection. That is why I will ask Mr. Malloy to leave us. We do not need you here.”
Frank looked around to see the reactions. No one protested. No one wanted the police around if they didn’t have to be. In fact, they were all looking at him as if he were a skunk at a picnic, except Maeve, who was staring at the Professor with the oddest expression on her face, as if she wanted to knock him over the head with a vase. Maybe he had accused her of being a maid. “If you’re sure you won’t need me,” he said.
“Why should we need you?” Cunningham said with forced bravado.
“If you’re
“I am, Mr. Malloy. Thank you for your help.” She gave him a gracious nod of her head, and Frank turned to see the Professor had already fetched his hat and was holding it out to him.
In another moment, he found himself on the front stoop with the door closed securely behind him. He saw Mrs. Decker’s carriage waiting down the street and headed for it. By the time he reached it, the driver was helping Sarah out.
“Good morning, Mrs. Brandt,” he said, unreasonably happy to see her, considering the circumstances. Although, he had to admit, these circumstances were far better than many they’d been in. At least no one was in danger of getting murdered today.
“Good morning, Mr. Malloy. Why are you smiling?”
He hadn’t realized he was and quickly stopped. “No reason. Serafina told me the plan.” He glanced around and saw they were almost to the corner. They’d have to walk down the side street to the alley and then half a block back to the back door of the house. “Are you ready for a little stroll?”
“I’d be delighted.” She took his offered arm, and they started down the street.
“We arranged that Mother would move the front curtain when they started into the seance room, so I would know when it was safe to make my entrance. I saw it move just after you came out. What was going on inside?”
“Did you know Maeve is your cousin?”
“Yes, that was the story we decided on.”
“I thought she looked very nice, but the Professor knew her for what she was the instant he saw her.”
“He can probably smell an Irish girl a mile away,” Sarah sighed. “I don’t suppose it matters, though, so long as they let her into the seance.”
“They’ll do whatever Madame Serafina wants. Serafina told the Professor that Nicola is dead, and he told everyone else that Mrs. Gittings’s killer was dead.”
“Why would he do that?” Sarah asked in surprise.
“Because they were nervous about being in the house with the killer still running loose, I guess. Or maybe he was just happy Nicola is dead and wanted to let everyone else know, too. Anyway, when they heard the killer was dead, they wanted me to leave, so I did.”
“How rude of them,” she said sympathetically.
Frank stopped when they reached the alley. “I forgot to count the houses.”
“I did while I was waiting,” she assured him. “We don’t want to go barging into the wrong kitchen.”
“No, we don’t,” he agreed. He had to admit he was enjoying walking along with Sarah’s hand tucked into the crook of his arm, as if they belonged together. But if Maeve didn’t belong with those people in the house, Frank Malloy certainly didn’t belong with Sarah Decker Brandt. Under any other circumstances, he would never even know a woman like her, much less be her friend and… well, and whatever else he was to her. He couldn’t even think about what she was to him.
“This is it,” she said. “Yes, I remember those curtains in the kitchen window.”
Frank opened the back gate, and they made their way up the flagstone path that had been overgrown with weeds last summer and was now covered with their withered remains and the first green shoots of this spring’s crop. Sarah was the first to the back door, and it opened easily. She gave Frank a conspiratorial grin and then slipped inside. He followed, ready to do very quiet battle with the Professor for possession of the kitchen.
But when they got inside, the room was empty.
“Where is he?” she asked in a whisper.
Frank shrugged. “Maybe he’s in there.” He pointed to the curtained alcove. He stepped over and pulled back the curtain, but no one was in there either. He shrugged again.
Without a word, she went to the wall opposite the back door and started to remove a picture hanging there. He hurried to take it from her. When he’d set it on the floor, he saw her pulling a plug of cotton wool from one of two holes. She pointed to the other one, and said, “Stand close to it so the light doesn’t shine into it.”
He pulled the cotton wool out of the other hole and peered through. He had a perfect view of the seance room. Serafina had just put out the gaslight and was closing the door. He could see everyone seated around the table, their hands clasped just the way Serafina had demonstrated. Maeve was looking all around, taking in every detail of the room in the last seconds before the door closed, plunging them into darkness. She’d probably learned that from her short stint as a Pinkerton Detective a few weeks ago.
Then the room was dark, and Frank and Sarah could see nothing, but after a few moments, when Serafina had taken her place again, she spoke, and they could hear her clearly.
“Yellow Feather, are you there? What do the spirits have to tell us today? Yellow Feather, speak to us.”
Someone at the table murmured something, and Cunningham called out, “Is my father there? I need to speak with him!”
Serafina kept calling for Yellow Feather, pleading with him to make his presence known, and just when Frank thought maybe the spirit guide wasn’t going to cooperate, he heard her make an odd sound, and suddenly a new voice started speaking, one he’d never heard before.
“This is Yellow Feather. I am very confused,” the voice said. A man’s voice, but not the voice of either of the men in the room. “So many spirits, too many, all shouting, all wanting to be heard.”
Frank looked at Sarah, and she gave him a nod, telling him everything was as it should be.
“Is my father there?” Cunningham asked desperately.
“Soon, soon,” Yellow Feather soothed. “You must be patient. A new spirit is here. I have never seen him before. He is looking for someone, someone young. Are you there?”
“Is it me?” Cunningham asked. “I’m here, Father!”
“Who is it? Who are you?” Yellow Feather asked, sounding uncertain.
Someone moaned, a plaintive sound that gave Frank gooseflesh, although he never would have admitted it.
“The new spirit is searching. He is old, very old. And rich.”
“It’s my father!” Cunningham insisted. “It must be!”
“No, no,” Yellow Feather moaned. “No, I am seeing money, much money, but it does not belong to him. He only pretends to be rich. He lies. He lies to steal money from people.”
Frank glanced at Sarah, but she looked as puzzled as he.
“He is old,” Yellow Feather was saying. “No, not old, not very old, but he says he is old. He calls himself the… the Old Gentleman.”
Sarah’s breath caught, and when he looked at her, her eyes were wide with surprise. She put her hand over the hole in the wall and whispered, “Maeve’s grandfather played the Old Gentleman in the Green Goods Game.”
Now Frank’s eyes widened in surprise. When had Sarah come by that interesting piece of information? She had some explaining to do when this stupid seance was over.
“I see money,” Yellow Feather was saying. “A lot of money, and blood. There is blood on the money, and the Old Gentleman is dead. Someone killed him.”
“Who is he?” Mrs. Burke asked in alarm. “Why is he here?”
“He has a message for someone,” Yellow Feather said. “He wants to say… Maeve! Maeve, are you here?” Yellow Feather’s voice rose with desperation.
“Yes,” someone said faintly. Was it Maeve? Was she terrified? Too frightened to speak aloud?
“Maeve, he wants to tell you something. He has a message for you.”
“Who killed him?” Maeve asked, not sounding at all frightened. “Tell me that! Who killed you? Say his
