Above the white sport shirt Ed’s face loomed raw and burned. The fringe of hair was smoothed and stuck down with water, and he was chewing a thick cigar, perhaps one the Cuban had dropped on the Santa Clara as an afterthought. The belt holding his trousers circled below his pot-belly obscenely, but his suit was made of soft flannel and looked expensive.
Ed glanced casually around the dimly-lit room, doing a slight double-take when his eyes met Shayne’s. He nodded curtly and led his wife to one of the hard-backed benches.
It was hard to believe this granite-visaged man and the jovial, drunken Ed on the boat this afternoon were the same, and hard to conceive of Ed’s being interested in the occult. His wife might have forced him to come, but in spite of his wry claim this afternoon that his wife made him clean the fish he caught, he didn’t seem like a man a wife could dominate.
Three other tourists, all women, entered, gave everyone the stranger’s smile and sat down. Apparently in this society neither conversation nor introductions were in order. And curiously, though the out-of-towners were almost certainly in Miami on vacation and at Madame Swoboda’s only for amusement there was no laughing or talking. It might be the atmosphere, or the fact that they were about to explore, however shallowly, something they did not understand, which cast a pall of solemnity over them.
Another couple entered, and finally a lone woman, thin-faced and gray, clutching a large black bag. She, like the Thains and Clarissa Milford, looked like a regular. There was nothing of the vacationer about her.
At two minutes to eight the woman in the hornrimmed glasses picked up the cash box and walked down the hall. In less than a minute she was back, standing in the doorway.
“You may come in now.” Her voice was rarefied.
She stepped across the small hallway as the crowd rose, opened a pair of sliding doors and held a heavy black velvet curtain aside to allow them to file in.
Except for a pale green light emanating from a round ball, the room was dark. At the far end of a large oval table, the dim form of Madame Swoboda sat erect in an armless chair, hands flat on the table in front of her, one on either side of the green ball. The light shone up eerily into her face, emphasizing the caverns of her eyes and her high cheekbones. Her large, black-lashed eyes were open, fastened unblinkingly on a distant point ahead. She seemed already in a trance, unaware that anyone had entered.
She wore a silver shawl crossed over her bosom, which emphasized her full breasts, and a tiara-like circle on her ebony hair from which silver gossamer material fell in soft folds to her waist. Her features were regular, her skin clear and fair, her face beautiful and tantalizing. Yet underneath, despite her apparent removal from the world of reality, there was that fire Clarissa Milford had described. She was vital and earthy.
Behind her was a closed, unadorned cabinet between windows draped, like the sliding doors, from ceiling to floor in heavy black velvet. No sliver of light came through.
She remained motionless as they felt their way around the table, pulled out chairs and sat down. Shayne managed to sit beside Ed, his fishing companion of the afternoon. Mabel Thain was on the other side.
When quiet had settled, Madame Swoboda spoke, her voice weirdly monotonous in the dark: “Once more we journey… together we reach out… in unison we call…” The timbre of her voice was deep, intriguing, sexy, with only a faint, indefinable suggestion of a foreign accent.
“For those new among us… link your own thumbs. Link the little finger on each hand with that of the person beside you. The circle travels, never ending… Wait… wait… wait. The dead are inarticulate.”
There was a faint rustling as they found each other’s hands. Then a deep quiet settled in. Shayne was aware of Ed’s slightly damp fat finger on his right, and Mabel Thain’s thin, dry one on his left.
Again Madame Swoboda spoke. “For the success of our journey I repeat, three times, the Ninety-eighth Psalm: He hath done marvelous things. His right hand and His holy arms hath gotten Him the victory… He hath done marvelous things. His right hand and His holy arms hath gotten Him the victory… He hath done marvelous things. His right hand and His holy arms hath gotten Him the victory… ”
Silence crept in again, silence with a weighted, brooding quality. It might have been phony as a district attorney’s pity, except that forces reaching out from this dark room had, in some way and to some degree, been responsible for the death of one person today and were threatening at least one other.
The dim light shone up into Madame Swoboda’s still face. She had closed her eyes, the long lashes resting sootily against the white cheeks. As Shayne watched, she shivered violently once and then was quiet. The circle at the table held.
After a time she said, “I have sent your messages.”
Another silence. The room was filled with breathing. Finally, from somewhere high in the room a man’s voice sounded. It had a curiously metallic quality: “Sharon… I am here. I have your message… My marriage was a mistake. It was you I loved and wanted…”
A woman’s voice came next through the darkness, softly and incoherently, describing the Great Beyond. She addressed a man called Bill. After her, came another voice tiredly reiterating, “I am happy,” and addressing no one.
At last, a child’s thin voice sounded, first far away, then coming closer. “Mother… Daddy… At last I have gotten through to you. It is so far. For two hours and thirty-six minutes I have traveled… through the forty-eight outer worlds…”
Mabel Thain breathed, “It’s Jimsey!” and tightened her grip on Shayne’s finger.
On his right, Ed stirred restlessly, the grip of his little finger loosening, then tightening. What, Shayne wondered again, could be the attraction here for this man who seemed to be only a pleasure-bent tourist? If he had come to please his wife, or only for casual amusement, why the tension? On the other hand, what kind of mystically inclined person drank hundred-and-fifty proof rum, drooled idiotically at a girl doing a hooch dance on a Cuban boat and put a dirtied-up, souped-up engine in Sylvester’s fishing boat?
The child’s voice continued: “I am well… and happy… but when I lay dying Friday night, I spoke your name eight times…” A blue light wavered across the ceiling, then disappeared, “Mother… Daddy… Good-by.”
Madame Swoboda sighed, sat quietly for a long moment as though all strength had left her, then shivered and opened her eyes.
“That is all.” Her voice had a deep, unworldly timbre. “The spirits are tired. The seance is over.”
She rose quickly, passed through the sliding doors, walked down the hall and disappeared. The lights went on, two dim yellow bulbs in a wall fixture. Everyone blinked against the sudden light, released each other’s fingers a little sheepishly, scraped back their chairs and got to their feet. Shayne looked at Ed. His lips were moving soundlessly, his brows knit in concentration.
Ed rose finally and pushed through the low-voiced crowd to reach his wife at the other side of the table. Shayne caught Tim Rourke’s cynical eye, then moved between the stragglers to intercept Ed and his wife, who were pushing with the others to the door.
Clapping Ed on the back, the redhead said, “So we meet again. You never can tell where a tourist will turn up in this town.”
“Or a detective,” Ed retorted. Turning to his wife, he said, “Dear, this is the detective I was telling you about who was on the boat today. Mike Shayne. Mike, meet the wife.”
“It’s a pleasure, Mrs.-”
“Woodbine.” She poked Ed playfully. “Didn’t you even tell Mr. Shayne your last name?”
“We were all on a first name basis,” Shayne said. “It was only by accident that Sylvester happened to mention my name. Where are you folks staying?”
A quick glance passed between the man and woman, then Ed said openly, “Blue Grotto Hotel. Know it?”
“Very well.”
“At one of the cabanas,” Mrs. Woodbine said. “Number sixteen. Come and see us, Mr. Shayne.”
“Maybe I will. Thanks. How did you enjoy the seance?”
She shrugged matronly shoulders. “It’s something to do-I get so tired of canasta-but I don’t think I can ever drag Ed here again. He was bored stiff.”
Shayne said, “Maybe if you feed him bonito again it’ll put him in the mood.”
“Bonito?” She looked genuinely puzzled.
“I started to bring a fish home, honey,” Ed explained, “but I couldn’t face cleaning it, so I gave it away.”
She sighed in exasperation. “You fish all day and then give away what you catch! It makes more sense to play canasta.”
