“Sit back down,” said Lestrade. “Everyone sit down, please.” For once, the authority in his voice was compelling, not arrogant. Then he turned to his assistant. “Coleman, tell headquarters we’ve a shooting. And call a doctor.”
“Is she dead?” asked Tony Parkhurst, trying to peek past the Scotland Yard man.
“Everyone stand back,” snarled Lestrade. “I wouldn’t be calling a doctor if she were, now, would I?”
I think he already knew that he was lying to us.
28
“I still can’t believe that nice old lady was the murderer,” said Susy Clemens. She drew her coat up around her throat and gave a shiver against the autumn chill of London. “But I guess she didn’t leave any question about it. It’s very sad, really.”
It was several days since the dramatic scene in the McPhees’ flat, where in front of the reassembled séance group, Mr. Clemens had named Lady Alice DeCoursey as the one who had shot Dr. Oliver Parkhurst. That she could be the murderer had at first seemed incredible to me, as well, but Mr. Clemens had summarized the evidence irrefutably—as Lady Alice had finally proven by taking her own life before anyone could prevent her. It was a shocking end to a disturbing case, in which very few of the principals had managed to escape untainted.
“I suppose she preferred ending things herself to facing the gallows,” I said, raising my voice to be heard over the clatter of the wheels on the paving stones. Mr. Clemens’s family—and I—were on our way home from a visit to the Tower of London. “I can’t condone her murdering the doctor, but I do have to admire her courage at the last.”
“Foolishness rather than courage,” said Mr. Clemens. He had been gazing out the window at the Thames ever since we got in the coach, but now he turned back to face us. “If she’d gotten the right lawyer, he could probably have saved her. Even the sternest British judge is likely to draw back from sending a baronet’s wife to hang—it goes against everything he believes in.”
Mrs. Clemens touched her husband’s arm and said, “I think you’re overlooking one possibility, Youth. What if she killed herself not out of fear of the gallows, but out of a conviction that she deserved punishment—for killing a man even though she believed him to be a danger to society?”
“I guess she might have believed that,” said Mr. Clemens. “Half the murderers in the world—probably more than half—think they’re justified. But that’s a judgement no single person can make—not even one with a title hitched to her name. If Dr. Parkhurst was a danger to society, Lady Alice could’ve stopped him short of murdering him. Shooting herself didn’t wipe the slate clean, either. The only way to do that would be to bring him back.”
“And only the Lord could do that,” said Mrs. Clemens, in a tone that rang of finality.
“Certainly not the likes of Martha McPhee, much as she’d like us to think she can,” said Mr. Clemens. “I reckon she’s no worse than the run of the mill in her line, but that’s like saying one pickpocket’s no worse than another.”
Little Jean broke in. “I liked Mrs. Boulton’s idea about the ectoplasmic pistol.” she said. “I wish that had been true.”
“Thank the stars it wasn’t,” said her father, shuddering. “The last thing we need is spooks shooting at people.”
“I feel sorry for Sir Denis and Ophelia Donning,” said Clara Clemens. “Both are being charged as accessories to murder. Yet neither did much more than allow Lady Alice to get her hands free to fire the shot, did they?”
“There’s more to it than that,” said my employer. “I don’t think Sir Denis knew in advance his wife was going to kill the doctor, because he’d have stopped her—or done his best to help her come up with a more practical plan. The way she did it wasn’t all that hard to figure out, once I studied the evidence. If he’d helped plan it, it would’ve been much harder to trace back to her. Now, Ophelia Donning will have a tougher row to hoe, in my opinion. She may convince a jury that she didn’t know in advance what Lady Alice was going to do—but I think she was the one who really convinced the victim to come to the séance, to escort her and her sister. And once the doctor was shot, they had to know for certain who had done it. They both did everything they could to steer suspicion from Lady Alice, including Sir Denis confessing to cover up for her. They may not hang for it, but neither one will get off scot-free, either—not unless the jury is full of nincompoops.”
“I wonder what happened to Mr. and Mrs. McPhee?” said Susy Clemens. “They certainly took everyone by surprise at the end, there.”
That was undeniably true. In the hubbub following Lady Alice’s shooting herself, as all the police officers gathered in the bedroom, Slippery Ed and Martha McPhee had somehow managed to make their way down the stairs and disappear. The constable posted on the doorstep claimed he’d never even seen them. Lestrade had been furious, of course, but by the time anyone realized they were gone, it was far too late to do anything but put out a bulletin for their arrest. They still had not been found.
“I hope they get away,” said little Jean. “I liked Mrs. McPhee. And Papa’s stories about Slippery Ed are funny, too.”
Mr. Clemens chuckled. “Well, they’ve gotten away so far,” he said. “The ground was getting a little too hot under their
