“So you say, but do you have any corroboration?” asked the detective. He held the pencil poised above the blank page, clearly waiting for her to answer.
“It doesn’t seem particularly farfetched to me,” said Mr. Clemens, waving his unlit pipe. “I was here myself mainly because my wife and daughter wanted to come. Otherwise, I’d have skipped the whole thing, and probably been a lot happier.”
“I suppose I should resent that, Mr. Clemens,” said Martha McPhee, with a very faint smile. “But perhaps some good will come of your presence last night. One of your party may have seen or heard something that will help exonerate my husband.”
“It would be even better if you could get the spirits to tell us who did the killing,” said my employer; I could not tell from his expression whether he meant the suggestion to be taken seriously. “That might even make me decide there was something to the afterlife, after all.”
“I wish it were that simple,” said Martha. “Believe me, Mr. Clemens, I thought of that approach myself, late last evening. But my ability to see beyond this plane is very unreliable, and the spirits can be quite capricious. Nonetheless, I would be willing to essay the attempt.”
“Well, if we can’t get anything useful by the regular means, maybe I’ll ask you to do just that for us,” said Lestrade dryly. “But I doubt it’ll be necessary. We at the Criminal Branch have our methods, and they have stood the test of time. Not many slip through our grasp, I can tell you that.”
“What about that business out at Whitechapel a few years back—Jack, I think the fellow’s name was . . . ?” said Mr. Clemens.
Lestrade’s face turned red. “That devil!” he exclaimed. He gnashed his teeth, and for a moment his eyes flashed. Then, getting control of himself, he continued. “You’re right, Twain, that’s one villain who got away from us. If the people in charge had listened to what some of their men on the streets had to offer, things might have come out different. But the fellow’s beyond our reach now—and getting a regular diet of brimstone, I daresay.”
“You never found a body, did you?” When Lestrade shook his head to signify the negative, my employer continued, “These things never get wrapped up quite as neat as you’d like to think. Don’t be so sure the killer’s dead. But we’re off the subject, aren’t we? You had some questions for us.”
“Yes, of course,” said Lestrade. “Where were we?” He glared at Sergeant Coleman as if looking for a cue.
“You’d been asking about the deceased,” Coleman prompted, raising his head. He hit it on the edge of the table he’d been searching under, making a loud bump, and rubbed it, muttering. He picked up his pocket magnifier, which he’d dropped, and began searching again.
“Exactly,” said Lestrade, nodding. He managed to convey the impression that he’d had the answer all along, and was just testing his assistant. He turned around and inched his chair closer to the one Martha occupied. “Now, did the deceased say or do anything to indicate that he might have an enemy here? Did he pointedly ignore anyone, for instance, or act annoyed to see someone here?”
“Not that I noticed,” said Martha. “I thought his manner was a bit stiff and reserved, but he didn’t ignore one person any more than the rest.”
“Typically English, in other words,” Mr. Clemens added.
“Not quite, though I know what you mean,” said Martha, a small smile playing about her lips. “He appeared somewhat embarrassed to be seen patronizing a medium. Many respectable people act that way. And yet practically all my sitters come from the higher ranks of society.”
“No surprise there,” said Mr. Clemens. “They’re the only ones with money to spend listening to spirits tell them a bunch of stuff they already ought to know. Not many mediums hand out free tickets to the street cleaners and stable boys in the neighborhood.”
Martha’s smile vanished and her back stiffened. “Mr. Clemens, you know very little of how I conduct my affairs. In any case, it seems unbecomingly small of you to accuse me of mercenary motives, considering that I invited you, your family, and your secretary to attend last night, all without charge.”
“So you did,” said Mr. Clemens. “I’m still not sure you weren’t hoping I’d write a favorable article about you, and make you the talk of London overnight. You should have known me better.”
Martha turned a sad face toward my employer. “I know you to be no great friend of spiritualism, but I allowed myself to hope that I might show you the shallowness of mere skepticism. To tell the truth, I had a much simpler reason for inviting you: to bring the number of sitters to twelve—a very powerful number. And I must say that, before the unfortunate incident, the rapport between myself and the spirits was unusually deep.”
Lestrade had visibly grown impatient with this digression, and now he stuck his face forward, close to Martha’s, taking charge of the proceedings again. “What about the others in attendance?” he asked, pointing around the room with his pencil. “Had any of them been to séances with you before?” I fleetingly wondered whether he was seriously considering either Mr. Clemens or me as likely suspects or accessories to the murder.
“Only Cedric Villiers had been to any of my previous sittings,” said Martha. “I met him at the spiritualist society, and he did a great deal to help me make my way here in London. He helped me organize my first sitting, and attended another, as well.”
“What about the others? Did you find them at spiritualist meetings, too?” His stance and tone were belligerent, as if he did not believe her statements.
“Many of them,” said Martha, shrinking back slightly. “Mr. Villiers introduced me to several of the others at the Spiritualist Society. I must have met twenty or thirty people there,
