“What is it?” Mrs. Decker asked.

“I just… It’s all so dreadful. I just can’t think about it.”

“There, there, you’re just overwrought and allowing your imagination to run away with you. You can’t continue to sit all alone in this dark room. You’ll make yourself truly sick. Sometimes the best thing to do in situations like this is to talk it all out in the light of day.”

“I can’t,” Mrs. Burke insisted faintly.

“Of course you can. I’ll help you,” Mrs. Decker said brac ingly. “Tell me everything you remember from that day.”

Mrs. Burke closed her eyes. She really did look ill. “I can’t…”

“Start with when you arrived at the house,” Mrs. Decker suggested. “I was already there. You looked a bit distressed, if I recall.”

Mrs. Burke looked a bit distressed now, too, but she was helpless to resist her old friend’s iron will. “I was afraid I was late.”

“But Mr. Cunningham was even later, as usual.”

“That young man has no manners,” Mrs. Burke declared.

“No, he doesn’t. Mr. Sharpe greeted you, I believe. Mrs. Gittings was sitting in the corner, as usual, not saying much. She was there when I arrived, but of course she lived there, so naturally she would be the first to arrive. I didn’t know that then, though. Did you?”

“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Burke said, then caught herself. “I mean…”

“You knew that Mrs. Gittings was Madame Serafina’s manager, didn’t you?” Mrs. Decker said, keeping any disapproval from her voice. “But then you’d been visiting her much longer than I had. However did you keep Harry from finding out you were visiting a spiritualist? I’ve been terrified Felix would find out. I’m sure he would forbid me to go, if he knew.”

“Harry did find out,” Mrs. Burke confessed in dismay. “He was so angry. That’s why I couldn’t tell him what really happened. If he knew I was still visiting Madame Serafina…” She closed her eyes again, this time to ward off tears.

“You poor thing. But you were very brave to keep going to see her in spite of Harry’s disapproval. I’m not sure I would have your courage.”

“It wasn’t courage,” Mrs. Burke assured her. “I simply had to keep going. I can’t tell you how wonderful it was to know that no matter what I asked, the spirits would know the answer. I had no choice.”

Mrs. Decker nodded as if she understood perfectly.

“You were talking about when you first arrived for the séance,” Sarah reminded them gently.

“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Decker said. “And what were we chatting about while we waited for Mr. Cunningham to arrive?”

“I don’t recall…” Mrs. Burke hedged.

Mrs. Decker frowned, trying to remember. “You were very quiet, now that I think of it. Apprehensive, almost. Were you worried about something, my dear?”

“Oh, no, not at all,” Mrs. Burke lied. She lied badly.

“Perhaps you were worried about what your mother would say to you in the séance,” Sarah suggested.

“No, no,” Mrs. Burke insisted.

“Or perhaps you were worrying about Harry finding out you were still seeing Madame Serafina,” Mrs. Decker guessed. “I’m sure that was a concern. And it must have been difficult to hide the expense of it in your household expenditures week after week.”

Mrs. Burke’s eyes were enormous and the blood had drained from her face. “Oh, Elizabeth, it was horrible! When he found out, he forbade me to see her again, and then he… he cut off my allowance!”

“How awful!” Mrs. Decker cried. “You poor dear. But how did you continue if you couldn’t pay for the sittings?”

“I… I sold some of my jewelry,” she confessed. “Not the good pieces,” she hastened to explain. “I couldn’t, in case Harry noticed, but I had some old pieces that belonged to my family that I never wore.”

“How did you sell them without Harry knowing?” Mrs. Decker asked.

“I… I couldn’t, of course. I wouldn’t have any idea how to do it! So I gave them to Mrs. Gittings, and she… But she said they didn’t bring much. I thought she was cheating me. In fact, I’m sure of it, but I couldn’t accuse her, could I? She would have forbidden me to come back!”

Sarah was remembering the séance she’d attended, when the spirit told her it was all right to do something with a gift her mother had given her. Perhaps that was a piece of jewelry she’d been reluctant to sell, and Madame was under orders from Mrs. Gittings to encourage her to turn it over.

Mrs. Decker was making soothing noises, calming her friend and sympathizing.

“You don’t know what I suffered, Elizabeth,” Mrs. Burke said tearfully. “That woman was horrible, just horrible. The things she said to me, to torture me, you wouldn’t believe. She deserved to die!”

12

FRANK WAS RIGHT ABOUT CUNNINGHAM NOT BEING AN early riser. When he called at his house, the maid told him he would have to come back later in the day. He had to tell her it was official police business and frighten her a bit before she would let him inside to wait. When she returned to fetch him from where he stood cooling his heels in the entryway, she even looked a little pale.

“This way, please,” she said. She didn’t call him “sir.” Servants knew instinctively that he wasn’t any better than they were and didn’t deserve to be called “sir.”

But when he was shown into a comfortable room at the back of the house that was obviously the room the family used for private times together, he found not Cunningham but a small, older lady, who was eyeing him with suspicion.

“And what do you want with my son, young man?” she demanded the moment he entered. She stood in the center of the room, ramrod straight, her hands clasped in front of her, and glaring at him with a disdain that only rich people could master. She was thickening around the waist and her fair hair was beginning to show some silver threads, but her face was as smooth as satin. She’d probably never had a worry or a care to mar it.

“It’s a private matter, Mrs. Cunningham,” he tried.

“My son has no secrets from me,” she insisted. “I demand to know what business the police could possibly have with him.”

Frank figured young Cunningham had lots of secrets from his dear mother, and he wasn’t about to tell her the truth about this one. He said, “I’m afraid a friend of your son’s has gotten himself into trouble, and Mr. Cunningham might be required to give evidence against him.”

“He would do no such thing,” Mrs. Cunningham informed him. “My son is an honorable man.”

“You don’t know what his friend did,” Frank tried. “Maybe his honor would force him to condemn his friend.”

This surprised her, and before she could think of an answer, Mr. Cunningham himself bustled into the room. He’d obviously dressed in a hurry and hadn’t had time to shave or even comb his hair. He was still straightening his jacket. He glanced back and forth between Frank and his mother in alarm, trying to judge the mood before speaking.

“Good morning, Mr. Cunningham,” Frank said to reassure him. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I need to ask you some more questions about the incident we discussed the other day. I was just telling your mother that-”

“That one of your friends has gotten himself into trouble, and you are going to assist the police in persecuting him,” his mother informed him in outrage.

Cunningham gave Frank a look of amazement and hurried to reassure his mother. “I don’t know what he told you, but that’s not it at all, Mother. It’s not that he caused trouble but that some rascal is causing trouble for him. Calling in the police seemed like the only way to put an end to it.”

“I can’t imagine anything that would warrant the police at all!” she scolded.

“That’s because you are far too gentle to understand the wicked ways of the world, Mother,” he said with a charming smile that Frank figured had been getting him out of trouble his entire life.