Sarah and her mother looked at her in surprise. “Madame Serafina had a fight with the Professor?” Sarah asked.

“Oh, no,” Mrs. Burke hastened to explain. “At least, not that I know of. I meant Mrs. Gittings had an argument with him.”

“How do you know that?” Mrs. Decker asked.

“Couldn’t you tell?” Mrs. Burke asked. “From the way they acted that day? Well, perhaps it wasn’t an argument, but they were both very angry. The look she gave him when he escorted me into the parlor that day could have burned a hole through him, and he returned it in kind.”

“Oh, dear, I’m afraid I didn’t notice a thing,” Mrs. Decker said in dismay.

“There’s no reason you should have,” Mrs. Burke assured her. “But I was the first to arrive that day, and of course I was anxious about seeing Mrs. Gittings. I didn’t know what terrible thing she might say to me about the money.”

“I wonder if Madame Serafina knows what they argued about?” Sarah asked her mother.

“She did say they had disagreed about something,” Mrs. Decker recalled.

“When did you speak to Madame Serafina?” Mrs. Burke asked with interest.

Mrs. Decker smiled. “She’s staying with Sarah until the killer is caught.”

“How wonderful!” Mrs. Burke exclaimed. “Perhaps she could do a sitting for me. I’ve been afraid to go back to the house on Waverly and-”

“Of course, if everyone was holding hands around the table,” Sarah said quickly, diverting her from this disturbing plan, “then no one could have gotten up without someone else knowing it.”

“Which proves that the killer had to be someone else,” Mrs. Decker added.

“Unless…” Sarah mused.

“Unless what?” Mrs. Burke asked apprehensively, clutching her handkerchief to her breast.

“Unless the killer was sitting right beside her.”

Mrs. Burke stared at her for a long moment before giving a small cry and fainting dead away.

13

“DO YOU THINK SHE REALLY FAINTED?” SARAH ASKED her mother when they were alone in the carriage and heading back to Sarah’s house. After calling for Mrs. Burke’s maid to attend her, they’d felt obligated to leave rather than upset their reluctant hostess further.

“It’s so difficult to really tell,” Mrs. Decker said with a sigh. “Properly bred young ladies cultivate the art of fainting from childhood just in case the need ever arises. One can never be certain of actually being able to faint at the precise moment it would be most advantageous, so learning how to pretend is essential.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Sarah said with disapproval. “I’ve never fainted in my life.”

“Exactly,” her mother said. “Most people never do, not really. But when you want to escape a difficult situation, nothing drives tormentors away more quickly than a well-timed swoon.”

“As we just proved,” Sarah sighed. “Would a cold-blooded killer swoon, do you think?”

“I have no idea,” Mrs. Decker said. “But she might very well pretend to, if someone was questioning her about it.”

“So we’re back where we started. I hope Malloy has had more luck than we have today. So far, all we’ve learned is that Mrs. Burke is very upset by Mrs. Gittings’s murder and that talking about it makes her faint, or at least pretend to.”

“We also learned that Mrs. Gittings and the Professor were angry with each other the day she died,” Mrs. Decker reminded her.

“That’s very interesting but hardly helpful. He’s the one person we know couldn’t have been in that room.”

“But if Nicola could have come in through the cabinet, why couldn’t the Professor have done the same thing?”

“Because Nicola would have encountered him, either in the cabinet or in the space behind it. Besides, the Professor is a large man. I can’t imagine him getting through the false door in the back of the cabinet at all, and certainly not without Nicola knowing about it.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Mrs. Decker allowed. “So the argument between him and Mrs. Gittings is meaningless.”

“Probably,” Sarah agreed. “But I don’t think we can rule out the possibility that Mrs. Burke is the killer. She did act strangely today.”

“Yes, she did. I don’t suppose I can blame her for detesting Mrs. Gittings. In her place, I’m sure I would have felt the same.”

“I hope you wouldn’t have murdered her, though,” Sarah said with a small smile.

“I hope so, too,” Mrs. Decker said, completely serious. “Of course, I’ve never been in such a desperate situation.”

“What would you have done if Serafina had started giving you messages from Maggie?” Sarah asked, matching her mother’s somber mood.

Her mother looked sharply at Sarah, trying to judge if there was any underlying meaning to the question. “Do you mean would I have been willing to sell my jewelry in order to keep coming back to see her?”

“Yes, since you put it that way. I can’t imagine Father cutting off your funds, but he might very well forbid you to go to another séance. That would force you at least to lie in order to conceal your actions from him. Would you do that?”

Mrs. Decker gave her daughter a pitying glance. “I’ve often told your father what he wanted to hear instead of the truth, which he would not have found so pleasant.”

“I’m sure you have, but have you actually lied to him? Outright lied by telling him you would be in one place when you were, in fact, in another?”

Her mother had to give this some thought. “I don’t think so, not outright lied. But if I were desperate…”

“Then you think you could do it?”

“If I thought it was important enough,” Mrs. Decker admitted.

“Would hearing messages from Maggie have been important enough?”

Her mother considered the question for a long moment. “If I truly believed they were from her, then yes, I would have lied without a trace of guilt.”

“Would you have killed?” Sarah pressed her.

Her mother shook her head in disapproval. “Be serious, Sarah.”

“I am being serious. Someone cared enough about something to kill Mrs. Gittings. If we can figure out what it was, we’ll know who did it.”

“Then if you insist, I would have to say no. I don’t think I could kill anyone, no matter the provocation.”

“Then I suppose you’re not the person I should be asking.” Sarah said with another small smile.

“But the others at the table are just like me, aren’t they? They’re all people of privilege whose only real worry in life is whether or not to carry an umbrella when they leave the house or whether they were invited to the most desirable parties.”

“But they were much more… I’m not sure what to call it,” Sarah confessed.

“Obsessed?” Mrs. Decker supplied.

“Yes, that’s it. They were obsessed with speaking to the spirits of their loved ones.”

“They were convinced Serafina could contact them.”

Sarah considered this. “Do you think Serafina is really able to contact spirits?”

This time Mrs. Decker smiled ruefully. “When I was sitting in that dark room, holding hands with strangers, it seemed very possible that she could. Certainly, the others believed it with all their hearts, and perhaps that was part of it. But now…”

“Now?” Sarah prodded when she hesitated.

“Now that I’ve seen Serafina sitting in your kitchen and looking for all the world like an ordinary girl, I’m no longer as sure.”

Sarah felt an odd sense of relief.

At Sarah’s house, Serafina greeted them at the door, her hope that they had found out something helpful from Mrs. Burke shining heartbreakingly bright on her young face. Sarah quickly shook her head and, in the moment before Catherine descended upon them, managed to say, “She didn’t tell us anything important.”

Serafina lifted her chin and put on a brave face as Catherine greeted Sarah and Mrs. Decker with hugs and kisses.

Mrs. Decker agreed to stay for lunch, and Maeve and Catherine were delighted at the opportunity to show off what they had been learning from Mrs. Ellsworth. They had just finished eating the meal of egg sandwiches, cheese and crackers, and pickled peaches the girls had put out when the doorbell rang.