EIGHTEEN

Irene Toller sat alone in the séance room, a large glass of gin on the table in front of her, and contemplated her vengeance. She had been a gullible fool, she thought, but no longer. The scales had fallen from her eyes at last.

"Here's to you, Elizabeth Delmont, wherever you are." Irene hoisted the glass of gin in a mocking toast and took a long swallow. The potent spirits burned all the way down.

She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "Conniving harlot that you were, you did me a tremendous favor by showing me the truth. Do you know, if I actually did possess the ability to summon phantoms, I would call yours up from hell just so that I could thank you properly."

She drank more gin, vaguely aware that the house was growing cold around her. The fire had begun to die after Bess had left.

"Unfortunately, I won't be able to tell you how much I appreciate what you did for me, Mrs. Delmont, because when it comes to séance work, I am just as much of a fraud as you were," she muttered to the empty room. "But then all of us in this line are charlatans and tricksters, are we not? It is the great secret that unites those of us in the profession."

She lapsed into a moody contemplation of the past. She had begun her career nearly a decade ago. She had been young and pretty, both extremely useful attributes in a female medium, but the competition had been fierce nonetheless. In order to make a living she had been obliged to resort to the tried-and-true tactic of holding private séances for gentlemen who desired to meet the spirits of long-dead courtesans and temptresses.

Night after night, in darkened rooms, she had pretended to be possessed by the phantoms of women whose carnal natures had made them legends. For a price she had al-lowed her male clients to use her body to satisfy their fantasies of passionate encounters with the lusty queens and famous mistresses of antiquity.

It was not an uncommon practice among those who eked out a living at the lower end of the profession. And there was no denying that it had the great advantage of al-lowing the medium to maintain an aura of innocence. After all, she was not the one having sex with the client; she was merely the conduit the spirit employed for the purpose.

She had disliked the nature of the work involved, but it was not as if she'd had a great deal of choice, she reminded herself.

Eventually she had added the planchette, some rappings and the odd manifestation to her repertoire. Those techniques had brought her a different, less demanding clientele. Then a few months ago he had come into her life and

she had found herself back in the old role. In the beginning she had assured herself that their relationship was purely a business matter as far as she was concerned. But she had made a devastating mistake. She had fallen in love.

How could she have been so foolish? It was as if she had been entranced, she thought. But the spell had been broken at last by the spilling of blood, the oldest magic of all. Not that she believed in that sort of superstitious nonsense, she reminded herself, shuddering.

But she did believe in revenge, and soon hers would be fulfilled.

Somewhere in the house a floorboard creaked. The eerie groan echoed loudly in the stillness, startling her. She took a deep breath and told herself to be calm. The sound was nothing more than the familiar squeak of wood on wood that one often heard when one was alone at night.

She forced herself to concentrate on other matters. The séance had gone exceptionally well tonight, she thought. It had been particularly gratifying to have Mrs. Fordyce present. The author was certainly one of the most important people she had ever attracted to a sitting. Granted, Caroline Fordyce did not move in Society, but she was becoming quite well known and there was no doubt but that many people in high circles read her novels.

Irene's only regret was the inspiration that had made her summon the author's dead husband. There was always an element of risk involved in contacting the spirit of a de-parted spouse, she reflected. A medium had to be careful with that sort of thing, especially when she was not acquainted with the nature of the relationship between the client and the deceased. She still recalled all too vividly that one dreadful evening when she had summoned up a dead husband only to discover that the widow had hated

him intensely and had very likely speeded him on his way to the Other Side.

Pretending to make contact with Jeremy Fordyce had seemed harmless enough, though, until she had looked across the table and glimpsed the cold fury in Mr. Grove's hard eyes. In that unsettling moment, a chill of dread had shot through her from head to toe. She shuddered again just thinking about it. She had sensed immediately that she had miscalculated badly.

For a few terrible seconds she had feared that Mr. Grove might strike a light and expose all her tricks, including the false wax hands she had placed on the table so that her real hands were free to manipulate the various devices she employed.

It had been an unnerving moment, to be sure. Luckily Mrs. Fordyce had managed to keep a tight rein on her so-called assistant.

Irene made a note not to mention the departed husband again in Mr. Grove's hearing.

She certainly intended to promote the association with Mrs. Fordyce, however. The author could open new doors for her, Irene thought with satisfaction. It was a fact that the social rules were just as rigid when it came to communicating with the Other Side as they were in every other aspect of life. The inhabitants of the Polite World were as fascinated with spiritualism as everyone else, but they preferred to patronize mediums who at least appeared to come from their own ranks. True, they occasionally amused themselves by attending séances given by those whom they considered their social inferiors, but they would never for one moment consider allowing an Irene Toller into their exquisitely furnished drawing rooms.

Even if she did manage to work her way up to such lofty heights, she knew she would be nothing more than a carnival entertainer in the eyes of the elite. They would never see her in the same light as Julian Elsworth.

She snorted softly and gulped more gin. If only those rich, arrogant Society types who doted on Elsworth knew the truth about him. She grimaced. The things she could tell them about that man.

Another eerie groan emanated from somewhere in the cold house. She glanced uneasily toward the secret compartment where she had hidden the damning evidence of her crime. There had been no opportunity to dispose of it yet but she intended to do so first thing in the morning. She would put the bloodstained gown into a sack, add a few rocks for weight and toss it into the river.

She was sorry about the dress. It had been a lovely one. He had bought it for her. She simply hadn't expected that there would be so much blood.

A draft of air sighed somewhere in the darkness of the hallway. Irene's fingers tightened around the glass. It was as if the spirit of the dead woman had just called her name.

Stop this nonsense at once.

"You were as big a fool as I, Elizabeth Delmont," she whispered into the shadows. "We both should have under-stood from the outset that neither of us could compete with her phantom."

She swallowed more gin to steady her nerves. He would be here soon. She must remain focused on the second part of her vengeance.

A short series of soft, muffled knocks sounded hollowly from the front hall. Irene lurched to her feet, pulse racing in spite of the gin.

He was here at last. The time had come to exact the remainder of her revenge.

The house felt so very strange tonight. She suddenly wished that she had not sent Bess away after the séance. But what she had planned could hardly be done in front of witnesses.