Wait Until Midnight

by Amanda Quick

  She studied him, trying not to be obvious about it. Grove was lean and well-made in a manly fashion. His movements were economical and restrained, yet endowed with a supple grace. One got the impression that he could react swiftly to a threat of danger but that both his strength and will were under complete control. He charged the atmosphere of the room with energy and a masculine vitality that was impossible to ignore.

  No doubt about it; he was a perfect model for the character of Edmund Drake.

  She quickly wrote Charges atmosphere with masc. vitality in what she hoped was an offhand manner, as though she were merely making a shopping list.

  She decided that she should also make some notes regarding his style of dress. It was at once elegant and distinguished and yet quite apart from the current masculine fashion, which favored such eye-dazzling combinations as polka-dot shirts and plaid trousers.

  Grove was attired from head to foot in tones of deepest, darkest gray. His shirt was the singular exception. It was a pristine white. The collar was turned back in the new “gates ajar” mode that appeared to be infinitely more comfortable than the usual high-standing styles. His tie was knotted in a precise four-in-hand.

  No wonder she had been having so much trouble trying to decide how to dress Edmund Drake. She had been attempting to put him into the sort of boldly striped pants and brightly patterned shirts that she had observed on any number of fashionable gentlemen lately. Such glaringly bright attire was entirely wrong for Edmund. He needed to project menace and an aura of resolute determination. Polka dots, stripes and plaids did not suit him at all.

  She wrote Dark gray jacket and trousers without glancing down at the paper.

  Grove sat in the wingback chair in front of the hearth. “I see I have interrupted your morning correspondence. Again, my apologies.”

  “Think nothing of it, sir.” She gave him her most reassuring smile. “I am merely making a few notes to remind myself of some small details that must be attended to later.”

  “I see.”

  Grove’s hair was just right for Edmund Drake, too, she thought. It was of a hue that was very nearly black with the merest smattering of silver at the temples. It was cut short and brushed close to his head. He had not succumbed to the current rage for mustaches and short beards, but she could see the hint of a dark shadow on the hard planes and angles of his face. She realized that he had not shaved that morning. How odd.

  Edmund Drake’s clothing and hairstyle were not the only things that would have to be changed in order to make the character more ominous. She saw at once that she had erred when she had decided to portray him as handsome. It was quite clear to her now that his features should have the same chillingly ascetic lines that marked Adam Grove’s face. Indeed, Drake must become a man who had been shaped by the hot, refining fires of a harsh and murky past.

  She jotted down the words Fierce features.

  From where he sat Adam Grove could not possibly see across the ornately carved back of the rococo-style desktop to discern what she had written but she sensed that he was observing her. She paused and looked up with a bright smile.

  And immediately froze when she saw that impatience and cold intelligence had made dark green mirrors of his eyes.

  Very carefully and again without looking down she scrawled the words Eyes like emeralds. Glow in dark?

  “More notes to yourself, Mrs. Fordyce?” The slight twist of his mouth lacked all traces of politesse.

  “Yes. My apologies.” Hastily she put down the pen.

  Now that he was sitting in stronger light she could see the lines of a grim weariness that bracketed his mouth and etched the corners of his eyes. The day was still quite young. What could account for that subtle air of exhaustion?

  “Would you care for a cup of tea?” she asked gently.

  He looked somewhat surprised by the offer. “No, thank you. I do not intend to stay long.”

  “I see. Perhaps you should tell me precisely why you are here, sir.”

  “Very well.” He paused, ensuring that he had her full attention. “I believe you were acquainted with a woman named Elizabeth Delmont?”

  For an instant her mind went blank. Then the name registered.

  “The medium in Hamsey Street?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  She sat back in her chair. Of all the subjects he might have raised, this was the last one she would have expected. Although it seemed that the entire country was caught up in a tremendous fascination with séances, mediums and the study of psychical powers, she simply could not imagine a gentleman of Adam Grove’s temperament taking a serious interest in such matters.

  “I have met her, yes,” she said slowly. “As it happens, I attended a séance at Mrs. Delmont’s house last night together with my aunts.” She hesitated. “Why do you ask?”

  “Elizabeth Delmont is dead.”

  Stunned, she merely stared at him for a few seconds. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Murdered sometime after the séance ended last night,” he added, much too calmly.

  “Murdered.” She swallowed hard. “Are you quite certain?”

  “I found the body myself shortly after two this morning.”

  “You found the body?” It took her an instant to recover from that unnerving announcement. “I don’t understand.”

  “Someone used a poker to crush her skull.”

  Ice formed in her stomach. It occurred to her that the decision to entertain a mysterious gentleman who claimed to have discovered a murdered woman might not prove to be one of her sounder notions. She glanced at the bellpull that hung beside the desk. Perhaps she should summon Mrs. Plummer.

  But even as she started to reach surreptitiously for the rope to alert the housekeeper, she found herself succumbing to her greatest vice, curiosity.

  “May I ask why you went to Mrs. Delmont’s house at such a late hour?” she said.

  As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she realized that she had blundered badly. Heat rose in her cheeks. There was only one reason why a wealthy, obviously virile man such as Adam Grove might have called upon Elizabeth Delmont at two in the morning.

  Mrs. Delmont had been a very beautiful woman possessed of an alluring figure and a sensual manner that had certainly captivated Mr. McDaniel, the elderly widower who had been one of the sitters at last night’s séance. The medium had no doubt had a similar effect on a number of gentlemen.

  “No, Mrs. Fordyce, Elizabeth Delmont was not my mistress,” Adam said, as though he had read her mind. “In point of fact, I had never encountered her until last night. When I did find her it was much too late for an introduction.”

  “I see.” She fought back the hot blush and tried to project a worldly air. She was supposed to be a widow, after all; a lady possessed of some experience of the world. “Forgive me, Mr. Grove. This entire conversation has taken an extremely odd turn. I had no idea that Mrs. Delmont had died.”

  “Murdered was the word I used.” Adam studied her thoughtfully. “You said this conversation was not proceeding along the lines that you had anticipated. Tell, me, why did you believe that I had come here today?”

  “To be quite truthful, I assumed that you had mistaken the address,” she admitted.

  “If that was the case, why did you not instruct your housekeeper to verify that I had the correct number?” he asked with a depressing sort of logic.

  “I confess, I was curious to know the nature of your news.” She spread her hands wide. “We rarely receive callers who come upon business of grave importance here, you see. In fact, I cannot recall any such visitors in the whole of the three years we have lived here.”

  “We?”

  “My two aunts live with me. They are out at the moment, taking their morning exercise. Aunt Emma and Aunt Milly are great believers in the importance of brisk daily walks.”

  He frowned. “I did not see their names on the list of sitters. You say they accompanied you to the séance last night?”

>   She did not like the way this was going. It was beginning to feel as though he was interrogating her.

  “Yes,” she said, treading carefully now. “They did not want me to go out alone at night. Mrs. Delmont had no objection to their presence.”

  “Why did you attend the séance? Did you really believe that Elizabeth Delmont could communicate with spirits?” He did not bother to conceal his scathing opinion of such a notion.

  His sarcasm annoyed her. She felt obliged to defend her actions.

  “I would remind you, sir,” she said very crisply, “that a great many eminent, educated, well-respected individuals take spiritualism and other psychical matters seriously.”

  “Fools, the lot of them.”

  “A number of societies and clubs have been formed to conduct research into psychical events and to investigate the claims of mediums. Several learned journals in the field are published regularly.” She reached across her desk and snatched up the copy of New Dawn that had arrived yesterday. “This one, for instance. It is published by the Society for Psychical Investigations, and I assure you the articles are well documented.”

  “Documented nonsense.” He moved one hand in a dismissive manner. “It is obvious to any logical person that those who claim to possess psychical powers are all charlatans and frauds.”

  “I daresay you are entitled to your opinion,” she retorted. “But forgive me for pointing out that it does not imply an open, inquiring mind.”

  He smiled humorlessly. “How open is your mind, Mrs. Fordyce? Do you really take the business of manifestations and spirit voices and table rappings seriously?”

  She sat a little straighter in her chair. “As it happens, I have recently conducted some research of my own.”

  “And have you discovered any mediums you consider to be genuine? Mrs. Delmont, for instance?”

  “No,” she admitted, reluctant to concede him the ground. “As a matter of fact, I do not believe that it is possible to communicate with spirits.”

  “I am relieved to hear that. It renews my initial impression of your intelligence.”

  She glared at him. “May I remind you, sir, that the field of psychical research is expanding rapidly. Lately it has begun to encompass a wide variety of phenomena, not just the summoning of spirits. While I do not believe that mediums can communicate with ghosts and phantoms, I am not at all prepared to dismiss other types of psychical powers out of hand.”

  His green eyes tightened ever so slightly at the corners, sharpening his gaze in a dangerous manner. “If you do not believe that mediums can contact the spirit world, why did you attend the séance at Elizabeth Delmont’s house last night?”

  No doubt about it, he was most definitely conducting an interrogation. She glanced again at the bellpull.

  “There is no need to call your housekeeper to rescue you,” he said dryly. “I mean you no harm. But I do mean to get some answers.”

  She frowned. “You sound like a policeman, Mr. Grove.”

  “Calm yourself, Mrs. Fordyce. I promise you that I have no connection to the police.”

  “Then why in heaven’s name are you here, sir? What do you want?”

  “Information,” he said simply. “Why did you attend the séance?”

  He was quite relentless, she thought.

  “I told you, I have been conducting research into psychical phenomena,” she said. “Your opinions to the contrary, it is considered a legitimate field of inquiry.”

  He shook his head in disgust. “Parlor tricks and games. Nothing more.”

  It was past time to ask a few questions of her own, she decided. She clasped her hands together on top of her desk and assumed what she hoped was a firm, authoritative manner.

  “I am very sorry to learn that Mrs. Delmont was murdered,” she said evenly. “But I’m afraid that I fail to comprehend why you are interested in the circumstances of her death. Indeed, if you and Mrs. Delmont were not, ah, intimately acquainted, why did you go to her house at two o’clock in the morning?”

  “Suffice it to say that I had my reasons for calling on Elizabeth Delmont at that hour and that those reasons were extremely urgent. Now that she is dead, I am left with no choice but to discover the identity of her killer.”

  She was stunned. “You intend to hunt him down yourself?”

  “Yes.”

  “Surely that is a job for the police, sir.”

  He shrugged. “They will make their inquiries, naturally, but I very much doubt that they will find the villain.”

  She unlocked her hands and seized her pen again. “This is very interesting, Mr. Grove. Indeed, it is riveting.” She wrote Determined and relentless on the sheet of paper. “Let me see if I have got the facts in the correct order. You are conducting an inquiry into Mrs. Delmont’s death, and you came here to ask me if I had any information concerning her murder.”

  He watched her swiftly moving pen. “That certainly sums up the situation.”

  Talk about a Startling Incident, she thought. Incidents did not come much more startling than this one.

  “I shall be delighted to tell you everything I can remember, sir, if you will first explain your interest in the affair.”

  He studied her as though she were an unusual biological specimen that had turned up unexpectedly and was proving difficult to identify. The tall clock ticked in the silence.

  After a long moment, he appeared to come to a conclusion.

  “Very well,” he said, “I will answer some of your questions. But in return I must insist that you keep what I am about to tell you in strictest confidence.”

  “Yes, of course.” She jotted the word Secretive down on the paper.

  He was out of the chair before she realized he had even moved.

  “What on earth?” Startled by the suddenness of his actions, she gasped and dropped her pen.

  He crossed the space between them in two strides, reached out and plucked the sheet of paper off the desk.

  So much for his apparent weariness, she thought. And to think she had been feeling rather sorry for him.

  “Sir.” She tried to snatch the paper out of his hand. “Kindly give me that at once. What do you think you are doing?”

  “I am curious about your list of errands, madam.” He scanned the page quickly, his expression turning colder by the second. “Dark gray jacket and trousers? Fierce features? What the devil is going on here?”

  “I do not see that my notes are of any importance to you, sir.”

  “I just told you that I insist that this matter be held in confidence. There is a potential for scandal here. I have a strict rule about that sort of thing.”

  She frowned. “You have a rule regarding scandals? What is it?”

  “I prefer to avoid them.”

  “Doesn’t everyone?” Unable to get hold of the paper, she took refuge in an air of haughty aplomb. “Trust me, sir, I, too, have no wish to become embroiled in a scandal. I certainly have no intention of discussing your investigation outside this house.”

  “Then why did you find it necessary to write down these comments?”

  Righteous indignation welled up inside her. “I was merely organizing my thoughts.”

  He surveyed what she had written. “Am I correct in assuming that some of these scribblings relate to my attire and the color of my eyes, Mrs. Fordyce?”

  “Well—”

  “I demand to know why you put your observations on paper. Damnation, woman, if you think to make me a subject of your private journal—”

  “I assure you, I have no intention of putting you into my personal journal.” She was able to make the statement with perfect sincerity because it was nothing less than the exact truth.

  “Then I must conclude that you are indeed deeply involved in this affair of the murdered medium,” he drawled in tones of silky menace.

  She was horrified. “That is not true.”

  “There is no other logical reason for you to be taking such personal notes. If yo
u are not making a record of our conversation for your journal, then I can only conclude that you are doing so in order to prepare a report for your accomplice.”

  “Accomplice.” She shot to her feet, disoriented and badly frightened now. “That is outrageous, sir. How dare you insinuate that I might be involved in a matter of murder?”

  He snapped the paper in front of her face. “How else can you explain the need to record this interview?”

  She fought to pull herself together and to think clearly. “I owe you no explanations, Mr. Grove. Quite the reverse. I would remind you that you are the one who barged into this house today.”

  That accusation clearly irritated him. “You make it sound as though I forced my way inside. That was not the case. You instructed your housekeeper to admit me.”

  “Only because you told her that you had come upon business that was of grave importance to both of us.” She drew herself up. “But the truth is that Mrs. Delmont’s untimely death appears to be gravely important only to you, Mr. Grove.”

  “You are wrong on that account, Mrs. Fordyce.”

  “Nonsense,” she declared in ringing accents, confident of her position. “I have no interest whatsoever in the circumstances surrounding the murder of Elizabeth Delmont.”

  Adam raised his brows. He said nothing.

  Two or three seconds of tense silence gripped the room.

  “Other than a perfectly natural curiosity and the quite normal concern that are only to be expected from a person who has just learned of a ghastly crime, of course,” she amended smoothly.

  “On the contrary, Mrs. Fordyce, I am convinced that your interest in this affair goes a good deal deeper than mere curiosity and casual concern.”

  “How is that possible?” she demanded. “I met the woman only last night. I had no intention of ever seeing her again. I would also remind you that I and my aunts were not the only people who attended Delmont’s last séance. There were two other sitters present. I believe their names were Mrs. Howell and Mr. McDaniel.”