by Amanda Quick
“Please come in, Mrs. Fordyce.” Durward Reed ushered her into his cluttered office and motioned her to a chair. “I cannot tell you how much I appreciate your time today. I understand that you are an extremely busy person, what with your writing and your, uh, other affairs.” He broke off, reddening. “I refer to the social demands that are made upon you due to your connection to Mr. Hardesty, of course.”
“Of course.” Caroline sat down and adjusted the heavy folds of her green gown. She pretended not to notice Reed’s moment of awkwardness. A woman who was engaged in an affair with a notoriously mysterious and powerful gentleman had to become accustomed to the occasional social lapse on the part of others. “I was delighted to receive your message. I appreciate your interest in my novels.”
“Yes, indeed, I am a great admirer of your work, both as a publisher and as a reader.” He motioned toward a tea tray. “May I pour you a cup?”
“Thank you.”
While he busied himself with the pot and two cups, she took advantage of the opportunity to look around the office. It was not unlike Spraggett’s domain, littered with papers, books and files. One entire shelf was crammed with old copies of New Dawn.
A photograph of the queen occupied a place of pride on one wall.
“My wife, Sarah, was very fond of novels. I’m sure she would have enjoyed your stories.” Reed set a cup of tea on the table beside Caroline. “She was a medium of great power. Sadly, I lost her several years ago. Some monstrous villain attacked her the morning after our wedding night while she was walking in the park across the street.”
“I am sorry for your loss, Mr. Reed.”
“Thank you. It is my most fervent desire to contact her on the Other Side. Indeed, I have dedicated my life to that project.”
A chill slithered through Caroline. “I see.”
He moved one hand to indicate the office and the huge, dark mansion that seemed to press down upon them. “She was the last of her family. This house was part of her inheritance. I stayed on here after her death because I felt certain that it would be easier for her spirit to return to the place that had been her home in her earthly life.”
“I understand.”
“As the years passed and no contact was made, I devoted myself to the study of psychical research. I established the Society and I try to encourage mediums and others who are interested in such matters. It is my hope that someone more gifted than I will help me find the answers I seek.”
“You have contributed greatly to the field of psychical research, Mr. Reed.” Out of politeness she tried another sip of the strong tea. The milk and sugar made it palatable, but just barely.
Reed folded his broad hands on his desk. Caroline noticed that he wore mourning cuff links fashioned of jet and silver.
“Everything I have done since Sarah’s death has been guided by my hope of contacting her,” he said. “But thus far, it has all been to no avail.”
“It may be that such things are not meant to be,” she suggested as kindly as possible.
He frowned. “If that were so, mediums such as my Sarah would not exist. She really did possess the most amazing gifts, Mrs. Fordyce. There is no doubt in my mind. Knowing that is what gives me the resolve to press on with all forms of psychical research. Sooner or later, I will find a medium who will be able to contact her. When that happens, I will not only be able to communicate with Sarah, I will prove to the world that psychical investigation is a legitimate field of science.”
“I know that you are not alone in your convictions, sir.” She paused delicately. “And I wish you well in your explorations. But I believe that you asked me to come here today to discuss more mundane business?”
“Not mundane at all, madam. I have been searching for ways to expand the readership of New Dawn and also membership in the Society. It is my firm belief that the more people who study psychical matters, the more likely we are to make a breakthrough.”
“That sounds reasonable.”
He leaned forward earnestly. “It occurred to me that if New Dawn were to publish one of your stories in a serialized fashion, I could attract a very large number of new readers and possibly discover new, talented mediums.”
She swallowed, aware that her throat seemed to have gone quite dry and raspy. She hoped she was not coming down with a cold.
“I am flattered, Mr. Reed, but do you think my type of novels are suited to your publication?”
“You have told me that you are researching a new novel that will feature a powerful medium and several startling incidents involving the Other Side. I would very much like to offer you a contract to publish that story in New Dawn.”
She took another sip of tea to moisten her unnaturally dry mouth and tongue. “It is an intriguing proposition, sir.”
“I am well aware that your current publisher will no doubt make you an excellent offer for your next novel. All I ask is that you give me an opportunity to counter his offer with a better one. I confess I do not know how much one pays an author but I am not without resources. I trust we will be able to come to an agreement.”
A discreet knock sounded on the office door.
Reed broke off, irritated. “Yes, Miller, what is it?”
The door opened. A diffident-looking young man nodded apologetically at Caroline and then cleared his throat.
“I am sorry to interrupt you, sir, but you did ask to be notified when Mr. Elsworth arrived.”
“Elsworth?” Reed was clearly annoyed. “He’s here?”
“Yes, sir. He says he wishes to discuss the arrangements for this evening’s reception and demonstration. Evidently there are some changes he wants to make.”
“This is most awkward.” Reed got to his feet. “It is just after three. My appointment with Elsworth was for four o’clock.”
“Shall I ask him to come back?”
“No, no, you must not do anything that will cause him to take offense. This institution needs his illustrious presence. He has brought us a great deal of attention and credibility.” Reed hurried around the desk. “You know how temperamental he is.”
“Yes, sir.” Miller waited for instructions.
Reed paused by Caroline’s chair. “Mrs. Fordyce, will you excuse me for a few minutes? Elsworth can be quite difficult.”
“I understand.” A small, unpleasant wave of nausea roiled her stomach. Her skin went suddenly cold. “Perhaps I should return at some other time.”
“No, please, wait here. I will be only a moment.”
Reed vanished, ushering Miller ahead of him, before she could think of an excuse to leave. The door closed solidly.
Caroline sat very still for a moment, breathing deeply and hoping that her stomach would settle. She looked at the half-empty cup of cloyingly sweet, milky tea. The lines she had written the other evening after Adam had left her study came back to her. You are not yourself . . . I believe you may have been poisoned. . . .
Impossible, she thought. Do not let your writer’s imagination run wild. Reed has no reason on earth to harm you.
Nevertheless, she was not herself. She wanted nothing more than to go home, crawl into her own bed, pull up the covers and sleep.
It took all of her strength to get out of the chair. For a few disorienting seconds she stood in the center of the room, trying to maintain her balance, trying not to be ill.
She closed her eyes against another churning twist of nausea. When the nasty sensation passed, she took a deep breath, opened her eyes and turned toward the door.
She found herself looking at a photograph. Not the one of the queen; rather another one that hung on the wall beside the door. She had been sitting with her back to it and had not noticed it until now.
It was a picture of a young woman dressed in an elegant dress and a long white veil. Her beautiful face was set in unhappy lines, as though she was resigned to some unpleasant fate.
“Sarah Reed, I presume?” she whispered. “Were you a real medium? Did you actually reach thr
ough the veil to communicate with the Other Side?”
The veil.
There was something about the portrait . . .
The bride’s pale hair was bound up in a style that had been fashionable a decade earlier.
Sarah Reed had evidently been blond, Caroline thought. Why was that important?
She moved closer to the photograph as though compelled. It required a great effort to concentrate on the details. Sarah Reed’s gown and veil were both white. That was not unusual. After the queen had chosen to wear white for her marriage to her beloved Albert, the color had become somewhat fashionable with brides. Many still preferred other colors, of course, but white was not uncommon.
She looked closer and noticed that Sarah Reed wore a brooch pinned to the bodice of her gown. It appeared to be covered in black enamel.
Dread whispered through Caroline. Her thoughts were starting to blur but somewhere in the haze she managed to summon up some of the elements that Adam had mentioned when he had described the brooch that he had found on Elizabeth Delmont’s bodice. It had been enameled in black—she was quite certain of that. He had said that there was a photograph of a woman dressed in white and wearing a veil inside. . . . A twist of blond hair had been set beneath the beveled crystal.
Dear heaven. Terror turned her blood to ice. She had to get out of here immediately.
The door of the office opened before she could take a single step.
“Mrs. Fordyce.” Reed walked into the room, frowning in concern. “Are you all right?”
“No, I am ill. Please excuse me.” She started forward, fighting to keep her balance. “I must go home at once.”
“Allow me to assist you.”
Reed closed the door and came toward her, arms outstretched.
“Don’t touch me,” she rasped, trying to evade his grasp.
“But you are ill, Mrs. Fordyce. You need help.”
“No. I must leave.”
But the room was spinning more violently now. A thick, murky darkness was closing in around her, leaving no solid shapes that she could use to orient herself. She tried to grab the back of a chair, missed and crumpled to her knees.
“Don’t worry, Mrs. Fordyce. I will take care of you.”
Reed reached down and picked her up in his arms. There was more strength in his square, stocky, broad-shouldered body than she would have imagined.
She opened her mouth to scream for help but the strange fog enveloped her completely. She found herself suddenly cast adrift in a vast, uncharted sea of nothingness, neither fully asleep nor entirely awake. A dreamworld.
She wondered if this was the Other Side.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Adam waited for his prey in the stillness and shadows of the well-furnished lodgings. He heard the key in the lock shortly before six o’clock that evening.
The door opened. Elsworth let himself into the room and made to turn up the nearest lamp.
Adam moved out of the shadows, caught him by the back of his coat and hurled him against the wall.
Elsworth grunted heavily, bounced off the paneling and landed hard on his side. He scrambled frantically to right himself.
“If you move so much as a finger, I will break it,” Adam said.
Elsworth froze half-sitting, half-sprawled on the floor. “Hardesty? What the deuce is this about?”
Adam lit the lamp. “It is about two murders and a missing diary.”
“Have you gone mad, sir? How dare you invade my residence like this and imply that I am in any way connected to murder?”
“I want answers, Elsworth, and I want them quickly. Tell me everything you know about the deaths of Elizabeth Delmont and Irene Toller.”
“I was barely acquainted with those two frauds. I had nothing to do with their deaths and you cannot prove otherwise. Now, I advise you to leave at once or I shall summon a constable. I have an important reception and a demonstration at Wintersett House to prepare for this evening.”
“If you don’t tell me what I want to know, you are not only going to miss this evening’s performance, I will also make certain that your career as London’s most fashionable medium comes to an end tonight.”
Elsworth stared. “Are you threatening my life, sir?”
“At the moment, merely your livelihood. But that could certainly change.”
“Bah.” Elsworth relaxed visibly. “Do you really think that anything you say can persuade people not to believe in my powers? If so, you are a fool. People believe what they wish to believe and at the moment, most of London is pleased to believe that I am the most powerful practitioner of psychical powers who has ever lived.”
“You misunderstand me, Elsworth. I do not intend to expose you as a fraudulent practitioner, but rather as a financial fraud.” Adam picked up the envelope he had placed on a table a short time before. He opened it, turned it upside down and let the Drexford & Co. stock certificates fall to the carpet.
Elsworth glanced uneasily at the documents. “Where did you get those?”
“Out of the bottom drawer of your desk.”
“See here, I don’t know what makes you think that I know anything about those certificates.”
“The printer who arranged to produce those for you is an old and trusted acquaintance of mine,” Adam said. “He is also the cautious sort. He had you followed after the two of you did business together. He likes to know as much as possible about his clients, you see. It provides him with a measure of security.”
Elsworth grimaced. “That old villain. Should have known he would pull a trick like that. Well, it won’t do you any good. He is hardly likely to testify against me. He’s got too many secrets of his own to hide.”
“I don’t need his testimony to destroy your career. You do not appear to be aware of the fact that I have some powers of my own.”
Elsworth eyed him warily. “What are you talking about?”
“One word from me concerning the true nature of your business operations, Elsworth, and every newspaper in the city will take great delight in exposing the financial scandal you perpetrated with the help of two murdered mediums.”
“You have no proof,” Elsworth said weakly.
“You know as well as I do that evidence and proof are unimportant trifles when it comes to a press sensation. But, to be frank, exposure in the papers should be the least of your concerns.”
“What do you mean?”
“I would remind you of my position in the Polite World,” Adam said gently. “I not only control a fortune, I am Wilson Grendon’s heir and I have a very close connection to the Earl of Southwood. I promise you that before I am finished, all the important doors in Society that are presently open to you will close so suddenly and with such force that you will be able to hear the echoes all the way across England.”
Elsworth gave that statement about two seconds’ thought.
“What, precisely, do you want to know?” he asked wearily.
Adam picked up the diary that he had found hidden beneath the bed. “As a matter of curiosity, where did you find this? I searched Elizabeth Delmont’s house very carefully that night.”
“I was more closely acquainted with her than you were, sir. Delmont actually considered herself a professional colleague of mine. When I expressed some passing interest in her tricks and devices, she very proudly gave me a tour of her secrets.” Elsworth gave a gentlemanly snort. “She wanted to impress me, and I will admit she was somewhat more clever than many of her competitors. She had installed a number of concealed cupboards and cabinets. One of them was behind the wall sconce in the séance room. I found the diary in it.”
“Unfortunately, I missed that particular cupboard.” Adam put the journal down. “If I had located the diary that night, I could have saved myself a good deal of trouble.” He watched Elsworth closely. “How did you know to search for it?”
“Delmont had told me that she had recently come into possession of a private journal that had great potential for blackmail.
She actually bragged about it. As I told you, she wanted to make me see her as an equal, not as a lowly assistant. After I found her body, I decided it might be worthwhile to make a quick search to see if I could locate the diary. I admit, she had made me curious about the possibility of an easy profit.”
“You found the journal.”
“Yes, but once I read the damned thing, I decided it would be best not to use it.”
“What made you come to that conclusion?”
“I make my living by my wits,” Elsworth said dryly. “I’m not a fool. I did not want to take the risk of blackmailing a man as powerful and as dangerous as you are, Hardesty. But you forced my hand when you continued to investigate the murders. I knew that sooner or later you would uncover my very profitable little investment scheme.”
“You sent those two men to warn me off, didn’t you?”
Elsworth shrugged. “I was getting desperate. The diary was all I had to use against you.”
“I understand why you took the diary. But why did you take the mourning brooch and the veil?”
Elsworth scowled, genuinely confused. “What brooch? What veil?”
“The veil was soaked with Mrs. Delmont’s blood. The brooch was decorated with black enamel. It contained a photograph of a young woman in a white gown and veil. It also held a lock of blond hair.”
Elsworth went very still. “Are you certain?”
“Yes. The veil and the brooch were both on Delmont’s body when I found her. I’m certain Toller placed them there deliberately. But I don’t know why or where she got them.”
Elsworth’s voice grew tense. “I have met with Durward Reed in his office at Wintersett House several times. There is a certain photograph on the wall next to the door.”
“What are you saying?”
“I fear that the situation may be far worse than you know.”
A short time later, Adam banged the knocker on the door at Number 22 Corley Lane. Mrs. Plummer answered. She looked confused when he asked to see Caroline.
“She left this afternoon, sir. Got a note from Mr. Reed at the Society for Psychical Investigations saying he wanted to talk about a contract for one of her sensation novels. I expected her home before now, but she hasn’t returned. She must have been delayed.”