Jane Carter Historical Cozies: Omnibus Edition (Six Mystery Novels)

by Alice Simpson

  I kept well behind Mrs. Timms as we went up the stairway to Silva’s waiting room. Several people had arrived ahead of us; all the uncomfortable straight-back chairs were taken. There was one man dressed in rough, soiled clothing. I wondered if he might be Jeanie’s father. There were two girls, obviously housemaids, who whispered and giggled. The remainder of the chairs were taken up by three older women who appeared to come from well-to-do families. Mrs. Timms and I stood with our backs against the wall. The tiny waiting area was too small for so many people, and it smelled of boiled onions and mentholated ointment.

  Fortunately, we did not have long to wait. Exactly at the stroke of two, the little window in the wall swung open. A man with an ugly scarred face and piercing blue eyes peered out at the assembly.

  The man pressed a button and a wallpapered panel opened. A secret door, I thought, very clever. The place might not be luxurious, but at least it was intriguing.

  “Enter,” the assistant said. “Have your fee ready, please.”

  Everyone rose and filed into the next room. I made sure that I was the last person to pass through the door. I wanted to get a better look at Silva’s assistant.

  On second look, he was no more a thing of beauty than he had been when he peered out the little window in the wall. He was a man of medium height and muscular build, of indeterminant age, with a heavily scarred face and a pronounced hump. He caught me looking at him, and I quickly looked away.

  I felt guilty for staring. It must be a burden to go through life as the center of attention, I thought. I’d felt a bit sorry for Miss Barnett for the same reason, but to be stared at because one was ugly would be far worse than because one was a raving beauty, dripping with sex-appeal.

  The room we’d been ushered into was dark. The walls were draped with black velvet. Any windows the room might have had were covered over. Even the ceiling had been painted black and was decorated with a sprinkling of misshapen silver stars.

  “Nice and spooky,” I whispered to Mrs. Timms.

  She shushed me.

  There was a large circular table with eight empty chairs taking up most of the room. The ninth chair, directly in front of an object not unlike a black throne, was occupied by The Great Silva. He was the same man I’d met before, but he appeared far more impressive in his dark velvet robes.

  With a majestic gesture, Silva waved everyone into chairs.

  “Join hands so that our connection with the spirits in the world beyond may not be broken,” he commanded in a sepulchral voice.

  I took the seat beside Mrs. Timms and clasped the hand of the probable housemaid to my left. Everyone looked extremely serious, eyes focused on the medium. I resisted an impulse to giggle.

  Silva looked at me, and I adjusted my face into something grimmer. He looked away. Evidently, my getup had him fooled. Probably, it was the addition of the spectacles that had made all the difference.

  “Now, ladies and gentlemen,” said the medium, “to prove that I use no tricks or mechanical devices, I shall ask my assistant to bind my hands and feet. Spider!”

  “Yes, Master.”

  The hunchback padded softly across the room to Silva’s throne chair. He bound the medium with stout cords.

  The girl at my left said in a hushed voice: “Please, Silva, may I speak with my departed brother, Frank?”

  “I will try to get through to him,” murmured the medium. “We will all concentrate very hard upon Frank. Lights, Spider!”

  “Yes, Master.”

  The hunchback padded away. Turning slightly in my chair, I saw him return the same way we’d entered the room and close the panel behind him. Evidently, in the outside room, there was a board which controlled the illumination. In a moment, the room was dark.

  “Oh, spirit of the netherworld,” Silva chanted. “I summon you—I summon you.”

  I could feel Mrs. Timms’ hand trembling in my own. The girl to my left was shaking as if from the ague. I felt none too calm myself. For the first time, I was rethinking squandering Bouncing Betsy’s drinks budget on such an unsettling experience.

  Although it was mid-day, not a gleam of light filtered into the black-shrouded room. I couldn’t see an inch in front of me. Everything was so still I could hear the uneven breathing of those sitting around the circular table.

  For what seemed like an eternity, but was probably only a minute or two, this complete silence weighed down on us, then there was a gentle tapping sound so close to me that I jumped. The knocking came from the table.

  “Are you there, Frank?” called Silva softly. His voice was dying away as if the man were fast slipping into a trance.

  The raps repeated three times, and then the room became quiet once more.

  “Have you a message for your sister, Frank?” urged the medium. “Try to get through to us. We are ready.”

  His last words were spoken with a hint of impatience. Silva’s waiting for his assistant to provide the requested message, I thought, and the assistant is late in delivering it.

  There was another short silence, then a snarling voice, pregnant with hatred, filled the room. The voice seemed to come from the throne directly behind the medium.

  “Leo Silva—beware! Your hour is coming!”

  There was an indistinct, choking sound, and then silence.

  “That wasn’t Frank’s voice!” shouted the girl on my left. “Turn on the lights! Turn on the lights!”

  Chairs were pushed back, some were overturned. One woman began to scream, but there was silence from Silva.

  This couldn’t be part of the regular routine, I decided. No profit could come from terrifying the customers. I got out of my seat and groped my way to the wall, but I could not figure out how to open the panel in the wall, nor could I find any switch for the electric lights.

  “Spider!” I called out.

  Nothing.

  I called out again, louder this time.

  No response. Silva’s assistant had disappeared from the outer room.

  I continued around the perimeter of the room. Surely, under all that black velvet, there must be at least one window. I finally found one and pulled back the heavy drape. I pushed up the sash and opened the shutters.

  A beam of sunlight illuminated the dark room, and there, face downward on the circular table, his feet and hands still bound, lay Leo Silva.

  CHAPTER 13

  “He’s dead!” shrieked one of the well-to-do women. I guessed it to be the same woman who’d been screaming like a banshee since the commencement of the whole weird scene.

  “Silva has been killed by a spirit!” wailed another of the banshee’s friend.

  I went to the table and touched the medium’s hand. It was warm. I moved my hand to his wrist. There was a pulse, a bit weak, but there.

  “He’s not dead,” I said. “He must have fainted from fright. Mrs. Timms, look in my purse and get out my pocket knife so that I can cut his cords?”

  I slashed the ropes which bound Silva’s hands and feet. The medium stirred.

  “That voice—” he muttered. Now that he was conscious, he had begun to tremble.

  “Will you see if you can find some water, Mrs. Timms?” I said. “What has become of that man called Spider?”

  Just then the lights came on. The panel leading to the anteroom opened, and the hunchback padded into the room. I wondered where he had gotten off to when his presence was so sorely needed.

  “Your master has fainted,” I said. “Can you get us some water?”

  The hunchback looked at the slumped figure on the table, and then, without a word, retreated. He came back with a glass of water. I gave it to Silva. Spider remained close by, watching as his master took a few sips.

  “Didn’t you hear us call for the lights to be turned on?” I asked.

  The hunchback didn’t answer me. He didn’t speak a single word until Mrs. Timms suggested sending for a doctor.

  “No! Master would not like that,” Spider insisted.

  By this
time, it was only Mrs. Timms and I who remained in the room with Silva and his assistant. The others had fled to the street.

  Silva ran a hand across his eyes as if trying to brush away a vision which haunted him.

  “Spider,” he whispered, “that voice—did you hear it?”

  “Yes, Master.”

  “Then it was not you who cried out my name?”

  “Oh, no, Master. I heard the voice say that your hour would come. I was frightened. I ran away and hid.”

  “What was the significance of those words?” I asked.

  “I do not know.” Silva shuddered. “In all my years as a medium, nothing like it ever happened before. The voice must have come from the beyond!”

  “But why should that prove so terrifying?” I asked. “Aren’t you accustomed to conversing daily with the spirits?”

  “I am not accustomed to spirits who shout threats,” Silva said, clearly fully aware of my meaning.

  “In other words, until today you have practiced a bit of trickery,” I said. There was no longer any use of pretending I was a true believer. “When a voice really spoke, you were shocked because you weren’t expecting it.”

  Silva looked down at the table and took another sip of water.

  “Well, of all things!” Mrs. Timms was indignant. “To think that I’d be taken in by a cheap faker! Here you’ve been accepting hard-earned money from honest people and pretending that you were in contact with the spirits!”

  “I am not a cheap faker,” Silva said. “If you spread that story around the neighborhood, I’ll be ruined! No one will visit my establishment again.”

  “And it would serve you right,” Mrs. Timms said. “I’m sure you’ll get no more of my money.”

  Silva buried his head in his hands, looking so sick and miserable that I felt a little sorry for him.

  “Don’t expose me,” he pleaded. “This is the only way I have of earning my living. I’ve only resorted to the same tricks all mediums use.”

  “Tell us what tricks they are, exactly, and we may be lenient,” I suggested. I was curious.

  “My assistant, Spider, helps me,” Silva explained. “I move the table and tap on it by means of a mechanical device hidden under the carpet at the foot of my chair. I try to learn facts about my clients and tell them what they wish to hear. That is all.”

  “And that mysterious voice?”

  “I tell you, I can’t explain it,” Silva insisted. “It was like a warning from the dead.”

  “Do you believe in the supernatural, Mr. Silva?” I asked.

  “Not really, at least I never did until today. But that voice was a great shock to me. It sounded for all the world like—”

  “Like what?” I asked.

  Silva shook his head. I could see he was done talking. I had pushed him too far.

  “Aren’t you that same woman who came here the other day?” he demanded. “The reporter?”

  “Jane isn’t a reporter,” declared Mrs. Timms.

  Silva sank back in the chair, closing his eyes. He looked pale and tired.

  “I’d have sworn—but then, I’m not myself today. I’m going to my rooms to rest. I beg of you, don’t repeat what I have told you, or I shall be ruined.”

  “We might keep your secret upon one condition,” I bargained.

  “What is that?”

  “Do you recall a man by the name of Smith who comes here? I believe he might have been present today.”

  “Yes, I know the man.”

  “He is a poor man and cannot afford to waste his money. Do not allow him to come here again.”

  “I’ll do as you ask,” Silva promised. “And now, please leave me alone. My nerves are shattered.”

  As we went down the long stairway to the street, Mrs. Timms declared again that she did not understand how she could have been taken in by a person of Silva’s character.

  “I hope you’ll say nothing of this to your father,” she said. “Not that I wish you to keep secrets from him, but I have acted foolishly.”

  “Oh, I don’t wonder you were taken in by the man,” I tried to reassure her. “For just a moment when those lights went out, I was under his spell myself. Didn’t that old hunchback give you the shivers?”

  “I scarcely noticed him.”

  “You didn’t? It seemed to me that his eyes followed me wherever I went. I couldn’t help wondering whether he had something to do with that mysterious voice.”

  “Why would he call out a threat to his own employer? Such a thing isn’t likely, Jane. Besides, it was not his voice.”

  “No, that’s true. Upon second thought, I guess Spider couldn’t have had anything to do with it. Just the same, it was weird. And poor Silva was frightened out of his wits.”

  “So was I. I declare, this has taught me a severe lesson.”

  We had reached the foot of the stairway. Rounding a corner of the hall, we came face to face with a young woman who had just entered the building. She wore a dark veil over her hat, but at such close range, her features were plainly visible.

  I stopped short. It was Helene Barnett.

  “Miss Barnett! I certainly didn’t expect to meet you here!”

  CHAPTER 14

  Helene Barnett could not hide a look of dismay as she recognized me.

  “Well, I scarcely expected to meet you so soon, either.” She laughed self-consciously. “I came here trying to find a dentist.”

  “I’m afraid you’re in the wrong building and the wrong street,” I said. “In fact, I believe you are in the wrong neighborhood, altogether. There are no dentists in this entire sector of the city.”

  “The lower floor of this building is vacant,” explained Mrs. Timms. “Leo Silva, the medium, occupies the second floor.”

  “Just now, I doubt that the Great Silva will be in a mood to receive visitors,” I added. “But then, I don’t suppose you’re interested in seeing him, either.”

  “No, of course not,” Miss Barnett.

  “Is your tooth paining you a great deal?” said Mrs. Timms. “I know a very good dentist on Glenmore Avenue.”

  “The pain has let up since I left the theater. Perhaps, I’ll not bother today.”

  Miss Barnett turned away from the stairs.

  “I had planned to run over to the Pink Lotus and see you this afternoon,” I said, as we three left the building together. “You said over the telephone that the witch doll had been returned. Tell me all about it.”

  “There is absolutely nothing more to tell. After you threw the doll off the bridge and into the river, I returned to my hotel. Later, when I went to the theater, the witch doll was back in its place on the table in my dressing room.”

  “The very same doll?”

  “Yes, it’s uncanny.”

  “I’ve heard of strange things, but never anything like that. How could that doll have been recovered from the river and delivered back to you? It just isn’t possible.”

  “I can show you the doll.”

  “Did you ask the doorman if he had seen anyone enter your dressing room?”

  “The doorman didn’t see a soul, and you know I keep the room locked. Since my necklace disappeared, I don’t take any more chances.”

  “Does your maid have a key?”

  “No. Occasionally, I have given it to her, but she doesn’t have her own.”

  “Then I suppose she knows where you keep it?”

  “I imagine she does, but Pauline could not be responsible for the witch doll appearing in my room. No person could have accomplished such a thing.”

  “If you are suggesting that magical forces have been at work, I am afraid I can’t agree,” I said. “I’d toss that silly doll out the window again and forget it.”

  “Easily said, but not so easily accomplished. Miss Carter, I worry constantly. Last night I couldn’t sleep a wink. I feel as if I am under an evil spell.”

  I did not wonder that the dancer was disturbed by the recent happenings. Considering all the bad luck
Miss Barton had experienced since the witch doll came into her possession, it was natural for her superstitious nature to attribute the bad things that had happened to supernatural causes.

  I asked if the police were making progress in tracing Miss Barnett’s missing necklace.

  “Not the slightest, so far as I can tell,” replied the dancer. “I wish now I never had reported my loss. They have bothered me with so many annoying questions.”

  “Still, I imagine it would be worth it if the necklace were returned.”

  Miss Barnett nodded. At the next corner, Miss Barton left us, saying that she would take a taxi back to the theater.

  “I wish I knew if she really intends to return there,” I said to Mrs. Timms as we walked toward home. “My guess is that she will go straight to see that man Silva.”

  “We should have warned her that he is a fraud.”

  I was so curious to see if Miss Barnett had really taken that taxi, that despite Mrs. Timms’ strenuous protests, I retraced my steps to the corner. I arrived in time to see Miss Barnett disappearing into the building which sheltered Silva’s séance parlor.

  That evening at the dinner table, Dad unexpectedly brought up Helene Barnett.

  “If I were you,” he said, “I’d be cautious in my friendship with Miss Barnett.”

  “Why, Dad?”

  “I was talking with the agent for the Furness Insurance Company today.”

  “Is that the company which holds the policy on Miss Barnett’s necklace?”

  “Yes, payment of the claim is being held up pending a complete investigation.”

  “You mean that the insurance officials doubt that the necklace was stolen?”

  “The case has several strange angles. For instance, Miss Barnett told the police she lost the diamonds at the Black Cat, or at least that she discovered the necklace was missing immediately after she left the night club.”

  “Yes, her details were quite vague.”

  “Exactly, Jane. When questioned by the police she became rather twisted in her story. First, she said that she had visited the Black Cat somewhere around midnight. Then she couldn’t be certain what time it was. Likewise, she was vague as to her escort, and finally, she said that she had gone there by herself.”