The Cyanide Ghost (Mina Scarletti Mystery Book 6)

by Linda Stratmann

  As Mina stared at him, he looked up. Their eyes met, and it was clear that he had recognised her. He glanced at his watch and this was followed by much energetic scribbling in a notebook. Mina recalled that Mr Hartop had told her that he had once made enquiries about a potential suitor for his daughter, and she wondered if Mr Stevenson had been hired by Mr Hartop to spy on Mr Clover.

  At their last meeting Mina had been obliged to treat the detective with some cruelty, making use of his extraordinary fear of spiders, but she had done so not out of personal malice, but desperation, in order to protect Nellie’s reputation. Nellie’s sojourn at Hollow House under the same roof as her former admirer Richard, and the noted philanderer Mr Hope, might have been enough to ruin her. The sequence of peculiar events at Hollow House had finally led to an uneasy understanding in which Mina and the detective had formed a mutual agreement not to reveal certain secrets. The result had been a delicate balance of trust and mistrust. Since Mr Stevenson was obviously acting in his professional capacity by lurking outside the Samprey offices and had seen her in the company of Mr Clover, Mina thought it was only a matter of time before he arranged an interview.

  The genteel village of Rottingdean and its old parsonage looked like an ideal home for an antiquated Romanian Count of reclusive habits. The tour of the house did suggest to Mina that some improvements should be made to the amenities, unless the Count’s interest in the preservation of historical buildings extended to the plumbing. Mr Inskip was enthusiastic about the possibilities of the property, observing that there was space in the grounds to establish a wolf sanctuary so his client would not be bereft of their company. He proposed to write to Count Andrey recommending that the property be surveyed at once to estimate what repairs and renovations were advisable. Mina had little opportunity to speak privately to Mr Clover, but was able to pass him her card, saying that if he ever needed advice, he was welcome to write to her.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The next morning Mina left the house for a gentle walk, which took her down to the sea front where she stood resting her palms on the railings that bordered the promenade. The Brighton sea, which had been known to rage and even cascade onto the public walkway when the mood took it, was calm that day, its movement a soothing velvety ripple, its briny scent invigorating. She had not been there long before Mr Stevenson came to stand nearby, also leaning on the railings and staring out to sea, although he appeared to take no joy from the sight. She had received a note from him the previous evening, asking if they could speak, and she had agreed.

  ‘I trust you are well, Miss Scarletti,’ he said. ‘I had heard that you were indisposed earlier this year.’

  ‘I have recovered, thank you,’ said Mina. ‘And you, Mr Stevenson, I assume you are still busy with your trade in secrets?’

  ‘Extremely. A town such as Brighton will always have them.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Since you have agreed to speak to me, I hope you are amenable to answering some questions?’

  ‘I am. Of course, I have always believed that information should run in both directions.’

  ‘I appreciate that. To begin with, I observed you yesterday in a carriage with two gentlemen. Might I ask their names and the reason for your journey?’

  ‘Of course. The elder of the two is Mr Inskip. He is married to my sister Enid, and they live in London. He manages transactions in property and has been looking for something suitable for a client in this vicinity. That was the purpose of his meeting at the Sampreys’. The journey was to look at a property in Rottingdean. I thought that it would be a very pleasant little excursion, and I asked to accompany him to see the village. The other young gentleman is a Mr Clover, who is a clerk at Sampreys’. He was conducting us to the property.’

  Mr Stevenson nodded. ‘And when you went to Rottingdean, did you meet anyone else there?’

  ‘No, we simply viewed the property and returned.’

  Mr Stevenson extracted a notebook and pencil from his pocket and made an entry.

  ‘I may be able to assist you further,’ said Mina. ‘I can hazard a guess at the name of your client, a gentleman whom I have met once. Since I doubt very much that you are following either myself or Mr Inskip, I can only assume it is young Mr Clover who is the object of your interest. Your client believes that Mr Clover may be intending to pay court to his daughter and wishes to reassure himself of the gentleman’s character and circumstances.’

  Mr Stevenson said nothing, but his eyes had turned to Mina, and he was watching and waiting.

  Certain now that her supposition was correct, Mina continued. ‘Mr Clover, as I am sure you know, has been consulting a medium known only as Lady Brighthelm. Unless he is not being truthful, he does not know her real name. But you and I are both aware that she is the daughter of your client. When Lady Brighthelm became indisposed and was obliged to cease her practice, Mr Clover was very concerned and tried to discover her address as he wished to resume the consultations. Again, unless he is not being truthful, his interest in her is solely due to the information she is providing or promises to provide, and he has no wish to court her. I appreciate that her father is anxious to check the credentials of any suitor, and Mr Clover does not seem to be ideal due to his youth and the fact that he is employed as a junior clerk. My feeling is that the lady’s father does not need to have any anxiety concerning Mr Clover’s intentions. They are not of a romantic nature.’

  Mr Stevenson smiled a little. ‘Thank you for that information. Her father will also be anxious that Mr Clover must not attempt to visit the lady since he is demanding more of her than is reasonable in her current state of health. Did you only meet him yesterday?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you have no information to his detriment?’

  ‘None.’ There was a silence. Mina studied Mr Stevenson’s features. ‘But I think you do.’ She recalled that Mr Hartop had expressed some doubts about the suitability of Mr Clover’s family. ‘Your client told me that he is concerned about the Clovers because there is some fault in their history, but I know nothing about them.’

  Mr Stevenson mused for a while before he spoke. ‘They are respectable people, but the profession of architect is not without the occasional drama. In the case of the Clovers, there have sometimes been allegations of flaws in buildings which have led to legal action for damages. About three years ago, there was an action brought by a Mr Bawtree, whose daughter, his only child, died after being trapped under a falling iron gate when passing by a property that was in the course of construction. He alleged that the accident was due to the architects’ negligence. He took them to court, but the ruling was that it was an act of God, occasioned by stormy weather, and he went away unsatisfied. From time to time he wrote to them, threatening further action. That may be one reason why young Mr Clover did not follow his brothers into the profession but joined the Sampreys in their business.’

  ‘But you know nothing against Mr Clover personally? I assume that being very young and without appreciable fortune, he is not paying court to another lady?’

  ‘Paying court,’ said Mr Stevenson, with a mirthless grin. ‘An interesting expression. What I can say is that I have observed him making frequent visits to a lodging house, and my enquiries have revealed that while there he conducts interviews with a young person, who is the between stairs maid. I doubt very much if he is courting her in the usual sense of the word.’

  ‘Does his family know about this?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Will you tell your client? If Mr Clover has no intentions towards his daughter, then it should not be necessary. As to his family —’

  ‘I will retain that information to use as a bargaining counter should the need arise. But tell me, do you know why Mr Clover was visiting Lady Brighthelm?’

  ‘I do not. That secret lies between him and the medium. In general, people visit mediums to find answers to their most pressing questions; questions about their own personal future; about loved ones who have passed away;
or to reassure themselves about the prospect of eternal life. It is not unlike consulting a detective, except that you question the living whereas a spirit medium questions the dead. In Mr Clover’s case, all he would reveal to me is that he was attempting to make contact with a deceased person. He was unwilling to say more.’

  ‘And you say that Mr Clover was very concerned about the illness of Lady Brighthelm?’

  ‘Yes, my brother works for Mr Beckler, and he said that Mr Clover was quite agitated. He had come for an appointment only to be told it had been cancelled, and he was very anxious to consult her. I asked him why he did not go to another medium, but he intimated that only Lady Brighthelm seemed to be able to provide him with the answers he sought.’

  Mr Stevenson appeared satisfied with that reply. ‘I will report back to my client. It may well be that my work in this case has been completed.’

  ‘You are not investigating the attack on the lady?’

  ‘That is not my remit. I leave serious crimes to the police.’

  Mina and Mr Stevenson solemnly exchanged cards before they went their separate ways, but Mina was left with the feeling that despite the openness of their discussion, there was still something Mr Stevenson had chosen not to reveal.

  As Mina climbed the steep road to her home, she was thoughtful. On balance she believed that Mr Clover was genuine, that he did not know the real identity of Lady Brighthelm, and his agitation at her illness was simply because he was anxious to consult her. Had Mr Clover sought to consult the spirit of the deceased Miss Bawtree to finally free his family from blame? What had Miss Hartop suggested she might know? Given her interest in local scandals, she would know all about publicly reported court cases. Perhaps she possessed some nugget of information, or at the very least by dint of a good guess that had unwittingly hit the mark, was able to suggest that she did. And if that was true of Mr Clover’s enquiries, then it could be equally true of all the others who had consulted the medium, the people who had made appointments and not revealed their names. The people who might also know that the medium’s favourite sweetmeat was Veale’s violet creams.

  Mr Beckler’s exercise in photographic ghosts to drum up custom for the shop and Miss Hartop’s resultant emergence as a medium had had unintended consequences. One of the consequences, Mina realised, could well have been the attempt on the life of Miss Hartop.

  The next weekly edition of the Gazette was one which Mina studied with more than the usual care.

  To the Editor:

  SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPHS

  Sir,

  Might I suggest before the Soules brothers impugn the honesty of a businessman that they actually take the trouble to examine the product he offers? By their own admission, they have failed to do so. Really it is too bad dismissing something out of hand in such a careless manner. I would also like to remind them that Mr William Mumler, the American photographer whose example they quote, was not shown to be a fraud at all, and left court without a stain on his character.

  Meanwhile, it grieves me to inform the town that a lady who is the newest shining star in the already bright firmament of spirit mediums has been the victim of a deadly assault. Only the hand of the Almighty, the most powerful, saved her so that she might continue her good works. Truly greatness will protect and nurture greatness, while the small and mean will perish.

  Arthur Wallace Hope

  Mina was in no doubt as to whom the ‘small and mean’ person might be but trusted that not everyone would see the allusion. So carefully worded was the letter that she dared not make a protest because of the risk of identifying herself as a suspect.

  There was a large advertisement in the Gazette for a series of lectures Mr Hope was giving in Brighton at the Town Hall on the subjects of the trading opportunities in Africa, his great friend Dr Livingstone, and spiritualism, the new hope for the world. Mina hoped that he would not be detained in town for too long.

  She was reading the more palatable general news when her eye was caught by an interesting headline.

  DEATH OF A SEER

  The death has been announced of Mrs Mary Ragdon, who once enjoyed the soubriquet of ‘the Brighton Oracle’, after a long illness. She was aged 74. She will be interred in the Extra Mural Cemetery at 4 p.m. on Thursday, where a small service will be performed at the chapel. She is survived by her sister, Miss Mulgrew.

  Mina read this several times. The first thing that struck her was the name Mulgrew. Could Mrs Ragdon have been a relative of Mr Robert Mulgrew, the theological scholar? A sister, perhaps? And where had she heard the name Ragdon mentioned quite recently? Mina searched her memory and finally it came to her. Mrs Peasgood had described consulting a medium called Mrs Ragdon in her efforts to discover the truth about her husband’s demise. That had to be the same person. If Mina was right, then she had discovered a direct connection between two of the subjects of Mr Beckler’s spirit pictures. The final thing that struck her was that since the Gazette was a weekly paper, the death had occurred some days before and the funeral was that afternoon.

  The newspaper also carried a small appreciation.

  THE BRIGHTON ORACLE

  Many of our readers will recall Mrs Ragdon in her heyday some ten or twenty years ago, when she received visitors who were anxious to learn their future fates, have her lay healing hands upon them, or hear messages from their deceased loved ones. Mrs Ragdon was sadly struck down in her prime by a seizure of the brain which left her unable to move or speak. Despite this and being confined to bed for the remainder of her life, Mrs Ragdon continued to act as an oracle to a devoted circle of adherents. This correspondent once visited her in her humble home and found her surrounded by flowers and objects of religious significance. She was regarded by some as a saint on earth. Although her powers of speech were gone, it was, so I was informed, only necessary to hold her hand, think deeply of the enquiry one wished to make, and the truth would be revealed. I was warned that she did not concern herself with mundane matters such as the result of horse races or the movement of the stock market, only questions of the soul. I was not asked to make a financial contribution, that would have been an indelicate request to make so blatantly, nevertheless I spied a china teapot placed in a prominent position in which there were both coins and banknotes, and I took the hint. I did sit for a while touching the lady’s hand, and thought deeply of my late grandmother, but my only thoughts were of what she had previously said to me in life, so I was unable to come to any conclusion as to whether this was a message from beyond the grave.

  Mina consulted the Brighton directory and found an entry for Mrs M Ragdon, clairvoyante. Presumably her sister resided at the same address.

  Mina ordered a cab, asking the driver to take her to the cemetery. Apart from the late Mrs Ragdon, there were two names she was interested in: Miss Bawtree, whose father had accused the Clovers of negligence, and the one member of the Clover family buried in the Extra Mural Cemetery. There was just time for her to call at the office before the funeral.

  As she travelled, she gave further thought to the individuals whose gravesites had been photographed by Mr Beckler, and an emerging theme, an interest in spiritualism. Mr Mulgrew was most probably related to the medium Mrs Ragdon. Mrs Peasgood had once consulted Mrs Ragdon. Mr Honeyacre had made a study of spiritualism. According to Mr Inskip, one of the disputatious cousins of Miss Porterson-White had consulted a medium. Martha Veale had said at her husband’s inquest that she had consulted a medium about his death. Young Mr Phipps’s aunt had certainly attended séances, but then she went to any event where refreshments were served and had never exhibited any great interest in the proceedings. Regarding Mrs Soules and the Sampreys, she knew nothing of any interest they might have had in spiritualism but thought it would be a useful subject to pursue.

  The office clerk gave her the location of the 1867 burial of Mrs Elizabeth Clover and the Bawtree grave in which there was more than one interment, and Mina made a careful note, identifying the sites she needed on her map.<
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  With no further need of the cab, Mina walked on to the chapel. It was a delightfully neat little building; a miniature church formed in the Gothic style and clad in flint and stone. Had Mina elected to go to the chapel first, the carriage would have brought her directly underneath the tall stone canopy that protected the entrance where visitors were able to alight from their cabs and carriages unconcerned about the vagaries of the weather. Instead, as she approached on foot, she saw a small cluster of persons gathered under the canopy in earnest conversation and to her discomfort recognised one figure. He had his back to her but the height, the broad shoulders and abundant dark hair could only belong to one person, Mr Arthur Wallace Hope, the man she most wanted to avoid. Thankful that he could not see her, she diverted her intended route and rounded the chapel. Pausing by a side wall, she peered around the corner to see if he had finally vanished inside. At length she approached the entrance and was able to see into the chapel to observe how the congregation were seated and judge whether or not it would be best for her to retire without attending the service.

  Unlike the usual arrangement in a church, the chapel seats were not laid out in rows facing an altar but faced each other on either side of the length of the building. The coffin had been placed on trestles in the aisle. There was an attendance of some thirty or forty persons, and Mr Hope, in the company of a lady who Mina assumed must be Miss Mulgrew, had gone to take a seat close by a lectern beside the altar. The last thing Mina wanted was for Mr Hope to see her and start denouncing her to all and sundry, which would not assist the dignity and solemnity required at a funeral.