“Oh, yes. Knocking and table rocking and floating spirits. Parlor tricks, all of it.”
“But not Madame Serafina,” Frank said.
“No, she didn’t stoop to using any of those things.” Frank wasn’t going to argue with the man. “And I guess she couldn’t do any tricks with people holding her hands like that during the séance.”
“Oh, she could have if she’d wanted to,” Sharpe said knowingly. “They all make their clients hold each other’s wrists, but it’s easy enough to get a hand free in the dark.”
So Sharpe did know that trick. “But you don’t think Madame Serafina did that?”
“I can’t think why she would have to,” Sharpe said confidently.
“Madame Serafina told me you wanted her to leave Mrs. Gittings so you could keep her,” Frank said, catching him off guard.
He’d deliberately made it sound disreputable, and Sharpe instantly took offense. His face flooded with color. “Watch your tongue,” he ordered Frank. “Madame Serafina is a respectable young woman, and I had no intention of ‘keeping’ her, as you so crudely put it. I wanted to provide an establishment for her so she could use her talents without having to worry about supporting herself.”
“What’s wrong with supporting herself?” Frank asked innocently.
Plainly, Sharpe thought it was very wrong. “She was . . . That woman was taking advantage of her, turning her talent into a carnival sideshow.”
Frank supposed that Sharpe had no idea Serafina used to tell fortunes on street corners, which was probably a step or two below carnival sideshows. “What did Mrs. Gittings say when you told her you wanted to take Madame Serafina away?”
Sharpe’s eyes narrowed in remembered fury. “She wouldn’t believe that I was only interested in Madame Serafina’s spiritual talents. She thought . . . Well, she thought I wanted her for immoral purposes, and she said some very rude things.”
“Was she willing to let the girl go for a price?” Frank asked, remembering what the Gittings woman had offered Cunningham.
“Absolutely not. She was getting rich from the business, and she wasn’t going to let Madame Serafina go.”
Frank nodded. Sharpe could probably easily afford to meet the price she’d quoted Cunningham, and he wouldn’t have fallen for some phony investment scheme. No, he would be far more dangerous, so she’d have to refuse him outright. “Didn’t you try to convince Madame Serafina to leave her anyway?”
“Of course I did, but she wouldn’t hear of it. She said she owed everything to Mrs. Gittings, and she couldn’t leave her.”
“That’s touching,” Frank observed, earning a glare from Sharpe.
“Touching or not, she refused my offer, and nothing I said could convince her.”
“You were sitting right next to Mrs. Gittings at the séance, weren’t you?”
Instantly, Sharpe was back on guard again. “I already told you that.”
“Did you notice anything strange during the séance?”
“Do you mean did I know someone stabbed her to death?” he replied sarcastically. “No, I did not.”
“She didn’t cry out or jerk or squeeze your arm or—”
“No, I told you. I didn’t notice anything until she let go of my wrist and fell to the floor.”
“And you’re sure nobody else was in the room besides the people at the table?”
“No,” Sharpe said, annoyed again. “I told you, no one else was there.”
“Then how do you think the boy killed her, if he wasn’t in the room?” Frank asked with a puzzled frown.
Sharpe gaped at him in surprise. “I . . . The Professor said . . . I suppose he must have gotten in somehow,” he tried.
“How?” Frank asked, genuinely curious. “Was it a parlor trick, do you think?”
“No, of course not,” Sharpe said impatiently.
“Then how did he do it? Everybody said no one was in the room when they got there, and no one could come in by the door without everyone seeing him. So how did he get in to kill her? You see, that’s the first thing they’ll ask at his trial, and I have to have an answer.”
Sharpe rubbed his forehead as if it ached. “I don’t . . . He must have been hiding somewhere.”
“Where?” Frank asked with interest.
“I . . . In the cabinet,” he finally remembered. “He could have been hiding in there.”
“Didn’t you check it when you came into the room?” Frank asked.
“No, why should I?” Sharpe asked, defensive now. “I told you, Madame Serafina never used cheap parlor tricks.”
“Is that what the cabinet is for, parlor tricks?”
“I have no idea,” he insisted.
“Why was it there, then?”
Sharpe sighed in exasperation. “Some spiritualists use them. They climb inside and ask someone to tie them up. Then when the so-called spirits appear, everyone thinks they must be real because the spiritualist is tied up inside the cabinet.”
“Are you saying this is some kind of trick?”
“Naturally it’s a trick. The spiritualist knows how to hold her hands in such a way that even the tightest knots will fall off when she relaxes them. Then she is free to move around the room in the dark during the séance and pretend to be a spirit. Sometimes they even pretend to materialize and let everyone see them. And when the séance is over, they find the spiritualist still securely tied up in the cabinet because she’s slipped the ropes back on.”
Frank nodded, impressed. “But Madame Serafina never did that,” he guessed.
“No, I told you, she didn’t have to use tricks.”
“What if I told you the police checked the cabinet after the séance, and it was empty?”
“I’d say the boy had sneaked out while we were all in the parlor.”
Frank nodded sagely. “Do you think any of the other people at the séance could have killed Mrs. Gittings?”
He found this suggestion absurd. “What on earth for?”
“Some people didn’t like her,” Frank confided. “Even you didn’t like her.”
“I detested her, but that’s not reason enough to kill her.”
“She was keeping Madame Serafina a prisoner,” Frank reminded him. “She was using her like a pimp.”
Sharp stiffened in outrage. “How dare you!”
“But it’s true, isn’t it? She was selling the girl’s talents and keeping the money. You just wanted to get her away from all that.”
“Any honorable man would have done the same thing!”
“Of course he would,” Frank agreed. “But the girl wouldn’t leave, would she? That must have made you angry.”
“I was furious, but there was nothing I could do short of kidnapping her!”
“You could have killed Mrs. Gittings,” Franks suggested.
For a moment, Sharpe just stared at him in stunned silence, until the fact that Frank had just accused him of murder finally sank in. Then he lunged to his feet, his face nearly purple with rage. “Get out of here!” he bellowed. “Get out of here right now!”
Frank rose, betraying not the slightest hint of anxiety. He tucked his notebook and pencil back into his coat pocket and started for the door. He stopped when he reached it and turned back. “Should I tell Madame Serafina that you asked about her?”
He watched the emotions play across the other man’s face. His concern for the girl finally won out, and he reined in his outrage with difficulty. “When will she be returning to Waverly Place?”
“I don’t know,” Frank said quite truthfully. “But I can ask her to send you word when she does.”
Sharpe looked as if he were swallowing broken glass, but he said, “Thank you.”
Frank managed not to smile. At least Sharpe wouldn’t be storming down to Police Headquarters and demanding his head. Not yet, anyway.
SARAH DIDN’T LIKE LEAVING SERAFINA ALONE WITH JUST Maeve and Catherine to watch her. She might very well decide to sneak off and find Nicola and disapp
ear forever. But as Maeve had pointed out to her when they’d discussed it in whispers this morning while Serafina was still upstairs, Serafina could easily have sneaked out during the night if she’d wanted to. So when Mrs. Decker’s carriage rattled down Bank Street, Sarah bade all the girls good-bye and joined her mother inside it.
“I suppose we should discuss what we want to ask Mrs. Burke,” Sarah’s mother said when they’d exchanged greetings.
“You can leave that part to me,” Sarah assured her.
“Then what am I supposed to do?” Mrs. Decker asked with more than a touch of dismay.
“You are supposed to express your horror at the murder and sympathize with Mrs. Burke’s feelings and basically convince her we’re only there to offer our condolences on her ordeal and to gossip about it, just the way society ladies always do.”
“Really, Sarah, you make us sound like ghouls.”
“Not at all, Mother. I’m sure you hardly ever have the opportunity to gossip about a murder that took place before your very eyes.”
“I wish it had taken place before my very eyes,” Mrs. Decker said with a sigh. “Finding the killer would be so much easier!”
By the time they reached the Burke home, Sarah had given her mother numerous possible topics to use in conversation with Mrs. Burke while Sarah looked for an opening to ask the questions she really wanted to ask.
But when the maid answered the door, she informed them that Mrs. Burke was indisposed and not receiving visitors at present. Sarah was already turning to leave when Mrs. Decker said, “Nonsense. She’ll see us, I’m sure. Take my card up to her and ask.”
The poor girl looked horrified and stared at Mrs. Decker’s calling card as if it were a snake. Apparently, she’d never encountered a visitor rude enough to challenge her mistress’s will.
“We were with Mrs. Burke the day before yesterday,” Sarah added quickly, when it appeared the girl was going to refuse to even accept the card. “When she was . . . uh . . . taken ill.”
“You mean when she had the accident?” the girl supplied. “You were with her when it happened?”
“Yes, we were,” Mrs. Decker quickly assured her. “We simply must see how she’s doing. I will never forgive myself if she has suffered serious injury. We were childhood friends, you know.”
“Well, in that case,” the girl hedged, taking the card, “I’ll see if she is feeling well enough for visitors.”
She admitted them and left them in a small parlor to wait.
“I wonder what all this nonsense is about an accident,” Mrs. Decker said when they were alone.
“She must still have been very upset when she got home,” Sarah said. “She would have had to explain why.”
“A fall is always a good excuse for just about anything,” Mrs. Decker mused. “One can stay in bed for days without explaining a thing.”
Sarah looked at her mother in admiration. “I’ll remember that.”
The maid returned before Mrs. Decker had a chance to finish her examination of the room. “Mrs. Burke asks would you come up to her room since she isn’t feeling well.”
“We would be glad to,” Mrs. Decker answered for them, and the girl led them up two flights of stairs and into Mrs. Burke’s bedchamber. The room was obviously her private retreat, decorated with delicately carved furniture in the French style with pink and white wallpaper and draperies. The draperies were still closed, casting the room in shadow. Mrs. Burke reclined on a chaise longue, her legs covered with a light throw. She wore a frilly pink robe with rows of ruffles at the wrist and throat.
“Elizabeth,” she greeted Mrs. Decker, holding out a limp hand. “How good of you to come.” Then she noticed Sarah and stiffened in surprise. “Who’s that with you?”
“My daughter, Sarah,” Mrs. Decker said, taking Mrs. Burke’s outstretched hand in both of hers. “She was just as anxious as I to see how you were doing after that horrible shock.”
Mrs. Burke glanced over to make sure the maid was gone and the door securely shut. “I told Harry that I fell on the sidewalk while I was shopping,” she confessed. “I had to tell him something when he saw how upset I was.”
“You did absolutely the right thing,” Mrs. Decker assured her.
Sarah had pulled up a slipper chair for her mother so she could sit right beside Mrs. Burke and continue to hold her hand. When she had Mrs. Decker settled, she claimed the dressing table stool for herself and positioned it at a discreet distance, so she could participate in the conversation if she needed to but not be intrusive.
“How are you holding up?” Mrs. Decker was asking her friend.
“I haven’t slept more than two hours together since it happened,” Mrs. Burke assured her. “Every time I close my eyes, I’m back in that room again, holding that woman’s hand.” She gave a dramatic little shiver of revulsion.
“I know, I know,” Mrs. Decker soothed. “I’m sure I’ll have nightmares for the rest of my life.”
“Has that policeman figured out what happened yet?” Mrs. Burke asked.
“Not yet,” Mrs. Decker said sadly. “Everything was so confusing. I haven’t been able to make sense of it myself. What do you remember, Kathy?”
“Oh, dear,” she said with another shudder. “I haven’t even allowed myself to think about it.”
“Perhaps we should, though,” Mrs. Decker said. “If we could figure out what happened, perhaps we could help the police find the killer and put an end to all of this.”
“The killer,” Mrs. Burke echoed tremulously. “Oh, dear, oh, dear.”
“What is it?” Mrs. Decker asked.
“I just . . . It’s all so dreadful. I just can’t think about it.”
“There, there, you’re just overwrought and allowing your imagination to run away with you. You can’t continue to sit all alone in this dark room. You’ll make yourself truly sick. Sometimes the best thing to do in situations like this is to talk it all out in the light of day.”
“I can’t,” Mrs. Burke insisted faintly.
“Of course you can. I’ll help you,” Mrs. Decker said brac ingly. “Tell me everything you remember from that day.”
Mrs. Burke closed her eyes. She really did look ill. “I can’t . . .”
“Start with when you arrived at the house,” Mrs. Decker suggested. “I was already there. You looked a bit distressed, if I recall.”
Mrs. Burke looked a bit distressed now, too, but she was helpless to resist her old friend’s iron will. “I was afraid I was late.”
“But Mr. Cunningham was even later, as usual.”
“That young man has no manners,” Mrs. Burke declared.
“No, he doesn’t. Mr. Sharpe greeted you, I believe. Mrs. Gittings was sitting in the corner, as usual, not saying much. She was there when I arrived, but of course she lived there, so naturally she would be the first to arrive. I didn’t know that then, though. Did you?”
“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Burke said, then caught herself. “I mean . . .”
“You knew that Mrs. Gittings was Madame Serafina’s manager, didn’t you?” Mrs. Decker said, keeping any disapproval from her voice. “But then you’d been visiting her much longer than I had. However did you keep Harry from finding out you were visiting a spiritualist? I’ve been terrified Felix would find out. I’m sure he would forbid me to go, if he knew.”
“Harry did find out,” Mrs. Burke confessed in dismay. “He was so angry. That’s why I couldn’t tell him what really happened. If he knew I was still visiting Madame Serafina . . .” She closed her eyes again, this time to ward off tears.
“You poor thing. But you were very brave to keep going to see her in spite of Harry’s disapproval. I’m not sure I would have your courage.”
“It wasn’t courage,” Mrs. Burke assured her. “I simply had to keep going. I can’t tell you how wonderful it was to know that no matter what I asked, the spirits would know the answer. I had no choice.”
Mrs. Decker nodded as if she understood perfectly.
“You were talking about when you first arrived for the séance,” Sarah reminded them gently.
“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Decker said. “And what were we chatting about while we waited for Mr. Cunningham to arrive?”
“I don’t recall . . .” Mrs. Burke hedged.
Mrs. Decker frowned, trying to remember. “You were very quiet, now that I think of it. Apprehensive, almost. Were you worried about something, my dear?”
“Oh, no, not at all,” Mrs. Burke lied. She lied badly.
“Perhaps you were worried about what your mother would say to you in the séance,” Sarah suggested.
“No, no,” Mrs. Burke insisted.
“Or perhaps you were worrying about Harry finding out you were still seeing Madame Serafina,” Mrs. Decker guessed. “I’m sure that was a concern. And it must have been difficult to hide the expense of it in your household expenditures week after week.”
Mrs. Burke’s eyes were enormous and the blood had drained from her face. “Oh, Elizabeth, it was horrible! When he found out, he forbade me to see her again, and then he . . . he cut off my allowance!”
“How awful!” Mrs. Decker cried. “You poor dear. But how did you continue if you couldn’t pay for the sittings?”
“I . . . I sold some of my jewelry,” she confessed. “Not the good pieces,” she hastened to explain. “I couldn’t, in case Harry noticed, but I had some old pieces that belonged to my family that I never wore.”
“How did you sell them without Harry knowing?” Mrs. Decker asked.
“I . . . I couldn’t, of course. I wouldn’t have any idea how to do it! So I gave them to Mrs. Gittings, and she . . . But she said they didn’t bring much. I thought she was cheating me. In fact, I’m sure of it, but I couldn’t accuse her, could I? She would have forbidden me to come back!”
Sarah was remembering the séance she’d attended, when the spirit told her it was all right to do something with a gift her mother had given her. Perhaps that was a piece of jewelry she’d been reluctant to sell, and Madame was under orders from Mrs. Gittings to encourage her to turn it over.
Mrs. Decker was making soothing noises, calming her friend and sympathizing.
Murder on Waverly Place Page 18