“Around two o’clock. I am going to do the flowers while others are going to get the food for the wake sorted out.” Harriett struggled to keep her mind on his question. Everything felt strangely fuzzy and she wasn’t sure whether it was lack of sleep or Mark’s kiss.
“Then you are off to the funeral,” Mark sighed. “Will Charles and Babette be there?”
Harriett scrunched her nose up. “Charles definitely won’t be going. He is making the cakes, but that is about as much input as anyone can expect from him. Babette, and myself, will represent the family.”
“Where is the wake?” If there are no relatives to organise the funeral, what were they going to do? He frowned at the thought of half the village crammed into the tea shop.
“In the village hall.”
Mark nodded and looked down at her sternly. “Just make sure that you don’t leave the wake until I get there.”
“Babette will be with me, and we can make our own way home together. With all of the policemen in the village at the moment, I am sure that even we can manage a few hundred yards all by ourselves,” Harriett argued. “You have your interviews to conduct and the rest of the investigation to sort out. You don’t need to traipse all the way over here to walk me such a short distance. Really, I will be fine, but thank you for offering. It is lovely to know that you are prepared to go to such great lengths to ensure that I am safe.”
“This is nothing to do with my duty as a Detective, Harriett.” Mark warned as he stared down at her. “This is purely personal. You are more important to me than any investigation. I want to keep you safe on an entirely personal level. My eagerness to catch the person, or persons, responsible for Minerva and Hugo’s deaths is partly because it is my job, but mainly because I am not going to have you, of all people, threatened by anyone. You are precious to me, Harriett. From the first moment I walked into your sitting room and saw you seated before the fire, my heart has been yours. I cannot deny it. You are what is important in this investigation. Not Madame Humphries, missing vases or strange spinsters. You. There is nothing I won’t do; no lengths I won’t go to, in order to keep you safe.”
“Oh, Mark,” Harriett was lost for words. He had just laid a golden pathway before her that led to a future that was so bright with happiness she wasn’t sure whether it could possibly be real. The memory of Babette’s angst last night was enough to prompt her not to waste one precious moment with him.
“I want this investigation finished, Mark. Catch the people responsible for what is going on around here. I know you will. Then we can set about our own future together. I want that more than anything.” Her voice trailed off to a whisper.
Aware that they were outside, in the cold, where anyone could overhear them, Mark had to bite his lip to stop more declarations from tumbling out. She had just handed him a gift; a very special, precious gift. He opened his mouth to speak but whatever else he was about to say was interrupted by the gate being swung open. If Isaac was shocked at the sight of his boss wrapped around the beautiful tea-shop lady, he didn’t show it. However, he did take three times longer than was necessary to close the gate and coughed loudly before he turned around.
“Sorry,” he mumbled awkwardly, but made no attempt to approach or leave them alone.
Harriett smiled at him and then Mark. Their few precious moments were over but, rather than having lost the moment, Harriett knew that their discussion was merely postponed. His intent was written in the slightly rueful smile he gave her. In full view of Isaac, Mark dropped a kiss on her lips and held the kitchen door open.
“I will see you later.”
Harriett smiled at him, her heart bursting with happiness. “You most definitely will.”
Mark’s grin was still there when he sauntered casually over to Isaac. Nothing was going to spoil his happiness today, not even the investigation. He clapped his colleague companionably on the shoulder and steered him out of the small yard.
“What do you have for me then?”
“The file has come in on the missing clairvoyants Scotland Yard have been after.”
“And?” Mark’s voice suddenly turned cold and hard.
“One and the same.”
“Both of them?”
Isaac nodded. “Madame Humphries is really Charlotte Fotheringill. Humphries was her mother’s maiden name. Gertrude Hepplethwaite is really Gertrude Hegedus. Now, she is Hungarian, although, her father was when he was alive. Both of them hail from London and both are wanted for fraud for claiming to be spiritual mediums, clairvoyants, whatever. In London, it was Hegedus who took the driving seat with Fotheringill, aka Humphries, acting as assistant. The descriptions and drawings match the women in the cells. They are wanted on two counts of fraudulently obtaining money by deception, theft and attempted blackmail. One of the cases involved a city banker who started to get ransom notes about his secret affair after a séance that went wrong. It was eventually linked to the two clairvoyants. Needless to say, both women are wanted criminals. Scotland Yard have asked for them to be sent to them for trial.”
“They can have them.” Mark sighed with relief. Although he had a lot of paperwork to do now, the urgency to identify the fraudsters was removed. All he had to do now was identify which thefts they were responsible for, and what Alan Bentwhistle was involved in. For the time being at least, it meant that he didn’t need to rush back to Great Tipton to interview them.
“Any sign of either of them having any dead bodies linked to their séances?” He was only half joking.
Isaac sighed. “Nope. I am afraid not. They are fraudsters and thieves. In London, Hegedus was caught in an upstairs room of a customer’s house with her hand in the jewellery box. She escaped out of the window and, while everyone was giving chase, Fotheringill, aka Humphries, slipped away.”
“Thieves. That ties in with Harriett’s brooch. Why Tipton Hollow though?”
“Who knows? It may be somewhere quiet where they can hide for a while until the heat is off.”
Both men were quiet as they joined the busy main street.
“Are you going back to the station?” Isaac glanced up and down the road. He really wanted to go back into the tea shop and sample some of the delicious cakes that had been on the kitchen table. His stomach rumbled loudly but, from the far too intent way that Mark stared at the doors to the coal merchant’s yard, Isaac knew that it would be some time yet before he got the opportunity to eat.
“Let’s go and see if we can find our mysterious Miss Smethwick. We need to find out what she has done with the original Miss Smethwick everyone in the village has come to know and avoid.”
Minutes later, they walked steadily down the narrow country lane toward the solitary house that sat a little back from the road. Miss Smethwick was busy pruning roses and had her back to them. She didn’t notice their arrival until they stood on the neatly tended lawn behind her and Isaac’s discrete cough broke the silence.
Mark watched her for several moments. For a seventy year old woman there was strength in her movements that hinted at an age that was considerably younger than seventy. Mark studied the freshly dug garden next to the lawn and wondered if it contained hidden secrets.
“Miss Smethwick, good morning to you.”
He watched the woman spin around; her eyes wide with shock. The shears fell to the ground but she made no attempt to pick them up. There was a look of dismay followed by acceptance in her eyes. It was as though she had half expected them to appear and, now that they had, knew that her life was about to change. One smooth, unlined hand lifted to poke at the mop of grey curls on her head.
“I wouldn’t bother if I were you. We both know that it needs to come off.”
Mark watched her lips twist in a rueful grimace and was grateful that she didn’t deny it. Instead, with a sigh, she waved them toward the kitchen door at the back of the house. “Let’s go in, shall we? I am sure you have questions to ask.”
They were seated at the large, rectangular kitchen tab
le with steaming cups of tea at their elbow before Miss Smethwick took a seat. Several moments of silence settled over them before Miss Smethwick finally looked up. “Go on then, what do you want to know?” There was a hint of challenge in her gaze.
“Firstly, what’s your real name?”
“Jane Thompson.”
“Are you related to the original Miss Smethwick?”
“She is my aunt. The family resemblance is there.” She waved a hand carelessly to her face. To prove her point, she collected a small framed drawing of her aunt from the dresser and handed it to Mark. As soon as he saw it, he knew that it was the truth. He watched her remove the grey mop of curls and drop the wig onto the table.
“Where is your aunt, Miss Smethwick?” He nodded toward the window. “I take it that you are not digging anything other than your winter vegetables?”
“The last time I checked, Detective, my aunt was alive, if not all that well.”
“Oh? Where is she then?”
“Malverdille Sanatorium.”
Mark’s brows shot up. “Sanatorium?” It was tantamount to Bedlam. As far as he had been aware, the old woman had been apt to gossip and had been spiteful, but mad?
“She wasn’t mad, Detective Bosville. She was distraught to the point that we considered her a threat to her own safety. She went to the sanatorium to recover from her distress, but has since taken ill. I think the stress of being driven to the point of destitution has twisted her mind. Go and check on her yourself. You will see what those charlatans have done to her.”
Mark shared a glance with Isaac. “What charlatans?” He knew before she said the words that she meant Hepplethwaite and Humphries, aka Hegedus and Fotheringill.
“Hegedus and Fotheringill preyed on my aunt’s vulnerabilities like a couple of vultures, Detective. She is elderly and lives here all by herself. She was lonely, and wanted to believe that there was something better for her in the afterlife. What I have managed to get out of her is that she started to see the ridiculous psychic demonstrations a few months back, not long after Hegedus and Fotheringill arrived in Great Tipton. What they did, or how they did it, I am not altogether sure, but they seem to have convinced her that her long departed father has remained in the house with her. She was seeing shadows when there was nobody here, and hearing noises when she is all alone. She had started to ramble that nothing was ever where she left it and was often losing things. Items have been going missing from the house for a long time.” She glanced around the room and sighed.
“What makes you think that Humph -, Hegedus and Fotheringill, are responsible though? What proof do you have?”
“Although my aunt lived modestly, she was relatively well off. I came to visit her several months ago. She seemed well in herself; just as spiteful as always, although she said she had started to see a wonderful clairvoyant.” Jane glanced ruefully at both gentlemen. “I have to tell you that I don’t believe for a second that people can talk to spirits. I think they are frauds and read the newspaper as much as everyone else. I asked her questions about the kind of things they told her but she was vague about a lot of details. I began to ask about how much she was being charged. Gentlemen, if I ever find myself facing financial difficulties, I think I will call myself a clairvoyant and ramble on about dead people because they were charging her a fortune.”
“I wouldn’t if I were you. It is obtaining money by deception and will land you in jail.”
“I know. I am not going to try it, don’t worry. I began to grow alarmed at the number of times my aunt was going to see them. It was every other day and they were charging her various amounts each time. On the times she didn’t have a private reading, she was going to their demonstrations and ‘donating’ a lot of money each time. I began to ask around in Great Tipton, and found out that they had moved into the town a few weeks earlier, but nobody knew much about them. The disappearance of those two fraudulent mediums in Charing Cross was all over the papers at the time. It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out. Anyway, when I left here, I went to visit friends in London, and made a few enquiries about what had been going on around Charing Cross. The more questions I asked, the more I became convinced that the psychic mediums in Great Tipton were the same ones who were wanted by Scotland Yard.”
“So you came back here to warn your aunt?” Mark scowled at her. He was intrigued to know why she hadn’t come to the police with her suspicions and had instead gone to such lengths to persuade the village she was her aunt instead.
“I did, but it was clear that there was something odd going on with her mind. I could not be sure that she hadn’t pawned anything of value to be able to continue to pay the psychics. Her bank account was empty, although a large account that provides her with a monthly trust payment remains untouched.”
“You think they were encouraging her to make sizeable donations and keeping her hooked through fake readings from her father?”
“I know that is what they were doing. I think some of the readings took place here, and they stolen the missing items at the same time.”
“Why didn’t you come to the police with your suspicions?”
“It was important that I get my aunt away from them. She kept rambling on and on about putting things down only for them to vanish. I have been through this house and there are several, quite expensive, items missing but like I say, I could not be sure she hadn’t pawned them.”
“Are you positive that she hasn’t pawned them?”
“I have been to all the pawn shops in the area. Nobody recognised me, but a few of the missing items were there. The description of the person who sold the items matches the description of the woman who pretends to be Hepplethwaite.”
Mark shared a look with Isaac. They were both thinking about Hugo Montague’s vase and Harriett’s brooch.
“So why didn’t you come to the police? Why take this upon yourself? Investigating fraudsters is one thing, but adopting the disguise of your aunt and living as a seventy year old woman in the middle of nowhere is a lot of trouble and effort to go to.”
“Until I could prove that Hepplethwaite and Humphries had defrauded her of money, I had nothing other than a few items missing in the house. I needed to find the items and see if it was my aunt who had pawned them. Once I had the description of Hepplethwaite, I needed to see what they were doing at their demonstrations and readings with my own eyes. I needed to be able to be sure that what they were doing is fraudulent, so by pretending to be my aunt, I was able to witness first-hand what they were up to.”
“Was it theft?” Mark knew it was and had his knowledge confirmed by the confidence in the woman’s eyes.
“Oh, yes. They have attempted to convince me that I should hand over large amounts of cash but I refused and said that I didn’t have any money on me. I placed one particular item on the mantle up there.” She pointed to a spot beside the large, marble clock. “I went to make everyone tea, unsurprisingly, when I got back into the room, my beloved piece had vanished.”
“As blatant as that?” Mark frowned.
“I played my part, Detective. I mumbled and fumbled just like my aunt does at the sanatorium. Like a couple of vultures, they couldn’t help themselves. They were convinced that I was a doddering old woman who was struggling with the bats in the belfry, if you know what I mean.” Jane eased back in her chair. “I adopted her disguise essentially to trap them but, to begin with, I had hoped that once away from those two, my aunt would begin to recover. However, she hasn’t and has instead started to get steadily worse. I fear that recovery is beyond her now.” She studied each man in turn. “All of the medical information on her condition can be obtained from the doctors at the sanatorium.”
“Why carry on with the charade though, if you know your aunt cannot come back to live here?”
“Because the fraudsters have to be put behind bars, that’s why. They must be stopped from playing the same tricks on other unsuspecting people. In this day and age, money is hard enough to come
by. Nobody who has lived with the hardships life shoves at them deserves to have their money stolen by a couple of parasites who cannot be bothered to work.” Her voice rang with conviction. “By adopting my disguise, I had also hoped to keep the gossips off my aunt so she didn’t have to live with the scandal of having resided, even temporarily, in a sanatorium.”
“So what is the black carriage all about?” Mark eyed Jane carefully. Now that she had straightened her shoulders and back, her description matched that given by Mr Brewster, the coal merchant. His anger bubbled at the memory of just how close the woman had come to hurting Harriett.
“I didn’t mean to get so close to Harriett,” Jane sighed as though she had read his thoughts. “I truly am sorry for that. I just wanted her to take the threats against her seriously. These women are thieves and fraudsters. After the vague threat at the first table followed by Minerva’s death, I couldn’t be sure that they weren’t killers as well. But when Mr Montague died, and the direct threat to Harriett was made at the second table, I couldn’t be sure that it wasn’t Hepplethwaite and Humphries, and they were trying to extort money from her next.”
“You mean by giving messages regarding her safety, she might feel that she has to have a private reading to find out if the threats are real, and get more information from the world of ‘spirit’.”
“Exactly.”
“It’s possible.”
“I bought the carriage as a way of being able to get up and down the country roads without having to hail a carriage or walk. I am just as capable as driving a carriage as the next person and it worked out well. By mounting the kerb and worrying Harriett, it stopped her from entertaining any notion of proceeding to encourage the likes of Hepplethwaite and Humphries that they had an audience in Tipton Hollow. The threats came from someone at that table, but it wasn’t from me. You were with her at the time. She needs to turn to you and stay with you. You are her fiancé, so it is your responsibility to make sure that she stays alive. Harriett has to stay well out of the way of Hepplethwaite and Humphries. They are already wanted by Scotland Yard. They are thieves and fraudsters. Who knows if they would turn to murder to be able to continue their lives of crime?”
Harriett Page 28