by Valerie
“Where did they go?” I asked the butler, when he popped his head in at the door.
“Mr. Sinclair, and Mr. St. Clair took the doctor down to the gatehouse, Miss Ford, to save him the embarrassment in front of Lady Sinclair,” he told me in a quiet voice. “I took care to have all the doors locked so he could not escape too readily.”
“Then you knew he would make a bolt?”
“Mr. Sinclair intimated something of what was going on,” he replied, with a modestly triumphant and knowing look.
“I’m going down to the gatehouse,” I decided.
“Don’t go, Valerie. I don’t want to be alone,” Auntie said, in a weak voice,
“I want to find out what is going on,” I answered, torn by eagerness to see the excitement.
“I shall tell you what is going on,” she said, in a sad but resigned way, her little brindled head sinking on her chest. “Come, we shall recover our nerves with a glass of wine, while I tell you what Walter did to me. Let him make his confession with the minimum of audience. Come.”
Reluctant, but full of curiosity, I followed her into the saloon. “I think I understand it now,” she said, nodding her head, and strangely reminding me of a bird. “Welland tried to tell me the day we went for a drive, but I would not believe him, would not even listen to a word against Walter.
“About six months ago, Walter came to me and told me Alice was alive, that she had returned from America and gone to him, for they were friends in the old days, before I married Edward. She was destitute. She and Arundel had escaped drowning when the Frederica went down, but thought it such a wonderful chance to run away together with no questions asked that they never came forward and told anyone of their survival. He had all the details of how they had landed at a barren spot of beach and stayed at a fishing shack and all that. Arundel was supposed to have had enough money in his pockets to have paid their fare to America, posing as a married couple. When he died, she was left poorly off, and as she was getting old, she wanted to come back to England to live out the last of her life. At first, she wanted only enough funds to live comfortably. Walter got her into his friend’s sanatorium using the name of Miss Rogers.”
“Why did you not insist on seeing her?”
“I had hardly known the woman at all, would not have recognized her after all these years. Walter had known her well. I trusted him implicitly. At first, only a small sum was asked for, and I was more than willing to pay, to keep the story hushed up. But then when I paid up so readily, the fee was raised gradually, till I had hardly enough left to scrape by on myself.”
“Was Pierre involved in any of this?”
“Oh, certainly! He was very generous about lending me money. Walter suggested it. I owe Pierre three or four thousand pounds, though he don’t know exactly why I wanted it. I told him I was helping out some poor relatives, and he could sympathize with that, though he thought I was too generous. He called me a naughty lady, but he promised not to tell anyone.”
“What part did the Franconis play in it?”
“I don’t really know. They had come just a little before all this started. I fancy Walter just used them as added inducement to make me pay up. I never suspected them of having anything to do with it, and that a total stranger, in touch with the beyond, urged me to make reparations—well, naturally I knew I must. Walter always kept saying every payment would be the last, but always there was one more, and one more. Alice needed expensive treatment, then Alice had a load of debts in America that had to be discharged, then Walter thought I ought to set up a trust fund for her, a pension you know, to take care of her old age and be rid of her once for all. And always there was hanging over my head that by rights the whole thing was hers, and she could come forward and claim it all legally any time she wanted to. Walter even hinted Edward knew she was alive when he married me. He was Edward’s best friend. He would know those things. The tarot cards too said justice must be done to the lady.”
“So you began asking St. Regis for mortgages, and selling off family heirlooms.”
“I had to, to keep Alice satisfied. Then, when St. Regis, odious old toad, started making such close inquiries, I had to tell him something to account for the money all being gone, so I told him I was helping your papa, Valerie, thinking he might approve of it, as Pierre did. I do hope he never checked up on it.”
“I don’t believe he ever did. At least Sinclair seemed to believe it.”
“Yes, Sinclair. St. Regis sent him down to spy on me, just as I thought, and discover what was afoot. I am convinced of it. He has been a great nuisance throughout the whole business, and now he has got poor Walter in hanging trouble, for you saw with your own eyes that Alice Sedgely Sinclair is dead as a doornail. Her ghost told us so. Was it not a powerful experience, Valerie, seeing a real live—or well, you know what I mean. A real ghost.”
“You cannot believe that was a real ghost!”
“Certainly it was. I realize now I was utterly duped by the Franconis. Their ghost looked nothing like the real one. It had no substance to it. It was all flat and colorless. Alice was a real ghost,” she said, quite contented. “So of course she is dead, and Walter is a scoundrel, bilking me of thousands of pounds. I don’t know how Welland figured it out, but it came as no surprise to him. He knew Walter would run, was sitting on the edge of his chair ready to go after him. I hope he will not hurt him. Walter is no longer young. The chase will be hard on him. I feel burnt to the socket myself. I shall ask Walter for a sedative before he goes home.”
“You surely won’t see him again!” I exclaimed, astonished at her calm acceptance of the man’s villainy.
“He must have some good explanation, my dear. I shall do him the courtesy of listening to it.”
“I would do him the courtesy of listening to it from the gallery at Old Bailey.”
“It looks bad. I must own it looks black for him, but if he has a good reason, then we shall see what must be done. I wish I had married him when he asked, then he could have used my money, without all this wretched business of blackmail.”
“My dear Aunt Louise, I sincerely believe you need a keeper. Perhaps St. Regis was right to send his minion down here to keep an eye on you. And I’ll tell you something else, if you don’t prosecute Dr. Hill, St. Regis will have you claimed incompetent, and put away.”
She was thoroughly shaken at this forecast, but I felt I was correct in my view. I was by no means sure St. Regis was not right too, though I disliked to admit it.
“Perhaps if you spoke to Welland, Valerie, he would agree not to tell St. Regis.”
“St. Regis is probably on his way here already,” I said, but did not deem this the proper moment to tell her from whence this notion sprang.
“It would be just like the man. He will never let me marry Walter, for he has some other party in mind for me, a military man he keeps putting forward. If I marry Walter, I don’t believe they can make me give evidence against him. Walter wanted me to sell my interest in Troy Fenners back to St. Regis for a lump sum, so I could settle it on Alice, and be rid of her once for all. Then we would be married, and live at his cottage, only I am not sure I would be happy in such a tiny hole of a place.”
“Generous of him.”
“I wonder when they will come back,” was her next distracted comment.
She went back over the same story a few times, leaving me free to ponder the few details of it that were troubling me. First and foremost was the matter of the ghost, and how it was done, but of equal intrigue was how Welland had discovered Hill for the culprit, why he had been in the passageway the night before, and why he had kept the whole a secret from me. The green glasses were not explained away either. I too was eager for them to come back.
Chapter Twenty-one
Before they came, Aunt Loo was in such a state of fidgets she took a dose of medicine prescribed by the butler to quieten her nerves, but instead it put her so close to sleep that she was easily persuaded to retire. The wine she
had been drinking might have had something to do with it too. I was alone, just beginning to contemplate the discomfort of a solo trip to the gatehouse when Welland and Pierre arrived at the door.
“It’s about time you got here! Where is Dr. Hill?” I demanded.
“Asleep. I prescribed him a good stiff sleeping draft,” Welland replied. “It was that or being tied wing and leg and locked in a room overnight, for I cannot like to call in the constable in the middle of the night. I thought Lady Sinclair might like to have a word with him as well before he is turned over to the authorities.”
“She wants to see him, but you took so long she gave up and went to bed.”
“We have been having very good times. Very much exciting,” Pierre informed me. He was disheveled, his hair all askew, his jacket dusty. His companion might have stepped freshly groomed from his dressing table.
“Enjoyed beating up an old man, did you?”
“No beating up,” Pierre replied. “Only runnings and grabbings and catchings. He catches up most easily.”
“All right, Welland, tell me all about it,” I said, settling down on the sofa for a good listen. “I know Hill is the culprit; I know he conned Auntie into thinking Alice was alive. What I do not know is who he had in the sanatorium, or how you discovered it.”
“How about some sherries, Peter? This is going to be a long spiel,” Welland said,
“Now we are all sherried,” Pierre said, after pouring and passing the glasses, “I tell you all the exciting adventures my cousin and me are having.”
I cast a defeated glance to Welland, wishing to hear the story in a less garbled version. While Pierre took a sip, Welland launched rather quickly into it.
“We knew someone was fleecing Lady Sinclair. When I found out it was not your father, I began looking around closer to her home. She had few connections or close friends. Hill was the closest.
“He also had a rather elegant cottage for a man who allegedly skimped by on a practically unworking country doctor’s earnings. The painting in his study, the Titian—you must have noticed it, Valerie—was no part of his wife’s dowry, for I happened to know it was sold only two months ago from Sotheby’s in London. St. Regis put a bid on it, a bid for a thousand pounds, which was too low to take the work. Ergo, the doctor had more cash hanging around than he let on. When Hill cashed my draft for five pounds for me, what should turn up on the bills but the mark I had put on the money Pierre lent Lady Sinclair. I arranged Peter’s funds for him, got them from the bank, and took the precaution of marking the bills in an inconspicuous way.”
“You were not telling me this, Cousin,” Pierre objected. “I too can mark bills. I am very good at marking bills. What mark were you using?”
“Green dots, Peter,” I said, causing Sinclair’s head to spin toward me.
“You are exceptionally observant,” he mentioned. “Next time you can mark your own bills, Peter. You remember I mentioned to Hill that the deSancy library on archaeology was for sale in London? When a letter was promptly sent off to Lombard Street, I took the liberty of opening it, and...”
“Yes, I can deduce what you found. Hill was putting in an offer to buy it, but what you have skipped over rather lightly is how the letter fell into your hands.”
“The clerk at the post office was very obliging. St. Regis gave me a letter of introduction, covered with all manner of impressive seals, and the fellow took the notion I was a sort of inspector from Bow Street, I believe. I may have mentioned the name of Townsend, the Chief of Bow Street, but I assure you I did not actually say I was in his employ,”
“Thoughtful of St. Regis,” I said, in a burst of annoyance at being outdone at every turn.
“I have mentioned to you before that he has always been kind to me,” Sinclair answered mildly. “As I was saying, this confirmed that he was rolling in Lady Sinclair’s money, and it remained only to find out what hold he had over her.”
“Also rolling on my monies,” Pierre interjected.
“It had to be something underhanded,” Welland went on, ignoring the interruption, “not bare-faced blackmail, for the two of them were on the best of terms throughout the whole thing. Peter and I decided to follow him when he took his jaunt to the sanatorium, feeling, at the time, that it was some former lover of Sir Edward’s that was involved. I, as you may recall, was required to return rather suddenly to see a lady about a horse,” he said, glowering at me.
“You thought you were required, though in fact the lady managed the horse very well till you arrived. So how did you discover the lady in the sanatorium was letting on to be Alice, or that Hill was letting on that at least? More important, who the deuce is she?”
“She was not aware of Hill’s deception at all. She was really, and I am indebted to Miss Brendan, the local seamstress, for the information, the female who caused Hill’s rather abrupt abandonment of his Harley Street practice. Her name is Rogers. He very nearly killed her with an overdose of medicine, administered some strange combination, I believe. She has been dotty ever since, was staying with her sister till the sister died, supported by Hill, then he put her in his friend’s sanatorium. It was how he prevented the family from suing him for malpractice, by looking after her. Rumors of his incompetency still linger in the village. Practically no one will go near him.
“His extra burden in supporting the woman, added to his miniscule practice, is probably why he needed money in the first place. I think it was the Franconis, all unintentionally, who put the idea in his head of letting on to Loo that the Rogers woman was Alice, by mentioning a lady who had been wronged. They were a pair of dupes, just plying their trade of holding séances and reading fortunes, making a meager living from it. Under Hill’s suggestions, discreet you know, but strong, they realized any mention of mysterious ladies and injustices went down very well, and occasioned more séances and readings, all at a guinea a shot. Hill confirmed that he and they rigged the ropes for the ghost to walk, but the Franconis were only Hill’s instrument. He gave the show away that he knew of the panel in the feather room when he jumped up and opened it when the ghost of Alice visited us.”
“So the whole thing began after the Franconis came?”
“It may have begun a little before, but it stepped up then. Some idea may have been forming in Hill’s head that Loo was ripe for plucking, I mean, and their coming facilitated it. He suggested rather strongly to them that they leave once you and I began making troublesome inquiries.”
“Yes, he planned then to marry her, have her sell out her rights to Troy Fenners, and get her whole fortune in his hot little hands at one go. But how did you know Alice was the mysterious lady, and that Hill was pretending she was still alive?”
“Deduction, induction, all that clever stuff. I knew Hill had the blunt, and realized when Loo said it was ‘impossible’ for Alice to haunt Troy Fenners, despite her tragic death, that Loo thought she was not dead at all. At least that made sense to me. If she was thought to be alive, she was surely a woman wronged, her case requiring justice. But where could she be, sending out her demands for money? Hill had been off to the sanatorium, where Peter found out he was footing the bill for Miss Rogers. I arranged this last séance to try to shock someone into blurting out the truth, and sure enough, Loo did.”
“Good luck, and good guessing on your part,” I complimented.
“I am the one who is inventing the ghostess,” Pete claimed, smiling proudly. “Evelina is my mis—Miss Talbot.”
“What does he mean?” I asked Sinclair.
“Just what he says. Miss Talbot is his particular friend, from the village here. Pray do not inquire too minutely as to her trade. A discreet uncertainty is best in some cases. Of course she was not plying her customary trade this evening, nor wearing her own gown or face either.”
“I expect the obliging Miss Brendan supplied the copy of Alice’s gown; but do tell, who supplied her face?”
“Alice’s portrait, plus about five pounds of newsprint. It w
as a paper maché mask, doused with phosphorescent powder, to emit a nice ghostly glow. The hair was Miss Talbot’s own, coiffure by Mr. Sinclair,” he said, bowing to accept some imaginary accolade.
“And the fortune teller, Ethelberta?”
“She is who I said she was, a gypsy fortune teller from Barrow Woods, at Alton. The Franconis told me of her. We arranged for her to come. She does not usually do séances at all but was willing to act the part, for a stipend of course. Now, why don’t you ask me what you really want to know?” he said, with a sly smile.
The image of Mary Milne darted into my head. “What do you mean?”
“How did I make her disappear?” he prompted me.
“Oh, that—I can think of half a dozen explanations. It was dark. She might have hidden under the table, or behind the curtain, or ...”
“No, you looked in all of those places, Valerie. I did a spot of mind reading on my way across the park while securing Hill. Don’t you want to know?”
“You obviously want to boast of it. Go ahead.”
“Oh, well, if you’re not interested,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “How about more sherry, Peter?”
“How did you do it, then?” I asked, as though it were a matter of very little interest.
This scanty show of enthusiasm was enough to bring forth the story, for he was bursting to show off. “You remember the trapdoor in the ceiling that we decided was not a trapdoor, but only a piece of poor carpentry?”
“Yes, I remember it. Was it a trapdoor?”
“It was, and it led to a passage that fed into the other secret passage, the one to your aunt’s chamber from the saloon. I did not actually see much point in that panel in the feather room, so I decided to investigate it further last night.”
“You dropped your glasses.”