Treacherous Is the Night

by Anna Lee Huber

  “Good heavens!” I exclaimed upon seeing the flames engulfing the house on the corner across from us. “I hope they all got out safely.”

  My chest tightened as I suddenly recognized our surroundings, glancing left and right to be sure. “That’s Madame Zozza’s!”

  CHAPTER 5

  I didn’t wait for Sidney to reply before I opened the motorcar door and clambered out. I weaved my way closer along the pavement, trying to see beyond the onlookers who had gathered to watch the fire brigade try to extinguish the blaze before it spread to the neighboring homes. This was no small matter. Smoke billowed skyward and the roar and crackle of the flames was intense even from this distance. Anyone still inside could not have survived.

  Rising up onto my tiptoes to see over the people in front of me, I swept my gaze along the streets in all directions.

  “Darling, what are you looking for?” Sidney asked, catching up with me. Being a foot taller than I, he had no need to strain to see beyond the people blocking our path.

  “Madame Zozza.” I stilled as I caught sight of a familiar figure across the street staring forlornly at the conflagration. “Or her assistant.”

  I glanced in both directions before dashing across the street, forcing my husband to follow once again. “Miss . . .” I realized I’d never learned the assistant’s name. “Miss!”

  She shifted her bleak gaze to meet mine, and for a second I could have sworn her eyes sharpened with wariness before being suppressed.

  “What happened?” I gasped, searching beyond her toward where a few members of the fire brigade were gathered. “Did Madame Zozza make it out?”

  She shook her head, tears filling her eyes. “I tried to get to her, but the smoke and the fire . . .” She sobbed. “It was already filling the house.”

  “I’m terribly sorry,” I replied. It seemed impossible that the woman should be killed just as I was coming to question her. Killed in a manner in which one couldn’t immediately verify the truthfulness of the assistant’s assertions. Oh, the fire was definitely real. But as to her employer’s death, that was highly suspicious.

  As was the assistant’s distress. In some sense it seemed sincere. I well believed she was genuinely shaken, but there was also a wariness, a calculation in her eyes that I couldn’t comprehend. She seemed to gauge both my and then Sidney’s reactions. But why?

  “Did you live there as well?” I asked.

  She sniffed and nodded. “And now I’ve lost everything.”

  Sidney offered her his handkerchief and she dabbed at her eyes before pressing it in front of her mouth in a show of great despair.

  “Oh, what am I going to do?”

  One glance at my husband’s face told me he suspected the same note of falsity as I did.

  “What is your name?” I asked. “I didn’t catch it last night.”

  She hesitated before replying, and whether she gave us her real name was up for some debate. “Pauline Laurent.”

  “Miss Laurent, perhaps we can help,” I offered.

  She blinked up at us hopefully. “Really?! You would do that? But I am just a stranger.”

  “Nonsense,” I replied as Sidney removed his wallet and extracted a ten pound note.

  “I . . . I couldn’t,” she protested even as she reached for it.

  But before she could wrap her fingers around it, I snatched it from Sidney’s hand. “Of course, you could.” I arched a single eyebrow at her. “Especially as you’re going to give us information in exchange.”

  It was a testament to her skills as an actress that she maintained her façade of shock and anguish for several moments longer, a space long enough for a small sliver of doubt to form within me. But then she quickly dropped the act, her eyes losing their soft glisten to turn sharp with cynicism, though the guardedness remained.

  “What do you want to know?” she demanded in her French accent. I’d half expected it to disappear as well, but it seemed to be unaffected.

  “Who supplied Madame Zozza, if that’s her real name, with her information?”

  She wrung her hands, as if considering what to say, and I began to pass the bank note back to Sidney. Until she lifted her hand in a staying gesture. She swallowed. “It depends.” Her eyes darted warily around her. “She got her information from several sources.”

  “Society women?” I guessed, not having difficulty deducing how the medium uncovered her miraculously accurate details.

  “Yes. She paid a few . . . ladies . . .” Her mouth twisted in derision “. . . to pass along information from time to time about the deceased—physical descriptions, characteristics, particulars about their deaths, that sort of thing. As well as to praise her talents to their friends and acquaintances.”

  “So essentially they were informants. Part of your employer’s scam,” Sidney stated bluntly.

  She shrugged. Clearly this did not trouble her.

  Sidney scowled, but I cut him off before he could utter whatever sharp retort was forming on his lips. After all, we weren’t here to debate ethics.

  “Who did she pay to inform on me? I want a name,” I added sharply when I could tell she was about to dither.

  She shook her head. “I do not know. I wasn’t privy to all of her conversations. Not by a long shot.”

  I glared at her.

  “It’s true. I swear. I could give you a name. I could give you several. But I have no idea if they were the ones to tell her about you.”

  She was good. Very good. However, there was something in her face, a flicker of her eyelashes that told me she wasn’t being entirely honest. “But you do know something. Maybe not a name. But you have a suspicion.”

  Her eyes darted back and forth between us before relenting. “There . . . was a man. He came to the house a few weeks ago. I remember him because he insisted on keeping his hat low and his collar turned up.”

  I glanced at Sidney. Definitely suspicious. “Go on.”

  “He asked to speak with Madame. Normally under such circumstances, with a strange man, she asks me to remain close by. Just in case she should require assistance.”

  I nodded my understanding.

  “But after he murmured only a few words to her, she sent me away. This wasn’t entirely out of character,” she hastened to add. “She did send me away from time to time. But there was something . . . odd about it all.”

  “Did she seem frightened of the man?” Sidney asked.

  “No. If anything, she seemed excited.”

  I frowned. “Did you ever see the man again?”

  She shook her head. “No. But . . .” Her complexion paled. “She sent me away again this morning.”

  “You think she was meeting with him?”

  “I . . . I don’t know. But I was headed to the greengrocer and I’d forgotten my bag, so I returned for it, thinking to just sneak in through the mews and snatch it from the kitchen table where I’d laid it. When I turned in to the mews, I saw a man hurrying away from the house in the opposite direction. I didn’t see him leave the house, but . . .”

  But he very well could have.

  “Was the house already on fire?” I asked.

  She nodded. “I smelled the smoke as soon as I entered. It . . . it spread so quickly. By the time I reached the top of the stairs, it had filled the upper story. Mona. I could hear her. She . . . she was screaming . . . and . . .” She stopped and turned away, trembling.

  I pressed a hand to her arm in comfort. Her display of emotion earlier might have been suspicious, but this was genuine. It also effectively answered my questions about whether the fire had been set in order to stage the death of Madame Zozza, or Mona, as her assistant had called her. The fire might have been intentionally set, but not by the medium.

  “Do you have any idea what the man looked like or who he might have been? Any inkling of what he and Mona . . .” I trailed away, hoping she would supply me with a surname.

  “Kertle.”

  I nodded. “Any idea what they discussed
?” I pressed gently. It seemed we both needed answers.

  Her throat worked as she struggled to speak. “I . . . I wish I did. But I never got a good look at his face. I’m fairly certain his hair was dark blond or maybe light brown. And he was average height.” She sighed, realizing this was not very helpful. “But I do know Mona kept meticulous records about her clients. She said the surest way to be marked a fraud was by being careless. She always consulted her notes before she met with a client.” Her dark eyes lifted to meet mine. “I do know she wasn’t satisfied with the amount of information she’d been able to get on you. And she was flustered after the séance last night.”

  “Probably because she realized I hadn’t been even remotely taken in by her performance.”

  She scoffed. “I could tell that just from the expression on your face when you arrived. And I told her that. Said it would be better if she targeted your friend. But she deviated from the script. She would not listen.”

  I didn’t understand exactly what she meant, but it seemed less important than another matter. “These notes,” I said, harking back to what she’d been explaining earlier. “Where are they?”

  She nodded toward the crackling inferno behind her. “Inside the house.”

  Just then, the roof at the back of the building collapsed with a great roar, sending a plume of smoke and ash high into the sky. Sidney grabbed both of our arms, backing us further away from the street.

  I thanked her and gave her the money we’d promised, but not before asking her to contact me if she thought of anything else. She appeared to be on the verge of saying something more, but then hesitated, thinking better of it. Whatever it had been brought a deeply troubled look into her eyes. I hoped she might decide later to trust me with it. Whatever she’d actually felt about her employer, it was evident she was distraught her home and livelihood had, quite literally, gone up in flames.

  Sidney guided me back to his motorcar and I sat silently as he maneuvered around the other vehicles and turned us back toward Mayfair. Though apparently my quiet pondering went on too long, for my husband grew suspicious.

  “What are you thinking in that clever brain of yours, dear wife?” he drawled as he braked behind a lorry and then swerved around it.

  I straightened the skirt of my mauve dress. “Just contemplating the identity of that suspicious man, and wondering if he has anything to do with me or that fire.”

  “I agree it does seem indicative of something. The question is what?”

  “The fact is someone gave Madame Zozza sensitive information about me. I just wish I knew whether it was that man or someone else.”

  “Miss Laurent didn’t give us much to work with by way of a description, did she?”

  “No,” I groused, gripping the seat below me as much in frustration as in an effort to keep myself from careening from side to side as Sidney made a series of sharp turns. I suspected at least eighty percent of my male colleagues at the Secret Service matched the vague account she’d been able to give us.

  I turned to study my husband’s profile. “What about your chum? The one who was so easily persuaded to share what he knew about me. Does he fit the description?”

  He shook his head, gallingly determined to keep the man’s identity secret. “I’m afraid not. He nearly lost a leg and still walks with a rather pronounced limp. Given her stock-in-trade, I doubt she would have missed that.”

  I sat taller. “You’re right. I didn’t factor any of that into account. I would say close to half the men in military intelligence had been invalided home, unable to serve at the front because of various injuries. So that would rule them out, as well as my female colleagues.”

  “Assuming this man is the person who informed on you?” he reminded me.

  “Of course.” I frowned at the distinctive façade of Harrods as we sped by. “This entire matter is both vexing and unsettling. First, to discover someone has either been sharing or using classified information for their own benefit. Information that happens to involve me. And then, to find out that the woman who might have supplied me with answers has been killed in a suspicious fire, her notes burned to ash.” I exhaled heavily. “That’s simply too incredible to be a coincidence.”

  He flicked a glance at me. “So, what do you plan to do?”

  I contemplated this question. “First, I’m going to speak with Daphne’s sister, Melanie Tuberow.” I narrowed my eyes. “I want to know why she did something so out of character as to gift Daphne last night’s session with Madame Zozza. And why she suggested her sister invite me.”

  “Then you’ll have to excuse me. I’ve just remembered I have an appointment.”

  I couldn’t suppress a smirk, for this was obviously a lie. “Oh, really? And what appointment is that?”

  “It’s of a . . . rather personal nature.”

  “One so personal you can’t share it with your wife?”

  His eyes creased with humor, catching on to my game. “Especially not my wife.”

  “You know,” I remarked, fiddling with the button closure on my cream kid leather gloves. “I could postpone my visit until later.” I raised my gaze just in time to see him cringe before he smoothed his expression out again.

  “No, please, don’t do so on my account.”

  I shook my head at his antics. “Sidney, I wasn’t aware that you were acquainted with Mrs. Tuberow.”

  “Through her late husband. What a bore.”

  I giggled at his unconscious echo of Daphne’s sentiments the day before.

  “What? Did you never meet the chap?”

  I waved his protest aside. “I know what you mean. Melanie is nearly as tedious.” If for a different reason.

  He shook his head. “It’s a wonder they ever had children. Between his droning and her spiteful soliloquies, I would have thought they’d render each other catatonic.”

  “Sidney!”

  He cast an impatient look my way. “Tell me you never wondered how they endured each other.”

  “Well, yes . . .”

  “There you go.”

  I sighed. “You’re very provoking, you know that?”

  “It’s one of my lesser charms.” He flashed me a grin, one that was calculated to melt any residual irritation. “Shall I deliver you to Mrs. Tuberow’s door?”

  “Please.”

  * * *

  Melanie Tuberow lived in tidy little home in Belgravia. Close enough to hear voices from the various parties and receptions held in Buckingham Palace gardens. Or so she claimed. Judging from the sharp glint that entered her eyes whenever she mentioned this, I suspected it was meant to imply that she overheard things. Important things. But in all honesty, I could have cared less what vicious on-dit she intended to spread. Until today.

  Melanie received me in her overstuffed drawing room. I’d only had occasion to visit here once and it appeared much the same as before. Bric-a-brac covered the surfaces until one was afraid to move, lest some poor china shepherdess meet her untimely end. The rug was fashioned of some shaggy material she said some member of royalty had claimed was all the rage, while the chairs and sofas were packed with needlepoint pillows of every shape and size. This forced one to either endure Melanie’s pointed glare for daring to remove them or perch at the very edge of the cushion.

  Having never cared for Melanie’s good opinion, I quickly dispensed with three pillows as well as the pleasantries. “I understand Daphne and I have you to thank for our session with Madame Zozza yesterday evening.”

  At first, Melanie seemed torn between maintaining her displeasure at my ill treatment of her bolsters and gossiping about the medium. Her enthusiasm for Spiritualism swiftly won the day. “Isn’t she grand? Such immense talent.”

  “I have to wonder at your willingness to give up a session with a woman of such abilities to your sister.”

  She simpered, completely missing my sarcastic undertone. “Yes, well, that’s simply the kind of person I am. One must be generous to those less fortunate
. And Daphne, poor darling, is still quite balled up over our dear brother’s death. She’ll never catch a husband if she can’t bear up better under the strain.”

  I ran my eyes over her where she lounged in a gamboge yellow satin gown, smoothing her hands over the silken fabric of the pillows on either side of her, her face plump and flush with health. Given the recent rationing in England, there were many who would find her appearance enviable. But having spent time in German-occupied Belgium and France during the war—where the food situation had been nothing short of desperate, even given the aid being spearheaded by the once-neutral Americans and the Spanish that the Germans had agreed to allow through—I found myself biting back an even sharper retort.

  “Yes, you seem to be bearing up remarkably well.”

  This time she seemed to sense my words weren’t quite the compliment they seemed. That or she was showing her claws. “Well, we can’t all be so fortunate as you and have our husbands return from the grave, now can we?” Her mouth formed into a tiny moue which I presumed was supposed to encourage me to share, but merely looked pettish.

  Tired of trading thinly veiled barbs, I elected to be blunt. “Why did you really give Daphne the session with Madame Zozza?”

  Her brow furrowed in displeasure. “I told you, it was a gift.”

  “So you say, but did someone put you up to it? Were you promised something in return?”

  She arched her chin in affront. “I’m not sure I like what you’re implying. I don’t need to be bribed in order to give Daphne a gift. I’ve given her many things over the years.”

  I was tempted to ask her to name one, but that would not get me the answers I sought. So instead I switched tactics. “I’m not sure if you’re aware yet, but Madame Zozza is dead.”

  This captured her attention. “Dead? How is that possible?”

  “There was an unfortunate fire this morning and she was trapped inside,” I replied soberly.