Hungry Spirits [Spirits 04] (13 page)

Hilda nodded enthusiastically. “Yes. Many, many dachshunds.”

“
Interesting.”

As Hilda led me to the huge living room where a group of people had gathered and were chatting and laughing together, I contemplated Sam’s words about German Jews and how the USA sometimes allowed Jewish immigrants to enter the country. I was certainly no expert, but Hilda didn’t look Jewish to me. And would the Salvation Army have extended its well-known generosity in order to assist a Jewish lady to come to America? Actually, it probably would have. Great organization, the Salvation Army.

But I didn’t have time to worry about Hilda. It was time to begin wafting and acting mysterious. Mrs. Bissell bustled over to me when she saw me, hauling another woman—not Miss Emmaline Castleton, because this woman was too old to be she—with her. Mrs. Bissell was a very pleasant woman, a little on the heavy side, but hale and hearty and quite generous. She’d paid me a fortune for a job I’d done for her last year, and that was on top of giving us Spike. I’d have taken Spike alone in payment because I’d wanted to provide Billy with a companion, but she’d insisted I take money, too. Some people are so darned nice.

“
Mrs. Majesty!” cried she. “I’m so glad you could do this for us. My friend Margaret Spencer is simply
dying
to get in touch with her aunt.”

Interesting phraseology, I thought. “I’d be happy to do that, but I thought you wanted me to get in touch with the late Mrs. Baskerville.”

“
Oh, I do! But can’t you do both?”

Putting on my most arcane smile, I murmured, “I’m sure Rolly will be delighted to assist both of you.”

“
Oh, thank you!” Mrs. Bissell went on, “Mrs. Majesty, please meet a very good friend of mine, Margaret—Mrs. Wilbur—Spencer.”

Oh, boy. I’d heard about Wilbur Spencer. He was an important lawyer in town and was reputed to be wildly wealthy.

I held out a white, well-manicured hand to Mrs. Spencer. “How do you do, Mrs. Spencer? I’m very sorry about your aunt’s passing.” I maintained my spiritualist voice, which was another skill of my trade, being soft and low and crooning.

“
Thank you, Mrs. Majesty. Mrs. Bissell has told me what a great service you performed for her last year. My aunt’s passing wasn’t unexpected, but it was a blow. She reared me, you see.”

“
Ah. That makes your loss even more difficult to endure.”

We chatted some more before we went into the séance room—in this case the breakfast room—and sat in the chairs arranged there. Mrs. Bissell also had a dining room, but the table in that room was too large to accommodate a séance comfortably. I always asked my séance clients to limit the number of participants to no more than eight. Mrs. Bissell’s dining room could seat twenty people! Have I mentioned she was rich? Well, she was. Heck, my family wouldn’t know what to do with two rooms designed solely for meals.

I still hadn’t met Miss Castleton, although I spotted her among the séance attendees. She looked almost as funereal as I did. She had gorgeous blonde hair that was cut in a most becoming bob, and that night she wore a black dress, shoes, etc., just as I did. Her face was naturally ethereal, I guess, and it didn’t look to me as though she had to powder away any pesky freckles. I envied her looks, actually, because she appeared naturally ghostly. At least I assumed she did. She looked pretty ghostly, anyhow. But I couldn’t dwell on Miss Castleton yet. I had a séance to conduct.

Mrs. Bissell had prepared, or more likely had one of her servants prepare, the breakfast room with a single cranberry-colored lamp in the center of the table. The lamp held a candle, and it was the only source of illumination I allowed during séances. Hilda Schwartz was the one who turned off the electrical lights when Mrs. Bissell asked her to do so.

The séance went smoothly. I went into my “trance” after about five minutes of mumbo-jumbo. Then the fun began. My spirit control, Rolly, told Mrs. Spencer that her aunt was happy on the Other Side, and that she wanted Mrs. Spencer to carry on with courage and never to forget the great love she—the aunt—bore her—the niece. By that time, this stuff came to me as easily as falling off a log.

After we’d run the aunt thing into the ground, I had Rolly get in touch with Mrs. Baskerville. This “contact” was more fun, because it had to do with dachshunds. My library research came in handy here. Mrs. Baskerville told Mrs. Bissell that she should continue as she’d begun and that, sooner or later, if she kept her breeding stock pure and did her best in the show ring, she’d have a dog in Westminster. Perhaps even more than one. I could tell Mrs. Bissell was pleased with old Rolly, even though my—I mean his—advice was no more than common sense.

When Mrs. Baskerville had been dealt with, a few other people asked questions of departed loved ones, and Rolly obliged them all. I believe I’ve already mentioned that I’d made Rolly up when I was ten years old. There were occasions when I wished I’d named him something more dignified, but it was too late to change his name now. Anyhow, most of my clients spelled his name Raleigh, and that was dignified, wasn’t it? Rolly had a lovely Scottish accent. I’d learned how to fake a Scottish accent very early in my life, because I’d gone to school with a girl who came from Scotland. Glasgow, to be precise.

I’d been hoping that Miss Castleton would ask Rolly a question, but she didn’t. It occurred to me that I was, in a way, auditioning for a job. Well, we’d see what came of all this nonsense, I reckoned.

And then I came out of my trance and it was time to see the puppies. Mrs. Bissell led all of us out to her kennels, where the man whose job it was to tend to the dogs turned on the lights and showed us the latest litter. Dachshund puppies are probably the most adorable creatures on earth (I think I’ve already mentioned that), and Mrs. Bissell bred some beauties. Most of these guys were black and tan, like Spike, but there were a few reddish-brown ones, too. I wanted to take them all home with me, but Spike would probably have objected. Well, and the rest of my family, too, of course. Not to mention Mrs. Bissell.

After the puppies came refreshments in the big living room. Mrs. Bissell served little sandwiches with their crusts cut off, pastries, tea and stuff like that. After the huge meal I’d consumed at home, I didn’t really crave food, so it was easy to maintain my above-it-all spiritualist pose in the face of food. Several of the séance participants wanted to talk to me, however, so I stayed and chatted for a while. It had been a busy day, though, and I was tired, so I left shortly after eleven. Not, however, before I’d booked two more séances. I always told Billy I was good at my job, and I really was, even if he didn’t want to admit it. Unfortunately, Miss Castleton wasn’t among the folks who chatted with me and/or hired me. I began to wonder if she’d changed her mind about meeting me. Oh, well.

Hilda was the one who opened the door for me to leave, and I decided to see if I could learn more about her. I still believed she was German, and I hoped I could confirm my suspicion with some cleverly worded questions, provided I could think of any, cleverness not being one of my major skills.

“
It’s so nice to see you here, Miss Schwartz. Isn’t Mrs. Bissell a lovely lady? I’m glad you got a job with her.”

“
Ach, yes. Mrs. Bissell is so kind.”

“
Say, Hilda, I’ve always been interested in Switzerland. Tell me about it, will you?”

Did she appear to be slightly dismayed? We were standing on the patio outside the back door, and it was dark out there, so I wasn’t sure.

“
Ach,” she said, “I don’t know much to tell. Switzerland is a pretty country.”

“
Lots of mountains,” I suggested.

She seemed to brighten. “Lots of mountains. Green valleys. Nice people.”

“
And cuckoo clocks,” I said, feeding her another clue.

“
Ach, yes! Cuckoo clocks. Yes.”

“
And dachshunds,” I added cleverly.

“
Dachshunds.” She nodded. “Lots of dachshunds.”

I didn’t believe her. I could believe a Saint Bernard or a—Darn. What was that dog Billy had told me about? Oh, yes—Swiss mountain dogs. But dachshunds? I didn’t think so. Speaking of mountains . . . “Can you yodel?”

“
Yodel?” She swallowed. “Ach, no. No yodel.”

I got the impression she didn’t know what
yodel
meant. Hmm. Very interesting.

“
Where in Switzerland were you born, Miss Schwartz?”

This time I could tell she was unhappy with my question. “Uh . . . I was born in the country,” she said.

I didn’t believe her. “I see. Was there a city of any size near you?”

“
A city? Ach . . . ach, yes!” She sounded relieved that she’d managed to think of a Swiss city. “Geneva. We was near Geneva.”

Where Frankenstein came from, by gum! “How interesting. As I said before, I’d love to visit Switzerland one day.”

“
Yes. Pretty country,” Hilda confirmed, and she scuttled back inside the house before I could ask her about Swiss chocolate. Or was it the Belgians who made the best chocolate? I couldn’t remember.

But Hilda didn’t seem to know a whole heck of a lot about what she claimed was her native land, either. I reminded myself that I didn’t know much about America’s own Southern states. Or New Hampshire or Maine, for that matter. Or even Illinois or Nebraska.

On the other hand, Switzerland was a whole lot smaller than the United States. One would expect a native to know about yodeling and cuckoo clocks and the kinds of dogs endemic to the country of one’s birth.

She peeked out the door once more, before I’d taken more than a couple of steps toward the Chevrolet. Oh, boy! Maybe she was going to tell me something more.

“
Mrs. Majesty?”

“
Yes?”

“
Thank you for the class, Mrs. Majesty. You helping us a lot.”

Since I was tired and wanted to go home and get to bed, I decided not to resurrect the subject of Switzerland. “Thank you for coming to it, Mrs. Schwartz.”

“
Miss Schwartz,” she corrected. “I not have a husband.”

“
I see. Well, husbands aren’t necessarily all they’re cracked up to be.” I knew, as soon as the words left my lips, that I shouldn’t have said that. My darned mouth!

But Hilda didn’t seem to understand what I was talking about. A bit dreamily she said, “I like to marry someday.”

“
I’m sure you will,” I said, trying to redeem myself in my own eyes, if not hers.

“
Yah. I hope so.”

And that was that. I went to the Chevrolet—and I didn’t have to crank the thing because it had a lovely newfangled self-starter—but before I could depart, another figure wafted toward me from the patio.

By gum, it was Miss Emmaline Castleton! Oh, good! Maybe I’d get another job.

She appeared to hesitate when I spotted her. Thinking she probably wouldn’t be able to see me in the dark, I nevertheless pasted a friendly smile on my face, and said, “Miss Castleton?”

As if having come to a decision, she walked firmly toward me. “Mrs. Majesty? May I speak to you for a minute?”

“
By all means,” I said. “Would you like to go back inside?”

“
No.” She shook her blonde head. She had the prettiest hair. “I don’t want anyone else to know I’m talking to you.”

Mysterious. “Very well.” I bowed my head in a gracious gesture of capitulation.

She came up to me, stopped, and seemed again to be uncertain what to do next. Since I didn’t know what her problem was, I couldn’t offer her any clues.

Eventually, she said, “Mrs. Bissell and Mrs. Kincaid have both told me a little bit about your background, Mrs. Majesty.”

Good Lord. Did she mean that Mrs. Bissell and Mrs. Kincaid told her I used to sell raspberries door-to-door when I was a kid? Did they tell her that Mrs. Kincaid gave my aunt my first Ouija board, and that’s why I started messing around with spiritualism?

“
I mean,” she explained, “about your husband’s problems.” She bowed her head.

It took me a minute because I had to swallow the lump that instantly formed in my throat when she said those words. She spoke so very softly and sympathetically, I darned near started crying. Then I remembered she had problems of her own. “Yes,” I said in my softest, most soothing voice. “I understand you also suffered grievously from that war.”

She nodded. “I did. I . . . Stephen Allison and I had planned to marry, but he . . . he died.”

“
Yes. I remember reading about his passing. That war caused more grief than anyone should have to endure.”

“
I agree.” She stopped talking again.

Darn it, I wished she’d get on with it! To speed her up, I asked, “Are you interested in getting in touch with Mr. Allison?”

Her head snapped up. “Stephen? Good Lord, no!”

Oh. Well, that took the wind out of my sails. I didn’t know what to say.

Fortunately, Miss Castleton continued. “What I’m interested in is getting some information about the Salvation Army’s program for sponsoring immigrants.”

Boy, I wouldn’t have figured that to be her problem in a billion years! “The Salvation Army’s program?” said I, stuttering slightly. “But. . . .”

She shook her head. “I know, it sounds absurd, but I have a reason for asking. I need to know if . . . if a person I know can get help there.”