Joan Smith (26 page)

“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.

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 was 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 s
é
ances 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.”

“Ah, it was
you
who recovered them. I made sure it must be the case and have been wondering why you did not quiz me as to their being there. I have half a dozen pairs on standby, so it was not important. I am afraid we gave your aunt a bit of a fright. She set up screaming to wake the dead. I was planning at the time how I would have Alice appear and disappear, and thought if there was even a crawl space above the trapdoor in the feather room, it would be helpful. I never looked for such luck as the two passages joining, but once I saw the passage went somewhere, of course I had to follow up and see where it debouched. I had hopes it would be in
your
room, Valerie.”