The Clairvoyant Curse (22 page)

“There is another doctor on
board the ship,” volunteered the Countess, stopping him before he
reached to glass partition. “I believe he is a French citizen.”

Captain Lanfranc cast a curious
backward glance over a broad shoulder. “Who?”

“Mr Crispin Ffrench is a
trained surgeon.”

“You mean the one addicted to
absinthe?” scoffed Bresant.

“He is a clear thinker and
quite sharp when he is sober. He can examine the body.”

“It is not necessary to have
him examine the body,” declared the captain, angling away from her.
“We will wait until Biarritz.”

“Wait,” called the Countess. “I
think it
was
murder!”

The captain spun back swiftly
and regarded her intently. “Why do you say that?”

“Yesterday morning in the hotel
in Glasgow Madame Moghra became pale and distrait. She saw
something or someone that unsettled her. She was worried about
something all evening. You could see it on her face. She retired to
the library with her planchette for that reason. I think something
was troubling her deeply. I think she knew she was going to die.
And this red dot on the crown of her head is not a mole nor was it
made by a pin. Her wig is on a net. It fits like a cloche. It does
not require a pin to keep it in place.”

She picked up the wig to show
him.

The captain gave a dismissive
snort, removed it from her hands and placed it on a book trolley.
“That is not enough to convince me to tamper with a dead body.”

“And her brooch is missing,”
added the Countess. “Last night she was wearing a valuable silver
and amethyst brooch. She is no longer wearing it.”

Stiffening, the captain turned
to his chief steward, his eyes were flashing dark and his face was
flushed. “Question the maid. Search her room at once. Interrogate
the cabin staff and then the others. If the brooch does not turn
up, search all cabins and storerooms, the kitchens and the engine
room, in that order.” He looked back at the dead body; a purple
vein was throbbing in his neck. “Very well,
la comtesse
.
Sober up the young doctor. The body will be taken to the infirmary.
Mr Ffrench can make a preliminary examination. If it is a question
of theft and murder I will initiate an investigation using my full
powers as master of this vessel.”

The other passengers were still
asleep, though pearlescent light was brightening the orient and a
cold November sun was trying valiantly to find a gap in the
silver-tinted storm clouds. The Countess decided to find out what
was delaying Dr Watson. It was imperative that she speak with him.
When she arrived at his cabin, Xenia and Fedir were still trying to
rouse him. On his bedside table was a half empty bottle of whiskey,
an empty glass, and the Dreadnoughts. There was only one cough drop
left. Presumably, he had consumed the others. She checked the
packet. One of the ingredients was valerian, a sedative. Mixed with
the whiskey, it had knocked him out cold. She instructed Xenia to
stay with him until he woke. Fedir was to follow her to the cabin
of Mr Ffrench.

The magic lantern expert in
cabin 13 on B deck proved easier to rouse. Unluckily, or possibly
luckily, he had knocked over his bottle of absinthe and it had
soaked into the bedside rug. That act of clumsiness meant he was
practically sober. She left Fedir to act as valet and informed Mr
Ffrench to meet her in the breakfast room as soon as he was
dressed. She didn’t actually know if he was a French citizen or
not, in fact, she thought it unlikely but the name was handy.

“Madame Moghra is dead,” she
announced peremptorily before closing the door to his cabin, hoping
to shock him into hurrying. “I need you to examine the body.”

Twenty minutes later Mr Ffrench
had joined the Countess for breakfast. News of the death of the old
witch had perked up his spirits and his appetite. He enjoyed a full
English breakfast while the Countess explained about the missing
brooch, the wig, and the red pinprick of blood on her head.
Together they went to the infirmary.

“I don’t think she’s been
poisoned with any of the usual culprits,” he said after a cursory
examination. “There’s no discolouration of the nails or lips, no
swelling of the tongue, no unusual smell such as almonds, and her
eyes are clear. The dot on her head is dried blood, as you assumed.
It appears she was stabbed with something sharp prior to
death.”

“What do you think it was?”

“A needle perhaps – something
like a darning needle, the sort for darning socks, or an embroidery
needle, or a crochet hook, something much larger than a sewing
needle. The indentation looks deep. I don’t think that’s what
killed her though, unless the needle was dipped in something such
as wolf’s bane, something that might have paralysed her and caused
respiratory distress or heart failure.”

“Why do you say that?”

“When I went into the library
last night to see if there was a copy of
Les Miserables
on
the shelf I assumed she was asleep, but I remember thinking she
seemed almost comatose. Her mouth had dropped open but she wasn’t
snoring. I admit I didn’t pay much attention. I could barely bring
myself to look at her when I had to. I despised the old witch.”

“Any reason?”

“Just the one.”

“Care to share it as we undress
her and check the body for contusions, puncture marks or possible
wounds?”

He shrugged carelessly in an
attempt to belie how much he truly cared about what he was about to
impart. “Ten years ago I was engaged to the love of my life called
Antoinette. She was part of the troupe, assistant to Croquemort
when he was Le Grand Maestro. He did a magic act with a guillotine
– a bit of French Revolution stuff. It really got the audience
excited. Antoinette would put her head on the chopping block and it
would appear as if the blade would chop her head off. Of course the
real blade stayed put by way of a key inserted into the drop
mechanism. A fake blade with a convenient neck gap would come down
and a fake head would roll into the basket. Antoinette would later
take a bow…except for the night someone forgot to insert the
key.”

“Whose job was it to insert the
key?”

“Madame Moghra’s. She was a
talentless nobody back then who helped out with the magic act and
did some spiritual stuff between curtain changes. She was insanely
jealous of Antoinette. She swore she inserted the key and that
someone else removed it. Croquemort was arrested, but in the end
there was not enough evidence to charge him with murder and since
it was not his job to check for the key he could not be held
accountable. The rest of the troupe backed him up.”

“You think
she
did it
deliberately?”

He nodded gravely.

“It was her job to check the
key was in place just before the blade came down. She was on the
stage for that reason, and that reason alone, play-acting the part
of Antoinette’s distressed aristocratic lover.”

“She played the part of a
man?”

“She was a hopeless actress but
Antoinette covered for her.”

“What was Madame Moghra’s
defence?”

“She claimed she was distracted
at a crucial moment. Someone in the audience cried out:
Vive la
France
! Down with the English! A violent
mellee
broke
out. The curtain was in the process of coming down when tempers
calmed and Croquemort decided to the show must go on. Several
stage-hands had leapt onto the stage in the meantime to make sure
the hot-headed members of the audience did not over-run the place
and cause damage to the props. It was suggested that any one of
them could have removed the key.”

“But you still think it was
her?”

“It
was
her job,” he
repeated emphatically. “I have since come to the conclusion she was
born with a pathological jealousy of her own sex. She hated
Antoinette. She hated Sissy and Miss Morningstar too, though
neither of them gave her any reason to feel jealous. Neither posed
a threat to her greatness.”

Madame Moghra lay naked on a
table, her flaws and freckles and moles exposed to the clear light
of day. There were no puncture marks, no wounds, no visible scars;
at one stage she had given birth to a baby. Heart failure appeared
the likeliest cause of death and the pin-prick of blood was soon
dismissed as one of those anomalies that are never adequately
explained.

“Did you know she wore a
wig?”

He shook his head. “I thought
as much but I was not interested enough to care.”

“What made you think so?”

“You saw her,” he sneered,
flicking back his wild blond locks long enough to make eye-contact.
“You saw how much stage make-up she used. She must have had small
pox as a child or perhaps she once had a lot of pimples. That may
explain the jealousy. Venetian ceruse is powdered white lead mixed
with vinegar. It causes hair loss. Queen Elizabeth used it. It is
widely believed she may have died from lead poisoning. It has been
linked to a decline in mental faculties. It was declared a poison
as far back as the 16oo’s. Only the incredibly vain or the
incredibly desperate use it now.”

“Psyn mylhium in Greek or
Cerussa in Latin,” said the Countess. “I know several women who
still use it and you are right – they are vain and desperate. I
believe it is also used in photography?”

“That’s right. Known as mercury
chloride. It works as an intensifier. It whitens and thickens the
image, increasing the opacity of the shadows, creating the illusion
of a positive image. I experimented with it on the ghost
shrouds.”

“Did you return to the library
at any stage during the night?”

“You mean did I come back and
kill her?”

“If that’s how you prefer to
phrase it – yes.”

“I wished the old witch dead
more often than I can say. I murdered her in my imagination every
waking moment and in my sleep every night. I avenged Antoinette
with every cowardly mouthful of wormwood and I salute whoever beat
me to it, but no, I passed out when I knocked over the green
fairy.”

“Who else might have wished her
dead?”

“Your friend, Dr Watson, for
starters. Everyone heard him singing that morbid little song. He
made no secret of his intense dislike of the old crone. And then
everyone else who ever met her. She was that sort of woman.”

“Please keep what we have
learned here in the infirmary regarding the dead body to yourself
until we can be sure it is
not
murder.”

The two of them looked back at
the top of the bald head where some tufts of hair sprouted and
where a tiny dark red drop of dried blood indicated the spot where
a sharp instrument had penetrated the skull.

The Countess locked the door of
the infirmary, a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. Dr Watson
did indeed make no secret of his intense dislike of Madame Moghra.
He harboured an obsessive hatred of the medium. Did he kill her in
that short space of time when he was alone with her in the library
at the last? Did he know what he was doing? Did he kill her in his
sleep? Was it possible to murder someone while sleepwalking?

First things first, Countess
Volodymyrovna needed to search the library for clues. No sentry had
yet been posted to keep people out – that oversight on the part of
Captain Lanfranc was a blessing to her. She was heading straight
for the table with the planchette when she almost fell over the
gypsy. Madame Sosostras was crouching by the side of the wing
chair. In her hand was the bouffant wig.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” apologized
the Countess, contriving a falsely courteous tone. “I didn’t see
you down there. Is that Madame Moghra’s wig?”

“Yes,” said the gypsy, placing
the wig back on the chair before straightening up and smoothing
down her multi-layered skirts. “I found it on the floor and was
picking it up when you came rushing in. I came to see with my own
eyes if the news was true, that Madame Moghra was truly dead, but
the body has been removed. It is simply terrible.”

“Yes terrible,” agreed the
Countess, wondering if the gypsy meant it was terrible that the
medium was dead or terrible that the body was no longer on show. “A
great loss.”

“A heart attack, they say.”

“So I have heard.”

The gypsy moved around the
library table, adjusting her fluttery skirts and jangly beads.
“Madame Moghra looked fearfully pale all day. I fear she may have
had a heart condition of which she was unaware.”

“She did appear unwell.”

The Countess looked back at the
fluffy
choufleur
resting on the chair and realised it could
not have fallen on the floor of its own accord, and especially not
by the side of the chair. Either someone had removed it from the
book trolley and put it on the floor before the gypsy arrived or
the gypsy had removed it herself. But why? And what was she doing
with it?

“Do they still bury bodies at
sea?” pondered the gypsy as she whirled herself to the bookshelf
and ran a red talon along a row of books, choosing one and then
another before settling on neither.

The Countess feigned interest
in the design of the planchette. Her voice was a deliberately
neutral monotone with the sting in the tail. “I don’t think that
will be the case here. We will arrive in Biarritz tomorrow morning.
The body will be checked by the police surgeon.”

“Police surgeon?” The gypsy’s
clipped tone betrayed an innate fear of authority. “I thought it
was a heart attack?”

“That is the prevailing theory
but it will need to be confirmed. Her brooch is missing. Her death
may have been the result of theft and possibly foul play.”

“You mean murder?”

“Yes.”

“You think whoever stole the
brooch also killed her?”