DEAD SILENCE GREETED SERAFINA’S SUGGESTION. AS THE technical hostess to this motley group, however unwilling she may have been in the role, Sarah felt obligated to break the awkward silence.
“What do you think will happen if you go back to the house?”
Serafina turned her remarkable eyes on Sarah, and once again Sarah marveled at the charismatic power the girl possessed and her seeming ability to turn it off and on at will. “We will find out who killed Mrs. Gittings.”
“How will you do that?” Sarah asked.
Serafina raised her chin. “The spirits will tell me.” She turned the force of her gaze back to Sharpe. “You will return with me, will you not?”
He didn’t look as if the idea appealed to him very much. “Is that really necessary?” he tried. “I thought the Italian boy killed her.”
The girl’s eyes blazed with fury. “No, he did not.” She turned to Malloy. “I will prove he did not, but I must return to the place where it happened, so the spirits can speak to me.”
“Couldn’t you speak to them here, dear?” Mrs. Decker asked, obviously trying to be helpful. No one wanted to go back to that house on Waverly Place.
“They will not be able to find me here,” Serafina declared.
“I don’t know why not,” Malloy murmured for Sarah’s ears only. “You’re in the City Directory.”
Startled into a laugh, Sarah had to cough to cover it. Serafina gave her a disapproving glance, then turned her attention back to Sharpe. “We must reenact the séance,” she was saying. “Everyone must be in their exact places.”
“I can’t imagine the others will want to do that,” Mrs. Decker protested in alarm. “Mrs. Burke has taken to her bed from the shock. She couldn’t possibly go out.”
“I could take her place,” Maeve offered.
Serafina shook her head. “Mrs. Burke will come,” she said confidently. “Mrs. Decker will come, will you not?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “And Mr. Cunningham will also come, if I ask him. Only the real killer would refuse. Am I not right, Mr. Sharpe?”
Sharpe had to swallow before replying. “Yes, of course, my dear,” he agreed, but he still looked as if he’d bitten into something unpleasant.
“We must send them word,” Serafina said. “We will arrange it for tomorrow morning.” She turned back to Maeve and said, “You will sit in for Mrs. Gittings.”
Sarah opened her mouth to protest, but Malloy grabbed her arm, startling her into silence and giving Maeve the opportunity to reply.
“I’d be happy to,” she said with obvious satisfaction.
“It is settled. You will be there at ten o’clock?” she asked Sharpe.
“If you’re sure this is the right thing to do,” he hedged.
“It is. You will be there, and when it is over, I will give you my answer to your offer.” She graced him with a dazzling smile that promised he would not be disappointed.
Sharpe could not possibly resist. “Yes, I’ll be there.”
“What about the Professor?” Mrs. Decker asked suddenly. “Shouldn’t you tell him we’re coming?”
“I will send him a message that we are coming and to be ready,” Serafina said. “He will expect Mr. Sharpe to bring him money, so he will be there. But you will not give him money,” she added to Sharpe. “If you do, he will leave, and he must be there during the séance.”
“Yes, yes, whatever you wish,” Sharpe assured her.
Serafina nodded, satisfied she had his support. “I am sorry, but I must be alone now to prepare for tomorrow. Until then,” she said and gave Sharpe her hand again. He took it in both of his and for an instant Sarah thought he might kiss it, but he simply bowed over it, and stepped back when she withdrew her hand again.
She turned and moved past Sarah and Frank and silently ascended the stairs, moving so gracefully that her feet might not have even been touching the floor.
When she was gone, Mrs. Decker said, “Well,” breaking the second awkward silence. “This should be very interesting.”
“Do you really think Mrs. Burke is too ill to attend?” Sharpe asked with a frown.
“I don’t know,” she said with a meaningful glance at Sarah, who recalled her mother’s theory that Mrs. Burke was simply pretending to be sick. “I’ll take her the message personally, though, so she’ll understand the urgency. Perhaps that will persuade her to make the effort.”
“I can go see Cunningham,” Sharpe said. “He’ll do anything Madame Serafina asks of him, I’m sure,” he added with obvious disdain.
“Try to get to him before he goes out for the evening,” Malloy suggested. “Otherwise, he’ll be too hung over to be much use to us.”
Sharpe scowled, but he nodded his understanding, then made his apologies to Mrs. Decker and to Sarah and took his leave.
“Oh, my,” Mrs. Decker said when he was gone, “what have we gotten ourselves into?”
Sarah looked up the stairs where Serafina had disappeared and wondered if she should go after the girl. She’d had a terrible shock today at the morgue, seeing Nicola’s body, and now she had made plans to relive Mrs. Gittings’s murder. She really shouldn’t be alone, but before she could decide what to do, Maeve came up beside her and called, “He’s gone! You can come back down!”
She’d brought Catherine with her, holding the child’s hand, and Catherine instantly moved to Sarah’s side. Sarah instinctively reached down and picked her up, settling the child on her hip.
Serafina appeared at the top of the stairs and hurried down. “Did he say he would visit Mr. Cunningham?” she asked before she even reached the bottom of the steps.
“Yes, and Mrs. Decker is going to visit Mrs. Burke,” Maeve told her. “Do you think you should write her a note?”
“Yes, I must,” Serafina said. “She is afraid to come, so I must make her more afraid not to come.”
“But that’s cruel,” Mrs. Decker protested.
“Not if she is the killer,” Serafina said coldly.
Maeve bit back a grin. “There’s writing paper here in the desk,” she said, leading the other girl over to the desk that had been Sarah’s husband’s. She started opening drawers and pulling out the items Serafina needed.
“Sarah, you’ll go with us, won’t you?” Mrs. Decker asked. Sarah had rarely seen her mother so unsure of herself. “If that’s all right,” she added to Serafina.
“Oh, yes,” the girl said absently as she selected a sheet of writing paper. “She must be there to see who the killer is.”
“So you’ll go?” Mrs. Decker asked Sarah to confirm.
“Of course, Mother. I wouldn’t miss this for anything.”
“I don’t want to go,” Catherine informed everyone.
“You can stay with Mrs. Ellsworth, sweetheart,” Sarah assured her, then she turned to Malloy. “I’ll tell you everything that happens.”
“You won’t need to,” Malloy replied smugly. “I wouldn’t miss this for anything either. Besides, if the spirits are going to tell her who the killer is, I need to be there to arrest him. Or her.” He glanced meaningfully at Mrs. Decker, who gasped in outrage.
“I hardly even knew that woman!” she reminded him.
“He’s only teasing you, Mother,” Sarah said. “Just ignore him.”
“It isn’t nice to tease people, Mr. Malloy,” Catherine told him sternly.
“I’m sorry,” Malloy said, feigning meekness. “I won’t tease Mrs. Decker anymore.”
“Mr. Malloy,” Serafina asked from where she was sitting at the desk. “Will you take a message to the Professor? I want to be sure he is there when we come and that everything is ready.”
“I would be happy to,” Malloy said graciously, surprising Sarah. “I should probably tell him about Nicola, too.”
Serafina’s head jerked up, and her eyes blazed. “No, please do not tell him. I will do that when I see him. And also do not tell him we are trying to find the killer. It will be better if he thinks I am just going to start doing the sittings again. I will tell him we must begin again since all the money is gone.”
“What money is that?” Mrs. Decker asked.
“Nicola took all the money that Mrs. Gittings was holding for us when he ran away,” Serafina said before anyone else could speak.
Maeve hastened to confirm her story. “Someone must have robbed him before… Well, he didn’t have the money anymore when they found him.”
Sarah exchanged a glance with Malloy, who shrugged. If that was the story Serafina wanted to tell, it was of no concern to him.
“Please, I must write this note for Mr. Malloy to take to the Professor,” Serafina said.
“Let’s go in the kitchen,” Sarah suggested.
Mrs. Decker led the way. Sarah followed, still carrying Catherine, and Malloy came behind. Maeve stayed in the office with Serafina while she composed her notes.
“What do you make of all this?” Mrs. Decker asked in a whisper.
“She just wants to prove Nicola was innocent,” Sarah said, setting Catherine down on one of the chairs. “Would you like another cookie, sweetheart?”
“Yes, please,” she said and accepted one.
“I’m starting to think Serafina knows more than she’s told us,” Malloy said with a frown.
“You mean you think she knows who killed Mrs. Gittings?” Mrs. Decker asked in surprise.
“If she does, why didn’t she say so in the first place?” Sarah asked.
“Maybe she couldn’t prove it, and she didn’t think I’d believe her,” Malloy said.
“So she was hoping Mr. Malloy would figure it out for himself,” Mrs. Decker suggested.
“But now that Nicola is dead, she knows I’m going to stop investigating,” Malloy concluded.
“We could just ask her,” Sarah said.
“She’d lie,” Malloy said. “She wants to have her séance.”
“And what if she has it, and we still don’t figure out who killed Mrs. Gittings?” Mrs. Decker asked.
“Then there’s nothing else I can do, and I’ll be finished with this whole thing,” Malloy said with more than a trace of happy anticipation.
“You’d just give up?” Mrs. Decker asked in amazement.
“Mother, Malloy can’t badger people like Mr. Sharpe and Mrs. Burke, especially when he doesn’t have any reason to think they’re guilty. He’d lose his job,” Sarah said.
Mrs. Decker sighed. “I just wish there was something else I could do. Serafina is all alone in the world now, except for that Professor fellow, and I don’t trust him one bit.”
Malloy turned to Sarah. “Have you had a chance to ask Maeve what she thinks of Serafina?”
“No,” Sarah said, remembering that Malloy had suggested this the day he’d given her custody of the girl. “She seems awfully anxious to help her, though.”
“Or maybe she just wants to go to a séance,” Malloy countered.
“I don’t like the idea of her playing Mrs. Gittings’s part,” Sarah said with a frown.
“You can’t think someone would try to harm her,” Mrs. Decker said. “No one there even knows her.”
“I know, but still… I just feel uneasy about it.”
“Maeve can take care of herself,” Malloy reminded her.
Sarah remembered exactly how Maeve had taken care of herself just a few short weeks ago and shivered involuntarily. “I just wish we could be in the room during the séance, in case something happens.”
“We can be on the other side of the cabinet,” Malloy said reasonably. “We’ll hear everything that happens, and we can be in the room in a minute if we’re needed.”
“But what if the killer decides to…” Sarah stopped, trying to think of possible scenarios.
“What if he decides to do what?” Malloy prodded her. “Kill Madame Serafina? I think the killer was trying to help her by killing Mrs. Gittings, so why would he want to kill Serafina now? Nobody even knows Maeve, so she’s safe, and what reason does anybody have to kill any of the others? Also, nobody knows who the killer is, so nobody else is in danger of betraying him.”
“I know you’re right,” Sarah admitted.
“Of course I am,” he said without a trace of humility.
She glared at him. “I just hate the thought of her sitting there in the dark, helpless.”
Malloy considered this a moment. “I think I have something to make her a little less helpless.”
“Not a weapon,” Sarah protested.
“No, something better.”
Before she could question him, Maeve and Serafina returned to the kitchen. Maeve handed an envelope to Malloy. “This is for the Professor.”
“Is it going to make him run?” Malloy asked with a doubtful glance at the envelope.
“No, it should make him want to stay,” Serafina said. “I tell him I am going to keep doing the séances because I have no other way to support myself, and he is the only one who can help me.”
Malloy nodded his approval and tucked the envelope into his coat pocket.
Maeve handed Mrs. Decker a second envelope. “This is for Mrs. Burke.”
“I hope you haven’t frightened her too much,” Mrs. Decker said, accepting the envelope cautiously, with just two fingers, as if afraid it might explode.
“No, only a little,” Serafina assured her. “Just enough so she will come. I also told her I would not charge her for the sitting.”
“She’d be a fool to miss that opportunity,” Mrs. Decker said.
“Serafina, we were just discussing what Mr. Malloy and I should do during the séance,” Sarah said.
“You must do nothing. The others should also not know you are there. They will suspect something.”
“We thought we could go into that room behind the cabinet and listen to what’s happening.”
“No, no,” Serafina said. “If you open the false door during the séance, they might hear you. There is a better place to listen, in the kitchen. I will show you tomorrow.”
“What do you want me to do?” Maeve asked.
“Just be sure you are holding Mrs. Burke and Mr. Sharpe by the hand and do not let go. Mrs. Decker and I will be holding their other hands. Mrs. Decker and I will also be holding Mr. Cunningham’s hands.”
“You also must make sure no one lets go or keeps one hand free,” Sarah warned them.
“And what are you going to do?” Malloy asked Serafina.
She turned her amazing eyes on him for a long moment, then let her gaze drift until she’d touched everyone at the table with her silent power. “I am going to contact the spirits and ask them who the killer is.”
They could not get her to say more or to make any more plans. Serafina insisted she would not know what to do until she heard what the spirits told her.
Frustrated and weary with all of it, Malloy finally took his leave. “I need to go see the Professor before it gets too late. Maeve, will you see me to the door?” he asked.
The girl eagerly complied, leaving Sarah feeling unreasonably slighted. Maeve returned a few minutes later, looking oddly pleased, and Sarah wondered what he had needed to see her alone about. She would have to wait until much later to ask her.
THE PROFESSOR MUST HAVE BEEN WATCHING FOR VISITORS because he opened the door almost the instant Frank knocked.
“Have you found him?” the Professor demanded.
“Aren’t you even going to invite me in?”
The Professor stood back and waved him inside with ill-concealed impatience. “Have you found him?” he asked again as soon as he’d closed the front door behind them.
“Are you talking about DiLoreto?”
“Of course I am.”
“Not yet,” Frank lied. He saw no reason to go against Serafina’s wishes.
“Then why are you here?”
With a sigh of annoyance, Frank pulled Serafina’s note out of his pocket and handed it to him.
“What’s this?” he demanded, accepting it with suspicion.
“Read it and find out.” Frank turned away and wandered into the parlor in spite of not having been invited to make himself welcome. This time he paid closer attention to the furnishings, and this time he could see that everything looked slightly shabby and thrown together, as if the items had come from an auction of mixed lots, bought cheap and with an eye to filling space rather than comfort or style.
“She’s coming back tomorrow?” the Professor asked from the parlor doorway. He still held the note in his hand.
“That’s right. She’s invited everybody who was at the séance where Mrs. Gittings was killed to come back for another one. She wants you to have everything ready.”
“Does this mean she’s free?”
“She’s always been free.”
“I thought you were… holding her,” he said with a frown.
“I told you before, she wasn’t arrested. She was just staying with Mrs. Brandt for a while, but now she wants to start doing the séances again. She probably needs the money.”
“The boy didn’t contact her then,” he said with some satisfaction. “I didn’t think he would. Once he got the money, he didn’t need her anymore. He didn’t need any of us anymore.”
“But you still need Serafina, don’t you?” Frank asked.
“What do you mean?” he asked, suddenly wary.
“I mean the boy stole all the money you had. Without Serafina, how else can you make a living?”
“I would manage,” the Professor said, drawing himself up to his full height and gathering his dignity around him.
“Like you managed before you found her?”
Now he looked insulted. “What are you insinuating?”
“Nothing at all. I was just wondering how you made your living before you met up with Mrs. Gittings and Serafina.”
“I am a professor of philosophy,” he lied. He’d told Frank before that it was a courtesy title. “I have taught at some of the great institutions of learning in our country.”
“Name one,” Frank challenged.
“Harvard,” he replied without hesitation, knowing that Boston was far away and such things could not be quickly or easily verified.
“Why aren’t you teaching now?”
The man’s lips thinned, but he didn’t lose his composure. “I am retired.”
“You retired from being a professor so you could answer the door and collect money from people going to a séance?” Frank let a faint note of contempt color his words.
“Madame Serafina is doing important work. You couldn’t possibly understand, but I felt compelled to assist her in any way I could.”
“Does that mean you gave up your plan to bankroll a Green Goods Game?”
Surprise flickered across his face, but he quickly concealed it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr. Malloy, but I’ve never enjoyed games of chance, if that’s what this Green Game is.”
“That’s funny,” Frank said, not at all amused. “I thought you looked like the kind of man who liked taking a risk every now and then.”
“Not at all. Now I must ask you to leave. I have a lot to do before tomorrow. When will Madame Serafina arrive?”
“She told everybody to come at ten,” Frank said. “She’ll probably be here before that.”
“I’m sure she will. You may assure her that everything will be in readiness.” He moved to the front door and opened it, standing expectantly while Frank made his way more slowly, pretending to take an interest in the artwork hanging in the hallway.
“I’ll do that,” Frank said.
MUCH LATER, AFTER MRS. DECKER HAD GONE OFF TO deliver Serafina’s note to Mrs. Burke and supper was over and Mrs. Ellsworth had paid a visit so she could find out what had been going on all day with Sarah’s steady stream of visitors, Sarah finally found a moment alone with Maeve. Serafina had gone to bed early, claiming she needed to be rested for the next morning.
“Catherine is asleep,” Maeve reported when she found Sarah still sitting in the kitchen. “She just couldn’t settle down tonight. I think she’s as excited about the séance tomorrow as we are.”
“I’m not exactly excited,” Sarah confessed.
“You’re not worried, are you?” the girl asked in surprise, taking a seat at the table across from Sarah.
“Not worried exactly, but I don’t like the idea of you sitting in for a woman who got murdered.”
“No one wants to kill me,” Maeve said with compelling logic. “Besides, Mr. Malloy is going to give me something tomorrow that I can use if things get out of hand.”
“What?”
Maeve frowned. “I’m not exactly sure. He tried to explain it to me, but it sounded more like one of Serafina’s séance tricks than something the police would use.”
“Is it a weapon?”
“No, it’s a light of some kind, but it has a battery, so you don’t need a match to light it.”
Sarah wasn’t sure how a light could help if something went wrong, but she supposed it wouldn’t hurt. “What do the police use it for?”
“I think they use it at night. Some fellow invented it, but nobody wanted to buy it, so he gave some to the police. Mr. Malloy said the beat cops who work at night like it.”
“I guess they would appreciate having a light now and then,” Sarah allowed. She waited a moment, to see if Maeve had anything to add. Then she asked, “What do you think of Serafina?”
Maeve’s expression turned wary. “What do you mean?”
“I’m not sure what I mean, but Mr. Malloy asked me to find out what you thought of her. Do you think she can really contact the spirits?”
“I don’t believe in spirits, but I think she does. Or maybe she’s just a very good actor.”
“So she hasn’t said anything to you to make you think she’s a fake?”
“Oh, no,” Maeve assured her. “She’s real proud of her powers, and she wants everyone to believe they’re real. But there’s one thing…”
“What?” Sarah prodded when she hesitated.
“Have you noticed, she doesn’t seem real sad about that Nicola dying. It’s almost like she forgot about it as soon as she got back here.”
Sarah considered. “I hadn’t thought about it, but you’re right. She was nearly hysterical at the morgue this morning, but I guess that’s understandable. It’s a horrible place. It’s true, she hasn’t seemed to be grieving, but people sometimes behave strangely when someone dies. Maybe she’s still in shock.”
“Or maybe she didn’t like him all that much,” Maeve said.
“I hadn’t thought of that. Still, they were lovers. She must have cared about him a little.”
“Or only a little. I asked her what was going to happen to him now, and she seemed surprised, like she hadn’t even thought about it. When my grandfather died, that’s the first thing I wanted to know, where was he going to be buried.”
“You’ve never talked about your family before,” Sarah said in surprise. She hadn’t wanted to press her for fear of bringing up unpleasant memories, but now that Maeve herself had opened the subject, Sarah found she was curious to learn as much as she could about this girl who had become her friend.
Maeve’s gaze shifted away and darted around the room, as if she couldn’t quite bring herself to look Sarah in the eye. “I didn’t want you to think less of me.”
“Oh, Maeve, nothing about your family could ever make me think less of you. I told you before, you’re part of my family now, and nothing will ever change that.”
Maeve looked down at where her hands rested on the tabletop. “Even if they were crooks?”
“Even if you were a crook yourself,” Sarah assured her.
She looked up in surprise at that. “I can pick pockets,” she confessed suddenly. “But I don’t do that anymore. Not unless I have to, that is.”
Sarah couldn’t help smiling at the strange confession. “Of course not.”
Maeve rolled her eyes. “I didn’t mean it like that. I mean, if I needed to help Mr. Malloy or something.”
“I understand. How long ago did your grandfather die?” Sarah asked to change the subject.
Maeve’s expression grew wary again. “Almost two years ago.”
Sarah heard something in her voice, something that begged her to continue, even though good manners forbade her to pry. “How did he die?”
“He was… murdered.”
“Oh, Maeve,” Sarah cried, reaching out to cover the girl’s hands with her own. “I’m so sorry!”
But Maeve just stared back at her, dry-eyed. “Remember when you were telling us about the Green Goods Game?”
“Yes,” she said cautiously.
“That was his game. He played the Old Gentleman.”
Sarah didn’t know what to say to that.
“Mrs. Gittings was right about it, too. It can be dangerous,” Maeve continued. “And not just when a mark gets suspicious.”
“A mark?”
“A sucker, the ones who come to buy the green goods. Sometimes the operators argue among themselves. That’s what happened. One of them thought Grandpap was cheating him. He wasn’t, Mrs. Brandt. I swear he wasn’t!”
“Of course he wasn’t,” Sarah said. “I’m so sorry you lost him. Was he your only family?”
“He was all I had left. My father… I never knew him at all. He ran off before I was born, and my mother died when I was twelve. Grandpap, he always took care of both of us.”
“I’m sure he did. Was that when you came to the Mission, after he died?” Sarah had first met Maeve when she was living at the Prodigal Son Mission, a refuge for young girls with no place to go.
“Yes, and I was so grateful. Grandpap had some money put away, but it wouldn’t have lasted forever, and a girl alone… Well, people will do terrible things if you don’t have somebody to look out for you.”
Sarah nodded, understanding only too well the terrible things that could have happened to her. “You did the right thing, going to the Mission, even though that wasn’t such a safe place after all.”
“It was always safe for me,” she reminded Sarah. “And I met you there, and Catherine.”
“I’m very glad you did. And I’m also glad you trusted me enough to tell me about your family.”
“You really don’t mind?” Maeve asked, still uncertain.
“Not at all. I only care about the person you are today, and you are a good person, Maeve.”
“I am, aren’t I?” she asked in surprise.
“Yes, you are. And I want you to be very careful tomorrow. Catherine needs you and I need you.”
Maeve’s eyes misted a bit. “Don’t worry about me. Nothing’s going to happen. And maybe I’ll get to talk to Grandpap,” she added with a grin.
Sarah grinned back. “I’m sure if you mention it to Serafina, she’ll manage to contact him.”
“Oh, I’m not going to make it easy for her. She’s already been asking me about my family and if there’s someone I want to ask a question.”
“What did you tell her?” Sarah asked in surprise.
“Nothing true,” Maeve replied with another grin. “She’ll just have to find out from the spirits.”