Page 75 of Death at the Dower House
Someone drew in a ragged breath.
“Johanna?” Laetitia said, and to my surprise, her voice wobbled. In my mind, she had certainly been the one manipulating the glass earlier, but in this moment, at least, it sounded as if she truly believed.
Either that, or she was terrified. And if she had strangled Johanna, maybe that wasn’t surprising.
The glass circled the ‘yes,’ before settling firmly on top of it.
“Johanna?” Laetitia said again. “If it’s you, can you give us a sign?”
The next moment, a stentorian thud split the silence. Followed by two more.
Seventeen
Laetitia’s eyesrolled to the back of her head. She went limp in her chair and slid halfway under the table. The glass tipped sideways and rolled in a half circle, while Marsden let out a bellow of concern and Constance a shrill scream.
“Come in!” I called over the babble of voices. “Can someone turn on a light?”
Marsden and Crispin were both bent over Laetitia, hauling her back up onto her chair, slapping her hands and fanning her face, while Francis was trying to calm Constance’s hysterics. She was sobbing, tears running down her cheeks. It was Christopher who pushed his chair back as the door to the reception room opened, silhouetting a tall, imposing form. “What’s going on in here?”
“Séance gone wrong,” I said, as calmly as I could considering all the hubbub swirling around me. “Can you open the door all the way, so we can see what we’re doing?”
Tom grumbled something about stupidity, and the gullibility of people who believed in spiritualism, but he pushed the door all the way into the room and walked in. The electric light from the reception room made the scene around the table look all the more lurid. Constance was weeping in Francis’s arms. Gilbert sat like a statue, as stiff and pale as marble. Laetitia was equally colorless, dead to the world (if you’ll pardon the expression) and her brother was trying to dribble some of his brandy between her lips while Crispin helped by holding her head upright. I met his eyes across the empty place where Christopher had been. “Is she all right?”
A corner of his mouth turned up. “Overcome by the excitement. What about you?”
“I’m fine,” I said steadily. “I don’t believe in any of it.”
He nodded. “Good thing.”
Yes, it was. Over at the small side table, Christopher had got a lamp going, so we could see a bit better, and after a quick look and an equally quick inquiry as to whether Christopher was all right, Tom raised his voice. “I knocked on the door to let you know we’re done for the evening and on our way to the pub in the village, where we’ve taken rooms for the night. We’ll be back in the morning.”
Gilbert pulled himself together enough to nod. “Thank you, Officer.”
Tom was hardly an officer, and it showed in the rise of his eyebrows, but he didn’t say anything. Perhaps he could see that Gilbert was pale and clammy and not fully in his right mind, so it wasn’t worth the correction.
“Are you any further along?” I wanted to know, since I’m sure we were all wondering. Or if we all weren’t, I knew I was.
“We’re getting closer,” Tom said. “We’re not in a position to arrest anyone yet, but we have a better idea than we did.”
“I don’t suppose…?”
“No,” Tom said. “Just go about your business as usual.” He glanced at the circled letters and sooty glass on the table. “And no more séances. All it does it make things worse. Play a nice game of Snakes and Ladders instead.”
He glanced around the table. Laetitia was coming to now, sitting up and sipping from the glass her brother was holding to her lips while she clutched Crispin’s hand in a death grip. Constance had calmed herself down—or perhaps it was Francis who had done it—and was sniffling quietly into a handkerchief. His, judging by size. Peckham still looked shellshocked, while Christopher was standing by the side table beside the lamp he had just lit, watching Tom.
Tom had his hands in his pockets and was watching the rest of us. “No one is to leave the house tonight. Attempting to run will look like an admission of guilt, so don’t do it. If you need fresh air, don’t go beyond the patio.”
“Have you… are you…”
I wasn’t quite sure how to finish the sentence—‘Did you post guards to stop us from leaving?’ sounded a bit ominous—so I ran down without asking what I wanted to know. Tom met my eyes for a moment before he said, “Just go to sleep like it’s any other day. It should all be over by tomorrow evening.”
Scotland Yard must be quite a lot farther along in their deductions than I was in mine, then. To me, the field of suspects was wide open, and I was no closer to naming a single culprit than I had been when the day started.
But I nodded. “Sleep well, Tom. We’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Good night, Miss Darling. Miss Peckham. Lady Laetitia. Peckham, Astley, Marsden, St George.” He turned to Christopher. “Kit—”
Christopher nodded and fell in behind Tom as he headed out.
