“You can’t,” Verity said. “Mr. Henry’s already bought it. Be a good girl and go find Mrs. Mering for me. I need to speak with her.”
“It is just the right size to keep buttons in,” Eglantine said. “And I told you this morning I wanted to buy it.”
“Wouldn’t you rather have a nice book?” Verity said, offering her An Old-Fashioned Girl.
“Here’s tuppence,” I said. “If you’ll go fetch Mrs. Mering, I’ll tell you where the treasure is.”
“That’s against the rules,” she said.
“Giving a clue isn’t,” I said. I leaned down and whispered in her ear, “The battle of Waterloo.”
“The day or the year?”
“That’s for you to figure out.”
“Will you give me clues to the squares the shilling is in?”
“No,” I said. “And fetch Mrs. Mering before you start digging.”
She ran off.
“Quick, before she comes back,” I said, “what’s your idea?”
She took the sugared-violets box from me, removed the lid, and held the box and lid apart, like a pair of cymbals, and then brought them together with a tinny rap.
“A seance,” she said.
“A seance?” I said. “That’s your idea? I’m sorry I didn’t let Eglantine buy the box.”
“You said the Colonel and Professor Peddick couldn’t resist anything having to do with fish,” she said. “Well, Mrs. Mering can’t resist anything to do with the spirits or séances—”
“Seance?” Mrs. Mering said, swooping up in her Coat of Many Colors. “Are you proposing a seance, Verity?”
“Yes, Aunt Malvinia,” Verity said, hastily wrapping the box and lid in tissue paper, putting it in the wicker swan, and handing them both to me.
“I’m certain you’ll enjoy your purchases, Mr. Henry,” she said, and turned back to Mrs. Mering. “Mr. Henry was just telling me he has never sat in on a seance.”
“Is that true, Mr. Henry?” Mrs. Mering said. “O, then we must certainly have one tonight just for you. I must ask the Reverend Mr. Arbitage if he can attend. Mr. Arbitage!” she called, and hurried off.
“Give me the violets box,” Verity whispered.
I turned slightly so no one could see our hands and passed her the tissue-wrapped box. “What are you going to use it for?”
“Table-rapping,” she whispered, sticking it in her reticule. “Tonight we are going to receive a spirit message telling us to go to Coventry.”
“You’re certain this will work?” I said.
“It worked for Madame Iritosky,” she said. “And D. D. Home and the Fox sisters and Florence Cook. It fooled the scientist William Crookes and Arthur Conan Doyle. Mrs. Mering thought you were a spirit. It will work for us. What could possibly go wrong?”
Mrs. Mering bustled up, robes fluttering. “The Reverend Mr. Arbitage is conducting the cake raffle. I shall have to remember to ask him later. O, Mr. Henry,” she said, taking my arm. “I know we shall have a good seance. I can feel the presence of the spirits hovering near already.”
Actually it was Baine, who had come up behind her and was waiting for an opening to speak.
“Perhaps it is the same spirit you heard the night before last, Mr. Hen—what is it, Baine?” Mrs. Mering said impatiently.
“Madame Iritosky, madam,” he said.
“Yes, yes, what about her?”
“She’s here.”
“Into the Valley of Death
. . . .”
“The Charge of the Light Brigade”
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
CHAPTER 17
In the Foyer—A Summons—Baine Unpacks and Makes an Interesting Discovery—In the Kitchen—Astounding Anecdotes of Jane’s Second Sight—Preparations for the Séance—I Sympathize with Napoleon—Jewels—Dueling Mediums—A Ghostly Manifestation
Madame Iritosky was waiting in the foyer with nine pieces of luggage, a large black enameled cabinet, and Count de Vecchio.
“Madame Iritosky!” Mrs. Mering gushed. “What a delightful surprise! And Count! Baine, go and fetch the Colonel and tell him we have guests! He will be so pleased! You know Miss Brown,” she said, indicating Verity, “and this is Mr. Henry.”
We had followed her up to the house, Verity muttering, “What’s she doing here? I thought she never left her house.”
“Eet eez a pleasure, Signor Henree,” Count de Vecchio said, bowing to me.
“Why did you not let us know you were coming?” Mrs. Mering said. “Baine could have met you at the station.”
“I did not know myself until last night,” Madame Iritosky said, “when I received a message from the Other Side. One cannot ignore a summons from the spirits.”
She didn’t look like I’d expected. She was a short dumpling of a woman with a button nose, untidy gray hair, and a rather threadbare brown dress. Her hat was shabby, too, and the feathers on it looked like they had been appropriated from a rooster. The sort of person I would have expected Mrs. Mering to have turned up her nose at, but instead she was practically fawning over her.
“A message from the spirits!” Mrs. Mering said, clasping her hands. “How thrilling! What did they say?”
“‘Go!’” Madame Iritosky said dramatically.
“Avanti!” Count de Vecchio said. “They rapped eet out on the table. ‘Go.’”
“‘Go where?’ I asked them” Madame Iritosky said, “and waited for them to rap an answer. But there was only silence.”
“Silencio,” the Count said helpfully.
“‘Go where?’ I asked again,” Madame Iritosky said, “and suddenly, there on the table before me was a white light that grew and grew until it became . . .” She paused dramatically. “. . . your letter.”
“My letter!” Mrs. Mering breathed, and I moved toward her, afraid we were going to have another swooning on our hands, but she recovered herself after swaying a moment. “I wrote to her, telling her of the spirits I had seen,” she said to me. “And now they have sent for her!”
“They are trying to tell you something,” Madame Iritosky said, gazing at the ceiling. “I feel their presence. They are here among us now.”
So were Tossie and Terence and Baine. And Colonel Mering, looking extremely irritated. He was wearing waders and carrying a fishing net. “What’s this all about?” he grumbled. “Better be important. Discussing the Battle of Monmouth with Peddick.”
“Miss Mering, amor mia,” the Count said, going immediately over to Tossie. “I am delighted to meet with you again.” He bowed over Tossie’s hand like he was going to kiss it.
“How do you do?” Terence said, stepping in front of her and extending his hand stiffly. “Terence St. Trewes, Miss Mering’s fiancé.”
The Count and Madame Iritosky exchanged glances.
“Mesiel, you will never guess who’s come!” Mrs. Mering said. “Madame Iritosky, allow me to introduce my husband, Colonel Mering!”
“Colonel Mering, thank you for welcoming us into your home,” Madame Iritosky said, bobbing her head and her rooster feathers at him.
“Hrrumm,” the Colonel muttered through his mustache.
“I told you I had seen a spirit, Mesiel,” Mrs. Mering said. “Madame Iritosky has come to contact it for us. She says the spirits are among us even now.”
“Don’t see how,” Colonel Mering grumbled. “No room for them in this damned foyer. Have a house. Don’t see why we have to all stand out here with the bags.”
“O, of course,” Mrs. Mering said, seeming to notice for the first time how crowded the foyer had got. “Come, Madame Iritosky, Count, let us go into the library. Baine, have Jane bring tea, and take Madame Iritosky’s and Count de Vecchio’s things up to their rooms.”
“Including the cabinet, madam?” Baine said.
“The—” Mrs. Mering said and looked, surprised, at the pile of luggage. “My, what a lot of luggage! Are you going on a journey, Madame Iritosky?”
She and the Count exchanged gla
nces again. “Who can say?” Madame Iritosky said. “Whither the spirits command, I obey.”
“O, of course,” Mrs. Mering said. “No, Baine, Madame Iritosky will need her cabinet for our seance. Put it in the parlor.”
I wondered where on earth it would fit, in among all the ottomans and firescreens and aspidistras.
“And take the rest of their things upstairs,” Mrs. Mering went on, “and unpack them.”
“No!” Madame Iritosky said sharply. “I prefer to unpack my own things. The psychic lines of force, you know.”
“Of course,” Mrs. Mering, who probably hadn’t any more idea of what psychic lines of force were than the rest of us, said. “After tea, I want to take you out to the grounds and show you the place where I first saw the spirit.”
“No!” Madame Iritosky said. “My powers are quite diminished by the long journey. Trains!” She shuddered. “After tea, I must rest. Tomorrow you may show me the entire house and grounds.”
“Of course,” Mrs. Mering said, sounding disappointed.
“We will examine Muchings End for spiritual habitation,” Madame Iritosky said. “There is definitely a spirit presence here. We shall establish communications.”
“Oh, what fun!” Tossie said. “Will there be manifestations?”
“Possibly,” Madame Iritosky said, putting her hand to her forehead again.
“You are tired, Madame Iritosky,” Mrs. Mering said. “You must sit down and have some tea.” She led Madame Iritosky and the Count into the library.
“Why didn’t you tell me about Count de Vermicelli?” Terence said earnestly to Tossie as they followed them.
“De Vecchio,” Tossie said. “He’s terribly handsome, isn’t he? Iris Chattisbourne says all Italians are handsome. Do you think that’s so?”
“Spirits!” the Colonel said, slapping his fishing net against his thigh. “Humbug! Lot of silly nonsense!” and stomped back out to the Battle of Monmouth.
Baine, who had been looking disapprovingly at the luggage, bowed and went down the corridor toward the kitchen.
“Well?” I said, when they had all gone. “What do we do now?”
“We get ready for tonight,” Verity said. “Did that covered basket you had Princess Arjumand in survive the shipwreck?”
“Yes,” I said. “It’s in my wardrobe.”
“Good,” she said. “Go fetch it and put it in the parlor. I need to sew the sugared-violets box to my garters.” She started up the stairs.
“You still plan to have the séance with Madame Iritosky here?”
“Tomorrow’s the fifteenth. Do you have a better idea?”
“Couldn’t we just suggest an excursion to Coventry to Tossie—like the one to see the church at Iffley?”
“She didn’t go to see the church at Iffley, she went to see Terence, and you heard her. She’s all agog to examine the grounds and see manifestations. She’d never be willing to miss that.”
“What about Count de Vecchio?” I said. “Could he be Mr. C? He’s certainly shown up at the right time, and if anyone ever looked like they’d have an alias, it’s him.”
“It can’t be,” she said. “Tossie was happily married to Mr. C for sixty years, remember? Count de Vecchio would spend all her money and leave her stranded in Milan in three months.”
I had to agree. “What do you think they’re doing here?”
Verity frowned. “I don’t know. I assumed the reason Madame Iritosky never did seances away from home was that she had her house all set up with trapdoors and secret passages.” She opened the door of the cabinet. “But some of her effects are portable.” She shut the door. “Or perhaps she’s here to do research. You know, snoop in drawers, read letters, look at family pictures.”
She picked up a tintype of a couple standing next to a wooden sign that read “Loch Lomond.” “‘I see a man in a top hat,’” she said, touching her fingertips to her forehead. “‘He’s standing by . . . a body of water . . . a lake, I think. Yes, definitely a lake,’ and then Mrs. Mering screams, ‘It’s Uncle George!’ That’s what they do, collect information to convince the gullible. Not that Mrs. Mering needs any convincing. She’s worse than Arthur Conan Doyle. Madame Iritosky probably plans to spend her ‘rest’ sneaking into bedrooms and collecting ammunition for the seance.”
“Perhaps we could get her to steal Tossie’s diary for us,” I said.
She smiled. “What exactly did Finch say about the diary? Did he say it was definitely the fifteenth?”
“He said Mr. Dunworthy said to tell us that the forensics expert had deciphered the date, and it was the fifteenth.”
“Did Finch say how the forensics expert did it? A five looks a lot like a six, you know, or an eight. And if it were the sixteenth or the eighteenth, we’d have time to—I’m going to go talk to him,” she said. “If Mrs. Mering asks where I’ve gone, tell her I went to ask the Reverend Mr. Arbitage to the seance. And see if you can find two pieces of wire about a foot and a half long.”
“For what?”
“For the seance. Finch didn’t happen to send a tambourine back with you in your luggage, did he?”
“No,” I said. “Do you think you should do this? Remember what happened yesterday.”
“I’m going to go talk to Finch, not the forensics expert.” She pulled on her gloves. “At any rate, I’m completely recovered. I don’t find you attractive at all,” she said, and swept out the front door.
I went up to my room, got the covered basket, and put it in the parlor. Verity hadn’t said what she wanted done with it, so I set it on the hearth behind the firescreen, where Baine wouldn’t be likely to see it when he brought the cabinet in and put it efficiently away.
When I went back out in the corridor, Baine was waiting for me in the now luggage-less foyer.
“Might I have a word with you, sir?” he said. He looked anxiously in the direction of the library. “In private?”
“Of course,” I said, and led him up to my room, hoping he wasn’t going to ask me any more questions about conditions in the States.
I shut the bedroom door behind us. “You didn’t throw Princess Arjumand in the river again, did you?”
“No, sir,” he said. “It’s about Madame Iritosky. In unpacking her things, sir, I found some extremely troubling items.”
“I thought Madame Iritosky had said she’d unpack her own things.”
“A lady never does her own unpacking,” he said. “When I opened her trunks, I found a number of unfortunate items: reaching rods, trumpets, bells, slates, an accordion with a self-playing mechanism, wires, several yards each of black cloth and veiling, and a book of conjuring tricks. And this!” He handed me a small bottle.
I read the label aloud. “Balmain’s Luminous Paint.”
“I’m afraid Madame Iritosky is not a true medium, but a fraud,” he said.
“It would seem so,” I said, opening the bottle. It held a greenish-white liquid.
“I fear that her intentions and those of Count de Vecchio toward the Merings are dishonorable,” he said. “I have taken the precaution of removing Mrs. Mering’s jewels for safekeeping.”
“Excellent idea,” I said.
“But it is Madame Iritosky’s influence over Miss Mering that I am most concerned about. I fear she may fall prey to some nefarious scheme of Madame Iritosky’s and the Count’s.” He spoke passionately and with real concern. “While they were at tea, Madame Iritosky read Miss Mering’s palm. She told her she saw marriage in her future. Marriage to a foreigner. Miss Mering is an impressionable young girl,” he said earnestly. “She has not been trained to think scientifically or to examine her feelings logically. I fear she may do something foolish.”
“You truly care about her, don’t you?” I said, surprised.
His neck reddened. “She has many faults. She is vain and foolish and silly, but those qualities are due to her poor upbringing. She has been spoilt and pampered, but at heart she is sound.” He looked embarrassed. “But s
he has little knowledge of the world. That is why I came to you.”
“Miss Brown and I have been concerned as well,” I said. “We are planning to attempt to persuade Miss Mering to accompany us on an excursion to Coventry tomorrow to get her away from the Count and Madame Iritosky.”
“Oh,” he said, looking relieved. “That is an excellent plan. If there is anything I can do to help—”
“You’d best put this back before Madame Iritosky finds it missing,” I said, handing the bottle of Balmain’s Luminous Paint back regretfully. It would have been perfect for writing “Coventry” on the seance table.
“Yes, sir,” he said, taking the bottle.
“And it might be a good idea to lock up the silver.”
“I have already done so, sir. Thank you, sir.” He started for the door.
“Baine,” I said. “There is something you can do. I’m convinced de Vecchio’s not an authentic count. I believe there’s a possibility he’s travelling under an alias. When you unpack his things, if there are any papers or correspondence . . .”
“I understand, sir,” he said. “And if there is anything else I can do, sir, please let me know.” He paused. “I have only Miss Mering’s best interests at heart.”
“I know,” I said, and went down to the kitchen to look for some strong, thin wire.
“Wire?” Jane said, wiping her hands on her apron. “What for, sorr?”
“To tie up my portmanteau,” I said. “The clasp is broken.”
“Baine’ll fix it for you,” she said. “Will they be having a seance tonight, now that this madam person’s come?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Will they have trumpets, do you think? My sister Sharon, she’s in service in London, her mistress had a séance, and a trumpet floated right over the table and played ‘Shades of Night Are Falling’!”
“I don’t know if there will be trumpets,” I said. “Baine’s busy with Count de Vecchio’s luggage, and I don’t want to bother him. I need two lengths of wire about a foot and a half long.”
“I can be giving you a piece of twine,” she said. “Will that do?”