To Say Nothing of the Dog (44 page)

“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 séances 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 séance.”

“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 séance. And see if you can find two pieces of wire about a foot and a half long.”

“For what?”

“For the séance. 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 she 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 séance 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 séance 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?”

“No,” I said, wishing I had simply told Baine to steal some out of Madame Iritosky’s trunk. “It has to be wire.”

She opened a drawer and began rummaging through it. “I’ve got the second sight, you know. Me mother had it, too.”

“Umm,” I said, looking into the drawer at a great assortment of unidentifiable utensils. But no wire.

“When Sean got his collar broke that time, I sorr it all in a dream. I get a funny feeling in the pit of me stomach whenever anything bad’s goin’ to happen.”

Like this séance? I thought.

“Last night I dreamed I sorr a great ship. Mark my words, I told Cook this morning, somebody in this house will be going on a journey. And then this afternoon if this madam person didn’t show up, and they’d come by train! Do you think they’ll be having a manifestation tonight?”

I sincerely hope not, I thought, though there was no telling with Verity. “What exactly do you have planned?” I asked her when she got back just before dinner. “You’re not going to dress up in veils or anything, are you?”

“No,” she whispered, sounding regretful. We were standing outside the French doors to the parlor, waiting to go into dinner. On the sofa, Mrs. Mering was rehashing the sounds of Cyril’s nocturnal breathings with Tossie—“The cry of a soul in hideous torment!”—and Professor Peddick and the Colonel were holding Terence captive with fishing stories in the corner by the hearth, so we had to talk softly. Neither Madame Iritosky nor the Count were down yet and were presumably still “resting.” I hoped they hadn’t caught Baine red-handed.

“I think the best thing to do is to keep it simple,” Verity said. “Did you get the wires?”

“Yes,” I said, taking them out of my jacket. “After an hour and a half of Jane’s second-sight experiences. What are they for?”

“The table-tipping,” she said, moving slightly so we couldn’t be seen from inside. “Bend a hook in one end of each of them,” she said, “and then, before the séance, put one wire up each sleeve. When the lights go out, you pull them down till they extend past your wrists and hook them under the edge of the table. That way you can lift the table and still be holding on to your partners’ hands.”

“Lift the table?” I said, putting them back inside my jacket. “What table? That massive rosewood thing in the parlor? No wire’s going to lift that thing.”

“Yes, it will,” she said. “It works on a principle of leverage.”

“How do you know?”

“I read it in a mystery novel.”

Of course. “What if someone catches me in the act?”

“They won’t. It’ll be dark.”

“What if someone says they want the lights on?”

“Light prevents the spirit forms from materializing.”

“Convenient,” I said.

“Extremely. They can’t appear if there’s an unbeliever present either. Or if anyone tries to interfere with the medium or with anyone in the circle. So no one will catch you when you lift the table.”

“If
I can tip it. That table weighs a ton.”

“Miss Climpson did it. In
Strong Poison.
She had to. Lord Peter was running out of time. And so are we.”

“You talked to Finch?” I said.

“Yes. Finally. I had to walk all the way over to Bakers’ farm, where he’d gone to buy asparagus. What
is
he up to?”

“And the figure was definitely a five?”

“It wasn’t a figure. It was written out. And there’s no other number with two ‘f’s and two ‘e’s. It was definitely the fifteenth of June.”

“The fifteenth of June,” Professor Peddick said from the hearth. “The eve of the Battle of Quatre Bras and the fateful mistakes that led to the disaster of Waterloo. It was on that day that Napoleon made the error of trusting the taking of Quatre Bras to General Ney. A fateful day.”

“It’ll be a fateful day, all right, if we don’t get Tossie up to Coventry,” Verity murmured. “Here’s what we’ll do. You’ll tip the table once or twice, then Madame Iritosky will ask if there’s a spirit present, and I’ll rap once for yes. And then she’ll ask me if I have a message for someone, and I’ll spell it out.”

“Spell it out?”

“With raps. The medium recites the alphabet and the spirit raps on the letter.”

“It sounds rather time-consuming,” I said. “I thought on the Other Side they knew everything. You’d think they could come up with a more efficient means of communication.”

“They did, the Ouija board, but it wasn’t invented till 1891, so we’ll just have to make do.”

“How are you doing the raps?”

“I’ve got half of the sugared-violets box sewn to one garter and the other half to the other. When I hit my knees together, it makes a very nice, hollow sort of rap. I tried it upstairs in my room.

“How do you keep from rapping when you don’t want to?” I said, looking down at her skirts. “In the middle of dinner, for instance.”

“I’ve got one garter pulled higher than the other. I’ll pull it down till they’re at the same spot after we’ve sat down at the séance table. What I need you to do is keep Madame Iritosky from rapping.”

“Has she got a sugared-violets box, too?”

“No. She does it with her feet. She cracks her toes like the Fox sisters. If you keep your leg pressed against hers so you can feel any movement, I don’t think she’ll try rapping herself, at least till after I’ve rapped out, ‘Go to Coventry.’ ”

“Are you certain this will work?”

“It worked for Miss Climpson,” she said. “Besides, it must have worked. You heard Finch. Tossie’s diary says she went to Coventry on the fifteenth, so she must have gone. So we must have convinced her to go. So the séance must have been successful.”

“That makes no sense,” I said.

“This is the Victorian era,” she said. “Women didn’t have to make sense. She hooked her arm through mine. “Here are Madame Iritosky and the Count. Shall we go in to dinner?”