Chapter Twenty-Six
TWENTY-SIX
The Parsonses arrive shortly after that, and from the moment they spot us, Parsons is in guard-dog mode.
At the séance, he’d snapped at Freddie when he tried to reassure and prod Stella, and I’d wondered whether he’d been embarrassed by his wife’s profession.
After interviewing Freddie, I see another explanation.
Parsons is protective of his wife, and he’s easily annoyed by his brother-in-law.
Protective of his wife can be a good thing … unless it tips into control.
Is Parsons only irritated by Freddie because the two have such different personalities? Or is he jealous of Freddie’s place in Stella’s life?
That does mean it’s easy to figure out who I’ll interview first. Parsons’s protective streak might suggest he’ll fight me over speaking to his wife in private, so I’ll postpone that and speak to him while he will—I hope—be happy that my attention is diverted from Stella.
I start with the most innocuous of small-talk questions. “How was lunch?”
“You wish to speak to me about Miss Carmichael.”
Yep, he’s not going for small talk. Which means he’s not going to relax and chat and give me any personal insights. He sits straight with his eyelids closed just enough to shutter his expression. A hostile witness from the start.
His gaze isn’t on me. It’s on Gray, even though I asked the question. So I glance at Gray, lobbing him a subtle question of my own. He nods and clears his throat.
“Yes,” Gray says. “We wish to talk to you about Nellie Carmichael. You knew her, at least as a maid in the employ of Lady Adler.”
“Yes.”
“You had met her there. Before the first séance.”
“Yes, while Freddie and I were making the arrangements.”
“Did Lady Adler assign a maid to help set up the room?”
“She did.” Parsons pauses. “Not Miss Carmichael, though. The other maid. The one who was accosted last evening.”
“So Rose helped you with the arrangements.”
“No.” Parsons lifts a hand. “I am not trying to be difficult, Dr. Gray. You asked whether Lady Adler assigned a maid, and I said that was Rose. However, Rose proved ill-equipped for the task, and so I arranged for her to help Freddie and I took Miss Carmichael instead.”
“Rose was ill-equipped for the task?” Gray says. “How so?”
Parsons eyes him and then sits back abruptly, as if making a decision. “Let us get this out of the way while my wife is elsewhere. You are not a believer, Dr. Gray.” He lifts his hand again. “I can see it, and I accept it. I do not think Miss Mitchell believes either. And that is all right.”
Gray makes a noncommittal noise.
“It is all right,” Parsons repeats, “because speaking to the dead is only the surface of what my wife does. Some may call it entertainment, and I do not argue with that.” A humorless quirk of his lips.
“There are worse forms of entertainment. However, the service she truly provides is closure for those who did not receive it while their loved ones still lived. That is why she was reluctant to do the séance for Lady Adler. We spoke to Miss Emerson, and the young woman obviously already had her closure.”
“Yet your wife conducted the séance.”
“Because she did not dare refuse Lady Adler.” A flutter of long fingers.
“Let us move beyond questions of belief. You do not insult me if you say you disbelieve, though I would prefer you didn’t say it in front of my wife.
And, dear God, do not say it to Freddie unless you wish an hour-long sermon on the matter. ”
“Noted,” Gray says with a faint smile that has Parsons relaxing.
“Now,” Parsons says. “On the matter of Rose, she is a believer. A staunch one who considers any gift Stella has to be a gift she shares.”
“Ah.” Gray looks at me. “We did hear that last night.”
“I heard it ad nauseam, which is why I sent her to Freddie. He would find some task for her, and if she started chattering to him about her gift, she would find a receptive audience. In short…” He lowers his voice.
“I pawned her off on the boy so I could have a maid who would actually work. That is what I got.”
“In Miss Carmichael.”
“Yes. She was a wonderfully efficient young woman who treated the séance as if it were any other social event. I told her how I needed the room arranged, and she saw to it. If I could have someone like her at every client’s home, I would be a very happy man.
I even said to Stella that I would love to poach her from the Adlers.
Of course, it was a joke, but that only made it harder… ”
He straightens, hands clasping in his lap.
“My wife often says I have a calculating machine for a brain. She means it affectionately.” A brief smile.
“Most times, at least. What she means is that I am constantly evaluating and making choices based purely on reason. I valued Miss Carmichael for her efficiency. It is a trait I admire more than most people do. So it may seem a poor epitaph—saying Miss Carmichael was profoundly efficient and so I felt a pang of loss at her passing—but it is the truth.”
More of the puzzle that is Edgar Parsons comes together as he talks about Nellie. Valuing her for her efficiency while realizing that sounds odd.
Women see him as elusive and reserved. His brother-in-law calls him dull. His wife teases him for his calculator brain.
So, not rude or arrogant, and not necessarily dull.
Just a man who thinks differently, in a way his wife obviously understands.
Some sort of neurodivergence, then. Which doesn’t rule out a fling with Nellie.
Just how alluring did he find her efficiency?
It also reminds me of what Freddie said.
That Parsons would do anything to protect his wife.
Would he make choices others might not, as that brain of his calculated risk?
Gray glances my way. I clear my throat. “So what did you think when your wife said she was speaking to Miss Carmichael’s ghost?”
Silence. Earlier, I’d have thought he was choosing not to answer me, wanting only to speak to Gray. I think he’s more comfortable talking to another man, but now I see this pause as him giving the matter thought, formulating an answer.
“What my wife experiences is her experience,” he says finally. “I acknowledge and accept that.”
I parse that out and then decide I don’t want to guess and risk leading the witness. “By that you mean…”
“That Stella said Miss Carmichael spoke to her, as a ghost, and I acknowledge her experience.”
“How did she feel about it?” I ask.
“Most distraught.” He doesn’t hesitate with that.
“I know that wasn’t apparent when you first met her.
It took a while to sink in, for her to believe she had spoken to a young woman no one knew was dead.
Members of her family claim such things—to speak to the spirits of those not yet confirmed dead—and Stella never wanted that ability. ”
“Backing up, you say Miss Carmichael assisted you. So you knew she had disappeared from Lady Adler’s employ when you arrived for the séance?”
“Yes. And before you ask, so did Stella, and while I do not attempt to judge her experiences, it is possible that her mind played with her. She heard the young woman was missing and then had an experience that seemed to be her ghost. I was hoping Miss Carmichael would be found alive.”
“If she had been, though, that would mean your wife didn’t really speak to her ghost.”
His lips tighten, as if I’ve led him into a trap. “I believe I can say, with absolute certainty, that Stella would have preferred the same outcome, no matter what it meant for her personally.”
I consider. Then I say, “Can you tell me more about the rapping that night? I know your wife explained how it works—yes-or-no questions and spelling out words. Does everyone hear the knocks?”
“Usually. Sometimes Stella alone hears them, but that night, we all heard them plainly.”
“Did the spirit stay in one place? Or move about?”
He sighs. “Ask the question you wish to ask, Miss Mitchell. I am not Freddie. I will not take offense. You are trying to determine who else might have made the raps, in case that person killed Miss Carmichael.”
“Yes.”
“Thank you. This conversation will go much better with honesty.” He leans back, again getting more comfortable.
“I would never rap for my wife. Whatever she hears, she believes it to be true, and I do not question her experience. More than that, though, I would not participate in fakery. It is not in my nature. Nor do I believe it is in my wife’s.
” He meets my gaze. “I believe that answers several questions you dared not voice?”
“Yes.”
“You ask whether the knocks were centralized that night. They never are. They come from the vicinity of the table—at least the ones I hear. That is all I know.”
“Do you think Freddie—?”
“Do not ask that question. I will not speculate.”
Okay, that’s an answer in itself. He has considered Freddie as the source of the knocks, but he likely has no proof.
“The system your wife uses,” I say. “Is it standard among mediums?”
His lips twitch. “The question, I believe, is whether my wife uses a standard system that others—besides her, myself, and my brother-in-law—could know and emulate.”
“Yes.”
“She uses the system employed by most mediums I have met. One knock for yes, twice for no.” He pauses.
“I have also seen it reversed. Once for no and twice for yes. However, it would be very easy to figure out which Stella uses. One could respond to an early question with a single knock and see how she interprets it.”
“And you can only tell that the knocks seem to come from the area of the table? Nothing even slightly more specific?”