Chapter 3
In which suspects emerge
Dame Hartwell paced the library, her hands settled at the point of her bodice. Her sedate tempo allowed her gray skirts to swish gently against the room’s bright red oriental rug. The gentle whispering sound soothed her nerves, which were unaccountably restless.
Sir Hubert’s worried gaze followed her. She felt both warmed and chilled by his attention, ever solicitous and entertaining.
It had been so long since Dame Hartwell had met a gentleman sharing unvarying interest in Beyond. When she had enticed his niece Tessa to return to London, she had hoped the handsome, observing, absent-minded uncle would accompany her. And so he did.
The dame hadn’t expected the delight of spending afternoons with him. Hours whiled away as they discussed theories about mediums and their abilities to interact with Beyond. She enjoyed the genuine laughter, and the slight thrill when Sir Hubert aided her on their walks.
She shook her head. It was all these little moments that culminated in her calling forth her husband’s spirit once more. Ten years of seeking him hadn’t revealed Sir William. Dame Hartwell had felt, truly, that this might be her last chance at it.
None were there to stop the dame from persuading the rather persuadable Miss Edith Carterprice from running a private séance in her bedroom.
And what a disappointment! A wind blew, the temperature dropped, and all earthly noises faded away.
Dame Hartwell wouldn’t have known if someone had pounded the door, her ears felt so full of cotton.
It was all for naught.
Sir William refused to appear.
Dame Hartwell sighed.
Sir Hubert started, moving as though to join the dame in her pacing, but she held up a hand for him to remain seated. Edith, trying to be surreptitious, watched them from beneath her lashes as she pretended to work on her needlepoint.
The trouble of it all, really, was that Dame Hartwell was fond of Sir Hubert.
Too fond, actually, despite him being so unlike her dearly departed husband.
Sir William had been steadfast to a fault and unlikely to lose a hair on his head, let alone a very important research journal.
Sir Hubert had a habit of misplacing something daily, almost hourly.
If not his handkerchief, or his favorite pencil, or his hat, it was something rather more important, like his journal.
Sir Hubert was endearing and infuriating. This journal represented their spiritualist society’s legitimacy within the local community. Wasn’t this the third time this week he had lost said journal?
Dame Hartwell’s years of running séances proved she knew how to entertain and hire reputable mediums, confirming her as both eccentric and trustworthy.
She intended to use her largesse to run the spiritualist society and loved the idea of supporting Sir Hubert’s research. It was, lately, her dearest wish.
Startling and alarming, that his research replaced her desire to contact her husband one last time.
Of course, the timing of the disappearing journal was more than a little suspicious. She and Edith had run a séance every night over the last week. It was during this week that Sir Hubert had burst into the room all in a tizzy, demanding to know who had moved his journal this time.
Had Sir Hubert simply misplaced the journal? Was this the fault of one of his rivals? Or, hope against hope, might it be her husband come back at last? And if it were Sir William, why on earth would he do it?
Really, to steal a journal, of all things. Dame Hartwell couldn’t believe it of Sir William. A man of Sir William’s stature, however deceased, was unlikely to indulge in such petty and childish behaviors.
Unless Sir William had his own reasons for such thievery. What would a dead baronet need with a journal documenting observations of Beyond?
Dame Hartwell decided against it. If Sir William had in fact returned, and taken the journal, it must do with her recent, rather flirtatious behavior with Sir Hubert. A faint heat crept up her neck, and she turned on her heel, pacing away from Edith and Sir Hubert to avoid being caught blushing.
“What is it, my lady?” Edith asked, resting her needlepoint. “You look as if you’ve thought of something.”
Dame Hartwell shook her head. “No, no. Nothing of consequence.” She stopped by the little circle table in the corner where Sir Hubert was usually found scribbling in his journal. “And this is where you last saw it?”
Sir Hubert nodded, joining her. His irritation radiated outwards, and Dame Hartwell was warmed by his nearness. She cleared her throat and, after grabbing a pen from the cup, sat in the comfortable chair.
“What are you doing?” Sir Hubert asked.
“Writing up a list of suspects, obviously,” the dame replied. But her pen hovered, for she hadn’t any idea whose name to write first.
“You might as well list our names,” Edith suggested. Her brows rose at the sight of their annoyed incredulity. “Well, we must start somewhere. We ought to start with the obvious and work our ways outwards, don’t you think?”
Wrinkling her nose, the dame wrote their names on the paper with a little huff.
“And then, of course, there’s Tessa’s rival, Theodosius Martinvale,” Sir Hubert said. “We disgraced him. He would have it out for me, just for my connection with Tessa and our Hesitant Mediums Society.”
Dame Hartwell nodded, approving this suspicion and writing the name with a delighted flourish.
“And what about Madam Sylvia?” Edith said. “You haven’t hired her since Tessa’s return, and you were her most frequent client. Would she steal something out of revenge?”
“Oh yes, put her name down,” Sir Hubert agreed. “The lady’s a charlatan and was severely put out when Tessa exorcised her. What kind of medium can’t remove a spirit from her own body, I wonder?”
Edith pressed her lips together against that comment, and the dame wasn’t sure whether it was to suppress laughter or a rebuke.
As neither Dame Hartwell nor Sir Hubert had the Sense to interact fully with the spirits, they lived through the mediums surrounding them.
And even then, the dame and Sir Hubert only knew what their hesitant mediums shared, which was, they suspected, not everything.
“I’ll write her down,” Dame Hartwell said slowly.
“But I don’t think she’s interested in associating with us at all.
I haven’t been able to track her down for a month at least. I do think she was rather put out that Tessa revealed her powerfully latent medium skills.
When I last heard, she couldn’t turn off her Sense long enough to get a good night’s sleep. ”
Sir Hubert waved his hands. “All the more reason to put her on the list! A sleep-deprived medium is most dangerous. They lack control of their Sense! Don’t you remember how vulnerable Mary became?” he asked, speaking of the dame’s new daughter-in-law.
Dame Hartwell fought a smile. For really, Sir Hubert was rather adorable when he was so flustered.
And as this would never do, for she was supposed to be—and was—a mourning widow searching for her husband’s ghost. She tamped down the effervescent giggle threatening to escape.
This was a serious matter, of course, and Sir Hubert was quite right to be so concerned.
Wanting to appease the sweating gentleman standing beside her, Dame Hartwell added Madam Sylvia to the list, knowing they were unlikely to discover her whereabouts.
“You haven’t any scorned lovers from your past seeking revenge?” The question slipped out of Dame Hartwell’s mouth before she even knew she had the thought.
Edith’s eyes grew wide. She pulled off her glasses to wipe them with her overskirt. Both Dame Hartwell and Sir Hubert ignored the choked chuckle that escaped Edith’s lips.
“None whatsoever,” Sir Hubert snapped. “I’ve been rather busy, you know, watching after my niece and collecting research for my book.”
“So dedicated,” the dame muttered. “And yet still unable to keep watch on the thing. Were it Sir William, he’d have never lost such a precious item.”
Sir Hubert inhaled sharply at the comparison.
Dame Hartwell wondered why she even uttered such a snide comment.
Though she wore half mourning, it was only partly due to the memory of her excellent husband gone these ten years and more.
She also knew she looked best in soft grays and lavenders.
Her obsession with séances had started with seeking her husband’s spirit, as was only natural.
But recently, she had found herself seeking Sir Hubert’s company.
Sir Hubert had such a mind for study. His journal really was fascinating. It was her growing fascination that had sent her into her frantic search for Edith to speak to Sir William.
To say it hadn’t gone well was putting it lightly. All indications of reaching Beyond, with nothing to show for it. Dame Hartwell believed they had reached Sir William this time, what with the room growing colder, the windows and drapes flying open, and Edith’s eyes whiting over.
“I daresay the only faulty thing Sir William did was die,” Sir Hubert muttered, interrupting the dame’s impromptu reverie.
Dame Hartwell gasped.
“Oh my!” Edith interjected. “Well, what about the servants?”
At this, the dame drew tall in her seat. “Absolutely not. My staff is the most trustworthy group of individuals. And even if it were one of them, I’m certain Pomeroy would have rooted the knave out in a trice.”
Edith shrugged, being relatively new to the house.
Dame Hartwell couldn’t countenance it. Pomeroy was the butler-on-loan from her daughter-in-law.
A tall man himself, Pomeroy was older than both she and Sir Hubert.
He had the muscles of a man who once won prizes fighting, and a shock of white hair.
Even the ghosts steered clear of him. No, it wasn’t likely to be Pomeroy.
And no living servant would dare steal anything under his very watchful attention.