Read 01 - Memories of the Dead Online
Authors: Evelyn James
01 - Memories of the Dead
Memories of the
Dead
A Clara Fitzgerald
Mystery
Book 1
Evelyn James
© Evelyn James
2012
First published
2012
Red Raven
Publications
The right of
Evelyn James to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in
accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights
reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in
any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system without the permission in writing from the author
Memories of the
Dead is the first book in the Clara Fitzgerald series
Other titles in
the Series:
Flight of Fancy
Murder in Mink
Carnival of
Criminals
Mistletoe and
Murder
It was an icy January day and there was a woman huddled
in the doorway of the office. Clara noticed that she wasn’t wearing gloves and
wondered why someone, so otherwise well-dressed, would miss such a necessity in
this weather. She approached closer and the woman looked up.
“May I help you?” Clara
offered.
“Oh no dear, I am waiting for
Mr C. Fitzgerald.”
Clara resisted the temptation
to look affronted.
“I am
Miss
C.
Fitzgerald and this is my office.”
“
You
are a private
investigator?” The woman looked flustered.
“Indeed and I take it you are
waiting for me?”
The woman was still stunned
and then her face fell.
“I do apologise, I assumed you
were something to do with that establishment.” She motioned with her eyes to
the next doorway which led into a haberdasher’s. Clara rented the rooms above
the shop for her office space, which usually worked very well, especially as it
had its own private entrance. But sometimes it caused confusion, as was
happening right now with the strange woman in the doorway who was beginning to
look quite distressed.
“Shall we go upstairs and
discuss whatever you came to see me about?” Clara was feeling grumpy that
morning, Tommy had had another bad night, and she didn’t feel in the mood to
explain her unusual career choice on the cold doorstep, “I can pop the kettle on
as soon as we get up there and warm us up a bit. Your hands look frozen.”
“Oh, yes.” The woman seemed to
notice her hands for the first time as she moved aside to let Clara unlock the
door, “I was in such a hurry to get here that I must have forgotten my gloves.
It’s urgent, you see.”
Clara refrained from saying
that rarely people visited her with problems that were not urgent and motioned
for her to go inside.
The staircase was dark in the
narrow hall, no one had seen the need to furnish it with gas lighting when the
other rooms were modernised, so Clara kept a stubby candle on a shelf by the
door to light her way. Clara drew some matches from her pocket and lit the
candle before ushering her guest ahead of her. The woman began to talk
nervously as they climbed the stairs.
“I am Mrs Wilton, forgive my
poor introduction. I have never visited a detective before and didn’t expect a
woman, though these days, I suppose, one should be quite prepared for such
events. I found your name in the classifieds, it said you had done some good
service for the Mayor of Brighton and I thought to myself that must count for
something.”
“You would think, Mrs Wilton.”
Clara opened the first door on the landing which led to the front of the
apartment and was arranged as her office.
There was a big old desk in
front of the window, rather dominating the room, and a small chair before it
for clients. At the back of the room, just behind the door, was a grand old
sofa which Clara termed her ‘thinking spot’ but which equally served as a
day-bed to catch up on her sleep when Tommy was going through one of his bad
spells with the night terrors. Close to hand was a bookcase, mostly used as a
rudimentary filing system and an old fireplace, with a small stove tucked in
one corner where Clara could boil a kettle if she wished.
Clara pulled off her
mackintosh and her grey hat and hung them on a hook on the wall. She attempted
to take Mrs Wilton’s coat but the woman was too distracted to notice.
“Please take a seat.” Clara
indicated the chair before the desk and left Mrs Wilton hovering by it while
she lit the stove and went to the back room to fill the kettle with water. When
she returned the stove was just beginning to generate some warmth and she left
the kettle standing on it before taking her own seat behind the desk. She
noticed Mrs Wilton was studying the only painting on the otherwise barren
walls.
“My father’s portrait. He was
a doctor.” Clara explained.
“I would think you would keep
such a sentimental piece at home.” Mrs Wilton asked curiously.
“My brother prefers it here,
we lost both our parents during the war and he finds it hard to have pictures
around.”
“I understand.” Mrs Wilton
suddenly looked serious, “I lost my husband and son in the war.”
“I am sorry.”
“Oh, it’s not exactly novel
these days, is it? You are more unique not to have lost someone.”
“Still, it is hard.” Both
ladies were silent for an instant contemplating their own losses.
“I suppose that is why I came
here.” Mrs Wilton broke the mood, “It is all to do with my husband.”
“I’m afraid I have had little
success trying to trace what happened to men who died in action, though I am
often asked.”
“It’s not that. I may not know
where the bodies of my husband and son lie but I know their souls are safely in
Glory, that doesn’t concern me.”
“That is good.” Clara gave her
best sympathetic smile, “Too many women feel they cannot rest until they know
where a loved one died and was buried. It can quite destroy them. So, what is
your situation?”
“Well… may I take it that
whatever I say is confidential?”
“As if it was said in a
confessional, though I don’t offer absolution.”
Mrs Wilton smirked.
“I find I am not the
confessing type, normally anyway, I don’t go in for all that Catholic stuff.
I’m a Spiritualist. Have you heard of us?”
“You believe it is possible to
communicate with the dead.”
“As a crude assessment of our
beliefs, yes. Look Miss Fitzgerald I need to know you will listen to what I
have to say with an open mind.”
Clara felt her suspicions
rising; she was not in the mood for games and was starting to think Mrs Wilton
was wasting her time.
“I am reasonably open-minded,
Mrs Wilton, though I would not make the mistake of taking that to mean I am
gullible.”
“Of course not! It’s just some
people will laugh at one when you talk about the afterlife and so forth.”
“I would not laugh, but I do
need a physical case to work on. Spiritual problems are out of my area of
expertise.”
“I’m not so foolish.” Mrs
Wilton bristled a little, then visibly deflated, “It’s about money, which, I am
sure, is perfectly in your area of expertise.”
Clara was offended but
prudently held her tongue.
“If you explain your situation
I shall see what I can do.”
“It is simple really. My
husband was old-fashioned in his thinking and could not abide banks, he promised
me before he went to the Front that he had left me a sizeable sum of money,
should the worst happen, to safeguard my future.” Mrs Wilton paused and fiddled
nervously with the clutch on her bag, “Only it seems he didn’t.”
“Didn’t?”
“Leave me any money.”
“He left no will?”
“Not to my knowledge and I
have hunted for it. He didn’t trust solicitors either, you see. So life has
been rather difficult for me as you can imagine I have had to dismiss most of
the servants and I have been making ends meet by selling whatever I can, but
even that has been hard in this day and age.”
“I quite understand, Mrs Wilton.”
Clara said, and she did too, many families had been left destitute by the loss
of a bread winner in the war. She, herself, only just made ends meet with her ‘little
detective business’, as some critics were cruel enough to call it, “But I am
still not clear on what you want from me?”
“It has been very hard,” Mrs
Wilton continued, as though she had not quite heard Clara, “And after a while
you can’t mask things. People notice. Even you.”
“Me? Mrs Wilton.”
“You spotted my gloves were
missing. I simply don’t have a pair without holes in them to wear and I suppose
my pride got the better of me, so I would rather freeze my fingers off in the
middle of winter then let you see me wearing shabby gloves.”
Clara unconsciously glanced at
her own worn mackintosh, how she wished she could buy a new one, but at least
her pride had not moved her to discard it entirely in favour of freezing to
death.
“Pride is cheap, my mother used
to say.” Mrs Wilton sighed heavily, “I think she meant that everyone could
afford to have some in themselves, but I wonder now if she was really quite
wrong. Pride can actually cost a person quite a lot.”
“Would you like a cup of tea?”
Clara interrupted as the kettle started to faintly whistle. She decided it was
time to move the conversation on before Mrs Wilton became too maudlin. She was
beginning to feel rather sorry for the woman and knew that was not a good sign
as she would be tempted to drop her rates sympathetically, or worse, offer to
do the work for free. Tommy would never let her hear the end of it if she did.
“Yes please.” Mrs Wilton
nodded.
Clara fidgeted with the
boiling water and an old brown teapot which had a spout half-clogged with old tea
leaves. Nestling it in a striped knitted cosy she brought it to the table and
spent a while longer finding a matching pair of cups and saucers. The whole
procedure perhaps took a little under ten minutes, enough time, as Clara poured
out the tea, for Mrs Wilton to gather herself together and remember what she
was there for. Clara slipped a cup of weak tea in front of her.
“Ignore the tea leaves, I
can’t remember where I left the strainer.”
“Thank you.” Mrs Wilton warmed
her hands on the cup.
“So,” Clara said sipping her
tea thoughtfully, “Let’s get to the gist of this problem. Why are you here?”
Mrs Wilton dragged her
teaspoon around her cup as though the action could help her summon up the
strength to talk.
“I explained that people begin
to notice these things and servants, especially dismissed servants, talk. I was
taken to one side at a church service by a dear lady in her nineties who is a
very ardent spiritualist and, well, I suppose I was just so unhappy that a kind
word or two had me sobbing on her shoulder. I told her what I told you and she
felt I would benefit from a private reading, and then the following week she
brought me this card.” Mrs Wilton withdrew a thin slip of white cardboard from
her purse and anxiously passed it to Clara.
The card simply read: Mrs
Martha Greengage, Spiritualist Medium, 261 Chestnut Grove, Brighton. Clara read
the card and then looked at her client.
“I know what you must think, a
gullible old woman desperate for answers and clutching at straws.” Mrs Wilton’s
voice trembled, “But, believe me, I was sceptical too. Going to a Spiritualist
church is one thing, but I have always been a little suspicious of private
clairvoyants. It really was only because of this dear old lady that I was
convinced to go at all. She told me that Mrs Greengage specialised in lost
property and had even helped someone in the nobility to retrieve a small lost
fortune, and I really was at the end of my tether by that point, actually I
still am.”
Mrs Wilton gave a painful
laugh. Clara laid down the card, her heart even more drawn to the poor woman
who had put her last hopes in a charlatan (Clara had no doubts that was exactly
what Mrs Greengage was) – who almost certainly charged a fortune. She took a
moment to think through what she should say next and kept her expression
carefully neutral as she spoke.
“What was Mrs Greengage like?”
“Old and,” Mrs Wilton
hesitated, “A bit ‘witchy’ for my likes. She wears a lot of black though I
believe Mr Greengage is alive and well, and she keeps a white parrot that she
claims is also sensitive and is sometimes possessed by visiting spirits. She
didn’t inspire confidence on my first visit to be honest.”
“You don’t strike me as a
foolish woman Mrs Wilton, but I take it from your tone you have visited this
woman more than once?”
“Oh yes, at least five times.”
“And because of these visits
you are now here?”
Mrs Wilton blinked.
“Oh dear, I don’t think I have
made myself very clear. You see, I was sceptical on that first visit but after
what I saw I could hardly remain so. Mrs Greengage really does have a gift.”
“I seem to be no closer to
understanding how I may help you?”
Mrs Wilton sighed.
“I have to explain this a
little more logically. I went to visit Mrs Greengage on a Friday night about a
month ago with the dear lady who gave me the card. To her credit Mrs Greengage
did not charge me anything for that first visit which is more than can be said
for most businesses.”
“My consultations are free
also.” Clara interrupted gently.
“Well that is because you are
a woman, dear, and women understand that not everything requires money
up-front. A little chat should always be free.” Mrs Wilton took a sip of her
tea, “Where was I? Oh yes, Mrs Greengage opened her door looking like some sort
of witch out of a pantomime and I was quite astounded. Did I mention she had a
red carnation in her hair?”
“No.” Clara said having a hard
time keeping a straight face as the image of Mrs Greengage began to form in her
mind.
“Really it is ridiculous in a
woman that age. I suppose it is all for show.” Mrs Wilton tutted, “As you can
imagine I wondered what sort of a place I had been brought to, but she was
polite enough and it seemed churlish to walk away when I had been invited.”
Mrs Wilton leaned forward in
her chair.
“She escorted us into her front
parlour the likes of which I have not seen since my grandmother was alive. Not
a modern thing in sight and all the furniture dark and heavy and all these
statues everywhere of classical figures. Some were so indiscreet in their
apparel I hardly knew where to look.” Mrs Wilton’s eyes went wide, “And then
there was the parrot, sitting on a perch in the middle of this green-draped
table with these awful beady eyes peering at you. I was quite unnerved, the
thing looked possessed.”
“I fear that is a common state
with parrots.” Clara answered, before her client continued.