Medium Dead: An Alexandra Gladstone Mystery (7 page)

“I’m pleased to see you’re back on duty, Lancaster.” Nicholas’s tone bordered on sarcastic.

The butler replied, sounding defensive. “Thank you, sir. I’m sure you understand that my attention has been required elsewhere.”

“So I’m told.” The hint of sarcasm was still in Nicholas’s voice.

“A
great deal
of attention, if I may say so,” Lancaster added, “not to mention my duties to your mother.”

“Very well.” Nicholas gave him a dismissive wave of his hand. “Will you please tell Her Ladyship that I have two visitors with me who must see her?”

The butler bowed. “Yes, my lord.” Just as he started to move away, Nicholas called to him again, causing him to turn around.

“Lancaster, I said she
must
see these people. Make sure she understands that it is urgent.”

Lancaster bowed again and hurried away. They quickly followed in his wake.

When they reached her bedroom, Lancaster knocked, and Lady Forsythe answered with an irritated “Who’s there?”

“My lady,” the butler called through the door, “here to see you are Lord Dunsford, Dr. Gladstone, and Constable Snow.”

“I am ill, Lancaster. I told you I will see no one.”

Lancaster turned to the group and gave them a self-satisfied look.

“I’m afraid I must insist,” Snow said.

“Insist as you wish, Constable. Her Ladyship has said she will not see you.” Lancaster curled his lip with a smirk as he spoke.

“I am an officer of the law,” Snow began. He was promptly interrupted by Nicholas, who pushed his way to the door and opened it.

“My lady, I’m afraid you have no choice but to see the constable.” Nicholas’s voice was authoritative as he strode into the room.

Lady Forsythe lay in her bed looking unwell with a flushed face and a sheen of perspiration on her brow. Madam Cudney sat in a chair next to the bed.

“Nicky, I’m ill! I will see no one. Lancaster, get them all out of here.”

“Thank you, Lancaster,” Nicholas said and nodded toward the door.

Lancaster appeared puzzled and uncomfortable for a moment before he nodded, bowed slightly, and left the room.

Snow gave Madam Cudney a glaring look. “I have agreed to allow Lord Dunsford and Dr. Gladstone to stay. However, we limit the number to these two,” he said.

“Madam Cudney will most definitely stay with me,” Lady Forsythe said.

There was a moment of chagrined hesitation on Snow’s part before he said, “As you wish.”

“I hope you won’t be long,” Madam Cudney said. “Her Ladyship truly is ill, and she tires easily.”

Snow ignored her and looked directly at Lady Forsythe. “I must question you about your excursion to the graveyard last night, my lady.”

Lady Forsythe’s body jerked beneath the coverlet, and her face grew pale. She gasped but didn’t speak. Madam Cudney placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.

“Why were you there? And who accompanied you?” Snow asked.

“I…I don’t know what you’re…Why are you asking me about a graveyard? What graveyard?”

Snow was unmoved by her theatrics. “The very grave where Alvina Elwold’s body was found with her throat slit.”

Lady Forsythe’s eyes grew wide and glassy just as her face became a shade paler.

Alexandra took a step toward her, genuinely worried by her stricken demeanor. At the same time, Madam Cudney glared at Snow. “This is uncalled for,” she said. “Can’t you see how you’re upsetting her?”

“She has yet to answer my question,” he said.

“And she shan’t,” Madam Cudney said. “I shall answer for her. I was with her last night. I did not leave her side, and you have no right to accuse her of such obscene things. I suggest you leave now. She is not in a proper state to speak to anyone.”

“I will leave when she answers—”

“I’m afraid Madam Cudney is right. Her Ladyship is in no condition to be questioned,” Alexandra said. She was holding Lady Forsythe’s limp arm while she took her pulse with one hand and felt her forehead with the other. Her pulse was racing.

Nicholas took a step toward them. “Is she—”

“I suggest you all leave for now,” Alexandra said. She was rummaging in her bag for spirits of ammonia and of lavender. “You, too, Constable.” She spoke with authority, and both men hesitated only slightly before they started to leave. “Nicholas, I’ll send word to you as soon as possible. Madam Cudney, fetch me a basin and a pitcher of cold water and some brandy.” Alexandra gave the lady a sniff of the ammonia and threw the covers back all the way to the foot of the bed to reveal Lady Forsythe trussed in a dressing gown with an elaborate sash. Alexandra saw that the tight-fitting sash had aggravated the lesions and made them more painful. She loosened the lady’s clothing and massaged her arms and legs to encourage blood flow.

When Madam Cudney returned with the water, Lady Forsythe swallowed some of it with the spirits of lavender.

“Is she going to be all right?” Madam Cudney’s voice and hands were both shaking as she handed Alexandra the basin and the pitcher of water. Lancaster followed behind her with the brandy.

“Yes,” Alexandra said. “But we must keep her quiet and make sure she wears loose clothing. Two teaspoons of brandy,” she said, turning to Lancaster.

Lady Forsythe gave a heavy sigh, indicating to Alexandra that she was coming out of the syncope.

“How dare the constable accuse her of such things!” Madam Cudney said.

“How could he have known?” Lady Forsythe mumbled. “How…?”

“My lady!” Madam Cudney said, alarmed. “Do you suppose she’s so ill as to be out of her mind?”

“She’s disturbed, of course, but it’s not likely to be permanent,” Alexandra said. “I suggest you don’t speak of it for a while.” She wanted to ask Lady Forsythe what she meant by her question, but her best medical judgment not to disturb the patient prevailed.

“Of course not,” Madam Cudney agreed.

“Is he gone?” Lady Forsythe’s voice was now genuinely weak. “That man, I mean. That dreadful Constable Rain.”

“Yes, yes, my dear. Constable Snow is gone.” Madam Cudney spoke in a soothing voice, as if she was speaking to a child, while she held Lady Forsythe’s hand.

Alexandra gave Madam Cudney and Lancaster instructions for Lady Forsythe’s care, stressing once again that she should wear only loose clothing, and left the room, telling them to send for her if she was needed. She gave Lady Forsythe the assurance that she would stop by Montmarsh to see her in the morning.

“Is she all right?” Nicholas asked as soon as he saw Alexandra step into the hallway. Constable Snow was nowhere in sight, but a crowd of servants had gathered at the end of the hall with anxious and worried expressions on their faces.

“Yes, she will be quite all right, but she must be kept quiet.” She spoke loud enough for the servants to hear. “I think it will be good for you to see her now,” she added quietly to Nicholas, “but she need see no one else. I’ll wait for you downstairs.”

Nicholas gave her shoulder a grateful squeeze and spoke to the servants. “You can all go back to work now. Lady Forsythe will be all right, thanks to Dr. Gladstone.”

When the servants had dispersed, Alexandra descended the stairs. Mrs. Pickwick was waiting for her at the bottom. Alexandra could see tears in her eyes.

“Is Her Ladyship really going to be all right?” she asked.

“Yes, of course.” Alexandra tried to reassure her with a smile.

“Oh, dear, I hope so, I do hope so. ’Tis all my fault.” Mrs. Pickwick’s tears had turned to sobs.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Alexandra said. “How could it be your—”

“I shouldn’t have let her go with that…I should have gone with her, as she asked me…” She stopped speaking suddenly and placed her hand over her mouth. At the same time, Alexandra saw her troubled expression.

“Should have gone with her where?” she asked.

Mrs. Pickwick looked frightened, but all she could do was shake her head and turn away, hurrying toward the kitchen.

When Mrs. Pickwick was gone, Alexandra, feeling disconcerted, waited in the hall until Nicholas joined her and escorted her out the door. Constable Snow was standing beside his horse when Alexandra and Nicholas emerged. As Nicholas led her to the waiting carriage, Snow called to her, walking toward her. “May I have a moment, Dr. Gladstone?” he asked.

Alexandra glanced at Nicholas. He responded with a slight shrug and an outstretched arm, directing her to the constable.

“I must ask you if Lady Forsythe is seriously ill,” Snow said when Alexandra was in front of him.

“She is not on her deathbed, if that’s what you mean, but as I told you earlier, I cannot divulge—”

Snow interrupted her. “I’m not asking for details, Dr. Gladstone. I must know, however, if that sudden attack she had was feigned to avoid talking to me.”

“I have no reason to believe she wasn’t truly in distress.” Alexandra did her best to sound calm, but Pickwick’s words had certainly unnerved her. “You must know, however, that an accusation like the one she faced would upset anyone, and Her Ladyship’s health being what it is, I’m not surprised that she was becoming ill.”

Snow pressed harder. “Did she reveal anything to you about her whereabouts last night?”

“No.”

“Would you tell me if she did?”

Alexandra was silent for no more than an extra second while she weighed whether or not to tell Snow what both Her Ladyship and Mrs. Pickwick had implied. “Of course,” she said, feeling her hands grow clammy. “Especially if it involved a possible murder.”

“I am absolutely certain I saw Lady Forsythe at the gravesite where Alvina’s body was found. I don’t want to have to arrest her. It would save everyone a great deal of embarrassment if she would admit the truth and give me a plausible reason for her being there. If there is one. Please remember, Dr. Gladstone, if you know anything about this, you are bound by law to tell me.”

“Certainly.” Alexandra’s heart pounded, and she hoped he wouldn’t notice how much trouble she was having looking at him.

“Rest assured, I will get to the bottom of this,” he added.

“Without a doubt.” She was grateful when the constable turned toward his horse and pulled himself up into the saddle. He gave her a slight nod and touched his hat before he rode away.

“What was that all about?” Nicholas asked when she walked back to the carriage.

“The constable is convinced he saw Lady Forsythe in the graveyard, and he’s equally convinced I know something about it. I can only guess that he called me away to speak to me because he thought I wouldn’t be forthcoming in your presence.”

“Is that true?” Nicholas asked as he helped her into the carriage.

“Of course not. If I knew anything I would tell him as well as you.” She wasn’t lying to him, she told herself. After all, she didn’t know anything for certain. There’d been no time to question Mrs. Pickwick and therefore no time to ascertain the truth, and it wouldn’t have been prudent to question Lady Forsythe more. Alexandra was working hard at convincing herself all of that was true.

After they’d ridden a distance, Nicholas turned to her. “You’re awfully quiet,” he said.

“Am I? Forgive me, I don’t mean to be rude. I was just wondering why Constable Snow seems so certain that he saw Her Ladyship at the gravesite where the body was found.”

“I’m wondering the same thing,” Nicholas said. “It’s impossible for me to believe MaMa would have had someone drive her to a graveyard, especially one where she’s not likely to know any of the occupants, and even more impossible to think she was actually digging around a grave.”

“What on earth would she be searching for?”

“Precisely.”

Alexandra was silent again, wondering whether or not she should mention to Nicholas what Mrs. Pickwick had said and what Lady Forsythe had implied. “Would anyone else at Montmarsh—any of the staff, for example—have any reason to be searching around the graveyard?” she asked finally.

“Not that I know of. Why would they?”

“I don’t know. I was just wondering….”

“Do you know something I don’t know? One of the servants must have said something. Who? What did he say?”

“Why would you think I know any more than you? As for the servants, you certainly speak to them more often than I.” She was becoming practiced at being evasive.

“Why would you even bring up the possibility of one of the servants being there? Do you think one of them could be mistaken for my mother?”

“I have no reason to believe anyone could be mistaken for Her Ladyship,” she said. “I’m simply trying to explore all possibilities. Certainly it’s no more of a stretch to think a servant could have been in the graveyard than to think your mother could have been there.”

“Of course,” he said. “And forgive me for being so testy. This business has got me a bit upset, I’m afraid.”

“And well you should be.”

“Let’s drop the matter. Surely there must be more pleasant things to talk about. Tell me something interesting about your work.”

“Oh, of course. We could always discuss various ailments,” Alexandra said with a laugh.

“Clever girl. You must be everyone’s favorite guest at a party if that’s always your subject.”

At least the mood was lightened, and there was no more talk of murder or of anyone being seen in the graveyard during the rest of the drive to the surgery entrance.

“I’ll leave you to your world of broken bones and runny noses,” Nicholas said as he escorted her to the door. “I’m going home to try to comfort MaMa. You
will
be back to check on her, won’t you?”

Alexandra assured him that she would be, and for once, she was glad to be out of his presence. Not because she didn’t like him. She liked him perhaps a little too much, and it bothered her that she was deceiving him as surely as she had Constable Snow.

Nancy was not in the surgery when Alexandra entered, but she appeared soon after she heard the bell that signaled the door had been opened.

“And how was Her Ladyship?” Nancy asked. She was wearing her kitchen apron and smelled of cinnamon. Zack, who had lumbered in behind Nancy, gave a little growl of delight when he saw Alexandra and she leaned down to greet him.

“I’m not certain, to be honest.” Alexandra removed her gloves and rested her hand on the back of Zack’s neck. “She seemed better at first, but I believe our visit upset her. I hope that doesn’t result in a worsening of the lesions.”

“Upset her, did it?”

“Not too many patients today, I take it,” Alexandra said, purposely ignoring Nancy’s prying question.

“No one except Nell Stillwell. This time she was complaining of a painful wrist. My guess is she’s overused it at the butcher shop. I gave her some ointment and told her to let her husband do most of the work.”

“Nell again,” Alexandra said as she removed her cloak and hat to be ready for any patient who might come to the surgery. She’d known Nell Stillwell, the one-eyed wife of the butcher, since childhood. Nell had lost her eye when she refused to follow Alexandra’s instructions to care for it after getting a piece of dirty straw from their pigsty in the eye. In spite of her frequent rejections of Alexandra’s instructions regarding her health, Nell was a habitual visitor to the surgery. She was always finding an excuse to leave the butcher shop in search of whatever local gossip didn’t come to her at the store.

“Her Ladyship was upset about being accused of being seen in the graveyard where poor Alvina’s body was found, was she?” Nancy was obviously determined not to allow Alexandra to divert her.

“I’m afraid so.” Alexandra’s words came out on the breath of her sigh as she sat down in the chair usually reserved for patients.

“Was she there? In the graveyard?”

“Constable Snow is convinced she was,” Alexandra said, not bothering to chasten Nancy for prying. She glanced at her maid. “You haven’t heard anything about that, have you?”

“Not exactly.”

“What does that mean? That you heard something inexact?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“Nancy! For heaven’s sake, what are you getting at?”

“Well, Mrs. Pickwick stopped by soon after you left. She didn’t stay long, and she was most likely back before you left Montmarsh. Mind you, she didn’t come as a patient. I’d promised her the recipe for the currant jam I always serve with scones. She had a taste, you see, when she was here once and we had a spot of tea. She doesn’t do that often, as you well know, but this one time she did, and she liked the jam so much I promised her the recipe, and—”

“Nancy!”

“Her headaches aren’t getting any better.”

Alexandra sighed again and slumped in her chair.

“It’s her nerves, don’t you know.”

“I suspected that,” Alexandra said.

“But who wouldn’t have a nervous headache if she had her kitchen invaded by the kitchen staff from the royal palace and she had to help prepare meals for the queen herself?”

Alexandra straightened. “She told you that?”

“In a manner of speaking. I would say she let it slip. Which is more than you have done. I would have thought you’d tell me you’d learned for certain that the queen was visiting.” Nancy was making an attempt at sounding hurt.

“Her Majesty doesn’t want it known that she’s here.” Alexandra stood and, out of habit, went to the basin to pour water for washing her hands. “I was trying to respect her privacy, as I would anyone else’s.”

“Well, of course Her Majesty doesn’t want anyone to know she’s here. I hear she always tries to keep it a secret when she wants to have a séance.”

Alexandra turned toward Nancy, her hands dripping. “Wants to have a what?”

“Séance. She has them every now and then. Tries to contact her dead husband, you know.”

Alexandra reached for a towel. “How did you know that salacious bit of gossip?” Nicholas had said he’d told no one about that.

“I read it in a newspaper.”

Alexandra raised her brow. “What newspaper?”

“
The Sunday Bull,
of course.”

“Nancy, you know as well as I that paper is full of scurrilous rumors.”

“Of course I know that.” Nancy spoke with an air of confidence. “But I also know that particular rumor is true.”

“How could you possibly know that?”

“You remember my cousin from Gillingham? The one whose husband works in the dockyards? Martha’s the name. She goes into London often enough. Buys the
Bull
when she’s there.”

“I remember Martha,” Alexandra said. “An intelligent girl, it seems to me. Not the type to go in for gossip, is she?”

“Of course not. But I happen to know she’s good friends with someone on the queen’s housekeeping staff, Lillian by name. Martha says Lil was even in the room once when Prince Albert was summoned. Lil was called in because the fire had gone out, you see, and Her Majesty doesn’t like the cold.”

“And did Lillian have the privilege of seeing the dead prince?” Alexandra asked, trying not to sound overly sarcastic.

“Now, I wouldn’t be knowing that, would I?” Nancy said. “All I know is Martha said Lil said Her Majesty had a medium conduct a séance.”

“Did she, now?”

Nancy nodded and gave Alexandra a knowing look. “A medium like Alvina.”

“Like Alvina.” Alexandra grew quiet as she considered all that Nancy had revealed.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Nancy said.

Alexandra didn’t bother to respond. She had no doubt that Nancy knew what she was thinking.

“The queen is in Newton-upon-Sea, possibly for a séance, possibly because she thinks it’s an out-of-the-way place where no one will know what she’s doing,” Nancy said. “Alvina Elwold, the local diviner—or medium, if you will—dies at about the same time the queen arrives. Constable Snow later sees someone he thinks is Lady Forsythe digging around the grave where poor Alvina’s body was found.”

“Go on,” Alexandra urged.

Nancy shrugged. “That’s as far as I can go with that. Is there a connection? Was Lady Forsythe really there after all, or is the constable mistaken?” After a long pause, she said, “Miss?”

Alexandra looked at her, still without speaking.

“She was, wasn’t she?” Nancy made no attempt to contain her excitement.

“I…I’m not certain, but…”

“Continue.” Nancy made upward movements with her hands. “You’re not certain, but what?”

“One never knows
exactly
what Mrs. Pickwick means, but…”

“One
always
knows
exactly
what Mrs. Pickwick means,” Nancy protested. “What did she say?”

“You were correct, she’d already returned to Montmarsh as I was leaving, and she said…”

“Yes?”

“That she should have been the one to go with Lady Forsythe.”

“To the graveyard?”

Alexandra frowned. “That’s not what she said, but she seemed to imply that’s what she meant.” She shook her head. “No, I can’t be putting words in her mouth. It’s possible that’s not what she meant at all.”

“What else did she say?”

“That Lady Forsythe’s recent turn for the worse is all her fault, Mrs. Pickwick’s fault, I mean. She said she should have gone with Her Ladyship last night when she asked.”

“Why did she think not going with her contributed to Her Ladyship’s downturn?”

“I’m not sure,” Alexandra said, “but I do think she felt she’d revealed too much because she clamped her hand over her mouth and hurried away. It seems some carriage driver went with her. A man, according to Constable Snow.”

“Well, ’tis plain as the nose on your face that Pickwick meant Her Ladyship was in the graveyard, and that she’d asked Pickwick to go with her. The reason for that, I’d wager, is because Her Ladyship’s personal maid had to hurry back to London for some family matter. That’s what Mrs. Pickwick said. So that means someone else, one of her carriage drivers, went with Her Ladyship instead of Pickwick. Nevertheless, just as I said, miss, ’tis plain as day Her Ladyship was at the gravesite.”

“We shouldn’t jump to conclusions.”

“Of course we should,” Nancy said. “That’s the only way we’re going to get to the bottom of this.”

“You are practical to a fault, Nancy.”