The Clairvoyant Curse (18 page)

“That’s all,” he
yappetty-yapped. “You may rejoin the others in the dining room and
you will soon be on your way to Biarritz, Mrs Merle.”

There was a knock on the door
and then Dr Watson poked his head in.

“I just wanted to let you know
that Captain Lanfranc has arrived. He was wondering if he could
have a word to Constable MacTavish.”

“Send him straight in,” yapped
the young constable, feeling pleased with himself.

The captain had the swarthy
look of the seafaring Marseillaise – tall and dark with a touch of
Carthaginian blood running through his Mediterranean veins, not
unlike his compatriot Monsieur Croquemort, but without the
stage-crafted vanity of the lounge lizard. His tousled hair was
windswept and his silvery beard had not been preened and primped to
within an inch of its life. He greeted the constable with deference
though the constable was half his age, a mere cadet in the life of
men.

“
Bonjour
, I have come
the check if there is any chance we will be sailing today.” His
voice was manly and deep and seemed to come from the back of his
throat like a foghorn tempered by long distance, softened by the
accent of
le francais
which was one of the most mellifluous
accents in the world according to the ear of the Countess. “The
crew is anxious for extra shore-leave and as everything is
ship-shape I am loath to deny them unless I have good reason.”

The constable exchanged a brief
glance with the Countess. The return look reassured him all was
ship-shape. The murderer was somewhere out there and he meant to
track them down. He felt as twitchy as a tethered ratter about to
be unleashed, nervous yet excited at the prospect of putting his
detective skills to the test. He marvelled that he had learned more
from the Countess in one hour than he had learned from Detective
Inspector MacBride in six months.

“You can sail as soon as you
are ready. The passengers are free to go.”

Captain Lanfranc looked
relieved. “
Bon
!
Bon
! I So, the dead girl was a
suicide?”

The constable was about to yap
‘murder’ but caught the Countess’s eye and immediately contained
his eager panting. “I have decided to keep an open mind on the
matter. It is too early to draw a definite conclusion. But my
findings should not delay you.”

“In that case, we sail at
once.”

From this point on, Captain
Lanfranc and his chief steward, Monsieur Bresant, took charge.
Wagonettes and drays were organized for the luggage, including the
paraphernalia belonging to the Magic Lantern troupe, which included
the levitating throne, two magic lanterns, a trunk full of
costumes, another for shrouds, a third for photographic equipment,
a fourth for painted scenery, and a fifth for props. While all that
was being loaded and transported dockside the passengers were
offered morning tea by the owner of the hotel, Mr Tonkinson, who
was also the publican of The Old Anchor and the owner of several
other inns and hotels along the Firth of Clyde. He had heard about
the death of one of his female guests and had come at once to check
that nothing was amiss in his prized establishment.

“Thank the stars we will soon
be underway!” blustered Mrs Merle who had not eaten for at least an
hour and was leading the charge to the buffet. “It is all due to
Mars moving into Libra, the house of short journeys, that this
matter has been resolved so expeditiously.”

“It was most misfortunate that
girl is choosing last night to commit suicide,” responded Dr Hu
sympathetically, following in her totemic shadow.

“Misfortunate! It was a
nuisance – that’s what it was!” hooted the American. “Why she
didn’t choose to wait until she was aboard the SS Pleiades and then
just leap into the Irish Sea is beyond me!”

“That is a most unkind remark,”
chastised Reverend Blackadder, pitting himself against the American
in a battle reminiscent of David versus Goliath. “Sissy will be
greatly missed.”

“Maids can be found anywhere,”
dismissed the American tactlessly.

“Sissy was more than a maid,”
intervened Monsieur Croquemort with a savage scowl. “She was also a
valued member of the troupe. She will be hard to replace.” He was
already wondering whether to start looking for a replacement in
Biarritz at the Spiritualist Congress or wait until they reached
the United States. He would need to find someone the same size, of
course, otherwise all the costumes would need to be altered. And
someone who could appease the old witch - Sissy was good at that.
She wasn’t really employed as Madame Moghra’s maid but she made it
seem so with her fussing. She was a good little actress.

Mrs Merle did not heap her
plate up too much. The dainty cake plates were too small anyway. It
was all she could do to balance a scone on top of a couple of fish
paste sandwiches and squeeze a dollop of jam and clotted cream on
the side. She intended to return for seconds as soon as a space
cleared at the buffet but some people were so slow, umm-ing and
ahh-ing over the Bakewell tart and the Madeira cake, or taking
their jolly time at the tea trolley.

Madame Sosostras had no such
trouble. She ate like a sparrow. A few crumbs were enough to
satisfy her. “I don’t think it was suicide,” she said softly as she
helped herself to three ginger biscuits which she liked to dunk in
her tea when no one was looking.

“I beg your pardon?” said Dr
Watson, standing directly behind her, his ears slightly blocked,
making him hard of hearing.

“I don’t think it was suicide,”
repeated the gypsy in a plangent accent.

“You think it was murder?”
queried Dr Watson, waiting patiently for the milk jug.

The gypsy queen nodded.
“Yes.”

“Shut up!” hissed the American
under her breath as she brushed past, aiming a sideways glance at
Constable MacTavish and Captain Lanfranc, who had both been
persuaded to join them for morning tea. “Or you will have us stuck
here in Glasgow for days on end.”

The gypsy queen flushed scarlet
and moved off quickly to a table set between two plaster urns on
plinths. Dr Watson helped himself to a couple of fish paste
sandwiches, his sweet-tooth having suffered a serious dent since
his dry cough had morphed into a phlegmatic bark. The gypsy’s
theory explained why the Countess had contrived to sit in on the
interviews. He had been wondering what her interest could be.

“May I join you?” Dr Watson
voiced his request with the utmost courtesy before settling at the
table for two and launching into: “What makes you think it was
murder?”

Madame Sosostras had a soft
voice to begin with but made sure to speak in an even lower quaver.
Dr Watson leaned forward to listen.

“You will recall I insisted on
going last to be interviewed,” she reminded, waiting for him to
nod, “well, that is because I was the last to see the girl alive. I
was sitting in the reading room in the dark and I saw her go out of
the hotel. She was wearing her warmest clothes. She did not hurry
away but paced under the streetlight. I saw when a man came up to
her. He said a few words and they went off together. The next
morning she was dead.”

“I see, did you get a good look
at the man?”

The gypsy shook her head. “He
had his back to the window. He was tall – that is all I can
say.”

“You told this to the
constable?” he checked.

“Yes.”

“And the Countess?” he
double-checked.

“Yes.”

Dr Watson was suddenly torn
between bringing this information to the attention of everyone
present and thus delaying sailing yet again or else keeping quiet.
He glanced around the dining room at the crowd wolfing down scones
and cake and gulping back tea and coffee, eager to be on their way
to Biarritz. He didn’t have the strength to stand in their way and
sighed forlornly. The Countess was not present. He knew she had
gone to speak to Xenia and Fedir and was organizing for them to
have something to eat. She must have decided to leave matters in
the hands of the Glasgow constabulary and who was he to argue with
that?

When he’d first met the
Countess on the eve of his departure for Baskerville Castle he had
been desperate to prove he could solve a case without the help of
his friend Sherlock – that was September. Here they were in
November and he’d already had enough of sleuthing. He was loath to
admit it but he really could do with some warmer weather and some
briny sea air.

Countess Volodymyrovna helped
herself to whatever was left after Mrs Merle had finished helping
herself to thirds. She scanned for a vacant seat and decided to
join Madame Moghra who was seated on her own, away from the other
members of the menagerie, looking deathly pale and
uncharacteristically introspective.

“Are you feeling all right?”
she asked when she joined the medium.

Startled, Madame Moghra looked
up quickly – her mind had clearly been drifting in some far off
realm. “Oh, yes, quite all right, thank you, yes, do join me,
Countess. I was just thinking about –” Her voice became softer,
more strained, before trailing off to nothing.

“About Sissy?” prompted the
Countess gently.

“About death.”

The Countess thought the
philosophical difference between the two things to be one of
degrees. After death we tend to contemplate Death. But that’s not
what the medium meant. Her contemplation was not metaphysical – she
had meant death; as in her own.

“I have had a premonition about
death,” she croaked, staring across the room with a fatalistic look
in her eyes as if she had literally seen the Grim Reaper. “He has
finally come for me,” she whispered presciently.

The Countess followed the
doomed gaze to try to ascertain what or who the medium might be
staring at but several people were milling around the buffet, Mrs
Merle among them. Reverend Blackadder was at the tea trolley with
Mr Ffrench. Monsieur Croquemort and Captain Lanfranc were chatting
together on their way to the door. Constable MacTavish and Monsieur
Bresant were ushering one step ahead of them. And Mr Tonkinson had
just entered to make sure everything was going smoothly. Feeling
lucky, he had invited a newspaper reporter around to let him in on
the full story, or what he knew of it, hence the offer of morning
tea. Murder always made the front page. It meant free publicity for
the Mungo Arms and all his other establishments. To get a photo of
some famous personages would be a bonus, especially as business was
slow coming into winter. But the reporter had not yet arrived. If
he didn’t get a hurry-on it would be too late. When a string of
hansom cabs arrived at the front of the hotel, Fate stepped in and
his luck ran out.

The SS Pleiades was an elegant
vessel with a sleek black hull; a hybrid yacht-cum-paddle steamer,
longer and more slender than the paddle steamers that plied the
Mississippi or the Swiss lakes, though her wheel was well hidden.
She had a huge red funnel with a black riband at the top that
resembled a giant cigarette, especially when she blew smoke. The
funnel was set halfway between two masts, one fore and one aft.
Sails were still
de rigeur
on steamer ships to catch the
wind and save on coal whenever the chance arose.

She would eventually ply the
waters between Le Havre, St Malo and the Channel islands of Jersey
and Guernsey when she went into service, thus she was not as large
as the new steam ships being commissioned in the Glasgow shipyards
for trans-Atlantic crossings. They were true dreadnoughts, massive,
with the capacity for 100 first class passengers and another 100 in
steerage. Because she was not yet in service, she was doing this
leg of the journey with a half crew. There was no chief mate or
second officer, no physician or nurse, fewer servants and kitchen
hands, however, this was not envisaged to be too much of a
problem.

The SS Pleiades had eight first
class cabins on the Promenade deck. The rest of the space was taken
up by the wheelhouse, instrument room and telegraph room. Public
state rooms were to be found one level below: the lounge saloon,
dining saloon, library, billiard room and so forth were state of
the art regarding comfort and style with gilded mouldings and plush
furnishings not unworthy of a luxurious Mayfair mansion. A massive
lantern roof maximized natural light.

Soon after boarding, a dilemma
arose concerning the cabins, not that there was anything wrong with
them, but this was a superstitious group of passengers and the
chief steward had failed to foresee the hidden pitfalls.

Dr Hu had been allocated cabin
4, however in the Chinese language the word for ‘four’ sounded like
the word for ‘death’. This was catastrophic to a Chinaman. Dr Hu
insisted on being moved to a more suitable cabin, meaning one with
a more fortunate number. Alas, all the cabins on the Promenade deck
had been allocated and everyone’s bags had already been deposited
in their respective rooms.

Monsieur Bresant was at a loss
to know what to do. It was thanks to Dr Watson that the problem was
solved. He agreed to swap cabins, and as he had cabin 8, a most
fortunate number according to the Chinese, all was amicably
settled. Dr Watson did not know it at the time but he had won a
friend for life in Monsieur Bresant.

However, the incident caused
the other passengers to cast a jaundiced eye over their cabin
numbers. Reverend Blackadder insisted on having cabin 7, a cosmic
number of vital significance to Theosophists.

“A Septenary system is
fundamental to Theosophy,” he stated forthrightly. “There are seven
forces in nature, seven planes of being, and seven states of
consciousness. There are seven symbols, seven principles and seven
bodies in the universe. Mrs Blavatsky argues most convincingly in
her book
The Secret Doctrine
that there are seven human
groups and seven sections on the globe. In every religion, seven is
a sacred number. I must insist on -”