Things Half in Shadow (24 page)

“You said Mrs. Mueller lives the closest from our current location?” I asked.

“Yes,” Lucy replied.

“Then by all means, let's talk to her.”

A
massive affair in view of the river, the home of Mrs. Elizabeth Mueller was the complete opposite of the Pastor residence. The difference wasn't just in size, although that was the most noticeable, seeing how the Pastor house could easily fit inside Mrs. Mueller's. There was also a contradiction in mood. While there were no signs of mourning at the former home of Lenora Grimes Pastor, they were in abundance at the Mueller place. From the mourning
wreath on the front door to the black ribbons tied around the porch columns, the whole house seemed to be in a state of perpetual grief.

A sour-faced maid answered the door, wearing the same type of black armband that had been missing on Stokely and Claudia. After giving our names, we were allowed to enter the cold and quiet house. Our every footstep seemed to echo through the dwelling as the maid led us through a vast and empty entrance foyer. We bypassed a large staircase that wound its way to the second floor, stopping instead at two doors, one open, the other shut tight.

The maid ushered us through the open door, which turned out to be a parlor somber enough for a funeral. In fact, it appeared as if one had only recently taken place. The curtains were drawn, blocking out the afternoon sunlight. On one wall, a black cloth covered what was surely a gilt mirror. Nearby was a portrait, draped with black bunting, of a bulbous and mustachioed fellow. Mr. Gerald Mueller, I presumed.

“This place is certainly ghastly,” Lucy whispered. “All that's missing is a corpse.”

For that, I was grateful. Between the girl on the pier a few days ago and Mrs. Pastor, I had seen enough dead bodies for one week.

“Do you recall if Mrs. Mueller mentioned when her husband died?” I asked.

“I don't,” Lucy said. “Although from the look of things, it might have been yesterday.”

“It has been one year and two months since Gerald's death,” answered a voice that arrived from the hallway, just outside the parlor.

I looked to the door, seeing Elizabeth Mueller pausing at the threshold. Once again she was dressed in black, although the hat and veil she had worn to Mrs. Pastor's séance were missing.

“Is that why you surprised me with this visit?” she said, stepping inside. “To ask when my dear husband died?”

“That and other matters.”

I stood, remaining that way until Mrs. Mueller took a chair across from us. Just like at the Pastor residence, Lucy and I had arrived without any plan as to what, exactly, we would say to her.

Lucy, however, jumped right in.

“We're both still very shocked by Mrs. Pastor's death,” she said, using the same lie that hadn't worked at all with Stokely. “We simply came by to see how you were holding up.”

Unlike Stokely, Mrs. Mueller believed our ruse, confessing, “I'm not doing well at all. Lenora's death was horrible to witness. I thought she was the very picture of good health.”

As we spent the next few minutes commiserating about the experience, two things became clear. The first was that Elizabeth Mueller had neither seen that morning's newspapers or been visited by Barclay, because it was obvious she didn't know Mrs. Pastor had been murdered. The second was that Mrs. Mueller looked to be on the verge of dropping dead herself. She seemed tired as we chatted, almost weak. Perhaps it was her mourning clothes, but she more resembled a corpse than a living soul. The skin stretched across her cheeks looked about as thin and pale as newspaper. When she rang to summon the maid, the wrist that poked from her frayed sleeve was no thicker than a skeleton's.

“Are you unwell?” I asked, fearing we had come at an inopportune time. “We won't continue to bother you if you are.”

Mrs. Mueller offered a wan smile. “Not at all. It's nice to have company for a change, even if it is unexpected.”

“I wouldn't be surprised if you were unwell,” Lucy replied. “You seemed devastated by Mrs. Pastor's death. I assume the two of you were close.”

“Not very,” Mrs. Mueller said. “I considered it more of a business relationship, although it turns out I got very little out of the bargain. That Quaker school of hers, on the other hand, gained a fair amount of my money.”

“But you were so upset the other night,” Lucy said.

The maid entered the parlor bearing three cups of tea and a plate of shortbread cookies wrapped in squares of paper. When I sipped the tea, it took all my willpower not to grimace. It tasted horrible—as if the water and tea leaves had barely come into contact with each other. For the sake of politeness, I continued to hold the cup, pretending to take a sip every so often.

“I was more upset about Gerald,” Mrs. Mueller said, gulping down the tea like it was sweet nectar. “I've been trying to reach him for the longest time now. I'm quite at the end of my rope. Based on her reputation, Mrs. Pastor was my best hope of contacting him.”

“So you've seen other mediums?” I asked.

“I have paid a visit to every medium in the city in an attempt to speak with him.” Mrs. Mueller casually pointed to Lucy. “Including you, on one occasion. I'm surprised you didn't recognize me during Mrs. Pastor's séance, Mrs. Collins. I certainly remember
you
.”

From the confused look on Lucy's face, it was clear she had no recollection of their earlier encounter. “I'm afraid I don't remember. I take it I wasn't able to contact Mr. Mueller.”

“You contacted someone named Gerald,” Elizabeth Mueller replied. “But either the spirit was an impostor or you are, for I did not receive the answer I was seeking.”

“May I ask what you
are
seeking?” I said, feeling no reason to inform our hostess that Mrs. Collins was indeed a fraud. “Visiting every medium in Philadelphia—”

“And beyond,” Mrs. Mueller interjected.

“And beyond,” I added. “Well, that seems extreme.”

I reached for a cookie, noticing that something had been printed on its paper wrapper. Closer inspection revealed the words to be the Lord's Prayer. Unwrapping one, I realized they were funeral biscuits, baked to be consumed in honor of someone who had recently passed away. I thought back to how Stokely had described Mrs. Mueller as
touched in the head
. Truer words, it seemed, had never been spoken.

Placing the cookie on my saucer—knowing what it was, I certainly couldn't eat the thing—I asked, “You say it's been more than a year since your husband's death?”

“You must think I'm quite strange,” Mrs. Mueller said.

I'll admit that I did, especially when she dipped one of her husband's funeral biscuits into her cup of tea and devoured it in a single bite.

“But the circumstances of Gerald's death are also strange,” she said after washing the cookie down with tea. “He was an importer. A very shrewd businessman. He knew what fashions and furnishings people overseas were enjoying and if they would be as equally enjoyed on these shores. It necessitated a lot of travel on his part, so he was gone for months at a time. His last voyage took him to the Orient.”

Lucy took a cookie, read the verse on the paper, and, without a second thought, replaced it on the plate. “Did he go there often?”

“Yes,” Mrs. Mueller said. “It was his fourth voyage.”

According to his wife, Gerald Mueller's final trip was on a regular route of several cities in the Orient. Going from port to port, he planned to load an entire ship with silk, tea, and jade. He had made it to only one port before his ship sank somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, his body lost at sea.

“He never received a proper burial,” Mrs. Mueller said, consuming yet another morbid cookie. “It is my greatest hope that his body will be recovered one day and that he can finally be laid to rest. Until then, my house will remain in mourning.”

“Is that why you visited Mrs. Pastor so often?” I asked. “You wanted Gerald to tell you where his remains were located?”

Lucy and I both fixed our gazes on Mrs. Mueller, watching as she unwrapped the last two cookies on the plate and consumed them one after the other. She took her time with the final swallow, either savoring the macabre treat or stalling her answer.

“Something of that nature, yes,” she at last said.

“When did you first meet Mrs. Pastor?” I asked. “And how frequent were your visits?”

The answers Mrs. Mueller provided corresponded with what Stokely had told me. She had been visiting Lenora Grimes Pastor for a little more than a year, attending séances several times a week. She didn't, however, insinuate that Mrs. Pastor was a fraud or a thief, a concern that allegedly caused her to confront the medium a few days earlier. Which meant it was up to Lucy and myself to bring her around to that particular topic of conversation.

“I find it strange that Mrs. Pastor, for all her obvious gifts, never managed to contact your husband,” I said.

Lucy caught on to my strategy right away, engaging me in conversation as if Mrs. Mueller wasn't even present. “She seemed so gifted in that regard. You don't suppose she was going out of her way to keep Mrs. Mueller and her husband apart, do you?”

I nodded. “It certainly sounds that way to me.”

As impossible as she was to be around, Lucy and I apparently made a very shrewd team. We couldn't have baited that metaphorical trap any better had we been expert hunters. And like a hungry bear, Mrs. Mueller ran right into it.

“I was beginning to suspect that very thing,” she said. “After all, Mrs. Pastor—may she rest in peace, of course—easily came into contact with other spirits.”

“But why would she do such a thing?” I asked.

That prompted Lucy to say, “Perhaps Mrs. Pastor, sensing she had a generous patron in Mrs. Mueller, wanted to keep her coming back.”

“Possibly,” I replied. “But that runs counter to everything I've heard about Mrs. Pastor. Why, those are the actions of a petty thief.”

Elizabeth Mueller jumped back into the conversation. “That's what I thought! In fact, I even confronted Mrs. Pastor about it on the Thursday before she died.”

“Really?” I said, feigning surprise. “How did Mrs. Pastor respond?”

“She denied it, naturally. She claimed that spirits can be fickle. Some don't want to be contacted, and there's nothing we can do in this realm to force them into it. I think she was simply making excuses.”

“So you do believe she was stealing from you?” I said.

“I'm not certain of it. Even if she was, I can't blame her entirely. I'm certain Mr. Dutton had something to do with it.”

“Eldridge Dutton?”

“The very one,” Mrs. Mueller said.

I wanted to ask her to elaborate, but I was duly interrupted by a series of urgent knocks pummeling the front door. The maid rushed through the foyer to answer it, the knocks not ceasing until she opened the door. A moment later, she appeared in the parlor, looking more sour faced than ever.

“There's a policeman at the door, ma'am,” she announced.

The teacup almost slipped from my hands, so surprised was I by this sudden development. “Policeman?”

“Yes, sir,” the maid replied. “Says his name is Barclay.”

“Barclay,” Mrs. Mueller said. “I believe that's the inspector who arrived after Lenora died.”

Of course it was. Barclay was here to inform Mrs. Mueller about the true nature of the death. And, knowing Barclay, he wouldn't take kindly to seeing Lucy and me chatting with her like old friends. In fact, I was certain it would make us look far more guilty than we truly were. Especially me.

“I suppose I should hear what he has to say,” Mrs. Mueller told the maid. “Send him in.”

I stood, searching for another way to exit the parlor. I saw nothing but the single doorway that led directly into the foyer—the same one that Barclay would be walking through at any moment.

“We really must take our leave,” I said as I grabbed Lucy by the arm and hauled her to her feet. “I had no idea what time it was.”

Mrs. Mueller, already confused by the presence of a police inspector at her door, now looked positively flummoxed. “Must you?”

“We must. And it's probably best if you don't tell the inspector we were here.”

“Are you certain?” Mrs. Mueller said, a hand fluttering to her chest.

“Yes. Very.” By that point I was well on my way to the door, pulling Lucy behind me. She waved to Mrs. Mueller over her shoulder and managed to utter, “Thank you for your hospitality!” before I yanked her out of the room.

Mrs. Mueller's maid was also in the foyer, hurrying again to the front door. I moved in the opposite direction, aiming for a small nook beneath the stairs. Lucy headed the other way, toward the door adjacent to the parlor, now wide open. We engaged in a frantic tussle—part tug of war, part whirling dervish—the two of us pulling and spinning in every direction as the maid opened the front door. Lucy released me and propelled herself to the hiding space under the stairs. I did the same, only into the now-open room.

I threw myself against the wall beside the gaping door and held my breath as Barclay stepped into the foyer.

“Forgive the intrusion,” he told the maid, “but I must speak with Mrs. Mueller about what occurred the other night at Mrs. Pastor's home.”

“Right this way, sir,” the maid replied.

They approached the parlor, Barclay's familiar footsteps echoing through the foyer just as mine had done. Their shadows momentarily leapt into the room—twin spectres advancing through the doorway before retreating just as quickly. I turned away from them, surveying the room in which I was momentarily held prisoner. There was a bed there, its multiple blankets strewn across the mattress. A wardrobe sat to my left. A dresser was on the right. A silver-framed photograph of Gerald Mueller sat on the nightstand beside the bed, similar to the portrait that hung in the next room.