Murder at Locke Abbey (15 page)

“No string. Perhaps you gentleman can furnish me with
your own coin, so you know it hasn’t been tampered with.”

Mr Buchan withdrew a coin and passed it along the table to her. She placed it on her fingers.

“Would someone care to wave their hands around me and the coin, to check that there are no strings or other devices being employed?”

“I will,” Lord Buchan offered, and got up from his chair. He waved his hand over, around and under her hand, then around her body.

“You can remain there,” Thea told him. “Perhaps a close up view will give you the clues to this trick.”

He watched as she made
a further five coins disappear.

“Just tell us!” Mr Garwood snapped. “We don’t have all day.”

Others chimed in with similar sentiments.

“We must give the gentlemen ample time to figure the trick out,”
Thea cautioned. “The solution will surprise you with its simplicity. In the meantime, I suggest we move onto the séance portion of events. Please take your seat, Lord Buchan.”

He did.

“For those of you who were not here last night, I will ask you to form a circle by taking your left hand and taking a hold of your neighbour’s right wrist.” She demonstrated and the table copied her. “I need complete darkness for this illusion and I must ask you all not to break the circle until we are finished. Would you close the shutters and curtains, then remain over there?” she asked her father, who moved to the window to shut out the light, leaving them in total darkness.

“Now we must wait for the spirits to come.” She informed them, before sneezing. “Oh, excuse me one moment.” She let go of the wrist she held and pulled her wrist from her neighbours grasp. She
made a show of blowing her nose. “All right, let us continue.”

She took a hold of Cole’s wrist, ignoring the pleasant sensation she felt at his touch, and Lord Grady took hold of her wrist.

“Now, is everyone part of the circle, no one is breaking it?”

A chorus of ‘no’
arose from everyone present.

“What was that?” Lord Grady asked. “Something touched my hair.”

“And pushed my shoulder!” Selena added.

“Do not break the circle,” Thea commanded.

“Oh!”

“What i
s that?”

“Copley, are you doing this?”

“I’m still by the window.” Copley answered.

“But he is the only one who could have touched me,” Selena stated.

“Is he?” Thea asked.

“Yes, unless there’s someone else we don’t know about present,” Peter Buchan reasoned.

“Are you sure I’m not doing this?” Thea asked.

“Of course you can't, unless you’
re a contortionist and somehow doing this with your feet.”

“As fun as that sound
s, I am not,” Thea assured them. “Mr Cole, am I holding your wrist?”

“Yes.”

And Lord Grady, are you holding my wrist?”

“Yes.”

“Has anyone at all broken the circle?”

Everyone answered in the negative.

“Keep holding on. Papa, would you open the shutters, please?”

The shutters opened and light flooded the room again. Everyone gasped to see that while Thea’s left hand held Cole’s wrist, Lord Grady was holding
her
left wrist, not her right as he should have been. She waved her free hand, the one she had been using to lightly touch people’s hair.

“Ingenious,” Cole gasped.

“Because I made sure to reinforce the idea that the circle was unbroken, you all forgot that I broke it for a moment when I sneezed at the beginning. When I reformed the circle, I did so like this, so I had one hand free to manipulate my surroundings.” She leaned down to the floor and picked up a walking cane. “This is what I used to touch those who are further away. If I’d had more time, I could have fashioned something longer and lighter, perhaps made of bamboo or a fishing rod. The psychic also had a well-oiled bellow under the table, concealed between her knees, which she used to create the draughts we felt.”

“Outstanding!”
Lord Grady’s daughter, Eleanor began to clap, and others around the table joined in.

“Bravo, my dear.”

“Very clever.”

“Excellent.”

Thea blushed at the praise.

“But the coin?” Simon Buchan demanded. “How
the devil did you make it disappear? You simply must tell us.”

“It only seems fair to give the gentleman the same time I had to figure out this trick
, so if your father and Uncle haven’t figured that out by dinner this evening, I shall show you all how it is done.”

“You could have a stage show.”
Lord Grady said.

“Thank you, but I have no desire to deceive for a living. My only reason for doing this was to show the psychic’s antics for the chicanery they are, in the hopes that
we can return to the real issue here, who killed Mrs Garwood and Mary Potter.”

“And how,” Simon added.

“Indeed. But there is no such thing as magic so although Mrs Garwood’s demise seems unnatural, even supernatural, I want to assure you that there is a rational explanation.”

“Wait one minute though,” Lord
Small said. “How did the psychic know what to write on the chalk boards? Her final words were written in one message.”

“She had help there, in the guise of Mr Platt.” Lord Copley came to stand behind his daughter. “You will perhaps have noticed that he did not talk very much during the time he spent with us, that was because he was paying close attention to the conversations of those around him and passing anything useful onto Madam Davina.”

“But you can't know that,” Lady Small added.

“I’m afraid we can,” Cole entered the conversation. “Lady Thea and I had a
discussion while within his earshot, about my mother’s death. That whole story was fabricated, I was with her when she died and I did nothing that I needed forgiveness for.”

“She also used
open and ambiguous statements,” Copley explained. “We all have things that we regret and need or want forgiveness for. If I said to anyone at this table, ‘she forgives you’, you would probably all be able to find a woman or girl in your past whom you had wronged in some way. The second statement, supposedly from Mrs Garwood’s ghost, is also ambiguous. A statement such as ‘Don’t trust him’ seems valid but considering that she was murdered, is rather obvious. If her ghost was indeed communicating with is, why did she not give us the name of the person who killed her?”

“So who did kill Mrs Garwood?” Lord Grady asked.

“That I have yet to determine,” Thea said with regret. “Our killer, whoever they are, is a great deal more cunning than the psychic but never fear, I
will
solve this puzzle.”

“I have absolute faith in that,” Cole told her.

Thea looked uncomfortable and quickly got to her feet. “Well, I’m sure you all have better things to be doing with your time, so perhaps we should call an end to this demonstration. I’m sure the doctor will be here soon.”

The party broke up but Cole stayed near Thea.

“That was magnificent,” he told her.

“Thank you.” Her voice was small but she wasn’t blushing as she had been doing when he praised her.

“Thea, is something-”

“Lady Thea,” Mr Buchan rudely interrupted them. “Might I have my coins back? I believe you have two pounds, two and six of mine.”

Thea turned to him. Had he not taken every opportunity to try and undermine her, she might have given it to him but as it was, she had no intention of returning his money. Indeed she had a far better purpose for it.

“If you can recreate the trick, or
just explain how it was done, by dinner, I shall return your money to you. If not, I shall donate it to a charity providing relief efforts to the Irish.”

“You can’t do that! That is my money!”

“Money which you gave to me, knowing I would make it disappear, so you don’t have a leg to stand on. Consider this an incentive to solve the problem, Mr Buchan. After all, if a simpleton could work it out, it shouldn’t take too much time or trouble, now should it?”

She curtseyed and made to leave, but Buchan caught her arm, gripping it tightly.
“Don’t cross me, girl!”

He suddenly found himself flanked by both Cole and Copley.

“Unhand her this instant,” Cole told him, his own hand landing on Buchan’s shoulder and squeezing.

Buchan looked to his brother, who either hadn’t noticed or wasn’t interested in helping him so reluctantly, he released his hold on Thea
and she hurried from the room.

Cole moved to stand in front of the gentleman.

“I realise that Lady Thea’s politics have upset you, Sir, but you would be as well to let your anger go. Aside from any action I might take against you, given that she is here to find a murderer, people might start to wonder at such a disproportionate reaction. Some might even suggest that your anger towards her implies guilt.”

“How dare-”

“How dare
you
, Sir! You are a guest in this house and while you have been ordered to remain in the parish, there is nothing preventing me from having you thrown out.”

“Your father is not dead yet, Cole!”

“But you are not his guest, Selena invited you, and I am perfectly within my rights to run this estate as I see fit while Father recovers. Do we understand each other?”

It took Buchan a moment to rei
n in his anger but finally he nodded his agreement, and Cole turned to follow Thea.

Copley had watched them closely and fell into step beside him.

“You have made an enemy there,” he told Cole.

“Better his a
nger is directed towards me than Thea.”

“True but Buchan is a coward and a bully at heart. He will not take his anger out on you.”

Cole stopped walking abruptly. “You think I have placed her in more danger?”

“I don’t know
but I do admire your need to protect Thea,” Copley admitted. “I also know that he had high hopes for a union between you and his daughter, Eliza, and he is taking your slight of her to heart.”

“What would you suggest?”

“Don’t let your guard down around Buchan; he is the sort of man who will bide his time and harbour resentments; he’ll probably let them fester for years if necessary. Be careful.”

“I will.”
Cole nodded. “Thank you, Sir.”

“Now, perhaps you’d be so good as to tell me what you did to upset Thea?”

“I was actually about to ask you the same thing.” Cole frowned.

“So you two haven’t quarrelled?”

“No, she was perfectly happy when I left and I didn’t see her again until breakfast. I wondered if perhaps you had told her that you discovered us in compromising circumstances, and perhaps she was embarrassed or blamed me.”

“I’ve said nothing. She was very happy this morning, practicing her trickery for the others.”

They began walking again although at a slow pace, heading towards the entrance hall.

“I’ll see if I can get her alone for a few moments,
perhaps she’ll tell me what’s bothering her.”

“I would not be hopeful.” Copley sounded resigned. “Thea is almost as stubborn as she is
bright.”

“Why wouldn’t she want to tell me? What could be so awful? Do you think she might have discovered
something about my family? Perhaps someone had a hand in the killings?”

“Do you think that likely?”

“Not at all, my father is too frail to be a danger to anyone, and my step-mother is manipulative but I don’t believe she is capable of violence. Besides, they both have alibis.”

“She
couldn’t suspect you for some reason?”

“It’s possible but I cannot think of anything that would lead her to that conclusion. I hardly knew the
Garwoods, they’re friends of my step-mother’s, not my father, and if I were to wish harm on them, it would be Mr Garwood, not his wife.”

“You dislike him?” Copley gave him a sidelong look.

“I couldn’t say ‘dislike’. I didn’t have enough interactions with the man to dislike him, but I thought him brash and uncouth at times. His wife on the other hand, I felt rather sorry for. Mr Garwood flirted with every lady present, young or old, except his wife. At times, I thought he was doing it to spite her.”

“So you witnessed him flirting?” Copley asked.

“I did. I think everyone did.”

“Did anyone in particular hold his attention?”

“No,” he shook his head.

“Was there anyone he seemed to avoid, other than his
wife?”

“He was less lecherous with the unmarried girls, pr
obably for fear of their fathers, and he seemed to treat my step-mother with more… it’s hard to put into words. He flattered and complimented her as he did the others, but was more respectful, less teasing.”