The Clairvoyant Curse (30 page)

“What did Elodie look like?
Describe her to me.”

He took one last puff of his
cigar then butted it out in the crystal ash tray. “She was very
pretty – stage assistants are generally easy on the eye; it helps
with the sleight-of-hand.”

“Blonde?”

“What makes you say that?”

“Miss Morningstar is
golden-haired so I just presumed…”

“Ah, yes, a woman who is blonde
does not have to be too beautiful to be considered the highest of
her sex, whereas a brunette has to be exceptional to be considered
at all,” he mused, smiling sagely with one eyebrow ironically
cocked.

“Too true! But Mr Ffrench was
her fiancé and so I also presumed, since he is fair-haired, like
might gravitate to like.”

“Have you never heard of
opposites attracting? Elodie was raven-haired with olive skin and
dark flashing eyes, gypsyish in appearance, as are most of the
girls along the Cote d’Azur with the blood of Barbary pirates,
Corsicans, Carthaginians, and Moors flowing through their
hot-blooded veins.”

“Where did you meet her?”

“Monte Carlo – I was doing a
magic show with a travelling carnival and she was separating men
from their purses. We met when she tried to steal mine. I could see
her potential and offered her a position as my assistant. She took
to it like a duck to water.”

“What was her family name?”

“She never said. She was
guarded about her background. I got the impression she was running
away from something – father, husband, brother, gendarmes.”

“How old was she when she
joined you?”

“Fifteen – but girls from the
south were married off early in those days. I got the impression
she was escaping from a misalliance.”

He paused and checked his
pocket watch. “Crispin happened along a few years later, drifting
aimlessly from town to town. They were good for each other. He came
to a magic show, fell head over heels in love, a real
coup de
foudre
, and joined into the act playing the piano. He didn’t
drink back then. It started after Elodie died. If you will excuse
me, I arranged to meet up with Blackadder to look at the ghost
slides he has painted for our American tour that I fear will have
to be cancelled. We will probably end up discussing breaking up
instead.”

The Countess sat alone in the
cocooning darkness of the smoking room to finish her cigar and
gather her thoughts. And the longer she thought, the more she
believed the murder of Madame Moghra was connected to the death of
Elodie-Antoinette.

Miss Morningstar was looking
less likely as a suspect. She had never met Elodie so the gruesome
death could have had no effect on her. What’s more, she would
hardly be likely to care if Madame Moghra planned to leave the
menagerie. It might even benefit her – she would not have to put up
with the medium bad-mouthing her, and she might end up with a
starring role on stage. In that case, she would have no reason to
lie about Madame Sosostras greedily eyeing the brooch or Dr Hu
possessing a photo of Madame Moghra.

The likeliest suspects were
Monsieur Croquemort and Mr Ffrench. Perhaps they were even in
cahoots with each other – and what a formidable team they would
make – a maestro of manipulation and a genius of the first order.
Had they been playing her for a credulous fool all along? Had Dr
Watson been set up from the start?

Come into my parlour said the
spider to the fly!

The Countess joined Mr Ffrench
who was still propping up the bar, leaning heavily on his elbows to
stop from falling on his face. She sat on the stool alongside and
asked for a glass of vodka. Monsieur Bresant was manning the bar
but the Countess gestured with her eyes for him to make himself
scarce. He placed the vodka bottle on the bar next to the bottle of
absinthe and obligingly vanished through a jib door.

“Have you had a chance to think
about the murder weapon?” she put to the wild-haired pianist.

His hand shook as he poured
himself another shot of ghastly green syrup which gleamed in the
golden glow of the gasolier like some lethal love potion or sickly
poison. “I thought you were chasing it up, making discreet
enquiries about embroidery needles and acupuncture tools. Any
luck?”

Wincing, she shook her head and
changed tack. “Tell me about Antoinette.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Did she have a stage
name?”

“That
was
her stage
name.”

“What was her real name?”

“Elodie.”

“What about her family
name?”

“She never said.”

“Really? Not even to you – her
fiancé?”

“Not even to me – she was
terrified someone might discover where she was.”

“Who?”

He gave a lazy shrug and
drained his glass with purpose; the one belied the other. “What
does it matter now? She’s dead.”

“What was she like?”

“Intoxicating.”

“Blonde and pretty like Miss
Morningstar?”

He laughed harshly. “The exact
opposite!”

“I think Miss Morningstar cares
very much about you.”

“She’s a child!”

“She’s nineteen.”

“She will always be a
child!”

“Someone who cares for her
could help her to grow up.”

“I know what you’re getting at,
but I cannot even help myself.”

“Perhaps you could help each
other. She might even surprise you.”

“If you have come to play
match-maker you are way off the mark, Countess Volodymyrovna. I am
halfway to hell and I have no intention of taking anyone with
me.”

“What about Madame Moghra –
would you have taken her?”

“For all your privileged
education and feminine shrewdness and worldly ways you don’t
understand men like me. I am a coward. All drunks are cowards.
That’s why we are drunks.” He gripped his bottle of bitter wormwood
as he slid off his stool and tried to steady himself. “Enjoy your
vodka! Nazdorovya!”

Her voice caught him as he spun
round and tried to stay on his feet without toppling over like a
nine pin, desperately hugging the bottle as if it might be his
last.

“Before you go to hell,” she
said matter-of-factly, “can you tell me when you found out Madame
Moghra intended to retire to the south of France?”

“I could tell you anything I
want. I could make it up. I could even tell you to go to hell
yourself. But the truth is - I cannot remember.”

His voice was as brittle as the
green glass god he gripped so lovingly to his dead-sick heart.

Miss Morningstar was passing
the time in the card room, playing another game of Solitaire. Her
elfin eyes had glazed over with boredom and her hand moved
mechanically, slapping one card on top of another, shuffling
robotically, repeating the process ad infinitum. The nimble fairy
looked like she was on her way to hell too; she had already arrived
in limbo, a prisoner of her own lonely purgatory and it wouldn’t be
long before she hit rock bottom.

Funny that! Because the
Countess always thought the definition of boredom was heaven – the
same sunny Elysian Fields every day, everyone smiling endlessly, no
difficulties, no dramas, no puzzles to solve, nothing to do but sip
ambrosia, listen to harp music and float around on fluffy white
clouds totally oblivious to the pain and suffering of others.

And then there was the question
of her heavenly companions. St Augustine summed it up rather
neatly: Give me chastity and continence but not yet. Heaven was a
club for hypocrites. Look who got in. And look who was left out -
the pagans, heretics, unbelievers and suicides – Hypatia, Socrates,
Plato, Galileo, Tyndale, Tyler, Sherlock - a roll call of the
brightest and best!

“May I join you?” she said,
pulling up a chair.

Startled, Miss Morningstar
dropped her cards. She raked them up and began to shuffle.

“What will you do when the
Magic Lantern troupe disbands?”

Miss Morningstar dropped the
cards a second time and this time they scattered far and wide. “Who
said we were disbanding? Who told you that?”

“No one, I just assumed, what
with Madame Moghra, the star of the show, dead and all the bad
publicity that will follow and a possible criminal trial, well, it
will probably come out in the end that Dr Watson is innocent and Mr
Ffrench guilty.”

“No! He couldn’t have done it!
Not Crispin, I mean, Mr Ffrench!”

“He had the best motive.”

“No!” she cried.

“He hated the old witch more
than Dr Watson,” the Countess said provokingly.

“He would never do such a
thing!”

“Everyone is capable of
murder.”

“You’re just being mean!” she
pouted like a spoilt child.

“He probably wanted to avenge
the woman he loved.”

“You’re just making it up!”

“Why would I make it up?”

“Because you don’t know!”

“Don’t know what?”

“That it was the gypsy!”

The Countess caught her breath.
“Madame Sosostras?”

“Shush!” hissed the fairy,
lowering her sing-song voice a dozen or more decibels. “I saw her
steal the brooch.”

“When?”

“When she went into the library
to get her tarot cards.”

The Countess looked back
furtively over her shoulder then leaned closer and lowered her
tone. “Tell me what you saw.”

“I was annoyed with Crispin for
drinking so much all the time, I was so annoyed I was shaking, so I
took my coffee into the card room where I could let off steam in
private. Everyone thought I had gone to bed because I put out the
gasolier and sat in the dark but I could see in the mirror on the
wall behind you,” she paused and waited for the Countess to turn
and check the Venetian mirror. “Madame Sosostras went into the
library to get her tarot cards. She looked around as if she was
checking to make sure no one was watching. You were sitting in the
grand saloon but you were looking out of the porthole window at the
time. Anyway, she found her cards and said something to Madame
Moghra and then she sort of froze. Next, she leaned forward and
then she jumped back as if she got a fright. Then, quick as
lightning she whips off the brooch and blow me down if she doesn’t
do the strangest thing…”

“Yes?” prompted the Countess,
intrigued.

“She shoved the brooch into
Madame Moghra’s wig.”

The Countess was rarely caught
by surprise when she was following a story. She was generally able
to predict what was to come, but Miss Morningstar took her by
complete surprise.

“Her wig?”

Miss Morningstar nodded
affirmatively. “Dr Hu suddenly appeared at the bottom of the stairs
and I saw her hide the brooch inside the wig.”

If the Countess had learned
anything in the last few months it was that stories that are
unbelievable are usually the sort that a sleuth should believe.
Most people covering their tracks tended to make up something that
sounded plausible, not outlandish. She decided to give the fairy
the benefit of the doubt. “What did she do after that?”

“She swanned out as though
nothing had happened.”

Again, unbelievable! Therefore
plausible! The other thing that lent credence to Miss Morningstar’s
fantastic story was that Madame Sosostras had been paying special
interest to the wig the morning after the murder. Had she waited
all night to retrieve the brooch? And where was the brooch now?

During lunch, unbeknownst to
the passengers, Captain Lanfranc had extended the search for the
brooch to the cabins of his passengers. If anything had been found
they would have heard by now. The fact they hadn’t located the
brooch lent credence to the theory it had been hidden in the public
rooms – most likely the library. The Countess pushed quickly to her
feet.

“Before I go can you tell me
when you first heard Madame Moghra was planning to leave the troupe
and retire to Monte Carlo?”

“Blow me down!” Miss
Morningstar cried like a shantyman. “No one tells me anything! If
that’s true I just heard it now from your own lips!” Tears welled
up in her big bucket eyes as she flung the pack of cards across the
room in a fit of pique and cursed like a drunken sailor.

Dr Hu was in the library,
browsing. He smiled enigmatically as the Countess galloped
inelegantly around the corner and reined herself in rather sharply.
His oriental eyes had a refulgent gleam and he was looking rather
pleased with himself. She wondered if he’d just discovered the
brooch by sheer chance.

“What have you got there, Dr
Hu?” she asked somewhat breathlessly before he had a chance to
dream up a cover story.

“Book on ancient art of Chinese
geomancy,” he said proudly. “It is litten by master of feng shui,
Zhou Ling; man I long admire.

Not the brooch – just as well!
Never averse to learning something new, she smiled encouragingly.
“Ah, feng shui, a fascinating subject that I have always meant to
become better acquainted with. Can you describe the feng shui of
this room to me?”

“It will be an honour to
explain the auspicious energies for harnessing good fortune to one
as enlightened as you, Countess Volodymylovna. Observe the features
of this loom and tell me what you see.”

She gazed around thoughtfully
while searching for a likely hiding spot – assuming the brooch was
still waiting to be found. “I see a pleasant arrangement of English
and French antiques, floor-to-ceiling mahogany bookshelves along
two walls, one porthole window, a concave mirror above a Louis
quatorze bureau plat with some notepaper featuring the SS Pleiades,
several comfortable reading chairs, small side tables on which sit
ashtrays and reading lamps, a book trolley and a drum table with a
tooled leather surface centred with an ormolu candelabra.”

“It is not cluttered and
pleasing to the eye, yes?”