Unsettled Spirits (14 page)

"Good idea," said Pa.

"
Very
good idea," said Sam.

Vi smiled at me, so I knew she didn't mind my curiosity, but I also knew I'd better curb my tongue for the sake of peace.

Drat.

* * *

The remainder of the week passed uneventfully. Mrs. Wright asked me to visit her again to consult with Rolly about her missing butler. Rolly didn't have any idea where Mr. Evans was, although he did assure Mrs. Wright that Mr. Evans' soul hadn't been spotted in the Great Beyond yet. I always hedged a bit about this sort of thing, mainly because I had no idea what had happened to a whole lot of people folks wanted me to chat with.

Perhaps that sounds odd, but it isn't. The Great War had killed thousands of young men, but often bodies were never identified, and some were never even found. I'd read articles about farmers trying to get their families' lives back to normal, only to uncover corpses, old weapons, and bones as they plowed fields. The souls attached to those corpses and bones were completely unknown unless some identification was plowed up with them, and that didn't often happen. It's pitiful to think about, but there you go. I expect thousands of mothers, fathers, lovers and spouses will never know what happened to their nearest and dearest, which is really a shame. It's bad enough to know your loved one was killed in a war, but not ever knowing for sure what happened to him must be worse even than that. Kaiser Bill has a lot to answer for. But that's not the point here.

The point is I told my clients who had missing, but not yet discovered and identified, kin that it often took a spirit some time to settle comfortably into the afterlife. Therefore, no one expected me to get in touch with the newly departed. Or the imprecisely or perhaps not-quite-yet departed, which was what Evans was at that point in time.

Mrs. Wright was unhappy with my indifferent results, but she coped and said she understood. That was a lot more than I did, but I didn't let on.

On a happier note, I was looking forward to Mrs. Pinkerton's charity ball, which was to take place the Saturday following Mr. Underhill's death. His funeral, by the way, took place on the Thursday after his demise. I didn't attend, since I hadn't known him and what I did know, I didn't like. Besides, I feared Betsy Powell might be there and screaming. Evidently my absence wasn't noticed, because I heard from no one regarding the funeral service or burial.

For the charity function, I made a charming Gypsy costume, not based on anything I knew about Gypsies—because I knew nothing except what little I'd read in issues of the
National Geographic
—but based on what people
thought
Gypsies wore. I gleaned my information, in other words, from books and the flickers.

I made myself a white peasant-style blouse and a multi-colored skirt. I sewed together different colored strips of cloth that had ended up in my bits-and-pieces drawer, drew the skirt together at my waist with elastic stripping I found at Nelson's Five and Dime, and wore it and the blouse with a bright red sash that dangled. For my head covering, I chose a blue, red, and yellow striped material. And, because I figured why not? I also wore the juju Mrs. Jackson had given me. I thought about tying Sam's ring to a tassel, but didn't quite dare, for fear I'd lose it.

I wore lots of cheap necklaces I found in various junk shops, mostly made of colorful fake beads. Well, the beads weren't fake precisely, but they weren't gemstones. I actually had a bracelet full of rubies, diamonds, emeralds, and sapphires, that had been given to me by a Russian count—at least he claimed to be a Russian count. You couldn't tell in those days. There were fake Russians running around all over the place. However, that bracelet was in a safe-deposit box at the bank and I'd no more wear it to a costume party than appear at the ball as Lady Godiva.

People always donated used clothing and so forth to the Salvation Army, and Flossie Buckingham helped me create my Gypsy costume. She also made up my face right before I motored over to Mrs. Pinkerton's house. She was a whiz at makeup due to her former life.

When Flossie was through with me, I'd never looked so exotic, ever. Whereas I generally cultivated the pale-and-interesting image, that night, I looked like a Gypsy queen in a motion picture, only in color. Vivid makeup, vivid clothing, vivid jewelry; I wouldn't have recognized me if I'd encountered myself walking down a street.

"You're a genius, Flossie," I said, admiring my Gypsy self. She'd used dark makeup on me and, except for my blue eyes and dark red hair, I could have passed for any Romany wench, providing no one cared about authenticity.

"I've had lots of practice," she said, laughing. It always amazed and gratified me that Flossie wasn't ashamed of her past. In fact, I do believe her own early years of poverty and unhappiness helped her understand and assist Johnny's Salvation Army flock.

"Thanks, Flossie." I sighed happily. "I'd better get going. Mrs. Pinkerton wanted me there early to approve the tent she had Harold set up for my fortune-telling job."

Another laugh from Flossie, this one joined by one from Johnny. I glanced up and saw him standing in the doorway, holding baby Billy and grinning from ear to ear.

"I've never seen you look more ravishing," said Johnny.

"Right," I said. "Ravishing. That's me."

Both Johnny and Flossie laughed. After a second, little Billy joined them. I darned near cried, which shows what a sap I am. However, that's nothing to the point.

After thanking Flossie another seventy or eighty times, I drove to Mrs. Pinkerton's place. Joseph Jackson, who had been keeping tabs on the Pinkerton family's gate for as long as I could remember, greeted me cheerfully and opened the black wrought-iron gate for me. I waved at him as I drove up the deodar-lined way to the roundabout in front of the mansion. I do believe I was more colorful than Jackson's mother that evening, and she was the most colorful woman I'd ever met in my life, what with her being a Voodoo mambo and all.

The family Chevrolet looked a lot better in Mrs. P's circular drive than my old horse-and-buggy used to, although it was nowhere near as grand as Harold's Stutz Bearcat. But I didn't care. I hopped from the Chevrolet's front seat, grabbed my spiritualist's bag—containing my crystal ball, my Ouija board and planchette, and my tattered deck of tarot cards—from the seat next to me, and walked up the massive front steps, across the massive front porch, whacked the brass lion's brass ring against the brass knocking plate, and smiled when Featherstone opened the door as if he'd been waiting just for me.

For the first time since I'd met him, more than half my lifetime ago, Featherstone actually did something uncharacteristic for him. He blinked at me. I gave him a finger wiggle. "It's just me," I trilled happily. "Desdemona Majesty, spiritualist-medium extraordinaire."

"Ah," said Featherstone, back in his role as the world's best butler. "Come this way, Mrs. Majesty."

So I went that way. This time Featherstone and I bypassed the drawing room, which was generally where Mrs. Pinkerton plagued me with her problems, and continued on to the back of the house, where a ballroom awaited us. Harold and his pals had outdone themselves! Colorful garlands hung everywhere, pictures of dogs and cats and even an elephant, a hippo, a rhino, several species of antelope, and a giraffe hung on the walls, having been painted by Harold, I assumed. He was an artistic gent, was Harold.

The room buzzed with staff setting up tables and chairs around the sides of the room. The center of the room was reserved for dancing. A balcony held a small band, the musicians of which were at the moment tuning their instruments. I beheld Jackson's son with his cornet. I remember having been shocked to see this same son playing in a jazz band in a speakeasy once, but he looked right elegant that evening. So did his band mates.

As luck would have it, Harold spotted me before his mother did. This was a break for me, since Mrs. Pinkerton had a habit of knocking me down whenever we met. Not that she meant to, but she was a large woman, I wasn't, and she was generally in thrall to some overwhelming emotion when she called on my services. So she'd run at me, and I'd try my hardest to brace myself against some piece of furniture, and so far she hadn't succeeded in toppling me over, but it had been a close-run thing a time or two.

"Daisy!" cried Harold. "You look utterly spectacular!"

"Thanks, Harold." Harold's opinion mattered to me more than most people's since he earned his considerable living as a costumier at a motion-picture studio in Los Angeles. Not that he needed the job; he had a tidy fortune all his own thanks to his family. But he adored his work, so he did it and earned mega-bucks.

He grabbed my hand. "Come over here and look at your tent! I did a simply smashing job of it. Del's setting up the insides right this minute."

"How nice." I tripped along after Harold, pleased to be there at that evening and for the sake of the Pasadena Humane Society. "Will Stacy be here?" I asked, fearing Harold's answer. If there was one person liable to clog up the works, it was Harold's irritating sister, Stacy Kincaid.

"Nope. You're safe. Actually, we all are," said Harold, whose opinion of his sister echoed my own.

"Oh, I'm so glad!"

"We all are. Well, except Mother, but she would be if she didn't have a blind spot where Stacy is concerned."

Yet another opinion shared by the both of us.

I stopped dead in my tracks when I spotted my tent. "Oh, Harold," I breathed. "It's a masterpiece!"

"Isn't it, though? I thought so, too." Modesty wasn't one of Harold's more prominent virtues.

Oh, but the tent was spectacular. Like my skirt, Harold had sewn different colors of cloth—in the tent's case, canvas—together, and he'd painted all sorts of animals, most of which wouldn't have been caught dead in the Pasadena Humane Society, on it. There were lions, tigers, antelopes, zebras, elephants, giraffes, okapis, gnus, water buffalos, crocodiles (or alligators; I couldn't tell which), and any number of other exotic species painted on the canvas sides.

Above the tent flap, Harold had painted a circle with all the symbols of the Zodiac emblazoned thereon, and underneath the Zodiac he'd painted the palm of a hand with some kind of mystical symbol thereon.

"What's that symbol mean?" I asked him, pointing at something that looked a little bit like one of Vi's cinnamon buns, but with more curls. I know pointing isn't polite. I was with Harold, so it didn't matter.

"Oh, my dear!" cried Harold. "You don't know how much research I put into that stupid symbol. It's an ancient Armenian Arevakhach."

"An ancient Armenian what?"

"Arevakhach," said Harold with satisfaction clear to hear in his voice.

"What's that?"

"An ancient symbol of eternity and light."

"Armenian, you say?"

"Absolutely. Took me forever to find it, too. I knew sort of what I wanted, but only the ancient Armenians had it."

"How in the name of gracious did you discover it?" I asked, honestly curious. Did Harold, too, spend a bunch of his time in libraries?

"Los Angeles Public Library," said he, answering my unasked question. "They have books on mystical symbols and stuff there."

"I haven't noticed any in the Pasadena Public Library, but maybe I haven't looked on the right shelf."

"Be serious, Daisy," said Harold, giving me an arch look.

After taking a second to think about it, I said, "Yeah. You're probably right. Pasadena would never stand for arcane symbols in its library."

"You've got it in one, my dear. Arcane symbols for my favorite spiritualist-medium are something else entirely. I'd go to any lengths to glorify you." He yanked on my hand again. "But come inside. I want you to see what I've done with your working space. He pulled back the tent flap, and I entered."

The inside was just as elaborate as the outside, but more intensely mysterious. I stopped stock-still. "Oh, Harold, it's perfect!"

"Darned right it is," said he, pleased by my reaction.

"Thank you, Harold! Thank you, Del!"

"Honored to be of service," said Del, bowing in a gentlemanlike manner. He was always a gentleman.

Harold and Del had hung the entire tent with dark red silk (real silk, according to Harold), and had placed a round table and three chairs in the tent's center, only toward the back. The chair in which I was to sit had its back to the rear of the tent, and looked kind of like a throne. Mind you, it was only an elaborate chair with an elegantly carved back that he'd snatched from another room in his mother's mansion, but it looked quite regal. He'd also thought to provide me with two plush pillows covered in deep crimson silk so my poor back wouldn't have to rest against the carved wood. Well, and also because the chair was deep, and my feet wouldn't touch the floor without some help from the pillows at my back. I guess he'd added the third chair in case someone came in with a friend.

"Luxurious," said I, grinning.

"Nothing but the best for you, my dear," said Harold, bowing deeply and gesturing me to my throne. "You'll notice that I set a small stand next to your chair, so that you can put the tools of your trade on it and select whichever one you want to use when you want to use it. Oh, and there's also the money bowl there."

"You've thought of everything, Harold. Thank you so much."