Southampton Row - Anne Perry [107]
“Did she have regular callers who were not to do with séances?” Tellman asked. “We’re looking for those who gave her the information about people that she told them . . . things they wanted to hear.”
Lena looked down, as if embarrassed. “You don’t need a lot. People give themselves away. And she was very good at reading faces, understanding the things people don’t say. She was a terribly quick guesser. I can’t count the number of times I was thinking something, and she’d know what it was before I said it.”
“We’ve searched the house for diaries,” Tellman said to Pitt. “We found nothing other than lists of appointments. She must have committed everything to memory.”
“What did you think of her gifts, Miss Forrest?” Pitt said suddenly. “Do you believe in the power to contact the spirits of the dead?” He watched her closely. She had denied helping Maude Lamont, but surely there had been some assistance, and there was no one else here.
Lena took in a long, very deep breath and let it out in a sigh. “I don’t know. Seeing as I’ve lost my mother and my sister, I’d like to think they were somewhere I could speak to them again.” Her face was blurred with the depth of her emotion, which she kept only barely in control. It was profoundly obvious that her loss still racked her, and Pitt loathed having to reawaken it, and in front of others. Such grief should be afforded privacy.
“Have you ever seen manifestations yourself?” he asked. The answer to Maude Lamont’s murder lay at least in part in this house, and he had to find it, whether it affected Voisey or the election, or anything else. He could not let murder go, whoever the victim and whatever the reason.
“I used to think so,” she said hesitantly. “Long ago. But when you want something bad enough, like these people did . . .” She glanced sideways at the chairs where Maude’s clients sat at the séances. “Then perhaps you see it anyway, don’t you?”
“Yes, you can,” he agreed. “But you had no interest in the spirits these people wanted to contact? Think back to all you heard, all you know of what Miss Lamont was able to create. We’ve heard from other clients of voices, music, but the levitation seems to have happened only here.”
She looked puzzled.
“Rising up in the air,” Pitt explained. He saw a sudden flash of understanding in her eyes. “Tellman, take another look at the table,” he ordered. He turned back to Lena Forrest. “Do you ever remember seeing something different on the mornings after a séance, anything misplaced, a different smell, dust or powder, anything at all?”
She was silent for so long he was not sure if she was concentrating on something or if she simply did not intend to answer.
Tellman was sitting in the chair where Maude sat. Lena’s eyes were steady on him.
“Did you ever move the table?” Pitt asked suddenly.
“No. It’s fixed to the floor,” Tellman replied. “I tried to move it before.”
Pitt stood up. “What about the chair?” As he said it he walked over and Tellman rose and picked it up. He saw with surprise that there were four slight indentations on the floorboards where the feet had rested. Surely even the most continual use could not have made them. He moved to one of the other chairs and lifted it. There were no marks. He looked up quickly at Lena Forrest and caught the knowledge in her face.
“Where’s the lever?” he said grimly. “Your position is a very precarious one, Miss Forrest. Don’t jeopardize your future by lying to the police.” He hated making the threat, but he had no time to waste in trying to dismantle the woodwork to find the mechanism, and he needed to know how far she was involved. It might be crucial later.
She stood up, white-faced, and came around to the opposite side of the chair. She leaned over and touched the center of one of the carved flowers on the table edge.
“Press it,” he ordered.
She did, and nothing happened.
“Do it again!” he ordered.
She stood perfectly still.
Very gradually the chair began