The sounds of the bell on the front door jangling and footsteps on the stairs provoke sighs of relief from us. Hugh trudges into the dining room, his coat buttoned the wrong way, his eyes bleary, reeking of liquor. He collapses into a chair.
“Don’t all look at me as if I’m something the cat dragged in.”
“You all right?” Mick asks.
“Never better.” Hugh smiles with a falsely jaunty air.
“Would you like some breakfast?” Fitzmorris says.
Hugh grimaces. “Ugh. I’ve got a bit of a hangover.”
“I’ll bring your usual remedy.” Fitzmorris passes me a full plate and goes to the kitchen.
I eat, hungry now that the immediate crisis has passed. “Why don’t you go to bed?” I say to Hugh.
“At nine in the morning? Haven’t we a murder to investigate?”
“Sarah and I can do it,” Mick says.
“I mustn’t slack off while I’m on Sir Gerald’s payroll,” Hugh says. “He’s probably eager for an excuse to give me the boot. I think the victim’s home is a good place to start detecting. Did you find out where he lived?”
“Yes.” I memorized the addresses on the card Barrett found in his pocket.
Fitzmorris returns and hands Hugh a cup that contains tomato juice, Worcestershire sauce, vinegar, salt, pepper, and a raw egg. Hugh says, “Thank you,” gulps it, gags, and pants. “Ah, that’s better. I’ll be ready in a jiff.”
He bounds up the stairs, and I hear him trip at the top. Soon he comes back neatly groomed, scented with bay rum shaving lotion, looking almost his usual, handsome self. But his impeccably tailored clothes are baggy; he’s lost weight. He’s chewing a peppermint to freshen his breath, and his smile can’t hide the dark shadows under his eyes.
As he and Mick and I walk to the station, he says, “Sarah, I’m sorry I made a scene at your wedding breakfast.”
“It’s all right.” I know how much effort it’s costing him to act like his normal, cheerful self, to be the trouper who doesn’t let his friends down. I don’t want to scold him and make him feel worse than he does.
“No, it isn’t. I shouldn’t get in fights.”
“The other guy started it,” Mick says.
“Well, I took the bait,” Hugh says. “Sarah, please convey my apologies to Barrett and his family. Next time I’ll control myself.”
Mick and I fill him in on what we’ve learned about the murder. Once we’re on the train, two young ladies make eyes at Hugh and giggle, and he strikes up a conversation with them. He’s not interested in women, but he flirts with them to disguise his true inclination, and I know he’s doing it now to prevent Mick and me from talking to him about his troubles. At St. Pancras station, he runs ahead of us to hire a cab, and during the ride he chatters about whether we should move to this pleasant northern district, away from the crowds, stench, and crime in the East End.
In Lonsdale Square, elegant Gothic-style townhouses with steep, pointed gables, mullioned windows, and arched front doors surround a garden. Men are raking the fallen leaves on the grass, children laughing as they jump in the piles. The fresh, earthy smell reminds me of autumn days in the country with my father, taking photographs, when I was young. Two police constables stroll along, guarding the residents against buskers, beggars, streetwalkers, and cutpurses.
“Spirit photography must be a lucrative business,” Hugh says.
“Yeah, we should give it a try,” Mick says. “How about it, Sarah?”
“No, thank you.”
At the address I remember from the card, I lift the brass knocker, rap on the door, and get no answer.
“I saw the curtain move. Somebody’s in there,” Mick says.
I knock harder. The door flies open, and a woman dressed in black says in a loud, ragged voice, “Don’t you know that when people ignore you, it means they don’t want to see you? Are you stupid?”
She’s tall, her back slouched as if to minimize her height. A crocheted black snood covers her hair; only the gray-streaked brown fringe is visible. With steel-rimmed spectacles perched on a beaky nose, plus a jutting chin, her face is severe rather than pretty. She looks to be in her forties, her sallow complexion marred by age spots. Her frock is made of heavy black crape, its high collar adorned with a jet brooch in the shape of a woman’s hand holding a rose. She’s in mourning.
“Mrs. Firth?” She’s not how I expected Charles Firth’s wife to look, but I didn’t know him well enough to predict his taste in women.
“Yes?” Suspicion narrows her deep-set gray eyes, which are red and swollen from weeping. “Who are you?”
I introduce myself and my friends. “We’re reporters for the Daily World—”
“You’re vultures who feed on people’s misfortunes. Go away!”
As Mrs. Firth tries to push the door shut, Mick and Hugh hold it open. I say, “I was a customer of your husband’s. His murder was discovered during my wedding.”
She blinks as if startled, then silently lets us enter the house. The foyer is dim, the air hazy with smoke that smells of sweet, tarry incense. A staircase ascends to the darker second floor. Paintings hang on the walls. The two nearest me show men falling from a tower struck by lightning and a warrior driving a chariot. They’re images from tarot cards. I can’t picture Mr. Firth here. He seemed an open, cheerful man, and this place is so closed up and gloomy.
“Is anyone else here?” Hugh says.
“No,” Mrs. Firth says. “I need to be alone. So that Charles can come home.”
Her words imply that she doesn’t know he’s dead, although her grief and her mourning garb say otherwise. I remember Barrett’s note. “Didn’t Detective Sergeant Barrett tell you …?”
“Oh. The policeman. Yes,” Mrs. Firth says. “I meant so that Charles’s spirit can come.”
So she believes in ghosts, and she thinks her husband will appear to her. I pity her for her foolishness.
“Spirits won’t come if the atmosphere is unsympathetic.” Mrs. Firth looks closely at my friends and me. “Are you sympathetic to the spirits?”
We all nod, aware that if we say no, she’ll tell us to leave. She leads us down the passage to a room furnished as a library, with bookshelves that cover the walls. The black velvet curtains are closed, and the only light comes from a candle in a silver holder atop a heavy round wooden table. Beside the candle, incense sticks burn in a green ceramic jar. The smoke is so dense that my friends and I cough. Mrs. Firth sits in one chair at the table, motions us to seat ourselves, and folds her hands.
I picture her keeping vigil like that ever since she learned her husband was dead, patiently waiting for his ghost to appear. “Did your husband believe in the supernatural?” I ask.
“Oh, yes.” Mrs. Firth pauses. “Well, not when we first met. But while we were courting, I talked to him about the things I’ve seen and introduced him to my friends in the spiritualist community, and he eventually came to believe.”
I wonder if he adapted his personality to hers, just as he adapted it to those of his customers. Was it the kind of compromise that many married couples have to make? I glance around the room. On the shelves, in front of the books, are figurines, crystals, animal skulls, strings of beads, feathers, bells, and demonic masks. Either Charles Firth was a believer or didn’t mind living with the trappings of his wife’s superstition.