Living Spectres: a Chesterton Holte, Gentleman Haunt Mystery

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  Holte moved a little closer to the two women, his curiosity piqued.

  “If they have an ounce of sense, they will listen to you,” said Poppy. “I did.”

  “And see what it’s got you: you’re excluded from a number of high society occasions because you’re a journalist.” Esther did her best to laugh.

  “You see how crushed I am,” Poppy said, clasping her free hand to her brow in her best tragic manner. Then she abandoned her joking. “Speaking of exclusions, who is the other reciprocal hostess?” she asked, wishing she could find out where Holte had been; she would have to hold her tongue until later, when they were alone.

  “Professor Timms,” said Esther with a moue of aversion.

  Poppy could not stop a wry smile. “Does that mean you will have to endure the lovely Missus Timms?”

  “Beatrice will be the hostess, no doubt. I’m guessing that the event is Langton’s idea—he was pretty distressed at the way she behaved here, and he’s the sort who tries to make up for awkwardness. I’ve asked Judge Stephanson to come with me; Benedict knows how to handle difficult people.”

  “Beatrice and Benedict,” Poppy mused with the hint of a grin. “Mightn’t that be too tempting for her?”

  “You’re not going to blame Shakespeare for Beatrice’s bad manners, are you? It isn’t his fault that the two names have a resonance beyond the immediate social scene. Besides, she doesn’t need such an excuse to flirt.” Esther drank most of her brandy and poured a little more. “I can’t endure the thought of going alone, and it would only create more gossip if you come with me: two women who work for a living at such a gathering. Shocking.”

  “That’s a bit…daunting,” said Poppy. “You’d think having a job is the same as having leprosy.”

  “To many of them, it is,” said Esther, and continued less animatedly, “Don’t take umbrage. Our set isn’t the only ones to think that a woman’s first obligation is to marry and have children, and that those who do not are, at the least, odd, if not pitiable. The middle class can be just as stuffy, and can take more pride in being so.”

  Holte slid closer to the two women, listening with heightened interest to what they were discussing; he hoped for another insight into their opinions.

  “I’m aware of that. Aunt Jo used to remind me that with my trust fund—which I agree is generous—I shouldn’t have to work, and technically, that’s true. She occasionally said that I owed it to my father to marry and have children, since my trust would support a family comfortably—ten thousand dollars a year is a lot of money, but—” Poppy was surprised at the intensity of her emotion; she decided to explain. “But it isn’t the money Aunt Esther, it isn’t. I want to do something useful with my life.”

  “Isn’t having children useful?” Aunt Esther asked quietly.

  “Perhaps, for those who have a natural talent for it. My friend, Mildred Fairchild, does have such a gift, and I’m happy for her.” Poppy shook her head. “I don’t, and I know it. I need to be taking on the world, the way my mother used to do, before she became ill. Her work with the Suffragettes was inspiring.”

  “Your father thought so, too, and was glad to see you following in her footsteps. He told me how proud he was of the way you were growing up. He’d be delighted to know you’re a working newspaperwoman.” She drank the last of the brandy in her glass. “That’s enough of that. I’ll be light-headed if I continue to indulge.”

  Poppy had another small sip of her cognac and considered setting the glass aside, half- empty. “There’ll be wine at dinner, I suppose?”

  “Missus Sassoro has a good bottle of claret set aside for tonight, to go with the duck in raspberry sauce, and the mashed turnips with cream cheese. It’s the last time we’ll have fresh raspberries this year.”

  “Sounds delicious,” said Poppy, and helped herself to another scallop. “The other six are yours Aunt Esther.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” said Esther. “I can’t possibly eat them all. Have one more, please.”

  “One, but no more,” said Poppy, capitulating. She finished the one she was eating and took another. “This is my last.”

  “Your cat is going to be lucky tonight—at least two scallops with bacon, maybe three.” She suddenly stretched, flexing her right foot. “Don’t worry. I just had a stitch in my thigh.”

  “Are you all right?” Poppy asked, a rush of concern coming over her.

  “I’m getting old, that’s all, and my body reminds me of it from time to time.” Esther selected another scallop. “This will do it for me.” She sat back against the cushions on her settee.

  Poppy grinned. “Maestro will be pleased.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  “I THOUGHT YOU’D LIKE TO KNOW THAT BLESSING IS ON HIS WAY,” HOLTE SAID apologetically, hovering near the end of her bed while Poppy sat at her vanity table, brushing her hair; she was wearing her bathrobe over her new, silk pyjamas, and had already used cold cream to clean her face—a small wad of tissue paper was at her elbow in testament. It was only ten-thirty, but Esther had gone off to make notes for her address to the Women’s Political Society, and Poppy was glad to have a chance to relax. She had got into her bedclothes and begun her nightly routine: removing make-up—what little she wore—and brushing her hair the recommended one hundred times.

  “On his way to where?” Poppy asked.

  “Vienna; it’s his first step on his hunt for GAD,” Holte answered. “I thought you’d like to know.”

  “I’m glad you’ve told me,” said Poppy, almost losing count of the strokes; it was something around fifty-nine, so she thought fifty-eight, just in case, and continued on steadily. “I suppose that Blessing wired Mister Pearse before he left?”

  “Yes, he did. And he wired Inspector Loring, as well, so he would be able to assess the progress of the investigation. I believe it was a wise precaution to make sure Loring does not have to depend on Mister Pearse for his news from the Continent.” He moved so that he was a little more visible in the half-lit room. “Blessing told me when I visited with him on the train.”

  “I assumed you’d gone to the dimension of ghosts,” said Poppy, as much to keep him talking as for any information.

  “Not yet. I want to be better prepared before I start asking more questions,” Holte said. “You know how important research is, don’t you.”

  “I do,” she agreed. Sixty-six, sixty-seven, sixty-eight…

  “It occurred to me that I needed know more of what’s going on here, in the world of the living, before I returned to the dimension of ghosts. I need to be able to sort out what is true, what is remembered, and what is imagined, before I go much further on this Pearse matter.”

  “You don’t have to do it, though I’m grateful that you do.” Poppy stopped brushing momentarily, and looked directly at the pale sketch of a man almost reclining on her bed. “If you were alive, this would be scandalous.”

  “A good thing then that I’m not,” he countered with unflagging good humor.

  “I should think so,” she said, and smiled in spite of herself.

  Holte could sense that she was avoiding something, so he said, “There’s something else on your mind.”

  Poppy assumed a hauteur that was more like Aunt Jo than herself. “It’s very unbecoming for a gentleman to force an issue with a lady.”

  “I thought you didn’t like being considered that kind of lady,” Holte shot back. “You certainly gave me that impression earlier.” He paid no attention to Maestro, who had hissed at him and then hurried under the bed.

  “I don’t, but I don’t like being pushed, either. Cajolery might work better, if it isn’t too demeaning.” She resumed her brushing.

  “You really don’t want to talk about it if you’re willing to get on your high horse. What is it?”

  “That’s not cajolery,” she pointed out.

  “Then tell me what’s bothering you, and I’ll stop.” He had grown more perceptible, his voice more a sound in the room than an echo
in her mind.

  She sighed heavily. “There are so many dead people around Stacy: Madison Moncrief, James Poindexter, Percy Knott, now indirectly, Quentin and Nelson Hadley, and Miles Overstreet. I can’t help remembering that strange warning I was given when I went to interview Quentin Hadley last spring. That I was in danger. After the episode in the locked cellar, I thought it was over. Now I’m not so sure. What if there are more dead?”

  “You don’t include Julian Eastley?” Holte inquired levelly.

  “No. Should I?”

  “Tangentially, yes.” He saw the appalled look in her eyes; he went on, “He wouldn’t have been driving out on that road if Louise Moncrief had not left town, which she wouldn’t have if her husband hadn’t been murdered, and possibly she wouldn’t have fled with Stacy and Warren Derrington, but that’s not such a sure thing.”

  “I think you’re stretching a point,” Poppy said.

  “Do the police see any connection?” Holte was sitting up now, fully concentrating on Poppy.

  “Inspector Loring does,” she said.

  “That hardly counts,” he said.

  “You’re being persnickety,” she told him, and once more picked up her brush. Eighty-two, eighty-three, eighty-four…

  “You have to be, if you’re a spy—persnickety, and a bit…paranoid, as the alienists call it.” He floated closer to her. “You know you’re not responsible for any of those deaths.”

  Poppy could not bring herself to look at him. “I tell myself that, but I don’t believe it, not entirely. If I hadn’t pursued Madison Moncrief’s death, perhaps some of the others would not have died.”

  “Even if you hadn’t been assigned to the story, one of your colleagues would have been, and Denton North would be gathering evidence of antiques counterfeiting and Customs fraud, to say nothing of the problems that were developing among those who were likely part of the counterfeiting-and-smuggling ring; any one of those things would have made the murders possible.” He said this with cool deliberation, and went on less austerely. “You aren’t responsible for what they decided to do, and you may be in a unique position to contribute to the apprehension for those in the conspiracy. That should reassure you.”

  “But, ye gods! Stacy and Derrington would not have come under scrutiny so quickly, and—assuming that one or the other of them did the killing—they might have gone away before needing to kill any more…”

  “Including Stacy’s attempt on you,” Holte interjected. “No wonder you’re feeling tired, carrying all that around with you,” he said, now half a step behind her, his manner more sympathetic. “Has it occurred to you that if you hadn’t investigated Moncrief’s death, and put some pressure on Stacy, that your cousin might have got away with at least one murder, and very likely more?”

  “Don’t make fun of me,” she ordered him.

  “I’m not,” he rejoined. “I’m pointing out something that would be obvious to you if it were happening to anyone else.”

  She set her brush aside and slumped in her chair. “I keep thinking about Derrington and Louise. If they’re with Stacy, are they in danger from him? Or he from them?”

  “That isn’t your responsibility, Poppy. You haven’t told any of them to kill anyone; those murders are their choices, not yours, and they, not you, bear the burden of them.” Holte saw her stiffen, and fell silent.

  “Do you feel that way about the agents who worked for you?” She looked forlorn as she asked him.

  “No,” he said bluntly. “Because I was the one who sent them into danger, and they were aware of the risk. Your father was one of those who died because of me, which was entirely different. My men, and women, knew what they were getting into; your father did not. I might have been able to save him, but that would have led to the death of a great many more men, so I chose the…the lesser of two evils, and I’m in the process of recompensing those who suffered because of what I did, knowingly and with full awareness of the peril I was imposing on those who were ignorant of the danger I—”

  Poppy bit her lower lip. “Doesn’t it bother you?”

  “It certainly does. That’s why I’m haunting you—remember?” He was losing patience with her, as much because he did not like having to think back on all he had done in the name of King and Country, as because he was worried on Poppy’s behalf. “It took me a while to work out what damage I had done while I was doing good, but I’ve got a handle on it now.”

  Taking up one of the used tissues, Poppy wiped her eyes. “I’m sorry for being such a ninny. It’s just that sometimes it all catches up with me—you know how that is—and I begin to feel sorry for myself. It’s most unseemly in me; I apologize for being so self-indulgent.”

  “It’s not unseemly at all,” said Holte. “And for what it’s worth, you’re one of the least self-indulgent persons I have ever encountered.”

  “It’s kind of you to say that, but I would be horribly chagrined if I had an outburst like this in the city room of the Clarion.” She gathered up her tissues and let them fall into the waste- paper basket at the edge of her vanity table. “And no doubt, I would rue the day I let myself give way.”

  “I can’t picture you doing that,” said Holte. “It’s not your style at all.”

  “Well, I can picture it, and it makes me want to hide under the bed with Maestro; I know what a lapse like that would mean for me—back to the society page,” said Poppy, trying to keep her voice from shaking. She mustered her tattering reserves and exclaimed, “Ye gods! What a goose I’m being.”

  “Hardly a goose,” said Holte at his most avuncular.

  Poppy was unconvinced. “If you want to go away and give me time to collect myself, I wouldn’t blame you at all. I’d do it if I could.”

  “I would blame me. I won’t be offended by your tears or your dismay, or anything else,” he said. “You hide your strain well, but I can tell that it’s been growing in you for some time. So I’ll listen if you want to talk, or I’ll talk if you’d rather listen.”

  Maestro emerged from under the bed, did a double flip with his tail, and went to curl up in the corner, his back to the room.

  Poppy leaned forward, her elbows on the vanity table, her chin propped in her joined hands. “If only there could be a break in the Pearse case, something positive that I can report on instead of having to cover all the fears and anxieties of the family, I think I’d feel better. Or if I could get something more than ephemeral traces of Stacy, so that he could be pursued, I’d have some hope for retribution. If that makes me unworthy, so be it.”

  “Well, it doesn’t, not in my eyes; your cousin has a lot to answer for, and should,” said Holte, holding still to the extent that he could. “I’ll do what I can to glean more information from the ghosts who are tied to the case, to find out if there is anything they can tell me about Stacy, but that’s about all I can do, other than follow Blessing to Europe and see what he discovers, if anything, about GAD. I’ve been planning to do that for a little while, and now I think it’s necessary.”

  “That if anything is what has me worried. What if there is no sign of GAD, and that he simply vanished, and no one ever finds out how that happened?”

  “No one simply vanished, not if he’s traveling with a passport. It may take time to find him, and I can’t tell you what shape he’ll be in, but someone, somewhere will know what has happened to him.” He slid over toward the end of her bed. “I haven’t found him among the ghosts, so I take it he is still alive.”

  “But what if he’s not?” Poppy stared at Holte, her eyes like hot coals. “Or what if he’s a prisoner, and his captors have no intention of letting him go?”

  “Once we know where he is, something can be done,” said Holte. “Your Aunt Esther’s old friend from the diplomatic corps could still pull some strings, couldn’t he?”

  “You mean Arnold Schultz?” Poppy considered the possibility.

  “That’s the man. He looks like he still has some grit in him.”

  �
�He probably does, from what Aunt Esther says,” Poppy allowed, more speculatively than before.

  “He might be able to lend a hand to N.Cubed, in an unobvious way,” Holte continued. “It wouldn’t have to be official. Many of those kinds of activities aren’t.”

  “But it could take months to find out what the Pearses need to know,” Poppy protested.

  “Don’t borrow trouble,” Holte said, hovering over the folded blanket on the end of the bed. “I’ll do as much as I can to keep up with Blessing and to ask more questions in the dimension of ghosts, and I’ll report back to you before Friday, probably earlier. Will that suit you, or would you prefer me to stay here.”

  “To buck me up, you mean? No, it’s better that you do the kinds of things only you can, and get back to me as quickly as you’re able. I appreciate your dilemma, but I’d like to think I can handle myself by myself for a day or two.” As a demonstration, she made herself sit up, her spine straight, and her head raised. “If I’m going to be a crime reporter, I’m going to have to get used to disappointments and dead ends, with or without your support.”

  “If that’s what you want,” said Holte cautiously. “I’ll do what I can. If I’m lucky, I’ll be back by Thursday night, Friday morning at the latest. Keep in touch with Loring; he’ll have news from Blessing in a little while.”

  “You’re sure of that?” Poppy asked.

  “Ninety percent sure,” he told her, moving off toward the ceiling. “And your aunt is right—you need a raincoat.”

  “Thanks so much,” she said, rallying herself in order to be a bit sarcastic; she watched him disappear through the ceiling, then stared bleakly at herself in the mirror. After five minutes of this melancholy pursuit, she left the vanity table, turned off the central light fixture, and got into bed; her reading light was on and there was a copy of Sheridan LeFanu’s grand Victorian gothic tale Uncle Silas on her night-stand, which she picked up and opened to the bookmark she had put in place the night before. She read the previous page to remind herself of what was going on, and moved ahead in the tale. Good, old-fashioned horror, she thought. Nothing like the modern world of world-wide war and actual murder victims. She settled back on her pillow and let herself get lost in the story.