Medium Dead: An Alexandra Gladstone Mystery

by Paula Paul

“Of course not. If I knew anything I would tell him as well as you.” She wasn’t lying to him, she told herself. After all, she didn’t know anything for certain. There’d been no time to question Mrs. Pickwick and therefore no time to ascertain the truth, and it wouldn’t have been prudent to question Lady Forsythe more. Alexandra was working hard at convincing herself all of that was true.

  After they’d ridden a distance, Nicholas turned to her. “You’re awfully quiet,” he said.

  “Am I? Forgive me, I don’t mean to be rude. I was just wondering why Constable Snow seems so certain that he saw Her Ladyship at the gravesite where the body was found.”

  “I’m wondering the same thing,” Nicholas said. “It’s impossible for me to believe MaMa would have had someone drive her to a graveyard, especially one where she’s not likely to know any of the occupants, and even more impossible to think she was actually digging around a grave.”

  “What on earth would she be searching for?”

  “Precisely.”

  Alexandra was silent again, wondering whether or not she should mention to Nicholas what Mrs. Pickwick had said and what Lady Forsythe had implied. “Would anyone else at Montmarsh—any of the staff, for example—have any reason to be searching around the graveyard?” she asked finally.

  “Not that I know of. Why would they?”

  “I don’t know. I was just wondering….”

  “Do you know something I don’t know? One of the servants must have said something. Who? What did he say?”

  “Why would you think I know any more than you? As for the servants, you certainly speak to them more often than I.” She was becoming practiced at being evasive.

  “Why would you even bring up the possibility of one of the servants being there? Do you think one of them could be mistaken for my mother?”

  “I have no reason to believe anyone could be mistaken for Her Ladyship,” she said. “I’m simply trying to explore all possibilities. Certainly it’s no more of a stretch to think a servant could have been in the graveyard than to think your mother could have been there.”

  “Of course,” he said. “And forgive me for being so testy. This business has got me a bit upset, I’m afraid.”

  “And well you should be.”

  “Let’s drop the matter. Surely there must be more pleasant things to talk about. Tell me something interesting about your work.”

  “Oh, of course. We could always discuss various ailments,” Alexandra said with a laugh.

  “Clever girl. You must be everyone’s favorite guest at a party if that’s always your subject.”

  At least the mood was lightened, and there was no more talk of murder or of anyone being seen in the graveyard during the rest of the drive to the surgery entrance.

  “I’ll leave you to your world of broken bones and runny noses,” Nicholas said as he escorted her to the door. “I’m going home to try to comfort MaMa. You will be back to check on her, won’t you?”

  Alexandra assured him that she would be, and for once, she was glad to be out of his presence. Not because she didn’t like him. She liked him perhaps a little too much, and it bothered her that she was deceiving him as surely as she had Constable Snow.

  —

  Nancy was not in the surgery when Alexandra entered, but she appeared soon after she heard the bell that signaled the door had been opened.

  “And how was Her Ladyship?” Nancy asked. She was wearing her kitchen apron and smelled of cinnamon. Zack, who had lumbered in behind Nancy, gave a little growl of delight when he saw Alexandra and she leaned down to greet him.

  “I’m not certain, to be honest.” Alexandra removed her gloves and rested her hand on the back of Zack’s neck. “She seemed better at first, but I believe our visit upset her. I hope that doesn’t result in a worsening of the lesions.”

  “Upset her, did it?”

  “Not too many patients today, I take it,” Alexandra said, purposely ignoring Nancy’s prying question.

  “No one except Nell Stillwell. This time she was complaining of a painful wrist. My guess is she’s overused it at the butcher shop. I gave her some ointment and told her to let her husband do most of the work.”

  “Nell again,” Alexandra said as she removed her cloak and hat to be ready for any patient who might come to the surgery. She’d known Nell Stillwell, the one-eyed wife of the butcher, since childhood. Nell had lost her eye when she refused to follow Alexandra’s instructions to care for it after getting a piece of dirty straw from their pigsty in the eye. In spite of her frequent rejections of Alexandra’s instructions regarding her health, Nell was a habitual visitor to the surgery. She was always finding an excuse to leave the butcher shop in search of whatever local gossip didn’t come to her at the store.

  “Her Ladyship was upset about being accused of being seen in the graveyard where poor Alvina’s body was found, was she?” Nancy was obviously determined not to allow Alexandra to divert her.

  “I’m afraid so.” Alexandra’s words came out on the breath of her sigh as she sat down in the chair usually reserved for patients.

  “Was she there? In the graveyard?”

  “Constable Snow is convinced she was,” Alexandra said, not bothering to chasten Nancy for prying. She glanced at her maid. “You haven’t heard anything about that, have you?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “What does that mean? That you heard something inexact?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  “Nancy! For heaven’s sake, what are you getting at?”

  “Well, Mrs. Pickwick stopped by soon after you left. She didn’t stay long, and she was most likely back before you left Montmarsh. Mind you, she didn’t come as a patient. I’d promised her the recipe for the currant jam I always serve with scones. She had a taste, you see, when she was here once and we had a spot of tea. She doesn’t do that often, as you well know, but this one time she did, and she liked the jam so much I promised her the recipe, and—”

  “Nancy!”

  “Her headaches aren’t getting any better.”

  Alexandra sighed again and slumped in her chair.

  “It’s her nerves, don’t you know.”

  “I suspected that,” Alexandra said.

  “But who wouldn’t have a nervous headache if she had her kitchen invaded by the kitchen staff from the royal palace and she had to help prepare meals for the queen herself?”

  Alexandra straightened. “She told you that?”

  “In a manner of speaking. I would say she let it slip. Which is more than you have done. I would have thought you’d tell me you’d learned for certain that the queen was visiting.” Nancy was making an attempt at sounding hurt.

  “Her Majesty doesn’t want it known that she’s here.” Alexandra stood and, out of habit, went to the basin to pour water for washing her hands. “I was trying to respect her privacy, as I would anyone else’s.”

  “Well, of course Her Majesty doesn’t want anyone to know she’s here. I hear she always tries to keep it a secret when she wants to have a séance.”

  Alexandra turned toward Nancy, her hands dripping. “Wants to have a what?”

  “Séance. She has them every now and then. Tries to contact her dead husband, you know.”

  Alexandra reached for a towel. “How did you know that salacious bit of gossip?” Nicholas had said he’d told no one about that.

  “I read it in a newspaper.”

  Alexandra raised her brow. “What newspaper?”

  “The Sunday Bull, of course.”

  “Nancy, you know as well as I that paper is full of scurrilous rumors.”

  “Of course I know that.” Nancy spoke with an air of confidence. “But I also know that particular rumor is true.”

  “How could you possibly know that?”

  “You remember my cousin from Gillingham? The one whose husband works in the dockyards? Martha’s the name. She goes into London often enough. Buys the Bull when she’s there.”

  �
��I remember Martha,” Alexandra said. “An intelligent girl, it seems to me. Not the type to go in for gossip, is she?”

  “Of course not. But I happen to know she’s good friends with someone on the queen’s housekeeping staff, Lillian by name. Martha says Lil was even in the room once when Prince Albert was summoned. Lil was called in because the fire had gone out, you see, and Her Majesty doesn’t like the cold.”

  “And did Lillian have the privilege of seeing the dead prince?” Alexandra asked, trying not to sound overly sarcastic.

  “Now, I wouldn’t be knowing that, would I?” Nancy said. “All I know is Martha said Lil said Her Majesty had a medium conduct a séance.”

  “Did she, now?”

  Nancy nodded and gave Alexandra a knowing look. “A medium like Alvina.”

  “Like Alvina.” Alexandra grew quiet as she considered all that Nancy had revealed.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Nancy said.

  Alexandra didn’t bother to respond. She had no doubt that Nancy knew what she was thinking.

  “The queen is in Newton-upon-Sea, possibly for a séance, possibly because she thinks it’s an out-of-the-way place where no one will know what she’s doing,” Nancy said. “Alvina Elwold, the local diviner—or medium, if you will—dies at about the same time the queen arrives. Constable Snow later sees someone he thinks is Lady Forsythe digging around the grave where poor Alvina’s body was found.”

  “Go on,” Alexandra urged.

  Nancy shrugged. “That’s as far as I can go with that. Is there a connection? Was Lady Forsythe really there after all, or is the constable mistaken?” After a long pause, she said, “Miss?”

  Alexandra looked at her, still without speaking.

  “She was, wasn’t she?” Nancy made no attempt to contain her excitement.

  “I…I’m not certain, but…”

  “Continue.” Nancy made upward movements with her hands. “You’re not certain, but what?”

  “One never knows exactly what Mrs. Pickwick means, but…”

  “One always knows exactly what Mrs. Pickwick means,” Nancy protested. “What did she say?”

  “You were correct, she’d already returned to Montmarsh as I was leaving, and she said…”

  “Yes?”

  “That she should have been the one to go with Lady Forsythe.”

  “To the graveyard?”

  Alexandra frowned. “That’s not what she said, but she seemed to imply that’s what she meant.” She shook her head. “No, I can’t be putting words in her mouth. It’s possible that’s not what she meant at all.”

  “What else did she say?”

  “That Lady Forsythe’s recent turn for the worse is all her fault, Mrs. Pickwick’s fault, I mean. She said she should have gone with Her Ladyship last night when she asked.”

  “Why did she think not going with her contributed to Her Ladyship’s downturn?”

  “I’m not sure,” Alexandra said, “but I do think she felt she’d revealed too much because she clamped her hand over her mouth and hurried away. It seems some carriage driver went with her. A man, according to Constable Snow.”

  “Well, ’tis plain as the nose on your face that Pickwick meant Her Ladyship was in the graveyard, and that she’d asked Pickwick to go with her. The reason for that, I’d wager, is because Her Ladyship’s personal maid had to hurry back to London for some family matter. That’s what Mrs. Pickwick said. So that means someone else, one of her carriage drivers, went with Her Ladyship instead of Pickwick. Nevertheless, just as I said, miss, ’tis plain as day Her Ladyship was at the gravesite.”

  “We shouldn’t jump to conclusions.”

  “Of course we should,” Nancy said. “That’s the only way we’re going to get to the bottom of this.”

  “You are practical to a fault, Nancy.”

  Nancy shrugged. “Perhaps, and forgive me for saying this, miss, but you are conservative and analytical to a fault.”

  “My father always said that’s exactly what a doctor should be,” Alexandra said.

  “Indeed he did. I heard those very words from him myself.” Nancy gave Alexandra a knowing look. “But I must say, he was no more aware of the parish gossip than you are.”

  “And that’s to be considered a fault?” Alexandra asked with a little chuckle.

  “Could be,” Nancy said. “Especially when it’s about that carriage driver.”

  “Lady Forsythe’s driver, you mean. The one who started the brawl?” The one who can make knives disappear into thin air, she thought, but she didn’t say it aloud.

  Nancy answered with a slight nod.

  Alexandra breathed an exasperated sigh. “Please tell me what the brawl has to do with either Alvina or Her Ladyship.”

  “What do you suppose the brawl was about, miss?”

  “You said it was politics.”

  Nancy shook her head. “Not politics at all. Nothing less than Alvina.”

  Alexandra was both alarmed and interested, and Nancy obviously saw as much in Alexandra’s expression.

  “Oh, ’twas about Alvina, all right. Way I heard it, that London carriage driver said she deserved to die. Said she was a fraud and he could prove it. Said no one but the locals here in Newton-upon-Sea believed in her anyway, and that was only because we’re all only a hair above the line of being idiots. Or so he said. Now, no self-respecting Newton man is going to stand for that, is he?”

  “He does indeed sound like a troublemaker,” Alexandra said.

  “What do you think he meant by ‘she deserved to die’?”

  “What do you think, Nancy?”

  Before Nancy had time to reply, the bell on the surgery door signaled that someone had entered. It was Wilma Beaty, and she was crying hysterically.

  “The constable. He’s taken me husband! Arrested ’im for the murder of that woman in the graveyard. But Young Beaty didn’t do it. He’s not the one what killed that poor woman! Somebody else done it. Someone the constable can’t afford to blame, so ’e nabbed me husband.”

  Chapter 7

  Alexandra and Nancy spent several minutes trying to calm Wilma, but she wouldn’t be calmed.

  “I’m sure you must be wrong,” Alexandra said. “I’d venture Young Beaty hasn’t been arrested; he’s just been called in for questioning. I myself was taken to the constable’s office for the same reason. Lord Dunsford was taken as well.”

  Wilma seemed not to hear her, nor did she hear Nancy’s pleas to sit down and have a cup of tea.

  “ ’Twill relax you,” Nancy said. “Then we can talk about it. We can decide what to do.”

  Wilma responded by crying even harder. By now she was tearing at her hair, moving into classic hysteria. Nancy was busy filling three cups from the teapot, acting unusually calm. Taking a small vial from one of the shelves in the surgery, she glanced at Alexandra, and once she got an approving nod, she shook a few drops from the vial into Wilma’s cup. Laudanum—the same medication Alexandra had given to Lady Forsythe.

  Nancy picked up the cup and saucer, and thrust them toward Wilma “Drink!” she commanded.

  Wilma shook her head and wailed.

  “I said drink!” Nancy’s voice was stern and very loud, a tactic Alexandra never used.

  It got Wilma’s attention. She stopped wailing for a moment, her eyes wide. Nancy took the cup from the saucer and moved it to Wilma’s lips. “Drink!” she said again.

  Wilma drank. “Odd taste,” she said, wrinkling her nose after the first swallow.

  “It does not taste odd,” Nancy said. “It’s very good tea. Drink it all.”

  “But…”

  “I said drink it all. Then you can sit down, and we’ll all have a civilized cup.”

  Wilma seemed afraid not to do as Nancy bade her. Alexandra watched, amazed, as Wilma drank the entire cup of tea and allowed Nancy to lead her to the table, where she sat down at Nancy’s command. While Nancy poured a cup of tea for each of them, she signaled Alexandra with her ey
es that she, too, should come to the table. Alexandra obeyed as readily as Wilma had done.

  “Now listen to what Dr. Gladstone has to say,” Nancy said, and then asked Alexandra to repeat her story about being called in for questioning. Alexandra was continually amazed at how her maid could take complete control of a situation.

  “Just questions and that’s all?” Wilma asked after finally taking in Alexandra’s words. The laudanum was having its effect on her. There were no more tears, no more ranting.

  “Just questions,” Alexandra assured her. “Constable Snow is only trying to get to the bottom of who killed Miss Elwold. He’s questioning anyone who might be able to give him more information.”

  “Well, I don’t like it,” Wilma said. “My Beaty had nothing to do with it, and the constable should know that. He’s known Beaty as long as I have. Shouldn’t even have to bring ’im into this awful business. Why, I don’t think ’e ever even met that woman. What would he have to do with the likes of her? Unless she put a spell on him, like I said.”

  “There was no spell put on anyone,” Nancy said, “and I’m sure the constable knows all that you just told us.” She offered Wilma a scone spread with jam.

  Wilma accepted the treat eagerly, though shaking hands confirmed she wasn’t yet completely calm. “Doesn’t believe in the kind of thing Alvina did. Not my Beaty. Doesn’t believe in such things.” Wilma spoke around a mouthful of scone.

  “Fortune-telling and contacting the dead, the likes of that, you mean,” Nancy said.

  “Says ’tis all foolishness, ’e does. And ’tis best ’e thinks that way after what happened, though I’ve known some of her divinings to be fairly accurate meself.” Her eyes widened and she glanced at Alexandra. “Now, don’t go telling that to the constable.”

  “Of course not,” Alexandra said. She was enjoying the relative calm and once again feeling thankful for Nancy.

  “I’ve known a few as well that could do a fine job of divining the future,” Nancy said.

  “You?” Alexandra said. “You’ve consulted fortune-tellers?”

  Nancy shrugged. “Maybe. Once or twice.”

  “Why on earth would you—”

  “I had my reasons. And ’tis a good thing I bothered to find out what the future held. Otherwise, I’d be in a world of trouble, I would.”