She jumped when the clock on the mantle behind her chimed ten solemn rings into the silence. If she was apt to allow her wayward imagination to run away with her, they almost sounded like death chimes. She gave herself a mental shake and watched Madame Humphries suck in breath after breath, but for the life of her couldn’t feel anything different in the atmosphere within the room. There was certainly nobody behind her. After several long moments of watching Madame Humphries deep breathe, boredom began to sink in and she struggled not to fidget.
Several seats to her left, she caught sight of the yawn Tuppence tried, and failed, to smother, and the physical shake Beatrice gave herself in an attempt to stay awake. She began to turn her thoughts toward how long they should leave Madame Humphries to her heavy breathing before calling a halt when the lady in question suddenly sat bolt upright in her chair. Her eyes widened and she stared almost transfixed at a spot just above Harriett’s right shoulder. Harriett daren’t look behind her. Given that Madame was staring almost straight at her, Harriett daren’t roll her eyes at the theatrics but struggled to keep her face impassive at the woman’s continued dramatics.
“I come forward to give you a message,” Madame intoned in a voice that was as high-pitched as she could make it without being an unintelligible squeak.
“Who are you, my friend?” Miss Hepplethwaite asked in an encouraging voice.
“My name is Doreen, and I give Minerva my deepest regards,” Madame gasped several times and began to shake. Harriett shared a worried look with Babette, who merely shrugged as though to say ‘let it carry on for now’. Harriett turned back to Madame with a frown and listened. She couldn’t remember much about Mrs Bobbington’s mother, but was aware that her name was Doreen.
“Oh, mother, it is so good to hear your voice again,” Minerva trembled. “Do you have a message for me?”
“Yes, I do Minerva, dearest. You must feed the cat well.”
“Cat? But I don’t have a cat,” Minerva wailed and stared at Madame Humphries in consternation.
“Death comes to Tipton Hollow,” Madame boomed in a voice that had suddenly changed to a deep boom. She threw her head back and, despite the coolness within the room, began to sweat profusely. “Into the darkness beware!”
“What?” Minerva quivered in fear. “I am afraid of the darkness, you know I am,” she quivered and turned fear-filled eyes on the rest of the group in mute search of support.
“No, not you,” Madame snapped in a husky growl. “Into the darkness beware!”
“Beware of what?” Harriett snapped impatiently. She was fairly certain that this was nothing but reasonable acting, and had no intention of allowing anyone as kindly and harmless as Minerva Bobbington, to be upset so unduly. “I demand you stop this nonsense at once. If you are going to give us messages then do so but make sense, otherwise we shall move on.”
“Harriett, dear, you must not talk to them so,” Miss Hepplethwaite remonstrated. Now that Madame was in her ‘trance’, the bird-like woman had seemingly lost her nervous persona and had replaced it with protective arrogance.
“Well, I ask you,” Harriett scoffed. “Into the darkness beware? It could mean anything.”
“Be afraid of the darkness. Don’t find comfort in shadows, take solace in light. Murder. Death. Darkness and light. Death comes to Tipton Hollow tonight,” Madame Humphries chanted. Her voice see-sawed sinisterly between high pitched and husky as though she couldn’t be certain which voice she wanted to use.
Despite her doubts, Harriett felt panic rise at the almost ethereal glow that began to emanate from behind the Madame Humphries. It was slightly greenish in colour, and cast an eerie shadow over the clairvoyant’s face that made everyone gasp.
“Good Lord, would you look at that?” Mr Montague gasped and clutched at Harriett’s fingers tightly.
“What is it?” Tuppence gasped, her voice fuelled with curiosity and horror.
“I don’t know, but I think we have to stop this now,” Babette replied firmly.
“Murder. Death. Darkness and light. Death comes to Tipton Hollow tonight.”
“Stop it!” Miss Smethwick snapped. She yanked her hands away from those seated beside her and jumped to her feet. “Stop this nonsense at once.”
“Oh, sit down, woman,” Miss Haversham snapped. “Can’t you see this is getting interesting?” Despite her bravado, Miss Haversham looked a little shaken and began to grope around under her chair for her sherry glass.
For the first time that evening Miss Smethwick didn’t seem able to decide whether she wanted to leave or not. She stared hesitantly at the strange glow that surrounded the clairvoyant, and clearly couldn’t decide whether it was poppycock and she should go home, or she should stay and see if anything happened that she could gossip about in the morning. In the end, curiosity won through and, with an indignant huff, she resumed her seat.
“What do we do now?” Beatrice whispered to Miss Hepplethwaite when Madame Humphries had lapsed into silence and began to hum a nonsensical tune.
“Wait, dear. She hasn’t finished yet.” Miss Hepplethwaite had clearly experienced this before and had yet to take her eyes off her associate.
“What is that glow?” Constance whispered, more out of curiosity than fear.
“It is evidence that spirit is coming through. Keep quiet.”
Duly chastised, Harriett sat back in her chair and watched the spectacle. She was only vaguely aware of Mrs Bobbington groping around under her chair in search of the drink she had left their earlier, but couldn’t seem to tear her gaze aware from the strange vision of Madame Humphries, who was bathed in a green glow.
How could it be possible? What was it? She was fairly certain that spirit didn’t show themselves as green people. After all, the pictures of the good Lord and the angels in church depicted them all bathed in a white or yellow angelic glow. Where did green fit into it?
Suddenly, Mrs Bobbington began to make choking noises. A gurgled cough escaped her and she began to flail her arms around wildly.
“What’s the matter with her?” Babette gasped and tried to stand only to be yanked back down by Miss Hepplethwaite’s hold. She pulled her hands free with a glare and rose to her feet.
“What is it, Minerva? What’s wrong?” Mr Bentwhistle demanded. His voice was laced with panic when he moved to stand beside Minerva Bobbington, only for her to clutch wildly at his jacket with desperate fingers.
“Get the lights on somebody, I cannot see a blessed thing,” Miss Haversham boomed.
“What’s wrong with her? What is she doing?” Miss Smethwick snapped. She glanced around the room as though in search of divine inspiration but nobody bothered to answer her.
Madame Humphries made no attempt to move. With the gas lamps lit she didn’t glow any more, but nobody paid that much attention to her as she began to suck in huge gulps of air. Ever the faithful assistant, Miss Hepplethwaite rushed to her side and began to make soothing noises that were as nonsensical as the last few minutes.
Everyone’s attention was firmly fixed on Minerva Bobbington’s florid face. Harriett could see desperation in the older woman’s gaze and she stared around the room wide eyed. Her hands began to claw at her throat and she gurgled, coughed and tried to gasp as her puce face turned a deep purple.
Within seconds her eyes rolled back into her head and she fell face-forward onto the floor. Silence settled over the room.
“Someone go and get a doctor,” Mr Bentwhistle snapped as he dropped to his knees to study Minerva’s now mottled face. Her eyes were fixed wide and stared blankly at the fireplace in a way that told everyone that death had indeed come to Tipton Hollow tonight.
“Oh God, is she dead?” Harriett whispered. She didn’t need Mr Bentwhistle to confirm it; the horrified look on his face said it all.
“The spirits said,” Madame Humphries wailed. “They told us.”
“Oh, shut up woman,” Miss Haversham snapped. She removed the knee rug from the back of one of the wing
chairs beside the fire and draped it carefully over Minerva’s body once Mr Bentwhistle had closed her eyes.
“Is there nothing we can do?” Tuppence whispered but she knew there wasn’t.
“She is gone, my dear. Whatever took her was swift,” Mr Montague’s face was solemn and regretful as he studied the group. “There was nothing any of us could do to help her.”
“Poor dear,” Beatrice murmured softly.
“Someone needs to fetch the constable.” Babette wrung her hands and began to fret about the gossip this would bring upon them. Right now, the last thing she needed were the eyes of the village upon her, but that thought was on a purely selfish level and unfair on poor Minerva. She glanced out of the rain-lashed window with a shiver.
“I’ll go,” Mr Montague offered. Nobody voiced any objection and silence settled over everyone as he quickly left the house.
“Why do we need the constable?” Madame Humphries demanded. Her eyes were wide and frightened. “I mean, how do we know she has not died of natural causes?”
“That’s just it,” Harriet snapped impatiently. For once she forgot her manners and lost her patience with the clairvoyant. “We don’t know that she died of natural causes. She seemed to have been perfectly fine all evening. Why now? Why has she suddenly keeled over?” She lifted a cautionary finger when Madame Humphries took a breath to reply. “If you say that the spirits told us, then I am afraid that I am going to have to throw you out of here.”
Madame lapsed into disgruntled silence. She was nothing if not intuitive and had finally picked up on the growing unease within the room.
“I cannot ever remember seeing anyone die of natural causes like this. I mean, if she had a heart seizure or something, she would have clutched her chest, not her throat,” Mr Bentwhistle muttered as he studied the body beneath the blanket almost clinically.
“Please? Do we have to discuss this right now?” Constance gasped. Unable to ignore the shaking in her knees for a moment longer, she slumped into the nearest chair and turned her gaze away from the disturbing sight of Minerva’s body lying in the middle of the rug.
While none of them put voice to the fact, they had indeed had a warning of a death in Tipton Hollow, but could it be a spiritual warning? Or was there a murderer in their midst?
Harriett moved closer to the fire and was grateful for its meagre warmth. She tried not to stare, she really did, but she found herself studying each occupant of the room individually. They all looked just as shaken as she was, but could one of them be responsible for the cold-blooded death of the woman at their feet? She swallowed and turned away.
While the minutes ticked by she gave herself a stern lecture. There was nothing to say that Minerva’s death hadn’t been of natural causes. It was very important that she not let the tension, nervousness and discomfort generated by the séance cloud her judgement and her thinking.
It seemed an indeterminable age before Mr Montague returned. His face was florid and he panted from the speed he had run to the constable’s house, but he waved his hand at the sherry Harriett held out to him.
“I won’t, if you don’t mind Harriett.” It wasn’t lost to him that Minerva had been drinking sherry before she had died. Not that he thought Harriett was involved in anything underhand, but he had rather gone off sherry now. “I couldn’t find the constable, but Charles has gone to the Constabulary in Great Tipton to fetch someone,” he gasped and took a seat before the fire. “It’s awful weather out there tonight. I don’t relish anyone having to journey out in that.”
“Do you think she drank the sherry and it went down the wrong way?” Eloisa asked with a frown. So far this evening she had been relatively quiet, but she was clearly observant and had been watching events unfold with a keen eye.
“I have had things go down the wrong way several times, as I am sure that we all have, but I have never choked like that,” Tuppence replied in confusion.
“What do we do now?” Beatrice asked nervously. She hated the thought of having to walk home alone, especially after the message warning them to be afraid of the dark, but she didn’t relish the thought of having to stay in Harriett’s house for too much longer. Her gaze turned toward Harriett, and she felt a pang of sympathy for her friend. She had considered her life-long friend to have been very brave to allow Tipton Hollow’s first Psychic Circle to be held in her home. How she was coping now with a death in her very own parlour, heaven only knew. Beatrice mentally winced at that and quickly turned her thoughts toward the village constable. With any luck, he shouldn’t be too much longer. After all, Tipton Hollow was a fairly small village where nothing much happened. After his nightly rounds, he would almost certainly go home with the intent of retiring to bed. Once he got home, he would receive the message and make his way over to Harriett’s house, inspect the body and then they could all go home. At least she fervently hoped that would be the case.
“We have to wait. We don’t know if Minerva died of natural causes or not. Because of that, we cannot simply go home and leave her here in the middle of the rug. Not only would it be unfair and highly ill mannered of us to leave Harriett to deal with a body by herself, but I am certain that the constable will want to ask us a few questions about what happened,” Mr Montague replied matter-of-factly.
Out of all of them, he appeared to be the one who was handling the crisis the best. Although his breaths still came in heavy pants, and his cheeks were still flushed with exertion, he exuded a gentle reassurance that made Harriett intensely glad that he was there.
“Thank you, Hugo,” Harriett whispered. While she was glad that her Uncle Charles had gone for help in Great Tipton, she knew that he would be as useless as a colander in a rain-storm and didn’t handle crises well at all. He would undoubtedly keep his distance and allow Babette to deal with the ‘household’ matters of arranging the removal of the body. Still, at least he had agreed to be parted from his beer long enough to get help.
“I don’t know anything,” Madame Humphries wailed, casting desperate eyes around the room. “How can I be questioned? I was in a trance at the time. You saw me,” she turned toward Miss Hepplethwaite, who once again began to make soothing noises. “I was not aware of what was going on in the room,” she added firmly.
“But you were here, and that’s enough,” Mr Bentwhistle argued, his voice as stern as the gaze he landed on her. Whatever else Madame Humphries was about to say remained unspoken and she, along with the rest of the room’s occupants, lapsed into disgruntled silence.
CHAPTER FOUR
The next hour passed incredibly slowly. The eleventh hour came and went as the clock on the mantle ticked steadily on. At a quarter to midnight, the rattle of the front door and the dull murmur of voices heralded the arrival of Charles and the village constable, Fred.
“Oh, thank heavens you are here,” Babette gasped and hurried to the door. She flicked a quick, almost dismissive glance at Charles when she reached the hallway. Her attention was locked on the men who entered the house behind him. She nodded politely to Fred, and beckoned them all inside and out of the rain. Fred paused just inside the hallway and motioned to the men behind him.
“This is Detective Inspector Bosville, from Great Tipton Constabulary and his colleague, Detective Brown,” he motioned to the tall, distinguished looking man behind the policeman. “You know Doctor Woods.”
Babette nodded at each man and entered the parlour. “Everything has remained untouched, gentlemen. To be quite frank with you, we didn’t know what to do.”
Harriett waited anxiously for the men to appear in the doorway. She had no idea why she felt nervous because she had done nothing wrong, but the idea of having policemen in the house unnerved her. She was a churchgoing person who lived well and abided by the law, just like everyone else of her acquaintance. Although she knew the village constable, Fred Dinage, well, she had never had any business dealings with him before. She had no idea what to expect.
She stood beside the hearth and tu
rned her curious gaze toward the rest of the men who entered, presumably from the constabulary; some detective something or other. She swallowed nervously and tried to keep her face impassive while the brandy she had consumed earlier began to gurgle alarmingly in her stomach.
She nodded respectfully to Doctor Woods, then turned her attention to the man who stood beside the village’s doctor. Detective Isaac Brown was of average height with short dark brown hair. His almost angular face was so severe that it was almost forbidding and was accompanied by a dark scowl. His suit was certainly nothing out of the ordinary, but the way he carried himself gave him an air of command that wasn’t lost on anyone within the room. He ignored everyone, and skirted around Fred to kneel beside the body to inspect it. When he lifted the blanket to study Minerva’s body, Harriett quickly turned her gaze toward the tall man who remained beside Fred.
She physically jumped when she realised that he was staring directly at her. His emerald eyes were almost scouring her soul as he studied her and she struggled not to squirm beneath the intensity of his gaze. She understood in that instant exactly why he was in the job he was in. If she was a criminal and this man wanted to know something, she would tell him what he wanted to know just to get that intensely probing gaze off her.
She turned to Babette, and caught sight of Charles as he slid past the parlour doorway. The heavy thud of his booted feet as he climbed the stairs signalled his intention to retire to bed without a word to anyone. Rather disconcertingly, he made no attempt to enquire what had happened, or offer Babette, or Harriett, any support whatsoever. Harriett wondered why the man was there at all. Charles usually got up early, headed to the bakery at the back of the tea shop and worked there until tea-time. He returned home only to have his evening meal and then headed down to the pub where he would remain until bed-time. It seemed that nothing was going to deprive Charles of his sleep. Not even the death of Minerva Bobbington in his own front parlour.
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