Scarlet Spirits

by Alice Duncan

  “Not my fault. I was ten years old when my agile brain created Rolly. Anyhow, most people think his name is spelled like Sir Walter Raleigh’s, and not R-o-l-l-y.”

  “Yes. I know the story. Desdemona.”

  I sighed deeply. “Desdemona’s not my fault, either! How the heck was I supposed to know when I was ten that Desdemona was a world-famous murder victim? After all, we weren’t forced to read Othello until eighth grade or whenever it was.”

  Sam hugged my shoulders. “Don’t get miffed, sweetheart. I just like to tease you, is all.”

  “I know. And I don’t mind. Too much.”

  “So what does Missus Mainwaring want Rolly to do for her?”

  “I won’t know until I visit her.”

  “Valid point.”

  Lou Prophet, who had been playing gin rummy with my father while Sam and I enjoyed our privacy, opened the front door. “Is it safe for me to go home? Don’t want to interrupt anything interesting.”

  “Mister Prophet!” I cried, trying to sound scandalized and not succeeding.

  With a sigh, Sam rose to his feet and helped me to mine. “Yeah. I guess it’s time for bed. I’ve got to get up early.”

  “Are you working on a homicide?” I asked him, not expecting an answer. Sam didn’t like me to get mixed up in his cases.

  “Not at the moment, but now that you’re up and around, I suspect there will be one soon.”

  Mr. Prophet laughed.

  I didn’t. “Sam!”

  My darling fiancé had called me the Typhoid Mary of Murder in Pasadena a couple of times. But it’s wasn’t my fault I keep stumbling over dead bodies, confound it!

  Drawing me into his arms and planting a kiss on my cheek, Sam murmured, “Don’t forget to call Harold.”

  “After your last comment, maybe I’ll just let you plan the party.”

  “Oh, don’t do that, Miss Daisy. You want all your guests to survive, don’t you?” Mr. Prophet asked jokingly.

  “Most of them,” I said scowling at the two men.

  Sam and Lou chortled as they walked across the street to Sam’s and my new house. I’d be so glad when Sam and I could walk into that house, bold as brass, as a married couple. Oh, well. Won’t be long now, I promised myself.

  I probably shouldn’t have made that promise.

  Four

  Because the weather on Tuesday, March 31, remained fine, I tucked my tarot cards and Ouija board into the gorgeous embroidered bag I’d sewn for the purpose and walked down the street to Mrs. Mainwaring’s mansion.

  The elegant wrought-iron gate had not been locked against me, so I carried my bag of tricks up the wide porch steps and approached the coffin door—and I really wish I’d stop thinking of the thing as a coffin door.

  In spite of my thoughts, before I could either knock or ring, Hattie opened the door, a big, beautiful smile on her chocolaty face. A little hefty, Hattie probably shared the same age as her mistress but, like Mrs. Mainwaring, she remained lovely even in her fifties.

  Mind you, my aunt and my mother were also lovely ladies, and both were well into their fifties, but for some reason—I believed I’ve mentioned it before, in fact—Mrs. Mainwaring and Hattie wore their years particularly well. I suspect having a lot of money helped them in this regard and that they both, even Hattie, slathered creams, lotions and other helpful gunk on their faces nightly. Even daily. I’d learned quite a lot from Harold about how makeup artists dealt with stars in the flickers, so I knew there were many tricks and products useful for keeping the skin upon which the tricks and products were used healthy-looking and…well, not wrinkled or saggy anyway. If you know what I mean.

  “Good morning, Miss Daisy. Missus Mainwaring is waiting for you in the front parlor.”

  “Thank you, Hattie.”

  Rather than leading the way, as Mrs. Pinkerton’s Featherstone invariably did, Hattie walked by my side as we moseyed to the front parlor. Sure enough, Mrs. Mainwaring occupied the room, only today she sat on the bench before her magnificent grand piano, occupied in playing chords. She saw us enter the room, rose from her bench, and approached us, smiling and holding out her hands for me.

  “Thank you so much for attending on me today, Missus Majesty—”

  “Oh,” said I, interrupting, which wasn’t very nice of me but my heart was in the right place, “please call me Daisy. Everyone does.”

  “Daisy,” said she, her glorious smile in place. “Madeline Pinkerton told me Daisy is short for Desdemona.”

  The words were a statement rather than a question but, after taking a glance at the woman who’d spoken, I took a larger chance and answered her unspoken query anyway. “I selected the name Desdemona when I began practicing my craft. I was only ten at the time. If I’d been older or had known better, I’d have selected a more appropriate—or less deadly—appellation.”

  Our voices joined in merry chuckles.

  “I’ll call you Daisy only if you call me Angie,” said she.

  “Very well, Angie. I think your name, Evangeline, is lovely. I’d much rather be an Evangeline than a Desdemona.”

  “Yes, well, I was rather older than ten when I selected it.”

  Huh? Hadn’t she been named Evangeline by her parents? I didn’t ask, because I thought it might be rude to do so, but only continued to smile. However, her comment made me wildly curious.

  Hattie said, “I’ll go make some tea,” Miss Angie.

  “Thank you, Hattie. Bring in some of the lovely pound cake to go along with the tea, please.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Thank you.”

  Golly, I just loved the way Mrs. Mainwaring said please and thank you to her servant. Servants. Perhaps Hattie was the only servant in the place, although I kind of doubted it, the house being huge. Also, it was abundantly clear Mrs. Mainwaring—Angie—suffered no paucity of funds. Nor did her hands look red and raw from scrubbing floors and washing dishes, etc.

  “I hope you’ll enjoy the pound cake, Daisy,” said Angie, leading me to a couple of chairs not far from the piano. “Missus Jackson dehydrated some apricots during last year’s growing season, and this pound cake is one of the marvels she makes with the dried fruit.”

  “It sounds delicious. Um… Did you say your cook’s name is Jackson?”

  Giving me a beautiful and somewhat knowing smile, Angie said, “Indeed, you’re probably familiar with Missus Jackson’s sister-in-law. I believe you also know Missus Jackson’s—sister-in-law to my Missus Jackson—son, Joseph. He guards the gates to the Pinkertons’ property.” She gestured to one of the chairs and took another one opposite. She’d either set or she’d had someone else set a piecrust table between the two chairs.

  “Indeed, I know both of those Jacksons,” I said, pleased to have yet another connection in common with this…unusual woman. And don’t ask me why I considered her unusual, but I did. Perhaps her rare beauty colored my attitude, although I suspect Harold’s hints about a possibly-wild past on her part played an even bigger role in my conclusion. “Missus Jackson and her son, along with a large number of their other relations, came to Pasadena from New Orleans, Louisiana. Well, and some of them came from Tulsa, Oklahoma.”

  My nose wrinkled in spite of myself. The Petrie clan also hailed from Tulsa. The Jacksons were much nicer than the Petries. Except for Regina, of course. “Joseph Jackson has taught me a lot about Caribbean voodoo. Missus Jackson, Joseph’s mother, is an honest-to-goodness voodoo mambo, and she made this juju for me. It’s supposed to keep me safe from harm.” I fished around at my neck, found the chain upon which I’d hung my juju, and lifted it out to show her.

  “Interesting.” Angie reached out and fingered my juju. “And has it worked?”

  Thinking back over the last two or three months, I said honestly, “Well… I supposed it could have done better, but I do believe it has helped once or twice.” After a tiny pause, I added, “I’m not dead, anyway.”

  “Very interesting. And lucky.”

&
nbsp; I hadn’t thought so at the time. However, when Sam, Harold, Mr. Prophet and I had set foot onto the grounds of Gay’s Lion Farm in Westlake Park, the blasted voodoo juju had darned near burned a hole in my chest. It’s doing so, I admit, had sent a pretty clear message, but the rest of the scene had played out downright terrorizingly, if you were me.

  For the record, I’d clad myself in a perfectly splendid sky-blue linen day dress I’d fashioned on my (well, my mother’s, but we shared) White side-pedal sewing machine when I was recovered enough from my injuries to sew once more. The fabric had been clumped in with a year-end sale at Nash’s Dry Goods and Department Store in December, and I’d snapped it up. The color of the dress matched the blue of my eyes, and my tasteful, flesh-colored stockings and bone-colored shoes, cloche hat and handbag went perfectly with the ensemble.

  I then wished I hadn’t thought about anything as being bone-colored.

  What the heck was wrong with me that day? There’s no need to search for an answer to the question. Left-over anxiety still plagued me quite often back then.

  As for Angie, she wore another spectacular Chinese-type outfit that clung to the curves women weren’t supposed to have in 1925, and which didn’t match her eyes, but brought out their dark-coffee coloring anyway. The woman was exquisite, darn it.

  Not that I was jealous or anything. I mean, perhaps I wasn’t a certified beauty, as was Mrs. Evangeline Mainwaring, but my business demanded I keep up my appearance. So, while not precisely gorgeous or glamorous, I was pretty. Very pretty, according to Sam on those rare occasions he didn’t want to murder me for “interfering” in his police cases. Nertz. I never interfered.

  But enough of that. I set my embroidered bag at my feet and drew out the Ouija board. “You did say you wished to consult Rolly via the Ouija board, right?”

  “Yes, thank you. Um…do you also work with tarot cards?”

  “Indeed I do,” said I, withdrawing my tattered tarot deck. I’d been meaning to get a new one for months, but events had intervened, and so far I still had to use the old one. Anyhow, it didn’t matter. Whatever board or cards I used, I could interpret them any old way I wanted to, spiritualism being the utter nonsense it is.

  Please don’t tell my clients I said that.

  “Would you rather begin with the Ouija board or the tarot cards?” I asked politely.

  Pressing an elegant and beautifully manicured finger to her lower lip, Angie tilted her head as she thought. “How about the tarot cards?”

  “Happy to oblige,” I said, and put the board back into its bag.

  Before we could begin, Hattie re-entered the room bearing a tray upon which sat the same elegant china tea service I’d seen on my last visit, along with a plate holding substantial slices of apricot pound cake.

  “But let’s have a cup of tea and a slice of cake before we begin,” said Angie, smiling at her servant.

  I removed the deck of cards from the table, put it back in to its bag and allowed Hattie to serve us each a cup of tea and a plate holding a slice of apricot pound cake.

  Boy that cake was good! I’d have to tell Vi about it.

  As we sipped tea and ate pound cake, which we both did with the delicacy of royal princesses, Angie asked me a few questions. I didn’t mind.

  “Harold Kincaid told me you play the piano beautifully.”

  “Let’s just say I play the piano,” I said with a smile after swallowing a heavenly bite of pound cake.

  “And you sing, too, according to Harold. He said, in fact, you played a role in a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta a couple of years ago.”

  “Now that,” I said with more candor than was usual for me during my first visit with a new client as spiritualist-medium, “was fun. I didn’t want to do it at first, because I don’t generally sing except in a choir and was nervous about having a solo part. But Harold talked me into it, and I was fortunate enough to play Katisha in The Mikado. I’m not allowed to be mean and nasty in my every-day life, but I had to act like a vicious harpy in order to play Katisha. I loved it.”

  Angie laughed. What’s more, her laugh sounded genuine. “What a charming tale,” she said.

  Very well. If she said so. “It turned out to be more fun than I’d bargained for.” If, of course, one didn’t count the nest of murdering scoundrels we’d uncovered during the same eventful span of time.

  “After we finish with the cards and the board, would you like to play my piano? I play, but not well, and the instrument deserves better than I can give it.”

  “Oh, I’d love to!” I cried, again being more candid than usual. Did Evangeline Mainwaring cast spells over people who walked into her house or something? I told myself to act normal. In my case, normal wasn’t candid. Normal for me was as unreadable as a blank page.

  “I have some sheet music in the bench. Perhaps you can play, and we can both sing something together.”

  “Sounds lovely,” I murmured, trying to curb my emotions, which leapt and skylarked in my bound bosom like fairies playing a silly game.

  The conversation, tea and pound cake over with, I got out my tarot deck once more as Hattie cleared the piecrust table of clutter. If you can call a million-dollar silver service and a billion-dollar Coalpoart china service clutter.

  I’m probably exaggerating.

  At any rate, I shuffled the deck, had Angie cut the cards, and I said, “Is there any particular question you’d like to ask of the cards? They can only give answers to the person for whom I’m reading, so don’t ask about anyone else.” I had to keep reminding Mrs. Pinkerton of this salient fact, because she kept forgetting. I sensed Angie Mainwaring didn’t possess Mrs. P’s memory problems.

  “Let me see.” Angie tilted her head again, giving her the appearance of an elfin sprite or some other vaguely ethereal being. Wish I could do that. “I’d like to know what’s in store for us in our lovely new home.”

  So I guess she wasn’t as unlike Mrs. Pinkerton as I’d thought. Clearing my throat, I said, “The cards and the Ouija board can only answer questions posed by the person for whom I’m doing the reading. In other words, while you can ask either tool to offer information about others, you’ll only get answers pertaining to yourself.”

  “Hmm. In that case, what do the cards see in store for me?”

  “Excellent question.”

  I aimed to deal out a five-card horseshoe pattern. Not that it mattered, since I was the reader and could get the cards to say anything I wanted them to say, but I do believe I subconsciously decided on the horseshoe pattern because of Harold’s suspicions about Mrs. M’s background. You know: horses, the Old West, cowboys, gunslingers, bounty hunters, scarlet women; things like that.

  But darned if the cards didn’t prove interesting all on their own.

  The first card I dealt, which resided on the lower left of the horseshoe—Angie’s left, not mine, since I could read both the cards and the board upside-down as well as upside-up at that point in my career—turned out to be the Magician.

  “Interesting,” I said, trying to sound mysterious.

  “What does it mean?”

  “The first card dealt shows your present circumstances. When the Magician turns up at the outset, as it did here, it signifies a new beginning of some sort. However, you might not want to follow the Magician’s guidance. We’ll know more when I’ve dealt the rest of the cards.

  The second card showed the six of cups, reversed. This was most unusual, and I felt my eyes widen.

  “What does it mean?” asked Angie, as if both the card and my reaction to it worried her.

  “At this point,” I told her honestly, “I can’t say, but it usually means, especially in the reversed position as it is here, that something from long ago might be approaching you.”

  She sucked in a breath, as if she didn’t care for my interpretation.

  “Anyway, let’s move on. We won’t know what everything means until we read the entire layout.”

  At the top of the horseshoe as
it faced Angie, the Tower showed its lightning-struck features. Oh, dear. “Um… the position of this card indicates something unexpected will come your way. This card might signify the possibility you’ll have to tear down or demolish old ways or thoughts in order for new ones to prevail.”

  “Lovely,” muttered Angie. She didn’t sound surprised, though. Or happy.

  The fifth card turned out to be the Knight of Swords. Hmmm.

  “Yes?” said Angie as if she weren’t sure she wanted to know.

  “This card signifies your immediate future, and it indicates movement. The Knight of Swords is brilliant but sometimes unkind. I think, in this layout, it means either you or someone near you—or who might be or become near you—will create some kind of change. Um…perhaps it will be positive change, but it’s liable to be somewhat painful before it succeeds in its mission.”

  “Delightful,” said Angie, now starting to sound a little grumpy.

  Therefore, I laid down the last card gently, because I didn’t care for this layout so far. The stupid tarot cards seldom sent such clear messages. I darned near huffed out a breath of relief when the battered old sun showed up. Battered only because my deck was elderly and well-used. “This is a good card,” I said with quite a bit more enthusiasm than I’d meant to show. But golly, until that stupid sun came out, the future had appeared more than a trifle grim for Angie.

  “It’s about time,” said she.

  With a short laugh, I said, “Yes, it is. Anyway, the sun indicates a source of energy and strength. And, if the cards are correct, you’ll probably be needing both of those things.” I hadn’t meant to say the last part of that sentence. Honest.

  “Yes, so I gathered. I had no idea you were so proficient at your chosen art, Daisy.”

  “I’m glad you look upon it as an art. I’ve worked quite hard to achieve whatever proficiency I possess.”

  “I can tell.”

  We both sat back and stared at each other, then glanced at the horseshoe pattern made of tarot cards lying on the piecrust table. Then we looked at each other again and Angie cleared her throat.