“I arrived at a few minutes after half past nine,” Kingsley began. “We were due to begin at a quarter to ten.”
“Were the arrangements long-standing?” Pitt interrupted.
“They were made the previous week,” Kingsley answered. “It was my fourth visit.”
“With the same three people?” Pitt said quickly.
Kingsley hesitated only a moment. “No. It was only the third with exactly the same.”
“Who were they?”
This time there was no hesitation at all. “I don’t know.”
“But you were there together?”
“We were there at the same time,” Kingsley corrected. “In no sense were we together, except that . . . that it helps to have the force of several personalities present.” He added no explanation as to what he meant.
“Can you describe them?”
“If you know I was there, Superintendent, my name and where to find me, do you not also know the same of them?”
A flash of interest crossed Tellman’s face. Pitt saw it in the corner of his vision. Kingsley was at last behaving like the leader of men he was supposed to be. Pitt wondered what shattering thing had happened to him that he had ever thought of turning to a spiritualist. It was painful and repellent intruding into the wounds of people’s lives, but the motives of murder were too often hidden within terrible events in the past, and to understand the core of it he had to read it all. “I know the name of the woman,” he replied to the question. “Not the third person. Miss Lamont designated him in her diary only by a little diagram, a cartouche.”
Kingsley frowned slightly. “I have no idea why. I can’t help you.”
“Can you describe him to me . . . or her?”
“Not with any accuracy,” Kingsley replied. “We did not go there as a social event. I had no desire to be more than civil to anyone else present. It was a man of average height, as far as I recall. He wore an outdoor coat in spite of the season, so I don’t know his build. His hair seemed light rather than dark, possibly gray. He remained in the shadows towards the back of the room, and the lamps were red, so the light distorted. I imagine I might know him if we were to meet again, but I am not certain.”
“Who was the first to arrive?” Tellman cut across.
“I was,” Kingsley replied. “Then the woman.”
“Can you describe the woman?” Pitt interrupted, thinking of the long, pale hair around Maude Lamont’s sleeve button.
“I thought you knew who she was?” Kingsley retorted.
“I have a name,” Pitt explained. “I would like your impression of her appearance also.”
Kingsley resigned himself. “She was tall, taller than most women, very elegant, with pale blond hair dressed in a sort of . . .” He gave up.
Pitt felt a knot tighten almost to suffocation inside himself. “Thank you,” he murmured. “Please continue.”
“The other man was the last to come,” Kingsley resumed obediently. “As far as I can recall, he was last on the other occasions as well. He came in through the garden doors, and left before we did.”
“Who left last?” Pitt asked him.
“The woman,” Kingsley said. “She was still there when I went.” He looked unhappy, as if the answer gave him no satisfaction or sense of escape.
“The other man went out of the garden doors?” Tellman asked for confirmation.
“Yes.”
“Did Miss Lamont go with him and lock the gate to Cosmo Place after him?”
“No, she remained with us.”
“The maid?”
“She left shortly after we arrived. Went out of the kitchen door, I suppose. Saw her walk across the garden just about dusk. She was carrying a lantern, which she left outside the front door.”
Pitt visualized the garden path from the back of the house on Southampton Row. It led only to the door in the wall and Cosmo Place. “She went out of the side door?” he said aloud.
“Yes,” Kingsley agreed. “Probably why she took the lantern. Left it on the front step. Heard her footsteps on the gravel, and saw the light.”
Tellman finished the meaning for him. “So either the woman killed Miss Lamont, or you or the other man came back through the side gate and killed her. Or someone we know nothing about came for a later meeting of some sort and Miss Lamont herself let them in through the front door. But that was unlikely, and according to the maid, Miss Lamont was usually tired after a séance and retired to her bed when her guests left. There was no one else in the diary. No one else has been seen or heard. What time did you leave, General Kingsley?”
“About quarter to midnight.”
“Late to have a further client,” Pitt remarked.
Kingsley rubbed his hand over his brow as if his head pained him. He looked weary and beaten. “I really have no idea what happened after I left,” he said gently. “She seemed perfectly well then, and not in any state of anxiety or distress, certainly not as if she were afraid of anyone, or indeed expected anyone. She was tired, very tired. Calling upon the spirits of those gone before was always a very exhausting experience. It usually left her with barely the strength to wish us good-night and to see us to the door.” He stopped, staring miserably into emptiness stretching ahead of him.
Tellman glanced at Pitt and away again. The depth of emotion in Kingsley, and the bizarre subject of the discussion, embarrassed him. It was plain in the rigidity of his body and the way his hands fidgeted on his lap.
“Can you describe the evening for us, please, General Kingsley?” Pitt prompted. “What happened after you arrived and were all assembled? Was there a conversation?”
“No. We . . . we were all there for our own reasons. I had no desire to share mine with others, and I believe they felt the same.” Kingsley did not look at him as he said this, as if the matter were still private. “We sat around the table and waited while Miss Lamont concentrated upon . . . summoning the spirits.” He spoke hesitantly. He must have been aware at least of Tellman’s disbelief and a hovering between pity and contempt. He seemed almost to breathe it in the air.
Pitt was uncertain what he felt, not contempt so much as unease, a kind of oppression. He could not have said why, but he believed it was not right to be attempting to reach the spirits of the dead, whether it was possible or not.
“Where did you sit?” he said aloud.
“Miss Lamont at the head of the table in the tall-backed chair,” he replied. “The woman opposite her, the man to her left with his back to the windows, I to her right. We held hands, naturally.”
Tellman fidgeted slightly in his seat.
“Is that usual?” Pitt asked.
“Yes, to prevent suspicion of fraud. Some mediums will even sit inside a cabinet to be doubly restrained, and I believe Miss Lamont did that on occasion, but I have not seen her do it.”
“Why not?” Tellman asked abruptly.
“There was no need,” Kingsley replied with a swift, angry glance at him. “We were all believers. We would not have insulted her with such a . . . a piece of physical nonsense. We were seeking knowledge, a greater truth, not cheap sensations.”
“I see,” Pitt said quietly, without looking at Tellman. “Then what happened?”
“As far as I can recall, Miss Lamont went into a trance,” Kingsley replied. “She seemed to rise in the air several inches above her chair, and after some moments she spoke in a totally different voice. I . . .” He looked down at the floor. “I believe it was her spirit guide speaking to us through her.” The words were so quiet Pitt had to strain to hear them. “He wished to know what we had come to find out. He was a young Russian boy who had died in terrible cold . . . in the far north, up near the Arctic Circle.”
This time Tellman made no movement at all.
“And what did any of you reply?” Pitt asked. He needed to know what Rose Serracold had attended for, but he was afraid that if Kingsley gave that answer first, and saw or sensed Tellman’s response, he would then conceal his own reasons. And perhaps they, too, were relevant. After all, he had written the virulent political attack on Aubrey Serracold, albeit without knowing he was the husband of the woman who sat beside him at Maude Lamont’s table. Or had he?