a dining room in which a large oblong table was set for something other than a meal, unless one was accustomed to dining with black candles. All the drapes in the room were drawn closed, behind the head of the table was a large wooden box that I recognized from a picture in a magazine as a medium’s cabinet.
The room was set up for a séance! Edward must have noticed me staring, for he said: “I fear my brother Charles has a passion for spiritualism. A medium is staying with us; she is the one in the guest room. I find it thoroughly immoral. Come, this way.”
Save for its chill, the room to which Edward led us could not have been bettered by the finest inn in the realm. There was a huge, four-poster bed and an ornate hearth, which Jenkins swiftly packed with logs and lit. Every wall was adorned with paintings and tapestries.
Once Jenkins had accomplished his tasks and left, Edward opened up. “I really feel I need to apologize for my brothers,” he said. “They have always tended to treat me like a child, but of late…well, I had no idea Phillip would react this way.”
“Why did you send that letter after your father was already dead?” John asked, draping his greatcoat over a chair near the hearth.
“I thought that if the appeal for help came from him, you would respond more so than if it had come from me—someone you had never met. And you did respond. I know it is too late to save father, but I pray now that his killer can be caught.”
“You are convinced that he was murdered?” I asked.
“Absolutely convinced,” Edward said. “You see, I am younger than Phillip and Charles, and because of that I had a different relationship with father than they did. We confided in each other. He knew he was being poisoned, Mrs Watson. He was not delusional, nor was he imagining things, despite what my brothers say.”
“Do you know why anyone would want to kill him?” John asked.
“No,” Edward replied.
“Did your father name a primary heir in his will?” I asked.
“We assume it is Phillip, who is the eldest, though only by couple minutes. You have probably already figured out that Phillip and Charles are twins. But we cannot know for certain because father’s will was nowhere to be found at the time of his death. Phillip has turned this house upside-down looking for it, while Charles conducts those unspeakable—” His mouth seemed to fill with too much distaste to go on.
“Let me guess,” I interjected, “Charles is attempting to raise the spirit of your father to find out where the will is.”
Edward nodded. “To that end he has brought into this house a woman who calls herself Madame Ouida. She is the one conducting these disgraceful séances.”
I glanced at John before asking: “Has anything resulted from these disgraceful séances?”
“I have no firsthand knowledge of them, since I refuse to attend them,” Edward replied. “I consider them an affront to father’s memory. But common sense informs me that the only thing conjured up as a result of Madame Ouida is folly.”
“And what are you filling the heads of your guests with now, Edward?” said Phillip Mandeville, who was standing in the doorway of the room. How long he had been there, none of us could say.
“I was merely bidding Dr and Mrs Watson good night,” the boy said, self-consciously, nodding to us before slipping past his brother and out of the room.
“You must excuse Edward,” Phillip said when he was gone. “Father’s death has hit him very hard, as it did all of us, but he…well, he is young. I came up to tell you that Cook is preparing some food in the kitchen. You may dine there. Sleep well.” And with that he disappeared as quickly as he had appeared.
“How rude!” John started toward the door.
I put a hand on his arm, “We can hardly expect to be treated like invited guests, dear. Help me with my coat.” The fire had begun to warm the room.
“Well, Phillip certainly seems to be in control around here,” John muttered. “I feel sorry for poor Edward. And I must say that I have nothing but feelings of foreboding regarding this séance business. Holmes takes the view that these so-called mediums can be used for sinister purposes.”
“Such as producing a ‘spirit’ that will miraculously point out the whereabouts of false will naming someone other than the eldest son as heir to the estate,” I stated.
“Precisely. And since Charles is the one supporting the efforts to dredge up the spirit of his father, it would logically dictate that he is the one mixed up in all of this, perhaps even his father’s death. What I don’t understand is why he is bothering to go through all this spiritualism balderdash? If the objective is to plant a false will only to subsequently discover it, why not simply do so without all the theatrics?”
“Perhaps the objective is to convince someone of something.”
“You mean, someone like Edward?”
“I don’t know, but perhaps we should attend tonight’s séance and find out.”
After standing in front of the fireplace until adequately thawed, we made our way down to the kitchen (stopping to ask directions from the ubiquitous Jenkins), only to find a rather meagre spread of bread, cold beef, cheese and mustard, prepared by a handsome, buxom woman of forty or so years, whom we had heard referred to only as “Cook.” Her Christian name, we learned, was Gwyneth.
“No one bothered to tell me visitors were coming,” she grumbled, “but then, they wouldn’t, would they?”
“I’m afraid we were a surprise to everyone except young Edward,” I acknowledged, nibbling a bit of cheese.
Immediately she seemed to soften. “Oh, if Master Edward invited you, I suppose it’s all right,” she replied, going about her business, which included wiping recently-washed plates and putting them away, and emptying a vase containing faded, but still fragrant, lilies-of-the-valley.
“He’s a good ’un,” she emphasized, as though to imply that the twins were not. “He looks like his father the most, too. Poor Master Rupert.”
“Have you participated in any of these séances?” I asked, casually.
“Oh, those!” she spat. “Mister Charles makes me sit through of those midnight things, to complete the circle, he says, and I can’t say no. But I don’t like them, or that woman. I should’ve quit this house after the master died, but the twins keep preventing me. Without me, they’d probably starve.”
As she retreated into her dishes, John and I quickly finished our meal in silence and then left the kitchen.
John and I made our way to the staircase, at which point we stopped, startled by the figure that was now descending the steps. She was a lithe creature dressed in a black satin robe, over which her long, dark hair fell like a velvet cascade. Her face was youthful, almost girlish, and in one hand she held a lit black candle, even though there was plenty of illumination from the house’s lamps. Floating down the steps, she stopped and cast a luminescent gaze at us.
“I was told there were strangers in the house,” she said.
“Madame Ouida, I presume?”
