Victoria Thompson - Murder On Waverly Place

“Because…” The Professor caught himself, sitting up straight and staring at Frank again. “Hasn’t anyone told you?”

“Told me what?”

“This is her house.”

“Whose house?”

“Mrs. Gittings. This is her house. She is Madame’s sponsor.”

Suddenly, everything made sense. That was why Mrs. Gittings was at every séance. That was why nobody knew anything about her. Sponsor was a nice word. Mrs. Gittings was really the brains behind the whole séance scam. They all worked for her.

Frank nodded his understanding. “How long has this been going on?”

“Almost a year. Madame’s talent was beginning to draw the attention of some important clients.”

Frank thought of Mrs. Felix Decker. “And starting to bring in a lot of money,” he guessed.

“Madame cares nothing for that,” the Professor insisted. “She only wishes to help others.”

Sure, Frank thought. That’s why she charged so much for her services. “But Nicola was causing trouble,” he guessed.

“He’s an ignorant child. He was jealous of Madame’s success, and he was trying to convince her to leave here.”

“Why would she do that?”

The Professor shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “They are lovers,” he admitted. “When Mrs. Gittings discovered Madame, she was supporting him by telling fortunes on street corners. Mrs. Gittings recognized Madame’s true talents and brought her here. Madame insisted on bringing Nicola along. She wouldn’t come without him, in fact, and so we put him to work. For a while, he wasn’t any trouble.”

Frank could imagine what happened next. Nicola saw how much money Serafina brought in with her séances and decided they didn’t need Mrs. Gittings and the Professor anymore. “So Mrs. Gittings wanted to get rid of him.”

The Professor nodded. “They had a terrible fight about it last night.”

“Did she throw him out?”

“No,” the Professor admitted angrily. “Madame refused to continue her work unless Mrs. Gittings allowed him to stay.”

“Sounds like a compromise,” Frank observed.

“One that pleased no one,” the Professor said bitterly. “So Nicola found a solution of his own.”

Someone knocked on the door. Frank muttered a curse and got up to answer it. The cop guarding the front door grinned sheepishly. “Sorry to bother you, but Donatelli’s here with a lady. She says she’s come for Mrs. Brandt.”

“Wait here,” Frank told the Professor.

He stepped into the hallway and saw Sarah Brandt standing there. The sight of her brought him a surge of unreasonable joy even though he hated the very thought of having her at a murder scene. She gave him the smile he loved, which only made it worse.

He nodded politely, careful not to say her name. “Your mother’s in there,” he said, nodding toward the office door, which opened as he spoke. Mrs. Decker stuck her head out.

“Mother,” Sarah said.

“Oh, Sarah, I’m so glad you’re here,” Mrs. Decker said with relief.

Then the door to the parlor opened and Madame Serafina cried, “Mrs. Brandt, oh, please, you’ve got to help us!”

Before anyone could stop her, she threw herself into Sarah’s arms and began to sob.

Sarah looked up at Frank accusingly.

“I haven’t even talked to her yet,” he defended himself.

“They’re going to arrest Nicola,” Madame claimed to Sarah. “But he didn’t do anything. I swear to you, he’s innocent!”

“Who’s Nicola?” Sarah and her mother asked in unison.

“Her lover,” Frank said.

This shocked Sarah and her mother and made Madame sob more loudly.

They all heard a disturbance upstairs followed by shouting. Nicola was probably trying to get downstairs to find out why his lover was crying. Frank noticed Gino Donatelli standing behind Sarah. “Donatelli, go upstairs and see what you can get out of that Nicola fellow.”

Donatelli pushed by them and hurried up the stairs. Frank turned back to Sarah and her mother, who were still trying to comfort Madame Serafina.

“What on earth is going on?” Sarah asked him.

He wanted to tell her it was all none of her business and why didn’t she just take her mother home and forget she’d ever been in this house? He wanted to get her as far away from here as possible and erase any memory of Madame Serafina from her mind. He wanted to perform a miracle. Unfortunately, it was far too late even for a miracle.

Instead he sighed with resignation and said, “Why don’t you take Madame Serafina back into the parlor and get her calmed down?”

SARAH COULD SEE HOW MUCH MALLOY WANTED HER OUT of there. He hated involving her in murder investigations. How many times had they both vowed she’d never be involved again? She almost wished she could oblige him this time, but with the poor girl sobbing in her arms, she couldn’t possibly walk out, not even if it meant protecting her mother from scandal. In point of fact, her mother didn’t look like she was all too eager to leave either.

“There, now,” Mrs. Decker was saying soothingly. “Crying isn’t going to help anything. Why don’t you come back inside here with us.”

“You won’t leave me alone?” Madame said, looking more like the young girl that she was than the sophisticated spiritualist she’d pretended to be.

“Absolutely not,” Sarah assured her, pretending not to notice the face Malloy made when she said it. She turned the girl and walked her back into the parlor, her mother close behind. When the doors were safely shut behind them, Sarah seated the girl on one of the sofas and sat down beside her. “Can I get you something? Some tea?”

“No, no,” Madame said quickly. “I… What will they do with Nicola?”

“Who’s this Nicola?” Mrs. Decker asked, taking a seat in the chair beside the sofa.

“He is my fidanzato ,” she said. “We are to be married. I am not sure of the word…”

“Fiancé?” Sarah supplied.

“Yes,” she said. Her remarkable eyes shone with unshed tears.

“But why would he want to kill Mrs. Gittings?” Sarah asked.

“He would not,” Madame assured her. “He would not want to kill anyone, but the police will accuse him, and because he is poor, no one will believe him, and he will hang-” Her voice caught on another sob.

“Slow down!” Sarah cried. “You’re getting way ahead of yourself. I promise you, Detective Malloy won’t arrest him if he’s innocent.”

“How can you know? He is the police!” Madame reminded her tragically.

She was right, of course. The New York Police were notorious for arresting whoever might be handy, with no regard for what the truth might be. Unless someone paid them a “reward” to find the real culprit, anyone might be charged and convicted of a crime. This Nicola sounded like someone who could easily fall into that category. “Mr. Malloy is a friend of mine,” Sarah said. “That’s why my mother insisted that he be called in to investigate.”

“You know a policeman?” Madame asked, staring at Sarah and her mother in amazement. People like Mrs. Decker did not know policemen.

“Yes, we do,” Mrs. Decker confirmed. “Mr. Malloy will make sure that the real killer is found and punished.”

Sarah hoped he would be able to do this. Right now, she knew too little of what had transpired here to be sure. “Can you tell me what happened? The policeman who came to get me didn’t know very much except that Mrs. Gittings had been stabbed.”

Madame straightened, looking back at Sarah with some apprehension. “I do not know what happened,” she said rather stiffly. “I was… Yellow Feather was there. I was in a trance. The first thing I knew was Mrs. Burke was screaming that Mrs. Gittings had fainted.”