Victoria Thompson - Murder On Waverly Place

“Who told you that?” Malloy asked with interest.

“Professor Rogers was kind enough to give me the information. He’s been quite worried about her, and he asked if I could locate Mrs. Brandt and make sure Madame Serafina is all right.”

“She’s just fine,” Malloy told him, “so you can be on your way.”

Sharpe gave him a look that had probably intimidated many underlings and a multitude of servants, but it didn’t phase Malloy, who gave it right back. “I told you,” Sharpe tried indignantly, “I have business with Madame Serafina.”

“What kind of business?” Malloy insisted.

“Mr. Sharpe,” Serafina said, surprising them all. While they had been arguing, she had come out and stood just inside the office doorway. She still wore the clothes she had worn to the morgue, the ones that made her look like an ordinary young woman, but something about her had changed ever so subtly now that Sharpe was here, Sarah noticed. She carried herself differently, and her voice was lower, more sensual. “How kind of you to come.”

“Madame Serafina,” he said, brushing past Sarah and Frank to meet her as she crossed Sarah’s office, coming toward them. “How are you? You look like you’ve been crying,” he added with a glance of accusation at Sarah and Malloy.

“I am still mourning poor Mrs. Gittings,” she said without a trace of irony. “She was like a mother to me. I do not know how I can go on without her.” She held out her hand, and he grasped it eagerly with both of his.

“But you must!” Sharpe said. “Your work is too important. That’s why I’ve come, to make sure you can continue.”

“You are very good to me.” The look she gave him would have melted a much stronger man than John Sharpe.

Sarah suddenly realized that with Mrs. Gittings and Nicola both dead, Serafina was now free to take any of the offers that Mrs. Gittings had refused on her behalf. Sharpe’s offer to set her up in a house of her own had certainly been the most attractive and by far the most honorable.

“Mr. Sharpe,” Mrs. Decker greeted him as she came into the room as well.

Sharpe looked up in surprise and instantly dropped Serafina’s hand, as if he had been caught doing something unseemly. “Mrs. Decker, what are you doing here?”

“I’m visiting my daughter, Mr. Sharpe, and I must admit I’m amazed to see you here. However did you find us?”

“Mrs. Brandt is listed in the City Directory,” Sharpe said a bit defensively. “It was merely a matter of giving my driver the address.”

“But how did you know Madame Serafina was here?” Mrs. Decker asked with interest.

“The Professor told him,” Malloy reported before Sharpe could reply.

Sarah saw Catherine and Maeve lurking in the shadows just beyond the door. They would be watching the scene with avid interest. The only thing missing was Mrs. Ellsworth, and she was bound to show up any minute with a cake in hand to find out who Sarah’s latest visitor was.

“The Professor was worried about Madame Serafina,” Sharpe quickly explained.

“Then why didn’t he come himself?” Mrs. Decker said, asking the question Sarah and Malloy should have thought to ask. “If Mrs. Brandt is in the City Directory, he could have found her as easily as you did.”

“He… Well, he… That is…” Sharpe stammered. He really was a terrible liar, Sarah observed.

“What business was it you needed to discuss with Madame Serafina?” Sarah asked to save him from further embarrassment.

Sharpe frowned. “It’s private.”

Then Serafina made a small sound, closed her eyes, and held out her hand until her palm rested lightly on Sharpe’s chest. “You have come to make me an offer. It was very difficult for you to forget your pride and ask again when I had refused you before, but you must follow your heart, as your wife told you to do.”

“Yes, yes,” Sharpe said in happy amazement.

“But you did something you did not want to do, something you are ashamed to tell me,” she continued as if he hadn’t spoken.

“No, I wouldn’t…” he tried, but she ignored his protest.

“The Professor, he wanted money,” she said. Then she gasped, as if surprised by her own revelation and her eyes flew open. “Did you give him money?” she asked in alarm.

Sharpe looked around again, as if trying to judge if he needed to be concerned about the opinion of anyone present. Apparently, he decided he didn’t. “Only a little,” he finally admitted.

“That is not true,” Serafina informed him imperiously.

Sharpe actually quailed under her rebuke. “I only gave him a small amount, just what I was carrying with me.”

“He would not betray me for a small amount.” Her certainty was absolute, and Sarah wondered how she could be so sure of the Professor’s loyalty.

Sharpe proved to be no match for her will. “I had to promise him more before he would tell me where you were.”

“I would have told you for nothing,” Frank informed him.

Sharpe glared at him and would have responded, but Serafina cut him off. “You must not give him any more money. He will run away, and we cannot let him run away.”

“Why not?” Sarah asked, stepping forward, intrigued by Serafina’s performance and wanting to see how far she would go with it.

“He knows who killed Mrs. Gittings.”

“How do you know?” Malloy demanded.

“I feel it.”

“Then why didn’t he tell me when I questioned him?” Malloy asked with a trace of irritation.

“He may not realize that he knows,” Serafina said.

“You should go see him,” Maeve said, surprising everyone, who turned to where she stood with Catherine in the doorway. “Maybe you can help him remember.”

Serafina dropped the hand she’d been holding to Sharpe’s chest and turned to Sarah. “She is right. We must go back to that house. The answer is there.”

DEAD SILENCE GREETED SERAFINA’S SUGGESTION. AS THE technical hostess to this motley group, however unwilling she may have been in the role, Sarah felt obligated to break the awkward silence.

“What do you think will happen if you go back to the house?”

Serafina turned her remarkable eyes on Sarah, and once again Sarah marveled at the charismatic power the girl possessed and her seeming ability to turn it off and on at will. “We will find out who killed Mrs. Gittings.”

“How will you do that?” Sarah asked.

Serafina raised her chin. “The spirits will tell me.” She turned the force of her gaze back to Sharpe. “You will return with me, will you not?”

He didn’t look as if the idea appealed to him very much. “Is that really necessary?” he tried. “I thought the Italian boy killed her.”

The girl’s eyes blazed with fury. “No, he did not.” She turned to Malloy. “I will prove he did not, but I must return to the place where it happened, so the spirits can speak to me.”

“Couldn’t you speak to them here, dear?” Mrs. Decker asked, obviously trying to be helpful. No one wanted to go back to that house on Waverly Place.

“They will not be able to find me here,” Serafina declared.

“I don’t know why not,” Malloy murmured for Sarah’s ears only. “You’re in the City Directory.”

Startled into a laugh, Sarah had to cough to cover it. Serafina gave her a disapproving glance, then turned her attention back to Sharpe. “We must reenact the séance,” she was saying. “Everyone must be in their exact places.”

“I can’t imagine the others will want to do that,” Mrs. Decker protested in alarm. “Mrs. Burke has taken to her bed from the shock. She couldn’t possibly go out.”

“I could take her place,” Maeve offered.