Amanda Quick: Wait Until Midnight

"Yes, that's true. Mrs. Delmont herself opened the door to us. She said she always gave her housekeeper the night off on séance evenings because she could not go into a proper trance if there was anyone other than the sitters present. Indeed, the comment made me wonder if perhaps—"

"Yes?" he prompted. "What did it cause you to wonder about, Mrs. Fordyce?"

"Well, if you must know, it occurred to me that perhaps Mrs. Delmont did not like to have her housekeeper present while she conducted a séance because she was afraid that the woman would become wise to her tricks and perhaps expose her in exchange for a bribe. Psychical investigators have been known to pay the servants who work for mediums to spy on their employers, you see."

"A clever notion, Mrs. Fordyce" Adam looked approving of her logic. "I suspect that you are right. Mediums are notoriously secretive."

"How did you learn my name and address?"

"When I discovered the body, I also found a list of the sitters who had attended the final séance. The addresses had been put down alongside the names."

"I see"

Her imagination conjured up a disturbing image of Adam Grove methodically searching Mrs. Delmont's parlor while the body of the murdered woman lay crumpled on the floor. It was a chilling vision, one that said a great deal about Grove's nerve. She swallowed hard.

"I spent the remainder of the night and the early hours of this morning talking to servants, carriage drivers and…" He hesitated, as though choosing his words carefully."….thers who make their living on the streets near Delmont's house. Among other things I was able to verify Mrs. Delmont's housekeeper was busy attending her daughter, who was in the process of giving birth last night. Her alibi is unshakable. That left me with your name, Mrs. Fordyce."

"No wonder you look so weary," she said quietly. "You have been up all night."

He absently rubbed his stubbled jaw and grimaced. "My apologies for my appearance."

"It is hardly a matter of importance, given the circumstances." She hesitated. "So you came here today with the intention of confronting me in this alarming manner. Your goal was to frighten me and thereby trick me into revealing some dreadful conspiracy, wasn't it?"

He shoved a hand through his short, dark hair, showing no sign of remorse. "That was more or less my plan, yes" Uneasily aware that he might not have abandoned the

notion entirely, she searched her brain for other possible suspects.

"Perhaps Mrs. Delmont was the victim of a burglar who attacked her after he broke into the house," she suggested.

"I searched the place from top to bottom. There was no evidence that the doors or windows had been forced. It appeared that she had let the killer in»

The offhand manner in which he delivered that information deepened her sense of unease. "You certainly made a number of close observations last night, Mr. Grove. One would have thought that the proximity of a savagely murdered woman would have made it difficult to think and act so methodically and logically."

"Unfortunately, it appears that I did not make any especially useful observations," he said. He went toward the door with a purposeful stride. "I have wasted your time and my own. I would take it as a great favor if you would refrain from discussing this conversation with anyone else."

She did not respond to that.

He stopped, one hand on the doorknob, and looked at her. "Well, Mrs. Fordyce? Can I depend upon you to keep our discussion confidential?"

She braced herself. "That depends, sir."

He was cynically amused. "Of course. You no doubt wish to be compensated for your silence. Name your price, Mrs. Fordyce."

Another flash of anger crackled through her. "You can-not buy my silence, Mr. Grove. I do not want your money. What concerns me is the safety and security of my aunts and myself. If any one of us is placed in danger of arrest be-cause of your actions, I shall not hesitate to give the police your name and tell them every detail of this discussion."

"I doubt very much that the police will give you any trouble. As you suggested, they will likely conclude that Mrs. Delmont was murdered by a burglar and that will be the end of it"

"How can you be sure of that?"

"Because that is the simplest answer, and the officers of the law are known to prefer that sort of explanation."

"What if they find the list of sitters and proceed to make them all suspects, as you did, sir?"

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. "They won't find the list."

She stared at the paper. "You took it?"

"I am quite certain that none of the names on this list would be of any practical use to the police."

"I see." She did not know what to say.

"Speaking of names," he said rather casually. "I should tell you that it would not do you any good to give mine to the police."

"Why?" she asked coldly. "Because a gentleman of your obvious wealth and position does not need to worry overmuch about answering questions from the police?"

"No one is above the law. But that is not the reason why f advised you not to give them my name." His mouth curved in a cryptic smile. "The problem is that Mr. Grove does not exist. I invented him for this interview. When I walk out your front door today, he will vanish just like one of those ghostly manifestations that are so popular at séances"

She sat down quite suddenly, head whirling. "Good heavens. You gave me a false name?"

"Yes. Will you be so good as to indulge me with an answer to one last question?"

She blinked, still struggling to collect herself and her scattered thoughts. "What is it?"

He held up the paper that he had taken from her desk.

"Why the devil were you making all these notes?"

"Oh, those." Glumly she surveyed the page he held. "I am an author, sir. My novels are serialized in the Flying Intelligencer." She paused. "Perhaps you read that paper?"

"No, I do not. As I recall, it is one of those extremely irritating newspapers that thrives on sensation."

"Well—"

"The sort of paper that resorts to printing news of illicit scandals and lurid crimes in order to attract readers." She sighed. "I expect you prefer the Times."

"Yes"

"No surprise there, I suppose," she muttered. "Tell me, don't you find it rather dull reading?"

"I find it accurate and reliable reading, Mrs. Fordyce. Just the sort of newspaper reading that I prefer."

"Of course it is. As I was saying, the Flying Intelligencer prints my novels. I am required by the terms of my contract to supply my publisher, Mr. Spraggett, with a new chapter every week. I have been having some trouble with one of the characters, Edmund Drake. He is very important to the story but I have been having difficulty getting him down properly on paper. There has been something rather vague about him, I'm afraid. He requires sharpening up"

He looked reluctantly fascinated and, perhaps, be-mused. "You took notes about my appearance and attire so that you could apply them to the hero of your story?"

"Heavens, no," she assured him with an airy wave of her hand. "Whatever gave you that idea? Edmund Drake is not the hero of my tale. He is the villain of the piece." THREE

For some wholly irrational reason, it annoyed him that she had cast him in the role of the villain.

Adam Hardesty brooded on the disastrous encounter that he had just concluded with the very unexpected, very intriguing Mrs. Caroline Fordyce while he made his way home to the mansion in Laxton Square. He was well aware that the lady's opinion of him should have been at the bottom of his long list of problems, especially given the rapidly rising tide of disasters that he was attempting to hold at bay.

Nevertheless, knowing that Caroline Fordyce considered him an excellent model for a villain rankled. His intuit ion told him that it was not his fierce features alone that had given her such a low opinion of him. He had the distinct impression that Mrs. Fordyce did not hold men from his world in high esteem.