Murder On Waverly Place

16

MALLOY PRACTICALLY KNOCKED SARAH DOWN IN HIS frantic haste to get to the kitchen door and out into the hall so he could force open the door to the séance room. She caught herself and took out after him. He’d just forced the door open when she reached him.

She could hear screams and shouts and the sound of a struggle. Malloy lunged for the struggle, which was taking place on the other side of the table, just where Maeve had been sitting, but she was gone. Dear heaven, had someone killed her, too?

But in the next instant, she saw her good hat bobbing above the edge of the table, and an arm came up holding something long and cylindrical that had some kind of light streaming out of it and brought it down with a sickening thud. As quickly as that, the struggle ceased and the light went out, and from the other side of the table, people started to reappear. Malloy first, and then Mr. Sharpe, and finally Nicola.

Nicola?

Sarah blinked to make sure. He looked furious and slightly disheveled but very much alive. And he was helping Maeve to her feet.

“What did you hit him with?” he was asking her.

But Maeve wasn’t listening. She didn’t even seem to know she’d been assisted by a ghost. She was too busy glaring down at the body on the floor. “Is he dead?” she asked, obviously hoping he was.

“Not likely,” Malloy said. “Probably just stunned, but we’d better truss him up before he comes to.” He turned and realized everyone else was staring at them in horrified silence.

“Who is it?” Sarah asked, hurrying over to see for herself, and she looked down at the body sprawled unceremoniously on the floor, a nasty gash across his powdered hairline.

“The Professor?” she said in surprise. “But he couldn’t be the killer. He was the only one who wasn’t in the room!”

“Just as he was not in the room today,” Serafina said. “Did anyone see him come in?”

“No, I didn’t,” Cunningham replied. At some point he’d gone to her aid and now held her arm as if to support her in case she fainted. Sarah had never seen anyone who looked less likely to faint.

“Neither did I,” Mrs. Decker agreed. She was supporting Mrs. Burke, who did look like she might faint, although she was probably too interested in what was happening to risk missing any of it. “But I didn’t see that young man in here either,” she added, nodding toward Nicola.

“He was probably hiding in the cabinet, weren’t you, Nicola?” Malloy asked.

“Yes, I was,” he admitted a little defensively.

“But the Professor wouldn’t fit in there,” Malloy pointed out. “And Nicola would have noticed him, so how did he get in?”

“He hid behind the door,” Serafina said.

Everyone looked at the door in question, and Malloy walked over to it. When he passed Sarah, he said. “Hold this,” and handed her the stiletto that she’d seen the shadowy figure ready to stab Maeve with. She looked at it with horrified fascination.

Malloy was examining the door.

“I did not think of it that day, not until later, but he would always come with me to escort the clients into the séance room,” Serafina was explaining. “He did not come that day, and I did not know where he was. Then I remember, I also did not see him come in at the end, when I called him to help when Mrs. Gittings fell over. He was just there, but he did not have the smelling salts. He always brings the smelling salts from the kitchen when he comes. Later, when I think about everything, I knew he must have been hiding behind the door. As the door closes, the room gets dark, and if he was very still, no one would notice him.”

Malloy stepped behind the door, and Serafina demonstrated. Sure enough, if he pressed himself back into the corner behind the door, by the time he was really visible, the room was almost totally dark.

“Everyone would be looking at me and not expecting to see anyone there,” she added.

“Distraction,” Maeve said. “It’s an old magician’s trick.” She looked down at the figure still lying at her feet. “He used to do some magic, too.”

“You know him?” Sarah asked in surprise.

“Yes, I know him,” she said simply.

“Nicola,” Malloy said, having emerged from behind the door, “do you have some rope we can tie him up with?”

Nicola scrambled to do his bidding, and as he passed Mrs. Decker, she said, “I thought he was dead.”

He flashed her an impudent grin and was gone. Sarah noticed Serafina’s gaze followed him, her feelings for him glowing in her eyes.

“You identified the body,” Sarah reminded her.

“I had to protect Nicola,” she said simply. “If we could not make you believe the Professor was the killer, then you would think Nicola was dead, and he would be safe.”

“But you were so upset when you saw the birthmark on… on that poor fellow’s back,” Sarah said.

“What poor fellow’s back?” Cunningham cried. “What is she talking about?”

“Madame Serafina had to look at a dead body,” Malloy said. “We thought it might be Nicola, and she told us it was.”

“How horrible for you,” Cunningham said solicitously. “You should have sent for me.”

Serafina ignored him. “I was not sure at first. That is why I asked to see the back. Nicola has a scar from when he fell against the stove as a child. When I saw no scar, I knew it was not him.”

“So you were crying from relief,” Sarah guessed. Serafina simply smiled.

Nicola returned carrying a length of heavy twine. The Professor was starting to moan, and Malloy made short work of tying his hands and feet. By then he was awake, and he started cursing Malloy.

“Watch your language, man,” Sharpe cautioned him as Malloy hauled him to his feet and sat him in Maeve’s former chair. “There are ladies present.”

“You bitch,” he spat at Serafina, who simply glared back at him.

“Mrs. Decker, allow me to take you and Mrs. Burke into the other room,” Sharpe offered.

“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” Mrs. Decker said. “I want to hear what this man has to say for himself.” To her credit, Mrs. Burke stood her ground as well.

But the Professor didn’t say anything at all. He just looked at each of the people standing around the room, one by one until he got to Maeve. Then his eyes narrowed and he lurched to his feet and made a lunge for her.

Malloy caught him and slammed him back into the chair.

“I knew he would try to kill someone today,” Serafina said with more confidence that Sarah could believe she felt.

“But why would he try to kill Maeve?” Sarah asked.

The Professor didn’t reply. He just gave Maeve another black look.

“He killed my grandfather,” she said, drawing renewed gasps from everyone. “I guess he recognized me the same way I recognized him, and he was afraid I’d tell.”

“How astonishing that you should be here practically by accident today!” Mrs. Decker said.

“It wasn’t an accident,” Maeve said. “He always called himself the Professor, even in the old days. I suspected it was him the first time Serafina mentioned him.”

“And you’ve been trying to get her to hold another séance right from the start,” Sarah remembered.

“So I could see him for myself,” Maeve said.

“But why would he kill Mrs. Gittings?” Mr. Sharpe asked impatiently.

“They argued right before the last séance,” Mrs. Burke said, surprising everyone. “I told you that, didn’t I, Elizabeth?”

“Yes, you did,” Mrs. Decker confirmed. “You were the only one who’d noticed that.”

Mrs. Burke beamed.

“They argued all the time,” Sarah said. “Why was this different?”

“Why was it different?” Malloy asked, kicking the chair leg to give the Professor a jolt.

He glared at Malloy but refused to speak.

“Let me guess,” Malloy said thoughtfully. “She wasn’t going to give you the money to set up your Green Goods Game.”

The Professor’s eyes widened in surprise, but he still refused to speak.

“You couldn’t stand being pushed around by a woman,” Malloy continued, still thoughtful. “And you weren’t man enough to stand up to her.”

“Coward!” Cunningham supplied helpfully. “Afraid of a woman!”

“That’s right, you were afraid of her,” Malloy went on, “so you took the easy way out and stabbed her when she was helpless so you could take all the money Serafina made for yourself-”

“Stealing from a defenseless girl!” Cunningham cried, outraged.

“She’s not defenseless!” the Professor snarled. “And I wasn’t afraid of Lucille!”

“Then why did you kill her?” Malloy asked curiously.

“Because she was causing too much trouble!” he said, then caught himself, realizing what he had done.

“Too much trouble,” Malloy repeated thoughtfully, and glanced around at the people assembled there. “You mean the way she was trying to get extra money from everyone here? By offering to sell Serafina to Cunningham so he’d fall for that phony investment scheme she arranged?”

“What?” Cunningham roared.

“And by frightening Mrs. Burke into paying more and more for the séances, and-”

“She couldn’t be satisfied!” the Professor moaned. “We had a perfect setup here, but she always wanted more and more. I told her she was going to ruin everything, but she wouldn’t listen! She just wouldn’t listen!”

“But why take the chance of killing her like that?” Malloy asked.

The Professor’s eyes narrowed, and he looked as if he wanted to slip a knife into Malloy. “Because a normal policeman wouldn’t have investigated at all, not with all these important people involved, and if he did, he would have been satisfied to charge Nicola with it and be done.”

Sarah realized with a start that he was absolutely right. “But weren’t you afraid killing Mrs. Gittings would frighten clients away?” Sarah asked.

He just glared at Sarah, but Maeve said, “You could always move to another city, couldn’t you, Professor? Just like you did when you killed the Old Gentleman?”

He glared at her venomously. “My only mistake was coming back.”

THAT NIGHT, AFTER CATHERINE WAS SAFELY IN BED, SARAH, Maeve, and Malloy told Mrs. Ellsworth the story of the séance as they sat around Sarah’s kitchen table. Sarah’s mother had felt she must go home so her husband wouldn’t wonder where she had spent her day. Serafina and Nicola were enjoying a reunion at the house on Waverly Place.

Everyone was particularly fascinated by the light that Malloy had given Maeve to use and the way she had turned it on in the dark room just in time to catch the killer.

“I thought I broke it when I hit the Professor with it,” Maeve said as Malloy demonstrated the device for them.

“No, it just went out by itself. The power doesn’t last too long at a time, so you only get a short flash of light each time you turn it on,” he explained. “Then the battery has to rest before it will light again. That’s why they call them flashlights.”

“You used it at just the right moment,” Sarah said.

“I was afraid it might be too soon, but when Nicola said someone was going to kill Serafina, I couldn’t wait.”

“I’m glad you didn’t,” Mrs. Ellsworth said, laying her hand over Maeve’s. “If anything had happened to you…” She gave a little shudder.

“I didn’t think the Professor recognized me, or I wouldn’t have taken a chance.”

“He kept looking at you,” Malloy recalled. “But he said he was sure you were somebody’s maid, so I thought he just didn’t approve of you being there. If I’d suspected the truth, I never would’ve let you go in that room.”

Maeve smiled sweetly. “I know.”

“How did that boy Nicola get in the cabinet?” Mrs. Ellsworth asked. “After he escaped, I thought we’d never see him again.”

“That’s something Serafina didn’t explain,” Sarah said, “but I have a feeling he’d been watching the house, and he would have known she was back.”

“While we were waiting for everybody to get there, she disappeared for a few minutes, into the kitchen,” Malloy said. “She told me she was going to unlock the back door for us.”

“She must have contacted Nicola then,” Sarah guessed. “And he could have sneaked into the cabinet then, too.”

“I noticed she looked a little… excited,” he said, choosing his word carefully, “when she came back. I thought it was just because of the séance, but if she saw Nicola, that would explain it.”

“It would have to, since he wasn’t really a ghost,” Sarah said with a grin.

“And speaking of ghosts, I’m so sorry about your grandfather, dear,” Mrs. Ellsworth said to Maeve. “But how interesting that the spirits knew the Professor had killed him.”

“I don’t think the spirits did know that,” Maeve said.

“But I thought you said-”

“No, I never told anyone that until after the séance was over,” Maeve reminded them all. “All that the spirits knew was that my grandfather had played the Old Gentleman in the Green Goods Game and that he’d been murdered.”

“Just what you’d told me,” Sarah recalled.

“And Serafina,” Malloy guessed.

“No, Serafina had already gone to bed that night,” Sarah said. “It was just Maeve and me.”

“So it really was the spirits,” Mrs. Ellsworth said in wonder.

“I don’t think so,” Maeve said with a grin. “I should have remembered, because I’ve done it enough times myself.” She pointed toward the ceiling, and they all looked up to see the grating that allowed the heat from the kitchen to pass into the bedroom upstairs. And which also allowed conversations to be overheard.

“So she was listening to your conversation,” Mrs. Ellsworth said, disappointed. “I was so hoping it was really the spirits.”

“Serafina will never admit it, but I think we can explain just about everything that happened,” Sarah said with some satisfaction.

“We know the music and the baby crying were records Nicola played on the gramophone,” Malloy said, starting to tick them off on his fingers.

“I’ve been thinking about the way we all smelled roses that first time,” Sarah said. “I think Mrs. Gittings may have had some cologne that she sprinkled on the table. She could have done that if she had one hand free.”

“But she did know about your sister,” Mrs. Ellsworth reminded Sarah.

“I thought so then, but Maeve pointed out that practically every family has had a baby die at one time or another. When the baby cried, my mother was the one who said it must be Maggie’s baby.”

“But didn’t Serafina know the first time she saw Mrs. Decker that she’d lost a daughter?” Mrs. Ellsworth reminded her.

“Mrs. Burke probably told her that,” Maeve said. “I’d guess Mrs. Gittings was trying to get her to think of friends who had a loved one they’d want to contact, and she remembered Mrs. Decker had a daughter who died young.”

“So you see, we can explain all of Serafina’s powers,” Sarah said.

Mrs. Ellsworth smiled mysteriously. “Perhaps not all of them, dear. Remember Serafina told me where I would find my late husband’s watch?”

“That’s right,” Maeve remembered. “Didn’t she say it would be something with the letter B?”

“Yes, she did,” Mrs. Ellsworth reported. “And that’s just where I found it, hidden in the fireplace.”

“Fireplace doesn’t start with a B,” Sarah pointed out skeptically.

“No, it doesn’t,” Mrs. Ellsworth agreed with some satisfaction of her own, “but it was behind a loose brick, just where my husband had left it.”