Rogues

THE CURIOUS AFFAIR OF THE DEAD WIVES

Lisa Tuttle

The calling card rested dead center in the gleaming silver salver on the credence in the hall. I saw it the moment I entered, but the thrill I felt at the prospect of a client was tinged with anxiety because I should have to deal with this person on my own. Where was Mr. Jesperson?

We had grown bored, waiting indoors day after day for something to happen, and had gone our separate ways that morning without agreeing upon a time for return. It was, I knew, unfair of me to feel annoyed—it was not his fault. I could use his absence as an opportunity to prove myself an equal—or more than equal—partner.

Miss Alcinda Travers was the name on the card. I wondered how long the lady had been cooling her heels, and if the sight of a female detective would please her, but most of all I wondered if she had brought the genuine, challenging mystery we had been longing for. I checked my appearance in the gilt-framed mirror on the wall, tucked back a strand of hair that had escaped from the coil at the back of my neck, and adjusted my waist. My costume was sadly old and shabby, but if it was unfashionable, at least it might be seen as businesslike. I looked, I decided, neat, composed, and serious; I could only hope that I would satisfy Miss Travers’s expectations.

Moving the card to the “quarter past” position to signal that I was with the client, I went into the room that served as both parlor and office, and was startled to discover a child waiting there alone.

She was masquerading as an adult, in an expensive, ill-fitting pink silk dress with an excess of flounces, and a hat that was simply absurd, but the serious, anguished look on her face convinced me that her visit was no joke, so I pretended to have been taken in by her deception and spoke to the adult she wished to seem. After introducing myself to Miss Travers, and apologizing for keeping her waiting, I asked her business.

“I want you to find my sister.”

“Her age?”

“Seventeen and three-quarters.”

“Name?”

“Alcinda Travers.”

I raised my eyebrows. “I thought that was your name?”

She flushed. I heard a faint rustling sound and saw it came from her clutching at a brown-paper parcel in her lap. “No. I’m sorry. I should have said … I … I wasn’t expecting to be asked, and I don’t—I didn’t—that is, I had one of Cinda’s cards, and I didn’t think it would matter—”

“It doesn’t matter at all, my dear,” I said gently. “I am simply trying to establish the facts. If your sister is Alcinda, you are—?”

“Felicity Travers. Alcinda is—was—is my half sister, actually, but she has been more like a mother to me. I can’t believe she’s gone. I never imagined she would leave me. I can’t believe it, still, even though it has been a month. A whole month!” Twisting her hands, she bit her lip and fell silent.

I shifted in my chair. “She went missing a month ago?”

“Not missing. Well, not exactly. But it was a month ago that it happened. That she … she … she didn’t wake up one morning. Nobody could understand why. It was completely unexpected. She wasn’t ill. She was never ill. And she was so happy. Excited, I should say. She had a secret, something was about to happen, some sort of adventure, but she wouldn’t tell me what; she said she would explain everything later—‘afterwards’—but afterwards it was too late, because in the morning, in the morning …” She shook her head helplessly. “She never woke up.”

I waited for a moment before prompting: “Your sister died in the night?”

She stared at me, outraged. “She is not dead!”

“I beg your pardon. When you said she did not wake … What happened next?”

“The doctor was called, of course, but not even he could find a pulse. He said it must have been her heart, some weakness like the one that killed her mother although we had never seen a sign of it. But he said she was dead, so it must be true. Even I believed it.”

Some people know how to tell stories; others must have them dragged out of them in bits. “And when did you realize that she was not dead?”

“When I saw her last week.”

“Last … week? But she had seemed to be dead for a whole month?”

She nodded. I found that I was massaging my temples in just the way I used to see my mother do when my sister was attempting to justify some outrageous scheme.

“What happened after the doctor said she was dead and before you saw her again?”

She shrugged. “Why, just what you might expect. A lot of crying. We were all terribly sad. Friends and relations came to the house the next day and brought us food no one wanted to eat. I sat with her in the parlor all night, thinking that she must wake up; she could not really be dead. She didn’t even look dead, just like she was sleeping. But no matter how I chafed her hands and whispered her name, she just lay there, perfectly still, and in the morning, they took her away and buried her.”

“She was buried? You are quite certain of that?”

“I didn’t see it if that’s what you mean. I wasn’t allowed to attend the funeral. But my father was there, and he wouldn’t lie. I have seen her grave although my stepmother did not wish it; she wanted to forbid me going to the cemetery after what happened to Cinda.”

“What happened to Cinda?”

She looked cross. “I just told you.”

“I mean, how was that connected to visiting the cemetery?”

“It wasn’t. That’s just the way our stepmother thinks. If you can call it thinking. Cinda went to visit her mother’s grave practically every day in the months before she died, so maybe that’s why she died? It’s crazy, that’s all, and if she had stopped my going there, I would never have seen Alcinda.”

I felt my heart sink. Once, I would have found her story of great interest, but not now.

“You saw your sister last week, in the cemetery where she was buried?”

She nodded vigorously.

“I suppose she wore a veil?”

“Yes!”

“Yet, although you could not see her face, you were quite certain of her identity?”

More nodding.

“She was standing above her grave?”

“No. By her mother’s grave—that’s where she always went. I had brought some flowers to put on it because I thought that would please Cinda, if she knew, more than my putting flowers on her grave.”

“It didn’t occur to you, that the figure you saw could be a ghost?”

“Of course. That’s why I didn’t dare speak to her, or go closer, because ghosts never let you touch them. It was only when I saw the man that I knew she was really there. That she must be alive.”

“What man?”

“Why, the man who took her away! I don’t know who he was, but I can show you just what he looked like.” She ripped open the brown paper to reveal a square black book that she opened and handed across to me.

I looked at a pencil portrait of a heavily bearded fellow with narrow, squinting eyes and a snub nose. It was not a flattering likeness, but there was a spark of life to it that made me think it true.

“You drew this from memory?”

“Gosh, no, not me! Alcinda did it. That was her book, and she kept it very close. She used to show us her drawings, but not recently, not what she was drawing or writing in that book. I never saw it until after—after she was gone.”

“But it was the man you saw?”

“It was him. I saw him as clearly as I see you now, and I was nearly as close. He walked up to Alcinda, and said, ‘Mrs. Merle!’ Then he said something else that I couldn’t understand—I don’t think it was English—and he took hold of her arm, and she didn’t resist.”

She took a deep breath. “You can’t touch a ghost. So, unless he was a ghost as well, she must be alive. I ran after them, but just as I was about to catch up, he turned round and looked at me.” She clasped her hands beneath her chin and drew her shoulders in, hunching down in the chair. “He glared at me in the most horrible way, I can’t tell you how horrible it was! And he said—his voice was soft and gentle, but that made it worse—he said, ‘Go away, little girl. Don’t bother me unless you are ready to die.’ ”

She shuddered. “So I ran away! He frightened me so.”

“He meant to. How did the woman respond?”

“Not at all. She was like a sleepwalker. I don’t think she even knew I was there.”

“How well did you see her?”

“I know it was Alcinda,” she said stubbornly. “It absolutely, positively was! Isn’t there someone you know so well that you can recognize them from a distance, in the dark, without a word spoken? It was her. I know it. My sister is alive, and he’s got her.”

Tears shone in her blue eyes. “Oh, why did I have to run away! I am such a rotten coward! I should have followed them, seen where he took her, but I let him frighten me.”

“You were quite right to flee,” I said firmly. “It would be horribly dangerous—and utterly foolish—for a lone girl to try to pit herself against a grown man, especially one who spoke to her like that.”

“You must help me find her. Please, say you will, Miss Lane!”

I felt strangely torn. It was absurd, her story, and it made no difference that she obviously believed what she said. She must be fantasizing. And yet—

“Have you told anyone else? Did you tell your father?”

She nodded, looked wretched. “He thinks my brain has been affected by grief, and now he agrees with his wife that visiting the cemetery has such a bad effect, I’m forbidden to go there.” Her shoulders slumped. “You believe me, don’t you? I swear it’s all true. You must take this case. Jesperson and Lane are probably the only people in London clever enough to figure it out.”

For a moment I was distracted by the question of where this child had heard of our fledgling business, but I did not ask because it could not possibly matter. She was a child, she was grieving, she could not accept the reality of her loss. There was no case. I was about to tell her so, when she spoke again.

“There is another clue. In the book.” She nodded at Alcinda’s drawing book, still in my hands. “Towards the back, my sister wrote a few pages I can’t read. It might be Latin, or some other language. I’m sure it’s important.”

I found the pages. They were not in Latin. Although I could make no sense out of the jumble of letters and symbols, I knew Mr. Jesperson would enjoy the challenge; codes and ciphers were meat and drink to him. I realized then that although I did not believe we would find Alcinda Travers alive, I had decided we must help her little sister, somehow.

“Let me be honest with you,” I said. “I do not think your sister is alive somewhere, and I do not want to encourage you in false hopes. But there does seem to be some mystery connected with her death, and it may have to do with the man you met in the cemetery. My partner, Mr. Jesperson, should be able to decipher these notes left behind by your sister, and the picture should enable us to uncover the man’s identity. After that, we may discuss whether or not there is anything to be investigated.”

Despite all that I had said to discourage her hope, she was positively glowing with it now as she thanked me.

I asked a few pertinent questions—the location of the cemetery, the identity of the physician who had made the official verdict of death, whether Alcinda had any suitors, and how best to contact my young client if we needed more information or had news to impart.

“Our address is inside the front cover of Alcinda’s book,” she said. “Our telephone number, too, although my stepmother would find it awfully suspicious if someone she didn’t know wrote or telephoned to me—I will come back here.”

“If you come tomorrow afternoon, you can meet Mr. Jesperson,” I told her.

Very late in the day, a messenger arrived with a note from Mr. Jesperson, written on headed notepaper from his club, informing Mrs. Jesperson and me that he had been invited to dine and we should not wait for him.

Women are generally responsible for all the cooking and planning of meals in private households, but I have never known any to bother about “proper meals” without a man around. Left to ourselves, we glory in “feasting”—standing at the kitchen table, or wrapped in blankets before the fire—on whatever wild assortment we can forage from the larder, or delight in a “nursery tea” of soft-boiled eggs with bread and butter; or dine on tea and cakes, or apples and cheese, while reading.

It required no discussion for us to agree that soup, beef, potatoes, and all should be held over for the following day, and bread and cheese would satisfy us.

“We can have the apple tart—easy enough to make another tomorrow,” Mrs. Jesperson said. “Shall we eat in here, or …?”

“If you don’t mind,” I said, “I’ll take a plate to my room.”

“As you wish, Miss Lane.”

Although I felt sorry for it, a certain chill had come between us. “Call me Edith,” she had urged, more than once, but as I had not responded with a matching invitation, she must still call me “Miss Lane,” while I, to avoid giving further offense, hardly knew how to address her.

Mrs. Jesperson was an excellent woman, capable, kind, and intelligent. She might not have the brilliance of her son, but she was no fool, and I should have been grateful for her friendship. Having taken me in, knowing nothing about me, she continued to provide room and board without asking, or getting, anything in return. Of course, she did this to please her son. Many mothers must find themselves in a similar situation, forced to coexist with an unsympathetic younger woman, but our situation was rather different.

Jasper and I had come together through mutual liking and respect, with a view to business, but as we’d yet to see a ha’penny’s profit, our detective agency was more like an expensive hobby. This fine front bedroom, which might have been rented to a paying lodger, was mine gratis, and all my meals provided, even my laundry done, by the woman who kept us all on her own meager inheritance.

Being dependent had never made me happy. I longed to prove that Mrs. Jesperson’s investment had been a wise one; I did not know how much longer I could stay here without earning my keep. Jasper did not see the problem—for him, there was no problem. Edith Jesperson was his mother, after all, and he’d never known life without her capable, comforting support behind him. He was young, male, and utterly confident that any investment in his talents would be repaid a thousand-fold—in time.

Time, I must give it time. I reminded myself that we had been in partnership for a mere six weeks, and then I settled down to my supper and the absorbing company of a book about the adventures of an intrepid lady traveler in Lapland.

When I went downstairs in the morning, I found that Jesperson was ahead of me, behind the big desk, already at work.

“You’re up early,” I began, before reading the story in his wilted collar, stained cuffs, and faint golden stubble on his chin. “Or shall I say late? When did you get in?”

He gave me a vague look. “Oh, a few hours ago, I suppose.”

“What has kept you so absorbed?”

“Why, what do you suppose? You left it for me to decipher.” I saw he had been at work on Alcinda’s drawing book.

“You have managed it?”

“It was not too difficult, but as my head was none too clear when I began, I made some false starts. But once I’d cracked it—what an intriguing story! I can hardly wait to hear the rest of the case—some mystery, I presume, surrounding the young lady’s sudden demise and disappearance of her body?”

I stared, then slowly shook my head. “Sudden demise, yes, but the body was buried. Some weeks after, her sister saw what at first she took for a ghost in the graveyard.” I recounted the story as efficiently as I could, referring him to the pencil sketch.

He gave it a long, hard look. “Mr. S, I presume.” He rose then and handed me his notes. “You may like to read Miss Travers’s account while I make myself more presentable. It is—odd. You are ready to go out?”

I nodded uncertainly. “Yes, but where—?”

“To the cemetery, of course.”

(What follows is J. J.’s transcription)

To be reunited with my beloved mother is all I have ever wanted—to feel her presence and know she is close to me. When I was a little child, I used to talk to her every night. After rote prayers to a God I could not imagine, I turned more eagerly to share my hopes, fears, and experiences with my beloved Mama. I used to think that she answered my questions by responding to me in dreams, or leaving hidden messages in daily life, things that to others would appear meaningless, that only I would notice and understand.

As I grew older, I lost my faith, yet never managed to give up the belief that Mama, wherever she may be, is still watching over me. But it is hard to only believe, to take it on trust, never to know. Never to know, that is, until it is too late, and I, too, am dead. Until that time, my conversations with her would remain one-sided, and I would continue to be haunted by the fear that I was only talking to myself—that no one was listening—that there was no one to hear my questions and confessions because there is no survival of physical death, no spirit independent of the body.

I don’t want to believe that. I am, perhaps, too intellectual, too modern, for my own comfort! How lovely it would be to sink into the warm comfort of established religion …

Some part of me does still believe. I think that when I die, I will be reunited with Mama. But if I die when I am wrinkled and toothless and wandering in my wits, like that old crone we see sometimes at the back of the church, mumbling away to herself and disrupting the services with her laughter … why, I might not even know my own mother, or she know me—horrible!!

I don’t want that. I want death on my own terms.

I know what I am about to do is not without danger. I admit, I am frightened, but now that Mr. S has shown me what is possible, I must see for myself.

The Ancient Egyptians had their guides to the afterlife, and the Buddhist Masters in the High Himalayas also—many cultures have found it worthwhile to instruct the living and prepare them for the life to come, but our own “civilized” society prefers to pretend that death cannot be known except once, finally, at the end of life. Mr. S has told me that death does not have to be the country from which no traveler returns; he has gone there and returned himself, more than once, and has agreed—at last!—to share his knowledge with me.

He is a strange man. I appreciate his wisdom in the ways of the afterlife, and am ever so grateful that he has agreed to help me, but he makes me uneasy. Sometimes, when he looks at me, I feel he wants something, that he expects that I understand what he wants from me, but then, just as I think he might try to make love to me—instead, he remarks on my youth and innocence, and advises me to wait a few years before embarking on this great adventure.

So perhaps I have misinterpreted those looks. But it is too late, far too late, for him to stop me. He has told me what must be done and provided me with the means, and I mean to do it tonight.

He would be cross if he knew I was writing this—even so carefully hidden—for I promised not to say a word to anyone, about him, or about the plan we have agreed. And I have told no one, although the temptation to share it with Felicity was strong. But she is still a child. She might tell Father.

I write this to say that I am going to die tonight, but my death will not be—is not meant to be—forever. I have no wish to be a suicide. I want my second death, the real one, to be only after many, many years of living. This first death is an exploration, a way of learning the truth.

If it goes wrong, I am deeply sorry, but that is a risk I must take. Felicity, if you have deciphered these words, let me tell you that I love you dearly and if it is permitted to me, I shall continue to watch over you from another plane, as I feel my own mother watches over me. I hope you will understand, and forgive me, if I have gone, a bit too soon, to a better place. We will meet again.

The cemetery was quite new—Alcinda’s mother must have been one of the first to be interred there—and when we arrived at the unassuming gates that led into the Park Grove Cemetery, we saw at once that, unlike the larger modern graveyards of London, it had not been designed as a destination for visitors who might wish to spend a quiet hour of reflection, but for the sole purpose of storing dead bodies underground.

In my childhood, I had played in the local churchyard, and I remembered family excursions to Highgate Cemetery, where my uncle and aunt and a grandfather were buried. I had imagined Alcinda’s visits to her mother’s grave taking place in a similar setting, watched over by solemn stone angels and women in classical draperies, surrounded by weeping willows and mournful, ivy-clad trees. I expected mausoleums and family enclosures, statues, tombstones decorated with curious symbols, all that attractive paraphernalia of mourning that so often appeals to girls of a certain age and disposition.

But this modern cemetery, despite its evocative name, had few trees, no groves, and was nothing like my idea of a park. We saw not a single statue or decorative monument, and the gravestones were uniformly plain. With the graves laid out on strict gridlines, the effect was strict and utilitarian, reminding me of a school dormitory or a military barracks. My contemporaries may mock the sentimental, elaborate rituals of mourning that we grew up with, and one might well argue that the dead care not where their bones are stored, but the Park Grove Cemetery was like a glimpse into a well-organized but brutally impersonal future, offering nothing to comfort the living. There was little reason, one would have thought, to ever visit this place after the funeral, which made Alcinda’s obsession seem all the stranger.

“I see now why there were no sketches of crumbling, ivy-shrouded tombstones or statues in Miss Travers’s drawing book,” said Jesperson as we strolled along one straight dull path after another.

“But not why she bothered to bring her book and pencils along at all.”

“Surely the secretive Mr. S did not allow her to sketch him from life.”

I agreed it was more likely that she had drawn him from memory.

“Let us see if there is a caretaker here, who might recognize his face,” he said, and we turned back towards the entrance, where we had noticed a tidy little gatehouse.

At that moment, the rain, which had been threatening for so long, finally burst free of the heavy grey clouds above our heads, and we arrived not as the sober, mournful visitors we had hoped to appear, but out of breath, disheveled, and damp.

A small, spry, bald little man in hairy tweeds opened the door almost as soon as Jesperson’s knuckles collided with its outside surface. He was eager to welcome us inside, all the while making so many apologies for the rain that it might have been his personal responsibility that it had fallen.

“Please, ma’am, sit by the fire, it’ll warm you up nicely and you’ll be dry in no time,” he said, directing me to a chintz-covered armchair nearest the hearth. The room was small, and oversupplied with chairs.

Pouring us cups of tea—he had just brewed a fresh pot, he would not take no for an answer—he continued to express his regrets about the weather and assured us we were welcome to stay as long as we liked.

Jesperson managed to insert a question into our host’s hospitable flow: “I assume you are the caretaker—or should we call you the guard?”

“Why, bless you, sir, I am both of those, and more: caretaker, watchman, guard, head gardener, gravedigger, spare mourner, and guide, should a guide be needed,” he said proudly. “Eric Bailey at your service. If you want to know anything about Park Grove Cemetery—past, present, or future—I’m the man to ask. Or perhaps you’d like to take away one of our informative brochures, to read at your leisure?”

“Thank you—most kind—” murmured Jesperson, putting out his hand for the little booklet but distracted by something on the wall.

Following his gaze, I saw a system of bells with numbers and letters beneath each one, reminiscent of something I had seen in large houses for summoning servants, although I could not think how that would serve in a graveyard.

“If you was thinking to purchase a plot, I’m happy to answer your questions, but I don’t handle that side of the business, so I’d have to refer you to—”

“No, no,” said Jesperson. “We are here on behalf of a young lady who, while paying a visit to one of the graves—Rather than go into the whole story, let me simply say that she lost an item and believes that a man she encountered may be of help.”

Mr. Bailey did not look entirely convinced by this flimsy concoction, and I wished we had spent more effort in creating a plausible excuse for our questions. “An hitem? What sort of an hitem? If anything was lost here, I’d be the one to find it, you may be certain. I go over the grounds every—”

“We’d like to speak to this gentleman,” Jesperson said, abandoning his story and opening the drawing book. “Do you recognize him?”

It was immediately clear that Mr. Bailey did. “Why, I should say I do! Although I don’t suppose Mr. Smurl would be gratified by the likeness—quite sinister, he looks there, and I’m sure I’ve never seen him with such an expression in life!” Then he frowned and looked at us suspiciously. “ ’Ere! Your friend wasn’t meaning to imply Mr. Smurl might have taken her ‘hitem’?”

“Certainly not,” Jesperson said quickly. “I hope you did not mistake me—I meant to cast no aspersions—but if we could find him … she would be most grateful, and we, on her behalf …”

Unexpectedly, the caretaker chuckled. His suspicions had vanished, and he seemed genuinely amused. “The young lady would like to see Mr. Smurl again, I suppose! Yes, I should not be surprised! And did she drop her ’ankerchief in his path, to tempt him? Ooh la la! I have seen it all before, too many times …” He shook his head, and then composed his face into seriousness. “You had better tell your young friend that Mr. Smurl is a ’appily married man.”

Jesperson frowned and shook his head. “From the picture, he does not strike me as a ladies’ man. Is Mr. Smurl a frequent visitor to the cemetery?”

“Why, I should say he is! He’s my guv’nor! One of the founders and chief stockholders in Park Grove Cemetery, not to mention being a long-established, well-respected undertaker, and an important member of the local community.” He shifted about in his seat, picked up a card from a stack on the table, and—Jesperson’s hands being occupied with the drawing book—gave it to me.

Smurl & Snigg

Undertakers of Quality since 1879

121 The High Street

Sydenham

Remembering Felicity had said that the man in the cemetery had addressed her sister as “Mrs. Merle”—I felt the chill touch of horror as I understood.

Mrs. Smurl.

I was on my feet almost before I knew it. “We have to go,” I said. “At once.”

My partner did not question my urgency; he had made the same connection, although he managed to maintain a polite demeanor and thank our host even as I charged out the door, back into the rain, the thought of Alcinda’s probable fate burning inside me.

But what could I do? I had no idea where to find her. I paced up and down, my thoughts in an uproar, my garments getting wetter, until Jesperson hailed a cab and gently but firmly handed me inside. “Courage, ma brave,” he murmured, close to my ear, and somehow this worked like a dash of smelling salts to clear my head.

“We mustn’t let Smurl know we are on to him,” I said. “I will pretend to have a … some elderly, distant relation near the end of life, and make inquiries about his services. Perhaps, I don’t know, perhaps I can find out where he lives. You, meanwhile, must keep watch, I think, and follow him when he leaves. See if he goes home—or anywhere else—for his dinner, or at the end of the day. How does that sound?”

“Like a sensible course of action.”

The journey to the funeral parlor on the high street took little more than five minutes; we could easily have walked it, and saved the fare, although, as the rain was falling even more heavily now, I considered the benefits of arriving only a trifle damp rather than thoroughly sodden and uncomfortable. After paying the driver, my partner walked off briskly to wait until he should see me emerge.

My heart was beating a little too fast for comfort when I opened the door. A bell tinkled as I entered, and then I was greeted by a voice nearly as high and sweet.

“Welcome. Do come in, my dear, and tell me how we may be of service.”

The woman who came towards me with her hands outstretched as if ready to take some burden from me was, I estimated, in her early thirties; decorously attired in lavender silk, brown hair neatly coiffed, plain-featured except for a pair of melting and expressive dark eyes.

“I should like to speak with Mr. Smurl, if you please.”

Clasping her hands (since I had neither taken nor filled them), she made a moue of regret and shook her head. “I am afraid he’s not available for personal consultation at all today—or tomorrow. He is a very busy man, our Mr. Smurl! Perhaps I might be of service? I am Miss Hyacinth Snigg, the daughter of Mr. Edgar Snigg, who is also unavailable at the moment, but you must not let that concern you in the least. I am fully informed about all aspects of the business, and can answer any questions, and am well qualified to give advice. Will you take a seat?” She gestured to a small couch covered in dark red plush.

“No, thank you; you’re very kind, but I would particularly like to speak to Mr. Smurl.”

The polished, professional sorrow of her expression gave way to a different, more genuine feeling. “Perhaps you do not understand. I am not a receptionist, but a full partner in this firm, which has been my entire career for almost ten years now.”

“My dear Miss Snigg!” Now I was annoyed—with myself. “You misunderstand me. I meant no disrespect. If I wished to make arrangements for a funeral, or to take advice on that subject, I should be more than happy to take your advice.”

She frowned a little. “You have not come here to discuss funeral arrangements?”

I bit my lip. “Not exactly. That is … The matter is complicated and quite urgent. I really must speak to Mr. Smurl. He is the only one who can help me with this matter. I don’t mind waiting. If he could see me for just a few minutes, I could explain.”

She set her chin. “If you can explain it to Mr. Smurl in a few minutes, pray take as long as you like to explain it to me. I am not slow-witted, and if it is truly a matter of business, I should be able to help.”

Fiction at short notice was never my specialty. As my silence continued, I could feel her mood hardening still more against me. It seemed unfair that she should think me one of those women who denigrate their own sex and will only discuss business matters with a man; I wished I had not stated so plainly that I had not come to discuss funeral arrangements, but I could see no way out of it now.

“My business with Mr. Smurl is of a personal nature,” I said.

Her eyes glittered. “Indeed? Then you had better approach him outside of business hours—why not call at his home? Or write to him?”

“I do not have his home address.”

“Surely you do not expect me to give it to you.”

“That would be most kind of you.”

She snorted—a word she would certainly take objection to, but accurate. “I will do nothing to encourage your delusions. You are not the first female person to imagine she might have business of a personal nature with Mr. Smurl.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” I said, giving her my iciest glare.

“Oh, I think you do, Miss …?”

When I did not respond, she sniffed. “It is Miss, I presume?”

“You make quite a few presumptions,” I replied, still frostily. “I am sorry if you feel I have misled you. That was never my intention. I have come here in the hope of having a quiet word with Mr. Smurl with regard to his wife.”

I saw that I had surprised her. “His wife?”

“Yes.” It was a shot in the dark, but I could think of nothing better. “Are you acquainted with Mrs. Smurl?”

“Certainly.” She drew herself up. “I told you, I have been with the firm for in excess of ten years, and our families have long been friends. I know both ladies.”

Goodness knows what she made of the shock that registered on my face at this, but she hastened to amplify: “I mean, of course, both Mr. Albert’s mother and his wife.”

“I suppose his marriage is quite recent?”

She frowned. “Why should you suppose that? Mr. Smurl has been married perhaps a dozen years. If you claim to know her …”

I saw that I had not won her over in the least. “I never claimed to know her. I said my business with Mr. Smurl concerned his wife—yet perhaps I was wrong, as I was unaware there was another lady in his household bearing the same name; the ‘Mrs. Smurl’ I have been delegated to find may have been his mother. I came here on behalf of the Travers family. You may recall a recent funeral—”

“Oh, the poor young lady! Of course I remember. How could I forget? She was so young and beautiful, and her death so sudden and inexplicable! So terribly, terribly sad!” Her eyes were moist, her whole aspect again as soft and yearning as when I had first seen her. “But what business could her family have with Mrs. Smurl?”

“I had assumed they might have met her here, or at the funeral.”

“Oh, no, that is quite impossible. Neither lady has ever had anything to do with the business.”

“Maybe, in passing …?”

“No. There must be some mistake. Possibly, although I introduced myself quite clearly, I am the lady she was thinking of? If you will tell me the message, I can …”

“There was no mistake. If she was not at the funeral, then perhaps Mrs. Travers met her elsewhere—”

“Utterly impossible.”

We glared at each other. I said, “I find it remarkable that you are so certain.”

“Mr. Smurl does not entertain visitors—and never does business—in his home. Both his mother and his wife are in poor health, and have scarcely set foot out of doors in recent years. Nor do they receive. So unless Mrs. Travers is a doctor or a priest, she has not met either lady.”

I saw I should have to back down. “Forgive me. Perhaps, after all, she was thinking of you. She was so deeply moved by the genuine kindness she received …” Seeing that she looked mollified, I took another chance. “But I won’t feel I have done my duty unless I have a word with Mr. Smurl. Could I not call back later today? Will he not be in at all?”

I saw training and business instincts—and perhaps the thought of what Mr. Smurl might say—battling her desire to be rid of me. “He always calls in just before he goes home for his di—luncheon. Between half past twelve and one o’clock.”

I thanked her, effusively and insincerely, saying I would return. “Might you ask him to wait for me? At least until one o’clock?”

It had occurred to me there might be another way of learning Mr. Smurl’s home address, and when I met Mr. Jesperson outside, I proposed we should go to the nearest post office to look in the local directory. Smurl was such an unusual surname, we were unlikely to be misled, and, indeed, apart from the business listing for Smurl and Snigg, the local directory revealed only one: Smurl, Albert E. A glance at a map of the area enabled Jesperson to locate his street almost exactly halfway between the funeral parlor and the cemetery.

I looked at the clock on the wall. “We still have nearly two hours before he may go home,” I said. “Thank goodness the rain is off.”

We set off at a brisk walk. The area was unknown to me, but I knew I could trust in Jesperson’s sense of direction, and his memory: even a quick look at a map was enough to fix it in his mind.

Although I knew it was pointless to try to plan a rescue before we had set eyes on the prison, I could not help speculating on her situation. Did he keep her locked in an attic or allow her some limited freedom? Were his wife and mother aware of her presence? Did he use her as a servant, nursemaid, perhaps, to the two invalids, or did he, as his mode of address suggested, consider her his wife? Wife and slave and prisoner—unfortunately, those terms need not necessarily be exclusive.

“She may even be a willing prisoner,” said Jesperson.

His words made me shudder, and I had to disagree. “You saw the portrait—did that look like a lover to you?”

“Not to me, but recall Mr. Bailey’s remarks—and Miss Snigg’s. A certain class of female must find him irresistible.”

“Not Alcinda! You read what she wrote—she hated the idea that he might try to make love to her.”

“And who do you suppose she was trying to convince? Herself? But please, let us not quarrel! I only wish you to bear in mind the possibility that the lady may not thank us; may even refuse to be rescued.”

I understood. I am not entirely ignorant of what may be done in the name of love. The heart has its reasons, and so on. Even if Miss Travers had not lost her heart to her abductor, she might, like many before her, choose to stay and suffer his attentions, rather than return and find herself disgraced, “ruined” in the eyes of a world that values women as if they were soft fruit. “But we must give her the chance.”

“Of course.”

I took his arm, and, as we walked along together, I mused aloud on how the kidnapping had been managed. Of course, Miss Travers must have agreed to drink some potion, but how had he been so certain he could steal her away from her own funeral? Did he have confederates? Perhaps the doctor who signed the death certificate, or trusted employees who would help him make the switch to an empty coffin and ensure Miss Travers was not buried alive …

“Of course she was buried alive,” said Jesperson.

I flinched, my fingers tightening on his arm, and he looked down into my face, surprised. “Surely you noticed the alarm bell system in Bailey’s quarters?”

“I thought … they might alert him to intruders. Protection against body-snatchers, perhaps?”

“How should the dead summon their protectors? I admit, I did not understand until I read the brochure given me by Mr. Bailey.” He quoted the paragraph he’d found so enlightening:

“ ‘Security coffins, made to Mr. Smurl’s own original design (patent pending), are available for a very reasonable additional charge. The inbuilt alarm system will alert the on-site security guard (always listening, night and day) within moments of revival, in the unfortunate event of a burial having been premature. In such an event, the coffin is designed to keep its inhabitant alive and comfortable, with more than sufficient air to breathe until disinterment may be effected, which will be done with the utmost dispatch to minimize discomfort and eliminate all worries.’ ”

“My goodness,” I murmured, feeling weak at the knees. I had to fight the impulse to take great, gasping gulps of air.

He squeezed my arm. “We may hope that she remained in a state of unconsciousness throughout and never suffered a moment’s fear. Since Smurl knew that she was not dead, there would be no reason to make her ring for help … unless, of course, he simply wished to test his system … Forgive me,” he said, contrite. “Ah, here we are.”

We had arrived at a long, curving, quiet street where the substantial houses were set well back from the road in their own gardens.

“Which house is it?”

“Just over there, I think. Can you make out a number on that gatepost? The one overhung with laburnum?”

Although I had no idea what a laburnum might be, I saw the bush-draped gatepost, and as we approached, the number 14 was revealed through a veil of leaves.

Mr. Jesperson opened the gate and ushered me through, indicating that I should precede him up the narrow path to the front door. My mind was quite blank. I stood to one side and let my partner knock on the door. We waited. He knocked again. Prickles of anxiety and frustration ran through me as the seconds dragged by. We could hear nothing moving within, not even surreptitious movements, footsteps, or the quiet closing of an interior door, and yet, somehow, the heavy silence did not suggest an empty house.

The door, of course, was locked.

Jesperson reached towards his inside jacket pocket, then checked himself and paused to survey the area immediately around the door. I followed his eyes along the lintel, to the plain doormat, and then to a rather sickly plant, possibly some sort of citrus tree, in a terra-cotta tub to the right side of the door. Stepping towards it, he bent down and lifted the tub, felt beneath it and, grinning with satisfaction, flourished a key.

It was a large, old-fashioned key of the sort that may be used from either side, to lock someone out, or in. When Jesperson turned it, I heard the smooth, heavy movement of tumblers, and then the door was open to us. And, a moment later, we both stood in a dark entrance hall with a high ceiling, walls covered in dark green and cream-figured paper, seeing a staircase ahead, and dark, varnished doors, uncompromisingly shut, in the walls on either side.

“Mrs. Smurl,” called my partner, making me jump. His voice, so loud, seemed more of an intrusion than our entrance had been. “Mrs. Smurl? Please don’t be alarmed. We mean you no harm. I hope you won’t mind, but we’ve taken the liberty of letting ourselves in.”

I held my breath when he fell silent, and heard something. Meeting his eyes, I saw he had heard it too. A sound too small and faint to identify, it came from behind the door on the right.

When the door was opened, we saw a room filled with women: all seated, silent and motionless as life-sized dolls.

“I beg your pardon,” Jesperson began, but his words fell like stones into the stillness, and he did not continue.

There were six of them, in total, spaced around the parlor like the members of a religious order or ladies’ sewing circle, unexpectedly frozen by a spell like the one that guarded the castle of the Sleeping Beauty. If they slept, it was with eyes wide open but presumably unseeing. I could tell they were living creatures, neither wax figures nor corpses, by the very slight movements caused by their slow breathing and the occasional blink of an eye.

We crept quietly farther in without a word, although it seemed unlikely that even more violent movements would disturb this unnatural, eerie calm. Examining them more closely, I began to see them as individuals, not the identical dolls they had first seemed. There were slight variations in the colors of the otherwise uniformly simple but well-made silk gowns they all wore, and the same was true of their hair color: chiefly mouselike shades of brown or beige or grey. The sisterlike similarity of their faces was most likely due to the same blank lack of expression on every one, as if they wore copies of the same mask. I was unable to decide if any of them should be described as plain or beautiful.

Two of them stood out from the others; one because she was clearly much older than the rest, white-haired and slightly hunchbacked; the other for her youth and golden hair.

This must be Alcinda, I thought, and could not resist saying her name aloud.

The response was slow in coming but unmistakable. She turned her head in my direction.

I felt Mr. Jesperson stiffen beside me. I gasped. “Alcinda? Can you hear me?”

Her eyes remained blank and inward-looking, and she made no further movement.

“I wonder if there is a magic word we are missing, or if we simply must engage their attention,” said Jesperson. Speaking in a normal, conversational tone, he went on, “Dear ladies, I should be most obliged if you could enlighten us as to the subject of your most skillful, yet puzzling, tableau vivant.”

“Certainly it can be nothing in the Bible, or what is popularly conceived of as history,” I said. “Perhaps—a ladies’ Bible study group? Or, no—I have it. A modern Methodist, English harem, as they await the return of their lord and master.” It had started off as a joke, until I noticed the one chair that was not occupied in the room: a large, battered but comfortable-looking leather armchair, reserved, one must suppose, for the patriarch of this meek little tribe.

“I prefer my tableau rather more vivant,” said Jesperson. “Come, come, ladies! You are neglecting your duties. You might show a bit of hospitality to your guests.”

“What has he done to them?” I murmured, and picked up one of Alcinda’s hands. It was cool and remained as limp and unresponsive as a dead fish no matter how I chafed and squeezed it. I was unable to find her pulse; after a few seconds of trying, I let the hand flop back into her lap. “What sort of drug would induce a state like this?”

My partner shook his head. “I think it is more likely the result of hypnosis, possibly facilitated by some sedative draft.”

“A drug should wear off in time. How can we wake them from hypnosis?”

“I’m afraid we may need Smurl for that.”

As he pronounced the name, I was aware of a subterranean rustling, like a shiver running through the room. This gave me an idea, and I said, loudly, “Mrs. Smurl!”

Nothing happened right away. Later, it occurred to me that the pause between my speaking and their response was the sort of delay one might get if sound were to be slowed, forced to pass through some medium much denser than air, and then the listener must interpret the spoken syllables separately before putting them together and translating them from one language to another. After two or three seconds, when I had stopped expecting anything, five women turned their heads towards me, like pale, blind sunflowers—all responding to the call of their name, all of them “Mrs. Smurl”—all, save Alcinda.

It was an eerie moment. Under the force of that massed, unseeing gaze, I felt a quiver of fear, imagining this power yoked by one man.

“Mrs. Smurl, if you can hear me, please rise.”

Nothing happened, although we waited a whole minute.

I exchanged a look with my friend: perhaps a man’s voice would produce the desired result? “Mrs. Smurl,” he said, low and deliberate. “Mrs. Smurl, nod your head to show you hear me.”

None of them moved a muscle.

“There may be some key word to release them from trance; or perhaps he has trained them to respond only to his voice.”

That seemed horribly likely to me, as surely no man mad enough to establish such a household would risk relinquishing control of it to anyone else.

Yet Alcinda had not responded to the summons of “Mrs. Smurl.” So I tried again:

“Alcinda. Please stand up.”

I held my breath. She stood up.

Jesperson and I looked at each other, and I knew we were thinking the same thing, that there was nothing to stop us walking out with Alcinda. Once away from Smurl, no longer drugged, she might return to normal; if not, there must be doctors, or specialists in hypnosis …

But we could not make the others follow us, and, knowing that Smurl was likely to return very soon, how could we leave them? It was an impossible dilemma.

“Take her to Gower Street,” Jesperson said decisively.

“You’re not staying here alone.”

“Would that I could,” he said dryly, with a tilt of his head to our silent audience.

“I won’t let you.”

He stared at me, half-affronted, half-amused. “And how do you mean to stop me, Miss Lane? Would you drag me out by the ear?”

“Please.” I stared at him, wishing I could make him see it as I did. “It’s too dangerous—”

“You think I am no match for a middle-aged undertaker? Do me some credit. A danger to women he may be, but—”

Seeing that I had offended his pride, I tried to explain. “He’s nothing in himself, and of course you’re not afraid of a few weak women, but imagine if a word from him should transform them into Maenads. Someone without fear can do the most terrible things, and if he has made himself their god—!”

I knew, by the puzzled impatience of his expression, that he did not share my mental image of these silent, soberly dressed ladies turned to howling, blood-maddened creatures who would tear a man apart with their bare hands and feast on his bloody flesh.

“Dear Miss Lane,” he said gently. “Trust me. We cannot abandon—”

“If you mean to stay, I shall go from here straight to the police.”

The creaking of a chair, the silken rustle of a skirt, made me turn my head in time to see that one of the statues had come to life. It was a woman in a brown dress, bending over her neighbor in grey, speaking words too low for me to distinguish.

“Mrs. Smurl?” The woman straightened. No longer a colorless, lifeless statue, she had changed into an unfriendly-looking individual with snapping dark eyes, a strong jaw, and a belligerently thrust chin. Two brown corkscrew curls bobbed over her ears—a girlish touch that did nothing to make her look a day under eight-and-thirty.

“Who are you?” she asked. “What is the meaning of this intrusion? How dare you enter uninvited?” Despite a ring of righteous anger, she kept her voice low and well modulated as her eyes darted quickly between Mr. Jesperson and myself.

“I do beg your pardon,” he said insincerely. “However, after knocking for some time with no effect, I felt we had no choice—”

The ringlets quivered. “You broke in?”

“Not at all.” He flourished the key, and her eyes widened with shock.

“But—how—Where—”

“Where do you think? When Mr. Smurl heard we were concerned about Miss Travers, naturally—”

“Who is Miss Travers?”

Jesperson indicated the young lady in question. Alcinda gave no sign that she had heard, still staring blankly in my general direction.

Mrs. Smurl gave a small hiss of displeasure, and said coldly, “The young lady is no concern of yours.”

“But she is. Her family wish her home.”

“This is her home. We are her family.”

He raised a skeptical eyebrow. “I might be more inclined to believe that assertion if it came from the lady herself.”

“She cannot speak to you.”

“That I can see. But who is stopping her?”

“Mr. Smurl does not wish it.”

“Mr. Smurl, I feel certain, would not wish to be arrested and charged with false imprisonment and other crimes.”

“You dare to threaten …?” Her voice was hardly more than a whisper. Her lips had thinned almost to invisibility.

“I do,” said Jesperson, sounding jolly. “Bigamy is another charge he may face, although I suspect most of his marriages have been recognized nowhere beyond these four walls. Despite the saying that an Englishman’s home is his castle, there are still some things he may not do even there with impunity. Why should you try to defend him? You cannot be happy to share your husband with other women; women he has stolen from their families and forced into submission—”

Her pale face grew flushed. “How dare you! Mr. Smurl is a good man, a perfect gentleman. He would never use force against a woman—he has never made any of us do anything against our will.”

“You call this their will?” He gestured at the silent, motionless women.

“You know nothing of us. It’s for their own good. It makes the day go by more pleasantly.”

“Drugged and dreaming? Yes, I daresay the denizens of an opium den reason so. But why should life as the wife of your ‘perfect gentleman’ require such an escape?”

As he went on speaking, my nervousness increased. How long had we been here? What if Smurl was made suspicious when he heard someone had been asking about his wife and was even now on his way home?

Looking at the agitated little woman—I am small, but she was smaller still—I said, “You may justify that man and your life as you like, but we’ve come for Miss Travers and mean to take her home.”

“There is no Miss—”

“Alcinda,” I said sharply, and managed to draw her closer. Getting her to move on her own would be a slow business; I again addressed the angry woman:

“Can you wake her?”

“Why should I?”

“If she wants to stay, let her tell us so, and we will leave.”

She stared at me. “You would go away without her?”

“Of course. We would not take her against her will.” I wasn’t sure if I was telling the truth.

Mr. Jesperson said, “I assure you, if the young lady says she prefers to stay, we will let her remain. Otherwise we shall escort her to wherever she wishes.”

“And let her spread her lies about our husband? No. She would make too much trouble for us.” Turning away, she began to mutter, rousing the mesmerized figures one by one. By the last, my ears sufficiently habituated to her voice, I managed to understand that she was repeating a simple Latin phrase attached to each woman’s Christian name, and heard her command, “Carpe diem, Violet.”

So that was Smurl’s “Open Sesame” that unlocked their imprisonment. Their slow responses, confused reactions, and sleepy demeanor made me think we were in no immediate danger, although I did not rule out the possibility that a few more words from the first woman might turn them into an army of Furies. As jailers may have a “trusty” amongst their prisoners, so it seemed that Smurl had given this first wife power over the others. It could be only with her collusion that he had managed to gather his collection of “dead” women; had she spoken out, he might now be in prison and most of these women still safely in the bosom of their real families. This was her fault as surely as his, I thought, a furious contempt against her growing in my breast. Maybe I wasn’t being fair to her, maybe he had spent years breaking down her spirit, forcing her to become his abject slave, but she did not look enslaved to me, standing there with a smug little smirk on her face, aware that she’d increased her odds of winning against us …

“Carpe Diem, Alcinda,” said Mr. Jesperson.

The girl’s eyes popped open. She looked like a startled doll, then confusion and resentment and fear battled for the upper hand in her expression.

“We’re here to help you,” I said quickly. “Tell me, would you like to come away from here?”

“Dear God,” she cried fervently. “Yes!”

“Alcinda!” barked the Mrs.-Smurl-in-charge. “Dormite!”

Although my sisters and I were not allowed to study Latin, because of some notion that dead languages might damage the weaker female brain, we heard odds and ends of it from my father while we were growing up, and that particular command was one he’d often directed at one or another of us at the end of a long and tiring day.

She froze, as in a game of statues, but the utter blankness of Alcinda’s expression had nothing playful about it.

“Violet,” I said sharply, and when I was rewarded by a look of surprise from the pale, wan creature in beige, I said, “Dormite.” It worked. Unfortunately, I knew no one else’s name.

“I suppose you think you’re very clever,” said Mrs. Smurl.

“Not really. You wake her, we wake Alcinda, and so on, and so forth. What a waste of time. I’m sure you wouldn’t like Mr. Smurl to find us here …”

“You would like it even less, I think,” she said with a malicious smile.

I felt a quiver of apprehension, wondering if she might actually want to keep us here until he returned.

Jesperson, meanwhile, had roused Alcinda, and, his manner cool, informed Mrs. Smurl that we were taking her away. “And if either of you ladies would care to join us?” With a charming smile, he looked at the two women flanking Mrs. Smurl. They responded as if to a lewd suggestion, shrinking back, shaking their heads; the slightly plumper one in grey even shut her eyes.

“We are happy as we are,” said Mrs. Smurl, putting an arm around the waist of the trembling lady in grey.

“Not all of you,” I said, offering my hand to Alcinda, who gripped it hard.

“Ungrateful minx!” Mrs. Smurl glared, and her anger gleamed a moment like a razor blade catching the light, then vanished into the darkness of her shrug, as she seemed to relax. “Very well. You may go, if you wish, Alcinda, but you can never return. There will be no forgiveness. And if you should even think of betraying us—”

Beside me, I felt her shudder as she shook her head.

The woman continued: “But if you should try, Mr. Smurl will have his revenge. There is no escaping him, you know, no matter how far you go, no matter what happens to him in this life, his power over you will not be diminished.”

“I won’t say anything, Martha. I promised him I would not, and I keep my promises, even though he did not keep his. I’ve told him so many times: I do not love him. I do not want to be married to him.”

“He has done nothing wrong. Albert is a good man. He has never forced you, has he? You admit it? Yes, I see you do; you must bow before the truth. I know, you know, you were a mistake, his little weakness, but it wasn’t the end of the world, was it? It was not. You would soon learn how to be happy. And it could still be all right, you know, if only …”

Although I did not realize, the dull repetition of her voice was having an effect. Fortunately, Jesperson was alert to the danger, and quick to pick up the key Alcinda had provided.

“Martha, dormite!” he cried, and his voice felt like a splash of water, shocking me awake.

Martha Smurl flinched; but after a brief flash of anger, her eyes were as guarded, and alert, as ever. The magic words did not work on her. “How dare you?” She drew herself up, looking daggers. “How dare you break into my home, intrude upon my peace and quiet, refuse to give your name, and then take liberties with mine? You presume to give orders that a woman should accept only from her husband.

“Get out of here,” she said, in a low and dangerous voice. “Go now.”

I was halfway to the door with Alcinda before I realized that Jesperson had not budged.

“One more thing, before I go,” he said. “I want to make it clear, if anyone else wishes to leave, she has my promise of protection.”

“Our protection,” I put in, so no one would think she must trade one master for another.

“It is not wanted,” replied Mrs. Smurl.

“With respect, madam, I should prefer to hear from each individual lady, however well qualified you may feel to speak for her.”

There was a brief, silent struggle between them, but then she gave in and woke her sisters. It turned out to be as unnecessary as she had implied: except for the old woman, Mary, who was too bewildered to understand, each of the others proclaimed her love for Mr. Smurl and expressed her desire to stay there. However the wide world might judge them, they all felt themselves to be his loving wives. While Violet was still passionately declaring that she could never leave her beloved Albert, no matter what might happen, the old woman stood up and wandered away and out of the room.

Martha Smurl gave a hiss of annoyance. “She’ll never settle now, and I shall have to spend all my time chasing after her, and Mr. Smurl will be so cross if dinner is late—”

“Never mind, dear,” said Violet, sounding anxious. “I’ll go and tend to Mother Mary—you can get on with the cooking.”

So we left them. What else could we do? We would have to be content with the rescue of Alcinda for our happy ending. After all, we had not been asked to do more.

The house where Alcinda had grown up and her family still lived was scarcely two miles away, on the other side of the cemetery, but she would not go there. Pressing her about it only made her more anxious, so we suggested that she come back to Gower Street with us. At least for the time being, it seemed wise to remove her from the chance of another encounter with Mr. Smurl.

We made our way to the train station and were soon comfortably settled with the whole of a carriage to ourselves. With no need to worry about being overheard, I raised the subject of a visit to Scotland Yard.

Her eyes widened. “Why?”

“As Mr. Smurl is so well regarded in his neighborhood, it might be better to avoid the local police. And considering the seriousness of his crimes—”

Tears filled her eyes, threatened to spill. “Crimes?” she whispered. “Oh, no, no, never!”

Although I thought she might be frightened of the revenge Mrs. Smurl had suggested, I had little patience. “He kidnapped you,” I pointed out. “That is a very serious crime.”

“But I agreed to it!”

“You agreed to become his prisoner? I think not. If you were happy there, we can take you back.” I regretted my cruel words when I saw her shudder.

“No. Please. I don’t want that. And I am grateful—oh! How grateful you may never know! It’s true—he betrayed my trust. He had his own reason for wanting me dead to the world; I was so caught up in my own plans, I did not realize. I expected to go home again a day or two after I was buried, and—” She stopped, as I was unable to repress a cry of horror. “What?”

“Do you mean to say … you knew you would be buried alive? You agreed to it?”

“Of course. Mr. Smurl explained the operation of his safety coffins to me and—well—as I was so determined to have the experience of death, how could I be satisfied unless I was pronounced dead and buried? Anything less would be hardly more than sleep. I wanted to be dead to the world, to know the quiet of the grave—it was the only way.” She spoke with simple conviction, but it was like hearing a hymn of praise to some ancient and long-forgotten god. I had found the notes in her sketchbook peculiar enough, but I was struck now even more forcibly by the distance between her way of thinking and my own. We might have belonged to two different races, indoctrinated into different belief systems. It seemed to me there was something almost inhuman about her.

It left me speechless, but Jesperson’s face was alight with curiosity as he asked, “Weren’t you frightened?”

“Oh, yes! Certainly! Terrified!” She gave a nervous laugh and no longer looked like anything but a pretty, modern, ordinary girl. “Never so frightened in all my … But then that was part of it, don’t you see? Who would not be frightened to die?”

He nodded. “You wanted to meet Death, like the boy in the fairy tale—and for Mr. Smurl, I presume, it was to be an unrivaled opportunity to advertise the worth of his wares?”

She looked as if he had made the most astounding of deductions, like Sherlock Holmes laying out the entire course of a man’s career after a glance at his hat. “Yes! Exactly! How very clever of you! Of course, people would say it was terribly wrong of him if they knew, but it wasn’t like that, you see! Not a real crime—certainly not a crime against me. I begged him—I practically made him do it! And I was never in any danger, for he knew it would work—”

“Having already used the same plan at least three times before,” I interjected. “On those poor women. Surely you won’t tell me they were all just like you, eager to taste death? Or help him prove the worth of his invention?”

She grimaced. “No, of course not. Their reasons … They did it for love. That’s all. They were so crazy in love with Albert Smurl that they’d do anything he asked, agree to any crazy scheme that would allow them to live with him.”

“Afterwards, when they found they weren’t the only one, they still felt the same?”

“You heard them. They are strange, sad creatures, I agree! Love is a peculiar, powerful force, don’t you think, Miss Lane?” The look she gave me was disconcerting, a sudden connection that was the more unexpected after my earlier feeling about her.

“It does make some people act like fools,” I said.

“Albert Smurl is one of them.” She sighed. “He fell in love with me—I never invited his affection!—and then he was unable to resist temptation; especially, I suppose, as all his experience with women suggested that I was bound to return his feelings, that I would fall in love with him soon enough …” She gave me a pleading look. “He was always kind to me. I can’t blame him for loving me, Miss Lane, I truly cannot. What he did was wrong, certainly, but I am not blameless. I gave him my full cooperation, and now that I am free, I should like to say that is the end. I will not bring charges against the man.”

She sounded very sure—not like someone forced to act against her will by a canny hypnotist—but I am no expert on these matters. Still, we could discuss the matter of criminal charges later. We had other things to talk about.

As the train carried us ever farther from Smurl’s territory, the physical distance made it possible to raise the question of when and how Miss Travers might return to her own home, and for her to consider it without alarm. She told us that she did not know why, but the very act of moving towards her own street had made her heart pound uncomfortably hard and her breath come more shallowly: she seemed to be afraid of something she could not name.

Jesperson said, “I suspect Smurl planted a suggestion in your mind while you were in his thrall, to keep you from returning to your family in the event that you managed to escape. You would not know why but would simply feel an aversion to going to your old address.”

She looked distressed. “How dreadful! Does that mean I can never go home again? What if my family should move to another house? Could I go to them there?”

Jesperson smiled. “Hypnotic suggestions can be countered—especially once you are aware of them. I can teach you a simple technique, or, if you prefer, with your permission, I can easily rid you of the problems he created. I have studied the arts of hypnosis …”

Was there no end to his talents?

Although I thought I would not be so eager to allow yet another strange man access to my mind, there is something so likeable about Jasper Jesperson—and he is so obviously trustworthy—that I was not surprised that Miss Travers expressed her gratitude for the offer.

“But when I do go home,” she said hesitantly, “whatever shall I tell them? They all think I am dead. How can I possibly explain? What story can I tell?”

“You must tell them the truth,” I said at once. “However improbable, however unlikely … the truth has a force that cannot be denied; much greater than any fiction you attempt to contrive.”

“But … then I should have to mention … his name.”

I wondered if her reluctance was entirely due to another posthypnotic command. There was certainly much to inhibit any well-bred young girl from admitting to abduction by a serial bigamist. She was undoubtedly sensible of the social consequences that would follow once her story became public. She might claim—it might even be true—that he had treated her with scrupulous courtesy, as a guest in his home, but still she would be regarded with suspicion, as “damaged goods” ruined forever in the marriage market. Society puts a heavy burden on its females. Some carry that burden without noticing, some are able to shrug it off, others manage to adapt in some way or another to the lot imposed upon them. I did not know Alcinda well enough to know if she would think her “taste of death” had been worth the lasting suspicion.

“You will have to bring Mr. Smurl into it. I don’t see any other way … After all, he has invented the device that allowed you to be released from your premature grave.”

“But no one would believe you had been entombed for weeks,” Jesperson added. “Not looking as well as you do.”

She flushed a little, and smiled up at him from under her lashes, although I perceived nothing flirtatious in his manner.

He went on: “You must have been rescued soon after the burial, although it was kept quiet. Perhaps Mr. Smurl’s wife—just the one, mind you; those other ladies must be her unwed sisters—tenderly nursed you back to health. They did not alert your family through fear that at any moment you would expire, and their reluctance to arouse false hopes.”

“Yes, yes,” she said eagerly. “That might do! I think that might be believed. It is close enough to what happened—we might say that only in the last few days have I been back to normal, truly well enough to risk going out … We might say that I awoke while my nurse slept, and did not recognize my surroundings and took fright …” She frowned, and her gaze turned inward; I saw her lips move as she rehearsed her careful lies.

We arrived at 203-A to be greeted by the most welcome smells of cooking. Without knowing when we might arrive, Mrs. Jesperson had made the best possible use of the beef, cooking it slowly in a large pot with onions, carrots, parsnips, turnips, and potatoes, producing a dish that could be reheated, as well as being substantial enough to feed a crowd.

We dined heartily on the ragout (so she called what, in my childhood home, had been simply stew) along with lightly steamed cabbage and a loaf of fresh, crusty bread. Afterwards there was cheese and apple pie with cream.

It was the first meal of the day for Jasper and me, and our guest demonstrated an appetite that matched ours, so that we scarcely said a word beyond “pass the salt” or “may I have more bread, please” until we were finished and, replete, sank back in our chairs to recover while Mrs. Jesperson went to put the kettle on.

Just then there was a knock at the street door. Jasper went to answer, and moments later, Felicity all but flew into the room.

“Is it true? You have found her? Oh, Cinda! My Cinda!”

Alcinda nearly overturned her chair in her haste to rise, and in an instant they were hugging each other and weeping with joy.

“But how? How did you know?” Pulling away from her younger sister a moment, Alcinda looked from her to us, bewildered.

I explained that Felicity was our client. “Surely you wondered how we had come to find you?” I did not find it strange that she had not asked, with so many other things to think about.

But she surprised me. “No. I felt certain it was Mama’s doing.”

“Your stepmother?”

She shook her head, smiling uncertainly. “I mean my own dear, departed mother. Departed from this plane, but not utterly gone. I know that now, because while I was … dead … I found her again.” She sighed. “I know you find it strange that I don’t feel angry and vengeful towards Mr. Smurl for what he did to me, but I can’t. This is not, as you may think, that I am afraid of him, or that I am under compulsion, but, truly, because I am grateful. Yes, really grateful for what he did, for the great gift he gave me. Perhaps I would feel differently if I had been kept there much longer, pressured to become another wife, but in that time the good still seemed to me to outweigh the bad. Every time he ‘put me under’ he enabled me to escape to another place—and my mother was there. I would have happily stayed there with her forever, but she told me I must go back, I was too young and still had a life to live. She said I must escape.” She frowned and looked uncertain. “I know that I tried. I have a feeling I did manage to get away from the house, once, but then Mr. Smurl found me and brought me back …” She shrugged off the incomplete memory. “I don’t know exactly what happened, but she said not to worry, she would send someone to save me.” She smiled at us. “And then you came.”

“Your Mama sent me,” said Felicity. “She came to me in a dream. It was a true dream—I knew it all along.” She smiled triumphantly, then added, “It was after I saw you in the cemetery that I had the dream.”

Felicity explained that Alcinda had somehow managed to get away, and described what she had seen. But when she repeated Smurl’s words to her, Alcinda exclaimed that it could not be true; she would not believe he would ever say such a thing, especially not to a child!

“Are you certain, my dear, that that was not a dream?”

Felicity glowered. “Of course it was not! I know very well when I am awake. But Papa would not believe me, either, even though he did not know it was Mr. Smurl I had met, and I did not know what to do, how to find you again and save you from that horrible beast.”

She carried on speaking over her sister’s objection. “I wished Mr. Sherlock Holmes was not just in stories, because if he was real, I could write him a letter. I thought he would surely recognize that I was telling the truth! That night I dreamt that he was real and that I had decided to visit him, so I took the train all by myself, up to London, and set off to find Baker Street. I was standing on a street corner, looking at a map that I couldn’t quite read, when a kind lady offered her help. She looked just like the picture on the wall above Alcinda’s bed, so I knew at once who she was. I almost said, Aren’t you dead?’ but then I thought that would be rude, so I thanked her and said I was looking for the great detective, at 221-B Baker Street. She told me that the address I wanted was actually 203-A Gower Street, and then she walked with me, all the way—it was the most extraordinarily detailed dream!—and she showed me the door. It was your door,” she said, nodding at us, “but in the dream it was different. You really only have a number on the door. In the dream, there was a brass plate on it with the names Jesperson and Lane. When I woke up, I remembered those names, as well as the address, and I knew that this was where I had to come—although it was a very long way from Sydenham. And expensive.”

“I did wonder how you came to find us,” I said.

“Did you know my mother, when she was alive?” asked Alcinda, obviously puzzling over the question. “Before she was Mrs. Eugene Travers, she was Maria Lessingham.”

Jesperson, who would have been a mere child at the time of Mrs. Travers’s death, said mildly, “I never had the pleasure.”

The name Lessingham provoked no more recognition in me than Travers had, but, before I said as much, I thought of the past few years in which I had spent so many hours in darkened rooms, in the company of men and women who claimed the ability to commune with the dead and act as conductors for their spirits. Many, if not most, were frauds, but I could not dismiss them all, even if I had sometimes speculated whether thought-reading, or telepathy, might not provide a more accurate explanation of their powers than the claims made by spiritualists. Maria was a common enough name; while I could be certain I had never met Alcinda’s mother in the flesh, I could not so easily dismiss the possibility that her spirit had encountered mine at some séance …

For a moment, recalling the excitement of my early explorations in psychical research, I wondered how I could have let myself be distracted from the great question of what becomes of us after death by smaller concerns, and I realized, too, that Alcinda Travers and I were not as different as I had thought. Perhaps, a few years ago, I would also have found Mr. Smurl’s strange proposal too tempting to refuse?

Mrs. Jesperson returned bearing a tea tray. For her son, she had prepared a small silver pot of very strong coffee (to revive his sleep-deprived brain), and for the rest of us there was a light and fragrant Chinese tea served in beautiful little blue-and-white china bowls.

Gulping down her tea without ceremony, Felicity was eager to go back home at once. Alcinda explained her concerns, and that Mr. Jesperson had offered his help. “Perhaps, if it is not too great an imposition for me to stay here overnight …”

Felicity interrupted her sister: “Why can’t Mr. Jesperson do it now?”

“Certainly I can, if it suits you,” said he, and drained the last of his coffee.

Alcinda was soon settled in the most comfortable chair, with Jesperson perched beside her on a stool.

“Would you like us to leave?” I asked.

“No, no. So long as Miss Alcinda is happy.”

“I am,” she said. “I do not wish to be parted from Felicity so soon!”

“You would like to go home with her?”

“Oh, yes!”

It occurred to me that the inhibition about returning was already gone, but Jesperson continued:

“I would like for you to envision the place, a very specific place, that means home to you.”

“My own bedroom,” she said promptly. “It is the smallest and the highest in the house, but I chose it for my own.”

“Think of it in as much detail as you can.”

“Oh, that’s easy. My little worktable and chair are beneath the dormer window. My bed is against the wall behind it. There are shiny brass knobs on the bedstead, and a patchwork quilt on the bed that I made with my two best friends. Over the bed is my favorite portrait of my mother. I look at it every day and night. I used to talk to it.”

“Focus on it. See it in as much detail as you can—you don’t have to speak aloud; just observe it for yourself.”

She closed her eyes.

“As you look at it, think of how happy you are to be back home again, how comfortable it makes you feel, to be in that room, looking at your mother’s face. You can see the love she felt for you in your mother’s face. She is the person who loved you the most, and has always kept you safe. There is nowhere else you would rather be; nowhere else you feel so warm, and protected, and loved, and safe. You are in your room, safe and happy, warm and well.”

He went on like that for some minutes more, in a voice so compelling and soporific that at one point I dozed off and dreamt I was in that room myself, a room I had never seen but felt was my own true home, looking at a picture of my own mother with a relaxed feeling of comfortable well-being that was very far from the reality of our relationship.

When he talked her—us—back to our present surroundings, I knew he had been successful. Without mumbo jumbo, his ordinary magic had worked. Most unexpectedly, it had worked on me; I felt as refreshed and relaxed as my partner told Alcinda she now felt.

Although Felicity and Alcinda said there was no need for us to accompany them all the way back to Sydenham, Jesperson insisted. What if Smurl should be lurking outside their home, with an accomplice, ready to seize his escaped prisoner? Perhaps Miss Travers might like to reconsider. We could go to Scotland Yard before we left London …

But she was adamant that she would bring no charges against Mr. Smurl and begged us to respect her decision.

We walked to the Holborn Viaduct Station, and from there bought tickets to Sydenham. It was just as well, really, that we had come, because although Felicity had a return ticket, she did not have quite enough money to buy a single for Alcinda. I wondered, as Jesperson dug into his pocket to pay for one first-class single and two returns, if we would ever make any money from the curious cases we took on.

Leaving the two sisters outside their house—they preferred to be alone with their family—I felt that we were being gently pushed out of the story; whatever explanation Alcinda had come up with would not feature the names of Jesperson and Lane. But if that was their decision, what right had we to argue? Sometimes good deeds must be their own reward.

No one was waiting for them with evil intent. The street was quiet; a few birds singing in the trees. After we had seen them go safely inside, my partner and I set off, without discussion, for Smurl’s house.

It was evening by the time we arrived; the streetlamps were not yet lit, but most of the houses along the street now had warmly glowing windows, hinting at comfort within—except for Smurl’s. But someone was ahead of us, someone had pushed open the gate beside the laburnum bush, and was making his way, steps a trifle hesitant, towards the front door.

The figure looked familiar. In a moment, I recognized the cemetery’s caretaker, Eric Bailey.

We continued to approach the house, walking more slowly to observe him. He rapped several times upon the door: the sound carried clearly through the quiet air. We heard him call out to Mr. Smurl, identifying himself, but received no response. By this time, we were just outside the gate, so we were able to watch him try the door handle, and then bend to inspect the keyhole.

When he straightened, his manner had changed. I wondered if he had seen something through the keyhole that worried him. He rubbed his chin and fidgeted nervously, turning around on the spot. At this point, Mr. Jesperson opened the gate, and we walked through.

Giving a start of surprise, the man called out an uncertain greeting.

“Good evening,” said Jesperson, touching his hat. “We meet again, Mr. Bailey!”

Recognizing us, he relaxed a little. “Why, fancy! Have you come to call on Mr. Smurl?”

“Indeed. That brochure you gave me was very interesting. I thought I should like to hear more about his famous security coffin, from the inventor himself.”

He could not have looked more astonished if my friend had said he’d an invitation from Saint Peter to discuss his place in Heaven. “You don’t mean to say Mr. Smurl invited you here, to his house?”

“Why, is that so unusual?”

“Never heard of such a thing! Never for business, and not for anything else since his wife took ill—four, five, maybe six years now? I felt a bit strange coming here myself, but didn’t know what else to do. They haven’t seen him in the parlor since he left just before one. I expected him at three o’clock, but when he didn’t show up, didn’t think too much about it. He likes to show his face at the graveside, but I thought something must have come up. They told me he missed two meetings, and never a note, never a word of explanation—well, that’s not like him. He went home for his dinner at one o’clock; I thought, if his wife had taken a turn for the worse …” He mentally pulled himself back, looked sharply at Mr. Jesperson. “You had an appointment? You say he invited you here, to his own private abode, to talk business?”

“No, I did not say that. I decided to call by, on the chance. But I take it he is not at home.”

He’s on the run, I thought. Packed up his remaining “wives” and headed for the Continent to hide out. Or maybe they were in Southampton, planning to sail to America, where he might hope to be met with open arms by the polygamous Mormons.

Eric Bailey shook his head unhappily. “The door is locked from the inside.”

“Perhaps his wife is not inclined to admit anyone before her husband returns.”

“Mrs. Smurl is an invalid. He has told me so often enough. She could not come downstairs to let him in—or to lock the door.”

“There must be another way out,” I said. “A back door, into the garden.”

There was a high wall and a locked gate barring access to the back garden, but this, of course, was small obstacle to a long-legged, strong, and agile young man. While we waited for Jesperson to come back and tell us, as I expected, that the house was empty, our quarry flown, Mr. Bailey and I looked at each other and then awkwardly away, finding nothing to say. A very long minute or so went by before we heard him coming back over the wall.

In the gloom, his face was ghostly.

“I think, Mr. Bailey, you had better go for the police,” he said.

* * *

On the side of the house, as he told us, there were French doors that served as the dining-room window. Looking in, he had glimpsed what he described as a tableaux of death. Although many details were obscured by darkness, the positions of the bodies—fallen across the table, collapsed in chairs, or in a contorted position on the floor—suggested they had all died quite suddenly and horribly.

“Bodies?” squeaked the guardian of the cemetery in horror. “But whose?”

“One man, five women,” he replied shortly. “Although I am certain they are all past saving, nevertheless—what is the quickest way to the local police station?”

We went with him but, as strangers to Mr. Smurl, were not detained. We learned the results of the police investigation only after they were made public and, although we did not agree with their conclusion, it seemed neither necessary nor wise to tell them so.

Albert Smurl was a respected local figure with many influential friends. The official verdict was “accidental death” caused by the ingestion of an arsenic-laced soup. There was never the slightest suggestion of murder—except amongst low-minded gossips. It could only be an accident. Mr. Smurl’s mother was known to be wandering in her wits. Perhaps, trying to be helpful, she had put what she thought was salt into the soup prepared by her daughter-in-law. “Who keeps arsenic in the kitchen?” was not a question anyone felt like asking.

The questions that were asked largely concerned the identities of the three unknown women who had been dining with the Smurls. From their closeness in age and genteel dress it was thought they were more likely friends of Mrs. Smurl than servants or impecunious relations. There was evidence within the house to show that they had probably been living there for some weeks or months at least.

Newspapers cooperated with the police in requesting that anyone with missing female relatives of the right age should come forward. The postmortem photographs of the nameless victims were too unpleasant to be published but might be inspected at the local police station. I don’t know how many people came forward, but if anyone ever said, “Why, if I didn’t know she had died three years ago, I should say that was a picture of my neighbor’s daughter!” that news was not reported, and the identities of those three women remained a mystery to the police and public.

From the moment that Jesperson reported everyone in the house was dead, I felt relief that we had managed to rescue Alcinda, and sorrow for the other five women. I felt certain that Mr. Smurl was their murderer. It is, sadly, not unknown for men today to behave like savage kings of the past who insisted on taking their wives, concubines, and servants with them on departing this life. It struck me as just the sort of thing a horrible man like Smurl would do, to take his victims with him, when he killed himself to avoid having to face justice for his crimes.

I was forced to change my mind upon learning that the Christian name of Mrs. Albert Smurl was Violet.

Who was Martha?

After a search, I believe we found her false grave in Park Grove Cemetery. Her name, two years ago, at the time of her supposed death, was Martha Boyd Elliott, and she was married to Channing Elliott, a man who described her as his “dearly beloved wife, taken too soon” and had the words FOREVER IN MY HEART carved below her name and dates. This should not make any difference. The same horrible crimes were committed against the same people. Nothing has changed, but after this knowledge, I have to consider if someone can be a victim and a villain at the same time.

Although I am not certain if I ask myself that question in regard to Martha Boyd Elliott or Albert E. Smurl.

Certain phrases haunt me. I keep hearing Alcinda’s soft, sweet voice saying “I can’t blame him” and “He couldn’t help himself,” but also I remember a policeman who muttered, “Poison is a woman’s weapon.”