The Spiritglass Charade (Stoker & Holmes 2)

Although there were faint shadows under her eyes, Evaline’s gaze wasn’t dim or weary. Her daydress bodice was a lovely rose color, with a mauve underskirt and ruffles. The bonnet atop her head was little more than a fabric saucer, perched at her crown and slightly to the left. It had an elegant curve that allowed for the high bundle of her dark hair in the back, and was trimmed with tiny rosebuds and white daisies. I had coveted a similar one in a certain shop off Pall Mall, but it had more of a cognoggin element with a mechanized butterfly pin with wings that beat elegantly and some tasteful, gear-ridden flowers.

“Right, then. What surprise did you encounter yesterday, Mina?” There was a bit more levity in her voice than I appreciated.

“Mrs. Yingling’s dead body.”

Miss Stoker’s reaction to my blunt announcement was quite satisfactory. She goggled as she made a shocked noise.

Thus mollified, I proceeded to tell her of the events in detail.

“And Grayling agreed with you that it was murder? How in the blooming fish did you know?”

“Inspector Grayling only agreed with me after I practically spelled out the clues for him,” I informed her crisply.

“I see. Surely he was grateful for your assistance.” Her eyes danced. “So how did you know she’d been murdered?”

“Elementary, my dear Miss Stoker. Mrs. Yingling was left-handed, which I observed during our séance. But on the table where she had presumably been sitting and writing, as well as drinking, her cup and writing instrument were on the right side of the papers. Clearly, someone else had been in the chamber and positioned the pen and cup to make it look as if she’d been working and then gone to bed afterward.”

My companion looked at me skeptically. “Maybe she moved them herself—accidentally bumped them out of place.”

“The angle of the pen and cup were both too precise and at the same time utterly wrong for having been randomly moved.”

“Maybe someone else was sitting there and writing.”

I shook my head. “The paper had smudges on it—the same sorts of smudges that a left-handed person makes because their palm brushes across the fresh ink as they write across the page. Someone else was obviously present besides Mrs. Yingling.”

“And so you think she was murdered simply because someone else was in the room?”

“Considering the fact that no one was seen coming or going from Mrs. Yingling’s chamber, the faint sweet smell I noticed immediately upon entering the closed room, and the raw redness around her mouth, it was quite obvious to me—as well as to Inspector Grayling, once I prompted him—that she had met with foul play.”

“So how was she murdered?”

“Poisoned. Asphyxiated with chloroform—which has a sweet, chemical smell. As I’m sure even you noted, the woman was very frail and elderly. It would take little effort to hold a rag over her face whilst she slept, and chloroform is a rapid, if not unpredictable, killer—and it can burn the skin. Hence the faint red marks I noticed around Mrs. Yingling’s mouth.”

“And then the murderer moved her pens and papers around?”

“Likely he or she was curious about whatever work the old woman had been doing, and was perhaps checking to make certain there were no incriminating notes therein. That was the perpetrator’s only mistake—well, besides not cleaning off his or her shoes—setting the scene on the table. If he or she had not taken the time to do that, I might not have identified the crime so readily. Either the culprit didn’t know Mrs. Yingling was left-handed, or didn’t realize the mistake when everything was arranged.”

“And what about the dirty shoes?”

“Both Inspector Grayling and I found evidence that Mrs. Yingling’s window had been recently opened. There was a bit of lime-soaked mud on the transom, presumably from the shoes of the intruder. I managed to obtain a specimen and have already used my laboratory to identify it as being from Miss Ashton’s neighborhood, where you may have noticed there has been quite a bit of work being done on the roads. However, I believe the sample is specifically from Miss Ashton’s front porch.”

Miss Stoker’s expression had changed from challenge to one of astonishment. “Blooming pete’s, Mina, I do believe you’re as smart as your Uncle Sherlock.”

My cheeks warmed, but I took her heartfelt compliment as my due and nodded. “Thank you.”

“So if Mrs. Yingling was murdered—”

“There is no doubt in my mind.”

“—what does that have to do with Willa Ashton?”

“That’s precisely why we are going to speak with her. It cannot be coincidental that the day after Holmes—and Stoker—begin an investigation by attending a séance, one of the main players is found murdered. But this turn of events has given me a completely different view of the case. At first, I suspected the plot was all Mrs. Yingling’s: she was taking advantage of Miss Ashton’s grief over losing her mother and younger brother in a relatively short time. She was clearly a fraud, obviously attempting to cull as much money from her victim as possible. But someone else is involved. Perhaps he or she hired Mrs. Yingling and fed her information that only a person close to Willa Ashton would know—”

“But what about Mrs. Yingling’s message from Mr. O’Gallegh?” Miss Stoker simply would not give up that point. “That was real, Mina. You have to admit that.”

“I admit no such thing. She faked everything else; she surely faked that. I merely got sidetracked from determining precisely how when I found her body.”

“And what about that cloudy green stuff at the ceiling? That was real, too—”

“That sort of so-called ectoplasm can be easily manufactured with colored cotton gauze, gas, or even steam. Miss Stoker, I find spirit-talking and visits from beyond even less likely than the existence of the UnDead.”

Evaline balked. Her lips pressed flat together as she fixed a cold gaze on me. “You don’t believe vampires exist.”

“I’ve never seen one.”

“And therefore they must not exist. Because Alvermina Holmes has never set eyes on one.” Her lips twisted into an unattractive sneer.

“Unlike certain people, I prefer to rely on scientific fact and objective observation rather than legend, fiction, and hearsay.”

“Even after the whole affair with the scarabs and the Ankh? And Dylan traveling through time?”