Harriett (25 page)

He took
a moment to wink at Harriett, who quirked her lips wryly. He knew
from the look on her face that she suspected that Mark had just
interrupted their attempt to steal something. After what had just
happened, he was more convinced than ever that he had the
fraudsters Scotland Yard were after. If only he could confirm that
they were the two clairvoyants who vanished from London over a year
ago. If they weren’t, he was fairly certain that these two had
their own similar scam working, and it was up to him to bring them
to justice. Until then, he just had to get through the rest of the
evening without Harriett being frightened, or his mother fixated on
matrimony any more than she already was.

He
paused and considered that thought as he stared blankly at the
stationary glass for several moments. Until now, he had always kept
his romantic relationships firmly away from his mother’s beady
glare. The last thing he wanted, or needed, was his mother getting
herself involved in his romantic entanglements. However, Harriett
was different. Judging from the looks his mother had shared with
Babette, the ladies strongly considered Mark and Harriett a
potential couple. Would it do any harm to enlist their help a
little to persuade the hitherto unsuspecting Harriett down the
aisle?

That was
enough to slam his thoughts to a halt. When had he considered
Harriett as his future wife? He had known her for a week now. A
week! That was all. Even then, he hadn’t spoken to her every day.
He had spent no more than five or six hours with her at the most,
and even then he had been at work most of the time. He had very
little personal knowledge of her to even begin to consider whether
they were compatible.

Through
his investigation he had learned that her Uncle Charles ran the tea
shop in the village, and Harriett helped behind the counter to
serve the customers. It was a thriving family business that had a
good reputation for miles around. The family had an excellent
reputation. Although Babette helped clean the church, nobody knew
much about anything else she did, except run the family home at 29
Daventry Street. Charles was a work and pub kind of man. When he
wasn’t at work, he was at home having his supper or down the pub.
There was nothing more complicated about him than that.

Unfortunately, he knew very little about Harriett. He had no
idea what kind of things she liked. Did she like flowers and long
walks in the country, or the hustle and bustle of town-life? Would
she prefer to live in the country or the town? Did she like beef
pie or chicken?

If he
enlisted the help of his mother and Babette, his life would be a
little easier. Unfortunately, he didn’t want to give anyone any
hint of his real intentions toward the woman beside him until he
knew for certain what those intentions were. After all, he had no
idea if she liked to keep a tidy house, or just threw everything
anywhere as soon as the front door closed behind her. There were so
many little nuances to consider; nuances that could make life
either very smooth or exceedingly difficult, that he was left with
no doubt that he had to proceed with caution: very much like his
investigation. Decision made, he turned his attention back to the
motionless glass.

“
Is this going to get moving tonight, or do we have to sit
here like lemons staring at the table top all evening?” Miss
Haversham snapped with a sigh. “I have my cats waiting at home for
their evening saucer of milk.”

“
It took a long time to start to work last time,” Babette
replied. Her arm ached fiercely and she had to use her free hand to
hold her arm off the table to alleviate the discomfort. It was only
good manners that kept her from taking her leave of everyone and
heading home.

As if on
cue, the glass started to move. It trembled and bumped across the
table until it drew to a stop before the YES square.

“
Yes what?” Mark studied Madame closely and frowned at the
spot on the ceiling that seemed to have captured her
interest.

“
Be quiet when Madame is working,” Miss Hepplethwaite chided.
Mark merely looked blithely back at her and lifted his brows
questioningly.

The
glass started to move again.

H-I-S-I-N-D-A-N-G-E-R.

At
first, the words came through hesitantly but, by the end of the
statement the small round goblet moved with convincing force. Mark
considered the circle and the lettering on the board. From his
position it was impossible to tell if anyone was pushing the glass
on purpose. He studied the fingertips around his
carefully.

“
Who is H? Tell us?” Babette snapped impatiently.

“
Not this again,” Tuppence sighed. “I tell you right now that
if this doesn’t start to come up with proper answers that make
sense to us all, and then I am going to stop. We want no more vague
warnings, hints or nonsense because it is wasting everyone’s
time.”

“
Quite right,” Mr Bentwhistle’s fervent response was
accompanied by firm nods and murmurs of agreement from practically
everyone presence; all except for Madame Humphries and Miss
Hepplethwaite.

H-I-S-I-N-D-A-N-G-E-R.

“
This is ridiculous. I vote that we stop now,” Beatrice sighed
but didn’t remove her finger from the glass.

“
Does anyone have some paper?”

Beatrice
left the table for a moment and returned with some pink notepaper
and a pencil, which she gave to Babette. “I don’t mind writing the
letters if you want me to, I just thought that as you did it last
time -”

“
No, that’s fine, I don’t mind at all,” Babette replied.
“Although I won’t bother writing this nonsense down.”

“
I will not have threats issued through the pretext of this
meeting. Threatening someone so vaguely is a random act of
cowardice that is completely unacceptable, and I am speaking on
behalf of the constabulary now,” Mark warned. He stared at each
person in turn and was aware that the only people who turned their
gazes away from the pointed warning in his eyes were Madame
Humphries and Miss Hepplethwaite.

The
glass began to move again.

H-A-R-R-I-E-T-T.

“
What about Harriett?” Mark snapped.

Harriett
felt vaguely sick at the sight of her name written so boldly on the
pale pink notepaper. She wondered now whether Minerva’s drink had
been meant for her, and the tea Mr Montague had drunk had been
meant to be shared with her too. But how did the killer know that
Harriett had intended to visit Hugo today? It had been a spur of
the moment visit that had been prompted by the sight of Mark in
Great Tipton with the mystery woman.

“
Stop this right now,” she demanded, her cheeks flushed with a
mixture of temper and fear.

“
It’s alright, Harriett,” Mark soothed. “Everything will be
alright. It would be a foolhardy person indeed who is prepared to
threaten the future wife of a Detective Inspector.”

CHAPTER
THIRTEEN

Mark
ignored the chorus of startled gasps from everyone around the
table, and carefully held her hand. He gave it a squeeze that was
hidden by the tender gesture of possessiveness. With his head so
close to hers, he tried to convey his silent plea for her to keep
quiet and go along with him. She seemed to pick up on his
intentions because she merely stared back at him with a strange
smile on her face and didn’t utter a word.

“
It would be a very stupid killer indeed who dared actually go
so far as to harm you, Harriett, of all people. They would have the
might of the Great Tipton Constabulary down on their heads so
quickly that they wouldn’t know which way was up.”

“
You are getting married?” Henrietta gasped and stared at
Mark, firstly with suspicion, then with surprised awe. “Oh,
merciful heavens, you are!” She gasped and launched herself out of
the chair toward Harriett, who found herself enveloped in a
fragrant cloud of green organza and a strong scent of lily of the
valley.

“
Welcome to the family, Harriett,” she gushed. “We have all
been waiting for the day that Mark would come to his senses and
settle down. Goodness gracious me, I have disturbed the
proceedings, haven’t I?” Completely unrepentant, she sat back down
with a wide smile.

“
Harriett, you never said,” Constance accused, with a look of
mock sternness on her face.

Slightly
stunned, Harriett could only smile weakly at her friends and felt
the worst kind of fraudster for not putting a stop to Mark’s scheme
right there and then. She knew that he only wanted to protect her.
The clear warning he had given to whoever was moving the glass was
plain to see, but should she go along with it? She couldn’t deny
the tiny thrill of delight that had swept through her at his
declaration that they were to wed.

Her
thoughts immediately turned to the woman at the tea shop he had
been with. She wondered how he planned to get himself out of the
mess he had just created. She could explain to Babette, and most
probably her friends too, that Mark had been trying to protect her
from being the murderer’s third victim. However, she could only
hope that she could stem the tide of good wishes before the gossips
ran rife with the news. She glanced across the table at the avid
stares of Misses Haversham and Smethwick, and inwardly groaned -
too late. The gossips already had their juicy news and, from the
looks on their faces, were just itching to get out into the village
to spread it far and wide.

She
glanced hesitantly at Mark. Their eyes met and held for several
long moments, but she could see nothing in his steady regard other
than calm reassurance. He had no doubts about what he had just
done; no qualms about encouraging such falsehood, and no hesitation
in appointing himself as her protector. She didn’t know whether to
be shocked, horrified, or thrilled to pieces.

“
Well, let me be the first to congratulate you both,” Mr
Bentwhistle offered and held his hand out to Mark, who took it with
alacrity.

“
Thank you.”

“
When? What happened?”

“
Shall we postpone this and do it another time?”

The
flurry of suggestions and questions was abruptly cut off by the
loud objection from Madame Humphries.

“
The spirits are here. They are anxious to pass their messages
on. Once they have done it, they will leave us for a while so we
can pass on our congratulations to the happy couple, but they ask
if they can first put forward their messages. They have worked hard
to come to us tonight. There is a lot of tension in the air that
has made things difficult for them.”

“
We did ask them here,” Constance sighed hesitantly after
several moments of uncomfortable silence. She would rather discuss
the forthcoming nuptials with the happy couple but, given that she
was now in Beatrice’s sitting room with a medium she had, well,
sort of invited, she couldn’t actually change her mind. Still, she
was glad that she had agreed to take part so soon after poor Hugo’s
death though. If she hadn’t been in attendance tonight, she would
have missed the best news the village had received in a long
time.

Amid
much grumbled reluctance, everyone dutifully placed their fingers
on the glass and waited. Within seconds it began to move
again.

T-H-E-B-L-A-C-K-S-H-O-E-S-W-E-R-E-T-H-E-
B-E-S-T-B-E-T-T-Y.

“
Oh, dear me, no,” Betty Haversham gasped and stared at the
glass as though it were a cobra about to reach up and strike her.
“How did you know that?” She demanded from nobody in
particular.

“
What? Have you purchased a new pair of shoes?”

Miss
Haversham shook her head slowly and snapped out of her stunned
disbelief with a heavy shake. “I changed my shoes three times
before I left the house tonight. I had a brown pair and a black
pair. Before I left the house, I changed into my black pair at the
last moment because I couldn’t make my mind up which ones matched
my dress the best.” Her voice tailed off to a whisper as, like
everyone else there, she tried to make sense of what happened and
couldn’t.

“
What relevance does that have to anything?” Mr Bentwhistle
was the only one present who seemed unperturbed by the personal
nature of the message. “It’s all very well and good, but how does
that affect the rest of us?”

“
They are giving us proof that they have been around us this
evening and know things about us that nobody else could possibly
know,” Madame Humphries replied patiently. “Please, spirit friends,
bring us your messages.”

T-H-E-R-E-W-I-L-L-B-E-A-C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S-W-E-D-D-I-N-G.

“
Well, we know that,” Babette scoffed and shot a knowing look
at Harriett and Mark.

Mark
smothered a smile and slid a glance at Harriett, who looked as
shocked as she was amazed. He knew what he needed to know now, and
could quite happily have called a halt to the evening and walked
Harriett home. As it was, he knew with absolute certainty that it
was possible for anyone to push the glass and give a warning, a
threat, or, as he had done, a promise, and nobody was any the
wiser. He would be a week’s salary that the only spirits present at
the séances were the ones in the drinks they consumed throughout
the evening.