Dead for a Spell Read online

  “What do you require, young man? I will have no callers for my young ladies at this hour of the day.”

  “Oh no! No, Mrs. Briggs, I am not here to call on any of your tenants. At least, not directly.”

  “What are you blathering about? Oh, come in! Come in. We can’t have you standing on the doorstep inviting talk from the neighbors. Come on inside and explain yourself.”

  She turned and led the way into the house. I followed, looking around in the dark hallway. The walls were vaguely discernible in the dim light, covered with ancient flock wallpaper. There were a number of small colored prints of country scenes in gaudy gilt frames, together with matching framed silhouettes of a man and a woman, and an overlarge etching of a stag at bay. A massive walnut Renaissance Revival hallstand projected from the wall into the hallway and had to be carefully negotiated. It was festooned with ladies’ coats, and its outer arms held an assortment of umbrellas on cast-iron drip pans. Mrs. Briggs hurried on, opening a door and ushering me into the parlor.

  The parlor furniture was dark—mahogany and darkened oak; I got the sense that the whole house was dark if not dingy—and overfilled with chairs, tables, and potted plants. I ducked around an aspidistra and found myself facing Mrs. Briggs as she stood in front of the imposing marble fireplace. There was no fire burning in the hearth, but the heavy curtains pulled only slightly apart at the windows seemed to keep out much of the cold. A single gas lamp burned low over the mantel shelf. My eyes were drawn to an ornate clock with two overly pink cherubs supporting it, one on either side, the small hands permanently pointing to two of the clock. The timepiece itself rested between two large glass globes covering dusty and mangy-looking stuffed birds, once colorful.

  “Now, young man. Your name and business.”

  “Of course.” I fumbled for a calling card but couldn’t find one. “I, er, I am Mr. Harold Rivers, stage manager and assistant to the Lyceum Theatre manager, Mr. Abraham Stoker.”

  “I know the gentleman.” She nodded her head. “I have a number of Mr. Stoker’s young ladies who reside here. Have been suffering them for many years now.”

  “You have one named Miss Nell Burton,” I said.

  “A model young lady . . . or was until today. I do not stand for my young lady tenants who play it fast and loose. She did not return to her room last evening, as was the case with her roommate Miss Fairbanks. I shudder to think where they might have been. This will be their first warning—each young lady receives only three warnings before she finds herself out on the street.”

  Mrs. Briggs’s lips were pressed together in a tight, thin line. She may have been small, but she obviously ruled her house with a will of iron.

  “Miss Burton apparently is missing,” I informed her. The tight lips remained. “We—Mr. Stoker and myself—have some concern regarding her safety.” The lips relaxed a trifle. “I would be greatly obliged if you would allow me to see her room, in case there be any clue there as to her present whereabouts.”

  “Miss Fairbanks . . .” she started to say.

  “Her roommate has agreed to it,” I said. “She is as concerned for Miss Burton as are we all.”

  It was with grim determination and obvious disapproval that Mrs. Briggs preceded me up the staircase to the second floor, where she selected a key from the large key ring at her waist and unlocked one of the doors on the left.

  “I should stay and watch you, Mr. Rivers, but I have work to do. I hold you and Mr. Stoker responsible should anything later be found amiss in this room.”

  She looked at me sternly, her eyes still squinting slightly, her head tipped back that she might look me full in the face.

  “I thank you, Mrs. Briggs, and I assure you I shall merely look and take note. I will not be removing anything, however slight its value, from the room.”

  “Hrrmph!” She snorted and then turned and retraced her steps down to the lower level.

  I looked about me. The room was small, with two iron-framed beds side by side filling most of the space. Both beds were neatly made up. A worn wooden chest of drawers stood against the wall at the foot of the beds, and a washstand bearing washbowl and jug was on the adjacent wall, next to the door through which I had entered. Two small, framed watercolor pictures of birds and flowers were hung, one over each bedhead. A tiny window looked out over neighboring narrow backyards, and even with the window closed as it now was, I could detect the faint smell of the privies lining the ends of those yards.

  I hesitated a moment, feeling uncomfortable examining the bedroom of two young ladies. But Mr. Stoker had sent me to do a job, and I would not fail him.

  I saw that one of the young women had apparently taken off her clothing—in a hurry, I would guess—and simply dropped the garments on the floor. Her underthings were there also, and I was aware of myself blushing as I glimpsed them, although I was alone in the room.

  I turned to the chest of drawers and gently opened and closed each drawer, trying not to disturb the intimate apparel within. In one drawer, lying atop the obviously well-worn blouse bodices, was a bundle of letters tied up with a red ribbon. They were addressed to Miss Tilly Fairbanks. There was no sign of any other correspondence; nothing addressed to Miss Nell Burton.

  I returned down the stairs and found Mrs. Briggs in her kitchen, stirring the contents of a large cast-iron pot with a wooden spoon. The smell issuing from the pot made my mouth water.

  “I like to have a good offering of soup for my girls when they come home,” she said. “Poor twists! A pair of them are only at gaffs, so you know they don’t have much money for eating.”

  I began to see a softer side to Mrs. Briggs’s stern exterior.

  “What can you tell me about Miss Burton’s coming back from the theatre last night?” I asked.

  She stopped her stirring for a moment and screwed up her face in thought. Then she started stirring again. “I remember now. There was a dress—a white dress—that was dropped off here for her yesterday. In the late afternoon. I guessed as how it was for some play your theatre must be doing?”

  I shook my head. “Nothing that I am aware of. Who delivered this dress?”

  It was her turn to shake her head. “Just some street boy who’d been given a ha’penny to bring it. He didn’t know anything—I asked him.”

  Mrs. Briggs was nobody’s fool.

  “Oh, and one more thing,” she said. She stopped stirring again and looked at me intensely. “Miss Burton must have changed into the dress right away, when she came back from the theatre, for she came running down the stairs in it and out the door. I had to shout after her to shut the door behind her, but she didn’t hear me. I went to close it and would you believe, there she was getting into a hansom. It must have been waiting for her.”

  “Getting into a hansom cab?”

  “As I live and breathe.”

  Chapter Two

  “Mr. Rivers!”

  I had returned to the Lyceum and reported my findings to Mr. Stoker. I was then approaching my office when I was accosted. It was Edwina Abbott, one of the extras. Miss Abbott was a reliable young actress. She would never rise above bit parts and crowd scenes, and I think she knew it, but she seemed content just to be a part of the theatre and especially one of the greater Lyceum “family,” as both Mr. Stoker and the Guv’nor termed it.

  My so-called office had walls on only three sides, the fourth being open to any and all who passed by. In truth, it was no more than a large closet with no door and no privacy. Mr. Stoker was always talking of finding me better quarters, but there was not a great deal of available space in the theatre, especially close to the stage, as I needed to be. I had contemplated taking possession of the properties room and swapping contents, but I realized that the properties needed to be somewhere that could be locked securely. With a sigh—which I invariably gave when considering my office space—I beckoned Miss Abbott to follow m
e in and find a seat as close to my desk as the piles of assorted props, scripts, set layouts, and books would allow. I turned up the single gas jet that protruded from the back wall, the electrification of the theatre not yet having reached my humble quarters.

  “Now, Miss Abbott?” I said, sliding a pile of papers off my chair and sitting. I glanced down at the desktop in front of me to see the cold remains of fish and chips that had been resting there since the previous night. I vaguely remembered abandoning them when some small crisis occurred toward the end of last evening’s performance. I swept the newspaper-wrapped bundle into the rubbish bin.

  “Tilly Fairbanks suggested I come to see you, Mr. Rivers.” She spoke hesitantly, obviously unsure as to whether or not she was doing the right thing.

  I nodded and tried to look welcoming, even though I was aware of a hundred and one things that cried out for my attention. “My door is always open, Miss Abbott,” I said, and then smiled at the literal meaning of my words.

  “It’s the cards, sir.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “The cards.” She dug into her reticule and pulled out an ancient deck of playing cards, which she set down on the edge of my desk. “They was given to me by my aunt Jessica, God rest her soul. She had ’em from a French sailor, begging your pardon.”

  “Cards? French sailor?” I felt as though I had landed in the middle of a pantomime scene at the Princess’s Theatre.

  “They’re tarot cards, Mr. Rivers. Not found a lot on this side of the Channel, as I understand it. My aunt used to say that the Froggies was into them a lot. O’ course, she weren’t really my aunt, you understand. Just took me and my kid sister in when things was rough.”

  I held up my hand to signal silence and reached out to take the cards and examine them. They were well-worn, obviously having been used a great deal. One or two were missing corners, and a few were torn, but I recognized them. Tarot cards were used for telling fortunes and—so it was claimed—for seeing into the future. I recalled Mr. Stoker describing them once to Miss Ellen Terry, when she was reading a play by Molière. I didn’t remember much about them except that there were far more of them in a deck than would be found in regular playing cards.

  I fanned them and saw mysterious scenes, along with symbols of swords and cups, coins and cudgels. I stopped at one of the more colorful cards depicting a skeleton wielding a scythe and slicing heads that protruded from the ground like so many cabbages. It was titled La Mort. I glanced up at my visitor, but her face was serious, her eyes locked on the pasteboards I handled.

  A large moon with a grotesque face looked down on two foxes standing one on either side of a river. An ancient tower rose behind each of the canines, and a crustacean of some sort menaced them from the waters. I studied a harlequin juggling two large coinlike balls embossed with multipointed stars. On one card a hand floated in midair wielding a sword; on another an ancient crone staggered out of a forest weighed down with fagots. A windmill struck by lightning spewed forth the figures of the miller and his wife, and various knights on horseback wielded swords, cudgels, large coins, and goblets.

  “What do you want me to do with them?” I asked.

  “Nothing. No, Mr. Rivers. I just sometimes read ’em for the girls backstage, when things is quiet. Just funnin’, you know?” She looked anxious.

  I nodded for her to continue.

  “Well, Tilly said as how Nell has gone missing, and Janet Broad said why didn’t I ask the cards where she might be.”

  “You thought they could tell you?” I tried not to sound as incredulous as I felt.

  She nodded. “I done a quick reading . . . I’m not good at this. My mum was, God rest her soul. So was my auntie Jessica. You should have seen her. Anyway, I done a five-card spread and the two ending cards was these.” She reached out and took up the deck. Quickly she shuffled through them . . . I could tell she was more familiar with handling them than she was willing to admit. She stopped and put one of the cards down on the desk in front of me, followed by a second. I stared at them.

  The first depicted a young woman standing bound and blindfolded in the midst of a large number of swords stuck into the ground. The other card showed a large red heart with three swords sticking through it. Blood dripped from the heart to the ground beneath. Neither of the cards could be viewed as propitious, in my humble opinion, though I knew nothing of tarot card interpretation. I decided to play dumb.

  “So what do you see these cards as meaning, Miss Abbott? And how do you attribute whatever it is to our missing Miss Burton?”

  Her mouth gaped. “Ain’t it obvious?” she cried, and then cupped a hand to her mouth. “Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr. Rivers. It’s just that . . . well, to someone as reads these cards on a regular basis—well, occasional, p’raps I should say—it’s as though these pasteboards are screaming out to me. That’s why Tilly says I should come and see you.” She was silent a moment, and then, with her face growing red, she reached forward and started gathering up the cards. “I—I’m sorry, Mr. Rivers, sir. I shouldn’t have come and wasted your time. I can see . . .”

  “No!” I held up my hand to stop her. “It is I who am sorry, Miss Abbott. Edwina, isn’t it?”

  She looked at me from beneath lowered brows and nodded.

  “Edwina. You are obviously something of an expert with these cards, compared to myself. I can see that what you have recognized as being represented here is important to you.”

  “Nell was our friend, Mr. Rivers.”

  “Yes. Yes, I’m sure.” I got to my feet. “Come with me, Edwina. I’d like you to repeat what you have said, and shown, to Mr. Stoker. He is far more attuned to such arcane lore than am I. I think he would find this well worth his attention.”

  I took her to Mr. Stoker’s office and tapped on the door.

  “Come!”

  I eased open the door and peered inside. I was relieved to see that he was alone. I advanced inside, beckoning Miss Abbott to follow me. Stoker raised his eyebrows, slid an account book to one side, and nodded toward a pair of chairs facing his desk. We sat and I quickly explained why we were there.

  “May I see this tarot deck?”

  Edwina Abbott produced the cards, handed them to me, and I passed them across to Stoker. I watched his face closely as he examined them, looking through them and pausing from time to time to study a particular card more closely.

  “These are very old,” he said, without looking up.

  “Yes, sir. My old aunt gave ’em to me and she said as how they had belonged to some French lady who had ’em from a sailor.”

  Stoker nodded without comment.

  “There’s two cards missing,” added Edwina.

  He stopped shuffling through the deck and looked sharply at her.

  “The Four of Cups and the Nine of Coins.”

  He nodded. “Unfortunate but not disastrous.”

  “No, sir.”

  After a few more moments of studying the cards, Stoker laid them, faceup, on the desk in front of him and sat back. He steepled his fingers as he now studied the young actress.

  “What was this spread you used, Miss Abbott? Just five cards, I understand?”

  “Yes, sir.” She seemed to lose some of her nervousness and sat forward on the edge of her seat. “It’s one my auntie showed me for what she called a quick reading. One for the person; one for strength; one for weakness; one for ‘working,’ as she put it; and one for the climax.”

  “The climax?” I said.

  Stoker nodded. “What the others were leading up to.” He fastened his attention on Edwina. “The first three are immaterial right now. What were the other two?”

  “As I showed Mr. Rivers, sir. Number four was the Eight of Swords and number five was the Three of Swords.”

  He pursed his lips but said nothing, his eyes returning to the cards.

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sp; Edwina looked at me, her eyebrows raised. I tried to indicate that we should wait and see what my boss might say. He finally looked up, first at Edwina and then turned to me.

  “This is somewhat disturbing, Harry.”

  “It is?” I was surprised.

  “Indeed. You did right to bring this to our attention, Miss Abbott. Harry, I want you to get onto this right away. See if you can contact that wretched policeman who kept hanging around us last month. What was his name?”

  “Sergeant Bellamy, sir. I’ll track him down. You think this is that serious?”

  He did not immediately reply but got to his feet and moved across to remove his topcoat from the mahogany clothes tree by the door. As he struggled into the garment he spoke.

  “Thank you, Miss Abbott. We are obliged. You may take your cards—remarkable deck, if I may say so—and return to your duties. It is possible I may have to call upon you in the future.” Edwina took up her cards and, tucking them into her reticule, scampered out of the office. “Forget Bellamy for the moment, Harry. This is urgent. Come with me.”

  “I’ll just get my coat,” I said.

  “I shall be outside hailing a cab. Don’t dawdle, Harry.”

  * * *

  As the hansom rattled over the cobblestones, Stoker refreshed my memory on the tarot cards.

  “Almost certainly brought into Europe by the Roma—the Gypsies—since the tarot first appeared about the same time as did those nomads. The cards have been known in England since the time of King Edward IV. He, however, forbade the importation of them, and they have ever afterward been difficult to find in these Isles.”

  “Why was that, sir?” I asked.

  “Why did he forbid their use? I imagine that he felt—as did others, especially leaders of the Church—that they were instruments of the Devil. He was afraid of them.”

  “Afraid?”

  “People are always afraid of that which they do not understand, Harry. Remember that. The more you study something, the more you come to understand it, ergo the less you find to fear in it. But the tarot cards are innocuous in and of themselves. They are simply tools. In the right hands they can be valuable . . . and revealing.”