Woman Who Spoke to Spirits Read online

They sit without speaking for some minutes. Then there is a tap on the window and Billy’s suspicious face looms up. Violetta opens the door a crack and says, ‘It’s all right, ducks, he’s kosher. I’ll be a while longer.’

  Billy scowls at Felix, then disappears again.

  ‘So what will you do now?’ Felix asks presently.

  She is looking at him again. ‘I shall settle down with old Billy out there. He’s a good man, he knows me inside out, nothing I do offends or distresses him, and he’s happy to let me live my own life without trying to cut my wings and shut me up in a jewelled cage. We go back a long way, Billy and me.’

  ‘Will you marry him?’

  ‘I might, but probably I won’t.’ All at once her smile is back, and he sees what a handsome, sexy, attractive woman she is. ‘I’ve told Billy I’ll give up younger men, otherwise I might have suggested you and I had a swift fling before I settle down with him.’

  ‘I might have agreed,’ Felix replies.

  She leans forward and kisses him. Right on the mouth, expertly and with a certain degree of passion. He feels himself responding, hard and hot.

  Then she pulls away. Glancing down into his lap, she chuckles. ‘Thought so,’ she remarks.

  Considerately, she gives him a few moments to subside. Then Felix, thinking that he really ought to put this strange encounter back on a respectable and proper businesslike footing, reaches into his inside coat pocket and takes out one of the World’s End Bureau’s cards.

  ‘You did me the courtesy of believing I was who I said I was,’ he says, giving it to her, ‘but I thought you should have the proof.’

  She leans over so that the gas light falls on the card. Then, eyes wide, she looks back at him. ‘This is the organization involved in the Battersea murders!’ she gasps.

  ‘It is.’

  ‘You work for her? That cool-looking blonde who stabbed Stibbins through the eye?’

  ‘Yes. My name’s Felix Wilbraham.’

  She is nodding slowly. ‘My God, but what a case!’ she exclaims. ‘She’s a one, isn’t she? That boss of yours?’ She nudges him. ‘Passion there beneath those tight stays and those prim spectacles, you mark my words.’

  But Felix, all too well aware that this secret aspect of Lily probably does indeed exist, can’t bear to think about it. Considering where she presently is, and with whom, he really prefers not to. Violetta seems to understand, for she stops teasing him and says kindly, ‘But then they always say never get emotionally involved with people you work with, so no doubt best to leave that side of things well alone, eh?’

  He thinks how much he likes her.

  Something else has occurred to her: ‘Do you know that man who’s been writing those devastating pieces in the papers?’

  ‘Marmaduke Smithers. Yes, indeed I do.’

  Now it is her turn to take out a card. ‘I like him,’ she says. ‘I like what he has to say, and I like the fact that he has the balls to say it. You give him my card, which gives my agent’s details, and you tell Mr Smithers that if he ever feels like an interview with a leading actress giving the true story about what really goes on behind the fire curtain, get in touch.’

  Felix pockets the card. ‘I will.’

  Violetta regards him steadily, her eyes warm. ‘I like you too, Felix Wilbraham,’ she says softly. ‘So much so that I think you’d better go now, before I forget myself again.’

  He grins, opening the door. He jumps down and is about to close the door again when, waving his card, she says, ‘I know where to find you.’

  And for the first time in ages, he feels a very small glow of happiness.

  AFTERWORD

  Ernest Stibbins is tried at the Old Bailey in September 1880 for the murders of seven women and the attempted murder of two more. His defence, such as it is, maintains that he has been seduced by the colour, the vivacity and the ingenuity of the Ancient Egyptian world. He became entranced by it – he uses the very word – when he was quite young, following a school trip to the Egyptian Rooms in the British Museum, and his dearest wish has always been to visit the land of his dreams, only the absence of sufficient spare cash having prevented it. Instead he has satisfied himself with making his own replicas of everything Egyptian; to begin with the art and the architecture, and he describes how he painted scroll after scroll of images copied from illustrations from tomb walls, and made little paper models of temples, and even carved a scaled-down wooden felucca with a sail made from a piece of sheet, working away down in his secret cellar at night while his wife – his wives – slept. But always he was drawn to the Egyptian way of dealing with the dead, and in the end he could not resist the temptation to acquire bodies for himself and emulate the magic and the wonder of their burial practices.

  The prosecution barrister makes quite a meal of attacking that particular line of argument.

  Lily Raynor of the World’s End Bureau gives her evidence calmly and succinctly, according to the subsequent report in The Times, and impresses all present by her utter refusal to be intimidated by Mr Stibbins’s defence team. The ordeal she describes so succinctly and unemotionally – despite the swirling horror of the memories roaring inside her – moves many in the court to gasps of dismay.

  Also giving evidence is the wife of the defendant, Mrs Albertina Stibbins. (Now, in September, it is clear that Dorothy Sullivan and the twittering ladies of St Cyprian’s Church were wrong about a happy event being anticipated in the Stibbins household, which is just as well under the circumstances.) Among many other questions posed to Albertina – she is in the witness box for well over an hour and a half in total, even longer than Lily – she is asked to describe how it was that she came to save Miss Raynor’s life.

  ‘It was all because of Ernest’s impatience,’ she replies. ‘He came down to the cellar to administer the next dose of laudanum to me, for the time was ripe for it. But he had Lily – Miss Raynor – locked up in the cupboard, and he just couldn’t resist having a peek to see how she was doing. So, when she—’ There the prosecution barrister gently stops her, explaining that it isn’t the moment to describe what Lily did. ‘Well,’ Albertina resumes, ‘I was starting to come round by then, so after she’d—’ The prosecution barrister raises his eyebrows. ‘Afterwards, I managed to get up off the table and let her – Miss Raynor – out of the cupboard.’

  The prosecution barrister commends her for her bravery, and there is quite a loud murmur of approval and agreement in the court.

  It is already fairly clear which way the trial is going.

  Like Lily, Albertina remains resolute in her refusal to retract her evidence, although in the final phases she becomes very emotional and, as she steps down at last from the witness box, has to be comforted by a very concerned-looking man in a clerical collar.

  James Jellicote later describes himself to reporters as Albertina’s suitor; it seems he is holding back from claiming to be her fiancé while she has a husband still living, although the due process of the law will soon be taking care of that. The story emerges that they had been acquainted years ago in St Albans, Mrs Stibbins’s home town, and that the Reverend Mr Jellicote was overjoyed when later Albertina Goodchild, as she then was, sought him out at his parish, St Cyprian’s in Battersea. But he dared not woo her then, being penurious in the extreme and barely able to support himself, let alone a wife. Loving her deeply and truly, wanting the best for her, it was in a rare spirit of philanthropy that he introduced her to Ernest Stibbins, sad widower, whom he believed to be a decent, respectable, hard-working, modestly well-off and devout member of the congregation and a man very ready to give his loyalty and his devotion to a new young wife.

  Which, as one of the more gossipy and lurid newspaper stories points out, just goes to show how wrong you can be.

  The trial does not last long. The judge’s summing-up is a model of impartiality but the facts speak for themselves, and the jury returns after a little over an hour with the guilty verdict that everyone, with the possible exce
ption of Ernest Stibbins himself, anticipated. The judge dons the black cap and, in beautiful, sonorous tones saying terrible words, informs the man in the dock that he will be taken from there to a place of execution and hanged by the neck until he is dead.

  He gives the customary final exhortation to God that He may have mercy on the soul of Ernest Stibbins, although most of those who hear him, and in particular such friends and relatives of the seven dead women as the various authorities have managed to locate, fervently hope the good, wise and just God above will see sense and send Ernest down to the everlasting flames.

  Afterwards, back at Hob’s Court, Felix fetches the bottle of champagne that Lily has set ready in the cool cellar. He opens it and pours out two glasses, handing one to Lily. They raise them, and the toast is not to the successful conclusion of the case.

  Felix says simply, ‘To Miss Raynor and the World’s End Bureau.’

  ‘To its stalwart employee Mr Wilbraham,’ Lily adds, ‘and to their joint future.’

  They drink.

  Then, putting down her glass, Lily says rather diffidently, ‘I think, don’t you, that, considering all we have been through together, perhaps we might consider a slight relaxation in the level of our formality with each other?’

  He hesitates. He is pretty sure what she is suggesting, but he doesn’t wish to appear presumptuous. ‘In what way?’ he asks.

  ‘My first name, as you know, is Lily. I should be quite happy for you to use it, provided, of course, that no clients are present.’

  ‘Of course,’ he echoes. There is a faint but detectable note of irony in his voice. ‘And I, as you know, am Felix.’

  ‘Felix Parsifal Derek McIvie,’ she murmurs. Her voice holds a very definite note of irony, not to say amusement.

  ‘Let’s dispense with everything except Felix,’ Felix says rather firmly.

  She picks up her glass again, raises it, clinks it against his. ‘Felix.’

  ‘Lily.’

  Then they set about finishing the bottle.