He shoved his hands in his pockets again and let that one go. “It’s just interesting,” he said. “Gloria is dead. I follow her brother, and I find The Fantastique, of all people. The two of you have a little tête-à-tête and he gives you money. Now I’m curious.” His blue-gray gaze caught mine, held it. “You know how I get when I’m curious.”
My face burned. “I know very well,” I said to him. “The results were in that paper you wrote for everyone to read. The one the Daily Mail resurrected two months ago.” I dropped my hands from my handbag. “It was a three-year-old report, James. What was it doing in the newspaper?”
He caught my meaning. “It wasn’t my doing,” he replied. “I knew nothing about it. It was just some enterprising reporter looking to fill column inches. I’m surprised he dug up that old paper at all—I thought everyone had forgotten about it.” He shrugged. The ridicule of being a psychical researcher didn’t concern him; it never had. “But that doesn’t answer my question. What were you doing with George Sutter?”
I took the easy answer, the bitter answer. “I’m conning him, of course. Taking his money for a lie.”
“I don’t think so.”
“No?” I rubbed the bridge of my nose, suddenly tired of parrying him. Just looking at James, trying to read the expression behind his flawless, clean-shaven jaw and dark blond eyelashes, was sometimes exhausting. “And what do you think?”
“Whoever George Sutter works for, he’s very powerful,” James replied. “He’s intelligent, educated. He wouldn’t be an easy mark. He disowned Gloria years ago, so he doesn’t believe in the supernatural. If George Sutter is meeting with The Fantastique, it’s probably because he’s making use of her.”
“His sister was murdered,” I conceded. “He’s concerned.”
“So am I,” James said. “I can read behind the headlines, Ellie, just like you can. Something is rotten about this.”
“Of course,” I said, trying not to let the bite of jealousy enter my voice. “You and Gloria were close.”
“I studied her for nearly ten months. I wrote a scientific paper on her. You can call that close if you want, but I certainly never wanted to see her killed.”
He was still standing at my knees, and when I abruptly stood, my nose was nearly in the knot of his tie. I caught the brief scent of him before he took a step back. “If you want to trade places, I’ll gladly take it,” I said, trying not to let on that that brief second marked the closest I’d been to a real, physical man in years. “I didn’t go to Sutter—he came to me. I’m certainly no investigator. But I’m going to do the best I can, and you would do well to stay out of my way.”
I thought it sounded rather tough, but all he did was give me a smile that was almost reluctant, as if he knew it would make me angry. “In my line of work, I don’t frighten very easily.”
“Good-bye, James.”
“I meant what I said about Sutter,” he said as I made to leave. “I have no idea what he’s up to or who he really is. Don’t trust anything he tells you to do.”
“I don’t trust anyone,” I said. “Especially not the man who ruined my mother’s career and made Gloria Sutter his prize exhibit.”
When I saw him flinch, I turned and walked away.
CHAPTER FIVE
Gloria had lived in Soho, in a studio on the attic floor of a run-down house nearly a hundred years old. The street was lined with dim poverty-stricken artists’ studios and ramshackle galleries, pawnshops, and booths of cheaply made crafts. A Home for Fallen Women had established itself on the corner sometime in the last century, and it still kept its polished double doors open to girls unwed and pregnant or just down on their luck. I was quite certain the middle-aged spirit medium on the ground floor of Gloria’s house—who had a Liverpool accent when she wasn’t working and only appeared during the intermittent times she could pay her back rent—had no idea that two floors above her was the great Gloria Sutter, who quietly let everyone from priests to politicians up the winding back stairs to her garret.
Gloria could have afforded better, of course. Her clientele was of the highest level, and her fees reflected it. But she liked the eccentricity of Soho, the strange collection of fringe people who never asked questions and took most things in stride. And she found the discreet back stairs of the building too useful to give up.
I had no key to Gloria’s apartment. I did not need one. I climbed the front stairs, passed the shuttered rooms belonging to the Liverpool medium, and knocked on the door to the first-floor flat.
I knew the occupant wouldn’t answer, so I didn’t bother waiting. “Davies, it’s me. Ellie Winter.”
A shuffle, and a sullen thump. Then silence.
I knocked again. “Davies, please.”
The lock clicked and the door opened just wide enough to reveal the homely face of a woman. She was twenty-five, and her reddish bobbed and marcelled hair stood up in an unkempt mess. Her eyes were red from weeping.
“Oh, God,” she drawled. “It’s you.”
This was Davies—her first name was Violetta, but no one ever called her anything but Davies. She had been Gloria’s personal secretary, living in the flat beneath hers, managing her mail, scheduling her appointments, and, most important, screening her clients. Anyone who wanted to see Gloria went through Davies first. She was homely, intelligent, rootless, and mostly without feeling except for her fierce dedication to her job and to Gloria Sutter.
“I need to come in,” I said to her.
Even though she looked a mess, she was admirably managing to sound bored and superior. “I’ve talked to the police about everything already,” she said. “Go away.”
“I’m not the police.”
Davies rolled her eyes. “Do tell.”
“Davies, please. Just—please.”
“I said go away.” She made to close the door.
“A ghost hunt, for God’s sake?” I said. “In an outside location? You let her go alone? And how in the world did you let Fitzroy Todd get involved?”