“Yes, for the fat lot of good it did me.” He pushed back his own chair and stood, and I saw how much frustration was leashed inside his large frame, cloaked in the elegant way he handled his body but still informing his every movement. “Do you want to get to the heart of the matter?” he said. “Very well, then. Let’s. By all indications, this should be an open-and-shut case. I’ve got witnesses, or close enough. A victim who was a popular public figure, distinctive and easily recognizable. A murder that happened out in the open for anyone to see. I have Gloria Sutter’s client list, her schedule, her every movement for her final week. I know who she saw, how much she charged—I even know who she slept with, which was no one, at least not for the last few months. Everyone I’ve interviewed has been more than happy to talk my ear off, yet no one has given me an inkling of information that can actually lead me to her killer.” He said the last word as he thumped one large, well-formed hand on the desk in front of me, leaning on it and looking down at me. “That is the heart of the matter.”
I stared up at him, biting my lip. I knew then, from the honest frustration on his face, that Inspector Merriken had no idea that George Sutter—whoever he was, whoever he worked for—was reading his reports. If I told him now, it would unbalance everything. And I needed George Sutter if I was to get to Gloria’s killer. However, I needed Scotland Yard as well.
“All right,” I said. “Do you want to hear what I think?”
The inspector made a sound I couldn’t interpret and walked to a sideboard where a pitcher of water stood next to several cups.
“You’re looking in the wrong place,” I said. He turned and glared at me, but I gathered my courage and plunged on. “Clients, rivals, lovers—none of those things matter to her death. It’s all misdirection, like the card tricksters use. Gloria’s entire life was a misdirection. She was a master at it.”
Inspector Merriken poured one glass of water, and then a second. “You’d be surprised who some of her clients were. I know I was.”
“I wouldn’t,” I said. “But what does it matter? What powerful man is going to be afraid of a psychic? I could go to the newspapers and say I had psychic information about the prime minister, or the King, and they’d just laugh at me. Some politician’s petty affairs are not the reason she was murdered.”
“Then pray tell, where should I be looking?”
“I keep coming back to the murder itself,” I said as he took one of the cups of water and handed it to me. “It didn’t fit Gloria’s usual pattern. She never did sessions outside of her own flat. The only reason she did the session for the Dubbses was for money.”
Inspector Merriken took a sip of his water and waited for me to continue.
“The Dubbses paid Fitz to get access to Gloria,” I said. “And then they paid Gloria. Do you have any idea how much money that must have been?”
“Wait a minute.” The inspector frowned at me. “Fitzroy Todd never told me he’d been paid.”
“That’s because he’s a liar who would sell his own mother to suit his ends. Trust me, Fitz needed money, and whatever the Dubbses offered him was well worth the risk. Then whatever they offered Gloria was worth her abandoning her own rules to solve her money problems. Both of them had expensive tastes, especially Fitz. Neither one would have agreed for less than a princely sum. So exactly how rich are the Dubbses?”
Inspector Merriken sipped his water and frowned. “The house in Kent was rather nice,” he said. “But nothing about them suggested they were wealthy.”
“Look again,” I said. “Look for where the money came from, and then look for why.”
“Miss Winter,” he said slowly, his voice a low drawl, “what exactly are you suggesting?”
“It wasn’t a random act,” I said. “It was a lure, a setup. Someone put it together very deliberately because someone wanted her dead.”
“Are you saying that the Dubbses killed her?”
“I wish I knew,” I said. “To me it doesn’t seem likely that if you want to kill a girl, you invite her to your house and do it right on the property. But then, I know less about murder than you do.”
Still he stood by the water pitcher, frowning, idly swirling his water glass. “It bears examining, I suppose. We looked at the Dubbses from the first, because we looked at everyone in attendance that night. But they seemed a normal couple. He works in the city, where they have a flat he uses during the week, while they spend weekends at the house. Affluent, but not too rich. No surviving children. The house has three servants, none of whom live in, and all of them had been given the night off. Everything they told us seemed to fit.” He frowned. “Except for one thing, now that I think of it. Ramona told us that when she and Fitzroy Todd appeared with Gloria at the train station, the Dubbses were upset and tried to send them home. But both Todd and the Dubbses denied it, so we assumed Ramona was lying.”
“Why would she lie?”
“Why not? Why would Todd and the Dubbses lie?” He looked at me. “If it wasn’t the Dubbses themselves orchestrating the murder, that means they were somehow being used. You know that you’re suggesting something with large implications?”
I set my water glass down on the desk, untouched, thinking about George Sutter, how he’d given me confidential documents from the first.
“You don’t seem surprised,” Inspector Merriken said.
“May I go now?” I asked.
His gaze sharpened on me. He didn’t reply, but instead said, “Are you truly psychic?”
I sighed. “Why ask? You’re not going to believe my answer.”
“You’d be surprised at what I believe, Miss Winter.”
My gaze rose to his. There was a hint of something, deep in his eyes, that made me wonder what exactly had happened to Inspector Merriken to make him ask that question. But I wasn’t ready to reveal myself to the relentless scrutiny of Scotland Yard.
I lifted my chin. “You have a fiancée,” I said, “and you’re on your way to see her tonight.”
The inspector went very still.