It was in the newspapers the next morning, of course. I read the headlines in the newsstands as I made my way to the tube to meet George Sutter, unable to stop myself from pausing. NOTORIOUS “PSYCHIC MEDIUM” FOUND DEAD, read one. And on another: SPIRIT MEDIUM MURDERED DURING SCANDALOUS SéANCE. Gloria had been a favorite of the popular press, and everyone from the Mirror to the Daily Mail had splashed her death somewhere on the front page, complete with pictures and insinuations of outré behavior. The more staid and conservative Times stayed out of the muck, carrying headlines about a factory bombing in Manchester. TWO DEAD, BOMBER UNKNOWN, it read. NO OFFICIAL RESPONSIBILITY HAS BEEN CLAIMED. The Times had never been the paper for scandals.
The photo of Gloria most often printed was a studio portrait that looked to be recently done: Gloria in a bold-print wrap dress that accentuated her flawless narrow frame, her black hair bobbed and marcelled, curling almost sensuously over one ear. Her chin was tilted, her dark-painted lips set in a mischievous smile, her big dark eyes rendered black in cheap ink. She looked like the hoyden she was, rebellious and full of glamour. I found myself mildly surprised she’d sat for a studio portrait at all; Gloria did not like to sit still, even for short periods.
Still, I bought three papers and read them as I sat on the train. The stories were full of the usual misinformation and shaded truths that always cropped up in stories about Gloria: lovers she’d never actually had, parties never attended, rumors of everyone from the Church to royalty on her client list. All Gloria had to do was appear in public, innocently standing next to this person or that, and suddenly she was written into legend as either the man’s lover or his pet psychic. “My God,” she’d said to me once, when I’d shown her an article linking her to the Earl of Craven. “I think not. His breath was positively rotten.”
As for the murder, the papers knew precious little. She’d been working for a “private party” at an “undisclosed home” in the Kent countryside when she’d been killed. One paper called the session a ghost hunt; another called it a séance. Scotland Yard had questioned all of the parties involved but had made no arrests. The other people in attendance that night were not named.
Two of the three articles mentioned the now notorious report by the New Society for the Furtherance of Psychical Research, uncovered by the Mail two months earlier, concluding that Gloria was the only true spirit medium they had ever investigated. The articles aimed derision at both the report and the Society itself, “an unusual group of so-called scientists and untrustworthy researchers, mixed in with wealthy eccentrics and curious artistic types, claiming to be on a quest for the truth about the supernatural.” I felt my jaw harden. I had my own reasons for disliking the New Society, but the press’s—and the public’s—attitude toward it was not new. It was easier for the average factory foreman or bank clerk to dismiss the New Society as fools than to face the possible alternative.
Not one article wondered what ghost Gloria had been seeking, or whether she had found it, or what it had said to her if she had. No one questioned why she was at a private home in the first place, something she had never done before.
Reporters, I thought, only ever wrote about the inconsequential details and never about the important things.
I threw down the newspapers in frustration as the train came to my stop, leaving them there for someone else to read.
In Trafalgar Square, I found a bench and sat with my hands in my lap, waiting. It was a crisp, warm September morning, the dome of St. Paul’s looming bright against the cloudless blue sky, Nelson atop his column peering over all our heads into the distance. On the pedestal at the base could still be seen the marks of the victory bonfire that had burned there during the Armistice celebrations—several days of wild madness in the streets, or so I had read. I had stayed home on my mother’s orders, staring at the walls and wondering madly what was going on.
I had deliberately dressed in deadly navy blue today, a suit of wool serge trimmed with silk braid, the hem just long enough, my heels just high enough. I had topped it with a felt cloche hat sporting a satin flower. I was a shopgirl, or a secretary who came to the City every morning and made awful tea in an electric kettle as she typed letters all day. Only my bright blond hair—natural, as it happened, though most people assumed I dosed it with platinum—gave away that I wasn’t exactly a normal girl, but there was nothing I could do about it except bob it short and tuck it under my hat.
“Miss Winter.”
I turned on my bench to address the voice behind me. “Mr. Sutter. You are almost late.”
He gave me a look that said lateness was not in his repertoire. “It is ten o’clock exactly.” He took a seat on the bench next to me, though he kept a respectable distance. He wore a dark three-piece suit much like the one he’d worn the night before. I pictured an entire wardrobe of similar suits, all kept cleaned and pressed by the mother of his children. “I take it you’ve thought further about our conversation last night?” he said to me now.
I looked away and idly watched a street performer, a man with a windup organ that played an out-of-key tune as the man made a marionette dance on its strings. “I don’t understand exactly what it is you want me to do.”
“Perhaps,” George Sutter said, “I wasn’t being clear.”
The street performer put down his marionette and wound his music player again. “I read the papers,” I said. “It seems that Scotland Yard is on the case.”
I heard him sigh. “Miss Winter, what I am about to tell you is in confidence.”
I turned and looked at him. His expression gave nothing away, as usual. He seemed to have regained his balance after the night before; here, in daylight in London’s center of power, he was back in control. “Go on,” I said. “I deal in confidences for a living.”