Stone's Fall

'Dear me, what a time this is,' she said with a smile. 'You tell me one day I am about to become the richest woman in the world, and the next tell me I am to be a pauper. No one can accuse you of precision.'

'There are many things I do not understand here. I will tell you them, if you wish. Then you have to take a decision. Do you want me to pursue them, or do you want me to concentrate on the original matter of the child?'

'Go ahead, then. Confuse me some more.'

'Was you husband interested in spiritualism?'

She stared at me. 'Spiritualism?'

'Yes. You know. Table-turning. Séances. Auras from the beyond. That sort of thing.'

This finally woke her up. She threw back her head and laughed. 'John? Table-turning? Of course he wasn't! He was the most practical, down-to-earth, materialistic person I have ever known. He had no interest or belief in such things. None at all. Why, he didn't even go to church.'

'Then why was he attending spiritualist meetings?'

'I'm sure he was not.'

'I'm sure he was. Listen.' I read out some notes I had taken from his appointment book.

'Madame Boninska?' she said when I was finished.

'Otherwise known as the witch-woman. She was found murdered two days after your husband died.'

I had silenced her, this time. She had nothing to say. She wanted to find it all amusing, but could not manage it.

'Why would your husband consult a medium? The obvious next question is whether there is any connection with her death. Or his?'

'Let me tell you a story,' she said. 'A long time ago, when I was young and beautiful, I lived in Paris. I lived a fine life, and often invited people for dinner. Friends and acquaintances. Politicians, writers, musicians. That is the origin of Xanthos's rather inflated notions of me. It amused me greatly, and when I encountered John I invited him. I wanted to show off, I suppose. Perhaps even make him jealous, although I had no notion that he was anything other than an acquaintance at the time. A pleasing man, a good companion. Someone with whom I felt comfortable.

'Anyway, he came, although not often. He didn't approve of idle conversation with artists, and gradually his scepticism made me feel it was a foolish way of spending my life as well. One evening he took me for dinner at a restaurant, with some of his business associates and some of mine. They didn't mix very well. A doctor began talking about hypnotism, which he practised on his patients, and mentioned spiritualism. Auras and emanations. He took it seriously and offered to take everyone to a séance with a medium who was then in the city. This was the time when Madame Blavatsky was causing such a stir, and there were many imitators of her around. Do you remember Blavatsky?'

'I read about her for background.'

'It is of no consequence. Some of the other guests were enthusiastic about the idea, and started talking about spirituality, and the poverty of the modern age, which had taken the poetry out of men's souls. I leave you to imagine the sort of thing.

'Nothing could provoke John more. He became quite angry, and the fact that I was willing to go to this séance made him angrier still. He always held that such things were the self-indulgent foolishness of the decadent, or the miserable superstition of the peasant. Man's future lay with the roar of a blast furnace, not with the rattling of a teacup. It appalled him that grown men were willing to countenance what he considered to be obvious charlatanry. It was the first time I had seen him angry, and I thought it strange he should become so agitated over something if he thought it so absurd. Of course, it wasn't really about that at all. It was about me. What I was, what he wanted me to be. We had our first fight, then and there. It was undignified, embarrassing, and convinced me he truly loved me.'

'Did you – do you – agree with him?'

'In my youth I was interested in all these things. It was a fashionable amusement, and I imagine it still is. In my case it was the same as playing bridge. Something to amuse a company of guests, where we could all act out our roles. Everyone acted as though they believed it, because they thought everyone else did believe it. Not that that matters. The point is, that John had nothing but scorn for any of that sort of thing, and he was not a man to change his mind.'

'So it is not possible that, say, he might have consulted a medium in the hope of discovering the identity of this child? Perhaps of talking to it, if he had known it was dead?'

'John, so overcome with grief at the loss of a child he had not cared about enough to discover, talking to shades through a charlatan? No. Not a chance in the world.'

'But he went.'

'So you tell me. If you can discover why, and it does not distract you from the main line of enquiry, then do so. Let it be another surprise to add to the ones I am already having to deal with. Is there anything else?'

'And the morphine?'

'That is none of your business.'