A Dangerous Collaboration (A Veronica Speedwell Mystery) Deanna Raybourn (books to read for self improvement .TXT) 📖

I offered. “It was doubtless packed when they intended to travel today and meant to be sent on after.”

He knelt in front of the trunk and attempted to raise the lid. “It is still locked. Do you see a key?”

We made a hurried search of the expected places, but there was no key to be found. “I suppose she carries it upon her,” I told him. “Many women do.”

“Then give me a pair of your hairpins,” he instructed. I did as he bade, knowing he would make quick work of the lock.

“Mind you don’t scratch it,” I warned. “We do not want to tip our hand and let her know that her things have been searched.”

He gave me a pitying look. “Do give me a little credit, Veronica. I have been lock breaking since before you were born. One of the many advantages of having elder brothers who locked up their pocket money.”

“You mean you stole from them?”

“Every chance I got,” was the cheerful reply. “There it is,” he said with some satisfaction as the catch clicked open. He lifted the lid and together we stared into the trunk.

“What on earth—” I pulled out a piece of material unlike anything I had ever seen before. It seemed fashioned of cobwebs, almost like a sort of cheesecloth but infinitely lighter and more gossamer. Long filaments of silvery threads caught the light as they rose in the air, dancing a little in the draft from the ventilator.

“Ectoplasm,” Stoker pronounced.

“I beg your pardon? That is nothing like the outer layer of a cytoplasm,” I protested.

“I am not referring to the scientific definition,” he corrected. “This is altogether different. I have only seen it once before, when I worked in the traveling show. We had a medium for a few months who would deliver manifestations and one of her little tricks was conjuring this mess.”

“Tricks? Then she was not in communication with the spirit world?”

He rolled his eyes heavenwards. “Veronica, there is no such thing as legitimate communication with the spirit world because there is no spirit world. You are a scientist, for God’s sake.”

“I am scientist enough to believe that there is much we cannot explain and that it is arrogant to presume we know more than we do,” I replied. I took the length of material from him, running the exquisite softness through my fingers. It was so light it seemed to weigh less than the air itself, gossamer as a butterfly wing.

He sighed. “Very well. But in this case, the medium was most definitely a fraud. She used butter muslin and a bit of phosphorescent paint, but the effect was similar to this—a cloud of white to emanate from the mouth.”

“The mouth?”

He shrugged. “Most mediums swallow and regurgitate the stuff.”

Stoker peered into the trunk, pointing to a curious device. “A squeeze-box with straps to carry between the thighs so it will make moaning noises on cue. Candles with wicks that have been tampered with to ensure they will extinguish at a certain time. Everything in here is designed to trick the gullible.” His mouth thinned in disgust. “No music box to hoax the sound of the harpsichord, but she has the means of every other effect. Helen Romilly is a rank charlatan,” he pronounced.

“I see you have discovered my secret,” Helen Romilly said from the doorway. She stood silhouetted against the light from the corridor, cradling her cat against her bosom. Before we could speak, she entered, closing the door.

“I do not blame you for your disapproval,” she said in a calm voice. “I can only plead the need to keep myself and my son fed.”

“By preying upon the hopes and fears of the grieving?” Stoker demanded.

She canted her head. “I will not justify myself to you. We all live in a man’s world, do we not? And you are a man.”

“Are you saying that I cannot understand your choices?” he said, dropping the lid of the trunk with a crash.

“No. I am saying that Miss Speedwell will understand them better. Tell me,” she said, turning to me, her eyes wide in the lamplight, “was there ever a time when you worried about keeping the wolf from the door? You earn your bread. Was there ever a day when you were down to your last crust?”

“Yes,” I told her. Stoker’s head snapped up, but I kept my eyes fixed upon Helen Romilly’s. She stroked her cat, running one long white hand down the ebony fur over and over again. “More than once, if I am honest.”

“Then you know,” she said simply. “You know what it means to have to think about what you will and will not do in order to stay alive.”

“I, too, have been poor—” Stoker began.

She cut him off with a sharp laugh, causing the cat to stir. “Until you have been forced to contemplate selling your body, you have not been poor. Do not compare your situation to ours,” she instructed. She turned those lamplike eyes to me once more. “Imagine how much greater the consequences of that choice when you have not only yourself to think of but your child as well. I have led an exhausting life, Miss Speedwell. It has been my misfortune to love feckless men, first my husband and now my son. And make no mistake, I love them truly. But it is a tiring thing to be the person upon whom all things depend. If a meal was to find its way to the table, I had to provide the coin. The same with the roof over our heads and the shoes upon our feet. I knew what I was doing when I married Lucian. He made no pretense at being a practical man, but I daresay you are woman of the world enough to understand my motivation there,” she hazarded with a glance towards Stoker.

“I might understand the attraction but not the compulsion to marry it,” I replied.

“Oh, we should have been friends under other circumstances!” she exclaimed.

“Can we not