A Death in the Asylum Read Online Free PDF Page A

message about the child?’ I asked aghast, focusing on how this might relate to me.
    ‘No, no. That was false as well,’ said Madam Arcana waving her free hand dismissively. ‘Really if people want to pay me money to watch them move their own glassware around the table it is their own business.’ She released me and headed for the biscuit plate. ‘Although, of course, if that’s all that happens it can tend to give one a bit of a reputation. It’s a pity Lady Grey was here. I was hopeful about that.’
    ‘Beatrice? But Mr Tipton said it wasn’t a real title.’
    Madam Arcana sank down in a billow of scarves. A small smile played across her lips. She knew she had my interest. ‘Beatrice Wilton. She’s one of the Wilton newspaper family. They own them, of course, as opposed to write in ’em. Bea’s the exception. They let her write a little column about gossip – Lady Grey’s Notes. It gets her invited to all the right parties, which is all the Wiltons want, but Bea, if I’m not mistaken, wants a little more. I think,’ she leaned conspiratorially forward and whispered, ‘she might consider herself a writer.’ She sat back, tutting and shaking a head. ‘Very nasty for the family. Of course one knows writers, but no one wants one in the family.’
    ‘What makes you think she has, er, aspirations?’
    ‘Long words, dear. She uses long words. In her column and even over dinner. Not the done thing at all.’
    ‘But surely if she’s writing a gossip column she is a writer,’ I persisted.
    Madam Arcana took an enormous bite out of a biscuit and slurped some tea. ‘Not the same thing. Ladies like a little gossip and like to see bits about themselves in the papers. Men, being the dominant gender or so we let them think, write news. It gives them the illusion that they run things. None of the Wilton papers would ever allow a member of the weaker sex to write actual news.’
    ‘I see,’ I said. Though it must have been plain I didn’t. ‘Anyway, if you have everything you need …’
    ‘Oh yes, tickety-boo,’ said Madam Arcana. ‘Your Mrs Wilson has made the tea exactly to my instructions. Dry old stick, but she knows her job. Definitely a touch of the good stuff in this.’
    I blinked and backed towards the door.
    ‘Message, ah yes. These things sometimes come through to me. Especially when I’m focusing. Even if my attendees are up to their own tricks. An older man, kindly, vicarly, I’d say if pushed, but not on record …’
    ‘A vicar?’ I clenched my fists. Of course, if she’d been asking around the servants she might have heard reports I grew up in a vicarage. I’d been foolish enough to tell Rory that although it was at odds with what I had told the Staplefords. A horrible thought struck me – was Madam Arcana trying to blackmail me?
    ‘Oh, they come through all the time. Terribly annoying. But as I tell them there’s no point preaching. Stands to reason anyone in the room hasn’t heeded the church’s warnings or they wouldn’t be there, so why they should listen to a clergyman just because he’s dead … Though I suppose you’d expect them to have a better handle on how the afterlife works from a professional point of view. But honestly, they never have anything good for a séance. It’s all about lost cats, elderly relatives and church roofs.’
    ‘I don’t work here,’ I said trying to avert any attempt to winkle family secrets from me. ‘I’m on Mr Bertram’s staff. We were flooded out.’
    ‘That explains why he was babbling about rising waters,’ said Madam Arcana promptly.
    I began to feel rather angry. The woman was definitely trying to trick me. I did my best to copy my mother’s haughtiest expression. 3 ‘I strongly doubt the message was for me.’
    ‘And if he doesn’t think you’re the image of your mother when you do that,’ said Madam Arcana laughing.
    ‘He’s here?’
    Madam Arcana shook her head. ‘It’s difficult to explain – especially to