“But dear,” Mrs. Decker was saying, “none of them could have killed Mrs. Gittings. We were all holding each other by the wrist, remember? Someone would have known if one of us let go to… Well, to do murder.”

Serafina’s lovely face twisted in anguish. “I… Yes, but… There are ways…”

“What ways?” Frank asked with interest when she hesitated.

But she closed her mouth and shook her head in silent refusal.

“The Professor said Nicola was hiding in the cabinet during the séance,” Frank said, surprising her. “What was he doing there?”

The girl licked her lips, plainly trying to figure out whether to tell the truth or not. “He… He helps me.”

“How does he help?” Frank asked.

She hated this. “He makes sounds sometimes.”

“What kinds of sounds?” Frank asked.

“Just… Today he was playing a fiddle, just scraping the bow to make strange sounds.”

“That’s what I heard,” Mrs. Decker remembered. “I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what was making that sound.”

“And the noise comes from inside the cabinet,” Sarah said, “which is why they sound so strange and far away.”

Serafina was looking at her, twisting her hands again. She hated betraying her secrets. She nodded.

“Oh, dear!” Mrs. Decker said suddenly.

Everyone looked at her, but she was looking at Frank, her expression awestruck. “Don’t you see, Mr. Malloy? This boy Nicola, if he was playing a violin… I heard that sound the whole time we were talking to Yellow Feather.”

Frank frowned, not seeing at all.

She leaned forward in her eagerness to make him understand. “He was in the cabinet, playing the music, the whole time… the whole time Mrs. Gittings was being murdered. If he was playing the music, he couldn’t possibly have killed her!”

THE CORONER’S MEN HAD LONG SINCE REMOVED MRS. GITTINGS’S body, so Sarah felt no hesitation to enter the séance room. She looked around, trying to picture the scene when Mrs. Gittings had been killed.

“All right, what is it you need to tell me?” Malloy asked, closing the door behind him.

“She’s telling the truth,” Sarah said. “Madame Serafina, I mean. I’m sure Mrs. Gittings must have been doing all those things she said.”

“How do you know?” He frowned suspiciously, the way he always did. She supposed he had good reason to be suspicious most of the time, but certainly not of her.

“Because of what happened at the séance I attended, the things Yellow Feather said to them.”

Malloy crossed his arms over his broad chest in silent challenge. “What did he say?”

“He said… I know it sounds odd, but it was so easy to believe someone else was saying it and not Serafina. Her voice changed completely when Yellow Feather was supposed to be talking. I wonder how she does that.”

“You can ask her later,” he said impatiently. “What did this voice say?”

“Let me see if I can remember exactly,” she said, closing her eyes so she could imagine herself back in time on that day. “Mother could probably remember, too. First of all, Mrs. Burke. Mrs. Burke’s sister and her mother-their spirits, that is-were telling her something about a diamond brooch.”

“Jewelry,” Malloy remembered. “Did they tell her to sell it?”

“Not right out,” Sarah said. “It didn’t make any sense to me then, of course. I had no idea why Mrs. Burke seemed so upset when Yellow Feather mentioned this brooch that her mother had given her. She said it had been in the family forever, but her mother told her something about it was all right.”

“What would have been all right?”

“I’m just guessing, of course, but it seems likely that she was telling Mrs. Burke it was all right to sell this family heirloom. If her mother had given it to her, she probably didn’t want to sell it, so Mrs. Gittings would have told Serafina to encourage her to do it.”

“How did she even know about it?” Malloy asked skeptically.

That was a good question. “I have no idea. Perhaps we can ask Serafina.”

He gave her one of those looks that made her feel hopelessly naïve.

“Serafina wants to protect Nicola,” she reminded him. “And she doesn’t have to protect Mrs. Gittings anymore.”

He shrugged. “What about the others? Did she say anything to them?”

Sarah closed her eyes again. “Cunningham,” she recalled, opening her eyes to find Malloy staring at her with unsettling intensity. “He was very anxious to contact his father.”

“Did he?”

“No,” Sarah remembered, “not that day, although he asked for him several times. It was almost as if…”

“As if what?” he prodded.

“As if she was tormenting him. That must be what Serafina meant when she says she only tells them a little each time so they’ll keep coming back.”

“And if Cunningham didn’t hear anything at all, he’d have to come back,” Malloy guessed.

“That seems cruel,” Sarah mused.

“The whole thing is cruel,” Malloy reminded her. “She can’t talk to the dead any more than I can.”

He was right, of course, but she wasn’t going to say so. “But Cunningham did keep asking questions. Something about needing his father’s advice. He was afraid his father would be angry, although he said that he’d done exactly what his father had told him, and it hadn’t worked out.”

“That could have been the investments Serafina was talking about.”

“Yes, Yellow Feather probably told him his father wanted him to make these investments, and when he lost money, he’d be afraid his father would be angry, and of course then he’d need more advice.”

Malloy nodded. At least he wasn’t looking down his nose anymore. “What about Sharpe?”

“He was speaking to his wife,” Sarah said, and then she remembered something else that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

“What is it?” Malloy demanded, seeing her reaction.

“I just remembered, Yellow Feather said someone-one of the spirits-had a rose. Sharpe said that was his wife, that he’d always given her roses for their anniversary.”

“What’s so surprising about that?”

Sarah felt a chill at the memory. “I could smell roses!”

“It was your imagination,” he scoffed.

“No, no it wasn’t. I could really smell them. It was faint at first, but then, I was almost sick from the scent, it was so strong. Mother smelled it, too.”

“Another one of Nicola’s tricks, probably,” Malloy said.

Sarah looked around, trying to figure it out. “Did Serafina say Nicola was in the cabinet?” she asked, walking over to it.

“The Professor said it.”

“Where is the Professor?” she asked, reaching for the knobs on the cabinet doors.

“Still in the dining room where I sent him after Nicola escaped, I guess,” he said.

Sarah pulled the cabinet open. She’d half expected to find a violin lying there, but the cabinet was completely empty. “It’s big enough for someone Nicola’s size to sit in,” she noted.

“But wouldn’t somebody open it, just to make sure nobody was inside?” Malloy asked.

“Nobody did the day I was here, but I suppose that’s always a possibility. If they saw Nicola in there, the whole scheme would collapse.” Sarah turned to see Malloy pulling open the door to the hallway. “Where are you going?” she asked, but he was gone.

Sarah hurried after him. He pushed open the door at the end of the hallway and disappeared inside. She followed, finding herself in the kitchen, but Malloy was looking at one of the walls. A black curtain hung down near the corner, and he pushed it back to reveal a doorway, and ducked inside. She was right behind him.

“What’s this?” she asked, looking around. They’d entered a long, narrow space crowded with all sorts of curious objects. She saw some crates filled with the leftovers of someone’s life. A gramophone sat on a battered stand of some sort. Oddly, and looking completely out of place, a small safe sat at the far end of the room.