The Clairvoyant Countess Read online

  The old man shrugged. “I’m seventy-six, Lieutenant Pruden, and I’m a Victorian and I have my prejudices. I don’t like to see a man living off his wife’s money. In my day Carl Madison would have been called a kept man.”

  “But I thought you said there was very little money when Tom Bartlett was killed.”

  “That’s right, he didn’t leave much except debts, which Francine paid off slowly, year by year, after she was appointed town librarian. But Tom’s aunt died several years later and Francine came into quite a bit of money.”

  “Money!” exclaimed Pruden, and put down his cup hard.

  Johnson nodded. ‘When the estate taxes had been paid it amounted to three hundred thousand dollars, and that,” he said dryly, “is a fortune in my book. That’s when Francine celebrated by taking herself and Alison on a Caribbean cruise.”

  “She met her second husband there, this Carl Madison?” Pruden said sharply.

  Johnson nodded. “She came home married, looking radiant, enchanted, like a child. Alison adored the man too.” He shrugged. “Pleasant-enough fellow, except—”

  “Yes?”

  Johnson stirred uneasily. “Except he’s lived in this town for seven years now and I don’t think anybody knows him any better than they did when they first met him. Keeps to himself out there in the Whittaker house, and kept Francine and Alison to himself too. The marriage changed Francine; we hardly ever saw her. Just the three of them, like recluses.”

  “All right,” Pruden said harshly, “who got Francine’s money when she died?”

  Johnson lifted his eyes and looked thoughtfully at Pruden. “Alison received the majority of it. Carl Madison was left the house and fifty thousand dollars.”

  “And Alison’s will? There is a will?”

  “Indeed yes,” said Johnson dryly. “I drew it up for her just before she left for Trafton. She leaves everything to her stepfather.”

  Pruden was silent, a strange excitement stirring in him. “What was Alison’s relationship to her stepfather?”

  “Positively incestuous, I’d say. After Francine’s death Alison insisted he lack for nothing. You could almost say she was brokenhearted that Francine had left her husband so little and herself so much.”

  “Why did she go to Trafton, then, if she was so close to him?”

  Johnson hesitated and then he said slowly, “I had the feeling that she just might be in love with her stepfather.”

  “Then I don’t understand why she left.”

  Johnson nodded. “It crossed my mind, at the time, that they might marry. Perhaps I was being cynical but Madison had become accustomed to living well and here was this eager, charming young girl with a quarter of a million dollars caring about him.” He shook his head. “But Alison had a puritanical streak in her, and I think that’s why she chose to—just leave. I don’t think she was able to cope with being in love with her mother’s husband.”

  “How did Madison take it, being left only the house and a small share of the money?”

  “Not well,” Johnson said dryly. “Not well at all, a fact that I took pains not to communicate to Alison. Perhaps I should have, but I’ve seen much saintlier men fall apart over money.”

  “Mr. Johnson,” said Pruden, “what are your suspicions about Francine Bartlett’s death?”

  Johnson looked startled. “Suspicions? On the contrary,” he said, “I didn’t realize I had any until you walked in and asked.” He hesitated. “But they’ve been there. I have to confess I’ve always felt—uneasy, unsettled—about her death. You see, I did a very untypical thing after meeting Carl Madison for the first time.”

  “Yes?”

  The old man looked uncomfortable. “I tried making inquiries about him. I felt—skeptical, unsatisfied. I wasn’t happy about what I did, and later I decided I was a damn fool, but you have to understand that I looked on Francine almost as a daughter. She was a lovely person, left widowed at a ridiculous age. She was young, delightful, courageous. The town protected her, she was one of ours, at least until she married Madison.”

  “Yet you did make inquiries. What did you discover?”

  “Nothing,” he said simply. “Nothing at all. The Illinois town where he said he was born had no records of his birth. He’d been a chemist, he said—no way to trace that—and had gone to Syracuse University. They hadn’t heard of him either. I finally decided to let sleeping dogs lie.”

  “Did you remember all this when Francine died?”

  Johnson sighed. “I suppose it crossed my mind, but we’re not accustomed to melodrama here in Pennsville, Lieutenant; and then you see Francine did have asthma. Rather badly, poor child. In fact it’s hard to picture or describe Francine without the little aerosol vial she always carried with her in case of attacks. It was like a reflex with her, absently bringing it out to sniff the way others light a cigarette.”

  Pruden’s eyes narrowed. “And you say he was a chemist?”

  Johnson looked at him questioningly. “Yes, it’s what he said he was seven years ago.”

  Pruden stood up. “Mr. Johnson, do you know where or how I could get a photograph of Carl Madison?”

  Johnson looked startled and then thoughtful. He said, “I don’t think Francine would mind.” He rose and walked stiffly to a file cabinet in the corner and drew out a small glossy photograph. “Francine gave me this, it’s a shipboard photograph taken at their wedding on the way home. I don’t think Carl Madison ever knew she gave it to me, so I’ve tactfully kept it tucked away.” He handed over the picture.

  Pruden looked at the three people in the photograph: they made a handsome portrait of a sun-tanned, carefree family. He said, “Do you mind if I borrow this for a few days? I’ll have copies made and return it to you.”

  Johnson looked vaguely unhappy. “Look, you understand emotions get involved here. I hope I’ve not implied, not suggested—I’m a churchgoing man, Lieutenant.”

  Pruden told him gently, “On the contrary, you’ve suggested nothing that hadn’t already been suggested to me, and I can’t tell you how helpful you’ve been.”

  “Certainly not in helping you solve Alison’s brutal murder!”

  “That,” said Pruden, buttoning up his trench coat, “is for me to find out.”

  Chapter 4

  It was nine o’clock and Madame Karitska threw open the shutters of her living room to inhale the morning air with delight. “A gorgeous day!” she exclaimed.

  Behind her Kristan said, “You can’t pay your rent and it’s a gorgeous day?”

  “Give me a few hours,” she said, turning to him. “I promise I shall have it—I feel it.”

  Her young landlord considered this a moment, his bearded face troubled. “You understand I am at this minute so poor myself I couldn’t pay rent if I hadn’t leased the building. As an artist—”

  She nodded. “But of course, I would not for the world ask you to wait for money that belongs to you. If something does not turn up I shall sell my last diamond for you.”

  “Diamond?”

  She shrugged. “Yes, my second husband was a diamond merchant in Antwerp and I have managed to keep a few. Now only one is left, small but very fine. It is my security.”

  “Well, that’s a relief,” her young landlord said doubtfully, “because I’d hate to see you go. Hey, your phone’s ringing, Madame Karitska.”

  She smiled magnificently. “Yes it is, isn’t that miraculous? In spite of the bill being unpaid?”

  She answered the telephone in a confident voice. The woman on the other end of the line was apologetic and pleading. A charity tea at her town house was taking place that afternoon, in her garden, and would it be possible for Madame Karitska to replace the fortuneteller they’d hired to amuse the guests? Her niece, an art student, had visited Madame Karitska several weeks earlier and had said fine things about her. She would happily pay Madame Karitska seventy-five dollars for her two hours of work, and possibly there might be some tips.

  Madame Karitska
pretended to consult her engagement calendar. “But yes,” she said with surprise and delight, “yes, I am free for those hours. How fortunate for us both!”

  The woman gave the address, which was in the very elegant Cavendish Square area, and Madame Karitska promised to be there at two o’clock.

  Her young landlord looked at her curiously. ‘You look like a cat that’s just swallowed a canary,” he told her.

  “I am to be fortuneteller at a charity tea this afternoon. Seventy-five dollars!”

  Kristan grinned. “Do you always get rescued like this?”

  “Ah, my dear Kristan,” she said lightly, “begin by living as if you had faith, and you will see!”

  He said wryly, “I doubt if it would work for me, I swear too much.”

  “Then try swearing less much,” she said tartly. “Now do go and let me begin my meditating, and if you hear anyone at my door between two and four tell them I shall be back!”

  At fifteen minutes before the hour Madame Karitska presented herself at the magnificent brownstone house to which she had been directed. She was at first mistaken for a guest of Mrs. Faber-Jones but once this matter had been cleared up she was sent to the garden, upon which a great deal of time and money had been lavished. Two brownstone houses had been thrown together and remodeled with huge glass windows looking out upon the garden, which at this season was ablaze with colorful flowers and maze-like hedges. Small pink tents had been set up for refreshments and a yellow one for Madame Karitska; an orange marquee held a number of uniformed musicians who were to play chamber music, and small tables and gilt chairs had been placed among the shrubbery.

  Madame Karitska had brought with her a flowing robe, which, in the absence of a crystal ball, Mrs. Faber-Jones agreed would be appropriate for her to wear. It was a pity, however, about no crystal ball, she said: the other woman would have brought one, but she had apparently been arrested by the police.

  “There are many charlatans in the field,” said Madame Karitska calmly, and took her place under several hanging flower baskets. “I am not one, however.”

  From the very beginning she felt that she was being watched closely but it was not until she had given several readings that she identified her attentive observer. He was a small, plump, middle-aged man, impeccably dressed, with ruddy skin and a somewhat whimsical white mustache. He looked rather like a very successful stockbroker or financier, and when he at last approached her during a lull, this was precisely what he turned out to be. He was John Faber-Jones, the husband of her hostess.

  “I thought I’d ask a few questions,” he said, “about—uh—what it’s like to be a fortuneteller.”

  She would have thought this the last thing to interest him. “I’m not a fortuneteller, I’m a clairvoyant,” she told him patiently.

  “Ah, there’s a difference, is there? You look so—well, so damned respectable, frankly.”

  He had been standing all the while with the sun behind him so that she could not see his face. Now she looked up, suddenly interested, and suggested he sit down in front of her and have a reading.

  With an air of reluctance—almost of fear—he obeyed, and they faced each other, whereupon Madame Karitska began to smile. “I see,” she said with amusement. “You are one of us!”

  He looked startled and guilty. “It shows?”

  “I can assure you I am the only one who would notice,” she told him somewhat dryly.

  He began to speak in halting, desperate sentences. He said that until three months ago he had been totally normal—totally, he emphasized grimly—but in February he had slipped on a patch of ice in front of his brokerage firm and had fallen unconscious to the ground. He had been taken to the hospital in an ambulance, and he had been unconscious for nearly twelve hours.

  “That’s when it happened,” he said in a miserable voice.

  “What—exactly?” she prodded gently.

  “They had put me in a semiprivate room, opposite a hit-and-run victim,” he explained in a low voice. “Soon after I became conscious I could hear and see them taking down notes on the accident this fellow had survived. They asked if there was any chance he’d noticed the license plate of the car that hit him. I looked across the room at this chap—he was sitting up, you know, not too badly hurt. I’d never seen him before in my life, and I—” His voice broke.

  “Yes, do go on,” said Madame Karitska.

  “I made a damn fool of myself. I spoke up. I said the chap had been hit by a car with New York plates, license number YO 1836J1.” He looked at her. “You can imagine the furor this caused. But, you see, the license plate was suspended over his head in a sort of cloud.”

  Madame Karitska nodded. “It happens,” she said.

  “I hope it doesn’t happen often,” he told her with a shiver. “And why it should happen to me—I can only tell you it’s been absolute hell for me ever since. Oh, I can assure you I’ve not said a word about it, I’ve locked my lips. But since the accident—and that damn license number did turn out to belong to the car that hit that chap—I can’t tell you what I’ve seen. It seems an absolutely filthy world!”

  “Ah,” said Madame Karitska, alerted.

  “Yes.” He looked really abject now. “I realize my wife despises me, and has for many years. My daughter is living in sin with a young hippie upstate, in some sort of commune, and one of my clerks is pilfering the accounts of the firm.”

  Madame Karitska concealed a smile. “Then you have just discovered what you have been surrounded by all your life. How fortunate! Perhaps you will be able to change some things. But this has tremendous meaning, you know.”

  “I keep hoping it will go away as suddenly as it came.”

  “Perhaps it will,” she said cheerfully.

  “All right, where does it come from?” he asked suddenly and angrily.

  She laughed. “Oh my dear Mr. Faber-Jones, you wish the answer in one sentence? I can only tell you this: as human beings we remain very ignorant in spite of our splitting atoms and building vast machines. There is far more to the universe than we can possibly comprehend as yet, and there are laws of the universe that no scientists have as yet uncovered. To know ourselves may be the next frontier, because inside of each of us lies the clue to all time and space concepts, all—”

  Abruptly she stopped, realizing that several people were waiting for her attention. Reaching out a hand she said consolingly, “Do not take it too severely, I beg of you. It can be heartbreaking, yes, and often it is terrifying, but for it to have happened in this manner—such a strange manner—is most challenging for you. It was meant to happen, Mr. Faber-Jones. Trust it. Be patient, accept.”

  When Madame Karitska returned to her apartment it was with ninety-seven dollars in her purse, enough to pay her monthly rent and her telephone bill as well. She took it at once to the top floor where Kristan painted and lived.

  “The rent?” he said in astonishment.

  “The rent.”

  He counted it and tucked it away in his wallet. “Oh by the way, there’s a Lieutenant Pruden waiting for you downstairs. I hope it’s all right, but seeing he’s a policeman I let him into your apartment.”

  Madame Karitska thanked him, avoided any second glance at his latest painting, which appeared to be a tangle of snakes placed on a bilious green background, and went downstairs. Opening the door to her apartment she found Pruden looking through the books in her bookcase. “So—we meet again,” she said pleasantly.

  He turned. “You certainly have a great many books on the occult here.”

  “As well as the Bible, the Koran, the Upanishads, the Dhammapada, and others,” she pointed out lightly. “You look tired, Lieutenant.”

  He looked at her and she felt no hostility in his gaze today. He said simply, “I’ve been up all night reading books on ESP. I think we’ve found Alison Bartlett’s murderer.”

  “Oh?”

  “I know you don’t read newspapers but—” He drew a folded paper from his pocket and ha
nded it to her.

  She unfolded it gingerly, as if it was distasteful to her, and read the leaping black headline: ARREST MADE IN ALISON’S MURDER; Stepfather arraigned. “Perhaps you will sit down and tell me about this,” she said quietly.

  “It was her stepfather. It took us days to prove that he’d ever left Massachusetts on April 2. Neighbors insisted his lights were on in the house all evening until midnight, but of course there are gadgets that turn lights on and off.” At her puzzled frown he said, “His name is Carl Madison and he married Alison’s mother seven years ago. Alison adored him.”

  “Ah,” said Madame Karitska, comprehending.

  “We had only a photograph—a blown-up photo—to work with. We figured that if he really was our chap he would have had to drive to New York, since buses or trains or planes would have been too conspicuous. He would have had to leave Massachusetts no later than 8 P.M. to reach Alison’s apartment by midnight, knock on her door, enter, glance over escape possibilities, and then kill her. He would have been back in Massachusetts no later than 5 A.M., well in advance of any telephone call about her murder.

  “We sneaked a look at the speedometer on his car and checked it out with the garage where his car was last serviced. Nothing there, but a knowledgeable amateur can set back a speedometer. We showed his photo to every tollbooth attendant outside of New York and batted zero. But two days ago we found an attendant in a Trafton parking lot who recognized Madison’s face. One of those rare people who literally never forget a face. What’s more, he remembered that Madison’s license plates were daubed with mud, which was strange because it’s been a dry season, and he had to do some scrubbing before he could note down the number for his records. The parking lot was about ten blocks from Alison’s apartment. Apparently Madison was so terrified of his car being noticed by the police, or of getting ticketed for being parked on a street at that hour, that he made this one mistake. And so we were able to prove that he was in Trafton the night Alison was murdered.”