Agatha found her way back to the bathroom. She put on her clothes and went into the hall, where she had seen a phone and phone books. She looked up taxis in the Yellow Pages and phoned for a cab. They asked for the address. Fortunately for Agatha, it was stamped on one of the phone books because she did not have the slightest idea where she was.
As she waited for the cab, she wondered whether she should go in and console Jimmy. But she felt rejected, felt a failure. What a rotten day.
She heaved a sigh of relief when she heard the cab pulling up. As it cruised through the silent night-time streets of Wyckhadden, she felt small and grubby and unwanted. Stay for the seance and then go home, home to Carsely.
Agatha went down for breakfast the following morning. They all, with the exception of Jennifer and Mary, greeted her amiably enough. Mary's eyes looked puffy with weeping.
I'm too upset about myself to worry about her, thought Agatha, angry with herself for still feeling guilty about Mary. I'm the dream murderer, she said to herself. First Mary then Jimmy, and all in one day. Damn that Janine. That's what made me rush Jimmy.
She ate a light breakfast of poached eggs on toast. Again, as she sipped her coffee, she thought longingly of how good a cigarette would taste. There was no cigarette machine in the hotel--nothing so vulgar. But there was one on the pier which had, remarkably enough in these wicked days, not been vandalized.
A good walk would take her mind off things. She walked miles that day along the beach by the restless sea. Then she returned to the hotel to tell the manager that she would be checking out on Saturday, in two days' time, and to get her bill ready. The sudden relief that she had made a definite decision to go home brightened her up.
As she was getting ready to go out for the seance that evening, there was a knock at the door. Agatha looked round the room for something to use as a weapon, decided she was paranoid, and opened the door and backed away from it quickly when she saw Jennifer standing there.
"I came to apologize," said Jennifer gruffly. "You only did it to help Mary. She had to know."
"That's all right, then," said Agatha, relieved. "Looking forward to the seance this evening?"
"Not particularly. Though I wouldn't mind exposing her as a fraud."
"But I thought you believed in her mother's medicines!"
"There's a lot to be said for old country remedies. But when it comes to fortune-telling and seances, I've never believed in that tommy-rot."
"Neither do I," said Agatha, who had no intention of telling Jennifer she'd had her palm read. "But that's why I think it will be quite fun--I mean, to see what tricks she gets up to. Daisy believes in seances, I gather."
"She did for a bit, but then she decided that Francie was a charlatan."
"How did she come to that conclusion? I wonder. It was she who sent me to Francie in the first place."
"Oh, I think she believed in her potions. I'd better go and get ready. What are you wearing?"
"I don't feel like dressing up tonight," said Agatha. "The weather's turned awfully cold. I wish I still had my fur coat."
"A lot of people don't approve of the wearing of fur," said Jennifer. "It could happen again if you got another."
"You're right," said Agatha ruefully. "They'll soon be stoning us in restaurants for eating meat, and all the animals will be killed off and we'll be left with only token species in zoos."
"Samuel Butler said if you carried that sort of argument to its logical conclusion, we'll all end up eating cabbages which have been humanely put to death."
"Who's Samuel Butler? Someone in this nanny government we've got?"
"He was a Victorian philosopher."
"Oh," said Agatha uncomfortably. She hated having the vast gaps in her literary education exposed.
"I'll leave you to it." Jennifer held out her hand. "No hard feelings?"
"None at all." Agatha felt her hand seized in a crushing grip like a man's.
After Jennifer had left, and Agatha had just finished dressing, her phone rang. She ran to answer it. "Jimmy?" she said.
"No, it's Harry here," creaked the elderly voice. "We're all ready to leave. The colonel's booked two taxis. Too cold to walk."
"Be right down," said Agatha. She replaced the receiver. Jimmy might at least have called.
They set out in their taxis. Agatha wondered what had happened between Mary and Jennifer to heal the breach. Mary was looking quite cheerful and once more she and Jennifer seemed the best of friends. Well, thought Agatha, I suppose Mary's too old to change the habit of a lifetime.
Janine's husband ushered them in. They crowded in the small hall removing coats and hats. Then he guided them through to a back room. It was brightly lit and furnished only with a round table covered in a black velvet cloth.
They seated themselves round it. "This is jolly exciting," said the colonel. "If it looks like ectoplasm, it's probably our Agatha having a sneaky cigarette." They all laughed except Agatha who said, "I haven't had a cigarette in ages. I'm cured."
The room became filled with strange sounds. "What on earth is that?" asked Harry.
"Whales," said Daisy. "It's a tape of the noises whales make. You can buy one in these Mystique shops."
Mary gave a nervous laugh. "I never knew any whales."
"I saw some performing dolphins in Florida once," said the colonel. "Jolly clever beasts. Do you know ..."
He broke off because Janine had entered the room. She was dressed in a long white muslin gown, very plain, with long tight sleeves and a high neck. Agatha eyed her curiously. How could she hold this seance, agree to this seance, with her mother so recently dead? And yet, thought Agatha, peering at her closely, despite her heavy make-up, her eyes had the red, strained look of someone who had done a lot of weeping recently.
"Shall we begin?" she said, sitting down. "Please hold hands and keep holding hands. The circle must not be broken." The overhead lights were turned off. Now there was only a bluish light shining down on Janine and spotlights that lit up their joined hands around the table, but leaving their faces in darkness.
Agatha was between Daisy and the colonel.
There was a long silence. The whale sounds died away. Janine sat with her head back.
Then she closed her eyes and said in a crooning monotone. "Who is there?"
And then a man's voice said, "Hullo, Aggie?"
Agatha tensed.
"It's me, your husband Jimmy Raisin."
Agatha's skin crawled. Jimmy's accent had been a mixture of Cockney and Irish, just like this voice. Her mind raced. Of course his murder had been in all the papers and his background.
"I'm waiting for you, Aggie," he said. "It won't be long now."
"Can I ask him something?" said Agatha.
Janine sat with her eyes closed. So Agatha said, "Do you remember our holiday here in Wyckhadden, Jimmy? That's why I came back."
"And that's how I knew where to find you," said the cocky voice cheerfully.
Agatha relaxed. She and Jimmy had never been in Wyckhadden.
"That's funny," she said. "Because we were never..."
"Someone else wants to get in," intoned Janine.
There was a long silence. A gust of wind suddenly howled down the lane outside. Appropriate atmospherics, thought Agatha cynically, and yet she was aware of the tension building in the room, of the colonel holding her hand so tightly that she could feel her wedding ring digging into her finger. Silly and old-fashioned to keep wearing a wedding ring, she thought inconsequentially. She cleared her throat. Nothing was happening. The woman was a charlatan. It was time to leave.
And then a low moan escaped Janine's lips and she began to rock backwards and forwards. A thin line of grey smoke escaped from between her lips and hung in the bluish light above her head. Can't be cigarette smoke, thought Agatha. Wonder how she does that? But there was something eerie and unearthly in the moaning. Janine's eyes were tightly closed. Then a thin voice sounded from Janine's lips.