Our laughter ended rather raggedly. We stood in silence. “You’d think someone would hurry up and see us,” Lockwood said.
“So there’s no word yet on what Ms. Fittes wants?” I asked after a pause.
“Not yet.”
“Have you done any work for her before?”
“Well, we’re not really working for her now,” Lockwood explained. “As I said, it’s more she’s looking out for us, sending occasional jobs our way.”
“Right.”
“How much are you charging?” George asked suddenly. “With this freelance lark?” He was staring blankly down the hall between the columns.
“Me?” I hesitated, remembering that I still hadn’t sent my invoice to Farnaby for the last job. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t get paid. “Does it matter?”
“No. Except I’m not sure I could survive on my own with what Lockwood gives me, so I guess you’ve had to raise your fees.”
“A bit, I guess. I do okay.”
“So what do you charge?”
I opened my mouth, and closed it. I could see Lockwood frowning; it was hard to know what to say. Fortunately, George’s line of questioning was interrupted that moment by an attendant who reported that Penelope Fittes was ready to receive us.
Two great psychic detection agencies dominated the war against the Problem. If the Rotwell Agency was the brashest and most innovative, the Fittes Agency was the biggest, oldest, and most prestigious. Its chairperson, Penelope Fittes, wielded great influence; even so, she was seldom seen—following an attempt on her life the previous autumn, she had become reclusive and rarely left Fittes House. Industrialists and public figures sought audiences with her; to ordinary people she was less an actual living woman than a name, a symbol, a climate of opinion. To be summoned to her presence was an important accolade.
Her private apartment was on the top floor of the building, but to meet us she had descended to a reception room that was just a short flight of stairs up from the lobby. It was a room of brown and gold. At one end, a large desk overlooking the Strand gave it the feel of a study; the rest was filled with pleasant chairs and sofas, and ornate, rather old-fashioned furniture. There were photographs on the walls and tables, and displays of antique rapiers; the air smelled of sunlight, polish, and expensive furnishings. And of coffee—a pot sat on a central table, with cups arranged around it. Penelope Fittes herself was waiting there; and, with her, as crumpled and hangdog as ever, Inspector Montagu Barnes of DEPRAC, the Department of Psychic Research and Control.
Ms. Fittes greeted us gravely, shaking our hands and indicating our chairs. As always (I had met her on two previous occasions), she was plush and well upholstered, a perfect match for the studied elegance of the room. A strikingly attractive woman, with long dark hair as lushly textured as her dark-mauve velvet dress, she had the kind of beauty that was unsettling because it was so out of the ordinary. It paid no lip service to the commonplace: her skin was lovely, the curves of her cheekbones exquisitely well-defined; her big black eyes were both beguiling and formidable.
She and Lockwood exchanged the usual round of pleasantries. Then she bestowed a smile upon each of us. “Thank you for coming in today,” she said. “Mr. Barnes and I have another meeting shortly, so I will get straight to the matter. As I mentioned on the phone, Anthony, I have a juicy little case that Lockwood and Company may be able to attend to on my behalf. DEPRAC has alerted me to it, and I think it is perfect for you.”
Lockwood nodded. “Thank you, ma’am. We’d be honored.”
I glanced at him; he was all smiles and keen attention. Ordinarily, Lockwood let no one call him by his first name. His dead parents had done so; they, and no one else. But Penelope Fittes, stretched back all languorous and catlike in her chair, had used it, and Lockwood hadn’t blinked an eye.
“Solomon Guppy,” she said. “Have any of you heard of him?”
We looked at one another. The name rang a faint bell.
“He was a killer, wasn’t he?” Lockwood said slowly. “Thirty years back? Wasn’t he hanged?”
Ms. Fittes’s lips parted in delight. “A killer, yes, and, yes, he was hanged. One of the last in England to pay that penalty before the Ghost Prevention Laws put a stop to capital punishment. It’s said they held back the passing of the laws for a month just so they could see him twitch and dangle. Because he wasn’t only a killer, but a cannibal, too.”
“Ick,” I said.
Lockwood clicked his fingers. “Yes, that’s right….He ate a neighbor, didn’t he? Or was it two?”
“Can you enlighten us about that, Mr. Barnes?” The lady nodded at the inspector. With his weatherworn raincoat, battered face, and graying shoe-brush mustache, he looked even more out of place in the elegant surroundings than I did.
“Just one, as far as is known,” Barnes said. “It’s thought he invited the victim over for tea one afternoon. The fellow came around, bringing a fruitcake with him. They found the cake on the sideboard a week later, still in its wrapper. It was the only thing that hadn’t been eaten.”
George shook his head. “That’s just wrong. Wrong on so many different levels.”
Penelope Fittes laughed lightly. “Yes, little did the neighbor know he was the tea. Tea and dinner, as it happened, for several days afterward.”
“I remember the case well,” Barnes said, “though I was just an apprentice on the force at the time. Two of the arresting officers took early retirement after the trial, as a result of what they found when they broke in. Many of the worst details were never disclosed. Anyway, in his confession, Solomon Guppy explained that he’d used a number of recipes—roasted dishes, fricassees, curries, even salads. He was quite experimental.”
“Crackers,” I said.
“I’m not sure about those, but he might have tried them.”
“No, I mean he was crackers. He was clearly bonkers. Barking mad.”
“Certainly. Mad and bad,” Ms. Fittes said. “It took six policemen to subdue him when he was finally arrested, owing to his size and ferocity. But arrested he was, and hanged and cremated, and salt was strewn over the prison yard where the ashes were interred. In other words, all precautions were taken. But now it seems that his spirit—or that of his victim—has somehow returned to the scene of the crime.” She sat back and engineered one elegant leg over the other. “Mr. Barnes?”
The inspector nodded. “It is a small suburban house in Ealing, west London. The street is called ‘The Leas.’ Guppy’s place was number seven. It’s been left empty since the crime, of course, but people live nearby. It’s been quiet up till now, but recently we’ve had reports of certain disturbances in the vicinity, a terror spreading through the street. Sensitives have traced it back to number seven.”
“The phenomena are very subtle,” Ms. Fittes added, “No apparitions. Mostly—by all accounts—just sounds.”
She glanced across at me with her dark and serious eyes. From the tone of her voice, you’d have thought Listening was a trivial psychic Talent. But the flash of her gaze implied it was the most important thing in the world.
Her grandmother had been supreme at it. You only had to read Marissa Fittes’s Memoirs to know that. Long ago she had spoken with ghosts, and they’d answered her. Clearly Penelope Fittes knew I had a reputation, too.
“What kinds of sounds?” Lockwood asked.
“Sounds to do with the previous occupant of the house,” Barnes said.
“Mr. Barnes asked me to investigate,” Penelope Fittes said, “and I agreed. However, my agency has many challenges left over from the winter, and most of my best teams are still busy. It struck me that I knew another organization with the necessary skills to take this on.” She smiled. “What do you think? If you manage it—well, I’m sure I’ll have other cases to pass your way.”