“Welch tells me that you have attracted a very important new client, Lady Mansfield.” Gilmore sauntered, uninvited, into the office. “Congratulations.”
The small room was suddenly quite crowded, Virginia thought. The two men seemed to take up a great deal of the available space.
“Lady Mansfield has requested only a consultation,” she said. “I doubt that she will become a regular client.”
Gilmore lowered himself into one of the two wooden chairs arranged in front of the desk and hitched up his expensive trousers. “Let us hope that you can convince her otherwise.”
Virginia smiled and prepared to lie through her teeth. “I will certainly do my best. Was there anything else, Mr. Leybrook? If not, I would like to prepare for my appointment.”
“Yes, Virginia, there is something else.” Leybrook cocked a dark brow at Matt. “Be so good as to step out into the hall, Mr. Kern. I wish to speak to Miss Dean privately.”
Matt made no move to leave. He looked at Virginia for direction. She had known this confrontation was coming, she reminded herself. Best to get it over with as quickly and as privately as possible.
“It’s all right, Matt,” she said quietly. “Please wait in the hall. Mr. Leybrook won’t be long. Take the Journal with you to read.”
Matt did not look happy, but he did not argue. “I’ll be just outside if you need me, ma’am.”
“Thank you,” Virginia said.
Matt walked out of the office. He did not close the door behind him. Leybrook got up and closed it quite firmly.
“Your new employee appears to be quite devoted to you,” he remarked, returning to the chair.
Virginia readied herself for the skirmish. If she did not handle things very carefully, today could prove to be her last at the Institute.
“I believe Mr. Kern has a flair for the business,” she said. “What was it you wanted to speak to me about?”
“Unfortunately it has become clear that Miss Walters is not suited to the position for which I employed her.”
“I’m surprised to hear that. She appears to meet all your requirements in an assistant.”
“I have changed some of my requirements.”
“I see.”
“As it happens, Miss Dean, I have concluded that you will suit the position very nicely. I have decided to offer you the post.”
Virginia smiled with what she hoped was just the right degree of regret.
“I am certainly flattered, Mr. Leybrook, but I am afraid that I will not be able to take the position,” she said. “As you can see, I have, in fact, just hired my own assistant.”
Displeasure flashed across Leybrook’s handsome face. It vanished in the next instant.
“It is hardly the same sort of position that I am offering to you,” he said. “May I ask why you are not interested?”
“Do not mistake me, I am very aware of the singular honor you are offering. But I am determined to pursue my career as a glass-reader.”
“I never meant to imply that I would expect you to give up your readings if you became my assistant,” Gilmore said quickly. “The opposite, in fact. I have given the matter a great deal of thought, and I am convinced that working together as a team we could establish ourselves as the most fashionable glass-reading consultants in London.”
She picked up her pen. “But you do not read mirrors.”
“No,” he agreed. He smiled. “My talents lie in other directions. But that does not mean we cannot conduct consultations as a team. You would perform the actual reading of the mirrors, of course.”
“I see.”
“But we would inform clients that while you can summon the spirits in the glass, I am the one who can actually communicate with them.”
She tightened her grip on the pen. “You know that I don’t summon spirits.”
“Yes, but the majority of the clients believe that is exactly what you do. They think that you are a kind of medium, that you contact the Other Side through mirrors. It’s a very good act, Virginia, but it lacks a crucial element.”
“What is that?”
“The problem is that you do not give voice to the ghosts in the mirror. People want to communicate with the departed. In short, your act lacks the element of high drama. That is what clients seek when they pay a fee to a medium or a glass-reader.”
She put the pen aside very deliberately and clasped her hands on top of the appointment book. “I told you when I applied to become affiliated with the Institute that what I do is not an act. The reason that the afterimages don’t speak through me is because they are not spirits. I have explained that what I perceive are psychical photographs, not ghosts.”
“I understand. But that is precisely why you have not become the most successful psychical consultant at the Institute. It is why Pamela Egan channeling her ancient Egyptian princess and that old biddy Mrs. Harkins still pull in more clients than you do. People expect action at a séance or a reading. They want theatrics. They want to feel that there is active communication with the departed. I can provide that missing element in your readings.”
“Indeed?” she said evenly. “How would you do that?”
He sat forward. “By working with you at each consultation. You would do what you always do, summon the spirits in their final moments.”
“You mean summon the afterimages, which, I might remind you, only someone with my kind of talent can perceive.”
“Ah, but that is where I come in.” Leybrook smiled. “I can provide a visual element to the readings.”
“I knew it,” Virginia said. “You are an illusion-talent, aren’t you?”
He hesitated, frowning, and then shrugged. “Yes.”
“I suspected as much.”
“For obvious reasons I prefer to keep the exact nature of my ability a secret. People want to believe that they are seeing real ghosts, not stage magic. In our performances I will create the illusion of visual disturbances on the surfaces of the mirrors while you read the afterimages. The clients will be enthralled.”
“You intend to deceive them.”
“Not at all. I will merely enhance the experience for them by providing some drama. You will relay to me what you see in the mirrors. At the same time I will provide the audience with the illusion of fog and images swirling in the glass. But we will add the finishing touch. After you tell me what you have seen, I will channel the voices of the departed for our clients.”
“You will pretend to speak for spirits? But what will you say?”
“Come, now, Virginia, how hard can it be to speak for the dead and the dying? Mediums and séance-givers do it all the time. I will convey last messages to loved ones, perhaps a plea for justice in the event we stumble across a genuine murder victim, that sort of thing.”
“Has it occurred to you that if you claim to speak for someone who is in the process of being murdered the client and very likely the police will expect the victim to name the murderer?”
“There are ways to finesse that angle,” Leybrook said.
“How can you do that?”
“Mysterious clues from the dead will work nicely,” Gilmore said.
“What sort of clues?”
“Search for the blue door,” Gilmore intoned in a deep, melodramatic voice. “Listen for the hound at midnight. Read what is written on the stone at the bottom of the pond.” He waved one hand in a dismissing gesture, and his voice returned to normal. “There are endless possibilities when it comes to clues from beyond the grave.”
“I see.”
“We will split the consulting fees sixty-forty,” Gilmore added smoothly.
“I assume I’m the one who will receive the forty percent?”
“Correct.”
“Under the terms of our current agreement I retain seventy-five percent of the fees that I charge,” Virginia said.
“Any loss in profit to you under the new arrangement will be more than compensated for by an increase in business and in our fees.”
“How very generous of you.”