Page 111 of A Whisper and a Curse

“Do you mean Michael Crocker?” Hadrian asked, his gaze briefly meeting Tilda’s.

“Yes.” Mrs. Griswold lifted her chin. “He was glad to help me. We thought the spectacle would attract notice and perhaps increase membership.”

“But the two of you didn’t stop with killing Ward,” Tilda said, surprised that Crocker was her accomplice. “Why did you kill Mrs. Frost?”

“Iwas next in line to be premier medium,” she snapped. “Lysander should have given me Cyril’s clients, namely Her Grace. But he said Victor should do it, that it needed to be a man because Her Grace preferred that—replacing her dead son and all that.” Mrs. Griswold pursed her lips briefly. “Lysander said I would be next to move up in the society, that I would soon be a premier medium.”

“So you killed Mrs. Frost to make that happen faster?” Hadrian asked.

“She never liked me anyway,” Mrs. Griswold replied, as if that were justification for murdering the woman. “Because Lysander left her bed for mine after I started working for him.”

Tilda could see that Mrs. Griswold possessed a dark, malevolent nature. “Why kill Victor Hawkins and Harmony Smith? You had what you wanted—you would be a premier medium.”

“Victor was trying to persuade Lysander that Isidora should be promoted over me because her sensitivity was greater.” Mrs.Griswold rolled her eyes. “I am the better performer. I would attract more and better patrons. Miss Smith was too uppity for her own good. She thought she could insert herself into Lysander’s bed and move quickly up the ranks. That is not how it works. One must toil and earn their way. They must wait their turn.”

Except Mrs. Griswold was eliminating those who stood in her way instead of waiting for her own turn. But Tilda didn’t point that out. She wondered how Miss Dryden and even Mr. Mallory had escaped Mrs. Griswold’s murderous plans. “Who did you plan to kill next?”

The medium blinked and her forehead creased. “No one.”

“Not Miss Dryden or even Mr. Mallory?”

Mrs. Griswold looked aghast. “The society is nothing without Lysander. He is the backbone of all we do. We cannot … function without him.”

“Why not?” Hadrian flicked another glance at Tilda, silently communicating that they both knew why.

“He has a special power,” Mrs. Griswold said. “We’ve asked him to teach us, but he says he can’t. I sometimes wonder if he’s lying.”

“Lying about teaching you or lying about his power?” Hadrian asked.

The medium looked up at Hadrian. “Both. How can he know things about people? You’d have to believe that he can truly speak to the dead, which none of us can actually do. I don’t know how he knows things, but he does. And we need him for that.”

It was almost refreshing to hear someone from the society speak so plainly. “Where can we find Crocker?”

“I don’t know for sure, but he’s probably at the headquarters.”

“Does he live there or in Bedfordbury?” Tilda asked.

Mrs. Griswold’s nostrils flared. “You know about Bedfordbury?”

“You’d likely be surprised at what we know,” Hadrian said sardonically.

“He lives in Cadogan Place,” Mrs. Griswold said.

Tilda would direct Teague to go there next after he arrested Mrs. Griswold. Meanwhile, she wanted to go to Clerkenwell to call on Captain Vale. She’d promised him an update, and she had precisely the one he would want to hear most—that they’d caught the killer and it wasn’t his son.

Teague arrived a few minutes later. Hadrian called for him, and the detective inspector strode into the parlor with three constables in tow. He immediately looked toward Gibbs and gave the young constable a nod.

“As I’m sure Ellen Henry informed you, we’ve found the Levitation Killer,” Tilda said. “One half of them anyway. Mrs. Griswold had help from Michael Crocker to hang the bodies.”

“Crocker?” Teague asked. “Isn’t he one of the society’s domestic servants?”

“Yes,” Tilda replied. “We believe he may be at the society headquarters if you’d care to go there next.”

“I will, thank you.” Teague turned his attention to Gibbs. “Well done, Constable. Take Mrs. Griswold out to the wagon. Parker, go with him.”

Gibbs and Parker departed with the medium, and Hadrian finally returned his pistol to his coat.

Tilda explained all that Mrs. Griswold had told them to Teague and presented him with the earring she’d found in Ellen’s room in Bedfordbury. “This is the mate to the earring I found after Mrs. Frost was killed. It belongs to Mrs. Griswold, and Ellen recognized it after she began working for her. It led us to confront Mrs. Griswold.”