Page 64

‘ This staircase?’ asked Mr Stirling in surprise.

‘This very staircase,’ Pixie confirmed. ‘Glover woke Constance in the middle of the night claiming that Lester had done something terrible and that she had to hurry down to the library to see him. She ran along the corridor and when she reached the top of the stair, the thread tripped her up and she went tumbling to her death.’

Mrs Aldershoff gasped again. ‘Good Lord. She was murdered here in this house?’

‘She was,’ said Pixie. ‘But your parents never knew about it. They thought she had fallen by accident. They had no idea that she had been murdered.’

Mrs Aldershoff shook her head. ‘So that’s why my mother was so terrified of me falling down the stairs!’ she said, riveted by the revelation. ‘And Constance’s name was never mentioned. This is the first time I’ve heard it.’

‘Lester gave up Glover,’ Pixie continued.

‘Glover threw himself off the Brooklyn Bridge, either because Lester had ditched him, or because he’d committed murder.

Probably both. Lester married Esme but spent the rest of his life in a state of guilt and remorse.

He turned to drink, divorced, and died young. It’s a tragic story.’

‘Was it the Ouija board that brought him back?’ Mrs Croft asked.

‘Yes,’ Pixie replied. ‘The spirit board, as they called it, belonged first to Constance’s mother.

When she died, it was handed down to Constance and survived the Titanic disaster.

Constance did a seance here in the Walter-Wyatt drawing room the night she was killed.

Lester was present. I think the board connected Lester to Constance so that when you tried to contact your father, Mrs Aldershoff, Lester was drawn out of the lower astral and given a portal into our dimension.

He wanted help, but didn’t know how to ask for it.

You see, he was so deeply immersed in his unhappiness that it created a fog of negativity around him, which he was unable to penetrate.

He could hear you, but he couldn’t see you.

He needed to rise out of his trauma in order to connect properly with me.

It took time, but I managed to guide him into the light in the end. ’

‘You are clever, Pixie,’ Mr Stirling gushed.

‘She never fails,’ said Ulysses proudly.

‘The truth is that all earthbound spirits want to go to the light. They just don’t know how to get there,’ said Pixie.

A young waitress appeared with a tray carrying a bottle of Moet she hadn’t really tried very hard.

Her mission to save Lester had been more important.

‘I’m afraid it’s not in the house,’ she said.

The elderly woman’s narrow shoulders dropped and she looked so crestfallen that Pixie decided to give her dowsing crystal another go to prove her point.

She lifted her carpet bag onto her knee and rummaged around for the suede pouch.

‘I’ll show you how it works.’ She took out the amethyst.

‘Ooh, goodie.’ Tanya leaned forward in her chair. ‘I love this!’

Intrigued, the group watched Pixie rest her elbow on the table and dangle the crystal on its chain between her forefinger and thumb.

The crystal had given her an unambiguous no when she had previously asked this question.

But she had to do something to show willing.

Poor Mrs Aldershoff looked so pitiful. ‘Is the Potemkin Diamond in this house?’ Pixie asked.

To her surprise, the crystal began to move in a clockwise circle.

She frowned in confusion as the circle widened and the movement speeded up.

When she’d used it the evening before, it had most definitely moved the other way. She couldn’t understand it.

‘What does it say?’ Mrs Aldershoff asked eagerly.

‘It doesn’t make sense. It says it i s in the house,’ Pixie replied.

Mrs Aldershoff’s eyes shone with excitement. ‘You see, I told you. I knew it. It’s here. Where is it?’ She stared hard at the crystal as if it were about to speak.

Pixie put the crystal down. ‘I need to work it out,’ she said ponderously.

She knew the crystal never lied, so it had to be here, in this house.

She thought back to when Walter-Wyatt had gone to get the diamond to show Constance and Lester.

He had left them in the sitting room and crossed the hall.

She distinctly remembered hearing the tap-tapping of his cane on the marble tiles.

A shiver rippled over her skin as she was struck suddenly with a revelation.

Walter-Wyatt had returned without his cane.

He had left it in the drawing room and returned silently across the hall.

It had struck her as strange at the time, but she hadn’t dwelt on it.

The diamond had distracted her. But she dwelt on it now.

Why would he have left his cane in the drawing room when he took it everywhere with him?

Pixie looked at Alma’s walking stick, which was leaning against the wall. It was the same stick with the silver dog’s head as the one Walter-Wyatt had carried. ‘When I asked the crystal yesterday, you weren’t in the building, were you, Mrs Aldershoff.’

‘No, I wasn’t,’ Alma replied.

‘So, if the crystal is telling me that the diamond is now in the building, then it has to be where you are.’

‘But I don’t have it,’ Mrs Aldershoff stated indignantly. ‘If I had it, I wouldn’t be looking for it, would I?’

‘You have the key, right?’ Pixie asked.

‘I do.’ Mrs Aldershoff’s hand shot to her chest. The key lay safely tucked beneath her blouse.

Pixie got up. With a rising sense of triumph, she fetched the walking stick.

Holding it up to the light, she studied the silver dog’s head closely.

Everyone watched her in silence. Mrs Aldershoff bit her bottom lip hopefully.

Mrs Croft looked as if she couldn’t believe Pixie would find anything there.

But it didn’t take long for Pixie’s expression of concentration to break into a smile.

‘Oh, my God!’ she breathed in wonder. There, under the dog’s chin, hidden among the folds of silver, was a tiny keyhole.

‘I don’t believe it.’ She returned to her seat and sat down excitedly. ‘May I have the key, Mrs Aldershoff?’

Tanya held her breath. If Pixie had found the Potemkin Diamond it would be one hell of a good story. Mr Stirling looked at Ulysses and the younger man grinned. Ulysses was used to people being surprised by Pixie.

Mrs Croft went to help her mother. She burrowed inside her collar and unclasped the chain.

Pixie took the key and inserted it into the keyhole.

It was easy to turn. The dog’s jaw unlocked with a click and fell open.

The group stared in astonishment as the pink diamond was revealed in a bed of velvet made especially to accommodate it.

‘Well, I’ll be darned,’ said Mrs Aldershoff, tears welling in her eyes.

‘Oh, Mother!’ Mrs Croft put a hand to her mouth.

‘The last place anyone would look,’ said Pixie. ‘Walter-Wyatt was never parted from his stick and now we know why.’

With trembling fingers, Alma lifted the diamond out of its bed and held it in her hand.

Her vision blurred as she thought of Joshua, and the diamond became a pink smudge in her palm.

‘I’ve never done anything unselfish in my life,’ she said in a thin voice.

She looked at her daughter and the fact that Leona’s eyes were shining with tears made her own flow freely, seeping into the small crevices on her face.

‘But I’m going to do something unselfish now.

I’m going to fund a wonderful place for children like my great-grandson Joshua, so that they meet the end of their short lives in a place of comfort and peace, here in New York City.

It will be my legacy. The Joshua Litton Hospice. ’

‘That’s a beautiful idea, Mrs Aldershoff,’ said Mr Stirling, regretting that he had ever thought of her as a termagant.

Alma’s gaze rested on Pixie with gratitude.

‘Thank you, my dear,’ she said. She could see the surprise on her daughter’s face – Alma knew she rarely thanked anyone.

Alma then turned to her daughter. ‘And I’m sorry I fell short in so many ways,’ she said.

Leona simply nodded and smiled feebly, too emotional to reply.

‘“Love means never having to say you’re sorry,”’ said Ulysses, giving Mr Stirling a meaningful look.

‘I love that film too,’ Mr Stirling duly replied with a grin.

‘What a load of old rubbish,’ said Alma, chuckling through her tears. ‘Love means you care enough to say you’re sorry. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.’

And no one could argue with that.

Mr Stirling ordered more champagne, but Pixie got up from her chair. Her head was swimming and she felt exhausted suddenly. ‘I hope you don’t mind, but I might take a quick walk around the park. I could do with some fresh air.’