Introduction

A spiritualist, an insane asylum, a lost little girl . . .

In this fifth book of the series, Clive and Henrietta Howard—the fabulously wealthy, sizzling couple on Chicago’s north shore, circa 1930—find themselves investigating a “spiritualist” operating in an abandoned schoolhouse on the edge of town and suspected of robbing people of their valuables. At the same time, Henrietta’s sister begs them to help track down a poor immigrant woman who has strangely disappeared. The search leads them to the infamous Dunning Asylum, where they discover some very dark things might be occurring . . .

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Excerpt

Chapter 2

Clive shifted the Alpha Romeo into gear and turned it back toward Highbury. He had just left a private meeting, loosely termed, with Detective Frank Davis, the Winnetka police officer who had valiantly helped Clive—and Henrietta—to kill their nemesis, one Lawrence Susan, a.k.a. Neptune. Davis had been shot and wounded in the altercation, and for a while it had seemed touch and go. Only a few days ago, Clive learned that Davis had finally been

discharged from the hospital and had since returned to work at the station—unfortunately, however, still under the direction of the incompetent Captain Callahan.

Davis had agreed to meet at his usual haunt in town, the Trophy Room, at Clive’s request. Obviously, it was not up to his usual standard, but Clive needed to do something. Henrietta had not been herself since she had lost the baby, and he was desperate to distract her. He had been disappointed, too, by the loss of the child, and he grieved for it in his own way, but his true despair, his true distress, was regarding Henrietta’s pervasive sorrow.

He had never seen her cry—sob—the way she had the morning it all happened. It was terrible to witness, and his heart ached for her, even now. She had since put on a brave face, but overall, she was still listless and dull. She positively moped about the house and seemed uninterested in anyone or anything around her. She would go with Antonia to the club if asked, but Clive could see she didn’t care about it. Not that she ever had, really, but up until this current melancholy juncture in time, she had at least put her best foot forward—especially when it came to impressing his mother and trying to fit in.

He didn’t understand this need in women, he thought, as he pulled into Highbury’s long lane—this desire to bring forth life. Of course, he enjoyed children, to a certain extent, and he guiltily knew he was supposed to produce an heir, lest his vile brother-in-law, Randolph Cunningham, inherit the Howard fortune. But as Clive saw it, per- haps this wouldn’t be such a bad thing. The fortune would consequently trickle down eventually to Randolph’s sons—Clive’s nephews, Howard and Randolph, Jr.—who, though only little still, did not seem to be so far taking after Randolph in his cruel boorishness. But then he would inevitably hear his father’s voice in his head, saying, “Ah, but it’s not the same as your own flesh and blood, is it, my boy?”

Clive sighed. He supposed not. Another errant thought occurred to him from time to time, an almost laughable one, really, that per- haps he could alter his will to leave the whole of the estate to his cousin, Wallace, in Derbyshire, England. But Wallace already had Linley Castle to contend with, which he wanted to turn into some sort of boys’ school or home for shell-shocked soldiers, or some such thing, once his father, Clive’s Uncle Montague, finally died. Lord Linley had recently been brought very low, not only by the news of his brother, Alcott’s, sudden death, but by the discovery that Wallace, his only remaining son after the decimation of the Great War, had secretly married a penniless French nurse and had not one, but now two sons by her. Wallace’s failure to marry into money spelled certain ruin for the Linley estate, and Montague Howard had not ever quite recovered from the blow. He was mostly an invalid at this point, Wallace wrote in his occasional letters to Clive, for which Wallace claimed he felt immense guilt and responsibility. But what could he do? he had written more than once; he had to follow his principles and his heart.

—

But there was more to it for women, Clive knew, than merely producing a legacy. It was some biological yearning to reproduce and nurture that wasn’t the same as it was for men, he surmised, though he admitted that he barely understood it. He had sought his mother’s advice after Henrietta’s unfortunate womanly trouble—a miscarriage, they were calling it in hushed tones. But could it even be called a mis- carriage? he had asked his mother, for which he was promptly scolded. “But she couldn’t have been more than a month along, Mother,” he argued quietly. “Could she have been mistaken that she was even pregnant at all?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Clive! Of course, she would know if she were pregnant or not,” Antonia hissed over tea one morning not long after it had happened. “If you take my advice, which you probably won’t,” she sniffed, “you’ll proceed with caution. Be tender and understand- ing. Henrietta is made of sterner stuff than first appearances; she’ll come round, I should imagine. Provided you’re not a brute,” she added.

Not a brute? Clive had said to himself, hoping that she didn’t mean what he thought she meant. “No, Mother, I haven’t been ‘a brute,’ of course,” he said testily. “What do you take me for?”

“Well, in my experience, darling, all men are the same.”

In truth, he had been very tender with Henrietta, trying his best to comfort and console her. But he kept discovering her crying in the darkest part of the night, lying balled up beside him in their massive four-poster bed. Cut to the quick by this, he would quietly say her name or rub her shoulder, which only served to produce a tearful apology from her, as if the whole thing had been her fault. The first time this had happened, he merely held her, hushing and soothing her as best he could. The next time, however, he had tried levity, saying, “Don’t be ridiculous, darling, of course it’s not your fault,” the result of which was shockingly a fresh crop of tears. Frankly, any attempt at consoling her usually resulted in such. He had tried telling her that it didn’t matter, that there would be more chances, that he was sure they would have tons of children—too many, more than likely, he had tried to say with a grin—but none of these comments seemed to bring her any comfort. In fact, it seemed to make things worse.

Naturally, in due time he had tried to make love to her, think- ing that she would respond, if not out of the sheer pleasure they both derived from their previous nights of passion but as a way to potentially create another baby. He had always been able to please her before, to skillfully bring her to a climax, with her always crying out or even groaning with pleasure as he loved her. And my God, it wasn’t difficult to do; she never failed to arouse him. But she would have none of it now, which confused him. Never had she rejected his advances, except once on their honeymoon when they had argued. Now, he wasn’t sure how to proceed. He had told her on their wed- ding night that he would never force himself on her, but it had been more than a month and still she held herself from him. He was beginning to worry about what the future might hold. What was he to do?

Real advice had finally come to him in the form of a suggestion from Bennett, his father’s right-hand man, and indeed, Alcott’s confidant and friend, at the firm, Linley Standard. Since his father’s death and the discovery of his killers, Clive and Bennett had come to an arrangement of sorts regarding the running of the firm, which, though not secret, strictly speaking, was, on the other hand, not one they bandied about, even to Antonia. The agreement was simply that Clive would fulfill the role of Chairman of the Board in name only, as had been the case with his father. Like Alcott, Clive would be merely a figurehead, which would allow for the brilliant Sidney Bennett to employ his astute business acumen in running the company, as he had done for all these years, leaving Clive free to pursue private detective work.

With this agreement satisfactorily negotiated between them, their business relationship now seemed to hover on the brink of being something more, just as it had been something more of a friendship between Alcott and Bennett as the years had gone on. On more than one occasion since his father’s death, Clive found himself turning to the calm, steady Bennett for advice. He reminded Clive of his father at times, but Bennett was more grounded, more practical than his father—the son of an English lord—had ever been. Many times, Clive had to shake himself a bit to remember that Bennett was indeed not his father, such as when he occasionally stopped at the house for a late-night drink, usually under the guise of needing Clive to sign some documents or other. They would sit across from each other in his father’s—now Clive’s—study in the leather armchairs in front of the fireplace, just as Clive and his father had so often done. Bennett could easily have sent whatever documents he needed signed via courier, or request that Clive stop in at the office, if nothing else but to keep up appearances with the staff. So Clive felt it very keenly that Bennett made an effort to come in person, as if Bennett somehow knew he might need to privately talk.

It was during one such evening, about a month after Henrietta’s. . . mishap . . . that Bennett casually asked if Clive had any detective cases yet come his way. When Clive responded that he had not, Bennett suggested that perhaps he try to unearth one—and that he should make sure it was one in which he could involve Henrietta.

“I don’t think she’s quite up to something like that at the moment,” Clive responded, peering intently at the fire.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Bennett answered. “Seems to me that’s exactly what she needs. Take her mind off things.” He glanced sideways at Clive.

“Ah,” Clive said, turning it over slowly in his mind. It wasn’t a bad idea, really. Why hadn’t he thought of it before? “Yes,” he said, sitting up in his chair. “I see what you mean.” He looked over at Bennett, feeling very grateful all of a sudden.

“Merely a thought,” Bennett said quietly.

Clive packed some tobacco into his pipe, wondering how he could find a case, a real case. He couldn’t just rustle one up out of thin air. Nor was he going to sniff around the Winnetka Police Station looking for crumbs, not with that idiot Callahan in charge. Clive had more than once suspected that there was something fishy there. No one could be as unaware and naïve as Callahan claimed to be and still sit as the chief of police, even if it was a sleepy little village twenty miles north of Chicago. And there had been a brief moment during the investigation of his father’s murder when Clive thought he saw something telling, something more knowing beneath Callahan’s bumbling exterior, a chink in his armor, as it were. But it was only a feeling, nothing he could prove. It was enough to cause a certain suspicion on Clive’s part, however, though he had no wish to deal with him at present. Well, he thought, taking a deep puff of his pipe as Bennett poured himself another brandy, at least he now had an idea of how he might help Henrietta.

Weeks had gone by, however, and nothing had surfaced, causing Clive to wonder if he really should formally advertise his services in the local paper. It was a thought he loathed for various reasons, one of them being the chance that his mother might see it, when he had inadvertently heard that Frank Davis was back at the station. After the Neptune affair, Clive was sure an understanding of sorts existed now between them. Indeed, he and Henrietta had visited him in the hospital on more than one occasion, Henrietta noticing that no other family or friends ever seemed to be there, an observation that Clive duly stored away for later use. Surely Davis, Clive had thought with more excite- ment than he knew he should feel, would have a lead, something he—or rather, they, he should say—could sink their teeth into.

The Trophy Room, where Davis had suggested they meet, was filthy and had an overpowering smell of mold (or was it sewer?) to it. Why the hell this was Davis’s preferred drinking establishment, Clive didn’t know, but it didn’t matter. It occurred to him as he walked in and looked around for Davis that perhaps Davis had chosen this place on purpose to rattle him, as the Howards’ wealth was frequently the butt of his rather dry, sarcastic humor. Well, Clive thought, it would take more than this to throw him. He had been in his share of seedy, rotten, sweaty establishments in the city, and before that it had been the horror of the trenches in the war.

He spotted Davis at a low table in the back. As he approached, he noted that Davis looked as scruffy and disheveled as usual, his near-death experience apparently having done little to change his habits, at least outwardly. Davis was slouched forward over his pint of beer but held out his hand to Clive, who took it. Clive tossed his hat on the table and rested his hands on his hips. “So how are you?” he asked gruffly.

“Been better.”

“What are you drinking?” Clive asked, nodding at Davis’s nearly empty pint.

“Pabst.”

Clive looked around for a waitress but could see none.

“Butler’s off duty,” Davis said as he leaned back slowly and lit a cigarette. “’fraid you’ll have to get your own.”

“Piss off, Davis.” Clive retreated toward the thick, grimy bar stained with water marks and deep gouges. His choice of drink was single malt, but after a quick perusal of the paltry stock lined up behind the bar, he ordered a Pabst, too.

“Charming place,” Clive muttered as he placed two glasses of beer on the table in front of Davis and pulled out a chair. He slid one of the glasses toward Davis and took up the other. “Cheers,” he said and took a long drink.

“Not quite the Drake, but it serves its purpose,” Davis said wryly, exhaling a large cloud of smoke.

“So do you have anything for me, or not?” Clive asked, having already spoken to Davis on the telephone earlier in the week, saying that he was eager for a case, but not mentioning exactly why.

“Not much,” Davis shrugged. “You know the chief. ‘There isn’t any crime in Winnetka.’”

“Well, you must have something, or you wouldn’t have called me out here.”

“It’s pretty flimsy,” Davis said, finishing his first beer and shoving the empty glass aside.

“You won’t like it.”

“Try me.”

“Suit yourself.” A grin crept across Davis’s face. “Got a case of some psychic. A spiritualist, she calls herself,” Davis said as he inhaled deeply and looked at Clive as if to gauge his reaction.

Clive sighed. “Go on,” he said wearily.

“Not much to tell. Two days ago, a man shows up at the station, a Mr. Tobin, I think he said. Claims his wife’s been ‘hypnotized’ by this spiritualist and wants us to investigate.”

“This is hardly a matter for the police.”

“But you’re not the police, are you?” Davis said, slouching over his beer again, one eye involuntarily squinting shut, perhaps from the pain of leaning over.

“Come on, Davis. Give me something better than this.”

“I don’t have anything better than this, Howard,” he exhaled. “Look, there aren’t that many real cases to begin with, and I can’t go giving them all to you under the table, can I? I’d be helping myself right out of a job.”

“All right, all right,” Clive said, waving his hand at him, as if to stop the sob story. He rubbed his brow and tried to think. A spiritualist case? This smelled rotten. He had been hoping for something open and shut, like a stolen car or something. Was it really wise to involve Henrietta in such a . . . what would you call it . . . vaporous type of case? Something told him it wasn’t a good idea, but what choice did he have? If he and Henrietta were to really operate a detective agency, it naturally followed that it was going to be fraught with danger and nastiness, which is why he had always been less than enthused about the whole thing in the first place. It was never going to be some sort of gay scavenger hunt that Henrietta always seemed to think it would be. Detective work, by its nature, involved the uglier sides of humanity: theft, murder, rape, kidnapping, blackmail, and every other kind of vice.

Why couldn’t Henrietta be happy strolling about the grounds of Highbury and entertaining his mother’s bridge club? he groaned to himself, but he made himself stop before he got too far down that line of thought. He could have had any number of women who would have been content to sit at home and knit, but it had been Henrietta’s spunk, he reminded himself, that had originally attracted him. Her sense of adventure coupled with her naiveté had been irresistible. They still were, actually, though she was sadly lacking in both at the moment.

“Okay,” he sighed again. “What do you got on it?”

“Not much,” Davis responded with an annoying grin. “This Mr. Tobin says he found his wife packing up all her jewelry—not that it’s worth much, he claims. When he questioned her, she says that she’s giving it to this quack—as a gift, she says. Tobin says she’s been acting all funny lately. Like she’s in a trance or somethin’, going around the house mumblin’, so Tobin’s convinced it’s this spiritualist that she’s been going to see. Claims she must have hypnotized her. Too scared to go see this charlatan himself, he claims, lest he get hypnotized, too, he says, so he wants us to check it out.”

“What was the chief ’s response?” Clive asked, fingering his glass.

Davis just raised an eyebrow, suggesting Clive should already know the answer to that.

“Okay, so the basic shell game type of thing. Only with a bit more song and dance to it. Got it. Give me the address to this Tobin,” he grumbled. “And where do I find this ‘spiritualist’?”

“Apparently, she’s set up shop in that one-room schoolhouse out on Willow Road. You know the one?”

“Yeah,” Clive said, fishing for a piece of paper in his inside jacket pocket. “Out by Crow Island? She got a name?” “Calls herself Madame Pavlovsky.”

Clive rolled his eyes and reluctantly wrote down this information and Tobin’s address. Quickly he downed his beer and stood up, the chair scraping behind him on the sticky floor. “How’s your wound?” he asked, nodding at Davis’s abdomen.

“Coming along.”

“Good to hear,” Clive said, putting his hat on firmly.

“Don’t forget—you owe me a whiskey,” Davis said, referencing Clive’s offer to him in the hospital as a debt of thanks.

“Yes, yes, of course,” Clive said absently. “You’ll have to come over some time to Highbury so we can thank you properly.” He winced at the thought of how irritating that would be to arrange with his mother.

“Should I use the servants’ entrance?” Davis asked, gingerly leaning back.

“Fuck off, Davis. I’ll get back to you when I know something,”

Clive said and walked out, leaving Davis sitting at the low table, a sly grin on his face. view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

1. As the title implies, this novel is all about lost children: Henrietta’s miscarriage, Anna, Billy (Rose’s mentally challenged brother), and even Clive and Catherine’s baby. Discuss each and which you felt the most sympathy for.

2. Did you enjoy reading about Gunther and Anna’s backstory? Did it surprise you?

3. Discuss Clive’s recurring PTSD, especially upon entering Dunning Asylum, and how Henrietta steps into a more commanding, nurturing role.

4. There are many mental health situations in this book – Mrs. Goodman and all of the patients at Dunning, Martha Von Howard, Henrietta, Liesel and Anna (who are not mentally ill, but are treated as such), Billy, Nurse Collins, even Rose’s father could be considered ill. Discuss how they are treated differently depending on their economic status. How is this the same or different from today.

5. Did you share Henrietta’s suspicions that something underhand was happening at Dunning?

6. Did you think it was unrealistic, given her and Clive’s relationship, that she ventured into Dunning alone?

7. What do you think of Clive employing Fritz to be his spy where Henrietta was concerned? Was it justified?

8. Did you guess who the killer really was?

9. Do you suspect Monsignor Gaspari (the rector at Mundelein Seminary) is hiding something more than he revealed to Clive and Henrietta?

10. Discuss Bennett’s increased presence at Highbury and Antonia’s reaction to him. Do you predict a romance there? Or maybe something else?

11. Discuss Stanley and Rose’s relationship. Do you think she actually loves Stan, or do you think she’s using him? Are you more sympathetic to her plight and her actions than you were in the previous books of the series? Is she justified in wanting to marry Stan?

12. Do you believe Madame Pavlovsky to be genuine, or is she the charlatan Clive thinks she is?

13. Discuss the continuing romance between Elsie and Gunther. Do you think Elsie is realistic in her hope that she can be a wife, a student and teacher, and care for an epileptic child?

14. Discuss Clive’s plan to take Henrietta away to Europe. Is it a good idea, or is he simply running away from their problems?

15. Of all of the many subplots weaving their way through the series, which would you like to hear more of?

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