Free The Gladstone Bag by Charlotte MacLeod Page A

Vincent would have fresh lime. He’d also have caught her hint about not mixing the drinks too strong, though it was most unlikely he’d have needed to be told. Emma was dying to know what he’d done about their mysterious stranger, but this was hardly the moment to ask. At least Vincent knew now she hadn’t been dreaming about that man on the pier. How fortunate that she’d realized in time about the scuba suit! And how curious that the man bore so striking a resemblance to Everard Wont, though she supposed it was mostly the beard and the build.
    Vincent handed her a glass complete with lime. “That about right, Mrs. Kelling?”
    Emma took a sip and nodded. “Perfect. Thank you, Vincent.”
    Drink in hand, she circulated among the cottagers, making the sort of polite conversation one always made with a group of new acquaintances. She hoped they’d found their cottages comfortable. They had. She commented on the superb view. They approved of it, too. She wondered whether they were to enjoy a fine day tomorrow. They were, according to Alding Fath, who hadn’t divined the forecast by mystic means but had heard it on a small transistor radio she’d brought with her. Mrs. Fath was having her tonic without the gin, she explained. Alcohol did things to her vibrations and she didn’t want to disappoint Everard, since he’d been nice enough to pay her way.
    Not knowing quite how to answer that, Emma asked her, “How soon do you think you’ll be able to get in touch with the ghosts?”
    “Oh, I don’t expect to reach them at all. Most of this ghost stuff is poppycock, you know. It’s not the entity who hangs around, as far as I’ve been able to make out, it’s just some remnant of the earthly personality. Sort of like an old sock that’s been left in the back corner of the closet, if you get what I mean.”
    “I must say I hadn’t thought of it that way.” Emma couldn’t recall whether she’d ever thought of ghosts much at all. “Then can’t they just be tidied out, so to speak?”
    “Oh, they can. Ghosts are a cinch to get rid of, but you’d be surprised how many people won’t let you. They hang on to their ghosts the way some folks collect old cigar boxes. There was an awful lot of that foolishness going around back during Queen Victoria’s time, you know, her mooning around about poor Albert and the mass mind catching her vibes. Cluttering themselves up with their hair wreaths and mourning rings and all the rest of it. Regular breeding ground for ghosts. Stirred up a lot of old ones that had been kicking around unnoticed, too.”
    Mrs. Fath took a sip of her tonic water. “I’m not trying to claim there’s anything wrong with remembering our loved ones who’ve passed over, mind you. And it’s only natural to want a few keepsakes. But that garbage about parking Aunt Minnie’s ashes on the mantelpiece and Granny’s teeth in the tumbler on the nightstand beside her deathbed so’s a person would have something to go and weep over whenever they couldn’t find anything better to do, that was carrying it too far, in my opinion.”
    “I couldn’t agree with you more.”
    Emma thought of Cousin Mabel in that great ark of a house stuffed with dead relatives’ portable assets. Mabel kept her parents’ bedroom just the way they’d left it, though whether she ever went there to weep was something Emma didn’t know and wouldn’t have believed if anyone had told her, particularly Mabel. She wished she could get Mabel together with Alding Fath. Perhaps later on, after they were all back from the island—it dawned on her that she was actually thinking about inviting this fortune-teller out to Pleasaunce for a weekend. And that Mrs. Fath knew what she was thinking.
    “Don’t quite know what to make of me, do you, Mrs. Kelling? At least you’re not scared of me, like some people. What gets ’em is that they think so-called psychic powers are something out of the ordinary. Actually, it’s more like