Being careful with her sudden windfall, Florie was able to assemble a very presentable wardrobe for a week in the country. She even paid her rent for another few months and bought enough coal to finally warm the tiny flat and drive out the clammy fog. As she pondered the difficulty of conducting a suitably authentic séance at Leatherby Hall, she remembered some of the Professor's old tricks and visited a shop in the Portobello Road that specialized in selling gear for stage magicians. It cost her a full three pounds, but she purchased a handful of items that would allow her to put on a reasonable show: A device that strapped to her thigh about where her garter fit to make knocking sounds when she flexed her muscle, a rubber balloon that would fit at the small of her back and emit a very eerie groaning noise when squeezed hard but was only good for about three or four exhalations before needing to be blown up again and finally a small spring loaded container that would shoot a puff of luminous powder into the air when triggered by a wire.
She practiced with each item diligently every night until she was happy that she could carry off a show -- as long as nobody looked too hard at what she was doing. As she also recalled some of her old mentor's patter, the endless stream of words designed to distract and lull the audience, she practiced various phrases, including excuses such as "
The spirit world is very agitated tonight. Someone in the room is thinking violent thoughts. They're afraid to manifest." That was always good. Most people think violent thoughts every once in a while and even if they weren't at the moment, they would easily assume that someone else was.
And, in the end, being a confidence artist was about being as bold as brass and telling whopping lies with a straight face -- something she had discovered she was really quite good at. It didn't hurt that she was very pretty and with a stroke of her makeup brushes she could be either an ethereal waif or a lusty vamp.
Finally the day for her departure arrived. Following Lady Jane's instructions she took a hansome cab to Paddington Station early in the morning and purchased her ticket, First Class no less! A porter loaded her luggage into the carriage and she took her seat next to the window only a few minutes before they started. The bustle of the station with the slamming of carriage doors and the yelling of porters and news boys faded quickly away as the train lurched backwards and then forward, picking up speed slowly but surely. Outside the window of her first class carriage, Evelyn watched the bricked in yards of row houses that backed onto the tracks slip past, each one a fleeting glimpse into another life, quickly swallowed up by the next until they became almost a blur of motion.
The rocking of the train increased as it sped eastward and within moments the confined view of tradesman's yards opened up to show the streets and shops of the outer districts and almost without notice they passed into countryside. The trees looked gaunt and leafless but the grass and brush was still green.
Her carriage door opened and a well dressed man in his mid thirties looked inside at the empty seats around her.
“
Do you mind if I join you?” he asked. His accent and demeanor all spoke of good breeding and money. The leather grip he carried was expensive, as were his clothes. But he did have a jaunty look to his eye and his skin was too tanned for him to be a permanent resident of England.
