"His name was Stefan Klimt. Austrian by birth, he's lived in London for some time now. He's an art dealer, and owns an art gallery in a fashionable part of town. Mostly deals in French painters, the kind where they splash paint up on a canvas and call it art."
Inspector Bennett continued as they entered the Klimt property. "He is apparently wealthy, but robbery does not seem to be a motive. There is no sign of forced entry, and nothing is obviously missing, though it will take a little time to be clear on that point."
Inspector Bennett, Nigel, Artimis, Orla and Sandor came around the back of the house; a large, tasteful home in the French style, and came upon a small cadre of detectives milling about the crime scene. Stefan Klimt's body lay face down on the ground, directly under a balcony. Cass and Amanda stayed behind to guard the Dromidal house and keep an eye on Mai.
"He fell from up there," Bennett indicated.
"Was he pushed?" Orla asked. "Are you sure it wasn't an accident?"
"Well," Bennett replied, "the knife in his back does suggest murder."
As he waved off the throng of constables surrounding the body, they could now see clearly that Klimt had not met with an accident. A knife protruded from the space between his shoulder blades. He wore a dressing gown and slippers. Nigel entered the house and ran up the stairs to the balcony above, followed by the others. He stepped out of the French doors onto the balcony, which were still open.
"If he was standing here, the murderer must have been right behind him in this room," Nigel mused.
"No," Sandor shook his head. "There."
He pointed directly behind Nigel in a straight line to a wardrobe. The door was ajar.
"Ah. So the killer lay in wait here, and then killed Klimt when the opportunity presented itself."
They stayed for a few hours, looking for further clues, but as none seemed to be in a hurry to present themselves, they returned to the Dromidal house around noon.
After an afternoon punctuated by the occasional outburst from Lady Dromidal, and Artimis interrupting Mai on occasion to suggest she serve raw fish instead of the scheduled ham and potatoes, guest began to arrive for dinner.
Much to Nigel's relief, the guest list turned out to be rather small. Lady Dromidal did not have a great many friends, not being at the top of the social list for some years now. The first to arrive was Miss Guesenholt and her nephew, a young man of about twenty-five named Ned. The other guest was a rather obnoxious fellow by the name of Stewardsfield, who Lady Dromidal clearly intended as a potential match for her daughter.
This seemed to irk Orla, and not to please Cecilia, either. As the dinner progressed, Orla missed no opportunity to dig into Mr. Stewardsfield.
Nigel scarcely noticed. The vague sense of discomfort that had been with him since he noticed the odd behavior of the sugar bowl the previous night was growing ever more pervasive. He felt some sort of presence in the room beyond those seated at dinner, but could not put his finger on it. The room seemed to darken, and the candles flickered, but no one else seemed to notice. It wasn't until Cecilia rose abruptly from the table, practically in tears, that he realized that Oral had been asking about a particularly gruesome painting hanging on the wall opposite from her. He turned slowly to look at the painting, and saw only a blank wall, filled with hideous yellow wallpaper.
Something must be causing this to happen, he thought to himself. We are all experiencing different hallucinations and hauntings…
Nigel carefully drew a wand from inside his coat. It had been one of his first purchases upon successfully solving his first case for Lloyd's of London. He surreptitiously passed it over his food.
Nothing, he thought. The food is not poisoned in any manner.
What Nigel wanted to try next he could not manage without creating a stir at the table. He rose from his chair, and walked over to Orla's side, taking her arm gently.
"I apologize for my friend's behavior," he explained. "She's had a bit much more to drink than she should."
He led her out from the room and into the hall.
"Pull yourself together," he whispered urgently. "Something is going on!"
'Yeah, that Stewardsfield is a prick!"
"I think Cecilia took offense at your baiting him. You should go apologize."
Orla stuck out her tongue at Nigel like a five-year-old, spun on her heels, and marched upstairs. Nigel shook his head to clear the cobwebs. He felt like he had drunk a whole bottle of wine, but his glass was only half-empty. Orla's, for that matter, had scarcely been touched.
Nigel waited before returning to the dining room. He had been working on some small tricks of a magical nature, things to aid in his investigations. He had one such in mind, a simple incantation to reveal the presence of evil, and he cast it now, as quietly as he could.
He stepped back into the doorway of the dining room. It seemed clear that dinner was over, and the guests were getting ready to make a hasty departure. Nigel felt a strong impression, like the beginning of a migraine headache. It was as if he were seeing stars, or…
Yes. Something evil is present here in this room.
The presence resolved itself into two separate forms. Nigel forced himself to continue concentrating until one of the two presences, it became clear, emanated from beneath the floorboards.
Nigel turned towards the other presence to identify its location, and then suddenly dropped the spell, in shock.
It was Lady Dromidal.
