The Clairvoyant Countess Read Free Page A

penetrating. A passionate face, he decided, and an unusual one. He rather enjoyed the unusual. He decided that she didn’t belong on Eighth Street either.
    “Come in, won’t you?” said Madame Karitska, and turned her back on him to lead him inside.
    The room he entered seemed flooded with light after the dark hallway. It contained almost exclusively books set in bookcases that occupied every inch of wall space. Arranged in the center of the room, however, was a couch, a low, intricately carved table in front of it, and a chair. He said grimly, “If you read the newspapers you ought to know you shouldn’t allow strangers inside so casually.”
    She turned and looked at him with interest. “But I don’t feel that we’re strangers at all. Sit down, won’t you? I’ve no appointments for an hour, and I’ve coffee in the kitchen. Would you prefer Turkish or American?”
    For some reason Pruden said, “Turkish. What kind of appointments?”
    She emerged from the other room, bearing tiny cups on a tray, and without reply poured an almost lava-likesubstance into the cups. “I’m delighted that you prefer Turkish,” she said. “It’s my one luxury in America. So many people find the grains abrasive and the brew too strong for them.”
    Pruden took a sip of Turkish coffee, shuddered, but withheld comment.
    “But I think,” she added with a faint smile, “that you have come for a more specific purpose than to ask what I mean by appointments.”
    “Yes.” He removed the small photo of Alison Bartlett from his pocket and watched her closely as he handed the slip of cardboard across the table to her. She looked at it and a flash of something resembling pain crossed her features. Handing it back she said, “Yes, I recall her very well.”
    “Recall her?”
    “She came here about ten days ago. By appointment but without giving a name.”
    “Of course you’ve read about her in the newspaper,” he said.
    “On the contrary, I do not read newspapers,” she said firmly, “but I would guess that you are from the police.”
    “Then it’s a bit difficult to believe that you don’t read newspapers.”
    She shrugged. “Many people come here, I don’t have to read newspapers. The outside world has no interest for me, only the inner worlds. Out there”—she waved a hand—“out there is only negativeness, violence, confusion, hostility—”
    “That’s why police are necessary,” he said dryly. “Now tell me about Alison Bartlett.”
    “This girl?”
    “Yes, what did she come here for? What did she want? You’re some kind of fortuneteller?”
    Madame Karitska surveyed him steadily from beneath her curiously hooded lids. “I’m a psychic, Mr.—?”
    “Lieutenant Pruden.”
    “She did not know why she came here,” went on Madame Karitska, “and the advice I gave her she could not accept. She is dead by violence?”
    Pruden barely concealed a derisive smile. “Then of course you read the newspapers. Yes, she’s been murdered. Some psycho broke into her apartment last night and killed her with a butcher’s knife.”
    Madame Karitska shook her head. “You are quite wrong.”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    Madame Karitska nodded, ignoring the dangerous tilt of his eyebrows. “I said you are quite wrong. On the contrary, you will eventually discover she was not killed by a stranger. I will tell you this: the clue to her murder lies in the death of her mother some months ago. Presumably the mother died of natural causes—a heart attack, the girl said—but in truth she was murdered. I saw it clearly—a vivid picture. Her mother was poisoned.”
    Pruden did not know whether to explode into anger or to laugh; in the end he only concealed a smile and said politely, “I see.”
    Madame Karitska’s smile was open and very charming. “You need not believe me, Lieutenant Pruden; it is of no consequence to me whether you do or not, but you will not find your murderer among the violent onesin this city, I assure