Summary
A clairvoyant couture-clad charlatan billed as Madame Mysteria is flung from velvet-lined séance car to muddy rail ditch when the night express hurtles off an embankment; her body lies unclaimed because three grifters—sardonic cardsharp “The Fox,” limping pickpocket Limpy Jim, and brutish strong-arm Deagon—treasure the dead woman’s cache of extorted confessions more than her corpse. Spotting condemned shop-girl Jean Oliver in the county lockup, they bargain: impersonate the medium, fleece the bereaved, and we’ll spring you. Jean, framed by steel-willed Mrs. Ramsey for consorting with the dowager’s smitten heir Donald, counters with a darker demand—abduct the Ramsey grandson, a silver-spoon tot whose disappearance will wound the society dragon who engineered her ruin. While the conspirators rehearse ectoplasmic parlour tricks in candle-lit parlours, investigative newshound Gordon Grant—once Jean’s betrothed—traces a daisy-chain of post-séction burglaries, each victim a patron of the late oracle. His scoop unspools: blackmail lists, forged death certificates, a switched infant in a carpet-bag, and finally the living Mysteria herself, very much breathing beneath widow’s weeds. A courtroom crescendo sees Mrs. Ramsey, pride cracked, exonerate Jean, the kidnapped child restored, the lovers reunited, the conspirators shackled, and the hole in the wall—once a peephole for voyeuristic larceny—boarded up, its secrets sealed yet still humming like a hive.
Synopsis
Madame Mysteria, a fashionable medium, is killed in a train crash, and her three larcenous assistants-The Fox, Limpy Jim, and Deagon-decide not to identify the body, because the medium had extracted valuable information from her wealthy clients. The Fox finds a substitute in Jean Oliver, who has been framed by wealthy Mrs. Ramsey to keep her away from the dowager's love-struck son, Donald. Jean accepts the role, providing they aid her in kidnapping Mrs. Ramsey's grandson as an act of vengeance. Meanwhile, Jean's former fiancé, reporter Gordon Grant, investigates the connection between Madame Mysteria and the robberies of her former clients. After he uncovers the swindlers and the missing Ramsey baby, Jean is cleared by a statement from Mrs. Ramsey and is reunited with Gordon.
