*It was after midnight, and the young woman with the violet eyes standing at Mrs. Charles' door was quite obviously in trouble.
"I am going to die," she blurted out to the clairvoyante. "The Professor told me the cards never lie."
"There are many cards in the Tarot which may, in certain circumstances, predict death, my dear," Mrs. Charles replied, guessing what she meant. "Some are more powerful than others. Which one was it?"
The girl moistened her lips and said simply, "Justice."*

Mrs. Charles, with years of expertise in occult interpretation, knew that such a prediction was impossible. Yet within hours the frightened girl was beyond the reach of Mrs. Charles' powers: she was dead, found facedown in a tidewater with another Tarot card tucked inside of her jacket.

And, as Mrs. Charles learns from her friend, ex-Detective Chief Superintendent Sayer, who seeks her advice, it is not the first such death in her neighborhood in recent months...nor is it to be the last.