The Fortune Teller

The mansion where Madame Arminda, a fortune teller and psychic, lived and attended to her clients, always by appointment, was located in one of the elegant streets of the Invicta. Coaches and cars would stop at her door and out would come a lady with her features hidden by a black veil, a high-ranking military man, or a bourgeois in a top hat, gloves, and a cane. It was rumoured that even members of the royal family resorted to Madame Arminda’s services, and there were those who claimed to have seen members of the clergy enter her address.

But it hadn’t always been that way. Many years before, her home was a dark, smoky hovel on the outskirts of Oporto; Madame was known as ‘Ti’Arminda’ or ‘the witch’, and she provided small services to the neighbourhood, such as curing the evil eye or drawing cards to discover marital infidelities. Due to the recognition of her work, she had climbed the social lift, step by step, to where she is today.

The issues for which she was now wanted had also increased in importance: frauds that the police couldn’t solve, suspicions of adultery, unhappy heirs and, of course, predictions about the outcome of the war that was raging between the Monarchy and the Republic. The accuracy of Madame Arminda’s predictions aroused the interest of the Department. Securing the seer’s services exclusively for the Cause would be of central importance to the course of the war. And at a meeting of the Department’s top brass, it was decided to kidnap Madame Arminda, who would be housed in a safe place. Inspector Florêncio Raposo, the most highly regarded official in the Department, was given this task.

Two days later, late at night, a vehicle pulled up outside the fortune-teller’s mansion and Inspector Raposo got out. He tapped his knuckles on the door, which opened silently to let him in and then closed.

But the Republic also had an interest in securing Madame Arminda’s co-operation. That same day, an agent of the Preventive Police, operating clandestinely in Oporto, designated by the Department as ‘Shadow’, managed, with the complicity of one of the servants, to enter the mansion and hide in the kitchen.

By coincidence, at the exact moment that Inspector Raposo, who had just entered, was heading for the stairs leading to the upper floor, Shadow emerged from his hiding place. The two enemies came face to face, and both reacted. The Republican agent threw a knife in the inspector’s direction, which entered the left side of his chest, severing his aorta: Inspector Raposo managed, however, to fire a pistol, the projectile of which hit Shadow’s skull.

When the Municipal Police, called by neighbours alerted by the gunshot, arrived at the scene, they found the two corpses and some frightened servants, but no sign of Madame Arminda. The fact that there were no signs of a hasty escape led to the conclusion that she had prepared her disappearance in good time. The bodies were later removed to the Institute of Forensic Medicine, and it was not possible to locate the psychic in the city of Oporto.

A few months later, a Department’s informer sent a report in which he announced that he had seen a woman in the village of Montesinho who, although poorly dressed, like all the locals, bore a resemblance to Madame Arminda. However, when he went back there a week later, he didn’t see her anymore, and the locals gave evasive answers to his questions, saying they didn’t know the woman.

Madame Arminda was never heard from again.