Authors: Anna Loan-Wilsey

Tags: #Mystery, #Historical

A Lack of Temperance (9 page)

BOOK: A Lack of Temperance

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I pressed the handkerchief tightly against my mouth and nose and held my breath, determined not to draw attention to myself. I didn’t last long. I exhaled and gagged. Fortunately my stomach was empty. Officer Burke looked over at me sympathetically but said nothing. The other two men, however, engrossed in their task, didn’t notice. A pile of soiled clothing accumulated on the floor.

“Oh my God.” All three men spoke in muffled unison.

I forced myself upright quickly and my knees nearly buckled. Nausea rose in my throat as I thrust my way through the men and gaped at what I saw. The birthmark across her cheek was unmistakable. Her blue eyes were partially open in a dull, sunken stare. Twisted in a white morning gown splattered with dried blood, her petite body bent unnaturally to fit the trunk, lay my employer, Mrs. Edwina Trevelyan. Her nightcap, having slipped off her head, was still tied around her neck by a two-inch-wide satin bow. My vision blurred, and then I crumpled to the floor.

C
HAPTER
10

A
t least that’s what Officer Burke later told Miss Lizzie. I’d fainted onto the pile of dresses that had been pulled from the trunk. He’d been the closest but hadn’t been fast enough to catch me. I didn’t know that, though, when I woke in my own bed several hours later, to the sound of muttering. Remembering the misery of sitting up too quickly this morning, I inched my way to a sitting position. Mary Flannagan, her auburn hair the only visible part of her, sat in an armchair with her back to me.

“Miss Flannagan?”

Startled, she leapt out of the chair, nearly knocking it over. She whirled around, a book in her hand, Wilkie Collins’s
The Woman in White
. She’d been engrossed in her reading.

“Oh, Miss Hattie, you startled me.” She held her hand to her chest, catching her breath. She tucked her book away and wiped her eyes with the edge of her apron. “How are you feeling? No one expected you to waken so soon.” She fussed about the bed, fluffing my pillows, tucking my sheets. “Even so, the doctor’s been in twice and those old ladies have been fluttering around here nonstop.”

“You don’t have to do that, Mary. I’m fine.” I lifted the sheets and swung my feet off the edge of the bed, my headache all but gone. “How long have I been asleep? The last thing I remember is . . .”

“Finding the old lady dead,” the maid finished my sentence stoically.

“Yes, in the trunk.” I pushed away the image of Mrs. Trevelyan lying among her dresses, cold and gray.

“I packed that trunk myself.” She shuddered. “Those clothes were to go to a charity. The Salvation Army is what she called it. Sounds like her kind of charity, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, but then what happened, Mary?”

“After you found her, you collapsed. You’ve been unconscious for hours.”

I’d never fainted before and now had done it twice in less than twenty-four hours. What was wrong with me? I had a reputation of reliability and competence to uphold.

“Well, I’m fine now. But what about the police? What did they say? What are they doing about it?”

The maid snorted. “Sure, the coppers’ve been busy, demanding answers, rifling through the lady’s room, ransacking the storage area. They’ve taken over the parlors, and are, as we speak, interrogating the help. I’ve already had my turn. You can bet they’ll be talking to every last one of those temperance ladies too. They’ve made it very clear that no one was to leave town. Even you’re to be questioned. I’m to bring you down, when you’re up to it.”

I slid out of bed and stood up on my shaky legs. My left knee throbbed. “I’m up to it now.” I readjusted my corset, smoothed my dress, and twisted my hair up into a bun. A tinge of pain shot through my ribs. “But do they know what happened? Or why?”

“They didn’t say. The coppers aren’t telling anyone anything.”

And they didn’t tell me anything either when I appeared in the ladies’ parlor a few minutes later. The airy feel of the room, with its tall ceilings, large windows letting in the afternoon sun, and ivory and sage color scheme, was a stark contrast to the mood of its occupants. The room was full of members of the temperance coalition, most of whom were quietly sniffling behind handkerchiefs or using them to dab at their eyes, red and puffy from hours of crying. Josephine Piers wept openly, clutching her friend Eleanor’s hand. Cordelia Anglewood sat on the edge of her chair, tapping her foot, and appeared ready to spring out of the room. Miss Lizzie, her handkerchief clenched tightly in her lap with one hand, mindlessly nibbled on a yeast roll in the other. Miss Lucy, dry-eyed and whose countenance fully expressed her displeasure at me for leaving my bed, indicated with her hand for me to join her on the settee.

“Chief Jackson, have you—” I said.

“Ah, Miss Davish, glad to see you on your feet again,” Chief Jackson said, interrupting me. “Now please take a seat. I was asking these ladies to account for their whereabouts the morning of the murder.” He consulted a small notebook. “Now, let me get this straight. Miss Halbert, Miss Shaw, Mrs. Fry, Mrs. Stewart, Mrs. White, and Miss Robbins, you were all in the company of others all morning Monday?”

“Yes,” Miss Lucy said, speaking for the group.

“Thank you, Mrs. Fry. And Miss McLean and Mrs. Piers, we already know, were being detained at the jail for destruction of property,” Jackson said. The two women, with Eleanor still comforting the distraught Josephine, nodded in agreement. “What happened to your friend, Mrs. Sarah Yates? She was the fourth member of your saloon smashing brigade, correct ?”

Sarah Yates? I’d never heard the name before. And I’d seen Eleanor McLean several times but hadn’t recognized her as one of the saloon smashers. And when had the women been detained by the police? I had no idea. What else didn’t I know?

“Sarah left on the 10:14 train Sunday night,” Eleanor said. “As far as we know, she hasn’t returned.” Jackson scribbled something in his notebook and frowned. He swiveled around to face me. “You’re a secretary, right?”

“Yes,” I said, confused.

“Here.” He handed me the notebook. The binding was brown with several coffee ring stains on its cover. “Take notes, will you? I can’t read my own handwriting.”

I was torn. Part of me was aghast at his presumption, wondering whether this was why he had sent for me, while the other half was grateful to have something safe and familiar to do. I flipped the notebook open to the page the policeman indicated.

“Who’s next?” Jackson asked.

I read off the names, one by one, and recorded their responses. Miss Halbert, Miss Lawler, Mrs. Watley, and Mrs. Nason were in the library together planning the day’s events. Mrs. Miller had been at the American Bathhouse, Mrs. Anglewood had been out riding, Miss Kiltcher had been meeting with a sign printer in town, and Miss Smith, having packed altogether wrong for the Southern climate, had been dress shopping.

“And now, Miss Davish, where were you Monday morning ?” Chief Jackson said when he had gone down the entire list of names.

“I went hiking early, had breakfast with Miss Shaw and Mrs. Fry, then looked for Mrs. Trevelyan. I actually looked in the storage room that morning.”

“You what?”

“I wanted to be thorough, so I started in the basement.”

“Of course you did. Did you happen to see her trunk in the storage room?”

“No, it wasn’t there then. I assume it was still in Mrs. Trevelyan’s room. But I was wondering—”

“Well, that about does it for now, ladies.” Chief Jackson smacked his hands together. “Y’all are dismissed, but don’t leave Eureka Springs until I say so. I’m having the depot watched, just in case. And that includes you, Miss Davish. I may have more questions for you.”

Everyone stood, a collective listless gesture. Small groups formed as the women tried to comfort each other. I couldn’t share in their grief, having never actually met Mrs. Trevelyan, but I sympathized with their loss. The looks of shock, disbelief, and hopelessness I saw as I looked around the room were all too familiar. I had lost a baby brother and both of my parents by the age of seventeen. My closest friend, Myra, had died of influenza just last August. But none had been murdered, not officially anyway. I knew there was nothing I could say or do to ease their pain. Unbidden tears came to my eyes as these buried thoughts rose to the surface. Before anyone could notice, I wiped my eyes and hastily left the room.

Mary Flannagan was waiting for me outside the door. She motioned me away from the others. “I heard what they said in there. Stupid coppers probably believe everything those women told them.”

“Why shouldn’t they?” I said, matching her whisper.

“Because at least four of them lied.” Not hesitating to see if we’d been overheard, I drew Mary into the vacant library.

“How do you know that, Mary?” My heart was racing, and not only from the sudden exertion.

“I saw them. I saw Miss Josephine and another woman leaving that lady’s room that morning. Well, that other woman was Eleanor McLean, who just left the parlor a minute ago. They obviously weren’t in jail then.” She was right. I had seen Josephine Piers before breakfast and then again afterward with Eleanor McLean outside Mrs. Trevelyan’s door.

“That was before you saw the police, wasn’t it?” The maid nodded. “They must’ve gone with the police for questioning, then.”

“Maybe, but I also passed that old lady, Miss Lizzie, coming out of here with a dark stain on her dress. It could’ve been blood.”

“More likely she spilt food on herself during breakfast.” Mary didn’t seem to know anything new after all. I began to relax.

“And what about Miss Cordelia? She didn’t tell the coppers she visited Miss Edwina that morning.” The maid sneered. “Maybe she did go riding after that, I don’t know. She certainly carried her whip with her.”

“Why do you say it like that?”

“She’s a nasty piece of work, that Cordelia Anglewood. I told you before that she visited Miss Edwina. But what I didn’t tell you was that they had a terrible fight. Miss Cordelia raised her whip to that old lady.”

I swayed, suffering a sudden wave of nausea. I reached out to a bookcase and steadied myself. “What did the police say when you told them?”

“I didn’t tell them anything.”

“What? You didn’t tell the police? Why not?”

The maid squared her shoulders and looked defiant. “I’m telling you, aren’t I? Nothing good ever came out of helping coppers.”

“Do you know what the fighting was about?”

“Money, I think, but I’m not sure. I’d come back with the second pot of coffee and missed most of it.”

“But you saw her leave, and Mrs. Trevelyan was still alive?”

“Of course, she was even in a good mood.”

“After almost getting hit with a horse whip?”

“I was surprised too. She even thought it was funny, laughing a little. When I asked if she was all right, she said not to worry, that Miss Cordelia was ‘all bark and no bite.’ The old lady had more spirit than I gave her credit for. Too bad she was so unreasonable sometimes.”

I didn’t ask what she was referring to. What she had already told me was enough, that Cordelia Anglewood had threatened Mrs. Trevelyan the very morning of the murder and that Cordelia and perhaps the three other women had lied to the police. If this was true, who else had lied? Who else was withholding information?

“Well, I’d better get back to work. I still have rooms to clean. But overhearing those women in there, I had to tell you what I knew.”

“Thank you, Mary. I need to get back to work too.” The maid turned to go, but pulled something from her apron and turned back.

“Oh, I forgot. Dr. Grice left his card, in case you need anything.” I took the card.

“Mary, before you go, I forgot to ask you something. Does the name John Martin mean anything to you?” Seeing Dr. Grice’s card reminded me of the one I had found in Mrs. Trevelyan’s Bible.

She tilted her head, thinking. “No, I don’t think so. Why?”

“He might’ve visited Mrs. Trevelyan before she died.”

“Only temperance women were there Monday morning,” she said. “I don’t know of anybody else.”

“He could’ve visited a day or two before.”

“Oh.” She gnawed her lip. “I really couldn’t say, though I’ve seen lots of people coming and going from that lady’s room. I never met any of them. I suppose her secretary took care of that. Come to think of it, though, I did serve coffee to two of her visitors last week. One was a man.”

“When did he visit? Did you catch his name?”

“I remember the lady’s name was Sarah. She was a fat woman who arrived in time for lunch on Saturday. She worked on her stitching and talked nonstop about her son in the navy. The man came on Friday afternoon. I was surprised Miss Edwina wanted coffee that late. She drinks a lot of coffee but always said it kept her up at night if she had any after two.”

I asked again. “Did you catch the man’s name?”

“Now that I think about it, Miss Edwina did call him by name. She called him Joseph or James or something like that. It could’ve been John. His last name could’ve started with an
M,
but it wasn’t Martin, though. I would’ve remembered that; my uncle’s name is Martin. I didn’t stick around to hear what they talked about. I had all my dusting left to do.” A note in Mrs. Trevelyan’s calendar had listed a name beginning with
M,
but that was on Sunday, not Friday.

“Why do you want to know all this? Do you think the man has something to do with the lady’s murder?”

“I don’t know, Mary, but I intend to find out.”

BOOK: A Lack of Temperance

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