A Lady Never Trifles with Thieves (5 page)

“Stepdaughter. The deceased, first name Belinda, is—was—Hubert Abercrombie’s second wife.”

“Oh? How long have they been married?”

“I don’t know yet, and it’s none of your concern.” Jack looked over his shoulder at the other men. “Now you scat back to that buggy and hie for home.”

“No.”

He started.
“No?”

“You can force my ejection, if you care to make a scene.” I jutted my chin. “A screaming, shin-kicking donnybrook, similar to our encounter at Madame Felicity’s.”

His voice dropped an octave. “Are you threatening me, Miz Sawyer?”

Of course I was, but only figuratively. If Jack called my bluff, I’d exit with all respect due the departed and her loved ones. “Oh, don’t be such a fusspot. Just ignore me altogether. You know I won’t meddle in your investigation.”

“You already have.”

“Observing is not meddling and this matter does concern me. This very afternoon, Garret McCoyne and Avery Whitelaw showed keen interest in hiring my father to recover the jewels stolen in the prior robberies.”

Jack shifted his weight, as if debating whether to assist me bodily out the front door, or perhaps the balcony, versus a more sedate approach to my unofficial presence. “Lord have mercy, if the chief ever finds out…”

“Well,
I
certainly won’t tell him, and I’m sure your men can be persuaded against carrying tales.”

He massaged his brow, muttering a psalm. The Twenty-third, I believe. “All right, but make yourself scarce before the coroner gets here. He’s had it in for me ever since he declared that ax murder last February a suicide.”

I tendered a demure nod to Hopkins and the other man, then decamped. As I traversed the corridor, I recorded in my notebook the burglar’s method of egress, a description of the pillow slip, and the relative positions of the French doors, jewel case, and the body.

I’d have preferred interviewing the household staff downstairs, but would delay until the coroner was sequestered in Belinda Abercrombie’s bedroom.

Her husband and stepdaughter were still lodged in the room at the end of the hall. She seemed bewildered by my introduction but said her name was Avilla and confirmed her relationship to the deceased.

Hubert Abercrombie invited me to take a second wing chair. He was in his fifties, but his skin was as yellowish as tallow.

“I’m so sorry for your loss, Mr. Abercrombie.”

“Did you know Belinda?” he asked.

“Miss Sawyer is with the police, Father.”

I saw no reason to correct Avilla on a minor technicality.

Mr. Abercrombie beseeched the patterned ceiling.

“Avilla and I were right here when—” Pain suffused his expression. “How could this have happened? And why?”

Avilla sighed and sat back in her chair. “It wouldn’t have had we dined with the Estabrooks as planned.”

I noted the name and question-marked it. At the time of the previous burglaries, the owners had been away for the evening.

Avilla went on to explain that Belinda had complained of an upset stomach shortly after lunch. “When it didn’t abate, I sent Jules to the Estabrooks with a note of apology.”

“Jules is your butler?”

“Majordomo, actually. He’s been with Father for as long as I can remember.” Anticipating my next question, Avilla added, “Jules’s wife, Pansy, is our maid, and we have a cook—Gertrude Hiss. She’s only been on staff a few months.”

“Did your former cook resign?”

“Retired. Yolonda was almost a second mother to me—or grandmother, I suppose. She moved with us from Kansas City, but instead of helping, the mountain air only worsened her rheumatism.”

Avilla frowned. “I’m not terribly fond of Gertrude’s cooking, but my stepmother’s people were a generation’s remove from the Old Country. For Belinda, I think the sauerbraten and gurkensalat were like letters from home.”

I asked, “Were Mrs. Abercrombie and Gertrude acquainted before she was hired to cook for you?”

“Of a sort. Gertrude’s mother and Belinda’s father were distant cousins.” Avilla hastened to add, “So distant, Gertrude and Belinda weren’t aware of the relation until they stumbled upon it in conversation, after Gertrude was hired.”

“It must have been odd, learning that an employee was kin.”

“Four or five times removed,” Avilla stressed. “Hardly more than a coincidence, really. Gertrude was glad to have the work. If Belinda played favorites with the staff, I never saw it.”

Ah, but had Gertrude expected her to?

A moan rattled out from Mr. Abercrombie’s throat. “How’ll we ever break the news to Belinda’s poor mother? She’s still in mourning for her husband, and now—”

“Just rest, Father. I’ll see to it. I’ll see to everything.”

“Murdered.
Almighty God, what is this world coming to?”

New male voices and a terrible racket funneled down the corridor. The coroner, who was also an undertaker, had arrived with his lackeys. Any who spied me would take me for a neighbor or family friend, but it wouldn’t be long before inquiries of an official nature were launched.

“Mr. Abercrombie, can you tell me how the evening transpired after Jules was dispatched to the Estabrooks?”

Avilla shot me a scathing look. I understood her desire to spare her father more anguish, but such was impossible in a homicide investigation.

Abercrombie waved an arm as though swatting at a moth. “We ate a cold supper, then my wife retired to her bedchamber to rest. The next I knew, Pansy screamed and burst in here, shouting that Belinda was dead.”

Avilla patted, then chafed, his hand. Her fingers were as long and tapered as a pianist’s, but every nail was bitten to the quick. “Father and I reviewed store accounts after supper. We partook of a brandy in the library, then came up here, as is our custom. He isn’t much of a reader, but enjoys listening to Bible passages.”

She smiled. “When I was little, reading wasn’t my best subject in school. Our nightly ritual began as recitations. Now Father teases me about spending too much time with my nose in a book.”

Papa had done the same, only his tone was thankful, not teasing. Until curiosity propelled me toward physics, pyrotechnics and chemistry, as long as I had a book in hand, I wasn’t wreaking havoc on the citizens of Ft. Smith.

“Did either of you see Mrs. Abercrombie when you came upstairs?”

“She was fine—still queasy, but her stomach was settling when I checked on her,” Mr. Abercrombie said. “I kissed her. Told her I’d peek in again before retiring for the night.”

“How long was that before Pansy raised the alarm?”

“An hour,” Avilla said. “A few minutes beyond, at most.”

My eyes flicked to the mantel clock. It wasn’t ticking, and the hands were stopped at twenty-five past three.

“Father had decided to sleep here, in the guest room, tonight. He hasn’t left it since we came upstairs to read.”

Abercrombie’s head rose from the pillow. “I should have stayed with Belinda. If I had, she’d…” He sank back again. “My fault. It’s all my fault, she’s gone from us.”

Avilla smoothed the hair from his brow. “Hush, now. That’s just grief talking. How could you—how could anyone have known she was in danger?”

“She was ill. I shouldn’t have left her alone.”

Avilla looked at me, tears rising in her eyes. “I don’t mean to be rude, Miss Sawyer, but I must ask you to go. My father and I have had a horrible shock, and his health is far from good.”

“Of course.” I repeated my condolence, then paused at the doorway. “One last thing, Mr. Abercrombie. I couldn’t help but notice the bruise on your left hand. I’d be happy to fetch a cold cloth, to keep down the swelling.”

He blinked at the darkening contusion equidistant from the base of his thumb and index finger. Avilla caught his hand in hers and lowered both to the bed. “That’s very kind of you, but Father has suffered from anemia since he was a boy. When his blood is thin, a fly lighting on him would leave footprints.”

Nodding, I turned away and started down the corridor. Was Avilla’s protectiveness of her father understandable, or diversionary? A bit of both, I decided, giving quarter to the circumstances. She had, after all, answered my questions in a straightforward manner. Had I been in her place, I’d have likely put aside my sorrow and taken charge of the situation, too.

My relief at seeing the closed door to Belinda Abercrombie’s room was momentary. While the coroner would remain ignorant of my presence, the thick, four-paneled oak door denied any possibility of eavesdropping on the conversation within.

“I
’m Glover Rudd,” said the perspiring young man at the foot of the staircase. His checked suit was frayed at the lapels and cuffs, and his shirt collar ringed his neck like a barrel stave around a fence pole. “Who are you and what can you tell me about the robbery/murder?”

I brushed past him.

“Madame, please. I’m a reporter for the
Rocky Mountain News.
The public has a right to know the facts surrounding this tragedy.”

Greed slowed my stride. Attaching Sawyer Investigations to a crime of this magnitude could rate more attention than a paid advertisement. Then, as if Confucius—in the guise of Won Li—were astraddle my shoulder, I heard him say,
Cultivated people seek from themselves; small people seek from others.

At times such as these, I sincerely wished I’d devoted more study to the culinary arts than philosophy. Without a word to Mr. Rudd, the aroma of brewing coffee guided me to the kitchen.

Pansy and Jules were making finger sandwiches for the constabulary and associated officials. I declined to partake of them but gratefully accepted a cup of strong, black coffee. I’d never tasted better, nor needed a stimulant more.

To Pansy, I said, “Busy hands occupy the mind, but I don’t think I’d have your strength of will.”

She chuffed. A sidelong glance affirmed my sincerity. Her expression registered surprise. Quietly, she said, “I’ll see Miss Belinda, layin’ there onna floor likes a broken doll, in my sleep till the day I die.”

“What drew you to her room, Pansy? Or were you just securing the house for the night?”

“Me an’ Jules were already abed.” She hastened to add, “Mister Abercrombie tol’ us nothin’ needed doin’ the rest of the evenin’. Heard a terrible crash, I did. I laid there a minute, listenin’ real hard. Wasn’t sure if ’twas a dream that woke me.”

“That’s when she roused me, for a look-see,” Jules said.

“Huh. Wasn’t like you jumped up and went a-runnin’, ol’ man.” Pansy filleted the seeds from a cucumber.

“Snorin’ loud as thunder, he was. Bein’ nigh deaf in his good ear, I had to thunk him a lick or three, ’fore he paid me any mind.”

Jules grunted and moved to pour coffee from an urn into a serving carafe. “The front doors was standin’ wide open. It a-frighted me—that pretty vase in shards on the floor and flowers strewed ever’ which-a-way.”

“Poor man, thought he’d forgot to lock up and the wind had shoved that jardiniere clean off’n the table.” Pansy pointed the knife tip at her bosom. “Me, I knew in my heart it wasn’t no wind that done it. Whilst Jules went about the downstairs rooms, I took myself upstairs.

“‘Twas peaceful as a churchhouse on a Tuesday, up yonder. I was near onto believin’ it
was
the wind, but reckoned I’d best tell Miss Belinda ’bout the mess, or the master, if she was sleepin’.”

Her voice faltered. Head bowed, she braced her fists against the worktable. Fat tears meandered from the corners of her eyes. Jules gave me an angry look as he wrapped an arm about his wife’s trembling shoulders.

As gently as I could, I said, “I know how it must hurt to talk about what happened, but Mrs. Abercrombie can no longer speak for herself. If her killer is to be found, everything you saw and heard is of utmost importance.”

“My wife already tol’ you, ma’am,” Jules said. “Whoever done it was long gone before we got out’n our bed.”

Pansy shrugged off his arm. “See to the cups and saucers, ol’ man. Napkins, too. The lady’s only tryin’ to help Miss Belinda.”

Grumbling under his breath, Jules stalked off to the back kitchen.

“He’s as heartbroke as I am,” she said, “but mens, they don’t let their feelin’s show. Worse for it, too, if you ask me.”

I thought of Papa, Jack O’Shaughnessy, and, most especially, Won Li. “They’re raised to believe it’s a sign of weakness.”

Pansy nodded. “They’re raised to believe a lot of things that’s wrongheaded and twists their innards inside out. Maybe that’s how the Lord intended, them being created in His image and all, but even a grizzly bear lets out a howl when a thorn’s stuck in its paw.”

I smiled at the reminder that wisdom wasn’t unique to Confucius. Taking up a table knife to spread butter on the bread she’d sliced, I said, “I was under the impression that Gertrude Hiss was a live-in cook.”

“She is.” Pansy glared in the direction of the servant’s quarters at the back of the house. “Mind you, I’m not one to carry tales, but this ain’t the first time Gert’s snuck out of an evenin’ to meet up with Sam Merck. He’s the gardener by day and plays faro, most nights. From what I’ve seen, Sam’s no better at cards than he is with a rake and shovel.”

Even when faro was dealt fair and square, and it rarely was at Denver City’s gambling hells, “bucking the tiger” was a fool’s game with the odds stacked well in favor of the house.

The layout consisted of a beaded rack, similar to an abacus. Beneath the strung beads were painted reproductions of the nine numeric four face cards, and ace in a standard deck. The pattern was duplicated on a boxlike frame.

The beads tracked the cards played, regardless of suit, revealed by the dealer’s every two-card draw. Wagers were placed on what card would be turned next, or against a card’s appearance. Simple as it sounded, few left the game with their pockets weighted with coins.

Pansy said, “Gert’s later comin’ home tonight than usual. If Miss Avilla or Mister Abercrombie ask after her, I won’t give her up, but I won’t lie for her, neither.”

“What time did she leave?”

“I don’t rightly know. Before supper is as near as I can say. The family was s’posed to eat with the Estabrooks this evenin’.”

Meaning the cook wasn’t aware those plans were cancelled at the last minute. Could she be the burglar’s accomplice? Reminding myself that gender shouldn’t exclude half the population from suspicion, Gertrude Hiss could be a cook by day and a thief by night.

“Does Sam Merck work here every day?” I asked.

“Not on the Sabbath.” Pansy began arranging the finished sandwiches on a doily-covered tray. “As if Sam’s prone to bend a knee, ’lessen he spies a nickel shining in the street.”

“If someone wasn’t acquainted with Sam Merck and Gertrude Hiss, how would you describe them?”

As I’d hoped, the answer painted disparaging portraits. Ask a person to describe a close friend, and physical flaws and abnormalities will be minimized, if mentioned at all. The less a person admires another, the more accurate the verbal picture—minus strokes of exaggeration.

Gertrude Hiss’s hair was stringy, short-cropped as a boy’s, and tinted a bright henna. Of average height and sturdy build, she had a bulbous nose, weak chin, and a raspy voice due to the corncob pipe she smoked behind a mulberry tree when she thought no one was looking.

As for Sam Merck, he was barrel-chested, broad-shouldered, and had dishwater blonde hair combed back from a widow’s peak—when it wasn’t hanging in his narrow-set eyes. Snaggle-toothed and hame-jawed, he wasn’t exactly ugly, but Pansy said if she didn’t know Sam, she’d hold her purse tighter to her chest if she passed him on the street.

“I keep it hid in my room as it is,” she added. “Jules pokes fun at me for it, but I don’t trust a man that throws hard-earned money away at a card table.”

“Do the Abercrombies trust Sam Merck?” I asked.

“All he does is keep the grounds, miss. He ain’t allowed inside the house.”

I waggled my head in confusion. “Then why do you hide your purse from him?”

“That’s perzackly what Jules says.” Pansy sighed as though both of us were daft. “Just ’cause Sam ain’t supposed to come in, don’t mean he won’t ever.”

Some of us perceived
can’t, won’t,
and
don’t
as dares. In my youth, if Papa hadn’t been so enamored of all three, whippings might have been fewer and further between.

I flipped back to the page with Sam’s and Gertrude’s descriptions. I’d seen them somewhere. At the restaurant? The minstrel show? Oh, well. The sooner I stopped thinking about it, the sooner I’d remember.

“After Jules found the front doors open, was Avilla reading to her father when you went upstairs?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You saw them.”

“Yes’m.” Pansy took a cucumber from the stack and munched it, absently. “Well, now I think on it, the door was shut, just like Miss Belinda’s. They was there, though. After I saw Miss Belinda had gone to Jesus, I ran down the hall and pounded on the door, screamin’ for help.

“Miss Avilla rushed out, and Mr. Abercrombie, fast as he’s able. Jules came, too, then he went back downstairs. He hailed a buggy passin’ by and tol’ ’em a murder had been done and to go for the police.”

Crockery tinked together as Jules reentered the kitchen. “Shows how good you remember. The master stumbled and near fainted away when he saw Miss Belinda like that. Me and Miss Avilla took him back down the hall, ’fore he tol’ me to fetch the po-lice.”

“The police,” I repeated. “Not a doctor.”

Jules removed a stack of ironed napkins from a drawer. “If he’d asked for a doctor, that’s what I’d have sent those people to fetch.”

“Did he check Mrs. Abercrombie’s pulse? Put a mirror under her nose? Did anyone?”

Jules’s and Pansy’s eyes met. Her hand went to her mouth. “Oh, no. We didn’t, did we? I never…Oh, my Lord.”

“No need for it,” he snapped back, “and I’ll thank you kindly not to upset my wife. Miss Belinda was dead where she laid. I can promise you that.”

I sipped my coffee and entered a few notes to allow the tension to subside. Pansy was sniffling again. I was sorry for the doubt I’d planted, but the question wasn’t mean-spirited or frivolous.

I listed the four people who’d entered the room at least once: Pansy, Avilla, Hubert Abercrombie, and Jules. In that instance, a physician would be remiss to declare death by sight alone. Besides, wasn’t it instinctive to check for life-signs?

Could the shock of seeing his wife strangled with a string of her own pearls have unhinged Hubert Abercrombie that badly? Possibly, yet moments later, he had the presence of mind to send his manservant for help.

A thought stilled my hand. What if Abercrombie didn’t check his wife’s pulse or respiration because he knew she was dead before he entered the room? Knew even before Pansy screamed? That would explain those lapses and why the authorities were summoned instead of a doctor.

But not the burglary, dash it all.

Without cognizance of it, Rendal LeBruton’s cruelty to his wife must be influencing my deductions in this case. And how tidy it would be to wangle the earlier robberies into decoys, albeit lucrative ones, for a LeBruton/Abercrombie conspiracy. Rendal murdered Belinda, Hubert will return the favor by killing Penelope a few days hence, thus each has disposed of a problematic wife and ensured himself against the other’s betrayal or blackmail.

“You got any more questions, miss?” Pansy startled me from plotting what might be the perfect double-homicide.

“Just a few,” I stammered. “What did you do after Avilla and Mr. Abercrombie returned to the guest room and Jules went downstairs?”

“Sat myself down on the steps and bawled.” Pansy swiped the back of a hand under her eyes. “That’s what.”

“Do you know where Sam Merck lives?”

“Not perzackly.”

Pansy’s demeanor had taken a hostile turn. She wanted me gone. I didn’t blame her.

With reluctance, she said, “A boardinghouse on Blake Street’s all Gert ever tol’ me.” She glanced up. “I swear.”

“Everything you’ve said has been the truth, to the best of your memory. I know that.”

The dining room door, through which Jules had exited, cracked open a few inches. “Best you bring them sandwiches, woman. The po-licemen is coming down from Miss Belinda’s room.”

I ripped a leaf from the notebook and wrote:
As advised, I’ve hied for home. JBS

To Pansy, I said, “Do you remember the constable that arrived a moment before I did? A tall man in a black frock coat?”

“Yes’m.”

“His name is Jack O’Shaughnessy. Will you please give him this message for me?”

Pansy slipped the ragged paper in her pocket, then hefted the tray. Whether she heard my expression of thanks, I wasn’t sure.

The mansion’s service entrance had a brick walkway leading to a side drive partially overhung by a porte cochere. Beyond it was a sandstone block and clapboard stable. Lifting my skirts, I wandered across the lawn to the rear of the house.

Cows lowed in the pasture beyond, their night sounds less pronounced than the odor of fresh droppings. I jumped at voices raised in argument, then realized they were drifting from the front lawn, not closing in from behind me. From the overheard snatches, it seemed a constable was giving the reporter, Glover Rudd, a heave-ho out the front door. The French doors were closed, but the rope still hung from the balcony rail outside Belinda Abercrombie’s bedchamber. To my dismay, crushed walnut hulls lined the flower beds adjacent to the exterior wall. In the darkness, it was impossible to tell whether the shrubbery had any broken branches. I dared not strike a match.