Uneasy Spirits: A Victorian San Francisco Mystery (42 page)

“
Miss Leland, the Greatest fortuneteller, gives correct information on stocks, love. Wishing charms and lucky tokens given; happiness in families remedied; fee $1”
—
San Francisco Chronicle
, 1879

Annie was standing near the kitchen stove talking to Biddy when Nate came in and grabbed her hand, pulling her out of the kitchen.

“
Nate, whatever are you doing,” she said, laughing. “I promised Mrs. O’Rourke I would oversee the girls.” When she looked over and saw the grave expression on his face, she said more sharply, “Nate, slow down, what’s happened?”

By this time, they were now up the short flight of stairs to the front hall. Annie heard the sound of the piano and singing coming from the formal parlor, so she wasn’t surprised when Nate turned and opened the door to the small study directly to their right. This was part of Madam Sibyl’s domain, and, as such, would be off-limits to everyone else in the house, so it was a good choice if Nate had something private to discuss. Annie followed him into the room, feeling more and more disturbed by his behavior. After he had closed the door behind them, she moved up to him and took his arm, asking again what was wrong.

Much to her surprise, he pushed her away, then simply stood there, looking at her as if he were afraid to open his mouth.

“
Nate,” Annie said, her concern sharpening to fear, “whatever is wrong, just tell me.”

“
What’s wrong is, I just found out you were almost killed on Tuesday, and, odd person that I am, I’m upset. So, Annie, just when were you going to tell me about what happened?” Nate stopped speaking and glared at her.

Oh, dear, I really should have told him about this earlier,
she thought,
he has every right to be upset
. Feeling her face flush with guilt, she hurried to try and explain, saying, “Oh, Nate, I am sorry. I was afraid someone would mention it before I had a chance to talk to you. I know you must be angry, but there just hasn’t been the time or privacy this evening. I had hoped when the party died down, but never mind, we can talk about it now.” She again reached out to touch his arm.

Nate took a step back and said, “What about before this evening, for instance, the next day? And don’t tell me it was my fault because I couldn’t come Wednesday night. I bet you were delighted when you got my note since then you could go ahead with your plans for the week, without having to explain why you would continue to put your life in danger. You know, if you had sent word, I would have come round immediately. So don’t tell me there just wasn’t time. You didn’t make the time!”

Annie, shocked, put up her hands to her cheeks, which now felt like they had been flayed by each angry syllable. Nate turned away as if he couldn’t stand the sight of her. Then she saw his shoulders rise and fall, and he turned back.

He began to speak again, but his apparent attempt to appear calm soon faltered. He said, “Annie, I’m sorry. I was too harsh. But when Mrs. Stein told me . . . Annie, you have to understand I’ve seen what that sort of accident can do. I . . . I imagined you … your body … damn it, you could have been killed.” Nate stopped, breathing heavily.

Esther, how could you? You have no idea the potential damage you have caused,
Annie thought angrily. She looked away, trying to regain her composure, trying to find the right words to say
to make Nate understand she hadn’t meant to upset him so.

She again reached out to him, putting her hand on his arm and said, “Of course I understand. I would feel the same way if it had been you who had such a near miss. And, much as I would like to pretend it was an accident, the more I see of the Framptons, the more I can believe that
our
investigations, and Nate you have to admit you have played a part as well, have stirred something up. I know at first I didn’t really take the threat seriously. The note in my coat pocket seemed so melodramatic, even childish. I could see Arabella, or her lady’s maid, or even Mrs. Nickerson, if she thought I was a threat to her daughter’s future success, writing the notes. Heavens, it could have been Evie May, in the form of one of her ‘protectors,’ like Eddie, who pushed me off the horse car. I can see him thinking it was a lark. But Tuesday’s incident with the barrel . . .”

Nate broke in, “Pushed you off the horse car? What the devil are you talking about?”

“
Oh, yes,” she said. “I forgot I hadn’t told you. I didn’t really tell anyone, because it seemed so silly at the time. Then Mrs. Stein gave me such a talking to about Sunday’s excursion that I didn’t want to give her any more ammunition.” Annie paused.

“
Exactly what
did
happen?” Nate said between clenched teeth.

Annie decided that nothing but full disclosure was going to satisfy him at this point. So, she told him about the downpour on the way back from her meeting with Miss Pinehurst, the crowded horse car, and then the shove as she started to get down at her stop. She finished by saying, “I wouldn’t have thought anything of it, beyond someone trying to make their way off before the car started up. But then I found another note in my pocket, like the first one.”

“
Another note? What did it say?”

Annie, remembering that she had put the note in the desk in this study, turned, opened up the small desk drawer, and extracted a small piece of paper, handing it to Nate.

“
Stay away or else,” Nate read the words out loud. “And you didn’t think this was serious enough to tell anyone about? Annie, that’s ridiculous!”

“
But you see, Nate, at the time it seemed part and parcel with the first. There is no chance that being pushed from a stationary horse car was going to do anything more serious than what did happen. I fell in a puddle and got wet, for goodness sake. Just the sort of prank I could imagine Eddie doing, for that matter.”

Nate shook his head and said, “Annie, I don’t understand. You keep mentioning Eddie, who is Eddie?”

“
Eddie is one of Evie May’s . . . Flora Hunt calls them protective spirits . . . anyway, I told you about him showing up at the end of my first private sitting with Evie May, he said he was her brother. Then there is Maybelle, I told you about her, too, and Miss Evelyn, who Kathleen has met, as have I, and Edmund, the young man Kathleen ran into last week.”

Nate held up a hand to stop her and said, “You keep talking about all these, whatever you call them, as if they were real. I thought you didn’t believe in spirits and trance mediums.”

Annie had to smile. She knew how ridiculous she must sound, and confusing, because she was confused. She tried to explain, saying, “When it comes to Evie May, I just don’t know. Is it all simply make-believe by a troubled young girl? Or, are these spirits of real departed people, or some kind of angels sent to protect her, as Flora Hunt believes? I have gone around and around in my head, and I just don’t know what I think. But I do know Arabella is a fraud, Simon is trying to manipulate whatever is happening with Evie May to his own ends, and that those ends are evil. I need to tell you about tonight and what happened at the séance.”

Nate put up his hand again, and she realized that he hadn’t really been paying attention to her when he said, “No, Annie, what happened tonight is not the point. The point is that after you almost got killed, and, particularly in light of this second note, you shouldn’t have gone to the séance tonight. You should have put a stop to all your activities connected with the Framptons.”

He paused, looked down at the note, and then he said, “Annie, apart from this note, do you even have any concrete evidence of criminal activity that the police would take seriously?”

Annie saw this as an opportunity to try and get him to see things from her perspective, so she chose her words very carefully. “The Framptons are most certainly engaged in blackmail, if you consider what we know about what Simon said to Mr. Vetch. In addition, Mrs. Larkson is falling apart, and you can tell that her cousin and Arabella Frampton are working together to put pressure on her to do something. Mr. Hapgood, the poor man, is at the breaking point. Tonight, Evie May, in the form of his mother, practically accused him of being responsible for her death. In fact, even Nurse Herron was threatened by the spirit that addressed her.”

“
But this is all hearsay, and circumstantial at best. Is there any evidence of blackmail, proof that the Framptons are benefiting in anyway, beyond the fees they are collecting? Do you think Mrs. Larkson or Mr. Hapgood would be willing to swear out a complaint? Without that, I just don’t know what you could do that wouldn’t simply put your life in more danger. I’m not convinced this note, or the barrel incident, would be taken seriously by the police on their own.”

Annie said, “No, we can’t go to the police just yet. First of all, Mrs. Hunt told me that we need to be careful that Evie May doesn’t get caught up in any police investigation. It might be disastrous for her. Flora needs a little more time to win Mrs. Nickerson’s trust, in the hope she can get them both out from under Simon Frampton’s control.”

Nate said, “So there is nothing . . . ”

Annie interrupted him. “Nate, I didn’t get a chance to tell you yet. On Thursday, when Mrs. Hunt and I met Evie May and her mother, Mrs. Hunt brought along Mrs. Gordon. You remember, the woman who worked with Mrs. Foltz to get the state constitution to permit women to become lawyers. Mrs. Gordon is quite remarkable. She was a trance medium herself at one point, she’s very active in suffrage circles, was a newspaper editor, and now is studying for the California bar. I really want you to meet her. I think you will be very impressed.”

Nate again shook his head impatiently and said, “You aren’t listening to me. I need to know if you have any evidence that the police could act on if we went to them?”

Annie sighed. “Not really, nothing concrete.”

Nate folded his arms and said, “Then that’s it. I can’t see that going to more séances or sittings or whatever you call them will do any good. You need to tell Miss Pinehurst you have done all you can, and you need to make it very clear to Simon Frampton, if you haven’t already, that you will no longer be availing yourself of their services. In addition, you need to stay away from everyone connected to the Framptons, including Evie May. Let Mrs. Hunt and her friend handle that situation, they seem eminently suited to deal with it.”

Annie’s frustration rose at his unwillingness to take what she had been saying seriously. “Nate, I
have
agreed to stop going to the séances. I told Simon Frampton tonight, but I can’t just let this go. At least two, if not three, of the members of the séance I attended are being deliberately frightened, most likely as a part of blackmail schemes. As is Mr. Vetch, so goodness knows how many of the others who have come under the Framptons’ spell are in the same situation. You were the one who said we need to get someone to be willing to swear out a complaint, and that is only going to happen if I can meet and speak with them, try to get them to do so.”

“
Annie, Mrs. Larkson and Mr. Hapgood, or any other person who has voluntarily paid money to commune with spirits, are not your responsibility. But if you continue to make contact with them, it doesn’t matter if you stop going to the séances, the Framptons will find out. Either they, or whoever is working with them, will take action, and the next time Dandy might not be there to save the day.”

“
But, Nate.”

“
No, Annie. Mrs. Stein is right. There were reasons you put your life in danger this summer, we all understood why. But this is not your problem. You have done as much as you can to help Miss Pinehurst, but she would never have asked you to help if she thought it would endanger your life. Who knows what further meddling on your part might do, it could even endanger her sister’s life, if the person behind the attack on you figured out the connection. You have been down this road before.”

Annie felt like Nate had just slapped her.
How dare he? There was no comparison! How could he think this of her?

She was fighting back tears when Nate reached out, grabbed one of her hands, and said, a clear note of pleading in his voice, “Please, Annie. I just want you to be safe. Not an unreasonable position for a man to take towards the woman he hopes will someday be his wife.”

Shocked, Annie looked up at his face to see if she had been mistaken in what she had heard, and she saw that he was looking very earnestly into her eyes.

He rushed on, saying, “Look, I know I shouldn’t be talking about this now, not yet, but I can’t stay silent anymore. Annie, you must know how I feel about you, and I have held off saying anything because I just couldn’t see my way clear to support a wife the way things are at the firm. But now there is a real chance that all that is about to change. Pierce has gotten me a meeting with Augustus Hart, the new state Attorney General, to talk about going to work up in Sacramento. This could give me invaluable connections with the Republicans, lead to who knows what. Maybe if the Republicans get back into office in the city in two years, I could get a job in the local city attorney’s office, or I would have made enough of a name for myself to start my own firm. In any event, I would be financially secure enough to marry then.”

Join the Republicans? Move to Sacramento? What is he talking about?
Annie felt like he had just begun to speak in some foreign language.

When she opened her mouth to ask him to repeat himself, he raised his hands and said, “Please, let me finish, Annie. I’ve seen how exhausted you get, managing the boarding house and everything, and don’t think I haven’t noticed your growing dissatisfaction with having to work as Madam Sibyl.”