by Kat Ross
If ghosts were real, one would think they’d be haunting every square foot of this city.
Margaret Fox turned out to be a kind woman, who seemed truly sorry at what had befallen her one-time protégé. She explained that Becky had travelled to Rochester to see them when she was just nineteen. Becky had an ethereal quality that fascinated audiences, especially men. She was well-spoken and passionate about Spiritualism and soon became a sought-after public speaker.
“We conducted many séances together,” Margaret said, “but then Becky began to call herself Valentina von Linden and got herself invited to a few society parties. She was convinced she’d find a rich man to marry her, the poor fool. She didn’t understand that while any of those so-called gentlemen would be happy to carry on a dalliance and whisper promises in her ear, she was too far beneath them to be taken seriously.”
“Were there any men in particular?” I asked.
“Yes, one who she seemed head over heels for, but she wouldn’t tell me his name.”
“Did you get any impressions about him?”
Margaret thought for a moment. “Very rich. One of the older New York families. She said he was terrified his mother would find out. I think he was afraid of being disinherited.”
“Did she ever say what he looked like?”
“I’m afraid not. She was very secretive. I think he insisted on it.”
“What about her clientele?” John asked. “Can you give us any names?”
“I could.” She gave us a sharp look. “But I’m not sure I should. What’s the use in dragging more people through the mud?
“Because one of them might be Becky’s killer,” I said. “Two hundred dollars was found near her body. She must have gotten it from somewhere. You know she was living in abject poverty?”
“I didn’t before I read what happened in the newspapers,” Margaret said wearily. “We would have tried to help her. But she never asked.”
It reminded me of what Brady had said about Straker, that he was too proud to admit defeat.
“The money rules out robbery,” I said. “And it was such an exact amount, as though she’d just gotten it and hadn’t spent any yet. We need to know who gave it to her.”
Margaret Fox sighed. “Alright, I’ll tell you some names. But if anyone asks, they didn’t come from me, understood?”
We all nodded. John took out a notepad and started writing as Margaret began her recital.
“…Miss Lucy Gould, Mrs. H. R. Pendleton, Mr. and Mrs. March, the Kanes, Mrs. Robert Mortimer, Lord Balthazar, the Whittiers…”
By the time Margaret Fox finally wound down, John had filled six pages with his illegible scrawl. So much for narrowing the field of suspects, I thought glumly.
“Did she ever express any interest in black magic or grimoires?” I asked.
Margaret looked scandalized. “Absolutely not! Such things are antithetical to all that Spiritualism stands for.”
If I told her about the séance, I’d have to explain my client’s involvement, which would inevitably lead to the fact that I was withholding all this information from the police. So I tried to hedge a bit.
“Have you ever seen this symbol?”
I showed her the piece of paper Fred had given me, but I wasn’t surprised when she answered in the negative. No one seemed to know what it was.
“Did she ever mention the name Robert Straker? Or Leland Brady?”
Again, Margaret shook her head. It appeared the well was running dry.
“You’ll have to excuse my sister,” she said, as we walked together toward Sixth Avenue. “She’s had a hard time of it in the last year. Leah has been trying to take her children away. It’s a terrible mess.” She was silent for a long moment. “I taught Becky how to use her ankle joints to make rapping noises. She had a real talent for it. She didn’t seem bothered when she found out that we were frauds. The funny part is that despite everything, I think she really believed it.”
“Believed what?” Edward ventured, taking Margaret’s hand and assisting her into a hansom headed downtown.
“In the spirit world. In ghosts. In all of it.” Margaret Fox sat back and nodded to us. “I wish you luck with your investigation, Miss Pell. Becky deserved better than she got. And if it is one of those society boys…well, I hope he hangs.”
And with that, she was gone.
I spent the afternoon in Myrtle’s chemistry laboratory on the top floor of our home, testing the scorched earth from the cellar. I placed it in a test tube and added a few hundredths of a gram of benzoin, stirring the mixture with a glass rod. I then covered the open end of the test tube with a disc of moist lead acetate paper. I heated a glycerol bath to 130 degrees and plunged the test tube inside, quickly raising the temperature to 150 degrees.
Within seconds, a deep black stain appeared on the reagent paper, confirming the presence of sulphur. Or brimstone, as John melodramatically put it. As I could think of no reason such an element would naturally appear, and the traces had been undisturbed by recent footprints, we could safely assume that it was placed there during the séance. But why, and how?
As often happens in New York in the summertime, the cool morning proved deceptive. By late afternoon, it was sweltering again, and I found myself overcome by a kind of stupor. John had gone home to enjoy a Sunday dinner with his boisterous family, and Edward had headed out to the Coney Island Jockey Club to bet on the races at Sheepshead Bay.
His enthusiasm for the investigation had been powerfully rejuvenated by the possibility that one of his friends or acquaintances might be a cold-blooded killer. Edward promised to wrangle us invitations to a ball the following week hosted by the Kanes at their mansion on Central Park West. As much as I disliked such events, I agreed that since nearly everyone on John’s list would be there, it gave us a chance to survey Becky’s former clients in the flesh.
I ate lunch with Mrs. Rivers (pushing the dreaded aspic salad to the side of my plate, where it quivered malevolently), and retired to my room to think about the case. Margaret Fox’s revelations gave us a whole new avenue to explore. If Becky did have a rich paramour, he had treated her badly. Perhaps a broken heart had also caused her chloral hydrate addiction.
I changed into a lighter shift and curled up on my big canopy bed, which had a view of the rooftops looking south. What if Becky had truly loved him, as Margaret seemed to believe? What if she had waited for him to come to his senses, even as her life fell apart around her?
What if, I thought, she finally grew tired of waiting, and love turned to fury?
It seemed as though this man was in a position to lose everything if it came out that he was having an affair with a girl like Becky. What if she had tried to blackmail him?
That could certainly account for the indications that the killer was struck with remorse after the crime, since he’d once cared for her. But there were problems with this theory. First, the money. He should have taken it with him, unless he was too dazed at what had just occurred and forgot to. Second, the backwards Latin. Third, the Forsizi boy.
And fourth: Straker. It would mean he had nothing to do with it, that the séance that same night was just a coincidence. But we still had the problem of the blood in his flat, and the fact that the man was missing.
I couldn’t shake the unpleasant feeling that I was missing something critical, some clue that Myrtle would recognize in an instant as the key to the entire case. That I couldn’t see the forest for the trees.
As far as suspects, we had Straker, of course, and the man who had accompanied him to Chamberlain’s. Then there was Becky’s paramour.
And there was also Brady. He was there that night. He said he hadn’t returned home, but had gone to his office to sleep because it was so late. He too had served in the Army. He could have gotten access to Straker’s flat somehow. It wouldn’t have been difficult.
But it made no sense. Where was his motive? After all, Straker had approached him, not the other way around. We had only
Brady’s word for this, but the story rang true. Myrtle had taught me seventeen signs to watch for when a person lied, from subtle eye movements to speech patterns and hand gestures, and Brady had displayed none of them. Either he was a spectacular, pathological liar, or he wasn’t lying at all.
I must have drifted off because the light was fading from the sky in a blaze of orange and red when my eyes opened again. Sweat had glued the shift to my body. I threw off the sheet and sat up. Groggy as I was, I felt as though I’d awakened suddenly. That some noise had pulled me up from the depths of sleep.
Like the creaky floorboard on the second-floor landing.
“Mrs. Rivers?” I called out. “Connor?”
There was no answer.
My nerves began to tingle, although I couldn’t say precisely why. The house was quiet. But I was certain that just before I woke, someone had been climbing the stairs.
I’d left my door ajar about an inch. Now, my eyes locked on the doorknob. Every sense seemed to heighten, the details of the room snapping into sharp focus. I thought I heard a tiny sound in the hall. A stealthy sound. My heart hammered in my chest as I placed one bare foot on the floor, then the other.
Myrtle kept guns in the house, but they were all locked up in her study on the second floor.
If it was a burglar, the best thing would be to make a loud noise so he knew someone was home. Most house-breakers just wanted the silver. They weren’t in it for assault. Or murder. Those were capital offenses.
I opened my mouth to scream but something stopped me. A powerful feeling that whoever was out there was not, in fact, a burglar.
That they were here for me.
And if I gave myself away, the game would be over.
With one eye on the door, I searched the room for something I could use as a weapon. My vanity had only a silver comb and hairbrush, a button hook, a bottle of Crosby’s Brain Food with vitalized phosphates, and a tin of powder that mother encouraged me to dust my freckles with (and which itself had gathered dust since she’d been gone). A messy stack of books and journals sat on the table next to my bed. The top one, which lay open, was an article by the Scottish surgeon Henry Faulds in Nature titled “On the skin-furrows of the hand,” in which he proposed a method for recording fingerprints with ink. It was fascinating stuff, but I doubted I could do much damage with it.
I took a step towards the door, goosebumps rising under my thin shift despite the heat. Because now I was sure I heard something, just outside.
Soft breathing.
I scanned the room, the first wings of panic fluttering in my throat. My gaze landed on the dresser. It held a vase of fresh flowers, bright yellow marigolds from the garden. Mrs. Rivers must have placed them there while I napped. The distance, perhaps fifteen feet, took forever to cross. I placed each foot with exquisite care, the blood rushing in my ears. It made no sense, but I was seized by the absolute certainty that the moment I made a single sound, that door would burst open.
And then I smelled it. The faintest waft of tobacco smoke.
A minute later I gripped the vase in my hand. It wasn’t much, but better than nothing. A blow to the head might slow him down at least.
Whoever he was.
I raised it high as the door began to slowly swing open. Two inches.
Three.
“Harry? Are you up there?”
Mrs. Rivers’ tremulous voice sounded miles away. The kitchen, maybe.
Oh no. Mrs. Rivers.
“Run!” I screamed, slamming into the door and pressing my back against it. “Get out of the house!”
I listened for the sound of pounding footsteps, for the creak of the landing signifying that the hunter now sought other, easier prey.
All was quiet outside for an endless minute.
“Oh drat,” I muttered. “Alright, Harry, here goes.”
I stepped to the side of the door and yanked it open, vase poised to crash down. The hall was empty.
“Mrs. Rivers?” I called, peering down the stairs.
I started to make my way toward the first floor, two long flights. The hair on the back of my neck twitched at every shift in the air, and I’m not sure I took a breath until my feet were planted firmly on the hall carpet.
“Mrs. Rivers?” I whispered.
The only reply was the monotonous tick of a grandfather clock.
I realized that I’d gone right past Myrtle’s study and kicked myself for a fool. But there wasn’t time to go back upstairs. I had to warn my housekeeper and get us both out of the house.
To my right was the formal parlor (less cozy than the one John and I used as our unofficial headquarters), to my left a corridor that led to the dining room and kitchen. None of the lamps were lit yet, and all was shrouded in the half-light of dusk. Connor was probably out looking for Billy. I tightened my sweaty grip on the vase. Full darkness would have been better, if only to hide in. As it was, every shadow, every hump of furniture, looked vaguely man-shaped.
I took a deep breath and turned the corner toward the kitchens, running smack into a faceless form. I shrieked and wielded the vase like a battle axe, but the blow landed wide of its mark, shattering against a bookcase instead of my assailant’s skull.
Which actually turned out for the best, since my shriek was answered by one of even higher pitch.
“Harrison Fearing Pell!” Mrs. Rivers bleated, clutching her chest, and I knew I was in big trouble.
“I thought you were a burglar,” I protested, helping her to an armchair.
“Where are you going?” Mrs. Rivers demanded as I dashed down the hall. “Have you lost your mind completely?”
“Just wait!” I called over my shoulder, as I swung wide the front door and leapt barefoot onto the stoop.
Tenth Street was deserted in both directions.
“Come back this instant!” Mrs. Rivers sounded scandalized. “You’re wearing a nightdress!”
It couldn’t be.
Maybe I was losing my mind.
I was just turning to go back in when a sharp pain flared in my right foot, like a bee sting. I hopped back and examined the sole, where a reddish blister was already rising. I bent down and scanned the doorstep. When I saw what lay there, my breath caught in my throat, filling me with a strange combination of relief and fear.
Half of a Turkish Elegante cigarette.
Smoke curled lazily from the glowing tip, which I had stepped on.
“Harry!” Mrs. Rivers called again, more insistently.
“Coming!”
I gave the street once last survey, locked the front door, and carried the cigarette into the kitchen, where I extinguished it in the sink. Then I went into the parlor to try to explain why I had just attacked my housekeeper with a vase.
It seems that Mrs. Rivers had been working in the garden all afternoon. When it started to grow dark, she came inside to call me for supper but suddenly remembered that she had left the water running outside. She went to shut it off and therefore didn’t hear any of the warnings I’d screamed from upstairs, which may have saved her life. Because I think that at the very moment she was returning to the garden, our man was descending the stairs.
Perhaps he hadn’t realized anyone else was home, and got spooked when she called my name. But if he’d met her face to face, he might have decided that he couldn’t leave her alive.
I didn’t tell Mrs. Rivers any of this, of course. I said I’d had a nightmare and blamed it on nerves, a catch-all disorder that everyone seemed to accept could strike women for no real reason. Mrs. Rivers could see I was genuinely shaken up, if not the true cause of it. She offered me a dose of Dr. Beeton’s Soothing Remedy, a dreadful concoction she used to pour into me and Myrtle when we were little that tasted like licorice and contained enough morphine to tranquilize a horse. I politely declined. So Mrs. Rivers settled for feeding me soup and ordering me back to bed. While she was in the kitchen, I locked all the downstairs windows and shut the blinds. Full dark had fallen. To my overheated
imagination, the night seemed to press against the house like a shroud. I was glad that although our street was a quiet one, the neighborhood would remain lively for many hours yet.
My gut told me that the intruder wouldn’t return that same night, but I didn’t care to take foolish chances. So before returning to my room, I stopped in Myrtle’s study and took a Russian model Smith & Wesson revolver from her gun cabinet. I’d fired it before, though never at another human being. I thought I could manage to do so if it came down to it.
When Connor returned home at around seven, I told him in whispers all that had transpired. His young face hardened and he dashed out while Mrs. Rivers was in her bath, returning minutes later to say that the Bank Street Butchers were now watching the house and would sound the alarm if any suspicious men so much as glanced at the front door.
As disturbed as I felt, I also knew that the investigation must be getting close to something uncomfortable for our killer, something that had flushed him out and provoked him into taking such a risk. But was it the trip to Chamberlain’s? The revelations of Margaret Fox? Or something else entirely?
And then there was Mrs. Rivers. It was one thing to keep her in the dark that I was playing at being a detective, quite another to put her at risk. Twice that evening, I started towards my bedroom door, intent on telling her everything, and twice I changed my mind at the last moment.
As it turned out, the decision would shortly be taken out of my hands.
At the hour just before dawn, a loud pounding came on the front door. Mrs. Rivers and I reached it more or less simultaneously. A sleeping cap covered her hair, and her eyes grew wide when she saw the gun in my hand.
“Who is it?” I shouted.
“Nellie! Open up!”
I let out a long breath and unlocked the door. Nellie Bly stood alone on the doorstep, her short bangs plastered to her forehead in damp curls that looked like question marks. She eyed the gun in my hand and I quickly set it on a side table we used for mail.