“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Winnifred murmured as her aunt began to plait her hair into a loose braid.
“No, but I gave up the one fellow who truly loved me, who was kind to me. He didn’t have much more than his love to offer me, but of course I wanted adventure over the security of his love.”
“So you chose the dangerous fellow? What happened to him?” Winnifred’s gaze returned to the ring in her hand.
“On the day of our wedding, he left me for another, a Miss King, with a much larger inheritance.”
Winnifred teared up and rose, wrapping her aunt in a tender embrace, feeling keenly her aunt’s pain from decades past. “I’m so sorry. How could he pass someone as dear as you over, and how could your fortune not be enough?”
She gave Winnifred a sad smile. “There will always be a girl with more fortune, so it is best that you take care and marry the man who does not care for your money, but will rather guard your heart with all his might. Choose the one who will care for you in the years to come and can offer you the security of his steadfastness.” She gave her a look and added, “And who has a safe vocation.”
“After the jilting, your other beau didn’t ask you again?”
“By the time I recovered from the scandal, it was too late. He, as the second son, had already left his home to take a job and had found another and wed her.” She rested her hand on Winnifred’s shoulder. “Do not abandon a chance at love for the dream of adventure. Percy is a good man and can give you so much. And who knows what adventures lay ahead for the two of you as husband and wife?”
In the shadows on the stoop across the street from the gentlemen’s club, Jude checked his pocket watch in the moonlight, waiting. It had taken everything in him to keep from seeking Mr. Saunders out sooner, but now that his family had been assigned a detail and no further threat had surfaced, he’d decided it was time to proceed with caution and had followed Saunders to one of the elite clubs of Chicago.
Leaning against the doorframe and his eyes strained on the front door of the club, Jude attempted to keep his mind off of Winnifred and what he had lost. He groaned against his swirling thoughts and tried to focus on the case he had come to Chicago to solve. At the sight of the lawyer stumbling out the front door and steadying himself with his walking cane, Jude pushed off the wall and strode behind him, following him until they were a block away and caught in a shadow of a building.
“I heard you worked with a Mr. H. A. Williams on his real estate papers.”
Starting, Saunders whirled around with his cane lifted, blinking in his stupor as he swayed. Recognition lit his eyes as he slowly lowered his cane. “What’s it to you? It was all done quite legally, I assure you.”
It’s everything to me. “I need his first name and his so-called sister’s. The only documents I was able to obtain were signed with initials, and your office was listed for the home address.”
“I only ever dealt with them by their initials for their real estate loan. I have one paper with their full names for an insurance policy, but it was so long ago, and I have hundreds of clients that come through my door. You can’t possibly expect me to remember them all by name, no matter how pretty the woman.”
“So, she was pretty. Can you describe her further, or Mr. Williams?”
Mr. Saunders shrugged. “He was an average man with a thick mustache, but as I said, many come through the office, and I doubt I could give an accurate description since it’s been so long. But even then, I’m not supposed to give out my clients’ names unless you have a warrant.”
Jude stepped toward him, fists clenched. He was so close to solving the mystery, and this man was toying with him. “I don’t think you want me to get a warrant, for fear I will uncover something far worse hidden in your files, do you?”
Mr. Saunders gulped. “Come by my office Sunday afternoon when we are closed so as to not raise suspicions. I don’t want it going around that a lawman was sniffing about my business. I’d hate to give people the wrong idea.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“She was one of those, who, having once begun, would be always in love.”
~Jane Austen, Emma
Aunt Lillian’s story weighed heavily on Winnifred’s shoulders as she readied herself for the day of work ahead of her. Not wishing to discuss Percy’s proposal with her father, she skirted downstairs before he had finished dressing and avoided the breakfast table in case Aunt Lillian happened to be there, deciding instead to find a bite along the way.
“You are quite the early bird this morning.” Jude greeted her with that brilliant smile, folding his newspaper before tipping his hat to her.
She dropped her gaze and tugged on her gloves, feeling strange after all that had transpired since they last spoke. “I can’t be late this morning. Holmes has me working on a large project, but I don’t feel like taking the grip car. I need to clear my mind with a walk and a cup of coffee from one of the cafés along the way.”
“It’s an hour walk,” Jude chuckled, nodding to her heeled boots.
“Then we best get started. I can walk farther in heeled boots than any dandy with his walking cane.” She brushed past him, heading in the direction of South Wallace Street and praying for a coffeehouse to appear as the click of her heels on the sidewalk magnified the silence between them.
“So, did you start reading your books?” He gave her a tentative look as if he were almost afraid to speak with her for fear of overstepping the bounds he had so carelessly broken.
“Oh yes, I’m halfway through the second one.” My speed in reading has returned thanks to my need to escape the memories of your lips against mine. Her stomach rumbled, calling to her to feed it. She pressed a hand to her corseted waist. “Do you know of anywhere we can stop for a quick cup of coffee and maybe a baked good or a quick breakfast?”
He nodded, gesturing down the street. “Two more blocks and we will be at one of my favorites. Most mornings I hop off the grip car here so I can have some of Mrs. Sheppard’s cherry pastries before meeting you for the day.”
She couldn’t help but warm at the thought that Jude was taking her to a place he frequented. He paused in front of a small storefront and held the blue door open for her, sending the small copper bell overhead jingling as he waved to the kindly looking woman behind the counter. He helped Winnifred onto the tall wooden stool at the counter and, placing his hat on the seat beside him, glanced at the glass domes of pastries. “Two cups of hot coffee and two of my favorite pastries please, Mrs. Sheppard.”
Her hazel eyes sparkled as she pulled two thick porcelain cups from under the counter before reaching for her pot. “Cream and sugar, miss?” she asked, looking Winnifred up and down as she poured.
Winnifred laughed softly. “Always, and lots of it, please. Thank you.” She wrapped her fingers around the hot mug, inhaling the bittersweet scent as she waited for the cream and sugar. Jude sipped his black, his dark eyes meeting hers over the brim, sending her cheeks to warming. It was natural being with him, so much more so than Percy. After Percy’s sweet actions last night, she felt almost guilty that she still had to fight her affection for Jude, but as much as she wished to, she would never go against her father. She loved him too much to hurt him by running away to marry. But she also loved Jude, and looking into his inviting gaze, she knew he loved her in return. How can I marry Percy while Jude lives and breathes? She sighed and accepted the cream and sugar with a nod of thanks, plunking four lumps of sugar into her coffee and following it with a generous amount of cream.
“Long night? I’m guessing your book was riveting? Or did something happen with Percy?” Jude’s gaze dropped to his cherry pastry, dripping with thick vanilla icing.
She stirred her coffee, the spoon clinking against the heavy porcelain cup. She didn’t wish to divulge the tenderness Percy had shown her. It was too sweet, too genuine to speak about with another. “It was an extremely long night. I stayed up until two o’clock reading because I couldn’t fall a
sleep.”
“I see.” He gripped his coffee cup in both hands, his jaw tightening as if he knew that Winnifred received a proposal last night. “You had a lot on your mind, I gather?”
She rested her head in her hands. “Aunt Lillian and Father are pressuring me, and I just want to be left alone for a few more weeks until this case has been solved. It’s too important to be distracted by other things.”
“Pressuring you to do what?” Jude asked, but with one look into his eyes, she knew that he had already guessed.
“To leave this so-called nonsense behind.” And settle down by marrying Percy. Checking her watch pin, she gulped the remainder of her coffee, wrapped her pastry in her handkerchief, and dug some coins out of her reticule, leaving them on the counter. “Breakfast is on me. Come, we have lingered too long already, so we best take that grip car after all.” She straightened her shoulders and set aside the events of last night, attempting to focus on the task at hand as she rode on to South Wallace Street.
Winnifred buried herself in her work, determined to get through the entire pile of new receipts when Mr. Holmes popped into the office and called for Owens to join him in the basement. She gave Holmes a smile, hoping they were beyond their awkwardness after the basement incident, but he barely even acknowledged her. This won’t do. She twisted her hands and waited for Joe to return before slipping out of her chair to find her employer. Following his voice, she passed a dozen doors before spying him in the hallway just outside another room with the same large trunk from the basement beside him.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Holmes,” she called causally, walking up to him, a smile at the ready.
He jumped at her voice, closing the door before she could reach him and see inside. He fumbled with the keys and quickly locked it before his gaze fell to the trunk. “Afternoon,” he replied with a warm smile that caught her off guard.
She nodded toward the trunk. “Going somewhere?”
His hands patted his waistcoat as if feeling for something before answering with a flustered humph. He withdrew a polished brass key with a decorative grip and dropped it into his coat pocket. “Yes, but not with this trunk. I’m only moving some things from the basement that I was about to put in this room for, uh, storage.”
But then you locked it before putting the trunk inside to keep me from seeing? Knowing she had rattled him, she pretended to ignore the obvious. “I wish you safe travels. Oh, and I wanted to let you know that I am almost through the stack on my desk. Is there anything else you wish for me to work on before the week’s end?”
He tugged on the lock of the trunk. Satisfied, he turned his full attention to her. “Why yes, thank you for asking. I have some paperwork I marked for you that I left on my desk, but it’s not much, I’m afraid. I’m sure Owens will tell you about the need to reduce hours, but …” He opened his pocket watch before grunting and snapping it shut. “Is that really the hour? I must be on my way. Can’t miss the train. Owens!”
“Sir?” Joe’s head popped out the office doorway, and Holmes motioned for Owens to join him.
“I’ve decided to take this trunk with me along with one more trunk from the basement, so I need your help getting them out to the wagon. I just need to fetch one more item.” Riffling through his keychain, he lifted the correct room key to the door, but paused, looking pointedly at Winnifred, obviously wishing for her to leave before he opened the door again. “Please have all the paperwork finished by the time I return.”
Winnifred knew that if she was going to find out anything, she needed to take more risks. She was certain that erring on the side of caution had not earned her father the position of inspector. Crossing to her office window, she peered out to see Holmes and Owens struggling to load the heavy trunk in the back of a wagon. This is it. It’s now or never. She must throw caution to the wind and make something happen. She was out of time.
Not wanting to be caught by Auntie Ann, Winnifred unlaced her shoes and, in her stockings, left the only room on the third floor she was allowed access to and began to explore, making her way to the locked room. The hallway twisted and turned, revealing room upon room that went from small to medium with a few windowless ones that housed overstuffed chairs, rugs, and basins, ready for an occupant, with the exception of a bed. She found it odd that Mr. Holmes would decorate a windowless room. Judging from the debt lining the ledgers from top to bottom, all the rooms were going to have to go for quite the rate, but she couldn’t imagine anyone renting a windowless room for a long period of time even if it was so close to the world’s fair.
Pausing at the farthest door down the hall, she knelt and tried first to use her hairpin on the lock Holmes had secured earlier, twisting the pin this way and that until she heard a faint click. The door swung open as she rose. Beside an overstuffed armchair and on top of a faded Persian rug, sat a crate. The lid gave an ominous creak as she lifted it and shifted through the straw to find some of the blue-and-white pottery left over from the time she heard about from Owens when Holmes attempted to hide it from his creditors. But, as the papers had already covered the story, she knew a crate full of pottery wasn’t enough to have Holmes arrested. If the creditors had already descended upon him and he still evaded arrest, she had to find something else, something that would stick. There was a reason he had locked this room, and she was going to find it. She knocked on the walls and gently tapped floors in a way that she hoped would sound like a bird had gotten through the window. Listening for hollow noises, she prayed no one would become curious and come upstairs to investigate.
Not finding anything, she wound through the halls, opening and closing doors until she found a room that was bare except for a single throw rug in the center. Walking over the rug, her footfalls sounded hollow.
That’s strange. Getting on her knees, she rolled up the carpet, her heart pounding at the sight of a ring on the floor. A trapdoor? Heaving it open, she poked her head through and saw that it led to the bathroom downstairs. She blanched. What kind of person has a trap door leading to the bathroom? Not wanting to be found by someone walking into the bathroom below, she quietly lowered the door. It was not against the law to have a trap door, and she was fairly certain the papers had mentioned something about that or a storage space in the floor between the levels in that first raid so long ago.
She continued knocking on the walls of the empty room, but didn’t find any hollow spots filled with anything nefarious. With a sigh, she rolled her eyes, lamenting that her romantic novels had filled her head with false walls. She headed for the closet even though it was far too obvious a place to conceal any evidence. She opened the small closet and stepped inside, only to find yet another door inside. She turned the knob and, to her surprise, it was unlocked.
Taking a deep breath, she entered another windowless room, stepping lightly for fear that she would inadvertently find another trap door in this maze of a house. In the corner of the room, she spied a lump on the floor. She tentatively stepped toward it before bending down to make out that the shape was a woman’s brooch. Taking out her handkerchief, she scooped it up, and upon examining it found a hint of green fabric caught in the bent head of the pin as if it had been ripped from a bodice. Her heart hammered in her chest. Had the woman in green been kept a prisoner in this very room?
“Miss Swan?” Auntie Ann called from downstairs.
Winnifred tucked the pin up her cuff into her sleeve and raced out of the room, closing the doors behind her as she went, only pausing to quickly lock the room with the crate. Whisking the dust from her hem, she hurried downstairs to find not only Auntie Ann in the kitchen, but Holmes, along with a lady dressed in a stylish pink gown with white flowers embroidered on her puffed sleeves, brazenly hanging on his arm as she smiled up at him.
“Mr. Holmes! I thought you’d decided to leave.” The pin in her sleeve weighed like lead, and she feared any movement would cause it to clatter to the floor.
He shrugged. “I decided to put off my travels until Sunday
evening. I ran into this young lady at the station, and she said that she was in need of a room for the night. I thought, why not show her the soon-to-be finest hotel in Chicago?” He grinned down at the girl. “We haven’t officially opened for business yet, but how could I turn away such a sweet lady when my unopened hotel has rooms aplenty?” He looked to Winnifred. “Since Auntie Ann is busy with dinner, will you show her to the green room on the second floor? I’ve recently converted it back into a bedroom, and I’m anxious for it to be used.”
Winnifred nodded and gestured for the girl to follow her, their every footstep echoing in her mind. Doomed. Doomed, their steps seemed to say. Something would happen to this girl. She could feel it in her bones. Lord, help me get through to her. She took the satchel from the girl who couldn’t be much older than she was and led her to the now tidy room, devoid of the Conners’ possessions. Her gaze moved to the corner where she had found the rust-colored stains on the floor. Scrubbed clean. “Are you here by yourself, Miss …?”
“Miss Lance.” She turned to her and smiled as she looked about. “I didn’t have anyone to bring me to the fair, so I brought myself.” She sat on the bed, spreading her hands on the coverlet. “Any words of advice on what to see and what I should not bother seeing?”
“Advice? You shouldn’t trust everyone you happen to meet, not even hotel owners. Just because a man may own a hotel does not mean he is trustworthy. The White City is a dangerous place to roam about unescorted. If you prefer to see any of the sights, please, ask me to go with you.” Pausing at the door, she whispered, “There are thieves and worse running about. Enjoy the fair, but please be on your guard, and do not trust strangers.”
Stepping into the hall, she nearly fainted at Holmes standing there with her hat in his hand.
“I hate to ask, but something came up and I need you to come in on Sunday morning, if possible. There is a project I need your assistance with that cannot wait until Monday.”
The White City Page 19