Murder Most Conventional

by Verena Rose (ed)

  * * * *

  Sarah had spent most of her morning answering letters at her desk when Malloy came home and found her. She jumped up and kissed him, but she was surprised at the expression on his face when she pulled away.

  “What’s wrong?”

  He studied her face for a long moment. “I was just wondering what it would take to make me stop loving you.”

  “Oh my, I guess the honeymoon really is over,” she said with a grin.

  He shook his head. “I didn’t really mean that the way it sounded.”

  “I hope not!”

  “It’s a case I just got this morning. The client, well, his wife has apparently left him for another man, but he wants her back.”

  He told her what he knew about the Hoopers.

  “Not many men would be so forgiving,” Sarah said when he’d finished.

  “I can’t imagine Hooper will be, either, if he can even get her back. She probably doesn’t want to come home at all. But I told him I’d try to find her, in case she’s in some kind of trouble.”

  “Of course. Whoever lured her away may not be the man she thinks he is.”

  “A man who’d steal another man’s wife is never the man she thinks he is.”

  Sarah had to agree. “You need my help with this.”

  “Yes, I do. My fifteen years with the New York City Police taught me how to treat criminals, but not society ladies. I don’t have any idea how a woman like this thinks or what she might do.”

  “How can I help?”

  “We need to know where she went, of course, and I already sent Gino down to the station to see if anyone remembers selling her a ticket.” Gino Donatelli had also been a police officer before coming to work for Malloy’s agency.

  “She probably had her maid buy the tickets, and no one will remember her. A porter might remember carrying their bags, but there’s no reason for him to have made note of what train she got on.”

  “I know. I think our best bet is to find out why she went to the hotel in the first place.”

  “And he said she went there every Thursday at the same time?”

  “Yes, at two o’clock. Sometimes she’d be home in a couple hours and sometimes she’d come back later. She usually took a cab home.”

  “I have to say that does sound suspicious, although there could be a completely innocent explanation for it.”

  “For a female going to a hotel alone?” he scoffed.

  Sarah had no answer for that. “What are you planning to do while Gino is at the train station?”

  “I thought I’d question Hooper’s coachman and maybe some of the other servants.”

  “That’s good. Servants always know everything that’s going on in a household, even when we think they couldn’t possibly.”

  “Which is why I didn’t want to have any servants.”

  Sarah grinned at this. “Did you expect me and your mother to do all the housework in this monstrosity of a home?”

  Malloy knew better than to answer that. “Do you think you should be the one to question the servants?”

  “No, I’m sure you can handle that. I’m trying to figure out how I can help, and I think I know the perfect thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’m going to this hotel at two o’clock today to see if I can find out what Mrs. Hooper was doing there.”

  * * * *

  Frank found the coachman in the mews behind Hooper’s house, where he also had his living quarters. He was polishing the coach when Frank arrived, and he stiffened in alarm when Frank came striding toward him.

  “What do you want?”

  Frank introduced himself. “Mr. Hooper has hired me to locate his wife. It seems she neglected to let him know where she was going when she left town yesterday.”

  The coachman was a middle-aged man who apparently took great pride in his appearance. His thinning hair had been carefully combed and his uniform pants were spotless. He’d hung his jacket over a chair sitting by the door, and the brass buttons shone brightly in the early spring sunlight. The coach itself was also spotless, making Frank wonder why he was polishing it. The coachman glanced warily over Frank’s shoulder as if to see if anyone had followed him in. Then he hurried to close the door to the carriage house. “I don’t want anybody to get the idea that Mrs. Hooper has gone missing,” he explained.

  “But isn’t that what happened?”

  The coachman glared at him. “I won’t hear a word against her. It must be some kind of mistake. I don’t think she’d do anything bad.”

  “Well, then, tell me what you know about her trips to this hotel.”

  “I don’t know anything at all,” he insisted.

  “Mr. Hooper said you take her there every Thursday at two o’clock.”

  “That part’s true.” He looked as if admitting even that annoyed him.

  “Did you ever see her meet anyone?”

  “No. She goes in alone, and no, I never followed her inside. It’s not my place, is it?”

  “What kind of a mood is she in when she goes there?”

  “What do you mean?” he asked with a frown.

  “You know what I mean. Is she nervous or frightened or—”

  “Not nervous. Not frightened.”

  “What then?”

  “I don’t see what difference it makes,” he tried.

  Frank just waited, staring at him until he finally surrendered.

  “She was . . . happy.” Saying that made him unhappy.

  “Happy?”

  “Yeah, and kind of . . . excited.”

  “Excited?”

  “A little bit. Sometimes. She . . . You won’t say any of this to Mr. Hooper, will you?”

  “Of course not.” Frank didn’t want to hurt the man more than necessary.

  “She’d get out of the carriage and her face would be all . . . I don’t know how to describe it. Glowing, I guess, and her eyes were real bright. I didn’t tell Mr. Hooper that part.”

  The way a woman in love would look when she was meeting her lover, Frank thought, but he said, “I won’t tell Mr. Hooper, either. I understand her maid went with her on the train.”

  “I suppose. They both had a suitcase. Not big ones. Looked like just enough for a day or two, but . . .”

  “Mrs. Hooper was glowing again?”

  “I never saw her look so happy. I asked her did she want me to meet her train when she come home, and she said, oh no, that wasn’t necessary.”

  If she wasn’t planning on returning, it wouldn’t be necessary, Frank supposed. “I don’t want to get the servants in an uproar over this, at least until we know for sure what’s going on, but is there one who could answer some questions for me?” The one who was the biggest gossip, he wanted to say, but he figured the coachman would know what he meant.

  He did. “That’d be Betty. She knows everything that goes on, but she loves Mrs. Hooper because she gave her a place when nobody else would. You’ll see what I mean.”

  Before Frank could ask any questions, the coachman hurried out, leaving Frank to wait in the coach house. He didn’t have to wait long. When the coachman returned, he brought what Frank at first thought was a child. A second look told him she wasn’t a child at all but a dwarf. She probably stood only a few inches over four feet tall, but unlike other dwarfs he’d seen, she was perfectly proportioned, just smaller than average.

  She scowled at him, just as suspicious as the coachman had been. “Rodney said you was helping the master find the missus.”

  “Yes, I am. He’s very worried about her and wants to make sure she’s safe.”

  “I knew it. I knew there’d be trouble when she didn’t leave a note.”

  “You knew about the note?”

  “Sure. She always leaves a note when she goes somew
here. She props it up against the clock on the mantle in the family parlor. That’s because the master always goes in there as soon as he gets home. First thing he does is look at the clock, so that’s where she leaves it, so he’ll be sure to see it. But this time, there wasn’t no note.”

  “You’re sure about that?”

  “I clean that room every day. I even aired it out yesterday because the weather was so nice. There wasn’t no note there last night.”

  “Do you have any idea where Mrs. Hooper might’ve gone?”

  She glanced at the coachman, but he gave her no encouragement that Frank could see. “Someplace fun.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “The way she was smiling when she left. I never saw her look so happy.”

  * * * *

  Sarah had the cab drop her in front of the hotel just as the clocks all over the city were chiming the hour of two. The large hotel was a perfectly respectable place. They probably had a ladies’ parlor where female guests could sit without being bothered by cigar smoke or ill-mannered traveling salesmen. She didn’t have any qualms about going in alone.

  She’d dressed carefully, choosing a conservative but expensive outfit that would mark her as Mrs. Hooper’s equal in social status. Hotels were careful about admitting females without luggage who might be prostitutes.

  A uniformed doorman opened the door for her and wished her good afternoon. She stepped into the well-appointed lobby. As she’d expected, the room was filled with business men who sat in the armchairs scattered around the room, reading newspapers and smoking or chatting with each other. Hotel guests, mostly male, came and went, threading their way through the furnishings and potted plants between the elevators and the front door, followed by bellboys in snappy uniforms carrying suitcases or pushing carts laden with luggage. Several clerks worked at the front counter, accepting keys from departing guests or registering new ones.

  A few of the loitering men glanced at her with interest, but she pointedly ignored them. Instead, she stopped and looked around, slowly and carefully, searching for anything that might tell her why a respectable matron would be here at this particular time on this particular day.

  She’d been standing there a minute or two, discovering nothing of interest, when one of the bellboys came hurrying over. He looked about fifteen with peach fuzz on his cheeks and his hair slicked down beneath his perky cap. “Excuse me, ma’am. Are you here for the meeting?”

  Sarah had no idea what he was talking about, but she said, “Yes, I am,” just to see what he would say.

  “I’m sorry to tell you, but they’re not here today.”

  “But don’t they always meet at two o’clock on Thursdays?” she tried.

  “Yes, ma’am, they do, but not today for some reason.”

  Her mind raced, trying to put this new information together with what she already knew. “Are they meeting someplace else?”

  He frowned. “I don’t really know. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s all right. Thank you for telling me.”

  He had melted back into the bustle of the lobby before she realized she should have asked him what kind of a meeting it was, although he would have thought that strange after she said she had planned to attend it. Who attends a meeting without knowing what it’s for?

  “Sarah?”

  She turned to see her husband had arrived. They’d planned to meet there, but she’d wanted to go in alone to see if that would attract notice, which it had. “I think she came here for a meeting, Malloy.”

  “I know, but with who?”

  “No, not a meeting with a lover. A meeting with other . . . people, I suppose. A bellboy asked me if I was here for the meeting. Obviously, he’s used to seeing unescorted females come in to attend.”

  “Where is it then? Maybe she’s here.”

  “He said they aren’t meeting here today for some reason. Do you suppose they could be meeting out of town somewhere for some reason? That would explain why Mrs. Hooper left on the train.”

  “Yes, it would, but who are these people she meets with? And why would she keep it a secret from her husband?”

  Sarah shook her head. “I didn’t think to ask the bellboy what kind of meeting it was, and in any case, he didn’t know where they are today.”

  “I’ll ask at the desk. Surely they’ll know,” Malloy said and strode off, leaving her to her own thoughts. They weren’t very pleasant. She could think of many organizations that met regularly and to which a respectable female might belong. She couldn’t think of any that met in a hotel or which required its members to leave town secretly.

  After a few minutes, Malloy returned to her.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he said before she could ask him anything.

  Outside, the doorman helped them into a waiting cab. Malloy gave the driver an address she didn’t recognize. When they had pulled away from the curb, she said, “What did you find out?”

  “It’s the strangest thing. Nobody there seems to know what kind of an organization it is. It’s mostly females, although a few men come to the meetings, too, but they don’t allow any of the hotel staff into the room while they’re meeting.”

  “Surely, the group must have a name.”

  “I told them that, even though nobody remembered hearing it. The manager finally looked it up in his book, and it was Suffering Saints or something like that.”

  “That sounds like a religious group.”

  “Which doesn’t make any sense at all. When I talked to the coachman and one of the maids at the Hooper house, they both agreed that Mrs. Hooper always looked happy and excited when she attended these meetings.”

  “Maybe she had a religious experience of some kind.”

  “Maybe. Hooper might know. At least I found out that the group is meeting in Poughkeepsie today.”

  “That would explain why Mrs. Hooper took the train and stayed overnight. If that’s even where she is.”

  “It’s the best clue we have. I’m going to tell Hooper what we’ve learned and see what he wants to do.”

  “I know what I want to do,” Sarah said. “I want to go to Poughkeepsie and see these Suffering Saints for myself.”

  “And I want to get Mrs. Hooper away from them if we can.”

  * * * *

  Mr. Hooper also wanted to get his wife away from this mysterious organization, so without even bothering to pack a toothbrush, he and the Malloys set out for the train station. They were lucky enough to catch a train that would get them to Poughkeepsie around suppertime. The ride seemed long, and the three had little to discuss, not knowing what the situation would be when they reached their destination or even if they could locate Mrs. Hooper when they did.

  When they arrived, bone weary and suddenly realizing they had no idea where in the town to look, they wandered through the station and out to the street. A few cabs waited to convey disembarking passengers to the hotel of their choice. One of them, spying Sarah, called, “Are you here for the convention, miss?”

  “What convention is that?” Malloy called back.

  “I don’t rightly know, but I’ve carried about a hundred ladies out to it. I bet there’s five hundred of ’em out there now.”

  Sarah exchanged a look with Malloy, who said, “Let’s give it a try.”

  The three of them climbed into the cab, which carried them through the dusky evening out to the edge of town where they pulled up to one of the many doors of the largest building Sarah had ever seen. Sarah glimpsed a sign that said Vassar College. After instructing the driver to wait for them, they hurried inside.

  For a convention, the lobby seemed surprisingly quiet. A pair of well-dressed ladies sat at a long table, prepared to greet people as they arrived, and a few others stood around chatting. They all seemed surprised to see the three of them, especially Mr. Hooper, who looked
as if he were about to lose control of himself. Before Malloy could stop him, he marched up to the table and said, “I’m Delwood Hooper, and I’m here to find my wife.”

  To Sarah’s amazement, the two ladies broke into delighted smiles. “We were so afraid you weren’t going to make it, Mr. Hooper,” one of them said. “The program will be starting in just a moment, but we’ve reserved a seat for you right in the front. If you’ll come with me...”

  Astonished, he looked at Malloy for guidance.

  “Oh, are these your friends?” the other lady asked.

  “Yes,” Hooper said faintly.

  “I’m afraid we only reserved one seat for Mr. Hooper, but we’ll find you a place to sit, too, don’t you worry.”

  The first woman was already leading Mr. Hooper toward the large doors located on the wall at the other end of the lobby. When she opened one of them, they could see an enormous auditorium that was filled to capacity.

  “What’s going on here?” Malloy murmured to Sarah.

  Just then a band they could not see struck the first rousing notes of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” and everyone in the auditorium, which was almost entirely female, rose to their feet and began to sing along.

  Their guide took Sarah and Malloy to the far side of the auditorium and scurried up the aisle until she found two empty seats. They squeezed in, excusing themselves over and over, and when they were settled, Sarah finally had an opportunity to look around. Red, white, and blue bunting hung everywhere, and above the stage an enormous banner announced the name of the convention.

  “It wasn’t Suffering Saints,” Sarah said into Malloy’s ear. “It was Suffrage.”

  The banner read, “Votes for Women,” and the words they were singing to the “Battle Hymn” had been changed. It was now an anthem challenging men to support the cause. Sarah gave Malloy an amused glance, and he shrugged. There was no remedy for it. They were committed now.

  The song ended and the program began. Several ladies got up and gave inspiring speeches on the topic of women’s rights, interspersed with more suffrage songs set to familiar tunes. Finally, the mistress of ceremonies got up and said, “We have one last speaker before we hear from our featured speaker, Mrs. Catt. This is her first appearance with us, and this dear lady has never spoken in public before. Please help me welcome Mrs. Delwood Hooper!”