Taken Too Soon

by Edith Maxwell

  “Seventh Day morning early,” she said.

  “Seventh Day being Saturday, am I correct?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  Edwin glared at me.

  Oh, dear. I was supposed to keep quiet.

  “Early,” Edwin said. “What time, Miss Carroll?”

  “It was a little after dawn, so about six thirty.”

  “Was anyone with you in the boat?”

  She waited long enough for me to hear the clock. Tick, tick, tick.

  “No.”

  My shoulders slumped in relief. Tilly had been alone. The so-called witness had lied. But . . . was my aunt telling the truth?

  “Are you quite sure?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Where do you moor the craft?”

  “At the town dock.”

  “What time did you return to the wharf?”

  “By ten.”

  He gazed at his notebook, then up at her. “Did you know your ward was carrying a child?” He glanced at me.

  Tilly’s breath rasped as she sucked it in.

  What an unfair blow. Surely Zerviah’s conjecture hadn’t been confirmed yet.

  “I will not have thee maligning Frannie’s character,” Tilly said, chin raised. “She was a girl of sixteen.”

  “I maligned no one, Miss Carroll.” He kept his voice quiet, calm. “I asked a simple question. Please answer it.”

  “I will not stoop to such a thing.”

  As instructed, I kept my silence, but I wondered at why Tilly had kept hers, in a way. She hadn’t answered him.

  “What do you know of a Miss Hazel Bowman?”

  Tilly relaxed almost imperceptibly. “She’s a girl in town. Frannie and she both worked at stringing tags and were friendly. She lives on Main Street.”

  “Was Miss Isley in the habit of spending the night at Miss Bowman’s home?” he asked.

  “On occasion.”

  “Your sister told us you both thought your ward was with Miss Bowman last Friday night. Was that what you thought?”

  She lifted a shoulder. “I suppose.”

  “How much time did your ward spend with Reuben Baxter? Did she ever spend the night with him?”

  Edwin was a skilled interviewer, clearly trying to throw Tilly off her guard.

  “Young man, I will stand for no more of thy insolence.” She began to rise.

  I gently tugged on her sleeve. “Tilly, it’s his job. Please sit down. He’s not trying to be rude, but he has to ask these questions.” I kept my voice as soft as I could while maintaining a touch of firmness. “All thee needs to do is tell him the truth.”

  She turned and studied my visage before settling back onto the settee.

  Edwin shot me a quick look of thanks.

  “Very well.” Tilly faced the detective again. “No, she would not have spent nights with Reuben Baxter. They enjoyed each other’s company, however.”

  “Did he come to your house to see Miss Isley?”

  “My sister and I are often occupied with our duties at the library. I could not account for every minute of Frannie’s time.” She pressed her thin lips together.

  “So you don’t know if they’d had an argument recently?”

  “I do not, but I also do not trust the boy.”

  He watched Tilly, but didn’t ask her the reason for her distrust.

  I tilted my head. Why didn’t he inquire?

  Edwin went on. “Was there anyone else with whom your ward frequently associated outside of her work?”

  Tilly finally smiled. It was wan, but it was a smile. “She very much liked Brigid McChesney, the Irish girl. They got along famously and could make each other laugh for hours with their stories.”

  “Did Joseph Baxter go to your home recently?”

  Edwin had asked Dru the same question yesterday. I didn’t know why.

  “I don’t think Joseph has ever been to call, no,” Tilly said.

  He studied his notes. “That will be all for the moment. Thank you for your time, Miss Carroll. I might need to speak with you again, and I request you make yourself available should that need arise.”

  Tilly stood and smoothed down her dress, her head held high. I rose, as well.

  Edwin also rose. “Mrs. Dodge, could you please ask your other aunt to come in?”

  “Of course.” I escorted Tilly into the hall.

  Tilly paused after a few steps, speaking so low and soft I could barely hear her. “Does thee believe me, Rose?”

  Did I? I took my aunt’s hand. “I feel thee might have held something back from the detective. Thee need not tell me, but if it has any relation at all to Frannie’s death, thee must inform him.”

  “I know. Pray for me, dear.” She opened the door next to her. “I do believe I need a rest now. Please tell Sadie,” she said before disappearing into a darkened bedroom. The door shut with a soft click.

  I closed my eyes and prayed, right there in the hall. Edwin could wait. I held my grieving aunt in God’s Light until I heard a rustle from the back of the house. I opened my eyes to see Aunt Dru peering at me.

  “What is thee doing?” she asked in a loud whisper. “Is Tilly still with Edwin?”

  I beckoned for her to join me. “No, but he would like to speak with thee now.” I pointed to the parlor door. I didn’t deem it wise to say anything more about the questioning. “Tilly’s resting. Go on in. I want to let Sadie know.”

  A moment later I resumed my place on the settee, now with an excited Drusilla next to me.

  “Miss Carroll.” The detective proceeded to ask her the same questions about Reuben and Joseph he had inquired of Tilly. He hadn’t gotten far with Dru yesterday when he’d tried to query her during his mealtime visit. Now Dru gave him the same answer as Tilly had about Joseph, but her story differed when it came to Reuben.

  “Has Reuben been around the house?” she echoed. “Well, I didn’t see him, but I found an empty ale bottle behind the shed. It must be one he left.”

  “Was it there on Thursday?” he asked.

  “How should I know? I didn’t go behind the shed on Fifth Day.”

  “When did you discover the bottle?” Edwin spoke slowly, either out of an abundance of patience or to restrain himself from throttling the old lady for her meandering responses. I didn’t blame him. He had to be frustrated.

  “I found it on Seventh Day afternoon when I always tidy up the garden, small though it is,” she said.

  It seemed to me Reuben—or anyone else—could have left the bottle any time between the previous Seventh Day and the one in question.

  “Where were you Saturday morning between six and ten thirty in the morning?” Edwin kept his eyes on his notebook.

  “Why, I was at home, of course, making breakfast and baking the pies. I always bake pies on Seventh Day morning. It’s so relaxing.”

  “Was your sister at home with you?”

  “No. She went out fishing.”

  “Did she go alone?” Edwin asked.

  Dru blinked. “She left the house alone, if that’s what thee is asking. She wasn’t in the habit of taking others out on the water with her, except for Frannie, of course. And the girl had started tiring of fishing with her old guardian. Those in their teen years discard the company of their elders as if we have not a thing to teach them.” Her voice rose in indignation.

  True. But I found it interesting to learn Frannie had formerly gone out fishing with Tilly. Maybe it had been a way for the two to share each other’s company.

  “What time did Miss Tilly return?” he asked.

  “Let’s see, it must have been about nine thirty. I’d gotten the bottom crusts rolled out for four pies and was cutting up apples and pears.”

  “How did Miss Tilly seem?”

  “Seem?” Dru asked. “What does thee mean?”

  “Her demeanor—was it normal? Did she appear to be in disarray at all?”

  “Now, why would thee ask such a thing, young man?” She frowned
at him.

  “Dru,” I murmured. “Thee needs to answer his questions.” I again received a gratitude-filled glance from the detective.

  “Very well. She always looks a bit disheveled when she returns from fishing, what with the sun and the wind and all. I didn’t notice any difference this time.”

  “Did thee know Frannie was pregnant?” Edwin asked.

  She gaped. “She never!”

  “I take it your answer is no?”

  “It most certainly is.” She folded her arms. “Frannie Isley was a good girl, Edwin Merritt, and let thee not forget it. Are we quite finished?”

  Edwin hoisted himself to standing with a tired sound. “I believe we are.” He rubbed his forehead with his hand but he couldn’t erase the lines of exhaustion etched on it. “I thank you both for your time. I shall let myself out.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Thee should have seen Tilly’s face when the detective asked her if she knew Frannie had been with child.” David and I strolled down the main street of Falmouth in the late afternoon that day, his headache blessedly vanquished. “But she never actually answered his question, nor did Dru.”

  “Has the autopsy confirmed her gravid state?”

  “Not that I know of. The medical examiner was only to arrive at midday.”

  “You imagine perhaps Tilly or Dru knew, after all?” he asked.

  “I think when one lives in close proximity with another, it’s hard to miss the signs.” I walked a few more paces, passing the wide front porch of a mansard-roofed Walker’s Pharmacy. Beyond it was Malchman’s Clothing Store and Hewins Dry Goods. “That said, maybe my aunts didn’t see what Zerviah saw. Neither Tilly nor Dru bore children themselves.”

  “Unless they did, or at least Tilly.”

  “True enough, dear husband. Nearly everything about the case is as yet unresolved, alas.”

  The oppressive weather had lifted. With the sun two hours from setting, it was a pleasant time of day to take in the sights of the town, which featured a lovely green anchored by a white Congregational church. Falmouth was a far more bustling town than its sleepy neighbor to the north.

  I laughed softly. “Why in the world do they call it West Falmouth when it is due north from where we stand?”

  “By George, you’re right. I hadn’t considered that. The answer will have to come from the historians or geographers, not us.”

  We came to Falmouth Town Hall, a two-story wood-frame structure that looked recently built. Contrasting trim framed multiple sections of tall windows, and a tower rose up from the front. Pausing in front of a bakery, I peered at a poster for a burlesque show pasted to the window. The advertisement for the Bon-Ton Burlesquers showed a shapely woman in a fringed costume covering only her torso. With feathers in her hair and heeled shoes, an oversized fan was her only contribution to modesty.

  “Is this what is known as a variety show?” I pointed to the poster.

  “I believe so, yes.”

  “It doesn’t leave much variety for the imagination about her physique, does it?”

  Two well-dressed matrons approached us on the sidewalk. One looked from me to the poster and back and muttered something in her friend’s ear. The other glared, and both gave us a wide berth as they passed.

  David winked at me. “I can see the headline now. Wicked Quaker Lures New Husband to Showgirls.”

  I snorted. “I don’t care what they think, but I am exceedingly famished. Shall we hie ourselves to our supper?” We were to dine at the Tower House Hotel restaurant in Falmouth Heights, where we would have been staying if Frannie were still alive.

  His smile disappeared faster than sea spume after a wave crashes on a rock.

  “What is it?” I asked. I looked where he was looking. Oh! Currie sauntered toward us. “He’s already back?”

  “Looks like he followed us down here, after all,” David murmured. “He obviously didn’t stay and make things right with Mother. Rose, I don’t have a good feeling about this.”

  All I could do was tuck my arm snugly through his.

  “If it isn’t my newly wed brother and my dear newly acquired sister,” Currie said when he reached us, all bonhomie and bluster. “How fortuitous to encounter you on the streets of this fine town.” He tipped his bowler at me, then extended a gloved hand to each of us. “I didn’t know where to reach the happy couple in the wilds of West Falmouth, but here I find you.”

  “Hello, Currie,” David said. “You decided not to tarry with our parents, I see.”

  Currie’s smile dimmed. “I had, ah, business to attend to.” When he caught sight of the poster, his beam returned. “The very business depicted on the advertisement in front of which you stand, as a matter of fact.”

  He’d said he was in the entertainment business. I now knew what he’d meant.

  I dropped his hand. “What is your role in the variety show, Currie?”

  “A little of this, a bit of that, you might say.” He didn’t meet my gaze. “I’m what one might call a talent scout for young female performers, always looking for new and accomplished girls. And of course we seek to scare up bigger audiences. I do all the above and much more. Things of a miscellaneous nature, you understand.”

  I most certainly did not understand what these miscellaneous things might be. And what kind of talent? I didn’t care to ask.

  “You’ll have to invite us to your home some evening this week,” David said. “I’d like to see where my brother has landed.”

  Currie cleared his throat. “I don’t know about that, my dear Davey. It would be far more gay to take you two out on the town, as it were. Why, this very show is on tomorrow night at the theater right here in Falmouth. I can offer excellent seats to you both.”

  “We thank thee kindly for the offer, Currie,” I said before David could respond. “We’ll have to talk it over. Where can we reach thee?”

  “You can write to me care of the theater. I’m there every day, aren’t I?”

  “Very well,” David said. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, we’re on our way to our first dinner out as a married couple. I’d ask you to join us, but we’ve reserved the last available table, and it seats only two.”

  “Of course, of course. I already had plans, anyway.” His laugh sounded hollow to my ears.

  “Good evening, Currie,” I said. “We’ll see thee again soon.”

  He tipped his hat anew and strolled away from us, whistling “A Rollicking Band of Pirates We.”

  I waited to speak until we were well along in the opposite direction. “What does thee think he meant by talent scout, my dear?”

  “First, I hope you’ll forgive me for not inviting him to dinner with us and for lying to him. I have no idea how many tables are still available at the place, but I didn’t want Currie to eat with us.” He let out a sigh. “You saw how overjoyed I was to see him appear at our reception, but in truth he and I have not always gotten along.”

  “I understand. Families can be difficult. I would like to get to know Currie better in some setting, but our intimate dinner for two isn’t the venue.” In some setting where liquor and boasting were not included, with any luck.

  “Thank you for understanding, dear Rose. About the talent, I expect he’s looking for fresh young girls who can sing and dance and don’t mind performing in a burlesque costume—or lack thereof.” He held up a hand to hail a passing conveyance for hire.

  My heart chilled despite the warm afternoon. Dru had said Frannie, who had a pretty voice, was a genius at picking up songs. She’d told us the girl was graceful and loved to move. I’d formed an instinctive distrust of David’s brother. If Currie had somehow convinced Frannie to try out for the role of showgirl, what else might have happened?

  Chapter Nineteen

  The sea beyond the windows at the Tower House Hotel restaurant sparkled as much as the glassware on the table in front of us. The array of silverware shone on a white damask tablecloth. Small plates of chicken croquettes had been lai
d in front of us a moment ago by a genteel and unassuming man with a quiet voice. I was glad I’d donned my new wedding garment for the occasion, as every other diner was dressed in their Second Day finest, many of which were styled in the latest fashion.

  My glass contained a refreshing mix of carbonated lemonade and cranberry juice over cubes of ice, a drink well suited to this region of cranberry farms. David had indulged in the British favorite of gin with tonic water. But my husband’s drink didn’t appear to be bringing him joy, judging from his serious expression.

  “I’ll extract a kiss from thee later for a glimpse into thy thoughts now, husband,” I said gently. “Is it the encounter with thy brother which troubles thee?”

  “It is. For one thing, I prayed he would truly reconcile with my mother. His speedy return here tells me he didn’t. In addition, searching for talented girls for a burlesque show does not sound like a respectable occupation. Nay, simply imagine the trouble my brother could get himself into with the fathers of said young ladies. Currie has always been a bit of a rake, consorting with all manner of women and settling with none.”

  “I wonder how he carries out his scouting. I certainly hope he doesn’t lurk at schools or other places girls congregate.”

  “One might very well ask. As for the shows themselves, some say they are in effect intelligent satires of the upper classes. They’re often creative adaptations of plays by Shakespeare and other greats. Still, the performances are bawdy and often in poor taste.”

  “Has thee attended in the past?”

  “Yes, when I was a student at Harvard Medical School. My cronies convinced me to go into Boston with them to take in a burlesque show. Once was enough for me.”

  “I’m also troubled by Currie’s occupation.” I spoke slowly. “Remember when Aunt Dru told us Frannie was good at picking up songs, and that she was graceful? Being paid to perform on stage could have seemed exciting to the girl. I’m concerned Currie might have somehow encountered Frannie in his search.”

  “As much as I hate to admit it, what you suggest is in fact quite probable. I just hope it isn’t true.”