The Weeping Lore (Witte & Co. Investigations Book 1)

by Gregory Ashe

  Ignoring the sound, Irene studied the hatboxes in her closet, considering how many she might be able to take with her. Two? Three? If she tipped a porter at the railway station very well, maybe three.

  The pounding downstairs had not stopped.

  “Sally,” Irene called. “The door, darling.”

  Going to the closet, Irene stretched up on her toes, hooked one finger under the lid of a hatbox, and pulled. Boxes cascaded down around her, tumbling open and spilling a rainbow of hats across the floor. The shelf was empty now. At the back, staring at Irene, was the revolver.

  Irene hadn’t forgotten about the revolver. But she had wanted to.

  “Hello the house,” a voice called from downstairs.

  With a start, Irene moved to the hallway. “Sally,” she called again. “Who is it?”

  “Hello? Is someone home?”

  As Irene came to the landing overlooking the front hall, she paused. One of the doors was open, and a man was standing in the hall. He wore a shabby coat, shabbier trousers, and he had shaggy red hair that looked like the man had spent the night in a windstorm.

  “Excuse me,” Irene said. “Who are you?”

  “I’ve got a delivery for George Lovell,” the man said, looking up at her.

  He had pretty eyes. Blue-green, like the sea. That was the only thing pretty about him. His face was rough, and strong rather than handsome, with heavy, auburn stubble covering his cheeks. The coat did nothing to hide shoulders and arms that Irene had to admit were interesting.

  “Well?” he said. “Do you know him?”

  Irene’s cheeks heated. “He’s my father.”

  “Are you going to come down here? Or do I have to bring this up to you?”

  Irene started down the stairs. Any thought of shoulders or arms or eyes was forgotten. When she reached the bottom of the stairs, the man handed over a wooden box, turned, and started for the door.

  “Excuse me,” Irene said.

  He didn’t stop.

  “Excuse me, stop right there.”

  He still hadn’t stopped.

  “Tell me your name. Tell me right now, and tell me who sent this for my father. Your employer will hear about this.”

  “You can tell him if you want,” the man said, throwing her a grin over his shoulder. “I don’t think he’ll care.” He looked around the front hall, studied the chandelier overhead for a moment, and then gave her a wider smile. “Pretty fancy house. I thought you’d know how to say thank you.”

  He let himself out the front door and shut it behind him.

  Irene’s mind poured out options: open the door and storm after him, screaming—satisfying, but childish; track down the messenger service that had sent him and ensure that the man was let go—even more satisfying, but it would take time she didn’t have; call him back, with promise of a tip, and then let him have a piece of her mind in private.

  Yes.

  She set the box down on a side table and opened the front door. The man in the shabby coat was still heading down the drive.

  “Sir,” Irene shouted.

  To her surprise, he looked back.

  “You forgot your tip,” she said.

  She couldn’t tell from a distance, but she thought the fool was smiling.

  “Buy yourself something sweet with it,” he shouted back. “To get that sour look off your face.”

  By the time Irene had recovered her speech, he had vanished into the street.

  She shut the door. Her hands were shaking. She went over the table, where she had left the box, and checked it. It had no hinge or lid that she could see, so she left it where it was. Papa would deal with it. A vase of white, silk roses stood on the table as well. Irene lifted one of the roses from the vase, tore the silk petals to shreds, and then shoved the barren stem back into the vase.

  She marched upstairs. Now, it would have to be Paris. She’d had her fill of American men. The delivery boy was the last straw. Before him, there had been Charlie Adair, with loose lips and a looser tongue and the nicest hands she’d ever seen. And before him, Lawrence Oxall, who had a lazy eye and had been sweet to her. But only at the beginning, of course. Ernest Pierson, who’d been her first love and had broken her heart with Alice Pierce. Ernest had thought it was funny, how closely their last names matched.

  At the back of it all, Francis Derby. The music from the house, where Gertrude Howe was having her debut, and everyone was being sweet to her in spite of her crooked back. The smell of the fountain, wet stone, and Francis’s mouth on her neck, and then his hands growing rougher, and the crushed grass smell.

  And then, at the end, she’d pulled down her skirts and gone home, and thrown out the dress, because the grass stains had ruined it completely.

  Mama and Papa had been furious.

  Irene stared at the crumpled ball of stockings she held in one hand. She shook the silk out, rolled the stockings up, and set them in the suitcase.

  Paris. It would have to be Paris.

  A sound came from down the hall. Irene had a sudden vision of blue-green eyes, and the look of shock in his face when she gave him a solid slap. She hurried to the landing. The front door was open, but the hall was empty.

  Irene’s skin crawled. She listened for a voice, a footstep, anything. There was only silence. She went back to her room and pulled the revolver from its shelf. The silver-plated handle fit easily in her hand. She chambered the rounds and made her way back to the hall.

  Still only silence. The front door creaked as winter air slipped inside the house.

  Irene took the stairs one at a time. The hall unfolded below her. The series of works by lesser-known French landscape painters still hung in their proper places around the wall. The ivory and horn figurines were undisturbed. Even the torn silk petals lay where they had fallen. Irene moved over to the door. The air froze her stockinged legs. She shut the door with her hip and threw the bolt.

  Now the silence was complete.

  A glance to the right showed Irene that the drawing room was empty. A glance to the left—the dining room quiet and dark. She followed the hallway back into the house. Her parents had gone out for the day. The light under the door to Mama’s sitting room was out. The library door stood ajar, showing a sliver of burgundy leather covers and polished wood.

  Deeper into the house. With the gas lamps turned down, and the sky bearded with gray, the house was dark. Empty and cavernous, ready to swallow every sound Irene made and breathe it back. She kept to the thick Turkish rugs, and her stockinged feet made no sound.

  Sally should have been home. Sally should have answered the door.

  The thought ran circles in the back of Irene’s head. She came around the corner of the hall towards the kitchen. The door stood open. Warm yellow light spilled into the hall, along with the smell of lemon and what Irene hoped might be bread pudding. The tension in Irene’s shoulders eased. She picked up her pace towards the rectangle of light and warmth at the end of the hall.

  In her haste, she stumbled, tripped, and fell. The revolver twisted out of her hand and bumped against the plaster wall. Irene looked back to see what had caused her to trip.

  Two stout, matronly legs stuck out of a doorway. There was a run in one stocking, and a stain on the serviceable brown skirt.

  Irene wanted to scream, but she had forgotten how. Her fingers closed mechanically over the revolver—cold metal, finger against trigger, heartbeat hammering against her eyes.

  A man darted out of the darkened room, passing over Sally’s legs without pausing.

  Once, twice, Irene squeezed the trigger.

  The explosion of sound knocked her back. Her lungs filled with the smell of gun-smoke.

  The man disappeared around the corner, and she was left alone with Sally.

  The police came. Sally was taken away quickly and quietly, and Irene had only a glimpse of the dark-skinned woman. Her head had been twisted to one side, and her eyes bulged out, as though Sally had been caught in the middle of tryi
ng to scratch her own back. It was slightly comical, but when Irene barked out a laugh, one of the policemen draped his coat around her shoulders and led her into the drawing room.

  They found Papa and Mama. They brought them home. They took the revolver away.

  For long minutes, Irene sat on the sofa in the drawing room, alone with the policeman’s coat. It smelled of tobacco and sweat and starch. The door had been pulled almost shut, but through the crack came hushed voices. Mama and Papa, and then a policeman, and then Papa again, more forcefully. It was Papa’s voice—the striations of anger spreading through it, the sediment of resentment, frustration, and then the snap and crack that worked their way to the surface.

  He had sounded like that before. On the night she told them about Francis Derby.

  That thought bulled its way through the haze of Irene’s brain. She blinked, rubbed her cheeks, and shrugged off the policeman’s coat. Two steps took her to an old mirror, a bit cloudy from age, but still clear enough to show Irene that she was a wreck. She wiped her eyes, wished for a bit of cool water to ease the redness, and made herself take a breath. And then another.

  They had been sitting here in the drawing room when she told them.

  The anger in Papa’s voice. The fear in Mama’s. And then her sorrow. And then her silence.

  Irene had wept like a child.

  One last look in the mirror, straightening a few strands of hair, and then a rather unladylike cough to clear her throat. Irene retrieved the coat, folded it neatly over one arm, and straightened her shoulders.

  She was not a child any longer.

  When she opened the door, Mama’s face went red, and the policeman stopped talking. Papa glowered at her. He had a face like a walrus, set on top of a wobbling column of ruddy flesh, and at some point someone had caged him in a shirt and suit that looked like they pinched. Mama, in contrast, was slender to the point of sickness, and with her long nose and high forehead, she looked like one of the great beauties of antiquity passed out of her proper time.

  “Are you feeling better, miss?” The policeman was the first to speak. He had wire-stiff gray hair that stood up in the back, and he looked like he might have grandchildren, or at least, like he would want grandchildren.

  Irene handed him his coat. “Much better. Forgive me, I don’t know what came over me.”

  “Hysterics,” Papa said. He fumbled in his coat, as though searching for something, but his hands never reemerged. “Female hysterics. She’s done this before, Officer, as I’ve told you.”

  She’s done this before.

  Francis Derby.

  Female hysterics, Officer. The boy’s a family friend. He wouldn’t hurt a fly.

  “Do you need my description of the delivery man?” Irene asked. “I couldn’t see very well in the dark, but it might have been him.”

  The police officer glanced at Papa, and then at Mama, and then at the tiled floor of the hall. “Miss Lovell—”

  “Oh this is nonsense,” Papa said. “What man, Irene? Stop wasting the policeman’s time.”

  It took a moment for comprehension.

  “You don’t believe me.”

  “As you said, Miss Lovell,” the policeman said, “you were alone in a dark house. You found the serving-woman’s body, you were frightened—”

  “She was murdered,” Irene said. “I’m not fibbing, Papa. There was a man in the house.”

  “She was a clumsy, troublesome woman,” Papa confided to the officer. “It’s little wonder,” he said to Irene, “that she fell on the pantry steps and broke her neck.”

  “Clumsy,” Irene said. “Sally was never clumsy a day in her life.”

  Red tinted the police officer’s cheeks. He had his eyes fixed on Irene’s feet.

  “Take her upstairs, dear,” Papa said to Mama. “She’s out of her senses.”

  When Mama reached for Irene, though, Irene pulled away. “There was a delivery man, Papa. He’ll tell you. He brought something for you. I set it on the table over there.” Irene gestured at the side table.

  The box was gone.

  “What?” Papa said. “What did he bring?”

  “A box. I don’t know what was in it. It was only a box.”

  Behind his walrus-like mustache, Papa’s face went white. “Another story, Irene? Ethel, take her to her room and call Doctor Bell.”

  This time, Irene didn’t resist. She let Mama lead her toward the stairs. The policeman cast a look at Irene, his eyes sliding past hers, and Irene felt sorry for his grandchildren, if he had any. As Irene took the stairs, Mama at her side, she studied the table where the box had been, and she thought about the red haired man who had come, and the flicker of fear she had seen in Papa’s eyes.

  He knew she was telling the truth.

  That thought clung to Irene as Mama settled her in the pink-and-white frosted room, as Mama wiped Irene’s forehead and pushed back her hair and planted a dry, tired kiss on her forehead, as Mama disappeared from the room and the muffled tap of her shoes faded down the hallway.

  Papa knew. Just as he had known with Francis. And he was lying, again.

  Irene sat in the high-backed chair, a scrap of pink-and-white blanket across her legs, ripping the blanket’s lace edging with her thumbnail. She was waiting. For something, although she didn’t know what. Maybe Dr. Bell with something to help her sleep. Maybe for the alligator suitcase, still waiting patiently on her bed. Mama must have seen it. She had said nothing. Maybe Irene was simply waiting. Maybe that was just a place she could be.

  And then the floorboards of the hallway began to protest, and a moment later, the door swung open: fast, hard, but silent. It stopped before hitting the wall. Papa stepped into the room, still caught in that uncomfortable suit, his face regaining a purple sheen. He set the revolver down on the dresser and turned it so that the barrel faced Irene. It was a small gun. It almost disappeared in his thick hand. She thought he might shoot her.

  Would it be terribly inconvenient for the police to come back?

  “You find all of this amusing?” Papa asked.

  And suddenly, to her surprise, Irene did. She laughed, tossed off the scrap of blanket with its ruined lace, and stood up. “You lied to them.”

  “Preposterous. You’ve been desperate for attention since the minute you came back, Irene. The way you carried on at the Andersons’ picnic, and the late nights, and that horrible scene with Mr. King—”

  “He has children who are grown women,” Irene said. “He should learn to keep his hands to himself.”

  Papa looked like a strangled blueberry. Fat fingers worked at his collar. His other hand still rested on the revolver. Then he said, “I see that you and I have come to the same conclusion. It is time that you left this home, Irene. A trip is in order.” Some of the color faded from his face, perhaps the result of relief from the too-tight collar. “A good, long trip, my darling girl. Europe. Yes. I think Paris would do nicely. I will make the arrangements tonight. Your mother and I will be heartbroken, but it’s for the best.”

  He patted the butt of the revolver once, as though saying goodbye, and disappeared through the door.

  For a minute longer, Irene waited. Then she grabbed her hat, and her clutch, and her coat and she started for the door. Halfway down the hall, she retraced her steps and retrieved the revolver.

  She had a red-haired man to find.

  Cian dodged a line of wagons laden with Bevo casks, and then he dodged the horse droppings that plagued Kerry Patch, and then he tried to dodge a puddle of dirty, half-frozen water. He missed this last one and plunged into the water ankle deep. Foul, oily water rushed to the top of his boot and wormed its way in through the holes along the stitching. Cian pulled himself free and continued down the street. He gave some serious thought to whistling, but then, this was Kerry Patch, and so he thought better of it.

  One hundred dollars. Good, solid money. Money to quiet the Doyles, money to put something decent in Cian’s stomach, money to keep him in good, Canadi
an moonshine until his eyes burst. That last part was the most important. He needed something to get the clinging dust of sobriety from his mouth. His headache had faded to a pinprick at the back of his head, but that only made it easier for other things to burrow in: memories and recriminations and thoughts of that girl.

  He wanted the taste of her out of his mouth too. Fine-boned, pretty if you liked a woman without a scrap of flesh on her, and dripping money and entitlement like a wet rag, the woman had put a stick up Cian’s ass from the first minute. That last bit, shouting back at her from the drive, had been pretty sweet thought. Even from a distance, he’d seen the look on her face. That had almost made it all worth it.

  Of course, the hundred dollars did their fair share to set everything right as well.

  As he drew closer to Seamus’s, the activity in Kerry Patch escalated. It was late afternoon now, the warmest part of the day, and even those folks who didn’t have work had stirred from indoors and were filling the streets. At times like this, Kerry Patch came its closest to being respectable. Cian’s people, for all the drinking and fighting and robbing, had a tendency to look out for each other. If you kept clear of the worst streets, if you held your head up high, you could count on a neighbor to pass you a quartered chicken, if you were wanting, because the next day you might do the same. People like that, Cian thought, never forgot the church spires stitching the sky.

  Even the atmosphere inside Seamus’s had improved. The air still had the welcoming sting of spirits, but now heat and coal smoke poured from the stove, and a lively game of cards had picked up at one of the tables. Men and women crowded around the players. Eileen was one of them, a fan of cards held in front of her, her nose wrinkled in concentration. When she looked up and saw Cian, she winked and returned to her game.

  Bobby stood behind the bar, a filthy towel over one shoulder, his eyes on the game.

  “Afternoon,” Cian said.

  “Go on back,” Bobby said. “He said he wanted to see you as soon as you got here.”

  “Something interesting?” Cian said. “These people look like they’ve never seen a game of poker before.”