Murder at the Capitol

by C. M. Gleason

  “It must have been dark by the time you went home after the fireworks,” Sophie said.

  “Mr. Townsend drove me home. Papa allowed it this time, because he and Mama and Uncle Stuart were in the carriage behind us. But it was just Mr. Townsend and me in his landau because his manservant died over a month ago and he hasn’t b-bought . . .” Her voice trailed off, but she went on. “He hasn’t bought a new one.” She looked down and Sophie suspected she knew what was going on in Felicity’s mind. When she looked up and added flatly, “Mr. Townsend believes strongly in the peculiar institution.”

  Sophie nodded, and didn’t speak for a moment. Her heart squeezed. Imagine loving a man who didn’t—wouldn’t—love who you really were? She’d always thought her situation with Peter and his family had been untenable because they wouldn’t allow her to be who she was—but that was nothing compared to Felicity Monroe’s awful plight.

  “Did you all go right to bed when you got home after the fireworks?” she asked after they’d gone another half block. “Or did you sit around and talk for a while?”

  “Why, we sat in the parlor and—why?” Felicity’s frown was delicate, creating a charming little line between her brows.

  “Oh, I was just curious.” Sophie decided it was best to change the subject, though she was disappointed not to have learned more. “Shall we walk around and see if we can find Mr. Quinn? He was called to come here to the Capitol. Maybe he’s still close by. Then I can introduce you.”

  But to her surprise, Felicity balked. “I’m—I’m not sure, Sophie. You’re right—someone might figure out what Dodie told me, and if I talk to Mr. Quinn about it, he’ll know and that’s just one more person who could tell.”

  “Mr. Quinn would never tell anyone,” Sophie told her firmly. “He’s one of the best men I know. But if you don’t want to talk to him about it, I can take your case. And do the investigation, if you want.”

  Felicity’s eyes widened. “Would you? Oh, thank you, Sophie. I trust you. I’ll pay you, of course. I have money of my own.”

  The idea of getting paid notwithstanding, Sophie felt more than a little pleased with herself. Yet she was a trifle nervous at taking on such a task. Dismissing her worries, she took her new friend’s hand. “Thank you. But I must warn you—there might be a time”—very soon, in fact—“when I have to share some information with Mr. Quinn.” She was thinking that if her investigation coincided with his inquiry about Mr. Tufts, that it would be unavoidable.

  “All right,” she said again. “You can tell him whatever you need to. I just—I don’t want to be there.”

  “He won’t tell anyone. And—and your secret wouldn’t matter to him anyway,” she added, thinking of how Mr. Quinn had always acted around Dr. Hilton. And the way he talked about his Ojibwe friends, who’d taught him how to track and read signs in nature.

  “Just like you,” Felicity said, blinking back a glimmer of tears. “Even after you divined my secret, you—you haven’t changed. You haven’t looked at me differently. Or treated me differently. That’s not going to be true for many other people.”

  Sophie’s heart squeezed. “Felicity, you’re the same person you were before I knew. Nothing has changed.”

  And with that, her friend burst into tears. “If only I thought my fiancé would feel the same way.”

  * * *

  “It seems pretty obvious that the same man killed Billy Morris as did Pinebar Tufts,” Adam said as he helped George lift the night watchman’s body onto a table in the workshop under Great Eternity Church.

  “I’ll take a close look over him and see if there’s anything else to find,” replied the doctor, stooping to pick up a lantern that Adam reckoned had been broken in the fight.

  “I’m going to have a couple of soldiers posted outside your door,” Adam said, worry gnawing at him as he looked around the mess of his friend’s workshop. Drops of blood, broken furniture, and the condition of George’s face along with the way he was moving funny at the torso were enough to have him taking extra measures. “There are plenty of them around, and God knows they could use something productive to do.”

  “No,” George replied flatly.

  “But—”

  “You think my patients will walk up to the door if they see soldiers standing there? White soldiers?”

  Adam went silent. The man had a point. “At least, let’s get the door fixed and some better locks.”

  “I let them in. It was my own damned fault. Next time, I’m not letting anyone in unless I know them or they’ve got a real medical problem. And definitely not three at a time. Two I can handle, but those three took me by surprise. Now, get off with you and let me do my work.”

  Seeing that he didn’t have any choice in the matter, Adam did so. Besides, he thought he should pay another visit to Mrs. Tufts to find out whether she knew what her husband was doing at the Capitol after midnight on Independence Day.

  Since he’d dismissed the hackney, Adam walked back to Pennsylvania Avenue. He was just passing City Hall when he heard a female voice calling his name with great urgency.

  Ah. He reckoned Miss Gates had heard about Billy Morris’s murder. Adam couldn’t control a smile, and he turned, walking toward her so she didn’t have to get out of breath running up to him.

  Today, Miss Gates was wearing a light blue dress, but the same straw bonnet with pink ribbons she’d had on yesterday. She was also moving toward him at a speed his mother would have called unladylike but wasn’t actually running.

  “Mr. Quinn, I’ve been looking all over for you,” she said, wheeling to a halt in front of him.

  “Well, I reckon if I’d known that, I’d’ve stood still all day long until you found me,” he replied with a grin.

  Her eyes widened a little. “That was a joke,” she said, looking up at him as if unsure to believe her assessment. A little smile played about her lips.

  “Indeed it was,” he replied, then surprised himself by saying, “I’m on my way to speak to Mrs. Tufts again. Would you care to walk with me? Or we could take the omnibus a few blocks if you don’t care to walk.”

  “Walking is fine. And my accompanying you would be an excellent use of time,” she replied, and started off in the opposite direction he needed to go. “I have several things—oh,” she said, turning back when she realized he wasn’t following her. “Where does she live?”

  Adam pointed and she fell into step with him. He reminded himself that her legs weren’t nearly as long as his, so he kept himself to what felt like a snail’s pace, but had Miss Gates trotting along quickly. He slowed a little more.

  “I have a number of things to tell you,” she said. “The first thing is, there’s a young woman named Miss Felicity Monroe who was looking for you this morning.”

  Another one? Adam resisted the urge to rub the dent in his chin. What on earth was it about women coming out of the woodwork, wanting to talk to him? It made him feel a bit scritchy, having to deal with a lot of females. Just one—the right one—would be fine with him.

  “She’s a particular friend of Miss Lemagne’s, and she stopped by to see how Mr. Lemagne was doing yesterday. When she found out you and Miss Lemagne were friends, she wanted to meet you, and I encountered her at the White House this morning, as I had gone up there to speak with you about Pinebar Tufts. But you had already left. I understand there’s another body, then. Is it related to the Tufts case?”

  “It was the same man who killed them both,” Adam replied.

  “So you’re certain it was murder.” She gave him a satisfied smile. “I told you it was.”

  “You were correct, Miss Gates,” he replied gravely, though he found her grin contagious and had to fight one back of his own. He didn’t think it was seemly to smile when one was talking about murder. “Dr. Hilton was able to confirm your suspicions.”

  “Confirmation is always helpful. How was Billy Morris killed?”

  “It was the same way, except it wasn’t made to look like suicide.�
� He explained the conclusions George had drawn about Pinebar Tufts’s death and how Billy Morris was killed.

  “How awful,” she said, rubbing her slender white throat as if in sympathy with the night watchman. There was no hint of a smile left.

  They walked another half block before she spoke again. “Miss Monroe wanted to speak with you about hiring you for an investigation, but she’s decided to retain me instead—since you weren’t available. That is,” she added, giving him a quick upward glance from beneath her bonnet, “I offered and she accepted with alacrity. In fact, she seemed quite relieved and even pleased to hire a female investigator instead. It’s a . . . delicate situation.”

  Adam wasn’t certain whether to be relieved not to be involved himself, or concerned about Miss Gates putting herself in such a situation. “I see.”

  “But as it turns out, I think it’s very possible that Miss Monroe’s situation is connected to Pinebar Tufts’s death.”

  “I suppose you’d better tell me about it then, Miss Gates,” he said dryly. “Although I reckon you were going to anyway, whether or not I needed to know.”

  “I assured Miss Monroe you would be discreet,” she said primly, then launched into her explanation. “Miss Monroe’s family is quite well-off and has impressive social standing, and she’s about to get married to a man named Carson Townsend, who’s the son of a big milling company in Richmond or perhaps it’s Baltimore. Apparently, he’s been living here in Washington for several years—managing this arm of the business, I suppose; maybe they supply to the government—but nonetheless, he and Miss Felicity Monroe met last year and fell in love. Their wedding is going to be a big society event on August the first.

  “But Miss Monroe’s family has a very big secret, which she just learned about only in May. The secret is scandalous enough that it would give Mr. Townsend ample excuse to call off the wedding. And Miss Monroe is convinced that her father, Henry Monroe—who is a well-connected lobbyist for the mining industry and knows everyone in Congress—is being blackmailed over this secret.”

  Adam appreciated her concise explanation, and they walked in silence for a few moments as she allowed him to absorb the information. He wondered what the secret was, but didn’t ask.

  “All right, go on and tell me why you think this is connected to the Tufts and Morris murders,” he said instead.

  “Not only did Miss Monroe mention that her father knew Pinebar Tufts,” Miss Gates said, “but I find the timing very suspicious.” She went on to explain about two letters Henry Monroe had received and how his daughter had come to the conclusion that they were blackmail demands. “The most recent one arrived on July the first, and Felicity—Miss Monroe—gave it to her father herself. And then four days later, Mr. Tufts is murdered. Mr. Monroe would have great familiarity with the Capitol building, of course,” she added unnecessarily.

  Adam nodded. “So your theory is that Mr. Monroe paid the blackmailer the first time, but when the second letter came, he reckoned the process could go on forever, and decided to put an end to it by killing Tufts.”

  “Yes. And for all we know, he might have received more letters in between the two Miss Monroe knows about, and he might have made other payments. I’m certain that the first letter she saw him open was the first one he ever received, based on her description of his reaction. According to her, he was shocked beyond words and his face drained of color. Surely the message had been the first of its kind.”

  “All right.” Mrs. Tufts had mentioned her husband beginning to get more money around the end of May. The timing was definitely right. Before Adam could say more, Miss Gates continued.

  “I suggested to Miss Monroe that we search her father’s office and attempt to find the letters—or at least the envelopes—so we could try and identify the blackmailer, but she was too faint-hearted to do something like that.” Her tone was disgusted, and Adam hid another smile. He reckoned that secretly digging around in someone’s office was high on the list of things Sophie Gates yearned to do. “The only thing she could tell me about the envelope that contained the letter was that it was smaller than usual, and the paper was slightly darker than the other letters she had. And there was a little bit of an ink smudge on it. Not much that is helpful,” she said, still obviously put out by the lack of information.

  “Here we are,” Adam said as they arrived at the Tufts home.

  “This is your second visit to Mrs. Tufts?” she asked as they approached the door. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  “My second visit, yes. The first one was difficult, so I reckon having another female here might help Mrs. Tufts. She took the news badly and was doing very poorly when I left.”

  “The poor woman,” Miss Gates murmured as he rapped on the door. “Have you told her that it was definitely murder?”

  “She suspects, but I will confirm it today,” he replied, just as the door opened a crack. “Mrs. Tufts? This is Miss Sophie Gates with me. She and I would like to speak with you for a moment. It’s about your husband.” Adam was more relieved than he wanted to admit, having Miss Gates present. And this relief became even more pronounced when he saw the red eyes and sallow, sagging expression on the widow’s face.

  Unlike the previous time when he called, Mrs. Tufts opened the door immediately, wordlessly.

  “Mrs. Tufts, I’m Sophie Gates. I’m so very sorry for your loss. Thank you for letting us speak to you. I know this is a very difficult time. Would you like to sit down? I can make some coffee. Or tea?”

  Adam fell back and let his companion take the lead with the grieving woman. It appeared that she was home alone at the moment. As Miss Gates maneuvered the other woman toward the kitchen, he took a moment to look around the main floor of the house. He’d only been in the front sitting room and the kitchen, and he was curious as to whether Piney Tufts had had a study at home, and what sort of paper he might have had to use.

  Miss Gates’s conjecture made sense, although he agreed with her sentiment that simply because Monroe knew Tufts, and Tufts had been murdered within four days of the most recent blackmail demand, might only be coincidental. Still, he’d take the opportunity to look around because so far it was the only lead he had. With a glance toward the kitchen—he noticed Miss Gates had maneuvered the seated Mrs. Tufts so that her back was to the front of the house, and he didn’t have to wonder whether she’d done so purposely—he slipped across the short hall into the only other chamber on this floor.

  It was, as he’d hoped, a parlor that seemed to double as a study or office. A bookshelf leaned against one wall, and there was a small desk crammed in the corner. A brocade sofa and one stuffed armchair were arranged in the center of the room with a tiny table in front of them. A small lacy thing was draped over the top of the table and a woven rug was centered beneath it.

  With one ear cocked toward the kitchen, from which the sounds of conversation and the clanging of dishes—he couldn’t imagine what Miss Gates was doing in there so loudly—came, Adam began to search the area. It was immediately apparent that the desk and its paperwork belonged to Pinebar Tufts, and if one hadn’t already known he worked for the Patent Office, that fact would have become obvious as well.

  There were all sorts of scraps of paper with notes about patents, designs, measurements, and even drawings. Tufts might have been an inventor himself, or at least a dreamer. There was a stack of Patent Office stationery where he’d made notes to himself—things like review Patent no. 0004556 and need an extra copy of no. 0003897, and check P. Martin’s work on no. 0002321 & etc. It seemed that Pinebar Tufts had taken his work home with him.

  Nothing seemed unusual or suspicious, but Adam did remove one of the Patent Office stationery papers that had Tufts’s writing on it. He wanted to compare it to the note that had been pinned to the dead man’s coat. He was just about to leave the parlor when he noticed a sheaf of papers tucked on top of the row of books on the highest shelf.

  Being so tall, Adam found it easy to reach the
papers, and the fact that they were stored high enough that Tufts himself would have needed a stool to retrieve them suggested they were either intended to be kept from his much shorter wife’s notice, or that they were so unimportant that they were put away in an inconvenient location.

  Just as he pulled down the papers, he heard the sound of Miss Gates’s voice carrying clearly through the house. “I can’t imagine where he got to, Mrs. Tufts. Maybe Mr. Quinn stepped outside to—to see about paying the hack.”

  Adam swiftly moved across the room as he tucked the papers into his coat pocket. He was on his way to the kitchen just as he heard the sound of a chair being pushed back from the table, and saw Mrs. Tufts rise.

  “I beg your pardon,” he said as he walked into the kitchen. “I had to—er—see to the hack.” He never lied, but in this case, Miss Gates had already set up the story and he couldn’t think of another excuse quickly enough. It wasn’t as if the house was large enough to become lost in. “Mrs. Tufts, thank you for agreeing to speak to me again.”

  The widow sat back down gratefully. Her eyes, though still tinged red, were clear. “Miss Gates has just told me that you’re certain my Piney was murdered. Is that true?”

  Adam glanced at Miss Gates, then returned his attention to Mrs. Tufts. “Yes, ma’am. There’s no doubt that he was murdered, and then it was made to look as if he’d hanged himself.”

  To his surprise and relief, the older woman merely took in a shaky breath and nodded. “I knew he would never do such a thing to himself, my Piney. In a way, it’s a bit of a relief to know.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Adam couldn’t help but agree. “Now I’m trying to find the man who did this to your husband, and so I’ve got to ask you some more questions.”