‘Yes, I understand.’ She did, and for that I was grateful. ‘There are places here, missions of a sort that help women in need.’
I nodded and thought of the note from Sebastian Richter that had arrived that day at the museum and of its dispiriting contents. ‘There is no trace of Madeline at any of the missions.’
‘Then there must be something else we can do to find her.’
Though we were discussing things no less weighty than murder and the disappearance of a young woman, I couldn’t help but smile. ‘We?’
Clarice had a glass of sherry in front of her and she sipped and considered me over the rim of the glass. ‘Do you think it could be dangerous for you to inquire further?’
‘It is already dangerous. As I have told you—’
‘Did someone really try to kill you?’ As if the very thought was impossible to conceive, she wrinkled her nose. ‘I thought you told me that simply to get me to pay attention.’
‘Someone tried to kill me.’ A shiver shot up my spine. ‘Not once but three times.’
Though the very thought still made my insides fill with ice, it distracted Clarice from her regrets. She sat up and braced her elbows on the table. ‘That is exciting! Like something out of a novel by Charles Dickens!’
‘It is not exciting. Not when it’s happening to you,’ I told her.
She slapped the table. ‘Then we must stop it from happening. How?’
It wasn’t as if I hadn’t considered the question myself dozens of time. But talking through the problem made the path before me somehow clearer. ‘I must find the murderer. And I must determine what happened to Madeline. With those two mysteries solved, the threat to me should vanish.’
‘And you know I am not the murderer.’
‘I know I hope you are not, but I will not know the truth—’
‘Until you ask at Marie Gradeau’s.’ Clarice waved away the problem with one hand. ‘Let us just take that on faith for now, shall we? So if I didn’t kill Andrew, and you are sure it is not this Crockett fellow …’ She gave me time to say otherwise and when I did not, she went right on. ‘Who else might have done it?’
I thought about all I’d been through in the days since I’d come across Andrew there at the museum. ‘It was not Jeffrey Hollister,’ I told her. ‘He himself told me he didn’t do it.’
‘Very well. Then who else had reason?’
‘Well, there is Frederick Withnower.’ I told her the story of Frederick’s father, Maynard, and how he had been ruined by a newspaper article written by Andrew’s father. ‘Frederick himself is destroyed,’ I added. ‘I saw it for myself. He is here in New York and, in fact, was in the city on the night of the murder, and he is in such reduced circumstances, he is forced to live at St John’s House of Hospitality.’
Clarice pursed her lips. ‘I have heard of the place. It is for the poorest of the poor. If he is so debased—’
‘Then he has reason to be bitter.’
‘And if he is bitter—’
‘He might very well have murdered Andrew.’
FIFTEEN
Enter here and find comfort and hope.
The sign outside the door of St John’s House of Hospitality did not so much cheer me as send a frisson of fear up my spine.
If I had hope here of finding the man who murdered Andrew Emerson, I might very well be about to confront the person who had also been trying to kill me.
As for comfort …
I twitched away the ice that built between my shoulder blades and raised my hand to knock on the door.
There would be no comfort – not for me and certainly not for Madeline if I ever found her – until I discovered who killed Andrew, and why.
When I rapped at the door, I was grateful no one was around to realize the sound echoed that of my knees knocking together. As grateful as I was that I had thought to tell Mercer to wait with my carriage and instructed him that if I was not back outside in just a few minutes, he must come in and look for me. It was the day after the salon at Marie Gradeau’s and broad daylight, yet I found it nearly as impossible to banish my misgivings as I did to cast out the questions that had been plaguing my mind since the night of Andrew’s murder.
When the door opened, I forgot my misgivings in a rush and found myself face to face with—
‘Frederick Withnower!’
He didn’t so much smile at me as angle me a careful look. ‘I am afraid you have me at a disadvantage, ma’am.’ Frederick was wearing a white shirt but no jacket. His sleeves were rolled above his elbows to reveal muscular arms and the tattoo of a cross. Though he saw me study the tattoo – amazed for I had never seen another tattoo except those upon Jimmy O’Connell – he did not push down his sleeves. Instead, he ran a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair. ‘You surely know who I am, yet I do not believe we’ve met.’
If it was genuine, I was grateful for at least this bit of anonymity. Though the Withnowers were residents of Bethel, Frederick was years older than me, and our families had never socialized. Then again, if he was, indeed, the man who had dogged my steps these last weeks, who had started a fire outside my office and attacked me on Water Street …
I sucked in a breath for courage. ‘My name is Evangeline,’ I told him, leaving off the surname. If it was true and he did not know me, I didn’t want to influence his opinion. And if it wasn’t true, I might catch him up in a lie. ‘I am here to—’ The words refused to come and while I sought the best way to approach the subject, Frederick moved back so as to allow me inside.
‘You don’t have to explain,’ he said. ‘We ask no questions here. You are welcome.’
Because I didn’t know what else to do, I stepped into St John’s and Frederick closed the door behind me. I found myself in a long passageway, paneled walls and ceiling with dark wood. There was an open door on my right and it led into an anteroom of the church next door. Ahead of me lay a stairway. To the left of it, the hallway continued on and, here and there in it, men and women in tattered clothes sat on benches against the wall, some of them chatting and others with their heads back and their eyes closed as if they were afraid to face whatever they might see should they open them.
Though he did his best to do it discreetly, I couldn’t help but notice that Frederick studied me with as much interest as I did my surroundings. My clothes were surely of a better cut than those of the people I saw there in the passageway and were neither soiled nor frayed. My boots were clean and polished.
‘I am sorry to stare.’ He glanced away. ‘We are not used to women of your class—’
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him that though my brother was as rich as Croesus, we were of no class at all except the working class. Until I realized that was not what Frederick meant at all.
‘You believe me to be an adventuress!’
His cheeks flushed. ‘Your clothing tells me you are not a laborer and surely no farm worker. To be so well dressed, I must believe you sell your body on the streets. But have no fear, it is not my place to judge.’
‘Nor would I expect you to. But you are certainly wrong about me. I am not—’
He turned a gentle smile on me. ‘We are all brothers and sisters here. What we did – what we do – outside these doors is of no consequence. Inside, we ask no questions and we need no excuses. All are welcome. You are welcome.’
I wasn’t so sure he’d still believe that if he knew why I was really there.
Before I could say another word, he asked, ‘Would you like to pray with me?’
‘I would rather talk,’ I told him.
‘Yes, young women are so often in need of unburdening themselves. Unlike the men who come to us. Most of them would rather keep their pasts and their sins between themselves and their Maker. Women are more open, more inclined to want to tell their stories. We can sit.’ He waved me toward the first doorway on the left. ‘I will be most happy to listen to whatever you wish to tell me.’
‘You?’ I did not mean to sound so much the skepti
c, yet I could hardly help myself. That day, Frederick was wearing clothes that drooped and were faded, and though he was surely clean enough, his hair combed, and his manner pleasant, there was an air of shabbiness about him that matched that of the people who sat there in the hallway.
‘I do beg your pardon,’ I said when I realized how impolite I’d sounded. ‘I simply thought … that is, I expected there might be a minister or a priest or—’
To my surprise, he laughed. ‘You think me one of the residents here!’ He waved me toward the doorway he’d pointed out earlier and, because I had no choice and refused to leave without all my questions answered, I walked that way. I found myself in a small but neat room that contained bookshelves and a desk with two chairs in front of it. When I sat in one of the chairs, Frederick took the other.
‘I am neither minister nor priest, but I am employed here,’ he said quite simply. ‘To help the unfortunates who find their way to us. If there is anything you need to talk about, Miss Evangeline, then I am most willing to listen.’
It was more of an opportunity than I could have asked for, and I knew I had to take it.
‘I have come about Andrew Emerson,’ I said. Before he could speak, I added, ‘You didn’t like him.’
His hands on his knees, Frederick went very still, and the light that seeped from the single window behind the desk threw shadows along his face like broad strokes of black ink. His features were large and strong and, in this light, his face looked to be carved from stone, like a death’s head on a grave marker.
‘What do you know about Andrew Emerson?’ he asked.
‘I know you were at his funeral. Just as I know you disrespected his final resting place.’
He had the good grace to blush a color that reminded me of the red ribbon pinned to my cloak. ‘I thought it a private moment.’
‘And so it would have been if I hadn’t been there, anonymous in the crowd, much as you were. I understand your animosity toward the Emerson family.’
His gaze shot to mine. ‘Do you? Then there should be no question as to why I did what I did after the service.’
‘It was Andrew’s father who did your family wrong, not Andrew himself.’
He waved away this particular bit of reasoning with one, square-fingered hand. ‘Bah! What difference does it make? The Emersons always thought themselves better than everyone else in Bethel.’
‘Yet your anger seems to go deeper than that.’
Frederick pushed himself off his chair and stalked as far as the door. The room was not large and he came back my way in a moment, fire in his eyes and his hands curled into fists, and I could not help it, my heart bumped against my ribs and I wondered if I’d made a mistake being alone with him.
He stopped two feet in front of me and, grateful, I let go a stuttering breath. Still, the anger in his voice shivered through the air and froze my blood. ‘I could not forgive him! I went to talk to him, you see, when I learned that his father was interested in my good father’s business dealings. I talked to Andrew, I told him I knew what his father had planned. I told him the information they were going to publish was false, that I had the proof, but …’ He threw his hands in the air. ‘Andrew wouldn’t listen, no more than his father would when I tried to speak to him. They were interested only in creating a sensation.’
‘And you have been angry about it for a long time.’
‘Wouldn’t you feel the same way?’ Frederick’s question pinged against the walls which were paneled in the same dark wood as the hallway. ‘They killed my father. They ruined my family.’
‘And so Andrew Emerson’s murder, it was justified. It was surely divine retribution.’
As if he had never thought of Andrew’s death that way – or as if he had and did not want to admit it – Frederick stood frozen, his mouth open and his breath suspended. The next second, he dropped back into his seat and hung his head.
‘Forgive me,’ he whispered, and I knew he wasn’t talking to me. ‘Forgive me for my weakness, Father. For my failings. I have surely sinned.’
I, too, held my breath for a few moments before I felt ready to ease my way toward the truth. ‘On the night Andrew was murdered, you were here in New York,’ I said.
Frederick’s head shot up. ‘Of course I was. I live here in the city now. But how on earth would you know that?’
‘Because you had an appointment at the American Museum to discuss employment with Mr P.T. Barnum.’
His face went ashen and Frederick leapt again from his chair and went to the door. He closed it then turned to me, his back to the door. ‘Who told you?’
‘It hardly matters. I know it’s true.’
‘And no one here can know it.’ He came back toward me so quickly, I fell back in my chair before I even realized it was a sign of weakness I could not afford to show him. I forced myself to sit up, to sit tall, my shoulders steady.
‘If they know …’ He cast a glance toward the now-closed door. ‘If they know I am seeking employment in another place, they might ask me to leave here.’
‘And you cannot. Yes, I understand. Because of what Andrew’s father did to your family, you are destitute.’
‘No, no, don’t you see? I told you, I am not an inmate here. I am not so destitute as I am desperate! Certainly it would help to have more coins in my own pocket. But I don’t want the money for me. There is much we need at St John’s and many we serve. The immigrant ships come to port every day and our population grows with them. The poor arrive from the countryside, displaced by new machinery that does the work they once performed by hand. There are those who find it impossible to turn away from alcohol, those who are abused, those with no hope.’
‘And you want the money for them?’
The briefest of smiles touched his lips. ‘Yes, of course. But I cannot let Father William and Father Axtel know. If they think I am frivolous, that I desire work out in the world beyond St John’s, they might send me away, and if they do that, then I cannot complete my penance and prove my contrition.’
My insides went cold. ‘Penance. Because you are the one who killed Andrew. Did you …’ I ran my tongue across my lips. ‘Have you tried also to silence me?’
Frederick’s dark brows dipped over his eyes. ‘Are you saying—’
I was, but I could not do it sitting so close to the man. I got up and paced to the door. ‘I have been attacked, Mr Withnower, and I believe it is because I am investigating the murder of Andrew Emerson. It is only natural that the man who killed him would want to stop me from exposing him.’
‘And you think I am that man?’
‘I think you have every reason to hate the Emerson family.’
‘Yes, I have admitted that much. Just as I admit that holding onto that hate is a sin, and for that sin, I must atone. I have tried.’ His voice broke and his shoulders rose and fell. ‘I have tried to make peace with my father’s death. I have done everything I can think to make myself a better man. But there are times, I admit, when the anger still overpowers me as it did at Emerson’s funeral. I went there, you see, to test myself, to show the world and the Lord that I had conquered the demons that snatched at my soul. I failed. You saw it for yourself. I failed, and I have prayed mightily to be forgiven for my sins.’
‘Then you did not kill Andrew?’
I think he would have laughed if he had not been so burdened by emotion. Frederick simply shook his head. ‘Emerson, he was killed the night I visited Mr Barnum at the museum?’
I nodded.
‘A Friday, then.’
I nodded again.
‘Yes, I was at the museum on Friday but did nothing more than talk with Mr Barnum there. I left immediately. You can ask him yourself if you’d ever dare converse with a man so famous! We talked, then he walked me to the door.’
And was still home for dinner. I knew as much because when I found Andrew’s body, the attendant needed to go to Fifth Avenue to tell Phin the news.
‘Still, I can understand h
ow you might not believe me. Come with me, Miss Evangeline. You’ll see.’ He got up and, when he opened the door and started down the hallway, I followed along, nodding briefly to Mercer who I saw now inside, standing like a sentinel at the doorway, his eyes on me. At the end of the passageway we found ourselves in a large room where row upon row of tables were set and, against the far wall, two men in clerical garb were readying pots of soup they would soon dole out to the poor folk who waited in the passageway.
‘Father Axtel.’ Frederick approached a man with a receding hairline and doughy features. ‘This is Miss Evangeline, and she has some questions for you.’
The priest wore spectacles, and when he set down the pot of soup he was carrying and looked at me, the lenses were befogged. ‘What can I do for you?’
Actually, I wasn’t sure. ‘I am here to inquire about an unfortunate incident that happened two weeks ago,’ I told him. ‘A friend of mine was killed.’
Perhaps it was because of the place he lived, the kind of work he did, and the poor unfortunates who came to him for help that the priest looked not the least bit surprised.
‘It was a Friday. Two weeks ago,’ I explained.
‘And?’ Father Axtel looked to Frederick for clarification.
‘This young lady thinks I might have done it,’ Frederick told him.
‘Done it? The murder?’ Behind his glasses, Father Axtel’s eyes were wide. ‘You cannot really believe that?’ he asked me. ‘Mr Withnower is a man of impeccable character.’
‘As was the man who was killed,’ I told him. ‘Which is why I must get to the truth.’
‘The truth, yes.’ Father Axtel stepped away from the table. ‘You did not tell her?’ he asked Frederick.
‘I doubted she would believe me,’ he replied.
‘Then I will tell you.’ The priest turned my way. ‘That Friday like every Monday, Wednesday and Friday evening, Mr Withnower conducts classes for our residents. He teaches them to read and write. He was out early in the evening, I remember that much. But then he was here. Oh, yes, he was most assuredly here. I remember it clearly, for we had a disruption with one of our residents that evening, and Mr Withnower helped me calm her.’
Smoke and Mirrors Page 18