Crimson Snow

by Jeanne Dams

  Praise for the Mysteries of

  Jeanne M. Dams

  Agatha Award Winner

  “Hilda loves life, and the joy she takes in the simple pleasures of Sunday picnics and summer holidays and a loud, lusty hymn is treat enough.”

  —New York Times

  “Acute glimpses of anti-Catholicism, upstairs/downstairs class distinctions, wardrobe upkeep, Swedish family dinners…and the romantic touch, circa 1903. Dams’s more heavy-handed historical brethren would do well to emulate her light touch.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Hilda is an endearing character with Old World social values. Skillful.”

  —Chicago Sun-Times

  “The latest Hilda Johansson mystery is a real corker…. In a genre with no shortage of amateur sleuths in period costume, Hilda is one of the most memorable.… The secret to Dams’s success is in the details: she plunks us firmly down in early twentieth-century Indiana. We learn, without realizing we’re being taught anything at all, about social customs, class divisions, even the dayto-day operations of a wealthy turn-of-the-century household. Great characters, fascinating history, compelling mystery: this series could go on forever.”

  —Booklist (starred review)

  CRIMSON SHOW

  Also by Jeanne M. Dams :

  HILDA JOHANSSON MYSTERIES

  Death in Lacquer Red

  Red, White, and Blue Murder

  Green Grow the Victims

  Silence Is Golden

  DOROTHY MARTIN MYSTERIES

  The Body in the Transept

  Trouble in the Town Hall

  Holy Terror in the Hebrides

  Malice in Miniature

  The Victim in Victoria Station

  Killing Cassidy

  To Perish in Penzance

  Sins Out of School

  Winter of Discontent

  Crimson Snow

  A Hilda Johansson Mystery

  Jeanne M. Dams

  PERSEVERANCE PRESS/ JOHN DANIEL … COMPANY

  PALO ALTO / MC KINLEYVILLE, CALIFORNIA / MMV

  This is a work of fiction. Characters, places, and events are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real people, companies, institutions, organizations, or incidents is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2005 by Jeanne M. Dams

  All rights reserved

  Printed in the United States of America

  A PERSEVERANCE PRESS BOOK

  Published by John Daniel & Company

  A division of Daniel & Daniel, Publishers, Inc.

  Post Office Box 2790

  McKinleyville, California 95519

  www.danielpublishing.com/perseverance

  Book design by Eric Larson, Studio E Books, Santa Barbara

  www.studio-e-books.com

  Cover painting: Linda Weatherly S.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGIN-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Dams, Jeanne M.

  Crimson snow : a Hilda Johansson mystery / by Jeanne M. Dams. p. cm.

  ISBN 1-880284-79-0 (pbk. : alk. paper)

  1. Johansson, Hilda (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Women detectives—Indiana—South Bend—Fiction. 3. South Bend (Ind.)—Fiction. 4. Swedish Americans—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3554.A498C75 2005

  813'.54—dc22

  2004027166

  CRIMSON SHOW

  The more that I consider the affairs of Home,

  the more am I impressed with the

  importance of the servant’s position.

  —Mrs. Julia McNair Wright

  The Complete Home, 1879

  1

  NO! THE SPREAD MUST be the same on both sides, even, and pulled up so!” Hilda tugged the bedding into the proper position and plumped a pillow with a vigorous fist.

  Young Janecska, the under-housemaid, watched with a sulky expression on her face. “You don’t have to get mad about it! Any-how, I’ve made beds before.”

  “Not at Tippecanoe Place, you have not. We are careful here. Everything must be just so. And you will not answer back! Now go, finish Colonel George’s suite, and do the bed properly this time. I will dust and begin on the bathrooms.”

  Janecska flounced out of the room. Hilda uttered a few highly improper words in Swedish and began dusting, moving with a speed that would, in the hands of a less experienced maid, have meant disaster to the fragile tortoiseshell accessories on Mrs. Clem Studebaker’s dressing table. Hilda had been handling them for years and had never broken a one. Her light hand with the precious ornaments scattered all over the great house was one reason she was head housemaid for the fabulously wealthy Studebaker family.

  Another was that she got along well with the other servants, as a rule. She was fair with her underlings, careful not to ruffle the feathers of Mrs. Sullivan, the temperamental cook, and respectful (at least outwardly) toward Mr. Williams, the butler whose strict discipline often verged on the tyrannical.

  Today, however, she was in a raging temper and taking it out on Janecska. Mr. Williams, this morning at servants’ breakfast, had severely reprimanded Maggie, the new waitress, for an incident at last night’s dinner party. Maggie had blamed Hilda, and Hilda had defended herself. It was not her fault the stupid girl had handed the dessert dishes on the wrong side, thus running into Hilda who was removing water glasses. Certainly it was unfortunate that the ice water had landed in Colonel George’s lap, but it was only a few drops, and he hadn’t minded much, really. Mr. Williams, uninterested in explanations, had threatened to dismiss them both.

  Hilda had held onto her temper, barely. She had bitten her tongue and kept back the words that begged for expression. Now, however, alone in Mrs. Clem’s luxurious bedroom, she replayed the scene in her mind, muttering under her breath the things she would like to have said at the time.

  “Dismiss me, Mr. Williams? You cannot run this household without me! You will be sorry when I go, but I will go when I choose, not when you choose. Mrs. Clem will not allow you to dismiss me.”

  Mrs. Clem is no longer mistress of this house, retorted the butler in her mind. Mrs. George has never interfered with my decisions about the staff.

  “No, and a great pity it is! Mrs. Clem would have let Norah stay on, even after she married and couldn’t live here anymore. Mrs. Clem would never have hired that Maggie, who knows nothing of work in a fine house. Mrs. Clem knows how to deal with servants. She will be very, very annoyed when I tell her what you have said.”

  To that, the imaginary Mr. Williams had no reply.

  “And when I tell her your temper has been so bad that I may decide to marry Patrick and leave this place, she will listen!”

  Hilda really had no intention of telling Mrs. Clem any such thing. For one thing, she didn’t want to worry the frail elderly lady. Since the death of Mr. Clem a little over two years ago, Mrs. Clem had been beset by trials. Turning over the reins of the household to her daughter-in-law, Mrs. George Studebaker, hadn’t been easy. The adage that there isn’t room in a house for two women held true even in a mansion the size of Tippecanoe Place, with its thirty-odd rooms. Mrs. Clem had conceded graciously to the necessity, but she missed her husband sorely. She loved her son, of course, but George couldn’t fill his father’s shoes. His philosophy of business, even, was different. Mrs. Clem had watched the Studebaker wagon and carriage factory begin to experiment with automobiles, an experiment she viewed with deep misgiving. Clement Studebaker had never been opposed to progress, but like nearly every sensible man in the country, he had viewed automobiles as a passing fad. Now the company was manufacturing them, in a modest way, to be sure, but George wanted to expand. He even owned one of the dratted things!

  Hilda knew all this, of
course. Servants know everything that goes on in a big house, whether their masters are aware of the fact or not. Hilda heartily agreed with Mrs. Clem about automobiles, and wasn’t going to upset her further by bringing to her a petty quarrel with the butler.

  She straightened the silver clock on the mantel, checked to make sure the hearth had been properly cleaned and a new fire laid, and then went on to the bathroom, sighing gustily. No, she wouldn’t take her troubles to Mrs. Clem. But she wished, oh, with all her heart she wished, that Norah were still here to talk to. She felt she would burst if she couldn’t express her feelings to someone. For the seven years Hilda Johansson had worked for the Studebakers, beginning as a daily and working her way up quickly to head housemaid, her best friend and confidante had been Norah Murphy, who waited at table, Hilda sometimes assisting when there was a big dinner party. Their bedrooms were next door to one another, and they had chatted and giggled and wept together at all hours of the day and night, even when they were supposed to be in bed and asleep. Norah had abetted Hilda in her rule-breaking and her occasional forays into the investigation of distressing events, and had never once given her away to Mr. Williams. They had been closer than sisters.

  But last summer Norah had become engaged to Sean O’Neill, with whom she had been walking out in what Hilda had thought to be a casual friendship. And last month, at Christmas time, they had married. Norah had given up her live-in position for a job in a much smaller household, and Hilda was bereft.

  She hadn’t been able to attend the wedding. Swedish Lutherans did not attend the religious services of Irish Catholics. She had been invited to the party afterwards at the home of Norah’s parents, but she hadn’t felt really welcome, even with Patrick there, and she had scarcely seen Norah since that day. Mr. Williams’s household had been disrupted, his temper had been frayed, and he was keeping an eagle eye on all the servants, especially Hilda.

  She, of course, took every moment of her time off, even going out sometimes in her rest times, simply to remind the butler that her privileges were still hers, no matter what the domestic problems might be. But she couldn’t interrupt Norah at her work, and by the time Norah was home, Hilda had to be back at Tippe-canoe Place.

  They had met twice on a Sunday, once to go ice skating on the pond in Leeper Park and once for hot chocolate at the Philadelphia, but with both Sean and Patrick there, the meetings lost their zest. Norah was more interested in Sean than in Hilda, and though that was right and proper, it made Hilda realize that something important was gone forever. Norah was a married woman and Hilda was not. The old intimacy could never be recaptured.

  And Patrick…Hilda sighed again. Patrick wanted to marry Hilda. She wanted it, too, in a way. But it would mean leaving her job, leaving this house. She sat back on her heels and looked at the bathroom she was cleaning, the spotless tiled floor, the marble wash basin with the gold-plated faucets, the huge, elegant porcelain tub with its mahogany surround, the modern, sanitary water closet. The servants’ bathroom wasn’t as grand, but it had simpler versions of the same equipment.

  She thought about her brother’s house, with its pump in the backyard. Baths were taken in a tin hip bath, every drop of water having to be heated on the stove. Faces were washed in a basin, in cold water. Sanitary needs were dealt with in the backyard, too, in the shed with the half moon cut in the door.

  She and Patrick wouldn’t be able to afford even as nice a house as Sven’s. She would have to find a job somewhere, doing something far more menial than her duties in this house. And when the babies came along, what then? Take in washing, like so many women in her position? Become a dressmaker, she who hated mending her petticoats and aprons?

  She finished the bathrooms mechanically, not really seeing what she was doing, and chivvied Janecska out of the last bedroom. The family was coming upstairs from breakfast. Hilda’s and Janecska’s skirts disappeared around the bend of the back stairs just in time.

  Hilda sent Janecska upstairs to deal with the servants’ bedrooms. She herself went down to the ground floor to clean the servants’ sitting room. Mr. Williams was very particular indeed about how that room was done.

  She stopped in the kitchen on her way. Mrs. Sullivan was stirring a pot of soup and scolding Elsie, the scullery maid. “And if you’d done as I told you and soaked that porridge pot in cold water, you’d not have to waste time scrubbing it now. How many times—and what do you want?” she said, rounding to direct her wrath toward Hilda.

  Hilda smiled sweetly. “The cinnamon buns you made for breakfast, they were so good, and I am hungry. Are there any left?”

  “There are, and I’m saving them for our tea.” Mrs. Sullivan scowled fiercely, and then relented as Hilda continued to look deferential. “Ah, well, one won’t be missed, I reckon. You didn’t eat much earlier.”

  “No. I could not,” said Hilda briefly.

  “You don’t want to mind him, child.” The cook reached for the basket of leftover buns and handed it to Hilda. “He has his moods. Like as not he’ll have forgotten all about it by dinner time.”

  Hilda didn’t reply. She took a roll, carefully smoothed the napkin over the rest, and nodded her thanks to the cook as she left the kitchen. She didn’t want to discuss the brouhaha, at least not with the cook. Mr. Williams might forget his threats. She, Hilda, would not.

  The servants’ room, where their meals were served and they relaxed in their rare times for relaxation, was right across the hall from the kitchen, but Hilda took her time getting there. She stopped in the alcove by the back door to eat her bun. Mr. Williams frowned on eating between meals, and at this time of day he would be in his pantry, right next to the servants’ room.

  She had taken only a bite when she was startled by a knock at the door. It wasn’t loud, but Hilda, engaged as she was in an illicit snack, jumped. She thrust the bun into the capacious pocket of her petticoat, peered around the door jamb, and then opened the door with a suddenness that surprised the child standing outside. “Erik! What is wrong? Why are you here? Why are you not in school?”

  “Let me in, Hilda. I’m cold!”

  A burst of frigid air entered with Erik. Hilda had not yet been outside and hadn’t realized, in the centrally heated mansion, how bitter was the cold on this January day.

  “You cannot stay here. This is not a time I can visit. And why are you not in school?”

  “That’s what I came to tell you!” His voice was loud, and cracking with strain.

  “Hush! If Mr. Williams hears you he will…I do not know what he will do. So tell me, and be quick about it, but softly.”

  Erik lowered his voice, but the strain remained. “Miss Jacobs isn’t there! She never let anyone know she wasn’t coming, but she didn’t come, and today is the examination in mathematics, and I’m ready, but the principal is taking the class, and she doesn’t know where the test paper is, so the class isn’t doing anything, so I left—”

  “Erik! You ran away from school?” She didn’t shout it, but she wanted to.

  “I did not run away! Listen to me! I went to find Miss Jacobs, because nobody else was doing anything and I wanted to take the examination before I forgot everything, but she isn’t at her rooming house and she wasn’t there last night and nobody knows where she is and I think something bad has happened to her!” He stopped, out of breath, and despite his best efforts to repress them, two fat tears rolled down his cheek. His lip quivered.

  Erik was sure he was too old to cry, so Hilda ignored his tears and tried to think what to do. Whatever it was, it had to be done quickly and Erik sent on his way.

  But sent where? No one would be at home. Mama, Erik, and the two youngest girls had moved out of Sven’s house into a tiny home of their own, but Mama and Elsa were working at Wilson’s Shirt Factory, and Birgit was in school.

  School, that was where he belonged. At least his sister could

  keep an eye on him. “Erik, your teacher has probably gone home to her parents,” she said in a low, hurr
ied voice. “She is from Elkhart, is she not? Her mother or father must be ill, or there is some other emergency, so that she did not have time to tell the principal. She will send word soon. You must not worry. Go back to school now, and tell the principal why you left. I think she will understand. Do not tell her you came here; she would not like that. And here.” She reached in her pocket and pulled out the cinnamon bun. “One bite only I have taken. Eat it on your way back to school.” She gave him a little push toward the door.

  Erik stayed where he was, rock solid. “I don’t want to go back to school. I want you to help me find my teacher.”

  “Erik, I cannot leave here! You know that!” Her voice was rising. She took a deep breath. “I know you like your teacher, and that is good. But it is not good that you leave school without permission. You will get into trouble if you do not go back now. And so will I have trouble if you do not leave here. Mr. Williams does not allow me to have visitors except in my time off.”

  “I’m not a visitor! I’m your brother, and I want you to find my teacher.”

  Hilda rolled her eyes. Erik had inherited just as much Swedish stubbornness as she had herself, perhaps even more. “And how do you think I could find your teacher?”

  “You’re good at finding out things. You solved all those crimes, when the police didn’t do anything. You’re smart.”

  Hilda was not swayed. “It is different now. Mr. Williams watches me all the time. And it is not a crime that your teacher is missing.”

  Erik opened his mouth. Hilda forestalled him. “Look, little one, it is Wednesday, my half day. So this afternoon when you are at the firehouse, after school, I will come to see you and we can talk. Now go!”

  Erik glowered at her, but he went, finally. Hilda breathed a sigh of relief and trudged off, still hungry, to clean the servants’ room.

  That most knowing of persons—gossip.