A Deadly Affection

by Cuyler Overholt

  Chapter Ten

  “I’m off to the library,” I announced the following morning at breakfast, bolting the rest of my tea.

  “More research?” asked my father, cocking an eyebrow.

  I walked around the table to kiss my mother’s cheek. “Yes, the professor’s asked me to help him with a new project.”

  “That man takes advantage of you.”

  “Getting published would be good for my career too,” I reminded him.

  “So he’s going to put your name on it this time?”

  “Well, he might.”

  “Good God,” he groaned. “Not that same old carrot.”

  “Just be sure you’re back by eleven,” my mother said.

  “Why, what’s at eleven?” I asked her.

  “Oh, Genna, you haven’t forgotten? Monsieur Henri is coming to fit your dress!”

  I had completely forgotten. “Oh, bother. Why can’t I just wear the damask and lace I wore for New Year’s?”

  “Yes, why can’t she?” my father echoed, slicing himself a piece of ham. “Just think of all the starving children we could feed with the money we’d save.”

  “She can’t wear the same dress twice in one season,” Mother said placidly.

  “No, of course not,” Father said. “I’m sure the earth would stop spinning if she did.”

  “I’ll be back by eleven,” I told my mother, “but do you think we could skip the tea and cookies, just this once? I’m going to be awfully pressed for time.”

  “Now, Genna, you don’t want to offend Henri,” said Mama. “You know how he likes his madeleines.”

  Clearly, the day’s priorities had already been set. “Well, I won’t be eating them,” I retorted. “Not if I hope to fit into that torture chamber he calls a dress.” Monsieur had chosen pale blue net over darker blue satin for my gown, insisting that I was too young for the heavy brocades currently in vogue with the older, unmarried set. Although I rather liked the décolleté bodice and short puffed sleeves of his final design, I acceded reluctantly to the tiny, breath-defying waist, and drew the line at a hem of heavy black jet. It would be hard enough dancing with a corset strung tight as a bow; I didn’t intend to kick chain mail around all night as well.

  Dresses were the last thing on my mind, however, as I hopped off the streetcar thirty minutes later and trotted across Seventy-Eighth Street toward the Webster Public Library. This was my favorite of all the branch libraries springing up around town. Smack in the middle of the Bohemian neighborhood, it was like a school, Czech street fair, and natural history museum rolled into one. With its self-service stacks, extensive hours, and liberal borrowing policies, it was a far more inviting place than the stuffy subscription libraries of my youth. But more importantly, for my current purposes, it had a special department for helping teachers pursue individualized courses of study. Retrospective periodicals being considered essential to scholarly pursuit, this department contained an abundance of back issues of the daily and illustrated newspapers, which I hoped would contain the answers I was seeking.

  As I turned the corner onto Avenue A, I spotted the prominent steps and oversize lanterns that characterized the new Carnegie libraries, symbolizing the users’ ascent toward enlightenment. A long line of children was snaking toward the entrance from the school across the street. I hurried to get there ahead of them and pushed through the door. As usual, the reading tables were filled to capacity under the hanging lamps, generating a noise level more commonly associated with playgrounds than libraries. A lecture was taking place around one of the display cases, while a few feet away two tots were rolling what appeared to be a coconut across the floor. I’d read that Mr. Carnegie’s decision to donate sixty-five libraries to the city was based on his calculation that a great metropolis needed one library for every seventy thousand residents. When I visited the Webster branch, I often wondered if this ratio hadn’t undershot the mark.

  Skirting an exhibit of preserved reptiles mounted just inside the door, I climbed the stairs to the periodical room. Although it was quieter up here, none of the tables were empty. I claimed a seat between two bearded gentlemen reading foreign newspapers, then carried the doctor’s purloined list to the desk and enlisted the librarian’s aid in locating the issues I needed. I brought these back to the table and placed the list of initials beside them. I intended to begin with the January and February issues from 1887, searching for the mysterious L. F. who, if my theory was correct, had adopted Eliza’s baby.

  This task proved more difficult than I had expected. The older papers didn’t have a well-organized society section, and birth announcements were sprinkled haphazardly through the end pages. A half hour of searching yielded only three announcements, none of which was posted by a woman with the initials L. F. I found a Patricia Fallon who announced the birth of a baby girl on January 19 and eagerly scoured the paragraph for her husband’s name in the hope that he might be the L. in question, but it was a disappointing Frank. I was about to give up on L. F. and switch to another pair of initials, when I flipped the page of the second February issue and gasped so loudly that every head at my table turned.

  In the center of the page, set off by an elaborate floral border with a beatific infant at one corner, was a birth announcement containing the initials I’d been looking for. Not that “L. F.,” I thought. It couldn’t be. I read the paragraph two more times before I could even allow myself to entertain it, and still had to check the next two issues to be sure there was no other, less-fantastic candidate. I returned to the announcement and stared down at it in disbelief. I couldn’t have been more astonished if the subject in question had reached up and socked me in the eye.

  If my theory was correct—and the congruence of dates and initials seemed too striking for it not to be—Eliza’s baby had been adopted by Mrs. Lucille Fiske, wife of the traction king Charles Fiske, whose fortune from his rapidly growing streetcar company was said to rival that of the Schwabs and Vanderbilts. As I and all of society knew, the Fiske baby had been named Olivia, after her paternal grandmother. I didn’t need a newspaper to tell me that she had been raised like a princess—that she was, in fact, the closest thing to royalty we had in America. I knew that she was tall and slender and twenty years old, and that she was currently being courted by Andrew Clearings Nichol Terrence Williams, eighth Earl of Branard.

  I needed corroboration. Counting back from the date of birth, I hurried back to the librarian’s desk and requested more issues from the autumn of 1886. In the second October issue, I found it. A single, innocent sentence among the hodgepodge of society notes: “Mrs. Lucille Fiske sets sail on the Steamer Deutschland today with her sister, Mrs. Adriana Monroe, for an extended visit to Egypt.”

  Egypt. A place where she would be unlikely to see anyone she knew. A place where she could wait out her “term” in solitude until Dr. Hauptfuhrer wired to say that the baby was about to arrive. My whole body was tingling with excitement as I carried the newspapers into the washroom, ripped out the two notes, and slipped them into my bag. I returned the issues to the nice librarian, trying not to look guilty, and asked for another batch.

  • • •

  An hour later, I was pondering the results of my search as I jolted home in a hansom cab. I’d found three more matches for the initials on the list, enough to convince even Detective Maloney, I hoped, that my theory was worth investigating. I planned to look for more at the next opportunity, but already, my head was swimming with possibilities. I was acquainted with three of the four adoptive families I’d uncovered that morning and knew that one of them, the Backhouses, had recently suffered financial reversals. I wondered if a cash-strapped Thomas Backhouse could have been blackmailing Dr. Hauptfuhrer, threatening to reveal his activities to the authorities. Perhaps it was he who’d entered the doctor’s office yesterday morning, intending to collect but becoming embroiled in a life-or-death struggle instead.
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  Or I supposed it could have been Hauptfuhrer who was doing the blackmailing. His clients’ desire for secrecy would, of course, have given him considerable leverage. Perhaps, finding himself in need of funds, he had threatened to expose one of them unless she handed over more money, forcing a peremptory strike. I looked down at the doctor’s list, now covered with my penciled notations. Suddenly, it seemed I had more suspects than I knew what to do with.

  At least I had discovered where Joy was. I knew the Fiskes; I’d danced at their cotillions and enjoyed their extravagant feasts. Though some of the old-timers disapproved of Charles, considering his business manipulations ungentlemanly and his oversize mansion pretentious, my father and he had always gotten along. I knew they went to breakfasts together with the mayor around election time, and shared stock tips in the sauna at the Metropolitan Club. Father admired the man’s directness, not to mention his extensive gardens and the good sense he’d shown in setting his house back from the street. And I believed that Mr. Fiske, on his part, was grateful for my father’s support among established society.

  Whatever one thought of Charles Fiske’s iron-handed business practices, it was hard to imagine a more advantageous situation for Eliza’s daughter. The Fiskes had power, wealth, and connections; they could give—had given—Olivia everything a mother could want for her child, and more. I thought Eliza would be happy if she knew. I was not as sure, however, that it would be wise to tell her, considering everything that had occurred.

  The cab had turned onto my street. Checking my pendant watch, I saw that I had only five minutes before Monsieur Henri was scheduled to arrive. I lifted the speaker tube from the armrest and instructed the driver to pull up at number 7, then hopped out and handed up the dollar fare. It was Wednesday, baking day, and the scent of ginger cookies greeted me in the entry. I sniffed the air with interest. Perhaps an almond cake, as well. There was no time now to eat, however—and besides, I still had to squeeze into that dress. I threw my hat and bag on the side table and continued down the hall to the staircase, where Mary was brushing off the steps.

  “Mary, have you seen my mother?” I asked her.

  “Yes, miss, she’s in the conservatory. She said you’re to pick out the jewelry for your gown and bring it to her boudoir for your fitting. She said she’ll meet you there.”

  I thanked her and started up the stairs, eager to get the newsprint off my hands and to fix my hat-tousled hair. But before I’d even reached the top, the doorbell rang. I turned back down with a sigh. “I’ll get it, Mary. You’d better go tell Mama that Monsieur Henri has arrived.” Smoothing my hair with my fingers, I descended to the front door and pulled it open, bracing myself for Henri’s effusive greeting.

  But it wasn’t Henri standing on the threshold. It was Simon Shaw. Or rather, Simon Shaw transformed. I stared in mute amazement. He was dressed in impeccable morning attire, his coat a fine blue wool, his collar faultlessly pressed, and his tie in a perfect Windsor knot.

  “Well, can I come in,” he asked after several seconds had ticked by, “or did you want me to use the servants’ entrance?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, stepping back. “You took me by surprise. I was expecting someone else.”

  He walked past me into the hall, removing his scarf and gloves. I laid these on the console and led him into the drawing room.

  He stopped inside the door, glancing around the room. “I always wondered what it looked like in here,” he mused. He made a frame with his fingers and squinted through it. “All I could ever see from the street was a patch of ceiling and a bit of that chandelier.”

  “Won’t you sit down?” I asked stiffly, indicating one of the two matched chairs by the piano.

  He lowered himself onto it. His muscular frame looked out of place in the fringe-skirted armchair, despite his well-tailored clothing.

  “So you really did become a doctor,” he said, nodding at my graduation picture on the piano. “Just like your father always wanted.”

  “Just as I always wanted,” I corrected, perching on the chair beside him.

  “That’s not how I remember it.”

  I clasped my hands in my lap. “Mr. Shaw, as I said, I’m expecting another visitor at any moment, so perhaps you ought to tell me why you’ve come.”

  He leaned back, stretching his legs over the flowered carpet. “You were seen leaving the doctor’s office.”

  I swallowed a gasp, willing my face to remain impassive. “I beg your pardon?”

  “They put out a pretty good description. Joe Brady had seen you at the Isle of Plenty and made the match. It occurred to him you might have been tampering with evidence. He came to me before he went to Maloney. For some reason, he seemed to think I’d care if they threw you in jail.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  He shrugged. “You can tell me what you were doing there. Or not. It’s up to you.”

  I shifted in my seat, studying his face, trying to figure out what he was up to. “If I had been tampering with evidence, which of course I haven’t, why on earth would I tell you? You’d only pass it along to your good friend Detective Maloney.”

  “I’m not interested in doing Maloney’s job for him.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “Let’s just say I don’t see you as the evidence-tampering type. I’m curious to know what would make you act so out of character.”

  “Well, if I ever were to break the law,” I replied cautiously, “I’m sure it would only be because I felt I had no other options.”

  “I’m not talking about breaking the law. I’m talking about sticking your neck out for somebody else. That isn’t like you.”

  I felt myself flush. There was my answer; he had come here to pay me back for ridiculing him in front of his peers, and to prove to himself that he could still lord it over me, if he chose. I jumped to my feet. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

  “Sit down.”

  I didn’t move.

  “Sit down, Genna,” he said more firmly.

  The sound of my name on his lips was more startling—and effective—than a yank on my arm. I sank slowly back onto the chair.

  “I don’t think you realize the trouble you’re in.”

  He was enjoying himself, I thought with disgust. Enjoying making me squirm. “If you’re so sure I’ve done something wrong,” I said, “you ought to just turn me in.”

  “I could. But that wouldn’t help Mrs. Miner, now would it?”

  “You don’t care what happens to Mrs. Miner,” I scoffed. “You’ve made that abundantly clear.”

  “I do if she’s innocent. I’m still waiting to hear some reason to believe that she is.”

  “We both know that her guilt or innocence has nothing to do with you helping her,” I said, quite certain by now that his only interest in Eliza was as a means of getting at me.

  “To the contrary. I don’t like seeing people unjustly accused.”

  “You’re going to help her, then? Is that what you’re saying?”

  His fingers tap-tap-tapped on the chair arm. “I’m willing to listen.”

  I couldn’t quash a small surge of hope. Insulting or not, self-serving cad or not, he could still be a most useful ally. I hesitated, deciding what I might safely reveal. “What if I told you that for several years before his death, Dr. Hauptfuhrer was running an illegal adoption service?”

  “I’d say that’s an unusual sideline for an uptown doctor,” he said slowly.

  “And potentially a very lucrative one.”

  He nodded. “Go on.”

  I related in detail what Eliza had told me about hearing an intruder in the doctor’s inner office, then articulated my theory about a frightened or vengeful adoption client taking the doctor’s life.

  “It makes a good story, I’ll give you
that,” he said. “But what reason do you have to think the doctor was arranging adoptions?”

  I supposed I couldn’t expect him to take my assertion on faith. But I wasn’t about to tell him that Eliza had firsthand knowledge of the doctor’s dealings, and the only other way to prove it was to show him the stolen list.

  “If I was planning to turn you in, I would have done it already,” he prompted, watching my face.

  Still, I hesitated, remembering what had happened the last time I’d trusted him. “Will you promise to help Mrs. Miner if I tell you?”

  “I can’t do that. Not until I’ve heard what you’ve got to say. But I can promise that whatever you tell me will go no further.”

  I decided it wouldn’t do any harm to tell him what I’d found in the doctor’s office, so long as I didn’t reveal that Eliza was on the list. “I’ll be right back,” I said, and went to retrieve my bag from the hallway. “I found this in Dr. Hauptfuhrer’s files,” I told him on my return, handing him the purloined papers. “It’s a list of women who gave up their babies, the babies’ medical conditions, and their adopting families. There are over thirty entries in all.”

  “Initials?” he asked, looking it over. “All you’ve got is initials?”

  I moved around behind him. “It’s enough.” I pointed over his shoulder. “See here? The H. R. stands for ‘Helena Rivington,’ and the b stands for ‘boy.’ Mrs. Rivington announced the birth of a son in the papers four days later.” I moved my finger down the list. “That’s Christiana Willard there…and the M. B. is Margaret Backhouse. Each of them announced the birth of a child within days of the dates listed here.”

  “Crimus,” he murmured. “It’s like a page out of the bloody social register.”

  I was leaning so close to him I could feel the warmth of his breath through my shirtsleeve. I straightened and dropped my arm. “It makes sense when you think about it.”

  “They want a baby, they just buy one.”

  “Yes, and then everyone’s supposed to live happily ever after. Except that it doesn’t always work out that way, as the doctor unfortunately found out.”