A Deadly Affection

by Cuyler Overholt

  The two men spoke for a moment on the sidewalk. I watched their faces, trying to gauge the tenor of their conversation, asking myself why Simon would be having a private meeting with the detective. “Big Tom Foley,” as even I knew, was a prominent Tammany assembly district leader; any saloon of his, especially down here in the government district, would be the sort of place where people went to trade favors and cut deals. Is that what Simon and Maloney had been doing there? Cutting some sort of deal?

  I felt a dull pain in my chest as I belatedly wondered why, after all the harm I’d caused Simon and his mother, he had agreed to help me. Was it possible he had only pretended to be persuaded by my entreaties? That he was actually working for Maloney, hoping to pass on information useful to the prosecution as a way to exact revenge? But no, that didn’t make sense. It was Simon who had suggested Charles Fiske as an alternate suspect. Unless that had only been a ruse to make me believe he was on our side…

  The men parted, Maloney walking east along Franklin Street while Simon continued toward the intersection—and me. My first impulse was to hide. I turned on my heel and started blindly back across the street, and was nearly run over by a truck. I leaped back to the curb as the driver honked, drawing Simon’s attention. He spotted me and paused.

  I pulled myself upright. What on earth was I doing? Hadn’t I learned anything about jumping to premature conclusions? There was probably a perfectly good explanation for what I’d just seen. All I had to do was ask. Planting a smile on my lips, I straightened my hat and approached him. “Hello again.”

  He looked over my shoulder toward the prison. “She should have been out by now,” he said with a frown. “I brought the order over an hour ago.”

  “Oh yes, she’s already come and gone. Your man drove off with her a few minutes ago. I just wanted to thank you for getting her out. I still can’t believe you managed it.”

  He shrugged. “It won’t do anyone any good if she’s too sick to stand trial.”

  Several seconds ticked by as I waited for him to volunteer the fact that he’d just been meeting with Detective Maloney. “Was that the detective I saw you with?” I asked finally.

  Surprise flickered across his face. “Yeah, that was him.”

  “What were you talking about?”

  He hesitated, perhaps only because he detected the edge in my voice. “Mrs. Miner’s release.”

  “I don’t suppose he was very happy about it,” I said, although I didn’t think the detective had looked particularly upset. I reminded myself that he was not a man given to showing his emotions.

  He shrugged. “That’s why I wanted to tell him. I knew he wasn’t going to like it. I thought he ought to hear it from me.”

  Well, there it was. A perfectly reasonable explanation. I felt the tightness easing in my chest.

  “I’ve assigned two of my men to take turns standing guard outside the Brauns’ shop,” he continued. “I promised Judge Hoffman there would be someone there at all times. Maloney wants a uniformed cop on the premises too.”

  “Is that really necessary? I thought we wanted to keep her release as quiet as possible.”

  “I’ve arranged to have my man take the post out front while the uniformed man watches the rear. That’s the best I can do. She’s still under arrest for murder.”

  “Yes, of course. I understand.” As I could think of nothing else to say, I bid him good day, and we went our separate ways.

  Yes, it was a perfectly reasonable explanation, I thought again as I continued to Attorney Harlan’s office. And proof that I was letting my overwrought nerves get the best of me. It wouldn’t do for me to keep second-guessing Simon at every turn. It was time to forget about the past, and my father’s dire warnings, and let myself trust him once again.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I braced myself as the egg cracked over my head, anticipating the plop of yolk on my scalp, then gradually relaxed as Fleurette’s strong fingers worked it into my hair. I gave myself over to the rhythmic pressure of her hands, feeling the knots loosen in my neck, drawing a full breath for what seemed the first time in days.

  Things had not improved since I saw Eliza off in the carriage on Thursday afternoon. To my great disappointment, Attorney Harlan had told me sympathetically but emphatically that he could not proceed on a case without a defendant’s explicit authorization. I had intended to bring the issue up again with Mrs. Braun when I saw her in the shop, but when I arrived, she was in a swivet about the men who’d been assigned to keep surveillance over the premises. Knowledge of her daughter’s arrest had apparently not yet spread through the local community, for while the shop customers recognized Eliza by sight, few knew her by her married name, and those that did apparently either hadn’t seen that name in the newspapers or hadn’t matched it to the woman at the register. Mrs. Braun was concerned that the men’s presence would arouse her customers’ curiosity, and that they would take their business elsewhere if they discovered her daughter was a suspected murderer. She calmed down only slightly when I assured her that the uniformed man would stay out of sight in the rear yard, muttering darkly that if he tried to come through the shop during business hours, she’d chase him out with a push broom.

  When I went upstairs to examine Eliza, Mrs. Braun had insisted on going with me, standing at the foot of her daughter’s bed and pelting me with disapproving glances. It was hardly an atmosphere conducive to confidential exchange with my patient. Eliza, looking drawn and fatigued in an unbecoming gray flannel nightdress, had answered my questions in a clipped monotone, glancing frequently at her mother. Though she consented reluctantly to an examination, she seemed uncomfortable at my touch and anxious to get the visit over with. On Friday afternoon, I returned, determined to speak with her in private, but she was asleep when I arrived. According to her mother, she’d gone into her bedroom after lunch and never reemerged. She looked so dead out when I looked in on her that I decided she must need her rest and let her be, although I knew I wouldn’t be able to come again until Sunday, what with all the preparations for the Fiskes’ ball.

  Finally, to top everything off, there’d been a parcel from Professor Bogard waiting for me when I returned home, containing several more journals and instructions to incorporate their findings on time distortion in hysterics into our research paper. I’d spent the entire evening trying to integrate the new material, but my brain had been so preoccupied with Eliza, Simon, and the upcoming ball that I barely recalled what I had done.

  “So, mademoiselle, tonight is the big night!” Fleurette said in her heavy French accent, kneading her fingers over the base of my skull. “Miss Fiske will at last announce her engagement to the Earl.”

  “Not necessarily,” I reminded her, wincing as her fingers hit a snag. “It’s not officially an engagement ball.” Society watchers across the city, including, apparently, our hairdresser Fleurette, had been anxiously awaiting an announcement ever since the Earl began courting Olivia in earnest in December. To be sure, the scale of the ball—which was to include not only a formal dinner before the dancing, but a light breakfast after as well—suggested that the Fiskes’ expectations also lay in this direction. According to my father’s confreres at the Union Club, Branard’s solicitors had, in fact, arrived from London the previous week to begin negotiating a marriage settlement. It was rumored that in exchange for the title and debt-encumbered estate the Earl would bring to the union, Mr. Fiske had offered one and a half million dollars worth of stock in his street railway companies, with a guaranteed minimum annual yield of 4 percent; enough, I thought sourly, to keep the Earl’s mistress in roses for some time.

  “She might still hold out for someone better,” I said with more hope than conviction as Fleurette tilted my head forward over the washbowl.

  Her hands paused on my temples. “Better than an Earl?”

  “He’s more than twice her age,” I muttered into the bowl. �
�I’d hardly call it a perfect match.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with an older man!” she said, dumping a pitcherful of water over my head. “I think she is the luckiest girl in the world.”

  I could appreciate why Fleurette, whose hands were raw from scrubbing other people’s hair and to whom the height of leisure was a trip to Coney Island, would consider Olivia’s future an enviable one. And perhaps if there had only been the matter of the Earl’s mistress, I might have agreed. Not all American heiresses who’d married impoverished aristocrats over the last two decades had ended up as badly as Ella Haggin, whose yachtsman husband was rumored to have marooned her on a cannibal island. Some, even without their husbands’ love, had managed to lead satisfying and productive lives.

  But what if Hauptfuhrer was right and Olivia did have Huntington’s chorea? Though I still thought it unlikely, the possibility cast the disadvantages of a loveless marriage into harsh relief. If Olivia became seriously ill, what comfort would a title and a European address afford her? Would people still think she was the luckiest girl in the world if her husband abandoned her to take refuge in the arms of another woman?

  Fleurette was rubbing a block of soap against my hair, working it into a thick lather. “I brought something for you.”

  I opened one eye, turning my head to squint up at her. “What?”

  She wagged her eyebrows. “It’s a surprise. I’ll show you later, when I am finished with your mother.”

  After she’d rinsed and towel-dried my hair, she took her implements up to my mother’s room, while I forced myself back to my desk and the professor’s paper. Once again, however, my mind refused to cooperate. I was drawing little circles in the paper’s margin, wondering how I was going to ferret out Charles Fiske’s whereabouts on the morning of the murder, when I heard my father calling down to Katie for his opera pumps.

  I put down my pen. Father had stayed late at the office the evening before, and I hadn’t had a chance to confront him about what Simon had told me. I got up and went to the door and saw him standing at the top of the stairs. “Father? Do you have a minute?” I called, then withdrew into my room and took up position in front of my desk.

  “Shouldn’t you be getting ready for the ball?” he asked when he appeared in the doorway a moment later, eyeing my damp hair and ink-stained hands.

  “I will soon.” I leaned back against the desk, bracing myself. “I need to ask you a question first.”

  “Ask away,” he said.

  “It’s about Mrs. Shaw.”

  He stiffened. “What about her?”

  “Did she leave your employ voluntarily? Or did you let her go?”

  Though his face hadn’t changed, I could tell from the sudden stillness of his shoulders that his breathing had come to a halt. “What difference does it make?”

  “It’s true, then,” I said, sinking back against the desk.

  “I didn’t have any choice after what happened.”

  “You told me she left us for a better position.”

  “I thought it kindest not to tell you.”

  “You thought it was kind to lie to me?”

  He clasped his hands behind his back. “You had formed an attachment to the son. It was best for you to believe that he’d left of his own free will. Which he should have, had he a shred of decency.”

  “Maybe you thought I’d try to make you reconsider if I knew the truth.”

  “Nothing you could have said or done would have changed the outcome. Of that, you may be certain.”

  “Why is that?” I asked him. “Why were you so intent on getting rid of Simon? Was it really because you thought he’d acted improperly with me, or was it simply because he was a servant and dared to have feelings for me at all?”

  “Are you suggesting it should make a difference?”

  “Mrs. Shaw was a loyal employee! I don’t see how you could just turn her out onto the street.”

  “I imagine there are many things you can’t understand, having never been a parent yourself.”

  “I think I can recognize the difference between right and wrong.”

  He shook his head. “You’re a very clever girl, Genevieve. But you’re also extremely naive, as you continue to demonstrate with comments like that. What I did, I did in your best interest, taking all the circumstances into account. That’s all you need to understand.”

  “What if the circumstances weren’t as they appeared?”

  “I must say, I find your renewed interest in this subject alarming. From the tenor of your questioning, I can see that my concerns about Mr. Shaw’s reappearance here are well founded. It’s obvious that he’s trying to reinsinuate himself into your affections.”

  “He’s doing no such thing! I found out what you’d done by accident. I also discovered that the ‘circumstances,’ as you call them, were not at all what they appeared. The kitchen maid lied about Simon boasting, because she had a grievance against him. He never said a word to anyone about our…relationship.”

  “I don’t care what he said,” he snapped. “No daughter of mine is going to be mauled by a common stable boy!”

  I flushed with anger and embarrassment. “I was the one who went down to the stable that night,” I reminded him, determined to put the blame where it was due.

  “That’s something that has always troubled me. But you’re older now and hopefully wiser. I can only trust that you’ll have the good sense not to disgrace yourself a second time.”

  Mary knocked softly on the door and pushed it open. “Excuse me, sir. Maurice is calling from the carriage house to ask if you’d like him to put the new headlamps on the motorcar.”

  “All right, Mary. I’ll be right down.” Shooting me a look that brooked no argument, he added, “I believe we’re finished here.” He started to leave, then stopped. “I almost forgot—a telegram came for you.” He pulled it from his pocket and handed it to me.

  I stared down at the Western Union envelope. “It’s probably just more instructions from the professor,” I said, lowering it to my side.

  Katie now appeared at the door, carrying Father’s polished black pumps. “Here they are, sir,” she panted, holding them out to him. “I put a touch of tallow around the soles too, to keep out the damp.”

  As he was taking them from her, I slowly swung shut the door, effectively sweeping them both out the room, then raced back to the desk and slit the telegram open. As I’d suspected, it was from Dr. Huntington, informing me that he was arriving in town on Wednesday for a four-day visit and would be happy to examine Eliza during his stay. He asked me to leave a message for him at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, suggesting a time and place for us to meet.

  The telegram set my stomach to fluttering. Dr. Huntington’s verdict would be final. Although I expected him to give Eliza a clean bill of health, I couldn’t be sure of it. If he declared that Eliza had the disease, my chances of persuading the authorities to consider any other suspect would likely be next to nil, short of producing a signed confession.

  I was sitting at my desk, still pondering the telegram, when Fleurette returned to finish my hair. She put down her basket, lit the kerosene lamp on the vanity, and laid the curling tongs inside it to heat. “Are you ready for your surprise?”

  I slipped the telegram under the desk blotter. “Ready,” I said, joining her at the vanity.

  She rummaged in her basket and pulled out a jar with a flourish.

  “What is it?” I asked, squinting at the contents, which were the color and texture of marmalade.

  “A very special pomade from the best salon in Paris.” She unscrewed the lid and held the jar under my nose.

  I sniffed. “It smells like heliotrope.”

  “You have an excellent nose, mademoiselle!”

  “You’re going to put that into my hair?”

  “Just watch.” She scooped
some out with her finger and dabbed it onto my bangs. Handing me the jar, she reached into the basket again and extracted a rat made of fine wire netting. She laid the rat on top of my head, curved my jellied bangs over it, and secured the ends with a clip. Dividing the rest of my hair into sections, she crisscrossed them over and behind the rat. “And there you are!”

  I stared at my reflection in the mirror. “I can’t wear a pompadour.”

  “Yes, you can! You see? This way, the short hair in front blends right in!”

  I frowned at her. “But you can see the scar.”

  “What scar?”

  She knew perfectly well what scar, I thought, pointing over my right eye.

  She bent closer. “You mean that tiny white line?”

  I pulled out the rat and flattened my bangs against my forehead.

  “But, mademoiselle,” she wailed, “you can hardly see it!”

  I handed her the jar without a word.

  After my brother’s accident, it was some time before anyone noticed the gash in my head from the nail in the workmen’s ladder. My parents had retreated to Mama’s bedroom, and the servants were busy arranging the funeral, leaving me largely to my own devices. It was two days before I found the nerve to tiptoe in behind the maid when she brought my parents their lunch tray. Nothing in the bedroom was as it should have been. The shades were still drawn, casting the normally cheerful gold-and-white room into perpetual gloom. My mother lay motionless under the bed canopy, her hair matted on the pillow and her eyes puffed shut, while Father sat in a chair beside her with an unopened book on his lap, holding her limp hand. Father didn’t look up when the maid removed the untouched tray from breakfast and replaced it with the fresh one. He didn’t look up when I climbed quietly into Mama’s reading chair, or when I scuffed my feet against the fabric, or even when I coughed—softly at first, and then more loudly. I watched him for what seemed hours, waiting for him to change back into someone I recognized. When the book slipped off his lap and landed with a thud on the rug, I rushed over to retrieve it; but although he allowed me to slide it back under his hand, he didn’t look at me, even then.