Deception's Daughter (The Martha Beale Mysteries, 2)

by Cordelia Frances Biddle

  “Of course.”

  “And whether there’s any hope of finding this awful Stokes?”

  “I will.”

  “Well… I had better allow you to proceed. These are mighty tasks you have in store.”

  “I’ll go, then.” He doesn’t move, however; neither does Martha lift her hand toward the door.

  “Time is critical, as you suggested,” she offers at length.

  “It is.” Following this terse opinion, Kelman seems to recollect himself. “Martha, I intended no disrespect to you when I… back in the street, when I—”

  “You’ve always treated me with the utmost courtesy. What happened a few minutes past was no aberration. Besides, I… I also … It’s not as though we haven’t…”

  “Yes.”

  He lingers; she lingers, both unable to give further voice to their emotions.

  “I should make haste.”

  “Indeed. Yes. Yes, of course. Naturally you should. Dora must be found.”

  SO KELMAN CONTINUES ON HIS business, journeying again to the almshouse. During each encounter with those who either work or reside there, his manner is calm and his speech judicious, not because he deems that demeanor appropriate but because he can’t risk showing his true feelings. He may be discussing Theodora Crowther and the unsolved city burglaries, or querying the men with whom Stokes was housed, but his mind pictures only Martha. Kissing Martha Beale in the middle of a busy thoroughfare for all the world to see. It is a proclamation.

  MANY MILES FROM THE SCENES of Kelman’s search, or Martha’s afternoon of fevered contemplation; many miles from the hot and turbulent city, or the confining greenery of Blockley and the farmland that stretches along the Darby Road, a miraculous event occurs. Nicholas Howe enters the part of the forest where Percy lies wounded—and not only walks into an area of his property he’s never before visited but pauses and listens until he becomes convinced that he can hear the faint sound of human speech among the dense and obscuring greenery.

  “VanLennep!” he calls out. “VanLennep, are you nearby? I have news to impart. Difficult news, I’m afraid. A letter from one Thomas Kelman. It was sent down in a bundle of mail from Philadelphia several days ago, and I only just read it.” He hesitates while his ears, so accustomed to the infinite variety of country noise—to the plaintive songs of crickets, the rustle of leaves no longer green and young, the migratory flights of grackles, or a changeable wind that heralds a shift of season—mark and identify everything.

  “Percy! Are you here? If you are, be so good as to present yourself, or I’ll move on. It’s imperative I find you. Percy! Someone is close at hand. I feel it. If it’s you, VanLennep, be done with your games. I must talk to you.”

  Howe stops speaking. The woods are thick, the buzzing of insects acute, and from high in the tree branches comes a raucous screech of bird life. At his feet, there’s a sound of marsh water running; but added to this, like an echo, is a moan.

  “VanLennep!” he shouts again. Then he plunges his farmer’s boots into the brown and brackish liquid, trudging against a barely discernible current in hopes that he may find a stream and perhaps an open glade from which he can more readily view the terrain.

  WHILE HOWE PURSUES HIS PHANTOM friend, Georgine Crowther sequesters herself in her boudoir, locking the door behind her with such a sense of purpose that it seems as if she has no intention of reentering the workaday world again. After taking these precautions, she sits at the chair beside her dressing table, where she lays out the mirror, buttonhook, and comb that belong to her daughter. With only fleeting attention does she notice how black and smeared with handling the silver has grown.

  Instead, she gazes at the toilette articles, seeing not the engraved initial, not her daughter as a betrothed young lady, nor a mother’s dreams of her only child’s marriage day and how handsome the young couple will appear, or even visits to the newly-weds’ home, or an infant for a doting grandmama to admire. No, what Georgine sees is the past.

  Reflected in the tarnished metal is the round face of baby Dora, toothless and gummy one moment, then equipped with four front teeth that shine like seed pearls when the child beams. Oh, and little Theodora’s hands! Pudgy, demanding, curious, grabbing at each and every object, heedless of danger—as are her wide and wondering eyes.

  Georgine has no need of closing her own eyes in order to enter this land of memory and love, but she does … then wanders through all the seasons of growth and change as if a different room were assigned to each experience: Dora sitting on her mother’s knee, patting her fists together in speechless glee as Georgine teaches her to count; Dora at three, lulled to near sleep while her mother reads a rhyming book; Dora sprawled on the winter hearth, building a magic castle from wooden blocks and chattering about the invented fairy princess who resides within its walls. Then there’s Dora with ink-stained fingers, or with budding breasts, or begging for a “lady’s” gown: a young woman now, pouting, winsome, and full of hope.

  Georgine glides slowly through the remembered spaces, half smiling, half aching until her eyes open wide in revelation. In none of these visions does she see Harrison.

  He doesn’t bend dotingly above the infant’s cradle; he doesn’t hold the firm, fat baby fingers in his own; doesn’t laugh at her childish tales or query her multiplication tables. In fact, he seems to have vanished. Georgine’s mind’s eye looks for him on the stair landing as she confers with the physician over a case of the croup; she peers into the parlor, where a ten-year-old Dora is practicing the piano, or where a seventeen-year-old Dora gathers with her friends.

  But Harrison is gone.

  What can this mean? the mother asks herself. Isn’t my husband devoted to our child? Surely he is, and has always been. Isn’t that what our friends say? That Dora’s the apple of her father’s eye, while I’m demanding and stern? The parent who insists that her manners, like her handwriting, be letter perfect?

  Georgine frowns, pulling forward every reminiscence of her daughter’s childhood and youth, but her husband remains an elusive figure: a shadow here and there, a disembodied voice full of bonhomie and easy gaiety. He’s of no more substance than air.

  The mother’s dazed eyes grow wide. He does love her; I know he does. And wants the best for her, too. Then her mind burrows back to the confrontation with Percy VanLennep. Harrison would never have thwarted the marriage; perhaps he was harsh that evening; perhaps I was overly stringent, as well, but he wants to see his daughter amicably wed. I’m sure he does. He must. No, no, he would never willingly do anything to mar Dora’s joy. He would not. He would not.

  SO PASSES THE REMAINDER OF the twenty-first of September. Georgine rests in the seclusion of her rooms. An evening meal is proffered on a tray and returned uneaten. Her lady’s maid prepares the bed for sleeping, but Georgine refuses to undress, or stir from her dressing-table chair, or even speak. So the maid withdraws, then crosses paths with Harrison, who has come to bid his wife good night.

  No response is given to his gentle knocking at the door, and when he tries the latch, he finds that his wife has locked it. He studies his hand, resting uselessly on the cold metal, and all at once begins to weep. In the lighted corridor! Where any servant might pass by and notice this unseemly display! Harrison Crowther bends his big head and sobs.

  THE RIFLE’S REPORT SHAKES MARTHA’S bed. She clutches the bed linens in fright, then immediately relaxes her grasp as she decides she must have been dreaming. Citizens don’t shoot at one another on the city streets.

  What folly is my sleeping brain creating? she thinks. First a dying young woman, now a mortally wounded man. Martha kicks the coverlet but can’t dislodge the image: a virgin woods full of brambles and impenetrable scrub; a man lying bleeding within the concealing vegetation, and another fighting his way through a thicket as high as his shoulders. In the picture a flock of birds pulses through the sky, and the long yellow shadows of afternoon stretch from tree limb to tree limb. She can almost smell marsh waters,
and the papery scent of leaves that have baked all day in the sun.

  How foolish, she decides. Why waste time inventing locales I’ve never visited, and men I’ve never met? She climbs out of bed, but the dream follows, making her glance upward as though expecting to see a canopy of branches rather than one of lace. Then the analogy strikes her. Her brain has been so consumed with Thomas, she can’t see the woods for the trees.

  “Oh, honestly!” She shakes her head, releases an impatient breath, then marches across the room to yank aside the draperies. Real trees and real air must replace the illusory ones.

  But there, she jerks backward in alarm. The beggar boy who watched her house two days prior is standing sentinel again. Although mostly concealed by the dark, his thin body looks as determined and menacing as it did before. As she glowers down, another figure approaches—a man who surprises the boy and causes him to spin around and forsake his watchman’s stance.

  A blow lands on the child’s head. Illumined by the lamplight, the man’s contorted face dodges close to the boy’s as though cursing him.

  That’s who Thomas is searching for, Martha realizes. It’s the man we encountered listening to Amor Alsberg. It’s Findal Stokes.

  She flies from her room in order to sound an alarm, but by the time a watchman can be summoned, Stokes is long gone.

  TELL ME WE’LL SEE OUR DORA

  THE MORNING OF SEPTEMBER TWENTY-SECOND dawns cooler than before. A mist that’s not quite fog, not truly rain settles over the city, turning the paving stones a burnished black, the packed earth of the lesser streets a dense mud brown, while the sky clings to a leaden half hue that’s more dusk than day.

  Harrison Crowther steps into this cheerless world carrying the basket of linen he and his wife so assiduously prepared. His steps are brisk, echoing through the sparsely populated street, although the noise has an empty clatter as if his bones have been carved out with grief and fear. He trudges along, unseeing, intent on the successful outcome of his mission, and so doesn’t notice that Luther Irwin has begun to trail after him. Or that Thomas Kelman, unbeknownst to either, is also keeping watch and pace.

  When Dora’s father reaches Dutch Kat’s still-sleeping establishment, he places the basket upon the top step, then straightens and clasps his hands, although he makes no indication that he intends to depart. Instead, he stands as though in fervent prayer.

  After several motionless minutes he sighs, bows his head in acceptance, reaches down to touch the note atop the discarded clothing, and shambles reluctantly backward, sidling half sideways down the uneven road until he rounds the corner and begins retracing his homebound route with the same hopeless and echoing steps.

  Luther Irwin is not as hesitant nor careworn as his employer. While Crowther concludes his seeming obeisance before disappearing from sight, the secret service agent fiddles impatiently within the shadow of a neighboring building, stamping back and forth, and growling and muttering to himself. His shoulders judder; his pugilist’s chin jabs one way and then another; and his knees flex and extend, flex and extend.

  Also hidden, Kelman studies Irwin, wishing he could clamp a restraining arm on the man or whisk him clear of the site. But he realizes the action would only call attention to them both and probably induce the kidnapper to keep a safe distance—if Irwin’s continuous jouncing hasn’t already achieved the same lamentable result.

  Kelman is wrong to worry, however, for the moment Crowther is out of sight a figure darts from the rear alleyway entry to Dutch Kat’s. It’s a boy whom Kelman instantly recognizes as young Findal Stokes. He saunters toward the basket, all unconcern on the surface, all wily intent within. He licks his lips as though his mouth were parched while his remarkable ears twitch as if listening for a threatening noise. Findal’s eyes leave the basket only long enough to glance about. He passes the front entry to the bawdy house, whistles as though trying to recall some forgotten air, then lunges backward, stuffing his fists within the folded layers of cloth.

  Luther Irwin is on him in a moment, hauling the boy into the air, first by grabbing his thin jacket and then by wrapping his hammy hands around Findal’s equally scrawny throat. “All right, my lad. That’s it for you!”

  Findal’s response is to kick the secret service agent in an area where no gentleman wishes to be dealt a blow. The boy’s aim is true; and Irwin crumples under the unexpected attack, releasing his prey with a curse and an exhalation of breath that’s as loud as a butchered steer’s. He sinks to his knees while Findal lights off down the street, running unfortunately toward the very place where Kelman stands hidden.

  Before he’s aware of it, the boy’s flight is arrested by two long arms twisting his arms backward and pinning him in pain. “I didn’t do nothing,” he yelps. “I didn’t take nothing. I just was passing, is all. There’s no crime there.”

  It’s all Kelman can do not to strike the child into silence, but as he considers that strategy, he wonders at his predilection for brutality. The boy is only a boy, after all. He’s no match for a grown man. Not even Luther Irwin.

  “Where’s your father?”

  “How should I know?” While Findal speaks, he struggles, but he can’t break free of Kelman’s grip.

  “He sent you on this mission. If you don’t reveal his whereabouts, I’ll make certain you spend the rest of your worthless life locked up in the penitentiary.”

  “I can’t produce what I don’t have!”

  “Your father’s hiding place, Master Stokes! Unless you’d rather lead us to Miss Theodora Crowther yourself.”

  Findal tries to land a crippling kick to Kelman but fails in the attempt, which throws his slight frame off balance, allowing his captor to pick him up bodily, then throw him over one shoulder and march to South Street, where two members of the day watch await.

  Still shrilly proclaiming his innocence, Findal is bound into custody while Kelman returns to find Luther Irwin again on his feet and a curious crowd gathering.

  “Oh, you fool” is Kelman’s only comment. At that moment, a shout goes up from the day watch as Findal makes his newest escape, and the morning’s debacle is complete.

  HARRISON CROWTHER RECEIVES THE NEWS of the calamity on Lombard Street in silence. Jumping up when Kelman is announced, he immediately sinks into a chair as he listens to the report; his seated wife retains an equally passive pose. Despair emanates from their two figures, but not disbelief, for that would permit a modicum of hope.

  “Who’s the boy?” is all Crowther asks when Kelman finishes his brief tale.

  “A child out of Blockley, sir. Findal Stokes. I have reason to believe his father is the mastermind of this plot.”

  Crowther licks his lips in an unwitting replication of young Findal’s anxious movement, but says nothing more. Nor does Georgine.

  “I’ll find him and his loathsome parent, sir. I assure you—”

  “I did everything required of me, Kelman. I followed every instruction.”

  “You did, sir. I understand as much. But I fear Mr. Irwin was overzealous in stepping forward when he did—”

  “From Blockley, you say?”

  “Yes, sir. The son fled the institution. The father is also missing.”

  “I know the director there. I’ll write to him at once. It would be appalling if the almshouse were harboring criminals.”

  “I discussed this matter with him yesterday, sir. Naturally, he and his staff are cooperating to the fullest extent.”

  Harrison Crowther sighs anew, then looks at his wife, but she’s staring mutely into space. “Tell me we’ll see our Dora soon.”

  “We’ll catch these miscreants, sir. You can be sure of that. When we do, we’ll have your daughter.”

  IT’S A BOY OF NO more than four who first notices the three fingers, so frail and white within the coal heap sloping down on either side of the alley near Erasmus Unger’s shipyard that he imagines they were planted there—like sticks stuck in the mudflats at the river’s edge.

  He
stares while his older sister, at a little distance, engages in a murmured conversation with a man the child doesn’t know. The boy turns toward them, watching from the corner of his one good eye (the child’s face is severely scarred from what appears to have been a burn), but he can’t hear what the two are discussing.

  Then the man vehemently shakes his head and strides away, and the sister turns and walks toward her waiting sibling.

  “What were you two talking of?” the boy calls, and his mouth twists with the effort of speech. As he talks, his muscles work: the undamaged side displaying ordinary movement; the scalded half, a reddish mass of immobility.

  “Nothing that has to do with you” is the bleak reply, and the boy, in order to cheer her, points to his discovery.

  “See! A person’s fingers! Like a magic sign, sticking up toward Heaven. Maybe that’s a cure for me, like our mam sometimes said she was praying for—”

  “Those aren’t fingers. They’re meat bones left in the coal cobbles by a rat. Come away now.”

  “But they are! Look—”

  “Quiet, boy! We must move on. You don’t want the day watch hauling us in for vagrancy, do you?” She begins to move off, but her brother grabs her thin cloak.

  “Maybe it’s a lady hiding there—”

  “Stop this fanciful talk, at once.”

  “But we were looking for an omen. You said so yourself. A bit of magic to help us in our need. That’s what you told me. And if the man you spoke with wasn’t it—”

  “Come along. I don’t want to be standing here if there’s river vermin about. You’d make a tasty morsel for them big things.” By now the sister has wrenched out of her sibling’s grip, but in doing so her eyes fall upon the pale fingers, and she starts backward with an oath. “What’s that?”

  “A lady, waving to us. Like our mam used to—”

  “Enough, I tell you! This has naught to do with you or me. Them’s chicken bones, most probably.” Despite this statement, the girl advances upon the hillock of coal cobbles and commences scrabbling up its jagged sides.