Pilfered Promises

by M. Louisa Locke

  “They aren’t letting her sleep there alone, are they?”

  “Oh, no. I have been staying with her at night…sleeping in her room while she sleeps in her mother’s bed in the next room. Which is why I know about the bad dreams. But Mr. Livingston has asked me to hire a governess for her who can stay there at night.”

  “Ah, that seems a sensible idea. I know a number of women who teach in the San Francisco schools. I could ask if any of them know of someone who would be looking for this sort of position.”

  “That would be helpful. The holidays are such a busy time for me, and it is vitally important we get someone who can not only do a good job at instructing her…she is so bright…but someone who will be sensitive to her situation.”

  Miss Birdsoll stopped in front of the office where Sergeant Thompson had set up his interviews and took out a key. She unlocked the door, saying, “The police aren’t using this office today, and when I got your note about coming in, I asked both Sergeant Thompson and Mr. Livingston if it would be all right for you to use it. They both said they were fine with the arrangement. The sergeant seems to think quite highly of you.”

  “Thank you, this will be quite satisfactory,” Annie said as she went in and saw that Thompson had left the desk cleared of any files, which were probably hidden away in the locked cabinets in the corner of the room.

  Walking over to one of those file cabinets, Miss Birdsoll opened a drawer and said, “I put in the correspondence with the cloth manufacturers we do business with in this drawer. As you requested, I went back twelve months. I hope it will help.”

  Annie planned on reviewing the records for the amount and kinds of material the Silver Strike purchased for both the custom and ready-made clothing to see if the price paid had gone down recently…which might explain why the cloth was inferior. Meanwhile, Biddy had promised to ask some of the more experienced seamstresses if they had noticed the problem material coming from any specific manufacturers.

  She said, “That is perfect. It shouldn’t take me that long to go through those files. I have a noon appointment, so I will let you know when I leave so you can lock up. At that time I will know if I will need to come back and work some more on them.”

  “Thank you. But there is no rush.” Miss Birdsoll hesitated…then continued, “Mr. Livingston mentioned to me this morning that you had found some documents that should help Emmaline claim her inheritance. I want to thank you so much for doing that.”

  “Well, I do hope it will help. My husband is coming back in town tonight, and he should be able to do some additional searching to determine if there are any relatives that need to be informed. His law firm often has to do that sort of work, particularly if there isn’t an existing will.”

  Frowning, Miss Birdsoll said, “And if there aren’t any relatives, I understand the courts determine guardianship?”

  “Yes, and my husband said they are pretty good at moving fast to at least appoint an interim guardian, even though probate can take some time. I gather that Madame and Monsieur have volunteered to act in that capacity. Did you know that they hope to adopt Emmaline?”

  “Yes. I’d heard.”

  The lack of enthusiasm in Miss Birdsoll’s voice was unmistakable. So Annie decided to push the subject to see if the older woman would reveal why she didn’t like the idea.

  She said, “This does seem like it would be best for the child, to have a couple she already knows adopt her. And Monsieur confided in me that their childless state had been a great sadness to both his wife and him.”

  “Yes, I was aware of Madame’s great sorrow. But I think the desire to be a mother is not the same as being motherly.” Miss Birdsoll then sighed and said, “I apologize. That was unkind. I suspect I have become bitter after spending a lifetime knowing that people pity me for my own unmarried state. People who can’t believe I am happy and feel my life has been worthwhile without a husband and a child.”

  Miss Birdsoll looked down at the watch pinned to her breast and said briskly, “If you will excuse me. I had better get back to my office and Emmaline. Do let me know if there is anything else I can do to help.” And with that she quickly left.

  Annie sympathized with Miss Birdsoll, and she couldn’t help but notice that the woman’s complaint and Kathleen’s confusion were rooted in the same problem––that women, not men, were expected to want marriage and children above everything else. She’d found it immensely irritating when her sister-in-law, Violet, assumed the accounting and business consulting work Annie did was merely a way of marking time until she conceived her first child.

  Annie was chagrined to remember her own reaction when she first met Miss Birdsoll. How she’d speculated that her devotion to the Silver Strike was some sort of consolation for not marrying the store’s owner. How hypocritical of me. She could certainly imagine how difficult it would be if she were someone like Miss Birdsoll and had to spend her life experiencing other women’s pity. But then she also felt sympathy for Madame Villeneuve, having last year gone through a period when she feared her own mother’s difficulty in bearing children might be something she inherited.

  Chapter 17

  “It is represented that Sydney E. Smith, who was arrested on Wednesday evening on complaint of Ann Fisk and charged with forgery, has made a written confession…”––San Francisco Chronicle January 24, 1880

  Saturday morning, December 4, 1880

  “I’m sorry that I have to go into the law office this morning,” Nate said, reaching across the table to take his wife’s hand in his. “But there is a pile of correspondence sitting there to get through.”

  “Goodness gracious, don’t apologize. You would be all caught up from your trip to Sacramento if you hadn’t devoted most of yesterday to tracking down information about Marie Fournier for me.” Annie gave his hand a warm squeeze and then poured him a cup of tea. “But I am anxious to hear what you found out. You have no idea what restraint it took not to shake you back awake when you dozed off last night.”

  Nate knew she was only partially teasing. There had been too much to share in one evening after being separated for the better part of four days. Nate had left the house at five Tuesday morning to take the ferry across to Oakland to catch the train up to Sacramento and didn’t make it back to the city until after eleven in the evening Thursday. Needless to say, he’d just fallen into bed after a quick kiss, and the next morning he left the house again at the break of dawn to give himself time to put together the request for another postponement for his divorce trial. Fortunately, Judge Simmons quickly granted him the postponement, so he’d had all day yesterday to look into the legal and financial affairs of Marie Fournier.

  Nate took a hot roll and slathered it with butter and strawberry jam, saying, “I do appreciate your restraint…and your willingness to let me catch up on something even more important this morning before breakfast.”

  He loved watching her blush. He couldn’t believe how much he’d missed her. But he saw she was getting impatient so he put the roll down. “The first thing I found out was that there was no record of any wills by anyone named Fournier going through probate court in the last twelve years in San Francisco County. My clerk worked all day in the hall of records and didn’t find anything.”

  Annie frowned and pushed her fried egg around her plate. “Could the will have gone through probate somewhere else? I mean, what if he died in some other port?”

  “It would be unusual. First of all, if he had a will, he probably left it with his wife, and she would have submitted it here. If for some reason he had the will with him, the normal practice would be for one of his officers to bring it to his widow when the ship made it back.”

  “Unless they no longer lived together as man and wife,” Annie said, waving her fork at him. “Maybe he had another woman…in another port. You hear all the time of sailors having different families in different ports. Maybe the other woman had the will.”

  Nate shrugged. “While that or any other scen
ario is possible, it is more probable that there wasn’t ever a Captain Fournier, because I didn’t find a single mention of a Fournier in all the city directories going back to 1850.”

  When Nate first started working for his uncles’ firm he’d thought it was a waste of space to keep all the city directories, but over the years he’d found them very useful in tracking down missing relatives named in wills. He picked up his roll again and said, “The lack of anyone named Fournier also suggests that the man your Miss Spencer assumed was Mrs. Fournier’s brother-in-law didn’t exist either.”

  “He existed, because she met him,” Annie snapped, then she sighed. “But you’re right; it does sound very much like the man she met wasn’t named Fournier, which makes it even more likely that there never was a Captain Fournier. But if that’s true, it’s probable that the man Miss Spencer met was Marie’s lover and Emmaline’s father. Would that have to come out in court? That Emmaline might be illegitimate?”

  “In terms of probate, it shouldn’t be an issue. The birth certificate you found proves she is Marie’s daughter. The question of her parentage might only come up if someone appeared and claimed he was related to Emmaline’s father and should be awarded guardianship over her.”

  “Well, in that case, I am glad that this supposed uncle is dead,” Annie said. “So he won’t be suddenly stepping up and claiming any rights over her or her inheritance. Is there any way to prove he is dead? Could he have been the Mr. Harrison who is listed as selling the property to Marie in 1870?”

  “There is a Mr. Harrison listed in the directories and property records for the city. He first shows up in the 1855 directory as a tailor, his residence the same as the current dress shop on Green. He shows up in every directory as living there until 1871, when he is listed at a new address on Pacific, west of Van Ness. That fits with him selling the shop to Mrs. Fournier the year before. However, he was alive and well and listed in this year’s directory.”

  “So I think we can assume Harrison is not the mysterious uncle who died.” Annie nibbled on a piece of roll and took a sip of tea. “Well that is one question answered. Let me get this straight. It is unlikely that Marie inherited money from a husband to buy the shop…at least not from a Captain Fournier. This strengthens the possibility that she got the money from––oh, I refuse to call him the uncle––let’s call him ‘the mystery man.’ I don’t know why he has to be her lover…or even the father of Emmaline. Maybe he was just a kindly benefactor.”

  Annie sounded so hopeful that Nate hesitated before telling her what else he’d learned. As he watched her pour herself some more tea, he said, “I stopped by Thompson’s office on the way home yesterday to tell him what my research had turned up…or rather what it hadn’t turned up. And he told me they’d found Marie Fournier’s bank records. Villeneuve told them at the beginning of the week that she had an account with the California Savings and Loan and they got a court order to have the bank hand the records over to them.”

  Annie said, “That was quick…although I’m not surprised Villeneuve knew what bank she used. If anyone seems to have played the role of benefactor in her life…it’s Villeneuve.”

  “She’d opened a savings account with the bank in 1868, maintaining a very small balance. But the week before she bought the shop on Green Street in 1870, she made a deposit of $1300.”

  “The money from the mystery man to help her buy the shop.”

  “Yes, probably, because a week later $1100 of it was withdrawn.”

  “That fits. I can imagine the property itself was worth $1100, but she’d need money to outfit it as a dress shop.”

  Nate knew his wife had a much better grasp of property values and the costs of starting a business than he did, so he just nodded and went on. “In the next few years, there were regular deposits and withdrawals. The banker assured Thompson that the account looked normal for a small dressmaking establishment. The first few years there was some sign she was making a profit. But then in 1873, she started barely breaking even.”

  “Oh, dear, the depression hit San Francisco and dress orders probably dried up.” Annie had seen a similar shift in the balance sheets of more than one account book she’d audited. “I imagine that’s when she let the second apprentice go.”

  “The break in this pattern happened a year later, in 1874, when she took out a $1000 loan with the bank, using the property as collateral.”

  Nate had been quite shocked at the amount the bank had lent her, given the struggles the shop faced.

  However, Annie didn’t seem surprised and said, “She wouldn’t have been the first to mortgage their property to keep their business afloat through the lean years.”

  “Maybe, but Thompson said there were several things that were odd about this loan.” Nate watched his wife sit up straight, rather like a hunting dog who’d just gotten a scent.

  “What things?”

  “Well, first of all, there was no sign of the money being deposited in her account. So where did the funds go? And why did she need such a large sum all of a sudden? And second, there isn’t any sign that the monthly repayments of the loan came from her account. Instead, there is just the usual pattern of deposits and withdrawals that covered her business expenses…with some sign that she was beginning to build up her savings again in early ’77.”

  “I don’t know what is suspicious about her not depositing the loan. Maybe she used it to invest in something…like stocks. Or maybe she was paying back the person who loaned her the money for the shop in the first place. Although it is odd that the account doesn’t show her withdrawing the monthly payments. This does suggest someone else was making the repayments. Could the bank say who the money came from?”

  “No, as far as they knew, the money, which was sent by post, came from her. And then, in the fall of 1877, the payments stopped.”

  “Oh good heavens, just about the same time Miss Spencer said that the mystery man died.”

  Nate nodded, glad to see she was coming to the same conclusion he had. “When Thompson asked the bank manager about this, he heard a very interesting story. Evidently, Mrs. Fournier came in a couple of months later, quite angry and confused when she’d received a notice that the bank was going to foreclose on her property for being in arrears in repaying the loan. She protested that she’d no knowledge of the loan, or the payments, even though the banker showed her the documents with her name on it. However, he said that the assistant manager who’d signed off on the loan was no longer with the bank.”

  “Oh dear, Nate. It sounds a lot like someone forged her name to the loan. The mystery man?”

  “That’s what it sounded like to me…and to Thompson.”

  “And then what happened?”

  “Mrs. Fournier asked if the bank would permit her to renegotiate the payment schedule.”

  “She didn’t say anything about her signature being a forgery,” Annie said. “That’s interesting in itself. She probably knew who forged her signature. And if the man was dead, there really wasn’t much she could do.”

  “Yes, and the bank complied and rewrote the loan to include the missed payments with only a slight late fee. Thompson thought the bank was glad to do so rather than face a possible law suit for accepting a forged document.”

  “The missing manager had probably participated in the fraud. I wonder how many women’s signatures have been forged by the men in their lives who were in financial difficulty,” his wife said.

  Annie had once told him that she suspected her father-in-law had taken advantage of her in a similar fashion after her husband died. It made him angry just thinking about it. His wife pushed her untouched food away and said, “And consider the timing. The fall of ’77 the mystery man dies, Marie discovers a few months later that she might lose her shop…which is also her home, if she doesn’t find a way out of this difficulty. And then she takes the job with the Silver Strike Bazaar, which permits her to rent out the shop.”

  “For just about the amount of money sh
e owes the bank each month,” Nate concluded. “But that isn’t all. The day before Thanksgiving, Marie Fournier came into the bank and used $500 to pay off the loan in full.”

  “Oh Nate,” Annie cried. “It can’t be a coincidence that the next day she was dead.”

  Chapter 18

  “The defendant, who is a young and pretty girl, was employed by Hartung and Co. as saleswoman at $8 a week.” ––New York Times August 6, 1879

  Wednesday evening, December 8, 1880

  “If no one knows where she got the money to pay off the loan,” Kathleen said, “it could be someone paid her to hush her up about something. At least that’s what Patrick says.”

  Nate’s sister, Laura, had joined Kathleen, Mrs. O’Rourke, and Biddy in the kitchen after dinner, and Annie had just finished catching everyone up on what she’d learned about Mrs. Fournier over the past two days.

  “You mean blackmail?” Laura said. “But then why kill her the next day? I mean, if you were going to kill her, why not before you shelled out the money?”

  “Neither of you knew Mrs. Fournier. I just can’t believe she would blackmail someone!” Bridget O’Malley’s voice rose. “I’m sorry, miss, ma’am, I am just rattled by all this talk about her maybe not really being married and all. Poor Emmaline.”

  Annie walked over and patted the girl on her shoulder. “That’s all right, Biddy. Of course this is all upsetting for you. I only met Mrs. Fournier once, and she seemed like a very nice woman. But she definitely had some secrets. And from my experience, secrets can get you killed. But why don’t you go on back with Kathleen to her room and try on the dress the Moffets made over for you?”

  Biddy had stopped by the boardinghouse last Sunday to tell her Monsieur Villeneuve was looking for a few more temporary clerks to hire for the holiday season. She’d wanted to know if Annie could get her hired on in this position. Said that then she could help figure out what the cash girl Cherry was doing and if she was part of some gang who was stealing from the store. Annie thought this was a good idea and got Mr. Livingston and Monsieur Villeneuve to agree. It meant an increase in wages, so even if Biddy wasn’t kept on as a clerk after the holidays, it would help her family out temporarily. But the girl needed a better dress to wear, and the Moffets had obliged by altering one of Annie’s old black dresses from her days as a widow.