Pilfered Promises

by M. Louisa Locke

  Annie gratefully accepted the offer of tea, as did her husband, although she knew he would have liked something more fortifying before this meeting with the Silver Strike owner. She then said, “We must have just missed him. What sort of a crisis?”

  “A scuffle between two women fighting over the last rocking horse in the toy department. It gets this way in the last days before Christmas. Desperate parents are the worst.”

  Nate said, “I expect no parent wants to let down a child who’s asked Santa Claus for something specific like that. But I am surprised Mr. Livingston would feel he needed to handle this personally.”

  “Actually, although he won’t admit it, he rather likes being in the thick of things at Christmas time. And his presence usually smoothes things out quite quickly. He will either convince one of the women that there is an even better present to be bought or promise to find another horse and have it delivered to their house by Christmas Eve. Then I will send one of the porters to scour the city for another horse to buy.” Miss Birdsoll smiled complacently before returning to her own office.

  Nate whispered, “I rather think Miss Birdsoll enjoys being in the thick of things as well.”

  Annie chuckled. “Yes indeed. Reminds me of Kathleen, in high spirits as she copes with all the extra chores that seem to be part of the holidays. Helping Laura pack for her trip to see your parents, assisting Jamie in wrapping his presents, keeping the cat from destroying the tree, running hot chocolate up to the Moffets who apparently don’t sleep during this time of year, and wheedling the best cuts of meat from the butcher for Christmas dinner.”

  Nate laughed out loud, which lifted her spirits. It had been a very busy and tense couple of days for him as well, waiting to find out if he’d won his divorce case. She blamed his uncle for that. For some reason Nate’s Uncle Frank felt the need to “warn” Nate about how Judge Simmons seldom awarded custody of the children to women unless their husbands had deserted them.

  But thankfully, Uncle Frank was wrong. At eight this morning, Simmons not only granted Nate’s client a divorce, but he awarded Mrs. Inglenook full custody plus alimony and financial support for their children. In his ruling, he’d made it clear that he was not pleased that Mr. Inglenook and his counsel had tried to “circumvent the course of justice by bribing a witness and lying to the court.” Here was one family that was going to have a much merrier Christmas because of her husband.

  In addition, Miss Pitts Stevens, a local women’s rights reformer and the woman who was paying Nate’s legal fees for the case, actually showed up in court to hear the ruling. And she’d been so pleased with the outcome she’d given him a bonus on top of the agreed-upon fees, which was going to come in handy with the extra expenses over the holidays.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting, Mrs. Dawson, Mr. Dawson.” Robert Livingston swept into the office and shook Nate’s hand and bowed to Annie before sitting down. “Now, I can tell by your long faces that I am not going to like what you have to report. So let’s get it over with. What have you and that bull-dog of a sergeant, Thompson, found out?”

  God bless the old gentleman. He’s knows what’s coming, and he’s ready to face it head on. Annie felt some relief, because she knew that what Nate dreaded the most was his client refusing to believe the facts.

  “Sir, as you know, after talking with you Saturday morning, I planned to go to the store where the Hawkes delivery wagon off-loaded the goods that should have gone to the Silver Strike. When I got there, I met a gentleman by the name of Andrew Leggett, who was supervising four workmen. It turns out that Mr. Leggett, a tailor who specializes in bridal clothing, was expanding his shop into the neighboring store. And the new store was going to sell not just bridal gowns, but custom-designed evening clothes and high-end day wear, along with furs.”

  Livingston nodded and said, his voice studiedly neutral in tone, “You said this store is on the corner of O’Farrell and Stockton? Not a bad location if you are going to cater exclusively to the wealthier women of San Francisco.”

  “Yes, Leggett seemed quite proud of how exclusive his clientele was going to be,” Nate said. “When I mentioned I was representing a client who was interested in the shop, I think he assumed I meant my client was interested in investing in the store. He bragged about already having a partner who’d seen the potential in the shop’s locale and put up a good deal of capital to assist in the renovation.”

  Livingston shifted in his seat and waved at Nate to continue.

  Nate went on to report how Leggett only began to get nervous when asked about who this partner was. “He started to hedge at that point, and when I mentioned that my client was concerned that some of the goods that should have gone to his store had ended up at Mr. Leggett’s establishment, he clammed up and told me to leave.”

  “I’ll bet he did,” Livingston said with the first sign of anger.

  “However, sir, as I left the store, I saw a sign propped against the front wall that read, ‘Livingston and Leggett, Fine Clothing.’”

  Annie, who’d been watching Mr. Livingston closely, saw him flinch, but he just nodded and said, “Go on, Mr. Dawson. You’d told me that the police were going to question this Hawkes driver. Did they talk to this fellow Leggett as well?”

  “Yes. Based on Officer McGee’s testimony, they brought in the driver, a fellow named Squibbs, Friday evening. But he is a hard man. He’s been in prison before, and he kept mum when they questioned him. So the next morning, Thompson was waiting for me when I left Leggett’s store. After hearing what I’d learned, he took two constables to search the back of the shop. Once they found the newly delivered plaid wool and the furs, they arrested Leggett.”

  “And I assume he was more forthcoming than the Hawkes driver?”

  “Couldn’t cooperate fast enough once Thompson suggested he could go to prison for receiving stolen goods. He told them that the investor was your son Robbie, who’d come to him six months ago. Leggett had capital saved, but he knew that the Livingston name would bring in customers, so he agreed that, even though your son put up only a third of the money for the expansion, he would make him the majority owner of the new business.”

  Livingston said sharply, “What did this Leggett say about the diverted goods?”

  “He insisted he knew nothing about them being stolen. He said your son told him he had a reputable dealer who could get him expensive material and furs at a big discount. I must say, sir, the man has been buying clothing for his bridal business for years, so it is unlikely that he is really that naive.”

  “Well, my son can be mighty persuasive. And it is human nature not to look a gift horse in the mouth,” Livingston said bitterly. “However, he isn’t the only employee who’s been disloyal in this affair. As you might have already guessed, this information isn’t a complete surprise to me. I talked to Flanagan on Friday, after you left me. Told him there was something rotten going on down in receiving. Showed him the receipt his nephew signed for the furs and then told him to go look for himself at what was sitting in storage.”

  Annie looked over at Nate, who kept his face very neutral as he said, “And what did Flanagan have to say?”

  “Didn’t say anything. Knew I wouldn’t have come to him if I wasn’t taking this seriously. Just asked me to give him time to find out what was going on and who all was involved.”

  “And did he find out something?” Nate asked.

  “Came to me yesterday, at my home. Brought his nephew Sean with him, who I must say didn’t look too well. Said the boy told him that the Hawkes driver, Squibbs, approached him about six months back. Told him that occasionally his wagon hit a bump and lost some goods. But that if Sean would just happen to miscount when checking the items in, that he’d share the proceeds with him, fifty-fifty.”

  Nate scoffed, “He probably made deals like that all over town. And I suspect he didn’t give Sean any fifty percent of his take once the goods were fenced.”

  “No, I don’t imagine he did,” said Livi
ngston. “I think Flanagan was particularly disgusted at how stupid his nephew appeared to be. ‘Gormless’ was the exact word he used. Nevertheless, the boy did give us some names. He said that my son caught him at his game about four months back, when one of the missing goods was a fur, and got him to set up a meeting with the driver. Sean didn’t attend the meeting, but he said Robbie was very satisfied with whatever agreement he’d come to with Squibbs. Robbie came back and told him that he should be the one who checked the goods in whenever Squibbs showed him the high sign. Make sure no one else would notice if there were some items missing. Otherwise, he wasn’t to let on there was anything special between the two of them.”

  “Do you think that Sean knew about the substituted material and the shop?” Nate asked.

  “No, I don’t. He only seemed to know about the furs and the household goods that were being diverted…the latter of which I am assuming was just part of this Squibbs’ original game.”

  Unless Robbie was letting Squibbs continue to steal from the Silver Strike as his pay for diverting the goods to the shop. Annie felt so bad for the old gentleman that she didn’t say this out loud. Instead she said, “And what about Marie Fournier? Did he mention her?”

  “I asked the boy if he knew about anyone else besides Robbie, Squibbs, and himself being involved. He said no. But he got sort of shifty at that point and his uncle clouted him behind the ear and said if he found out he was holding back he’d make him wish he were dead. So then he confessed that one morning, early on, he followed Robbie to one of his meetings with Squibbs. I think he felt left out. He said he followed them to a coffee house where they ate with some fancy-dressed toff. Sean then followed this man, who went to Larkson’s Mills. He asked one of the girls who was hanging out having a smoke who the blond-haired twit was, and she said he worked in sales, name of Jack Sweeter.”

  Nate stood in Miss Birdsoll’s office and gave Annie a quick kiss on her cheek. She had a client she needed to meet back at the boarding house, and he needed to consult further with Livingston, find out what he wanted Nate to do.

  Annie said, “He’s not going to want his son to go to prison, is he?”

  “No, and that’s one of the reasons I think it’s good you won’t be here for our discussion. The police want to find enough evidence to charge Squibbs, but the question is how to do that without bringing his son or Flanagan’s nephew into it. And of course, Thompson’s not going to drop his inquiries if there is any possibility that anyone involved in these thefts was responsible for Marie Fournier’s death, even indirectly.”

  “I know. It does seem like everyone involved had a lot to lose if she threatened to tell Mr. Livingston what was going on. But I don’t believe Livingston would cover things up if he thought that his son was involved in her murder,” Annie said.

  “There’s a big jump between thinking something is possible and knowing it’s true,” Nate said. “A good criminal defense lawyer spends a lot of time convincing juries that in that gap there is a reasonable doubt and they shouldn’t convict.”

  Suddenly there was a commotion in Livingston’s office, and Miss Birdsoll ran into her office, saying, “Mr. Dawson, please, could you come quickly? Robbie’s insisting he see his father. I think you need to be there.”

  Annie gave him another swift kiss and said, “Go, do your job, counselor.”

  As Nate walked back into Livingston’s office, he heard Robbie say, “Yes, I invested in another store. My money, my choice. You never were going to take me seriously anyway, because, to quote you, I didn’t ‘come up the hard way.’ Well, if you wanted me to be like old Jenkins, who’s never going to be more than a glorified sales clerk, why did you send me away for all that schooling when I was fifteen?”

  “Because I promised your mother that I would make sure you would get a first class education.”

  “Don’t you dare blame her! She worked herself to death in the store, for you and only you. You sent me away because you couldn’t stand to look me in the face, knowing you killed her.”

  “Son, we both miss her terribly. And, frankly, I am sorry now that I didn’t make you come home. Work your way through school. But if you remember, you were the one who wanted to go to college back east with your grand friends, then go jaunting around Europe.”

  “Father, all of that was for the future of the business. I explained that to you. So I could make contacts, get the kind of European polish a man like Jenkins or Gower will never have. The people in this city with money want that. They want to know that when they travel back east that they are wearing the latest Paris fashions. They need to know that the man who tells them what they should be wearing isn’t some provincial yokel.”

  “Which is why I hired Villeneuve! You have so much you could learn from him but all you cared about is having the title of partner, before you earned it.”

  Robbie suddenly turned to Nate and said, “And just what the hell are you doing here? Going to help Father sue me for taking a little of my inheritance early by reallocating a few furs?”

  Livingston said, “He’s here to tell me how to keep you out of jail. The police are questioning Squibbs, as we speak, and Sean has agreed to go in voluntarily to tell them what he knows.”

  “Oh Father, be serious. Squibbs isn’t going to talk, and Sean’s a stupid fool. And any jury would just see this as a family squabble, and all a trial would do is harm your precious store’s reputation. But it might do my little venture some good, give it the press it needs.”

  Nate thought that Robbie Livingston was certainly no fool, and he was being very composed under the circumstances. But Annie had told him she believed that Marie Fournier’s death had shaken Robbie up, and he trusted his wife’s judgment. So Nate said, “Mr. Livingston isn’t worried about the furs you took or a few bolts of badly dyed silk. What he’s worried about is whether one of your confederates killed Marie Fournier because she knew about your swindle…and whether someone like Squibbs might decide to pin that murder on you if the police lean on him too hard. And since you don’t have an alibi for the time she died, they very well might succeed.”

  Robbie spat out, “I didn’t kill her. I had every reason not to kill her. I’d just paid her $500 the day before to get her to commit to leaving the Silver Strike and agree to design exclusively with my new store. She signed a contract and everything. Now I have to find someone else. In fact, if anyone had a reason to be angry enough to kill her, you and the Frenchman had the better motive—you are the ones she betrayed.”

  Chapter 30

  “Christmas eve, and the parted curtains of many a gaily-lighted San Francisco home revealed a fancifully decked Christmas tree and happy faces of children as they viewed the gifts it bore for them.”––San Francisco Chronicle December 25, 1880

  Tuesday afternoon, December 21, 1880

  Kathleen held her index finger on the red ribbon so that Miss Laura could tie it into a neat bow before putting the wrapped present into the canvas hold-all at her feet. Nate’s sister was leaving early the next morning to go to her parents, and she said she’d been so busy at school and work that she’d not had time to wrap all her presents. But Kathleen noticed that she’d already put presents under the tree for all the people in the boarding house, including something that looked tantalizingly like a hat box for Kathleen.

  Just thinking about that box, Kathleen took a deep happy breath, smelling the ham that was baking for dinner, mingled with vanilla from the taffy her brother Ian was hard at work pulling with Jamie. She smiled at her mistress, who was sitting in the rocking chair, petting Queenie the cat.

  Jamie said suddenly, “Christopher, one of the boys in my class, says that they always open up one present the night before Christmas. Maybe we should do that, too. Or at least open up something tonight while Miss Dawson is still here.”

  “Oh, I would like that, Annie,” Laura said. “People could open up my presents to them. And I could at least open up one of mine.”

  Kathleen’s mistress l
aughed and said, “Maybe you should take it to a vote at dinner.”

  Kathleen sympathized with Jamie. While there were only four more days to Christmas, it seemed like forever. She’d spent some of the extra money from Mr. Livingston on a silver dollar for each of her three brothers and the train set for Ian. Mrs. Dawson said there was room in one of the storerooms in the attic where the boys could put it up and play with it any time they wanted. She could hardly wait to see Ian’s face when he opened up the box.

  After a little more discussion of present opening, Laura changed the subject back to the discussion of what had been going on at the Silver Strike and said, “It just doesn’t seem right, Annie, that Mr. Livingston’s son is going to get away with stealing from his own father.”

  “Actually, the financial loss is pretty minimal since Robbie has agreed to return all the cloth he diverted, as well as the furs,” Mrs. Dawson replied. “Except for the last delivery; the police are holding that as evidence. Nate explained that the other goods couldn’t be used in a trial because no one saw Squibbs steal them.”

  Patrick had told Kathleen last night that this was the sort of thing that happened all the time. The wealthy just didn’t like to see their relatives in jail or their names in the papers, and the police couldn’t do much if the victims, men like the owner of the Silver Strike, wouldn’t press charges.

  “Well, I think it’s rotten,” Laura said firmly. She turned to Kathleen and said, “What does your Patrick think? He did all the work to catch them; is he upset?”

  “He’s just happy that it looks like the delivery man, Squibbs, is being charged. That’s because Flanagan, the head clerk down in the store basement, forced his nephew to agree to testify against the delivery driver when the case comes to trial. The police also caught a few other small fry who’d taken bribes at other stores in town. They will probably testify, too.”