Ask Me No Questions

by Shelley Noble

  “Is everything like this?” Bev demanded from Tuttle.

  “The parlor and the library. Mr. Reynolds’s dressing rooms are the worst. I’ve taken the liberty of calling your father, and he is at the precinct station filing a formal complaint.”

  “Grrr,” Bev said, and stomped down the hall to the library, Phil at her heels and Lily following close behind. If the parlor was a mess, the library was in shambles. Books had been pulled from the shelves and left where they fell, the bindings bent, pages torn. Papers had fallen from the desk and the locked drawers had been ripped open.

  “How dare they?” Bev cried. “How dare they? I’ll have Atkins’s head for this.”

  Phil stepped up beside her. “I don’t think Detective Atkins was responsible for this. It must be that Becker fellow. Atkins would never have let this happen.”

  “Well, whoever it was will pay.”

  “Why?”

  Bev’s head snapped toward Phil. “What do you mean?”

  “Why search here? Now? You had already been the victim of an attempted burglary. You told Detective Atkins that nothing to your knowledge was missing. So what are they looking for? Certainly not clues. One keeps the crime scene intact so as not to disturb any possible clues. Besides, Atkins already went over the library.”

  “Did they take anything?” Bev asked Tuttle.

  “They carried away some papers, madam. I couldn’t tell what.”

  “Is the rest of the house like this?”

  “Just the rooms I mentioned.” Tuttle turned to Phil. “When they started on your room, Mr. Preswick barred the door and they knocked him down.”

  “Is he hurt?” Phil asked.

  “He got a knock on the head. He’s down in my sitting room. Cook put a plaster on it and fixed him some sweet tea for the shock.

  “I have to say, my lady, he manned the bastions like a much younger man. He told Sergeant Becker that it was the Countess of Dunbridge’s room and his superiors would hear about it from the highest office.

  “That gave them pause, I can tell you. They left shortly after that.”

  “Well, bully for Preswick. I’d better go check on him, if I might.”

  “Of course, my lady. This way, if you please.”

  “Pardon me, Bev. I’ll be right back. Lily, please stay with Mrs. Reynolds in the library.”

  Lily curtseyed. “Yes, my lady.”

  But Phil was too worried about Preswick to notice.

  She found him seated in Tuttle’s wingback chair, a plaster on his forehead and the cook, Mrs. O’Mallon, plying him with tea.

  He tried to get up when Phil entered the room, but the sturdy lady pushed him back down again.

  “No offense, my lady, but he’s had a shake-up and has no business being on his feet.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” Phil said as she swept into the room. “Well done, Preswick.”

  “Thank you, my lady.”

  “Did they summon a doctor for you?”

  “No, my lady, it isn’t necessary. Mrs. O’Mallon has taken quite good care of me.”

  “Just what any other good Christian would do.”

  “I do appreciate it, Mrs. O’Mallon. I would be lost without Preswick.” Phil pulled up a wooden chair. “Do you feel like telling me what happened?”

  Preswick straightened a little. “Yes, my lady. It was around ten this morning when there was a knock at the front door, mind you. The front door. Tuttle answered it, but I heard the commotion and came up to see. The head police said he had a warrant to search the library, and his men rushed in. It looked like a raid—” He cut his eyes toward Mrs. O’Mallon. “That I’ve been told goes on in some of the lower drinking establishments.”

  “Ah,” Phil said. “Did they say what they were looking for?”

  “Not that I heard. I don’t think they even knew, because they were indiscriminate about where they looked. But when they proceeded upstairs, well, it was the outside of enough. Tuttle and I barred the way, and finally the sergeant called them off. They left without so much as a by-your-leave, and leaving the residence in shambles.

  “The staff has been trying to put things to rights before Mrs. Reynolds returned.”

  Phil stood.

  Preswick frowned. “My lady. Begging pardon, but something seems to be askew in your dress.”

  Phil glanced down at her shirtwaist and the odd lumps that had rearranged themselves on the ride home.

  “Dress in haste, um, repent at leisure,” she extemporized, gaining a severe look from Preswick. “Something I will remedy forthwith.” As soon as she divested herself of Bev’s money.

  “You get some rest. We’re going to have busy days ahead. Thank you, Mrs. O’Mallon, for taking such good care of my dear friend.”

  “Aw, don’t think nothing of it,” said Mrs. O’Mallon, blushing.

  Phil went back upstairs to consult with Tuttle. “I need a boy to deliver a message. Do we have such a person?”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  “Good, I’ll just be a minute.” She had to force herself not to lift her skirts and run up the stairs to her bedroom. Things were getting out of hand. Two murders, a purse snatching, her butler roughed up by the metropolitan police. She needed to get to the bottom of this before someone she cared for got seriously hurt.

  Bev and Lily whirled around when Phil opened the door to the library. The safe was open and they both were in various states of dishabille. Both gasped, followed by audible sighs of relief.

  “I’m not certain the safe is the best place to hide this,” she said, reaching into her shirtwaist and pulling out a bundle of bills.

  “Well, I’m not wearing it next to my person until the race next week.”

  “The race. Of course.”

  “Reggie must have meant to place this on Thunder.” Bev sat down suddenly.

  “Bev,” Phil said, depositing the last of the money in the safe and turning around. “Why would he leave this amount of money if he was absconding to South America?”

  Bev slumped on the desk. “I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense. Maybe he wasn’t leaving me after all?” she asked hopefully.

  “My dear, I’m afraid that ship has sailed. Better you acknowledge it once and for all.”

  “I know. And truthfully, the only part that really hurts is my pride. So why do you think he left that money?”

  “My guess is he didn’t plan to.”

  “Maybe he didn’t have time to retrieve it.”

  Phil didn’t honor that guess with more than a skeptical look.

  “He stole it?” Lily ventured, then clapped both hands over her mouth.

  Bev and Phil both turned to stare at her.

  “Or stole it,” Phil echoed. “In which case, these things that are happening could be caused by someone who wants their money back.”

  Bev shook her head. “He wouldn’t.” She kept shaking her head. “That would mean—No there must be another answer.”

  “In that case we better do something about figuring it out, and quickly.”

  “You’re scaring me, Phil.”

  It’s about time, Phil thought.

  “I just don’t understand what’s happening.” Bev’s words ended on a sob. “My husband is dead, there was a murdered man found in my library. The horse that was going to make us rich now doesn’t have a rider. My house is in shambles, Freddy and Bobby are fighting. And I’m going to spend the next two years twiddling my thumbs, getting older. And I don’t know what to do to stop it.”

  “Neither do I,” Phil said. “But I know someone who might.” She reached for a pen and paper, jotted down a quick note, and folded it over.

  She rang for Tuttle, who appeared immediately.

  She handed him the missive. “I’m not sure of the address.”

  Tuttle raised an eyebrow as he read the name on the paper. “The boy will know where to take it.”

  “Good, tell him to wait for an answer. Preswick will take care of him when he returns.”r />
  Tuttle bowed and left to instruct the messenger.

  Phil watched him leave. What was done was done. They needed help.

  And there was only person she thought she might be able to trust.

  16

  It was four o’clock when the Reynoldses’ town carriage stopped at the entrance of Central Park, and the Countess of Dunbridge stepped down to the sidewalk.

  She had changed into a beige walking suit and a matching coat with walnut trim and buttons. Her hat had just enough of a veil to shadow her appearance without blocking her view or making her look like the dowager she was.

  John Atkins was there, standing next to the stone wall and looking more dapper than a policeman should look.

  Phil took a fortifying breath, hoping to heaven she was doing the right thing. And also hoping that her demeanor was as well put together as her attire, she went to meet him.

  Atkins offered her his arm and they strolled like any other couple down the walk and into the luxurious landscape. Any other day, Phil would have enjoyed the walk immensely and perhaps even the company, but today was pure business.

  “Thank you for agreeing to meet me.”

  “Did I have a choice? It sounded rather like a summons.”

  “Did it? Old habits.”

  “Habits that you intend to modify anytime soon?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Fair enough. But let me say right away that if you’re here to complain to me about Sergeant Becker’s clumsy search of the Reynolds brownstone, Mr. Sloane has already made his feelings known.”

  “But you said he wouldn’t bother us again.”

  “Evidently I was wrong.”

  She frowned at him. A man who could admit he was wrong? Now here was a unique specimen.

  “His men were also out to Bev’s farm.”

  “And how do you know this?”

  She’d walked into that one. “We drove out.”

  “I knew I shouldn’t have released the Packard. Didn’t I tell you not to leave town?”

  “You did, but Bev felt that she needed to keep apprised of the business.”

  “Assert her authority, you mean.”

  “Well, yes, that too. The police had been there looking for a jockey.”

  “Eddie Johnson. He’s wanted for the murder of Reggie Reynolds.”

  “He didn’t do it.”

  “They found—”

  “Yes, I know. His bloody driving coat, but he said he didn’t drive that day. He’d left his driving coat with the car.”

  “And you know this how?”

  “I asked.” Phil had stopped walking in her agitation, and he nudged her onward.

  “I appreciate your enthusiasm, but if you could be a little less expressive … It would be frowned on if it were to get back to my superiors that I was meddling in things that were none of my concern.”

  “I beg your pardon,” Phil said as her cheeks heated with chagrin. “I do know better, Detective Sergeant. A slip in my breeding.”

  “Is that what your behavior has been?” he said, bestowing a smile on her that reverberated through her person. “Who told you they turned the jockey away?”

  She smiled. “I’m not at liberty to say.”

  Now he stopped. “If you know something for certain, telling me could help the man considerably.”

  “Or get him locked away for something he didn’t do so your Mr. Becker can take credit for the arrest.”

  “And heat for removing the most favored jockey from the most favored horse of next week’s race.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Thank heaven for that.”

  “You’ll not explain it to me?”

  “No. I’ve already said too much.”

  “So you can’t help?”

  “Shall we sit down, Lady Dunbridge? There’s a nice view of the pond from here.” He guided her over to a bench among the trees that was a little removed from the bustle of the winding path.

  “This is lovely,” she said on a sigh, momentarily forgetting the dire reason for her being here.

  “It is,” he agreed. He was looking at the water as if gaining peace from its still surface. And she felt a twinge of sympathy for an apparently honest man trying to work in a corrupt world. She didn’t envy him, but she did need his help.

  “Lady Dunbridge, you would do better to stay out of this. Perhaps take your friend Mrs. Reynolds to the country. Newport is very popular, as is Saratoga if you want to be near the races.”

  “You told her not to leave town, now you’re telling us to flee? Why? Are you expecting trouble? Does that mean you no longer suspect her of killing Reggie? And what about the man in the library? Who killed him?”

  “I’m not even sure the two deaths are related.”

  “How could they not be? They happened within a similar time frame, and the second occurred in the dead man’s library. How could they not be related?”

  “You must not have gotten to that chapter in your studies yet.”

  “I don’t profess to be a professional, but I care for my friends, and since it’s obvious no one can be trusted—”

  “No one?”

  “I’m trusting you, somewhat. Don’t disappoint me.”

  “Spoken like true royalty.”

  “I didn’t marry the king, merely an earl; that makes me peerage.”

  “I stand corrected.” He was acting obnoxiously formal, but his eyes were laughing. He shifted on the bench to look at her. “You are something, Lady Dunbridge.”

  “So it’s been said.”

  He laughed out loud at that. “And you’re very observant.”

  “Comes from years of surviving in London society.”

  He cocked his head.

  “The more you know and how careful you are with what you do with the information, the more secure your place in society. I suspect that you know that very well.”

  “Huh.”

  “Of course you do. The trick is to always keep the upper hand.”

  “You wouldn’t do anything foolish, would you?”

  “Me?” She laughed. “Always. But not in this particular case. How can I help?”

  He took off his hat, placed it on his knee, looked around as if he thought someone might be hiding in the trees listening to their conversation.

  When he didn’t say anything, she started for him. “I’ve been thinking for a while that this might be more than a lovers’ quarrel or a jealous triangle.”

  He nodded. “Possibly, but he was shot with a twenty-three-caliber pocket pistol. The same as Mrs. Reynolds’s pistol.”

  “But those are very common.”

  “But the bullet that killed the man in the library and the one taken from Mr. Reynolds’s body were shot from the same pistol.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “By certain markings on the bullets, though it is not always accepted as evidence in a court of law.”

  Thank heavens for that, Phil thought against her will. “Detective Sergeant, Bev didn’t shoot Reggie, so either he had it with him, or someone stole it, shot him with it, and…” She frowned. “Returned it to the library?”

  “Or she gave it to someone to do the job for her, then shot him when he returned for payment.”

  “You don’t believe that.”

  “Not really. It seems a lot of trouble to go to. And why use her own weapon, then return it to the library to be found by the police? I suspect that beneath that dramatic façade, Mrs. Reynolds is not as dumb as she seems.”

  “No, she isn’t. So what is your theory?”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “Can’t you give me a hint?”

  “So you can put yourself in harm’s way? Haven’t you had enough?”

  She’d had more than enough and her future was like a train pulling away from the station without her. Soon to be moving too fast to board.

  She knitted her brows. She hadn’t asked to meet him just to have him not answer her questions.
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br />   But if the gun he found on the library floor was the gun that killed Reggie, then …

  “I know! Reggie took the pistol with him for some reason, the thief wrestles it away from him, shoots him, comes back and breaks into the library to steal whatever he was looking for, then leaves the gun to frame Bev.”

  “But not until someone else shoots him?” Atkins threw his head back and groaned. “I should take those forensic books away from you.”

  “But someone has to do something. I won’t see my friend blamed for something she didn’t do.”

  “Stay out of it. Because you don’t, and I repeat, don’t want to draw any more attention from Charles Becker than you already have. He’ll figure out a way to soak every penny from both you and Mrs. Reynolds, and Daniel Sloane, too.”

  “Oh, dear.”

  “But if you leave it alone, he may be done with the two of you. So I would—as we say in police parlance—lie low and don’t make waves.”

  “I understand. But is there nothing to be done about him and his cronies?”

  Atkins leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and staring down at the grass at his feet. “I was a young beat cop when Mr. Roosevelt became commissioner back in ’95. He was a great man, had real plans to clean up the force. It was rife with corruption and violence then.”

  It seemed to Phil not much had changed, but she held her tongue.

  “It was an uphill battle, none of the old-timers wanted change, they were cleaning up with graft and corruption. Fortunes were made squeezing the small shop owners, the saloons, even the big guns who had something to hide.

  “He worked hard, gave hope to some of us that the police could be a vehicle for change. They fought him at every step. Two years later he left to become assistant secretary of the navy, then vice president, now president. And things here have reverted to the old ways.”

  “Leaving you and the other reformers at the mercy of a corrupt head.”

  He leaned down and plucked a dandelion ball from the grass, shook it, releasing the delicate winged seeds into the air. They watched the tiny seeds float away.

  “Such that it is.”

  “But surely—”

  He sat up straighter. “I don’t expect you’d be interested. I just told you this in order to give you some idea of what you’re up against. Becker searched the brownstone for a purpose. He may have been looking for something specific or it might just be a ploy to intimidate Mrs. Reynolds. Whatever it is, you can believe it’s something nefarious.