I sucked in a gulp of air as I saw his finger tighten on the trigger. Gregory must have seen it, too, because he finally stepped back a few feet, clearing the way for Ahern and his hostage to pass. Never taking his eyes off us, Ahern began backing up the corridor. At the end of the hall, he’d be able to turn and escape out the back of the jail.
I felt someone stir behind me, and glimpsed Eddie heading in the direction of the lobby. I tried to grab him, but he was too quick. I could only pray that Ahern wouldn’t notice him. Still, I wondered fearfully, What in the world was the boy up to?
In front of me, Captain Gregory, Lewis, Jimmy Wolf, and the two patrolmen started to move toward Ahern. Seeing this, the lieutenant raised his gun and fired a shot. I heard Jimmy Wolf cry out, then drop heavily to the floor.
George Lewis gave a loud curse and, against Captain Gregory’s orders, started running toward Ahern. He had gone only a couple of yards when Ahern again raised his pistol, aiming it at Lewis’s heart.
Then the most peculiar thing happened. Just as Ahern was about to pull the trigger, he suddenly grunted and released his grip on his hostage. Staggering forward a step or two, he fell facedown onto the floor. The gun discharged, but thankfully the bullet lodged harmlessly in the ceiling.
Directly behind Ahern’s prone body stood Eddie Cooper, a huge grin on his narrow little face as he stared down at his victim. His homemade cosh still rested in his hand, at the ready in case he might need to use it again. I realized now why he’d slipped away and run toward the jail lobby. He must have circled around the men’s cell blocks in order to come up on the lieutenant from the rear.
Good Lord! And to think I’d told the boy his cosh wouldn’t be needed. From now on, I vowed, I never wanted to see Eddie without it!
Jimmy Wolf had been taken by stretcher to the nearest hospital, while Madame Karpova had been removed to a room, where she, too, was being examined by a doctor. The rest of us, still shaken by the ordeal, watched numbly while Sergeant Lewis handcuffed his former lieutenant, who had regained consciousness and was fixing us all with baleful glares.
As soon as Lewis hauled Ahern to his feet, Captain Gregory approached his old friend. “Frank Ahern,” he began, “in addition to the earlier charges made against you, I’m arresting you for the murders of Dmitry Serkov, Cecil Vere, Darien Moss, and Mrs. Theodora Reade. You are advised that anything you say will be duly noted and may be used—”
“Oh, but he didn’t kill Moss and Mrs. Reade,” I said, breaking in.
Annoyed, Captain Gregory turned to me. “Oh, really. And just who are you, miss?”
“I’m Sarah Woolson—Madame Karpova’s attorney.”
“Oh, yes, I remember hearing she had some woman representing her, but I thought it was a joke. Now what are you going on about? Ahern just admitted Moss was blackmailing him. And we know he had to get rid of Mrs. Reade because she was a witness to the murder.”
“You have the motives correct, Captain,” I said. “But I’m afraid you have the wrong villain. Lieutenant Ahern paid Cecil Vere to stab Dmitry Serkov, and then he killed Cecil to keep him from talking. And of course he attempted to strangle my client in her jail cell. But he had nothing to do with the Cliff House murder, nor that of Theodora Reade.”
Captain Gregory was clearly losing his patience. “Then who the hell did kill Moss and Reade?”
“Actually, the murderer is right here,” I said. “Perhaps he’d prefer to tell you what happened. After all, it was his secret he was trying to protect.” I turned to the new attorney. “Do you want to tell them, Nicholas?”
Yelena started, then looked up at the young man with frightened eyes. “Nicholas, what is she saying?”
“Nothing, darling,” he told her, not taking his eyes off me. “She’s talking nonsense.”
“I only wish I were,” I replied sadly. “Unfortunately, Nicholas, you were responsible for strangling Darien Moss the night of the séance.”
“But why?” Robert demanded before Captain Gregory could gather his wits to speak.
“Because Moss had learned something about Nicholas which would have ruined him, and very likely devastated his entire family, as well. Certainly, if it became known, it would have prevented him from ever practicing law in this city, much less running for public office.”
All eyes were on Nicholas, whose face had drained of color. “Why are you telling these lies, Miss Woolson?”
I looked at the young man, so tall and handsome, sharp intelligence gleaming in his dark hazel eyes. What a tragedy, I thought, to possess all this talent, only to have his life cut short by the gallows. I sighed. “You know I’m speaking the truth, Nicholas.”
“That’s ridiculous,” he protested. “Why would I kill Moss? I have no ties to my father’s construction firm. I’ve certainly had nothing to do with the new City Hall project.”
“Oh, Nicholas,” I said wearily. “What Moss learned about you had nothing to do with the new City Hall enterprise and you know it.”
“Well then, what did Moss have on him?” Captain Gregory demanded impatiently.
“Wouldn’t you rather be the one to tell him?” I asked, but the young man merely glared at me and remained silent. “Very well, then, I suppose I must.” I turned to the captain. “I’m afraid Darien Moss discovered that Nicholas has a—” I cleared my throat. Normally, I would never have divulged such a sensitive and personal secret. I strongly believe that some matters are best kept private, and Lord help me, this was certainly one of those times. Yet in the interest of justice, I knew I must go on. “Shall we say, ah, that he has a preference for the company of other young men?”
“He what?” Captain Gregory said, looking confused.
“Sarah!” Robert blurted, his face red with embarrassment. “You’re not accusing Mr. Bramwell of being, er, a sodomite.”
“Lordy, the bloke’s a Mary?” said Eddie, clearly astonished. “Sure don’t look like any I’ve ever seen.”
“Nicholas,” Yelena asked in a small voice. “This is true?”
“No, of course not.” His face was flushed and damp with nervous perspiration.
“How did you come to that remarkable, and extremely unlikely, conclusion?” Captain Gregory cynically demanded.
“For several reasons,” I replied. “To begin with, Darien Moss referred to him as ‘Janus’ that night at the Cliff House. I had totally forgotten about it in all the excitement. When I did remember, I looked the name up in one of my father’s books and found that it referred to the Roman god Janus.”
“Janus,” Robert said thoughtfully. “Wait a minute. Isn’t he the god known as the guardian of portals? He’s always shown as having two heads, one in front, the other in back.”
I nodded. “It was Darien Moss’s none-too-subtle reference to Nicholas’s two natures, the persona he displayed in public, and his true nature, which he had to guard at all cost.”
“You based all this on the fact that Moss called him Janus?” Gregory asked skeptically.
“No, Captain,” I said, “There’s more. When Robert and I went back to the Cliff House a week or so later, we met Nicholas and some of his friends in the saloon. When Yelena’s name came up, Nicholas’s friends teased him about their relationship. Among other things, they wanted to know if he’d taken her to meet Nancy yet. There was something about their goading that bothered me. It was obvious they shared some sort of private joke. When I asked my brother Samuel about it, he told me that Nancy’s is a popular saloon frequented by gentlemen with, ah, the same tastes as Nicholas’s.”
“So that’s why you were asking me all those bizarre questions,” Samuel put in. “I couldn’t imagine what—”
Captain Gregory interrupted somewhat testily. “Wait a minute. Even if Bramwell is a—well, what you said, Miss Woolson, that doesn’t necessarily make him a murderer.”
“No, but the fact that he described Yelena’s face when the lightning struck during the séance does. He told me she wore an expression of horror, an
expression, I might add, he couldn’t possibly have seen from where he was sitting. Only someone on Moss’s side of the table could have observed her face at that particular moment. And, of course, that’s exactly where Nicholas was standing, behind Moss, whom he had just garroted with the balalaika wire.”
“This is ludicrous!” Nicholas exclaimed. “I tell you I had no reason to kill Darien Moss. If I had the—the attributes you described, I hardly would have asked Aldora Radburn to marry me.”
“Did you ask her, Nicholas?” I inquired. “Or did your mother push you into it as a means of furthering your career? You went along with the match, intending, no doubt, to continue your own pursuits even after the marriage. Then you began to realize how domineering and forceful Miss Radburn is—perhaps too much like your own mother for comfort. Aldora would likely be the sort of wife to watch her husband’s every move, choose his friends, his clothes, even approve his clubs. You saw your plan of carrying on with your private life fading with each passing day. You must have panicked as the wedding loomed closer. Somehow, you had to find a way out of the marriage.”
Yelena’s face had grown pale. She looked up at Nicholas, her large dark eyes intense. “This is true? This is why you take me out, say you love me? So to break off marriage with other woman?”
“I—” If he was about to protest his innocence, something in her face made him change his mind. “It’s true that I’m very fond of you, Yelena,” he said, hedging.
“Fond,” she spat out. “Fond is not same as love. You tell me fiancée break off wedding because you tell her it is me you love. But you not love me. You love no woman!” Her beautiful eyes filled with tears. “You use me. You want out of marriage, so you use stupid little Russian girl to scare off fiancée.”
“Yelena, please,” the young man pleaded. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
She looked up at him through her tears. “Oh, yes, I know. I wonder why you no hold me like other men. No kiss, no hug. I think this strange. But I love you. I tell myself it is because I am so young and when we marry it will change.”
Yelena was weeping now, but when Nicholas tried to put his arm around her, she pushed him away. “Dostatochno! I even lie for you!” she managed to say between sobs. “At séance, I see you out of seat when lightning strike. I see you rush around table. But I lie when policeman ask what I see. I tell him I see nothing.”
“Yelena, please!” Nicholas pleaded, his nervous eyes going to Captain Gregory.
“Miss Karpova,” Captain Gregory said. “Do you mean to tell me you actually saw Nicholas Bramwell out of his seat when Darien Moss was killed?”
She nodded. “On other side of table. Then he run back fast to seat.” She looked up at Nicholas, who was now perspiring profusely. “At time I think maybe he kill evil man, but I not care because reporter says bad things about Mama. Better he be dead.”
“That’s enough!” Nicholas shouted. “Don’t you see what you’re doing to me, Yelena? You said yourself that Moss was evil. They should be thanking me for getting rid of him. He didn’t care what he did to people. All he cared about was selling newspapers.”
“So you admit you killed Moss?” Captain Gregory said.
“I don’t think of it as murder!” There was a wild gleam in his eyes now, like that of a hunted animal who’s been cornered and has no place to run. “Darien Moss deserved to die. You must see that. He was a monster! He wanted me to pay him a small fortune to keep my secret—money I had no hope of raising. It would have destroyed me, and killed my mother. He left me no way out.”
“Except murder,” Robert said, regarding the young man with disdain.
“What about Mrs. Reade?” I asked softly. “Did she also deserve to die?”
A flicker of guilt crossed Bramwell’s handsome face. “I didn’t want to kill her, but she’d seen me strangle Moss. The only reason she didn’t tell the police was that she couldn’t believe her own eyes. She was my godmother; she’d known me since I was a baby.”
“So, you dressed up as Dmitry Serkov, got out of your supposed sickbed, went to Washington Square, and strangled your own godmother,” I said in a flat voice. “When I first realized you were the killer, I felt genuine sympathy for the impossible situation Darien Moss had placed you in. Now, the only compassion I feel is for your victims, not only Moss and Mrs. Reade but Dmitry Serkov, whom you were willing to see hang for your crimes.”
“Serkov.” He said the name as if it were of no consequence. “He was nothing but a common criminal. Even you admitted that, Yelena. He had nothing to contribute to society. But my life was just starting. It’s like Mother said: I could be governor, maybe even president one day.”
Yelena’s eyes blazed at him. “Dmitry was thief, yes. But he was only father I know. He take care of me, of Mama. He was not evil. Not like you.”
“But don’t you see?” Nicholas said, his eyes welling with tears. “I had no choice. Moss would have ruined everything my mother and I had worked so hard to achieve. I couldn’t let that happen. You must see that!”
Captain Gregory made a slight motion with his head, and George Lewis walked over to Nicholas Bramwell, quietly cuffing his hands behind his back. Tears streaming down his face, the young lawyer made no attempt to escape the manacles.
All I could read in those striking hazel eyes was the humiliation of defeat. Not guilt or sorrow that he had killed two human beings, but sorrow that he’d been caught. I also read self-pity there. Yes, I thought sadly, a great deal of self-pity.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
To Eddie Cooper’s considerable delight, Samuel wrote an article about the boy’s skill and bravery in singlehandedly bringing down an armed murderer at the city jail. The story made the front page of the Chronicle, and included a picture of a beaming Eddie brandishing his beloved cosh. Of course there was no living with the lad for days after the article came out. I suspect he seriously depleted his wages buying up every edition of the paper he could find and handing copies out to anyone who could read.
Lieutenant Ahern and Nicholas Bramwell were arraigned and were being held without bail. Having them safely behind bars did not bring back any of their victims, of course, but I daresay I was not the only one in the city who was sleeping better at night.
Philippa Bramwell took the arrest of her younger son very badly. Naturally, she hired the best defense attorney in San Francisco, and quickly become persona non grata at the jail because of her constant complaints that they were treating her son as if he were a common criminal. To his credit, Edgar Bramwell managed to strike a balance between standing by his son and at the same time holding him accountable for his actions.
Personally, I felt sorry for Cecil Vere’s fiancée, Annie Fitzgerald, as well as for the Ahern family. I have always found it unfair that when a family member breaks the law and is placed behind bars, innocent relatives are forever forced to bear that individual’s shame and dishonor.
Loyal to the end, Annie Fitzgerald flatly refused to believe that her Cecil could be a murderer, and no one, including Capt. Pete Gregory, could convince her otherwise. I went to visit her shortly after Ahern’s arrest, and it was Annie’s considered opinion that the lieutenant had blamed the Russki’s death on her Cecil in order to save his own neck from the noose. She argued this so vehemently, I wisely decided not to dispute the issue.
As for Nora Ahern, the last I heard was that she eventually planned to move back to the Midwest, where she’d been born and raised and where her family still resided. Perhaps there she would find the loving support she needed to live out the remainder of her life in peace.
On a happier note, shortly after Luther Sechrest’s arrest, Alexandra was awarded sole custody of her two boys. Luther was also required by the court to make full financial restitution to Leighton Mining Company and the city of San Francisco for money he’d stolen over the past ten years. Since the Sechrest home would most likely have to be sold to help pay these debts, Alexandra accepted an invitation from her n
eighbor, Mrs. Jane Hardy, to move in with her until matters were settled. Both women began volunteering their time at Annjenett Fowler’s safe house. Along with Annjenett, they were dedicated to bringing the ignominy of spousal abuse out of the bedroom and into community awareness, efforts I wholeheartedly applauded and supported.
The day before Madame Karpova and her daughter, Yelena, were scheduled to leave for Los Angeles, my sister-in-law Celia shyly asked me to accompany her to see the psychic. I think she feared I might consider her foolish, but I assured her that the one thing I had learned over the past month was to keep an open mind. I couldn’t begin to explain Olga Karpova’s uncanny predictions, and I’d finally decided that Hamlet was correct when he observed, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
When we arrived at the Karpova’s hotel rooms, we found them a beehive of activity. Two large trunks stood open, filled to near capacity with clothes, shoes, hats, undergarments, and various paraphernalia I presumed were used during the clairvoyant’s séances and other performances. While Celia had her private reading with Madame Karpova, I spent a pleasant hour chatting with Yelena as she completed her packing.
Although Nicholas Bramwell’s name was not mentioned, I could tell from the girl’s downcast eyes and quiet demeanor that she continued to mourn for the dashing, handsome young attorney. Despite his eventual betrayal, Nicholas had provided a strong shoulder to cry on after Dmitry Serkov’s death and her mother’s arrest. And he’d offered Yelena a world she could only dream of, a world she frequently glimpsed through Madame Karpova’s work, but one she’d never expected to be part of.
“Will you continue to tour with your mother?” I asked. “Or do you have other plans in mind?”
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