The Fall Of White City (Gilded Age Mysteries Book 1)

by N. S. Wikarski

  “Really? And why is that, pray tell?”

  “He wears so much hair pomade that one is fairly blinded by the glare when he takes off his hat.” Miss DeWitt tittered at the image.

  “What a dashing figure he must be,” Evangeline encouraged further confidence. “And what about Mr. DiStefano? Does he fall into the same category?”

  “I should say not!” exclaimed Miss Burroughs. “He’s about as pompous a fellow as I’ve ever seen—very earnest about his work. That is,” she qualified the statement, “as far as I can tell since he hardly ever condescends to speak to anyone about it.”

  “So he doesn’t join you here often?”

  Miss Burroughs laughed. “He comes here about as often as you do, Engie!”

  “Oh, I see, once in a blue moon? But at least when I do decide to show up, I have enough common decency to carry on a conversation.”

  “The distinction is duly noted. But we only criticize your absence, my dear, because we enjoy your company and miss you when you make yourself so scarce.”

  “Very elegantly said, Therese. I’ve never had the knack of turning a potential insult into such a pretty compliment. I’m quite impressed.” Miss DeWitt giggled at the retort and indulged in mock applause. Miss Burroughs bowed her head to acknowledge the approbation.

  “But on a more serious note, Engie, we’re very sorry to hear about Elsa. I know that she was a particular favorite of yours, and I’m sure I speak for both of us when I say how sad we are about it.”

  Evangeline glanced down briefly at the table. “Yes, it was a great shock. I attended her funeral last Wednesday.”

  “And to have Franz arrested, too. How could he do such a thing?” Miss DeWitt added timorously.

  “It’s a little early to make the assumption that he’s guilty. But without some solid evidence to point the police in another direction, I’m very much afraid he’ll be convicted just the same.”

  The faces of Miss DeWitt and Miss Burroughs took on a look of gloom.

  With a start, Evangeline realized how long she had dallied in the dining hall. She stood abruptly. “I’m sorry to leave you both in such a depressed state, but I had better be getting along to my class now.”

  The two ladies sent her off with murmurings of condolence. As she retreated toward the end of the room, Evangeline could hear Miss DeWitt heave a tremendous sigh. The young lady summed up the situation with great sincerity, if not great originality, “How very, very sad.”

  ***

  Some two hours later when Evangeline dismissed her literature class for the evening, she called out to a girl seated in the back row. “Miss MacGregor, I’d like you to stay. I need to speak to you about something.”

  The girl nodded nervously. Being singled out at work was usually cause for alarm, and she seemed to apply the same rule to the classroom. Although she was a head taller than Evangeline, she somehow managed to shrink down below her teacher’s height as she dawdled her way to the front desk.

  “Mary, can I talk to you in confidence about something?”

  Still too tense to speak, the girl nodded.

  “You must promise not to tell anyone. Is that agreed?”

  “Yes, miss.” The girl bobbed a curtsy as a sign of assent.

  “Very well then, please sit down.” Evangeline gestured toward a student desk in the front row facing her chair.

  Mary compressed her tall frame into the seat and waited.

  Evangeline drew her chair up closer to the girl. “You were a good friend of Elsa’s, weren’t you?”

  “Lord, yes. We were true friends, and that’s a fact. I’m going to miss her something terrible now.” Mary’s eyes filled with tears as she fumbled for a handkerchief in her pocket.

  “It’s all right, my dear.” Evangeline patted her hand. “I was very fond of her myself. That’s why I’m trying to find out everything I can about her habits and her acquaintances to see if they lead to her murderer.”

  “Good gracious, miss!” Mary’s hand flew to her mouth in a gesture that mixed alarm and curiosity. “But they’ve already arrested Franz. Everybody knows that.”

  “Just because he’s been arrested doesn’t mean he’s guilty.”

  “Oh! You think maybe somebody else could have done it? Who do you think it was?”

  “Right now, I have no idea.” Evangeline chose to conceal her theories for the time being. “But I need to know anything you can tell me about the time she spent here. For instance, who was she friendly with?”

  “Miss LeClair! You don’t think anyone here had a hand in it, do you?” Mary’s eyes, which were abnormally large, flew open wider still. She was breathing very rapidly.

  “Mary, please calm down! You needn’t distress yourself this way. I’m merely asking the question in order to know who her friends were. Maybe one of them might be able to put me on the trail of something. Do you recall anyone else she was close to?”

  Mary took a deep breath, trying to recollect any details. “Well, I’ve seen her talk to lots of people here, but not in any particular way. Nothing that I thought was odd. She was always quizzing everybody about everything. You know how she was...”

  “Curious, you mean.”

  “Yes, curious—about everything. I used to see her in the nursery room talking to the matrons. I saw her in the workshop looking at how the clay pots get fired in that big kiln they have. She’d talk to the girls at reception and said maybe she’d like a job like that, as a volunteer greeting visitors and such. One time, I even saw her asking Miss Jane how she put together the daily schedule.”

  “Yes, she did have a variety of interests, didn’t she.” Evangeline tried to assess the potential for Elsa’s contact with someone violent. “Did you ever see her with a young man?—possibly one of the other students?”

  Mary thought for a moment. “No, I can’t recollect that. Not anything special anyway. She was shy around boys, you know. I’d put her up to meeting one by dropping a book or some such thing, but she’d have none of it. Always hung back when I’d tease one of the fellows. As a matter of fact, the only one I ever saw her talk to was that Mr. Sidley who does the books.”

  “You mean the accountant?” Evangeline was puzzled.

  “Yes, that’s the one. Like you said, she was interested in everything—numbers, too. So one day she walks past the door of his office and sees him adding up these rows of numbers on a big white sheet of paper and asks him what he was doing and why.”

  “And how did they get along?”

  Mary shrugged. “Oh, fine I expect. She talked to him once in a while, and he always smiled at us when we’d see him in the hallway, but nothing odd about that, is there?”

  “No, not really.”

  “Besides,” Mary giggled nervously, “he’s not the sort a girl would look at twice, is he?”

  An image of the accountant’s gawky appearance flashed through Evangeline’s mind. With spectacles, a receding hairline and a chin to match, he was hardly any girl’s romantic ideal. “Well, maybe I’ll talk to him to see if he can recall any other little details about Elsa. Is there anything else you can think of?”

  Mary concentrated for a moment. “Well, there was just that one time.”

  “Yes?” Evangeline was all attention.

  “I think Mr. Sidley had a special pass for the Fair that he couldn’t use, and I’m pretty sure he gave it to Elsa. Yes, I believe she said so. It was sometime way back in the spring.”

  Evangeline frowned, trying to digest this new bit of information. “Did he accompany her there?”

  “I don’t know, miss, because Elsa never talked about it again, and after that I never saw her talking to him again either. I’m sorry, but that’s all I remember.”

  “That’s all right. You’ve been very helpful. One never knows what bit of information might be of use. Perhaps you should be going before it gets too late.” Evangeline watched the girl rise to go. “Mary, remember what I said.”

  “About keeping this a secre
t?”

  “Yes, exactly,” Evangeline said in a dramatic whisper. “You must swear it.”

  The girl looked alarmed again, but Evangeline wanted to gain that reaction. “Yes, miss. I swear it! On my mother’s grave, I’ll never tell.” She put her hand over her heart for further emphasis as her eyes took on the appearance of large, blue glass marbles.

  Satisfied with this display, Evangeline smiled and told her to run along home. After the girl left, she sat for a while lost in thought. For the first time in her review of possible suspects she considered the accountant. Not realizing that she was thinking out loud to the empty classroom, she said, “Sidley? But he’s so very common... What an absurd notion!”

  As she was collecting her papers to go, she happened to glance down at the volume still lying open on her desk. The class had been studying Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Purloined Letter.” Her eyes gravitated to the words, “... These, like the overlargely lettered signs and placards of the street, escape observation by dint of being excessively obvious; and here the physical oversight is precisely analogous with the moral inapprehension by which the intellect suffers to pass unnoticed those considerations which are too obtrusively and too palpably self-evident.”

  Evangeline smiled grimly. “Well, Mr. Poe, perhaps I should heed your observation. We shall see if you’re right. In due course, we shall see.” She closed the book, collected the rest of her papers, and went downstairs where Jack was waiting with her carriage.

  Chapter 7—The Accountant’s Lair

  “Ahem!” Evangeline stood in the doorway of the resident accountant’s office on Tuesday afternoon.

  Jacob Sidley failed to notice her. He was seated at a desk, huddled over a mound of ledger books. Adding-machine paper littered the desk and snaked its way to the floor, apparently in the hope of eventually making an escape through the door when the list of numbers grew long enough. Sidley seemed to be lost in the mathematical impossibility of reconciling the settlement’s funds against its too plentiful expenses. Evangeline heard him muttering to himself. “But that can’t be. I told them not to present that bill until next week! Now what’s to be done?”

  “Ah-hem!” Evangeline coughed again to make her presence known. Sidley jerked his head up and stared at her blankly. His mind was apparently still so focused on debits and credits that he hadn’t made the mental connection to the person standing in front of him. After a few more seconds, a look of surprise replaced the scowl on his face. He jumped up from his seat, knocking over a pile of bills in the process.

  “Oh, my g... goodness. It’s M... Miss LeClair!” Evangeline watched in amusement as the accountant faced a new mathematical problem, that of dividing himself in two. He couldn’t seem to decide whether to bend down and scoop up the papers or show her in, and tried to do both at the same time. He bobbed back and forth between the two objects of his immediate attention until courtesy won out. Stepping over the debris, he welcomed his guest.

  “Here, m... miss, please sit down, w... won’t you.” He eagerly dragged a chair away from the wall for Evangeline. While she was arranging herself, he attempted to retrieve the evidence of the settlement’s debts. In an unexpected move, he dropped down on all fours to peer under the desk.

  “So sorry, Miss LeClair. Don’t m... mean to be rude, but I don’t know if I m... missed any.” He was referring to the bills still scattered about. “It would be a t... terrible thing, w... wouldn’t do at all if one landed under the d... desk and I forgot to pay it. Well, what do you know...” He cocked his head to the side and rested it against the floor to spot anything lurking under the desk.

  “You see, j... just as I suspected!” He fished around up to his shoulder and emerged with a single piece of paper. “It’s the bill for the grocer.” He waved the slip under Evangeline’s nose for further emphasis. “We c... couldn’t have that now, could we? No f... food deliveries for a week! I’d never hear the end of it from M... M... Miss Ellen if this didn’t get paid.” He pushed his glasses back up to the bridge of his nose in a final emphatic gesture and then resettled himself in his chair behind the desk, mopping his brow with a handkerchief at the same time.

  “Well, wh... what a surprise this is! I g... get so few callers and am so often immersed in my work that I f... forget how enjoyable a break in the routine can be.” He smiled nervously, apparently unsure whether his enthusiasm at her presence would be welcome or not. More formally, he added, “In what w... way can I be of service to you, Miss LeClair?”

  Attempting to put him at ease, Evangeline flashed her most disarming smile. “Why Mr. Sidley, we needn’t so hastily turn to business. While I do have a small matter to discuss, I thought it would be nice to chat awhile first. Both of us seem to spend so little time sharing in the Mast House community that I’m making it a point to get to know my colleagues on a more personal level. Is this an inconvenient time for such a visit?”

  Sidley flushed and stammered with pleasure. “No... uh... of course not... m... miss... not at all. I w... welcome such a p... pleasant interruption.”

  Evangeline paused as if a new thought had just struck her. “But perhaps this... isn’t the best place. Mightn’t we have our little visit elsewhere? Perhaps a stroll would do you good. Fresh air, you know.”

  At the invitation, Sidley jumped up out of his chair, this time upsetting a ledger book that had been hanging precariously over the edge of the desk. Mumbling, “Clumsy, so clumsy, f... forgive me,” he bobbed down on the floor to pick it up. Stepping over the other piles of paper, which surrounded his chair like an encroaching army, he walked over to Evangeline and extended his arm to her. In an inept attempt at courtliness, he said, “Miss LeClair, I am entirely at your d... disposal for h... however long you ch... choose to hold me c... captive.”

  Evangeline laughed airily. “Sir, you flatter me and confer a far greater value on my charms than they deserve.”

  Sidley blushed and shuffled his feet self-consciously. He tried repeatedly to formulate what Evangeline anticipated to be an elaborate compliment, but all he succeeded in mouthing were a series of incoherent syllables. “Miss, I... uh... oh yes, well, I assure you that... uh... I... that is...”

  “I think I know what you were about to say, Mr. Sidley,” Evangeline intervened smoothly.

  “You d... do?” The accountant appeared mystified.

  “Why yes. And a very pretty compliment it is, too. You were about to say that, being an accountant, you spend your whole day calculating values, and you believe you have assessed my attractions at their proper worth.” Without giving the poor man time to confirm, or deny, the accuracy of her statement, Evangeline lowered her eyes demurely. “Mr. Sidley, you are too kind.” She swept through the door and out of the office.

  ***

  The two walked out of the old mansion and headed east on Polk Street. The air was more than fresh. With a strong wind off Lake Michigan, it was bracing to say the least, but the sky was sunny and the season still held a hint of Indian summer.

  “I know so little about you, Mr. Sidley. If you don’t mind gratifying my curiosity, would you tell me what checkered path has led you to our door at Mast House?”

  Sidley seemed to have recovered his composure. He appeared relaxed as he contemplated the question. “Oh, it was a ch... checkered path indeed, Miss LeClair. I am originally from Iowa.”

  Evangeline noted that Sidley’s whispery, hesitant speech was less marred by a stutter when he calmed down. “Well, I would never have guessed. And what could possibly have brought you here?”

  “Initially, it was b... better opportunity for employment.” Sidley adjusted the rebellious spectacles, which were forever threatening to slip off of his nose. “I had learned the business of accounting at a small bank in Dodgeville. Realizing that the town offered l... little inducement to stay for a young man of ambition, I thought to move to a larger city. Chicago was the nearest and s... so here I am.”

  “And so here you are. But you aren’t being paid for the wor
k you do at the settlement. How does that further your ambition?”

  Sidley smiled again, the bashful schoolboy being replaced increasingly by the pompous professor. “An astute observation, Miss LeClair. I did not come directly to M... Mast House after arriving here. I was employed for some time in a small downtown concern.”

  “Really! Which one?”

  Sidley hesitated as if trying to remember something that had become only a vague memory. “P... perhaps you’ve heard of the accounting firm of Hart And Hudson?”

  “No, I can’t say that I have.”

  “Well, not many people have. It occupies a rather obscure location on an upper f... floor of one of the State Street office buildings. I was there for three years.”

  “Fascinating. And what made you leave? Surely, you were under no compulsion to go, were you?”

  “N... no, c... certainly n... not!” Sidley seemed to be disturbed by the question. Evangeline noticed a slight twitch in the corner of his left eye. “Or at least not the k... kind of compulsion you might be s... suggesting.”

  “I... suggest... ?” Evangeline gasped in mock surprise. She didn’t want to excite Sidley’s nervousness and, perhaps, put him on his guard. “Why, sir, forgive me if I have unwittingly implied anything remotely dishonorable!”

  The tension that Evangeline could feel in the accountant’s arm gradually relaxed.

  “Oh M... Miss LeClair, I do apologize. My words must have sounded unnecessarily defensive. You are right though. There was c... compulsion of a sort in my leaving. It was the compulsion to answer a higher calling.”

  “Oh?” Evangeline raised her eyebrows quizzically.

  “Yes, I had been a selfish man, living only to p... pursue my own advantage. But I had reached a crossroads in my life. Are you a churchgoer, M... Miss LeClair?”

  Taken aback by the abruptness of the question, Evangeline found that it was her turn to stammer. “Well... er... not exactly... that is, I mean...”

  Without waiting for her to untangle herself, Sidley continued. “Well, I am. I attend the Third Presbyterian Church regularly. I believe that my t... transformation began the moment I first stepped into the vestibule.”