Crooked in His Ways

by S. M. Goodwin

Of course, he felt like a snake for scheming ways to bring back Waggers’s body—if that had really been the dog Powell had in his ice box—without having either Lightner or O’Malley with him.

  Still, Lightner had been the one to insist he go along with O’Malley, so he clearly had no interest in the young woman. And O’Malley—green young sprig that he was—was more interested in the cheque.

  So he’d done the younger man a good turn by leaving him with the honor of presenting Davies with the money.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to be with me when we give it to him?” O’Malley had asked, his generosity in wanting to share the credit making Hy feel twice as snaky for weaseling a way to get back to Miss Brinkley by himself.

  “Nope, you did the work, Patrolman. You should take all the credit.”

  The minute he’d gotten shed of the younger man, his conscience had dictated that he go back over to Martello’s building—that was police business, after all—and talk to the last tenant.

  As Hy had suspected, it had been a waste of time. The two older women who’d shared the apartment hadn’t seen either an old lady or pretty young girl visitors or anything they thought was out of the ordinary.

  Having gotten that errand off his chest, he’d hoofed it over to the good doctor’s shack, only to find it dark and locked.

  The carriage house was also locked, so Lightner must have already come and gone. “Well, dang,” he muttered. He wanted that damned dog.

  No doubt Harold could get him inside the stuffer shack.

  He knocked on the Stamplers’ back door—the one that led to their kitchen—his stomach growling; maybe Mrs. Stampler would have some of those shortbread biscuits.

  Hy knocked again and then peered through the window, struggling to see through a small gap in the curtains.

  He squinted. “Now what the—” he muttered, turning his head to get a better look.

  Hy’s eyes bulged at what he saw. “Well, holy shit,” he said. It was a damned doorway—cut right into the wall with no frame or door.

  Hy grinned; Lightner had been right. He was probably down there right now. Hy turned the doorknob and found it unlocked.

  Without the curtain in the way, he could see that the opening was normally hidden behind a section of cupboards that looked as if they were built into the wall. Instead, somebody had shoved them aside to expose the doorway.

  He poked his head into the opening. “Hello?” he called out, his voice echoing weirdly in the small landing, which had stairs leading down. The steps were stone and looked to have been hewed from the bedrock itself. Hy knew it wasn’t the cellar because the entrance to that was outside the building. He’d checked the cellars under both houses the first day and had found nothing unusual.

  His feet carried him down without any urging from his brain.

  There was light shining below and Hy saw the feet first, instantly recognizing Lightner’s fine footwear.

  “Inspector?” He took the last few steps so quickly he almost tripped and fell on top of Lightner’s body, which was curled up facing the wall.

  “Jesus Christ,” he whispered, dropping to his knees and leaning over him.

  The Englishman was pale, but then he was always pale. Hy lowered his ear to Lightner’s mouth.

  Which was when he saw the body against the opposite wall. Or what was left of a body.

  “He’s alive, Detective.”

  Hy screamed like a little girl and spun on his knees.

  Mrs. Stampler stood a few feet away, holding a pistol pointed at Hy, while Harold hovered beside her.

  The old woman gave him the same grandmotherly smile she’d been giving him all along. “Stand up and come away from his lordship, Detective.”

  “Did you poison him?”

  She gave a warm chuckle. “Oh, heavens no. He is such a delightful man, and poison is such a painful way to die. No, Harold just gave him enough of a knock to put him down and then I gave him a bit of this.” She pointed to a small medicine bottle on the work bench. “It’s morphine. He’s feeling no pain right now, and he’ll pass quietly and never know what happened to him, when the time comes.”

  Hy’s horrified gaze was pulled by something else on the work bench, something about a foot away from the bottle.

  “Jesus Christ. Is that Powell’s arm?”

  “No need to take the Lord’s name in vain, Detective. Yes, that is Doctor Powell’s arm. As you’ve probably surmised, the good doctor has already gone to his eternal reward. I’m afraid he came to Harold with several accusations when he was released from your stationhouse.” She clucked her tongue. “He was quite ugly about Miss Martello’s tools ending up in his shop, not to mention the saw, which apparently wasn’t the one Albert had taken from him, but one Harold borrowed last December.” The old lady clucked her tongue. “Harold told me not to plant it at Miss Martello’s, but I ignored him. And now see what has happened?”

  Hy’s brain didn’t seem to be working.

  “Why don’t you have a seat, Detective.” She pointed to a fancy gold and white chair that didn’t look as if it could hold his weight.

  “It’s a Chippendale,” she said. “The chair,” she explained when he stared. “It’s worth a great deal of money. All of this is.” She waved down the narrow tunnel, which was crowded with paintings, furniture, and rolled-up things he assumed were rugs, along with other, less identifiable items.

  “Now,” she said, her face shifting, the muscles moving beneath the skin until she no longer resembled a kindly old grandmother. “Sit. Down.”

  Hy sat.

  “Go fetch some rope, Harold.”

  Harold picked up a candlestick and disappeared down the tunnel.

  “You can clasp your hands behind your back.”

  Hy hesitated, and the old woman reached out with her free hand and picked up the saw that lay on the wooden workbench; the sharp metal teeth were already full of blood, bits of bone, and skin. All of it looked fresh. “It makes no difference to Harold if you’re alive or dead when he goes to work on you, Detective.”

  Hy put his hands behind his back.

  The chair had a round padded back with a gap between the back and the seat. Hy pressed his hip against the chair frame, hoping that would hide the bulge of his knife sheath, which he wore on the same belt that held his baton.

  Mrs. Stampler smiled. “There, now. I knew you’d do things the wise way.”

  His eyes bounced around the tunnel, searching for a way out of—“Is that Frumkin’s hand?” he blurted, his gaze fixed on the skeletal gray hand in a glass jar on the counter.

  “Why yes, it is,” she said, her expression placid.

  “But … why?”

  “It’s the Hand of Glory,” Harold said as he emerged from the tunnel, a coil of rope in one hand. “It is the hand of a murderer, dried and pickled according to the Compendium Maleficarum. It is supposed to open any door.”

  Hy looked from Harold’s insane gaze to the old lady.

  Mrs. Stampler shrugged.

  Hy had to ask. “Er, does it work?”

  Harold frowned. “No.”

  Mrs. Stampler made a soothing sound as Harold dropped the rope at Hy’s feet. “The copy of the Compendium Maleficarum Harold used was quite damaged. The instructions were not clear.” She nodded at Harold. “But Harold will try again with Doctor Powell’s hand. Besides, my grandson is quite skilled at opening locks without any supernatural assistance.”

  Harold flashed a brief, disturbing smile, the expression exposing two rows of teeth that looked too small for his head.

  “Go ahead and take his truncheon and pat down his coat pockets, Harold.”

  Harold obeyed her orders with the same dull expression he did everything.

  “Unbutton his coat. Hold it open—” Harold did so and she squinted at Hy’s vest. “All right. Now pat down his sleeves, we want to make sure there is nothing up them.”

  “What are you going to do with us?” Hy asked, hoping to distract her from
telling Harold to pat the part of his body currently mashed up against the arm of the chair.

  “Unfortunately, his lordship’s interest in these tunnels means we’re going to have to leave sooner than we’d hoped. And without all of this.” She jerked her chin to indicate everything around them.

  “Oh? Why do that? This all looks to be worth a fair bit. And then the stuff in the carriage house—and even more stuff in Mr. Frumkin’s house, too,” Hy babbled; he’d take any bloody opportunity to keep the old bird talking.

  She chuckled. “Oh, we’ll get everything from the house. Well, not the carriage house, of course, as I suspect the customs house will already be making plans for that. Unfortunately, we’ll have to sacrifice what’s down here.”

  “Sacrifice?” Hy asked, his voice higher than normal.

  “Yes. But don’t worry. You’ll suffocate long before you ever feel a lick of flame. You won’t suffer.”

  Fire.

  Hy swallowed and it felt like he had a rock in his throat.

  “We’d never do that to you—make you suffer. Would we, Harold?”

  “No.”

  She gave Hy a hard, expectant look.

  “Er, yes. I appreciate your consideration,” he said.

  A smile spread across her face. “I’m pleased to hear that. We’re not cruel people, you see, but the circumstances require desperate measures. If you and his lordship had just been happy with the murderers we gave you, then everything would have been fine.” Her lips pursed. “Mr. Vogel, in particular, was not a nice man, and I think you know that.”

  “Er, that was clever puttin’ salt and a bit of blood up on the third floor—especially with Vogel goin’ up there and all,” Hy said.

  Mrs. Stampler allowed herself a bit of preening. “Oh yes, we had several possibilities worked out, just in case one fell through, there was always another.” She frowned, her kindly old lady façade slipping. “It’s a shame Lord Jasper had to come snooping today.”

  “What about Powell, though?” Hy asked, not liking the calculating gleam in her eyes as she considered Lightner’s interference. “He didn’t kill anyone. Neither did Miss Martello—did she?”

  She laughed. “Powell was a fornicator and a murderer—a dipsomaniac who operated on people while he was impaired. One of his patients died an agonizing death from sepsis—far worse than anything Harold and I did. Doctor Powell never felt a thing, and Miss Martello, well, her life was a pathetic burden to her. Her death was quick and humane. I expected her to struggle—to fight—but she seemed almost relieved to die. Even Albert, monster that he was, we killed first—before Harold worked on him.”

  Hy’s brain spun. All he could come up with was, “But a fire will burn all this fine stuff you have here.”

  She nodded placidly. “That’s true, of course, but it is better for us to leave now. After all, how many coppers will come looking for you and his lordship? No, this way you’ll be found together, you three. We’ll shut the passageway doors and, without plentiful oxygen, the fire will burn out. It shouldn’t take the entire house. But if it does,” she shrugged. “Well, Albert had excellent insurance on it. No doubt he was planning to burn it himself at some point for the money.”

  Albert. This was the second time that she’d called him Albert.

  “Why?” Hy asked, wincing as Harold looped the rough hemp rope tight, jostling his splinted fingers.

  Mrs. Stampler blinked. “Why what?”

  “Why cut him up and ship him halfway around the country? Why not just kill him? In fact—why did you want to kill him at all? What did he do to you?”

  “Tut tut, so curious, Detective. You know what happened to the cat,” she teased.

  Hy could only stare.

  “But I’ll answer your questions. It might not have been the easiest way to kill him,” she said, “but Harold does enjoy his experiments and there was no harm in it.”.

  Hy almost laughed out loud at that; luckily he caught himself.

  “We couldn’t let the body be found here—not where we’ve been living. Not only that, but we worried the lawyers wouldn’t find us. Most of the documents that might have helped prove our case had burned in the fire in New Orleans.”

  Hy groaned as the pieces started to fall into place. “Dupuy.”

  Mrs. Stampler smiled at him. “I see you understand now.”

  “So, Harold is Frumkin’s son?”

  “No, that’s Gordon. But with all the false names Albert used over the years, how would anyone ever find out about poor Gordon? We knew that Gordon wouldn’t even be mentioned in the Albert’s will because Albert thought he was dead. He would have been dead, if I hadn’t been there to care for the poor, burnt mite.”

  She paused, a strange look in her eyes, as if something had just occurred to her. “My goodness, how in the world did you learn that Albert had used the name Dupuy? Oh,” she said before he could answer, “I suppose it must be that derned telegraph.” She shook her head. “The world is shrinking so fast. What a fine detective you are—or was it Lord Jasper who found that out?” She waved the hand with the gun. “It doesn’t matter.” She chuckled. “Well, I’m certainly glad I discovered you knew that bit of information before we left. I see we shall have to change our plans.”

  Hy wanted to beat his head against something hard, but he suspected Harold would do it for him soon enough.

  “Harold is my daughter’s first child.” She looked at her grandson with an affectionate smile. “He was born on the wrong side of the blanket. My husband was a proud man and wanted to send Harold away—get rid of him for good. But for once my Martha stood up for something. She never could claim Harold as her own—not if she wanted a respectable young man to marry her.” She laughed harshly. “That never happened, anyhow. What she got was Albert Dupuy Frumkin Milton Beauchamp and who knows what other names.” She cocked her head at Hy. “Did you ever learn his real name?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Hmmph.”

  Harold finished tying the hell out of his wrists and then gave them a jerk for good measure, ramming one of Hy’s broken fingers into the chair back in the process.

  Hy bit his tongue until it bled.

  He swallowed his pain, along with some blood, and asked, “What happened with that fire—the one Frumkin was supposed to have died in. Why did he do it?”

  “Ha! For money—why did Albert do anything? My fool of a husband must have cottoned onto something Albert was up to—no doubt he learned of money going missing, or something of that nature. Albert worked at the family shipping business, and it would have been easy enough for a man like that to dip his hand in the till. I daresay he was embezzling because there was nothing left after the fire.” She turned to her grandson. “Show him the scars, Harold.”

  Harold got to his feet and stood in front of Hy, so close his knees were touching Hy’s legs, his big, spatulate fingers unbuttoning his coat.

  Mrs. Stampler continued while her grandson disrobed. “It turns out that Harold was fortunate to be living out in the servant quarters—raised with the slaves, if you’ll believe it, his own mother just a few steps away—because he escaped the worst of the fire, although he certainly got his share of pain. But Gordon is the one who really suffered because Albert set the fire in the family quarters.” Lamplight glinted off her glasses, obscuring her eyes. “What kind of man sets his own son on fire?”

  After a long moment, she seemed to shake herself. “But poor Gordon survived, although he has been confined to a wheelchair since he was just a sprout. He can feed himself, take care of his private matters, and the like, but he needs a full-time nurse. Finding the money for that—after Albert stripped every dime Martha had from her accounts—well, that wasn’t easy. Oh, I had my little nest egg. But the bills—oh, the bills.”

  “I understand why Frumkin didn’t recognize Harold—he must have been, what? Four years old?”

  “Yes, only just four. And of course Harold is not his real name—just as Stampler is n
ot our surname.”

  “Chenier,” Hy said.

  “Very good, Detective.”

  “Why didn’t Frumkin recognize you?”

  “That’s simple, Detective—we never met. You see, my husband had put me in a sanatorium for my health.” Her pale eyes glinted dangerously. “He married me for my family’s money, but he never really wanted me. He set up a pretty little dolly right under my nose. When she ended up murdered, my dear husband immediately used that excuse to have me put away. It was better than the noose, he said. Almost twenty years I spent locked up—no better than a prisoner. In all those years, only Martha ever visited me. Once my husband was dead, and all his money gone, I was tossed out into the street.”

  Hy swallowed at the flicker of madness he saw beneath her genteel façade. For the first time, she truly looked like her grandson.

  Harold had finished with his coat and vest and now opened his shirt.

  Hy sucked in a breath. The skin looked as if it had been stirred. Whorls of tissue-thin pink skin mixed in with tan, thicker skin.

  “He’s like that all over.”

  Hy looked up at Harold, who merely blinked down at him and began the slow process of buttoning himself up.

  “I still don’t understand,” Hy said, casting a quick look over at Lightner, who’d not moved from the way Hy had left him, on his side, face to the wall, back to the room. “Why do all this? The crate, the cutting, the salt? Why not just kill Frumkin and leave his body in the bathtub?”

  Mrs. Stampler laughed. “Oh, no. That wouldn’t do. We needed to get him to New Orleans—needed to have the police there find him. We put his wallet in the crate—nice and convenient for when the police opened it up—complete with a business card we printed up for a Mr. Albert Dupuy, 1811 Sullivan Street. Once they had that name, they could then put it together with the name on the first-class ticket—Beauchamp—and then Gordon could go and claim his inheritance. It should have been so simple.”

  She gave a laugh that was part wonder, part bitterness, and part genuine-sounding amusement. “But then the body never showed up in New Orleans. Day after day passed, Gordon actually went down to the docks—not an easy task to get himself into a carriage and all the way to New Orleans from where we live in the country. But he could hardly ask if there was an unclaimed box that had been discovered in a first-class cabin with a body in it. Just what would that look like?