by Rhys Bowen
Noreen joined us and we took her shopping so that the reason for my visit appeared genuine. She loved Macy’s department store and was pathetically grateful when her aunt bought her a fur muff. “You’re so good to me, Cousin Carrie,” she said. “I don’t deserve it.”
Back at their house, nothing strange happened all afternoon. Darkness fell early and with it flurries of snow. Wind rattled the windowpanes.
“Did you hear that?” Mrs. Clements asked, jumping nervously.
“Only the wind, Cousin Carrie,” Noreen said. “Shall I close the drapes for you?”
“Ring the bell for Ada to do it,” Mrs. Clements said. “It’s her job. And the fire will need more coal. It’s going to be a cold night.”
The maid came in to close the curtains, making the rooms feel warm and cozy. Mrs. Clements declared she was going up to change for dinner.
“Come up with me, Mrs. Sullivan,” she said. “I feel uneasy alone in the darkness.”
“I’m here, Cousin,” Noreen said. “I’ll watch over you.”
“But you should also change for dinner, my dear. That day dress is not suitable.”
“I’m afraid I brought nothing to change into,” I said.
“You are a guest. We understand. But Noreen should learn how polite society behaves,” Mrs. Clements said. “I have always changed for dinner. It was the standard set by my parents. Mr. Clements objected when we were first married, but I insisted.”
This was a woman who had stood up to a forceful husband and won in the past, I thought. And now she had shrunk to a nervous and broken shell of her former self.
I perched on the end of her bed while she changed into a burgundy velvet dress and I helped her with the hooks down the back. Then she sat at her dressing table to do her hair. I was looking around the room when she gave a scream.
“There. In the mirror. The face.”
I leaped up from the bed. “Where?” I asked.
“There!” She was jabbing at the mirror with her finger.
I jumped up, rushed over, and stared into the mirror. “I see nothing apart from you and me,” I said.
“It was here. I saw it. That face. The hollow eyes. Staring at me.”
I looked around, but the room was empty apart from the two of us. I ran over to the door that had been half open. Noreen was rushing toward us from across the hallway.
“Faith and begorra, Cousin Carrie. What’s the matter now?” she called. “You scared the bejaysus out of me.”
“She saw the face again,” I said. “In the mirror.”
“But weren’t you in the room with her, Mrs. Sullivan?”
“I was. I didn’t see anything.”
“I know what I saw.,” Mrs. Clements sounded close to tears. “I know.”
Noreen and I both tried to comfort her. “Don’t tell Joshua,” she whispered. “He mustn’t know.”
“Have you thought of bringing a priest into the house?” I suggested. “If there is any kind of evil spirit present, he’ll be able to drive it out.”
She looked up at me. “Tell me, Mrs. Sullivan, do you really believe in evil spririts? Do you really believe a priest can help me? I don’t know what to think any longer. I’m an educated woman, a graduate of Radcliffe College. None of this makes sense any longer.”
“In Ireland we certainly believe in evil spirits, don’t we, Noreen?” I asked her. “And we believe in the power of the Church to banish them.”
“Oh, we do,” Noreen agreed earnestly..
But Mrs. Clements shook her head. “I do not think a priest could help me,” she said. She finished dressing and we went downstairs to dinner.
Mr. Clements arrived home just as dinner was about to be served. “Did you have a good day, ladies?” he asked.
Noreen and Mrs. Clements exchanged glances. “Very good, thank you, Cousin Joshua,” Noreen said.
Soup was served. Mrs. Clements sat at one end of the table, facing the windows. I saw her look up and frown. “Is there a window left open?” she asked.
Noreen got up obediently and went to look. “They are all closed, Cousin Carrie.”
“Are you cold, my dear?” Joshua Clements asked.
“No, but I could swear the drapes were moving.”
“Not again,” he said angrily. “This nonsense has to stop, Carrie. Pull yourself together. You’re letting your imagination run away with you.”
We ate in embarrassed silence. The soup was cleared away and the fish course was served—sole with a parsley sauce. The Clements certainly ate well. White wine was served with it.
Then Mr. Clements was brought a bottle of red wine as the fish was cleared away. He opened it himself and poured it into our glasses as Ada served a beef casserole. I took a sip of wine. It was smooth and mellow, and I nodded with approval. Then Mrs. Clements put the glass to her lips and set it down immediately. “It tastes bitter again,” she said. “Why does everything taste bitter?”
“For God’s sake, Caroline, this nonsense must end now!” Joshua roared. “You’re driving the rest of us crazy. And with a guest in the house too. You saw the wine poured. We are all drinking from the same bottle.”
Before she could throw this glass away, I reached across and grabbed it. “If it would make you feel better, Mrs. Clements, I will have the contents of this glass tested for you,” I said.
Mrs. Clements looked surprised. Mr. Clements scowled. “What do you mean? What are you suggesting?” he demanded.
“Just that it might put your wife’s mind at rest to know there was nothing wrong with the wine,” I said, recoiling at his belligerent manner.
“Of course there’s nothing wrong with the wine!” he shouted. “You’re drinking it. I’m drinking it. It’s all in her head.”
“Please don’t shout so,” Noreen begged. “Can’t you see you’re upsetting dear Cousin Carrie? She’s had enough to upset her today already. She saw that face in the mirror again.”
“She did?”
Noreen nodded. “And Mrs. Sullivan was right there in the room with her.”
“That settles it,” Joshua Clements snapped.. “I’m bringing a doctor in to see you, whether you like it or not.”
Chapter 5
I was of two minds about asking Daniel to have the wine in Carrie’s glass tested. It would be easier to have the police test it than to do it myself, but if I did ask Daniel, he might think that I had deceived him and taken on another case behind his back. So first thing in the morning, I went over to the dispensary at nearby St. Vincent’s Hospital and asked if their laboratory could find any element in the wine that might have caused poisoning. The young man looked at me strangely, but agreed to have it tested. He asked for my address. I was reluctant to give it to him and told him I’d come back later. In the meantime, I went over to Sid and Gus to ask their opinion. I realized that Mrs. Clements had originally requested that the reason for her visit to me remain private, but I wanted to do anything within my power to help her. And I knew how worried Sid and Gus were about their friend. They listened with interest.
“You think that Mrs. Clements is being poisoned?” Gus asked in horror.
“It’s possible, although I can’t see how the poison was administered. I watched Mr. Clements open the bottle of wine at the table and pour it into all our glasses.”
“So who do you think might want to poison her? Her husband?” Sid asked.
“That wouldn’t make sense, because she has a generous trust fund that dies with her. He’d lose a considerable amount of money,” I said.
“And the only other person in the house is the niece?”
“Cousin,” I said. “Distant cousin from Ireland. But she’d stand to lose everything if Mrs. Clements died. Mr. Clements resents her presence there and would send her home to Ireland if anything happened to Mrs. Clements. Besides, she’s a naïve little thing, newly arrived in this country. How would she know about sophisticated methods of poison? And there’s another factor.” I told them about the face in
the mirror, the moving drapes, Mrs. Clements’s conviction that the house was haunted.
“She saw a face in the mirror, you say?” Gus said.
“And I saw nothing. I was right there in the room.”
“Poor Mrs. Clements, to have been reduced to this state,” Sid said. “What do you think, Molly? Presumably, you don’t feel that the house is haunted and a malevolent spirit is poisoning her wine?”
“I’m afraid I sensed no evil presence,” I said. “And I drank from the same bottle. The wine tasted perfectly fine to me. I wonder whether one can have any kind of physical ailment that distorts one’s sense of taste.”
“It’s possible,” Gus said. “You could ask your friend Dr. Birmbaum. He’s an alienist, isn’t he? He may have come across cases in which the senses were distorted.”
“I’m afraid that last time I saw Dr. Birnbaum, he said he was going home to Austria, as he was excited about Dr. Freud’s new discoveries and wanted to learn more at the feet of the master,” I said.
“The only time I remember red wine tasting strange was after we’d eaten watercress sandwiches—remember, Gus?” Sid said. “We swore something was wrong with the wine and had it sent back. Then we realized it was the iron in the watercress that made it taste so bitter.”
I sat bolt upright in my chair. Was it possible? I pictured my plate of fish last night. A filet of sole with a parsley sauce over it and small potatoes around the side. Then I pictured Mrs. Clements’s plate. What if the parsley in her sauce had been replaced by watercress? And yes, I was fairly sure that her fish had been resting on a bed of green. Mine hadn’t.
“I see Molly’s thought of something,” Gus said.
“It is just possible that you might have hit the nail on the head,” I replied. “I’m sure her piece of fish was resting on a bed of some kind of greenstuff. Mine only had a little parsley around it.”
“So you are suggesting that somebody deliberately wanted her wine to taste bitter?” Sid said carefully. “In which case, it’s either a cruel trick or somebody is trying to break her spirit.”
“Who else is in the house?” Sid asked.
“There is a maid, a cook, and a scullery maid–general dogsbody as far as I can gather.”
“You should look into them,” Gus said. “Maybe one of them has a grudge against her or against her family.”
“I will,” I said. “I don’t know how long they will take to test the wine, but I’ll check out the servants right away.”
“I wish we could go with you,” Sid said, “but I know Mrs. Clements would not want us to see her in her current state.” She put a hand on my shoulder as I made my way to the front door. “You will help her, Molly, won’t you? You’ll get to the bottom of this before it’s too late.”
“I’ll do my best,” I said.
I left their house with a sinking feeling. What if I couldn’t get to the bottom of it before Mrs. Clements really was poisoned or met some other kind of tragic end?
I was greeted warmly when I arrived at the house on Fifth Avenue. There was no hint of last night’s drama as I was ushered into the front parlor. I told Mrs. Clements that the wine was being analyzed at this moment and we’d know the truth soon.
“I don’t know what to hope for,” she said, lowering her voice and looking around as she spoke. “Either someone is trying to kill me or I’m going mad. Not a comforting choice, is it?”
“Tell me about your servants,” I said. “How long have they been with you?”
“My servants?” She looked shocked. “You’re not suggesting that one of them—? No. Not possible. Our cook came from my parents’ home. She’s grumpy but a wonderful cook and sound as a bell. Ada has been with me for ten years and is a cheerful, willing girl. Doris, the scullery maid, is newly arrived from Germany, and really I know little about her—but my cook is a good judge of character and she hired her.”
“So you can’t think of any grudge they might have against you?”
“Grudge? Of course not. And how do you explain the face in the mirror? No servant could have caused that. You were there yourself.”
I had to agree with that.
We sat in silence before she said. “You see, there is no reasonable answer. I’m going mad, aren’t I?”
“I’m going to find a reasonable answer for you,” I said. “While I’m gone, if anything else tastes bitter, don’t throw it away. Save it for me.”
She nodded. “Where are you going? What will you do?”
I didn’t like to say I had no idea. I bade her farewell and set off. Snowflakes were falling softly, pure and white, being turned to brown as they were trampled underfoot. What had I learned in my years in the detective business? What would my old mentor Paddy Riley have told me? “Start with the obvious,” he’d say. And, “Who benefits?”
The obvious in a case of potential poisoning would be her husband, then her young cousin. Neither seemed to benefit from her death, and the husband was out of the house when all the strange events took place, but I felt I should start with him. So I went to his place of business on Spring Street, near the Hudson Piers. I found the building easily enough and his brass plate on the wall announcing JOSHUA CLEMENTS, IMPORT AND EXPORT. I could hardly go up and ask questions about Clements of his employees, but I could resort to my old way of life—watch the building and tail him if he came out. The snow was now falling faster, and standing for hours in the cold had somehow lost its appeal. I noted to myself that I was no longer as hardy as I used to be.
I glanced across the street and saw a couple of hansom cabs waiting by the curb. I went over to them. “Are you often in this spot?” I asked.
“That’s right. This is our patch,” one of them said. “Are you wanting to go somewhere, lady?”
“I’m wanting to find out about Mr. Joshua Clements,” I said. I opened my purse and took out my wallet. I felt their eyes on it. “Is the gentleman known to you?”
“Clements? Him from the building over there? Big man?”
“That’s the one,” I said. “Have you driven him around much?”
One cabbie looked at the other. “What are you, the wife checking up on him?”
“She’d need to check up on him, would she?” I asked sweetly.
“Ah, he’s got an eye for the ladies, that one,” one cabbie said.
“Any particular lady?” I took a dollar bill from my purse and held it resting in my gloved hand.
“I wouldn’t know about that.” The cabbie cleared his throat in embarrassment.
“Have you driven him anywhere on a regular basis?” I took out a second dollar bill.
“He likes his vaudeville,” one of them said, looking at the other for confirmation. “Many’s the time I’ve driven him to Miner’s Theater.”
“Me too. Miner’s is his particular favorite, although not so much recently.”
“Miner’s Theater. That’s on Eighth Avenue, is it not?”
“It is, ma’am. Not the sort of place you’d want to go to, though. The young girls in the chorus there . . . Well, let’s just say, it’s no place for a lady like yourself.”
I handed them each a dollar bill, which they accepted with reverent bows.
“And if you can remember anywhere else you’ve driven him that might be of interest,” I said, “or you’re asked to drive him in the future, I promise I’ll make it worth your while to remember.”
“God bless you, ma’am,” one said. “So you’re not his wife, I take it?”
“I’m not his wife. But let’s just say, I’ve an interest in where he spends his free time.”
As I left them, I heard one say to the other, “She’s a detective, you mark my words.”
“Garn,” the other one said. “A lady detective? Whoever heard of such a thing?”
I smiled to myself as I walked away. It was now lunchtime and there was no point in going to the theater too early, although I knew that vaudeville houses such as Miner’s usually had several performances each day. S
o I stopped and fortified myself with a corned beef sandwich and a bowl of split pea soup before I headed for Eighth Avenue. Afterwards, I rather wished that I hadn’t and began to feel more sympathy for Mrs. Clements, because the food left a horrible taste in my mouth and I wondered if the corned beef had been off.
What was I hoping to achieve? I asked myself as I resumed my walk toward Eighth Avenue. So Joshua Clements liked to amuse himself with show girls. He wouldn’t be the first and certainly wouldn’t risk losing his wife’s money from such dalliances. But maybe he had confided something important to one of the girls at the theater. Chorus girls love to gossip, that much I knew. Now all I needed to do was to find a way to get inside and that wasn’t going to be easy.
When I reached Miner’s Theater, I didn’t go in at the front entrance but rather went round the side, to the stage door. I had had some experience of stage door keepers, and they were always surly and unresponsive, so this would require some caution. I could see instantly that this one was no exception. He scowled at me, growling, “No outsiders at the stage door. Public entrance on the street.”
“Yes, I know that,” I said. “I used to be in the chorus myself once. At the Casino Theater with Blanche Lovejoy.”
Luckily, my cape and hood covered my un-theatrical dress beneath it.
“Oh yes?” he said, eyeing my lack of makeup or fashionable hairstyle and trying to decide if I looked like someone who had danced in a show with Blanche Lovejoy.
“And I’m calling here because I rather think my young cousin is working here now, and I gather some man is bothering her. So I thought I’d better step in, given how naïve she still is.”
“Really?” he said. “One of our girls, naïve? And what would her name be?”
“Mary,” I said, trying to think of the most likely name. “I’m not sure what stage name she goes by now. But she’s from Ireland like myself. With red hair.”
He chuckled then. “Who knows what color their hair is? They all dye it, don’t they? And red is fashionable at the moment, so I’m told. We’ve any number of redheads.”