Emperor Norton's Ghost

by Dianne Day

  Frances said, “Oh—” ending in a strangled sound, deep in her throat.

  “Stabbed while she was sleeping, I should guess,” I murmured. Stabbed through the heart—or, at least, in the chest. There was a lot of blood, which had pooled around her; the smell of it was not noticeable until one had approached close to the bed.

  For a moment I forgot Frances as Michael’s lessons took over my mind: Observe, observe! What do you see? I saw Abigail Locke’s eyes were closed, which meant either she had been dispatched without awakening, which seemed hardly likely unless she’d been drugged, or the killer had closed her eyes for her; I saw there had not been much of a struggle. It was a relatively neat, clean kill by someone who knew enough, and had strength enough, to strike the fatal blow straight off. By the color of the blood, I saw she had been killed not long before our arrival, which set off yet another alarm in my mind. And of course I also saw the knife, which had the look of a ritual dagger. It had been withdrawn from the wound and laid carefully between the medium’s breasts. The dagger’s hilt lay in her blood like a cross on a crimson field.

  Frances had begun to breathe convulsively, with her hand over her mouth and nose. Her eyes were unnaturally wide. She swayed, as if she might fall, and her other hand reached out for the bedpost to steady herself. But I stepped in and caught hold of her before she’d touched it.

  “We must leave,” I whispered fiercely, “now! This very minute!”

  Frances rolled her eyes, but she shook her head and wouldn’t budge. “How can you say such a thing? We can’t leave her like … like that! She must have a telephone. We’ll call the police.”

  Shaking my head, I took Frances’s shoulders in my hands and forced her back from the bed. “Trust me. We must go. I’ll explain when we’re away from here.”

  I was so anxious I felt as if ants were crawling all over my body. Every element in my sensorium—hearing, sight, smell, touch, even taste, for I could taste the blood in my mouth—had been sharpened to an excruciating pitch. Frances didn’t move fast enough for me, so I dragged her, mercilessly. Down the hall, down the stairs, out the front door.

  “Go on to the Maxwell,” I commanded, “there’s something I must do so that no one will ever know we were here.”

  “Fremont!” Tears brimmed in her eyes, but she went.

  Michael had taught me about fingerprinting, a technique of criminal detection developed in England, which had been in use by Scotland Yard for some years and is now sometimes done here. Taking my handkerchief from my skirt pocket, I wiped the front door and the doorknob. Then I went back into that dreadful house and wiped the stair rail from top to bottom, on the chance that one of us had touched it, for I really could not remember. While on the stairs I strained my ears so hard I felt my head would break, but I heard nothing. My heart leapt with gratitude for that, and I turned and ran.

  Out on the street I cranked Max with a vengeance, and then we took off. “Pull yourself together,” I ordered Frances grimly. “Stop crying or your eyes will be red.”

  “But she’s dead, Fremont! Abigail Locke was—was murdered by somebody!”

  “Murdered by somebody who arranged for you to find her body! Don’t you see, Frances? Somebody wanted you to find her, and to call the police. Wanted you involved.” I turned a corner rather viciously, and Max’s wheels screeched a protest.

  “Why do you say that? That’s a terrible thing to say!”

  “Never mind. Get out your handkerchief and wipe your face. We’re going straight back to your house. Who saw you leave?”

  “Well, Cora, I suppose.”

  “Did she know where you were going? Did you tell her?” I wondered how I could ever have thought this auto climbed hills like a goat. We were moving upward with agonizing slowness.

  “I … don’t remember. I don’t think so. But it doesn’t matter, she won’t tell.”

  From the corner of my eye I saw Frances daintily wiping beneath her eyes with a corner of her handkerchief, and she sat straighter. Good. “This is what we’re going to do. You, Frances, are going to remember that your husband must never, ever know where you went this morning. Truly, I fear for your safety if he finds out.”

  I had to, quite literally, bite my lip to keep from telling her outright that I thought she should get herself away from him. It was too early, much too early, for me to make a decision in the direction I was already leaning: That Jeremy McFadden had killed the medium, or arranged to have her killed, in order to teach his wife a lesson.

  I took my eyes from the road for a moment to fix Frances with what I hoped was a steely stare. “You must never tell anyone! Do you understand that?”

  “No. Frankly, I don’t.” She sounded petulant, which was better than teary or terrified. “I think you’re being irresponsible, Fremont. I would have expected more of you.”

  “I’m going to call the police, but not until I’ve seen you safely inside your own front door. I’ll use a callbox and report Mrs. Locke’s death anonymously. The police will take over the investigation, don’t worry, and her murderer will not go unpunished. Think, Frances, think! What good would it do anyone to know that we were there?”

  “We had every right to be there. I was invited!”

  “So you were,” I said grimly. I lurched the Maxwell up the McFaddens’ steep driveway and screeched to a halt in the porte cochère. “If you can get to the telephone and be sure we’re not overheard, call me and we can talk about this later. Meanwhile, think on this. I haven’t been in the private investigation business very long, but I have an excellent teacher, and I can tell you this: Abigail Locke had not intended to get up for any appointment this morning. She was sleeping late, probably because she had a late séance last night. She was killed not long before we arrived, because the blood was still fresh. I could tell by its color, and by the fact that its smell had not yet settled in to permeate the room. You were supposed to find Abigail Locke dead, Frances—that is why you were sent that invitation.”

  “Oh.” She turned very pale. But in her spirited way, still she protested: “How can that be? My invitation was on her own personal notepaper!”

  I gave her a little push. “Think about it. And believe I have only your best interests at heart! Now go, and find a way to persuade your maid to keep silent about your having been out at all this morning. I must get to a public telephone and report this murder without further delay.”

  ———

  “Where is Michael?” I asked Wish Stephenson, who was sitting at my desk when I got back to the office.

  Wish looked up and smiled. “He went out somewhere, didn’t say. I told him I’d watch the office since I had to write up my report for you to type anyhow.” He tapped the eraser end of a pencil on the lined paper he was using, then shook his head from side to side as a mournful expression claimed his face. “I wish I could’ve done more for Mr. Fennelly. He’s not satisfied, you know, Fremont. Don’t be surprised if he refuses to pay.”

  “Nothing would have satisfied that man except our finding his daughter, Wish. It was an impossible task, and you did the best you could.”

  “Uhm.” He bent over the desk and went back to his writing.

  I took off the heavy garnet sweater and draped it over a brass clothes tree near the door. Michael’s being out was a considerable relief, as he is altogether too good at “reading” me. I had kept my emotions in order for Frances’s sake, and for her sake I had decided—though with some difficulty—not to call the police after all. Then, on the way back home to Divisadero Street, I had begun to fall apart.

  “How was the dentist?” Wish asked, without looking up. “Not too painful, I hope.”

  “What? Oh!” The dentist—I’d forgotten. I put a hand up to my cheek. “Thank you for asking. In truth, the dentist does not provide one with an enjoyable experience. I’m somewhat shaken. If you don’t mind sitting there a little longer, I’ll go back to the kitchen and make us a cup of … of, well, something soothing.” Coffee didn’t
seem like quite the thing for nerves already jangled.

  “Cocoa?” Wish suggested hopefully. “My mother makes hot chocolate for a treat. Maybe you could use some, Fremont. And I love hot chocolate!”

  “Yes.” I tried to smile. “That will be the very thing.”

  ———

  Michael was out all day. Frances did not call. Both these things worried me. So when, in late afternoon, Wish began dithering over the puzzle of those empty graves on Lone Mountain, I said I’d go with him to check them out again. Anything, I thought, for distraction. Even a visit to a cemetery.

  We left a note and waited for the streetcar, in case Michael should return and have need of his auto.

  “What’s on your mind, Fremont?” Wish asked, looking down at me. “You’ve been off somewhere in your head all day.”

  “Nothing, really. I was just thinking how much I wish—” I smiled, as one usually did at the intrusion of his nickname into conversation, only in this case I did it to buy myself time to make something up—and then I had it: “I wish we could afford to pay a receptionist. I could still do the typing, we could hire someone without clerical skills, just to answer the telephone and make appointments. I hate being tied to the office.”

  “I feel the same. There are times when it would be good for us to work in the field together, Fremont. And Michael isn’t really interested in the day-to-day activities of the J&K Agency, in spite of his name being on it. He seems … well, at times he does seem remote.”

  I nodded. It was true, but no different from what I had expected from my partner.

  “Just as you’ve been today, in fact.” Wish’s eyes twinkled. “You and he are very much alike, you know.”

  “We are not! He has all these skills that I am only struggling to acquire, and he’s older, and he’s secretive—you can hardly say any of that about me.”

  Wish grinned openly. “Still, there’s some quality in both of you that’s the same. Maybe I can’t put a name to it, but it’s there.”

  This pleased me inordinately, so I smiled back, but said nothing.

  “So-o-o … what’s been on your mind today, are you going to tell me?”

  I clung to my former story. “As I said, I’ve been thinking how to get some more help in the office. I want to be out working on cases more. I want someone to look after things when we leave early, as we did today, for example. That’s all.”

  “Do we have any new cases?”

  “No.” I shifted uncomfortably and looked down the street for the streetcar. “But we could have more if we advertised. And another thing,” I went on, warming to this diversion. “I feel I’ve been in training long enough, I want Michael to cut me loose, stop this infernal choosing of what cases I may work, but he says I’m not ready yet.”

  Wish’s eyes narrowed, but the look in them was kind. “Then you must let him teach you how to shoot. He’s not going to cut you loose, as you put it, until you can defend yourself more effectively than you can with that blade of yours.”

  I nodded again, miserably this time, and stared down at my feet. The truth was, I had more familiarity with guns than either Wish or Michael knew, and I did not want to hold one of the things in my hand ever again. Much less pull the trigger. I forced myself to continue: “He also says I have to be able to follow his trail without detection, at least once. I’m beginning to think I’ll never accomplish that.”

  Yet even as I uttered those words, and Wish commiserated with me on Michael’s uncanny ability to elude pursuit, I had an idea. An absolutely splendid idea, which I filed away for future reference, for at that moment the streetcar came.

  We had a brief ride to California Street, where we changed cars and went on, climbing slowly but steadily. I commented about the amount of construction going on, because I’d thought this part of San Francisco to be relatively undeveloped. Wish said something about a lot of this land belonging to the Church—by which I knew he meant the Roman Catholics. His family of course is of that religious persuasion; they would hardly have given him a name like Aloysius otherwise.

  I let that go by, as the Catholic Church is a mystery to me, and I already had another mystery on my mind. The excuse I’d made up for Wish, and my real preoccupation, had come together in my mind, and I was trying to figure out how I could get away from the office to do whatever must be done to help Frances McFadden. She was going to need help, in some form or other, I was sure of that.

  I was equally sure I didn’t want to hear whatever Michael would have to say about my helping. But how—

  “This is it, I think,” Wish said, tapping me on the shoulder and interrupting my thoughts. “We get off at the next corner.”

  I swung down off the high streetcar step with a little hop and looked around. I had never been here before, that much was certain. There was a hint of sea smell in the air, and a stiff breeze that skimmed the top of our hill without a hint of movement in the huge gray clouds massed above. I took a couple of steps away from the curb and then stopped, for Wish was looking about and rubbing his chin. A scraggly line of houses ran along a sidewalk that was mostly dirt. Gritty dirt, with a lot of sand in it, that made a scrunching sound as I walked over to where Wish stood indecisively.

  “What is this place?” I asked. “Is this where we’re going?”

  “No, we have to walk a couple of blocks. But it seems different somehow.”

  I turned and looked at the intersection just behind us, squinted and stared harder, as if I could somehow bring into existence a street sign that was not there. I knew the streetcar we’d been on ran out all the way to the Cliff House at the beach, but … “Why is there no sign at the cross street?” I asked. The founders of San Francisco had been such sticklers for planning their city in a strict grid pattern that streets marched straight up and down hills with no consideration for topography. And they were always named, always.

  “I don’t know,” said Wish, beginning to walk south along the unnamed cross street.

  “Where is the cemetery?” I did not see tombstones, only a few houses and some of the construction that was going on everywhere. Reconstruction, new construction—most of the time it was impossible to tell one from the other.

  “In this direction we’re walking,” Wish said. He was moving along so slowly, quite unlike his habitual lope, that I could easily keep up with him. He continued, “On the day I saw, um, what I thought I saw, I’d already talked to the caretakers and examined the books of the major burial grounds. I hadn’t found Fennelly’s daughter that way, so I was just wandering around, reading the tombstones, the way you do in cemeteries. It was pretty interesting, Fremont.”

  “I’m sure.” As we crossed another unmarked street I looked back toward the east—or at least so I thought, I was beginning to feel quite turned around—and had one of those unexpected glimpses of San Francisco that take your breath away. Even on such a gloomy day, the sweep of the vista down the hills to a dark gray blur of Bay was spectacular.

  “No, really,” Wish insisted, “it was. From the names on the tombstones I could tell I’d come across a section of family graveyards, and they were old. In one part, the names were all Chinese, written in Chinese characters and English, both.”

  “Fascinating,” I remarked.

  “You sound annoyed with me,” Wish said, stopping. He had a single frown line creasing his clear young brow, just to the right of his nose. “You think I’ve brought you on a wild goose chase.”

  “Not exactly. Forgive me, Wish, I’ve been short-tempered all day today. It has nothing at all to do with you, I promise. Let’s just go and find what it is you want to show me, because it will be getting dark soon.”

  So we went on. We walked another block, and then another, which brought us right up to the iron-spiked precincts of a cemetery. “Well?” I inquired.

  “I’m looking for the gate.”

  I did not want to find a gate. I didn’t want to go in there one bit. Certain places of the dead are peaceful and dignified;
one may stroll about them with some serenity, particularly if the day happens to be sunny. But this was not such a place. This place definitely did not invite strolling. It had a doleful, dark atmosphere, enhanced by tall cypress trees bearing an uncanny resemblance to ancient, desiccated, gray-bearded men.

  “Here it is, I thought so!” Wish said in a satisfied tone. He opened the iron gate. It creaked, of course.

  I shivered. “I don’t want to go in there. Must we?”

  “No, the gate is more of a landmark. I’m using it to confirm that I am where I thought I was. Where I was that day. Now come, Fremont.” He closed the gate without passing through it, then took me by the hand. Wish had never really touched me before, only the merest brush of fingers or a shoulder in passing, and I felt as if, by having my smaller hand engulfed in his, we were doing something wrong. Yet I did not pull away. I felt I needed the warm-blooded human contact.

  He counted steps under his breath. We had moved away from the street, which in any case had deteriorated within the last couple of blocks to a dirt road. Being outside the cemetery proper, with its delineating spiked fence, we traversed an irregular terrain of sandy, loose soil, most unattractively spotted with scrub.

  Suddenly I felt cold all over, and dreadfully afraid. I cast anxious glances back over my left shoulder toward the dark graveyard. I felt certain something was moving in there, watching us with a malevolent eye, but all I saw were pale crosses—crosses that reminded me of a dagger’s hilt on the bloody breast of Abigail Locke. I gripped Wish Stephenson’s hand more tightly. The events of the morning were belatedly catching up with me, that was all. Or so I told myself.

  Wish returned the pressure of my fingers but then let go of my hand, and I realized we had come to a standstill. He went to rubbing his chin again.

  “What?” I asked, hugging my elbows to me, for I was freezing cold. “What am I supposed to be seeing? There’s nothing here, Wish, it’s just an empty lot.”

  “No,” he said, “I don’t think so.” He stood close to me and raised his finger to his lips for silence—just as I had done earlier, with Frances. The parallel seemed eerie to me, and frightened me all the more. In a near whisper, bringing his face down close to mine, Wish Stephenson said: “This is where the graves were before, Fremont. I swear it. The last time I was here, they were yawning empty. Today they are gone. We are standing on desecrated ground.”