The Miser of Cherry Hill

by Scott Mackay

  ‘The weapon in question was a Civil War era Henry.’

  He jerked again. ‘A Henry!’ He seemed astonished by the notion. ‘Now that’s a rifle I don’t see too often. And when I do, doc, it’s really not up to me to verify where the seller got it from, or what he used it for. I can’t be going into the origin – or previous use, mind! – of every weapon I hawk, so if you’re wearing that star to start asking me questions like that, then I must confess, I don’t keep a record of specific details. I’m in the business of making money, not keeping a whole heap of records about where I get things and what they’ve been used for.’

  ‘I’m the first to realize that, Mr King, and exonerate you of all culpability should the matters of use or origin ever find their way to Judge Norris. Of course, if you find you can’t be of any help to me at all, I may have to get my junior deputies in here to start helping you with your record-keeping.’

  He thought long and hard about the matter of record-keeping, his eyes bulging so much I doubt a loupe would have fit in the left one at present. He inspected his pound cake. His eyes narrowed, as if he now discerned that it was a crumb short. He then looked at me, and offered some parsimonious cooperation.

  ‘I can tell you that he was here, then, doc, and that he did bring a rifle to sell – not hawk, mind, but sell – and that it was his grandfather’s Henry rifle. I gave him thirty dollars for it. I know its worth. I paid him top dollar. No point in bringing your deputies in for that. Everybody knows I pay top dollar.’

  I now felt some encouragement, despite Mr King’s continuing habit of hucksterism. ‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to borrow that rifle, Mr King. I have to test-fire it. I assure you, I’ll take good care of it.’

  He sucked at his lower lip. ‘Problem is, I already sold it.’

  Here was another obstacle I hadn’t counted on. ‘Already?’

  ‘People are always looking for Henrys, doc. They’re a special weapon.’

  Not to be thwarted, I asked, ‘And who did you sell it to?’

  ‘Jerome Highcloud, an Indian fella from the reserve. Paid forty-five dollars for it, cash down. He’s been looking a long time.’

  I took out my notebook and penned in this information.

  ‘Billy didn’t happen to sell a whisky flask, did he?

  King looked surprised. ‘No, sir, he didn’t. But if you’ve a mind to purchase one, I’ve got many fine examples in the next room.’

  As I rode to the Welland Street Club after leaving King’s Emporium to make my final stop of the day, I pondered what I might do about the rifle. I took the Court Street bridge over the river, turned right on Cattaraugus Avenue, and headed over to Welland Street. I decided I was going to have to go out to the Oneida Reserve at Silver Lake and ask Jerome Highcloud to let me test-fire his new weapon, a few extra steps, to be sure, but apparently the only way I was going to obtain a useful ballistics result.

  The Welland Street Club was housed in a neo-Romanesque building, one of the few brick edifices in the town, the masonry a sooty red, several chimneys billowing dark smoke, and the windows orange and inviting with lamplight as gentlemen gathered for an evening of cards, drinks, and quiet newspaper reading. The stable boy took Pythagoras from me. I went into the club and ordered supper – for it now occurred to me that I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. As I dug into a well-done strip-loin, I caught sight of the club’s chief butler, Robert McGlen, passing by in the corridor.

  ‘Mr McGlen, a word, please.’

  ‘Good evening, doctor. I thought you might show up.’ McGlen was exceedingly lank, tall, off-the-boat Scots, and spoke with a Glaswegian accent of singular resonance. He made his way over to my table. ‘We’ve all read the terrible news. Every member is greatly distressed by Mr Purcell’s passing. We’re rather a fraternity here. No man is an island, and all that.’

  I nodded. ‘He’s a great loss to the club, Mr McGlen, as well as the town. I’ve been deputized by Sheriff Armstrong to investigate his murder.’

  ‘Yes, Deputy Putsey was in here earlier inquiring about Mr Purcell’s flask, and he let us know.’

  ‘Ah. And was Deputy Putsey able to determine if Mr Purcell had left his flask here?’

  ‘No, sir. It wasn’t here. Nor, if I understand correctly, was it found up at the mansion.’ The butler raised his tufted eyebrows. ‘I take it Mr Purcell’s flask has some pertinence to your case?’

  I equivocated. ‘We’re not yet sure.’ Yet with the information that the flask had not been found by Putsey either here or up at the mansion, I was now confronted with a more real possibility that the flask had indeed been taken from my victim in Tonawanda Road. Which of course complicated a rooftop origin for the shot, as a robber wouldn’t have been able to get down in time to take the flask.

  ‘Right now, I’m trying to determine Mr Purcell’s movements in the hours before he was killed, and that’s one of the reasons, other than this delicious strip-loin, that I’ve come to visit. I’ve learned from Mr Purcell’s man, Leach, that he was here at the club last night before he went to the hotel.’

  ‘Yes, sir, he was. He spent the entire evening in the Algonquin Room playing cards with some friends. I was in the room all night serving them. He left the club around eight thirty to go to the hotel. I understand from the Newspacket story that he met his end around nine?’

  I nodded. ‘I heard the rifle-fire myself from my bedroom window. I’m not sure if you could hear it from the club.’

  ‘We heard nothing.’

  ‘Anything unusual happen at the club before he left?

  ‘As a matter of fact, yes. A most unseemly display by a non-member.’

  ‘A non-member?’

  ‘Yes. Billy Fray arrived and asked that Mr Purcell come outside. He wanted to fight him. He was in a most frightful state. Stuporous with drink. I had to summon Lonnie Moses to help me escort him from the grounds.’

  Here was yet more evidence against the young smithy. ‘Do you recall the time of the disturbance, Mr McGlen?’

  The tall man thought for a moment. ‘It must have been around eight o’clock, maybe a little after.’

  ‘And did you see which way Mr Fray went when you and Mr Moses escorted him from the property?’

  ‘I did. He crossed the river at the Court Street bridge. I actually followed him as far as the south side of the church to make sure he wouldn’t come back. I could tell by then that he was on his way to the smithy.’

  On his way to the smithy to get the Henry, I wondered, stowed there after fetching it from the Shooters Club? ‘Was he carrying anything at all?’

  ‘Only a whisky bottle. Rare is the time you’ll catch Mr Fray without a whisky bottle.’

  I thought about this, then asked, ‘Have you ever seen Mr Purcell’s whisky flask? I’m trying to get a good description of it.’

  ‘To be honest with you, doctor, I didn’t even know he owned one. When he imbibes at the club, he drinks the house spirits. Why should he do otherwise?’

  TEN

  The following day, Miss Gregsby and I saw patients all morning and closed early at one o’clock. Fresh snow had fallen overnight. Out on the roads and byways, carts and wagons had been replaced by sleighs and sledges. Culver Street, known for its blue spruces, was taking on a Christmastime look, now that all the spruce boughs were glazed with a layer of white.

  As it was such a pretty day, and as Miss Gregsby was new to the area, I asked her if she would like to accompany me to the Oneida Reserve at Silver Lake.

  ‘It will give you a chance to see some of the surrounding area. Plus I have some business relating to the Purcell murder investigation I must attend to.’

  Her eyes brightened with excitement. ‘I would love to, Dr Deacon.’

  Soon, Miss Gregsby and I were heading out of town on Erie Boulevard in my sleigh-and-two.

  Farms were under snow. We saw a dozen local children sledding down a hill on three toboggans one right after the other, the boy in front mimicking the toot of a locomotive w
histle. I got to know Miss Gregsby a little better, and she got to know me.

  She said, ‘I saw a picture of a woman on the mantelpiece in the parlor.’

  ‘That,’ I said, ‘is my wife.’

  She seemed to assimilate this news with some disappointment. ‘And is she away at present?’

  ‘I’m afraid Mrs Deacon died in 1888.’ With sober stoicism, I added, ‘I’m a widower.’

  Her pretty lips came together. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. You seem awfully young to be a widower.’ For a moment, the only sounds were the whish of the sleigh and the snow-muffled hoof-falls of Pythagoras and Archimedes. ‘And the photograph of the boy? He’s your son?’

  ‘Yes. Jeremiah. He’s at school in Boston right now but will be coming home for the holidays. And speaking of holidays, I suppose you’ll be going to Sodus Point?’

  She looked away. ‘Alas, no. I have no one left there. Both my parents are dead and I have no brothers or sisters.’ She took a moment, then turned back to me. ‘I’m not exactly sure what I’ll be doing for Christmas, doctor.’

  ‘What about Rochester?’

  ‘Now that Martin’s gone, I have nobody in Rochester either.’

  I glanced at her – I had a sense of a delicate vessel brimming too full of sorrow. ‘Martin, then,’ I said. ‘He’s this friend you lost?’

  She gave me a solemn nod. ‘Actually, he was my fiancé. This will be my first Christmas without him.’

  This immediately changed for me the quality and character of her grief, and gave it greater commonality with the grief I felt for Emily.

  ‘Can I be of any comfort to you?’ I asked.

  Even though I saw that her lashes were now wet, dampened by momentary tears, she had a broad and deprecating smile on her face.

  ‘Would you mind if we didn’t talk about it? Unless you want to spoil a perfectly lovely day.’

  I could do nothing but acquiesce.

  She said, ‘You were really President McKinley’s personal physician?’

  What a hapless pair we were, each inadvertently focusing on the other’s source of pain. ‘I was more than his physician. I was his friend.’ That horrible moment at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo came back to me, the president shot by the misguided Czolgosz. ‘I did what I could to save him. But I failed.’

  She was a sensitive girl. She didn’t pursue the subject.

  Rather, we touched on my great friendship with the current president, Theodore Roosevelt, and how I had been with his Rough Riders in Cuba, a medic, but also a soldier, and how these days I spent a month every summer with him at Sagamore Hill, his Long Island retreat.

  ‘I understand he likes to hunt,’ she said.

  ‘He loves anything to do with the great outdoors.’

  ‘And have you ever gone hunting with him? Martin so loved to hunt.’

  ‘I once went elk hunting with him. I can tell you, it was an adventure. After he’s done being president, he wants me to come to South America with him. He has rather a fascination for the uncharted tributaries of the Amazon.’

  From there, we diverged to even lighter topics – the Christmas parties and balls she might expect to attend in Fairfield.

  ‘I do love dancing,’ she said. ‘Do you know any of the newer steps, doctor?’

  ‘I haven’t danced since Emily died. I’ve mastered some of the older steps but none of the new ones.’

  ‘Then I will have to teach you.’

  An hour later, the reserve came into view. By this time, as the temperature had dropped, we were snug under my buffalo skin – the cured pelt of a bison I had shot outside Cross Plains back when a great number of the creatures still roamed those parts.

  The Oneida Reserve at Silver Lake was a hodgepodge of old and new: some homes built recently, others more time-honoured, constructed according to the old ways. As we entered, a woman pounding grain looked up at us. Two boys appeared from behind a nearby pine and watched us pass. Furs had been stretched here and there, and fish caught from Silver Lake lay on a rack smoking over a fire. A geriatric dog with grey chin whiskers and an arthritic hip chased the horses for a short stretch, but soon grew tired and hobbled away.

  We reached the Oneida band hall a few minutes later.

  Foster Stands-Over-Pool, the reserve’s sixty-year-old band leader, was on a ladder removing snow-burden from the roof with a push broom. Except for a single crow’s feather in his hatband, he was dressed entirely in American clothes.

  When he saw me, a welcoming smile came to his face. ‘Doctor. Hello!’

  ‘Hello, Foster.’

  He came down. I reined in my horses, and the sleigh came to a stop. I got down, helped Miss Gregsby to the ground, and introduced her to the band leader.

  Foster said, ‘We know the doctor well, miss. He comes out every other week. Talbert Two-Arrows, our own practitioner, is helping the doctor learn traditional medicine.’

  Foster soon had us sitting inside comfortably by the pot-belly stove. We exchanged a few further pleasantries. I inquired after the health of his wife, sons, daughters, and grandchildren.

  I then commenced with my official business.

  ‘Foster, there’s been a murder in town, and Sheriff Armstrong has deputized me to look into it.’ I gave him the details, including what I knew about the Henry rifle, and how I believed the previous owner might have used it in the commission of the crime. ‘It now appears Jerome Highcloud has purchased that rifle, and I’m hoping I might impose upon Mr Highcloud, with your kind permission as band chief, to borrow the weapon in order to test-fire it.’

  Foster shook his head with some concern. ‘But Clyde, I’m afraid Jerome Highcloud isn’t here. He’s gone to the Adirondacks on a hunting expedition and won’t be back for a number of weeks. He took the Henry with him.’

  I sighed. It seemed I was going to be thwarted with this rifle at every turn.

  ‘Very well, then, Foster. Could you please tell him to come see me when he returns. We’ve recovered a bullet from our victim and we’re hoping to determine – and eventually prove – that the Henry is indeed our murder weapon. We need to test-fire the rifle in order to do that.’

  On the way back, the weather grew colder as winds from Canada blasted down from Lake Ontario.

  ‘Are you disappointed?’ asked Miss Gregsby.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About not getting the rifle.’

  ‘Not at all. We’ve had a lovely day. You’ve gotten to see some of the country. And heaven knows when you’ll be asked to make a house call out this way. You need to know your way around.’

  Over the next mile, the wind grew particularly fierce and Miss Gregsby began to shiver. The bison pelt was only partially effective against the frigid onslaught.

  I lifted my arm. ‘Come close. You’ll freeze if you don’t.’

  Being a sensible girl, she did as she was told. ‘That’s better.’

  ‘Can you feel your fingers and toes?’

  ‘Barely.’

  ‘We’ll be home soon. You can warm them by the fire.’

  I must confess, I enjoyed her closeness. It had been over a decade since I’d ridden in a sleigh with a woman, and it alleviated, at least for a little while, the loneliness I’d carried with me ever since Emily’s passing fourteen years ago.

  Miss Gregsby and I were in this state of weather-enforced intimacy when, turning up the surgery drive, who should I see waiting for me on the front porch but Olive Wade. When she spotted us, she rose from the bench slowly and studied us with mounting interest. I don’t know why I felt guilty. I had no reason to feel guilty. I wasn’t doing anything wrong. But I knew I had that look on my face that Olive herself had had after she had come home from her summer with Everett Howse.

  She was covered from head to foot in ermine, her wisps of golden hair coming out from under the rim of her fur hat. Her blue eyes widened until they were like large sapphires within the confines of her cream-colored face. She surveyed the two of us with momenta
ry alarm. This emotion was quickly camouflaged with cool appraisal. Munroe came out the side door. He gestured nervously toward the front porch and shook his head in warning. Miss Gregsby and I disengaged and I yanked on the reins to stop Pythagoras and Archimedes.

  I rose from my seat as we came to a stop. ‘Miss Wade,’ I called, ‘why didn’t you wait by the fire? George could have made you comfortable.’

  She looked first at me, then at Miss Gregsby, then back at me, her golden brow knitting, a pinch coming to her lips. Though after her initial seconds of alarm she was now her usual picture of calm, an iciness had come to her eyes, and it betrayed an ungenerous conclusion about what she was seeing.

  At last she managed to say with reserve as proper as a church pew, ‘It’s such a bright day.’ Her voice, well-bred in its vowels, was now devoid of the intimate inflection she had used with me since September. ‘I thought I would enjoy the air.’ Her smile was as stiff as a pine plank left out in the sun for a year. ‘And the wind’s not so bad on the porch.’ She glanced at Miss Gregsby without expression, then turned back to me, her lower lip shifting once – enough to tell me, in this woman who customarily guarded her emotions like a high-stakes poker player, that she was indeed badly misinterpreting what she was seeing.

  ‘Please do stay,’ I said.

  ‘That would be impossible, Dr Deacon. I just wanted a quick word.’

  ‘About what?’

  She gave Miss Gregsby another blank look.

  I rushed with the proper forms. ‘Miss Wade, this is my new nurse, Miss Henrietta Gregsby, from Rochester. Miss Gregsby, this is Miss Olive Wade, our town midwife and local heiress.’

  Miss Gregsby rose from her seat and inclined her head. ‘A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Wade.’ Miss Gregsby appeared wholly terrified by Miss Wade, who was standing so regally in her furs, her beauty otherworldly.

  Miss Wade said with curt politeness, ‘How do you do?’

  After a few more awkward moments, I took the initiative. ‘Miss Gregsby, go inside and sit by the fire.’ I hopped to the drive and offered her my hand. ‘You’ve been freezing out here long enough.’