“I need to speak with him.”
The man arched a dubious brow.
“I’m with the coroner’s office. He may be able to identify a corpse.”
The shopkeeper looked startled, and then scanned his shop to make sure her words had not disturbed the primness of his domain.
“I’m afraid he’s not in today. I received a telegram on Wednesday saying that he was ill. It’s not like him at all. He’s been nothing but reliable.”
“I see. Do you have his address?”
“I’ll check my books.”
“And may I see that telegram?”
“I’m afraid I discarded it.”
✥
The landlady stood on her doorstep with arms crossed. She did not reach for Isobel’s offered card. Instead, she leaned closer, inspecting it like a legal letter. What Isobel wouldn’t have given for another Mrs. Beeton.
“This card claims that you’re Duncan August,” the landlady of Hal’s residence stated. “A detective came by earlier.”
“A detective?”
“He’s looking into the matter.”
“What matter is that?”
“It’s a matter for the police—not a young woman without a calling card. You should find yourself a good man and start a family.” The landlady stepped back, preparing to close her door.
Isobel jammed her umbrella against the wood. “I’m widowed.” She did not mention that she was the dead partner.
The landlady was unconvinced. “Unlikely. You’re probably with the press. And I’ll not have a scandal in my house. Find yourself a respectable profession.”
Isobel’s hand tightened around her umbrella. Before anger got the better of her, she withdrew the wedge, and the door slammed shut. The resulting squeak of surprise cooled her temper.
A brisk walk doused it completely. She wondered if Riot had ever experienced such obstacles, and contented herself with imagining the landlady’s face when she returned in the morning with Duncan August’s authority. Still, her errand had not been without benefit.
Henry Erving was missing. Was there some connection with Violet’s death? A lover’s spat gone wrong? Had he thrown Violet over for another woman, and, in a moment of insanity—what? Violet calmly sat on the beach until the wee hours of the morning, written an obscure message in the sand, and then thrown herself into the sea?
Suicide was either an impulsive act or a carefully planned one. Passion or determination, there was no between. Violet did not strike her as the kind of woman who planned things. A heartbroken woman wouldn’t wait for hours on end.
In the fading light, Isobel turned the corner, and strolled around the back of Henry’s residence, eyeing the windows. This was not a building like Sapphire House, but a private residence. A well-kept stick-style home, tall and narrow with a square bay window. Like most houses in San Francisco, rooms were let, and boarders often became part of the family—whether they liked it or not. Unfortunately, the windows were as closed-lipped as their owner.
There were any number of ways into the house; however, Isobel was loathe to risk police involvement when she could simply wait until she spoke with Duncan August. Still, patience was not her forte, and what little she possessed was running thin.
Frustrated, she consulted her watch, and stretched her legs, forcing her tired feet to move.
✥
Isobel knocked on the Sapphire House for the second time in a day. Mrs. Beeton answered the door. The landlady looked at Isobel with suspicion, and no recognition. Without hesitation, she supplied her card.
“Charlotte Bonnie with the coroner’s office.”
The landlady squinted at the card, scrutinizing it as she had earlier in the day.
“Has Mr. Crouch or Mr. Leeland returned?” Isobel carefully extracted her now tattered looking card from the landlady’s hand.
“Mr. Crouch arrived on the first ring of the sixth chime,” the landlady replied, shuffling away from the open door.
Isobel took this as an invitation. She stepped inside, and found the magpie polishing a grandfather clock in the hallway. Isobel consulted her own watch, noting that Mrs. Beeton’s clock was ten minutes fast, or hers was slow. She frowned, and clicked the little watch shut. Isobel was not the most diligent of clock minders. Mrs. Beeton, however, was winding the grandfather clock with the reverence of a saint and his holy symbol.
“Is Mr. Crouch in his—never mind, I’ll find my way.”
The house smelled of polish, and doorknobs gleamed in the gaslit hallway. When Isobel reached the room beside Violet’s, footsteps strode briskly to meet her. The door jerked open, revealing a gaunt man in his sixties with wild silver hair and thick scowling eyebrows. “How many times have I—” The man stopped mid-growl when he saw his visitor.
Isobel introduced herself with much repeated words, but he ignored her and thrust his head into the hallway, looking right and left. The scent of pipe tobacco clung to his dark suit.
“Is something a matter, Mr. Crouch?” she asked.
“Mrs. Beeton is ‘the matter’. She’s been in my rooms again.” There was a tinge of Scotland left over in the man’s voice, and from the way he dropped the end of his words, she placed his birth country in Glasgow.
“That appears to be an irritating habit of hers.”
The man looked at Isobel for the first time. He grunted, and stepped back, thrusting a long finger at the inside of his door. The brass knob gleamed.
Isobel tried not to smile.
“It’s not amusing, young lady.”
“No, I suppose not.” Isobel glanced into his room and her breath caught. Books, and more books lined one side of the room. A bushy brow arched, and his grey eyes softened.
“What can I do for you, Miss Bonnie?”
With reluctance, Isobel tore her gaze from his treasure, and produced Violet’s photograph. “Do you recognize any of these people?”
Mr. Crouch fumbled with his pocket button, withdrew a monocle, and twisted it into his right eye. He bent over the photograph.
“No,” he declared.
“No?”
“No,” he repeated.
“This woman,” Isobel thrust a finger at Violet, “lived in the room next to yours.”
“May she rest in peace, then.” He stepped back and started to shut the door.
Isobel stopped its momentum with her foot. “How do you know she’s dead if you didn’t recognize her?”
“Lived,” he pronounced pompously. “You said lived, not live—past tense. Grammar, Miss Bonnie, it matters.”
“So it does,” she said, thoughts flying towards the strange letter. The words brought to mind Riot as he had read its contents. His voice was deep and steady, and she wondered how a whisper in the dark would sound. Mr. Crouch tried to push her foot out of the way, and she quickly slapped her thoughts back on trail.
Isobel smiled pleasantly, undeterred. “Was the woman who shared that wall with you a quiet lodger?”
“My books muffle the noise. There were no screams, no late night gasps, or hysterical sobbing fits if that’s what you would like to know.” He intended to shock, but his comments only managed to endear.
“No thumping bedposts against the wall?” she added cheekily.
Not even a tinge of red on his sunken cheeks.
“If you will excuse me,” he huffed. “My books are more interesting company.”
“Reading a Christmas Carol?” Isobel very nearly called him Scrooge, but managed to catch herself before giving in to impulse.
“Dickens was a self-satisfied butcher of prose who treated words like the insufferable lace on a woman’s frock.”
“And what of people who refer to themselves in the third person?”
This caught the man’s attention. “Context,” he demanded.
“Your impression, first.”
Crouch scowled, but curiosity burned in his eyes. “Separatism from one’s self,” he snapped out each word. “Either to draw attention to a
good trait or distance one from a bad. Diminishing importance, the individual versus a group. Sarcasm, grandeur—since there is no context, choose one.” He waved an irritated hand.
Crouch was tall and thin, but his shoulders were hunched with age. Despite his proximity to Violet’s room, Isobel could not imagine the aging scholar climbing out a second-story window onto a narrow ledge. Since he was an unlikely suspect, she told him of Violet’s message in the sand.
“A woman who thought the world owed her all, no doubt, much like yourself.” Crouch was unimpressed.
“And what of this?” Isobel produced the strange letter.
“Do you make a habit of bothering old men in their castles?”
“Only ones who appear to possess half a brain,” Isobel returned sharply. “It remains to be seen whether yours is functioning in its entirety.” She started to tuck the letter away, but he snatched it from her hand, motioning her impatiently inside his domain.
The room smelled of pipe tobacco and books, and Isobel was reminded of her father. The memory made her heart ache.
Crouch took the paper over to his orderly desk while Isobel swallowed down emotion and focused on his shelves.
“The tightness, narrow spacing, severe slant,” he talked quickly, in a disjointed, sporadic manner. “Withdrawn, or meticulous—most definitely intrusive.” Crouch pinned her with a glare. “As your hand would likely be.”
“You can analyze mine after if you like. My partner and I deduced as much already.” The words left her lips without thought, as words often did.
Before Isobel could mull over her slip, Crouch continued, “The tension bleeds off this paper, doesn’t it?” he whispered. “Not one to be talking about forgiveness at all. It’s as if the writer were holding a knife to the reader’s throat, demanding an apology. And here, do you see?”
Isobel peered over his shoulder.
“The slant in the letters lessen, every few sentences, as if the hand forgets who he is.”
“Nearly every two sentences,” she nodded. Riot had pointed out the same thing.
“If the mention of spirit guides did not clue you in—a madman wrote this.”
“A man?” she asked in surprise. Riot had thought it a woman’s hand, but she had disagreed. Isobel did not think it was possible to determine gender by a handwriting sample. They had argued the point for a stimulating hour.
Isobel frowned at the words. Every time she looked at the letter from the otherworld, it made her queasy.
“Do you make a study of graphology?” she asked.
“I make a study of words,” Crouch grunted. Isobel found herself being corralled towards the doorway. She thanked him for his perceptive opinion, to which Crouch answered with a slammed door on her heels.
When she became a woman of a certain age, Isobel sincerely hoped that she was as ill-tempered as Crouch.
With one final interview remaining on her list of names, she climbed the stairs to the third floor and knocked on the elusive Mr. Leeland’s door. No answer. Not even a whisper of noise from within.
Isobel was not keen on returning to Sapphire House. With a determined air, she located Mrs. Beeton, who was fiddling with a flower arrangement.
“Do you happen to know when Mr. Leeland is expected?”
“Why he’s home, dear,” Mrs. Beeton said.
“Yes, you told me that this morning, but there’s no answer at his door. When did Mr. Leeland return?”
Mrs. Beeton repeated his name, searching her flickering brain for recognition. A light brightened in her squinty eyes. “Just before the third chime on Wednesday, at five o’clock in the evening.”
“Have you seen him since Wednesday?”
“Wednesday,” the landlady repeated. “That’s when he arrived. I change the flowers on Monday, polish the silverware on Tuesdays, the brass on Wednesdays, the railings on Thursdays, the knobs on—”
Isobel cut her off. “Mr. Leeland left some papers of mine in his room. Might I fetch them?”
“Of course,” the landlady beamed, patting her hand. Isobel followed the woman, hurrying her past the shiny knobs to the desired door.
“Hallo, Miss Bonnie,” Miss Taylor greeted in the hallway. The cheerful woman stood in front of her own door, right beside Mr. Leeland’s. She winked, and buttoned up her lips with a gesture.
As Mrs. Beeton fumbled with her keyring, Isobel returned the greeting, minus the gestures.
“I don’t think Mr. Leeland is home,” Miss Taylor said. “Although, he’s a very quiet neighbor, it’s hard to tell. And Oh, Miss Bonnie, I have a friend who works with me at the phone company. She would be delighted to meet you.” Another wink.
“Would she?” Isobel asked uneasily.
“Quite,” Miss Taylor confirmed. “When you call, ask for either of us by name. There’ll be silence for a bit, but we’ll take better care of you than the others. Mrs. Wright is my friend’s name.”
Isobel barely heard the woman as the landlady tried one key after another. None worked. “May I?” Without waiting for permission, she plucked the keys out of the landlady’s hand, and tried herself. None of the keys turned the lock.
“Mrs. Beeton, how many keys do you have on your ring?”
The landlady listed each key and their function in tedious detail. The final total was fifteen keys. There were only fourteen on the keyring.
“You’ve one missing,” Isobel pointed out.
The old woman’s eyes widened in outrage. She snatched the keyring from Isobel’s hand and began to count; on confirmation, she began to wobble.
“I’ll find the thief. I’ll evict him. I’ve done it before. It’s a cursed room—I’ve had nothing but trouble with every tenant who rents this room.”
“The last one died,” Miss Taylor explained excitedly as she ushered the shaky landlady into her own room.
Isobel frowned at the lock, wishing not for the first time that she knew how to pick one. It was surprisingly difficult to find a willing teacher whom she trusted at her back. Burglars were generally an unsavory sort and trying to get a foot in one of the Locksmith Unions was near to impossible—especially for a woman. As with all trades, they kept their trade secrets close.
Miss Taylor was busy pushing a glass of gin into the pale landlady’s hands. The room was a haven of quilted cats, doilies, and porcelain figurines. Isobel shuddered, focusing on the books. As she suspected, every manner of sensational literature inhabited Miss Taylor’s shelf, including a few French novels that raised a brow.
Isobel went straight for the window. A cushy armchair sat in the light with a stack of books on the little table. She leaned over the armchair and unlatched the window. To the right was the fire escape, and to the left, Mr. Leeland’s room. She unpinned her hat, set down handbag and umbrella, and without a thought, climbed out the widow. Stone reassured her feet. The beauty of long skirts was the ability to wear whatever footwear she desired. Her rubber-soled canvas deck shoes were perfect for the stone. She reached towards a sturdy iron drain pipe. Screeches followed as she edged along the ledge towards the next window. Calloused fingers, from years at sea and climbing, gripped the uneven brick with ease. A head poked out, paled, looked down, gasped, and disappeared.
Isobel reached the next window in the time it took for the two ladies to work up the courage to look out again. She planted one hand on the sill, and turned herself sideways, balancing on the ledge. She nudged the window open. It slid easily, soundlessly, a recently oiled mechanism.
Isobel looked inside, and then hopped down, landing on the soft rug. The room was empty—not just of inhabitants, but of everything save furniture. Before the women decided to follow, or worse, faint, Isobel hurried across the room. But the lock turned, and the door opened.
Miss Taylor stood in the doorway looking triumphant. “We found the keys. They were right out here on this table behind the flowers.”
Isobel frowned, irritated that she had not noticed the missing keys.
“Not that y
our window entrance was not impressive,” Miss Taylor hastened. “Well there’s not a thing in here!”
“Are you sure Mr. Leeland didn’t give his notice and move out?” Isobel asked.
“No, he did not,” the landlady replied, snatching the keys.
“Are you sure?” Miss Taylor prodded slowly. “You have misplaced a key once, or twice.”
“I’ve never misplaced a thing.” The words possessed the finality of a stomping foot. Miss Taylor daintily cleared her throat, shared a look with Isobel, and shook her head.
Isobel opened the wardrobe, the dresser, searched the neatly made bed, looked under it and rifled through the desk. The mysterious Mr. Leeland had left nothing behind, not even a speck of dust. The room was spotless.
She looked to Miss Taylor. “Did you ever meet Mr. Leeland?”
“Once, briefly. A young man, perhaps thirty-five—very striking. He had the most beautiful pale green eyes. Quiet and well-mannered. He asked after my work.”
“Did you ask after his employment?”
Miss Taylor blushed. “He was so attentive and charming that I quite forgot to ask. I took him for a maitre’d or an actor. When I told him where I worked, he was concerned over the long hours, but it’s not really as bad as all that. Remember, I have Thursdays and Fridays off, so if you call on one of those days, ask for Alice.”
“Did you tell that to Mr. Leeland?”
“Yes, I believe I did.”
“I see. And you usually read most of the day—in that armchair?”
Miss Taylor nodded in confirmation, and Isobel produced the photograph of Elma, Hal, and Violet again. “Did he look anything like this fellow in the photograph?”
“No, no Mr. Leeland was much more striking. Fine-boned. The fellow here is more squarish, don’t you think?”
Isobel took one last look at the empty room. “Who cleaned the room after the last tenant?”
“I clean all the rooms,” the landlady said proudly.
Miss Taylor leaned in close. “This room is a little too clean, if you ask me,” she whispered.
Isobel grunted in agreement, catching her meaning. There were any number of explanations for a man skipping town. Most men, however, did not steal a key to assure that his landlady did not enter, and then clean the room before leaving—whenever that might have been. And more importantly, if that had been the case at all. Mrs. Beeton was not the most reliable of witnesses.
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