MURDER AT BERTRAM'S BOWER

by Cynthia Peale

  She reached the lighted corner, crossed, and went on. Darkness again. The bell had stopped, but now suddenly, out of the silent night, came the angry screech of a yowling cat. Dear heaven, what a noise! It was an unnerving sound at any time, but particularly now, when she was a solitary female abroad in the nighttime, a foolish female to have come here alone. What had she been thinking of? She should have allowed Dr. MacKenzie to come with her. Better yet, she should have listened to him and not come at all.

  The yowling reached a high pitch and then suddenly stopped. Clomp-clomp-clomp went her galoshes on the brick sidewalk. Thud-thud-thud went her heart, as if in answer. Only a little way now until she came to Dartmouth Street, where she could cross over into Copley Square. It would be safer there, more people, brightly lighted, and well away from this district where those two girls, those poor, unfortunate girls, had been so atrociously murdered.

  Someone was following her. Over the sound of her pounding heart, over the sound of her clomping galoshes, she heard footsteps. A man’s footsteps, much too heavy to be a woman’s. They were gaining on her.

  Her heart jumped into her throat, and for a moment, she thought she would choke.

  Stop and turn to look? Or ignore him and keep going fast, faster, as if she hadn’t heard? If he sees that you are frightened, she told herself, that in itself may spur him to some reckless—some unthinkable—act.

  The footsteps ceased. He must have turned a corner or gone into one of the tall, poorly lighted row houses that lined the street. Glancing back, she saw the sidewalk stretching empty behind her. The lights from the streetlamps—those that worked—glimmered on the deserted cobblestones of the street.

  Despite the cold, the raw night air, she was perspiring. Sweat trickled uncomfortably down her face and neck. She wiped at her upper lip, but her fingers, encased in her kid glove, did no good. Perhaps she could find her handkerchief in her carpetbag.

  She fumbled at it, scrabbled for the scrap of cloth. But she couldn’t find it, and now, to her horror, she heard footsteps again—a man’s again, but with a different rhythm to them.

  Fearful, terrified of what she would see, she glanced over her shoulder. Coming at her, very fast, was a tall, solid figure. He was no tramp, no riffraff from the rails, but a confident, long-striding male dressed in a tall hat and well-fitting overcoat. He was perhaps half a block away, and gaining rapidly.

  Hurriedly she closed her bag and started to walk again, faster than before. But still she heard his footsteps; he was gaining on her. Suddenly seized by panic, she started to run. No, she thought. It isn’t possible. Please let him not be—

  She thought she heard him call to her, but she ignored him. She was running hard now, pain stabbing at her side, her lungs throbbing, her corset cruelly cutting her. She must draw a full breath or she would faint. But she mustn’t faint, she must run—run for her life, because she was being chased by this man who was running, now, himself, and in a moment he was going to catch her.

  Her overshoe caught on a protruding brick, and she went down. Her shoulder hit the ground with a heavy thud; then her head hit, but the rim of her bonnet kept her from serious injury.

  But she was stunned, what little breath she’d had knocked out of her, and for a long, terrible moment she lay prostrate. Her heart hammered, ready to burst, and her mouth went dry as she heard the footsteps coming closer and closer.…

  She looked up. Just before she fainted she saw, looming over her, the faceless figure of the man who had pursued her.

  She might have been young, but her face was frozen into a grotesque mask of terror so that it was impossible at first to tell her age. Her throat was slashed, her abdomen ripped open.

  At first, when he’d spotted the crumpled heap halfway down the alley, he’d paused in his search, afraid of what he would see. But then, drawn by his need to know, slowly, cautiously, near paralyzed with dread, he crept down the narrow way until he reached the thing lying on the ground. His knees were so weak that he almost collapsed, and for a moment he leaned against the wall to steady himself. With trembling hands he fished a box of matches from his pocket, but it was nearly a minute before he managed to get one lit.

  He heard a low, keening sound—a despairing wail of grief and loss—and he knew that it came from him. He sank onto his knees beside her, heedless of the muck and filth of the alley, heedless of her blood, and struck match after match. In the damp, misty night they went out quickly, and so he needed to keep striking them. With a shaking hand he held them close to her face. He still could not believe it. He kept thinking he had wandered into some nightmare, and any moment now he would awake and find himself safe in the Ameses’ kitchen.

  “No,” he crooned, “no, no, no.…” He rocked back and forth on his knees, overcome with grief. “No, no, no.…”

  He never heard the commotion at the end of the alley, never heard the approach of the men’s heavy steps. He was startled when they seized him by the arms and hauled him up. He looked wildly around at their stern, accusing faces; in the flickering light of their lanterns, they looked like a trio of executioners.

  He started to protest, but they ignored him. As they dragged him away, his shouts echoing off the walls of the alley, they were sure they had found the Bower killer at last.

  Caroline groaned, and then bit her lip to keep from groaning again. In the parlor of No. 16½, she sat in MacKenzie’s chair while he knelt at her feet, gently exploring with his fingertips her swollen—and quite naked—right ankle.

  “No breakage,” he said, smiling up at her. “But you’ve had a nasty sprain. You should soak this for a while, and then I will bind it.”

  From his place by the fire, Ames clucked in disapproval. “I cannot emphasize enough, Caroline, how fortunate you were.”

  To have been pursued by the man he believed responsible for the Bower murders? How did that make her fortunate?

  But she’d been frightened enough, he thought as he saw her disconsolate face. Even as disapproving as he was of her recklessness, he wouldn’t chastise her further.

  She’d arrived half an hour ago in a herdic. The driver had come to the door to ask assistance because she’d been unable to walk across the sidewalk. When at last she was safe inside, and had gasped out the details of her misadventure, Ames and MacKenzie had been appalled—horrified at her narrow escape.

  “The Reverend Montgomery?” Ames had said.

  “Yes, Addington. He—I thought he was pursuing me. That’s why I ran. And then I fell, and he caught up with me. He was almost as upset as you are now to find me there. He was very kind. He helped me up, and he stayed with me until a herdic came by. He was going to accompany me here—he insisted upon doing so—but I would not allow it. He told me he was overdue at some conference, and he’d been kind enough already. I didn’t want to delay him any longer.”

  The reverend had said he was to spend this day and the next at a conference in Cambridge. Some urgent reason must have detained him in Boston. And so, stalking the streets of the South End, he had come upon Caroline, alone and defenseless.…

  Suddenly Ames’s throat constricted, and he swallowed painfully.

  MacKenzie stood up. They should ring for Margaret to bring a basin of warm water, he said, and meanwhile he would fetch a wrapping from his bag of medical supplies.

  A short while later, the soaking completed, Caroline allowed him to bind her ankle. The intimacy of this act had at first given her pause; for a man to see her bare leg and foot protruding from her petticoats would have been, in ordinary circumstances, indescribably embarrassing. But MacKenzie was a doctor, after all, and so kind, so gentle, so thoroughly professional, she hardly minded at all. She reminded herself that he’d seen more of her than her ankle when, two months before, he’d tended to the bullet wound in her shoulder.

  “There.” He fastened the wrap with a metal clip and gently placed her foot on a low stool. “You’ll need to stay off it for a day or two, or possibly longer. But there has been n
o permanent damage.”

  “You were fortunate, Caroline,” Ames said grimly.

  “I know that,” she said, and her voice was not sharp, as it might have been, but low, subdued. “You were right, Doctor, to say that I should not have gone. The errand was not truly necessary. I shall speak to the committee, to ask them to clarify the rules whereby we may be called upon. And I am sorry that I—spoke harshly to you.”

  “Am I forgiven, then?” MacKenzie wanted to clasp her hand, but he did not quite dare.

  “Yes. Completely.”

  He felt an enormous sense of relief, as if a heavy weight had been lifted from his heart. He was not to be banished from her good graces after all. And perhaps, someday …

  She sat back, suddenly exhausted, accepting the cup of tea that Ames put into her hands. It was hot, reviving; she sipped it gratefully as she glanced around the familiar, welcoming room. How inexpressibly glad she was to be here, with these two men who cared for her—she took Ames’s caring for granted; she’d come to appreciate MacKenzie’s—safe from the terrors of the night, the dark, rain-swept streets.

  Suddenly, although she was not cold, she shuddered.

  “What is it?” said Ames.

  “I was thinking of Agatha. And the girls at the Bower. Even if the police catch this man—”

  “When,” he interjected. “When they catch him.”

  “Yes. When. But forever afterward, for a long time, the girls at the Bower will not be able to go out without the memory of—of Mary and Bridget.”

  “But in time—” MacKenzie began, looking for some way to banish her dark thoughts. But just then they heard the door knocker—loud, peremptory—and he broke off.

  They heard Margaret going along the hall to answer. They heard her startled exclamation, and then a man’s voice, stern, demanding. Without waiting for Margaret to announce the caller, Ames strode to the closed pocket doors and slid them open.

  “Desmond! What is it?”

  Delahanty stared at each of them in turn, as if he were looking for someone. He’d been running; he was breathing hard, and his hair was disheveled and damp, long, straggling red locks falling over his high forehead.

  “Is Garrett here?” he demanded.

  And when they did not answer at once: “For God’s sake, Ames! Is he here or not?”

  “He was,” Ames replied. “But not now.”

  “What do you mean, not now? Where is he?”

  “We don’t know,” Caroline said. “He came—at your direction, he told me—but then he went away again.”

  “Why?” barked Delahanty.

  “We don’t know that, either.”

  Delahanty’s thin shoulders slumped, and suddenly he looked defeated. He shook his head.

  “What is it, Desmond?” Ames asked. He’d never seen his friend so distraught, and he was sincerely alarmed.

  Delahanty took a deep breath. “There has been another murder,” he said quietly.

  There was a moment’s shocked silence. Then: “Oh, no,” breathed Caroline. For a moment, she was back in the dark streets of the South End, fleeing a faceless pursuer.

  “The same?” Ames asked. But of course it was the same; Delahanty would not have come here to announce, say, the death of some roisterer down in Roxbury.

  “Yes. I had word just now, down in Washington Street. The Globe has a line to the police. As I was leaving my office, their men were running out. When I asked them where they were going—it was almost as if I knew before they spoke—they told me that another girl has been killed over in the South End.”

  Caroline tried to speak, but her throat was dry and she could not get out the words. At last: “You mean, another of Agatha Montgomery’s?”

  “Yes. Another girl from Bertram’s Bower.”

  Two police wagons stood at the curb, the horses’ breath rising in small columns in the raw night air. Several uniformed men stood guard along the sidewalk. For what? thought Ames as he stepped from the herdic-phaeton. The damage, once again, had been done, and once again the police were too late to prevent it.

  Beyond the police line stood a crowd of restless men: journalists. Damnation! Some of them shouted at him, but he ignored them.

  “There’s Babcock, from the Globe,” muttered Delahanty at his elbow. “And Hibbens, from the Post—watch out for him, he’ll misquote you every time.”

  “Comment, gentlemen?” shouted a journalist.

  “Connected to the case?” shouted another.

  “Related to the girl?”

  “Give us a statement!”

  A brief scuffle erupted as two of them tried—and failed—to break through the police barrier.

  “Carrion crow,” muttered MacKenzie. He saw Crippen hurrying down the Bower’s steps, followed by two plainclothesmen. Behind them, at the open door at the top, stood the forbidding figure of Matron Pratt.

  “ ’Evening, Inspector.”

  “Ah! Mr. Ames.” Crippen came to an abrupt halt.

  “There has been another murder,” Ames said.

  Crippen allowed himself half a grin. “That’s right. But this time, we’ve got him dead to rights. He’s down at headquarters now, being booked. We caught him red-handed.”

  “Who?” Ames asked, dreading to hear the answer.

  Crippen nodded in a self-satisfied way. “Why, the fellow I’ve had in my sights all along, that’s who. That Irish lad. Who else?”

  “Impossible!” Delahanty blurted, pushing forward past MacKenzie. “You cannot mean—” He stopped as Ames put a warning hand on his arm.

  Crippen turned his gaze to Delahanty, and now his face was grim. “I cannot mean what, sir?”

  “He is not your man,” Delahanty said.

  “Oh? Is he not, indeed? I think otherwise, Mr.—ah—”

  Hastily Ames introduced them, but Crippen had no time for social niceties. He had started to move toward his carriage, when Ames said, “Who was the girl, Inspector? Do you know?”

  “Oh, yes.” Crippen turned back, and again they saw that unsettling half-grin. “We know. Her name was Peg Corcoran.”

  Peg Corcoran. Who, MacKenzie had said, was Garrett O’Reilly’s cousin.

  Ames was glad of the dark, glad that Crippen could not see his face clearly. With a word to his companions, he stepped toward the little police inspector and walked with him to his waiting carriage.

  “Inspector, I would ask you—my cousin Wainwright, as you know, does not want this case to blow up in our faces.”

  “Blow up in our faces, Mr. Ames? How do you mean?”

  “I mean, the Irish population of Boston is restless enough. The three girls who were murdered were Irish, and now you have arrested an Irish lad in their deaths. If it should happen that he is not in fact guilty—”

  Crippen had been walking with his head slightly tilted toward Ames, as if he were listening carefully, but now he came to an abrupt halt and thrust out his chin in an antagonistic way.

  “Mr. Ames, you surprise me.”

  “How is that, Inspector?”

  “Because you are an intelligent man. Even, if I may say so, a very clever man, which is something else entirely. Do you think I don’t know what you’re telling me? I need to be sure when I make an arrest in a case like this, and I can tell you right now I am very sure indeed.” He thrust his hand into his inside jacket pocket and took out something small that glittered in the dim light from the streetlamp.

  “Have a look at this.” He gave it to Ames, adding, “It’s some kind of religious medal apparently—and you know how religious the Irish are. The girl had it clutched in her hand, like she grabbed it off him. It’s almost like she was trying to identify him.”

  Ames stopped under the light to look at it, and as he did so, something tugged at the edges of his memory. A small, glittering disc—where had he seen it?

  “It is not a religious medal, Inspector.”

  Crippen’s face sagged with disappointment. “It’s not? What is it, then?”

&n
bsp; “It is a coin—a very ancient one. If I am not mistaken, it is third or fourth century B.C.—the head of Medusa, an idealized version of the dread monster, Gorgo. The later Greeks rendered her as a beautiful young woman facing death, as she is here. Rather appropriate, wouldn’t you say?”

  He handed it back, and Crippen took it and slipped it back into his inside jacket pocket. “Whatever you say, Mr. Ames. We’ll get it all sorted out later.” It was obvious that he did not believe what Ames had told him.

  Crippen’s uniformed driver clucked to the horses to bring the carriage near. On the door, Ames could see the words BOSTON POLICE. With a curt “good-night,” Crippen clambered up, and the driver ordered the horses to walk on. Ames stood at the curb, watching the vehicle move away until it disappeared into the darkness. The other police vans followed, and then the square was left with only a lone uniform patrolling. Already the journalists had begun to drift away.

  “We must do something about that boy, Ames,” said Delahanty.

  “Indeed we must,” Ames replied. “And quickly. Once Crippen learns that the murdered girl, this time, was Garrett’s cousin—”

  “What!” exclaimed Delahanty. “His cousin? Are you sure?”

  “Fairly. He told Caroline that, at any rate.” Ames thought for a moment. “I am going to speak briefly to Miss Montgomery, if she will see me. And I will ask you, Desmond, to run an errand for me, if you will.”

  In a moment more, he had given Delahanty his instructions, and the Irishman set off at a fast clip.

  Then Ames turned to glance up at Bertram’s Bower. The place was brightly illuminated, every window ablaze behind drawn shades.

  “They must be terrified, poor things,” said MacKenzie as he saw the shadow of a female form.

  “Undoubtedly,” Ames replied. “And Miss Montgomery may be indisposed—I would not be surprised if she were—but let us just see for ourselves.”

  As they ascended the steps, he thought of Caroline. She was alone at Louisburg Square. He had warned her to admit no one, and he assumed that she had the good sense for once to obey him. And if the house was locked and secure, with the faithful Margaret there, then Caroline would be safe until he returned.