Jeremy ran straight to his mother and aunt, kneeled down and, taking is mother’s hands in his own, exclaimed, "Mother, Aunt Nan, are you all right? What has happened?" Mrs. Voss’s soft words were quickly drowned out by Miss Nancy's harsh exclamations, and Annie could see that Jeremy was thoroughly bewildered. Meanwhile, Samuels buttonholed Chief Detective Jackson and upbraided him for invasion of privacy and a general lack of good manners. Jackson ignored him and walked over to Jeremy and began to speak in a clearly ironic tone.
The other voices died down and Jeremy rose to stand before the Chief Detective who said, "Excuse me, Mr. Voss. How kind of you to come. You have saved me the trouble of tracking you down. I have here a court order permitting me to search these premises in connection with the deaths of Matthew Voss and Nellie Flannigan." The Chief Detective drew a sheaf of papers out of his coat pocket and handed them to Jeremy, who looked at them vaguely and then passed them over to Samuels, who had come to stand by his side.
Jackson continued, "My men have just completed the search, and, as a result of what they've found, I would like to invite you to come with me to my office downtown to answer a few questions. I would suggest that you have Mr. Samuels here get in touch with your lawyer, so he can meet you there."
This last statement was met with at first silence and then outraged protest from both Miss Nancy and Malcolm Samuels. Mrs. Voss simply rose and stood mutely next to Jeremy, her arm sliding around his waist protectively. Jeremy said nothing but stood frozen for a minute; and, then, running his long fingers through his hair and taking a deep breath, he began to talk softly as he put his arm around his mother's shoulder.
"Chief Detective... Jackson, it is, I believe. I'll be glad to answer any questions you might ask. I know I haven't been as cooperative as I could have been in the past. I apologize. However, I wonder if we couldn't go over what you want to know here. We could use my father's...." At this point Jeremy's voice broke, and then he continued, "…his study, we would be private. But then my mother wouldn't worry so much. I don't really think that my lawyers need to be present. I'm not guilty of anything. But if you insist, I'll have Wong go for them."
The Detective smiled grimly and shook his head. "I'm sorry, young man. The time for informal chats has passed. I'm afraid that it must be done at headquarters. Now, I can't force you to come at this time. But I think that you would prefer to come voluntarily. Better for everyone."
Samuels again began to protest, stepping up close to Jackson and poking him in the chest with his finger, his mustache bristling in his anger. "This is an outrage. You've completely overstepped your authority. You are just trying to hide the fact you've bungled this investigation from the start. Well, I can assure you, you won't get away with it. Mayor Bryant will hear from me tonight."
Jeremy reached out and put a restraining hand on Samuels' shoulder. "No, Uncle Malcolm. That's enough. The Detective is just doing his job. But please. You stay here with mother. She'll need you. Send for Mr. Hobbes and Mr. Dawson. They'll know what to do."
Then he turned to his mother and gave her a swift hug. Annie could now see his face and felt a sharp pang when she saw how drawn and frightened he looked. His mother only reluctantly let him go, and she whispered something in his ear that made him chuckle weakly. Next he stepped over to his Aunt, who had also risen, and gave her a hard hug, saying, "Now, take care of Mother. I depend on you."
A moment later he was gone, taking the Chief Detective with him. Mrs. Voss, cutting off Miss Nancy and Samuels, both of whom had begun to speak, turned to Annie and said, "Please, Lizzie. Could you take the tea things and then ask Wong to come up here. I will want him to run an errand for me. Would you feel capable of carrying on with dinner alone for a while?"
Annie nodded and Mrs. Voss said, "Good girl. And could you also ask Cartier to come upstairs to my bedroom. I will be retiring for a while before dinner, which we will have at 7:30 tonight. Oh, I am sorry, but I am afraid that we won’t be able to spare you this evening, but I promise that you will have your night out tomorrow night. I am sure all this misunderstanding will be straightened out by then. That will be all for now, thank you." As Annie left the room she heard Mrs. Voss say that she hoped that Samuels would stay to dinner.
Annie did as she had been told, first telling Cartier that she was wanted in Mrs. Voss’s rooms. Then, when Cartier was gone, she told Wong what had been happening upstairs. "I think that they must have found something, something that they feel implicates Jeremy. The Chief Detective was practically bursting with glee, and he essentially threatened Jeremy with arrest if he didn't come willingly. Oh, Wong. His father would have been so proud of him! Jeremy handled himself magnificently."
Annie stopped then, silenced by Wong’s penetrating stare, and she realized that she had forgotten to refer to Jeremy as the master or Mr. Jeremy. Even worse, he must be wondering why she would profess any knowledge of what Matthew would think about his son. They stared at each other for a second, and then Wong shrugged, turned, and went upstairs to see his mistress.
When Wong returned to the kitchen he gave her instructions on how to finish the meal preparations and told her that he was to go out and telegraph the family lawyers.
“Oh Wong, is there any way you could also send a message to my friends as well. They were expecting me home this evening, and I wouldn’t want them to worry. If you can wait a minute I will run up stairs for some money.”
“Miss Lizzie, don’t worry about the money, just write out the address and your message, and I will be off.”
As Annie wrote out Beatrice’s name and the boarding house address she thought hurriedly how to write the message in such a way that if Nate was already there he would be alerted to the fact that he and his uncle were needed at the police station. She finally determined that the blunt truth would work best, so she wrote under the address, “Will not be home this pm. Master taken by police for questioning. Mistress requests my presence.” She hoped that Wong would not take exception to her revealing Jeremy’s business to her friends, but she didn’t know any other way to insure that Nate would get the message, without actually telling Wong she knew Mr. Dawson and where he would be at this hour. Wong simply nodded when she gave him the message, and slipped quickly out the back door. She wished she had a clue to what he was thinking, about the accusations against his new master or about her presence in the household.
During the next few hours, time limped along like an arthritic ancient. It took forever for Wong to return from the telegraph office, and Annie became increasingly ineffective in her attempts to carry out all of his instructions for the meal. Serving the dinner itself seemed to last for days, with Annie's shoulders and arms stiffening up more and more with each course. By ten o'clock, they finished washing the dishes, and Annie found herself sitting at the kitchen table with her head held between her hands, trying desperately to stay awake. When the doorbell rang again, Wong went up to answer it. Jeremy hadn't come home yet, but there was no reason for him to ring the bell. Annie got up and began to pace, waiting for Wong to come back and wondering what was going on.
Wong returned and started to brew another pot of coffee, reporting, "It was Mr. Dawson. He and his uncle have just come from the police station. I'm to take some of Master Jeremy's clothes down to him tonight on the way home. They're keeping him overnight."
Annie took a deep breath. "Then they’ve arrested him? Oh, Wong. This is awful. I can’t believe he would kill his father.” As she spoke, she realized she had never really believed Jeremy could have been the murderer. She wanted desperately to talk to Nate and find out what was going on.
As if in answer to her unspoken wish, Wong continued. "I don't know if he is arrested. Maybe Mr. Dawson will inform you. He asked me to request that you meet him at the back gate at 10:45. He wants to speak to you."
Wong did not look up from his task; neither did his voice express any surprise or curiosity when he conveyed this message. Annie didn't know what to say. The explanation for wh
y the family's lawyer would want to hold a private conversation with her was too complicated, and she didn't want to insult Wong with lies. So after a pause she just said, "I see. Well, if you see him before that, tell him I'll be there. If any one can find a way to protect Mr. Jeremy, I am sure that Mr. Dawson can do it."
Wong finished with the coffee and took it upstairs, saying he would go on up and gather together Jeremy's things. Annie later wondered if she had possibly fallen asleep, because before her tired brain had gone beyond repeating to itself that Jeremy was innocent, Wong was back down beside her with a packed bag in one hand and the tray of coffee cups in the other.
After putting the coffee cups into the dishpan to soak and getting on his jacket, Wong spoke again in his inflectionless voice. "Mr. Hobbes and Mr. Samuels have left the house and Mrs. Voss and the old Miss have retired to their rooms. Cartier has also gone to bed. The front is locked, and you are to let me out the back and lock up after I have gone. I believe that it is now time for your meeting with Mr. Dawson; I will tell him you are on your way as I go by."
And with this Wong took down the key from its hook next to the back door, unlocked it, and gave the key to Annie before slipping out into the night.
Chapter Thirty-three
Wong’s exit from the kitchen galvanized Annie into action. She dashed to the washbasin in the corner, where a small mirror hung. She flung some of the water in the basin onto her face, and, while toweling it dry, peered to see how she looked. The light in the kitchen at night was too poor for her to see very well, and she chided herself for even caring. She then hastily poked and prodded at her hair to try and produce some semblance of neatness. All she succeeded in doing was dislodging a few more pins, and a few more strands escaped from the braid coiled at the nape of her neck. Muttering a very unladylike phrase, Annie hurried to the door, snatched a shawl that hung over a kitchen chair on the way, and, stopping to make sure she had the back door key in her pocket, she too slipped out into the night.
As she stood for a second on the top doorstep to let her eyes adjust to the darkness, Annie looked around. It was a typical August night for San Francisco: cold, foggy, damp. No stars were visible, and the moon was a faint, misty sliver. There was a slight breeze and shadows loomed and clumped and slithered in various parts of the yard, causing Annie to rethink her decision not to bring a lamp. But, no, the chances of someone seeing its light from the house and coming to investigate were too great. Making her way down the path in the faint moonlight, she tried to think of what she would say to Nate. She smelled the acrid scent of smoke and located the tiny glowing ember of a cigar about a foot away from her. She whispered Nate’s name. The ember arced over the back gate into the alleyway, and then a tall shadow detached itself from the universal blackness and came toward her, slowly revealing the figure that was becoming so familiar.
Without thinking, she ran up to him and placed her hands against his chest, as if to steady herself and said, “Oh, Nate, I’m so glad you’ve come. What are we going to do? The police can’t really think Jeremy’s the murderer? Tell me, is there anything I can do to help!”
Annie’s rush of words faltered as she felt Nate stiffen and then pull away from her. Chagrinned, she scolded herself for her behavior. What was she thinking of, throwing herself at him! Yet, for a brief moment she'd felt his warm breath against her cheek. Annie thought sadly that it must have been her imagination.
Trying to cover her hurt, Annie resumed her questioning. “Have they arrested Jeremy? What did they find when they searched the house? Please tell me, I need to know.”
Nate responded in a tense, quiet voice. “It looks bad. They haven’t formally arrested him, but they will probably press charges sometime tomorrow. Really don’t have much choice; the evidence is pretty strong against him. Someone has testified that they saw Jeremy last Sunday afternoon on a path above the beach where Nellie was killed. And when they searched the house they found a small bloody wooden club stuffed down among the paint rags in his room. They figure this was used to knock out Nellie.”
Annie gasped. “No, Nate that’s not possible. Jeremy couldn’t have killed her. That would mean he killed his father as well, and I just can’t believe that.”
Nate interrupted her, “That’s not all. They also found a bundle of bank notes and some of the stock certificates that were missing. Even more incriminating, they found a small vial of potassium cyanide in his room, the poison used to kill his father.”
Annie, speechless for a moment, began to crumple her shawl in her hands. Then she fired off a series of questions, giving Nate no chance to answer them. “Where did they find the bank notes and stock certificates? Patrick said the police got some sort of letter in the mail. What did it say? And where do they think Jeremy would have gotten the cyanide? How could they think that anybody would be so stupid as to leave that kind of evidence around? It just doesn’t make any sense.”
Nate put a hand out and briefly touched her shoulder, saying, “Slow down. One question at a time.”
Annie paused, catching her breath. Nate’s hand had felt so warm through the thin damp wool of her dress that she realized how chilled she was, and she pulled the shawl around her shoulders, shivering.
Nate continued. “First of all, they found the money and assets stuck among his bills in his desk. The vial of cyanide was among his painting gear. And yes there was a letter, anonymous, that purported to be from someone who Jeremy had approached about selling some non-negotiable bonds.”
Annie burst out, “Someone is trying to frame him. All of this is a lie. Yesterday I went through his rooms from top to bottom, and there weren’t any stock certificates in his desk and there certainly wasn’t any blood-stained wooden club. As for the vial of cyanide, I can’t believe that if he were guilty of poisoning his father that he would keep the cyanide in his rooms. He had nearly two weeks to get rid of it. Where would he have gotten cyanide in the first place?”
“Well, the police say the vial came from the furniture factory. Evidently they use potassium cyanide in the furniture-making process.”
Annie snorted. “Well, that just proves the cyanide wasn’t used by Jeremy. As far as I can tell, before today he has rarely set foot in the place, and I don’t see him being able to recognize any chemical from the factory, much less knowing it was a poison.”
“I’m sorry, but the police don’t see it that way. Turns out that the factory uses the cyanide in the mixture of certain pigments and stains for some of the finished furniture. So Jackson figures that, as an artist, Jeremy would be familiar with cyanide and its effects on the human body. And as for his hiding the money and missing assets in his room, well, I suppose he might have hidden them somewhere else but thought that enough time had lapsed that it would be safer to have them closer to home.” The neighbor’s dog barked again, and Nate turned aside, looking at the back gate.
Annie grabbed Nate’s coat lapels, pulling him back around while she furiously spat out. “Look at me! You believe he did it, don’t you! You’ve always believed it was him. I can’t believe you would be so stupid.”
Nate grabbed her hands and held them to his chest. “Listen to me, Annie; don’t jump to conclusions. I’m just as upset about all this as you are. You didn’t have to sit and explain all this to his mother. God, I felt helpless, and she was so brave. But even if you are right about none of this making sense, we have to be realistic. I am telling you how it looks to the police. And on the surface the evidence seems fairly overwhelming.”
He then let her go, and Annie turned slightly from him and wiped her eyes with the edge of her shawl. Taking a deep breath, she turned back to him and said as calmly as possible, “All right, I’m trying to get this straight. What did Jeremy say to their questions? He didn’t confess to the police, did he?”
Nate sighed. “No, but he just said he was innocent, over and over. And you would think that if he was the murderer, he would have come up with a better story by now, although I am pretty sure he w
as lying about one thing. But then that didn’t make sense either.”
“What do you think he was lying about?”
“About his whereabouts Sunday afternoon when Nellie was killed. He told the police that he went down town and wandered around, but I don’t know; something was wrong. He stiffened, and, when Jackson pressed him, he got angry. It was the only time he showed any real emotion throughout all the questions. He even seemed quite calm when they took him over the night of his father’s death. He stuck to the tale he had told the police earlier, about walking all the way down to the docks and back that night. He didn’t seem uncomfortable with that story, even though it was as weak and unsubstantiated an alibi as the one he had for Nellie’s death. I think he is hiding something about Sunday, but if he isn’t Nellie’s murderer, I don’t know what it is.”
Annie thought for a minute. “Maybe he was doing something else he was ashamed of Sunday. I don’t know, maybe he was drunk in some dive or in a prostitute’s crib on the Barbary Coast. Doesn’t want it to come out. Of course it would be idiotic of him to withhold information that would prove him innocent, but I could see him doing just that in a misguided attempt to keep from embarrassing his mother or his finance, can’t you?”
Nate sounded skeptical. “Remember, they have a witness that says Jeremy was near the Cliff House on Sunday afternoon.”
“But we where there, and we didn’t see anybody. Who said they saw Jeremy?” Annie cut in.
“A man who works as a hostler for the Cliff House. Said he was taking a walk along the cliffs that overlooked that part of the beach. Said he saw a young man, dark curly hair, mustache, scrambling up to the road to the north. They brought him to the station house tonight, and he said it was definitely Jeremy that he saw.”
Maids of Misfortune: A Victorian San Francisco Mystery Page 24