Maids of Misfortune: A Victorian San Francisco Mystery

by M. Louisa Locke

  Annie started to exclaim, but Wong held up his hand and cocked his head, saying, “Please Miss, let us not discuss this further. We have our morning chores to attend to, and if my ears are not deceived I believe that we are about to receive a visit from Miss Nancy. It would be good if she would find breakfast preparations underway.”

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Thursday afternoon, August 16, 1879

  Later, Annie would think of this early morning event as the beginning of the siege. Miss Nancy did indeed burst into the kitchen, still dressed in her night things, demanding to know the cause of the commotion that had wakened her. Annie didn’t wait around to hear Wong’s explanation and instead scurried up the stairs to attend to her morning duties before Miss Nancy had a chance to admonish her. While she opened the dining room window curtains and knelt to start the fire in this room she tried to recall what the reporter had said, something about the Chronicle. Perhaps Miss Nancy would ask Wong to go out and purchase a copy of the paper, but that would put him in danger of being accosted by the same two men. Thinking about this as she moved into the front parlor to clean out its fireplace, it occurred to Annie to peek out the window that looked out on the street. With a sense of inevitability, she noted two different men were standing on the railings of the front fence, peering up at the house as if trying to determine if anyone was up. She wondered if they were also newspaper reporters and if they would be brazen enough to actually come to the front door. Before breakfast was over, she had her answer.

  They, and the three or four other men who soon joined them, were newspaper reporters. They not only repeatedly rang the front bell but they knocked on the kitchen door, climbed the fence and stood in the flower beds at the side of the house to peer in the windows, and intercepted the men delivering milk and ice to the house. It was the iceman who thoughtfully smuggled in a copy of the morning paper, confirming what they had already guessed, that Jeremy’s questioning by the police was front-page news. Thank goodness the house had indoor facilities, because Annie shuddered to think about what it would have meant if they had had to use an outhouse. Miss Nancy, Mrs. Voss, and Cartier chose to remain upstairs all morning, each having their breakfasts in their own rooms, so they were spared the inconvenience of dealing with these interlopers, but neither Wong nor Annie had that option. First of all, they were forced to keep all the first floor windows closed and locked and the curtains drawn, on what, perversely, proved to be one of San Francisco’s loveliest sunny August days. Consequently, Annie and Wong sweltered in musty darkness. Secondly, much as they would have liked to, they couldn’t simply ignore the front door bell, since it might have been someone with legitimate business. So, each time the doorbell rang, both Annie and Wong dropped whatever they were doing and went into action. Annie would run up to the second floor and nip into the front guest bedroom, where she could see the front stoop from a window. After determining that the person ringing the bell was no one they knew, she would stamp her feet twice, which Wong could hear from his position in the hallway, and they would both return to their chores.

  Needless to say, everything took twice as long to accomplish, and Annie was already physically and emotionally exhausted from the events of the previous day. That was probably why she screamed and dropped one of the good china plates she was drying after lunch when the face of a reporter suddenly appeared at the kitchen window. Wong was just covering the window with a thick towel, when the bell for the front door pealed again.

  “Oh, Wong. I can’t stand this much longer. Please, please, can’t I drop the contents of the slop jar on the top of their heads? I promise I’d scrub the front steps on my hands and knees when this is all over.”

  Annie was heartened to see that she had finally won a smile from Wong. He had clearly been shaken by his early morning adventure. As she took her place at the front look-out, she was so busy wondering how they were going to get the day’s marketing done that Annie almost didn’t register that the person standing at the front door wasn’t a reporter, but that it was Nate. He was ringing the doorbell repeatedly while being shouted at by the gaggle of reporters along the front sidewalk.

  Annie disobeyed all the rules and flew down the front steps to skid to a stop in front of a startled Wong, saying, “Open the door quick, it's Mr. Dawson. Maybe he has news of Jeremy. I’ll tell Mrs. Voss he’s here.”

  As she went down the back hall to the servant’s stairs she could hear the sudden rise in the noise level as Wong opened the front door, and she turned to watch as he and Nate put their shoulders to the door to shove back the men who were trying to push their way in. Assured of their success, she made her way to the back stairs to ascend to the second floor. At first Annie had found the requirement that servants only use the back stairs amusing, then extremely irritating, and now, with less than a week as a servant, it seemed normal to her. What also seemed normal was the way her heart began to misbehave at the sight of Nate. She wasn’t sure which idea was more upsetting, that she had adapted so well to the rules of domestic service or that a man once again could have that sort of effect on her.

  “Miss Lizzie,” Wong looked up from a tray on the kitchen table, where he was laying out the tea biscuits he had by some miracle found time to make this morning, “Mr. Dawson informed me that he should be with Mrs. Voss and Miss Nancy for no more than a half hour, and that if you would await him in the kitchen, that he would try to have a word with you before he leaves.”

  Annie had just come back down to the kitchen from notifying Miss Nancy that her sister-in-law had requested her company in the front parlor where she was entertaining Mr. Dawson. This had prompted the usual scowl and grudging acquiescence on the old lady’s part. All the way down the stairs Annie had been so absorbed with concocting a scheme that would win her a few minutes conversation with Nate that Wong’s message took a second to sink in. When it did, Annie found herself blushing furiously.

  “Oh, Wong. Thank you. Yes, I will be here. Is there something that I can be doing to help you prepare dinner? Annie hesitated and then rushed ahead, fearing that if she slowed her courage would fail her. “Please Wong, I would like to explain. I know that Mr. Dawson’s request to see me, last night and today, must seem highly irregular. I assure you that there is…I mean he is the complete gentleman and there is nothing wrong. It is just that we have, well you might say, a prior acquaintance, and he….”

  “Please, Miss Lizzie, there is no need. Even a blind man could see that you are more than a simple maid and that the purpose of your sojourn here goes beyond simple service. I trust in your pure heart, and if you and your young lawyer friend can but lift the cloud of misfortune from this family, I am content. I need know nothing more. Now I will take up the tea. When the bell is rung to escort Mr. Dawson out, I will direct him here, while I pack up more of Master Jeremy’s things. It seems he must suffer being away from his home for at least one more night.”

  Annie watched with eyes blurred by tears as Wong picked up the loaded tea tray as if it weighed no more than a feather and disappeared up the stairs.

  Barely twenty minutes passed before Nate was sitting at the kitchen table across from her. He looked tired, and she wondered at the toll all of this was taking on everyone.

  “I just came from visiting Jeremy,” said Nate. "Jackson’s been questioning him all morning. I told his mother he looked well, but that was a lie. I tell you, Annie, he looked awful. Pale, eyes sort of bruised. Doubt if he slept any. Who could under the circumstances? I asked him, did he need to see a doctor? He said he was fine, but I don’t know.” Nate sat at the kitchen table across from Annie, shaking his head.

  “Have the police charged him yet?” asked Annie.

  “No, and they have forty-eight hours to hold him. You know, I think Jackson is a bit spooked by how Jeremy is behaving. He has continued to be very polite, none of his previous blustering. From what I could tell, he’s remained very consistent in his story about what happened the night his father died and where he was las
t Sunday. He didn’t even seem upset when Jackson sprung on him the evidence they found in his room--the bloody club, the money and investments, and the poison. He just acted bewildered!”

  Annie broke in, “Of course he did. I told you, I searched those rooms on Tuesday, and I would swear nothing incriminating was there until someone put it there, probably after Jeremy left for the factory the next morning. I bet Wong could verify that as well.”

  “I know, but as I said before, I don’t relish the thought of telling Chief Jackson that a respectable widow, posing as a servant, swears the evidence was planted. But if this thing does come to trial I may have to consider getting you and Wong to testify to that fact. I’ve got to tell you, though, Jeremy’s response to the questions about the cyanide really flummoxed Jackson. First, Jackson thought he finally had won a confession from him this morning when Jeremy admitted that he knew that cyanide could be found in paint, and that he probably had some in his rooms. I wanted to stuff a handkerchief in his mouth when he came out with that statement, incriminating himself like that.

  “But then, when Jackson pressed him further, asking if he had taken the vial of cyanide from the factory and if he had given it to his father, Jeremy just frowned and said, ‘Vial, what vial?’ He then proceeded to tell Jackson how Prussian blue comes in a tube, not in a jar. Something about not keeping oils in a jar, cause they'll get all gummy. Then Jeremy said, ‘I don't think it would kill you unless you ate it. But father would never have fallen for that. It would turn the whisky blue! He wasn't blind, you know.’

  “Hang it all, Annie, I thought Jackson would have apoplexy. Jeremy said he’d never heard of potassium cyanide, the white powder that is used in the furniture factory and was used to kill his father. What he did know all about was this special oil-based paint that he said contained…I think it was ferrous cyanide-I’m not sure about that, since that sounds like it would be rust colored. Anyway, I guess this kind of cyanide makes a special kind of blue paint. Jeremy went on for a good half hour about the usefulness of this color blue for painters…well, let's just say Jackson wasn’t too pleased. In fact he said to me later that if Jeremy had gone on for one more minute, extolling the virtues of Prussian blue for seascapes, he was ‘going to make him eat a tube of it, just to see if works the same as the potassium stuff!’

  “He made light of it, but I think this particular interchange really shook him. You know, this case could be a real feather in Jackson’s cap. Charges of patricide, missing money, poison, a double murder. As you know, it's already generating lots of press, which Jackson seems to like. But he could be ruined if he turns out to have made a mistake. I think he expected Jeremy to crumble after one night in a jail cell, and he hasn’t. That’s probably why I was able to get Jackson to postpone charging him until tomorrow. He wants to make dashed sure of his facts.

  “It means at least another night in jail for Jeremy, but Jeremy said that was all right if it would help me look for evidence that would exonerate him. Actually he was much more concerned for his mother and aunt than he seemed to be for himself. I’ve got to admit, my estimation for him has gone up considerably.”

  “But what about Cartier?” Annie broke in impatiently. “Did you tell Jackson about her! Her note to the meat delivery boy, the fact that she could have been the author of the anonymous letter?”

  “Yes, yes I did. And Jackson said they would look into it. See what the delivery boy has to say for himself. He also said they had already established that Cartier was where she said she was last Sunday, and that she was alone. I gather she and a gentleman are regular customers at the restaurant at Woodward’s Gardens on Sunday afternoons, and that she is not a favorite with the staff. The general opinion seemed to be that she was rude. Evidently there was some bad feeling about an accusation she made about over charging. She does sound like a piece of work! Anyway, there had evidently been some rather spiteful comments passed between waiters this past Sunday when her gentleman friend didn’t show up. Some speculation that she had been jilted, so they had clear memories that she was there, and alone.”

  “But, don’t you see, this could prove that she could have had an accomplice, that….”

  “Wait, Annie. I said Jackson would look into it, but you have got to realize that from his perspective, if Cartier is involved and she had an accomplice, it was probably Jeremy.”

  “But Cartier and Jeremy, that’s ridiculous! Anyone who knew either one would.…”

  “Annie, calm down. If Jackson finds that Cartier has been corresponding with someone else, and I think this is likely since there would be no reason for her to pass notes to Jeremy through the meat delivery boy, this might help a lot. It would mean that it was less likely that Jeremy and Cartier are involved in this together, and it might provide an alternative suspect. But we just have to leave this to the police. Jackson assured me he would look into this today. He’s no fool and the last thing he wants to do is wrongfully charge a wealthy young man like Jeremy of murder.”

  “But there must be something we can do, we can’t just leave it to the police, not if they don’t really believe in his innocence. Jeremy could die!” Annie paused, knowing that she was sounding frantic.

  “Annie, I swear to you, I will do everything in my power to see that it doesn’t come to that. It would make everything simpler if Cartier and an accomplice were guilty, with a straightforward motive of money; but, just in case her actions turn out to have a more innocent explanation, I think my time would be better spent looking further into other possible suspects. Samuels, for example. Maybe he is Cartier’s mystery gentleman.”

  Annie cocked her head and said pensively, “Samuels? What makes you think that? I know that Miss Nancy seems convinced that somehow Mrs. Voss and Samuels are to blame for Matthew’s death. I even overheard her accuse Mr. Samuels of wanting both Matthew’s business and his wife, but I just don’t know. It seems that he would have been better off financially with Matthew alive and buying him out of the business, unless he really did want Mrs. Voss to be a widow. He does appear very solicitous of her, and she is a beautiful woman. But then why implicate Jeremy? That would be the worst way to win Jeremy’s mother.”

  Nate replied, “Well, what I started wondering is if Samuels really did have a financial motive. Remember that I said I thought Samuels wasn’t being straight with me about the health of the furniture company when I talked to him last week? Well, it occurred to me that, if there had been anything improper about his business dealings, he might have been afraid this information would come out if Matthew Voss took over complete control of the company. That might give him a reason to kill Matthew. Anyway, before I joined my uncle at the jail with Jeremy this morning, I called on a couple of Voss’s competitors. What I learned was damn…dashed interesting.

  “Coleman Rawlings, you may have heard of him, he owns the Marin Furniture Company, he was quite surprised at some of the prices I quoted for the cost of lumber that Samuels had been paying over the last six months. He said Samuels had been paying nearly five cents more a board foot than Coleman had for the pine he got from Redwood City Lumber. Coleman actually said, ‘Either Malcolm Samuels is losing his touch, or he's got a swindle going on.’ Now he did go on to admit that Samuels could be trying to lock out his competitors by outbidding everyone else, but that was really a risky proposition in this kind of business climate.”

  “Or he could have been falsifying the books, buying the wood for the usual amount, telling Matthew the price had gone up and pocketing the rest,” Annie stated with some surprise.

  “Yes, that’s what I thought. If we could prove that, it would certainly provide a clear motive that would interest Jackson; but there is still the problem of his alibi, and of course how he got in and out of the house that night. Anyway, I thought I might take the train down to Redwood City, which is where Samuels said he was the night Mr. Voss was killed, and look into that alibi.”

  Nate consulted his pocket watch and then rose from his seat, saying, “And
now I really should go. I still have to stop by the police station to deliver Jeremy his clean things, and I would like to make the late afternoon train.”

  Annie scrambled to her feet and said, “Oh, of course. Thank you for taking the time to tell me how things stand. We are feeling so isolated here, and that makes everything seem more hopeless. You saw what it’s like with the newspaper reporters. Is there anything that can be done about that? It is terribly stressful for Mrs. Voss and I am not sure how we are going to even get meat for tonight’s dinner.”

  Annie knew her babbling reflected a reluctance to let Nate leave.

  “I’ll try. I’ll ask Jackson to put some men on the house. Can’t really keep them from the public road, but that should keep them off the property itself, give you all a little privacy.” Nate paused, then he said, “Annie. Can I assume that you are still planning on going home tonight?” He raised his hand as if to forestall a response, although Annie had remained quiet. “I’m not telling you what to do. I just thought that it would be good to be able to consult with you about what I learned in Redwood City, and I wondered where I might best be able to get hold of you tonight when I returned.”

  Annie chose her words carefully, trying to match the calm tone Nate had used. “Yes, it is my intention to take my night off as promised tonight. I haven’t decided about tomorrow. That will depend to a certain degree on whether or not either you or Jackson have discovered anything that might result in Jeremy’s release.”

  Annie suddenly noticed that Wong stood at the bottom of the back stairs, holding a packed carpetbag, and she wondered how long he had been standing there. She walked around the table holding out her hand to Nate, saying “Thank you again for your time. Here’s Wong with Master Jeremy’s things. I hope your trip meets with success.”