by Dianne Day
He looked puzzled, so I added:
“I refer not to our present conversation but to our previous one about the man who was found stabbed on the church steps before Midnight Mass.”
“Oh yeah.” His face cleared of its puzzlement. He was not a bad-looking young man, really. A few more years would put character into that face, but right now it was simply unmarked and therefore unremarkable, with light brown eyes and rounded contours to cheeks and chin. He had his mother’s fair hair and no shadow of beard whatever, as if he might not even shave yet—though surely that could not be the case.
“Back in San Francisco,” I said, deliberately dangling bait I thought he would find irresistible, “there are any number of people who would accuse me of the same thing.”
“How’s that?”
“I mean, they’d accuse me of being interested in things of a rather sensational nature. Didn’t your mother tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“Michael and I run a detective agency. I am a trained private detective. My first big case got quite a lot of newspaper coverage. It was very good for our business.” As I said this last I began to walk away, adding, “I’m sorry, I’d like to talk more but I really must be going now.”
Larry Bingham followed hot on my heels to the front door.
As I passed the clock I noticed it had been stopped at 8:30. And I vowed to start it up again as soon as I could without causing a deliberate provocation. I wondered if tall-case clocks were sometimes called grandfather clocks because so often they’d belonged to one’s grandfather.
“Change your mind, why don’t you,” Larry was saying as we hurried along. “Let me come and you can tell me more on the way.”
“Certainly not, because I must go shopping for clothes. I need black dresses and a black coat.”
This was true, though, as usual, having the right clothes had been down at the bottom of my priorities. Nor was I anxious to wear anything designed to remind me I was in mourning.
Larry looked unconvinced, so I added, “It would be extremely boring for you.”
“I could carry your packages. I want to hear about the detective agency.”
I had hooked this fish, all right!
I smiled at him. “We will do it another time under more conducive circumstances, I promise. For today if your mother does not need you, I suggest you go look up those old friends we were talking about earlier.”
My suggestion did not go down well. In fact it produced a truly unpleasant expression from him, almost a sneer—which he hid by turning abruptly away and stalking back up the hall.
An odd young man, I thought as I closed the door. He had left it standing wide open. He had not said goodbye, either.
Oh, well. I’d learned a few things about Larry Bingham in a short time, among them the fact that he was unpredictable, almost mercurial. And that he was unlikely to go out of his way to please anyone … except his mother.
GREAT CENTENNIAL BANK is on Tremont Street. In all but the worst weather one would simply walk across the Common to get there; this was indeed the route Father had taken every day of his life, except perhaps in the teeth of a New England blizzard—and maybe even then.
This afternoon, however, I knew I’d best have help getting to the bank, as the exertions of the morning had worn me down a bit. So I had telephoned ahead to engage a horse and buggy for the afternoon. With a driver, of course. All three were waiting in front of the house on Beacon Street when I emerged.
I had my cane with me in case I needed it, though through the morning’s turmoil I’d learned a valuable lesson: I didn’t need it as much as I’d believed. To think that I, Fremont Jones, namesake and blood kin of that intrepid explorer of the Old West John Charles Frémont, had become physically timid! How awful.
I assured myself that was not a state of affairs I would allow to continue any longer. Surely, I thought as I allowed the driver to assist me up the one folding step into his high, enclosed carriage, it must be possible to achieve a balance between wisdom and adventurousness? Otherwise, as one grew older and suffered the vicissitudes of life, one would have to become unendurably boring.
I gave the name of the bank and its address to the driver and we were on our way.
To my embarrassment, I had not been able to remember the names of the bank’s two lawyers; therefore, I hadn’t called ahead for an appointment. I did, however, recall the location of the legal department—it was in a corner of the large, impressive main lobby, near the stairs that go down to the vault and to the safe-deposit boxes.
Great Centennial had opened in its impressive new building, as one might guess from its name, on our country’s one hundredth birthday. Father was at the bank from its beginning. The building was designed in the days when banks were Temples of Commerce—and that is what it looks like, a Greek temple, inside and out, if one ignores the tellers’ cages, that is. Nor have I seen any of the bank’s officers sacrificing birds or sheep and reading entrails, but perhaps they do these things in some secret chamber behind closed doors. Who knows how officers of banks choose to watch over our money.
Entering by the front door, I walked swiftly across the marble floor toward my intended goal in the corner, my cane barely tapping. In the interests of decorum, particularly considering I didn’t yet have the proper mourning clothes, I had worn the black Russian sable hat and scarf and carried over one hand a large muff, also of the same black fur. The muff was wonderfully warm, a further incentive to be done with canes forever.
I did not expect this bank to have changed in the slightest in the four years I’d been away, as it had not changed a whit in twenty-two years previous, nor had it. Given the open floor plan of this templelike building the private offices are set against the outer walls, enclosed by wood and glass but of necessity open at the top, as the bank’s ceilings soar to a height of twenty-five, perhaps thirty feet.
These offices are back behind a deep railing such as one might find on a jury box at court, and the railing is guarded at intervals by a secretary or a clerk who sits alertly at a desk. The clerks are usually, but not always, male. I approached the man guarding the office enclosures of the two lawyers, whose names were inscribed upon their doors just as I’d thought they would be: James Palmer and Elwood Sefton. The latter, I now recalled, was the name my father had mentioned in connection with his new will.
“Good afternoon,” I said, “my name is Caroline Fremont Jones. I’m the daughter of Leonard Pembroke Jones and have come to see Mr. Sefton. I’m sorry to say I do not have an appointment, but the matter is somewhat urgent.”
The clerk was new enough at the bank never to have met me, but my father’s name caused him to come to attention extremely fast. In less than five minutes I was behind that wide wooden railing and being ushered into the lawyer’s office cubicle.
“Miss Jones. This is an unexpected pleasure. How long have you been in town?”
Elwood Sefton was one of those long-boned, lean New Englanders who seem old even when they are young, so that it is difficult to guess at their age. However, if one might judge from the sparseness of his hair and the whiteness of the little that remained, then likely he was older than Father.
For a moment the grim nature of my task here caused a hole to open up in the pit of my stomach, and I all but fell through it. I thrust both my hands into the muff, where they could not be seen, and clasped my fingers together as hard as I could, for courage.
“I’ve been here for a little over three weeks, Mr. Sefton. I admit I’ve rather lost track of time, as something—distressing—has happened. Are you aware that my father has been ill?”
He nodded his long head gravely. Lean though he was, the looseness of the skin at his neck gave him jowls when he bent his head, rather like a bloodhound. “Yes, I knew he had not been well. I take it, then, he is no better.”
“No indeed, Mr. Sefton. My father died yesterday.”
“Oh! Oh, my dear young lady, I am so very sorry! But should
you be here? Are you quite all right? Shall I have young Franklin bring you something, water, tea, coffee?”
“I am fine, and I need to be here—as I hope you’ll understand shortly. However, if Franklin is able to bring coffee without too much trouble, I would like that very much.”
The coffee, when it came, was blessedly fortifying. In the interim I told the lawyer how my father had fared in the hospital and upon his return home, and how suddenly he had died.
Finally, braced by a couple of sips of the strong coffee, I came to the matter at hand:
“I know Father made a new will last year and placed it here in a safe-deposit box, I believe you wrote out the will for him, the bank is Father’s executor, and you have the key to the box that contains the will. Am I correct in these assumptions?”
Sefton nodded. “You are correct on all counts.” He averted his eyes, fiddled with a paper clip, using it to draw a line on his desk blotter, then looked at me again and said, “You are familiar with the terms of the new will, then?”
“Yes. I suppose, since you and Mr. Palmer handled all Father’s legal affairs—he can’t have had many—you’d know he has already given me half my inheritance.”
Now Sefton’s eyes glanced up toward the ceiling, as he did rapid calculations in his head. “If you do not include the value of the Beacon Street house, then that would be correct. And of course I did know. I assisted with the, ah, liquidation of certain assets in order to handle the transaction between our bank and your bank in California.”
“Is it too much to hope that Father might have told you why he made these changes?”
Sefton looked toward the glass-topped door of his cubicle to be sure it was closed all the way before he answered. “He did not say a word against Augusta Simmons, if that is what concerns you; but he did say she has a number of relatives he had not known about when he married her, that he felt these relatives were rapacious and were not to be trusted. He most specifically did not want the Beacon Street house to pass out of the immediate family, and that is why it comes to you, and any children you may have after you.”
“I see,” I said, though so far the only one of Augusta’s relatives I’d seen was Larry, and he hardly seemed rapacious.
“If you do not wish to live in the house yourself,” Sefton continued, “then it is to be maintained for your children.”
Oh Lord, I thought, children.
I couldn’t stop myself from asking the question: “What if I do not have children?”
“Hm. I can’t recall. Shall we go downstairs and retrieve Leonard’s last will and testament from the box where it is stored? I have the key here in my desk.”
“Let me ask you a question first: I know there is seldom something so formal as a reading of the will, with all the heirs gathered in one room. But once you’ve shared the contents of the will with me, aren’t you then obliged to inform everyone else who is mentioned for bequests?”
“Within a reasonable amount of time, yes.”
“And what would be reasonable?”
“In the case of everyone concerned living in the same general proximity, I should say a night and a day. If some heirs have to be located, then it would vary.”
“Do you recall if there was a bequest to Ralph and Myra Porter? They are a couple who worked for my family for many years. I was distressed to find they are no longer employed at the house, but I never said anything to Father about it because I didn’t want to upset him.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t say that I recall. But let me get the key—”
He pushed his chair back and bent down to open a drawer near the bottom of his desk.
I interrupted his rummaging. “No, please, don’t do that. Not right now. I would much prefer to leave this matter until after the funeral.”
Sefton returned to his upright position with key in hand. “As you wish. However, since you’re here—”
“I’m thinking of Augusta. She will more than likely be upset to find most of the …” I hesitated over the unfamiliar word, “estate will go to me.”
“Hm. She might, yes. She might. I do see your point. Well then, when is the funeral to be?”
“I don’t know. She went out to make arrangements this morning, but she hasn’t told me what they are specifically. I know Father has a plot in Mount Auburn Cemetery next to Mother, and I know he would not have wanted very much in the way of a religious ceremony, because he wasn’t a religious man. He felt we are all a part of Nature, and at the end of our lives our bodies will go back to the earth, and that is as it should be—
“Oh!” One hand flew involuntarily to my mouth. “I wonder if Augusta knows about the wooden coffin?”
Sefton frowned. “I’m not following you.”
“When Mother died, Father had her buried in a coffin made of wood, even though it’s no longer the … the usual thing. I recall the undertaker’s being quite upset about it, shaking his head, much mumbling in the library and so on. Father chose wood because of his belief that for our bodies to decay after death and mix with the soil is the natural way of things.”
“You’ve just jarred my memory, Miss Jones. I’m afraid your wish to wait until after the funeral to begin dealing with these legal matters won’t do. Leonard put his wishes for his own funeral into writing, and included them as part of the will. As soon as I’d heard of his death, I should have had to contact both you and Augusta Simmons. Indeed I’m somewhat surprised she hasn’t already been in. But in any event, the usual thing is for a death announcement to be placed in the newspaper. When I read that, I’d have called right away. It’s only that you got here before I received notice, don’t you see.”
“Oh dear,” I sighed.
“In fact, I don’t understand why she hasn’t been in contact with the bank already.”
“I expect Augusta is assuming some earlier copy of the will is still in effect. It will be your unfortunate duty to tell her otherwise, Mr. Sefton.”
“Unfortunate, yes. But necessary. Now”—he once more held up the key to the safety-deposit box—“shall we go down?”
FOURTEEN
ON MY WAY out of the bank I stopped to thank William Barrett for having called at the house. His clerk, another of the guardians at the rail, told me William was in a meeting; I left a message.
Actually I felt fortunate that William was unavailable, because the whole business with Elwood Sefton had taken longer than I’d thought it would. He had insisted on going over every paragraph of Father’s will with me. There had been no surprises, but I’m sure it was something that had to be done and therefore it was just as well to have it behind me. Nevertheless, it had taken a long while and had been more than a little draining.
On exit I raised my arm to catch my carriage driver’s eye. While waiting for him to disentangle himself from his carriage post and get the horse in gear, as it were, I reached into the pocket of my long coat and found the slip of paper upon which Nurse Bates had written the address of the nurse, Sarah Kirk. The name of her street was unfamiliar to me, but the driver knew it well enough, for he nodded and, as soon as he had assisted me inside, got us underway without a word. No questions, no comment. He did not even cluck at his horse.
I wondered if I were being hypersensitive due to—well, really, due to more things than I cared to think about; or if I were correct in my observation that the inhabitants of Boston did not, in general, converse as openly and casually as do the inhabitants of San Francisco. This carriage driver provided a good example: I knew if I were to ask him a direct question he would reply, but otherwise he would have no more to say to me on our way to Sarah Kirk’s house than he’d said on the way to the bank, which amounted to sum zero. How was it that I, a native Bostonian, had never before noticed how much people kept to themselves?
And further, was this self-containment a good thing, a desirable trait? Were San Franciscans by contrast boisterous and even boorish? Or simply friendly and more relaxed? For a moment I wished Michael were with me. I w
ould have liked his opinion.
However, it was a short moment, for in truth I could not have Michael with me on this visit to Sarah Kirk. This, and probably more, I must do on my own. Lamentably, uneasily on my own.
Michael did not share my suspicions of Augusta. He had outright accused me of having an unreasoning dislike for her. While I could not quite defend myself against that statement, I could say that my dislike was not unreasoning, but reasonable in the circumstances. Yet even that much he would not acknowledge.
His attitude wounded me. I did not want to—no, more than that—I could not hear anything more from Michael right now. I was so afraid he, or I, or the both of us, would say something that would then stand between us forever, would be impossible for us later to forgive and forget. We had come dangerously close to that point already.
The carriage rumbled on, into a poorer section of town. Streets grew narrower, dirtier, and bumpier; I had not seen an automobile for blocks. I had a sense that we were working our way gradually toward Boston Harbor, but due to the density of structures leaning close in over the street I could barely see the sky, much less a patch of water.
On reflection, considering these surroundings, I was glad to be taking this trip in a hired carriage. That did not mean, however, I’d be wrong to consider the purchase of my own automobile.
I mulled over this idea, glad it had come to mind. Given my inheritance, I could well afford my own car, and having one would greatly increase my ability to get around without having to depend on Michael or on anyone. That was an exceedingly attractive thought. On the unattractive side was the idea of spending so much money on any one thing. For most of the past four years I’d had very little money—the year after the earthquake, desperately little—and that experience had changed my attitude toward money forever.
In case I should need to return to this neighborhood again without someone else to drive me, I began to pay closer attention to the route. I recalled having passed Fanueil Hall some time back, after which the carriage had made a sharp turn to the right. Since then the driver had been moving forward in a sort of zigzagging progression, like tacking a sailboat—that image may have come to mind because I could smell salt water, but it was nevertheless apt. Not to mention confusing.