The Strange Case of Baby H

by Kathryn Reiss

  She headed for the staircase with the carton. But then she stopped at the little diamond-shaped window that lit the attic with weak afternoon light, and peered out. From here she had nearly a bird’s-eye view of the city. She could see the peaks of tents in Golden Gate Park and the plumes of smoke from fires just a few blocks to the east. What was happening in the Japanese Tea Garden right now?

  Then she noticed a man and a woman walking slowly down her street. The man, limping heavily, leaned on the woman’s arm. The woman wore a red dress!

  Clara pressed against the dusty windowpane and strained to see better, but the couple turned the corner. Goose! she scolded herself. Lots of people wore red dresses! The man must have been injured in the quake like so many others, and he and his wife were probably heading for the park. Perhaps they had lost their home to the firebreak in the last explosion …

  Clara carried the baby clothes downstairs. She glanced into the parlor and saw Father sitting at the broken front window in his chair, staring broodingly out into the street.

  “Do you pray, Clara?” Father asked when he saw her. “If you do, then pray for rain. Only thing that can save our city now is rain.”

  Clara put one hand on Father’s thin shoulder. It seemed to her the fires had been burning forever—for weeks, at least. Yet this was only the third day since the earthquake. So much had happened in a short time. She glanced at the mantle, then remembered that the clock had been smashed in the quake. “Father,” she asked, “what is the time?”

  He peered down at the pocket watch clipped to his vest. “Five-fifteen,” he replied heavily.

  “And Mr. Midgard and Mr. Stokes?”

  “Still not returned,” he said. “I hope there has been no trouble.”

  Clara felt heavy with dread.

  She carried the box through the dining room, where Mr. Granger now sat at the table with the children and the Wheeler sisters, amazing them with card tricks. She took the box into the kitchen. Mother’s eyes filled with tears as she searched through the tiny shirts and dresses. She held up a knitted blue sweater to show the other women at the kitchen table—she had made it herself, Clara knew, for Gideon when he was born—then pressed it to her heart. Clara looked away. Mother’s grief was still so raw.

  Finally Mother selected a few soft garments. She and Clara carried the baby outside. The air was thick with smoke and wind-borne ash. Mother placed the baby on a folded towel on the grass and stripped off the doll dress and the diaper.

  Baby H gurgled and waved her fists. She really was a most engaging baby, Clara thought, and didn’t seem to notice that her world was in crisis. Clara smiled down at the child, watching as Mother poured a small dipperful of warm water from the kettle into a bowl. “Here, dear.” Mother held out the washcloth to Clara. “You’ll be bathing your own babies someday, so why not learn now?”

  Clara dunked the soft cloth into the water and wiped Baby H gently. The baby chuckled when Clara made silly faces. “Well done,” Mother said. “I’ll leave you to finish here and get her dressed again.” Then Mother went back into the house.

  As Clara leaned over the baby, pinning a clean folded diaper into place, her shoulder blades prickled. I won’t be like Edgar, she told herself staunchly, always imagining ghostly presences! She knew full well that Mother had gone inside; Clara and the baby were alone in the backyard. She would not turn around.

  She pulled a little dress that had once been her own—green cotton sprigged with white daisies—over the baby’s head and struggled to get her arms through the armholes. Dressing a real baby was a lot harder than dressing Delilah! For one thing, Delilah lay nice and still, whereas Baby H was kicking her feet and wriggling as if she meant to jump up and run around … cooing and laughing as if she were greeting her dearest friend …

  Clara’s shoulder blades prickled again. She whirled around—and there was the woman in red. She was standing in the drive, watching. She looked battered and bruised, her left eye swollen shut.

  Clara grabbed up the baby as the woman approached.

  “Come here, sweet Helen, come to Hattie,” cooed the woman. The baby laughed and stretched out her little arms.

  “Get back!” shouted Clara. “I told you not to come here again!”

  “Just give me the baby,” the woman begged in a low, desperate voice. She held out her hands. “You don’t understand! She’s in terrible danger, and I am, too. I need to get her to her parents.”

  “You kidnapped her.” Clara’s voice was also low. She tightened her grip on the baby. “I’ve figured it all out, so don’t try to deny it! Her name is Helen Forrest, and you’ve kidnapped her from her parents in Oakland. You were seen boarding the ferry from Oakland—before the quake! I bet you panicked after the quake and left her here—and you’ve been trying to get her back so you can ask for ransom. Well, you’re not having her! I’m going to see that she gets to Oakland myself—if Oakland hasn’t burned to the ground as well!”

  “I’m not the kidnapper!” gasped the woman, her voice trembling. “I’m Hattie Pitt, Helen’s nursemaid. But if the kidnappers do get their ugly hands on her—” Her voice broke. “They’re capable of anything. Oh, Lord, I never meant for any of this to happen!” She sank to the ground. Her shoulders heaved with sobs.

  Edgar came out the back door and down the ramp to stand next to Clara. “Is that the kidnapper?” he whispered.

  “I think so, though she says she’s not,” replied Clara tersely. The baby struggled in her arms and started to cry.

  The woman—Hattie Pitt—lifted her head and reached for the child. “Shh, angel. Come to Hattie.”

  Edgar leaped between Clara and Hattie Pitt. “Nothing doing,” he said. “Not till you’ve done your explaining.”

  “I saw you last night,” Clara told her. “With that man—trying to break into our house! Father thought you were looters, but I know you came for the baby.”

  “Denny’s no looter,” Hattie said, shaking her head. “And he’s not the kidnapper, either. And you’re the one that hit him with the fireplace poker, you wretched girl! You broke his arm, do you know that? Then the Borden brothers broke his other one—” she sank to the ground, her shoulders shaking with silent sobs—“as punishment!”

  Clara and Edgar exchanged a horrified look. Clara had not known she had the strength to break anyone’s arm. She had acted on impulse, and out of fear. But—what had Hattie said about punishment? Who would deliberately set out to break a man’s bones?

  The baby was wailing now, a fretful wail that would soon bring Mother running out from the house. Clara thrust the baby into Edgar’s arms and knelt next to Hattie in the grass. “I think you’d better come inside and tell us the whole story,” Clara said sternly.

  Hattie Pitt lifted her head and nodded vigorously. “Oh, yes,” she said. “We must get Helen inside where no one can hear her.” She struggled to her feet and reached for the baby. Edgar tightened his grip. Hattie stroked the baby’s head with a trembling hand.

  “Hush, my angel.”

  The back door opened and Mother came out to stand on the ramp. “Have you finished with the baby, Clara? Here, give her to me—” She broke off at the sight of Hattie. “You!”

  “This is Hattie Pitt,” said Clara succinctly.

  “What’s going on?” Mother demanded. “She’s not taking that child!”

  “No,” agreed Clara. “She is coming inside to tell us her tale of woe. Not that I’ll believe a word of it!”

  Hattie looked up at them all with tragic eyes. “Whether you believe me or not,” she whispered, “it’s safer for the baby indoors. And I’m safer off the streets, too. I daren’t be seen …”

  Frowning, Mother led the way into the kitchen. Clara hurried to the parlor, where Miss Chandler and Miss DuBois were chatting with Mrs. Grissinger and Mrs. Hansen. Father still sat alone at the window. “Come into the kitchen, Father,” she whispered into his ear. “The kidnapper is here!”

  Father turned in surprise. Clar
a seized the handles of the wheelchair and spun it around. “She’s come back,” she told him in a low voice so the lodgers would not hear. “The lady in red!”

  Clara, her parents, and Edgar sat around the kitchen table. Mother held the baby, letting her suck on a thick end of stale bread. Clearing her throat, Hattie began to speak. Clara frowned, listening for lies. But she had to admit to herself that Hattie sounded sincere.

  Hattie Pitt was nineteen years old, she told them. Her mother was dead and her father was often away working on the railroad. She had raised her two younger brothers until they were old enough to get jobs for themselves. Then she left home to take a position with the Forrests, who needed a nanny for their new baby girl.

  Lucas and Roseanna Forrest lived in an imposing mansion in Oakland’s most prestigious district. They were patrons of the arts, always attending art exhibits, plays, and especially the opera.

  “They just love opera—” Hattie broke off as Clara cleared her throat loudly.

  “What does all this have to do with kidnappers?” Clara demanded. “I don’t get it.”

  “I’m working up to it,” huffed Hattie.

  “Now, dear girl,” said Father gently, “let Miss Pitt tell the tale her own way.”

  Clara sat back and crossed her arms.

  The Forrests had been invited to visit their friends, the Plumsteads, who lived on San Francisco’s Nob Hill. Minnie Plumstead was a friend of Roseanna Forrest from their days as students at Mills College before their marriages. “Mrs. Forrest and Mrs. Plumstead—the two of them were crazy to hear some famous Italian fellow sing opera—Caruso, they said his name was.”

  “Enrico Caruso,” nodded Father. “I’ve read about him. He’s a famous Italian tenor. He was to perform for the first time in San Francisco just a few days ago.”

  “That’s right,” Hattie said eagerly. “So the Forrests took the ferry to San Francisco, leaving me minding Baby Helen. There were other servants at home, of course; we wouldn’t be completely on our own. There was the cook, and the housekeeper …”

  “But you brought the baby to San Francisco,” prompted Clara. “You didn’t stay home. Why?”

  Hattie fingered her bruised cheek. “Because of Denny,” she said softly. “Denny’s my beau.”

  “Did he do that to you?” asked Father, pointing one finger to Hattie’s battered face and black, swollen eye. “Did he beat you?”

  “Denny’d never do a thing like that!” she replied indignantly. “It wasn’t him! It was Sid.”

  “I’m getting confused!” complained Edgar. “Who’s Sid?”

  Mother just sat rocking the baby, rocking back and forth.

  Hattie watched Mother in silence for a moment. When she spoke again, there was a catch in her voice. “Denny came to the Forrests’ house. I was surprised, because I usually see him only on my day off.”

  Denny Dobson waited on tables at the elegant Cliff House, Hattie told them, where he rubbed shoulders with his upper-class patrons, and where he recently had come to the attention of two very dangerous men.

  “Sid and Herman Borden,” whispered Hattie. “Twin brothers, and the nastiest snakes you’d ever hope to meet. Not that we knew that then, of course! Denny liked them—said they were the toast of the town! Herman was the manager of the fancy Cliff House restaurant, and his brother helped out. Or maybe it was the other way around, with Sid the manager and Herman helping out. I forget. Handsome fellows, anyway, always hobnobbing with the society people—people like the Plumsteads, you know, with big houses and fancy parties and the like. Sometimes the Forrests would take me and Helen along to these house parties. Of course we didn’t really go as guests, but I’d get glimpses, you know, of the dancing and suchlike. Oh! It would be lovely to be rich!”

  She broke off and touched her black eye, wincing. Clara thought that Hattie must have other bruises as well, ones they couldn’t see.

  “Yes, those twins are ever so elegant,” Hattie murmured. “Look just the same, too, except for a long thin scar across Sid’s cheek. They were friendly to Denny out at Cliff House … I guess he told them about how his fiancée worked for the Forrests. Well, one night the Borden brothers told Denny they had come up with a great plan. No one would get hurt, and Denny would get rich! Denny and me, we’ve been trying to save up to be married, you know? We want to go to Alaska to settle. You can get land cheap up there, you know …”

  Again her voice trailed off.

  Mother regarded Hattie with lips pursed in disapproval. “So it was a get-rich-quick scheme?” she asked. “With this baby as bait?”

  Hattie flushed. Her voice was very soft. “Denny came to get me. He said we must bring Helen to a secret meeting with the Borden brothers. They promised no harm would come to the baby, and that we’d all end up rich as kings!”

  “So you took the ferry to San Francisco,” said Clara. “That’s when you and Helen were ‘last seen’—as it says in the poster.”

  “Denny took me to their lodgings,” Hattie continued. She shook her head. “A dreadful place! Over by Chinatown, in a grubby shack … I never would have imagined the elegant Borden brothers in such a place. I hated to take the baby inside, it was that dirty. Oh, they had fine things, no doubt about that. Paintings and sculptures and the like, and fancy carved furniture. But no fine house to put it all in, and no housekeeper to keep it in order. Denny and I sat there at their marble-topped table with dust on it an inch thick, and they told me their plan …” Hattie’s face grew chalky, her expression agitated. She reached over and traced one finger gently along Helen’s cheek.

  The plan was that the Borden twins would kidnap the baby and demand a high ransom from Roseanna and Lucas Forrest. Hattie sank her head into her hands. “I was horrified. I couldn’t possibly let them have the baby. We argued about it all night. Denny promised no harm would come to little Helen, and that she would be home just as quickly as the parents forked over the money—which they have plenty of. They could afford it, Denny said, and then we’d take our cut of the ransom and settle in Alaska. I still said no. I told Denny he was crazy—but then I saw the gun in Sid’s hand. Pointed right at Denny’s heart. And I realized Denny had got in over his head.”

  Hattie’s voice broke into a sob. “Herman had a revolver, too, pointed right at me and Helen. So in the end I had no choice but to do what they said—”

  “Which was to disguise the baby,” Clara said, and Hattie nodded. “I knew it!”

  “They said she was too pretty in her lacy dress and bonnet,” murmured Hattie. “Too memorable. ‘Make her look like nobody’s baby,’ Sid ordered, and so I had to shave off Helen’s beautiful brown curls and dress her in the dirty clothes they’d stolen off some beggar’s child.” Hattie wrapped her arms around herself as if for warmth. “It broke my heart to do it.” She coughed in the smoky air. “And while I was doing that, they set Denny to cutting up newspapers, spelling out the demands of the ransom note to send up to the Plumsteads’ mansion, where I’d told them the Forrests were staying.”

  “What did the note say?” asked Edgar eagerly.

  “I didn’t get a chance to read it,” said Hattie. “Because right then everything started rattling and shaking—and it sounded like a train was rumbling right under the house and—oh, Lord, the whole room was bucking like some crazy old donkey!”

  CHAPTER 10

  THE PLOT

  Who knows what was going on in any particular house when the earthquake hit? Clara shivered, remembering Father’s words.

  “Everything was crazy then,” cried Hattie. “The back wall of the Borden brothers’ shack collapsed and shingles fell on our heads. A fire started in the kitchen and came roaring at us—we all got out in the nick of time. I had Helen in my arms, and Sid Borden had my shoulder in an iron grip—and Herman had Denny, and they towed us through the streets to a back-alley carriage house. We hid there with the baby for ages, it seemed, until we started hearing people racing past on the street, saying that the whole city was on
fire—Chinatown, the East Side, even Nob Hill! ‘Even the Plumstead Mansion?’ Herman worried. So Sid sent him out to check. Later Herman returned with the news that the Plumstead mansion had collapsed and all the people inside were dead.

  “‘Damnation!’ Sid snarled. ‘So who is left to pay ransom for the kid?’ Herman said, ‘Nobody, and now we’re stuck with this mewling brat!’

  “Sid yelled that the Borden brothers are never stuck! And he grabbed Helen right out of my arms and shoved her into Denny’s. ‘Get rid of it,’ he said, as cold as you please.”

  Hattie clenched her hands in front of her on the tabletop. “‘What do you mean, get rid of it?’ I shouted.”

  “‘Dump it—so it can’t be traced to us,’ ordered Herman, and they sent Denny at gunpoint into the streets.”

  Hattie shuddered. “I couldn’t let it happen. I was screaming like a banshee, and Sid slapped me hard, but I ran out after Denny and the baby … and another tremor knocked us to our knees …”

  Hattie gasped for breath. Clara felt her own heart beating hard. She could picture how it must have been, with Hattie running through the smoke and chaos after Denny.

  “We escaped!” rasped Hattie. “But we had no money and no place to go, and what were we going to do with this orphaned baby? I knew she had grandparents over in Oakland—but we couldn’t get to the Ferry Building because of the fires. We heard that people were being sent to Golden Gate Park for safety, so we headed that way, too. Oh, we walked for blocks and blocks, up and down so many hills, and everywhere were homeless people crying and looking for their lost loved ones … and then I saw your house. It seemed calmer here—and I thought this would be a safe place to leave the baby. I snuck into the back and took the quilt and the laundry basket and tucked little Helen in. She was asleep by then, poor lamb, worn out from so many frights …”