The Case Book of Emily Lawrence

by KB Inglee

  “How about the General’s wife? She might have been the target.”

  He looked startled. “Never crossed my mind that it would be anyone besides the General. Doesn’t seem likely to be Mrs. Pottsworth. She’s a mousey thing, hardly goes out at all. Not many come to call when she’s in. Got a few close women friends, is all.”

  “Thank you, Mr. King. You have been very helpful.”

  * * * *

  Back at the office, Emily told Charles, “I know where the gun is, though it may have been moved by now.”

  “How can you know that, if you don’t know who fired it?”

  Emily smiled. “I know that, too.”

  “Should I call Hobbs, or do you intend to keep it a secret? He is questioning Griffin in the room where the shot was fired. Shall we go?”

  Emily took her husband’s arm and led him the short distance to the office of Taylor & Griffin.

  “Good afternoon, Captain Hobbs,” she said as they entered the office uninvited. “I suggest you might speed this up a bit if you look in the closet for the gun and then finished questioning Mr. Griffin.”

  Charles shrugged. Hobbs excused himself, lit an oil lamp and carried into the closet.

  “It isn’t here,” said Hobbs with some asperity in his tone.

  “It must be.” Emily joined him in the close quarters of the closet. She closed her eyes. What had she heard before she opened the closet door? The scraping of wood on wood.

  “Here.” She pointed to a spot where the baseboard appeared to have separated from the plaster wall.

  Hobbs slipped the blade of his pocket knife into the crack and pried out the loose board. He slid his hand into the gap between the plaster wall and the floor. He made a small astonished noise as he drew something long and thin and dark out of the space.

  “How did you know?” he asked.

  “I heard him digging at the baseboard just before he banged on the door for me to let him out. He hadn’t counted on anyone coming so fast. He had intended to hide the gun there all along, but when he heard me coming, he pulled the door to and locked himself in. He said the key was in the desk, but it was in his pocket. Had it been a stranger using a convenient window, how would the shooter have known where to find the key?”

  “Tell us the rest,” demanded Charles, giving her a grim look. He was always gruff when she figured things out before he did.

  “It is most unusual for a man to have pictures like this one in his office.” She went to the library table and picked up the two family portraits. “I took some extra time to look at them. This one is of Mr. Griffin.” She glanced at him and he nodded. “So this one must be Taylor’s family.” Again Griffin nodded. Emily indicated the woman holding the horse. “There is a photograph of this young woman in the coachman’s apartment.”

  “You think the coachman was the intended victim?” asked Charles.

  “Yes. Tyler could not have his daughter fraternizing with someone like King. Did you know he was a slave before the war? What better way to get rid of him than to use the cover of a failed attempt on the General’s life?”

  Emily set the photograph back on the table and gazed at it for a bit before going on.

  “The dead giveaway, besides the two photographs, was when I asked him what the assassin had looked like, he described the intended victim. Perhaps it was the first image that came to mind.”

  Washington City, September 1878

  My Darling Anna,

  Here we are back in Washington after a summer up north.

  We have been lucky over the years.

  Charles promised me when we came here and took up this profession that we would be safe, and that I would come to no harm. I find I worry more about harm to him than to myself.

  In a life that deals with guns and law breakers, how can anyone promise safety? Besides injury to either of us, I fear the day when Charles kills a suspect. (How hard it is to put those words on paper, as though writing them makes them true.)

  It has been seven years. We have built up a successful business and while we have suffered minor injuries (remember the time I was run over in the street?) nothing truly bad has happened to any of us. This year I have a sense of foreboding.

  Two weeks ago we had enough business to take on another agent. Charles hired Jack Lewis. His given name is Percival, but he thinks it doesn’t sound like a real detective. In any case he isn’t a true detective. He does well enough at the exciting jobs but doesn’t understand the importance of checking background and reading newspapers.

  Jacob Myers, the man we hired out of the lawyer’s office last year, doesn’t trust him. Mr. Lewis shows me respect only when Charles is in the room. I could fire Lewis, but not without a good solid reason. Being rude to me hardly gives me the leeway to take any action. Sooner or later he will do something that will anger Charles. I must be patient and careful.

  So, you are thinking about going back to Cambridge for the holidays. What a houseful that will make. How proud Father must be of your new volume of poetry.

  With all my love,

  Emily

  LEWIS BLUNDERS

  Washington City, October 1878

  “$10,000 small bills. Watson’s pier. Three P.M. No police,” read the note Charles handed to Emily.

  “My daughter was taken this morning while walking by the river with her nurse,” said the tight-lipped man across the desk from Charles.

  “Have you gone to the police, Mr. Turnbull?” asked Emily with as much kindness as she could muster.

  “No. The note says not to, but they said nothing about coming to you.”

  Watson’s pier was a private pier upriver from the Washington Monument. It was a distance from the commercial docks and would have little traffic during the week. She looked at her watch: nine fifteen. Not much time.

  “Tell me about your daughter. How old is she?” Emily usually asked the personal questions.

  “She turned six last week. Her name is Dorothy.”

  Mr. Turnbull spoke calmly, obviously trying to act the businessman engaged in a complex deal, but the façade cracked from time to time and there was fear in his eyes. Her heart went out to him.

  “My wife is frantic and we have called her doctor,” he said.

  Charles continued the questions. “The park is a public place. Didn’t anyone call the police?”

  “The nurse said there are never any people there that early in the morning. I have the money. I went to my bank before I came here. They are putting it together for me now.”

  “This is a dangerous situation, Mr. Turnbull,” said Charles. “We have no way of knowing where they are holding your daughter or how they are treating her. We don’t have time to track them down at their lair. All that is left is for us to follow their instructions.”

  Charles thought a bit before going on. “Ready the money, and go home to your wife. Come back with a closed carriage at two. We will go together to deliver the ransom. I will have agents there who can watch and make sure all goes well.”

  * * * *

  Jacob Myers, dressed in his usual lawyerly black, with the beginning of a dark beard, came in as the clocks were striking ten and put a stack of newspapers on Mrs. Briggs’s desk. “Where’s Lewis?” he asked.

  “Late, as usual,” said Emily with a sharp glance at Charles.

  Charles was not one to be easily led by others. What hold did Lewis have over her husband? The man was astute enough to have found some weakness in Charles and turned it to his advantage. For whatever reason, Charles continued to excuse any lapses in his work.

  Lewis was a good enough detective as long as it called for action. He loathed tedious parts of the job and was more likely to end up at a saloon than the library or newspaper morgues. He had recently snatched the credit for a case Myers had toiled over for days.

  When Lewis ar
rived fifteen minutes late smelling of rum and looking as if he had slept in his clothes, Charles passed out assignments. “Myers, see what you can find out about the Turnbull family. Report back here by two. Lewis, I want you down by the Watson’s pier by noon. As I remember it, the pier is maybe six feet above the water. I want you where you can see under it. Make yourself as invisible as you can, and watch the flow of traffic. When we arrive, back me up. Once we have the girl, keep your eye on her. This had better not go wrong. Emily, you alert Captain Hobbs in enough time for the police to arrive just before the exchange. I want that girl out of jeopardy before the police take over.”

  Charles and Lewis left to find a location that would allow him to cover Charles and the money exchange without being seen.

  * * * *

  At two thirty, Emily sat with Captain Hobbs in a cab a block away from the dock, but with a good view of it. The visible presence of a police wagon would be dangerous. Myers joined them with what little he had found.

  Turnbull could afford the ransom. He had no other children. His home seemed to be a happy one, so there was no question that the child meant more to him than the money.

  “Have you seen Mr. Lewis?” asked Emily.

  “No.” Myers was impatient. “He was told to make himself invisible. He’s done a damn fine job of it.”

  As the clocks struck three, a coach pulled up to the pier. The door opened and Charles stepped out. A child stood alone at the end of the pier. Emily gasped. How had she missed her? Charles made straight for the child. He set the carpet bag on the dock and knelt down to speak to her. He pointed to the carriage and her father standing by the door. The girl ran. When the girl reached the carriage, her father lifted her inside and the driver pulled into the street and was gone.

  Two shots sounded in close succession drew Emily glanced back to the dock. Charles had vanished. The carpet bag was gone as well. No!

  Captain Hobbs ordered their driver to the pier. The carriage was still moving when Captain Hobbs jumped out.

  “Stay put, Mrs. Lawrence,” yelled Hobbs as he pounded down the pier. She ignored him and was dogging his heels when he reached the spot where they had last seen Charles. A woman’s scream echoed up from the water.

  Hobbs and Emily peered over the end of the pier. Charles clung to a ladder that led down to the water. His left arm was hooked over a rung and he clutched at his forearm with his right hand, which still held his Navy Colt. Emily’s heart pounded and there was not enough air to fill her lungs. She reached for Charles, but Hobbs pulled her back.

  The woman screamed again and again. Gradually the screams resolved into words. “You shot my husband!” Over and over. “You shot my husband!”

  The woman was sitting by herself in a rowboat. There was no sign of the carpet bag or her husband. The boat drifted downstream slowly fetching up against the next dock where two policemen secured it and helped the woman out of the boat.

  * * * *

  “Where is Lewis?” Emily demanded of Mrs. Briggs when she and Jacob Myers returned to the office.

  “How is Mr. Lawrence? Is the girl safe? Did the police catch the kidnappers?” asked Mrs. Briggs.

  “The girl is safe,” said Myers. “I heard two shots. One may have killed the kidnapper. Mr. Lawrence was holding his arm, but it appears the bullet merely tore his jacket. He went off with Hobbs and I came back with Mrs. Lawrence.”

  “I think they have arrested Charles for the murder of the man in the boat. Captain Hobbs has sent someone to the Turnbull house to verify Charles’s story,” said Emily, a storm gathering in her chest.

  “I think I know where Lewis might be. I’ll see if I can find him,” said Myers. He took Emily’s hand and squeezed it. Mrs. Briggs led Emily into Charles’s office. “A bit of a cry might do you some good. I’ll bring you some tea and a biscuit. This will all work itself out, you know.”

  As Mrs. Briggs shut the door behind her, the storm burst forth in salty downpour.

  It was nearly five when Captain Hobbs came to the office. “I’m sorry Mrs. Lawrence, but we have arrested Mr. Lawrence for the murder of Mr. Pitt. There was no gun, no money, and no husband in the boat. Mrs. Pitt says she was merely boating with her husband when Lawrence started down the ladder and shot him for no reason. Mr. Pitt’s body was found about half an hour after the girl was released. We will get this mess cleared up, but I am afraid Lawrence will spend the night in jail.”

  “But he was shot at. You were there. We heard the sound and we saw him holding his arm with the torn sleeve.”

  “I can say there was a kidnapping, but not that the Pitts are the perpetrators. Neither you nor I saw anything that would connect the Pitts to the crime. Mrs. Pitt denies the story. The girl was alone on the dock. We tried to question the girl, but she won’t speak, not to us, not even to her parents. Lawrence could have torn his sleeve on a nail.”

  Hobbs had been gone only a few minutes when Myers returned with the missing detective.

  Lewis looked down his long nose at Emily. “Dunno what the fuss is about. Myers and Hobbs seem to have handled it just fine.”

  “Where did you find him?” Emily asked Myers.

  “At his favorite bar. Went right there after Mr. L. left him.”

  Anger and fear formed a hard wad in her chest. She drew herself up to her full height. Her voice was hard and cold as she said, “Percival Lewis, you are fired! Mrs. Briggs will pay you what we owe you.”

  “You got no right to fire me, lady.”

  “I have every right. You disobeyed a direct order that put Mr. Lawrence in jeopardy. He is in jail at the moment because we can’t prove the man he shot was a kidnapper and shot at him first. Clean out your desk and get out of here. Now.”

  Myers grabbed Lewis by the elbow and spun him round to face his desk.

  “Mrs. Briggs, pay Mr. Lewis what we owe him,” continued Emily. “We will see him out. Lock the door after us and go home. Myers and I are out to do a bit of investigating. We have to get Charles out of jail.”

  As soon as Lewis was out of sight down the street, Emily took Myers’s arm, “You don’t mind staying a bit late, do you?”

  Myers replied, “Not if it will help Mr. Lawrence.”

  * * * *

  “I think Charles followed Pitt down the ladder. I couldn’t see him at all,” said Emily. Myers climbed down the ladder until the top of his head was below the level of the dock. He mimed Charles’s position, wrapping his left arm around the rung of the ladder and reaching out with his right hand as though to fire a gun.

  “Here!” Myers pointed to a spot Emily couldn’t see. “It looks like the bullet from Pitt’s gun entered this support right here. Should I pry it out?”

  “No, Hobbs should see it in situ. Is there any place under there they could have stashed the bag?”

  Emily lay full length on the dock and peered over the edge. The water was murky and she could see into it only a few inches.

  As Myers turned to come back up the ladder his foot slipped and he nearly fell into the river. He caught himself, but his left leg submerged up to the knee.

  Without a word to Emily, he reached into the water and felt around. He pulled something up with a cry of triumph. “There is a rope tied to the bottom of the ladder. The water is too murky to see it.” He pulled up the carpet bag, now wet through, with the sodden money inside.

  “It will dry out just fine,” said Myers. “They must have planned their escape pretending to be just a happy couple out for a row. They would come back later for the money. Mrs. Pitt is likely to do that any time. You fetch the police. I’ll stay here in case she comes back.”

  * * * *

  It was growing dark when Emily found the nearest patrolman and sent him to notify Hobbs. It was fully dark when she returned to find Myers sitting on the end of the dock.

  “The police will be along soon,” said E
mily, sitting down beside him.

  Myers was silent for a while. At length he spoke, his words hesitant.

  “Why didn’t you fire Lewis before? You knew how he was. He never showed you one whit of respect; he seldom did as he was asked. His only saving grace was that Mr. Lawrence liked him, God knows why, and was willing to overlook what he called his foibles.”

  Emily sighed. “This is Lawrence Research. We do all the hard background work; we think about what we are doing; we work as a team. I think Charles saw in Lewis some of the independent adventurer he wished he could be.

  “If I fired him it would look like sour grapes because I didn’t like him. I knew Charles would figure it out in time. Lewis had to put one of us in danger for me to be able to take the initiative.”

  Captain Hobbs came running down the dock behind a patrolman with a bulls-eye lantern.

  “We found the bullet imbedded in the dock, and the money,” said Myers, rising to greet him and then helping Emily up.

  “Mrs. Pitt probably won’t be back until first light, but we will station someone here all night. When we find the bullet we will be able to let Lawrence out. I fear he will have to spend the night with us. Don’t worry about him, Mrs. Lawrence. I am sure he will view a night in jail as good training for the job.”

  Washington City, November 1878

  Dear Anna,

  I thought things would be fine and safer once Lewis was gone. That leaves me and Charles and our single agent, Jacob Myers. Turns out, after all our hard work, and nearly starving at the beginning, we now have more work than we can handle. Charles has always felt, as we add agents that we need to find people of different backgrounds and with different skills. If we are all well-educated, as we are now, we will miss things that a man of a different class and background would pick up. Of course anyone we hire will have to know how to read and write. I can hardly believe how many people I have run into here who can do neither.

  Charles has interviewed several men and they have all made me as uncomfortable as Lewis did. Perhaps working for a woman made them uncomfortable, and they in turn made it clear that they would never take orders from me. Charles, bless his heart, made them understand that I was one of the owners, and had as much to say about how things were done as he did.