Devil by the Tail

by Jeanne Matthews

  Mrs. Mills was waiting on the front porch. She held up a lantern by which Quinn could see her ordinarily friendly face engorged with righteous indignation. “Intolerable,” she said. “I run a house for respectable ladies. Tenants who use summer names, who associate with drunkards and visit bawdy houses, saints preserve us! I won’t abide it. You are no longer welcome in my home. Please remove your belongings and be gone by the end of the day tomorrow. In the circumstances, you needn’t ask for a letter of recommendation.”

  Chapter 14

  Quinn folded the last of her garments into the trunk, closed the lid, and looked around at the comforts she had enjoyed for the last time. The big four poster with the feather tick mattress, the screened window with a view of the garden, the upholstered chair where she liked to sit and read her books, the writing desk – bare now except for the empty plate she’d brought up from the kitchen yesterday afternoon with a slice of Mrs. Mills’ fresh baked spice cake. How quickly life could turn topsy-turvy.

  The aroma of Mrs. Mills’ coffee tantalized, but breakfast was an amenity reserved for the respectable residents. Last night’s confrontation with Stram had robbed her of that designation. She scraped a few remaining crumbs off the plate and licked her fingers. For Mrs. Mills to evict her on the basis of a single event she didn’t understand, without giving Quinn the opportunity to defend or explain, was small-minded and insulting. But there was nothing to be gained from self-pity. What was done was done. She straightened her back and finished packing her books. She could tote the box downstairs herself, but she’d need help moving the trunk. For the time being she had no place other than the office to move things to. In normal times, she’d ask Garnick to collect her effects and drive her around to look for another boarding house. But their bond of mutual understanding and reliance was frayed. She wasn’t sure how frayed, but in the wake of the kiss, in the wake of Minnie, it didn’t feel right announcing she had no place to sleep. She would take the horse-car downtown to the Tremont and hire a hackney.

  The office afforded no privacy in which to dress for her fancy night out with Micah Winthrop, so she would have to start the day in her best finery. She cinched her stays and pulled on a blue-green walking dress with a basque bodice and a somewhat narrow skirt. The color and style looked rather fetching on her although she had no illusions she would live up to Winthrop’s grand expectations. Somehow she’d have to get word to him to pick her up at her office and have ready an explanation as to why she no longer resided at Mrs. Mills’ Home for Lady Lodgers. She foresaw an uncomfortable night ahead, in more ways than one. Recalling for him her brush with Stram, she didn’t think she’d sound as daring as she’d led him to believe.

  Careful not to stab herself again, she pinned a diminutive “Cocodette” bonnet into her hair, dropped the derringer in her purse, and gave the room a final once-over. She eyed the satin-cased goose down pillow with a pang, half-tempted to steal it. What with her other supposed transgressions, thievery wouldn’t surprise anyone. It would only confirm their evil opinion. She wouldn’t give the old prudes the pleasure. She left a note on top of Miss Nearest’s copy of Medea promising that someone would arrive to transport her belongings by no later than six o’clock and quit the premises with her head held high. Assuming the ladies were watching her down the walkway, she rolled her hips like the woman at Lou’s Mansion.

  She breakfasted at the Tremont and was pleased to notice the eyes of several ladies linger admiringly on her dress. After eggs, coffee, and an excellent pastry, she engaged a hack and directed the driver to take her to 12 Rush Street and wait. The house had a rundown, ramshackle appearance. A hand-lettered sign poked up out of a laurel bush and advertised “Rooms for Rent, Single Women (No Colored or Irish). From the name, Quinn had assumed Rhetta was Irish. Maybe like Quinn, she’d quashed her accent. More likely, Bayer had rented the room in his name and the landlord never met the tenant.

  The woman who answered Quinn’s knock was pale and distinctly peaky. Her eyes were puffy and red-rimmed as if she’d been crying, her hair disheveled, and her gray sack wrapper draped about her like a wet flag.

  “Are you Rhetta Slayne?”

  “My misfortune.”

  “I need to talk with you, Rhetta.”

  “’Bout what?”

  “About your former employers, the Kadingers. May I come in?”

  She didn’t say yes but stood aside and Quinn pressed forward into a drab, sour-smelling hallway. “Is there someplace we can sit down?”

  The girl turned and shuffled into a large, dark room with a trio of tatty armchairs. They looked a perfect habitat for fleas. “Where will you be most comfortable, Rhetta?”

  She flumped into a squishy brown lounger. Quinn spotted a straight-backed wooden chair with no padding and dragged it across the room to sit facing Rhetta.

  “Who’re you? Did Burk send you?”

  Quinn noted the familiarity. “My name is Quinn Paschal. I’m a detective. Mr. Bayer didn’t send me. In fact, he told me he didn’t know where you were.”

  “I made him promise not to tell anybody.”

  “He told a journalist named Megarian.”

  “Yes, but Burk was here with that funny little man and made sure he didn’t bully me.”

  “I see. Well, I won’t bully you and I’m sure Burk would want you to answer my questions.”

  “’Bout Delphine?”

  Again, she displayed an unwonted familiarity with her former employer. “Yes. How long did you work for the Kadinger family?”

  “’Bout a year. She was a fast one.”

  “How do you mean fast?”

  “Flirty. Free with her favors. She let a man into her bedroom through the window on days when her da was at work. I heard them cavorting, but she said she’d skin me alive if I snitched.”

  Quinn was flabbergasted. She had imagined the secret suitor at least came in by the front door and paid court in the parlor. “How many of these assignations do you know of?”

  Rhetta’s shoulders climbed halfway to her ears, which Quinn took to signify more than a few. “Did she invite Mr. Bayer into her bedroom before they were married?”

  “Not Burk. He’s got too much consideration.”

  Another one with a crush, thought Quinn. “And he didn’t know his fiancée had a lover before him?”

  “The way he worshipped her? He couldn’t have had a glimmering. I wish I’d have told him, but he probably wouldn’t have believed me. Delphine had her ways, that one. Mr. Kadinger never knew either.”

  Quinn finally understood why Delphine hadn’t resented Burk’s unsanctified union with Elfie. She’d had one of her own. “Tell me about the other man. Did you ever hear his name?”

  “No. She laughed and called him a shammer and a make-believe gallant, whatever that means. Pot calling the kettle black is what she was, telling her daddy one thing and Burk another. Telling me I oughtn’t to be doing the same as her or I’d get myself knocked up. It made me mad, only now I wish I’d of listened.”

  “You’re pregnant?”

  She nodded “I’m sick to the gills and I wish I’d have been burnt up in the fire like her.”

  “Will the father not take responsibility?”

  Rhetta slumped face forward and started to bawl. If Garnick were here, he would’ve offered an apple or a dollop of cheer or the name of a doctor on call at a reduced rate. Quinn could offer nothing. A refrain from the Medea play flitted through her mind. Whither wilt thou turn? In what a hopeless sea of misery heaven hath plunged thee. Delphine had a rich father and a bridegroom on the hook if she had fallen pregnant. A girl like Rhetta suffered the perils of lovemaking on her own with no one to turn to for help but Burk Bayer. Quinn wondered if there was a guilty conscience behind his charity. “Is Burk the father of your baby?”

  “Lawd, no! Burk would do the right thing.”

  “He didn’t do right by Elfie,” said Quinn.

  “She wasn’t knocked up. Anyhow, everybody says she’s a witch
.” Rhetta started to sniffle and the sniffles turned to sobs.

  Quinn waited until the waterworks tailed off to a hiccupping mewl and handed her a handkerchief. “Were you at the Kadinger home when Elfie visited Delphine?”

  “No.”

  “She told Delphine that she and Burk were husband and wife under the common law. Delphine professed not to believe her, but her father wasn’t so sure. Did you ever overhear a conversation between Mr. Kadinger and Burk about Elfie?”

  “No, but the old gentleman thought the world of Burk. One time I heard him tell Burk he was the son he wished he would’ve had.”

  That wasn’t what Elfie heard him say when she saw him in April. Kadinger had obviously warmed to Burk by the time of the wedding. “Tell me about Delphine’s brother Verner. I understand he and his father clashed.”

  “Loud enough so I heard them from the kitchen. Verner said the old gentleman was squandering his inheritance on a bunch a worthless bonds. Mr. Kadinger said if he didn’t mend his ways and get a job, there’d be no inheritance, but if he was willing to work, he could move up the ladder at Kadinger’s like Burk did at Weyerhaeuser. Verner was bellowing mad, called Burk a bootlicking schemer and Mr. Kadinger a harebrained old so-and-so, words I can’t say. There was some low talk with Delphine I didn’t catch, but on the way out Verner said when the old buzzard died, which he hoped was soon, he’d come to his funeral and spit in the casket.”

  The legacy of the spittoon became clear. Whether or not Verner carried out that threat, his father spat last when he cut him out of his will. Or Burk heard about Verner’s taunt and added the spittoon to a will he forged. How difficult would it be to create an authentic looking legal document? Or perhaps Kadinger had written a new will in anger, not yet decided whether to finalize it, and Burk had made sure it got signed and witnessed without his father-in-law’s knowledge. “Did Verner come back later and try to patch things up or beg his father to reconsider?”

  “I never saw him after that or heard tell of them making matters up. ‘Course he could’ve gone to see Mr. Kadinger at his office.”

  “Is that where Mr. Kadinger kept his private papers?”

  “I wouldn’t know about that. He kept a little bankers safe lock box in his study on top of the mantelpiece.”

  “Was it in its usual place on the day of the fire?”

  “I don’t know. Delphine had me ironing dresses and polishing jewelry all day and I didn’t get in to dust the study. Oh, Lawd.” She began to blubber again.

  “What is it, Rhetta?”

  “I was gonna put it back. I just wanted to wear it for a little while and look fine, but then…”

  “The fire,” finished Quinn. “What did you take?”

  “This. Her other man gave it to her.” She pushed her shabby wrapper sleeve off her right hand to show a large, yellow-gold filigree ring. The center stone was gold-bezeled ivory with an angel carved in relief. “In all the confusion I forgot and then later I was too ashamed to tell Burk. And…and…and he’s been so good to me.” More tears. “It’s like the Bible says, coals of fire on my head and it’s too late to give it back now.”

  “I’ll give it back to him,” said Quinn. “I’ll tell him I found it where the arsonist dropped it.”

  “Would you?” She slipped it off her finger and handed it to Quinn.

  It was at least a quarter pound of unmitigated ostentation. And of course there’d be an angel. “I’ll be sure Mr. Bayer gets it. I imagine he’ll have need of a ring in the near future.” She put it in her reticule and led Rhetta back to the subject of Delphine’s clandestine lover. “You must have seen him sneaking in and out of the house. What did he look like?”

  “During the winter he wore a heavy coat with a cape and a Boss of the Plains hat pulled over his ears. I never got a look at his face. By spring when the weather broke, he wasn’t coming around anymore. Delphine took up with Burk around the end of March or first of April and that’s the same time I met my…oh.” She started to weep again.

  “There, there.” Quinn got up and roamed around the room, scouting for a bottle of sherry or brandy. Failing that, she found her way to the kitchen and brewed a pot of tea. When she returned to the parlor, Rhetta was at least sitting up straight. Quinn placed a cup in her hands and gave her a minute to revive. “Maybe your beau will develop feelings of remorse and come back to take care of you, Rhetta. But you can’t sit around crying in hopes that he or Burk or a choir of angels will save you. Burk thought there might be a place for you in the Walker Ellis house. Even now it’s worth a try. Did you inquire?”

  “The Ellises wouldn’t hire the likes of me.”

  “Even on Burk’s recommendation?”

  “He may think he’s one of ’em ’cause of who he married, but he ain’t been out of Rock Island long enough to cut the ice with those swells.”

  “What about your mother? You told the firemen you were going home to her. Does she live in the city? She’ll take you in until the baby’s born.”

  “I don’t know. She lives in St. Charles.”

  “Well, write her a letter and ask. If she says yes, I’ll make sure you get there. Will you do that?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I have only a few more questions. Josabeth Allbright told me Delphine’s secret lover didn’t like it when she rejected him for Burk. Did you overhear their falling-out?”

  “The last time he was with her, they yelled a lot. She said, ‘He’s twice the man you are.’ And then he said, ‘You’ll be sorry.’ And she was sorry, wasn’t she? Maybe if she’d married him instead of Burk, Elfie Jackson wouldn’t have set the fire and she’d be alive today.”

  “And you’d still have your job and a nice place to live.”

  “Not when she found out I was in a fix. I could see she was looking for a way to get rid of me anyhow. I’d seen too much. But she might’ve given me some money.”

  If she didn’t, you’d probably have blackmailed her, thought Quinn. And as for seeing too much, I wouldn’t award you a ribbon. “Can you remember anything at all about the man that would help me identify him? His voice? His walk? Did you notice the color of his hair above the collar?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  Quinn scoured her brain, but she couldn’t think of any more questions Rhetta could answer. She poured the wretched girl another cup of tea and rose to leave. “You be sure to write that letter to your mother. I’ll stop by again in a few days and you can let me know if you want a ride to St. Charles.”

  “She’ll say she taught me better than to let myself be seduced by a bounder. The easiest thing is for me to die. Wouldn’t break anybody’s heart.”

  “I’m sure you’re wrong about that, Rhetta. Your mother loves you, and you must have friends and family you’re not thinking about right now.”

  “They’d be better off with me in the ground. Maybe this baby will kill me.”

  Rhetta was as fatalistic as Elfie. Quinn’s heart went out to her, but she had worries of her own. She marshaled a parting platitude. “It’s darkest before the dawn. Perhaps your man was waylaid by some emergency and as soon as he’s out of the briers, he’ll come back and marry you. When did you last see him?”

  “The night of the fire.”

  “He was there? At the Kadinger’s house?”

  “We were in bed in my room and he heard a noise. He left me to go look around. I was feeling all comfy and contented and I must’ve dozed off. If it hadn’t been for the angels singing…”

  “Did he go outside?”

  “I thought so. I thought he wanted a smoke.”

  “And he didn’t come back?”

  “Uh-uh. The firemen were all shouting and yawping, ‘Who’s in the house? Who else? Where?’ I looked but didn’t see him in all the uproar. I got afraid maybe he’d been careless and dropped a match and Delphine would blame me for the fire. I didn’t know she was going to die. And then it hit me maybe he was dead. I ran to the church and prayed for him all night long. But in the mor
ning, there was no sign of him in the ashes. Jack just absquatulated, plain and simple, and took my poor heart with him.”

  Quinn froze. The name was common as coal. “What’s Jack’s full name?”

  “Jacques Stram. But everybody calls him Jack.”

  Chapter 15

  Quinn wouldn’t have believed anyone could find Jack Stram seductive, but there was no disputing with desire. She marveled at the sheer stamina of the man. Jemelle, Sue, Rhetta. Jemelle may have faulted his prowess, but Rhetta seemed besotted. The qualities that drew men and women together mystified Quinn. What did Elfie see in Burk? What did Delphine see in him? And what did Stram see in Rhetta?

  Perhaps it was the time she’d spent in brothels of late, but Quinn had started to suspect a transactional aspect to too many pairings. Not all were motivated by love, nor even by lust. Stram may have enjoyed a few amorous couplings with Rhetta, but what else did he gain from his courtship of the Kadinger’s live-in housemaid? Quinn didn’t believe for one instant they’d met by chance. Stram, or the person controlling him, had engineered that meeting. Who?

  Was Delphine’s lover the man upstream? Had he paid Stram to distract Rhetta from his bedroom frolics with Delphine? Or was Burk Bayer the one who pulled Stram’s strings? He may have doubted the fidelity of his reckless bride-to-be and hired Stram to keep an eye on her. Verner couldn’t be ruled out as Stram’s master. By placing a spy in his father’s house, he may have hoped to learn where the will was kept and steal it, himself. Or perhaps he asked Stram to eavesdrop on Bayer, to listen for something he could use to discredit him and persuade the old man not to change his will in Delphine’s favor. Regardless of who hired him, Stram had lied when he said he didn’t know who set the fire. If he didn’t do it himself, he saw who did, perhaps spoke to him, very likely aided and abetted him. Winthrop might not be interested in pursuing the murderer now that he had his reasonable doubt about Elfie, but Quinn was more curious than ever.