A Fatal Four-Pack

by P. B. Ryan

  “Get out!” she screamed, hurling the luggage at his head.

  He ducked lazily to avoid it as it tumbled onto the bed behind him.

  “Go away and kill yourself someplace else.” She departed the room with icy majesty, the silken robe flowing to the hypnotic sway of her hips.

  Will sat up, rubbing his face as if he’d just awakened. “What the devil did you say to set her off?” he asked Nell.

  “Me? Nothing! Not that I don’t sympathize with her. In her position, I’d probably kick you out, too.”

  He turned to his friend. “Et tu, Jack?”

  Jack hesitated, glanced at Nell. “I...” He spread his hands.

  “Still traveling with the herd, eh, counselor? Seems I’m outvoted. Right, then.” Whipping aside the sheet, Will threw his legs over the side of the bed and stood, completely and utterly nude.

  “Will!” Jack gasped. “For pity’s sake!”

  Nell whirled around and fled from the room, the rattling of the beaded curtain not quite drowning out Will’s groggy chuckles. Heat scalded her face; her legs quivered. She didn’t know which sight affected her more deeply: six plus feet of shockingly naked male, or the damage to his legs, in the form of multiple bruises and a deep scar that puckered the long quadriceps of his right thigh. The old Nell would never have reacted this way to the sight of a man’s body, regardless of his wounds or state of undress—but the old Nell had yet to encounter William Hewitt.

  Retracing her steps, she met up with Mathilde in what appeared to be a buttery connecting the main hallway to the dining room.

  “Would you like some?” the actress inquired, holding up a decanter of hazy greenish liquid and a tiny gold-rimmed glass. “Don’t worry, it’s not absinthe—just an herbal liqueur. French—very good.”

  “No, thank you.” Nell might have accepted the drink, if only to calm her nerves after that spectacle—why was it that only William Hewitt had the power, and the desire, to make her blush like a callow young girl?—but her post-cognac headache Tuesday morning was still fresh in her memory.

  “A cup of tea?” Mathilde leaned back against a wine cabinet to sip her liqueur. Nell was surprised to find her in such amenable spirits so soon after her own little drama with Will.

  “No, really. I’m fine.”

  Setting down her glass, Mathilde withdrew a box of matches from the pocket of her wrapper, and a hand-rolled cigarette, which she slid between her lips. Nell had never seen a woman smoke before. “So you’re Nell Sweeney.”

  “He spoke of me?”

  Mathilde let out a little huff of laughter as she lit the cigarette. She looked at Nell as she drew in and exhaled the smoke. “He was drunk on opium.”

  Nell nodded, wondering what he’d said but unwilling to ask.

  “You’re going to have to take him away.” Another sip of the green liqueur, another puff of the cigarette. “He’s in some trouble, eh?”

  “He’s been accused of murder.”

  Mathilde’s eyes lit with interest. “Did he do it?”

  “Do you think he’s capable of it?”

  The actress considered that. “I don’t know. Maybe. If someone tried to take away his gong.”

  “Before the gong. When you knew him before the war.”

  “He did beat a man up once. I was waiting for Will and his friends one night in front of Tuttle’s Restaurant—I’d wanted to get some air while they settled the bill—and a man stopped his carriage, got out and, well...propositioned me very crudely. I was in one of my best gowns, too—it wasn’t as if I should be mistaken for some common putain. When I slapped his face, he slapped me back and grabbed me where he shouldn’t have, and called me a...something very rude about my color. He was trying to force me into his carriage when Will came out of the restaurant.” She smiled at her reminiscence. “Oh, he was furious, très sauvage. I never knew he had it in him. His brother Robbie and that one in there—” she cocked her head toward the bedroom “—they pulled him off this man, because they were afraid he’d kill him. It was very exciting.”

  “I imagine it was.”

  “My father killed a man, back in Martinique. He had it coming to him, but you would never have thought a gentle man like my father could do something like that. Sometimes I think anyone can kill if given enough reason.” Mathilde tossed back the last of her liqueur and set the glass back down. “He can’t stay here. Take him away—anywhere—but get him out of here.”

  “You’re that put out with him?”

  She sighed, raised the cigarette to her lips. “My gentleman friend is coming back.”

  “Your... Oh.” Nell had wondered how an actress of no particular renown could afford to live in such luxury.

  “Will cannot be here when Edmund arrives. That bed is big, but not big enough for three, you know?”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  On the assumption that Will had had time to get at least partially dressed, Nell returned to the bedroom, peering through the beaded curtain as she warily approached it.

  Will, still shirtless and standing with his back to her as he buttoned his trousers, was talking about Mathilde. “She’s miffed because I can’t rouse to her. It’s not her, of course. It’s the goddamned gong—it’s got a stranglehold on my cock.”

  Jack, sitting on the edge of the bed facing the doorway, noticed Nell and hitched in a breath. Will turned, saw her, closed his eyes and muttered something under his breath. Jack’s embarrassment did not surprise her. Will’s did—especially in light of his nonchalance about the nudity.

  Jack rose to his feet as Nell entered the room. “I, uh, was telling Will that capital crimes are tried before the Supreme Judicial Court. Not all attorneys can argue before the SJC, but I can.”

  “Not on my behalf, you can’t,” Will growled as he yanked an undershirt over his head. “Not without my leave.”

  “If you won’t let me represent you, the court will appoint someone.”

  “So, let it,” Will said, buttoning on his shirt. “Why waste your valuable time when I can waste that of some public greenhorn with nothing better to do?”

  “Because it won’t be some greenhorn, Will. They can’t argue before the SJC. If it’s not me, it’ll probably be somebody better and more experienced than me.”

  Will took his time tucking in his shirt and shrugging on his braces. He shook out his vest and paused, raking a hand through his hair. “Why are you doing this?” he asked Jack, his voice low and earnest.

  Jack regarded him in weighty silence. “You know why.” When Will didn’t respond, he added, “I swore to stick with you once, and I didn’t. This time I’m going to. How could I not, considering... My God, Will. How could I not?”

  “Your papa won’t be pleased.”

  “The hell with him.”

  After a moment’s nonplused silence, Will burst out laughing. “It’s worth putting up with you just to have heard that,” he said as he buttoned his vest. “All right. Go ahead and represent me, for all the good it’ll do. They want to hang me and I’ll wager they will, regardless of how brilliantly you defend me.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Jack said, holding Will’s coat open for him—not August Hewitt’s hand-me-down, Nell noticed, but a new looking black frock coat that fit him perfectly. “My first order of business will be to find out everything the police know, and hopefully a bit more. Miss Sweeney, I wonder if you would be willing to visit Flynn’s Boardinghouse with me tomorrow—say, around noon? You can introduce me to our cast of players.”

  “Of course.” Nurse Parrish was generally awake and alert enough to care for Gracie around then. Pray God she didn’t cry and carry on when Nell left; it was excruciating to have to extract oneself from a sobbing child when all one wanted was to hold her and rock her until she calmed.

  “I’d rather you stayed out of it,” Will told her as he donned a handsome black overcoat. “With Jack playing the intrepid champion, I don’t see the need for you to be involved.”

  �
�Your mother sees it differently,” Nell said. “She made it clear I’m to keep close tabs on you.” I want to know where he goes and what he does, Viola had said last night after her guests left and Nell finally got the chance to relate her conversation with Jack. But be careful. If anything happened to you, I’d never be able to forgive myself.

  Jack said, “You can tell her Will’s going to stay with me till this all blows over.”

  “That will be a comfort to her,” Nell said. “She’s very relieved that you’ve agreed to help us. Where do you live?”

  “The Back Bay—one of those townhouses on Commonwealth near the Public Garden. My father bought me one as a Christmas present. Mother had it all furnished before I even got here.”

  “That should make Miss Pratt happy,” Nell said.

  “Are you serious?” he asked with an incredulous little laugh. “Nothing less than a forty-room chateau will do for a Pratt. The blueprints have already been drawn up.”

  “A wedding gift from your father?” Will asked.

  “From hers. Come, let me walk you over to my place and get you settled.”

  Nell said, “I’ll come with you.”

  “That isn’t necessary,” Jack said.

  “Oh, but it is. Mrs. Hewitt insists that I actually see where her son is staying this time. I’ve got to go inside, look around with my own eyes and draw a picture for her when I get home—literally. She said she’s had enough Belmont Hotels to last her a lifetime.”

  “Speaking of my mother...” Will withdrew a well-stuffed envelope from inside his coat and handed it to Nell. “That’s what she lent me last Sunday, plus a week’s interest.”

  Nell felt the stack of bills through the crackling paper. “You’ve been gambling?”

  He gave a little smile, as if it were a naive inquiry. “It’s what I do.”

  “You really shouldn’t while you’re out on bail,” Jack said. “If you’re caught—”

  “Miss Sweeney has already delivered this cautionary lecture, Jack. Don’t worry—I won’t be caught.”

  “Your mother never intended for you to pay this back,” Nell said, holding the envelope out for him.

  “The last thing I want,” he said as he turned and held the beaded curtain open for her, “is that woman’s charity.”

  o0o

  The war had slowed development in the Back Bay landfill, envisioned a decade ago as a haven for Brahmins who hadn’t managed to buy into Beacon Hill or Colonnade Row before they filled up. The broad boulevard dubbed Commonwealth Avenue was to have been, by now, Boston’s very own Champs-Elysées, surrounded by a harmonious little enclave of Parisian-style mansions and townhouses. The landfill extended only two blocks west of Arlington and the Public Garden, however, and contained many vacant lots, giving it a rather sparse and melancholic aura. Commonwealth Avenue ended abruptly at the tidal flat that was shrinking all too slowly in the western end. Indeed, the effluvial reek of that great stretch of mud and sewage tainted every breath one drew in this section of the city. Thus, the most desirable part of the Back Bay at present was the far eastern edge, which was relatively built-up, and this was where Jack’s house was located.

  Number ten Commonwealth Avenue was one of an attached row of four-story, bay-windowed brownstones with imposing flights of front steps disappearing beneath handsome porticos. Will limped only slightly as he carried his bag through the ornate iron gate and up the stairs, and the four-block walk over here hadn’t seemed to trouble him—evidence that he’d dosed himself at Mathilde’s with enough opium to deaden the lingering ache of that old bullet wound, at least for the time being.

  “I assume Papa provided you with servants,” he said as Jack twisted his key in the glazed, French-style double front door.

  “A cook and a maid, but they’re only here on weekday mornings, while I’m at the firm, because I can’t bear having them underfoot. I take my suppers at the club.”

  “The Somerset?” The inquiry had a mocking little bite to it. It was the most prestigious gentlemen’s club in Boston, the Somerset—the home away from home of such eminent personages as Leo Thorpe, Orville Pratt and August Hewitt.

  Ignoring the taunt, Jack ushered Nell and Will into the house, which was remarkable for the value and quality of its furnishings—matched sets of Hepplewhite and Sheraton, mostly—as well as for the utter absence of evidence that this was actually someone’s home. Jack had presumably been living here for two months, yet there were no personal effects lying about, no untidy little corners, no open books or half-read newspapers, no lap rug tossed over the back of a chair, no kicked-off shoes next to a couch. In every room they passed, the carpets—Axminsters, Savonneries—were as velvety and pristine as if they’d never felt the tread of a shoe.

  “My word,” Nell murmured, pausing in the wide entrance to the formal dining room. Suspended over a gleaming mahogany table was the most spectacular chandelier Nell had ever seen—a monumental confection of crystal and brass that looked as if it weighed a ton. “It must be as bright as the sun when you turn the gas all the way up.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Jack replied. “I’ve never lit it.”

  “I would have lit it once just to see what it looks like,” she said.

  He answered that with a disinterested little grunt. “Mother had it sent from Venice. She’s terribly proud of it, calls it the centerpiece of the house. She tells me it’ll be the talk of Boston once I start having people to dinner.”

  He smiled and shook his head, as if bemused by the notion that he would ever have anyone to dinner.

  Chapter 12

  “This is where it happened?” asked Jack Thorpe as Nell guided him into the alley next to Flynn’s Boardinghouse at noon the next day.

  “Right there.” Nell pointed to a section of the cracked stone pavement—devoid now of snow—that was still slightly discolored. “He bled out fast once his carotid artery was cut.”

  Jack stared at the spot, one hand in a pocket of his overcoat, the other absently kneading his temple. He looked pale and wrung out today, and had complained of a headache earlier. “You viewed the corpse, you say?”

  “Yes. The wounds were extensive, and rather savagely haphazard. I believe he tried to ward them off.”

  Jack looked up at her uneasily. “I’m sorry you had to see that. I don’t know what that detective was thinking, bringing a lady into a morgue.”

  “He was only doing what I—”

  “Miss Swee— er, Chapel? I thought that was your voice.”

  Nell looked toward the window into the back parlor, partially open as always, to find none other than Detective Cook himself leaning on the sill to peer at her through the glass, smeared with a dingy brownish stain from years of opium smoke.

  “Speak of the Devil,” she said. “Mr. Jack Thorpe, I’d like you to meet Detective Colin Cook, whose job it is to ensure that your client hangs by the neck until he’s dead.”

  “You’re Touchette’s lawyer?” Cook asked.

  “I am. Pleased to make your acquaintance, Detective.”

  Cook speared Nell with an incisive little glance. He would assume, from what she’d had the thankful presence of mind to tell him last time, that retaining Jack was a sop for Mrs. Hewitt, and would have no effect on her husband’s zeal to see his son hang—or on the payoff due Cook for paving his way to the gallows. The detective said, “You will be pleased, Mr. Thorpe, once you come on inside and find out how much more difficult my job has just gotten.”

  They joined him in the parlor to find Seamus Flynn standing in the corner, expression dour, arms crossed. Molly, the prostitute who’d talked her friend Pearl into working at Flynn’s, sat on the leather chaise lighting a cigarette. Curious, after having gone her entire twenty-six years without seeing a woman smoke, that Nell should witness it twice in as many days. She wondered if the easy women she’d known on Cape Cod were smoking cigarettes now, or if the trend was confined to the big cities.

  Molly had on the same lowcut purple basqu
e and red-and-white striped skirt as she’d been wearing last week when Nell and Detective Cook had barged in on her servicing her customer in the pink room; her black-dyed hair was mounded high on her head. She eyed Nell and Jack with a studied lack of expression as she smoked.

  Tapping his bowler against his leg, Cook said, “I took it into my head to pay a visit to Pearl this morning, mainly to make sure she was trying to sober up for her court date. I found no one at home, and the neighbors saying as how one of the wenches that lived there had up and run off during the night. Since I knew that had to be either Molly or Pearl, I came here straightaway and found Molly hard at work upstairs. Quite industrious for so early in the day, Molly. You’re to be commended for your work ethic.”

  Molly looked bored as she drew on her cigarette.

  “Pearl disappeared with no word to anybody,” Cook said, “including Molly here, who’s shared a flat with her for...how long has it been, Molly?”

  “Seven years,” Molly said to the wall.

  “Seven years, and she never told you she was leaving?” The detective propped a giant foot on the chaise lounge, hovering over Molly in the manner of a grizzly hovering over a rabbit.

  Molly shrugged. “That’s Pearl.”

  “That’s Pearl, yes,” Cook said. “That’s Pearl. I suppose that will have to do. My most important—correct that, my only real witness who can pin this murder on William Touchette has vanished into thin air, but hey— That’s Pearl. Thank you for that insight, Molly. I can’t tell you what that means to me. Well, I could,” he growled, leaning over the whore, “but my ma taught me never to curse in front of a lady, and I tend to be very generous in my definition of ‘lady.’”

  Nell sat next to Molly on the chaise. “What happened?”

  “I woke up this morning and found her gone,” Molly said.

  “All her things are still there?” Nell asked.

  “Yep.”

  “She didn’t leave a note?”

  “She don’t write too good.”

  “You didn’t hear anything when she left?” Cook asked.