Betting on Death

by Megan Mollson

  I opened the tin and sniffed the leaves. Memories of my grandmother burst to life in my mind. I could remember hundreds of pots of tea that smelled just like these leaves. Although… something was different about that scent. It was similar to what I remember and yet not. Were my memories faulty or the tea leaves?

  Straightening, I turned to Dorothy. “Do you happen to know where this came from?”

  Dorothy nodded dully. “From the market.”

  “Which market?” I pressed.

  “From the lady at the market,” Dorothy insisted.

  “Did you know this lady?” Will asked gently. “Was she a shopkeeper you knew?”

  “No,” the maid shook her head. “She was a stranger.”

  I felt one of my eyebrows lift. “She wasn’t a shopkeeper? How did you know that she had tea for sale?”

  “No,” Dorothy said more forcefully. “She didn’t sell it. She gave it to me.”

  My other eyebrow joined the first and both reached for my hat. “That was very kind of her.”

  “Did she say anything to you?” Will was leaning forward now.

  Dorothy squinted and looked upwards. “She said that she knew Mr. Hugh and that he liked this tea and that I should make it for him every day.”

  “What did she look like?” Will almost shouted with excitement.

  “Like a lady,” Dorothy said heavily.

  “Do you remember what color hair she had?” I asked. “Was it brown or blond or black?”

  “Brown and gray, I think.”

  “Was she the same height as you? Or taller? Or shorter?”

  Dorothy thought about that one. “About the same,” she said finally.

  “Was she my age? Or was she older?” My hands gripped the tin of tea so hard my knuckles were white.

  Dorothy gave me a look as though this was obvious. She laughed hoarsely and said, “Older! Remember I said her hair was brown and gray?”

  I forced a laugh, too. “Silly me. You did say that. Would you mind if I took this tin with us? I believe I know who gave it to you and it might be nice if I gave it back since Mr. Hugh is gone.”

  This question gave the maid pause. She was clearly a simple woman who could do this job because she knew the rules and routines well. Taking something from the house was not allowed. I began to try to think of a way that I might extract some of the leaves if she refused.

  Finally, Dorothy nodded. “All right, but don’t take nothing else.”

  We vowed to touch nothing more, thanked her, and beat a hasty retreat. For the second time that day, we made our way to the police station where we handed over the tin to the desk sergeant for testing. He gave us a searching look over the top of his spectacles, but complied with our request.

  Once back at Maple House, Will and I took anxious seats and shifted constantly.

  “It’s such a long shot,” Will finally sighed.

  I nodded and sighed right along with him. “It’s unlikely that Lillian is a mad poisoner.”

  “But she could be,” he pointed out.

  “Exactly.”

  “Mrs. Finney might just be ill,” Will added.

  “But it’s possible that she’s been poisoned,” I responded.

  “Exactly.” Will smiled ruefully at me. “Most well-bred women wouldn’t dream of killing anyone, even if they owed a very large amount in gambling losses.”

  “That’s certainly true.” I bit my lip and ran my thumb over the trim on my jacket sleeve. “However, I can’t stop thinking about the odd coincidences. We know that Lillian and Melvin are gambling because we saw them at the casino. We know they are selling Mrs. Finney’s valuables at pawn shops and we can guess that the money is going to pay their debts.”

  Will took over, his eyes intense. “Whoever killed Hugh Meriwether poisoned him and stole small, valuable items that could be easily pawned. If the Finneys are gamblers, it’s likely that they use a bookie to place bets.”

  “Hugh Meriwether was poisoned and Mrs. Finney has suddenly fallen ill. There is an odorless, colorless poison to which Lillian most likely had easy access.” I shook my head, heart plummeting. “It’s too great a leap, Will. Just because her father used dynamite in his business doesn’t mean that Lillian took any of it or even that she knew that nitroglycerin poisoning is possible.”

  My partner frowned and scratched his forehead. “We’ll know soon if any of those leaves were poisoned.”

  “I’d almost forgotten about that. Dorothy did describe a woman who could be Lillian. Of course, her description could be a dozen society ladies.” I sighed again. It seemed as if we’d been chasing a trail that might turn out to lead nowhere at all.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Since the following day was Saturday, I didn’t make my way to Maple House. After having slept on it, I had no optimism that either set of tea leaves would test positive for poison. It was much nicer to sit with Father and enjoy a leisurely breakfast. Calvin was able to join us and planned to leave for his own home after we finished eating. He was moving slowly still, thanks to his broken rib, but he said he was feeling much better.

  I knew I would miss him when he left. Now that I was aware of the depths of my feelings for him, I could admit how much I liked having him around the house. It made it much easier to find excuses to talk with him or walk by his room just for a glimpse of his handsome face.

  In fact, by the time he left, I was feeling quite glum. The telephone rang and I moved to the table in the front hallway to answer.

  “Lunceford residence,” I chirped.

  “Help,” a voice rasped. “Help me, Miss Lunceford.”

  “Mrs. Finney?” I felt my attention focus intently on her voice.

  “Yes. They…” the voice let out a strangled gasp and the line went dead.

  Without waiting, I ran up the stairs, calling for June to help me dress to go out. Not more than ten minutes later, I hurried out the front door, pulling my gloves on as I strode down the walk towards the Maple House. If propriety would have allowed it, I would have run.

  It took no more than a few sentences to spur Will into action. We walked as fast as we could toward the Finney’s house, terribly concerned for our client’s safety.

  When we arrived, no one answered the door. We didn’t wait long before pushing open the door and rushing upstairs. Of course, we’d never seen this level, but we moved through it as though it was our own.

  “Mrs. Finney?” I called. “Are you here? Mrs. Finney?”

  The timid maid I’d met awhile back stepped out of a large linen closet, her face pale. She lifted a small finger and pointed at the closed door across from her before stepping back into the closet and shutting the door decidedly behind her.

  Will pounded on the bedroom door and called our client’s name. There was no reply. We paused only to exchange a fearful glance before Will turned the knob and stepped into the room.

  The heavy curtains were drawn and the only light came from the fire burning in the grate. It took a moment before my eyes adjusted to the dimness. I stepped towards the bed, hoping that proximity would help my eyes make sense of the dark lumps. I began to be able to distinguish the pillows and blankets from the slight form of a person. Two more steps and I saw that Mrs. Finney lay bound and gagged in her bed, her eyes closed and her body very still.

  “They’ve tied her up,” I cried, anger surging.

  Will’s ever-present pocket knife was whipped out by the time he arrived at the side of the bed. He went to work cutting the elderly woman’s bonds. I reached for the lamp and held it high so that no shadow would cover where he needed to work.

  When at last Mrs. Finney was free, I set down the lamp and took the gag from her mouth. For a moment, I feared that she wasn’t breathing, but she groaned slightly and my heart began to beat again.

  “We have to get her away from here,” I hissed at Will. “Lillian and Melvin must have done this!”

  My partner nodded gravely before scooping the old lady into his arms. I l
ed the way to the door and then peeked into the hallway. A hasty look in both directions assured me that the hall was, at least for the moment, empty. I motioned for Will to follow me and then tiptoed down the hallway towards the back stairs. After several good encounters in the kitchen of this house, I was far more inclined to smuggle the lady of the house out past that friendly lot rather than risk the front doors.

  However, once our feet landed on the bottom floor and we’d crept down the servants’ hall, the quiet of the house began to feel ominous. Had I been so absorbed in finding Mrs. Finney that I hadn’t noticed the unnatural silence of such a large house? The one maid had been upstairs, but there had been no sign of the cook, housekeeper, or butler. Where were they?

  We were walking stealthily through the kitchen when I turned to point this out to Will. I opened my mouth to speak, but his face moved from worried to completely surprised in an instant. My head whipped back to see what Will was looking at and found myself staring down the barrel of a revolver.

  “Why won’t you leave us alone?” Melvin Finney snarled.

  My gaze moved from the revolver to the hand holding it and finally up to Melvin’s face. Movement behind him drew my attention to Lillian who had entered the room and skulked behind her husband. The pair looked as though they were at the end of their tethers. I wondered for the briefest of moments how things had gotten so bad for the pair. How had gambling so taken over them that they would be willing to commit murder?

  I lifted my hands to show that I was no threat. It was one of the few times that I was glad for my short stature and small frame. Perhaps looking like a twelve-year-old would draw their compassion. Of course, they were poisoning Melvin’s own elderly mother, so any hope for clemency seemed rather foolish.

  “Put my mother down,” demanded Melvin. “You aren’t taking her anywhere.”

  “Besides, she won’t live much longer no matter what you do,” Lillian laughed. I shivered at the madness that tinged the sound. Her crimes were beginning to unhinge her.

  “You’ve been poisoning her tea, haven’t you, Lillian?” I asked boldly.

  “How do you know about that?” the older woman barked.

  “We’ve turned the tea leaves over to the police. We also turned over the leaves that you gave to Hugh Meriwether’s maid. You poisoned him, too, didn’t you?” It might have been making things worse to confront Lillian, but I had no idea what else to do with that gun pointed at my head.

  “I told you someone would link the two together,” scolded Melvin. “Poisoning Meriwether was one thing, but doing it to my mother when she was already using a private detective was stupid.”

  There it was. As simple as that. We were right. Lillian had poisoned Mrs. Finney and she had given the tea to Meriwether, too. Now, all we had to do was get away from here and tell Cal or my father. Suddenly, that seemed highly unlikely.

  “Well, we’ll shoot these nosy detectives. Your mother is almost dead as it is. No one else suspects us and we’ll get away with it,” Lillian said a bit desperately.

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” Will interjected coolly. “The police have both sets of tea leaves. Their chemist is checking them for traces of poison. When they see that the poison is the same in both samples, they’ll know that the poisoner was the same. It won’t take them long to find the pair of you whether or not Miss Lunceford and I are alive.”

  “That’s true.” I stalled, brain scrambling. “If you let us go and allow us to get help for your mother, the district attorney might not be so harsh with you. That would be only one death on your hands.”

  Melvin snorted and Lillian shushed him.

  In that instant, I knew that they had killed before. “Did you kill your father, Lillian? Is that how such a healthy, robust man died so suddenly?”

  “Of course not,” Lillian lied obviously. She looked between me and Will, licking her lips and thinking hard.

  My heart pounded and I kicked myself mentally for having brought up her father. Our knowing that she’d killed him negated everything I’d promised about the courts going easy on them.

  “If you shoot us here, there will be a terrible mess.” Will tried for an air of nonchalance, but I could hear his worry. “Where are your servants? They’re sure to hear the gunshots and call the police.”

  “We sacked all of them,” Melvin laughed maniacally. “Couldn’t have them freeing Mother. Told them all to get out and go home.”

  I thought back to the timid maid who’d shown us where to find Mrs. Finney. Had she left the property by now? Had she been staying against the Finney’s orders? Was she even now going to find help? It seemed like too much to hope for, but I prayed that it might be so.

  “I don’t mind cleaning up a mess,” Melvin went on. “Not if it means that the pair of you are out of the way. Now, put my mother down, Mr. Edwards, and we’ll get on to business.”

  He lifted the gun to my temple and cocked it. I gasped and tried to keep from bursting into terrified tears. Will walked to the kitchen table and carefully settled Mrs. Finney into a chair. The old woman was too sick to sit up, so he laid her arm across the table and gently placed her head on it.

  Will lifted his own hands and stepped closer to us. “Listen…” he began.

  But at that moment, the kitchen door burst open. The four of us jumped. For half a second, I was certain that it was the police coming to rescue us. Of course, it wouldn’t be Cal coming in, but some other uniformed men would be bursting in.

  Therefore, it took longer than it should have for me to register the rough suits, worn bowler hats, and scuffed shoes of the four men who were filling the kitchen. These were not policemen. Though I didn’t recognize their faces, they seemed familiar. As though they’d been shuffling around the edges of my awareness for the past few days. That same old feeling that I was being carefully watched came over me and I knew that these men must have been tailing me ever since the raid on the casino.

  “Get away from Miss Lunceford,” one man snapped. “If anyone’s going to shoot her, it’s going to be me.”

  I gulped. To my surprise, Melvin did as he was ordered. I glanced at him and saw that he and Lillian were huddled together, shaking. They knew exactly who this motley group was and what they could do.

  “Who are you?” I demanded more bravely than I felt.

  The man in charge stepped forward, chewing a toothpick, thumbs tucked in his suspenders. “The name’s Jack Meriwether.”

  “Meriwether?” breathed Will.

  Jack cast him a cursory glance before turning his eyes back on me. “That’s right. You recognize the name, don’t you, Miss Lunceford?”

  “Are you Hugh’s brother?” I asked, standing up as straight as I could and only coming up to this man’s shoulder.

  “I was. I’m taking over his business.” He walked in a slow circle around me and the other men smirked appreciatively. “Now, my friends and I told you and Mr. Lloyd to leave our casino alone. The police raided us again.” He clucked his tongue. “I thought we’d made ourselves quite clear. So, now, Miss Lunceford, we’re going to have to send Mr. Lloyd and your father a louder message.”

  My heart was pounding so hard it felt like it was thrumming in my chest. My fingers tingled and I could see more clearly than usual. I was very afraid of this man, but I knew something he didn’t. The information I had wouldn’t matter nearly as much to anyone of the other goons. Yet, it might be exactly what we needed to turn Jack Meriwether’s attention and dangerous intentions away from us. I breathed a prayer of thankfulness.

  “There’s something you need to know, Mr. Meriwether,” I said bravely.

  He stopped, just at my right shoulder. “Oh? What’s that?”

  “I know who killed your brother.” I let my words sit in the middle of the kitchen for a moment before going on. “Would you like to know who did it?”

  Jack leaned closer and snarled, “What do you know?”

  I turned my head and looked him in the eyes. “I know that
he was poisoned.”

  Jack laughed. “He was bashed over the head.”

  “That’s true, but that blow wasn’t strong enough to kill him. It just happened to coincide with his poisoning.” I looked over at Lillian and Melvin who looked as though they were trying to keep from losing control of their remaining sanity.

  “It’s true,” Will chipped in. “The coroner’s report from the police department confirmed that Hugh died from poison.”

  Jack was clearly stunned by this news. “Who poisoned my brother?” He finally asked.

  “Lillian Finney gave tea leaves laced with nitroglycerin to your brother’s maid and insisted that the girl brew the tea for her master. The maid didn’t know that anything was wrong with the tea and did as she was bade.” I must confess that I felt a great deal of satisfaction when Lillian and Melvin turned and ran from the kitchen.

  All four of the thugs went tearing after the pair.

  “Quick! Get Mrs. Finney!” I cried unnecessarily to Will who was already moving to lift the older woman.

  I ran to the door, flung it open and stood back as my partner ran through it. Awareness that at any moment a cry might be raised behind us gave our feet wings. I can’t imagine what the neighbors thought as we pounded down the pavement. Will was carrying an elderly woman, who wore only her nightgown, in his arms. I had no hat, gloves, or bag and was straining to breathe even as my corset restricted me. I couldn’t have cared less about being proper in that moment.

  But no one came after us.

  It was as we came around the house and reached the street that we heard the first of the gunshots. For a few steps, the reverberations of gunfire inside the house chased us down the street, then all went silent. I tried not to think what those sounds meant as we turned the corner towards Main Street and the police station.