A Study in Revenge (18 page)

“The exact request may hold some unanticipated detail, but I already know that you’re going to ask me to locate a woman. The one who was
meant to occupy the fourth chair set out here for those members of Horace’s family mentioned in his will.”

“Very good, Mr. Grey. Maybe there’s a glimmer of hope for this endeavor after all. Yes, Madeline Webster is the woman in question. Left home two years ago. Hasn’t been heard from in over a year.”

“Do you have cause to believe she’s met with some ill fortune?”

Dyer fidgeted with his cigar and struggled to keep his eyes off the conspicuously empty lockbox as he pondered how best to respond. He opted for a frustrated shrug.

“For all I know, she’s gallivanting through the capitals of Europe. She was always an impetuous one. Her parents, Horace’s youngest son and his wife, both died at an early age. The two daughters were raised in Horace’s house, and he doted on them. They didn’t always receive the firm and guiding hand that the youth of today require. Madeline in particular always struck me as a restless spirit.”

Grey shifted his chair noisily, preparing to interject, but Dyer stopped his pacing and held up a slim leather case as if it were a piece of damning evidence to be considered by a jury.

“This firm has certain fiduciary obligations to the Webster estate. Of course, we made our own inquiries of her friends and associates. All our notes are in here.” Dyer pulled out a photograph and handed it over.

Grey looked at the photograph of Madeline Webster. He could see some resemblance to Phebe.

“Perhaps you can make more sense of it than I have,” Dyer said. “Horace was desperate to see the girl again before he passed. To make sure she was safe, that he could take care of her—financially, at least. And while it’s too late for him to find any peace in this matter, his instructions remain in effect. Information on Madeline’s current whereabouts would be rewarded with five hundred dollars.”

“You wish me to find a missing woman who’s in no obvious danger and who seems perfectly content not to be found. And to illuminate the issue, you offer a briefcase full of notes from unsuccessful conversations. It doesn’t sound promising or, to be honest, particularly interesting.”

“Please, Mr. Grey, Horace Webster was a good man. This was his dying wish. Look over the material. Then talk to Phebe Webster. I’d wager that five hundred dollars she has some inkling of where her sister
ran off to. They used to be inseparable. Damned if she was going to reveal Madeline’s secrets to me, though.” A bit of Dyer’s earlier frustration crept back into his voice. “Please just consider the matter. And if you decide there’s nothing to be done, then so be it. I’ll pay you for your time.”

“Mr. Dyer—”

The attorney crushed out his cigar and stared at Grey in earnest desperation. “Yes, you can easily dismiss my entreaties. I’m just a lawyer, and one who likes to keep you waiting. But a dying wish? A lost woman who could be in who knows what manner of trouble, and perhaps not another soul in all the world who could help her, or even cares to try? Those things shouldn’t be so easy to ignore.”

A half dozen reasons to turn the matter down jockeyed for position in Grey’s mind. Most of them related to the probability that there would be no meaningful venue of inquiry to pursue here and that the search for Madeline Webster would prove fruitless until such time as the young woman’s whims carried her home at last. She was a woman of means with more privileges in the world than most would ever know. Objectively, it was difficult to justify feeling any undue concern on her behalf. Still, Grey knew well enough from his own experience the deep veins of unhappiness that could run just below the surface of even the most privileged and proper families. He stood and approached the desk.

“I’ll review the material and speak with Miss Webster. But I wouldn’t recommend that you entertain much hope of a successful resolution.”

“Thank you, Mr. Grey.”

Grey took the black leather bag and started for the door. Before exiting, he turned back to see Dyer pressing his knuckles into his desktop and staring at the metal box.

“As for the object missing from that lockbox,” Grey said, “if it should happen not to turn up in your vault, you may want to look into your clerk Emery’s gambling habits. He’s been wagering on horse races—keeps his notes on his sleeve. It’s an easy way for a young man to get in trouble quickly with an unforgiving class of debtors. Purloining the contents of a lockbox, which might not be missed for years, might seem like an easy way out of trouble to a young man in dire straits.”

“Well, I suppose I’m happy to say that you’re wrong on this matter.
First off, Emery doesn’t know a thing about racing. He keeps those notes on his cuff to remember which bets I’ve told him to place.
I’m
the one who enjoys horses, and I’m not in any trouble on that account.” The lawyer managed a weak smile. “Secondly, if he were going to help himself to the contents of one of our boxes, it certainly wouldn’t be that of Horace Webster. Emery was well aware that the poor state of Webster’s health guaranteed that the contents would be needed sooner rather than later. And furthermore, he was with me when we checked on the box just two weeks ago—getting everything in order. He knew what was inside. Not the sort of thing like cash or jewelry that a man could easily convert to his own profit.”

“Good to know.” Grey nodded at the attorney before leaving.

L
EAN KNELT DOWN IN THE CENTER OF THE CRAMPED ROOM
. Large racks of colored fabrics lined the walls, looking like oversize spools of thread tipped on their sides. A rug had been pulled up to reveal a trapdoor set in the floor of the storage space of Ezra Grosstack’s tailor and drapery shop. The small padlock had been removed from the rusted iron clasp that secured the door to the neighboring floorboards.

Mrs. Louisa Grosstack stood looking over Lean’s shoulder. In her late forties, the woman had enough substance that her own dress looked as if it might be made from an entire spool of fabric. Behind her was a uniformed police officer.

“It’s a cellar, but you’ve never used it?” Lean asked.

“No use to me. Or Ezra, of course. Too damp and dirty for storing any material down there. If it weren’t for that lock setting a bump in the rug, I’d have plumb forgot that door was even there,” she said.

“But then you smelled lamp oil burning this morning?”

“Not me—Ezra did. Soon as he came through the door. He’s got the keenest sense of smell. And a bit of a worrier as well. Terrified of overturned lamps or whatnot. Afraid for all this inventory. It’s the life of the business. He’s collecting another shipment down at Brown’s Wharf at this moment.”

“Well, let’s have a look.” Lean worked his fingers under the door and lifted it up. The officer came around the other side to take the hand-off and set the door down, exposing a three-by-four hole in the floor. Wooden stairs descended into the musty darkness. Lean lit a lamp and dangled it down into the entry. The light wasn’t enough to reveal the entire space, but he could see it was a dirt-floor cellar, not particularly high. The far reaches of the space remained hidden. He moved the lamp about and peered more closely; the ground below looked odd, as
if it were spotted. Finally the situation at the tailor shop on Exchange Street was beginning to bear out the report he’d received at the patrol station, passed on to him with only the vague description of “suspicious behavior.”

“Do you have a second lamp we could use?”

Mrs. Grosstack gave a quick nod, then bustled away. Despite her size, Lean got the impression that she was a woman of action. When she returned a minute later, she had a lamp in one hand and a black iron fireplace shovel in the other. Lean gave her a quizzical look.

“Who knows what manner of critters are scurrying around down there?” she said.

“I suppose,” Lean said with a shrug as he reached out to accept the small shovel.

Mrs. Grosstack took a defensive step back. “You’ve got a pistol. This here’s mine, young fellow.”

“Right.” Lean turned toward the trapdoor again and, with his lamp in hand, began a slow descent of the stairs. Creaks of protest met each cautious footfall. The entire staircase felt as if it were sinking just a bit into the dirt under Lean’s weight. He was halfway down the steps when the staircase gave a noticeable shudder. He looked up to see Mrs. Grosstack coming after him. True concern showed itself on the face of the officer still standing in the lit storage room above.

“There’s really no need for you to come down here, Mrs. Grosstack.”

“This is my property. Ezra’s, too, of course. If someone’s been tampering right under my feet, then I ought to know about it firsthand.”

Lean reached the bottom, looked around to ensure that there was nothing immediately pressing, then reached up to take Mrs. Grosstack’s elbow as she maneuvered down the last steps. Once she was clear of the rickety wooden stairway, the officer followed.

The room was more or less rectangular, about twenty by thirty-five feet, with walls of mortared stone that were cool to the touch. Near one dark corner of the room, a sort of brick chimney jutted out several feet from the wall. At one point it had had an opening for a stove, but that appeared to have been blocked up some time ago.

“How long have you owned this property?” Lean asked.

“My father bought it in the late sixties, when it was rebuilt after the Great Fire.”

“But the cellar would be original,” Lean mumbled to himself.

“He retired in ’75 and passed it all down to me. And Ezra, of course. He’d been working under my father for a decade before that.”

Lean crouched down to inspect the ground. Old bits of trash and junk lined the base of the walls, but almost the entire central area was crisscrossed with a regular pattern of holes spaced out, six inches apart, in an even grid. Each perfectly circular hole was about an inch in diameter and surrounded by a short mound of dirt, giving the appearance of a symmetrical pattern of large anthills.

“Someone’s been drilling holes down here,” Lean said.

“There must be hundreds of them. What on earth for?” said the officer.

Lean palmed a clump of damp earth from atop one of the holes. The edge of the hole looked smooth, and inside he noted a spiral, ridged pattern.

“This is freshly turned earth. Someone’s been boring in with an auger.”

“No claim jumping, gents. If there’s oil struck, it belongs to me,” Mrs. Grosstack said.

“And Ezra, of course,” Lean completed the woman’s customary phrasing for her.

“Ezra who?” Mrs. Grosstack barked out a laugh that sounded as much like she was officially declaring her amusement as she was actually being amused.

Lean found a piece of thin wooden dowel among the junk by the wall and slid it into two different holes. “About two feet. They were certainly drilling for something. But if this is meant as some sort of burglary attempt, it’s about the strangest I’ve ever seen.”

A harsh thwack combined with an abbreviated squeal sounded behind him. Lean’s head shot around, and he saw Mrs. Grosstack scooping up a dead rat with her fireplace shovel. The newly deceased creature was too big for the implement; its head hung limply off one side of the shovel while its long, tendinous tail drooped off the other end. Mrs. Grosstack expertly cast the newly crumpled body into a far
corner, near the old brick chimney. Her look of repugnance shifted to one of confusion.

“I don’t understand. Nothing upstairs was touched. Do you really think someone broke in to our store without leaving a trace and without robbing it, just to sneak into the cellar and drill holes?”

“What else could it be?” the uniformed officer asked.

Lean stood and held his lamp high as he looked over the nearest stone wall. He scanned the room, and his gaze landed on the sealed-up chimney. As he walked to that corner, his eyes seemed to play a trick on him. The shadow cast into the dark corner behind the protruding chimney did not vanish, even as the position of his burning lamp dictated that it must. He stepped closer and leaned in toward the corner. Now the shadows vanished, giving way to a further darkness receding down a long, thin passageway. A series of short boards that had once covered the opening now lay scattered about inside the passage.

“There’s a tunnel cut through here.”

Mrs. Grosstack shouldered the officer aside as she hurried to the corner. Lean saw only surprise on the woman’s face when he looked to her for an explanation.

“Don’t ask me—I didn’t build it.” Mrs. Grosstack held her hands out to her sides, palms up, inviting Lean to actually look and compare her ample frame to the narrow passageway.

By lamplight Lean inspected the old wooden supports that lined the walls and ceiling of the two-foot-wide tunnel cut through the earth.

“It’s been here a while. Seems sturdy enough,” he said, though he wished he were more convinced. He turned to the officer. “Stay here with Mrs. Grosstack, in case I run into any trouble.”

He turned sideways and started into the passage but halted, glanced back, and reached out his hand. “Shovel, please.”

Mrs. Grosstack presented the implement with as much solemnity as if she were passing a battlefield standard. Her face was screwed up tight, pitying the deputy’s claustrophobic situation and plainly unwilling to even contemplate the thought of trading places with him.

With weapon in hand, Lean began edging his way along the dank tunnel. He used the shovel like a machete, cutting a swath through the
cobwebs hanging from the ceiling. He heard several rats scurrying off before him. The flickering lamplight revealed the silent movements of centipedes and other small crawly things. Beneath his feet the ground was uneven, and he tried to step over the low spots where murky puddles had collected. Lean glanced back occasionally to see the shrinking light held up by Mrs. Grosstack, but after about fifty yards the gradual curve of the tunnel blocked that sight. There was no sign of light ahead of him, and after another minute he discovered why.

The tunnel ended in a wall of three vertical boards haphazardly cobbled together. Just to the side, two thin metal augers were leaning against the earthen wall, seemingly abandoned there. Lean set the lamp down, then slid the head of the shovel between two ill-fitted boards. Just a small tug popped one board out of place. After that, Lean easily pushed the other two out of the way with his hands. The lamp revealed what looked like a storage closet, filled with small wooden crates and casks. Lean could see a door a few feet beyond. He stepped past several stacked crates and pushed on the door. It budged but wouldn’t open. He leaned back, then threw his shoulder into the door. The cheap wood splintered, and the door crashed open.