Crimson Snow (29 page)

Hilda nodded. “Others did see you.”

“Well, so when she turned up the alley it took me a minute or two to catch up with her, and when I got there, she was just plain gone. Not a sign of her. I waited around a minute or two, but I was kind of conspicuous just standin' there, so I finally decided she must've stepped into some house without me seein'. It made me mad. I'm supposed to be pretty good at trailin' people.”

Hilda tactfully said nothing to that.

“Anyway, it was mighty cold out, so I stepped into a doorway myself, to wait for her to come out of wherever she'd gone. And the doorway just happened to be a saloon, with a nice big window at the front. So I went in and sat at that front window for a solid hour, and never saw a thing.”

“Perhaps you were too busy with what you were drinking,” said Hilda, and there was just a little acid in her tone.

“Say, listen! I was drinkin' coffee, and you can ask the bartender. Pretty fed up about it, he was, but we're not allowed to drink on duty. Well, after I was tired of sittin', I went up the alley a little ways, but it was pretty dark—the moon had just about set— and perishin' cold. I tell you, that girl had just flat disappeared! So next morning, when I heard the news she was missing, and I heard the cops had found a body just off that alley, I put two and two together, and I was off on the first train I could catch!”

Hilda thought he had shown less courage and more concern for himself than a Pinkerton's man should. Perhaps their reputation was overblown. In any case, she did not intend to tell him what she thought. She needed this man as an ally. “Mr. Lowell, have you told the police this? That Miss Jacobs disappeared in the alley at—at what time?”

“I got there right around seven, a few minutes one way or the other, and went back to the hotel around eight. And no, I haven't told the police anything. I told my friends, though, the Pinkertons investigating the murder, and they couldn't make anything of it.”

“Do you think that, perhaps, one of the men who—er—had seen her at Mrs. Schmidt's house was hiding, lying in wait for her? And when he tried to—er—make her go with him, she resisted and their struggle ended in murder?”

“There's two things against that, Miss Johansson.” He got her name right, which surprised Hilda. This man might be unpolished, but he was observant. “For one, if anyone had tried to grab her when she went into that alley, I'd have heard. She would have screamed. And there was no scream, and I'll swear to that. And for the second thing—do you read the newspapers, Miss Johansson?”

“Yes.”

“Then you must have read that Miss Jacobs was—that she hadn't ever—hang it all, she'd never been with a man!” It was his turn to blush.

Hilda didn't. She was too busy feeling like a fool. “Of course! I did read that, but I forgot! Much has happened since then. But, oh, Mr. Lowell, I am so glad that you reminded me. I have been very worried. You see, Miss Jacobs was a teacher. You knew that. But you did not know that she was my little brother's teacher, and he loved her. I did not want to believe bad things about her, and now I do not have to. But Mr. Lowell, she must have screamed! She was dragged from that alley. She grasped hold of fence posts to try to keep her killer from taking her away. Oh, and I know she did! A woman heard her!” She looked at him with grave suspicion.

“All I can say is, she didn't while I was standing there looking for her. And the other Pinks in town haven't been able to find anyone who heard a scream, except one crazy old woman who's always hearing things. And that was hours later, near ten, and it turned out to be a kid next door who was being spanked.”

“Oh. Are you sure?”

“Sure as I'm sittin' here.”

“But that means she must have gone with someone of her own free will, someone she knew. But why, then, has no one come forward to say that they saw her, talked with her?”

“That's easy to see, isn't it? Because the person she went with willingly turned out to be not such a good friend after all. Because he killed her.”

Hilda stood and paced the floor in frustration. “But why? How could a friendly meeting become a terrible quarrel, a quarrel
so
terrible that it ended in beating and murder?”

Lowell shook his head.

“She was afraid,” Hilda murmured, almost to herself. “She was afraid of someone, so afraid that she trembled when a man came to her boarding house.”

“When was that?” asked Lowell, alert.

“About a week before she was killed. But it could not have been that man who killed her, because she was afraid of him—or someone. She would not have gone with him.”

“Well, whoever she was afraid of, it wasn't that man who came to Mrs. Gibbs's that day.”

“And how do you know that?”

“Because if we're thinkin' of the same fellow, it was another of us. A Pinkerton's man. He was trying to get into the boarding house, because a lot of the girls who boarded there roomed at Mrs. Schmidt's, and we wanted mighty bad to talk to those girls. But he didn't have any luck there, and another case he was workin' on came up with a new development, so they pulled him off and sent me a few days later.”

“It seems to me, Mr. Lowell, that there have been a great many detectives in this city who have done very little! I suppose it was your men who ran away from the funeral, afraid of being photographed.”

“It was, and one of 'em near as near as anything got caught, thanks to some blankety-blank Irishman. Look, Miss Johansson, don't be so hard on us. Give us a little time. It's only been just over a week, and you know the Pinkerton's motto: We Never Sleep!”

Which was all very well, thought Hilda as she made her careful way back home, but Mr. Perkins/Lowell certainly seemed to have fallen asleep on this case.

However, she had learned some important things and answered some vexing questions, at least if she believed what Lowell had said. It was good to hear that Nelka Chudzik was safe. Hilda planned to go to Mrs. Chudzik, with Sergeant Lefkowicz to translate, and tell her the good news. But not today. The weather was too bad, and Hilda couldn't rid herself of a few lingering doubts about Mr. Frank Lowell.

Was it not just a little peculiar that he was at the very scene of the crime just a few minutes before Miss Jacobs was attacked? And that he was in the hotel when Nelka disappeared? And that he left town even before news of the murder hit the streets?

No, she would reserve her opinion of Mr. Lowell, and she would say nothing to Mrs. Chudzik until she was sure the man was to be trusted.

She wished, when she got back to Tippecanoe Place soaked and freezing, that she could slip into a hot bath as she had at the Malloys' house. For a moment she wondered if she dared. Both the ladies of the house were customarily busy downstairs at this hour of the morning. They would never know.

But the servants were in and out of the family bedrooms and bathrooms all day, working. Someone would see her, and would certainly tell. Even if she asked Elsa to stand guard—and she could not do that, could not encourage her to break the rules.

Hilda removed her shoes, soaked despite her rubbers, and squelched her way to her bedroom. Her clothing would all have to dry before she could wear it again, and wool dries slowly. Later she would take it down to the laundry, sponge and brush the mud from her skirt and petticoats, and hang it to dry. For now, she simply stripped, dried herself with a rough towel that brought some feeling back to her chilled skin, and dressed in her oldest, warmest clothes. She hadn't another clean uniform, and at any rate she intended to do no housework until she had cleared her mind.

Then she went back to Mr. Williams's room and took up her list.

The questions about “Perkins” had been answered. Were the answers true?

Suppose he was lying. Suppose he was both a Pinkerton's man
and
a murderer. He
was
investigating Mrs. Schmidt's house for Colonel George. But suppose he became enamored of Miss Jacobs, followed her, and tried to assault her. She protested, fought, tried to save herself, but he grew wild with anger and frustration and hit her too hard. She died and he fled town.

That hung together very well, too well for Hilda's comfort. She had sat talking with the man, after all, had revealed that she knew a great deal. If he was the murderer, she was in great danger.

And yet—she hadn't felt threatened. He hadn't struck her as a dangerous man, only as something of a coward and somewhat incompetent.

Of course, he was skilled at disguise and probably also at playing a role.

What if he was the man who had caused Miss Jacobs such distress at Mrs. Schmidt's? What if he had made an improper advance to her there? Mrs. Schmidt would have been angry that Miss Jacobs turned down a paying customer. That fit, too.

Except it didn't. The little maid, Eileen O'Hara, had said quite definitely that the man involved in that nasty little scene had been Mrs. Schmidt's nephew, seen around the house for some months.

So that was one offense of which Hilda could definitely exonerate Mr. Lowell, but the rest of his story was still open to question. She made some notes on her list and sat for a time chewing on the pen.

Take it from the other side. Suppose everything he said was true. Hilda was nearly certain that he was telling the truth about Mrs. Schmidt's establishment, so start from there. If that were true, Mrs. Schmidt had lied about everything she had told Hilda. Suppose the nephew had made the same suggestion Hilda had just attributed to Mr. Lowell, and Miss Jacobs had turned him down in horror.

That had been—when? Hilda couldn't remember for certain, but it had been not long before Miss Jacobs was killed.

Suppose the nephew—she really would have to find out his name—had become determined to try again. Suppose it was he who met her in the alley that night…no. She wouldn't have gone with him willingly. She would have screamed, or at least have protested, the moment he tried to take her arm.

Yes, but…suppose it was Mrs. Schmidt herself who met Miss Jacobs? That would have been perfectly natural. Miss Jacobs might not have liked Mrs. Schmidt very much, but she surely wasn't afraid of her, or she would have tried to find someplace else to live.

So Mrs. Schmidt met Miss Jacobs in the alley, pretending to walk home with her. At some point along the way the nephew showed up—Miss Jacobs tried to run away—the nephew caught her—and the rest of the tragic story unfolded.

Yes, it worked. It definitely all held together. It left out a few things. Hilda still didn't know what part Miss Lewis played in the sordid story, unless it was she who encouraged Miss Jacobs to live at Mrs. Schmidt's. Perhaps she, Miss Lewis, thought Miss Jacobs was a different sort of girl from what she really was. Perhaps she simply knew that Miss Jacobs had little money and thought she wouldn't mind how she made a little more. Hilda hoped that Miss Jacobs never knew what sort of place it was that she was living in.

And the “Mrs. Schmidt and nephew” explanation left out Mr. Barnes, too. Why did he steal those papers, and where were they now, and who killed him?

Hilda wanted those things explained. She was still sore over her rash actions in that little episode, and very much wanted to get to the bottom of the matter to redeem herself. But the Barnes affair was not her immediate problem. She was on the trail of Miss Jacobs's murderer now, she was sure of it. What she needed now was some solid evidence of the nephew's guilt. And in order to get it, she was going to have to go once more to Colonel George.

…nothing to base the arrest of anyone even on suspicion…

—South Bend
Tribune
   
January 27, 1904

 

 

 

30

H
ILDA LOOKED AT THE CLOCK in Mr. Williams's bedroom. Nearly noon; time for the family to have lunch. It would be politic for her to help serve and clean up. Unfortunately, she had no uniform to wear, but that would not matter so much in the kitchen. Carefully, she folded away her notes into her pocket, tidied up the desk, and went to her room to put on cap and apron.

Mrs. Sullivan was too busy to be scandalized at her appearance, though she did make a caustic comment when Hilda walked in. Then she handed her a tureen with orders to fill it with soup, and the luncheon routine progressed.

After lunch had been taken care of and the servants had eaten their own, Hilda changed her clothes yet again to something suitable for an interview with her employer. She was beginning to feel like a butler, changing all day, and she was getting very tired of it.

Colonel George, she knew, would be sitting in the library enjoying a cigar. She would hate the smoke and he would hate being interrupted. Never mind. This was important. She walked in and curtseyed, trying not to cough.

“Sir, there is something important I must discuss with you. I know this is not a good time, but I think I have learned who killed Miss Jacobs, and I need your help.”

He put down his cigar and stared at her in astonishment. Part of his reaction may have been to the way she was dressed—he had never seen her in anything but a uniform—but she took it as encouragement to continue.

“I went out this morning to send the telegram to Mr. Perkins, but I did not need to send it. He is staying at the Oliver Hotel again, and his name is not Perkins, it is Lowell, and he has shaved off his mustache. Unless it was false. That does not matter. We talked, and he told me a great many things, and then I came home and thought about them, and I think I know what happened the night Miss Jacobs was killed.”

She took a deep breath and recited her scenario. When she had finished she stood and waited.

“Well!” he said, and repeated it. “Er—sit down, Hilda, please. I am amazed. You do seem to have come up with something. But you said you needed my help.”

“Yes, sir.” She sat, obediently. “I must tell the police what I know, and what I think. But the weather is too bad to walk to the police station, and they would maybe not listen to me anyway. They did not believe me about the safe, and they mostly think I am only a dumb Swede. I thought, if you would telephone to them, they might believe you.”