In a Gilded Cage (14 page)

“It must have been rapid,” he said. “You see, I was away from home on Friday night. I had to visit a client out of town. When I left on Friday morning Fanny was weak and feverish but seemed cheerful enough. I didn’t get back to the city until late last night. I arrived home to find the doctor here and Fanny’s mother in a terrible state. Fanny was close to death, her breath coming in rasping gasps. She only lasted an hour or two after that. It was horrible.” He paused and coughed again. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I find this too painful a subject to discuss at this moment.”

Emily stepped forward. “Might we just see her, to say good-bye?” she asked. “She was my dearest friend, you know.”

“Of course.” He nodded solemnly and walked toward the bedroom door. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t come into the room with you. I simply can’t—” He left the rest of the sentence hanging.

We stepped into the darkened room. The heavy velvet drapes had been drawn, making it hard to see anything. I could dimly make out the white figure in a vast carved mahogany sleigh bed.

“I hope they won’t mind if I open the drapes for a minute,” Emily said. She went across to the window and pulled them back. Bright spring light flooded in. Pigeons rose, flapping in alarm from the balustrade of the balcony outside the window where they had been sunning themselves. The light fell directly on the figure who lay on the bed. She looked absolutely lovely, like a marble sculpture in an old church or medieval painting of the Virgin, her face serene and her glorious golden hair spread out across the pillow.

Emily gave a stifled sob and went over to her. “Fanny,” she whispered. “Oh, Fanny.”

I felt similarly upset but I reminded myself that I was here for a reason. I started to look around the room, seeing if there was any sort of unwashed coffee cup or medicine glass that I could spirit away for testing. There wasn’t. An impressive row of perfumes and jars of cream sat on her dressing table, along with a silver-backed brush set. I moved quickly to check the door at the far end of the room. It led to a dressing room with wardrobes around the walls, and that room in turn led to a bathroom. There was a glass on the marble table but it looked to be clean and unused. The bottle of mixture, labeled with the directions “One teaspoonful as needed to calm the stomach,” sat on a glass shelf. Apart from that there were few medical preparations: smelling salts, headache powders, liver pills. Mrs. Poindexter clearly had not been one to worry about her health. I was sorely tempted to take them with me but I couldn’t justify doing so. Besides, I didn’t want to make her husband in any way suspicious and spoil an official inquiry later.

I came back out again to a most touching scene. Emily sat on the bed with Fanny’s head cradled in her arms. “I can’t believe I’m saying good-bye to you,” she whispered. “We had such good times together, didn’t we? The happiest days of my life.”

Then she saw me standing there and lowered Fanny again to the pillow, before rising guiltily to her feet. “We should go, I suppose,” she said. “And I should close these drapes again.”

As she walked over to the window I noticed her jacket. “You should brush your jacket,” I said. “You have Fanny’s hairs all over you.”

“So I do,” she said. “I wonder if hair falls out after death?”

Instead of brushing the hairs to the floor, she picked them off, one by one. “I’m going to keep these, as a token to remind me of her,” she said. “Maybe I have enough here to weave into a ring or a brooch.”

I nodded. Darkness fell over the room again and we closed the door quietly behind us.

Fifteen

W
e took the elevator down to the ground floor.

“Well, what did you think?” Emily asked. “Did you find anything at all to arouse your suspicions?”

“Not in the way of used coffee cups or glasses,” I said. “There was the stomach mixture that came from Mr. McPherson, her smelling salts, and some liver pills. They should all be tested, I suppose.”

“The thing I found suspicious was that Anson was conveniently out of town until the moments before her death,” Emily said.

“Yes, I have to agree that was suspicious,” I said, still debating whether to tell her what I knew.

“So where do we go from here?” Emily asked.

“I think I should present the facts to Captain Sullivan and let him proceed. We should not interfere in case we spoil an official criminal investigation.”

“When can you see him?”

“Good question,” I said. “He is working on a couple of big cases—one of them involving arsenic, by the way—and I’ve scarcely seen him in weeks. But I’ll leave a note for him at his apartment on my way home.”

“Thank you.” She reached out and took my hand. “I am so glad you’re going to take this on for me, Molly. If you have to put my own investigation on hold, I quite understand. Justice for poor Fanny is more important to me right now.”

I left her making her solitary way home and I took the El to Twenty-third Street and went straight to Daniel’s residence. When Mrs. O’Shea opened the door she looked more flustered than usual.

“Oh, Miss Murphy. The captain’s not at home again.”

“That’s all right, Mrs. O’Shea,” I said. “I just want to leave a message for him.”

“Do you mind if I don’t accompany you upstairs,” she said. “I’ve got sick children and frankly I’m run off my feet.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Is there anything I can do for you?”

“You’re most kind, my dear, but I don’t want you catching anything. Go on up then, will you?”

I nodded and made my way up the stairs. At Daniel’s desk I found writing paper and asked him to call at Patchin Place at the earliest possible moment, as I had a matter of great urgency in which I needed his help. As I was writing I couldn’t help thinking of the last time I left a note for somebody, and couldn’t fight back the feelings of guilt that swept over me. If Anson Poindexter somehow got wind of the fact that Fanny had hired a detective to keep tabs on him, and that she was planning to divorce him, might I not have forced his hand? I remembered when I had seen him on Saturday afternoon—his grim face as he ran up to Fifi’s door and then left again. And then Fifi had left soon after him. Had he warned her to get out of town?

I felt quite sick as I went down the stairs again and made my way home. I was tempted to go to police headquarters and see if I could seek out Daniel there, but I decided against it. I didn’t want to be known as the annoying woman in Daniel’s life who wouldn’t leave him alone at work. So I waited patiently—or rather not too patiently—until that evening. When I had just decided to fix myself some supper, he showed up on my doorstep.

“Molly, are you all right?” he asked, bursting into my house with a look of concern on his face.

“I’m just fine, thank you,” I said.

“But your note. I got the feeling that something was horribly wrong.”

“Not to me,” I said, “but I have a case that I think might be a matter for the police.”

“Really?” He came into my kitchen. “My, but that smells good.”

“It’s only some neck of beef I’m making into a stew. There will be plenty, if you like to stay.”

“I’d like to but I should really get down to headquarters,” he said. He pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down with a sigh of relief.

“Have they made you work all of Sunday again?”

“Actually, not today,” he said. “I went out to Westchester to see my mother.”

I told myself that I was a petty sort of person to feel jealous that he had wanted to spend his one day off with his mother again, rather than with me.

“That was nice of you,” I managed to say. “So how was she?”

“Not doing too well, as a matter of fact. Still grieving terribly for my father,” he said. “Those two were married for forty years, you know. It’s not going to be easy to adjust to life without him.”

“Forty years, fancy that.” I tried to picture myself and Daniel after forty years together. Did one not grow tired of the other person after all that time?

“Can you picture us after forty years together?” Daniel asked, echoing my sentiments. “We’ll probably have killed one another by then!”

“So about this case,” I said, hastily changing the subject. “It’s a suspicious death, possible poisoning.”

“Poisoning? How on earth did you get yourself involved with something like that?”

I told him the basic details of my dealings with Emily and Fanny Poindexter.

“And what grounds does your friend have for thinking this Mrs. Poindexter was poisoned by her husband?” Daniel asked.

“Intuition, mainly.”

“Intuition?” He uttered a disparaging
bumpf
. “I’d need more than that to call a death suspicious. And you tell me she came down with influenza and died of breathing complications?” He shook his head. “What has that to do with poisoning? Didn’t I tell you about the number of cases I’ve seen of healthy people dying from this flu?”

“You did,” I agreed, “but apparently she was having stomach troubles as well and Emily thought that Fanny’s husband might have taken the opportunity of her weakened condition to get rid of her.”

“And why would he want to do that?” Daniel asked.

“To get his hands on her fortune and to be free of her.” I glanced up at him. “This is strictly between the two of us, but Fanny Poindexter hired me last Monday because she suspected that her husband was keeping a mistress. If that did prove to be true, then she planned to divorce him, and her money would go with her.”

“I see,” he said. “A strong motive then. And does he have a mistress?”

“He does. A dancer called Mademoiselle Fifi. I saw him going into her house and she was described to me by one of the waiters at Delmonico’s.”

“You’re getting quite good at this detective business, aren’t you?” he said with a smile.

“I don’t know about that, Daniel,” I said. “I left a note for Fanny the other day because she was sick and they wouldn’t let me see her. I was careful not to say anything specific in it but I’m now worrying that her husband deduced something from the note that made him realize she was on to him. I’m really concerned that I precipitated her death.”

“Presumably a doctor signed a death certificate?” he asked.

“He did, I’m sure. But he wouldn’t have thought to check for arsenic or any other kind of poison, would he?”

Daniel sighed. “Molly, I’m snowed under with work. I’ve got Chinese tongs trying to kill each other to gain control of the opium trade. I’ve got opium smuggling that we can’t stop and I’ve got random arsenic poisonings all over lower Manhattan.”

“So what would the symptoms of arsenic poisoning be?” I asked.

“Severe gastric distress. You had it yourself, remember?”

“I remember very well,” I said, my thoughts going back to that mansion on the Hudson and the vomiting that had brought me close to death, “but would there be any hints left on the body?”

“An autopsy would reveal traces of arsenic in the system,” he said. “The stomach would appear inflamed. And if the victim had been fed small doses so that death didn’t occur immediately, then it would affect the liver and the victim would appear jaundiced.”

“Meaning that her skin would look yellow?”

“And her eyes. Bloodshot and yellow probably. It can also produce a blotchy rash.”

I shook my head. “She looked perfect. Like a white marble statue.”

“I really don’t think you have enough to go on to warrant investigating further here, Molly,” he said. “It all boils down to one woman’s intuition and I have to tell you that female intuition is not as reliable as word would have it.” He smiled and patted my hand in a rather annoying way.

“So you’re not going to do anything?” I asked.

He sighed. “I could go and see her doctor if it would make you happy. I expect I can find the time to do that for you. If he shows any concerns at all about the cause of her death, then I’ll move to the next step.”

“Which would be?”

“Ordering a test for poisons. But from the way you described the body, I think we can rule out the other common poisons—strychnine, cyanide, as they usually leave signs of extreme distress on the face. And the skin could looked flushed as well or the lips have turned blue.”

“She looked serene,” I said.

“As I said, I suspect this is all the result of an overactive imagination on the part of your friend.” He got up again. “I really should be going. Give me the name and address of the deceased woman and I’ll do what I can.”

“Thank you.” I went across the kitchen and lifted the lid from the pot on the stove. “This is just about ready,” I said. “Can you not stay long enough to have a bite to eat?”

“I suppose I could do that,” he said. He glanced back longingly at the stove, then sat down again. “By the way. What was that strange note I received from you asking if I had been inside your house while you were out?”

“I came home to find the pile of papers on my table had been disturbed,” I said. “Some of them were on the floor.”

“And you thought that I might have sneaked into your house and gone through your papers?” His voice rose angrily. “To what purpose? To spy on you?”

“Keep your hair on, Daniel,” I said. “Of course I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just that I know you have a key and I couldn’t otherwise explain the papers on the floor.”

“I can think of several reasonable explanations myself,” he said. “Your skirt brushed them as you passed. A wind came from the front door as you opened it? The pile was too high and collapsed.”

“I know,” I said. “I suppose you’re right and I got upset over nothing. I just had this horrible feeling that someone had been in my house.”

“And why would they be doing that?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

He gave me a long, hard look. “Molly, is there something you’ve not been telling me? You’re not working on any dangerous cases at the moment, are you?”

“Not at all,” I said. “Finding out about some missionaries is hardly dangerous.”

“And were there any signs of breaking and entering?”

“Not at all.”

“Then I’d say it was another case of overactive imagination,” he said with a relieved smile. “No, don’t throw that spoon at me!”

“The police have ways of collecting fingerprints, don’t they?” I insisted. “We could check my door and windowsills and my desk to see if someone had been here.”

“And what good would that do, my sweet?” he asked. “Unless we have a criminal’s fingerprint on file to compare the prints, we’d be no nearer to telling you who had been here. And frankly I suspect that we’d find a good many fingerprints on your window ledges and doors—don’t look at me like that. I know you dust as well as anyone else, but it’s true. The mailman and the milkman and the window cleaners would all have put their hands on your door at some time. And your friends and neighbors and acquaintances.” He smiled. “To be frank, fingerprinting is not all it’s cracked up to be. It’s never been allowed as evidence in court, either. I can see that one day it will be a marvelous tool, but until we’ve built up files in the way we have with Bertillon measurements, we can take prints but we can’t easily compare them.”

“I see,” I said. “I suppose that means no.”

“If your door had been bashed down, your window broken, and your belongings scattered in disarray, I’d be happy to take fingerprints for you. But in this case I have to say that you’d be wasting police time and resources.”

“Hmmm,” was all I could think of saying.