Murder on Black Friday (10 page)

“We do have doubts,” Will said, “but as part of an objective investigation, we need to consider the possibility that your brother might have had reason to kill himself. That’s why we need to know whether he lost very much in the gold collapse yesterday.”

“Philip considered his financial dealings to be personal and private,” Catherine said. “He never discussed them with anyone but me, ever, and of course I treated them as confidential matters. But given the situation, and the need to clear up this ugly suicide rumor, I suppose it would do no harm to tell you that Philip suffered no reversals at all yesterday.”

“He lost nothing?” Will asked.

“Not a fip. I should know. I was his secretary. I was privy to all his business transactions.”

“Are you sure?” Nell asked.

After a slight hesitation, Catherine said, “
As of noon yesterday, he was entirely solvent.” Her mouth curved in a slight smile. “My brother always liked to leave himself what he called an ‘escape plan’ for any transaction he entered into. That is as much as I’m willing to tell you. Suffice it to say the gold crash did not adversely affect him.”

“Any thoughts, then,” Nell asked, “as to why and how he died?”

Catherine said, “My feeling—and it’s a very strong feeling—is that it must have had something to do with those Bassett women.”

“Are you saying you think they were capable of harming your brother in some way?” Nell asked.

“Rebecca Bassett is a manipulative little gold digger under that nitwit façade, and as for Miriam,
I honestly do think she’s unbalanced. All those visits to my brother, her fixation on ending his engagement to Rebecca... To tell you the truth, she always frightened me a little. Now, she frightens me a great deal.”

“How do you think he ended up on those steps?” Will asked.

“He didn’t jump. Other than that, I’m at a loss.”

“Perhaps we can be of some help in sorting it out,” Nell said. “Would you mind our going up to his office and taking a look around?”

“I...don’t suppose so,” Catherine said. “You wouldn’t be...moving things around, would you? I plan to leave that room and his bedroom exactly as they were when he was alive—permanently. No changes so long as I live in this house, which, God willing, will be for the remainder of my life.”

“We’ll be very careful,” Will said, “and we’ll be sure to tidy up before we leave.”

“All right, then. I’ll take you up there.” Catherine made as if to rise, which was Will’s signal to pull out her chair, then Nell’s.

As Catherine ushered them out of the room, Nell said, “We
would
like to bring Mr. Bassett’s private business papers back to his daughters.”

“Yes, of course. Quite frankly, I’d rather not have any reminder of that family in this house.”

Will said, “It would be helpful to know who came to see Mr. Munro yesterday afternoon.”

“I couldn’t say,” Catherine said as she led them past the main staircase with its elaborately carved banisters. “I spent the morning upstairs assisting Philip with his business affairs, as I generally do, but I took to my bed around noon with a headache from the doorbell. It had been ringing all morning.”

“You heard the doorbell on the fourth floor?” Nell asked.

“There are two wires on the front bell pull. One leads to a bell in the kitchen, and the other to one in the office.”

Nell said, “Then I take it Mr. Munro had a great many visitors yesterday morning, if the doorbell kept ringing.”

“No, it was just telegrams—scads of them. Well, one or two runners with notes asking for appointments, but mostly fellows from Western Union, delivering and picking up telegrams. The ringing was incessant. It gave me a beastly sick headache. I’m prone to them, I’m afraid. My lady’s maid had to shake me awake to tell me...what had happened to Philip.”

“You’d been asleep that entire time?” Will asked. “Three and a half hours?”

“I’d taken a headache tonic.”

“Who discovered Mr. Munro’s body?” Nell asked.

“His attorney arrived for an appointment and found him on the front steps. I don’t imagine he’d been there very long, or a neighbor would surely have noticed.” Pausing in the doorway of a utilitarian stair hall lit by a skylight, Catherine said, “Philip’s visitors generally came in through the back door off the kitchen yard and went up these service stairs to his office. They’re the only stairs that run from the lower level, where the kitchen is, all the way up to the attic. The main staircase terminates at the third floor.”

“What types of visitors did he generally have?” Nell asked.

“Oh, various sorts—the gentlemen he was partnered with in assorted ventures, friends such as your brother Harry, gentlemen he advised on business matters...”

“Like Noah Bassett?” Will asked.

“Mr. Bassett came occasionally, not often. I gather he was in ill health. Mostly he and Philip communicated in writing—letters delivered by messenger.”

“What about Mr. Munro’s lady friends?” Nell asked. “Other than Miriam Bassett, I mean. Did they visit him at the house?”

Catherine looked away for a moment, her mouth tight. “Some of them. Philip was generally in his office until eight or nine at night—he was a hard worker, often ate at his desk—and sometimes he would...entertain ladies up there.”

“Did they come through the back door and up the service stairs, like the gentlemen?”

Catherine nodded. “They preferred to go unnoticed by the neighbors, as you can imagine.”

Nell said, “But they can’t very well have gone unnoticed by you, if you were working in your brother’s office when they arrived.”

“The ladies who called on my brother mostly visited in the afternoons or evenings, so I rarely saw them. If it came to my attention that Philip was entertaining one of his female acquaintances, I merely ignored the fact and went on about my business.”

“Did they ever arrange these...assignations in advance?” Nell asked. “As your brother’s secretary, I would assume you were privy to his appointments.”

“That’s neither here nor there, Miss Sweeney. My brother maintained an admirable discretion in such matters. So shall I.” Except, of course, when it came to Miriam Bassett. “As to whether any gentlemen visited him yesterday afternoon, I believe there were several appointments on Philip’s calendar, and I’d be willing to show you that page, if you’d like to see it.”

“We would,” Will said. “Thank you.”

“Of course,” Catherine said, “not everyone made appointments. Philip often had callers who just showed up unannounced. We can go directly up to his office, or if you’d like to know who came to see him yesterday afternoon without appointments, I can first take you downstairs so you that can question our cook. She’s generally the only person who would see Philip’s visitors come and go—aside from Philip himself, of course.” Gesturing toward the stairwell, she said, “Up or down?”

“Down,” Will said.

*   *   *

“Oh, there were a number of gentlemen come to see Mr. Munro yesterday,” said Catherine’s cook, a stocky Negress named Mrs. Gell who wore a sleeveless white smock over a black-dyed dress. “A regular parade of ‘em through that door there and up those stairs early in the afternoon. They’d petered out by about two.”

“You were here all afternoon?” Nell asked.

“Till about a quarter past three, when I went out to do my marketing. It was close to five-thirty by the time I come back. Front steps had just been washed and there was a black ribbon on the front door. A lot can happen in a couple of hours.”

The kitchen, located at the rear of the house on the ground level, had been spared any shred of black crepe, and was therefore refreshingly sunny. Its walls were brightly papered, its appointments, like the cookstove at which Mrs. Gell stood stirring a pot of custard, the very latest in design.

Turning to the scrawny, pockmarked young kitchen maid kneading pastry dough on a marble slab, Nell said, “Did
you
notice these visitors?”

“Maggie’s a deaf mute,” said Catherine.

“And simple, to boot,” added Mrs. Gell. “She don’t notice much of anything.”

Indeed, Maggie had glanced at them when they entered the kitchen, but hadn’t looked up from her work since then.

“Can you tell us what any of these gentlemen looked like?” Will asked the cook.

“White men in black coats and top hats,” said Mrs. Gell as she stirred.

“Mrs. Gell, if you please,” Catherine said wearily.

“Well, now, ma’am, I didn’t turn ‘round from the stove to stare at ‘em, and I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t have wanted me doing that if I was of a mind to. When white folks are scuttling past me like I ain’t even there, not so much as a tip of the hat, which they shouldn’t even be wearing indoors, much less in my kitchen, well...they pretty much all look the same to me.”

Mrs. Gell pursed her mouth, just slightly, as she hefted the custard pot from the burner.

Catherine looked down and brushed her hands over her skirt, as if sweeping off specks of invisible lint. When she was done, she stood up very straight and clasped her hands at her waist. “I shall take you upstairs.”

*   *   *

“This was meant to be a bedroom when the house was built, of course,” Catherine said as she showed them into the front room on the fourth floor that had served as Philip Munro’s office. The windows in the bay that looked out onto Marlborough Street were quite tall, but swathed in so much black crepe as to swallow virtually every bit of available light. The air was very close, and redolent of lemon oil, tobacco, and leather.

Catherine said, “The back room is a guest bedroom. In between, there’s a closet, the necessary, and of course the stairs.”

“Do you mind, Miss Munro?” Stepping around a table strewn with large rolls of paper, Will pulled the crepe aside, letting sunlight stream into the room. “I’ll set it right before we leave.”

Nell could tell from Catherine’s expression that she viewed this uncovering of her carefully draped windows as almost a form of desecration; this room was to be, after all, a sort of shrine to her sainted late brother. But she merely pressed her lips together in silent, if grim, acquiescence.

Looking around at the office, a masculine enclave of dark, glossy wood and burnished leather, Will said, “Have you spent much time up here since...the unfortunate incident?”

“I came up here to supervise the hanging of the crepe this morning, but I didn’t touch anything, if that’s what you mean.”

“You didn’t have one of the maids straighten up?” he asked.

Catherine shook her head. “I can’t even bear the thought of dusting in here. No, everything is as it was yesterday afternoon.”

“What are these?” Will asked as he flattened out one of the rolls of paper on the table. “Architect’s drawings?”

Catherine nodded. “My brother was planning to build a new house out in Chestnut Hill. I take it he meant it as a sort of wedding gift for Rebecca.”

“This is quite a floor plan,” Will said. “How many rooms, if I may ask?”

“Twenty-eight at last count,” Catherine said, “but he kept adding new ones.”

“He was going to sell
this
house, then?” Nell asked.

“No, actually. His intent was to keep this house for business purposes, with me remaining here to oversee such matters for him.”

Will said, “That’s quite a responsible position for a lady.”

“But a lonely one,” Nell said. “He meant for you to live here all by yourself?”

“Of course not. The household staff would remain.”

Nell wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that.

“Philip...” Catherine began. “He...felt Rebecca and I might not get along. His leaving me here was meant to avoid familial discord.”

“I see.”

There were two desks in Munro’s office—a smallish black lacquer secretary decorated with Oriental designs in gilt, and a massive, carved desk which stood about five or six feet from the west wall, facing into the room. It was the secretary that Catherine unlocked with one of the keys hanging from her belt, folding down the hinged lid to produce a working surface. As with Mr. Bassett’s cylinder desk, it featured an arrangement of little shelves, all neatly stocked with paper, postage stamps, sealing wax, and the like. Directly over the desk hung a brass bell connected to a wire emanating from the wall; no wonder its ceaseless ringing had driven Catherine to her bed.

From one of the larger cubbies, Catherine slid a fancily tooled leather book with the initials PM stamped in gold on the front. “This is Philip’s calendar.” She opened it to the page marked with a ribbon and handed it to Will, who tilted it toward Nell: Friday, September 24th—yesterday.

Four notations were penned on the thin, ruled page, two in a jagged scrawl, and the other two in an elegant, feminine hand.

Rev. Tanner , 12:30

L. Thorpe — 2:00

F. Wallace — 3:30

D. Cavanaugh, 4:30

Nell and Will shared a meaningful glance. So Miriam Bassett’s fiancé, Reverend Dr. John Tanner, had had an appointment with Munro yesterday afternoon.