The Bohemian Murders (10 page)
Read The Bohemian Murders Online
Authors: Dianne Day
He followed us to the outside door, and every hurried step of the way I felt his eyes boring into my back. He was avaricious, but also smarter than I’d at first taken him to be. I could only hope the bribe would keep him quiet.
As for Phoebe, the experience had positively electrified her. “Fremont,” she exploded the moment we reached the carriage, “as soon as I’d done the whole face I was sure! I know that woman!”
“
T
hat’s very interesting,” I said, “particularly since Misha has told me more than once that she cannot be from Carmel. I asked him right at the beginning to try to identify her and he refused, saying it would be a waste of time.”
“I didn’t mean I know her from Carmel,” Phoebe said. “Just that I’ve seen her somewhere. I’m sure of it. I have a good memory for faces—most artists do.”
“And how is your memory for names?” I asked, clucking up my hoof-dragging horse. Though the rain had diminished to a drizzle, Bessie still did not want to go back out in it.
Phoebe’s plain but lively face puckered in a frown. “I don’t think I’ve ever actually met her, I mean as in being introduced.… I’m pretty sure I haven’t … if only I could remember
where
I saw her.…”
I said, “Oh, dear.” But I hadn’t really thought it could
turn out to be that easy—and I was glad Misha hadn’t lied to me.
Once Bessie got the idea that we were headed home, I was able to take one hand from the reins. I stretched my fingers toward the still-pondering Phoebe: “May I see the drawing?”
“Hm? Oh, certainly. Just don’t let it get too wet.” Phoebe flipped open her sketchbook and handed it to me.
I took a quick look, for a steady wind drove the drizzle right beneath the carriage canopy, and every now and then an errant gust would fling fine drops, stinging, in our faces. The lines of the drawing were no less sure for the necessary haste of its execution. “She was pretty,” I observed. I stared at it, hard, as if to engrave it on my brain, then returned the book to Phoebe.
“Bright blue, the shade called ‘royal,’ ” Phoebe mused. “I seem to connect that color with her, so that’s what she must have been wearing when I saw her.”
“The dress she had on when they pulled her from the water was red. So perhaps we may conclude that whoever she was, she liked strong colors and wore them with impunity.” Suddenly I snapped my fingers. “Oh, damnation!”
“What, Fremont?”
“I meant to ask if we could look at her clothing, but I forgot!” We clattered over a bridge that spans an inlet, and the street did a jog toward the large, shabby whaling station overlooking Monterey’s inner harbor. Misha’s sailboat—a sloop called the
Katya
—is anchored there. A busy wharf lies off to the right, and just at the left looms Presidio Hill. There is an old building on that hill which is popularly called Fremont’s Fort, after my illustrious relation. On my first day in this area I went there, simply to stand where he might have stood.
“Why would we want to see her clothes? Ugh!” Phoebe said.
“Never mind,” I said, “it doesn’t matter now. We already know three important things, Phoebe: She was not from Carmel, or you would have known her; she was not from Pacific Grove, for several reasons I won’t go into; and that leaves Monterey. My own pet theory, that she
was a guest at the Hotel Del Monte, no longer holds water because you’ve seen her somewhere. Unless that was where you saw her?”
She wrinkled her small, upturned nose. “The Del Monte is hardly a place I frequent. But you are forgetting the whole of Del Monte Forest, Fremont, along the Seventeen Mile Drive. There are some houses—estates, really—in there. We Carmelites often go exploring and picnicking in those woods, especially around Point Cypress.”
“Oh? Do you know Braxton Furnival by any chance? He lives over there, and is a new client of mine.”
“Hah!” Phoebe said. “Yes, I know him, but I’m hardly his type.… Oh, my goodness! Fremont, you’re a genius!” She practically leapt out of the carriage.
Startled, I tightened my grip on the reins. Bessie does not like this stretch of road, which skirts the burned-out remains of a Chinatown; she tends to act as if she might bolt along here. I said, “I beg your pardon?”
“Braxton Furnival had a huge party at his place about six months ago, and he invited all of us. Have you ever seen his house? It’s simply amazing.”
“No, I haven’t. By us, you mean everyone in Carmel?”
“Yes. He’s friends with Oscar Peterson’s family. They’re prominent in the East Bay, you know, around Oakland, though they have practically disowned Oscar. I’d guess Braxton didn’t know that. I don’t know if he really meant to invite everyone or just Oscar and Mimi, but you’ve seen how the Petersons are—the evening of Braxton’s party they just said to whoever was around, ‘Come on, let’s go!’ and we went. Most everyone, except now that I think of it, Misha wasn’t there; I think he was up in San Francisco.”
“And …?” I encouraged, when for all her former animation Phoebe fell silent.
“I’m thinking. I want to be sure.” She was quiet again. I glanced at her and then past her at the wide water of the bay. So gray and dreary today. The hills far across on the other side were only dimly visible through a veil of blue-gray mist. The seals that often play along the rocks in this area had gone into hiding, along with everyone
and everything else. Not even a gull flew overhead. At least for the moment, we were alone.
I was itching with impatience by the time Phoebe said, “I can’t be
absolutely
sure, but I think that’s where I saw your Jane Doe. At Braxton Furnival’s party! There were at least a hundred people there, all milling around and making noise and drinking too much, especially the men. I’m sure I never got a proper introduction, but I remember that face, the long black hair, the blue dress … Yes! Oh, Fremont, come on. Let’s go right now to Braxton’s house!”
Thus, in a high fever of excitement, Phoebe and I undertook a wild goose chase. I began to suspect she had been among those who’d had too much to drink at that party, because she couldn’t remember the way to Braxton’s house. She directed me down half a dozen or more side tracks through densely wooded stretches of forest, and more than once it was only the roaring of the sea that warned me when the track was about to dead-end. We would come out on the edge of a cliff somewhere, all rocks and scraggly cypresses flat-topped from the wind, and below, the crashing waves; and while this was all beautiful in a wild sort of way, it wasn’t getting us anywhere.
Finally I had no choice but to take Phoebe home to Carmel. She had missed her ride back with Oscar, and I had to return to the lighthouse to relieve Quincy from watch duty. I admit if I had been driving the Maxwell instead of a fatigued horse, most likely I’d have kept on going, regardless of the inconvenience to Quincy. Of course if more people in the area had telephones (particularly myself and Braxton Furnival), it would have made a world of difference. As it was, I supposed I should either have to write to him or wait until he next appeared at my office.
Waiting is not my long suit; therefore I proposed to Phoebe that she make several copies of her sketch overnight, which I would pick up from her the following
morning. She agreed, and it was well after four o’clock when I finally got back “home” to Point Pinos.
The lighthouse has your basic two-by-two cottage design: two rooms down and two up, plus the round watch room just above the roofline, in the base of the tower. I decided it would make eminent sense to type in the watch room, thus saving myself the bother of going up and down the spiral stairs every hour. Quincy volunteered to carry the heavy typewriter up for me. Fortunately the machine had suffered no damage from its jouncing afternoon under the seat in the shay.
Typing with the dark of night always in my face was not easy; I required a while to settle down. But once I started on Artemisia’s novella I was simply
gone.
The story had me in thrall, as I am certain she intended her readers to be.
The Merchant of Dreams
told the story of a young woman who is suddenly widowed and left penniless. Without skills, much education, or experience, and desperate to support herself without turning to prostitution, she answers an advertisement in the newspaper that reads: “I will buy your dreams.”
Artemisia’s heroine is named Heloise. It was some measure of Artemisia’s skill as a writer (aided by the story’s setting, which was Boston) that in no time the voice of Heloise began to sound in my head as if it were my own:
I thought, what harm can it do for me to go and talk to this buyer of dreams? The address was quite a respectable one, on Commonwealth Avenue, with a business name as well: The Morpheus Foundation. I had heard that the famous Viennese psychoanalyst, Dr. Freud, had done some researches on dreams and I supposed this was something of the sort.
I could not have been more wrong, but of course I had no way of knowing it then. So all unaware on a fateful Friday I put on my only good dress (the others
having been sold to purchase firewood) and rode to Commonwealth Avenue on the trolley.
The servant who opened the door had a visage so angelic that for a moment I did not know if I were face to face with a man or a woman: a cloud of golden hair, curiously elongated blue eyes more darkly lashed and browed than the hair color would suggest, a straight nose with delicate nostrils. Altogether, it was a face worthy of Botticelli; and when at last my eye traveled downward, I found that this incredible creature wore trousers. Therefore, I concluded, he was a man.
“I have come in answer to the advertisement,” I said. “I should like to speak to the person who offered to buy dreams.”
“Come in,” the angelic being said, dropping back into darkness, and I stepped over the threshold.
For a few moments I was blinded by the abrupt change in the level of light. I felt around and over me a sort of huge quiet, the hush of a house sufficiently grand that it knows it will go on long after those who built it are lying in their graves. There was a sweetish odor in the air: not quite perfume, perhaps incense. As sight returned I looked down a long hall and saw the figure of the beautiful gatekeeper dissolve in the distance, become one with the shadows in the far reaches of the corridor. He had not told me to wait and so I thought of following, but my feet were curiously reluctant to do so. I remained rooted to an oriental runner near the front door.
The walls, I observed, were panels of a dark and gleaming wood; the coffered ceiling was made of the same wood, as were the stairs. Mahogany, or the darkest walnut, and very fine. Directly overhead a small, unlit chandelier shed transparent crystal droplets, like frozen tears shimmering suspended in time.
Indeed, in all this dark luxury and enveloping quiet, I myself felt a sudden sense of dislocation, of alienness, as if I had stepped into another dimension where time as one knows it had ceased to exist. And though I chided myself for this fancy, still I strained
my ears for the ticking of a clock—only to encounter circles upon circles of silence.
Suddenly I, Fremont Jones, jerked my head up and pricked my ears. What was that? Had I heard something? Or had Artemisia’s story fired my all-too-active imagination?
I left the typewriter and went to the window, which the lamplight had turned into a dark mirror. I cupped my hands around my eyes, put my face to the cool glass, and looked out. It was black as pitch out there: no moon, no stars, no nothing. Nothing but a regularly recurring bright band of light streaming from the great Fresnel lens. And the wind: a steady and insistent visitor, ever pressing up against doors and windows, moaning to come in.
I expelled a short, exasperated sigh. Surely there was nothing untoward going on, but I had to be certain. Pulling the shawl up to the tips of my ears and taking up the binoculars, I climbed the twisting stairs and went out onto the circular platform. The wind rushed to grab me and, in the rudest (not to mention chilliest!) manner, tried to get beneath my skirts. Slowly I walked once around the tower. The lighthouse beam is meant to be seen, not to see by; indeed, the contrast between bright and dark is more dizzying than illuminating. It occurred to me that a clever person might actually hide in the border of the beam—if he or she could keep up with its movement, which was doubtful.
Having made the complete circuit, I stood in one spot and raised the binoculars to my eyes. I knew from experience that on a relatively clear night it was possible out there to see by starlight alone; with so little as a quarter moon, one can see of a Point Pinos midnight as much as at noon on a dark and stormy day. But on a night like this …
I searched the ground for lambent glimmers of light, as from a handheld lantern or a candle. I tried to hear beneath the wind, and above the waves breaking nearby. I listened so keenly that I discerned the rustle of cattle in the barn, a distant barking of sea lions, and the snarl of
some feral cat. Yet of any intruder I saw not a sign, and heard not a sound.
“So,” I muttered as I went back in and down to the watch room, “it was my imagination after all.” At least I had performed a most thorough watch—some twenty minutes before it was due.
