The Gilded Hour (81 page)

Oscar cleared his throat. “We have another victim.”

Anna felt her expression freeze, but she took in a deep breath, picked up her coffee cup, and asked, “Exactly the same?”

“In the essentials,” Jack said. “Nicholas Lambert will do the postmortem, but there’s little doubt in my mind. Oscar?”

He shook his head. “But we did get some information this time, from the lady’s maid. You remember the advertisements you found in the paper, the ones that mention Smithson’s?”

Jack said, “What’s wrong? All the color just drained out of your face.”

“Smithson’s?” Her voice wavered a little. “What about it?”

“There’s a coffeehouse just opposite, do you know it?” Oscar asked, his tone wary.

“Yes,” Anna said. “I used to go there with my uncle Quinlan when I was very young. And—” She looked first Oscar and then Jack in the eye. “I was there today.”

•   •   •

B
Y
THE
TIME
they had exchanged stories—Jack got out his notes both to be sure of the facts and to add Anna’s observations—it was eight o’clock. She started at the chiming of the hall clock.

“I thought you had to go back to work?”

Oscar raised both brows and tucked in his chin in what she thought was mock surprise.

“What is it you think we’re doing?”

“Oh,” she said. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

“Your parlor is far more comfortable than the squad room, I’ll give you that.”

Jack said, “And it smells better.”

“I should hope so,” Anna muttered. “Is it too late to go to Jefferson Square right now? Just to get a sense of how things are laid out, and where Mrs. Winthrop might have been going.”

“Possible, but not the best idea,” Jack said. “You were there this morning; we were there a couple hours ago. If someone involved in this case happened to see us there again—together—it might well send them packing before we’ve even figured out who they are.”

“You think that’s possible?”

Oscar said, “Probable, even. And after tomorrow almost certain.”

Jack took a folded piece of paper from his notebook and handed it to her. “This will run in five newspapers tomorrow.”

Anna skimmed it, and then looked at them. “This might help reduce the number of women who go to him, but how could it help in identifying him?”

The two men glanced at each other. “We have a suspect,” Oscar said. “We’ll be watching him.”

“Can I ask who it is?”

“No.” Jack’s tone was firm.

Oscar scowled at him. “Come on, man. She’s up to her eyebrows already. And if I have to remind you, she’s been behind most of the useful information we have.”

“I know that,” Jack said shortly.

Anna said, “Oscar, I know what this is. What we have here is the Brooklyn Bridge.”

The look on his face was almost comical, and so she explained.

“I wanted Jack to take me to the top of one of the arches,” she said. “This was before it opened. We had a philosophical disagreement about the boundary between protectiveness and paternalism. I think this is a similar situation.”

Oscar was trying not to grin. “And how did that turn out?”

“Not in my favor,” Anna said. “But this time it will.”

•   •   •

T
HEY
TOOK
A
break while Oscar went back to Mulberry Street to collect some materials. Jack took Anna’s hand and led her outside to sit in the garden.

“Something Oscar said made me realize we aren’t taking advantage of this.” He gestured around himself. “I keep meaning to look into putting together a pergola. Would you like that?”

Anna lifted their linked hands and pulled him toward a small bench at the far end of the garden.

She said, “This will do for the time being. So, you’re going to have to convince me about Neill Graham.”

He considered for a moment. “Tell me first why you’re so sure he’s not involved.”

“These women may each have been desperate in her own way, but none of them was stupid. They had money—some more than others, but all of them were well off when compared to the average. They had households to run—and you know what that entails.” She drew a breath and held it for a few heartbeats.

“A woman like this, with money and position, a woman who isn’t stupid isn’t going to hand herself over to a twenty-one-year-old intern. That kind of woman wants nice offices and treatment rooms and all the latest medicines and instruments. She wants anesthesia and laudanum and a physician with many years’ experience. She wants decorum and white hair and distinction and manners, and she’s willing to pay for all those things. Graham is polite and solicitous, but I can’t see Janine Campbell or any of the others simply handing over a pile of money and then surrendering to his care. Have I convinced you?”

“Not yet,” Jack said. “But then you weren’t there when Graham told us what it was like to examine poor women. There was—revulsion, even hatred, in his whole demeanor. And his keen interest in the Campbell case and the others—there’s some kind of connection.”

“I take you at your word,” she said. “After talking to Mrs. Smithson today I wouldn’t be surprised if she were connected too. I have no idea how. Is there one simple scenario that pulls together all the small pieces?”

“That’s what we’re working on. Look, here comes Oscar with his maps and the rest of the case file. Anna.”

She looked up at him, waiting.

“Promise me something.”

That made her laugh. “Just like that? You want carte blanche on everything, or just one thing in particular?”

“I want you to promise me you won’t go digging around Jefferson Square anymore on your own.”

Anna grabbed his earlobe and pulled, ignoring his yelp to plant a kiss on his cheek. “That’s a deal,” she said. “I won’t go back there on my own. Satisfied?”

His brow pleated itself when he scowled, as he was doing now. “Savard,” he said. “I know you, and you’ve got something up your sleeve.”

“I will not put myself in harm’s way,” she said. “I know very well that I’m out of my depths. I’m not foolish, Mezzanotte. What I am, what I’ve got up my sleeve, as you put it, is anger. I can’t remember ever being so angry.”

He studied her face for a long moment, and then nodded. “Let’s go see what Oscar’s got.”

T
HE
NEXT
MORNING
Jack caught up with Anna before she had reached Cooper Square, took her Gladstone bag, and held out his free arm; he raised a brow at her until she took it.

“I said I’d be home in time to walk you to work.”

“I wanted to get an early start. And you need to get some sleep, Mezzanotte.”

Mornings Anna was often on edge, but there was something more to her mood this morning. They had spent a good part of the evening poring over the surveyor maps of the Jefferson Square area, compiling a list of buildings within three blocks of the coffeehouse and Smithson’s where a doctor might have offices. It would take days for the officers assigned to the case to canvass all of them, but that was the next and necessary step. That, and a new and more intense look at Neill Graham.

He said, “You didn’t sleep well.”

“Not especially.”

“I wondered if this would happen.”

She rounded on him, her brows drawn down. Ready to be irritated; almost, Jack thought, eager to be irritated. “What would happen?”

“You with your quick doctor’s mind and quicker surgeon’s hands are finding the slow pace of the law frustrating.”

They stopped at a corner to let an omnibus pass, wheels screeching on the rails. When they had crossed the street Anna looked up at him.

“I had a dream,” she said. “I don’t usually remember my dreams, but this one woke me and I was damp with sweat. After that I couldn’t sleep any more at all.”

He waited, but she didn’t go on. “You don’t want to tell me about the dream.”

“I think I have to tell you about the dream. It goes onto that long list of things I need to talk to you about.”

Jack was tired too; they had been called out to a street fight after midnight, stevedores and sailors bent on breaking each other’s heads. He thought about telling her this story and decided it would wait until they were both in better moods.

In front of the New Amsterdam he gave back her Gladstone bag, brushed a curl off her forehead, and kissed the corner of her eye so that her lashes fluttered against his mouth.

“You’re not easily spooked,” he said. “But I’d be surprised if this case didn’t give you some bad dreams.”

She seemed to relax a little, her forehead pressed to his jaw. And still she looked unhappy, distracted, overwhelmed. He didn’t like any of it, and there was nothing he could do for her in the here and now.

“I didn’t dream about the case,” she said finally. “It was about my brother. I dreamed he came to apologize to me, and I hit him in the head. With a hammer. But he was a ghost and he just stood there looking at me as if I’d disappointed him.”

Jack heard himself draw in a sharp breath. “We need more time to talk about this,” he said. “But I don’t mind telling you that I thought that when you got around to telling me about Paul, the story would be something else entirely.”

“I know.” She touched his cheek with her gloved hand. “I think that’s why it’s been so hard for me to talk about it. Everybody expects a story that I can’t give them.”

“Anna. I’ll take whatever you’ve got.”

She smiled then, something almost regretful in her expression.

“We’ll talk tonight.” She went up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek and he turned his head to catch her mouth. A soft, warm kiss; in need of comfort herself, she tried instead to comfort him.

He kissed her back, possessively, hungrily, to remind her who he was.

•   •   •

T
HE
OPERATING
ROOM
was one place where Anna knew she could drop everything and clear her mind. There was a simple hernia to be done, an operation she did day in and day out, but she was looking forward to it. Then she turned into the hall and saw Archer Campbell waiting outside her office door.

Two thoughts went through her mind at that moment: first, that it would be childish and silly to run away; and second, there were times when she really did have use for a hammer.

“Dr. Savard.” He dragged his hat off his head with a reluctance that spoke volumes. “Can I have a word?”

“Mr. Campbell. No, you may not. I have to be in surgery in five minutes. I’m just here to leave my wraps.”

She unlocked the door and went in, locked it behind herself, and took a moment to catch her breath. Then she went on as she had done every morning for as long as she had come to work at the New Amsterdam: she took off her hat, changed her shoes, and exchanged her shirtwaist for a fresh tunic and put on a full apron over that. The whole time she was aware that Campbell was still in the hall, waiting.

She thought of Mabel Stone in the little cottage by the sea. She thought of Janine Campbell’s four boys, children she had never seen but could imagine nonetheless: if not healthy, then healing.

As soon as she opened the door Campbell stepped toward her, close enough that she could make out ale on his breath. She had faced down drunken husbands and belligerent mothers, and she resolved to face down Archer Campbell. She put her arm straight out, her fisted hand against his shoulder, and pushed him away.

“Mr. Campbell,” she said. “You are inappropriate.”

His hand closed over her forearm. She spun around and jerked free in one motion, and they stood looking at each other. She could hear her heartbeat echoing in her ears, and every nerve was twanging like a fire bell.

“You will talk to me.” His voice went husky and she saw his pupils dilating with an almost sexual response to her rejection. She thought of one quick jerk of the knee and how that would take the look off his face.

“I want to know where Mabel Stone is,” he said. “Don’t tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about. I saw you go into her place that night with the detectives, and the next day the Stones were gone, both of them. There’s no word of them, and nobody knows where they went. Except you. You know, don’t you.”

Anna looked him directly in the eye for a count of three. She said,
“Mr. Campbell. Leave this building and never come back. Never approach me again or I will swear out a complaint.”

“Haven’t answered my question, though, have you? That’s as good as a confession in my book. You’ll talk to me, unless you like the idea of a search. You’ll never know when it’s coming, but I can guarantee you, Comstock will find what he needs to send you to prison.”

In some part of her brain Anna realized that he didn’t know she was married, or to whom. The thought made her smile, and her smile made his whole face contort with rage.
This is what his wife faced every day,
she thought.
This is what she lived with for years.

A small group of people came into the hall. An orderly, too busy flirting with the nursing students to take note of anything else, and behind them, Elise. She pushed her way through the others and broke into a trot.

“Dr. Savard,” she called. “Do you need help?”

“She does,” said Campbell with a wide rictus of a smile that displayed graying teeth. “But not from you.”

His eyes moved over Anna, roaming over her body to stop on her face.

“You’re no woman a man would want as a wife. I doubt you even know you are a woman.” His grin flickered on and off. “But then old maids can be surprising. All those juices stored up with no place to go.”

There was a distinct buzzing in her ears and she seemed to be watching the scene from a remove. She felt no fear or even disgust. The most she could muster was a clinical interest, wondering what an alienist would make of Campbell.

“I could show you what goes on in a man’s bed—”

Then Elise Mercier stepped forward with both fists raised and delivered a blow to Campbell’s middle that deflated him like a pin to a hot-air balloon. All the breath in his lungs left him in a rush, the smell of oysters and ale hanging in the air as he collapsed to the floor, hacking and fighting for air.

It all happened in seconds, and then everyone was staring at Elise. The look on the orderly’s face was distinctly admiring, but the nurses were shocked and, Anna thought, a little frightened.

Elise studied Campbell, writhing on the ground and gasping for air.

“He’ll be all right. More’s the pity,” she said to no one in particular.
Then she realized that everyone was looking at her, and she produced a small, crooked smile. She said, “Six brothers.”

That seemed to satisfy them all. The orderly crouched down to get hold of Campbell by the collar of his jacket and yanked him to his feet.

“Would you be wanting to call the police, Dr. Savard?”

Anna shook her head. “Just put him out on the street, please, Jeremy. I need to get to surgery. Nurse Mercier, I suggest you soak that hand in cold water before it begins to swell.” But she smiled at Elise. “Later I’ll try to remember to remind you about the prohibition on violence inside the New Amsterdam.”

•   •   •

E
LISE
,
SOAKING
HER
hand, was still angry enough to spit, but she was also deeply apprehensive. Bullies did not stand down so easily, especially not when they had been bested by a girl. Walking home from the New Amsterdam might not be the best idea. Not for herself or Anna. She wondered why Anna had not sent for the police, if there was something unspoken that stopped her.

After a while she dried her hand, flexing each finger and making a fist. No serious damage, but then punching Campbell’s middle had been like burying her fist in half-risen bread dough. She thought for a long moment, and then went to find pen and paper.

•   •   •

J
ACK
HAD
COME
to the conclusion that the one advantage to working the night shift was Mrs. Cabot’s determination to feed him to bursting when he got up in the early afternoon. Today he was served a spicy beef hash along with a wedge of onion pie, a dish of preserved green peas dressed with mint and cream, and a bowl of banana pudding.

When he protested she poured him more coffee and put another slice of onion pie on his plate. Then she went off to answer a knock at the door and came back with a note.

Dear Detective Sergeant Mezzanotte,

I write to say that this morning a man called Archer Campbell came to the hospital and spoke very rudely to Dr. Savard in the hall outside her office. Very rudely. Because I feared for her safety I stepped in and delivered a
shovel hook as taught to me by my brothers. I intended this for his liver, but it landed on his diaphragm instead. He was not seriously hurt, but he may swear out a complaint against me. More disturbing, I fear he may also seek revenge toward Dr. Savard or me or both of us, and thus this note.

To be clear, I didn’t hear the conversation between them and I don’t know what it was he wanted, but he wanted it very badly.

Yours sincerely,
Elise Mercier

His first stop was the New Amsterdam, where he found Joshua Abernathy behind the porter’s desk.

“Dr. Savard didn’t want us to call in the police,” he told Jack. “I would have done it anyway, but I figured you’d be along.”

He didn’t have much to report beyond the fact that Campbell had snuck in while the porters’ shift was changing, at about six. “I didn’t see him come in, but I made sure to see him out.” The surly expression gave way to a wide smile. “He was still coughing and wheezing. I hear Nurse Mercier walloped him proper, right in the breadbasket.”

“She sent me a note, worried about Campbell hanging around looking for a chance to get his own back.”

“Same thought occurred to me,” said the porter. “If you hadn’t shown your face by four, I would have sent a note on my own.”

“Has he been hanging around?”

“Not that I could see. But there’s no shortage of dark corners to hide in, if he’s determined.”

And that was the question. Jack could imagine Campbell desperate and foolish enough to do about anything.

•   •   •

F
ROM
THE
N
EW
Amsterdam he went straight to Oscar’s boardinghouse on Grove Street. It was a big, comfortable, and orderly house where troublemakers didn’t last a week, because Oscar saw to it. For his help the landlady gave him use of the parlor, where Jack found him with a newspaper and a cigar in a sea of smoke.

He sat down across from him and handed over Elise’s note.

“Oh ho.” Oscar put the paper down and read.

Jack said, “How close are you to sorting out the last of the bonds?”

Oscar had taken the bonds on as a project, converting them to cash at different banks, a few at a time, and sending the money to Little Compton by registered messenger. The scheme was both elaborate and fraught with pitfalls, but Oscar lived for that kind of challenge.

“Just three left,” he told Jack now. “Not too many or too few. Just right. I’m looking forward to this.”

•   •   •

W
HEN
THEY
SAT
down to dinner at Aunt Quinlan’s table for the first time in almost a week, Anna was prepared to be asked a million questions about everything from Staten Island to Mrs. Cabot’s magical head-cold tea. Instead there was only one subject under discussion: the upcoming trip to Greenwood. The Mezzanotte family celebrated the twenty-fourth of June every year with a huge party, and the combined Quinlan and Savard households were invited to join them. Margaret had other plans she couldn’t change, but the other adults were almost as excited as the little girls to be getting out of the city.