Let the Dead Keep Their Secrets

by Rosemary Simpson

  “Everything was in a trust that was worded so as to safeguard her from the predations of exactly the type of husband she ended up marrying,” the senior Caswell explained.

  “I don’t understand then how Aaron Sorensen could get his hands on the Caswell money,” Prudence said. Her own experience with a greedy and unscrupulous stepmother had taught her a great deal about the world of trusts.

  “Our firm was the original trustee of the estate, but the power to name a successor trustee rested with Samuel during his lifetime.”

  “He named Aaron Sorensen as trustee to replace you.” Geoffrey knew that would have been a swindler’s logical next step.

  “It was one of the few times I ever argued with my cousin,” Malcolm said. “We both lost our tempers and said things we couldn’t take back or forget. In the end Samuel had his way. There was nothing I could do to stop him. He had the legal right to name the trustee and he did.”

  “In the wording of the trust, all monies and properties would revert to the trustee after the death of Samuel Caswell and the last heir of his body.”

  “Ethel’s child,” Prudence said.

  “Exactly. The provision was put in so the estate would default to the family firm if Ethel died without issue, the understanding being that the family fortune would be disbursed to family members as the trustee saw fit. When Aaron Sorensen became trustee, he also became heir if his wife and any children of her body predeceased him.”

  “Her father had to die first, so the way was clear for Ethel to inherit.”

  “We may not have liked him, but at that point we had no reason to doubt Aaron’s affection for Ethel. If anything, we thought it excessive and him overprotective. So when he came to Philadelphia when Samuel died, bringing with him Ethel’s power of attorney, we suspected nothing. We knew she was carrying a child, and given her parents’ history, we believed him when he said she was too frail to travel. Everything was in order, Mr. Hunter.”

  “You said he came to Philadelphia when Samuel Caswell died.”

  “I misspoke. He arrived the night before my cousin passed away, though he had no idea at the time that Ethel’s father was so close to the end. None of us did. His doctor, who’s been treating him for years, had warned us that there wasn’t a great deal of time left, but he thought it likely that Samuel would live to see the birth of his grandchild. It’s not the first time a physician has been wrong.”

  “We’d like to speak to him.”

  “My secretary will give you his address.”

  “We’d also like to talk to any of the servants who remain in the house.”

  “Sorensen put it up for sale within days of Samuel’s death. From what you’ve told me about him, I can’t help but wonder if he told Ethel what he’d done.”

  “I have reason to think she was never told of her father’s death,” Prudence said. She wouldn’t mention her short career as a lady’s companion; lawyers were used to unnamed sources of information.

  “You said that Sorensen arrived in Philadelphia with his wife’s power of attorney.” Geoffrey tented his hands in the universal posture of a man deep in thought. “Why? Why did he bring a power of attorney with him on that particular visit? How could he have known he would need it?”

  “I think we should engage the Pinkerton Agency,” Malcolm Caswell said. “What do you advise, Mr. Hunter?”

  “Not yet,” Geoffrey said. “Our investigation is making headway, though it’s still early days. Another team of operatives would muddy the waters and possibly tip Sorensen off that we’re onto him.”

  “Will you keep us informed of what you find out? For the sake of confidentiality we could put you on retainer.”

  “We have a client, Mr. Caswell,” Prudence said. “She’s already empowered us to share information with you. I don’t see a problem.”

  “I still think we should call in the Pinkertons.” Arthur nodded his agreement with his father’s repeated suggestion.

  It was on the tip of Prudence’s tongue to tell him that one of Allan Pinkerton’s best operatives was already working the case, but she swallowed the boast, sensing that Geoffrey had decided not to share that portion of his life.

  Judge MacKenzie believed that law partners who worked closely together over a period of years were eventually able to read each other’s minds.

  Prudence and Geoffrey had met barely a year ago. Something other than time was happening between them.

  CHAPTER 22

  A discreet sign in the window of Ethel Sorensen’s childhood home advertised that it was for sale. Nothing indicated that this had recently been a house of mourning.

  “The butler’s name is Nelson,” Prudence reminded Geoffrey as they climbed the steps and rang the bell. “I hear footsteps.”

  The man who opened the door to them wore an overcoat and gloves. He carried his hat in his hand, as if he had just come in or was on his way out. “If you’re here to inquire about the house, you’ll have to contact the firm that’s handling the sale,” he said, stepping out onto the stoop and pointing to the sign in the window.

  “Mr. Nelson?” asked Prudence.

  “Yes, I’m Micah Nelson. May I ask how you happen to have my name, miss?”

  Geoffrey handed him one of the firm’s business cards.

  “My name is Prudence MacKenzie. Mr. Hunter and I have just come from the offices of Caswell, Benton, and Farrell. We spoke to the two Mr. Caswells. They said you were the most likely person to be able to answer some questions for us.”

  “I’m no longer butler here, Miss MacKenzie. I came back today to check that the house had been thoroughly cleaned after the furniture removal and to put my keys through the mail slot for the estate agent when I leave.”

  “We need information about Aaron Sorensen,” Geoffrey said. “It’s in connection with a possible crime.”

  Micah Nelson studied his hat as though he’d never seen it before; then he made up his mind. “The heat’s not on, so the house is cold. But I haven’t closed the door behind me, and maybe I shouldn’t until after you’ve told me more of what this is all about.” He stepped back through the doorway; Prudence and Geoffrey followed.

  “There’s nothing to see except empty rooms,” Nelson said. “Everything’s gone.”

  “Sold at auction?” Geoffrey asked.

  “Organizing that would have taken too long to suit Mr. Sorensen. No, he called in a company that appraised and bought all of the furniture in one afternoon. Packed every last item in the house into barrels and hauled them to their warehouse.”

  “Personal things?”

  “As far as he was concerned, nothing was personal. It all went.”

  “I take it you aren’t fond of Mr. Sorensen,” Prudence remarked.

  “Did you say you were investigating him in connection with a crime?” Nelson looked at their card again. “What exactly is investigative law?”

  “Are you familiar with the Pinkerton Agency, Mr. Nelson?” Geoffrey asked.

  “Who isn’t?”

  “We investigate, just as the Pinkertons do. But I’m also an attorney, so I can represent my client in a court of law as a consequence of what I discover.”

  “What is Mr. Sorensen supposed to have done?”

  “He hasn’t been accused of anything yet,” Geoffrey compromised.

  “I was Mr. Samuel Caswell’s butler ever since he and Mrs. Caswell set up house after they were married. Twenty-eight years, Mr. Hunter. Miss Ethel was born in this house. Mr. Samuel and I drank to her health that very night, and I held her in my arms many a time as she was growing up. If Miss Ethel is in some kind of danger from what Mr. Sorensen has done, then I’ll do anything I can to help her.”

  Prudence laid one hand gently on the sleeve of Micah Nelson’s coat. “I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, Mr. Nelson. I wish it could be different, but there’s no changing what happened. Miss Ethel died in childbirth three days ago. Her little boy never drew a breath. They’ve been laid to rest next to
her father. It breaks my heart that no one told you.”

  Micah Nelson stood very still, aging before their eyes as he lost all hope of ever seeing again the child and young woman to whom he had given the love and devotion her natural father had been unable to bestow. The butler was a proud and disciplined individual; he would grieve later, in private. Now he would help destroy the man whose greed and self-indulgence had contributed to Miss Ethel’s passing.

  “There’s a coffeehouse not far from here,” he said. “It won’t be crowded this time of day and there’ll be a warm blaze in the fireplace.”

  “We have a buggy outside, Mr. Nelson.”

  “Would you like to see the house before we go?”

  Not so much because there was anything to see as to afford him a final farewell, Prudence and Geoffrey trailed behind him as Micah Nelson led them from room to room of the large, empty house. Their footsteps echoed on the bare wooden floors; dark rectangles on the wallpaper showed where gilt-framed mirrors and family portraits had once hung. When the butler paused to stare out into the garden, it was because he was seeing in his mind’s eye the figure of a little girl playing happily on the grass, watched over by her governess.

  By the time they settled themselves in the buggy, and Micah Nelson had dropped his keys through the mail slot of the front door, it was clear that he had locked away his memories and was prepared to help them shape Aaron Sorensen’s future.

  * * *

  “I’m disappointed,” Prudence said as the New York–bound train pulled out of the Philadelphia station. “I’d hoped he could tell us more than he did.”

  “Sorensen’s actions may be coldhearted and reprehensible, but we haven’t found anyone yet who’s observed anything overtly criminal.”

  “You and Ned caught him trying to cheat at cards.”

  “But we stopped him before he succeeded. That night, at least. We know he runs up debts as though there’s no tomorrow, and he uses his wife’s fortune to pay them off.”

  “I thought the Married Women’s Property Act was supposed to protect against that.”

  “It does, as long as the wife is able to stand her ground against her husband. In practice, however, I doubt that much of anything has changed in the forty years the Property Act has been in existence. What’s his is his, and what’s hers becomes his through social convention or intimidation. If she doesn’t consent to allow him to control her property, a wife’s only recourse is divorce.”

  “Which can put a woman out on the street and deprive her of her children,” Prudence said.

  “As long as the law firm controlled the trust, Ethel was protected. Once her father appointed her husband as sole trustee, everything that supposedly belonged to his wife was actually his to dispose of as he saw fit. He didn’t have to seek her approval or even tell her what he was doing.”

  “All Micah Nelson could tell us was that he always distrusted Sorensen.”

  “Servants can sense a man’s true feelings before anyone else. Their livelihoods depend on an employer’s whims.”

  “The only piece of information that points to murder is the coincidence of Sorensen visiting Philadelphia just before his father-in-law died.”

  “Less than twenty-four hours before,” Geoffrey reminded her. “Nelson said he arrived at the house in the afternoon. Unexpectedly. No advance notice, though he claimed to have written a note to say he was coming and blamed the butler for mislaying it. Samuel Caswell died that night.”

  “The death certificate was signed the next morning.”

  “In addition to his rheumatism, Ethel’s father had suffered from a weak heart for more than twenty years.” Geoffrey consulted the notes he’d taken during their brief conversation with Samuel Caswell’s doctor after they’d left Micah Nelson. “He’d had numerous episodes within the past two years that brought him close to death.”

  “And which became more frequent after his daughter married Aaron Sorensen.”

  “Sorensen is careful. There’s no way to prove a connection with any visits he might have made to Philadelphia and his father-in-law’s declining health.”

  “Nelson said he was closeted with Mr. Caswell for hours at a stretch whenever he came, and that he permitted no interruptions. What was Sorensen doing all that time?”

  “Lying. Assuring Ethel’s father that his daughter was happy with her new home and her new husband. Probably painting a false picture of her health so her father would agree that she shouldn’t be bothered with visits or correspondence. It’s a quick and logical step to naming him sole trustee of his wife’s property. Who better to care for a woman than the man who loves her and fathers her children?”

  “Do you think he had anything to do with Mr. Caswell dying when he did?” Prudence asked.

  “I think he’s hastened six deaths that I can count; whether by his own hand or someone else’s doesn’t matter. In Mr. Caswell’s case, when a man is expected to die of a heart ailment his doctor is treating him for, there’s hardly any risk in adding something to the potions he already takes.”

  “My father’s bedside table had half a dozen bottles on it,” Prudence recalled. “We suspected he was murdered, but we couldn’t prove it.”

  “Nelson said there were never any quarrels between Ethel’s father and his son-in-law that were loud enough to be overheard.”

  “Mr. Caswell knew he was dying. I doubt he was anything but immensely relieved to believe he’d provided for Ethel’s future. His only child fell in love with a handsome, apparently well-to-do man who whisked her away from staid Philadelphia to the whirl of New York City social life,” Prudence said.

  “And made sure she was promptly with child so she couldn’t take advantage of that glittering promise.”

  “What bothers me most is that Ethel and her child died after we began investigating Sorensen.”

  “She was marked for death the moment she met him, Prudence. A rich woman victimized by an unscrupulous and greedy man. The only thing that could have saved her was if she’d left him. And we know she wasn’t strong or suspicious enough to have done that.”

  “Catherine was preparing for a return to opera, but she was careful to keep her plans secret. That sounds like a woman who intended to make a new life for herself and her child.”

  “But she waited.”

  “I can only speculate about the feelings of a woman who is carrying new life, Geoffrey. But when I try to put myself into Catherine’s place or Ethel’s, I think I would be weakened by a sense of physical and emotional vulnerability until after the child was safely delivered. If that’s true, it made them the perfect victims for a predator like Sorensen.”

  There seemed little more to be said. No matter how many times they went over everything they’d learned about Aaron Sorensen, they slammed against a brick wall. Everything was damning, but it was all circumstantial.

  Gradually, as their train thundered toward New York City, Prudence and Geoffrey fell silent.

  * * *

  “He’s moving quickly. I think he senses he’s being investigated,” Ned Hayes reported when they met to discuss what Prudence and Geoffrey had learned in Philadelphia. “He’s paying off the gambling debts, at least the ones McGlory could verify. I’m assuming that if he’s taking care of those obligations, he’s also clearing his club tabs.”

  “You went to Billy McGlory?” Geoffrey asked.

  Ned’s relationship with one of the city’s most notorious dive-keepers was both dangerous and fascinating. McGlory caused things to happen that couldn’t be traced back to him; he lived by his own code. He never failed to pay what was owed, and he always collected on a debt.

  Ned shrugged his shoulders, neither confirming nor denying his visit to Armory Hall Saloon and Casino.

  “It sounds as though Sorensen is planning to leave town,” Geoffrey said. “He wants to be able to disappear or set up again in another city without embarrassing questions following him.”

  “We know he’s getting rid of the house. H
e mentioned it to Claire and offered to sell it to her before he put it on the market.” Prudence’s voice shook with indignation. “He’s also disposing of Ethel’s childhood home. It’s been emptied to the walls.”

  “He’d be a very wealthy man if he didn’t have to settle the gambling debts.” Ned consulted a set of figures McGlory’s bookkeeper had given him. “He’ll need to find another wealthy wife. Soon.”

  “He’s never seen my face,” Prudence said.

  Silence spread around her like ripples from a stone tossed into a pond.

  “I wouldn’t have to actually marry him,” Prudence reasoned. “If he’s short of money, he’s already looking for a new victim. All I need to do is delay him here in New York long enough for us to find the proof we need that he murdered Catherine and probably Ethel.”

  “How do you propose to do that, Prudence?”

  “I’m not sure, but he must know about the loss I suffered last March during the Great Blizzard. Charles’s death was reported in all the newspapers. When Victoria died and Donald was murdered, reporters dragged out the story all over again. Aaron Sorensen reads the society columns, I’m sure of it. What could be more attractive to someone like him than an orphan heiress who lost her fiancé and is about to come out of mourning?”

  “You have to be properly introduced and chaperoned,” Geoffrey said, “which means attending social functions.” The Pinkerton in him liked the plan she was proposing; the man did not.

  “I don’t think so. He’ll be more interested if he believes I want to keep the developing relationship a secret. There’s also less chance of my finding out about his recent widowhood.”

  “Being alone with him is dangerous, Prudence.”

  “Only if it’s not in a public place. New York City has enough museums and galleries to keep us busy for months.”