Let the Dead Keep Their Secrets

by Rosemary Simpson

  “We don’t want to be late,” Prudence said, arranging a fur stole around her shoulders and pulling on her gloves. “After the museum I’m going to ask Aaron to escort us to Monroe’s gallery.” She expected Geoffrey to react explosively and she wasn’t disappointed.

  “Of all the places in the city you could go, Prudence,” he bellowed. “Why there?”

  “Other than the fact that they each died as a result of childbirth, we only have two commonalities between Catherine’s death and Ethel’s,” she explained patiently. “I talked it over with Lydia and she agrees. Sorensen is the obvious shared link, but the other one is less apparent. It’s the photographer Bartholomew Monroe. He was one of the first people at each deathbed, either immediately before or after the doctor or the undertaker. Surely, that bears investigating.”

  “It doesn’t surprise me that he should be in both homes,” Geoffrey said. Society people tended to use the same florists and caterers, hire their household staff from recommended agencies, and frequent a limited number of butchers and greengrocers.

  “Have you forgotten what Jacob Riis said? He thought Monroe might have touched up Catherine’s eyes without instructions from Sorensen. Blackmail could be the motive. He saw the petechiae, decided something was not as it should be, and covered up the evidence so he could use it later to his own advantage.”

  “That could be another reason Sorensen is desperate for money.” Lydia had come back into the parlor without drawing attention either to her absence or her renewed presence. It was a gift she had for disappearing in plain sight. Now she shrugged into a rather worn black wool jacket.

  “Proving it is the problem.” Geoffrey scribbled something in his leather notebook. “He may not be the only one Monroe is shaking down.”

  “‘Shaking down’?”

  “It’s street slang for extortion,” Geoffrey explained. “Blackmail.”

  “We thought it would be instructive to observe how the two men speak to each other,” Lydia said.

  “No more than that?” Geoffrey frowned.

  “That’s all we can hope for at the moment,” Prudence said. “If we can be reasonably certain of a connection, we should be able to use one of them against the other.”

  “I’d feel better about this if you had someone else with you,” Geoffrey said, reluctantly conceding to the logic of what the two women proposed. “I can’t do it. Sorensen would recognize me from the Union Club. Ned is out because he foiled his cheating scheme at the Lotos.”

  “And Josiah spoke to Sorensen at Ethel’s viewing,” Prudence said. “I’m telling you, Geoffrey, there isn’t any danger. I was as thickly veiled the only other time I was in the gallery as I was at the viewing. If Sorensen hasn’t recognized me, neither will the gallery attendant. And I’ve never come face-to-face with Monroe.” She opened her reticule to show her partner the derringer he insisted she carry everywhere she went. “But I won’t hesitate to use this if I have to.”

  “Lydia?”

  “I’m always armed,” Lydia said matter-of-factly. “Most of Father’s clients have very few scruples.”

  “There’s something else, Geoffrey,” Prudence said, one gloved hand on the suite’s polished brass doorknob. “Josiah counted the months between the marriage and the death dates. Catherine was a pregnant bride.”

  “The father knew. That’s why he didn’t try to have it annulled after they eloped,” Lydia added.

  Geoffrey stared at them. A man who stole the virtue of an unmarried lady was the worst kind of cad. Thank God he’d had a word with Danny Dennis. Prudence and Lydia might think they were alone, but Danny would have someone watching them every moment.

  * * *

  “I’m fascinated by postmortem photography,” Prudence said as she alighted from the hansom cab in front of Bartholomew Monroe’s gallery. She posed a hand lightly on Aaron Sorensen’s extended arm. “Are you familiar with what some of the spiritualists believe about the possibility of capturing an image of the soul leaving a body at the moment of death?”

  “I’ve heard something to that effect. But no one has succeeded in doing it.”

  “Well, that’s what I shall certainly ask this photographer about when we talk to him. Miss Durant called this morning to request a consultation,” Prudence said.

  “The young man I spoke to assured me that Mr. Monroe would be available,” Lydia confirmed. She settled her skirts and looked curiously toward the photographer’s display windows.

  “I’ve made a reservation for tea at the Astor House when we’re finished here.” Aaron Sorensen leaned solicitously toward Prudence, excluding the unwelcome chaperone from the conversation.

  “I’m sure that will be lovely,” she murmured. She would have to manufacture some plausible excuse when the time came; the risk of taking tea at the Astor House without someone recognizing her was too great.

  “Shall we go in?” Lydia asked. She huddled into her well-worn jacket and skillfully inserted herself between Prudence and her suitor, managing to separate them without seeming aware of what she was doing.

  A different young man than the one who had shown Prudence and Josiah the glass negatives of Catherine Sorensen bustled out into the gallery through the heavy black curtains separating the viewing space from the rear workrooms.

  “Mr. Monroe is expecting us,” Lydia informed him. She sensed Sorensen’s looming discomfort behind her. “I called this morning.”

  “We’ve really come to acquaint ourselves with what is on display. There’s no reason to disturb Mr. Monroe if he’s busy,” Aaron contradicted her.

  “But if he isn’t, I would certainly like to meet him,” Prudence chirped. “Such masterpieces of dignified sorrow.” She waved an eloquent hand at the enlarged photographs surrounding them.

  “All of the subjects in this gallery have passed over.” The man parting the black curtains paused as if a camera lens were focused on him and he needed to stand absolutely still to ensure an unblurred image. He was taller than the unusually tall Sorensen, dressed entirely in unrelieved black. The stickpin in his elaborately knotted neckpiece was gold and onyx. When he smiled, the whiteness of his teeth shone against the olive cast of his skin. He wore his hair long, black locks curled and brushing against his shoulders. His eyes were too dark to have any depth; Prudence thought immediately of the opaque blackness of obsidian.

  “The name I was given was Prosper,” Monroe said as he approached the group. He seemed undecided about recognizing Sorensen.

  “I have the privilege of escorting Miss Prosper this afternoon,” Aaron said. He moved forward to clasp the photographer’s hand. “It’s a pleasure to see you again in circumstances different from our previous meetings, Mr. Monroe.”

  “Indeed.”

  Lydia moved closer to the two men. “I hope it was not an occasion of personal grief to which you’re referring, Mr. Sorensen. Was it ‘meetings,’ you said?” She waited for an answer to her question. Nothing was going to budge her.

  “I had the honor to provide Mr. Sorensen with a memento mori of his late wife,” Monroe finally said when it became embarrassingly obvious that his client was not going to satisfy the obnoxious woman’s curiosity.

  “Late wife?” Prudence pitched her voice high. For added effect she managed the suggestion of an agitated tremolo.

  Lydia stepped aside, the better for Prudence to note the expressions passing across Monroe’s and Sorensen’s features as Aaron reluctantly confirmed his widowhood.

  “Such lovely ladies,” Lydia commented when Monroe led them past a set of panels where young mothers smiled wistfully down at the tiny bundles they held in their arms. “It must be such a comfort to their families to be able to remember them this way.”

  Sorensen tried to detach himself from Lydia’s remarks and Monroe’s relentless tour of the gallery’s highlights, remaining close by Prudence’s side, occasionally murmuring something to her that no one else could hear. Very gradually Prudence allowed her frown to lessen and then disapp
ear. Finally she placed a gloved hand tentatively on Sorensen’s arm and agreed to be steered away from Monroe and Lydia.

  Prudence and Aaron stood apart, talking quietly as Lydia’s eager exploration ended. Before Monroe left the gallery to return to his workrooms, Sorensen flashed him a look that was nothing short of triumphant, Lydia would later tell Geoffrey. Whatever signals had been passed back and forth between the two men, it was obvious to her that Sorensen believed he had come out the victor.

  “We’ll have tea another day,” Prudence decided before climbing into Danny Dennis’s hansom cab.

  “Tomorrow?” Sorensen asked. He held Prudence’s hand a fraction longer than was customary.

  Two could play at this game, Prudence decided. She gave no answer, merely turned away to settle herself beside Lydia. At the last moment she raised a hand to her eyes.

  Let him think the tears were for him, let him believe his loss had touched her tender heart. Everyone knew that a woman’s greatest attribute was her ability to comfort a grieving man.

  * * *

  “He didn’t volunteer any information about Catherine or the two dead infants,” Prudence said, “and very little about Ethel.”

  They had gathered in Prudence’s hotel parlor, where Geoffrey joined them after assuring himself that no one saw him enter the suite. Josiah ordered tea and fussed over the tray as efficiently as though he were back in the firm’s offices, while Lydia wrote notes of everything she had heard and observed. Like Geoffrey, she was a great believer in the importance of preserving impressions before they could be forgotten.

  “He said Ethel had urged him not to mourn her, should she die in childbirth, and that he’d promised he wouldn’t. ‘Made a solemn vow’ was the way he phrased it. That was his explanation of why he’s so obviously and eagerly looking for a replacement. The dead wife told him to.” Prudence shuddered. “He’s repulsive, Geoffrey. The most disgusting man I’ve ever met.”

  “Murderers usually are,” Lydia commented.

  “I think I’ve accomplished what I set out to do.” Prudence accepted the cup Josiah handed her and sighed contentedly at its warmth and fragrance. “He believes I’m thoroughly besotted with him and that I’ve swallowed his pack of lies about Ethel. He had the gall to tell me that the greatest compliment he could pay her was to marry again. ‘Only a man who’s been happy in a marriage seeks to return to that blissful state.’ Or some such platitude.”

  Lydia capped her pen and tidied the sheets of hotel stationery on which she’d written her notes. “He ignored me completely, so I had no difficulty watching him assess our dear heiress. Every time Prudence did that fluttery gesture with her fingers, I could see his estimation of her intelligence fall a bit further.”

  “Bravo, Miss Prudence!” Josiah called.

  Prudence fluttered her fingers at him.

  CHAPTER 27

  “He writes that he’s planning to move into the hotel when he returns. He’s reserved a suite.” Prudence crumpled Aaron Sorensen’s note in one angry fist. “That’s much too close for comfort.”

  “You’d better let me read the entire thing,” Lydia said. She smoothed out the heavy stationery and positioned a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles on her nose. “He’ll be gone for two days and counts on finding you still in residence when he returns. That’s odd. I wonder where he’s going.”

  “Philadelphia? To see to the final settlement of Ethel’s estate?”

  “I suppose so. He’s given his servants their notice and a removal company will be emptying the New York house of its furnishings tomorrow.”

  “Hence the hotel.”

  “Everything he explains is very logical,” Lydia said, removing her spectacles and tapping them on her knee. “He took an early train out of the city this morning.”

  “Which means that if the servants were dismissed, there’s no one in the house.”

  “Until tomorrow.”

  “We should probably tell Geoffrey,” Prudence said, beginning to unbutton the bodice of her pale pink silk morning gown. “I brought my dark gray secretary’s suit.” She stepped out of the high-heeled satin slippers, which were made to be worn only in a lady’s boudoir, and grinned at her companion.

  “Wear a shawl instead of a coat,” Lydia advised. “And screw your hair into a bun. If anyone sees us at the back door, we’ll look like additional household help.”

  “I don’t know what we’re searching for, but I can’t bear the thought of not using this last opportunity to find whatever Sorensen may be hiding.”

  “Anything we take away can be assumed to have been packed or discarded by the removal company. It’s the best cover we could ask for.”

  “I should call the office,” Prudence said. She looked questioningly at Lydia, who raised her eyebrows and shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t really want to waste time arguing, though, and Geoffrey is bound to try to talk me out of this.”

  “Josiah?”

  “Can’t keep a confidence if his life depended on it. And he’s worse than Geoffrey when it comes to worrying that I’ll encounter something or someone I can’t handle.”

  “It’s not as though you’ll be alone,” Lydia reasoned. “There are two of us.”

  “Done!” Prudence decided. “We’ll inform them after the fact.”

  “If we don’t find anything, there won’t be any reason to confess our housebreaking at all.”

  * * *

  By mutual agreement they waited until mid-afternoon before setting out for Claire’s childhood home. Danny Dennis, waiting outside the Fifth Avenue Hotel in the hansom cab line, saw them emerge onto the crowded pavement and reached for his whip to flick Mr. Washington into motion. Prudence shook her head in his direction; arm in arm with Lydia, she strolled down the avenue as though nothing more important than looking in shop windows was on her mind.

  “Is he following us?” she asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Lydia said, glancing back over her shoulder.

  “He won’t let us out of his sight. Geoffrey’s orders. But there’s a hat shop on the corner. We’ll let him see us admire what’s on display and then go inside. They’re bound to have a back door that opens onto the alley.”

  “As soon as we’re inside, I’ll look annoyed. You mumble something about a bothersome suitor. By the time Danny decides to get Mr. Washington moving, we’ll be long gone.”

  Neither of them paid attention to the urchin in ragged cut-down men’s tweeds who scooted past them to hold open the door to Madame Estelle’s Parisian Hat Fashions. He pocketed the coin Prudence gave him, then ran for all he was worth around the corner and down the alleyway.

  Once through the back door of the hat shop, they walked half the distance to Sorensen’s house, then stopped for a late tea with sandwiches, taking their time as evening twilight deepened into dusk. Prudence had written a note to Geoffrey before they left the hotel: Going shopping, then dinner in the suite and an early night. A bellboy had slipped it under her partner’s door. Even though Danny Dennis would not have seen them leave Madame Estelle’s and return to the hotel, neither man would worry. A shopping woman was not to be interfered with. And early night could be understood as feminine code for not wanting to be disturbed because of an embarrassing physical condition no man allowed himself to think about.

  They thought their biggest challenge would be sneaking back into the hotel and up the stairs without being seen coming in at night unescorted.

  * * *

  “He must have ordered the furnace turned off before he left,” Lydia said, tightening her grip on the wool shawl she’d wrapped around herself during the cold wait they’d forced themselves to endure until Prudence’s watch read nine o’clock.

  Full dark. Society dining out or in their boxes at the theater or at the opera. Their staff starting to climb the long flights of stairs from basement workrooms to attic sleeping quarters. The best time for two women in dark clothing to approach the back door of the residence where it would be presumed they
worked, should anyone glance out a window while drawing the curtains. Late enough, but not so late as to be suspicious. The locked door had opened as smoothly under Prudence’s pick as if she’d used a key.

  The kitchen and below-stairs servants’ rooms of Aaron Sorensen’s home were silent, frigid, and pitch-black. Not daring to light a lamp, Lydia and Prudence felt their way up the servants’ staircase to the first floor, where someone had left a dim gaslight burning in the central hallway. It was just enough to allow them to get their bearings.

  “The four most important rooms are the nursery, although I’ve been there once before,” Prudence said, “Sorensen’s bedroom, Ethel’s bedroom, and the library. We can leave the library until last.”

  “We’ll need light,” Lydia said.

  “Make sure all of the drapes are pulled tightly closed, and keep your lamp as dim as you can. We’ll have to take a chance that no one knows the house is supposed to be empty.”

  “The bedrooms first?”

  “I’ll show you where they are.” Prudence picked up one of the small gas lamps lined up atop a table in the central hallway, lit it, then turned the flame down as low as possible without extinguishing it. Her companion did the same. “I don’t know why we’re whispering,” she said nervously, “we know no one can hear us.”

  “Empty houses echo,” Lydia said.

  “Sorensen’s suite is just there.” Prudence pointed toward the door opposite the staircase on the second floor. “There’s a bedroom, a dressing area, and the master’s private bathing room, complete with water closet.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “A maid who used to work here. She had the skivvy’s job of lighting all the fires in the house.”

  “Used to work here?”

  “I think she decided she’d told me too much. Mrs. Hopkins complained to Ethel that the girl left without giving notice and therefore didn’t deserve a reference, should she be foolish enough to ask for one. Mrs. Hopkins was the housekeeper during my short-lived career as a lady’s companion.”

  “Should you be here at all, Prudence?” Lydia asked. “I’m having second thoughts about this. If the housekeeper or the butler came back to the house tonight, you might be recognized.”