No Darkness as like Death

by Nancy Herriman

  She clambered to her feet, the bottle clutched in her fist. Not definite proof that Mr. Ross had used the substance on Mr. Shaw, but it was evidence he’d misled the police about storing chloroform on the premises. Why lie if he was not guilty?

  The door flung open. “What are you doing in here?”

  Celia swung to face the voice and its owner, who was hefting a thick-handled and very dangerous-looking scrub brush overhead.

  Gad.

  • • •

  “We’ve been questioning if Mrs. Wynn had concocted a story with a fake timeline in order to protect Giulia DiPaolo,” said Nick, he and Taylor dodging a buggy steered by a kid who looked no older than Owen Cassidy. A boy laughing over his reckless driving until he realized he’d almost run down a policeman. “But what if she’d been protecting somebody else?”

  “Miss Campbell?” asked Taylor. “Or maybe Miss Shaw.”

  “I’m not sure she knew either of those ladies.”

  “Well, it wouldn’t have been Mr. Platt she’d been trying to protect,” said Taylor, leaping across a puddle of filthy water tossed onto the road. “She’d probably have been plenty happy to turn him in.”

  “I’m thinking of somebody else,” said Nick. “A man who’d referred to her as a faithful client. A woman he’d trusted . . .”

  “Mr. Ross?” Taylor whistled. “But wait. His wife vouched for him.”

  “Maybe she was scared of her husband,” he said. “Too scared to tell the truth.”

  “Why kill Ambrose Shaw, though?” asked Taylor. “The fellow’s death will likely destroy Mr. Ross’s business.”

  “He’d wanted me to believe Shaw had committed suicide, and I might’ve, if it hadn’t been for that handkerchief and Harris’s suspicion the fellow hadn’t died from coal gas exposure,” Nick replied. “Maybe Ross didn’t mean to kill Shaw. Maybe it was a horrible accident.”

  A boy in oversized, hand-me-down pants and jacket had noticed their headlong race along the street and taken to scurrying after them. “Hey, whatcha doin’? Somebody dead?”

  “Police business,” declared Taylor. “It’s best you hightail it outta here.”

  “Police business? Wow!” the boy whooped, his excited yell alerting other scruffy kids with too much time on their hands and even more curiosity.

  The gaggle of boys chased after Nick and Taylor like an excited pack of puppies. Great. Nick rounded the corner just as the bank clock—the one Giulia DiPaolo had mentioned—chimed the hour.

  “What in hell is the Hutchinsons’ tilbury doing parked in front of the Institute?” Nick snapped. “Don’t bother to answer, Taylor. I have a good hunch whose idea it was to come here.”

  And just how much danger she was in.

  He ran, hell-bent for leather.

  • • •

  The light in the hallway was brighter than inside the storage cupboard, casting the person wielding the brush in shadow. They wore a dress, however, so it wasn’t Mr. Ross Celia was dealing with.

  “What are you doing in here?” the woman repeated.

  “You may put down the brush, Mary Ann,” Celia replied, slowly moving the hand holding the chloroform behind her back.

  But the cook had the advantage of the lighting, which shed its glow over Celia. “What’s that you got there?”

  “Nothing.” Her voice was trembling. Nearly as much as her legs, which had turned the consistency of aspic. She was alone with Mary Ann Newcomb, and who might come to her rescue, should she scream? Jane, peacefully enjoying a hot-water bath at the far end of the hallway? Mr. Ross, on another floor of the building entirely and conceivably not all that inclined to come to her aid?

  “You do have something. In your hand behind your back,” said the other woman, inching forward.

  There was little sideways space to swing the heavy brush, which she’d turned so that the wood head and not the bristles faced Celia, but plenty of expanse to swing downward. And though Celia was taller than most women, she only had a scant inch on Mary Ann.

  “Oh, this.” Celia brought out the bottle of chloroform and held it up. “It is most curious that I discovered it stashed behind the coverlets. Did you not remember it was back there? The bottle is a trifle dusty.”

  “What do you want?”

  Someone to distract you. “It was an accident, was it not, that led to Mr. Shaw’s death. I am positive you did not mean to hurt him.”

  The cook was breathing hard, the rasp of air wheezing between her parted lips the only sound Celia could hear. Can I get past her? Take her by surprise by lunging into her and knocking her to the ground?

  “It was an accident.” Mary Ann’s breath caught in her throat, the brush she wielded quivering. “I was trying to help him. He tried to push away the handkerchief, struggled a bit, but I was only trying to help him.”

  Oh my heavens. She had confessed. “I am sure you were, Mary Ann. How awful, though, that he perished from the chloroform meant to help him sleep.”

  “It was awful.” She’d shifted and a portion of her face was lit by the hallway lamps. Her eyes glittered with an emotion Celia endeavored to read—fear? Regret? Confusion? “Mr. Ross wouldn’t use the chloroform. Called it a poison. But I knew where we kept the old bottles.”

  “And when you heard that the police had discovered the one you’d discarded, you attempted to get rid of the rest.”

  “That’s not when I cleared them out. It was because of Mr. Greaves questioning Mr. Ross about using chloroform in his treatments.” The arm holding her improvised weapon drooped. “I realized then that the police had figured out how Mr. Shaw had died. That he hadn't suffocated from coal gas, even though I’d opened the jet. Soon they’d be poking around, hunting for chloroform bottles. I thought I’d found them all down here. Didn’t matter, because I’d missed that broken-off piece the officer found in the alley.”

  Celia’s pulse ticked away like a frantic timepiece. “Althea saw you when you ran out of Mr. Shaw’s room.”

  “She’d come back from dinner, earlier than she should’ve, because of that argument she’d had,” said Mary Ann. “I was panicked over what had happened, that Mr. Shaw had died. But Althea said she’d help me. That she’d tell the police and Mr. Ross there’d been an intruder who’d come to steal Mr. Shaw’s watch. That it would be okay. I thought she believed me when I said I didn’t mean to hurt him.”

  “When you went outside to discard the chloroform bottle, you must have been startled to encounter a young woman in the alley.” Mina Cascarino, trailing after Giulia DiPaolo. “A momentary panic that caused you to strike her down. You left that key in her pocket, did you not, to make it appear she’d been the trespasser.”

  “There wasn’t a young woman in the alley when I tossed out that bottle.”

  What had happened that night?

  “But why think Althea Wynn was a threat?” asked Celia. “And why leave me that note?”

  “I didn’t leave you any note. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  No? “I do not believe Mrs. Wynn meant to inform Mr. Greaves about you, Mary Ann.”

  “But she did! That’s why she was heading to Crescent City so soon,” she said. “I went to see her, Thursday night. The police had asked me to come into the station, and I got scared. I needed to be sure she still believed me. But one of her fellow lodgers said she’d gone to get a boat ticket to leave town the next morning.” Mary Ann’s voice broke. “She was going to inform the police that I’d killed Mr. Shaw and run off. My friend. I’d thought she was my friend.”

  Mary Ann began to cry, sobs that shook her body. Now, Celia, now . . .

  Celia lurched toward her. Mary Ann startled and flourished the thick scrub brush again.

  “Don’t. Don’t make me hurt you, too,” she warned.

  “You will not get away with it, Mary Ann. My friend is here.” Please, Jane. Please still be all right. “And Mr. Ross. There will be no one else to blame if I’m struck down.”

  “I can’
t go to jail. I can’t!”

  She lunged, and Celia hurled the chloroform bottle, striking Mary Ann’s shoulder before crashing to the floor. Mary Ann recoiled, and Celia sprang at her. Just as a scream echoed along the hall and someone dove through the doorway, tackling Mary Ann from behind, knocking her down and landing on top of her with a wheezing thud.

  Celia stumbled backward. “My goodness, Jane. Well done.”

  A man shouted, and he skidded to a halt in the doorway. “Damn it, Celia,” cursed Nicholas Greaves. “Mrs. Hutchinson!”

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Greaves,” Jane replied calmly, shoving wet hair out of her eyes, the towels and dressing gown she wore tangling around her legs. Mary Ann Newcomb struggled to get out from beneath her. “Don’t tell Frank about this. Please.”

  Mr. Taylor hurtled into the room, halting alongside the detective. “What . . . sir?”

  “Help Mrs. Hutchinson up, will you? And take Miss Newcomb away before we all collapse due to chloroform gas.” He glowered at Celia. He was not truly angry with her, though; he was scared. “As for you, Mrs. Davies—”

  “I am going to help Jane dress,” she replied, taking her friend’s hand and helping her stand. “I shall meet you at the station to discuss matters once she and I are finished here.”

  Mr. Taylor hoisted Mary Ann Newcomb to her feet. Jane, as dignified as was possible in bath sheets and a loose gown, accompanied Celia into the hallway.

  Mr. Ross slumped against the wall, his spectacles dangling from his hand. “Mary Ann, Mr. Greaves . . . what is the meaning of this?”

  What answer might he receive, wondered Celia, that would be satisfactory? The evil that men do . . .

  Or women in this case, Mr. Shakespeare.

  Chapter 21

  “Mr. Ross had recommended a quick cold bath after the hot-water bathing session, which I agreed to, and Mary Ann was going to help me move between rooms,” said Jane, her hair and clothing in place, her dignity fully restored.

  She climbed onto the seat of the tilbury and took the reins from the lad who’d patiently held the horse while mayhem had erupted in the basement of the Institute. Celia climbed aboard, the carriage swaying beneath her weight, and settled onto the seat next to her friend. The crowd that had been standing outside the Hygienic Institute when they’d arrived—she consulted the watch pinned at her waist—forty-five minutes ago had swelled in size. The arrival of policemen followed by Mary Ann Newcomb being loaded onto a police van had sent tremors through those who’d gathered. The notoriety of the Hygienic Institute was guaranteed, unfortunately for Mr. Ross.

  “But just when Mary Ann showed up to help me, she heard a noise down the hallway and went to investigate,” Jane continued, flicking the reins across the horse’s back, setting the animal to a slow walk. Celia expected that neither of them would move or think or breathe with any urgency for the remainder of the day; they’d both endured too much excitement already.

  “That was me, Jane, being clumsy,” she said. “I knocked a tin of scouring sand onto the floor in my haste to unearth a stash of chloroform, which would prove that Mr. Ross had lied to Mr. Greaves about not having a supply. Incriminating, obviously, but if he’d been honest from the start, Mary Ann Newcomb might have been arrested before she dispatched Mrs. Wynn.”

  Jane turned the carriage toward the police station. “Do you think she planned in cold blood to kill her friend, Celia?”

  “Perhaps she acted purely out of panic,” she answered. “She must persuade a judge and jury that her actions occurred in the heat of the moment, though, in order to save herself from the noose.”

  The horse’s hooves clopped on at a steady tempo as they ascended Kearny toward City Hall and the police station, the noises of the city a comforting blanket of normalcy.

  “Mary Ann was absolutely skittish when she was assisting me. Dropping things,” said Jane. “I didn’t pay much attention, though. I was too worried about you.”

  “I was not in any serious danger until she charged into the storage cupboard with that excessively large scrubbing brush,” Celia replied with a wry smile.

  “That was when I became alarmed. When she walked off to investigate the noise with that heavy brush,” said Jane. “It took me a while to get out of the bath, find something proper to wrap myself in, and figure out where she’d gone. I’m sorry.”

  “What are you apologizing for?” Celia squeezed her friend’s arm. “You may have saved my life. Or at least, saved my skull.”

  “I should’ve gotten to you earlier.”

  “It all worked out. That is what matters most.” She gave Jane’s arm another squeeze and folded her hands in her lap. She was not as steady and calm as she’d like Jane to imagine; her fingers were trembling.

  They passed through the Barbary, blandly innocent on a Saturday afternoon. Not far from where they drove was Bauman’s, another busy evening ahead for the saloon. Perhaps Giulia DiPaolo would be there, Mina still recovering at home. Celia needed to visit her as soon as she could in order to inform her she was free of suspicion in any of the crimes. How ready they’d been, though, to consider her guilty.

  Celia sighed and cast a look at the passing alleyways, which stretched into the shadows cast by towering buildings and balconies. What mysteries and perils did those dark spaces contain? Ones as terrible as what a desperate young cook had visited upon an equally desperate widow? Had nearly visited upon me?

  But there was no darkness quite like death, and those who now crept in shadows might one day find themselves emerging into the light, into hope.

  “At least we know Rebecca Shaw and Elliot Blanchard are innocent,” Jane was saying, unaware of Celia’s gloomy thoughts. “And Libby Campbell too, although what a tale she concocted in order to protect Mr. Blanchard.”

  “I do wonder, Jane, if we can be positive that she lied about being with him that evening,” said Celia.

  “Oh, dear. Maybe we can’t be.”

  They arrived at City Hall and Jane steered the carriage to the curb.

  “What should I tell Frank?” she asked. “He’ll read about Miss Newcomb’s arrest in the newspapers soon enough and figure out I was at the Institute at the same time.”

  “Feign innocence, or simply blame me.”

  “He’ll stop allowing me to associate with you if I blame you.”

  “Since when, Jane, do we permit gentlemen—even if they are husbands—to dictate all that we do?” she asked. She leaned over and kissed her friend upon the cheek. “Thank you and go home and rest. You look positively spent.”

  “I am tired.” She glanced at the police station. “Good luck.”

  “With Mr. Greaves? I can handle him,” said Celia, stepping down from the carriage and straightening her skirts.

  Jane sobered. “I wish . . .” Her expression brightened again. “It doesn’t matter what I wish. I’ll talk to you later. Geeyup,” she called to the horse and drove away with a hasty wave of her hand.

  Celia waited on the curb until the carriage disappeared from view. I wish that too, Jane. I wish I could be with him.

  • • •

  “Leonard Shaw hired you to snoop on Giulia DiPaolo,” said Nick, leaning over Briggs’s desk. “To find incriminating information in order to get out of a liaison with the young woman.”

  Briggs brushed crumbs off his vest and smirked. “I wouldn’t exactly say ‘hired.’”

  “You’d better believe, Briggs, that I’d tell Captain Eagan if you were taking money on the side.”

  “I turned Shaw down, Greaves, so get off your high horse,” he said. “Even though he offered me a pretty sum, and I’ve been wanting to buy a new rosewood chamber set for the missus.”

  There was a Mrs. Briggs? “Are you responsible for that cock-and-bull story about a document Ambrose Shaw had detailing Miss DiPaolo’s supposed common-law marriage?”

  “I was sorta proud of that idea.”

  “Didn’t you ever think Miss DiPaolo might do something reckless as a resu
lt of that fabricated story?” asked Nick. Problem was, Briggs didn’t do enough thinking. “A young woman has a concussion as a result. She could’ve died.”

  Briggs puffed out his chest. “Well, she didn’t, did she?”

  Nick clenched his fist and was about to throw it when a knock interrupted him.

  “A Mrs. Davies is here to see you, Mr. Greaves,” said one of the station cops, leaning through the doorway, his gaze darting between the two men.

  “Your timing’s perfect, Officer.” Fortunately for Briggs’s face. And Nick’s job. “Do you mind, Briggs? I’d like to speak with Mrs. Davies alone.”

  “I’ll bet you would.” Briggs stomped out of the office, brushing against the officer on his way out.

  “Is there something else?” Nick asked the officer.

  “A fellow was in about an hour ago, Mr. Greaves, confessing to breaking into Elliot Blanchard’s house,” he said. “He’d been paid by that politician, Ambrose Shaw, to upset Mr. Blanchard and his wife, apparently. Thought he’d come clean, though, what with Mr. Shaw being murdered. Didn’t want to be implicated in that crime. Guess his conscience was bothering him.”

  “Well, well.”

  “Then, according to this fellow, one of Mr. Blanchard’s supporters decided to retaliate by stalking Mr. Shaw,” he continued. “Trying to put a scare into him.”

  And succeeding.

  “Inform Taylor about this once he’s finished getting his statement from Miss Newcomb.” She’d shuffled into the holding cells with her head down, tears dripping onto the dirty floor, and had crossed paths with Platt, heading the other direction. The man had cackled in disbelief all the way out of the station. “And thank you, Officer.”

  The cop nodded, stepping aside so Celia Davies could enter the room.

  Her smile was warm and lovely. “Forgive me for eavesdropping, but the officer’s information was quite interesting, Mr. Greaves.”