Where Cowards Tread (Ravenwood Mysteries #7)

by Sabrina Flynn

  The girl’s shoulders slumped. “I introduced them.” She sniffled and reached for a handkerchief.

  Isobel put a comforting hand on her back. “I’m glad you’re alive. But did…” she hesitated, glancing around. “Did he harm you, Madge? Did he seduce you?”

  The girl nodded in her handkerchief, tears welling in those captivating eyes. “I thought he was a friend. He acted like one. He helped me leave my mother and… that horrid man who moved in with us.”

  “Eric Harrison, the man living with your mother?”

  Madge nodded. “Charlie was kind. He was different. He got me a room and… what was one more man?” She glanced around quickly, but the men nearby, absorbed in their reading, didn’t seem to hear.

  Isobel felt a pang of sympathy. “And he helped you get work, too.”

  Madge nodded. “At a department store.”

  “I heard you’ve found a new job.”

  “I did. I was able to get a reference.”

  “Where do you work now?” But Isobel already knew the answer. She just needed it confirmed.

  “At a telephone company,” Madge said.

  “But Hadley lost interest in you before that, didn’t he?”

  That pale skin. So unforgiving. The slightest change in emotion caused pink to spread over Madge’s freckles. “He never promised to marry me. I just wanted out of my mother’s house.”

  “I’m sure you’ve read the newspapers about me. I’m not what you call a good girl either,” Isobel confided.

  Madge offered a small smile. “I gathered that much.”

  “Once you were settled, Hadley took away his financial support, didn’t he?”

  “I was working…”

  “But you weren’t expecting it.”

  “No,” she admitted. “He started spending all his time with Ella.”

  “Seems you lost two friends at once.”

  Madge sighed. “I did. Why do you care?”

  Isobel leaned forward. “Hadley’s trial will be coming up in the next few weeks. I need you to testify against him. For Ella’s sake.”

  The girl’s eyes widened. “I’ll lose my employment. I work under a different name. If they put my photograph in the papers…”

  “The judge might accept a signed testimony, under the circumstances. Would you do that for Ella? I want to see Hadley hang for her murder.”

  Madge pressed her lips together, then nodded. Isobel went to the librarian’s desk and retrieved some paper and a pencil, then slid it over to the girl. Madge began to write. When it was done, she passed it back to Isobel, who studied the handwriting.

  “Thank you. Although I was hoping you’d include what you said to Ella before she died.”

  Madge blinked. “I didn’t talk with Ella before she died,” she said quickly.

  “I think you did.”

  Isobel opened Hamlet to the end of Act IV, where Ophelia is found dead. And where Isobel had found the note. A note that Ella Spencer had refused to acknowledge, and so she left it in place as a message for her friend.

  Don’t do it. You’ll end up like Ophelia.

  Madge stiffened.

  “You two had a falling out over Hadley. She stole him from you.”

  Madge was shaking her head. “I don’t know what you mean. I’ve never seen that note.”

  Isobel tapped her signed statement. “It’s your handwriting. And it was your idea to start passing notes inside books, wasn’t it? You did it with Hadley, didn’t you, as a kind of flirtation game?”

  Madge looked like a cornered rabbit.

  “And then when Ella was forbidden from associating with you, you introduced her to the idea, but she began the same thing with Hadley. And that’s why their notes started to go missing. You were intercepting the messages.”

  “You’re mad.” Madge started to rise, but Isobel clamped a hand on her wrist.

  “Considering the circumstances and your age, a judge may be lenient if you come clean.”

  “So what if I wrote that note? You don’t have any proof,” she hissed.

  Isobel nodded to the kerchief in Madge’s hand. Plain, cheap, with a single line of stitching around the corner. Nothing at all like something Hadley would have. Or Ella, who had a mother. But exactly the kind of thing a poor girl fending for herself would carry. “One of your handkerchiefs was found burned in the house where Ella died, and I suspect that if you roll up your sleeves I’ll find fading scratches along your forearm.”

  Madge glared in silence.

  “Before Ella went off with Hadley, she made two telephone calls from a Western Union office. One to her brother, and the other to Menke’s Grocery. No one picked up the line there. But she didn’t expect anyone to. She talked to the telephone operator. You.”

  Madge sat down, hard. “She said she wanted us to still be friends. She told me where he was taking her, so I could visit. I was furious,” she whispered faintly.

  “Hadley promised to marry her.”

  Madge nodded, dabbing at her eyes. “I was stained. Already ruined. And when I saw that house, so big for only two people… but perfect for a family… Ella had a home. She had people who cared about her, a family who cared enough to not want her out at night. I had no one but Hadley… and she took him from me!” The final outburst attracted notice.

  “I understand, Madge,” Isobel lied softly. “Did you go around to the house Sunday morning?”

  “I knew he’d be there, so I let myself in the back. I heard what they were doing. And he was making all the same sweet promises to her that he whispered in my ear, too. I was so angry… I wanted Charlie to pay, and I knew he’d be blamed for her death, so I choked Ella after he left.”

  “While she was sleeping?” Isobel asked.

  Madge gave a jerking nod.

  “That’s brilliant,” Isobel said, impressed. “You nearly pulled it off.”

  A light entered Madge’s eyes. Pride. “I did, didn’t I?”

  Isobel tapped Hamlet. “You did, but you ruined your life and those who loved you in the process.”

  “No one ever loved me.”

  “Ella did.”

  Madge tilted her chin up. “Revenge should have no bounds,” she quoted.

  But the pride went right out of her eyes when Isobel nodded to the two men sitting nearby. Detective Inspector Coleman clamped iron around the girl’s wrists, and Isobel watched them take her away. Madge didn’t utter a word.

  “The rest is silence,” Isobel whispered.

  48

  The Snitch

  Sarah knocked at the bottom of the attic stairs. It was a silly thing to do. She doubted Jin could hear anyone knocking there, but maybe that was the point—if Jin didn’t hear a knock, she needn’t grant entrance.

  “I don’t think she’ll help us,” Tobias said. “Ain’t she supposed to be resting?”

  “She’s likely bored out of her mind.”

  “What happened anyway?”

  Never one to lie, Sarah kept her mouth shut. She didn’t know the details, but her room was under the attic, and she had heard the shouting match between Jin and Isobel, along with more swearing than Sarah knew existed. She still wasn’t sure about some of the words and their meanings.

  Eavesdropping was a stairway to Hell, her gramma always said, but it had been impossible not to hear.

  “Come on,” Sarah said, opening the door.

  Tobias blanched. “I’m not going.”

  “Why are you so afraid of her?”

  Tobias gave her a look.

  “Fine.” Sarah tiptoed up the stairs, and poked her head up to look through the railing slats into the attic room. Jin wasn’t there, but the hatch to the roof was open.

  “Jin?” she called up.

  “What?”

  “Can I come in?”

  “You are already in.”

  “I’m coming up.”

  Sarah climbed the ladder and poked her head through the hatch. Jin lay on her stomach on the flat part of the roof. I
t was a tower like gothic design with a short iron railing around the access hatch. Sarah didn’t like heights, and she didn’t like the tower top.

  Jin had her spyglass out and propped awkwardly on a rolled-up coat to account for her injured arm. She was scanning the surrounding homes.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I am alive.”

  Sarah thought about that answer. She couldn’t tell if Jin thought that was a good thing or a bad thing.

  Jin closed her spyglass, and turned to look at Sarah. “Who is Justice?”

  “Who?”

  “The man you sent to help me.”

  “Oh.” Sarah retreated down the ladder.

  Despite her arm in a sling, Jin simply dropped to the floorboards. She landed like a cat, eyes narrowing.

  Sarah crossed her arms. “I’m not intimidated by you.”

  That brought Jin up short. She tilted her head. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean you don’t scare me.”

  “I am not trying to scare you.”

  Sarah frowned. “Really?”

  Jin fiddled with her spyglass. “I do not mean to,” she said quietly. “Not always.”

  Sarah shifted. She hadn’t expected that. “I was worried about you, so I asked my friend to help. And before you get angry at Grimm, I bullied him into telling me what happened.”

  “I do not think Grimm can be bullied.”

  “No,” Sarah relented. “I don’t think so either.”

  “Who is your friend?” To appear less threatening, Jin sat on the floor, crossing her legs. She didn’t ease herself down like most people, she just plopped in place, her legs bending like some kind of rubber pretzel.

  Sarah sat down too, folding her legs in a more ladylike manner. “I can’t tell you about him because I’m sworn to secrecy. I made a promise. But he saved me when those men came to my uncle’s house. I was staying with him during the trial. You can trust him.”

  Jin considered this. Sarah expected demands, but the girl seemed to accept her silence.

  “What happened?” Sarah asked.

  “I tried to kill the man who slaughtered my parents.”

  Sarah choked. “Did you?” she whispered.

  Jin shook her head. “Justice did.”

  Sarah blew out a breath. “Don’t tell anyone that. He could get in trouble.”

  “I am not stupid. I am trusting you.”

  Sarah swallowed down her shock. “Thank you. I never had a sister, Jin. And I know you don’t like me, but… I don’t think sisters have to like each other to be friends.”

  Jin studied her. Sarah felt like she was being dissected, bit by bit. It was the same when Isobel looked at her. Adopted mother and daughter weren’t related by blood, but the pair were like two peas in a pod. Or more like two knives from the same maker.

  “A sister is more than a friend,” Jin finally said. “I never had anyone kick someone for me.”

  Sarah blushed. “I’d do it again, too.”

  The edges of Jin’s lips twitched upwards. With her scars, the gesture looked nearly painful.

  “Can I hug you?” Sarah asked.

  “No.”

  Sarah did anyway, which left Jin grumbling. “You’re a lot like a grumpy cat.”

  “Thank you.”

  Only Jin would think that was a compliment. “Look, Tobias and I need your help.”

  “With what?”

  “We’ve been trying to figure out who wrote that awful article in the newspaper. He’s waiting downstairs.”

  Jin called him up, and the three sat on the rug, while they brought Jin up to speed.

  “I went down to the Call, and they wouldn’t tell me a thing. We’ve followed everyone,” Sarah continued and began listing lodgers. “Mrs. Clarke calls on the neighbors, goes to church, and to charity events. I don’t think she’s wealthy, and that article puts her reputation in danger.”

  “But she’s old. Old people don’t care about their reputations,” Tobias argued. “And who else could it be?”

  “I don’t know, Tobias!” Sarah said, frustrated. “I thought you were convinced it was Mr. Dougal?”

  “You said it wasn’t him.”

  “I did not.”

  “Did, too.”

  “Well, it might be him,” Sarah said.

  “And you want me to break into his room?” Jin asked.

  “Yes!” Tobias said.

  “No,” Sarah said. “Well, I don’t know. What do you think?”

  “Why does it matter who wrote the article?” Jin asked.

  “Do you like having a snitch in your own house?” Sarah asked.

  “I just found out two snitches are spying on me.”

  Sarah turned a warm shade of pink.

  But before she could think of an excuse, Jin rose smoothly. “I know who it is.”

  “You do?” Tobias and Sarah asked as one.

  “It is no one in this house. The boarders are family. They are tied together, whether they like each other or not.” Jin gave Sarah a pointed look, then motioned the two to follow.

  She tucked her spyglass into a pocket, and climbed up the ladder.

  Tobias looked to Sarah. “She’s gonna push us off. I just know it.”

  Sarah rolled her eyes, and followed. When she got to the top, she stayed on her hands and knees, only to freeze a full two feet from the short iron rail.

  “You will not fall,” Jin assured.

  “I don’t think I can move.”

  Tobias popped out of the hatch, and walked straight to the edge to peer over the side. He whistled low. “You got the best room in the house, Jin.”

  “Yes. Stay low. I do not want anyone to see us.”

  “Who’d see us up here?” Tobias asked.

  Jin got on her stomach and extended her spyglass. “Be careful with it, please. It is a family heirloom. Isobel will kill you if you break it.”

  Tobias’s eyes went wide. He waved it on to Sarah.

  Jin pointed at a neighbor’s house. “The third floor window. On the right.”

  “It’s an office,” Sarah said.

  “Yes.”

  “And…” Sarah sucked in a breath. “There’s a telescope!”

  “A big one? To look at stars?” The boy fairly vibrated with excitement. He loved stars. Sarah handed over the spyglass. “That’s it! That’s the one I saw in the Sears catalogue! But ma said it was too expensive.”

  “You could save for it,” Sarah suggested.

  “I could. But I need another thirty dollars. I only have that coin we got from the treasure chest.”

  Jin made a sound of frustration. “Do you not see?”

  “I see it,” Tobias said. “What about it?”

  Jin took back her spyglass. “The window with the telescope faces Miss Dupree’s patio and French doors.”

  “Oh, Lord,” Sarah muttered. “The man is spying on Miss Dupree!”

  “But why would he write that article?” Tobias asked.

  “His wife caught him,” Jin said.

  “How do you know that?” Sarah asked.

  “They were arguing the other day.” Jin told them about the woman who dumped wine in her husband’s lap.

  “So the wife wrote it?” Tobias asked.

  Jin nodded.

  “How’d she know about all that other stuff?” Tobias asked.

  Jin’s thin brows drew together.

  “Mrs. Clarke!” Sarah said, snapping her fingers. “She makes social calls on the neighbors. I don’t think she’d write an article like that, but I wager she gossips up a storm.”

  “Hmmhmm,” Tobias said. “I told you so. You know how churchy ladies are, they gossip like the devil.”

  “That is not true, Tobias.”

  “Is too.”

  “They’re not supposed to,” Sarah said. “And you specifically told me it wasn’t her just a few weeks ago.”

  “Did not.”

  “Did so.”

  “I said it was her today,”
he defended.

  While Sarah and Tobias argued, Jin slipped back down the ladder, and the other two eventually followed.

  “So are we going to knock on the door and give them what for?” Tobias asked.

  “No…” Sarah tapped her lips.

  “We will tell Atticus,” Jin said.

  Sarah started shaking her head. “No we won’t. He’s hurt. He’s supposed to be resting.”

  “I promised Isobel I would ask before doing anything dangerous.”

  Sarah looked dubious. “That leaves a whole heap of wiggle room.”

  “I know. I will save the wiggle room for something important.”

  Atticus Riot gripped the railing as he limped up the steps to his neighbor’s house. He had never met them. He vaguely recalled a complaint the Gibsons had issued against Ravenwood—for attracting undesirables into the neighborhood—when the detective was consulting from his study. But other than that single complaint the Gibsons had kept away from their eccentric neighbor.

  Riot grimaced at the irony. Ordinarily, he didn’t need a gentleman’s stick, but he would have liked one now. The loss of Ravenwood’s stick and pocket watch stung worse than the beating. Seeing Monty at the funeral had been a final blow.

  But Riot was a gracious loser. In some things.

  He banged the knocker against its plate.

  Women’s voices cut off inside. “I wonder who that could be.”

  A face peered out of a window, then a few moments later, the door opened. “Can I help you, sir?”

  He tipped his hat. “I’m afraid we haven’t met. I’m Atticus Riot, your neighbor.”

  The woman was in her forties. Brown hair streaked with gray, pulled up in the latest Gibson Girl fashion. She looked at him with shrewd, intelligent eyes, before making a decision. “Alice Gibson.”

  Riot shook her offered hand. “I believe Mrs. Clarke is also here.”

  This caused a reaction. She blinked in surprise. “Why, yes. Were you wanting to speak with her?”

  “With both of you, actually.”

  “My husband isn’t home…”

  “That’s for the best.”

  Mrs. Gibson hesitated, then opened the door to allow him entrance. He nodded to Mrs. Clarke, who responded with a flustered greeting.

  “Mr. Riot. Why I hardly see you at the house. Only glimpses. I think we’ve only met briefly once in passing, and here you are now.”