Gaslamp Gothic Box Set

by Kat Ross

  “What do you mean by that?” John asked. “Is Emma his mother?”

  Klara stared at us. Then she started to laugh. It was a most unpleasant sound. “You know nothing, do you?”

  The attendant shifted impatiently in the doorway. “What have you decided, Miss Schmidt?” he asked. “I can’t leave the front desk unattended. Shall I show them out?”

  “They may stay.” She waved an imperious hand and he withdrew with a roll of his eyes. Klara pointed a gnarled finger at the bed. “Sit.”

  Our rumps hit the coverlet simultaneously. The woman reminded me of Mr. Kaylock, only much worse.

  She folded her hands in her lap and regarded us. “Tamsin is his mother, but the boy has as little of her temperament as he does of her looks. He despised his father, but they’re more alike than he cares to admit.”

  “I suppose you knew the family very well,” I said.

  “For more than sixty years,” she said with a touch of pride. “I raised Declan and his brothers, and then little Emmeline when she came to live at the household.”

  “When was that?”

  “Shortly after her parents died of smallpox.”

  I couldn’t keep the surprise from my voice. Typically, Moran had neglected to mention that fact. “The Bayards are dead?”

  Klara sniffed. “Both families are cursed. A month after Tamsin and Declan’s wedding, there was an outbreak in the Bayard household. One of the chambermaids died and the house was quarantined. Half of them were dead within the fortnight.” She paused, a look of pity on her face.

  “Emmeline was spared, but it must have been hard on her. Smallpox is no easy death. I saw it in Germany when I was a girl. The ghastly blisters and vomiting. Later Emmeline told me she was trapped in that house for a month, watching the adults around her die one by one.”

  “Poor child,” John murmured. “Why weren’t they taken to the smallpox hospital on Blackwell’s Island?”

  Klara’s mouth tightened. “Her parents refused. Blackwell’s was for dirty immigrants. Afterwards, when the infection had run its course, Tamsin brought Emmeline to live at her marital home. Declan Moran’s mansion on Fifth Avenue. He ordered me to care for the girl, so I did.”

  “You were there that night,” I said. “When James shot his father.”

  She turned to stare out the window again. “Yes.”

  “Would you tell us what happened?”

  “Why do you want to know?” she demanded. “What business is it of yours?”

  “James hired us to get to the bottom of this whole mess. And I think the seeds of it were planted that night.”

  She looked at me for a long moment, then gave a reluctant nod. “He claimed self-defense at the trial, but I knew better.”

  “It was him who did it though?” I asked.

  It had crossed my mind that Moran might have taken the blame for someone else.

  She gave a dry smile. “Oh, yes. I’d come downstairs to make a cup of tea before bed. It was just after ten o’clock. My room was in the servants’ wing and the shortest way to the kitchen was through the back hall. When I passed the drawing room, I saw Declan sitting in a chair by the fire, reading the newspaper. James came in the door from the foyer. He had a gun in his hand, but he was holding it down by his side.” She mimed gripping a pistol.

  “Did he seem agitated?” John asked.

  “Not in the least. He was very calm. He pointed the gun at his father and cocked it. Declan started laughing. He told James he didn’t have the guts. He sounded a little drunk, but that was nothing unusual.”

  “What happened next?” John asked softly.

  Klara Schmidt let out a sudden cackle. “What do you think?” She clapped her hands together. “Bang!”

  I jumped an inch off the bed. The woman might look frail, but she could holler like a stevedore.

  “James shot him right between the eyes. I saw Declan’s brains splatter the wall.” She snorted. “It was an execution.”

  “And he didn’t say anything before he did it?”

  “Not a word. He had his reasons and Declan knew what they were.”

  “But you didn’t tell the police what you saw?” John asked.

  Her mouth tightened a fraction. “No.”

  “Why not?” I pressed. “Did James threaten you?”

  She waved a hand dismissively. “He didn’t even know I’d seen. I was standing in the dark hall. I never spoke to him about it after.”

  “Yet you covered up for him. Why?”

  Klara raised her chin. “Declan was a monster,” she said softly. “He terrorized the entire household, but his wife and son most of all. He was a perfectionist, impossible to please.” She shook her head. “I never heard him use his son’s Christian name. Not once. Declan always called him boy. He’d berate him in front of the servants and worse when they were alone. It never stopped, not for a single minute.” Klara Schmidt’s voice went cold. “The man deserved what he got.”

  “But not everyone thought so,” John said.

  “No, Mr. Weston. There was one person who mourned him.”

  “Emma,” I guessed. I’d figure it was either her or Tamsin, and Emma was the one who wore hairpins.

  “Yes. Emmeline.” Her lips curled. “After the old goat stopped twitching, James dropped the gun to the carpet and left. Then she came running in. When she saw her lover lying there in a pool of blood, she fell to her knees, weeping over the body, the stupid woman.” Klara shook her head. “I was about to withdraw when Emma looked up and saw me. That girl gave me the most venomous look I’ve ever seen. Then she stood up, dried her eyes, and went to summon the police.” Klara’s hands picked at the blanket in her lap. “Emma knew I’d seen her. That I knew about their affair.”

  “She loved him,” I said slowly. It explained a great deal. As much as Emma despised Moran, he was a constant reminder of his father. The spitting image. How confusing that must be! For a woman who was already unbalanced, it must have been maddening to see him day after day.

  “Emma was never very bright,” Klara continued. “I suppose she thought he’d leave Tamsin for her, but Declan would never have suffered such a scandal.” She gave a cackle. “He dragged the family through the mud in the end though, didn’t he?”

  “Was Tamsin aware of it?”

  “Who knows?” She looked at me. “You’ve met his mother, I take it.”

  I nodded.

  “So you understand how the boy is doubly damned. Tamsin has her own money, lots of it. She and Emma shared the Bayard fortune when the parents died. A different woman would have left a long time ago and taken her child. But Tamsin chose oblivion.”

  “Yet James loves her,” I said.

  “She is his mother. Compared to Declan, she must seem a saint. At least she showed James affection when her wits were about her.”

  We were all quiet for a moment. I wondered if Klara Schmidt had any inkling of what he’d been up to since prison.

  “So Emma put you here,” John said.

  “She couldn’t wait to get rid of me. As soon as the trial was done, she ordered me to pack my bags. I thought she was going to throw me out on the street, but she said she had found a place for me and that she’d pay for it as long as I kept my mouth shut.” Klara shrugged. “I was in no position to argue with her. I had nowhere else to go. The young master was in jail and Tamsin never did have the spine to stand up to anyone.”

  Contempt tinged her voice. “So I accepted Emma’s offer.” She looked around the room. “It’s not so bad here. Emma kept her promise and paid the bill every month. At Christmas, she would even send me a little gift. But she always left it with the attendants. She never came inside.

  “I didn’t hear from her for two years. Then one day, she appeared in a towering fury. She said James had been released from prison early for good behavior. I already knew because Mr. Forsythe reads us the newspaper every day. Emma expected him to serve a much longer sentence.” Klara sighed. “She told me she had gone
to a medium and contacted Declan in the spirit realm. That he spoke to her.”

  I gave a bitter shake of my head. “Miss Schmidt, I’ve dealt with plenty of those so-called mediums. They’re experts at staging séances for financial gain. I’m sure whoever it was took advantage of Miss Bayard.”

  Klara shifted uneasily. “About that, I cannot say. But she claimed Declan told her his spirit would not rest until she took revenge on James. It was not enough to kill him. He must be made to suffer.”

  My heart beat faster. “This is the part I still don’t fully understand,” I admitted. “How did Emma know about doppelgängers?”

  Klara stared at us without a shred of remorse. “I told her stories when she was a child. Stories from the old country. The same my own mother told to me when I was wicked.”

  John’s eyes narrowed. “You terrified her, you mean.”

  “Children must be raised with a firm hand.”

  “And that story scared her the most, didn’t it?”

  “Emma had a vivid imagination. I caught her staring into a mirror once, just staring and staring. When I came up behind her, she startled and dropped it. The mirror shattered into pieces.” Klara’s lips curled. “I told her each piece held her wicked twin and they would all come after her if she didn’t go read her lessons immediately. The girl went white as a ghost.” She sucked her teeth ruminatively. “But it worked. She stuck her nose in a book and didn’t take it out all afternoon.”

  John and I exchanged a look of mild horror.

  “Emma demanded to know how to summon a doppelgänger for a specific person. I told her they were simply stories, but she wouldn’t accept that. She said she’d stop paying for the home and I’d be out on the street.”

  Klara stopped talking for a moment, her rheumy eyes staring out the window. Neither John nor I moved a muscle, hardly daring to speak.

  “I was frightened. Emma frightened me. The way she looked at me . . . . So I told her about a woman I know,” Klara said at last. “A German girl. She helped me with my arthritis, but I’ve heard she helped others, too. With darker requests. She knows all the old lore. God help me, I told Emma where to find her.”

  “And you didn’t warn James?” John demanded. “He would have paid your room and board!”

  “Emma said she would see me dead,” Klara replied softly. “That she would crawl in my window some night and put a pillow over my face and snuff the breath from my lungs.” The old woman turned to John. “She’d do it, too. The girl is disturbed. I had no choice. And I didn’t expect it to work. Not really.”

  “Tell us where this woman is,” I said quietly.

  Klara’s chin jerked in my direction. “I just wanted her to go away,” she said plaintively. “To keep paying.”

  “Well, she unleashed something that’s going to kill James unless we stop it. Do you understand?”

  Klara Schmidt gave a small nod. “I will tell you the name and address.”

  John pulled out his notepad. “Just to be clear, this is a witch we’re talking about?”

  She mumbled something that sounded like hex. “Her name is Hannah Ferber. She lives in Little Germany. I will tell you the address.”

  John wrote it down.

  “She mustn’t know I told you,” Klara said. “She’ll come here—”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure you’re kept safe,” I said.

  Klara reached out and grabbed my hand. Her eyes were frightened. “I didn’t think it would work. Tell James that.” She took the rosary from around her neck. “Give him this. For protection.” She folded the chain into my hand.

  “I will, Miss Schmidt.” John and I rose to our feet. When I looked back from the doorway, she was staring out the window again.

  At the front desk, I flashed my S.P.R. badge at the attendant and told him not to allow anyone inside Klara’s room, especially not Miss Bayard.

  “But she pays the bills,” he said with a frown.

  “We don’t care,” John replied sternly. “You’re not to let her in. The police will be arriving soon to post a guard outside her door.”

  “For that old bird?” he asked in astonishment.

  “Klara Schmidt was the sole witness to a serious crime years ago. It’s just now coming to trial,” John said. “If anything happens to her, you wouldn’t want to take the blame for it.”

  “No, sir! I’ll inform the rest of the staff immediately.” Mr. Forsythe bounced on his toes, practically bursting to share the news. It must be the most exciting thing that had happened at the Association for the Relief of Respectable Aged Indigent Females in years.

  “I must admit, it’s an ingenious way to kill someone,” I said as we stepped outside. “Murder by proxy. Emma’s hands are clean. In fact, she was in Newport when those poor boys started dying.”

  John shook his head. He looked disturbed. “Maybe I oughtn’t, but I feel sorry for her,” he said. “Declan Moran sounds like a beast. God only knows what he did to seduce her. It might even have been rape. She could have gone mad. Convinced herself she loved him.”

  “I doubt we’ll ever know,” I agreed. “But it certainly sounds like he preyed on a vulnerable woman. One with childhood trauma and a morbid imagination that was fueled by Klara Schmidt and her horrid bedtime stories. She raised Declan, too, and look how he turned out. What an awful nursemaid.”

  “Klara wasn’t precisely evil.” He absently tucked the end of his scarf into his overcoat. We had started walking downtown along Amsterdam Avenue and a gritty wind blew straight into our faces. “But I wouldn’t want her watching our children, Harry.”

  I stopped. “What did you say?”

  “I wouldn’t want her watching my children.” A flush crested his cheekbones. “If I had any, of course.”

  “No, you said—”

  “We have to tell Moran,” he interrupted. “Wait, scratch that. Oh God, he’s going to murder them, Klara and Emma both. We’d better call in the Night Squad.”

  “Not yet,” I replied stubbornly. “I promised. And we can’t prove anything, not that would stand up at trial. Emma’s lawyer would laugh us right out of the courtroom. Which is all the more reason to find this witch. If Emma paid her money believing she could kill Moran, perhaps they can be charged with conspiracy.” I paused for breath. “Besides which, if it became known that I betray my clients, no one would ever hire me again.”

  John shot me a look. “I thought you still worked for the S.P.R.”

  “I do, but Kaylock threatened to suspend me. I don’t think he wants to, but he said he might not be able to protect me from Orpha Winter.”

  “Well, Moran already sacked us.”

  “I bet he’ll un-sack us when he hears what we have to say,” I replied dryly. “It’s his only chance. I doubt Emma will tell him, if she even knows.”

  “And if she’s at the house?” John asked. “When Moran finds out, he’ll snap her slender neck.”

  I quickened my steps. “Better we’re there to stop him, then.”

  The Moran mansion was only a twenty-minute walk south. A young maid answered the door. She seemed agitated, her hands kneading at her skirts.

  “Is Miss Bayard at home?” I asked.

  “No, Miss Pell, she went out.”

  I found myself glad we didn’t have to face Emma; one lunatic at a time.

  “Do you know where she went?” John asked.

  “She didn’t say, sir.”

  “What about Mrs. Moran?”

  “In her room.” The maid paused. “I tried to wake her, but she won’t stir. She’s awful pale. There’s sick on the floor. I was about to call the doctor—”

  “I’ll look in on her,” John said. “Where’s your master?”

  “Second floor music room, sir.” Anxious tears formed in her eyes. “Has been for hours. I knocked and knocked but he won’t come out.”

  “Where are the other servants?”

  “Miss Bayard dismissed them.” She sniffled. “It’s just me, sir. I didn
’t know what to do—”

  John said quietly to me: “Go rouse Moran. Keep him occupied, but don’t tell him anything yet.”

  I nodded and we parted ways at the landing. John continued up to Tamsin’s room with the maid and I walked down the hall to the music room. The gas jets flickered as I gave a hard rap.

  “Moran?” I pressed my ear against the heavy door.

  I heard a creak inside, as though someone had shifted in a chair.

  “I’m coming in,” I said firmly. “Your mother is very ill.”

  There was no reply – and that worried me the most. Whatever poison ate away at the family, there was no doubt in my mind that Tamsin was the single person in the world he truly loved.

  I tried the knob, expecting it to be locked, but it turned in my grasp.

  The drapes of the music room were pulled shut and the only light spilled in from the hall. All the furniture had been pushed against one wall except for a single chair positioned in the center of the room. I breathed a sigh of relief as I saw Moran occupying the chair. He must have been sitting there in perfect darkness before the door opened for the lamps were unlit.

  “Moran?” I ventured.

  He turned so his face was in profile, a shadowed silhouette.

  “We found Klara Schmidt.”

  I thought he’d rant at me for poking into his affairs after he had terminated our contract, or leap up and demand answers. But he had fallen into some profound melancholy for he hardly reacted at all.

  I entered the room and looked around. “I haven’t a clue how to light those gas jets. Don’t you have a candle somewhere?” I moved cautiously through the semidarkness and finally located a melted stub on his desk next to a box of matches. “John Weston is here. He’s seeing to your mother.” I lit the candle and the shadows fled. “That’s better. Now listen—”

  He turned fully to me and I took a step back. His eyes gleamed, darker than a moonless night, yet his face seemed soft. The guardedness and arrogance was gone. It was Moran’s face, but unformed somehow, like a child.

  “James?” I whispered, the candle wavering in my fist.

  He didn’t reply, only stared at me, and the hair on my neck rose straight up.