A silent carriage ride to the Back Bay, and then it was time to retire. Merinda bade me good night and pressed her palm over her breast pocket, signaling she still had Nicholas’s letter. I hoped she would find a discreet way to return it to George Winthrop’s office.
We had not yet had a chance to settle before a commotion downstairs roused us. We opened our bedroom doors at the same time, exchanging a surprised look. The doorbell was being pressed again and again, vehemently, and its wailing chime was soon replaced by a flustered, loud, and inebriated voice.
Merinda and I crept to the top of the landing and watched George bound from his office, brandy glass in hand, collar open. “What in heaven’s name are you doing here, Robert? There’s no news, old boy.”
Soon Miri appeared behind us, her hair disheveled. She tied her robe tightly around her midsection and descended the stairs, not sparing us a look. “Please, lower your voices. We have guests. Robert, would you care to come into the sitting room? George, see to a glass of brandy for the poor man.”
Merinda and I sat down and peeked through the balusters of the banister as if we were children waiting for Santa Claus. We could hear everything from our perch, especially the booming voice of Robert.
“How could you! You were supposed to be on my side.”
“I cannot make up the girl’s mind for her, Robert. You know it.”
“Look at this!”
Merinda and I exchanged a glance.
“This arrived with no return address seemingly out of nowhere. You say you cannot find her, and yet she’s slipping me notes. She says she doesn’t forgive me at all. That I have no right to take her freedom, that she is willing to sacrifice her fortune for her happiness.”
“Let me see it!” Miri said frantically, and I could tell by the silence that she must have been victorious in confiscating the letter. Low mumbles and footsteps followed thereafter.
“There is no one in the world more important to me than Del,” Miri hissed. “You just want her money, Robert. That’s all you have ever wanted.”
“I want to find her because I care about her. I’m worried about her falling back into that old crowd of hers,” he said regally.
“What old crowd?” Miri said.
“You’ve always encouraged this, Miri. This behavior. The anarchist meetings and the newspaper editorials! Reading that heathen Goldman. I’m surprised you don’t blame yourself.”
“Blame myself?”
“That she’s gone.”
“I’d never let any harm come to my sister.”
“No? Well, you’re not nearly as concerned as you should be.”
“I hired private investigators!”
“Those two birds from Canada? They couldn’t find an egg in a children’s Easter hunt.”
Merinda harrumphed. I snickered. It can’t help but be noted that we sometimes stumbled upon a conclusion. The way this investigation was turning, we might well do so again!
“They’re women. They have intuition for these things and, as I said, the police have no interest in helping. Del wasn’t taken by force. There’s no sign of her around any of the places we visited that day.”
Robert’s curt good night was the cue Merinda and I needed to exchange a glance and scurry back upstairs. Merinda closed her bedroom door and then slipped into my room.
Miri, in tears, walked over the hall carpet. We waited, quiet as mice, to hear her door click shut.
Breakfast the next morning was a cold affair. George consulted the morning paper while sipping his coffee. Miri wrung her hands underneath her napkin. Merinda tucked into the sideboard’s offerings with her usual healthy appetite, and I picked shyly at a piece of toast. The atmosphere was so tense I could feel it crawling up my arms and over my neck.
Once George finished and excused himself to his study, Merinda took a fortifying gulp of coffee and narrowed her eyes at Miri. “I would like the whole truth now, please.”
Miri blinked innocently. “I… I have no idea… ”
“Del isn’t missing!” Merinda chided. “We’re part of an elaborate charade to keep your husband and that ape Robert from finding her.”
Miri straightened her shoulders and tightened her lips, but the more Merinda bore her gaze into her, the faster she faltered. Finally, one tear fell. Then another. Then a whole stream of them. “Please, please! We must keep quiet,” she entreated shakily.
“You bribed the police to keep quiet and pretend nothing was amiss if anyone went sniffing about.”
“Only with chewing tobacco!” Miri whined.
“And the lady at the Colonial Inn. Not to mention whomever you called in Canada from that number.”
“Martha was in Toronto on assignment,” Miriam sniffed. “That’s how I reached her to find you.”
“And the note Robert received? We heard the commotion last night,” Merinda said by way of explanation.
“I sent it. A note to George too. Both from Del. George got his last night. We had a row about it before you came down this morning.”
“And you left us our crumbs. The Wright Tavern pamphlet in her luggage. Your coming back with just one last thing when we were searching through Del’s belongings!”
“I am not adept at creating a skillful ruse. I truly wanted to ensure you had everything you needed to piece the puzzle together!”
“But you needed us. The Boston police would’ve had the time and manpower to seek out everyone in Concord at your husband’s bidding. You had to convince that ogre George to let you choose your own method for recovering your sister.”
“I… I needed to give her enough time to have the life I will never have. Just a few days. Then it turned into a week. But I knew you would figure it out. I knew it. Tell me, please, when did you learn the truth?”
“You weren’t nearly concerned enough for your beloved sister. I knew that from the start. But then”—Merinda inclined her head in my direction—“I thought of the lengths we go to for someone else’s happiness. My friend here, like your sister, has pursued the most illogical of marriages.”
I scowled at Merinda while Miri dabbed her eyes.
“Where’s Del?” Merinda blew out a frustrated whoosh of breath. “I want her to finish her part of the tale!”
“She’s in Concord,” Miri said in a whisper. “She never left.”
Chapter Six
Sometimes the obvious is right in front of your nose. In “A Scandal in Bohemia,” Irene Adler walks brashly past Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson dressed as a man. She even bids him good night, and though her voice plucks a note of his memory, he is initially none the wiser.
Merinda tugged me in the direction of Orchard House. “There’s no other place she would be,” Merinda decided. “No one’s in there. And Nicholas Haliburton can see to her every need.” Merinda’s voice picked up the pace, and I could tell she was getting wound up with excitement like a spool tight with thread. “We walked all around Concord, but we didn’t see what was staring us in the face.”
She rapped on the door of Orchard House a few times. Lightly, thank goodness, taking my advice not to harm all of the work that Nicholas and his friends had been doing.
“I know you’re in there,” Merinda yelled, standing back and staring up at one of the second-story windows. “Delphina Barton, I know you’re up there!”
The curtains in the upper window rustled slightly. Merinda, patience evaporating, flipped back the top handle of her walking stick to reveal the crowbar underneath and gently wedged the door open, leaving but a few splinters in her wake. I breathed a sigh of relief. It was the last breath I was to enjoy for the first stilted moments as we creaked over the front floorboards. I wondered how many times young Louisa May had tiptoed up the same staircase Merinda was now ascending.
A woman was waiting for us at the top, a slight smile tickling her cheek.
“Delphina Barton, I presume,” said Merinda.
“Delphina Haliburton,” she said with a blush. “And you’re Miri’s
brilliant Canadian detectives!”
I looked over her shoulder and saw a bedroll spread across the carpet in the middle of a room to the left. Some honeymoon, I thought. Married a few days and sleeping on her own bedroll. Del and Nicholas must have found the cause worth all manner of small sacrifices.
“This room belonged to Louisa May’s parents,” Del said proudly, following my gaze, but not reading the real reason for the intensity in my stare. She must have noticed the surprised look on my face. “Don’t worry. I have kept it in pristine condition.”
“I believe this belongs to you,” Merinda said, handing Del the letter George had intercepted. So she hadn’t returned it to his study.
Del smiled as she read, and then she folded the letter and returned it to its envelope. “George is a brute, and Robert only ever wanted my money, but Nicholas?” Her eyes positively sparkled. “Of course, women never fall for the man they’re supposed to.”
“But after you fell in love with Nicholas… ” I prompted.
“Yes, there was still Robert to deal with. He told me he was going to go to my parents, and I knew my father was going to cut me off. But I had my grandmother’s necklace. It is my rightful inheritance to do with as I please.” Del lifted her hands to her neck as if feeling its absence. “It’s not my father’s property at all.”
“So you had Mac take charge.”
She nodded. “I hadn’t a plan until I talked to Miri about it, and she had this wonderful idea. She thought if we could create an elaborate enough ruse for Robert and George, I’d have time to elope with Nick and keep Robert from sniffing around. And Mac was able to sell the necklace, keeping us from total destitution.”
“So you made a fool of Jem and me!” Merinda couldn’t keep an angry edge from her voice.
I shot Merinda a silencing look and directed a question to Del. “And you moved into Louisa May Alcott’s house?”
“Nicholas knew Robert was poking around. And what is more romantic than the two of us playing house here? He came by after work every night, bringing lanterns and a picnic. We were camping out in the past! He knew about you, of course. We knew you would lure Robert back to the city.”
“How?” Merinda flung her arms exasperatedly. “How could you possibly know that? How did you know that we would do any of this? You thought we were poor enough detectives that we wouldn’t figure out where you were?”
“I trusted that you would!” Del cried. “So did Miri! We trusted that when you made the inevitable discovery, you would be empathetic enough to stay on our side. Miri’s friend Martha reads about you all the time in that Hog newspaper. And she said Jemima married a muckraker far below her social ranking—”
I coughed. “Not so far below—”
“And completely ill-suited.” If Del heard my interruption, she ignored it. “I just knew you would side with us when the truth came out.”
She flashed us a saucy smile and proudly flourished her left hand, where a small, shiny diamond caught the sunlight in the dusty shadow.
“Quite the elaborate plan,” Merinda snickered. “All of this just to escape a temperamental fiancé? It’s not like he’d put a gun to your head!”
The irony of this statement was proved not five minutes later when Merinda and I walked out of the homestead and straight into the barrel of Robert’s pistol.
“Cracker jacks!” Merinda seethed. “You’re not only boring, you’re a buffoon.”
“A silly idea to insult the man who has a gun to your face.” He moved his finger to the trigger.
“How did you find out we were here?” I asked.
“The walls at George’s are paper-thin,” he said easily, leaving Merinda and me to ponder how far we had to come as amateur detectives and mentally kick ourselves in response.
“Why do you want to marry a girl who went to such extraordinary lengths to be kept from you?” Merinda wondered.
“That inheritance is my inheritance.”
“Aren’t the Huttons rich enough?” Merinda spat.
“Is Del in there?” His lurid eyes sought out the curtained windows of the homestead.
“You can’t marry her if you shoot her,” Merinda scoffed. “Nor if you’re in jail for murdering me.” Merinda stomped her foot, warming to her theme. “Also, I never read any of the author’s silly books, but Jem here assures me this is a very important historical place. A corpse on its sacred ground won’t endear you to anyone.”
“Drop it,” said a curt voice from behind my shoulder. I slowly turned to see the confident face of Nicholas Haliburton.
“I have a gun!” Robert reminded us.
“Yes, we can see that,” Nicholas quipped. “Shiny one too.”
I could almost hear Merinda crack a smile.
“I called the police… ” Nicholas started, threateningly.
“The police is one person.” Robert laughed.
“You didn’t let me finish,” Nicholas said. “Along with a few friends!”
From behind the grand old Philosophy School, Nicholas’s tribe of handymen strolled toward us, swinging axes and hammers and all manner of tools with them.
Robert let the gun fall to his side, and Del slowly came out of the front door of Orchard House.
“It’s too late, Robert.” She held up her hand. “Nicholas and I were married three days ago.”
Robert had opened his mouth to begin what promised to be a string of threats and insults, but he cut off abruptly at the sight of the diamond glinting on her hand. He watched, flabbergasted, as Nicholas and Del strode off over the soft grass and to the overrun field yonder to adventures beyond. Nicholas’s men cheered and Merinda and I gaped stupidly at each other.
“Jem,” said Merinda, “did we actually win a bet if there wasn’t a mystery to be solved?”
Chapter Seven
At the end of “A Scandal in Bohemia,” Irene Adler, the only woman ever to outsmart the great detective, gives up the life of a prima donna to marry barrister Godfrey Norton, taking great pains to ensure that the king of Bohemia will not expect any further attachment with her. Her short wedding ceremony is attended by Sherlock Holmes, in disguise, acting as witness. Afterward, she presses a coin into the detective’s palm, and he keeps it always.
I remembered the story, thinking on life and love and the way that our paths wind and turn far from any expectation. More still how love—“the essence of God”—must take on as many shapes and forms and mysteries as He does.
On our last morning in Boston, we sat at tea while the chauffeur saw to our luggage. I looked across the table at a woman who had not married for love, but rather expectation, with a feeling of sympathy that countered whatever sense of betrayal I suspected Merinda was muddling under.
Miri handed me tea in a delicate cup from her matching set. “My house is perfect,” she boasted, stealing into my thoughts.
“Yes.” I held out my cup in a slight toast. “And your dishes. Just what I dreamed of as a little girl playing with dolls.”
“I have control over this sphere.” She folded her hands in her lap. “I keep it perfect and pristine.”
Before envy may have welled up in me. Now I kept my voice level as Merinda found great amusement in a plate of tarts: “Your husband must be so comfortable when he returns from his business trips to this golden home.”
We sipped our tea. “You married for love, Jemima.” Miri’s voice was defensive. “Del married for love. I know my husband doesn’t love me, but I did my duty to our family. I protected the fortune.” She picked at a thread on her skirt. “I didn’t want Del to have my life. I would shoulder the inheritance. Invest the money wisely. Look good on my husband’s arm. Bear golden-haired sons to keep the family name alive.”
I opened my mouth to say something, but there were no words.
Miri stared at her tea with a rueful smile. “But I learned I couldn’t even have children to fill my days. So I am a cog in this clockwork of existence. And I wanted so much for my sister. I wanted Del to
have the love of her life.” She laughed bitterly.
“Miri, I don’t know what to say. I wish… ”
She shook her head. “I wrote my husband a letter, pretending to be Del. A terrible risk, wouldn’t you say? Except that I knew he was not even familiar with my own hand. That’s how little attention he pays to me.”
The butler announced that our luggage was packed and we had better make a move to the station. After we said goodbye to Miri, Merinda stopped me at the top of the walkway overlooking the grand street and off toward the winking, dimpling Charles River. “Funny, Jem,” she said. “I don’t want to prove myself so much as go home and hug Jasper so tightly his hat falls off.”
I breathed in the sweet first moment of home as we disembarked from Union Station, the zip in the air tickling my cheeks.
Exhausted, I saw Merinda into her own taxi and splurged on a cab for myself. Down Carlton and into the heart of drab Cabbagetown, the antithesis of Miri’s grand Boston Street. The clouds were heavy with the promise of snow, and the breeze whispered around, a cadence that matched the rhythm of the carts and the horses and the automobiles swishing out of my way.
I took the last tired steps up the front walkway. Opening the door, I heard rustling in the back of the house.
As I followed the noise in the direction of the kitchen, I collided with Ray. My nose found his cheek. There was a smear of something there, sticky to my touch. He wore a light cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbows under his suspenders, the two top buttons customarily undone and sugar on his face.
“Jemima! There you are!” His smile was as bright as the electric marquis at the Elgin Theatre. He clasped my hand, our fingers sticking together. He tugged me into the kitchen where, on the counter, a dozen jars were filled to their brims with lemon jam.
“Where did you learn to make jam?” No burnt salt concoction here, and the besmirched kitchen had been scrubbed from top to bottom. I licked a stray spoon. “Ray DeLuca, this is delicious.”
“My Nonna made it when Vi and I were little,” he explained. “She taught me how. Said I could impress a girl someday.”
Of Dubious and Questionable Memory Page 5
