Murder in the Oval Library

by C. M. Gleason

  However, she needed to make certain, and bluffing her way through seemed the best option. “I’m here to draw a likeness of Johnny Thorne so that Mr. Quinn”—she purposely left out mention of herself doing the same—“can show it around in an attempt to identify him or learn more about him.”

  Hilton assessed her in a way she was unaccustomed to being read by a black man—making her skin prickle—then gave a mild shrug. “Very well. If you’ll give me one moment to prepare, Miss Lemagne.”

  As the doctor disappeared behind a blanket hung from the ceiling, Constance sat primly on one of the chairs, battling her crinoline and hoops into submission while ignoring Jelly’s muttered comments. She took the satchel from her maid’s grip and positioned it on her lap, curling and uncurling her gloved fingers over its handle as she considered the fact that Mr. Quinn hadn’t told her how Thorne had been killed. She didn’t know what condition the poor man’s body would be in, and whether his face would show signs of trauma or injury.

  “Miss Lemagne.” Hilton swept the curtain aside and gestured. “I’ve lit the lanterns and lamps to give you as much light as possible. Don’t touch anything, miss.”

  Constance bustled past him, aware of the way he stepped back to give her plenty of room. Even so, his words hung in her mind: Don’t touch anything. She wasn’t accustomed to that sort of impertinence from a nigger—even a free one.

  Those jumbled thoughts dissipated as she saw the body of Johnny Thorne lying on a long table. He was covered by a dark blanket from chin to foot, with only his pale, dirty face revealed.

  She swallowed hard and set her satchel down on a nearby table. As she withdrew a piece of paper—stationery, ironically, from the St. Charles Hotel—and a pencil, she looked at Thorne’s white face. Dark smudges and speckles that looked unpleasantly like blood streaked his cheeks and chin. His eyes were open (she wondered whether Hilton had done that for the purposes of her sketch or whether they’d simply been left unseeing), and his mouth was slightly ajar.

  She’d noticed the scent of blood and other unpleasant odors since coming through the door into Hilton’s office, but now the smells were stronger and more astringent. It reminded her of butchering day at home—an event that happened monthly, and one she usually avoided by remaining in the house on the far side away from the barnyard. Still, the smell of blood and flesh was impossible to avoid, and Constance’s belly wavered for an instant as the images of the slaughter at home mingled with the cloaked figure on the table in front of her.

  “Miss Lemagne?” Hilton had come up behind her, and the rumble of his voice startled her back into the moment. “Do you need something?”

  “No, no.” She hoped he couldn’t see her gripping the edge of the table in order to steady herself. She swallowed hard. “I was just looking at the—at him, to decide whether it would be best to draw him with his eyes open or closed. I think open is best, so we can see the shape of his eyes better,” she rushed on.

  “That was my thought as well. I’ll be happy to close them for you when you’ve finished with that part, if you like.”

  “I’ll let you know,” she said, forcing dismissiveness into her tones. “Now, I’d like to get to work.”

  Hilton took her comment to heart and she heard the soft scrape of his shoe over the gritty floor as he turned to leave.

  Constance picked up her pencil, and, blocking out the smells, the location, the doctor and his uppity ways, focused on the shape of Johnny Thorne’s face. She realized yet another inconvenience to the wider hoops she’d eschewed changing: it was impossible to get very close to the object of her attention without bumping her dress against the table and tilting the skirt up in back.

  Nonetheless, she could do what needed to be done—albeit from a greater distance than she’d like. Constance sketched the basic oval shape—which would be adjusted to show his narrow chin as she refined it—then drew light guiding lines: one down the center, bisecting the face from forehead to chin; then one each across in a smooth arc for eyes, nose, and mouth. Eyes were always set exactly halfway down the front of the skull, and nose and mouth half again from there. Focusing on these simple drawing rules helped Constance to set aside the difficulty of her subject and relax into the process itself.

  With any luck, she’d be finished with her sketch before Mr. Quinn showed up—as he surely would do.

  * * *

  Adam stepped into the street, his attention so focused on Leward Hale and his companions that he barely stopped in time to keep from being trampled by a pair of horses pulling a large wagon.

  “Watch where you’re going!” cried the driver as Adam jolted back, shocked that he’d done something as foolish as rushing into the street without looking.

  He waved his apology to the man and was forced to wait as the wagon rumbled by. By the time it passed and Adam was able to start across the street again, Hale and his friends were gone. He hurried to the other side and stood for a moment, looking up and down the Avenue and around the corner onto L Street. Adam cursed under his breath. Where had the man gone to?

  Had he seen Adam? Was that why he’d taken off so quickly? Surely Hale knew what would happen if Adam got his hands—no, his single, solitary hand—on him?

  Adam realized he was clenching and unclenching his fist, and that his muscles were quivering so tight that his prosthetic was trembling against him. His mind wavered, threatening to send him back to Leavenworth, back to the blazing fire that wanted to peel the skin off—

  “Mr. Quinn!”

  The sound of his name penetrated the haze of memory, and Adam turned blindly toward the sound. When he blinked and his vision cleared, it was to see a boy of about eleven running toward him. Apparently Brian Mulcahey hadn’t left Washington during the mass exodus.

  “There’s gonna be a war,” he said breathlessly as he stamped to a stop next to him. The youth’s milky Irish skin was plastered with coppery freckles and his cheeks were flushed from the exertion of running. Over the last month, his missing tooth had begun to grow back in.

  “There already is,” Adam replied. He looked down automatically and was pleased to see that Brian was wearing the new boots Mr. Lincoln had “bought” for him a month ago. They were mud-stained but looked a far sight better than the boy’s previous footwear, which had allowed for a toe to protrude.

  “I’m about hearing the Rebels are coming tonight.” His eyes flashed with excitement, and Adam had to tamp down the desire to lecture him about the hell of war. Every young boy—himself included—romanticized soldiering and fighting. And every young boy, if he made it through the battles alive, learned how unromantic it was.

  “How’s your mama?”

  To Adam’s knowledge, Brian had no father, but he had two younger sisters—one an infant—and his small family lived in mean conditions in Ballard’s Alley not far from George Hilton’s office. Adam used all of his ingenuity to create ways to help the family with food, clothing, and other needs without appearing to be offering charity. He was usually hungry whenever Brian was around, then proceeded to order far too much food for himself to eat, so had to send it home with the boy.

  “Mam’s got your coat mended,” Brian replied, falling into step with Adam as he began to walk down the street. “And your socks, too.”

  “That was quick work, but I hope she didn’t stay in the city because of that.”

  “She ain’t afraid of them Rebels. The Irish been fighting wars and beating back the English and Scottish for centuries, she said. Me grandpappy’s grandpappy’s people even painted ’emselves blue sometimes.”

  “Is that so? I reckon that would scare anybody, seeing a wild man with his face painted blue.”

  “Not just the face,” Brian said. “Everywhere. They weren’t wearing no clothes.”

  Adam winced at the thought, then stopped at the meat pie shop. But when he pulled on it, the door only rattled in its frame. Closed. That wasn’t a surprise. Half the shops were, with everyone gone.

  “Och, a
nd it was Dr. Hilton sent me,” Brian said suddenly. “To fetch you. He said to come urgent.”

  “All right, then.” Adam adjusted his hat, gave one last look in the direction Leward Hale had been, and made an about-face on the street. He could go to his boardinghouse later. “Let’s be on our way. I reckon I’ve got a rumble in my belly for the sausages they have at the Willard. You mind stopping there while I get some for the doctor and you and me?”

  “No, sir, Mr. Quinn. But the doctor seemed like he was wanting you to come on the way. It took me a long time to find you.”

  Adam quickened his pace, his long legs leaving the boy hustling to keep up, and wondered what had George Hilton up in such a dander.

  * * *

  George Hilton was in more of a fix than a dander. Where the blazes was that boy? He’d sent that scamp Brian Mulcahey off an hour since past. And when the door opened ten minutes ago, he’d expected it to be Quinn. Instead, it was Miss Constance Lemagne who’d made her elegant—and terribly inappropriate—appearance.

  Now that she was here, he had even more of a reason to require Quinn’s presence. What the hell had the man been thinking, sending the likes of her here? Besides the absurdity of the situation—a young lady in what amounted to a morgue—the last thing George wanted was to be alone in a cellar with a white woman.

  Praise be to God she’d brought her maid with her so it wasn’t just the two of them.

  Her slave maid, he reminded himself as he gestured for the older woman to go behind the curtain that cordoned off the examining area. George cast a quick look behind the other dividing blanket, but he was only able to see the edge of Miss Lemagne’s teacuplike skirt and her shadow spilling over the dirt floor.

  “All right, then, Mistress Jelly, why don’t you tell me about your ailments.” As he spoke, his physician’s eyes naturally assessed the woman and her physical state. “At least the ones you think I can attend to,” he added with a smile.

  By all accounts, the maid looked to be about the same age as his friend Mrs. Keckley—in her middle forties—but as George knew, looks could be deceiving. From what he could tell from beneath her neat and simple cotton clothing, Jelly was neither too plump nor too slender. Her eyes were keen and the sclera were milky white. There were no obvious lacerations or abrasions, and she seemed to move with the appropriate agility for a woman her age. He observed no tremors in her limbs or fingers, and her breathing seemed regular and unhampered. And when he reached for her wrist to take her pulse, it was steady and solid and her skin’s temperature felt normal.

  By all appearances, she was healthy as a prime hog, as his friend Dr. Gaspar would have said—though George would never dare utter such a comparison aloud. Apparently, the Lemagnes were a family who took care of their human chattel. At least, those who worked in the house. Sometimes the ones in the fields fared differently—especially in the Deep South, where work in the cotton fields was long and difficult. He steadied himself and forced his thoughts to remain here in his office, instead of on things he could do little about.

  But what little he could do, he did.

  “I got an ache in my toe,” Jelly said. “The mid’ one.”

  George released her hand slowly and looked at her. “Your middle toe?”

  “Yessir. That’s the one.” Her gaze was steady as it met his.

  “I see.” He pursed his lips and said, “Well then, I suppose you’d best show it to me.” He glanced toward the curtain separating them from Miss Lemagne. The quiet scritch-scratch of pencil over paper indicated she was hard at work.

  “I don’ know as you can help me, young man, but mebbe you know someone who can.” Seated on the high table in front of him, Jelly was already unbuttoning one of her shoes.

  George didn’t mind being called a young man by a woman nearly old enough to be his mother instead of by the title for which he’d worked and bled and risked his life. In fact, her matronly attitude made him want to smile.

  “You got yourself a man, Mistress Jelly?” he asked as she rolled off a cotton stocking that was neatly darned, but clean and didn’t smell more than was normal. “Any children?”

  “My man’s dead. Goin’ on seven years now. About the time my son was sold to another master, down to Mobile. He was eleven.” Her words came out matter of fact—like she was talking about a bale of cotton taken to a merchant—but George saw a flash of raw emotion in her dark eyes. Then, as one would expect, the flare died away and her expression became bland, almost cheery, once more.

  “I’m sorry about your man,” he said. Her foot was bare: callused and ugly, but broad and sturdy. As he’d anticipated, no bruising or injuries there or on her ankle and what he could see of her calf and shin. “And about your son.”

  “He my only one lived past a year. Had two others died.”

  “I’m sorry for that too, Mistress Jelly,” George replied, though he spared a thought that maybe it had been for the best she hadn’t raised two more children within the bonds of slavery.

  Two more children that could be taken from her at any moment—not by Fate or Providence or God, but by those who bought and sold men.

  “I ain’t seen my son seven years now. Jeremy be eighteen.” She shifted on the table. “His name be Jeremy Pole.”

  “Do you know where he is? Where he was sold?”

  Her voice dropped to hardly above a whisper. “He run away from Alabama, I hear. Two years gone.”

  The door opened, and George didn’t have to look out from behind the curtain to know Quinn had arrived because Brian Mulcahey’s youthful voice was rattling on about his hen named Bessie.

  Praise God.

  “Quinn,” he said, his tone more urgent than he intended. “Finally.”

  “You back there, doc?”

  “Yes. With a patient. I’ll be right out.” George put a hand on one of Jelly’s smaller ones. “Do you know where your son is now?” He didn’t ask the more worrisome question: had Jeremy been caught.

  “He in New York City. Mebbe dere.” Once again, there was a flash of emotion in her eyes—raw, hopeful—and then it was gone, replaced by the blank, bland expression she knew better to wear.

  “All right, then. You can put your stocking and shoe back on, Mistress Jelly.”

  There was a rustle of movement out in the main room as Brian rattled on. “And wasn’t I just waitin’ for Bessie to lay her egg, but she was—”

  “Miss Lemagne. What the de—What on earth are you doing here?”

  That was when George Hilton realized, with a vast and instant relief, that Adam Quinn had not in fact sent a genteel Southern lady to draw images in a morgue. His minor irritation with the man eased and was replaced by a nudge of shock over Miss Lemagne’s intrusion and bald lies.

  “Why, Mr. Quinn,” replied the young woman in a studiously innocent voice. “I didn’t expect to see you here. I mean to say, not quite so soon.” She gave a gentle laugh. “What do you think of my work so far?”

  George flung aside the hanging blanket in time to see Miss Lemagne offering her sketch to Quinn, who looked over as George appeared.

  “What is this?” asked Quinn.

  George met his eyes directly—something he still had to consciously give himself permission to do—and pursed his lips. “Miss Lemagne gave me to understand that you requested she—”

  “Now, Dr. Hilton,” interrupted the lady in a sugary voice that was nonetheless lined with steel and laced with haughtiness, “perhaps y’all misunderstood. Ah’m here to draw a likeness of Johnny Thorne in order to assist Mr. Quinn in his identification of that poor young man. There’s no reason to quibble about who or why that came to be. Is there, Mr. Quinn?”

  She fluttered her eyelashes at the white man. They were surprisingly dark ones for a woman with hair the color of honey and skin that looked like blushing cream. “It’s a good likeness, don’t you agree? Of course, I’ve only just started, but I do believe I’ve captured the shape of his eyes and jaw.”

  “Miss Lema
gne, I reckoned I made it clear that it wasn’t seemly for you to, ah, to visit a place like this,” Quinn said, clearly struggling to make his point without literally dragging the woman out of this mean and vulgar place—as George would have considered doing.

  If he wasn’t a black man and she wasn’t a white woman.

  “Mr. Quinn”—that steel was back in her voice, underlying the determinedly polite tone of her upbringing—“as I recall, it was you yourself who brought me to this place the first time. It was only a short month ago, when you were attempting to blame my daddy for murderin’ someone. Ah,” she said, barreling on in a softer, more explicitly Southern tone when Quinn could do nothing but gape at her, “came to offer mah services because y’all won’t evah be able to find out who poor Johnny Thorne is without some sort of picture to show people. Why, to describe that poor young man would be like describing any other young man who might be walking down the street. Surely you want to find out who would do such a thing to him. Whatever it was. What was it anyhow? Did the poor boy get shot?”

  “Never you mind, Miss Lemagne,” Quinn replied. “I reckon you don’t need to know what exactly happened to him in order to draw his likeness.”

  Her expression changed: her eyes sparkled, her mouth curved up, and her cheeks flushed. “I’ll only need another few more moments to finish the drawing, Mr. Quinn. I can draw other copies back at the hotel.”

  Quinn blinked, then looked at George, who could do nothing but lift his brows in recognition of the other man being cajoled and connived, then maneuvered into a tacit agreement. But there was a reason he’d sent for Quinn in a hurry, and that needed to be attended to more urgently than a drawing.