by Alan Finn
“Where are we going?” I asked Lucy as I brushed the droplets from my shoulder.
“The Dutton residence, of course.”
“You still plan on visiting them?” My heart beat wildly, unwilling to calm down after our close shave with Barclay. “We were almost found out back there.”
Lucy dismissed my concern with a flick of her hand. “Since Inspector Barclay is speaking to Mrs. Mueller at this very moment, then he can’t possibly be at the Dutton residence. Which makes it absolutely the most logical place for us to go.”
While I didn’t agree with her reasoning, I had no say in the matter, not with the carriage flying through the streets. The only way out of the situation was to fling open the door and leap, which meant risking injury or, even worse, death. So my only rational option was to remain where I was and try to stay upright as the coach bucked and jostled.
During the trip, I sorted through the information gleaned during our conversation with Mrs. Mueller. The visit, truncated as it was, had only served to raise more questions. For instance, why was the tea the maid served so wretched, considering that Mrs. Mueller’s husband had presumably made a fortune importing tea, among other things? Then there was the house itself. Judging from how quiet and empty it felt, I assumed the only people present were the maid and Mrs. Mueller. A dwelling that large necessitated a household that numbered more than a single maid. Even I had Lionel and Mrs. Patterson, and my home was half the size. Then again, considering the way our footsteps echoed through the foyer, it wouldn’t have surprised me to learn that the second level of the house was closed up—possibly for the winter, possibly forever. How else to explain the bedroom I had ducked into while escaping Barclay? Clearly it belonged to Mrs. Mueller, for her husband’s photograph occupied the nightstand.
Unrelated to all of that was the question of just why—and what—Mrs. Mueller suspected Lenora Grimes Pastor of stealing. And where did Eldridge Dutton fit into all of this? There had to be some reason she thought Mr. Dutton was the man behind the alleged thefts. What that reason was, however, I couldn’t begin to guess. Especially not with the coach careening through the streets.
Lucy Collins, for her part, swayed back and forth, riding every tilt as elegantly as one could. Obviously, she was more accustomed to her brother’s breakneck driving. She even managed to pull a small tin of face powder from her purse, applying it to her cheeks in soft, unhurried dabs.
“I’m shocked you’re able to do that,” I commented. “I would have spilled that entire tin by now.”
“Then it’s lucky for you that you don’t need face powder,” Lucy said. “I, however, do. A woman must look her best at all times. Your sex demands it of us.”
I shook my head at this remark. “You underestimate my sex. The gap between what men want and what women think we want is staggering.”
“Based on my experience, men want only one thing,” Lucy said, lowering the powder tin to look at me. “Are you saying I’ve been wrong all this time?”
Her green eyes were agleam with mischief. Looking at them, coupled with the topic at hand, made me shift uncomfortably in my already rocking seat.
“N-no,” I sputtered. “Men indeed want that.”
“See?” Lucy said, resuming the powdering of her face. “I knew it.”
“But we want more than that,” I quickly added. “At least, some of us do.”
“I’d say a very few.”
“Gentlemen do,” I said. “We long for engaging conversation, companionship, and comfort. To provide that, it’s not necessary to smear your face with all those powders and colors.”
“Does your dear Miss Willoughby powder her face and color her lips?”
“Sometimes. But Violet doesn’t need to resort to such tricks to look beautiful. Neither do you, for that matter.”
Lucy again lowered the powder tin to exclaim, “Why, Edward Clark, I do believe you just paid me a compliment!”
“I-I was—” I put a hand to my face, feeling a blossoming warmth on my cheeks. I was starting to blush. “I was merely stating a fact.”
“No,” Lucy said. “You’re saying you find me attractive.”
“For goodness’s sake, I was just trying to be nice.”
“There’s nothing wrong with finding me attractive, Edward. Many men do.”
“And you use that knowledge to manipulate them,” I replied, regretting I had said anything at all.
“There are many weapons in my arsenal,” Lucy said. “Beauty is one of them. And now that I know you find me beautiful—”
“I never said that!” I interjected.
“—I’ll reserve that knowledge for later use.”
I pressed a hand to my cheeks again. They were hotter than ever, although now it was more from frustration than embarrassment. I sorely wanted to change the subject from Lucy’s beauty—which was undeniable—to something else.
Luckily for me, I didn’t have to. For at that very moment, the carriage skidded to a stop. Lucy slipped the powder tin back into her purse, looked out the window and announced, “It appears we have arrived.”
VI
If Mrs. Dutton and Mrs. Mueller had one thing in common, it was that both liked their parlors depressing. While not as funeral ready as the one in the Mueller home, the room in which Leslie Dutton greeted us was just as lifeless and dark. Curtains of heavy velvet covered the windows and a single lamp cast only the faintest glow on dark green walls. Adding to the gloom of the parlor were the hundreds of newspapers that covered almost every square inch of the room. Editions of the Bulletin, the Public Ledger, the Inquirer, and a half dozen others were either stacked on tables and chairs or strewn across the floor. They even covered the sofa-bound Mrs. Dutton herself, draping her lap like a wool blanket.
The single bit of gaiety and color in the room came from a pair of goldfinches flitting about in a gilded cage. They heralded our entrance with a series of jolly chirps that served as a bright counterpoint to their surroundings of darkness and newsprint.
“Those birds,” Lucy whispered, “must shit like the dickens.”
I could only nod in agreement, for indeed there were enough newspapers in that parlor to line the bottoms of a thousand cages.
Mrs. Dutton didn’t apologize for the state of the room, nor did she appear ashamed by it. Rather, she simply sat up when we entered and brushed a few stray pages of newsprint from her crimson dress.
“Why, this is a pleasant surprise,” she said. “A much-needed one, considering the horrible news about Mrs. Pastor’s murder.”
Unlike with Mrs. Mueller, I never wondered if Leslie Dutton knew about the poisoning. Headlines about it literally surrounded her. Despite the sea of newspapers in which she swam, her appearance was more than presentable. A handsome woman to begin with, her hair was pulled into an elegant upbraid, and her clothing was absurdly formal for an afternoon at home. With her blond hair and ivory skin, she was what I imagined my dear Violet would look like in ten years.
“I see you’ve been doing some reading about it,” I said.
Mrs. Dutton eyed the newspapers at her feet. “While I have read every horrid word, I confess that my main goal has been to keep others from doing the same. I ordered my servants to buy up as many copies as they could. The fewer people who see such filth, the better.”
While I knew her actions were futile, I understood her thinking. I was, after all, the man who had tossed my own morning papers into the fire.
“It’s horrible to be associated with it,” I admitted. “And I’m speaking as a newspaperman.”
“Forgive me,” Mrs. Dutton said, “but what are your names again? So much happened the other night that the simplest facts elude me.”
“I’m Mrs. Collins and this is Mr. Clark,” Lucy said.
“Clark.” Leslie Dutton rolled the name around in her mouth like a taste she recalled but couldn’t quite place. “You wrote that piece in the Bulletin, did you not?”
“Yes,” I admitted.
&nbs
p; “I’ve been meaning to call on you.” Mrs. Dutton sorted through the pages surrounding her, stopping only when she found the previous edition of the Bulletin. She held up the front page so that I might see the article I had authored. “I wanted to thank you for your discretion. There were things said during the séance that I don’t wish to become public. You exercised restraint, unlike those other spineless vipers who call themselves men of the press. Implying that my husband or I could be capable of murder. They should be hanged for such a thing.”
“We’re all passengers in that same boat,” I said. “Adrift until Mrs. Pastor’s killer is exposed.”
“But that’s the thing,” Mrs. Dutton said. “I’m not entirely convinced Mrs. Pastor was killed to begin with. I can’t imagine anyone being so brazen as to poison the woman while we were all there to witness it. As well, I can’t think of anyone in that room who would have reason to do so. Mrs. Pastor was a gentle, kindhearted woman.”
“Were the two of you close?” Lucy asked, echoing a similar question we had asked Mrs. Mueller. Already, we were falling into the same rhythm we had acquired there.
“Close, no,” Mrs. Dutton replied. “But we were friendly.”
It was my turn to ask the next question. “So you had no issues with her? No reason to suspect she was a fraud of some sort?”
“Heavens, no.”
“What about your husband?” Lucy asked.
Leslie Dutton blinked before answering. It wasn’t for very long, nor was it very noticeable, but it was enough for me to realize she was delaying her answer lest she give something away.
“Mr. Dutton admired Mrs. Pastor as much as I did.”
“He seemed very disturbed by her death,” I said. “It must have been a shock to you both.”
The goldfinches, sensing another presence approaching the room, started to chirp again. Behind me, the parlor door swung open and a young woman of about eighteen swanned into the room. She slid toward Lucy and me, the skirt of her white dress brushing the floor. A silk ribbon held her flame red hair in place. A darker shade of red circled her mouth. Lip paint, from the looks of it. One of the very things I told Lucy that women could do without.
“Oh, I didn’t know we had guests,” the girl said, her mock surprise indicating the exact opposite.
“Yes,” Leslie Dutton said. “Mr. Clark and Mrs. Collins. This is Bettina, my daughter.”
“Stepdaughter,” the girl corrected.
Standing in front of us, she assessed first Lucy, then myself. Lucy, it must be said, barely received a second glance. Instead, young Bettina focused all of her attention on me.
“My mother died three years ago. Fortunately, I had a new mother not long after.” She called over her shoulder, “Isn’t that right, Mother? How long was it?”
Mrs. Dutton cleared her throat. “Six months, I believe.”
“It was four,” Bettina said, placing a hand on my arm. “How lucky for me. Wouldn’t you agree, Mr. Clark?”
I took a step backward, repelled not only by the girl’s brazen attitude, but by the cruel gleam in her eyes. It was similar to a look I had seen from Lucy Collins, only with more anger.
“Family is important,” I replied. “You should consider yourself very fortunate.”
The anger in Bettina’s eyes darkened. She was upset, I saw. Disappointed that I refused to play along. Finally, she turned away from me and took in the entire parlor.
“Really, Mother. All of these newspapers. What will our guests think?” She looked to me, making another attempt at engagement. “Mother is very concerned about appearances. What is it you always say, dear? Reputation is everything?”
Mrs. Dutton, too, surveyed the newspapers piled about the room. Only her expression more resembled shame than her stepdaughter’s cruel amusement.
“Something of the sort, yes.”
“You can imagine Mother’s surprise,” Bettina said, picking up the nearest newspaper, “when she saw this.”
She turned the front page toward me, revealing a copy of the Inquirer and its enormous headline declaring that Mrs. Pastor had been murdered.
“We’re mixed up in that as well,” I said. “It’s nothing to make light of.”
Bettina’s eyes widened. Wickedly, I might add. “So, it’s possible I could be sharing a room with a murderer. Perhaps I should summon the police.”
“Really, Bettina.” Mrs. Dutton stood, a newspaper slipping from her lap onto the floor. “Please, leave us in peace.”
“Fine,” Bettina said, shrugging. “I only came in to ask if you knew when Daddy would be home.”
“His usual time, I should think,” Mrs. Dutton replied.
Her stepdaughter gave an exaggerated curtsy before sweeping out of the room, conspicuously grabbing a few newspapers as she did so. Once she was gone, Mrs. Dutton dropped onto the sofa again, a hand pressed to her forehead.
“You must forgive Bettina. She only acts this way around strangers. I suppose it’s her form of punishment.”
I furrowed my brow. “Punishment?”
“Of me,” Leslie Dutton said. “For marrying her father and replacing her mother. The odd thing is, we got along so well when her mother was alive.”
Lucy, as intrigued as I was, removed a stack of newspapers from the nearest chair and sat down. “So you knew the first Mrs. Dutton?”
“Oh, yes,” said the second. “I was a nurse, you see. I worked in a hospital during the war. Because of the commendations I had received, I was offered a position here. Eldridge’s first wife was very ill, and I became her personal nurse. She was a very nice woman, and it was a shame when she passed.”
“How long were you employed here?” I asked.
“About six months or so. Mr. Dutton asked me to stay on after his wife’s death, becoming a sort of nanny for Bettina. He and I became . . . very close during his time of grief. Soon after that, we were married. Eldridge is a wonderful man.”
“Where is Mr. Dutton now, by the way?” Lucy said. “We were hoping to see how he was faring as well.”
“At his law office,” Mrs. Dutton replied. “I begged him not to go in today, but he said not going out in public would only make us look more suspicious. I suppose he’s right, but I just don’t have that kind of strength. Eldridge, though, is a workhorse. He even spends his Saturday mornings at the firm.”
Hearing this, Lucy and I exchanged a brief, pointed look. It was clear Leslie Dutton had no idea where her husband had really been going on Saturdays. I wondered if she suspected even just a little bit that those mornings had, until recently, been spent at private séances with Lenora Grimes Pastor.
“So your sister was wrong about your husband?” I said.
Mrs. Dutton tilted her head. “Pardon?”
“During the séance, you spoke with your sister.”
“Yes. Henrietta.”
“Do you really believe it was her?” Lucy asked. “And not some trickery on the part of Mrs. Pastor?”
“It was Henrietta, believe me. She spoke of things only she could possibly know. Things I’ve never shared with anyone else.”
“Getting back to my original question,” I said, “she mentioned during the séance on Saturday not to trust your husband. Clearly, she was saying that in jest, because Mr. Dutton sounds like a most trustworthy gentleman.”
If Mrs. Dutton was offended by our interrogation, she didn’t show it. She even mustered up a smile as she said, “Dear Henrietta was melodramatic in life, so it’s no surprise she’s that way in death. She always fancied herself as a bit of an actress.”
“Do you know what she could have been referring to?” I asked.
“I haven’t the faintest idea.”
Lucy and I tried to sound as casual as possible while posing more questions to Mrs. Dutton, who willingly answered them. Did she speak to her sister often during séances at Mrs. Pastor’s house? (Yes.) How often did they go to the séances? (Once a week, usually.) Did they come into contact with any other spirit they kne
w? (“No,” Mrs. Dutton quickly replied. “Only with my sister.”)
Eventually, I asked, “Before Saturday night’s séance, when was the last time you visited the Pastor residence?”
“The Saturday before.”
Mrs. Dutton, as with all of her answers, said this without hesitation. Unlike the others, though, this response was a lie. I knew from Stokely that she had called upon Robert Pastor the day before his wife died.
“Very interesting,” I said. “And your husband? When was his last visit?”
“Also the Saturday before.”
“Are you certain?” Lucy asked.
The goldfinches, silent for so long, sang out again as they fluffed and fluttered in their gilded prison.
Footsteps sounded outside the parlor, both human and canine. A few sharp barks accompanied the growing symphony of boots and claws on the wooden floor. Eventually, a man’s voice joined the fray. “Leslie? Bettina? Where in tarnation is everyone?”
“There’s Mr. Dutton now,” his wife announced. “You can ask him yourselves.”
VII
Eldridge Dutton was a large man, in both height and stomach, with a full beard and an aura of self-satisfaction. He reminded me of Thornton Willoughby in that regard, making me notice just how much older he was than his wife. He probably had at least twenty years on Leslie Dutton.
Entering the parlor, he, too, seemed overwhelmed by the number of newspapers there. Stepping around first one stack and then another, he reached the sofa and gave his wife a dutiful kiss on the cheek. Surrounding him were three terriers, who wove between his ankles and fought for attention by throwing themselves against his knees. The birds, either threatened or happy to see the dogs, darted around the cage in streaks of yellow.
“More newspapers, I see,” Mr. Dutton remarked.
He pushed the dogs away. Rebuffed, they sniffed my way before moving on to Lucy then out of the parlor entirely.
“I can’t abide this much longer, my dear. You need to stop trying to buy every damned newspaper in the city. That’s like trying to sop up every drop in the ocean.” Mr. Dutton turned to Lucy and me, chest puffed forward. “Don’t you agree?”
