Whispers Beyond the Veil

by Jessica Estevao

  “No. I have not. We will be sure to do so as soon as we return home at the end of the season. I expect Father had some valuable volumes.”

  “He did prize his library,” Dovie said. I searched my mind for any subtle way to introduce the topic of Mr. Ayers’s company but felt the task was beyond me at the moment. Anything that came to mind seemed too obvious. I told myself I would revisit the subject at our next sitting. I decided to move the topic to the sisters’ possible involvement with Mr. Stickney’s death.

  “Take spiritual stock. Do you have something on your conscience, something that would be best confessed to someone in authority?” I peeked at them through slightly parted eyelids. Dovie’s face flushed a deep red and Elva’s eyes flew open and she looked at her sister. Then each of them took a deep breath and seemed to come to a decision. Elva spoke up first.

  “I am certain that if either of us is keeping any secrets it is motivated by the best of intentions and that neither of us has done anything we should regret. Father would be most pleased with us both.”

  “Father always said family is more important than anything else,” Dovie said. From the determined looks on their faces I doubted there was anything they would be willing to tell me now.

  “He has left us, ladies,” I said. “I believe you should feel emboldened to go for a bathe. The weather looks fine for it this very afternoon.” I was pleased to see broad smiles pass between the two of them.

  “We can only consider going ahead with it if you consent to accompanying us as our guest,” Elva said.

  “I haven’t a bathing costume,” I said.

  “Neither have we but I understand they rent them next door at the Sea Spray bathhouse. We can all go right now.”

  “Don’t worry about any sittings you may have had scheduled this morning. We had already requested until after lunch for ourselves.”

  “But since you’ve already spoken with Father we can take the morning off.”

  • • •

  The Velmont sisters met me on the veranda, as agreed, fifteen minutes later. It was early, yet the sun beat down on us as we walked along the sand and I was grateful for the comforting shade of my parasol. The tide was at its midpoint and crowds tramped along the hard-packed sand in clusters of three and four. Small children with shovels and tin pails squatted at the water’s edge, constructing castles and sea creatures from the damp sand.

  “With this heat I am glad we are going no further than next door,” Elva said. “It is most convenient to have something so nearby.” I thought fleetingly of Mr. Jellison’s expansion plans and how the boardwalk stretching from his hotel to his bathhouse might extend to the Belden the following summer if things didn’t turn around soon for Honoria.

  As we stepped up onto the grayed wooden planks of the boardwalk I caught sight of a scrawny young man who seemed vaguely familiar walking to the bathhouse ahead of us. As we drew closer I remembered where I had seen him. It was Officer Lewis from the police station. I wondered if he were part of the effort to follow Albert Fitch.

  I increased my pace and the Velmont sisters kept up. We reached the end of the boardwalk, which terminated in a long wooden building. At the entrance sat a red-cheeked, middle-aged woman.

  “Good morning, ladies. Are you here to enjoy a dip in the sea?”

  “We are,” Dovie said. “It’s our first time giving it a try.”

  “Father has finally approved,” Elva said as she drew out a coin purse from the folds of her gown. “How much for three of us?”

  “That depends on whether you’ve brought your own bathing costumes or if you prefer to rent them?”

  “We shall need to rent them.” The attendant quoted a fee and Elva drew the coins from her heavily beaded purse.

  “This is all very convenient,” Dovie said, peering along the airy corridor.

  “Would you like a key to a locker where you can secure your valuables?” the attendant asked. Elva nodded. “If you’ll head down the hall you’ll find everything you need.”

  We stopped at a small room filled with swimming costumes, and the attendant helped us each find our size. Mine was easy enough to discover and I left the two older ladies in the attendant’s capable hands as I went to change. I found it more difficult than I would have anticipated to struggle into the unfamiliar garments. I placed my own clothing into a basket dangling from a wire attached to a pulley system running along the ceiling. As soon as the garments were loaded into the basket, as the attendant had instructed, I pressed a bell button fitted into the back wall of the booth and the wire on the pulley whisked the basket away for storage.

  As I wrestled with the stockings that accompanied the bathing costume, I heard Elva greet someone. I recognized Madame Fidelia’s heavily accented voice answer her as she let herself into the booth to the right of mine.

  Even though I had emboldened the Velmonts to attempt sea bathing I found myself delaying my exit from the booth. I felt foolish and utterly exposed. While it was true that my calves were encased in heavy stockings, the shape of them was clearly on display for all to see. I hadn’t found a bathing costume amongst my mother’s things and I wondered if she would approve of my behavior. I found myself wishing, not for the first time, mediums were real and that I could ask my mother for the sort of counsel the Velmonts believed they received.

  But I didn’t have any such comfort. I was, as always, responsible for deciding for myself how to behave. I chided myself that I was a modern woman; it was nearly the twentieth century, after all. I hauled back the curtain and bolted through before I could lose my nerve, and collided with a young woman departing the booth next to me.

  “Pardon me,” I said. “Are you injured?”

  “Not in the least,” said the woman, who looked at first glance remarkably like Amanda. As I looked her over more carefully, I realized she was a similar type. Blond, slim, and taller than me, with flawless posture. “Are you?”

  “No. But I seem to have lost my bearings. I was certain I heard an acquaintance of mine enter your booth.”

  “It’s easy to mistake sounds at the beach. Something about the breeze and the background noise of the waves distorts things. On a foggy day it is almost impossible to tell which direction sounds come from.” She lifted her hand in a farewell gesture and walked off through the exit. I waited until she left and then gently pulled back the curtain of the booth next to mine. It was empty, but I still couldn’t shake the feeling something strange had just happened.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  The tide was starting to come in, and roiling waves slapped at the back of Yancey’s knees, threatening to knock him off-balance. As unreasonable as he knew it was, Yancey blamed Albert Fitch for the sea being rough. Yancey leaned against a barnacle-encrusted outcropping of boulders that thrust up from the beach. Locals and tourists alike clambered over Googins Rock, named after a settler, Patrick Googins, who sheltered there from a hostile group of Indians with a prior claim to the beach.

  Despite the fact he was on duty Yancey felt distracted by a young woman wearing a bathing costume. She’d hurried toward him and was perched disconcertingly near on the rocks. She, too, faced the bathhouse and didn’t seem to notice as his glance kept drifting over. He forced his attention back on the bathhouse exit, watching for Lewis to appear.

  Instead, Miss Proulx, also clad in a swimming costume, moved into view, a Miss Velmont clinging to each of her arms. They moved unsteadily across the sand into the surf. To Yancey’s complete amazement all three of them hopped and jumped over the low waves like small girls. After a few moments of vigorous splashing the plumper of the sisters pointed toward Googins Rock. Miss Proulx steered them in Yancey’s direction. As they approached, the woman next to Yancey gave a gasp loud enough for him to hear over the crash of the waves. She scrambled off the rock and hurried toward Camp Ellis, the sun glinting off her bright blond hair.

 
Miss Proulx gave Yancey a smile as they reached the outcropping, but the Velmonts took no notice of him until he greeted them.

  “Ladies, you seem to be enjoying yourselves,” Yancey said.

  “We are indeed,” Dovie said. “We’ve never had such fun. Even though the water is very cold.”

  “Have we been introduced, sir?” the slimmer of the Velmonts asked. Miss Velmont had been very cooperative when he’d interviewed her after Mr. Stickney’s murder. Yancey wondered if she was getting a bit soft in the head.

  “Officer Yancey, at your service, ma’am.”

  “Oh, young man, you must think I’m losing my mind.” A charming blush colored the elder Miss Velmont’s crepey cheek. “There’s something very wrong with my head, but it’s my eyesight, not my memory.”

  “The ladies didn’t want to risk losing their spectacles in the surf so they left them in a locker in the bathhouse.” Miss Proulx tucked tendrils of dark wet hair back into her ribbon-trimmed bathing cap. “They are finding it difficult to make out much of their surroundings.”

  “We’re quite blind without them.”

  “How adventurous you were to head into the ocean without them,” Yancey said. “I doubt I would be so bold.” The Velmonts both giggled like schoolgirls and Yancey felt his own spirits rise as Miss Proulx beamed at him.

  “That’s just what I told them,” Miss Proulx said. “Are you here for a bit of swimming yourself, Officer Yancey, or is your purpose a professional one?”

  “I am here in the same official capacity as last evening.” Yancey suddenly had an idea. “You ladies left belongings in the lockers at the Sea Spray bathhouse?”

  “That’s right,” the slim one said. “Should we be worried about their security?”

  “Not at all,” Yancey said. “If anything, the locker room is a bit too well guarded for my liking.”

  “Too secure for a policeman?” Miss Proulx said.

  “It’s too safe because I’m a policeman. But you aren’t.”

  “What an idea.” The slimmer Miss Velmont flushed again.

  “I don’t see why there shouldn’t be lady police officers, do you, Miss Proulx?” the plumper one said.

  “I am quite certain the world would be far better off if women were involved in every profession.”

  “Does that mean you’re up for one more adventure this morning?” Yancey asked. “It would be a sort of temporary police assignment.”

  “I am, but I cannot speak for my friends.” Miss Proulx turned to the older women.

  “Father always encouraged us to cooperate with the authorities, didn’t he, Elva?” The plump one squinted at her sister.

  “I suppose he did admonish us to respect the police,” the elder one said. “What do you need us to do?”

  • • •

  The attendant on duty lifted the key to the Velmonts’ locker and handed it to Elva.

  “Ruby, would you be a dear and fetch our things from the locker?” Elva placed the key in my hand and then turned and let out a piercing shriek. She raised her knobby hand and pointed down the hallway.

  “What is a man doing in here?” Even with all my years reading people, if I hadn’t been in on it I wouldn’t have had the foggiest notion Elva hadn’t actually seen a man enter the ladies’ section of the changing rooms. Righteous indignation rolled off her like steam from a tugboat.

  Dovie was no less impressive with her bout of the vapors. Somewhere between Googins Rock and the bathhouse entrance she had perfected the art of the swoon. The poor attendant at the bathhouse entrance hadn’t known where to look first. And the chaos spread from one dressing booth to the next as word of a man in the bathhouse ripped shrill screams from patron after patron.

  In the midst of the turmoil I slipped behind the attendant’s desk and plucked a brass key from the hook labeled SEVENTEEN. Ducking into the room on the left I found the correct locker and turned the key. I bent down and peeked into the small wooden cupboard. I reached in and grabbed hold of a grubby cloth bag.

  I tucked it into the waistband of my bathing bloomers and returned the key to its board. Elva stood outside a booth at the center of the hallway. When she saw me she arched an eyebrow. I nodded and she spoke up.

  “My sister and I will catch our deaths standing around in these wet bathing costumes. It’s bad enough there are unauthorized persons roaming about without fearing for our health as well.”

  “I’ll send for your things right away, ma’am.”

  “Thank you. For my young friend as well, please.” Elva helped Dovie into the nearest booth and snapped the curtain shut. I felt a bit sorry for the attendant as I watched her hurry toward the clothing storage room at the back.

  I felt sorry for her, that is, until I loosened the drawstring at the top of the bag in the privacy of the changing booth. I sat on the stool in the corner of the stall and shook the contents of the bag into my lap. Locker seventeen was a place to secure valuables, all right. But I doubted anyone headed for a day at the beach would need to store two ivory cameos, four silver cigarette cases, and a half-dozen gold pocket watches. From the inscription on the inside of one of them I felt certain the murder of Mr. Stickney had been solved.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Working with the police had been more exciting and more satisfying than I would have imagined. I felt curiously elated, having been on the side of the angels for a change. In fact, I was in such high spirits Mrs. Doyle found my presence grating and shooed me out the door and down to the general store for some nutmeg and an ounce of tea.

  The day was so lovely I decided to forgo the dummy train and instead headed back to the hotel on foot. As I passed the train station someone stepped close and clamped down on my arm.

  “I think you’ve been avoiding me,” he said. “If I had to guess, I’d say you’re having second thoughts about getting the Velmont sisters to invest.” Mr. Ayers didn’t even bother with an insincere smile and his usual pretense of good manners. His shift in demeanor signaled a worrying change in his attitude and I fought the urge to twist from his grasp. Calling attention to his behavior would only make things worse.

  “It’s not as easy as you might imagine to convince the sisters to part with their money. Elva is quite savvy about such things,” I said, hoping I sounded more at ease than I felt.

  “I should think convincing them that their father wants them to invest with me should be a great deal easier than getting them to believe he would encourage them to go sea bathing. But you managed that now didn’t you?”

  “You’ve been keeping an eye on me?”

  “Both eyes and both ears.” Mr. Ayers took a step closer. “And what I’ve observed has left me convinced that you aren’t sufficiently concerned about my financial situation.”

  “It is far easier to convince people to do things they already wish to do,” I said. “I am building a rapport with the Velmonts and that takes time.”

  “I see. If you need more time I shall have to allow it.” Mr. Ayers nodded to the necklace nestled against my throat. “I will take that while I await the rest of what you owe me.”

  “The necklace isn’t mine to give. It belongs to my aunt.” I felt a rush of anger as I thought of what Honoria had said about keeping the necklace safe for me all these years. I considered that if he took it I would not have it to pass along to my own children one day as so many women in my family had done before me.

  “Then you won’t miss it. I’m sure it is worth enough to buy my silence for another few days.”

  “I couldn’t possibly give it to you.” Mr. Ayers pressed even closer and towered above me. I’d seen men give the look he was giving me right before they dragged their wives into their tents and took a belt to them. I tried to step back but Mr. Ayers intensified his grip on the underside of my upper arm. With the speed of a cat his other hand shot out and gripped my own and, despite m
y best efforts, a squeak of pain escaped my mouth. Tears sprang to my eyes and it seemed to spur him on. He increased the pressure on my right hand and I felt my ring finger wrench out of place.

  “You will give me that necklace or I will drag you into the alley behind the livery and enjoy hurting you in unmentionable ways before I remove it from you.” Mr. Ayers’s eyes were shining with excitement, like the happy children I had watched running up and down the sand with their kites. I could only nod. I was afraid if I spoke he would hear how frightened I truly was and that was no way to bargain. He released his hold on me and nodded to the necklace.

  I looked around, hoping someone would notice me and interrupt us, but despite the crush of people swirling round the station, no one did. Before I could signal to a passing stranger, he shifted his stance to shield me from view. I squinted through the crowds and even tried to spot a police officer.

  My legs threatened to give out from under me both from fear and from the pain in my hand. But no rescue appeared from any quarter, and sensing Mr. Ayers’s increasing impatience I decided to give in. I reached up to undo the clasp, but between the gloves covering my hands and the pain in my finger I couldn’t manage it.

  “You’ll have to do it,” I said, hearing the tremble in my voice as I lowered my hands. I flinched as his fingers lingered on the sides of my neck, pressing firmly before moving to the clasp. I didn’t even feel the chain snap or the weight of the pendant lift before it was gone. Mr. Ayers flashed me a terrifying smile, then turned and disappeared into the crowd.

  • • •

  There was just something so satisfying about the look on Albert Fitch’s face. After leaving the Sea Spray bathhouse Yancey had tracked him to a boarding house on Atlantic Avenue. Fitch had looked more amused than worried when Yancey cuffed him and shoved him into the back of a waiting wagon.

  Even sitting chained to a table in the police station with the bag of loot from the bathhouse in front of him he slumped back in his chair as if he had nowhere better to be. It wasn’t until Yancey mentioned murder that Fitch even seemed to be paying attention.