by Jeanne Dams
Once they were all back in the sleigh and on their way, Hilda began to explain. “You see, I would like to talk to him. Only when the police are there and it is very safe. I believe that his aunt is also concerned in the matter, and I think he will tell me, if I ask him the right way.”
“Why not just get the police to talk to him?” said Patrick.
“Do you believe the police are skillful in getting people to talk?”
After that no one objected. They would be there, after all, with several policemen. There could be no possible danger.
They approached almost silently. Mr. Malloy had left the bells off the horses’ harness, and the hoofbeats were mere dull thuds in the snow.
The police, three of them in a small buggy, had waited for their arrival. Now they jumped out and beat on the door. It was some time before a yawning, angry woman answered it. “And what do you think you’re doing, waking up an honest woman at this hour?”
“We want to talk to Fred Hartz.”
“Well, you’d better go to California, then, hadn’t you?”
“California!” said the oldest of the policemen.
“If it’s Fred Hartz you want, that’s where you’ll find him. Decided he hated this climate and moved there, lock, stock, and barrel. Got on the train two weeks ago—what’s today?”
“Friday,” said the policeman. “The twenty-ninth.”
“Yep, two weeks ago today. The fifteenth. I know because it’s my birthday, and he never even wished me a happy one, as good as I’ve been to him these three years!”
“The fifteenth. You’re sure?”
“I just told you, didn’t I? And since he’s not here, you’ve no more business here!” The woman slammed the door in his face.
He and the other two policemen turned to look at Hilda. “The fifteenth,” said the older man. “He left town on the fifteenth. Miss Jacobs was killed on the nineteenth. That was some fine theory of yours, miss. Getting us out in the snow at the crack of dawn, and the man’s got a perfect alibi!”
Grumbling, they drove off, the buggy’s wheels floundering through the sticky snow.
“But I am right! I know I am! She would not have gone with someone she did not know. It had to have been Mrs. Schmidt— oh!” Her hand flew to her mouth. “She is large and I think strong. But the torn underclothing—that could have been to pretend it was a man—but surely another woman would not—”
Mr. Malloy and Sven looked at Hilda in total confusion, but Patrick, who understood something of the way her mind worked, said gently, “What is it you’re tryin’ to think out, darlin’?”
“I cannot believe it—it is too terrible—but it must be.” She thought furiously for another moment, and then said, “Uncle Dan, will you take me to Mrs. Schmidt’s house?”
He looked at Sven, and then said carefully, “It is not a place I would like you to go, Hilda, my dear.”
Sven looked confused. “Who is Mrs. Schmidt?”
Before either of the other men could speak, Hilda said, “It is the place where Miss Jacobs roomed. I wish to speak to her landlady.” She looked sternly at Patrick and Mr. Malloy, daring them to speak. “Only for a moment. I think she can tell me something important, and then we can go home.”
Patrick and Mr. Malloy looked at each other and then shrugged, in a motion so similar that they looked more like father and son than uncle and nephew. Sven looked dubious, but he certainly intended to accompany Hilda anywhere she went with two Irishmen.
The Schmidt house was beginning to stir when they arrived. Lamps were lit, smoke rose from the chimney. “Wait here,” said Hilda as the sleigh pulled up at the front door. “I will not be long.”
She went around to the side door and tapped gently. In a few minutes the door was opened, as Hilda had hoped, by young Eileen O’Hara.
“Miss? What’re you doin’ here so early in the mornin’?”
“May I come in, Eileen? I am cold.”
The little maid let her in. “But miss—Hilda, I mean—nobody has time to talk to you now, if you was wantin’ to ask about Miss Jacobs. They’re all workin’ girls, and they’re gettin’ ready to leave.”
“It was Mrs. Schmidt I wanted to talk to. She would be finished with her breakfast chores now, would she not?”
“Yes, miss—Hilda. She’s in her office. But nobody ever comes to call before ten.”
“I know. I will not be long. The office is next to the parlor, is it not? I will find my way. You might be scolded for wasting time.”
And indeed the cook’s voice was raised in wrath. Eileen shrugged and pointed to the door that separated the backstairs region from the rest of the house, and Hilda opened it and went through.
Several girls, pretty girls all, were trudging up the stairs to make their final preparations for a day at their regular jobs. They looked curiously at Hilda and then passed out of sight. She found the office and knocked on the open door.
Mrs. Schmidt was not pleased to see her. “So it’s you. I told you everything I knew last time you were here. And if you think this is a decent Christian time to come calling, you must have been brought up in a barn.”
“I must talk with you, Mrs. Schmidt. Let us go out on the porch.”
“Anything I have to say to you I can say right here, and it’s go away. I’m busy.”
“It is business that I want to talk about this time. I have an idea you might like to discuss. I am not rich, and—but I think you will not want others to hear or interrupt.”
Mrs. Schmidt looked her over. “So it’s that way, is it? Well, you’re skinny, but we can talk. Outside, if you’re shy about it. Just for a minute, though. It’s cold out there.”
She shrugged into a coat and opened the front door. The air was very still. The fir trees in front of the house, heavy with snow, stirred not at all.
“So you’re wanting to come to work for me, are you?” said Mrs. Schmidt, smiling unpleasantly. “Well, there are worse jobs, no matter what you might think. Our gentlemen are very generous, and I don’t take a big cut. When were you wanting to start?”
“That is not what I wanted to discuss, Mrs. Schmidt. I have another sort of business arrangement in mind.” Hilda moved closer to the front steps. “You see, I saw you that night. I know what you did to Miss Jacobs. I think you would be wise to pay me not to tell what I saw.”
She had planned to run to the sleigh, but Mrs. Schmidt was too fast for her. One powerful arm came around her throat, the other hand across her mouth. Hilda used the only weapon she possessed. Her teeth had always been excellent. It was Mrs. Schmidt who screamed first, and then both of them tumbled down the steps. It took all three of Hilda’s knights-errant to separate them.
There was a rumor this morning that a man prominent
in…social circles had confessed to knowing much
about the murder…
—South Bend Tribune
February 3, 1904
32
I KNEW IT HAD TO BE Mrs. Schmidt. There was no one else. But there was no proof, so I had to make her attack me.” “If you’d only told us!” said Patrick. It was the next day, Saturday. They sat in the Malloy parlor over a lavish tea, with Mr. and Mrs. Malloy and Sven and Colonel George and Mr. Barrett. And Erik. He had insisted on being present, and since he, in a way, had started the whole thing, his family gave in.
“If I had told you,” said Hilda, “you would not have allowed me to do it. It was better my way.”
“You could have been killed!” Sven said. It came out very much like a growl.
“Not with three strong men looking after me.”
?But?I don?t understand why she had to kill Miss Jacobs,? said Erik.
The adults looked at each other, and then at Hilda. He was her brother. Let her explain.
“She is a criminal, Erik. She stole from the girls who lived in her house.” And that was true enough, in a way. Stole their virtue, stole their reputations, stole a large portion of their money. Erik would grow up and under
stand, all too soon. “But Miss Jacobs was going to tell the authorities, so Mrs. Schmidt killed her.”
“And what about that other girl who went missing?” asked Sven. “The one from the hotel—Nellie something.”
“That was a mistake. She had gone to visit a cousin.” Also true. Hilda didn’t specify whose cousin. “She will come home tomorrow.”
“What I don’t quite understand is the Barnes angle,” put in Colonel George.
“He was spying for Mrs. Schmidt,” Hilda replied. “The police found your documents, sir, the ones he stole, in her desk. She had heard you were looking into vice in South Bend, and she wanted to learn what you knew. He broke into your safe, stole the papers, and went to give them to her, but when she found out he had been stupid enough to be seen, she thought he had become a risk to her, so she killed him, too. She is a deadly, ruthless woman and I am very glad she is in jail. I am glad, too, that you have been cleared of all suspicion, Mr. Barrett.”
The old man looked sad. “Nevertheless, child, I bear some of the guilt for what happened.”
They looked at him in disbelief.
“I saw them, you see. One of my upstairs windows overlooks that alley. I saw Mrs. Schmidt come out from a doorway and speak to Miss Jacobs, and then take her by the arm. I thought nothing of it—one woman walking with another—but I could have stopped it. I was tired. I did nothing. And then when the news of her murder came out, I said nothing. For that I blame myself most severely.”
“But you could not know!” said Hilda passionately. “Mrs. Schmidt was her landlady. It was natural for them to walk together. You could have done nothing!”
“I could have spoken. I thought my information irrelevant, and I did not feel well. I was lazy. I sent you, a girl, to do a man’s work.” He shook his head, looking tired and hopeless, and Hilda’s heart ached for him.
“And I suppose,” said Uncle Dan, “that the—er?disarrangement of her clothing, and so forth, was to make it look as though she had been attacked by a man.”
“And that is what everyone thought. Even I thought that, until we learned that the nephew was away. Then I was sure.”
“Well, you were perfectly brilliant, Hilda, dear,” said Mrs. Malloy, patting her hand, “and I’m sure everyone in town owes you a debt of gratitude. Decent women can walk the streets at night without fearing for their lives. And you’ve done a public service, too, in closing down that infamous house.”
“There are others,” said Colonel George heavily. “And gambling dens, and illegal taverns—a veritable sink of iniquity.”
Erik, fascinated with the subject, opened his mouth to ask a question. Hilda popped the last cookie into it. “We must go, Erik. You are going to help me move to Mama’s house, remember?”
“I’ll help too, darlin’.”
“And I,” said Sven. They piled amiably into the Malloy sleigh, and as Hilda listened to the harness bells (restored now that there was no need for stealth), it seemed to her that they were the music ushering in her new life.
Afterword
ON MONDAY, APRIL FOURTH, the day after Easter, Hilda and Patrick were married in a very quiet ceremony at his mother’s house by Father Faherty. They were also married in the parsonage of the Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Church by Pastor Borg, who had just come to town to take up the pulpit left vacant by Pastor Forsberg some months before. Since he did not yet know Hilda or her situation well, he was not aware of the earlier Catholic service, and no one bothered to tell him. Hilda was radiant in traditional Swedish bridal costume; Patrick wore a splendid new suit purchased at discount from Malloy’s Dry Goods.
The happy couple held a reception after the second ceremony at their new house on Colfax Avenue. A Swedish smörgåsbord shared the dining room table with corned beef, soda bread, and several cabbage dishes. Huge bouquets of flowers were everywhere, early daffodils along with masses of white hothouse roses. The knotty question of what to drink had been solved with a delicious fruit punch, and if some of the Irish men strengthened it a little from flasks, they did it discreetly.
Both families were there in force, and for the most part they managed not to step on each others’ sensibilities. Colonel and Mrs. George came, as well as Mr. Williams, looking a little pale still, but nearly his old self. Mrs. Clem sent her best wishes and an exquisite piece of old lace for Hilda.
Neither of the Barretts attended. Mr. Barrett had suffered a heart attack and passed away peacefully in mid-March. His widow, suddenly old and frail, was not expected to survive him by very long.
Erik and Birgit were given the day off school. Erik, by exercise of great self-restraint, did not fight with any of Patrick’s young siblings or cousins.
Little Eileen O’Hara, eyes shining and step light, presided over the serving.
And Freya Johansson, eyed hopefully by Gunnar Borglund, caught the bride’s bouquet.
Author’s Note
I HAVE USED as the basis of this story a real murder that took place in January 1904, not in South Bend but in the southern Indiana community of Bedford. A Miss Sarah Schaeffer (or Schafer; the name is spelled variously in different accounts), a Latin teacher at the high school, was brutally beaten and murdered while walking from her boarding house to her rooming house. I have used many of the details of that historical murder in this book, the characters and plot of which are, however, either fictional or used fictitiously. I have no reason to suppose that my solution to the fictional crime has any bearing on the real crime, which was never solved.
I plan to research that crime more thoroughly and write an account of it. If anyone reading this book has any further knowledge of the Schaeffer family of Elkhart, Indiana, or the details of the murder in Bedford, I would like to hear about it. I can be reached through my website,www.jeannedams.com.
About the author
Jeanne M. Dams, of Swedish descent and a lifelong resident of South Bend, Indiana, holds degrees from Purdue and Notre Dame universities. A former teacher, she was in her forties before she decided what she wanted to do when she grew up. Her life ever since has revolved around her love of the mystery, the Victorian and Edwardian eras, and everything and anything oldfashioned. She is married with no children (unless you count her cats). Dams has been nominated for the Macavity and has won the Agatha Award. She welcomes visitors and email at www.jeannedams.com.
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