The Valentine Circle

by Reinaldo DelValle

  “Good God, have you gone deaf, man?” Mr. Lattimer replied.

  “No, sir. I mean, yes, sir. I mean...no, sir. Just didn’t quite hear you the first time.”

  “Would you just hurry up and take us to the Decampses? We’re already late as it is.”

  “Right, sir. Right away, sir.” Silas jumped on top of the driver’s bench and signaled for the horses to move. “On our way, sir. On our way.”

  Once the carriage cleared the front gates it rode straight down Valentine Street towards Belloc’s carriage, which was hidden in a clump of shadows near a large group of trees.

  “Who’s coming?” Posy asked.

  “I think it’s them, the Lattimers.”

  “Where’s Silas? Do you see him?”

  “Not really.”

  The Lattimer carriage reached them in no time—Silas was driving quite fast—and once it passed their own carriage, they clearly saw Silas sitting on the driver’s bench, nodding towards them as they rode on by.

  “Is that...” Posy asked in wonder.

  “Silas?”

  “How in the world did he manage that?”

  “Doesn’t matter.” Belloc yelled out to the driver, “Follow that carriage.”

  The driver heeded the inspector’s orders and quickly put himself behind the Lattimers. It only took Silas a few minutes to ride down Valentine Court, then turn right on Valentine Lane. The Decampses’ mansion was up ahead on his left, and already the street in front of the house was overcrowded. Silas had a hard time figuring out where to park, but before he could make a decision, he was waved over towards the gates by the valet. Oh, we’re VIPs.

  They entered through the gates and were led all the way up the driveway to a large area where the special guests parked their carriages. After finding a spot, Silas hit the side of the carriage, letting them know it was safe to get out. Once they did, Silas handed over the reins to one of the valets.

  He approached the mansion. Let’s see. How to get in? “Well, I can’t go inside looking like this,” he mumbled to himself. “Hmm. What should I wear to this lovely gathering?”

  Inside the Decampses’ home, the party was well on its way. It wasn’t a grand soiree, but it was lavish enough to warrant black tie and evening dress. Only the top of the Valentine Society were invited, all there to rub shoulders with the crème de la crème of the affluent neighborhood. All the various rooms were decked out with expensive silvers, crystal glasses, and exquisite hors d’oeuvres. The main dining room was still in the process of being prepared, expertly set up with a larger-than-life table seating close to fifty dinner guests. There was a small orchestra playing inside one of the parlor rooms. Loads of footmen walked around with sparkling trays, offering up various liquors and delicacies.

  Once the Lattimers were inside, Harlow took a seat in one of the parlor rooms while her parents went straight towards the Decampses to give them their thanks for the invitation. She sat there, scoping out the groups of people, twirling with her fingers, as if on the edge of a nervous breakdown. She rarely attended any of the Society’s parties since she’d become pregnant, and she wasn’t sure why her mother insisted she accompany her to this one. She’d rather be in her warm bed, feeling safe and secure, knowing that her house was being guarded by Boston’s finest. Her mother said it would do her good to get out, but it was quite clear to Miss Lattimer that she was an unwanted guest at the Decampses’ lavish party.

  A footman strode up to her. “Miss, would you like some champagne?”

  Miss Lattimer looked at him with an odd stare. Young ladies like her didn’t drink champagne—well, not out in public, at least. “No, thanks. And you shouldn’t be offering champagne to young ladies.”

  “Oh,” the handsome footman said. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

  “Is this your first time working one of our dinners?”

  “Yes it is, actually. This is certainly not like my old job.”

  “Oh, and what was that?”

  “Investigating murders. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Deputy Inspector Silas de San Michel. I’m part of a team investigating the deaths of your close friends and their babies.”

  “So why are you dressed up as a footman?”

  “Oh, this? This is just a...skill of mine.” He smiled, putting her at ease. “When you have a chance, I’d like to speak to you down the hall inside the ladies’ washroom. And just so you are aware, I’m the only one that can ever keep you safe from him, and you know who I’m talking about.”

  She shuddered.

  Silas turned around, and before he left, was approached by an old, surly fellow.

  The man put an empty glass of champagne on his tray. “You called this champagne?” the man asked, clearly insulted by the lack of quality in the sparking bubbly.

  “No.” And in his very best French accent, Silas said, “It’s...shom-paña.” He smiled and patted the man on his back. He walked away, leaving the man bewildered with his fat mouth wide open.

  Miss Lattimer just stared at the man, smiling. “The help these days.”

  “I daresay.” The surly man turned around and lost himself inside the crowd.

  Miss Lattimer sat quietly for a minute or so, making sure no one had taken notice of her conversation with Silas, and when the time was right, she stood up and discreetly made her way down the long hallway towards the ladies’ washroom. She looked behind her, making sure she wasn’t being followed, and then proceeded inside.

  Once there, she placed her small purse on the large marble vanity. The room itself was about as big as a small bedroom, with three toilets near the rear corner, all of them separated by thin, elegant partitions. The vanity had three ornate sinks, and a large mirror stared back at her. There was a thin, wooden, free-standing storage closet across from the toilets. Miss Lattimer took out her lipstick and began touching up her young lips.

  Out came Silas from the closet.

  Miss Lattimer let out a small yelp.

  “Ugh. It was seriously tight in there, and feverishly hot.” He approached her and smiled. “Sorry for the scare, Miss Lattimer.”

  “It’s Harlow. Call me Harlow.”

  “Harlow it is. And I’m Silas.”

  “Silas.”

  “Now, we don’t have much time.” He went over and locked the door. “I need to know everything you know about what’s going on with you and your friends.”

  “What specifically?”

  “I have reason to believe that you’re the next one on the killer’s list.”

  Her eyes nearly popped out of her skull.

  “I don’t mean to scare you. That’s why I’m here. I want to catch him before he can harm anyone else, but I need to know a few things.”

  “Like what?”

  “What exactly is the Valentine Circle? I found it written on a piece of tape inside Victoria’s bag.”

  Harlow gulped. “The Valentine Circle is a group that we formed between me and five other girls. We formed it to mimic our parents’ own social group. They’ve always been so proud of their precious inner circle, thinking they have the power to control other people’s lives. We formed this group in opposition to that oppressive mindset, rebelling against the notion that they could control our lives, forcing us to do their bidding.”

  “Oh, and why you six girls, specifically?”

  “Because our parents make up the Sunday Six, which are the six elites that allegedly run the Valentine Society, always meeting on Sundays to scheme with each other and plan their next parties. They’re the ones that pass on the orders, the ones that enforce the rules and norms for everyone’s behavior. We wanted to rebel against that, and our group of six was a...is a symbol of our rebellion.”

  “Why are you girls so set on crossing your parents?”

  “You don’t know what it is like to grow up like this.”

  “Like what? Full of opportunities and money?”

  “Like in a prison. What good is it to have all the money in the world
but then have no freedom as a cost? Money like we have has its pleasures, but it comes with a price. Our lives come with a price. People like us, born to these societies, always have to relinquish some type of freedom, always for the sake of standards, for the sake of social status. We have money—yes. But we can’t do anything we want with it. Every aspect of our lives, especially with us being daughters of the Society, is meticulously controlled and planned. We can’t eat what we want. We can’t drink what we want. We can’t read books or listen to the type of music that we yearn to experience. We can’t pursue our dreams. And most importantly, we can’t even...love whomever we want.”

  “Ah. Why do I have a feeling that last one is crucial to our present situation?”

  “Do you think it right for someone to tell me, a free woman in a free country, what man I can marry, even tell me what place he should be from or how he should look or how much money he should have?”

  “They still arrange marriages here? In America?”

  “Please, Inspector. They aren’t so much arranged as they are...well...how should I put it...strongly advised as the only option.”

  “I see.”

  “Not heeding the advice would get a society girl in serious trouble, locked up in her house or forced to join a convent.”

  “And this is mostly why you formed the circle? To rebel against the Society’s control of who you could love?”

  “We’ve had enough of it. All our years taking orders from this group of people, who are all entirely immoral themselves, was just too much. But the breaking point came when my good friend, Claudia, got herself in a serious mess last year.”

  “What happened?”

  “Claudia signed up to go work for her parish ministry, helping the needy and poor in the Boston neighborhoods. While she was there helping out, she fell in love with a boy who was there working as well. He came from a proper middleclass family, educated and well spoken, but in the eyes of the Society, he was akin to the trash taken out by the disease-ridden prostitutes of Belfast Avenue—it was all the same to them. They forbade her to see him, and Claudia told her parents she didn’t care about the money or the status or the affluence. All she wanted was to be with the boy she loved. She’d rather marry him, have his kids, and live in a modest home than be wed off to some highbrow, snotty daddy’s boy, all for the sake of staying rich and glamorous. That didn’t go over too well with the Decampses.”

  “What did Claudia end up doing?”

  “A couple of weeks after Claudia told her parents of her wishes to marry her love, he was found dead inside an alleyway near the harbor docks. The police did nothing to investigate the crime. That was it. Problem solved.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “That hit us hard. That’s when reality set in. That’s when we knew we were never going to leave this bubble of ours. We’d either have to succumb to our fate or break away from it. We were so scared. At that time, some of us other girls were already starting to fall for boys that didn’t meet the Society’s standards. What would’ve happened to them? Would they end up dead as well in some abandoned back alley? So, as a group, we made a choice. We rebelled against the machine that was set out to control our lives.” She gestured to her stomach.

  “By getting…pregnant?”

  “By doing the worst thing our parents feared.”

  “And that is?”

  “Getting pregnant with a commoner’s baby and tainting the family blood. We searched for the most common of commoners in Boston’s slums, and we found him, holed up in an orphanage right next to some seedy brothel. He was illiterate, irreverent, and ill-mannered, but he was handsome, oh, quite the handsome boy. And he was the sweetest thing to us. We made a pact right there and then. Together we would form a new Valentine Circle, a new Sunday Six, and we would strive to not control the lives of others and our children, but to seek out and help them, to do good with our money.”

  There was a knock at the washroom door.

  And with a lovely feminine voice, Silas said, “Once second, please.” Now, that was interesting. He noticed Harlow’s confused face. “Don’t ask. It just comes to me.”

  She lowered her eyes, smiled, and paused for a second. “It wasn’t hard to convince the boy to do what he had to do. He rather welcomed it. When the time was right, we all took turns on different nights, and it just happened, all six of us, just like that. We figured once our parents found out we were pregnant, they would disown us and throw us out. It was a better outcome than any of us could’ve ever hoped for. But unfortunately, that’s not how it turned out. We underestimated the Society’s desire to keep us in line and its constant obsession over its own reputation.”

  A key began to turn inside the doorknob.

  “Oh, that’s not good.” Silas quickly jetted inside the storage closet.

  Soon, the door to the washroom opened, and Mrs. Lattimer suddenly found herself face to face with her daughter.

  “Dear girl, why have you locked yourself up in here?”

  “I...don’t feel so well,” she said, holding her stomach.

  “Oh. Are you all right?”

  “I think I’m better now.”

  “Oh, dear, you didn’t make a mess of things in here, did you?” Her mother was just making sure her daughter didn’t disgrace the family name by throwing up all over the vanity.

  “No, mother. I’d never do that.”

  “Just making sure, child.”

  They both started making their way out of the washroom, when Harlow suddenly doubled back. “One moment, Mother. I forgot I dropped an earring on the floor.”

  “Hurry up.”

  Harlow ran up to the floor near the storage closet and bent down, as if looking for her earring. “If you want to know the truth about everything, you must start at the top,” she whispered to Silas.

  “You mean Mr. Decamps?”

  “No. He sure acts like he’s in charge, but he’s not. Yet I’ve certainly learned that when Miss de Morangias talks, everyone listens.”

  “That name doesn’t sound familiar. She’s not a member of the Society, is she?”

  “To create the Society, one must be outside the Society. It’s how it is with everything.”

  Smart kid.

  “Well, goodbye, Officer de San Michel.”

  “Do me a favor, Miss Lattimer. Place yourself next to your mother’s side at all times, at least for the time being. You may not like it, but trust me, you’ll be safe with her. Don’t leave her side. And be wary of your father.”

  Her eyes lowered as various thoughts entered her head. After a few seconds, she stood up and walked away. “Found it,” she said as she scurried back to her mother.

  “Were you talking to yourself again?” her mother said as her words trailed away.

  The door shut behind them. Silas breathed a sigh of relief. But right when he was about to open the door, someone abruptly burst into the washroom. He kept still as he heard an old woman jet towards one of the toilets across from him.

  What’s she doing?

  There were some weird noises.

  Oh no.

  In the meantime, while Silas sat in the ladies’ washroom, doing his best to control his urge to vomit, Belloc and the others patiently waited outside. Some of the party guests—those who were not invited to the actual dinner—were retreating back to their homes, and the carriages surrounding them were beginning to move and wake from their slumber.

  “This is getting dangerous,” Posy said. “What if someone sees us?”

  “They won’t see us. They don’t even know who we are.”

  “What’s taking Silas so long?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You think he was caught? Serves him right for being so careless.”

  “Silas can be a lot of things, but careless is not one of them.”

  The two of them sat on the edge of their seats, their limbs tingling with excitement, patiently waiting for Silas to return.

  A knock at
the window! Belloc and Posy jumped up from their seats.

  “Good heavens, man, you nearly gave us a heart attack!” Belloc said, adjusting his necktie.

  “Right.” Silas jumped back into the carriage. “Sorry about that, good sir.”

  Belloc saw that Silas was sweating. “Are you okay?”

  “I am now. Do you mind if we let the window down while we ride? I have an urgent need for fresh air.”

  “You’re a funny one,” Posy remarked.

  “Yes, funny is the least of what I would call it. Regardless, we need to leave as soon as we can. The Lattimer girl will be safe with her mother. I told her to stay by her side for now. I think the mother suspects the father of something, and that’s why she insisted they bring her to the party, much to the chagrin of the father; I overheard them having a delightful conversation near one of the entrances to the main parlor. Mr. Factory won’t have the chance to ambush Miss Lattimer anytime soon. He’ll look to the other two to finish his...circle. Hopefully that’ll give us some time to...”

  “To what?” Posy asked.

  “It’ll give us time to visit the mastermind of this whole thing.”

  “Mastermind?” Belloc said.

  “Yes, a Countess de Morangias.”

  Belloc squirmed in his seat.

  “Who’s that?” Posy said. “And what does she have to do with all of this?”

  “She’s a widower countess with no children, recently arriving from the old land,” Silas replied. “There were a few groups inside who repeatedly kept mentioning her name. Miss Lattimer pointed towards her as the genesis of the Valentine Society, but she doesn’t live anywhere near here.”

  “Where does she reside?” Posy asked.

  “I don’t really know.”

  “In a place that’s not far from here yet isn’t close either,” Belloc said. “Her grand estate is located somewhere in the countryside near the coast, all the way in Hingham Town. I remember visiting the countess only once, and once was enough. There was something quite eerie about her place. It always bothered me.”