Whispers of Warning

by Jessica Estevao

  “Would you think him capable of spreading lies about you to his wife?”

  “What sort of lies?”

  “Mrs. Cheswick is laboring under the firm belief that you have asked your brother for substantial gifts of money during the entirety of their marriage,” Yancey said. He held up a hand as George began to sputter. “And what’s more, she reported to Miss Proulx that you have not even done her the courtesy of thanking her for them.” George’s shoulders sagged and all the wind seemed to have gone completely from his sails.

  “I am outraged to hear such tales have been carried outside the family. He must have been running this game often enough to have her start to resent me. I thought there was an unusual level of coldness in her manner when they arrived in Old Orchard.” George dipped his hand back into his pocket and retrieved the flask once more. Again Yancey refused George’s offer of a nip. “Osmond has had money troubles for years. It is not much of a secret that Phyllis’s main appeal was her wealth.” Yancey nodded encouragement.

  “You don’t seem surprised to hear what Osmond was saying about you.”

  “I wish I were. Throughout their marriage Phyllis has given him a small allowance. He needs to come to her for any other money he wishes to spend. She is not an ungenerous woman but she could not be expected to finance the sorts of payouts he finds himself obligated to make.”

  “What sort of payouts are you speaking of, sir?” Yancey felt a ripple of curiosity running through his body as he always did when he was ferreting out pieces of a puzzle.

  “Gambling, spirits.” George lifted his flask. “Other women.”

  “Any other women in particular?”

  “Osmond never was very particular about the ladies so long as they were discreet and willing.” George lowered his eyes as though embarrassed to even say such a thing aloud. “But there was one lady he pursued more enthusiastically than most others.”

  “Anyone I might know?” Yancey asked. George stared down at his lap as though the answers might be in it. Yancey felt sorry for him but he couldn’t just let it drop. After all, Lucy and his mother were still finding it hard to leave the house. “There are other rumors floating around, you know. One that you might not be eager for Honoria to hear.” George lifted his gaze to meet Yancey’s and appeared to make a decision.

  “Osmond was utterly infatuated with Sophronia. He was usually far more careful and discreet but at the Hay Feverists convention he just seemed to go head over heels in his pursuit of her.”

  “I heard about the gifts and the flowers but I understood responsibility for those was laid at your door,” Yancey said. George exhaled slowly and the stubby burnt edges of his mustache fluttered pathetically.

  “Osmond placed the orders and charged the bills to my name. He would tease me every so often and tell me I had no idea what a Romeo I truly was.”

  “So when Miss Foster Eldridge objected to the excess attention you were the one blamed.”

  “He didn’t even have the decency to tell me ahead of time that he had been wooing this woman and it might come down on my head. I have never been so humiliated as I was when the president of the Hay Feverists Society asked me to desist in my attentions to her.”

  “Do you think it possible that Osmond could have had something to do with Miss Foster Eldridge’s death?” Yancey kept his eyes firmly on George’s face.

  “Osmond and I have had our share of disagreements over the years but I would hardly like to think him capable of such a thing.”

  “Do you have any idea why he might have needed five thousand dollars?” Yancey watched his words register in George’s mind. It was a terrific sum to consider.

  “You don’t mean to say that is the amount he told Phyllis I required this time?”

  “I’m sorry to say that it is. What’s more, she isn’t being quiet about it. By the end of the week I would expect everyone in your acquaintance to have heard about your profligate ways.” Yancey regretted pressing his mother’s friend so hard but he reminded himself it wasn’t his job to be popular. “I don’t believe I would feel obligated to keep my brother’s secrets if he had so cavalierly disgraced me.”

  “Alcohol.” George held up his flask once more. “He hinted to me that he was not going to have to keep relying on Phyllis for money much longer. He was planning to buy a portion of an illegal operation. He said it required a large sum of cash to buy in but I never imagined it would be so great an amount.”

  “He couldn’t just ask Phyllis for the money?” Yancey said. In his experience the wealthy were often easier to convince to stray from the straight and narrow than the middle class. After all, most people who had amassed an outrageous fortune did so illegally.

  “She wouldn’t marry him until he took a temperance pledge. If he had wanted to invest in shady real estate she likely would have given him her blessing. Besides, Osmond wanted money of his own that Phyllis knew nothing about. If he asked for a loan for himself the whole point would be moot.”

  “Not the sort of marriage one envies, is it?” Yancey asked. “I don’t suppose you know if the illegal alcohol operation is set up here in town?” This was exactly the sort of thing that some folks had warned would accompany the addition of the pier.

  “He’s been very circumspect with the details, so I know very little. From what he has said, Robert Jellison is involved. The two of them were close when we were growing up and they have been almost inseparable during Osmond’s visit.” George cleared his throat. “I believe it is an ill-kept secret that plenty of spirits are to be had in a back room at the Sea Spray if you know to ask and are willing to pay. I believe Osmond is becoming involved in growing that part of Jellison’s hospitality business.”

  “I’m well aware of the activities at the Sea Spray. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if Jellison has gotten tired of shelling out to a middleman and has decided to get involved in the manufacturing end of the business as well as the distribution side. He would stand to make a lot more money if he did.”

  “It would have to be very profitable. Osmond would have absolute hell to pay with Phyllis if she found out,” George said. Yancey thought he detected a note of amusement in George’s voice.

  “You know, if you set the record straight with your sister-in-law and deprived Osmond of his access to her money it would be doing the town a real service,” Yancey said. “Old Orchard has positioned itself to be the Coney Island of New England, not a modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah.” Yancey stood to take his leave. From the contemplative look on George’s face he felt quite sure Osmond would have a tough time of things with his wife before long.

  Chapter Forty-four

  Mr. Lydale agreed to meet me at his photography studio the next day around noon. I had worried he might have been trying to put me off, possibly with the idea of running off in the night. From experience I knew how many miles it was possible to travel in the dark if a person were desperate enough. I entered the shop at the appointed time and was pleased to see he was a man of his word. He looked resigned to taking me into his confidence and without delay launched into his story.

  “Many years ago I knew both Sophronia and Nelson Plaisted. This was before he had been elected to congress and was a man of commerce instead.” I nodded that he should continue.

  “I worked for Sophronia and her friend Caroline, whom you might know as Mrs. Plaisted, as the sole additional member of staff on their temperance newspaper. My parents had both died in a diphtheria outbreak the year before and I was very grateful to find employment. For reasons that have no bearing on the disagreement you witnessed between myself and Nelson, I found myself suddenly out of a job and it could be reasonably argued the fault rested with him. This, unfortunately, occurred in the depths of the Long Depression and my financial situation became dire.” My heart went out to him. I knew only too well the sleeplessness and despair born of ongoing monetary hardship.

 
“I understand that people make desperate choices in such circumstances. I can only assume you found yourself presented with unappealing choices.” He looked at me with something akin to gratitude and proceeded with his story.

  “Even as a lad of seventeen, I was an experienced photographer. Nelson knew of my skills and that I had been forced to sell my equipment in order to feed myself. I had no family to turn to. At my lowest point he approached me with an unsavory proposition.” Mr. Lydale fixed his glance on a point somewhere over my shoulder. I wondered if, after he finished his story, he would ever look me in the eyes again.

  “The long and the short of it was that Nelson offered to provide me with the necessary equipment as well as a generous compensation to take what he euphemistically described as ‘art photographs.’” Mr. Lydale cleared his throat and struggled to continue. I could not in good conscience leave him drowning in his shame.

  “I have not been as sheltered as you might imagine. I have a sufficient understanding of the sort of photographs of which you speak. There is no need to go into detail,” I said. Mr. Lydale’s expression turned to one of surprise then profound relief. “Please go on.”

  “Nelson had somehow procured a wide variety of models and for the most part they seemed like happy-enough girls who saw the whole experience as a better way to earn good money than the alternatives.” He paused for me to nod my understanding, “Or they were the sort of young women who enjoyed engaging in shocking behavior for reasons I didn’t quite understand. Either way, there was no shortage of photographs to be taken.”

  “This seems like the sort of thing a man with political aspirations would prefer to keep quiet about.”

  “Exactly. Nelson wasn’t at risk of exposure since the young women were hired through discreet advertisements and paid in cash at the conclusion of the sessions. The way it was set up, I was the only one they actually met. Everything went along without difficulties until, instead of adhering to the system he had set up, Nelson brought a model to me himself. She was a particularly handsome brunette with a peculiar white streak of hair on the left side of her head.” Mr. Lydale cleared his throat. “He wished to have a photograph of the two of them together.” It would have taken someone far more naive than I to fail to understand Mr. Lydale’s meaning. The medicine shows I had worked often included tents of ill repute and dancing acts where the costumes were designed more to reveal than to conceal. Still, I would confess to being surprised to think such things were as easily found amongst the higher classes of society.

  “A photograph that would not have done him any favors with his wife, I assume?” I asked. Mr. Lydale nodded.

  “I told him I thought he had behaved rashly but he ignored me. In the end I expect he wished he had not.”

  “Did Mrs. Plaisted discover what her husband had been up to?”

  “Not to my knowledge, although she may’ve done,” Mr. Lydale said. “No, the trouble occurred when the young woman continued to show interest in Nelson after he no longer had any in her. One evening a few weeks later she was waiting for me outside the building where I had taken the photograph. She said Nelson had refused to see her and that she wanted me to pass a message to him.

  “Did you do so?” I asked.

  “I was hesitant but she said if I did not tell him she wished to see him she would take her request to Mrs. Plaisted. I got in touch with him that very night.”

  “I can only assume he was not pleased with what you had to tell him.”

  “In fact he thanked me for alerting him to the problem and said he would take care of it. The next day the papers reported that a young woman had drowned in a nearby pond. She was dressed in a man’s coat, its pockets filled with rocks.” Mr. Lydale managed to look me in the eye once more. My heartbeat accelerated and I wished Officer Yancey were here to hear the story for himself. “The article went on to say that the young woman’s identity was unknown but listed her as having a distinctive white streak in her hair.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I should have gone to the police but I didn’t. I cannot excuse my behavior but I will say that I was still very young.” Mr. Lydale drew a deep breath. “Nelson came to see me later that same day. He asked if I had seen the papers. When I told him I had, he said if he were in my position he would be worried.”

  “Did he give a reason?”

  “He said the police would be looking for the last person to be seen with the dead woman. He said it would be an easy enough thing to discover my history of taking unsavory photographs and that the police would be unlikely to believe I had nothing to do with what happened to her.”

  “You must have been very frightened.” I thought of my own experience of being threatened with police scrutiny. I did not imagine it had been less harrowing for a young man in Mr. Lydale’s position.

  “I was, but Nelson offered to pay for me to leave town. In fact, he was the one who suggested I go overseas and see a bit of the world while I waited for the whole matter to be forgotten.”

  “Did you not find that suspicious?”

  “Of course I did but what were my alternatives? I was without a job, influence, or even family. I accepted his offer as the best choice in a bad situation,” he said. “But not before I provided myself with a bit of insurance.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I will preface by saying, while I am ashamed to admit it, I secretly made more than one copy of some of the photographs I was commissioned to take. Including the one of Nelson and the dead woman. Because I was unsure if Nelson was trying to help me or trying to blame me for the woman’s death, I decided to give the copy of the photograph of the pair of them to one of the few people I trusted, for safekeeping.”

  “Whom did you leave it with?”

  “Sophronia,” he said. I gasped. No wonder the congressman had behaved so violently toward Sophronia. He must have been terrified of exposure. Even if he were not connected to the dead woman so many years earlier he certainly had reason to kill Sophronia. Not to mention how a photograph like the one Mr. Lydale described would influence voters. It would be hard to take him seriously as a family man who felt women deserved special protection if his involvement with such things came to the public’s attention. It could be assumed that his wife would not be pleased, either.

  “Did the congressman know you made copies of your own?”

  “I never said that I did and he always took the glass negatives along with the prints I made for him. But he likely suspected that I did. After all, even if I had not wanted them for myself, the photographs were valuable at a time when I had very few resources.”

  “What did Sophronia do?”

  “She said she would keep the photograph along with the newspaper clipping about the dead woman I also entrusted to her safekeeping. She said that it was one more example of how women would be best protected by gaining the vote.”

  “Did you collect the photograph from her when you returned to America?”

  “I wanted to forget the entire ugly incident. I had not encountered either Sophronia or Nelson again since I returned and had no desire to do so if I could help it.”

  “Then you must not have been pleased when you discovered they were both in Old Orchard for the pier opening.”

  “I was happy to see Sophronia still championing her cause but, you are right, I was not eager to meet her. As for the congressman, I confess to actively avoiding him,” Mr. Lydale said. “When you saw him speaking to me on the pier he asked me if I had ever spoken to Sophronia about the photographs. And he also wanted to know if I had said anything to his wife.”

  “Do you think he killed the model all those years ago?”

  “I don’t know but it can’t be a coincidence that Sophronia died in almost exactly the same manner.” Mr. Lydale braced himself against the counter. “Are you going to tell Yancey about the photographs?”

  “I d
on’t see how I can tell him why he should consider arresting Congressman Plaisted without giving him the whole story,” I said. “Are you worried he will think less of you?”

  “There’s that, certainly. But I had also had the welcome impression that he would support my interest in his sister. That seems unlikely to continue if the truth of this becomes known to him.”

  I could understand Mr. Lydale’s concern and could empathize with it. After all, didn’t I have secrets of my own I would rather no one in my life in Old Orchard should discover?

  “I cannot promise what will come of any of this. Officer Yancey will have to know about the photographs one way or another.”

  “Of course you must do what is right. I should expect nothing else from you.” Mr. Lydale nodded slowly. It was not only his happiness that might be in jeopardy. Lucy had every right to a romance as well.

  “What I can say is that I will tell Officer Yancey I don’t believe this sort of incident from the past should taint your reputation in the present. We all have things about our lives we would rather forget. The fact that you were willing to share what you remember about a corrupt and powerful man speaks very well of your character.” I rested my hand on his arm briefly then took my leave.

  Chapter Forty-five

  His conversation with George still rang in his ears as Yancey searched Old Orchard for Osmond Cheswick. Not long past noontime he spotted the older man sitting alone on a bench on the boardwalk overlooking the pier. Gulls swooped in close, hoping to snatch a bit of fried fish from the newspaper cone gripped in Osmond’s fist. Yancey sat on the other end of the bench. The smell of fried food and vinegar wafted up from the packet of fish and made his mouth water.