What the Dead Leave Behind

by Rosemary Simpson

  On an impulse, Prudence walked quickly back to the room where her father had died, to the door that she knew opened into her mother’s bedroom. Privacy is as important to a marriage as love. Where had she heard that? Had her father said it in one of their late-night conversations, perhaps soon after she and Charles had become engaged? Or had it been her gentle mother, trying desperately to tell her too-young daughter all of the things that a mother should be able to reveal to her child grown into a woman? She’d have to try to remember later, when there was time.

  Sarah MacKenzie’s bedroom smelled of the same perfume that drifted out of the drawer of the armoire Prudence had found in the attic. Sandalwood, jasmine, lilac, roses. Victoria had never lived in these rooms. She had her own suite in the south wing of the second floor. At her request or by the Judge’s decree? More questions. More questions than answers.

  And here, too, it was as though Sarah had stepped out for an afternoon ride in Central Park. Everything was spotlessly clean, well ordered, the furniture polished, the fireplace grate blacked and restocked with kindling and logs of apple wood.

  With one huge difference. Every drawer was empty, nothing hung in the armoires, there were no personal items in the bathroom. It was like a hotel suite before the guest arrives, before the staff fills the vases with flowers, arranges fresh fruit in tastefully placed baskets, sets out dishes of fine chocolates and cracked nuts, ices a bottle of French champagne, and places two crystal goblets within easy reach. Someone had tried to erase her mother, had emptied these rooms of the woman who once lived in them.

  Prudence had to get back into the hallway. Back to her room. She hadn’t heard the longcase clock strike the hour, but she knew that too much time had passed. Knew that the last caller must surely have left by now.

  “Someone has been very careless with her keys,” Victoria said. She stood motionless at the head of the wide staircase connecting the first and second floors.

  How long has she been standing there? Can she see what I’m holding in my left hand, what I’m hiding in the folds of my skirt?

  “The door was open,” Prudence said. “I haven’t set foot in my father’s rooms since he died.”

  “I ordered his rooms locked. To protect his privacy during our period of mourning.”

  “The door was open,” Prudence repeated.

  “So you said. I wonder why.”

  * * *

  German Clara cleaned each of the gaslight wall fixtures in Miss Prudence’s room once a week, climbing atop a small step stool to remove the etched glass bulbs, which had to be washed free of soot in warm, soapy water. Each wall fixture was taken apart, cleaned, dried, polished, and put back together before the next one could be worked on. It wouldn’t do for a member of the family to enter a room where all of the gaslight fixtures lay about in pieces.

  Trimming the wicks was the hardest part. A wick had to be twisted between the fingers into a tight, upright position so as to cast a warm, amber glow around the room as the gas burned steadily at its tip. Too loose and the wick would quickly consume itself. Too tight and there wouldn’t be enough air circulating through the strands to keep the flame alive. German Clara devoutly wished Mrs. MacKenzie would see fit to have those new electric lights installed, at least in the hallways.

  Miss Prudence must have stayed up late, as usual. The reservoirs in the lamps that sat on her bedside and dressing tables were nearly empty, their glass chimneys even more smudged with soot than the glass bulbs of the wall sconces. Clara left the door to Miss Prudence’s room open behind her when she went down to the basement to fetch more fuel. She didn’t notice someone waiting in the corridor for her to disappear down the servants’ staircase.

  Untwisting the tighly furled wicks was the work of a moment, as was locating and blocking the tip of the gas nipple with rolled-up pellets of paper that would eventually burn through, leaving clear passage for the later gas that would find no flame and slowly fill the room with its deadly vapors. The knob that turned the gas flow on and off was easily adjusted with a small screwdriver. In the closed position it felt tight now, but once opened and then closed again, the valve would not reseat itself as it had been designed to do. A very small amount of gas would continue to leak into the room, but there would be no hissing sound to warn of its passage. It would be enough, over the course of a normal night, to send a sleeper into an eternal slumber.

  The last thing to do was polish the brass housings so no fingerprints betrayed the tampering. German Clara would never leave a smudged fixture behind her.

  CHAPTER 12

  It was Josiah Gregory who arranged for Geoffrey Hunter to interview the Judge’s longtime butler and the housekeeper who had retired within months of the second MacKenzie marriage. Without Victoria’s knowledge, Thomas MacKenzie had settled a generous sum of money on Kathleen Dailey. “She was devoted to Sarah MacKenzie, cared for her night and day after Dr. Worthington diagnosed the consumption.”

  He handed Hunter a piece of paper with Mrs. Dailey’s address written in a neat secretarial hand. “Just across the new bridge,” he said. “She bought herself a house along the shore there. Ten bedrooms on the two upper floors; parlors, a library, music room, and kitchen on the ground floor. Land and houses hadn’t gotten as expensive as they are now in Brooklyn; nobody was quite sure how popular the bridge would be. The Judge advised her on the purchase; he had a nose for things like that. Mrs. Dailey always said that if she’d inherited money at a young age she could have become as rich a millionaire as Hetty Green. She has nine paying guests, retired butlers and housekeepers like herself, what you’d call the upper crust of the servant class. She had us out for tea not long after her boarders moved in. I tell you, Mr. Hunter, I’ve never sat at table with a group that had better manners than those ladies and gentlemen. Quite a sight it is.”

  “You wouldn’t happen to know Cameron’s whereabouts also?”

  “Ian Cameron went straight from Fifth Avenue to Mrs. Dailey’s. She’d told him to come to her if something went wrong. When Mrs. MacKenzie informed him he was being replaced, that’s exactly what he did.”

  Roscoe Conkling’s secretary was as good as any Pinkerton operative Geoffrey had ever partnered. He’d known before being asked that Cameron’s whereabouts would be important, and he’d made a point of finding out where the butler had gone. Probably got the whole story of his dismissal direct from Cameron’s own lips.

  “I took the liberty of telling Mrs. Dailey to expect you, sir.”

  The same way that Josiah arranged Conkling’s life for him, he’d anticipated Hunter’s needs. It reminded Geoffrey of the way things had been run in his father’s household all those many years ago, before the war destroyed so much, before he’d had to be sent away to school. Anticipation was everything; the master and mistress should never have to ask for anything. Painful memories. He pushed them into the farthest recesses of his mind where they usually dwelt, and resolutely turned his attention back to the household he would visit in Brooklyn.

  “Mr. Conkling isn’t in today?” It was unlike Roscoe not to invite him into his office, no matter how busy he was.

  “He’s in court.” A pained look twisted the lower part of Josiah’s face, as though he were a child trying very hard not to cry. “I told him to ask for a continuance, but he wouldn’t do it. There is no one on the face of God’s green earth more stubborn than Roscoe Conkling. No one.” His voice quavered, then steadied again. “He’s not well, Mr. Hunter. I know he’s not well, though he refuses to admit it.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “He won’t tell me. Won’t utter a word of complaint. But I see him cupping his hand against the side of his head and rubbing the way you do when something hurts. I would swear he’s been running a fever off and on for days now. He didn’t look at all like his usual self on Saturday; I hoped he’d have the common sense to climb into his bed and stay there until this morning. But he didn’t. He was at Delmonico’s until all hours Saturday night, and then he g
ot the wild notion to take the train up to Utica. I can’t imagine Mrs. Conkling being all that glad to see him. He was back at the New York Club this morning and in court with his client right on time. But he has a look about him I’ve never seen before, not in all the years I’ve worked for him.”

  “What kind of look?”

  Josiah hesitated, then cleared his throat. “Fragile, Mr. Hunter. He looks fragile. You know how someone gets when he reaches a certain age? Well, that’s how Mr. Conkling seems to me. His eyes look like he’s gone from fifty-eight to seventy-eight in a couple of weeks. Like he’s seeing his own end, and it isn’t as far in the future as it ought to be.”

  “I’ll come back here after I’ve been to Brooklyn. Court should be over for the day by then.”

  “Maybe he’ll listen to you.”

  “I doubt it.” Geoffrey smiled reassuringly at Conkling’s worried secretary. “You may be concerned about nothing, you know. Roscoe has sailed through more crises in one lifetime than anyone else I can think of. He’s never down for long.”

  Josiah Gregory didn’t contradict him.

  * * *

  The bridge to Brooklyn had opened five years ago, but it seemed so much a part of the landscape now that hardly anyone could remember what the East River looked like without it. The bridge was a spectacle, and a spectacle had promoted it. P.T. Barnum paraded twenty-one of his circus elephants across the world’s longest suspension span to reassure the public of its safety; if Jumbo and his companions didn’t cause it to collapse, nothing would. All you had to do was come to the circus to see the size of the elephants for yourself. Every performance sold out. Brooklyn’s days as a hard to reach and sparsely populated haven in the countryside were numbered.

  Mansions were being built all along the shore where Mrs. Dailey had found her boardinghouse. Manhattan’s wealthy families had also discovered Brooklyn. The driver of the hansom cab Josiah had hired for Geoffrey was more than happy to put a nosebag on his horse and turn his face toward the cool breeze coming off the Hudson River. The blue water sparkled and danced under the spring sun, pleasure boats glided past with white sails stretched to the full, steamers made their way toward the docks that were busy night and day, ferries chugged back and forth to Staten Island and the Jersey shore. The hard, competitive core of the country’s banking and investment houses in Lower Manhattan seemed a world away.

  The only thing missing, Geoffrey thought, was Prudence MacKenzie. He would have liked to have her by his side, but the searches she was doing in the MacKenzie mansion on Fifth Avenue were invaluable. No one else could do them. They also couldn’t risk raising any suspicions where Victoria was concerned.

  “Hard to believe, isn’t it?” commented the driver of the hansom cab.

  “What’s that?”

  “Two weeks ago today. The wind was blowing so strong and the snow coming down so thick, nobody could make it across that bridge. It was iced over so bad, a horse couldn’t keep his footing and a man would be bound to break a leg.”

  The high arc of the bridge soared into the sky, its stone towers and Gothic arches etched against the blue. Vertical steel cables looked as finely spun and perfectly designed as spider webbing. Some said it was the most beautiful bridge in the world. People had started calling it the Brooklyn Bridge despite at least two other names. Brooklyn Bridge had a nice, short ring to it.

  “There was a picture in the Herald of an ice crossing in the river.”

  “Didn’t last long. Broke up and trapped some people until they could jump back to shore.”

  “You were out in the blizzard?”

  “Not me. I wasn’t crazy enough to chance losing Mr. Washington here.” The driver gestured toward his enormous white horse. “Named him that on account of what he looks like when he rolls back his lip. Biggest yellow teeth you ever saw. No, I didn’t take the cab out, but I’ve heard stories from drivers who did. You wouldn’t believe what some people were up to, you just wouldn’t believe it.”

  “I’d like to hear some of those stories sometime.”

  “I’ve driven you before, Mr. Hunter, but I don’t think Josiah Gregory took the time to do a proper introduction. Daniel Dennis is the name. Danny for short. I’m easy to find. Just leave word for me with Josiah. Mr. Conkling’s been a regular ever since he came back to the city. Mr. Washington and I are on call, so to speak, though Mr. Conkling does like to walk. More than any other man I’ve ever met. Or you can send a messenger down to my stand at the corner of Broadway and Wall Street. Any of the drivers around there can tell you where I am.”

  “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Danny Dennis.” Hunter held out his hand.

  “Always a pleasure to meet a gentleman like yourself, sir.” Dennis shook hands, then touched one finger to his tall hat. “Give my regards to Mrs. Dailey, if you will. A fine lady, very fine.”

  “Should I even ask how you happen to know her?” Hansom cab drivers knew more about who did what in New York City than some of the newspaper reporters. Anybody who thought he could remain anonymous in one of their cabs was fooling himself. Conversations funneled their way up through the trap door above the passengers’ heads directly into the ears of their drivers, as tantalizing as steam from a pushcart vendor’s pan of sausages.

  “Drove Mr. Gregory and Mr. Conkling out here when she first set up the boardinghouse. Made me a cup of good Irish tea and sat me down in the kitchen to drink it. Very lovely lady. Josiah knows he can trust Mr. Conkling’s clients to Danny Dennis. Mr. Washington and I always get them where they need to go.”

  “I’ll remember that.”

  He left Dennis currying Mr. Washington and flicking bits of mud off his harness. This road along the shore was still largely unpaved, bordered on one side by the swift flowing waters of the Hudson River and on the other by houses set well back in large, heavily treed lots.

  An immaculate white sign hung in front of Mrs. Dailey’s boardinghouse, discreetly indicating rooms to let to gentlefolk. Not a single weed on the green lawn. Not a wilted or dead flower bending over in the beds that lined the walk. Not a stray branch growing beyond its allotted curve in any of the hedges flowing gracefully out and down from the wide porches. This was clearly the abode of a meticulously neat and well organized clientele. He wondered if a stray dust mote ever had time to land on a polished surface. Decided it wouldn’t dare, and smiled to himself as he lifted the gleaming brass door knocker.

  “I wondered if you’d come today,” said the tall, dignified woman who welcomed him with an appraising eye. Mrs. Dailey took Geoffrey’s hat and ushered him into a parlor filled with tightly tufted velvet chairs, fringed lamps, paisley patterned silk table scarves, small tables atop spindly legs, and a forest of very healthy plants. The Judge’s former housekeeper rarely discarded anything.

  He’d scarcely had time for more than a quick glance around and the briefest of pleasantries before a gentleman with the posture of a brigadier carried a silver tray of tea and cakes into the room, setting it down on one of the larger tables as if he knew exactly where it should go. As of course he did.

  “Mr. Cameron is joining us. Josiah said you would have questions that it might take the two of us to answer to your satisfaction. Such a lovely boy, that Josiah.” Mrs. Dailey poured and handed cups around; placed a selection of frosted cakes on tiny, flowered china plates; held out delicate, lace-edged linen napkins. When she raised her eyes to meet Geoffrey’s gaze, there was a snap to the look she gave him. “Miss Prudence doesn’t deserve what’s happened to her. Miss Sarah would turn over in her grave if I didn’t help her child. Mr. Cameron?”

  “I worked for the Judge for more than thirty years, and before that for his uncle. I was born into service in the MacKenzie family, and if that woman hadn’t come along, I’d still be there.” Ian Cameron’s voice was low in pitch and volume, every word pronounced with the educated accent he had learned growing up in a MacKenzie household. Slender and as perfectly groomed as any of the gentlemen he had served, h
e was the epitome of butler, as though the word had been coined to describe no one else. “Miss Prudence needs looking after. Miss Sarah loved that child to death and the Judge did the best he could for as long as he could, but it’s not enough. There’s a cloud moving in that’s threatening to swallow her up, and I won’t let that happen. You ask your questions, Mr. Hunter, as many as you want. I’ll tell you everything I know.”

  “She came out of nowhere.” Mrs. Dailey sat with clenched hands, determined to hold her anger in check until she’d given over every useful bit of information she could remember.

  “Everybody comes from somewhere, Kathleen,” interrupted Cameron.

  “I remember the first time the Judge brought her to the house.”

  Neither the former butler nor the retired housekeeper seemed able to pronounce Victoria’s name. It was as if they had decided she had no right to be called MacKenzie, and Victoria was too intimate.

  “That was a few days before they married. There never was an engagement announcement.” A trace of Ireland crept into Mrs. Dailey’s diction. “She didn’t like me on sight. I could tell. I knew my days were numbered. And sure enough, it was less than a month later that I found out I was being retired.”

  “Did she tell you herself?” It was the first question Geoffrey had asked.

  “No. She left it to the Judge. He called me into his study, his library, he called it, and asked me to sit down. I hadn’t sat in his presence since Miss Sarah died. He poured me a sherry, and a whiskey for himself, then he told me that in accordance with the late Mrs. MacKenzie’s wishes, he was making it possible for me to retire. I nearly fainted when he told me how much money Miss Sarah had supposedly left for me. It was a reward for all my years of service, but one I’d heard not a single word about until that moment. I didn’t ask any questions; I didn’t have to. I knew what had happened as sure as if I’d been a fly on the wall.