“I don’t know that that’s absolutely so,” corrected the thin daughter. “About her leaving on her own, I mean. We heard the hotel told her and her brother they were no longer welcome there. That’s him, standing behind Colonel Jamieson.”
“I am so confused,” Prudence said, shaking her head. “Now I don’t know what to do.”
“Well, there really isn’t any point in not telling because it turned out all right in the end,” Mrs. Cavanaugh decided. From all around the room came the rustle of silk skirts as ladies moved closer. Nobody wanted to miss a word.
“Start with Colonel Jamieson, Mama.”
“Like we told you, he was wounded at the end of the war and he never did get along with his son. They argued about everything, so the Colonel finally moved himself into Charleston. He had a house down on the Battery. The thing was, he didn’t deed any of the family holdings over to his son, just left him and his daughter-in-law out there in the Low Country miles and miles away from Charleston to run the rice plantations with nothing but expectations. Nat Jamieson had been a rich man all his life, and the war didn’t change that. When he got to feeling too bad, or he was tired of the same old Charleston faces all the time, he’d take himself up to White Sulphur Springs for the hot muscle cure. That’s how he met Victoria Morley.”
“That’s her name, the lady in the photograph?” Prudence asked.
“That’s her name all right, but I wouldn’t exactly call her a lady.”
“Seems like everyone who’d been at the Grand Central Hotel that year wrote to tell us about it,” chimed in the thin daughter. “According to what we heard, Victoria Morley wanted a husband. The older and sicker, the better. As long as he was rich.”
“That sounds terrible,” Prudence said, trying to sound both shocked and disbelieving.
“Well, the next thing anyone knew, the Colonel’s son and daughter-in-law came down on him like a pair of chicken hawks. I guess they didn’t want to take a chance Miss Morley would get him to a preacher and persuade him to write them out of his will before they could snatch him away. They hustled the Colonel off to the rice plantation and the dust hadn’t even settled on the road before the hotel management told the Morleys to pack their bags. The two of them had been there four or five months by then. They say she’d trolled her way through half a dozen prospects, but once she spotted the Colonel, she was dead set on reeling him in.”
“Nobody ever did find out who their people were,” said the thin daughter.
“Probably didn’t have any,” sniffed Mrs. Cavanaugh.
“Does anyone know where they went?” Prudence asked.
“North. The stationmaster said they bought tickets for Washington City and asked how much it would cost to travel on to New York City. I reckon they figured they’d about used up the ready supply of husband material in the South, not that there was a lot of it left.” Mrs. Cavanaugh picked up the last small square of iced cake. “Northern gentlemen aren’t any smarter about women than Southerners. Maybe she got that rich old man she was looking for after all.”
* * *
“Your instinct about the moral turpitude stipulation is what’s going to bring Victoria down,” Geoffrey said when the three of them were back in Danny Dennis’s cab. The reek of cigar smoke and bourbon clung to Hayes and Hunter; the men of The Lost Cause preferred tobacco and sippin’ whiskey to tea, finger sandwiches, and cakes.
“I hope you got more damaging information than I did,” Prudence responded. “All I was able to do was confirm what we already knew or suspected. The only thing new is that Victoria was nearly successful with the Confederate veteran in the wheelchair. His name was Colonel Nathaniel Jamieson, by the way. She was apparently leading him to the altar by way of a lawyer’s office to rewrite his will when the man’s son and daughter-in-law got suspicious and rescued him. They also made sure Victoria and Donald were unceremoniously shown the door before she could get her hooks into another of the hotel’s guests. It doesn’t paint her in a good light, but there’s nothing strong enough to break her hold on the trusts.”
“Ned and I barely got the photograph out of our pockets before someone recognized her. One of the men knew her from as far back as when she and Donald first arrived in White Sulphur Springs. This was months before they moved into the Grand Central Hotel where she met your Colonel Jamieson.”
“Your stepmother wasn’t nearly as careful as she needed to be,” Ned added. “Though maybe she didn’t have it all figured out in the early days. About where she wanted to end up and how she was going to get there, I mean.”
“Donald was the one who always gave them away. He drank like a fish, played cards too well to be anything but a riverboat man, and never knew when to keep his mouth closed. Victoria was always after him not to say too much, but he didn’t pay her any mind.”
“I think you’d better tell her the worst of it, Geoffrey.”
“Victoria got herself taken on at a sporting house. A couple of weeks after she started working there the bouncer disappeared. Just packed his bag in the night and didn’t come down for breakfast. Donald replaced him.”
“How did they get to the hotel?”
“That’s the clever part. Victoria was popular with the sporting house clientele. She got asked for by name, and she apparently cheated the madam out of at least part of what she was supposed to turn over to her in tips. She didn’t spend a dime of what she earned, saved up everything except what she had to pay for being part of the house. She bullied Donald unmercifully, snatched his pay right out of his hand half the time. In six months she managed to put away enough to rent a suite at the Grand Central Hotel for the season.”
“Didn’t anyone know who she was?”
“Victoria thought of everything. She timed it so her clients from the sporting house would all be gone before she made the move. And even if one or two of them did run into her at the hotel, they would have pretended not to recognize her.”
“It would have worked, too, except that someone warned Colonel Jamieson’s son and daughter-in-law about what was going on. I shouldn’t wish Victoria on anyone,” Prudence sighed, “but I’m almost sorry she failed with the colonel. She’d still be queening it over Charleston society instead of taking and ruining lives in New York City.”
“Not one of the gentlemen who availed himself of her services is willing to testify to it,” Geoffrey said. “I was careful not to reveal anything that could lead back to the Judge. That’s why I didn’t want to use the wedding picture. Cutting Victoria and Donald out of the group would have been a dead giveaway that we were hiding something, or that somebody important was involved.”
“He made up some cock and bull story about a relative of ours we were afraid had run across her. I don’t think anyone believed it, but at least it gave them a justification for wagging their tongues.” Ned held his jacket sleeve up to his nose. “We stink, Geoff. My apologies in such close quarters, Miss MacKenzie.”
“If we have no proof of moral turpitude except hearsay, we have to go in a different direction.” Prudence took a deep breath, sat up straighter. “Do you think she killed my father, Mr. Hayes?”
“I don’t think we’ll ever know, Miss MacKenzie. And speaking as an ex-homicide detective, let me tell you why.” Hayes glanced at Hunter, who nodded encouragement. Prudence was strong and resilient enough to hear the truth. “All it would have taken is an infusion of digitalis to give him a fast heartbeat. If Dr. Worthington was already treating the Judge, nobody would have suspected a thing. Increasing the effect of his heart medicine with concentrated foxglove would have brought on an attack, but the level in the medicine bottle would have been right where it was supposed to be.
“The other possibility is arsenic, not enough at one time to arouse suspicion, but over time it would have weakened him and acted on his heart. It was used so often before an Englishman developed a way to test for it that we used to call it inheritance powder.”
“If she did do something to hasten h
im into his grave, Dr. Worthington would have ordered an autopsy. Thomas MacKenzie was his friend as well as his patient.” Geoffrey hesitated, then decided that Ned needed to know everything. “Worthington apparently believed that Thomas was treating himself with some sort of quack remedy for old men with young wives. He said they can be dangerous.”
“I challenged him on that,” Prudence said. “Victoria’s bedroom was at the other end of the hall from my father’s and there was no sign he’d ever been in it. I don’t believe the Judge ever went near her in anything like love or affection. I think the marriage was a sham from the beginning. Everything I heard today confirms it.”
“There’s no proof.”
“You’re thinking like a lawyer, Geoffrey,” Ned said. “What happened to the bouncer whose job Donald so conveniently stepped into? Why would he leave without a word to anyone? It sounds as if he didn’t even ask for whatever money he had coming to him. I think Victoria and Donald Morley are far more dangerous than we’ve assumed. I think feeding laudanum to Prudence is child’s play to them. Anyone who gets in their way disappears.”
“Don’t go back there, Prudence,” Geoffrey said. “The more we learn about your stepmother and her brother, the more dangerous it becomes for you.”
“Those kind of people are like animals, Miss MacKenzie. They sense when something isn’t right. You’re a good actress, you proved that today, but the slightest slip will put them on their guard. They’ll have to do something about you to protect themselves.”
“They can’t kill me,” Prudence said defiantly. “Victoria would lose everything, and we know she’s too greedy for that. I’m not afraid of her anymore, Geoffrey. I’m really not, Mr. Hayes. She can try to make my life miserable, but she won’t break my will. Now that I know who and what she is, what I suspect she’s done, she can’t catch me off guard, can’t make me wonder if I’m judging her unfairly. What’s the worst she can do to me? Really, Geoffrey, Mr. Hayes, what can she do?”
Neither man wanted to remember women who had believed themselves to be invulnerable until they became statistics. Perhaps Prudence MacKenzie really was safe from her stepmother. Perhaps it was all over and the Judge’s widow had won after all.
CHAPTER 24
Josiah welcomed Prudence to Roscoe Conkling’s office with a smile on his face that stretched from ear to ear. His eyes were bright with unshed tears of joy.
“Mr. Conkling is asking for both you and Mr. Hunter, Miss MacKenzie. He’s rallied. The doctor said if he continues to improve he’ll issue a press statement to that effect by Saturday. Yesterday, Mrs. Conkling and their daughter were allowed in to visit for the first time since the fever climbed so high. I thought we were going to lose him, I really did.”
“You kept up a very brave front, Josiah, very brave.”
“I don’t know what I’d do without him. We’ve been together for so many years.”
“Do you have any idea what Mr. Conkling wants to see us about?”
“He told me to bring along the account he wrote of his walk through the blizzard. Most of it has already been published by every newspaper in town, so I don’t know what he’s looking for. I’ve got the entire file, notes and scribbles and everything he jotted down right after it happened.” He bundled the files into a leather satchel. “I used the telephone to call Mr. Hunter at his hotel. He said it would be faster if he met us at Mr. Conkling’s rather than coming here.”
“I think we’d better go then. Jackson will have told my stepmother I’ve left the house. She won’t be pleased.”
“Is everything all right, miss?”
“I’m afraid not, but it’s no secret that Mrs. MacKenzie and I have never gotten along well. If we decide to use the information that Mr. Hunter and Mr. Hayes and I discovered yesterday, things are bound to get much worse.” Prudence smiled to reassure him. “Thank you for sending Danny Dennis after me. He’s a formidable character. Kincaid was out and Danny refused to hand your note over to Jackson, which I think is the only reason I got it. Danny stood on the front stoop with one boot in the doorway until Jackson had to let him in. But he made him cool his heels in the hallway, which is where he was when I came out of my father’s library. We were gone within minutes.”
“Will Mrs. MacKenzie be very angry with you?”
“Danny never said a word to Jackson about who sent him, so she’ll have no idea where I’ve gone. I imagine Victoria will be livid. I’m rather looking forward to it.”
Josiah turned out the office lights and carefully locked the door behind them. Double checked it. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d gotten a good night’s sleep so he did everything twice, just in case he hadn’t done it right the first time. He wasn’t planning to come back to the office until tomorrow. When all of this was over and Mr. Conkling finally out of danger, he’d crawl into his bed and not get out for two whole days. Now that he thought of it, since tomorrow was Friday, perhaps he’d allow himself the luxury of half a day off. He’d sit with Mr. Conkling in the morning, of course, but after that he just might go home to hot tea and his feet up.
Danny Dennis and Mr. Washington were waiting for them just outside the United Bank Building. Danny tipped his hat and Mr. Washington stomped one foot, impatient to get on with wherever they were going.
“Mr. Hunter will be meeting us at Mr. Conkling’s apartment,” Josiah said to Danny as he helped Prudence climb into the hansom cab.
“And if he’s late, Mr. Conkling will have to make do with me,” Prudence said.
“He’ll be so glad to see you, miss.” Josiah settled himself in comfortably with the leather satchel at his feet. “Now, miss, what is it you and the two gentlemen discovered yesterday?”
“It’s a long story, Josiah.”
“And Broadway is crowded, as always.”
“Have you ever heard of something called The Lost Cause?” Prudence began.
Danny clucked to Mr. Washington and the hansom cab moved off toward the Hoffman House Hotel where Roscoe Conkling was waiting impatiently for them. Since it was a warm, sunny April day Danny left the trap door in the ceiling open. He heard every word of the adventure at Mrs. Cavanaugh’s At Home.
* * *
“Was he really close to dying, Josiah?” Prudence asked as the hansom cab approached the Hoffman House Hotel. Conkling’s secretary had sat in stunned silence after the revelation of Mrs. Victoria MacKenzie’s former profession. It was time to bring him back to the present.
“I’ve never heard of a temperature as high as his, Miss MacKenzie. Mr. Conkling has been out of his head off and on ever since he collapsed; I think his doctor, Dr. Barker, was ready to give up on him when the fever passed one hundred and four. He found an abscess in the right ear that he thinks was caused by the cold winds and the snow the night of the blizzard. Mr. Conkling never slowed down one iota afterward; Dr. Barker said anybody else who’d come through that experience and was that exhausted would have had the common sense to stay in bed for a day or two.”
“Mr. Conkling isn’t like anybody else. We all know that.”
“It was a close thing, Miss MacKenzie, and he’s not completely out of the woods yet.”
“The fever’s down, his wife and daughter have been in to see him, and he’s got you bringing work over. I’d say it sounds like he really is on the mend.”
“He’s not coming in to the office until the doctor says he’s fit,” Josiah declared grimly. “I promise you I’ll have the locks changed if I have to.” Then he grinned. “Can’t you just see him pounding on the door and yelling at me to open up or he’ll have my head on a platter? I never thought I’d want to hear him shouting at me again, but after all the worrying this week I think it would be music to my ears.”
“He’s very lucky to have you watching out for him, Josiah.”
Prudence touched one hand lightly to the little man’s arm, then leaned back into her seat. She had tossed and turned all night, wondering how and when they would confront Victoria with their
new knowledge of her past. It was worrisome not to be able to discuss things with Geoffrey whenever she wanted to. Until now she hadn’t realized how much she’d come to depend on him, his calm steadiness and good-humored intelligence. The size and masculine strength of him, the feeling of being guarded within unbreachable walls whenever she was with him.
The only other person who had made her feel like that was her father. She still ached whenever she thought of him, despite the feet of clay he’d allowed her to discover. Every now and then an image flashed across her brain, the house on Staten Island he’d never been able to bring himself to sell, her mother lying thin and pale in her bed, the sound of persistent coughing.
“We’re here, Miss MacKenzie,” Josiah said.
* * *
Roscoe Conkling’s apartment was as luxurious as Josiah Gregory had been able to make it. Since his employer was a big man, Josiah had scoured the city for oversized furniture that would swallow up his long frame and allow him to stretch out his legs. What was comfortable for Conkling was sometimes a difficult struggle to get out of for smaller people, but Josiah had refused to compromise. Even his bed was longer than the average; it was the only one Roscoe had ever slept in where his feet didn’t start dangling over the edge sometime during the night. Everything about his rooms, from the dark maroons and forest greens of the upholstery and drapery to the masculine smells of woodsy English cologne and well-oiled leather proclaimed that a man of influence and position lived here. It was the retreat he’d been trying so hard to reach on the night of the blizzard.
Josiah had planned carefully, making sure that when he and Prudence arrived, Mrs. Conkling and their daughter Bessie would have gone downstairs for lunch and only one of the round-the-clock nurses hired by Dr. Barker would be in attendance.
“I don’t like being fussed over,” Roscoe declared as soon as the nurse left them alone. “I can’t abide it.”
“You look very well taken care of,” Prudence soothed. She took the chair Josiah placed for her beside Roscoe’s bed. “She’s only doing what she’s been told to do. You won’t get well again if you don’t stay in bed and rest.”
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