The White Feather Murders

by Rachel McMillan

  Merinda walked through the doorway toward the modern lavatory to the end of the hallway. During their visit to Pelham Park for dinner, she had noted Sir Henry’s study. Its door had slightly creaked open as Sir Henry entertained a gentleman whose face and voice Merinda had been unable to make out through the slight slit. While Sir Henry had returned to the dinner table mere moments after Merinda, the figure he had conversed with was nowhere to be seen.

  Now Merinda was met with a locked door. She reached into her pocket and extracted her set of picklocks, the second she tried fixing its way into the latch and opening the lock. Merinda closed the door gingerly behind her and looked around the rich study. Its coloring was the same dark mahogany as the library, its chairs and sofa the identical red leather.

  On Sir Henry’s desk, framed photographs of his family set off a modern typewriter that had pride of place amid various documents, ledgers, and knickknacks. A meerschaum pipe and gold-plated tobacco box sat atop a stack of papers. Merinda looked about instinctively and was met with silence. Nothing shifted in the quiet room save the slight breeze ruffling the curtains from the slightly open window.

  Merinda carefully moved the pipe and tobacco box. The papers were blueprints and requisition orders for all manner of ammunition. Beneath them were a few photographs of a warehouse she assumed was Spenser’s—a theory confirmed a second later when she made out the familiar insignia on some of the crates. She ran her fingers around the perimeter of the photograph. It was taken at a strange angle, fuzzy at the top. Jagged too. She realized that the photograph had been doctored and the top cut off.

  Merinda was in the process of folding the papers and tucking them into the hidden pocket in her vest* when the clang of the telephone at the edge of the desk startled her. She fell against the desk, and one of the framed photographs toppled over, facedown. She caught her breath as the jangling chime of the telephone’s ringing finally desisted. She gently righted the photograph, mortified that a jagged crack marred its shiny glass.

  “Miss Herringford, however did you get into my office?”

  Merinda jumped at Sir Henry’s appearance. Then she smoothed her trousers and tilted her chin forward. “I believe you are in league with the white feather murderer.”

  Sir Henry chuckled. “You sound like a dreadful in a dime serial.”

  “I have reason to suspect, sir, that your premises have been scouted as a possible way of transporting illegal weapons and arms alongside Thaddeus Spenser’s retail establishment.”

  Sir Henry cocked a bushy eyebrow. “Indeed? Well, do sit down, Miss Herringford.” He settled behind his desk and motioned to a chair directly across from him.

  “The papers you have on your desk are nearly identical to plans I confiscated from Philip Carr. Photographs were included in those documents. One of the photos boasts the same tile used at the edge of the tunnel that leads to your garage.”

  “And my swimming pool. You are bright. But you are misguided.”

  “How so?”

  “I cannot speak for Philip Carr, but for my own part, my park is being outfitted not for the transportation of weapons but of the wounded.”

  “The wounded?” Merinda gasped.

  “This will be a conflict unlike any we have seen before.” Sir Henry opened the gold-plated tobacco box on his desk, filled the bowl of the meerschaum pipe, and then struck a match. After a few puffs, he studied Merinda amicably. “All manner of warfare is being created and experiments run on it. It will kill and maim and destroy, and if there is the slightest chance that the grand space with which I have been blessed could potentially save lives, then I mean to offer it.”

  “I had no idea that—”

  “The modern age is a fascinating conflict all its own, Miss Herringford. While there is progress and automobiles and transportation unlike any we have ever seen, there is also the potential for us to use the great strides we have made in the realms of science and machinery for devious end.” Sir Henry smiled. “And I wish to ensure that we are champions of progress. Such conflict can only set us backward. I yearn to go forward.”

  “So you are not on a committee with Spenser and Montague to smuggle munitions and other implements of warfare?”

  “Absolutely not. I have too much respect for your country and for my homeland.”

  Merinda rose. “I should return to Lady Pelham. I am truly sorry for barging in.”

  Sir Henry shook his head. “All is forgiven.”

  “And… I cracked your picture frame,” she added, backing toward the door. “I’m sorry about that too.”

  “Easily fixed. A bit like Lincoln, eh?”

  “Pardon?”

  “The famous photograph.” Sir Henry picked up the frame and ran a finger over the crack in the glass. “I suppose it must have been a faulty camera. There’s old Abe sitting prim and stoic as can be, and a crack runs right over the top of his head in the portrait. When you think of it…” Sir Henry looked up to an empty office. “Miss Herringford? Miss Herringford!”

  “I am an atrocious knitter,” Jem informed Lady Adelaide. “I could no more knit socks for our glorious troops than I could coax that metallic knight over there into a dance.”

  Lady Adelaide laughed, pinching a fairy cake from the tray. “My dear, of course. My husband calls him Herbert in jest. Did you find him at arms again?”

  Jem laughed and then abruptly stopped when she heard Merinda’s voice shrieking for her even before she appeared breathless in the door of the library. “Jemima! I need you!” She clapped her hands jubilantly. “I think I know who the white feather murderer is!”

  “Excuse me?” gasped Lady Adelaide. “The murderer? What does she mean?” Lady Adelaide’s eyes darted between Jem and Merinda and then back to Jem again.

  Jem gingerly set her china cup on her saucer and kept her voice even. “I am certain Merinda is just having a revelation. She is renowned for these outbursts.” Jem feigned a smile. “She calls them her ‘golden moments.’”

  “Is the murderer here, Miss Herringford?”

  Merinda stood silently ruminating.

  Jem flashed her friend a dagger look. “Sometimes my friend forsakes propriety. Especially when she has a big idea.”

  “So there is nothing to fear?” Lady Adelaide asked tentatively, her fairy cake hovering in midair.

  “Not in the least,” Jem assured her, rising. “But… if you’ll excuse me?”

  * The longer Merinda pursued the detective trade, the more she relied on Mrs. Malone’s proficiency with a needle to supplement her wardrobe with all manner of hidden pockets and compartments.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Every criminal will leave some signature, for as much as he wants to duck justice, his ego finds a balm in recognition.

  M.C. Wheaton, Guide to the Criminal and Commonplace

  Once Jem had left Lady Adelaide to her tea with as much decorum as she could muster in the face of her friend’s revelation, it was all she could do not to dash after her. She matched Merinda’s determined stride across the grand foyer.

  “At first I thought it was that quote. Something about what you could make people believe you had done.” Merinda waved her hand about in the air. “Here are all these men auspiciously contributing to the war effort who stand to make a profit. But Sir Henry is a man I feel I can take at his word.”

  “So who is the murderer?”

  “Jemima, the most beguiling aspect of having a golden moment* is having someone to explain it to. Piece by piece.”

  “Piece by piece,” Jem gritted out impatiently.

  “I supposed it could have been that Carr fellow. He’s just the sort of ridiculous chap I would attribute something like this to. But he has a solid alibi the night of Milbrook’s murder. He was with Mayor Montague.”

  “I suppose.”

  “And while he is doubtless involved in some underhanded enterprise with Montague and Spenser, he is not responsible for the deaths we are investigating. It wasn’t until I saw the ph
otograph—”

  “The photograph?”

  “In Sir Henry’s study,” Merinda explained airily before barreling onward. “We would need someone who could be at all levels of society. Who could borrow an automobile from a friend he’d made at a grand estate or slip in and out of a crime scene nearly undetected. Someone who knew what was going on in the Ward at night, could trail a policeman to Spenser’s, and then frame said policeman with a white feather. Someone who had access to the Pelham doves. Someone who knew where we might be headed after Waverley’s death. Someone right under our noses.” Merinda looked over her shoulder to see if Jem was catching up. While a flicker of something crossed her friend’s face, Jem remained silent, and Merinda carried on. “Then I saw the photograph in Sir Henry’s study. The frame cracked when I accidentally knocked it over. Sir Henry mentioned that famous final portrait of President Lincoln and how—”

  Jem suddenly gasped, clearly following her friend’s train of thought.

  Merinda nodded. “That line that overruns the stoic portrait. Cuts right through.” She grinned. “There must have been something. Something about the…” Merinda snapped her fingers while searching for a word, “… exposure! First there was that day at the Hog when he was snipping off the tops of the photographs. He could have been removing the fractured line from the pictures: a result of his camera being jostled that night at the ultimatum. Then the photographs I found in Pelham’s study and the ones we found on Philip Carr.” Merinda was beaming. “It’s been Skip McCoy all along!” She grabbed Jem’s forearm.

  “He can work through all levels of society,” Jem conceded. “But why?”

  Merinda looked around the broad foyer. “Because he stands to gain from something greater than Sir Henry’s benevolent plans for his grand house.”

  “May I fetch you ladies a taxi or a ride home?” a servant asked.

  “Yes, thank you.” Merinda patted around her vest, praising Mrs. Malone’s latest ingenuity in hidden pockets. But not feeling the weight of her pistol therein, she scowled.

  “I didn’t suppose you would find yourself armed so easily,” Jem said as they crossed the lawn toward the waiting taxi.

  “I cannot believe I left my own pistol in the bureau,” Merinda replied, rebuking herself.

  “I cannot believe Sir Henry loaned one of his pistols to you with no questions asked.” Jem watched Merinda secure the gun at the back of her vest.

  “I suppose we developed quite a rapport while he was telling me about his charitable plans and I was unravelling the last threads of our mystery.”

  “And you think Skip will just be sitting at the Hog snipping pictures?”

  “If he isn’t there, we will await his return and intercept him. A criminal will always return to the scene of the crime, and a criminal always wants to be caught on some base level, and—”

  “Now you’re just taking all of your Wheaton quotes and sewing them together.”

  “Jemima! What if he’s here?”

  “At Pelham Park?”

  “Lady Adelaide mentioned someone working on the pool, but Skip’s Hog articles and information given to us the night of the party both mentioned that the pool construction was halted in order to loan men to the war effort. Sir Henry decided it was the last part of the mansion that needed completion.” Merinda spun on her heel back in the direction of the main house, and Jem followed suit. “When I showed Jasper the photograph, he recognized the tile. Sir Henry thought it was part of the plans he is pursuing in preparing an emergency hospital. But what if something else is happening right under his nose?”

  “Philip Carr and Skip?” Jem wondered.

  “There’s only one way to find out.” Merinda grabbed Jem’s arm and tugged her over the green lawn and up the walk of the estate. Inside, they shoved past the butler and several uniformed servants in pursuit of the back staircase. “A shame we only made it this far on our tour!” Merinda said wryly as they dashed down the stairs to the lower level, skidding out of the way of the staff.

  “Please excuse us,” Jemima entreated of a young woman affixing a white cap to red curls. “We are lady detectives in pursuit of a criminal, and we are wondering if you might indicate the way to the underground tunnels.”

  The girl held up a pale finger and pointed.

  Jemima kept a hand to her rib as Merinda hurried them through the corridor and then farther and farther below the grandeur of Pelham Park.

  The stairs leading to the underground tunnel were dank and slick, but the coolness of the lanterned passage was still a fine reprieve from the heat of September mugginess. They slowed at the sound of belches and gulps from the furnace and boilers, tiptoeing over the grate and then peeking into the dark coals and incendiary sparks. Soot-faced workers were providing the grand estate with hot water even as they toiled and scraped with the coals below.

  A little farther in the tunnel, Merinda assessed its resourcefulness. It was a perfect place to store and redistribute any type of munitions needed for profit. She half recalled Lady Pelham’s rather innocent explanation of its resourcefulness. A place to store coal and heat the house! Ha! All that was needed was a quick trip into Hamilton or the Niagara region to pick up ammunition at a discounted price from still neutral America, slice a bit of the profit, and then divide evenly. The factories being built at the edge of the city would wonder why their product, no matter how quickly produced once everything was in full swing, wasn’t as much of a necessity. A nation at war would pay little attention to what was sent over to the brave men in the front lines. A nation at war would load the cargo, uncaring as to where the weapons came from and concerned only that they make swift voyage across the sea and into the hands of the lads who needed them to battle the German enemies on the front lines.

  Merinda motioned for Jem to get behind her as they approached the light at the end of the tunnel. They walked across slowly toward it and noted the interruption of the darkness by ascension into light. If Merinda were of the philosophical type, she might have admitted that a staircase leading toward a lighter, cleaner prospect was some sort of emblem. As it was, she was just happy to have a way out of the constricting underground passage.

  They knew that at the top they would come to the grand stables and garage. A faint tang of bleaching powder tickled Merinda’s nostrils—a welcome reprieve from the coal- and soot-infested tunnel underneath. Jem’s breath was close behind her as they went up, pausing to grip the railing, the natural daylight flickering finally through a window overhead. Merinda reached behind her back to the hidden pocket and patted her borrowed pistol. She then passed her walking stick to Jem, who held it aloft.

  “Skip McCoy!” Merinda shouted, her echo reverberating through the stairwell.

  A moment later, Skip’s shadow filled the doorway at the top of the stairs. “Isn’t the security here a travesty?” he asked as he nudged his glasses up on his nose and directed a pistol at Jem’s chest.

  * Readers familiar with Merinda Herringford’s previous (mis)adventures in murder and mystery will recall this as the term she ascribes to her moments of particular brilliance.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  A lady must only show fear in a delicate and coy way so as to entice a beau. An unexpected sound or the discovery of an insect are two ways in which the emotion of fear can tip the odds in a girl’s favor. Use these moments of unpleasantness to quicken sympathy with an exhibition of alluring feminine weakness.

  Dorothea Fairfax, Handbook to Bachelor Girlhood

  Jem yelped slightly.

  “Did you really kill all those people just for a profit made from the sale of munitions?” Merinda asked levelly, her eyes never leaving Skip’s gun.

  Skip smiled and waved them up the rest of the way. As they reluctantly joined him on the landing, he grabbed Jem’s arm and pressed his gun into her side. Then he said casually, “Munitions?” His voice echoed somewhat in the corridor running along the side of the garage.

  “Tell me! You had access to the Pelham
s’ cars.”

  “Sir Henry trusted a friend to do some work for him nearby. I merely intercepted the friend.”

  “And promised him what?”

  “I promised him a cut. I took the green automobile with the express purpose of a quick getaway after dealing with poor Waverley, but then you two came sniffing around.”

  Merinda took a step forward. “How much is your cut? Are you working with Philip Carr?”

  “You ask a lot of questions.” Skip straightened. He wasn’t a prepossessing figure, but Merinda knew he was wiry and fast.

  “Come,” he said, moving slowly, Jem walking alongside him out of necessity and Merinda attempting to formulate a plan. “See where all of the war effort is happening.”

  He led them through the corridor to a door that opened up into a different building. There sat the not-yet-finished indoor swimming pool.

  “They’re such nice people, these Pelhams, that they’ve delayed construction on the estate so that young men can enlist.” Skip gave a dark laugh. “Not that their building plans make much sense. Stables and a swimming pool and a garage all connected to the main house by an underground tunnel?” He looked around and shrugged. “Cleaner to be working with bleach powders than shot in a trench.”

  Jem and Merinda peeked into the dug-out marble rectangle.

  “So it’s a quiet and unsuspecting place.” Skip’s voice rumbled back at them in an echo. “And far enough from the main house to avoid any real suspicion. Even from Lady Adelaide, who keeps taking me at my word that I am merely surveying here.”

  “I don’t understand,” Jem said, watching Skip look to the far side of the pool, where a set of silver stairs leaned against the side for eventual installation.