The Fall Of White City (Gilded Age Mysteries Book 1)

by N. S. Wikarski

  “Oh, of course I won’t.” Evangeline smiled reassuringly. “And if it ever comes time to speak of this, I’ll make sure no action is taken against you. After all, you may have given me a vital clue to clearing up this matter. It would be a poor show of gratitude on my part if you were to lose your position because of it.”

  “Thank you, miss. Thank you indeed!”

  “May I offer you some refreshment?” Evangeline reached for the bell to summon Delphine.

  “No, no thank you, miss. I really need to get back to the city. I shouldn’t have come at all but I couldn’t stand it any longer.” Humphrey stood to go, shaking Evangeline’s hand energetically. The tension had finally left his face altogether. “But I think my conscience is finally satisfied.”

  Evangeline waited for the inevitable click of his heels as she showed him to the door. She was not to be disappointed.

  ***

  Although she had missed the morning train to the city, Evangeline could still see Franz if she left by mid-afternoon. She told Delphine she would be staying in town overnight and departed. On her ride into the city, Evangeline contemplated the best way to question Elsa’s brother without arousing his suspicions. Given his unstable temperament, this would be no easy matter. She resolved to begin by telling him about the legal defense fund that Mast House was raising on his behalf. She hoped this news would be sufficient to divert his attention away from her real motive for the visit.

  By four o’clock she was once more standing before the bars of a cell in city jail. When the guard admitted her, she was surprised to see that Franz already had another visitor with him. The two men rose at her arrival.

  Evangeline was struck by the prisoner’s woebegone condition. His face looked pinched, as if he hadn’t eaten in weeks. His rumpled, threadbare clothing probably hadn’t been changed since the last time they'd met. Given his wasted physical state, his mood was unaccountably elated. A feverish intensity glowed in his eyes.

  “Fräulein, it is good to see you again!” Franz exclaimed with great feeling. “It is good I have friends who do not forget me now!”

  “That’s hardly been the case, Franz. Everyone at Mast House has been quite busy on your behalf.”

  Before she could give him any further news, Franz interrupted. “Please, let me introduce to you my very good friend, who comes to see me almost every day. Fräulein LeClair, this is Herr Otto Schuler.”

  The visitor stepped forward to shake her hand. He was a short, barrel-shaped man in his mid-forties. He wore a sack suit of brown tweed that looked as if the cuffs had been turned at least three times. While the hair on his head was sparse, the quantity on his upper lip was flourishing so admirably that it obscured the lower half of his face.

  “I am very pleased to meet you, Miss LeClair.” Evangeline noted that he had the bearing of a man overburdened by the weight of his own importance. Unlike Franz, Otto Schuler spoke English without the slightest trace of a German accent.

  “How do you do, Mr. Schuler. I’m sorry to intrude, but I had no idea Franz would be entertaining another visitor today.”

  “Otto is my friend from the newspaper,” Franz offered. “I stayed with him after my poor Elsa was murdered. He helped me to see things clearer.” Franz regarded his friend solemnly for a moment. “He is always helping me see things clearer.”

  Otto Schuler waved away the compliment. “You would do the same for me. After all, we must band together at a time like this, for who else is there to help us?”

  Evangeline was surprised by Schuler’s interpretation of events. “I hardly think Franz is so bereft of resources as all that.”

  “Miss LeClair, perhaps you are not aware of certain economic realities. A crime has been committed—but not the one of which Franz is accused. It is the crime most typical of our present social system, where wealth and privilege conspire to crush the working man.”

  “Mr. Schuler, I really think you’re overstating—”

  “You are deluding yourself, miss, if you think Franz will get a fair trial in this city. Nay, in any major city in the country, for that matter. Those in power would never allow it!”

  “We can but try, sir! We have a few weeks to prepare. I inquired and found his first court appearance isn’t until November 4th.”

  Schuler waved his hand airily. “You can try all you like, miss. By all means, organize a committee, stage a rally. Franz will be convicted as a criminal and hanged just the same.”

  “Are these the words of a friend, Mr. Schuler?” Evangeline was aghast. No matter how ambivalent her own feelings toward Franz might be, she found Schuler’s behavior appalling. “Is this the only comfort you can offer to a man in prison?”

  Schuler smiled mysteriously. “I have other words of comfort for Franz’s ear alone.” He cleared his throat importantly. “One may die an ignominious death as a felon or one may live forever in the memory of the people as a hero. All men must die, Miss LeClair.” Schuler looked sadly at Franz. “Some of us sooner than others, but each man has a choice of how he will be remembered. If he dies for the sake of a good cause, then he has not died in vain.”

  “What are you suggesting?” Evangeline was afraid she understood the implication only too well.

  The little man puffed out his chest as if he were about to launch into an oration. “It has become increasingly clear to me, as it has now become clear to Franz, that the time for talk is over.”

  “Over?” Evangeline noted that Schuler seemed addicted to cryptic allusions and half-finished thoughts.

  “This injustice must be brought to the eyes of the world by a more direct method.” He squared his shoulders as if expecting resistance.

  Franz had said nothing during this interchange. He merely nodded his head in assent as Schuler spoke.

  “Franz?” Evangeline appealed to the prisoner helplessly. “Are you in agreement with this?”

  Franz smiled quietly. He did not appear at all distressed by the turn the conversation had taken. “Otto has spent many hours with me here, and we have talked and talked. He has convinced me that there is only one way for me now.”

  Evangeline turned angrily from Franz to Schuler. “Sir, I fear that in your passion for grand gestures, you will create a martyr to your cause.”

  “We are not afraid, Miss LeClair. We are prepared for that!” Schuler waved away the objection as if he were brushing at a fly.

  “Mr. Schuler, you are very free in sacrificing a life that is not your own to give!”

  Schuler drew himself up to his full height, such as it was. “Forgive me. I was under the impression you wanted to help Franz. I was clearly mistaken.” He abruptly put on his hat to leave. With a curt “Good day to you, miss,” he called for the guard to let him out. Once on the other side of the bars, he turned to his friend. “Don’t worry, Franz. I won’t forget you. We’ll talk again.”

  Evangeline stood very still, too shocked by the turn the conversation had taken to move. She stared through the bars to the spot where Schuler had been standing only a moment before. To herself, she said, “Whether Franz is guilty or not, if I don’t find a way out of this soon, that man is going to get him killed!”

  ***

  After a fruitless attempt to convince Franz that his chances weren’t as bleak as Schuler suggested, Evangeline finally gave up. She also gave up all hope of gathering any other useful information from him that day. Rather than proceeding directly to her townhouse for the evening, she made a quick change of plan. She decided to go to Mast House to discuss Schuler’s influence over Franz with Jane Eaves or Ellen Archwick. They might be able to undo the damage by visiting the prisoner to tell him about the money they had raised for his legal defense fund. Evangeline decided not to share with them her own doubts about Franz’s innocence. His willingness to consider suicide might be owing less to political fanaticism than to the belated prompting of a guilty conscience. If so, he ought to be made to stand trial before he had the chance to act as his own executioner.

&n
bsp; Only after she had hailed a cab and was en route to the Mast mansion did Evangeline recollect that her chances of speaking to either of the settlement’s founders, on this day of all days, was virtually nil. An event of great significance to them was to transpire that evening. They were to receive a visit from an august personage—none other than Samuel Godwyn, whose Trilbey Hall in England had been the precursor of Mast House. He had come to Chicago as a guest of the settlement and would give a lecture on social reform at eight o’clock in the auditorium. A reception in his honor was scheduled to be held at the residents’ dining hall prior to his speech, so that those who wanted to speak directly to the great man might do so. Evangeline’s only recourse was to attend the reception and hope that she could get a few minutes’ conversation with one of the founders.

  The weather didn’t provide an auspicious start for such a significant occasion. The moon was obscured by fast-moving clouds that carried a hint of rain. After alighting from her cab, Evangeline made straight for the dining hall to get out of the night chill. When she walked in the door, she could feel her face begin to thaw thanks to a blast of warm air coming from inside.

  She was not entirely surprised to see how popular an event this had proven to be. At least two hundred people were wedged into the residents’ dining hall—a room that usually held no more than fifty. Those who couldn’t find chairs were content to line the walls and carry on animated conversations at what Evangeline gauged to be the very top of their collective vocal ranges.

  She was hesitating in the vestibule, not quite sure where to find either Miss Eaves or Miss Archwick, when a new arrival caught her attention. Shivering and rubbing his hands together for warmth was Mr. Sidley. He looked at the woman standing next to him in the doorway and blinked when he realized who it was.

  “Miss LeClair, w... we meet again. Wh... wh... what a delight!”

  “Oh hello, Mr. Sidley, very nice to see you, too.” Evangeline smiled. “Have you come to meet our foreign dignitary as well?”

  “Of c..course, of course. Even my reclusive habits were no match for the p... persistence of Miss Archwick. She declared that this event would improve my mind.”

  Evangeline laughed. “That’s Miss Archwick for you, an opinion on every topic. Just for the record, I don’t share her view that your mental faculties require any improvement.”

  “Oh, Miss LeClair,” Sidley murmured and shuffled his feet. “You n... needn’t defend me so.”

  “And why not sir? I fear I’ve done you a great injustice.” Evangeline took his arm as the two advanced into the dining hall.

  “In what w... way, miss? You’ve taken a greater interest in me than anyone else h... here.”

  “Oh, let’s just say I misjudged your character.” She was unwilling to confide the full extent of her suspicions that he was involved in Elsa’s death.

  Apparently Sidley’s mind had made the connection to their previous conversation as well. “No h... harm done. Let’s speak no m... more about it.”

  “That’s very Christian of you, sir.”

  “And now, if I may be so b... bold,” Sidley began with a hesitancy that belied his choice of words, “I s... see you have no companion for the evening. M... might I accompany you to the lecture?”

  Evangeline smiled graciously. “Mr. Sidley, I would be honored, but you must give me ten minutes first to find Miss Eaves or Miss Archwick. I have a pressing matter I need to discuss with one of them.” Evangeline squinted in the dim light the room afforded. “I usually don’t have this much trouble finding someone I’m looking for. For the life of me I can’t seem to locate either of them.”

  Sidley, having a small advantage of height over his companion, cast his eyes around the room as well. “Why that’s Miss A... A... Archwick, over there.” He pointed off into the distance.

  Evangeline followed the direction he indicated with no luck. “I’m sorry, Mr. Sidley, but I don’t see her. Where specifically?”

  “Why there, in the far corner. See, in the shadow by the f... fireplace. She’s sitting down.”

  Evangeline looked again and finally spotted the co-founder of the settlement. Because Ellen Archwick was as diminutive as Evangeline herself, she would have been hard to see even if she were standing up. This difficulty was compounded by the fact that she wore an inconspicuous blue gown and was seated among a group of six or seven others in an obscure corner across a room occupied by a small army of visitors. Evangeline began to feel a vague uneasiness steal over her as she moved forward to Miss Archwick’s table. Sidley followed her there.

  “Good evening, all,” Evangeline began as she forced her way through a final knot of onlookers.

  Ellen Archwick stared up at the newcomers over the lenses of her ever-present pince-nez. “Evangeline, good evening to you. I see you’ve got Mr. Sidley in tow. Good. I’m glad to see he’s decided to abandon his cloister for once.”

  Evangeline smiled consolingly at the awkward man who stood beside her. He was obviously not comfortable in Miss Archwick’s presence. His discomfort was augmented by the founder’s determination to hold forth on the topic of his character. She turned to a gray-haired gentleman seated at her right.

  “This is our accountant. He’s a very unusual fellow. Shy, I suppose. Keeps to himself most of the time. For the life of me, I can’t understand such anti-social behavior from the inhabitant of a social reform settlement. Mr. Sidley, since you’re an accountant, how can you account for your behavior?”

  The others at the table chuckled at Miss Archwick’s attempt at wit.

  Sidley cleared his throat self-consciously. “Ahem... ah... I’m s... sorry to offend, Miss Archwick, but your q... question puts me at a l... loss.”

  “You see.” The founder gestured emphatically. “Loss! All he can think about are debits and credits!”

  The group laughed appreciatively until Evangeline intervened.

  “Ellen, if you’re through baiting Mr. Sidley, I have something urgent to discuss with you.”

  The founder surveyed Evangeline for a moment without replying, clearly displeased at having her vivisection of the accountant interrupted. “Yes, all right. We may as well go to my office for a few moments. The noise in this place is ridiculous.” She rose. As an afterthought, perhaps as a belated gesture of apology, she said, “Sidley, you may have my chair!”

  Taking her suggestion as a command, the gentleman obediently sat.

  ***

  At five minutes before the hour, having convinced Miss Archwick to visit Franz and counteract the damage caused by Otto Schuler, Evangeline came back to collect Sidley for the lecture. The dining hall, by this time, was nearly empty as most of those invited had already adjourned to the auditorium. However Sidley, now alone at the table, kept his vigil faithfully.

  “I’m sorry that took so long, Mr. Sidley.”

  “Oh I... I... ahem... would have waited a great deal longer s... still for you, Miss LeClair.”

  “Sir, you are far too quick to compliment me.”

  “No, miss, really. You don’t know what it means to have a friend, especially... a lady friend.” Sidley stood up and offered Evangeline his arm as the two walked to the auditorium together. “I’ve never been very comfortable—with the l... ladies, that is.”

  “On the contrary. From the first time we met, you seem to have done just fine with me.”

  “Yes, but you’re different,” Sidley insisted. “You p... put a fellow at ease.”

  “Not always. My friend Freddie could disabuse you of that notion quickly enough.”

  “Well, at least you’ve put me at ease, and that’s saying a great deal, for I’m never at ease. M... Mi... Miss Archwick positively terrifies me.”

  “As she intends to. I believe it to be her main object in life to terrify the world in general. It’s her method of command. You needn’t be self-conscious about that.”

  “Just the same... th... thank you, Miss LeClair.”

  Evangeline studied her companion’s face th
oughtfully. “You’re very welcome, Mr. Sidley.”

  By now the couple had entered the auditorium, the largest room in the settlement complex. The two hundred who had attended the reception only represented a fraction of the audience who arrived to hear Samuel Godwyn speak. Luckily, there were still a few chairs left at the back of the hall, and the pair claimed these.

  Evangeline was silent for several minutes, wrestling with a contradiction that had begun to nag at her. She decided to put the matter to a test and resolve it once and for all. She turned Sidley’s attention to the speaker’s podium, which, given the immensity of the room, seemed a quarter-mile away. “Oh look, there’s a banner in Mr. Godwyn’s honor, but the lettering is so small when you’re seated at the back. I can barely make out what it says... ‘Welcome Samuel Godwyn. Har... har...’” She strained to make out the rest of the sign.

  “‘Harbinger of social reform,’” Sidley answered readily. “And look! They’ve decorated the rafters with t... tiny emblems of the Union Jack. I suppose that’s a compliment to his heritage, since he’s English.”

  “Yes, I would imagine so,” Evangeline said vacantly. In her mind’s eye, she watched as the contradiction grew.

  Chapter 18—Second Sight

  Freddie didn’t arrive in Shore Cliff on Tuesday evening until long after sunset. Still worried about Evangeline’s frame of mind, he decided to call at her house first before going home. As he came up the gravel walk, he saw Delphine standing on the porch, holding a kerosene lantern in one hand and clutching her shawl around her neck with the other. “Qui est là?” She peered into the darkness. “Ma chérie, is it you?”

  “It’s Monsieur Freddie, Delphine.”

  “Where is ma petite?”

  Freddie was totally mystified. “I haven’t got her. Can’t you keep track of her any better than that?”

  Delphine muttered to herself as she descended the stairs, apparently ready to go in search of her mistress. Freddie was about to follow her when a dark shape rounded the corner of the house.