by Janet Dawson
Margaret followed Tidsy’s lead. “I don’t know anyone in Utah. I went for another reason. There’s a car on the California Zephyr. It’s called the Silver Gorge. That’s the car my fiancé, Kevin Randall, was traveling in when he died. In roomette four. As it happened, the Silver Gorge was on the train when I went to Salt Lake City. And the trip was interesting in so many ways.”
Jill hovered near the bar, watching Hardcastle. When he heard Kevin’s name, he turned in Margaret’s direction, alarm visible on his jowly face.
“Yes, I heard about your fiancé’s death,” Tidsy said, her voice sympathetic. “I’m so sorry for your loss. So this trip was some kind of pilgrimage?”
Margaret reached for the engagement ring that she now wore on the chain around her neck. “I suppose you could call it a pilgrimage. I’ve heard stories, from several sources, that roomette four on the Silver Gorge is haunted. By Kevin.”
Her words fell like a stone in a pond, with ripples spreading outward as people stared at her. Helen Vennor put down the glass of wine she’d been holding and quickly walked to her niece, distress on her face. “Margaret, what an odd thing to say. You can’t possibly believe—”
“Oh, but I do.” Margaret looked positively beatific as she fingered the engagement ring like a talisman. “Kevin is trying to tell me something. You see, I don’t believe he died of natural causes. I think he was murdered.”
The color drained from Wade Hardcastle’s face. He stared at Margaret in disbelief, then he frowned. He raised his glass to his lips, slamming down a large portion of his gin and tonic.
Now the whispers grew louder, as people stared at Margaret and then at the pained expressions on the faces of her aunt and uncle.
“A ghost?” Tidsy let loose with a laugh. “What a hoot.” She sashayed over to Margaret, scotch in hand. “A ghost, huh? I’ve got a great idea. We’ll hold a séance. Maybe we can even hold it on that rail car, the Silver Gorge. I know somebody at Western Pacific. I’ll bet he could arrange to let us do that. Maybe that ghost can tell us what it wants us to know. I know this fabulous medium over in San Francisco, Madame Latour. She’s very good. When it comes to communicating with the dead, she gets results. Why, once she even discovered the identity of a killer.”
By now, Tidsy was drawing a crowd. Some people tittered nervously, others looked taken aback at this odd turn in the conversation. Jill kept her eyes on Wade Hardcastle, consternation visible on his face. He drank the rest of his gin and tonic and turned away, heading for the bar. He elbowed his way past a man and a woman standing there and ordered another drink.
In the meantime, Helen Vennor took Tidsy’s arm and steered her away from the onlookers, speaking in a low, urgent voice. “Tidsy, what in the world are you thinking? A séance? For heaven’s sake, Margaret is having a difficult time dealing with Kevin’s death. This kind of talk just encourages her to hold on. I realize it’s only been two months since he died, but she needs to move past it. All this talk of a ghost and a haunted railroad car and now a séance. It’s nonsense. Please don’t encourage her.”
Tidsy looked unperturbed as she rattled the ice cubes in her scotch glass. “It will take more than a few months for Margaret to get over this loss. She needs to grieve in her own way, Helen. If that means a ghost and a séance, so be it. She is old enough to make up her own mind.”
Helen tugged at Tidsy and they moved out of hearing range, conversing in whispers. Margaret walked over to Jill and so did Mike. He directed his words to Jill. “You knew that was going to happen, didn’t you?”
“I did,” Jill confessed, with a sidelong glance at Margaret. “Tidsy, Margaret and I planned it.”
Mike frowned. “I wish you would have let me in on the secret. What was the purpose?”
“We wanted to get someone’s attention,” Jill said. “And we did. Besides, we already had a séance. On Sunday night, before we left for Oroville.”
Mike narrowed his eyes. “And you didn’t tell me?”
“Nothing happened during the séance. Not until after the medium left. Then we heard those taps.”
“I haven’t ruled out holding another one,” Margaret added. “If it will help me find Kevin’s killer, I’ll call Madame Latour myself and set it up.”
“So this very public announcement is a ruse?” Mike asked. “Whose attention did you get?”
Jill inclined her head. “See that man over by the bar? The big man in the gray suit, with the long nose?”
Mike scanned the people near the bar and nodded. “I see him. Who is he?”
“Wade Hardcastle,” Margaret said. “He worked with Kevin.”
“More importantly,” Jill added, “he’s the man I saw arguing with Kevin on the train.”
Now Tidsy joined them, a thoroughly unrepentant look on her face. “Margaret, I’m afraid your aunt is upset with me. With you, too. You’re going to hear from her later. Jill, how did our subject react?”
“He didn’t like what he was hearing about ghosts and séances. He went white as a sheet.”
Mike shook his head. “What are the three of you up to? Nothing good, I’ll bet.”
Tidsy took a pack of cigarettes from her purse, stuck one in her mouth and fired up her lighter. “We’re trying to smoke out a killer. Let’s see what he does next.”
Chapter Eighteen
What Hardcastle did next was down another gin and tonic—and leave the party.
The bulky man with the long nose jostled his way to the bar after hearing Tidsy hold forth about the ghost and the séance. He swallowed his drink quickly, then sought out his host and spoke briefly to Daniel Vennor. Then he looked around, his gaze lighting on Margaret and then Tidsy. Jill shrank back, turning away so he couldn’t see her face. In her peripheral vision she saw him go through the French doors to the living room.
“I’ll make sure he’s gone,” Mike said. He followed and returned a moment later. “He went out the front door and down the street. So you’ve seen the last of this guy for now. I’ll leave you ladies to your plotting. I’m going to get another beer.” He walked toward the bar.
“We did indeed get his attention,” Tidsy said.
“Now what?” Jill asked.
“We’ll have to wait and see. Sometimes setting the wheels in motion is enough. As for now, I’d better make it up with Helen. She’s not too happy with me.”
Margaret nodded. “I know. I’ll be extra nice to her the rest of the weekend. Let’s go in the house. After our little scene, people have been staring at me and whispering.”
“And I could use the bathroom,” Jill said.
“I’ll show you where it is.” Margaret led the way into the house, directing Jill to the downstairs bathroom. When Jill came out a few minutes later, she paused in the hallway. Margaret was near the front door, talking with her cousin Betty, who was sitting on the bottom step of the staircase leading to the upper level. Judging from the conversation, Betty, bored with the party full of grownups, had left to go play with Skeeter the dog.
The front door opened and Agnes, the maid who had greeted them earlier, entered the house, carrying a handful of envelopes and several magazines. “The postman just went by. I saw him and got the mail.”
“Anything for me?” Betty asked. “I’m expecting an invitation to a birthday party.”
Agnes shook her head. “Nothing, Miss Betty.” Betty sighed and headed in the direction of the kitchen. “But this letter is for you, Miss Margaret.”
Margaret took the envelope addressed to her and glanced at the return address. “It’s from a college friend.” She turned the envelope over and stuck her little finger in the edge of the flap.
Jill stared at the writing on the front of the envelope. But she wasn’t really seeing this envelope. It was another envelope she pictured. She reached out and stayed Margaret’s hand. “Wait.”
Margaret glanced at her. “What is it?”
“Let me look at that, please.”
When Margaret handed her the e
nvelope, Jill held it closer, examining the address written on the front. Jill called up an image of the envelope Kevin had given her. She remembered looking at it before she dropped it into the mailbox on the platform in Sacramento. That’s why the Hillcroft Circle street sign had looked so familiar when she and Mike were driving to the party. She had seen that street name before.
“Hillcroft Circle,” Jill said. “That’s it. The address on the envelope that Kevin asked me to mail, that day on the train. It was addressed to you. He was going to see you later that day, when you met the train at the Oakland Mole. Why would he mail a letter to you? Unless there was something in it, something important. Something he didn’t want his killer to find. What was in that envelope?”
Now Margaret looked distressed. “You told me this before, and I said I don’t remember receiving anything from him. But—” Now she frowned. “Right after Kevin died, I was so upset. People sent me condolence cards and I didn’t even open them. I still haven’t. I shoved them in a drawer in my desk.”
“We have to find that envelope.”
“Come on.” Margaret led the way upstairs to her bedroom, at one end of a long hallway. The room looked similar to Jill’s own bedroom. A small teddy bear, its brown plush fabric worn in places, sat atop the pillows plumped against the oak headboard. A bookcase near the window held an assortment of books, and several framed photographs, including one of Margaret with Kevin. On the other side of the bed was a desk with three drawers on the right side. Margaret left the letter she’d just received on the desk top. She pulled out the bottom desk drawer and carried it to the bed, dumping the contents on the bedspread. The unopened envelopes must have numbered two dozen or more. Using both hands, Margaret spread the envelopes across the bed, turning each one over so the addresses were visible.
“There it is.” Jill pointed. She recognized the envelope, thicker than the others, with its California Zephyr legend and the cluster of stamps in the upper right corner. The postmark over the stamps was smudged, but enough was visible to see that the envelope had been mailed from Sacramento. And she recognized the spiky slanted letters that spelled out “Miss Margaret Vennor” and the address of the house on Hillcroft Circle.
Margaret picked up the envelope, her voice subdued. “It’s his handwriting.” She reached for the cup on the desk and pulled out a small brass letter opener. She slit open the envelope and pulled out several folded sheets of paper. She unfolded them and spread them out on the bed, shoving the other envelopes out of the way. “This is what he mailed to me. But why? I don’t understand what it is.”
Jill looked at the sheets, some of them pale green, with lines covered with figures and ragged edges indicating they had been torn from a book. The other sheets were yellow and lined, legal-sized, also covered with figures, and notes in Randall’s handwriting.
“I know why, at least I do now,” Jill said. “He mailed these pages to get them away from someone who wanted them. These must be from the ledger and pad he was working on. We know he was up in Portola to look at the books of a company that your uncle’s corporation had acquired, probably one of those companies on the list that Tidsy compiled. Kevin had one of those mechanical calculators with him in the roomette. My guess is that he was checking figures from the ledger. He found something that wasn’t right, something that would be revealed by these papers. When he argued with the man on the train, he realized that he needed to hide them. So he put these in an envelope and asked me to mail them to you, thinking he would retrieve them later. When I found the body, the ledger and the legal pad weren’t in the briefcase. Whoever killed him must have taken both. But they didn’t know he’d torn sheets out of the ledger and the pad. Now we have them.”
“We do. But what do they mean?” Margaret fingered the papers, looking at the figures written in small, neat lines. “It’s like number soup. I don’t understand any of this.”
“I don’t either,” Jill said. “And I don’t see anything that identifies the company. But I’ll bet Tidsy can figure it out. Let’s give these papers to her.”
“Agreed.” Margaret folded the sheets of paper and stuck them back in the envelope. Then she put the envelope in her dress pocket.
They went downstairs, looking for Tidsy. She was out on the patio, helping herself to food from the buffet, piling Swedish meatballs on her plate. “Did you taste these meatballs? They’re delicious. I may have to take some home with me.”
“We need to talk with you,” Jill said.
Tidsy looked from Jill to Margaret, replaced the serving spoon in the chafing dish, and picked up her drink before stepping away from the table. She gestured with the hand that held the scotch. “What we need is a secluded corner, not that we’re particularly secluded at this shindig. That corner, by that rose bush.” They stepped off the patio, following Tidsy across the yard to the rose bush, which was covered with lush, dark red blooms that perfumed the air with their fragrance. The small table that had been set up nearby was vacant. Tidsy took a swallow of her drink and set it on the table, then plunged a fork into one of the meatballs. “What gives?”
“We found the letter I mailed for Kevin,” Jill said. “It was addressed to Margaret.”
Margaret hastened to explain. “I didn’t realize I had it, until Jill remembered—”
Tidsy cut her off with a wave of her fork. “Never mind that. You’ve got it now. What was inside?”
When Margaret pulled the envelope from her pocket, Tidsy set her plate on the table and opened it. She studied the green and yellow sheets while Jill explained her theory that Kevin had mailed them to get them out of the killer’s hands.
“Plausible,” Tidsy said. “Quite plausible. Now, to figure out just what was going on.”
“Neither of us knows anything about accounting or keeping books,” Jill said. “But I have a feeling you can tell us what’s going on.”
Tidsy smiled. She folded the papers and put them back in the envelope. “I have some passing familiarity with numbers, gained during my days in Washington.” She frequently called herself a “government girl,” never giving any details of what she’d done in the service of her country, but Jill knew that the older woman had worked for the Office of Strategic Services, the OSS. She had a feeling Tidsy’s participation in the war effort had involved more than typing and filing.
“I’m leaving on a run tomorrow,” Jill said. “I’ll be back from Chicago next Saturday.”
Tidsy put the letter in her red handbag and reached for her scotch. “I’ll look these over and we can confer when you get back.”
Chapter Nineteen
This is silly, Jill thought. I might as well go to bed.
She was sitting in roomette four of the Silver Gorge. It was late Friday night, and the California Zephyr was somewhere in the Nevada desert, moving west toward the next station stop in Elko. Nothing had happened. In fact, she had dozed off twice and was now fighting to stay awake.
So much for her experiment in communicating with a ghost. Once again, she told herself she wasn’t sure there even was a ghost.
Then she heard four taps, one right after the other.
Her heart began to pound.
Perhaps the experiment was working after all.
Jill had left the Bay Area on Sunday morning, the day after the party. The California Zephyr had arrived in Chicago Tuesday afternoon. The eastbound run of the Silver Lady had been routine. She spent Tuesday and Wednesday nights in the Windy City, then on Thursday afternoon she reported for the westbound run back to the Bay Area. As she walked along the platform, she saw that the Silver Gorge was on the consist. An idea began to take shape.
Lonnie Clark, a Chicago-based porter, stood near the vestibule, and he waved at her. “Good to see you, Miss McLeod.”
“Hello, Mr. Clark. Do you have a full car this trip?”
He nodded. “Leaving Chicago, anyways. I’ve got quite a few people getting off in Omaha and Denver.”
I wonder who is traveling in roomette fo
ur, Jill thought as she hurried to her appointed spot. At Chicago’s Union Station, the Zephyrette stood with the Pullman conductor at the back of the dome-observation car, on this trip the Silver Planet. There they greeted passengers, directing them to their cars, and Jill made dinner reservations for those passengers traveling in the sleeper cars.
Later, as the California Zephyr sped across Illinois, Jill made one of her periodic walks through the train. Stopping in the Silver Gorge, she introduced herself to the passenger who was traveling in roomette four. He was an older man with a shock of unruly gray hair, eager to talk. “Todd Saunders, from Evanston, Illinois. I’m going to Provo, Utah to see my daughter. She’s married to a schoolteacher and I have three grandkids. My wife went out there earlier in the month, but I couldn’t get away from work until now.”
“I know you’re looking forward to seeing your family, Mr. Saunders. Enjoy your trip.”
‘I’m sure I will. I brought some books I’ve been meaning to read. And I hear the food in the dining car is really good.”
“It is,” Jill said, resuming her walk-through. She’d have to wait until tomorrow morning to see if anything supernatural paid Mr. Saunders a visit during the night.
The rest of the afternoon and evening was uneventful. Jill retired to her compartment early, working on her trip report before opening one of the Juanita Sheridan novels she’d brought to read. She rose early Friday morning, took her usual sink bath and put on her uniform. Then she left her quarters and headed for the Silver Café, the dining car for this run. She was drinking her first cup of coffee when she was joined by Mr. and Mrs. Greenleaf, a middle-aged couple from New York City, who were traveling all the way to San Francisco in the transcontinental sleeper.
“A second honeymoon,” Mrs. Greenleaf said, smiling at her husband. “We’re going to stay at the Saint Francis hotel, right on Union Square.”
The Greenleafs marked their meal checks and handed them to the waiter. Jill was well into her usual breakfast of French toast and bacon, when Mr. Saunders sat down at the table. After introducing himself and exchanging pleasantries, he poured his first cup of coffee from the pot on the table, then he looked over the menu. “I shouldn’t be hungry after that excellent pot roast I had last night. But I am. Bacon and eggs for me, an English muffin and a glass of orange juice.” He marked the meal check and the waiter took it.
