Death on Telegraph Hill

by Shirley Tallman

  “But you didn’t possess enough evidence to prove it in court,” I said.

  “Unfortunately, no. The pages he sent were but odd passages here and there. Nothing substantial enough to convince a judge that he had been plagiarized.”

  “So, when Aleric showed up unexpectedly at Mr. Wilde’s reading, it must have seemed as if fate had gifted you with the perfect opportunity to seek your revenge.”

  “I suggested to Mr. Remy that he allow Bruno to escort his guests down the hill,” Mrs. Montgomery admitted, “so that it might appear that Aleric had been shot by accident. As you have undoubtedly heard, Miss Woolson, residents on Telegraph Hill are prone to shooting at the wildlife, even at night.”

  “You also wanted to ensure that no suspicion fell upon Bruno,” I said. “He obviously couldn’t have taken the shot when he was walking our group down the hill.”

  “Yes, Claude was happy enough to do it for me, but then, as I say, he would do anything for money. When Lucy died, however, he demanded that I pay him a great deal more cash for his silence.” She sighed. “Bruno found a more … expeditious way to silence the miserable man. Unfortunately, we did not learn until several days later that he had sold the story to that disreputable reporter Ozzie Foldger.”

  “Who was about to publish the entire sordid affair in the Tattler,” I finished for her. “So, of course, Bruno was required to silence him as well.”

  “Yes,” she replied somberly. “As I say, it has gone too far. I must add that it was never our intention to harm you, my dear Miss Woolson. Bruno was instructed to merely scare you off the Hill. You really are extraordinarily nosy, and your questions were beginning to worry me.”

  Stephen Parke was practically in Sergeant Lewis’s face. “For God’s sake, do you hear what she’s saying? The man up there is a cold-blooded killer. You’ve got to get Isabel out of there!”

  Just as George and his three men started to move to the stairs, the second window above the porch flew open, and Bruno Studds stepped onto the balcony, pulling Isabel out behind him. One large arm was clasped around her slender waist, the other held a revolver to her head.

  There were audible gasps and a few muffled screams from the crowd, and George immediately signaled his men to stop. Everyone, in fact, suddenly became as still as statues, terrified to move for fear that the deranged-looking man on the balcony might shoot the poor girl he was holding, or even shoot at one of them.

  His mistress was watching him from her wheelchair. Her eyes reflected a peculiar mixture of sorrow and pride. At that moment, I realized that she loved Bruno Studds as a friend, even more than she depended upon him as a loyal servant.

  “Bruno, stop pointing that gun at poor Isabel, and come down from there at once,” she ordered. “There is no need to harm her.”

  “She’s gonna put you in prison, Mrs. Montgomery,” the man answered, pressing the gun even more firmly against the young woman’s forehead. “Can’t let her do that.”

  “I’m afraid it’s too late, my dear. Everyone knows now what we have done. It’s best if you turn your gun over to one of these policemen, and then you and I can accompany them without a fuss.”

  Mr. Freiberg had come to stand beside Stephen. His face was pale, and when he raised his hand to the man on the balcony, it was trembling. “Mr. Studds, please, let my girl go. She is all I have.”

  Stephen took a step forward, but Bruno saw him and shouted, “Stop right there, Parke. I swear I’ll shoot her. And you, too, if you come any closer.”

  Abigail held both hands to her mouth, her eyes huge with fear and brimming over with tears. “Don’t let him hurt her, Katherine. She is hardly more than a child. Oh, dear, oh, dear. I don’t understand any of this. Lord have mercy, what is happening to us?”

  “Calm down, Abigail,” her sister told her, but I noticed that her eyes had also grown more intense, less certain now of the power she wielded over her manservant. “Bruno, I am telling you that harming Isabel will do neither of us any good. Killing that larcenous villain Jonathan Aleric was one thing, but injuring this innocent young girl is clearly wrong. Please, come down from there before anyone else gets hurt.”

  Undoubtedly frightened by all the noise going on around him, little Billy Dunn chose that moment to start crying. Without looking away from Bruno, the elderly woman tried to quiet the infant, jiggling him in her arms and murmuring soft assurances. He only cried louder, adding more confusion to the already tense scene.

  I was horrified to see Bruno’s eyes gleam insanely as he stared at his mistress. “I can’t let her go, Mrs. Montgomery. She’s gonna tell the police if I do. I, ugh—”

  Isabel had suddenly jerked her head backward, hitting Studds on the nose and causing him to fire off his revolver. Thankfully, he had stumbled and the shot went wild, but Stephen took advantage of the distraction to leap up the porch stairs and into the house through the open front door. He must have flown just as quickly up the inside staircase, because a moment later he appeared behind Studds on the balcony.

  “Isabel, run!” he shouted, pushing her through the open windows and back inside the house.

  Bruno came at him like a wild animal. The two men struggled on the balcony, arms and fists flailing, hard punches thrown as well as received, blood spurting from both their faces. Stephen was the other man’s junior by a good twenty years, but Studds was powerfully built and accustomed to performing physical labor, while the younger man worked at a desk as a writer.

  There was a horrified cry from a woman standing below, and I held my breath as Bruno managed to push Stephen against the balcony railing. Despite the younger man’s struggles, Bruno was winning the fight, inching Stephen’s feet slowly off the ground, forcing his head farther over the railing.

  “He’s going to fall!” a man shouted.

  “Someone help him!” cried another.

  George and his men had already followed Stephen into the house, followed closely by Emmett, Samuel, and, of course, Eddie, despite my shouts for him to stay where he was. One of the officers came back outside a moment later, leading a badly shaken Isabel Freiberg. Her father was instantly by her side, the two embracing and sobbing in each other’s arms.

  There was another scream, and all eyes flew back to the balcony. Stephen was fighting desperately with the other man to retain his balance. Bruno was pushing him inexorably over the railing, ever closer to the stone porch lying below them. For a terrible moment, I was certain all was lost, then Stephen managed to break the other man’s grip long enough for his feet to once again touch the ground.

  Suddenly, the gun went off for the second time, piercing the stunned silence that had fallen over the crowd as they watched the life-and-death struggle taking place above their heads. Stephen cried out in pain, and a bright red stain began to spread across his right side.

  Seeing the blood, Bruno gave a gleeful laugh and went in for the kill, once again attempting to lift Stephen up and over the balcony railing. Still, the younger man refused to give up. Despite his wound, he fought valiantly to break the other man’s hold.

  “Bruno, don’t!” screamed Mrs. Montgomery.

  Seeing her attention focused on the struggling men, I dashed up the stairs and took the baby out of her unresisting arms. As I did, Abigail gave a little cry, rolled her eyes, and fainted. A man hurried to her side, managing to ease her plump form to the ground.

  Above me, Stephen used his knee to kick Bruno hard in an area where I knew it would cause severe pain. The bigger man howled, allowing Stephen the moment he needed to break free and away from the railing. George and his remaining men burst through the window and onto the balcony. While the police officers subdued Bruno, Emmett and Samuel helped the gasping writer down the stairs and onto the manicured lawn in front of the mansion.

  The first one to reach him was Isabel, looking far more frightened now than she had been while fighting for her own life. Kneeling on the grass, she gently took Stephen’s head in her lap and brushed the hair out of his face,
while George attempted to staunch the young man’s bleeding. One of the patrolmen had been sent down to the police wagon in order to fetch a two-horse ambulance that could make it up the hill.

  “Help will be here in a few minutes, my darling,” Isabel told Stephen, showering his face with kisses. “You’re going to be all right, I promise. And I will never leave your side again.” She glanced up at her father, who was watching the two, his expression softer than I had ever seen it. In that moment, I think, Solomon Freiberg finally recognized the face of true love.

  I heard someone hurrying toward us and saw that Robert had arrived. He stopped in astonishment, taking in the crowd, a battered Bruno Studds being led away between two policemen, and a bleeding man lying wounded on the grass. Finally, his incredulous turquoise eyes rested on me and the infant I held in my arms.

  “Good God, Sarah! What has happened here?”

  “Far too much to even begin to explain to you at the moment, Robert,” I told him. “It all happened so fast. I doubt that any of us has had time to draw breath, much less put our thoughts in order.”

  “Never mind,” he said, coming to stand beside me. “You look completely knackered, and so covered in soot and ash that I know you must have been involved with that fire down the hill.”

  When I didn’t answer, he gave me a rueful smile. “You truly cannot be trusted on your own. Might as well expect my landlady’s cat to keep a promise as to ask one of you.”

  He sighed, and as hard as he was trying to look cross, I knew it was a sigh of relief. “But at least you’re safe, and in one piece. The story can wait.”

  Placing his arm around my waist, he gave me a little squeeze. “Besides, you look far too charming cradling that baby in your arms to be subjected to one of my lectures. I’ll save it until later.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Mortimer Remy was released from city jail the following morning. Samuel, Robert, and I were on hand to escort him back to his home in Eddie’s brougham.

  We made a jubilant foursome, despite Eddie’s eccentric driving. I honestly doubt that anything short of an actual collision could have dampened Remy’s exhilaration.

  “I owe my life to you, Miss Woolson,” he said. Although he’d insisted on paying a generous fee for my legal services, his smile would have been more than an adequate reward. “You did everything you said you would, and a great deal more. But I cannot understand how you came to suspect Katherine Montgomery of being the villain behind all those murders. For years I have known her to be a fine woman, and the most gracious of friends.”

  “I believe that at heart she is a decent woman,” I said. “But a mother’s love can be all-consuming, and Mrs. Montgomery adored her only son.”

  “This was the child she had with her first husband, Giraud Tilson?” Samuel asked.

  I nodded, pondering the irony of the situation. “Evidently, Mr. Tilson passed away when Lawrence was a child. Since Mrs. Montgomery goes by her second husband’s name, Jonathan Aleric never knew who she really was.”

  “I never met the boy, but I understand he was everything a mother could hope for in a son,” said Remy. “According to Abigail, he was handsome, brave, and blessed with a rare literary talent which exhibited itself when he was still quite young.”

  “You say that Aleric stole the lad’s manuscript when he was with him at Vicksburg?” Robert asked.

  “Mrs. Montgomery is convinced that he did.” I said. “Of course, at that point his notes were in the form of a journal. I have to say that I believe her. Given Aleric’s dismal record in school, I think it’s most unlikely he could have penned such an extraordinary book.”

  “And he never published another thing, which also argues against him being the author,” Samuel put in, gingerly adjusting the position of his left arm, which was back in a sling. “By the way, did I hear Mrs. Montgomery say she suspected Aleric of being responsible for Lawrence’s death?”

  “Before the police took her away, she told me that her son had discussed Aleric in some of his letters home,” I explained. “He knew the lad was maintaining a journal of his experiences in the war, and had even taken it to read once without Lawrence’s approval.”

  “Obviously he was impressed,” Remy said.

  “I’m sure he was,” I agreed. “An Uncivil War is an outstanding example of writing, by anyone’s standards.”

  “But that doesn’t necessarily mean he wanted to kill young Tilson,” Samuel pointed out.

  “No,” I replied, “but according to Mrs. Montgomery, her son was convinced that Aleric attempted to shoot him during a skirmish with Confederate troops. If Lawrence had died, I suppose it would have appeared that he had been struck by enemy fire.”

  Samuel gave a soft curse. “As he eventually was. Which left Aleric free to steal Lawrence’s journal, and then publish it as a book after the war.”

  “To great acclaim,” Remy added bitterly. “I cannot help but feel sorry for Mrs. Montgomery.”

  “Yes,” I replied. “Despite what she’s done, it must have been a terrible ordeal seeing her son’s work published under another man’s name. And powerless to do anything to disclaim it in court.”

  Robert looked disgusted. “Even if he wasn’t responsible for Lawrence Tilson’s death, the man was a complete scoundrel.”

  “You’ll get no argument on that score from me,” Remy said with passion. “I wouldn’t have actually killed the bounder, even if I was tempted to do so on more than one occasion, but I would be lying if I claimed to be sorry that he’s gone.” He studied me expectantly. “But you still haven’t told me how you came to suspect Katherine Montgomery. Please do share the workings of your remarkable mind with us lesser mortals.”

  Samuel snorted and Robert guffawed almost in unison, but they couldn’t quite disguise their curiosity to hear my response.

  Smiling to myself, I said, “Actually, some of the indications were apparent the night Oscar Wilde visited Telegraph Hill. Although there was no reason to pay particular attention to them at the time. I thought nothing of it when I saw Mrs. Montgomery speak to Claude Dunn after the reading. Of course now we know she was offering to pay him to kill Aleric as he walked down the hill, but then it just seemed mildly curious. And, of course, Dunn had no real alibi after he left the gathering for his own home.”

  “Like most of the other guests,” my brother put in. “They all insisted that they’d gone straight home and seen nothing.”

  I nodded. “That’s right, so he didn’t stand out as particularly suspicious. Most misleading, of course, was the fact that he shot you instead of Aleric.”

  Samuel gave a self-deprecating little smile. “When he stumbled and I bent over to help him.”

  “That’s what you get for being a Good Samaritan, Samuel,” said Robert. Despite his attempt to keep his tone light, his face sobered when he studied my brother’s injured shoulder.

  “You’re right, though,” my brother said. “It sent us off on the wrong track right from the beginning. I hardly knew Dunn, so it never occurred to me that he might be the shooter.”

  “I still don’t understand why he agreed to do it,” said Remy. “Did the man have no scruples?”

  “Apparently not many,” I replied. “After his poor wife, Lucy, died in childbirth, leaving him with an unwanted son and the loss of what little income she’d brought in, the man was desperate. Blackmailing Mrs. Montgomery must have seemed an easy way to support himself.”

  “But couldn’t Mrs. Montgomery have simply turned the tables on him?” Remy asked. “After all, Dunn was the one who fired at Aleric.”

  “She could have done that,” I said. “But then she would have been forced to admit to her own part in the plot. Dunn knew that as a prominent member of San Francisco society she couldn’t survive such devastating publicity—assuming the police didn’t send her to jail. And he was right, although not in the way he expected. Rather than accede to his demands, and risk the very real possibility that the blackmail might go on
indefinitely, she and Bruno decided to silence him permanently.”

  “But he had already sold the story of Aleric’s plagiarism and Mrs. Montgomery’s long-seething desire for revenge to Ozzie Foldger,” Samuel noted. “Of course without mentioning that he had been hired to actually pull the trigger.”

  “That must have come as quite a shock,” Robert put in. “Those two thought they were in the clear, only to find that they were about to become front-page news.”

  “But wasn’t Dunn taking a real chance that Mrs. Montgomery would be so angry that she’d simply tell the police the truth about his role in the affair?” asked Remy.

  I thought about this. “Probably not. As with the blackmail, in order to refute Foldger’s story she would have had to admit that she hired Dunn to kill the publisher. The foolish man gave Mrs. Montgomery little choice but to murder him and squelch the newspaper article.”

  We sat in silence for several moments, contemplating this. Then the carriage hit a sudden bump, causing us all to jump in our seats and breaking the somber mood.

  “Probably the most telling information came when I visited Isabel Freiberg’s house after Dunn’s death,” I went on. “As Robert can verify, Abigail Forester is something of a chatterbox. That morning she mentioned that Mrs. Montgomery’s only son had died during the march on Vicksburg. Of course, I was immediately put in mind of Aleric’s book, but I was far from making any sort of connection between the two. Abigail also bragged that her nephew was a talented writer, that even as a child he had penned some beautiful poems. Her sister seemed unusually upset when she shared these innocent reminiscences with me. Even at the time I found this strange. Then, of course, I saw Bruno Studds deep in conversation with your highly unsocial typesetter, Mr. Remy, which was a considerable surprise.”

  Remy’s face fell. “Poor Tull. For all his faults, he was a loyal employee. He’d been with me since we launched the newspaper, you know?”