MURDER AT BERTRAM'S BOWER

by Cynthia Peale

  “Oh, I don’t think that, miss. I don’t think he wanted to do her harm. But she was friendly with him, like, an’ she gave herself airs on account of it.”

  “Who? Who do you mean, Liza?”

  Again the two girls glanced at each other. Katy bit her lip, shifted uneasily in her chair.

  “Himself,” Liza said then. “The Reverend Montgomery.”

  “Ah.” There was a brief silence as Caroline absorbed it. “But of course—he promised her a typewriting machine, didn’t he?”

  The coded note, she thought. But no, that must have come from the elusive typewriter salesman.

  Liza nodded. “You’d never believe the way she carried on about it.” Her eyes were hostile, remembering. “Oh, she was little Miss Princess, bragging about it. Who’d want one of them things anyways? I wouldn’t! It would hurt your hands somethin’ awful to use it.”

  “But about the reverend,” Caroline said, steering the conversation back to more pertinent paths. “She was friends with him?”

  Katy threw her a sly glance—a glance far too knowing about the world and its wicked ways, Caroline thought.

  “Maybe more,” Katy said. “Maybe she was more than friends with him, if you know what I mean.”

  Caroline struggled to keep her expression noncommittal. Mary was pregnant, the medical examiner had said; but surely not by the Reverend Montgomery?

  “No, Katy, I am not sure I do know what you mean.”

  Katy shrugged. “Goin’ out at all hours, an’ where did she go, if not to him? I seen her once, comin’ out of his place. She was all—like—flummoxed. But happy—she looked real happy. ‘What’r’ you doin’ there,’ I asked her, but she wouldn’t say. She just got that look on her face, like ‘That’s for me to know and you to find out.’ An’ when he came here, just happenin’ to run into him, always givin’ him the eye.” She batted her eyes in an exaggerated imitation of a flirtatious look. “Like that. ‘Oh, yes, he’s goin’ to buy me a typewritin’ machine. He’s my special friend. He’s such a handsome man, isn’t he? An’ a real gentleman.’

  “That’s the way she went on, miss. Enough to make you sick. As if a gentleman like the Reverend Montgomery would ever give her a second look.”

  Liza had been troubled during this last, and now she said, “But he did, didn’t he?”

  “Give her a second look, you mean?” Katy replied.

  It was a dialogue now between the two of them, with Caroline watching on the sidelines.

  “Yes. He didn’t seem to mind, the way she made up to him.”

  “I seen them one time when they didn’t know I was there,” Katy said. “I was comin’ down the stairs, an’ the office door was open a bit, an’ they were standin’ inside.” She giggled and flushed a little, and threw a half-ashamed glance at Caroline. “An’ he had his hand—oh, I daren’t say it, miss. He had his hand here—” And she gestured toward the insignificant swell of her bosom.

  Really, thought Caroline, I do not believe this. The Reverend Montgomery may be no better than he should be, but surely he has some sense of decorum.

  “She wasn’t the only one neither,” Katy added.

  “How do you mean?”

  “I seen him once in the back hall with—what was her name, I can’t remember. She’s gone now. It was just after I came here, an’ she was in her last week or two. I knew who he was because he talks to each of us before Miss Montgomery takes us in.”

  “He does?” Caroline was surprised. “I didn’t know that.”

  “Yes. We all have to have a private talk with him, like, beforehand.”

  Times had changed, then, Caroline thought, from when Agatha roamed the nighttime streets looking for candidates for her charity—girls who would immediately be taken in, fed, tended to, given a bed. Perhaps it was understandable that now she asked her brother to interview the girls first, since her reputation had spread, and there were so many more, it seemed, needing her help.

  Or perhaps she hadn’t asked him to do it. Perhaps he had insisted.

  “So you saw him with a girl?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what were they doing, together there in the back hall?”

  “He was—I don’t know. She was pushin’ him away.”

  “And did she succeed?”

  “Yes, miss. She got away from him.”

  “And did he see you?”

  A sudden look of fear crossed the girl’s face. “No, miss.”

  “You hope,” Liza said.

  “He didn’t. I know he didn’t,” Katy said firmly, but still she looked frightened.

  Of course Katy could never have reported such an incident, Caroline thought. Who would believe it?

  “What about Mary?” she said. “Can you remember what happened on the night she was—on the night she died?”

  “How d’you mean?” Liza asked.

  “I mean, did anything unusual happen? It was Sunday—” Only last Sunday; it seemed much longer.

  They thought about it. “The police already asked us,” Katy said.

  “I know they did. But perhaps by now you remember something you didn’t tell them. What did you tell them, by the way? Anything?”

  “No, miss. Nothin’ to tell. It was Sunday night, like you say. We had our supper. Matron went out to her service, like she always does.”

  “And Miss Montgomery was out, too, so Miss Cox was in charge.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Mary was working in the office.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you see her go out?”

  “No. We was at Bible study with Miss Cox, up in the readin’ room, an’ then we went to bed.”

  “What time was that?”

  “Well—” Katy hesitated, working it out. “The rest of ’em went up about half past eight. But I had to stay back with Miss Cox because I was bad.”

  “Bad? How were you bad, Katy?”

  She glowered, remembering. “I laughed.”

  “You laughed. At—?”

  “Samuel Two, eleven.”

  “I see.” David and Bathsheba. Caroline smothered a smile herself. Jane Cox, lacking the character to be faithful to Agatha, also lacked a sense of humor.

  “So you stayed behind with Miss Cox—”

  “An’ when I was goin’ out, after a while, I saw Miss Montgomery comin’ in.”

  “And did you speak to her?”

  “No, miss. I was goin’ up to bed, an’ I heard the door an’ I looked down into the front hall. She came in all wet—soakin’, she was. She had her bag with her”—her carpetbag, which she had carried, Caroline knew, for as long as she’d run the Bower. In former times, she would carry food in it, or shawls, or bottles of one patent medicine or another, to give to girls on the streets—“an’ she just stood there, like she was too tired to walk up the stairs. I didn’t think she’d want to speak to me.”

  “I see. Well, that was thoughtful of you, Katy. I imagine that she was exhausted, and what with the rain—”

  “She was drippin’, miss. I thought for sure she’d be taken with the pleurisy, but she wasn’t.”

  “All right. So much for Sunday night and Mary. Now, what about Bridget? Did you know her?”

  “Some.”

  “And? Did she have any enemies? Anyone who might have wanted to harm her?”

  They couldn’t think of anyone.

  “And you saw her last—?”

  “Monday,” Liza said. “She wanted to go out, an’ Miss Montgomery didn’t want her to.”

  “No, of course she didn’t want her to. But Bridget was disobedient, and she went out anyway?”

  And learned the grim lesson: Disobedience brought swift and certain punishment. In Bridget’s case, death.

  “Yes.”

  “Can you remember anything else about Bridget that day?”

  Liza’s glance wavered as she looked away.

  “Well? What is it?”

  “She—she an’ Garrett—”


  “Yes? What about Garrett?”

  “He was pesterin’ her, like.”

  Worse than pulling teeth, Caroline thought.

  “How do you mean, pestering her?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know what he said. But he said somethin’ to her and she said, ‘Leave me alone!’ She was cryin’.”

  “This was before she had her argument with Miss Montgomery?”

  “Yes. Just before.”

  “Did you ever see them talking another time? Garrett and Bridget?”

  “Yes, miss. Once or twice. I think—”

  Katy’s brow creased with the effort to articulate her thoughts.

  “I think she was afraid of him,” she said at last.

  “Afraid? Of Garrett? But why?”

  “I don’t know, miss.”

  There seemed nothing more to be said. The two girls sat quietly before her, humble, deprived, rescued here temporarily by Agatha Montgomery but destined soon to go out into the world again to try to survive. Caroline felt sudden tears prick at her eyes, and she blinked rapidly to banish them. Crying would do no good—not for them, and not for Mary or Bridget either. It was information that was needed—and after all, these two had given her some of that.

  She thanked them for their help and watched them as they rose and went out. For a moment she sat alone in the empty dining hall. All the tables were laid for supper, crockery and cheap tin flatware, row after row of empty places that soon would be filled with the Bower’s girls taking their evening meal. The food at Agatha’s was hardly lavish, but Caroline knew it was nourishing enough, meat and potatoes and porridge and milk. Most girls, after their three-month stay, were considerably healthier than they’d been when they came.

  Garrett. Why had Bridget been afraid of him? What had he wanted from her?

  And who was the man Mary had spoken of? A man she’d thought might marry her—who could that have been?

  Would a typewriter salesman take up with one of the girls from Bertram’s Bower?

  And as for the Reverend Montgomery—no, it was unthinkable. Surely Katy and Liza were mistaken about him.

  It was time to talk to Cook.

  The Bower’s kitchen, a vast space taking up most of the basement, was in full battle mode as the evening meal was being prepared—mutton stew, from its pungent smell. In a far corner, by the back door, Caroline saw a man—dirty, dressed in rags—wolfing down a chunk of bread. As he saw her come in, he slipped out. Cook, who had no other name that Caroline knew, was berating one of her slaveys for not properly scouring the pans. Her broad red face was redder than usual, and her voice rained down on the unfortunate girl’s head like so many blows. She broke off abruptly as Caroline came in.

  “Good afternoon, Cook.”

  “ ’Afternoon, miss.”

  “I was wondering—could I have a word?”

  The woman hesitated, but then she relented. With a curt order to the slavey, she led Caroline into a small pantry at the back.

  “Now, miss, what is it?” She stood facing Caroline, arms akimbo, her stout torso swathed in a vast white apron.

  “Garrett?” she said when Caroline asked about him. “No, I haven’t seen him all afternoon. He was here earlier though.”

  “Do you see him often?”

  “Often enough.”

  “Do you—might he have some attachment to one or another of the girls, do you think?”

  Cook stared at her. “Attachment? I don’t know what you mean, Miss Ames. He’s a good boy, minds his business. Miss Agatha was kind to give him work here, and he knows that,” she added grimly.

  “You have been here—how long?” Caroline asked.

  “Miss Agatha hired me from the Intelligence Office the first week after she set up here, and I’ve been with her ever since.”

  “She is fortunate to have you,” Caroline murmured.

  “I am fortunate to have her, miss.” Cook’s face revealed nothing. “She took me on when I needed a place, I don’t mind telling you. Not that I haven’t worked hard for her. I always have, and I always will, because Miss Agatha is the best woman in the world and she needs all the help she can get.”

  “Yes,” Caroline replied. “She is. She does. And this dreadful business—”

  “Hurts her. Yes. It hurts all of us. It hurts her brother too. Miss Agatha is a wonderful woman, and he’s just the same—the best man in the world.”

  “Yes, I—”

  But Cook had warmed to her subject now and was not to be stopped. “I feed him up, poor man. He comes in here nearly every day—he lives alone, y’know, no one to care for him. Get yourself a housekeeper, I say to him. Someone to look after you. But he won’t—doesn’t want the expense. Wants every penny he gets to go either to his church or to this place.”

  But he doesn’t spare himself on his wardrobe, Caroline thought.

  “So he comes in here,” Cook went on, “and we talk, and he gets something to eat. He’s a fine man, a good worker for the Lord. And the Lord will reward him in the end.”

  “I think all of you here will find your reward,” Caroline replied, “if we can just get past this terrible business. Matron has told me—”

  “That one.” Cook’s mouth clamped shut.

  “Mrs. Pratt? What about her?”

  “I don’t like to tell tales, miss.”

  Oh, but do, Caroline thought. Tell me anything. Everything. What do you know, Cook?

  “What about her?” she said again. “She is very strict with the girls?”

  “Well, she has to be, don’t she? But it’s different with her, isn’t it?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I mean—” Cook struggled with it. “I mean—she don’t care about the girls here. Not the way Miss Agatha does, nor the reverend neither.”

  True, Caroline thought. But please explain.

  “Sometimes I think—”

  “What? What do you think?”

  “I don’t like to speak out of turn, miss. But I s’pose you heard one of my best knives is missing. The police wanted to know all about that, I can tell you. I don’t know, I said. All I know is, all my knives was here on Saturday night when I left—I spend Saturday night till Monday morning with my cousin in Brighton—and when I came in on Monday morning, one of ’em was gone. I always sharpen the knives before I go on Saturdays, lay them out in the drawer, each one in its place. So when I came in to work on Monday morning I went right to the drawer like I always do, and right away I saw someone had taken one.”

  “No chance you misplaced it?”

  “No, miss. I’m very careful with my knives. Have to be, don’t I?”

  “Yes. Of course you do. But are you telling me you think someone here took it? Someone at the Bower?”

  “Well, who else?”

  “I saw a man just now—a stranger. Men come to beg food here?”

  “Yes.” Cook threw her a defiant look. “I feed them when I can. I know what it is to be hungry.”

  Not recently, Caroline thought, taking in the woman’s ample girth.

  “Could someone have broken in while you were away?”

  “No. Not with Her Nibs up there keeping watch.”

  “You mean Matron.”

  “Snotty old bitch,” Cook muttered. “Don’t care a thing about these girls. Spends all her time smarming up to Miss Agatha—oh, I tell you, miss. We’ve had some run-ins, Matron Pratt and me. She comes down here, ordering me about like I was some kind of servant to her—which I’m not. Miss Agatha gave me full charge of the kitchen and there’s no one can tell me what to do. But Matron comes down, tells me I’m putting too much food out. Too much food—too expensive, she says. Cut back, she says. But how can I do that? These girls need feeding up. They come in all worn down to nothing, I don’t care that they’ve come off the streets, they’re flesh and blood just like you and me. I’ll feed them as much as I can, I says to Matron. Miss Agatha is the one to tell me if I’m spending too much on provisions, and she n
ever has told me so yet. So go about your business, I says, and leave me to mine.”

  Caroline nodded. “Good for you, Cook.”

  Cook leaned in close, and Caroline caught a whiff of liquor on her breath. “You want to know what I think, Miss Ames?”

  “Yes—tell me.”

  “I think—” Cook looked around, although they were quite alone in the pantry, well away from the activity in the kitchen. “I think the police maybe should ask Matron a few more questions.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because. She’s a mean one, make no mistake. I heard—mind you, I didn’t see it for myself—but I heard a while back she was saying she would beat one of the girls. Beat her, can you imagine? Lord knows she’s as strong as a bull. And has a nasty temper to boot. Where was Matron on Sunday night, I ask you.”

  “She was at her religious meeting, I believe.”

  “Hah. Religious meeting.”

  “And when Bridget was killed—”

  “I don’t know about Bridget. But on Sunday night—the night Mary was killed—Matron was coming back from her meeting, wasn’t she? Could’v’ done it then, couldn’t she? Could’v’ taken my knife on Saturday night or any time on Sunday, couldn’t she?”

  “Well, I—”

  “I have to get back to work, miss. I don’t know if I’ve helped you at all, but you just think about what I’m telling you, and see if it makes any sense.”

  With that, she pushed open the pantry door and went back to the kitchen. As she did so, Caroline caught sight of a tall, thin youth in conversation with one of the slaveys.

  He knew who she was, of course, and now he met her gaze and even smiled a bit as she approached. As always when she saw him, she was struck by his looks: He was extraordinarily handsome, with a wide brow, a strong jaw, black hair, and sapphire-blue eyes. He had, as well, a good, decent, intelligent look to him. She thought he was perhaps nineteen or twenty years old.

  “Garrett.”

  “Miss Ames.”

  “How are you?”

  “Not so bad.” As he edged away from the slavey and toward her, she saw and remembered his limp. Childhood meningitis, someone had told her; he was fortunate that he wasn’t crippled altogether.

  “Garrett, I was wondering—” How to put it, that she was nosing about in the Bower’s affairs?