MURDER AT BERTRAM'S BOWER

by Cynthia Peale

  She held his gaze, and when she spoke, her voice was soft and (it seemed to him) resonant with meaning.

  “Your move, Doctor.”

  Beacon Street, the next morning, was busy with commercial traffic, but it was still too early for the day’s parade of landaus and four-wheelers, delivering the Back Bay’s fashionable ladies to make their calls.

  Ames and MacKenzie, having taken the Green Trolley to Gloucester Street, mounted the tall flight of brownstone steps at the home of the Lawrence Nortons.

  “Not a propitious hour,” Ames murmured as he grasped the bellpull. “But I know Norton. He’ll not be put off.”

  Admitted by a surprised-looking butler still adjusting his jacket, they waited in a small room off the spacious foyer. In a moment they were shown up to the library at the front of the second floor. Norton, a lanky, loose-limbed man with gingery sideburns, greeted them cordially enough, but without troubling to hide his curiosity about their visit at such an hour.

  “What’s the trouble, Ames?” he said, motioning them to comfortable leather chairs before the fire. “Since I assume this is not a social call. How do you do, Doctor?”

  In a few words, Ames stated his question: Had the Reverend Montgomery attended a gathering here last Sunday?

  “Why, yes,” Norton said. “My wife, you understand, is a staunch supporter of the Bower. We hold a fund-raising social for the reverend two or three times a year.”

  “And this one lasted into the evening?”

  “Not very late. Until about seven.”

  Ames leaned forward, his keen gaze fixed on his host. “Can you say for certain what time the reverend left?”

  Norton thought about it. “I think I can, yes. I remember because my son broke his curfew that evening. He’d gone out in the afternoon but promised to be back by six to do his lessons. He’s at the Latin School, and they work the boys pretty hard there. Just when the reverend was leaving, my son came in and I looked at the clock. It was quarter past. I was thoroughly put out with him, I don’t mind telling you.”

  MacKenzie had a fleeting moment of sympathy for Norton Junior, facing his father’s wrath.

  Norton cleared his throat. “If you don’t mind my asking, Mr. Ames, why it is that you want to know?”

  “I am trying to account for his time,” Ames said simply.

  “For the entire evening?”

  “Yes.”

  “Because?”

  “Because on that night, one of the Bower’s girls was murdered.”

  Norton nodded vigorously. “Yes. Terrible business. And then a second girl—”

  “Was killed the next night. But for the moment, I am interested in Sunday, when the first girl was killed. I spoke to the reverend last evening, and he told me that he left here about ten on Sunday night. Now you tell me that it was quarter past seven.”

  Norton pursed his lips. “I believe your sister, like my wife, is active in helping Miss Montgomery in her work.”

  “She is, yes.”

  “Mrs. Norton is of the opinion that this scandal will hurt the Bower.”

  “That is what my sister thinks also.”

  “But—” Norton’s face was a study in puzzlement. “You cannot possibly believe that the Reverend Montgomery had anything to do with these murders?”

  “I do not believe anything. I am merely trying—at my cousin Wainwright’s request—to assist the police in their inquiries.”

  “Wainwright sits on the board of commissioners.”

  “Yes. And the longer it takes for the culprit to be apprehended, the more the police suffer in the public’s trust. Naturally he wants the case brought to a conclusion as soon as possible.”

  “Of course.” Norton pondered for a moment. “And all this business about Jack the Ripper does not help matters.”

  “It certainly doesn’t.”

  “Mr. Ames, I will be frank with you.” Norton tapped a nervous little tattoo on the arm of his chair. “I hold these fund-raisers for the Bower because my wife asks me to. And of course I cannot deny that Miss Montgomery performs a worthy service. Worthy—and, unfortunately, necessary. Do you know Miss Montgomery? Of course you do. She is a most worthy female herself, if a trifle offputting. These people who have a mission in the world are very often offputting; they cannot help it. Still, I admire her.”

  He was obviously building up to something, MacKenzie thought. Get on with it, man.

  “But I will tell you this as well, Mr. Ames. Even though her brother is widely admired for his own part in keeping the Bower afloat, I personally have a mental reservation about him.”

  Ames cocked his head. “And what would that be?”

  “He is … duplicitous.”

  “How?”

  “He … does not always behave well. In fact, he sometimes behaves very badly.”

  “Do you believe him capable of murder?”

  Norton blinked. “Murder? Well, now, I don’t know about that. I suppose anyone is capable of murder if he’s sufficiently threatened.” He leaned forward as if to impart a confidence. “But the man is not what he seems.”

  No, thought Ames, he is not. “How do you mean?”

  “I mean, my brother-in-law is active in the Watch and Ward. You know of their work?”

  “Yes.”

  The New England Society for the Suppression of Vice, popularly known as the Watch & Ward, was a group of men who had taken it upon themselves to guard the public morals of the city. In pursuit of their goal of absolute moral purity, they visited bookstores to demand that objectionable titles be removed from the shelves, they shut down—mostly in Scollay Square—risqué theatrical presentations, they raided houses of ill repute, they monitored the sale of indecent postcards and other pornographic material, and generally made themselves busy about minding other people’s business. Privately, although Ames deplored the general coarsening of the culture, he thought the Watch & Ward was the Puritan impulse run amok, a subject perhaps for William James’s studies of psychological aberrations, but he forbore to say so now.

  “And what I have to tell you must be kept in absolute confidence,” Norton went on, glancing at MacKenzie.

  “Of course. You may rest assured of Dr. MacKenzie’s complete discretion.”

  “I am sure I can. Well, my brother-in-law went with a few other men last month on a surprise visit to the Black Sea, down in South Cove. You know of it?”

  “I do.”

  “A district of the foulest vice if ever there was one. Disorderly houses, gambling parlors, fancy bordellos, what have you. The police make regular raids, of course, but as I don’t have to tell you, a little baksheesh goes a long way with some of those officers, particularly the ones who walk a beat.”

  “I imagine it does, yes.”

  “In the course of this particular visit, a few so-called respectable men were discovered at one or two of the houses.”

  “And among them was the Reverend Montgomery?”

  “Yes.”

  Ames was silent, and after a moment, Norton said, “You do not seem surprised, Mr. Ames.”

  “I am not. To be frank, I have the same impression of him that you do—that he is not what he pretends to be. But if you knew about this—ah—discovery, may I ask why you entertained him here? Surely a man who frequents the Black Sea should not be welcomed into any decent household.”

  Norton’s gaze wavered, then came back. “You are right, of course, Mr. Ames. But I had already given my wife permission to hold the event, and in all honesty, if I had demanded she cancel it, I did not feel I could tell her why. One cannot speak of such things to a lady, after all.”

  “No. I suppose not. And she knows you well enough to detect it if you made up some falsehood as an excuse?”

  Norton rolled his eyes. “Yes.”

  MacKenzie smothered a smile.

  “So if you are looking to discover where the reverend was on Sunday evening after he left here—earlier than he said he did—I am sorry to say, Mr. Ames,
that you may have to pay a visit to the Black Sea yourself.”

  The Black Sea was a dreary area of tenements and small commercial establishments, saloons, dingy cafés, and, on the narrow side streets, three- and four-story row houses. Here and there could be seen the three gold balls of pawnbrokers’ shops, and small hand-lettered signs announcing the premises of crystal-ball readers and dubious healers. Some places, lacking any advertisement, looked more prosperous than their neighbors; these, presumably, housed the area’s active flesh trade.

  To MacKenzie’s astonishment, Ames seemed familiar with the neighborhood. Since he was sure his landlord was far too fastidious a man to frequent such a district, he had to assume that Ames was operating on hearsay and clever guesses.

  The first three places they visited, while assuredly disorderly houses, had no knowledge of the Reverend Montgomery. Ames did not use the reverend’s name; instead, sure that Montgomery would have come here under an alias, he described him.

  At the fourth house, he found what he was looking for: a woman who said—after Ames intimated that the police might wish to pay her a visit—that yes, such a man was a regular customer.

  “But who are you?” she asked. She was middle-aged, hard-looking, with dyed black hair and pouchy eyes. “Not the police, I know that for sure.”

  “No,” Ames replied. “Not the police. Now, tell me, my good woman, did this man visit you last Sunday night?”

  She squinted, as if the daylight hurt her eyes. “Last Sunday? I couldn’t say for sure.”

  “Try.”

  She sniffed. “I can’t.”

  “I believe you can,” Ames said. “And my friend, Inspector Crippen, will—”

  “All right!” she said quickly.

  “He was here?”

  “Yes.”

  “What time?”

  “I couldn’t say.”

  “No? Of course you could.”

  She thought about it. “Around nine, nine-thirty.”

  “And he stayed until?”

  “He’s always quick about it, that one,” she said with a sour smile. “Not after ten.”

  As they turned to go, she cried, “No trouble from the police, now, mister!”

  When they were on the sidewalk once more, Ames gave himself a shake as if to slough off a film of dirt.

  “I don’t hold with the Watch and Ward, Doctor, but I must say, sometimes I don’t object to their activities if they can rid the city of places like this.”

  But they can’t, MacKenzie thought, and they never will.

  Ames hailed a cab on Washington Street and gave the driver the Bower’s address. Despite the admission he had wrung from the brothel’s owner just now, he felt oddly deflated. He’d hoped to find that the reverend had no way to account for his time on the night that Mary was killed, and now, perhaps, he had done so. That is, if Crippen would take the word of a whore. If Norton had been correct in his estimation of the hour when Montgomery had left his house. If, if, if—

  The medical examiner had put the time of Mary’s death at between seven and midnight—a span that easily could have allowed the reverend to leave the Nortons’, make his way back to the South End to deal with Mary, and then visit the Black Sea.

  But why, if indeed he had killed Mary, had he killed Bridget also?

  “She can’t see you,” snapped Matron Pratt. She stood in the hall, hands on her hips, eyes slitted nearly shut with animosity. “She can’t see anyone. Why don’t you leave her alone? She’s near out of her mind with worry, and you come here to pester her—”

  Ames inclined his head. “I understand, Matron. I will not take up one moment of her time more than I need, I assure you.”

  The Bower was quiet. From the dining hall at the rear of the building, where the girls were presumably at their noon meal, came the odor of boiled cabbage.

  “She’s resting,” Matron Pratt replied through clenched teeth. “She hasn’t slept a wink since—since it happened, and now for once she is, and I won’t—”

  She broke off as they heard voices rising, high and piercing, from the dining hall. In the next moment, they heard curses, and then the sound of what might have been someone’s head hitting, very hard, a bare floor.

  At once, Mrs. Pratt whirled and went at a half-run toward the back of the house.

  “Stand guard,” Ames muttered to MacKenzie. In the next instant, he was inside the office. Lifting the glass door of one of the bookshelves, he took down the account book for the previous year, 1891. Quickly he scanned the pages that held the record of income and outgo for the last three months.

  In a moment more, he was out in the hall once again, just in time to greet Agatha Montgomery coming from the dining room, giving the lie to the matron’s excuses.

  “Mr. Ames.”

  “Miss Montgomery.”

  “How can I—what do you want?”

  She looked worse than ever, MacKenzie thought: pale and tense, and her voice strained and thin.

  “We want a few words with you, no more,” Ames said.

  “You are not fit—” Mrs. Pratt growled at her, coming up behind.

  “It’s all right, Matron.”

  Miss Montgomery opened the door to the office and went in, Ames and MacKenzie following. She sat in the chair behind the desk—Mary Flaherty’s chair—and the men seated themselves opposite. They caught sight of Matron Pratt’s angry visage at the door before she slammed it shut.

  For a moment, Miss Montgomery seemed to be trying to summon up the strength to speak. She sat rigid, her hands clenched on the desk before her, her long, equine face tight with strain. Her hair was straggling out of its knot, and the collar of her dark dress was crooked.

  Then at last she said, “Now, Mr. Ames. What do you want?”

  He reminded himself that women were the weaker sex. He reminded himself that Agatha Montgomery, although hardly weak in the way that most women were, was nevertheless a female herself—and, more, that during the past few days, she had been through a great deal of emotional turmoil and devastating loss. She must, he thought, be particularly vulnerable just now.

  So. This was his chance, and he must take it.

  “Miss Montgomery, were you aware that Mary Flaherty was expecting a child?”

  Her mouth dropped open, and her pale eyes widened with shock—at what Ames had told her? MacKenzie wondered. Or at the fact that he would mention such an unmentionable thing?

  Ames waited for a moment. Then he pressed on. “Did you know that, Miss Montgomery?”

  “No.” She spoke so softly that they barely heard her.

  “I believe you did. Or you suspected it at least. And since your brother was friendly with Mary—”

  “He—I don’t know what you mean by friendly.”

  “He knew her rather better than he knew most of the girls here, didn’t he?”

  Her eyes shifted away, to the file cabinets and bookcases lining the walls, to her clenched hands, to the ceiling, back to her hands.

  “Didn’t he, Miss Montgomery?” Ames persisted. “He had to see to the account books, after all, which Mary kept here in the office. He was in and out at all hours, and he would have met her here as she worked.”

  “Yes. I suppose so.”

  “And so, being friendly with her, he would have listened to her troubles.”

  “What troubles?” She looked up sharply.

  “I think you know.”

  No answer.

  “Didn’t you know about Mary, Miss Montgomery? That she was expecting a child?”

  “No.”

  “But you must have suspected it?”

  “Never. She was— No. I don’t believe it.”

  You are lying, MacKenzie thought.

  “The medical examiner is quite sure,” Ames said.

  She blazed up at him. “Then the medical examiner is mistaken! She couldn’t have been—she wouldn’t—”

  “No, Miss Montgomery. The medical examiner is not mistaken,” Ames said softly. “A
nd I believe you know he is not.”

  She made no reply. She sat immobile; after a moment, they saw tears begin to slide down her thin, sallow cheeks. She made no move to stop them or to wipe them away. She simply sat, without speaking, without making a sound, letting her tears fall—and what bitter tears they must be, Ames thought. It was almost as if she were mourning, not Mary’s death, or Bridget’s, but the whole wreckage of her life, all her years of effort and toil to establish this place, this “bower” of refuge for girls who might, in the end, throw that effort back in her face. Other girls had left the Bower because they’d been pregnant, but those other girls had not been Mary Flaherty: her pet, her prize girl.

  Gently, Ames said, “Did you ever talk to Mary about her condition, Miss Montgomery?”

  She shook her head. Then she fumbled in her cuff for a handkerchief, withdrew it, and wiped her eyes. She looked old—older than she did ordinarily, and somehow beaten.

  “But you knew,” he said.

  “I did not!” Suddenly she was infused with a dreadful energizing anger. She sat up straight and glared at Ames as if he and he alone were the source of all her woe.

  “But if I had known, I can assure you I would have expelled her at once! At once! To have allowed her to stay—and with a bastard child—never! To see her, like that—! No, Mr. Ames. If what you say is true, she would have gone at once.”

  “It is true,” he said. “Believe me. And what I am trying to discover is if you have any idea who the man might have been.”

  She stared at him as if he had taken leave of his senses. “How can you ask such a thing, Mr. Ames? How would I know that? The girls are strictly monitored—”

  “Ah, but Mary was not, was she?”

  They watched, fascinated, as a series of emotions passed over her face: anger, bewilderment, a kind of cunning. And finally, once more, that look of defeat.