MURDER AT BERTRAM'S BOWER

by Cynthia Peale

  “Your—oh, dear. I am sorry.”

  “It was—you understand—a disgrace to us. To our family. My ma didn’t know, y’see. Peg is her niece—her brother’s child. They live in South Boston. My uncle Frank near died when he found out about Peg. Last year, it was. She’d gone into service with a family over in Cambridge. But then something happened, I don’t know what, and they put her out. She couldn’t bear to go home like that—a failure. So she took to the streets. Lived with three other girls in a room. She was arrested once or twice, and one time she was sent up for thirty days. Then she got sick. She went to Uncle Frank for help, but he turned her out. Said she was no daughter of his no more. He told me about it, made me promise not to tell my ma. That must’v’ frightened her more than anything, I think—that she was so far gone, her own family didn’t want her. She must’v’ seen she was headed straight for Potter’s Field if she didn’t straighten herself out. That’s when she came to the Bower.”

  “Did she know you worked there?” MacKenzie asked.

  “No, sir, she didn’t. I saw her in the dining room one day when I was washin’ windows. I almost fell off my ladder, I can tell you. But I never spoke to her, not once. I wouldn’t want her to think I’d let on to the family she was there. Though it mightn’t have made any difference, seein’ as how they considered her dead. An’ anyways, the Bower’s better than the streets, isn’t it?”

  “So it was simply out of concern for her that you asked Bridget about her,” MacKenzie said.

  “Yes, sir. I just wanted to make sure she was all right.”

  It seemed an innocent enough explanation, and yet MacKenzie doubted Inspector Crippen would accept it if he had already made up his mind, as he seemed to have done, that the lad was the Bower killer.

  “And now with all this goin’ on,” Garrett added, “how do I know she’s safe at all? Any of the Bower’s girls might be the next.”

  “If there is to be another, yes,” Caroline replied, suppressing a shudder. Another—but there couldn’t be. There mustn’t be.

  “Inspector Crippen let you go in the end,” MacKenzie said.

  “Yes, sir.” Garrett nodded at him. “But he said I must stay in Boston. I shouldn’t think of tryin’ to run away, he said, because he could find me anywhere. But where would I go anyways?”

  Caroline went to the bellpull by the fireplace and pulled it twice sharply. Then she said to Garrett, “You must stay here.”

  “Do you not think—” MacKenzie began, but he broke off as she gave him a look. It was not, after all, his affair if she chose to offer shelter to this lad.

  “Yes, I do think, Doctor,” she said, and that, he understood, was the end of it.

  When Margaret came, she still had that stubborn, mutinous look. “Yes, miss?”

  “Have you found any dry clothing, Margaret?” The way to deal with the maid’s attitude, Caroline believed, was to ignore it.

  “Not yet, miss.”

  “Please do so immediately. And then make up the bed in Henry’s old room”—this was the chamber, next to the kitchen, that had once housed the family’s butler—“and tell Cook to find something for this young man to eat. He will be staying with us for a day or two.”

  If not longer, she thought, and she momentarily quailed at the thought of her brother’s reaction when he learned of Garrett’s presence in the household.

  “Cook is gettin’ dinner, miss, an’ then she’ll be on her way home.”

  Caroline stared at her. “Then tell her to put something out before she goes! Really, Margaret!”

  “Yes, miss.” Margaret shot a hostile glance toward Garrett as she left the room.

  In all Margaret’s years with the family, Caroline had never had trouble with her. Well, she’d deal with her when she came back from her sister’s; she hadn’t time to soothe the maid’s obviously ruffled feathers now. “Do you understand, Garrett?” she said. “If you are here with us, we can vouch for you in the event of another—”

  “I can’t stay, miss.”

  “But why not?”

  “My ma’ll be worried crazy if I don’t come home.”

  “We could send her a note,” MacKenzie offered.

  “She can’t read.”

  “Send it anyway. Where do you live?”

  “Salem Street.”

  A street of tenements in the North End. “Well, then, surely someone in her building can read. Or she could take it to one of the neighborhood shopkeepers, perhaps, to read to her.”

  Caroline went to the little desk in the corner and took out a sheet of paper. “If you go down to Charles Street, Doctor,” she said, “you will find a runner at Bright’s Apothecary. Tell them you know me. They always have a supply of boys to run messages, and they won’t charge you more than a nickel.”

  She wrote a few lines, folded the paper, and sealed it into an envelope. “What is the address, Garrett?”

  He told her and she printed it large and clear. “There, Doctor,” she said, handing the envelope to him. For once, she didn’t smile at him, and for once, he didn’t mind.

  Out-of-doors, he pulled his muffler more tightly around his neck as he made his way down the hill. The rain had stopped, but the air was raw, filled with a tangy, salt-smelling mist that overlay the odor of horse dung.

  Charles Street was thronged with Saturday afternoon shoppers and pedestrians; a seller of roasted chestnuts was doing a brisk business. At Bright’s Apothecary, the clerk acknowledged knowing the Ameses, but this was a particularly busy day, he said, and he didn’t have a lad handy. Could the gentleman wait for a moment while he finished up with this customer?

  Impatiently, MacKenzie tapped his fingers on the polished wooden counter. He hadn’t thought to be delayed; he needed to get back to No. 16½. He didn’t like leaving Caroline Ames alone with that Irish lad, no matter how innocent he seemed to be. Margaret was there, of course, and Cook, but still. Not a good arrangement. And he was certain that Ames would be unhappy when he learned that Caroline had asked Garrett to stay, no matter that he himself had offered to help the lad.

  Five minutes passed; ten. MacKenzie stared at the shelves of tall glass apothecary jars containing various colored liquids and powders and bits of vegetation—roots, stems, ugly-looking dried things. The place had a musty, medicinal smell. MacKenzie wanted to be outdoors; he felt confined in here, too nerved up to wait patiently. He spoke to the clerk again: Could a lad be found to take this note?

  At last the door burst open and a whey-faced little boy came trotting in. This, it seemed, was the runner for whom MacKenzie waited. He handed over the note and a nickel, and at last the message to Garrett’s mother was on its way to the North End. He stepped outside to watch the child set off at a rapid clip, and then he rounded the corner to climb Mt. Vernon Street. He’d been gone almost half an hour, he estimated. Too long.

  He was slightly out of breath when he reached Louisburg Square. He lumbered along the uneven brick sidewalk toward No. 16½, peering eagerly at the welcoming light shining through the lavender windowpanes. She’d be worried, he thought, wondering what had become of him.

  But when he greeted her at last, he saw that she wasn’t worried after all—or not about him at any rate. She was alone, Garrett presumably having gone down to the kitchen to be fed, and she was standing by the fire, holding a flimsy scrap of yellow paper: a telegram.

  “What is it?” he said, still puffing a little.

  “The Ladies’ Committee at the church.”

  Not some further crisis at the Bower, then. He was relieved to hear it, but in the next moment his anxiety returned when she added, “They want me to make a visit.”

  “A visit? To whom?”

  “To the family I saw on Monday. Oh, I hope he hasn’t come back!”

  “Who?”

  “The husband.” Her sweet, pretty face was suddenly grim. “He has been warned repeatedly to stay away from them, but when he is inebriated, he comes back and beats her. The eldest son is fift
een now, so he can defend her—his mother—fairly well, but still, I must go.”

  “When? Now?”

  “Yes.”

  “But—late on a Saturday afternoon? Can it not wait until tomorrow?”

  “I am afraid not. People generally don’t call on us unless it is an emergency. They have no place else to turn, you see.”

  He was not convinced. “Surely you can ask someone else to go. You should not be burdened with such a request at a time like this.” He was pulling at one end of his mustache, a sure sign of his distress.

  “Oh, I couldn’t do that,” she said hastily, looking slightly shocked, as if he had suggested some truly outrageous thing. “This family is mine—assigned to me, my responsibility. I must go.”

  “Then I will come with you.”

  “Oh, no, Doctor. Thank you, but no. I won’t be long. I know these people fairly well. The woman is very self-reliant, she wouldn’t call on us—on me—if it weren’t absolutely necessary.”

  She tucked the telegram into the pocket of her skirt and started for the door. MacKenzie, seized with a sudden dread, threw propriety to the winds and put his hand on her arm. “Where do they live?”

  “On West Newton Street.”

  He was familiar enough with the city, by now, to know where that was. “In the South End.”

  “Yes.”

  Where, in the past week, two women had been brutally murdered. What would her brother do? he wondered. Forbid her to go? Could he act in Ames’s place and do the same?

  Before he’d decided how to proceed, she had gently removed his hand and was going out into the vestibule to collect her things from the hall tree. Struggling with his rising sense of helpless panic, he followed her.

  “Miss Ames, I am sure—I am absolutely positive—that your brother would not want you to go on this—this errand of mercy.”

  She had been pulling on her overshoes. Now she straightened, one on, one off, and said with no little dignity, “My brother does not need to know about it.”

  “Yes, but if he should return and find you gone—or if, God forbid, you should come to some harm—”

  “I will not come to harm.”

  “How can you say that?” He was aware that he was shouting. He couldn’t help it. “You know as well as I do that a homicidal lunatic is at large in that district! He has killed two women in the most brutal fashion. Undoubtedly, if the police do not apprehend him, he will kill a third. I cannot—I will not—allow you to put yourself in danger like this.”

  He had maneuvered himself past her as he spoke, and now he stood before the front door. If she insisted upon going out, she would have to push him aside.

  Or—

  “Very well, Doctor,” she said after a moment. She stared at him, outraged. Her voice was cold and hard. Furious, he thought. She is furious with me. In that moment he realized, too late, that in opposing her he had pitted himself against a woman who embodied generations—centuries—of stern New England resolve. Briefly his courage failed him as he saw the wreckage of all his dreams. He would lose her either way, he thought: If she went out, she’d come to harm sure enough, and if—at his insistence—she stayed, she would never forgive him for meddling in her affairs.

  “Please, Miss Ames,” he begged, his voice little more than a hoarse croak. “Please do not go on this errand, no matter how much an errand of mercy you believe it to be. Are this family’s troubles worth your life? At least let me come with you.”

  “It is far more important, Doctor, that you stay here with Garrett. I will be quite all right on my own. I understand your concern, but this is a summons I must obey. It is my Christian duty to go, can you not understand that? We—the ladies on the committee—are responsible for these families. I have no idea what this summons is about. Perhaps it is simply a problem with one of the children that can be solved quickly. Or perhaps the husband has returned, after all. But whatever it is, I must tend to it. If you insist on barring my way, I will go down to the kitchen and leave from the areaway.”

  She turned her back to him, pulled on the other overshoe, and lifted down her waterproof and bonnet.

  Utterly defeated, and still struggling with himself—should he risk her further wrath by forcibly restraining her?—MacKenzie watched her. She was the only woman who had ever captured his heart, and now—he was sure—he was going to lose her. Probably he had lost her already.

  “Good-bye, Doctor,” she said. She lifted her chin as she met his eyes. Her voice was quiet—deadly quiet—but still very cold, and her eyes were filled with contempt.

  Contempt for him, he thought miserably as the door closed behind her. He was certain he’d ruined himself in her opinion. She’d never think of him now as anything but a coward.

  Raw with self-reproach, his conscience racked with guilt, he lingered by the lavender-glass bow window until she disappeared around the corner of Mt. Vernon Street. Then he turned back to the empty room. Where was Ames? he thought as he began to pace. Up to something, undoubtedly. Why wasn’t he here, where he should be, to protect his sister? Ames had the authority to dictate to her which he, John MacKenzie, did not. Fat lot of good it did, that authority, when Ames wasn’t here to exercise it.

  His knee was aching. He came to a stop by his chair and, with an audible sigh, settled into it. He wondered if he should go down to the kitchen to see how the Irish lad did. Perhaps, after a while, he would.

  He rested his head on the antimacassar. Exhausted by the emotional turmoil of the past half hour, he let the warmth of the simmering sea-coal fire envelop him.

  He closed his eyes and slept.

  He was startled into wakefulness by the sound of the front door slamming. At once he felt a wave of relief: She’d come back, then, safe and sound. He heaved himself up, preparing to greet her, but his welcoming words died on his lips as Addington Ames walked into the room.

  “What is it, Doctor?” Ames asked.

  “Nothing,” MacKenzie stammered. “I thought it was Miss Ames, returning.”

  “Returning! Where did she go?”

  Ames frowned as MacKenzie told him of the summons from the Ladies’ Committee. “Confound it! And to the South End—you couldn’t prevent her going?” Instantly he corrected himself. “No—no, of course you couldn’t. When Caroline sets her mind on something—you don’t know the name of the family?”

  MacKenzie was embarrassed to admit that he hadn’t thought of asking for it.

  “Never mind. Even if we went after her we’d probably cross paths and miss her anyway. Well! Shall we have tea?” He stood before the fire, rubbing warmth back into his frozen hands.

  And where have you been, MacKenzie thought, and doing what? But he didn’t ask, because tea made him think of the kitchen, and the kitchen made him remember Garrett O’Reilly.

  “There is something else you should know,” he said.

  Ames turned a wary eye to him. “What?”

  “The Irish boy came, in a fright because he’d been roughly questioned by Crippen. Your sister told him to stay here. He is downstairs.”

  Ames had taken hold of the bellpull to summon Margaret, but now he let it go.

  “What? Garrett is here?”

  “Yes.”

  Without a reply, Ames turned and swiftly left the room. MacKenzie could hear him clattering down the back stairs; in what seemed too short a time, he had returned.

  “Gone!” he exclaimed.

  “What? I didn’t hear him go out.” But you were asleep, his conscience told him.

  “He ducked out at the front areaway, no doubt,” Ames said. “Damned young fool! I don’t like the thought of sheltering him, but even less do I like the thought of him abroad in the city. He will put himself into Crippen’s hands by his own foolhardiness if he doesn’t watch out.”

  Margaret appeared, then, bearing their tea. Her face wore an expression that MacKenzie, in his present state of unease, read as “This is what comes of trying to help someone from the lower orders.”
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  “No point in trying to go after him either,” Ames commented gloomily as he surveyed the plate of lace cookies and sliced fruit cake. “Tea, Doctor? Help yourself. We are captive here, I am afraid, until either Caroline or that young Irish scamp sees fit to rejoin us. We can do nothing but wait.”

  It was dark on Warren Avenue, darker than usual because along this stretch, a whole row of streetlamps had gone out. As Caroline hurried along, she had only the pale illumination from an unshuttered window, here and there, to see by. Not so fast, she told herself; the last thing you need is to trip and fall. At the corner, up ahead, she saw the welcome glow of a lamp on every side, and she kept her eyes fixed there, a beacon in this dark night.

  Dr. MacKenzie had been right: She shouldn’t have come. The emergency had turned out to be not so very urgent after all; it could easily have been tended to the following day or even the day after. Christian charity was one thing; waste of it was another.

  She heard the sound of a carriage behind her, and she turned to look. It was a four-wheeler—a private carriage, not a cab. She’d taken a herdic earlier because she’d wanted to save time, but when she’d left the cold, cheerless room where the objects of her charity lived, she’d been so annoyed—with herself, with them, with the Ladies’ Committee—that she’d thought to punish herself by denying herself a cab to get home.

  But now, on this dark, deserted street, she thought better of it. If a herdic came by, she’d hail it, never mind the expense.

  She started to walk once more. In the silence, her footsteps sounded very loud. Then, from a nearby church, she heard the bell begin to toll the hour: six o’clock. For a moment, a scene from home flashed across her mind’s eye: the warm, bright parlor, Dr. MacKenzie—and perhaps, by this time, Addington too—sitting by the fire, awaiting her. Oh, how she longed to be there with them! Why had she come out—and for nothing after all?

  A heretical thought came to her: She would quit the Ladies’ Committee. She’d served on it for years; surely she’d done her share. Someone new could take her place.