Her lips moved slightly, and he bent low to hear her.
In a voice below even that of whisper, she breathed, “My photo.”
“The photograph of your sons has been stolen?”
Her eyes told him yes.
“I’ll find it,” he promised, because he could see she needed to believe he would. It was his fault. His distraction had landed her here. “Can you tell me anything about who was in your home? Who attacked you?”
She winced trying to shake her head. She gasped, “Behind.”
“He came up behind you? You didn’t see him.”
Again her eyes said yes, and she seemed relieved he understood. She closed her eyes with a small exhalation.
The nurses rushed over and felt her pulse, then told Bradshaw and O’Brien they would have to leave. The next twenty-four hours were crucial with such head injuries.
As they moved somberly down the hall toward the main hospital entrance, a chill shot through Bradshaw. He said, “It’s got to stop.”
“The insanity over Daulton’s invention? I agree. This must be connected to Doyle’s boasting. Someone needs to find that cigar box, and it had better be you. The photograph Mrs. Doyle wants, is it the one that was on her mantle, the Edward Curtis of her boys when they were little?”
“It’s her most prized possession.”
“Why would the thief want it? The photographer has some fame, but a personal portrait wouldn’t hold much value to someone not of the family. A few other things were taken, we think, but not sure what. Valuables like silver weren’t taken, but desk drawers were ransacked and papers may be missing.”
“Our thief was looking for information, not valuables to sell. The same as at my house. He might have believed something was hidden behind the photograph. If that’s the case, then the photo and frame will eventually be discarded. Let’s see what the Bon Marché has to say about the letter from payroll. Do you have it on you?”
They stepped back into the lobby of the hospital to get out of the weather while Bradshaw examined the letter. It had been typed with an old ribbon, the ink was faded, and the capital B and small e were flawed in the way Mrs. Prouty’s letter had been. Bradshaw’s stomach twisted.
A half hour later, the Bon’s senior accountant said neither he nor any of his staff had ever seen the letter before and weren’t responsible for it, although it was genuine Bon Marché letterhead. It was what Bradshaw expected, but he needed to ask anyway. He must be thorough from this moment on.
Downstairs, the harried department clerk, because of the previous inquiry, had been paying a bit more attention to the typewriting display. As O’Brien went through the wastebasket, Bradshaw, with growing anxiety, and a sense of futility, began to examine the ribbon, which the clerk then extracted for him.
It took just a few minutes. “It’s not on here,” Bradshaw said. He put a hand to his mouth and closed his eyes, staving off a fit of self-loathing. He’d missed it. Two days ago, he’d surely held a warning in the palm of his hand and he’d missed it.
And O’Brien realized it, too, although he kindly withheld accusation from his tone when he asked, “Where is it?”
“My office safe.”
Bradshaw felt a firm hand on his shoulder. “Don’t blame yourself. You couldn’t have known.”
But he should have. He should have examined the entire ribbon with more care. If one false and luring letter had been typed, why not more? He shouldn’t have assumed.
He cleared his throat. “There are too many possibilities in this case, Jim. There are hundreds of employees, thousands of customers. And it’s possible that there are no witnesses and no incriminating clues to uncover. These letters and burglaries may be connected to Doyle only by the publicity surrounding his death and the attention Daulton’s box has been getting.”
“If we have two cases, we’ll solve them both.”
But Bradshaw couldn’t let go of the look in Mrs. Doyle’s eyes.
“I have a bit of good news. We can take the window dresser off our list of suspects. I spoke to his landlady. She said he came in dripping wet all over her floors just after midnight on the night Doyle died. His coat and shoes were soaked through, and he left them to dry by the kitchen stove as he always does, according to her. In the morning, when the police came to question Troy, the landlady fetched his coat and hat and they were bone dry. All her tenants keep their coats and shoes in a wardrobe off the kitchen, unless they’re wet, then they are hung near the stove to dry. She said she would have noticed a wet coat in the wardrobe or his room, when she went upstairs to clean, so we know he didn’t go back out into the night.”
“He never had a clear motive anyway.”
“True, but it’s nice to confirm his alibi nonetheless. Cheer up, Ben. If J. D. Maddock turns out to be our villain, those lawsuits against you will go away.”
“Will they? If they were legally filed, his arrest won’t stop them. Edison will simply hire another attorney.”
***
Henry was at the office when Bradshaw arrived in a black mood, grunted hello, and retrieved the typewriter ribbon from the wall safe. He sat at his desk and began to examine it.
“I might have a lead on your burglar, Ben.”
Bradshaw looked up, frowning but interested. Henry grinned. “There’s talk in the Tender about a new second-story man newly arrived from Chicago. He’s known for day jobs, and for advance work. His favorite trick is to send wires or letters to his marks to get them out of the house. The second-story tag got put on him because he’s been known to enter through top-floor windows or attics, but he’s just as likely to stroll through a front door.”
“You don’t say.” Bradshaw stared at the ribbon, not seeing it, pondering Henry’s news. “How new is he?”
“Hard to say, but it sounds as if he arrived about the same time as our good attorney, Mr. J. D. Maddock.”
“I don’t like coincidences. What does he usually steal?”
“That I didn’t learn.”
“Tell O’Brien. Mrs. Doyle’s been attacked. By a burglar. Does this second-story man have a moniker?”
“They’ve dubbed him Tycoon Tommy because he talks more like a rich businessman than a thief, but no one knows what he was called in Chicago.”
“What does he look like?”
“Average height, wiry, brown or red hair, there wasn’t a consensus.”
Redheads often had freckles. “Anything else?”
“What, no ‘atta boy’?”
“Atta boy, what else did you learn last night?”
“Don’t take it out on me, Ben. Just tell me what’s got you so mad. Is Mrs. Doyle seriously hurt?”
“Yes. And I should have known it was coming.”
“How the hell could you have known?”
Bradshaw held up the ribbon.
“Oh. She got a letter, too?”
His answer was to continue his examination of the ribbon.
Henry pulled up a chair. “Well, I learned old Vernon Doyle was one mighty fine drinker. His favorite haunt was the Considine on Washington, and three times a week, the days depending on his work schedule, he could be found having a jolly good time. I wish more drunks were like him, happy in their cups instead of mean son of a—well, you know. Everyone was his friend when he was drinking, but he didn’t gamble or slip into a box with a gal. He had what you might call superstitions. He thought a man only had so much luck assigned him in life and he feared wasting it on cards, plus his brother died of a particularly gruesome strain of something a man dreads, so he shied away from communal women for the most part. It’s said he did occasionally visit the Folly. They’ve got a doc on staff and the girls are guaranteed safe or your money back.”
Bradshaw grunted.
Henry said, “Two bucks don’t buy a cure. Anyway, it’s generally believed that Doyle’s
claim to knowing Oscar Daulton’s secret is a crock, but I say generally because a few men weren’t so sure. Doyle had hired Jake Galloway to dive, and Jake doesn’t come cheap. Some say that if Doyle was spending a lot of money, there had to be something behind it because he didn’t believe in wasting luck gambling. With Doyle dead, a conspiracy theory is growing and Doyle’s electrical genius is growing by the minute.”
“Doyle knew nothing. He boasted to get attention, it was his way. And he likely didn’t consider money spent on dives to be wasted. Daulton’s invention is down there somewhere, it’s a fact. Somebody will eventually find it, and he wanted to be that someone. His desire for Daulton’s box, and his search for it, in no way indicate he had the knowledge of how it worked.”
“Well, he was taking a gamble for a man who didn’t like such things.”
“Luck’s influence can be greatly reduced through science and method.”
Science and method were exactly what Bradshaw intended to use to find Daulton’s box. He was nearly done assembling his locating system, and when he tossed it from the ferry in the reenactment, he hoped it didn’t mark a spot too deep for divers to search.
A pattern of letters on the ribbon grabbed his full attention. D-o-y. He peered closely, trying to decode the layered letters that followed. He soon knew he was looking at the ribbon that had been used to type the luring letter to Mrs. Doyle. He leaned his elbow on his desk and dropped his face in his hand. He should have seen it.
***
Mrs. Prouty and Justin were in the kitchen when he arrived home, having a bedtime snack. Justin didn’t look up from his gingerbread. Bradshaw reached into his jacket pocket and found the mechanical dog he’d intended for a stocking gift and placed it before Justin with the key. The boy’s face didn’t light up as he’d hoped, but he did pick up the key and give the mechanics of the toy a winding. The internal spring and gears whined and hummed and sent the dog walking stiff-legged.
Mrs. Prouty said, “I didn’t hear a thank-you to your father, young man.”
In a small polite voice, Justin said, “Thank you.” He got up and fetched the dog from the other end of the table and gave it another wind.
“It seems the spirit of Christmas has visited you, Professor,” Mrs. Prouty said with an uncharacteristic blush. He feared for a moment she’d learned about his venture into the jewelry store and sprint up the hill, possessed by the spirit of Vernon Doyle, but then he recalled the music box. She patted his hand, and said quietly, “You shouldn’t have. But thank you.”
Justin didn’t question their exchange, and Bradshaw found that disturbing. The boy was perpetually curious. He simply picked up the little dog, its legs still moving with a whir of gears, and said, “’Night.”
Bradshaw watched him go, heard his feet pad softly up the stairs and his bedroom door click closed. He feared his son’s sadness was due to missing Missouri. His devotion to Missouri was not purely that of a child for a mother figure. He also loved her with the innocent crush of a boy for a girl. And because she was not always there, he never took her for granted, and he never resisted her guidance, or became angry when she told him to complete a chore. That would change if they married. Or would it? When a boy got the mother of his dreams at the age of ten and a half, did he appreciate her more than a child who had always had a loving mother? Bradshaw had never gazed with rapt adoration at his own mother, he knew. He’d loved her, he loved her still, with the inner certainty of a child, so secure in his parents’ love he was able to move to the other side of the country, leaving them behind. He thought of Justin doing the same to him some day, and he wondered at the pang of betrayal he felt. If his parents felt that way, they’d not let on. They’d sent him and their grandson off with best wishes and a few batted-away tears.
Mrs. Prouty said, “I hope he’s not coming down with something.”
But Bradshaw did. He knew it was a selfish and horrible thought for a father to have, but he’d prefer that Justin’s behavior implied an oncoming cold rather than misery over Missouri’s delayed homecoming. What if Missouri never came home, not in the way Justin wanted? Not in the way they both wanted? How would either of them recover from that?
“I brought the nativity scene down from attic, Professor. It’s in the parlor.”
He nodded and got to his feet. He found the parlor warmed by a small fire in the hearth and the mantle prepared for the scene with a simple runner of burlap. From the storage box he first removed the wooden stable he’d made himself at the age of twelve from scraps of lumber and twigs. His parents had sent him the stable and a new set of ceramic statues as a gift the first year he and Justin moved to Seattle. They were identical to the ones he’d grown up with. Next he unwrapped the ox, the lamb, and the donkey. He placed them inside the stable, nestled near the walls. Next came Joseph with his staff, then the baby Jesus in his manger, positioned in the center. But where was Mary? He dug carefully through the box, finding the sack of decorative straw, and the angel, which he hung from the peak of the stable. He looked at the little scene, so incomplete without Mary. Without the mother. Just the father and child. A lump rose in his throat. He dug again into the box, gently exploring the packing, and near the bottom he felt her. He unwrapped the little statue of the kneeling figure dressed in blue and white, her hands crossed over her heart, and he set her where she belonged.
Chapter Fifteen
A chorus of young voices rose from the schoolroom below, filling the chapel with angelic hymns. The scent of incense lingered from Early Mass. Bradshaw sat in the front pew, breathing in the comforting scent. The sense of calm he always felt when alone in a church was there, surrounding him, but it did not fully release the tightness gripping his heart.
Reverend Father McGuinness, garbed in his simple Jesuit black robe, appeared from the sacristy, and Bradshaw rose, following him out a side door to a neat little office, the white plaster walls bare of all but a crucifix. He was invited to sit. He sat.
“If you didn’t come to me soon, I was going to summon you,” said Father. “I’ve heard of your changed relationship with your friend Henry’s niece. Miss Missouri Fremont? I trust that is what you have come to see me about this morning?” His voice was gentle but stern. A tone Bradshaw had often taken with Justin.
“There has been nothing improper, Father.”
“Hasn’t there? Impropriety has many forms. One need not perform an act, one need only cast a look that holds a promise you cannot deliver.”
Bradshaw dropped his eyes to his hands. He hadn’t expected such a fast reprimand.
“Have I ever seen Miss Fremont in church?”
“She’s not in Seattle at present. She’s attending the Homeopathic Medical College in Pennsylvania.” It was a stall, of course, and not really addressing Father McGuinness’ comment. It also seemed a lie to leave out the fact that at this moment she wasn’t in Pennsylvania but on her way to North Carolina to join a young man who was in all likelihood in love with her.
Father McGuinness cocked his head patiently, his fingers steepled.
Bradshaw said, “Miss Fremont is not a member of our church, or any church.”
“Is she an atheist? A freethinker?”
“With her, it’s more a matter of vocabulary.” A rose by any other name, he thought.
“What does that mean, Professor? Is she a heretic, denying one or more Catholic doctrines? Or a full apostasy from the faith? Is she a believer in Christianity or has she abandoned it completely?”
“I don’t really know. She has a unique way of seeing things.”
“Things? You mean God? Religion?”
“Everything. She sees connections between—everything.” He remembered her kneeling in his flowerbeds when she first arrived in Seattle, lovingly turning over the soil and nurturing the lily-of-the-valley. It was then she first mentioned the cycle of life, the importance of understanding the cycle in con
nection with all living things, and it had been the first time he’d applied the scientific principle of the conservation of energy to the human soul. His mind had awakened, as had his fear that perhaps his vision of the world was obscured by self-imposed blinders.
“If she has not embraced a respected form of Christianity there is no use in discussing this further, Professor.” Though the words were spoken gently, they were final, fatal.
Bradshaw hastily said, “She was baptized a Catholic.” But he knew he sounded childish and defensive.
Father McGuinness sat silently, waiting. Bradshaw had nothing more to offer.
“Does she intend to return to the Catholic faith?”
“I—no.”
“She is not a young woman of our faith, practicing any Christian faith, and yet you are courting her?”
“We’ve discussed the possibility of a future together. We understand our differences might be insurmountable, but we—I could no longer deny my feelings for her.”
“And what are those feelings?”
He opened his mouth to speak, but found his voice choked. He felt his face tremble, and he pressed his mouth tight. He cleared his throat and tried again. “I love her.” His words emerged hoarsely, and his eyes stung with tears that he blinked away. He looked everywhere but at the priest as he composed himself.
“My son, what are you hoping to hear from me?”
A miracle, Bradshaw thought. But after clearing his throat again, he said, “That there is some way we can marry.”
“Of course there’s a way. You can have a civil wedding, you can find a minister of some other religion to join you. I can’t stop you from marrying. What you are truly asking is how you can marry without committing a grievous sin and without risking excommunication.”
“Yes.”
“If you believed I had a solution, you would have come to me months ago, Professor. You know the answer as well as I.”
Edison Effect, The: A Professor Bradshaw Mystery (The Edison Effect) Page 15
