Devil by the Tail

by Jeanne Matthews

  “By reflecting on how lucky I was not to be on a battlefield somewheres where I’d be obliged to kill boys I had no call to kill or else be killed by one of them. Anyways, all in all I reckon the Yanks didn’t treat us Southrons any worse than we deserved. A few Samaritans in blue even shared their whisky with us on paydays. It was heartwarming the way those sweethearts got fuddled after only a few swigs and they were lousy card players.” He sawed a finger across his chin and gave Quinn one of his speculative looks. “You were a prisoner, or as good as. Fine grub and silken sheets in your in-laws’ house, but you didn’t have the wherewithal to leave. They had you under their thumb and you couldn’t say or do what you wanted. How’d you keep your spirits up?”

  “You can wall people in, but I learned you can also wall them out. I walled Geneva out. Most days I was scarcely aware of her.” She glanced at her locket watch and plunged ahead with her admission. “Winthrop wants to trade his legal expertise for our detective services. It’s a sharp deal, more to his advantage than ours. Investigating an arson and murder is sure to take a lot more time than haggling with the Sinclairs and I don’t trust him to make the trade come out equal, but I said yes. I should have talked it over with you but I didn’t and I’m sorry, Garnick.”

  He didn’t say anything. He seemed disinclined even to look at her. Did he feel slighted? Taken for granted? Put upon? She’d rather he rub it in that he’d warned her Winthrop was a slick operator.

  After a minute she said, “If you don’t want to have any truck with the man, I’ll understand. We can work the Handish and Jackson cases separately.”

  He still didn’t look at her. “Till we can afford a second horse and rig for you, going separate would be kind of limiting.”

  “I can ride the horse-car or hire a hackney, Garnick. You’re not obligated.”

  “I am if we’re to keep on as partners.”

  Was there an intimation that “keeping on” was conditional and, if so, on what? She dabbed at the perspiration trickling out of her hair and down her neck. Maybe her overheated imagination had mistaken his tone. His morning at Cap Hyman’s couldn’t have been pleasant. Combined with the stench of disinterment and Winthrop’s stinginess, he had reason to feel frustrated. “What do you want to do, Garnick?”

  “The paper says the trial’s coming up in ten days. Handish’s twenty will tide us over till then and we can sort out whether Winthrop set fair terms when it’s over. Go on and tell me about Elfie Jackson.”

  By the time she’d finished her summary and ticked off the names of potential witnesses to be questioned, he seemed to have forgotten his aggravation and become engrossed in the case. He said, “You didn’t name Burk Bayer.”

  “I doubt if he’d be willing to speak to us.”

  “Maybe. But what if Bayer wasn’t as fond of the Kadinger girl as a husband oughta have been. What if he was only fond of her money? With her dead, he stands to inherit a boodle.”

  “He does,” she said, “and I think he was probably a bigamist when he married her. But he was out of town.”

  “He could’ve hired it done,” said Garnick.

  “True. I’ll ask Winthrop, but I think it’s illegal for a married woman to make a will of her own. When Delphine Kadinger married him, Bayer would have assumed absolute ownership of her property and if she was her father’s sole heir, the entire estate would pass to Bayer.”

  “It might be interesting to have a look at Rolf Kadinger’s will,” said Garnick. “Kadinger’s lawyer would know the particulars, and maybe even his business clerk.”

  “Good idea.”

  Garnick pulled up in front of the Tremont House at the corner of Lake and Dearborn. Its sedate brick façade belied its colorful history. Abraham Lincoln had launched his campaign for the Senate from the balcony in 1858. In 1860, when the Republican Convention nominated him for the presidency, the hotel served as Party headquarters. There were plenty of less savory episodes, too. In 1862, a heavily intoxicated Cap Hyman roared into the lobby and took all of the guests hostage.

  Garnick hitched Leonidas to a post and gave her a hand off the bench. She said, “I’ll have a chat with the manager and you can talk to the men at the front desk.” Belatedly, she realized how high-handed that sounded. “Or you could talk to the manager and I’ll–”

  “His name’s Enoch Bean, a pernickety little strutter. Treats the hotel like it’s his private estate. Him and me had a few squabbles when I was driving the hackney. He thought I hogged the parking place in front of the door and steered fares away from the other drivers, which I did whenever I could. You’d best question Bean, yourself. I’ll have a go at the doormen and porters. Most of ’em know me.”

  They climbed the stairs to the front entrance and right away Garnick was hailed by a ruddy faced fellow in a bell-boy’s jacket. “Looking for a passenger, Garnick?”

  Quinn left them to converse and approached the front desk. “I’d like to see Mr. Bean if he is available.”

  “Are you a guest of the hotel, madam? If there’s a problem I can take care of, there’s no need to trouble Mr. Bean.”

  She presented the Garnick & Paschal business card. “I’m Detective Paschal. I have questions about one of your previous guests, Mr. Burk Bayer.”

  “Oh.”

  “You remember Mr. Bayer?”

  “Of course I do. Him and his bride. They had their wedding party right here in the hotel dining room. Over a hundred guests. It’s a heartbreak what happened to the lady. She was a dainty little thing, sweet as could be to all the waiters even after–”

  “After what?”

  “Nothing. The biscuits and ham didn’t get served like they were supposed to be.”

  “Do you recall Miss Elfie Jackson? I believe she visited Mr. Bayer prior to his marriage?”

  A mask of caution dropped over his face. “You’d better talk to Mr. Bean. He doesn’t like his staff gossiping. You’ll find him in his office. Room One, second floor.”

  Quinn thanked him and proceeded up the stairs. A man stood in the hallway outside Room One browbeating a chambermaid in a hissing whisper. He had a military bearing, salt-and-pepper hair oiled flat across his scalp, and a stunted sprout of a chin beard. “It is the second time a guest has come to me to report the articles on her dressing table had been disturbed.”

  “But I was only dusting, Mr. Bean.”

  “Shh! Keep your voice down.”

  “But I not take nothing.” The maid’s voice quavered.

  “If there were the least suspicion of theft, you’d be gone already and in police custody. I give you warning. A third complaint and you’ll be dismissed immediately.”

  “Yes sir, Mr. Bean.” She scuttled away, head bowed.

  Bean saw Quinn and his manner became deferential. “I beg your pardon, madam. I hope you weren’t disquieted by that incident. We hold our personnel to a high standard and must occasionally issue reprimands. Is there something I can do to make your stay with us more pleasant?”

  “I’m not a guest, sir. My name is Detective Paschal.”

  “What?” Deference turned to pique.

  She foisted a card on him. “I’ve come to ask your recollections of Mr. Burk Bayer. I believe Miss Elfie Jackson visited Mr. Bayer when he was a guest of the hotel, did she not?”

  “Shh!” He flashed a nervous look down the hall and motioned her into his office. “In here.”

  She stepped inside. He followed and closed the door behind him. “Who are you?”

  “As I said, I’m a detective.”

  “I’ve no time for tittle-tattle. Be serious.”

  “I’m as serious as a summons to court, sir.”

  His eyes narrowed. “That is out of the question.”

  “I’m making inquiries on behalf of Miss Elfie Jackson’s attorney. You would be wise to answer my questions here today or the attorney will compel you to answer his questions in public court.”

  “That’s outrageous. This is the most prestigious hotel in the c
ity. My guests have a right to their privacy. I will not tarnish anyone’s reputation or the reputation of the Tremont House by appearing in court.”

  “Then you have no choice but to talk to me,” she said, giving the words an extra bite in recompense for his treatment of the maid. “I believe Miss Jackson visited Mr. Bayer during his residence at the Tremont House. Did you or any of your employees hear anything of their conversation?”

  “The entire fourth floor heard. The woman wailed and pounded on Bayer’s door until he came out into the hall. I heard the commotion from the lobby. The deskman and I ran upstairs and tried to intervene, but she couldn’t be hushed.”

  “What did she say?”

  “‘What’ll I do, Burk? Where will I go?’”

  “And how did Mr. Bayer respond?”

  “‘Back to Rock Island,’ he said, and stuffed a wad of money into her hand. She flung it in his face and screamed. Doors opened up and down the hall. It was appalling.”

  “What did Bayer do?”

  “There was nothing he could do. He was plainly embarrassed. He tried to quiet her, but she was crazed. Screaming. ‘I’m not a pile of logs you can ship off like common freight. I gave you everything.’”

  “How did Bayer respond to that?”

  “Nothing loud or profane. Something like, ‘Elfie, you mean less to me than a pile of logs.’ He turned to go back inside his room, but she dove at him, clawing and cursing. Her language was shocking. Bayer retreated inside his room and my deskman forced the door closed behind him. Two men escorted her out the building and thereafter, the staff kept a close eye with orders to bar her from returning.”

  “During the scuffle, did she threaten to harm Mr. Bayer or his fiancée and her father?”

  “Great Scot! She burned them alive, didn’t she?”

  “Somebody did, Mr. Bean. Did Miss Jackson say anything to threaten them in your hearing?”

  “No.”

  “Did she try to return?”

  “Not to my knowledge.” He sniffed and tugged at his little tuft of chin hair. “However I do not think an attorney with any hope of keeping that creature off the gallows will wish to hear my recital of her behavior at the Tremont.”

  Burk Bayer’s cold-blooded words sparked in Quinn an instinctive sympathy for Elfie. Any woman would have been furious at such callous disregard. Elfie may have reacted badly. That didn’t mean she stewed for a month and took out her hatred on a woman she didn’t know. She may well have pitied Delphine Kadinger.

  “Have I answered all of your questions?”

  Enoch Bean’s condescension strained her ability to keep her own behavior seemly. “For now,” she said. “I appreciate your candor, Mr. Bean. I know you are loath to tarnish anyone’s reputation.”

  She left him tugging at his goatee and went back to the lobby to look for Garnick. She found him in conversation with a portly gentleman in a stovepipe hat, frock coat, and striped extenuations. Garnick introduced him as Mr. Edmund Allbright, a banker.

  “I used to drive Mr. Allbright and his partners around town to meetings with their investors.”

  “A lot of investors in a panic today, Garnick. A rumor’s flying that the city will default on those bonds it issued to pay for the new Water-Works. Corruption, misappropriation, ineptitude, the whole ball of wax. I’m off to counsel an anxious bondholder now. Pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Sinclair. Be sure to warn the elder Mrs. Sinclair against those bonds.” He tipped his hat and took his leave.

  Quinn said, “He’s seems like a friendly fellow.”

  “He is. He asked what I’d been doing since I gave up driving. I allowed as how the two of us had gone into the detection line, working to solve the Kadinger murders. His ears pricked up and we got to jawing. Turns out his daughter Josabeth was a bridesmaid at the Kadinger girl’s wedding and the Allbright family were guests at the after party here at the Tremont.”

  “Did he recall anything unusual that happened?”

  “There was a fire in the hotel kitchen during the party. It caused some hollering and flapping around, but the staff got it put out in a hurry. Bean didn’t want the fire brigade called in. Kadinger laughed about it at the time. In hindsight, Allbright opines it was a bad omen.”

  Chapter 4

  As Garnick drove her home to her rooming house on East Ohio Street, Quinn lapsed into a pensive mood. “I didn’t have a bridesmaid. There were no attendants at my wedding, only Thom and me, my brother Rune, and a tipsy Unitarian minister with the hiccups. “Do you take this – hic! – man to have and to – hic! –hold?” I was seventeen. It seems forever ago.”

  “How long did you and Thom know each other before you married?”

  “About a year. We were secret friends, Rune and Thom and I. His family was Protestant and in my father’s way of thinking, Protestants were an abomination. Thom’s family felt the same about Irish Catholics.”

  “With all that, how’d you come to find yourselves in front of a minister?”

  “My father had flown into one of his rages and knocked me silly. I vowed that would never, ever happen again. Rune gave me what money he had and I took the train to New York City. I had no idea what to do or how to support myself after I arrived. Mostly I walked around and gaped at the sights. After a week, I wired Thom. I knew he’d come after me.”

  “He loved you?”

  “Yes. Thom was an idealist. I was a fair-haired maiden, persecuted and in need of a savior. He arrived like a knight on a white charger, took me to the theater, took me sailing on the Hudson River and horseback riding in Central Park. I was dazzled, I guess. I’d spent all Rune’s money and had no place to go. When he asked me to marry him, it was an easy decision.”

  “He sounds like a fine gentleman and never a boresome moment. You must have believed you’d be happy.”

  “I suppose I did. I thought by becoming Mrs. Thomas Sinclair I wouldn’t have to be Irish anymore.”

  Her father had been a member of the revolutionary Fenian Brotherhood, dedicated to winning independence for Ireland. He hated the English, hated the Protestants, and hated the politics of Abraham Lincoln. His fanatical devotion to “the old country” confounded Quinn’s understanding. She yearned to belong to the new country, to blend in, to cease being separate and despised. Unlike the recent influx of unschooled and impoverished immigrants, her family was educated and had a comfortable living. They could have passed if her father hadn’t been so pigheaded and confrontational.

  “The best soldiers on both sides of the war were Irish,” said Garnick. “The fightingest spirit and the funniest stories. Your husband had no problem with you being Irish, did he?”

  “No, but his mother did. She was mortified that her beloved only son had demeaned the family name by yoking himself to common Irish trash. She made a longsuffering best of it while he was alive. After he died, having left no will or made any provision for me, she turned into a tyrant. I was stranded. I couldn’t go home and hadn’t the means to go elsewhere. If that Pinkerton job hadn’t come along when it did, I’d have gone right round the bend.” She blew out a sardonic breath. “As the saying goes, marry in haste and repent at leisure.”

  “It’s that bloody war that scotched your chances,” said Garnick, waxing pensive himself. “I’d give my eyes never to have put on a uniform.”

  “Because you fought on the wrong side?”

  “There’s that. No way to justify going to war to keep people in chains. At first I had some notion of loyalty to my neck of the woods, allegiance to kith and kin like the states’ rights firebrands preached. But the more time goes by, the less reason a man can conjure up for the killing and sorrow he’s caused. What I repent at leisure? I made at least two widows like you before the Yanks stopped me.”

  Quinn would have liked to tell Garnick that not all widows grieved. She didn’t. She twisted her wedding ring and tried to visualize Thom’s face, but it was nebulous, like an image in sepia.

  A herd of hogs on their way to the stockyards t
rotted briskly down the middle of the street and coursed past them. Garnick geed Leonidas to the verge to wait. As the hogs passed, a tumult of grunts and squeals and dust engulfed the hack. Quinn took out a handkerchief and covered her nose and mouth.

  Garnick crooked his elbow across his face. “These dog days have got everybody perturbed, even the pigs. Dust, drought, fevers, knifings. A few streaks of dry lightning last night, but no rain. We need a thunderstorm to cool things off and clear the air.”

  When the noise and dust receded, Garnick flicked the reins and they started off again. “Maybe if Thom had come home from the war and y’all had moved far off by yourselves and away from your families, you’d have been happy.”

  “Maybe if I’d had a bridesmaid to confide in, she’d have talked me out of getting married in the first place. I wonder if Delphine confided in Josabeth Allbright about her romance with Bayer before the wedding or worried out loud about any problems he might’ve had.”

  “You mean problems besides Elfie?”

  “Mr. Bayer strikes me as a man with no more conscience than a cat. It wouldn’t surprise me if his past is littered with broken hearts and angry women. Quite possibly a few angry men, as well. Bayer himself may have been the arsonist’s target.”

  “If,” said Garnick, “the arson was intended to kill anyone. It might’ve been just some random meanery gone wrong.”

  A shot exploded out of nowhere. Leonidas let out a terrified whinny and reared. The carriage tipped onto its rear wheels and Quinn slipped to the floor, her skirt billowing around her ears. The carriage lurched forward. She didn’t know how, but Garnick was on the ground, running beside her, still holding onto the reins and calling “whoa” and “easy boy” over and over again.

  A second shot splintered the carriage back and tore into the seat where she’d been sitting. The carriage surged and stopped, surged and stopped.