No Quiet among the Shadows

by Nancy Herriman

  Celia located the patient admissions area and stepped up to the woman seated behind the desk.

  “I would like to see Mrs. Wheaton. I have been told she is a patient here,” said Celia, clasping her medical bag at her waist. “I am her personal nurse.”

  She looked at Celia impatiently. “If you’re not here because you require treatment, I need you to move aside so I can take care of the others waiting.”

  “But I must see her,” she replied. “Mrs. Wheaton is very frail, and I would like to assess her condition. Please. I will only stay a minute.”

  A man’s bellows echoed down the hall, snuffing out the nearby voices as quickly as water dashed onto a fire. When no more shouts followed, the murmuring resumed.

  “I must ask you to move aside,” the woman repeated.

  “Please.”

  The admissions assistant exhaled loudly and dragged over a large ledger book. She thumbed through the pages. “Mrs. Wheaton has been admitted to one of our cells for insane patients, but she is not to be disturbed.”

  She jabbed the entry with the tip of her pencil, indicating the instructions that no one except Mr. Wheaton was to be allowed to visit.

  “I only require a minute,” said Celia. “Please, I am quite concerned about her.”

  “That might be, ma’am, but I can’t permit even a minute.” She looked past Celia at the queue that had formed behind her. “Now move out of the way of those waiting.”

  Blast.

  She stepped aside, and a woman holding a young child bumped against Celia’s shoulder in her haste to speak with the admissions assistant.

  What am I to do now?

  Celia headed back to the central entry foyer. She peered down the length of the hall to her right, at the series of closed doors on either side. Someone screamed, this time not as loudly as the shouts that had startled everyone earlier. In one of those rooms, Mrs. Wheaton had been detained. Had they tied her down? Or merely sedated her?

  She glanced around. The admissions assistant was out of sight around the corner, and the ward nurse was busy consoling a matron in a dark gown who sobbed into a handkerchief. If she was quick . . .

  Celia headed down the hall, alert to the sound of following footsteps. She tried the nearest door—locked—and the next. Also locked, a person sobbing behind it. Was it Mrs. Wheaton? Celia did not dare call out her name. She’d draw unwanted attention if she did. Another person scolded the woman crying inside the room, warning her to stop, addressing her by name. Not Mrs. Wheaton.

  Where was she?

  The handle to the next door turned in Celia’s hand, but no one occupied the cot inside or the chair in the corner, its leather straps dangling from the arms. Shuddering, she left the room and shot a glance toward the entry hall. She had not been noticed. Yet.

  She hurried across to the opposite doors.

  The first one she checked was also unlocked, and she eased it open.

  A man in a dark suit with a thick goatee bent over the patient in the bed. He looked over at Celia, his forehead creasing. “What do you want? Who are you?”

  “Um . . .” Celia glanced at the person he was examining. A gray-haired woman with sad, wild eyes. “I am here to visit a patient of mine, but I have chosen the wrong room. Forgive me.”

  Footsteps pounded down the hallway. “You! What are you doing in there?”

  Celia hastily retreated from the room. A nurse and a male attendant were bearing down on her.

  “Oh,” she cried. “I’ve made a dreadful mistake. I was looking for my sister, and I am on the wrong floor.”

  Her heart pounding, she attempted to hurry past them.

  The attendant grabbed her elbow, his fingers pinching. “Let me escort you outside, ma’am.”

  “Is everything all right, Dr. Brown?” the nurse asked the man inside.

  Dr. Brown? Celia glanced back over her shoulder, but the attendant tugged her forward to the front doors.

  And very unceremoniously thrust her outside.

  • • •

  “Mr. Greaves!” shouted Owen Cassidy, who’d been lounging on a wicker chair on the porch of Celia Davies’s house and looking bored. He jumped to his feet. “Have you found Mr. Smith’s killer yet?”

  “Wish I could say we have, Cassidy,” said Nick, climbing to the porch. “But what are you still doing at Mrs. Davies’s? You look like you’ve recovered from the mumps.”

  “Mrs. Davies said I could stay the next couple of days, but I’m to go back to my boardinghouse soon.” He frowned. “I don’t like that place. Maybe you can convince Mrs. Davies to let me stay here. There’s plenty of room. Whaddya say, Mr. Greaves? Can you ask her for me?”

  Nick sighed. He hated pleading, especially when a freckle-faced Irish kid was doing the begging.

  “I don’t have any sway over Mrs. Davies, Cassidy.”

  “Of course you do,” insisted Owen. “She likes you.”

  Nick wouldn’t respond to that claim. “Is she in?”

  “She went to visit a patient, but said she’d be here for lunch.” Owen hugged his arms around his waist. “I hope she’s home soon, because Addie won’t set out food until she’s back from her visit.”

  “Ah. Well, tell her I came by.” Nick turned to go.

  “Wait!” cried Owen, stopping him. “Me and her . . . uh, we were talking last night about who the killer could be, and we think Mr. Griffin the confidence man might be. Well, she thinks that more than I do . . . but anyway, she’s going to a séance tonight to confront him, because she guesses he’ll be there, too. Oh, that and to find out why Miss Adler also wants to attend.”

  “She’s going to Mrs. Loveland’s . . .” She does not know how to be careful.

  “Yep. I suppose you can talk to her about it yourself, Mr. Greaves, because she’s headed this way right now,” he said, waving.

  She was trudging up the road, her medical bag swinging at her side. “Mr. Greaves. You are visiting at last.”

  “We’ve got a few things to talk about, Mrs. Davies,” he said, scowling. “Including some foolhardy plan of yours to attend a séance at Mrs. Loveland’s tonight.”

  “Ah.” She glanced over at Cassidy, who slunk behind the nearest porch pillar. “That.”

  Chapter 18

  “Owen, tell Addie I have returned and she may serve you lunch,” Celia said to the boy, peeping around the edge of the pillar.

  His shoulders slumped. “Can’t I stay here and talk to Mr. Greaves, too?”

  “I shall be sure to tell you later what we’ve discussed,” said Celia.

  “Okay,” Owen said and slouched into the house.

  Celia waited for the door to shut behind him. “Before I explain my plan to attend a séance at Mrs. Loveland’s, perhaps you can tell me who you believe attacked the tobacconist. Did he interrupt a burglar, as the account in the newspaper said?”

  “Wish we knew for certain,” he said. “It likely wasn’t the person you saw on the Fourth, though. A side door was busted down and all the files searched again.”

  “I see.”

  He took off his hat and stared out at the street. A breeze stirred the aroma of spicy cooking, a coal stove fire, and the tang of manure. Across the way, Celia’s Chilean neighbor sat upon her dusty porch step. She kept an eye on her youngest, who played at the edge of the road while she mended the torn knees of a pair of trousers, the dip of her needle quick and sure. Celia had seen her occupied like that so many times. She envied the normality of it all.

  “They could not have been searching for the carte de visite, Mr. Greaves. It was not in Mr. Smith’s office,” she said, her thoughts returning to the abnormality of, yet again, hunting for a murderer. “It had been dropped at the men’s hotel where he lived, and the boy . . . the boy who found it might be in danger.”

  “He’s okay, ma’am. Taylor checked on him,” said the detective. “But his mother spotted somebody in the alleyway rummaging around Saturday night. Probably looking for that photograph.”

/>   Or perhaps just a poor soul in need of whatever he might find of use in an alley’s rubbish.

  Watching Mr. Greaves’s profile as he gathered his thoughts, Celia’s heart twisted.

  Bloody hell, Patrick, why have you returned just when I’d begun to believe I could find happiness again?

  Possibly returned.

  Nicholas Greaves glanced over, and she blushed. Thank God he cannot hear my thoughts. The detective had many skills, but mind reading was not one of them. So far as she was aware.

  “Have you learned the identity of the woman in the photograph?” she asked.

  “Got some nonsense story from the Browns about her being a former family friend and admirer of the good doctor, but I’m not keen on believing them.” The detective bent over to lean his elbows on the railing, his hat dangling from his fingers. “Maybe while you’re nosing around at Mrs. Loveland’s tonight, you can ask her about Etta. She’s admitted she was requested to mention her name at the séance.”

  “Perhaps my visit will not be so foolhardy after all, Mr. Greaves.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far, Mrs. Davies.” His attention shifted to a horse and rider plodding up the street, in no hurry to get to their destination. The Chilean woman folded her mending, called to her child, and went inside her house. “When Miss Kimball was here, did she tell you about speaking with Emery that night?”

  “I hadn’t the time to ask her many questions,” said Celia. “Although she did tell me about a diary Mrs. Loveland keeps on those who visit her. Its contents were, apparently, of great interest to the Browns and Miss Adler. That diary is my reason for wishing to attend the séance this evening.”

  “Maybe they’re afraid of what she might be doing with the information she writes down.”

  “I completely agree.”

  “I’m having my doubts about the supposedly rich Adlers,” he said. “Doesn’t it strike you strange how desperate Mr. Adler is to get Vivi Adler married off to some San Francisco doctor? Seems like there would have been bigger fish to catch in some New York City pond.”

  Much larger fish, and multiple ponds. But those fish in all those ponds were well acquainted with one another. Might the Adlers have exhausted their opportunities and sought, to expand upon the metaphor, to trawl for a fresh catch in a new lake?

  “Speaking of Dr. Brown, I encountered him in a most unexpected location today, Mr. Greaves,” she said. “I had gone to the City and County Hospital to enquire after a patient. He was attending to a woman in the insane ward. I had not realized he specialized in the treatment of such cases.”

  “Taylor told me the good doctor has been hawking a new cure in the past few months,” he said. “Maybe it’s meant to treat patients whose minds are unsound.”

  A treatment hopefully more compassionate and effective than a seton in the neck, thought Celia.

  “I do wish Miss Kimball had not taken flight. We could make use of her version of events,” said Celia. “Why does everyone involved seem to be engaged in some sort of fraud or deception?”

  “The Browns and their vague explanations about the photograph and why Justina Brown hired Smith to begin with,” he said. “Miss Adler, desperate to marry into money, even if it’s only Dr. Brown. Griffin, a professional crook and good friend of the spiritualist. Mrs. Loveland, who may be financially gaining from what she learns at those séances. Emery and Miss Kimball, whispering together, and now she’s vanished like she’s guilty of something.”

  Or afraid of someone.

  “A good summary, Mr. Greaves, of all the players upon our stage, as Mr. Shakespeare might refer to them,” she said. “It is my turn to take up my role and discover what I can about Mrs. Loveland, as well as why Miss Adler may be curious about the woman’s little notebook. Perhaps I may even communicate with the dead.”

  Nicholas Greaves frowned. “That’s all well and good, Mrs. Davies, so long as you don’t become one of them.”

  • • •

  Owen wandered the backyard of the house, kicking a loose stone across the burnt-up grass and hitting one of the rosebushes, knocking loose some petals to shower onto the ground. He shot a glance at the house, but Addie wasn’t at the window to notice what he’d done. He kicked another stone for good measure, which clattered against the wood fence.

  Dang it.

  Why wouldn’t they let him help? He was good at police work. He knew he was. He and Detective Greaves together could discover who killed Mr. Smith and hurt that tobacconist fellow. He was sure they could. After all, Mr. Smith was gonna hire him to work as an investigator, and he wouldn’t just take on anybody. He never had before. Instead, Mr. Greaves and Mrs. Davies had chased him off like he was too young to be useful.

  Dang it.

  “Owen!” called the neighbor kid, hanging over the fence between his yard and Mrs. Davies’s. He had to be standing on something in order to see over the top.

  “What do you want, Angelo?”

  “You play with me?”

  Him, play with some six-year-old? “Nah. I’m busy.”

  “You no look busy. You walk like . . .” Angelo drew a large circle in the air with his finger.

  Why was he being such a pest? “I’m busy!”

  Angelo pulled a face. “You no want to see the man? The . . .” He paused, trying to find the right word, Owen supposed. “The man . . . che paura.”

  “I don’t speak Italian, Angelo.” Heck, the kid knew that.

  “Che paura!” he repeated, his eyes widening, mouth gaping, and waving his hands like he was scared. He lost his balance and grabbed for the top of the fence so he didn’t topple to the ground. “Yes?”

  Owen hurried over to the fence. Angelo’s big, dark eyes peered down at him.

  “When did you see this scary man, Angelo? Today? Last night? What did he look like? Did he wear a red vest? Did he try to keep you from noticing him?” asked Owen, his questions coming as fast as his mind could think them up.

  Was it the fellow he’d seen lurking around the boardinghouse where Mrs. Davies’s patient and her friend lived? Was he creeping about trying to spy on Mrs. Davies because he was afraid she knew he was a killer?

  Angelo stared at him, his expression all twisted up like he hadn’t any idea what Owen had been saying.

  Okay, okay. Slowly, said Owen to himself, though his heart was fluttering in his chest like he’d swallowed a bird and it was beating its wings against his ribs, trying to get out.

  “When did you see the man?” he repeated, drawing out his words and hoping that Angelo understood.

  The boy’s face brightened. “Ah! Today.”

  “During the day?” That took nerve, creeping around in broad daylight. “Where?”

  Angelo pointed toward the grocer’s on the corner. “The man stand and stare to here.” He next pointed at Mrs. Davies’s house. “He no see me. I see him!”

  “Do you know if he’s still at the grocer’s?” Owen asked.

  Angelo shrugged.

  The fellow probably wasn’t, though, what with Mr. Greaves and Mrs. Davies out on the porch, talking. Unless they’d gone inside.

  Well, there was only one way to find out for sure.

  “Come on,” he said to Angelo and headed for the side yard and the gate that led out to the front.

  Angelo’s house didn’t have a side yard to walk through, so Owen would have to wait for him to cut through his house. Heck, most of the houses on Vallejo didn’t have side yards, the space in between them just slivers.

  Closing the gate, Owen crept forward and peeked around the edge of the house. The porch was empty.

  The neighbor’s front door slammed open, and Angelo scuttled down the steps to join Owen on the sidewalk. “And now?”

  “You see him anyplace?” asked Owen.

  Angelo swiveled his head, looking around. “No.”

  “What was he wearing? What sorta clothes?”

  Angelo gave more confused looks.

  “A red vest?” Owen asked.

>   He’d landed on a word Angelo understood, because he bobbed his head rapidly.

  “Red? Sì!” he exclaimed, patting his chest.

  “It’s that guy Mrs. Davies is worried about!”

  Although how durned dumb to be wearing red all the time so folks would notice him and remember. Unless that was exactly what he wanted them to do. He might be that clever.

  “You stay here, Angelo,” Owen ordered.

  He stuck out his lower lip. “I go, too.”

  “No, you stay here!” Owen flapped a hand at him, like a person might do if they were trying to get a dog to sit.

  He started down the road toward Dupont, listening for the sound of Angelo on his heels. He looked back once. The kid hadn’t moved, but his pout had gotten so severe, he had to be crying.

  Dang it.

  Owen slowed, considering telling Angelo to join him, but he knew he’d get blamed if the kid got hurt.

  He continued along the steep incline of the road, light on his feet, scanning his surroundings like he imagined Mr. Greaves or Mr. Taylor might do. He didn’t notice anybody suspicious. A couple of folks haggled with the grocer over the price of the lettuce stacked in crates outside his door. On the opposite side of Dupont, the priest from St. Francis in his dark cassock talked to a woman with a baby. A wagon rolled toward Owen, having come from the height of Russian Hill. Nobody lurked in empty doorways or hid in the shadows between buildings. In fact, everything looked pretty normal.

  Owen sighed. Why’d he think he could find some nosy fellow? The man could’ve been looking at any of the houses up the street, not just Mrs. Davies’s. Angelo had sent him on a wild-goose chase.

  But the man was wearing a red vest . . .

  He looked up and down Dupont Street and decided to turn right. He wasn’t that far from the boardinghouse Mrs. Davies’s patient had been living at. It was just up the road a ways and then around another corner. He passed a lot stacked with lumber and bricks, a house under construction but all the workers at lunch or somewhere else. If the red-vested guy was associated with that injured lady, he might be hanging around this area. It sorta made sense.

  Owen heard movement behind him, feet crushing gravel. And breathing. Breathing that whistled through the person’s nose. Owen picked up his pace. Might be anybody, strolling along the road. And breathing heavy wasn’t all that strange, trudging around these steep roads near Telegraph Hill. But . . . should he glance back? Maybe it was Angelo.