“She said she was afraid of Arthur,” said Corrie. “That was all she’d tell me, scared out of her wits to say more.”
“You thought she meant Arthur Brown, who’d been her doctor,” said Mr. Greaves.
“I didn’t have a reason to think she’d meant anybody else,” Corrie answered. “I became convinced that he had hurt her in ways she could never recover from.”
Mr. Taylor flipped through his notebook and took to writing.
“After she died, I tried to go to Stockton again. But I didn’t have enough money of my own to make the trip, and my brother wouldn’t help out,” she continued. “I kept waiting for news that Dr. Brown had been arrested for Etta’s death—there were stories in the paper in Los Angeles about the hospital, sometimes—but it never came. I sent him a letter at the asylum, pouring out my rage, but it came back saying he wasn’t employed there any longer. I was bound and determined, though, to see him punished for what I was certain he’d done. At least make him understand he was never going to sleep quietly at night so long as I was alive to remind him about Etta.”
She paused, lost in her sorrowful memories.
“How did you locate Dr. Brown?” asked Celia.
“I went to Sacramento, at first. After I’d taken some money from my brother. Enough to buy a train ticket and pay for lodgings for a few weeks,” she said. “Dr. Brown had gone on to San Francisco, though, so I had to come here. He wasn’t so hard to find. I was surprised he was still a practicing physician, though. But I reasoned nobody here had heard about his time at the asylum.”
“Did you try to contact him when you arrived in town?” asked Mr. Greaves.
“Once I was sure I had the right man. I screwed up the nerve to go and see him at his surgery, but his assistant turned me away,” she said. “I planned to go back and try again, but then Micah figured out I was in the city and put that notice in the papers, looking for me. If he’d found me, he would’ve dragged me back to Los Angeles for sure. Or sent me to Stockton. I couldn’t stay where I was, so I changed my name to Nell Kimball and moved to a new lodging house. I did get scared when I saw the notice that you were looking for Miss Kimball, Detective Greaves.”
“We wanted to talk to you about what had happened at the séance,” he said. “Not because your brother had realized you might be using Kimball as your last name.”
“I guess Micah’s not as smart as he likes to think he is,” she said. “You’ll tell my brother you’ve found me, though, won’t you, Detective?”
He glanced at Celia before responding. “Mr. McHugh is worried about you.”
“Only because he thinks I’m going to damage his precious reputation,” Corrie replied. “Another loony sister, only fit to be locked away.”
“We won’t let that happen, Miss McHugh,” said Celia.
“I don’t see how you can stop him, ma’am.”
Celia would not look at the two men in the room with them, let them see how angry she was over the truth held in Corrie’s comment.
“So you planned to finally confront Dr. Brown at Mrs. Loveland’s, I suppose,” said Mr. Greaves. “How did you know he was going to be there that particular evening?”
“One day, as if fate had intervened, Dr. Brown and an acquaintance came into the restaurant where I work. Maybe it wasn’t fate; the restaurant isn’t far from his surgery. Anyway, when the owner greeted him by name, I worked it out so that I could be the doctor’s waitress. Even got so bold as to mention ‘my poor half sister, Etta.’ If he had a reaction, I didn’t see it,” she said. “But he and his friend started talking about a séance the doctor planned on attending in the coming week at Mrs. Loveland’s. I got to thinking—maybe I should be there, too, and have Etta speak to him from the dead. Maybe then he’d feel remorse over what he’d done to her.”
“He’d heard about Mrs. Loveland from Vivi Adler,” Mr. Greaves explained to Celia. “Who, I’d wager, wanted to meet with Mr. Griffin to discuss the money she owed the man.”
Honestly, who did not owe Mr. Griffin money?
“Miss McHugh, I noticed in a diary Mrs. Loveland keeps that you’d attended a séance a few days earlier than the night you finally met Dr. Brown,” said Celia.
“I didn’t know which exact night Dr. Brown would be at her place. Only that he’d be there sometime that week. It wasn’t until Wednesday that he showed,” she replied. “I slipped a message to Mrs. Loveland, all the money I’d brought with me attached, asking her to mention Etta.”
“She told me about the message,” said Mr. Greaves.
“As soon as she said Etta’s name, Dr. Brown flushed like he was about to die of apoplexy right there on the spot,” said Corrie. “He jumped up and left, his fiancée and sister rushing after him. I chased after them, all the way out to the street. I wanted to confront him right then, right there. Force a confession out of him. He ignored me, hopped into his carriage, and was gone.” She glanced over at Celia. “Sorry I didn’t tell you the real reason about why I’d run after them, ma’am. But I couldn’t.”
“I understand, Miss McHugh.”
“I went back inside to collect my things, because there was no point in continuing the séance,” she continued. “It was then that Arthur . . . A.J., that is. That’s what he preferred to be called, I suppose, after leaving Stockton. Hiding behind initials.” She paused to collect herself. “It was then that A.J. cozied over to talk to me. Said he knew Dr. Brown. Said he’d heard the rumors about what he’d done to female patients at the state hospital.”
“Mr. Emery mentioned the asylum without you first telling him about Etta and Dr. Brown?” asked Celia.
“Yes, and I was so upset, I didn’t understand the significance of his comment, Mrs. Davies.” She pressed a hand to her mouth and closed her eyes for a moment. “It was A.J. who concocted the plan to blackmail the doctor. The law was never going to punish Dr. Brown, so why not at least get some money out of the man? I agreed. But then Miss Brown hired that investigator, and Mr. Smith started to ask questions of the folks who’d been at the séance . . .”
“Was it you I saw in his office the day he died?” asked Celia. “Or Mr. Emery searching through his files?”
“Me? No,” she stated. “You believe me, right?”
“One of our officers found what was left from some papers Mr. Emery had burned in his room, Mrs. Davies,” said Mr. Taylor. “We’re pretty sure it was him at Mr. Smith’s office. So don’t you worry, Miss McHugh. We believe you.”
She smiled at him, making him blush. Miss McHugh was quite pretty when she smiled.
“Besides, I’d collided with that cart after running from Mr. Smith’s lodging house and injured my leg so badly . . .”
“Care to explain why you’d been at Mr. Smith’s, Miss McHugh?” asked Mr. Greaves, his face gone taut.
“Not to kill him!” she exclaimed. “I’d had the day off and went first to his office to tell him about the letters. That A.J. had goaded me into sending them, but I didn’t want any more to do with the bribes or the threats. Becoming a criminal made me no better than the man I believed Dr. Brown was.”
Mr. Greaves relaxed and looked over at Celia before continuing. “Did you send that photograph of Etta to Dr. Brown, Miss McHugh?”
“I did. The carte de visite had been among Etta’s belongings that the hospital had returned to us,” she replied. “I only had one other picture of her, but I surely didn’t want to keep that one. Not one with him. When Dr. Brown didn’t respond to the first two letters, I sent the photograph along. A.J. didn’t know I’d done that.”
“And Justina Brown, who opens the mail, gave it to Smith,” said Mr. Greaves.
“Who showed it around,” said Celia, continuing the thread, “attempting to discover who the woman was, as her identity was the clue that would lead to the author of the letters.”
“I didn’t think that Dr. Brown’s sister might get ahold of it. I wanted the photograph to go straight to him,” said Corrie. “A.J. panicked when M
r. Smith asked him about it. If Mr. Smith discovered the woman was Etta and that the photograph had been taken at the asylum, he might’ve pieced the story together. Learned the horrible, horrible story . . .”
Corrie stopped, her bottom lip trembling.
“Take your time, Miss McHugh,” said Mr. Taylor, always solicitous and kind. “We’ve got all day to listen. Don’t rush.”
“Thank you, Taylor,” said Mr. Greaves. “Emery told me he hadn’t been shown the photograph, but I expect he wouldn’t want to admit the truth. He must have been angry with you, Miss McHugh.”
“Furious,” she said, gathering herself. “He was waiting for me outside the restaurant one evening. He yelled at me, made awful threats. I shouted at him it had been his idea to bribe Dr. Brown, but that I’d go to jail if I got caught. I was done. I planned to go to Mr. Smith, tell him everything, hope that he’d help me convince the police to be lenient.”
Celia wondered if Mr. Smith would have helped Corrie. He might have done. For all that he was scruffy, he’d been a good man.
“It was stupid to threaten A.J., but I wanted out of the scheme,” she said. “I learned where Mr. Smith lived and got there just in time to see a man fall from a window. A.J. was in the room he’d fallen from. He spotted me down on the street, looking up at him. I took off running, collided with that cart driving up the road, fell and cut my leg badly . . . I barely made it home.”
Corrie sighed, her shoulders drooping.
Celia pressed a hand to the young woman’s arm. “If this is tiring, Miss McHugh, I am certain Mr. Greaves will allow a brief break.”
“I’m fine. I need to get the story out.” Corrie pulled in a long breath. “It wasn’t until after Mr. Smith died that I got to thinking about what A.J. had said at Mrs. Loveland’s about Etta. The only way he could’ve known she’d been at the asylum was because he’d been there, too,” she said. “He’d never told me his Christian name, just the initials he went by. I got to wondering what ‘A.J.’ stood for, and if I’d been after the wrong man all along. So I went to the artificial limb store asking for ‘Arthur.’ His boss said he wasn’t in yet. Then I knew for sure. He was the Arthur who’d hurt my dearest Etta, not Arthur Brown.”
“Emery had convinced me that the woman in that picture was afraid of Dr. Brown, the man standing at her side,” admitted Mr. Greaves.
“He’s pretty convincing, Detective Greaves. Don’t feel bad about believing him,” said Corrie. “I’ve been so frightened he’d find me. He knew I saw him at Mr. Smith’s. I’d also figured out that he’d hurt Etta. I was trouble for him.”
“He went to considerable lengths to try to locate you,” said Celia. “Spying on you and Molly after you left my house. Coming to the police station to ask about you, after he’d realized you had run off.” And pretending, quite boldly, to be a Mr. Smith.
“I’m sorry that Molly was worried about me. But A.J. wanted to shut me up permanently, and if it weren’t for you, Mrs. Davies, I’d be dead right now.”
Perhaps they should both thank Mr. Griffin. “You should rest now, Miss McHugh.”
She slid Nicholas Greaves a glance, saw the warm admiration in his eyes. He shall never feel that way for me again.
Once I tell him that Patrick is alive.
Chapter 24
Owen looked over at Celia, standing in the doorway of the bedchamber he’d been using. “I’ve collected my things and am ready to go, Mrs. Davies.” He nodded toward the hall beyond her. “Is that Miss Kimball you and Mr. Greaves and Mr. Taylor were talking to?”
“Her name is actually Miss McHugh. And yes, it was. We needed to bring her somewhere safe so she could tell Mr. Greaves what she knows about Mr. Smith’s death,” she said. “We have discovered who is responsible, Owen, and he is in jail. It is not Miss Adler nor Mr. Griffin, interestingly enough.”
“Glad to hear it’s all over, ma’am.”
“As am I.”
This part of the tale was finished, at least. The story that involved Patrick and Mr. Griffin would, regrettably, continue on to its conclusion. Whatever that might be.
“Miss McHugh has fallen asleep, ma’am.” Addie leaned through the doorway and peered at Owen. “Are you all ready there, laddie?”
“Yes, Addie.”
He clasped a bundle in one hand. Owen had arrived at their house ill and with nothing more than the clothes on his back. Addie had ensured he would leave with a clean undershirt and some food to tide him over for a few days.
“Weel, I’ll be sorry to see you go.”
Owen’s eyes watered. “Shucks, Addie, it’s not like I’m going off to war or something.”
“Here, Owen, allow me to hug you,” said Celia.
“Only if it don’t hurt your arm there, ma’am.” He nodded at the bandage visible below her rolled-up sleeve.
“I assure you, a hug shall make my injury feel better.”
Celia enveloped him in her arms, his head higher than her shoulders, now. Tears burned her eyes, but there was no need for them. Owen would never be too far away. This leaving was not like he was going off to war, or something. “Addie, give him a few coins. Do not spend them foolishly, though, Owen.”
“I won’t!”
“Good.” She released him, the warmth of his body lingering. “And if you ever come across Mr. Griffin, inform him I cannot force my husband to pay the funds he is owed, for my husband no longer resides with me and has spent the past year pretending he is deceased.” Perhaps Mr. Griffin’s revelation explained the important news Mr. Smith had wanted to share with Celia. Before he had died.
“A fellah like Griffin—from what I’ve heard of him, of course—but a fellah like him’s gonna be looking to you for the money, then, ma’am,” said Owen. “He’ll be haunting the streets outside your house. Following you around. Maybe I should stay here. To keep you safe.”
Haunting. Like a restless shade to blight the calm and order she fought so hard to bring to this home and her life. Another shadow to haunt her like the shadow cast by Patrick.
It had been a long, long time, however, since her life had been truly calm and orderly.
“We should tell Mr. Taylor about Mr. Griffin, ma’am,” said Addie. “Tell him we need protection.”
“We cannot be certain what the man intends, Addie. And I thank you for your offer, Owen, but Barbara will be returning this afternoon in need of a place to sleep,” said Celia. “Besides, Addie and I can handle Mr. Griffin, I assure you.”
She could add that he’d had the opportunity to hurt her that afternoon and had elected not to. That, in fact, he had attempted to rescue her and Corrie from Mr. Emery. But Addie was sufficiently alarmed, and telling her housekeeper that she’d encountered the man would not increase Addie’s peace of mind.
“Come along, Mr. Owen,” said Addie, beckoning him to join her in the hallway. “I’ve got biscuits in the kitchen for you to take along.”
“Shortbread cookies?” he asked hopefully.
She chuckled. “What else?”
They started down the hall, Celia staring after them.
“Mr. Greaves is in the parlor waiting to speak with you, ma’am,” Addie called back over her shoulder. “You’ve a few seconds to think on what you should tell him about Master Patrick.”
• • •
Celia Davies had once told Nick that the portrait hanging over the sofa in the parlor was a painting of her Uncle Walford. Done a few short years before he’d died and left her in charge of his only child, Barbara. He liked the look of the man, the intelligence captured in oils by the strokes of a paintbrush. If he hadn’t gone and orphaned a half-Chinese girl, Nick doubted he and Celia would have ever met. Living in this house with her cousin, she’d discovered her purpose—tending to the women who had nobody else to care about them, which sometimes included the Chinese. Desperate women looking for help and healing wherever they could find it. She might never have had a Chinese patient whose body had washed up in the bay, causing her to stride int
o his office to demand Nick find the young woman's killer . . .
Nick grinned at the man in the painting.
Thanking you for dying would be awfully hard-hearted, though, sir.
“I miss him desperately.” She’d slipped into the parlor without him hearing her.
“When is your cousin coming home from the Hutchinsons’?” he asked.
“As soon as Miss McHugh was settled, Addie had one of the neighbor’s children deliver a message that Barbara was free to return when she wanted.”
“One of the Cascarino kids?” One of these days he’d tell her about Mina Cascarino and how he’d once imagined he was in love with the girl.
“I pay them a few pennies to deliver messages for me. The Cascarinos can always use the money.” She looked up at the painting. “I expect Jane and Frank will be happy to have one less teenaged girl in their home. Addie is upstairs moving Miss McHugh to the spare room Owen just vacated.”
And what would that kid do, now that he’d been released into the world again? Find a new way to get in trouble, he expected. “Do you always take in the strays, ma’am?”
“Only when they need me to.” She looked over at him. “You do believe Corrie, do you not?”
“I was rather hoping Brown was guilty of killing Smith,” he said. “Emery hasn’t admitted to knowing Lucetta Kimball, but Miss McHugh’s information will get him indicted for killing Mr. Smith.”
“If a jury believes her. After all, she conspired with him to bribe Dr. Brown,” she said. “Although perhaps they will look kindly on her for helping you arrest Mr. Emery for Mr. Smith’s murder, Mr. Greaves.”
“I believe you were the one primarily responsible for his capture, ma’am.”
“I am not the woman in need of clemency, Detective.” She leaned across the settee to swipe away a cobweb clinging to the portrait’s frame. “And you would have discovered his guilt and located him eventually.”
“I wouldn’t have become convinced he’d been behind those letters if I hadn’t met his police officer brother in Stockton, who accidentally gave me the clue I’d needed.”
No Quiet among the Shadows Page 27
