Brenda Joyce - [Francesca Cahill 05] (3 page)

But of course, she was not.

Francesca inhaled. She would never get used to death, much less a death that had been inflicted in violence and brutality upon an innocent human being.

She scanned the room, shivering, as it was cold within the flat. Miss Neville had two chairs and a low table facing the sofa at its opposite end, beyond where she now lay. She had clearly been using the sitting arrangement as her salon. Both of those chairs were overturned now, as was a vase of freshly cut flowers. Red roses lay scattered about the upside-down chairs.

Francesca turned to the closer side of the room. Facing the room’s two windows a few feet from the door where Francesca stood was an easel, which was also upside-down and upon the floor. A canvas lay there, facedown, alongside a palette and a dozen variously sized brushes, all of which looked to have been thrown roughly down. Paint had been dumped and thrown, splashed and splattered, almost everywhere. The back of the canvas was dripping shades of blue, purple, red, and black, and similarly violent hues dotted the room’s pale green walls, the sofa, the floor, and the once pleasant beige-and-red Oriental rug. Just beyond the seating area was an open doorway; inside was a small bedroom, as impossibly neat as the studio Francesca stood in was not. “Have you searched her bedroom?”

“Yes. I found a single unopened letter, dated a year ago, addressed to Miss Neville at a flat in Paris. It was from a Thomas Neville.”

“Her husband?” Her eyes widened, as here was a distinct lead.

He had to smile. “He was her brother. I opened and read the letter. The return address is here in the city. My plan is to interview him first thing in the morning.”

“Shall we meet at, say, nine?” Francesca asked quickly.

Bragg smiled. “He may not be there, Francesca. I hate for you to waste your time. Besides, don’t you have classes tomorrow?”

Francesca was pursuing a higher education and she had
secretly enrolled at Barnard College last fall. “I will be at your office at nine,” she said firmly. She had missed so many classes that another one would not matter.

“Good,” he returned as swiftly.

Francesca could not help it then. It felt good to be at his side, working on another investigation, one that they must solve, as murder was now the name of the game. Her gaze returned to the scene of the brutal crime.

One canvas remained standing against another wall, a landscape done in watercolors, but angry splotches of red and black marred its otherwise tepid pastel-hued surface. Francesca did not find the landscape at all impressive, although it was well executed.

“How’d she get it?” Joel asked bluntly. “Ain’t no blood.”

“She was strangled,” Bragg said.

Francesca inhaled, rather dreading the evaluation she must make of the victim. “So the killer must be a man.”

“I would think so. I doubt another woman could have strangled her. There are numerous bruises on her throat and neck, indicating a very forceful grip.”

Francesca nodded grimly. Miss Neville would wait another moment, as she was hardly going anywhere. Francesca turned to stare at one of the room’s paint-splashed walls.

For upon it, not far from the upright watercolor, amid the splatters of dark paint, was a single letter, hastily painted there in black. The letter seemed to be a
B
.

Francesca started and faced Bragg. Their gazes locked. “Bragg? Did you notice that letter upon the wall?” As the wall had been marred with so much paint in so many dark and disturbing colors, the crude letter was not glaring or overly obvious.

“Yes.”

Their gazes held. Her brother, Evan, had recently and reluctantly become engaged to Sarah Channing, an engagement planned by their families. Sarah was a rather shy young woman and not at all Evan’s type of lady—Francesca knew he preferred beautiful, flamboyant women. Sarah was more than retiring; she did not care at all for society or its
social whirl. In fact, she was a passionate and even brilliant artist. Less than a week ago, her art studio had been attacked in a shockingly similar manner. There were no suspects. One difference, however, between the instances of vandalism now and then was that there had been an incomplete letter painted in blood red on Sarah’s wall. At the time, Francesca and Bragg had thought it might be an
F
.

“Bragg? What do you make of the letter
B
on the wall over there?”

He inhaled. “It is not painted in red, it is complete, and it is not an
F
.”

They stared at each other. Finally Francesca said, “That is definitely a
B
.”

“Yes, it is. We shall have to go back to Sarah’s and see if the
F
we thought we saw was actually the beginnings of a capital
B
. This letter
B
is a capital.” Sarah’s studio had been left untouched since the vandalism, as the case remained an open one. Bragg strongly felt that crime scenes should remain untainted; he worried about his detectives missing clues on the first go-round. Francesca thought his investigative technique brilliantly original.

“What message does the vandal—the killer—intend?”

“I have no idea, Francesca,” Bragg said softly. “Not yet.”

Suddenly Francesca stilled—chilled. “We are a team now, and most of the city knows it.”

“What are you getting at?”

“First an
F
, and now a
B
,” she murmured.

He understood and started. “You think the killer is toying with you and me?”

Francesca shrugged. “I don’t know. How could I? We haven’t even begun to investigate. But the notion did occur to me, unfortunately.” And fortunately, she had quickly recovered her composure. For it was not a foregone conclusion that the letter
F
had been painted on Sarah Channing’s wall.

“Well, I do hope you are wrong, because that would indicate a very maddened killer, Francesca.”

Francesca nodded, but her senses all felt heightened now,
for this was what she did best, as she had so recently discovered. “Bragg? There is one more difference, obviously, between the Neville and Channing Incidents.”

And it was a huge difference indeed. Sarah had discovered the crime at five-fifteen in the morning and had lived to speak of it. That is, she had not seen or encountered the vandal, and there had not been a murder.

“Yes, as Sarah lives and Miss Neville does not,” Bragg said, clearly thinking in the same vein as she.

“Is Sarah in danger?” Francesca asked slowly, with dread. She had become quite fond of Sarah since meeting her.

Bragg hesitated. “I simply don’t know, Francesca,” he finally said.

Francesca inhaled and faced Miss Neville again. There was no more avoiding what she must do. But Bragg touched her elbow, a gesture of restraint. She met his gaze. “I’m fine.”

“It isn’t pleasant,” he warned.

“Death is never pleasant.” She walked slowly across the room, avoiding the patches of paint, aware of Bragg following her.

Miss Neville’s face was turned away from her, which was fine. Francesca looked first at her gray suit. Splotches of angry paint had been cast upon her, too. It made Francesca angry, for she imagined the killer throwing paint upon his dead victim. “He murdered her before he vandalized the studio,” she said.

“Not necessarily. She might have surprised him in his act of destruction and become rather paint-splattered as a result.”

Francesca simply did not think so. She felt that Miss Neville had been dead when the murderer had begun to tarnish her with paint. And while the fitted suit was not a custom-made one, it was of a good quality, and it indicated that Miss Neville was a gentlewoman. Francesca glanced at her shoes—they were black-and-white kid with fancy heels and they had cost a few dollars. The petticoat frothing about
the unevenly turned hem of the gray skirt was French lace. Francesca was perplexed.

Miss Neville lived frugally, but she dressed well. In fact, there were two rings on the fingers of her outstretched hand, and one of them was a sapphire flanked by two small diamonds. She wore it on her left index finger—had she been engaged? Married?

The other ring was a simple silver band flecked with tiny red stones. Francesca assumed the stones to be garnets.

Francesca allowed her gaze to move up Miss Neville’s still form—she had a very fine figure, a small waist and a voluptuous bosom—and finally to her neck. She saw marks that were turning black-and-blue upon her throat, both on the front of her neck and on the back. Whoever had done this, he had been a strong man, probably with large hands. Her gaze moved higher. Miss Neville’s hair was a pretty, bright chestnut, although severely drawn back into a chignon. A dove gray hat was pinned to her head and the skin of her right cheek was fair and flawless.

Francesca walked around her to the other side, so Miss Neville was facing her now. She sank down to her knees, looked at her stunning and very familiar face—and she cried out.

“Francesca?” Bragg reached for her.

Francesca allowed him to pull her up, simply too stunned to speak.

“What is it?” Bragg demanded.

Francesca gulped down air. “That . . . she isn’t Miss Neville . . . Bragg! That . . . she is Grace Conway!” Francesca stammered, still reeling.

“What?”

“Grace Conway . . . the actress . . . I met her once . . . Bragg! She is my brother’s mistress!”

T
UESDAY
, F
EBRUARY
18, 1902—11:00
P.M.

B
RAGG PULLED HER ASIDE
. “That is Grace Conway?”

“I am certain!” Francesca cried, beginning to shake. Her mind sped and raced. Her brother, Evan, was handsome, charming, and, until recently, quite the catch. That is, until recently, he had been their father’s sole male heir. But the other day he had been disowned, due to his refusal to go through with his engagement to Sarah Channing, whom he neither loved nor liked. He had been forced into the engagement in the first place, with Andrew refusing to pay his gambling debts otherwise. He and Andrew had had the worst row, with Evan announcing that he was quitting the company and moving out. Unfortunately, the next day he had been badly beaten in what he claimed to have been a barroom brawl.

Evan had been involved with the beautiful actress for some time, and Francesca had run into them once on Broadway. Miss Conway was not a woman one would ever forget. She was beautiful and she had a presence about her that
drew all attention. This was, most definitely, her.

“This is Melinda Neville’s apartment. Miss Conway has no personal papers or calling cards on her. Wait here, Francesca,” Bragg said firmly, and he hadn’t even finished speaking before he was through the flat’s front door.

Francesca had to sit down, but there was nowhere to do so other than the sofa, and somehow the entire room felt terribly tainted now. She did not want to touch anything. How could this be happening?

“I seen her once, in Vaudeville!” Joel cried in a hushed whisper. “With me mom and Paddy and Matt. It is her, isn’t it? God’s arse! Someone done stiffed Grace Conway!”

It was hard to breathe. Poor Evan! Of course, he hadn’t been that involved with Grace Conway in these last few weeks, as he had recently become rather smitten with Sarah’s cousin the widowed countess Bartolla Benevente. Maybe Grace wasn’t even his mistress anymore. Francesca hugged herself, and she couldn’t help hoping their affair was over before Grace’s death. And poor Miss Conway! She closed her eyes. First Sarah Channing, Evan’s fiancée, and now his mistress.

Bragg returned with a big, burly man with heavy sideburns and a beard. He was middle-aged and extremely distressed. “Please, Mr. Bennett, this is extremely important. You must take a close look at the victim.”

“I don’t know if I can.” Mr. Bennett was on the verge of tears.

“Of course you can,” Bragg said gently, keeping a firm grip on the heavyset gentleman and leading him around to where Francesca had so recently been standing.

Bennett cried out, “Good God! That’s not Miss Neville! That is our neighbor, Miss Conway! She lives across the hall in Number Four!” he exclaimed.

“Thank you,” Bragg said gravely. “Do you have any idea of when Miss Neville will return?”

Bennett shook his head, his loose jowls flapping.

“You may go,” Bragg said, and Bennett almost ran from the apartment as if he might be the killer’s next target.

Francesca stood up. “Perhaps Miss Conway saw the door open, as did Mr. Bennett. Perhaps she surprised the assailant, who then murdered her.”

“Those are my first thoughts, exactly.” Bragg was grim. His face was hard. He was reflective now. “Your brother’s fiancée had her studio vandalized a week ago. Yesterday your brother was in a serious brawl. How is he, by the way?”

“He is in pain, on laudanum, and in bed. He has a concussion, two broken ribs, a fractured wrist, and, as of last night, a black eye.” Francesca was afraid. She knew where Bragg led. “First Miss Channing, then Evan’s injuries, and now Miss Conway. Bragg, Evan does not brawl.”

“He said he was in a barroom brawl, did he not?”

“I haven’t been able to speak to him, but I don’t believe it.”

“I don’t believe it, either, as his injuries are too vicious. As if someone intended to hurt him—or kill him.”

Francesca sat back down again. She knew Evan had not been in a fistfight. He was not that kind of man. Someone had attacked him. She was even more afraid. “Somehow this is all connected, is it not? This must be about Evan—as he is the key here between Sarah and Miss Conway.”

“I am beginning to think so,” Bragg said.

“That would make the fact that Miss Conway was murdered in an artist’s studio a coincidence. But how can it be coincidental to what happened to Sarah? The killer here has vandalized Miss Neville’s studio exactly as he did Sarah’s. And if Grace Conway surprised the assailant, then he did not intend to murder her and Evan is
not
involved.”

“We must focus on the facts which we do have and not leap to possible conclusions,” Bragg said firmly. “Fact: this studio was vandalized in the same manner as Miss Channing’s studio. Fact two: Evan is the connection between Miss Conway and Sarah Channing.” He became more thoughtful and added, “Fact three: Miss Neville is the artist here.”