Dandy Detects

Dandy Detects:

A Victorian San Francisco Story

By M. Louisa Locke

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2010 Mary Louisa Locke

Cover design Copyright 2010 Michelle Huffaker

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Maids of
Misfortune
, her historical mystery about many of the
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places, and incidents either are the product of the author's
imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual
persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or
locales is entirely coincidental.

####

Barbara Hewitt sat by the open window,
drinking in the faint breeze that barely touched the flame of the
candle sitting on the table in front of her. It was nearly eleven
at night, yet her attic bedroom refused to release the accumulated
heat of the day. While only her second September in the city of San
Francisco, she was already familiar with the odd habit the weather
had of producing the first searing temperatures of summer just in
time for the fall school term.

Today her students at San Francisco Girls
High had wilted under the requisite five layers of clothing that
female modesty dictated, and she had noted that none of them had
been willing to forgo the newly fashionable polonaise wool dresses
that had clearly been specially tailored for the start of school.
She smiled to herself, thinking of the dampness of their knitted
brows as they struggled over their first English literature
essays--essays that she was trying to finish grading by candlelight
so that she could return them in the morning.

A raised voice and a sharp sound shattered
her reverie, and she looked out the window into the illuminated
back room on the top floor of the house across the alley. A lit oil
lamp revealed in stark detail the tableau of a man and a woman and
a dog. The shaggy black dog was clutched in the arms of the woman,
who was sitting at an upright piano, her shining blonde head bowed.
The wide-shouldered man loomed over her, his hands pressing down on
the lid that covered the piano keys. The sound Barbara had heard
probably came from the man slamming the lid down, since the soft
notes of a Beethoven sonata had now been replaced by silence. But
it just as well could have been the sound a man’s hand made when it
came forcibly against the delicate skin of a woman’s face.

Barbara remembered another room, on another
breathlessly hot night, and another furious man. But that room had
also contained the increasingly frantic wails of a three-year-old
boy, a sound that had driven her across time and space to end up in
this attic in Mrs. Fuller's O'Farrell Street boarding house. She
stood up and turned her back on the window, taking up the candle to
move across the room to an adjoining alcove where her young son lay
asleep. Jamie was now eight, and he slept in that deep, drugged
state that healthy children effortlessly achieve. She briefly
stroked his sweat-darkened short hair that the summer’s sun had
burnished golden, and her heart turned over.

She then noticed that Dandy, Jamie's terrier,
was sitting upright on the bed, staring alertly at her. The
candlelight revealed the blaze of white on his chest and the white
around his neck and front paws. The white patches looked so much
like a starched white shirt against his black fur that Mrs.
O'Rourke, the boarding house cook and housekeeper, had exclaimed,
"Oh, Jamie, with that squashed-in face, if he doesn't look like a
street tough trying to pass as a high-class gent. A dandy right
enough, all dressed up in his fine evening clothes."

Dandy, ears erect on either side of his round
forehead and slightly bulging eyes reflecting the candle glow,
cocked his head and wrinkled his short muzzle to emit a soft,
questioning "woof."

"Shush, Dandy," Barbara whispered. "Don't
wake up Jamie. I am sure everything is all right.”

“Gracious me, I do declare that if this heat
continues I shan’t be able to eat a bite. Now, dear sister, I do
insist that you take some of this chicken; you must keep up your
strength. How clever of Mrs. O’Rourke to think of making this
cucumber soup; a fine choice on a day like this. I don’t remember
when we have had such a string of hot days, not here in San
Francisco. Now, in Natchez, where Miss Millie and I spent our
youth, this would be a mild summer day. Oh, my goodness, Millie, do
you remember how hot it got back in Natchez? I….”

Barbara let the older woman’s conversation
wash over her as she picked at her dinner. She was exhausted from
several sleepless nights, and her head had been so muzzy at school
today that she had finally let her last period students work
silently on their poetry assignments because she couldn’t summon
the energy to listen to their recitations. She looked over at Miss
Minnie Moffet, who was continuing to tell the rest of the boarders
about summers in Natchez, and she wondered at the woman’s
determined cheerfulness. Miss Minnie and her sister, Miss Millie,
who must be in their early seventies, shared a tiny room across the
hall from Barbara. If Miss Minnie’s stories had any connection to
the truth, she and her sister had not been born poor back in
Natchez. Nevertheless, some hinted-at-tragedy had landed them in
San Francisco where they eked out their living as skilled
seamstresses. Barbara noticed that Miss Millie, who looked so like
Miss Minnie that they could be twins, was smiling benignly at her
loquacious sister. Jamie swore that Miss Millie did speak, but
Barbara had never heard her utter a syllable. She wondered if Miss
Millie had simply given up trying to get a word in edgewise some
time in the distant past.

Well, at least with Miss Minnie at dinner,
I won’t have to worry about making conversation
, Barbara was
just thinking, when a masculine voice on her right destroyed that
hope
.

“Ah, excuse me, Mrs. Hewitt. Jamie was just
telling me that you had promised him that you would take him up to
Nob Hill this weekend, and I wanted to let you know I would be free
to accompany you.”

Barbara looked over at Mr. Chapman, who was
leaning forward to speak to her around Jamie, and suppressed her
irritation. A tall, awkward man in his thirties, Mr. Chapman had
some sort of office job, and he seemed to feel it was not safe for
her to walk in the city without a male escort.

“Why, thank you Mr. Chapman, I will certainly
let you know if we do decide to do so. It all depends on the
weather and my students’ essays. It is the beginning of the term
and I am afraid that, between the heat and their apparent failure
to retain anything they learned last year, I may be in for a
difficult weekend of grading.”

Relieved that Jamie had immediately reclaimed
Mr. Chapman’s attention, Barbara shifted her attention to the rest
of the boarders at the table. On her left was Mr. Harvey, a clerk
in a dry goods store who shared a room on the second floor with Mr.
Chapman. He had an ailing wife who lived up near Sacramento, and
she had noticed that he seemed as reluctant as she to engage in
dinnertime conversation. Next to him at the head of the table sat
Mr. Herman Stein, a wealthy businessman, who was steadily making
inroads into his roast chicken and potatoes. Across the table from
her sat Mr. Stein’s friendly wife, Esther, who was listening
politely to Miss Minnie, and next to Miss Minnie was Miss Millie.
The boarding house owner, Mrs. Fuller, was absent, as was Miss
Pinehurst, a cashier in a fashionable restaurant off Market, who
was, as usual, at work at this time of day.

Boarding houses bring together such an odd
assortment of people
, Barbara thought to herself. She looked
down at her son, who now had the full attention of the entire table
as he reported that he had heard that there were wildfires on Mt.
Diablo to the east.
But they are all so kind to Jamie, and I
suppose I can’t ask for more than that
.

“Ma’am, are you finished? You didn’t hardly
touch your dinner. Will I be able to tempt you with raspberry
compote?”

Kathleen, the boarding house maid, leaned
between her and Jamie to take their plates and continued, “But your
son sure had a good appetite, and I don’t even have to ask if he
wants dessert.”

Barbara found her spirits lifting as they
often did around Kathleen, a freckle-faced young Irish girl whose
sparkling blue eyes radiated good humor. She replied, “Oh,
Kathleen, its just too hot. I don’t know how you and Mrs. O’Rourke
can stand it down in the kitchen; it must feel like you are in an
oven. Do tell Mrs. O’Rourke how much I did enjoy the soup. I don’t
want her to feel her efforts were wasted on me, and they certainly
weren’t wasted on Jamie!”

Kathleen placed the dishes on the stack she
had been accumulating on her tray and said, “Well, the kitchen is
in the basement, and that is a help. I don’t know how you can sleep
nights up there on the third floor! When I went up to sweep this
morning, I like to died from the heat!”

This comment prompted Barbara to ask a
question that had been niggling at her for several days. “Kathleen,
that reminds me, with the windows open in the evening I have been
hearing the woman across the alley play the piano. Quite lovely. I
wondered if you knew her name or anything about her? I do believe
they moved in this spring.”

Kathleen’s face lit up, “Oh Ma’am, that would
be Mrs. Francis. Don’t that piano sound glorious? She was famous,
used to do concerts and everything. That was before she was
married. Her husband, though, I dunno. I heard he dotes on her, but
I also heard he's a rough sort. They do say opposites attract. He
runs a store for second-hand tools in the first floor of the house.
Well, I guess Mrs. Francis does most of the work in the store,
while he just runs around town, finding goods to sell.”

Barbara watched as Kathleen moved away to
finish clearing the table, and she wondered about Mrs. Francis,
“who used to be famous.” It had been so long since she had someone
with whom she could share her love of music. She had hoped that she
might find one of the teachers at her school compatible, but so far
there had been no one she really felt she could trust. Schools
could be such gossipy places, and she couldn’t afford to make any
enemies, which some how meant she hadn’t been able to make any
friends.

The next day Barbara found herself again
wondering about Mrs. Francis when her thoughts were interrupted by
Dandy, who was barking in great indignation at an emaciated hound
who was tied to the hitching post outside the Ellis Street butcher
shop. Saturday mornings she walked Dandy while Jamie made spending
money by doing errands for Mrs. O'Rourke. This Saturday, despite
the continued heat, she had extended her usual route so that she
could go past the Francis house.

Barbara had some vague idea that she might
stop in the store and, if Mrs. Francis was alone, strike up a
conversation. But she had forgotten the butcher's dog, which always
sent Dandy into a frenzy. Dandy was still a pup and didn't weigh
more than fifteen pounds, so she wasn't worried he would get away
from her, but he was creating a good deal of commotion on the
crowded sidewalk.

She scooped Dandy up in her arms, immediately
subjecting herself to several swift doggy kisses on her nose, and
she laughed, saying, "Oh you rascal. Proud of yourself aren't you.
Defended me against that ruffian. Now settle down."

Having made it safely past the butcher shop,
Barbara put the wiggling dog down at her feet, just in time for him
to begin straining at the leash again. Looking up, she saw the
object of his excitement was a short, boxy black dog with a shaggy
coat, who was pulling his mistress towards them with equal
fervor.

"Excuse me, Mrs. Francis. That is your name
isn't it? I have so wanted to meet you," Barbara exclaimed when she
noticed that the slender blonde in front of her was her back alley
neighbor. Before the woman had a chance to respond, she went on.
"My name is Mrs. Barbara Hewitt, I live just over on O'Farrell
Street, and I wanted to tell you how much I have enjoyed hearing
you play the piano these warm evenings. You are quite
accomplished."

Heavens above, I sound like an idiot,
accosting a stranger on the street this way,
she thought.
Embarrassed, Barbara looked down at the two dogs who were
enthusiastically trying to sniff each other's rears, which, because
they were about the same length, meant they were going around and
around in a tight circle, completely entangling their leashes.