Dandy Detects (3 page)

"Yes, I did. Maybe that is what has me so
rattled. While we were trying to figure out what was wrong with
Dandy, suddenly Mr. Francis appeared at the gate and asked us what
was going on. Quite startled us, Dandy included, because Dandy
started snarling and then leaped up, as if he wanted to bite the
man on the nose. Of course, he couldn't reach him, but he can leap
awfully high, and Mr. Francis pulled back and began to curse. Quite
abusive. Ill-mannered is the least of it!"

"Heavens be merciful," said Mrs. O'Rourke.
"What did you do?"

Barbara smiled at Mrs. O'Rourke and said,
"Well, first I instructed Jamie to pick Dandy up and take him down
the block and hold on to him. Then I tried to apologize to Mr.
Francis. To be fair, Dandy had been very fierce and I think he gave
Mr. Francis a start." Barbara saw the three women look down at the
small dog at their feet, appearing anything but fierce as he lay on
the floor, gently snoring.

Barbara went on, "In my apology I had
mentioned that I had hoped to see his wife, and that is when he
said Mrs. Francis had left Wednesday evening on a trip. In fact, he
became quite friendly. Told me his wife's sister had turned ill,
and his wife had left very suddenly. Called himself an old
bachelor, having to cook for himself."

Kathleen scoffed, "What cheek! His wife isn't
gone three days and he's trying out his blarney on you. Georgeanne,
who works in the house next to them, she said he was a flirt, and
how it was such a shame with that pretty blonde wife of his. But
they do say, 'when the cats away the mice do play.'"

As the women laughed, Barbara thought to
herself.
Was that why I felt so uneasy? Because Mr. Francis was
trying to flirt with me?

"
Mrs. Hewitt, if Mrs. Francis' absence
is accounted for, why are you still uneasy?" Mrs. Fuller said,
disconcertingly echoing her thoughts. "It's Gordie, isn't it?"

Barbara looked in those clear brown eyes and
nodded. "Yes, I shouldn't be worried. I even asked after Gordie,
offered to take him for walks with Dandy while his wife was away.
He told me it wouldn't be necessary, that his wife had taken the
dog with her on Wednesday night. But you see, I remember Wednesday
night because I had trouble sleeping, and later I woke up from a
disturbing dream. The light was on across the way, and I saw Mr.
Francis in the upstairs window. Not his wife, but then she would
have left earlier in the evening. What worries me is that right
before I fell asleep the first time, around midnight, I could swear
I heard Gordie furiously barking at the back door. If that is true,
why did Mr. Francis lie about his wife taking the dog, and what has
happened to Gordie?"

It was Sunday afternoon, and Barbara was
sitting on the front porch of the boarding house, escaping the heat
of her attic room. Jamie was off with Dandy and a friend; they said
they were going to the wharf to watch the ships, but she suspected
they were primarily hoping that it would be cooler nearer the
bay.

Mrs. Fuller came through the front door to
the porch, trailed by a man, and said, "Mrs. Hewitt, I would like
to introduce you to Patrick McGee."

Patrick McGee was an open-faced young man who
had tried to counter his youthful freckles with a fiercely waxed
mustache that was several shades darker than the copper curls on
top of his head. She had heard a good deal about Patrick from
Jamie. She knew that he was Mrs. O'Rourke's nephew and, as Jamie
put it, that he was "sweet on Miss Kathleen," and that he was in
the city police department. It turned out that it was in this
latter capacity that he might be of help to Barbara.

Mrs. Fuller continued, "This morning Kathleen
mentioned your concern about Mrs. Francis' dog to him, and he
thought he might have a way of setting your mind at rest."

Yesterday evening's discussion in the kitchen
about what might have happened to Gordie had gone on for some time,
with no resolution. Mrs. O'Rourke had been of the opinion that
Barbara had heard another dog and that Gordie was happily traveling
with his mistress. Kathleen, who had developed a strong antipathy
to Mr. Francis from her friend Georgeanne, asserted her belief that
he had taken advantage of his wife's absence to give the dog
away.

She had said, “ Georgeanne told me that when
she is in the back yard, hanging the laundry, she's heard him yell
at the dog something terrible. Can you imagine? His poor wife will
come back, and that blackguard will say, ‘Oh, my dear, somehow your
poor dog got out. I promise I looked every where for him!’”

Mrs. Fuller had held her own council until
she had finally turned to Barbara and said, "Mrs. Hewitt, do you
think he harmed Gordie? Is that why you are so upset?"

When she had said those blunt words, Barbara
had realized that was exactly what she thought. She had said, "I
just can't get the image out of my mind of Mr. Francis striking the
dog in anger, perhaps killing him accidentally, and burying him
under his new sidewalk."

She had gone on to tell them about how she
had noticed last Thursday that a stack of bricks and a pile of sand
that had been sitting in the Francis' back yard for a month was
gone. Instead there was a new brick walkway from the back door to
around the side of the house.

"At the time I thought how odd of Mr. Francis
to do this work when it was so hot. But then later, after I thought
of how upset Dandy was, sitting in front of that new walkway and
howling. Well, I just couldn't help but think that poor little
Gordie might be buried under those bricks."

Barbara remembered the look of horror on
everyone's face when she had confessed her fear. However, after
much more discussion, no one could think of how to determine if it
was true. Yet, here was Mrs. Fuller, the very next day, telling her
she had found a way to do so. Barbara stood up and shook hands with
Mr. McGee, saying, "I am so pleased to meet you. You were so kind
to help Jamie get the dog license for Dandy. I would be glad to
hear your ideas about how to find out what happened to Mrs.
Francis' little dog."

Mr. McGee nodded shyly and said, "You see
Ma'am, when Kathleen, I mean Miss Hennessy, told me about your
worrying about the neighbor's dog, I thought of my sergeant, Mr.
Thompson. He has this old bloodhound that he swears can find a dead
body, no matter how well hidden. There was this case some years
ago, a robbery, and the two villains got off with the whole Central
Pacific payroll. They took a guard with them, and it were Mr.
Thompson's hound that found the man. Unfortunately he'd been killed
and buried out in the mountains, but at least his family had the
satisfaction of knowing what became of him. So, I got to thinking
that if he could find a buried man, he should certainly be able to
find a buried dog. Plus, Mr. Thompson is terrible fond of animals,
can't stand the idea of them being hurt. He's instructed us
patrolman to look out for this on our rounds. Says there's a law on
the books that makes it a crime to willfully hurt, maim, or kill an
animal."

Mrs. Fuller interjected, "Mrs. Hewitt, do you
think Patrick should talk to the sergeant? I felt you should
decide." Pausing briefly, she then continued. "There might be some
unpleasantness if Mr. Francis suspected you were involved. We could
just wait until Mrs. Francis comes back home. If she has the dog
with her, that would be the end of it. If not, you might be able to
speak to her about your fears."

Barbara felt a rise of panic, thinking,
I
don't want to be involved. What if Mr. Francis did find out? I
don't want him angry with me, or Jamie. He might do something. Even
if I am wrong, how would I ever be able to befriend Mrs. Francis,
if she comes back?

"If she comes back," Barbara murmured.
Suddenly she realized that as long as she suspected that Mr.
Francis was capable of killing Gordie, she wouldn't feel safe
living across the alley from him. She had to know, one way or the
other.

The next day the heat wave finally broke. As
she walked home from Girls High, Barbara welcomed the cool wisps of
fog that caressed her cheeks and clung to her hair. She didn't even
mind that the shawl she had taken with her in the morning no longer
was adequate to keep her warm. This is what September should feel
like. Her pleasant mood dissolved when she entered the front
hallway of the boarding house and found Kathleen waiting for her to
convey Mrs. Fuller's request that she step into the small parlor
where Madam Sibyl met her clients.

"What is it? Jamie, is he all right?" she
cried.

"Oh ma'am, I didn't mean to frighten you. The
lad is just fine, down in the kitchen stuffing himself with ginger
snaps. Now please, Mrs. Fuller is waiting."

Later, Barbara would remember being charmed
by her first impression of the small parlor. Unlike the larger
formal parlor across the hall, this room had wood wainscoting and
built in bookcases that held numerous objects. A fire burned in the
grate, and Mrs. Fuller was sitting behind a small table with a rich
green velvet table cloth, and she motioned to an armchair next to
the table, saying, "Please Mrs. Hewitt, do sit down and let me pour
you a cup of tea. This change in the weather has been so rapid that
I have found myself chilled. I wanted to show you something that I
thought you might want to digest before seeing Jamie. Its rather
sad, and I didn't think you would want to distress him. Here, do
read this article on the first page."

Barbara took the paper and sat down in the
chair, vaguely aware that Mrs. Fuller was pouring the tea into two
cups, and she began to read.

Blood Hound Crucial to

Gruesome Discovery

Sergeant Thompson, a member of the San
Francisco police department, made a gruesome discovery this morning
on Ellis Street. He had been asked by a concerned neighbor to
discover the whereabouts of a small dog that was missing in
suspicious circumstances. The sergeant stated, "I hated to think
that a wee small dog might have been harmed, so I agreed to
investigate the complaint. This wasn’t the first time I’ve used
MacKenzie, my bloodhound, to search for missing animals."

The Sergeant went on to recount how when he
arrived at the residence in question the bloodhound immediately
pulled him through a gate to a brick walkway at the side of the
house and sat down and began to bay. "That's his signal that he has
found something," the Sergeant said. The owner, a Mr. Oscar
Francis, when asked if the police could dig up the bricks where the
dog was sitting, became very abusive, and Police Officers Patrick
McGee and Harold Armistad had to restrain him.

What the police officers discovered when they
removed the bricks and a layer of sand was not only the decomposing
body of a small black dog, but also the body of a woman, who had
apparently been killed by a blow to the head. Mr. Oscar Francis has
been arraigned on the charge of murder, and the dead woman has been
identified as his wife, Mrs. Linda Francis, late of Des Moines,
Iowa.

Barbara put the paper down. Pulling out her
handkerchief, she began to wipe away tears.

Mrs. Fuller handed her a cup of tea and said,
"Jamie has already heard about the murder. The neighborhood boys
were talking about it on the way home from school. But Kathleen is
such a sharp young woman, as soon as he burst into the kitchen with
the news, she started talking about what a smart dog Dandy was to
have detected that there was something wrong. Jamie was quite taken
with the idea that his dog had saved the day, and, since he never
actually met Mrs. Francis or Gordie, I think he won't really be too
upset by it all. I do hope you feel we have handled it correctly.
He is such a special boy, and we do love him so."

Before Barbara could respond, Mrs. Fuller
continued, saying quietly, "This is what you feared all along
wasn't it, Mrs. Hewitt? You did a good thing to bring your concerns
to the police. Patrick told Kathleen, as far as they could
determine, she didn’t have any family or particular friends in town
that might have sounded the alarm. He could have gotten away with
it.”

Barbara sat with her own thoughts for a
moment, and then she said, “Do tell Kathleen how clever I think she
is. I can just imagine how thrilled Jamie is to think that Dandy's
a hero. Small boys can really be quite heartless, can't they? I
can't help but wish there was something that could have been done
for Mrs. Francis." Sighing, she thought to herself,
I remember
how terrifying it felt. No one to turn to, no one who would
understand.

Taking a deep breath, Barbara looked into the
perceptive but kind brown eyes of the woman across from her and
said, "Mrs. Fuller, I wondered if you thought anyone would mind if
I occasionally accompanied Jamie when he visits the kitchen in the
evening? I think, perhaps, I could use the company.”

###

For over twenty years, M. Louisa Locke was
known by students taking U.S. History classes at San Diego Mesa
College as Dr. Locke, an enthusiastic and amusing teller of stories
about the past. Now semi-retired, she has taken her story telling
in a new direction; first with the recent publication of
Maids of Misfortune: A
Victorian San Francisco Mystery
,
an historical
mystery that features Annie Fuller, a boardinghouse owner and
clairvoyant, and Nate Dawson, a San Francisco lawyer, and now with
Dandy Detects
, the first in a series of short stories that
feature minor characters from
Maids of Misfortune
. M. Louisa
Locke is currently living in San Diego with her husband and
assorted animals, where, in addition to these short stories, she is
working on
Uneasy Spirits
, the next full-length installment
of her Annie Fuller/Nate Dawson series.

For more about M. Louisa Locke and her work,
see
http://mlouisalocke.com/
.