Moonlight on Monterey Bay (27 page)

“I beg your pardon, miss! What do you think you’re doing?” The older woman puffed indignantly.

“I’m examining your cuffs and boots,” Emily explained, as if surprised at the question. “My mother and I ran a millinery shop in Boston. There I applied Holmes’s theories of deduction. By examining our customers’ clothes, hands, and knees, I could tell whether they were rich or poor, if they drank or had gas laid in the house. I deduced that one of our customers was a married woman having an affair, and that a girl had an addiction to snuff.”

The two women gasped, then tucked their boots self-consciously under their dresses, while the businessman glanced down at his linen cuffs.

“The nerve of you, missy!” The older woman scolded. “I’ve never seen anything so rude! Why, young people today …” She sent her companion a pointed look, while the latter stared at Emily in disbelief.

“For example,” Emily said, leaning forward in excitement to be able to talk about her work, “I observe that you are in mourning, but I deduce that you are not entirely sorry to have lost your late spouse. You have had some problems finding a husband for your daughter, and think that the West might provide an answer. Your husband left you with some money, but it won’t last forever, and you need to secure your means. Hence, this trip.” Emily sat back in her seat, satisfied.

The younger woman gasped, and looked at Emily as if she were a witch. The older one’s face turned white and she stammered, “Someone must have told you this! I demand to know—”

“It is all perfectly obvious.” Emily sighed, as if explaining something to a child. “You are still wearing widow’s weeds, which indicates that your loss was fairly recent, and probably a close relation. You are traveling without a husband, which suggests it is his loss that you are mourning. Yet you have been to a sunny clime lately, as indicated by the slight tint to your skin, which is not your natural complexion. I can see beneath the lace of your sleeve that you are normally very fair. This leads me to believe that you have traveled for pleasure, which one might not do if one were seriously agrieved.”

“But … my search for a husband?” The younger woman questioned nervously.

“There is a newspaper sticking out of your bag with the personal column marked. It has become common for western miners and cowboys to advertise for mail-order brides, and some of them are using the newspapers to do so. And you are not wearing a wedding ring. I deduced, given these facts, that you are interested in attracting a westerner for the purpose of marriage.”

The two women sat aghast, their mouths hanging open, as astonished as if Emily had begun to remove her clothes. Unaware of their consternation, Emily turned to the businessman, intending to subject him to her deductive reasoning. But at that moment the carriage jolted, sending her glass flying. The preacher caught it deftly—then seemed reluctant to return it, perhaps because the older woman had turned an interesting shade of purple. After a moment, he placed the glass in Emily’s outstretched hand, then indicated the bumpy road outside the window. “Maybe you should put it away. It will probably get broken with the way the coach is swaying.”

“I suppose,” Emily responded. The motion did make it difficult to continue her observations. Reluctantly, she put the magnifying glass back inside her pocket for the time being.

The ladies breathed a collective sigh of relief, and even the businessman appeared happier. The cowboy alone seemed unperturbed, continuing to sleep with his back against the seat. The tension in the coach remained palpable, however. The businessman spoke up conversationally, now that he wasn’t about to be dissected like an insect.

“So, miss, are you planning to stay in Denver?”

Emily nodded. “My father left me a property on the outskirts of town. It’s a nice house from what the attorney’s letter says. Shangri-La, it’s called.”

“What?” The cowboy glanced up from under his Stetson, suddenly awake. “Did you say Shangri-La?”

“Yes,” Emily answered, surprised at his interest. “It is described as a white-columned mansion, much like the old plantation houses. It even has indoor plumbing.” She gave them a superior smile. “That’s all the thing in Boston, you know.”

The women looked puzzled, while the men glanced at each other, appalled. It must have been the mention of plumbing, Emily realized belatedly. Some people were sensitive to that kind of talk. The cowboy smirked and looked at Emily with new attention. The businessman cleared his throat. “That house is … not a place for a lady,” he finished lamely. “Surely someone has told you of the killings? And”—he lowered his voice—”the ghost?”

Emily nodded eagerly. “Yes, of course. That was my primary interest. My father and his female companion were killed there. I want to investigate the murders and learn everything I can about them. And of course, there is no such thing as ghosts.” She retrieved her notebook from her bag, pushing Dr. Watson’s curious head back down again. “Now, you can probably help me. I was going to wait until I got to town to start interrogations, but as they say, there’s no time like the present.”

The preacher choked down a laugh, while the other passengers appeared shocked. As the stagecoach rumbled into Denver, everyone was silent, and Emily quickly recorded her observations. She was satisfied with the women, the businessman afforded little data, and the cowboy was simply a cowboy. It soon became apparent that her most interesting suspect was Thomas Hall. He had gunpowder stains on his hands, smelled nothing like Father Murphy from Boston (who always seemed to carry the odors of incense and wine), and was physically more compelling than any man she’d ever met. She was almost tempted to hold up the glass again. He was very handsome and likable, but she couldn’t let that interfere with her investigation of him or admit that her interest was in anything other than the case at hand. For as every great detective knew, emotion was deadly to logic. Thomas Hall was simply an element that warranted further scrutiny.

The stagecoach finally stopped in the center of town. Thomas waited as the passengers moved reverently aside to allow him to pass first. Outside, a cowboy, obviously more than a little worse for drink, tipped his hat politely, his eye marking the white collar of Thomas’s black shirt and the Bible he held. An elderly businessman dressed in a good wool suit nodded cordially, while a young woman passing by blushed and hid her face behind a lace kerchief.

Thomas accepted their deference with a forced smile. He helped the others disembark from the coach, wishing to God that he could go into the saloon and have a shot of whiskey to warm his bones. But now he was supposed to be the preacher,

Thomas Hall, and he couldn’t afford any missteps. Especially in front of Emily Potter.

She appeared at the stagecoach door almost as soon as he formed the thought, one hand clutching the bag with the cat in it, in her other hand a book. He smiled to himself as he recalled her antics with the magnifying glass. The women on the coach had been close to starting a mutiny, but Emily had seemed oblivious to everything but her own objectives. He had to admire the way she’d handled those women, and her obvious intelligence, but there was an undeniable naïveté about her. God only knew what she would have said to the businessman if given the chance. He reminded himself to be careful around her, for Emily was no fool. In spite of his own good sense, Thomas found himself admiring her.

The object of his thoughts was looking around as if to get her bearings. This time he surreptitiously subjected Emily to as thorough an appraisal as she’d given him. Prim and proper, dressed in a simple dove gray dress with purple plush at the sleeves, a pretty veiled bonnet trimmed with feathers, and suede gloves, she was the epitome of a spinster, a women determined to be alone. In spite of himself, he tried to do what she had done by examining her sleeves and boots, but they revealed nothing to him. Instead, as she bent over to pick up her case, his eyes wandered over her figure, which hinted at being magnificent. She straightened, and he noticed that her face held a promise of beauty, her chestnut hair was splendid, and her mouth was downright kissable. There was a vulnerability about her, a sensitivity to life that he’d already sensed from their brief exchange.

Thomas’s thoughts drifted back to the innocent brush of their fingers when he handed her the cat, and her firm hand-clasp when her formally introduced himself. A hot rush of sensation had swept through him at the simple contact, a sensuality so compelling that it momentarily caught him off guard. He couldn’t remember ever touching a woman who evoked that kind of emotion so quickly. Her reaction told him he wasn’t imagining it, that she had felt the same thing and was just as confused.

He continued to smile, but the warmth had gone out of him. Emily Potter might enjoy mysteries, but she had no idea about the one she was about to walk into. Nor that he, the Reverend Thomas Hall, would play a major role in the plot.