Shrouded In Thought (Gilded Age Mysteries Book 2) (20 page)

His instincts told him that this was what he had come for. This was the key that would unlock the mystery of Desmond’s hold over Allworthy! He wrapped the key in his handkerchief and placed it in his coat pocket. Then he retrieved the nail that had fallen out of the plaster and rehung the picture, hoping it wouldn’t look as if it had been disturbed.

“Are you sure this will work?” Freddie asked Evangeline for the fifteenth time that morning. The two stood in front of a granite fortress on
LaSalle Street
which advertised itself as the Great Northern Bank.

“It will have to. We really don’t have any other option, do we?” She scrutinized her companion carefully. Freddie’s right arm was in a sling and his hand and forearm were encased in a mound of plaster of paris and bandages meant to approximate a cast.

“This plaster itches,” he complained.

“Oh, brace up!” Evangeline’s tone was unsympathetic. “If all goes well, you’ll only have to wear it for another hour or so.”

“An hour or so!” the young man howled. “That’s easy for you to say. You aren’t suffering the tortures of the damned!”

“Neither are you. Stop whining! You want to get to the bottom of this, don’t you?”

The young man grudgingly replied in the affirmative.

Through narrowed eyes, Evangeline studied her friend’s appearance more closely. She sighed, apparently overwhelmed by so many details not to her liking. “Why on earth are you wearing that ridiculous moustache?”

“Well, I ought to look something like him, don’t you think?”

“You might have started with your height. You’re a half-foot taller than he is.”

The young man gave his reply through clenched teeth. “If anyone asks, I’ll say I’m wearing lifts in my shoes.”

“I suppose you dyed your hair black as well?” She tried to peer under his hat brim for a glimpse of his formerly auburn locks.

“It was the only way.”

“I hope for your sake the dye rinses out.” She smiled angelically. “I don’t fancy you as a brunette.”

The comment frightened the young man half out of his wits, since he had never considered the possibility that the dye was permanent. “Engie, stop it! I’m nervous enough already!”

The lady dusted off the shoulder of his coat. “You’ll do. Just swagger in as if you owned the place, and no one will question who you are.”

“You’re not coming in?” Freddie quavered.

“No, I think it would be better if I’m not seen inside in your company. Someone might recognize me and start wondering who my escort is. I’ll just take a few turns around the block and meet you here.”

She patted her friend encouragingly on the back and pushed him toward the door of the bank. “Break a leg.” She turned north up the block.

“You’d think an arm would have been enough for her,” the young man grumbled under his breath as he passed through the entrance.

***

Freddie looked nervously around the lobby until he spied a stairwell that must lead to the vault. Without making eye contact with any of the tellers, he steered a course directly for the stairs. When he descended, he found that he had guessed correctly. Below ground and just to the right, he saw the vault with its monstrous door gaping open like some leviathan of the deep waiting to swallow whatever hapless creature swam too near its jaws. A wooden railing with a gate and a marble counter were all that stood between him and the beast. Freddie drew in a deep breath, threw back his shoulders, and advanced toward the clerk whose job it was to guard the entrance to the subterranean depths.

When the vaultkeeper looked up at him and said a pleasant, “Good day, sir,” Freddie quailed. In that split second he made a fateful decision. The disguise wasn’t enough. He needed to sound the part as well. He improvised.

“Top o’ the marnin’ to ye, me lod.” Unfortunately, the accent wasn’t quite all he had hoped.

The clerk looked at him strangely. “What part of the world might you be from, sir?”

“Gosh and begorrah, it’s from the emerald isle that I coom.” Freddie had begun to sweat. The vault was stuffy. He prayed his hair dye wouldn’t begin to run.

“From
Ireland
?” The clerk’s voice held a slight note of disbelief. “What part?”

“Faith, have ye heerd of Belfost, boyo?”

“Yes, sir, of course I have.”

“Well, I’m not from thar.” Freddie had to think quickly. “I’m from the sooth of
Ireland
which ye may heer a bit in me speekin’. And sure it is I’ve traveled a wee bit. Even spent some time amoong the Hottentots. Here and thar. Hither and yon, as the sayin’ is.”

“I see.” The clerk seemed skeptical. “How may I help you?”

Freddie reached into his coat pocket and produced the safety deposit box key. “Well, lod, you’d be doin’ me a great sarvice, that ye would, if ye’d be showin’ me the way to me box.”

“Of course sir.” The clerk took the key and checked the number. He then went to his file and drew out the corresponding signature card. “Mr. Bayne, is it?”

“Aye, lod. Thet’s right. I be Desmond Bayne, himself. Withoot a doot.”

“If you’d just sign the signature card, Mr. Bayne, I’ll let you in.” The clerk pushed an index card and a fountain pen across the counter at him. Freddie noted from the first entry that the box had been issued about two months prior to the present date. Calculating backwards, he realized that the date of issue corresponded roughly to the time Desmond appeared as a guest at the Allworthy dinner party. The last signature was dated a week ago. He prayed that the clerk on duty wouldn’t remember Bayne on sight. The young man took a deep breath and, with his left hand, scribbled out a signature and a date that he hoped would approximate Bayne’s own scrawl.

The clerk compared Freddie’s illegible marks to the previous signature. He looked up in consternation. “Sir, the signatures don’t appear to correspond.”

“Aye, there’s the rub, lod, there’s the rub. I’ve broke me right hond that I use to write with. Ye see?” Freddie waggled the stubs of his fingers that protruded through the cast. “A wee fallin’ oot with a companion aboot a week ago. Had to deefend me honor, as the sayin’ is, gosh and begorrah!”

“How unfortunate.” A note of resistance in the clerk’s voice warned Freddie of trouble. “Well, sir, I’m sorry to say it isn’t our policy to admit anyone if the signatures don’t correspond.”

Freddie tried to take a conciliatory approach. “Faith, it’s rother a sad way to treet a customer. Ain’t it?” He waggled his fingers again pathetically. “Boyo, I’m stuck in this plaister for a good six moonths. It would be a hard thing if I couldn’t secure me valoobles for the nonce, don’t ye see?”

“Well, I suppose that’s true.” The clerk relented slightly. He tapped the counter in a fit of indecision.

“Here, I knooow,” Freddie volunteered. “Pose me a queestion and if I con’t answer ready enough, why then ye can just shoo me the way oot. How’s that for fair? Boyo, I’m appealin’ to ye as a Christian. Faith, sure an’ ‘tis, I’m at yer marcy.” He smiled in what he hoped was a plaintive manner.

The clerk softened a bit further. “Yes, I suppose that might work.” He flipped the signature card over without allowing Freddie to see what was written there. Cupping the card in his hand, he asked, “Mr. Bayne, what is your address?”

Freddie sighed to himself in relief. He rattled off the cursed address of the cursed apartment building with ease.

The clerk nodded. “One more question, sir. Where is your place of business?”

Freddie’s confidence began to grow by leaps and bounds. He puffed out his chest and answered readily. “Sure tis the grondest place of business on arth! Tis the Hyperion Electroplate Company on the noorth side of this fair city where I’m emplooyed as Vice President.” Growing reckless in his confidence, the young man gestured to the telephone on the wall. “I invite ye to call the company and ask if a Desmond Bayne woorks thar, ef ye still don’t beleeve me.”

The clerk paused to think the idea over. Freddie wanted to bite his tongue off for having made the suggestion. It only belatedly occurred to him that Bayne might actually have returned from the Allworthy villa and gone to work that day. It would be an unpleasant surprise if the blackguard came to the phone himself. Freddie could feel the sweat running off of his scalp, seeping through his hat band and running down the back of his neck. He prayed his shirt collar wasn’t stained black with hair dye or the clerk would have even more reason to think he was odd.

The man behind the counter tapped the signature card hesitantly for a moment longer. Then he snapped it up and returned it to the filing cabinet. “No, sir, ringing the company won’t be necessary. You may step this way.” He held open the wooden gate to allow Freddie to pass through.

The young man wanted to break into a jig to celebrate his cleverness, but he settled for a sedate pace instead as he passed into the belly of the beast. He watched in breathless anticipation as the clerk fitted Desmond’s key and the bank’s key into the lock. Turning them simultaneously, the clerk swung open the flap and pulled out the safety deposit box. Handing it to Freddie, he said, “If you’d like some privacy, sir, there are rooms just outside the vault and to the right where you can go through your papers.”

Cradling the box in his putatively useless arm, Freddie tried to maintain an even tone “Thank ye, lod.” His heart raced as he strolled off to one of the private booths.

Once the door was securely shut behind him, he opened the lockbox with the same awe and anticipation as he might have reserved for the ark of the covenant. Encumbered by the cast, he could only work with one arm, but he managed to make a quick job of his search all the same. First he found greenbacks, quite a number of them. Approximately ten thousand dollars worth in hundred dollar bills, as nearly as he could tell. Next he found municipal bonds and stock certificates. The earliest issue date of the bonds corresponded to the date Bayne had first entered the vault. Subsequent dates indicated he had been adding to his collection of securities every few days or so. Impatiently, Freddie rifled through the rest of the stock certificates, looking for a note, a letter, a scrap of clothing that might have been used to blackmail Martin.

At the very bottom of the lockbox, hidden under the papers and money, he found what he was looking for. He bit his lip to keep from whistling through his teeth in amazement.

Freddie quickly pocketed the object and stashed the other items haphazardly in the box. Trying to rein in his excitement, he walked back to the counter and stood patiently through the ceremony of returning the safety deposit box to its home in the vault.

“Your key, Mr. Bayne.” The clerk returned the bright metal object to him. Freddie put it in his pocket alongside the other bright metal object that now rested there.

“Gosh and begorrah, much obleeged to ye, lod.” Freddie strolled up the stairs to the lobby and out to
LaSalle Street
with great dignity.

He looked around hastily in both directions for his friend. Evangeline was coming toward him but she was still about a block away. Freddie gestured to her impatiently with his good arm. When she saw him, she quickened her pace.

“Well?” she asked breathlessly, when she was within earshot. “Did you find anything?”

The young man’s eyes were twinkling with self-congratulation as he produced his find.

Evangeline took the object and examined it closely. It was a miniature photograph in a gilt metal frame. The glass had been slightly cracked as if someone had thrown or dropped the picture and it had struck a hard surface. Despite the cracks in the glass, the image beneath was still clear. “Is this what she looked like?” Evangeline asked her friend.

“Well, when you see someone who’s been floating in the river overnight, her features are a bit distorted, but I’d say it’s Nora Johnson.”

“She was very pretty,” Evangeline said softly and a bit sadly as she studied the image—a solemn-eyed young woman with the hint of a smile on her lips stared back at her. An inscription had been written in a corner of the photograph. In a small, neat hand, the lettering read, “To my dearest Allworthy, remember me always. Nora.” The inscription was dated April 23, 1894. Evangeline looked up at her friend. “Isn’t that the date—”

Freddie completed the thought. “Yes, that was the night she died. Her body was found on the twenty-fourth.”

“Hmmm.” Evangeline began thinking out loud. “The date on the picture and the inscription would suggest Nora was on good terms with her murderer. Right up to the day she died. It seems to me that the drowning wasn’t premeditated. She must have said something to anger him, and he pushed her in.” Evangeline traced the cracks in the glass surface. “That would also explain the damage. Somebody didn’t want this picture anywhere near him. It’s hard enough to forget a person you’ve just drowned without the additional injunction to ‘Remember me always.’ He must have flung it away from him as soon as possible.”

“It might also explain how Bayne got possession of it in the first place.”

“Yes, Desmond must have been there to witness the entire scene. When the murderer fled, Bayne probably followed him and found the picture lying on the ground along the way.” Evangeline frowned.

“What is it, old girl?”

She shook her head in exasperation. “Why couldn’t she have used a Christian name instead of a surname! We still can’t prove conclusively that it was Roland she met that night!”

“Ah, that would have been too easy.” Freddie laughed ruefully. “Technically, since we still have two Allworthy suspects, what do you suggest for our next move? That is, right after we find a hammer and smash this deuced cast!” Freddie scratched at the plaster in a pointless attempt to ease his suffering.