MURDER AT BERTRAM'S BOWER Read online

  Miss Montgomery stood like a sentinel at the hall door, watching him. When Ames finished, having found nothing, MacKenzie thought she looked secretly pleased, as if to say, I told you so.

  “Thank you,” Ames said to her. “As you said, there is nothing here to help us.”

  “No.”

  “One more thing,” he said.

  She had started to turn down the gas, but now she stopped.

  “Yes?”

  Sooner or later, MacKenzie thought, she will have had her patience tested long enough, and we will be asked to leave.

  “You have a boy who works here. Garrett O’Reilly.”

  “Yes?”

  “Might we have a word with him?”

  “How did you know—”

  “We heard of him yesterday from a mutual friend.”

  A look of distaste came over her face, as if she thought that such an association, even at one remove, was not proper for a man of gentle birth like Addington Ames.

  When she did not answer, he said again, “I would like to see him for just a moment. He works here regularly, I believe. Might he be here now?”

  “I am not sure. I will ask Matron.”

  “You will ask Matron what?” said the man who had suddenly appeared in the doorway.

  He was tall, though not so tall as Ames, and stylishly dressed in a dark brown coat, finely tailored, with a velvet collar and bright gold buttons. Across his pale yellow waistcoat stretched a heavy gold watch chain ornamented by several talismans. He wore a fine gray silk cravat, and his feet were shod in shining leather boots that looked expensive. His thinning, pale brown hair was long at the sides, with impressive sideburns, and brushed back over the crown to give a luxurious, bouffant effect. In one hand he carried, incongruously, a half-eaten sweet roll.

  Miss Montgomery, startled at first, went rigid. Then, when she realized who had come, her face assumed a look of loving pride—adoration, even, thought Ames—that seemed unsuited to her. She gazed greedily, hungrily, at the newcomer, as if his presence gave her some much-needed emotional nourishment.

  “Randolph! I never heard you on the stairs.”

  For a moment, he ignored the two men. As he looked into his sister’s eyes, he laid the flat of his free hand against her sallow cheek in a gesture that was oddly intimate.

  “How are you, my dear?” he said softly.

  “I am all right. And you?”

  “You needn’t worry about me. As long as I know how you do, I shall be fine.”

  Despite his dandyish appearance, it was his voice that captured attention: a rich and mellifluous voice, a true preacher’s voice. He must be impressive in the pulpit, thought MacKenzie; he must sway his congregation as the wind sweeps over a wheat field. He was intrigued. The Reverend Randolph Montgomery was very different from the preachers he had known in the Midwest, and was probably very different too, he thought, from most of his brother ministers in Boston.

  “And what was it you were going to ask Matron?” the reverend asked his sister again.

  “If Garrett has come to work today.”

  “Ah. Garrett. I have not seen him, but then, I have been in the kitchen with Cook this past half hour.” He smiled at Ames. “Mr. Ames, how are you?”

  Ames introduced MacKenzie, and the reverend offered his left hand. An odd handshake, MacKenzie thought, letting go at once.

  “I am a bachelor, living solitary,” the reverend continued, “so I have taken it upon myself to make friends with Cook here. She is a kindly soul. She often feeds the folks hereabouts who come begging at the kitchen door, and she feeds me up very faithfully as well.”

  And, indeed, he looked sleek and well fed, MacKenzie thought, far more so than any of the Bower’s girls.

  “I am acquainted with your sister, Ames,” Montgomery went on. “Is she well?” His handsome face showed a courteous smile, but his eyes were chilly. Handsome, but weak-looking, MacKenzie thought, with not quite enough chin and the eyes a trifle too close together.

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “And you have come here because—?”

  Still those chilly eyes, despite his smile.

  “Caroline was most distressed at the news of your trouble.”

  “You mean the death of two of our girls.”

  “Yes.”

  “And so she wanted you to come to offer help?”

  “Yes.”

  “It is very kind of you.” The reverend contemplated Ames for a moment. “I cannot imagine what you could do for us, but I am grateful to you—and to Miss Ames—for your concern.”

  But you do not seem grateful, thought Ames. You seem—what? He could not put a name to it, but he felt very strongly that the reverend did not want him here.

  “But why are you here in Mary’s room?” the reverend went on. “Surely the police have done a thorough job of searching it.”

  “I told them that, Randolph,” Miss Montgomery said quickly. “But they insisted—”

  Did I insist? wondered Ames. Yes, I suppose I did.

  The reverend arched an eyebrow. “Do the police approve, Mr. Ames?”

  “Of my coming here? I have no idea. But when I visited Inspector Crippen yesterday, he made no objection to my helping in a general sort of way.”

  “A general sort of way,” the reverend repeated. “I see. Well, then! If the good inspector has no objection, I can hardly object myself. In fact—” He moved away from the threshold, down the hall toward the stairs, and they followed, Miss Montgomery closing the door of Mary and Bridget’s room behind her.

  “Why not come along to the rectory, where we can speak without interruption?” the reverend said over his shoulder as they began to descend the stairs. “It is not far, and I can offer you some small refreshment.”

  Garrett O’Reilly, it seemed, had not been seen at the Bower that day, and so shortly Ames and MacKenzie found themselves outside in the rain once more, accompanying the Reverend Montgomery to his rectory three blocks away.

  This proved to be an imposing mansion house made of stone like the church next door. A wrought-iron fence surrounded a small front garden whose few winter-dead plantings were half covered in dirty, icy, rain-pelted snow.

  The reverend opened the gate and led them up the path to the door, where, beneath the cover of the porch, he shook the water off his umbrella, closed it, and produced his key.

  “You won’t find me standing on ceremony,” he said as he ushered them in. “I am a plain and modest man, and I live the same.”

  You are neither plain nor modest, thought Ames, but as he looked around, he saw that the reverend spoke the truth—about his house, at least.

  The wide entrance hall beyond the vestibule was barren, no pictures on the walls, not a stick of furniture. Their footsteps echoed on the bare tile floor as they followed the reverend into the parlor. Here they saw a worn, threadbare carpet, a sagging serpentine-backed sofa, and three ancient upholstered chairs. Several straight-backed wooden chairs surrounded a large round table in the center of the room which was laden with books, newspapers, periodicals, and a messy pile of manuscripts.

  A bachelor’s place, indeed, thought MacKenzie, and he had a brief, poignant memory of the welcoming parlor at No. 16½ Louisburg Square, with Caroline Ames giving them tea, and a sea-coal fire simmering on the hearth.

  Here, a few charred sticks of wood lay cold in the grate. The reverend threw off his overcoat, tossed it onto a chair, and bent to put in a handful of kindling. As he touched a match to it, a small, inadequate flame appeared.

  Then he turned up the gas, and they saw even more clearly than before that this was—in contrast to the man himself—a place that looked most desperately poor. The plush upholstery on the sofa was worn down to the nub, the seats of the chairs were lumpy, and a film of dust covered every surface. Better to leave the lights low, thought Ames as he and MacKenzie seated themselves at the table.

  The reverend swept off the clutter, dumped it onto the sofa, and said, smilin
g, “Do you know, Doctor, someone told me about you only the other day. Addington Ames has taken on a boarder, my friend said—a veteran of the Indian wars in the West. So already you are acquiring a little reputation here in Boston, which, despite appearances, is a village at heart, full of gossip.”

  MacKenzie did not know how to reply to this, and so he said nothing, but merely nodded.

  “And your bad knee?” the reverend went on.

  “Healed well, thank you.”

  “Good. I am glad to hear it. Nothing so tiresome as not being able to get around. I get around myself a good deal, as you can imagine.” He chuckled, inviting them to share this glimpse of his busy life.

  “Now, what can I offer you?” he went on. “I have sherry, or a drop of Scotch whisky. It’s a bit early in the day for stimulants, I grant you. Or if you would prefer tea, I can whip down to the kitchen to put on the kettle.”

  They declined any refreshments. Ames took out his pocket notebook and opened it to the page that held the copy of the coded note. “Have a look at this, Reverend,” he said. “Crippen can make nothing of it. Your sister couldn’t either.”

  “What is it?” Montgomery took it and squinted at it so that MacKenzie wondered if he needed reading glasses but was too vain to produce them in front of strangers.

  “It is a copy of a note that was found in Mary Flaherty’s pocket on the night she was killed. Some kind of code, obviously. Crippen thought it might be some foreign language, but it isn’t that.”

  The reverend gave it a final glance and handed the notebook back to Ames. “I have no idea what it is,” he said dismissively.

  Ames watched him for a moment. Then: “You knew Mary Flaherty.”

  “Yes.”

  “How well?”

  Montgomery smiled with what MacKenzie thought was rather irritating condescension. “Fairly well, I suppose. As well as anyone did. She was—how shall I put it? She was a very inspirational kind of girl.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I mean, when you looked at her, you saw the real possibilities—the very real hope and promise of what Agatha is trying to do. Here was a girl”—his rich baritone rolled over them—“who had been on the streets. I will not mince words: Mary was selling herself to any man who would buy. Agatha found her, took her in, healed her in body and spirit—a task in which I had some small part—and let her see that her life need not be one of shame and degradation. Under Agatha’s care, Mary—and many like her, make no mistake—blossomed. The world was no longer for her a place of fear and violence and foul disease and miserable death. In fact—”

  “Do you know of any enemies she might have had?” Ames broke in. “Or the other girl, Bridget?”

  “No.” The reverend shook his head slowly, thinking about it. “Well, there was the business of the girl who was expelled a week or so ago—”

  “Yes. Matron Pratt told us about that.”

  The reverend allowed himself a small smile. “She is a perfect dragon, is she not? But she is a strong right arm to Agatha. She lacks a certain finesse, it is true, but I do not believe Agatha could operate the place without her, as rough and ready as she is. Before she came, Agatha had a difficult time of it, maintaining order. But now Mrs. Pratt keeps a steady hand—”

  “Do you think that this girl—the one who was expelled—might have been angry enough to kill Mary?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “She threatened her—accosted her in the street.”

  “I know she did. But still, it seems highly unlikely, don’t you think?”

  “Yes. Particularly in light of the fact that a second girl was killed also, and as far as we know, the girl who was expelled had no quarrel with her.”

  “Correct. No, I think—” Montgomery pursed his lips. “I think, if you are looking for a more likely suspect, Mr. Ames, that you might look in the direction of one Fred Brice.”

  “And who is that?”

  “He is a young man who sells typewriters. He brought a machine to the Bower one day last fall to give us a demonstration. So that Mary could see it, you understand, since she was the one who would be using it.”

  “And—?”

  “Well, he made Mary’s acquaintance, of course. And I must say, anyone who met Mary—any likely young man, I mean—was quite liable to fall in love with her. She was a very pretty girl, was Mary.”

  “And did he? Fall in love with her, I mean.”

  “Oh, I think so. Yes indeed. He came around quite often after that, Agatha told me. Several times he came when I was there—I am in and out, you know.”

  “You are the only male whom Mrs. Pratt allows regularly on the premises,” Ames remarked.

  “The only—well, yes. If you put it like that.”

  “Aside from Garrett O’Reilly.”

  “Aside from—yes.”

  “You warned Inspector Crippen about him.”

  The reverend’s eyebrows rose. “Did I?”

  “So he says.”

  “Yes, I remember now. I did pass that along to the police.”

  “And did you also pass along the fact that Mary was in the family way?”

  There was a little silence while the reverend absorbed it. Then: “Really?” He seemed surprised.

  “Yes. Really. According to the medical examiner.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “And so if this typewriter salesman was in love with Mary—”

  “Yes. I see what you mean. Very possibly he was—ah—the man responsible—”

  “And very possibly he did not want to make an honest woman of her, so to speak. You are certain he was infatuated with her?”

  “He seemed to be. Matron spoke to me, once or twice, about what a nuisance he was, always hanging about, sending Mary notes and so forth.”

  “Given her attitude toward men, I am surprised she allowed him entry,” Ames remarked. “And as for notes, we saw none in Mary’s room.”

  “I doubt she would have kept them. She had—how shall I put it?—higher aspirations than Fred Brice.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I mean that Mary probably thought that even a likely young man like him was not good enough for her, although to be Mrs. Fred Brice might not be such a bad thing for a girl from the Bower.”

  He laughed, but without sound. MacKenzie thought it an unnerving sight.

  “At any rate,” the reverend went on, “and I was not present to witness it, you understand, I was told that on Saturday last—”

  “The day before Mary was killed.”

  “Yes. On Saturday last, Brice came to the Bower and made one hell of a scene with Mary. You didn’t hear about it? Agatha was not there either—we were together, as a matter of fact, at a convention of Presbyterians over at the Mechanics’ Hall—but Mrs. Pratt certainly was. Brice found Mary at work in the office and made some kind of proposal to her, apparently. Things worked up into a very loud and acrimonious argument. Finally, Mrs. Pratt threw him out—literally. She is quite strong, as you may have noticed.”

  “Have you told this to the police?” said Ames.

  “Yes.”

  “So you think this typewriter salesman, rebuffed in his advances to Mary, worked himself up into a murderous passion, not at the time, but—what?—more than twenty-four hours later?”

  “I have no idea, Mr. Ames. I am merely trying to be helpful.”

  “Yes. Of course. Well, now you have given us another person who held a grudge against Mary, but neither this typewriter fellow nor the girl who was expelled had any grudge against Bridget Brown, as far as you know.”

  “Right.”

  Ames leaned forward in his chair, resting his elbows on his knees. “What do you think, Reverend? Have you any notion of who might have killed those girls?”

  The reverend looked away as he considered the question. “Not really,” he said at last, meeting Ames’s eyes again.

  “But—?”

  “But you know as well as I do, this distr
ict is not what it was when it was built, some forty years ago now. This district went from brand-new and as elegant as the Back Bay to what it is now, a place where some streets are handsome and well kept and some are not. We have—how shall I put it? a rather more—ah—diverse population than what you have up there on Louisburg Square or on Commonwealth Avenue. You should see the stream of Irish who pass through in the summertime on their way to the Braves’ ball field off Walpole Street alongside the railroad tracks. And all year round we have tramps, hobos—all kinds of riffraff. Oh, yes, we have quite a problem here with the transient and homeless population.”

  “Some of whom come begging at the Bower’s kitchen.”

  “Yes.”

  “One of the cook’s knives is missing.”

  “Yes, she told me that,” the reverend said.

  “It may be relevant. Probably it is, in fact. Do any of these—ah—transients ever bother the Bower’s girls?”

  “Not the ones whom Cook feeds, one must assume. But the others? Indeed they do.” The reverend frowned, remembering. “They ride the rails, you know, back and forth between here and who knows where—Springfield, Albany, all number of places. Looking for work—or for handouts. When they are hereabouts, they prowl the neighborhood and beg. They are most annoying—and dangerous. Several times over the past few years they have accosted girls from the Bower. Only the other week, an inebriate tried to—well, fortunately she got away. Two girls were raped last year, however.”

  “By the same man?”

  “Yes.”

  “And was he caught?”

  “Yes.”

  “A drifter?”

  “That is correct. He drifts no more, however, since he was sentenced to a term in the state prison over in Charlestown.”

  “So he is not our man in this case.”

  “It would seem not.”

  “And there have been no further assaults since his arrest?”

  “Except for the one that was averted, none that I know of—and I would know, of course. Very little happens at the Bower that I do not know about. Agatha—and I speak in all modesty—Agatha relies upon me, as of course she should, in most matters concerning the running of the Bower, quite aside from financial details.”