No Darkness as like Death Read online

  “Not yet,” he replied. “Although it is fascinating that the coroner detected alcohol in the man’s stomach.”

  Ross went even redder. “I . . . I . . .”

  “It’s okay, Mr. Ross. Your secret’s safe with me,” said Nick. “I’m here because of Mrs. Wynn. You told me she had lots of friends and acquaintances. Did any of them visit her while she was taking the cure?”

  Somebody who’d learned when the woman intended to flee San Francisco and stopped her before she could make good on her escape.

  “I don’t recollect anyone visiting. The day she arrived—Monday—was a very busy day for me, however. There was a leak in one of the pipes, so there were workers down here I had to supervise.” He flourished the scrub brush he’d been using, which splattered soapy water onto the black-and-white tiled floor. A few sudsy drips slid down the nearby tiled wall. “And of course Mr. Shaw was also set to arrive that day. I had to oversee that his room was prepared to the highest of standards.”

  “No doubt,” Nick replied, starting to sweat himself, the cloying damp and heat of the room seeping through his clothing. “I’m afraid I’ve got more bad news for you, Mr. Ross. Mrs. Wynn has been murdered.”

  “Oh my heavens!” He dropped the scrub brush, and it clanged against the bottom of the tub. “Do the newspapers know yet?”

  Probably. Although how they managed to be so well-informed was a mystery to Nick. “Where were you this morning around sunrise?”

  “I’m a suspect?”

  “We’re going to ask everybody, Mr. Ross. It’s normal.”

  He retrieved the brush. “At home. I was just getting out of bed, I’d say. My wife can confirm that.”

  He’d be making sure she could. “We’ve recovered Mr. Shaw’s watch and fob chain,” he said. “In Mrs. Wynn’s possession.”

  “Oh . . . oh . . .” Mr. Ross swayed, his empty hand flailing for the lip of the tub, using it to steady himself. “A regular patient. A faithful client. I trusted her . . . how could she?”

  Nick dragged over a nearby stool for the man to sit on. “Wish I could answer that question.”

  Ross’s shoulders drooped. “She abused my welcome. I trust my patients. I thought she was a respectable woman.”

  Who liked to nick expensive watches. “I have some questions about Mr. Platt, Mr. Ross. Such as a rumor I heard that he’s the person who’s been stealing from your patients. What do you think about that?”

  “But Mrs. Wynn took Mr. Shaw’s watch,” said Ross, the scrub brush, forgotten in his hand, dripping water onto the tiles. “You just told me that.”

  “She and Platt were observed deep in conversation yesterday,” said Nick. “Maybe they were in cahoots.”

  “I cannot fathom that being the situation, Mr. Greaves. Mr. Platt has been nothing but the most reliable of employees,” said Ross. “He’s been with me four years and I’ve never had any trouble with him.”

  Except Platt was in debt to Griffin, so his willingness to cause trouble might’ve changed for the worse. “I should also inform you that my assistant discovered part of a chloroform bottle out in the alley here.”

  “A chloroform bottle?” Ross used his forefinger to adjust his spectacles on the bridge of his nose. “I have no idea how it got there, Mr. Greaves. I repeat that we do not use the substance.”

  “Then you won’t mind if I have a look at your supplies and prove that to myself, will you?”

  “If you insist, but you won’t find any.” Ross stood and balanced the brush he’d been holding on the edge of the tub. “The storage room is down the hall.”

  Nick followed him into the whitewashed hallway, gas jets flaring overhead, a series of closed doors on either side. More bathing rooms. Out here, the air was just as cloyingly damp, and he was glad when they reached the far end of the hall and a door labeled Supplies—Private.

  Ross unlocked it, crossed to the room’s narrow window, and retracted the blinds. Pulling them open didn’t offer much light, though, and Nick surveyed the shadows.

  “As you see, Mr. Greaves, we have no need for harmful substances. Pure water is our cure.”

  The walls were lined with wood shelves holding clean rags, fresh linens, stacks of towels, soft brushes. For scrubbing skin, Nick supposed. Another set of shelves held washing powder and bar soaps. Hill’s Chemical Olive Soap. Soda and a small container of lime.

  Ross sidled in close behind Nick. “If the killer used chloroform on Mr. Shaw, Mr. Greaves, they did not obtain it from my supplies. I assure you.”

  Just then, Mary Ann Newcomb barged into the room. “Oh! I’m sorry, Mr. Ross. I didn’t realize you were in here with Mr. Greaves,” she said. “I need to fetch some washing powder for the table linens.”

  “We’re finished, Miss Newcomb,” said Nick, tidying the stack of towels he’d started to search through. He swept past the both of them, out of the room.

  “An excellent idea, Mary Ann,” Ross replied. “We may as well clean the entire facility while we have no patients.”

  She scurried inside the supply room.

  “If you have any information about Mrs. Wynn’s next of kin, Mr. Ross, I’d like to know,” said Nick. “We need to contact them.”

  The cook’s gasp was so loud it echoed off the room’s walls. “Next of kin? Has Mrs. Wynn passed away?”

  “She died this morning,” said Nick. “Attacked outside her lodging house while attempting to flee town.”

  “Oh, no!” Her eyes went wide, showing the whites around the irises like a panicked horse. “That’s what she’d been trying to tell me. That she was scared and needed my help. But now it’s too late!”

  • • •

  “What bad has happened now?” asked Jane, ascending the street’s incline alongside Celia. When she’d arrived at the Hutchinsons’, her friend had been discussing dinner plans with her servant, but hadn’t objected to rushing off. “You’re practically sprinting, so it must be awful.”

  “Something awful has happened, Jane,” she said. “And I have a question for you that may or may not shed light on the event. Is it possible that Rebecca Shaw and Elliot Blanchard are still involved with one another? Despite the fact that he has married. She has his portrait on display at her studio.”

  “What a scandal that would be if they’ve resumed their affaire de coeur.” She sobered. “It actually would be really shocking, and detrimental to his political ambitions.”

  “As though romantic affairs have ruined other politicians’ careers, Jane.”

  Jane waited to respond, having caught the eye of a neighbor across the road, who tipped his stovepipe hat at them. “Not the person to encounter right now. He’s a terrible snoop,” she murmured. She smiled a greeting and slipped her hand into the crook of Celia’s arm, tugging her forward.

  “Mr. Blanchard means to not be like other politicians, Celia. More noble. More righteous,” she said. “Frank is a serious supporter of his. He’ll be upset if it’s true that Elliot Blanchard and Miss Shaw remain in close communication. I haven’t heard any rumors, however.”

  A lack of rumors did not lessen Celia’s conviction that the two remained friendly. A friendliness that may have gone too far . . .

  “Mr. Blanchard keeps an amazing insect collection,” she said, as blandly as when she’d announced the same to Mr. Greaves.

  “I’ve heard about it from Frank. However, he thinks hobbies like that are pursued by men with way too much time on their hands,” said Jane. “I didn’t realize you’d ever been invited to Mr. Blanchard’s house to see his insects.”

  “I was not invited.”

  Jane laughed. She had the happiest, most honest laugh of anyone Celia knew. “How did you manage to get inside? Outside of his political work and his wine business, he’s a very private person, from what I understand.”

  “I pretended to be collecting monies for the Orphans’ Asylum early this morning.”

  “And he agreed to see you?”

  “His maid let me into the h
ouse,” said Celia. “Against her better judgment.”

  They turned into the breeze sweeping down off the western hills. Carrying the salty smell of the ocean, thought Celia, although her perception of the aroma might be due more to her wishful thinking than reality. As soon as this case is resolved, Barbara and Addie and I must visit Cliff House again. Laugh at the sea lions at Seal Rock. Strip off their stockings and wade in the cold ocean water . . .

  Jane nudged Celia with her elbow. “Celia, are you listening?”

  “Evidently not. Did you ask me a question?”

  “Why did you want to see Elliot Blanchard’s insect collection?” she asked. “A sudden interest in entomology?”

  “No. Curiously enough, when Miss Campbell arrived for Barbara’s lesson this morning, she made a comment about the collection,” she said. “You hadn’t mentioned that she used to tutor Mrs. Blanchard.”

  “That was how I’d heard about her. Or rather how Frank heard about her,” said Jane. “From Mr. Blanchard, who heaped praise on Olivia. She speaks Spanish, it seems, and Mrs. Blanchard hails from South America. He felt she needed assistance with her English.”

  “Anyway, Miss Campbell mentioned Mr. Blanchard’s collection and all of the chemicals he keeps to both stun and preserve the creatures,” said Celia. “Do you recall that Mr. Shaw passed away after being overcome with chloroform? Well, Mr. Blanchard keeps a supply of the substance. Furthermore, it appeared to me that one of the bottles was missing. So . . . voilà!”

  Jane slowed her steps. “You don’t think . . . wait, Celia. A missing chloroform bottle from among Mr. Blanchard’s supply doesn’t mean he was the one who took it down from its shelf. His domestic could’ve taken the bottle, for instance. Maybe she suffers from chronic pain or has severe asthma and uses the substance to ease her symptoms. Or . . .” She came to a complete stop and unwound her hand from Celia’s arm. “There was a burglary at his house not that long ago. A week or so, maybe? I read about the incident in the Morning Call. What if somebody stole from his chloroform supply? Somebody who’d also previously seen his insect collection and knew about the chemicals he keeps.”

  “Why might someone steal chloroform, Jane, when it can be readily purchased at the nearest apothecary?”

  “I guess I prefer imagining some burglar is responsible for that missing bottle than Mr. Blanchard making use of it,” said Jane, retaking Celia’s arm and continuing up the road.

  “He is my primary suspect, but we still have a wealth of others.” She felt as much as observed Jane’s small, tight smile at Celia’s offhand use of “we.” “Not only in Mr. Shaw’s death but in the murder of the only witness. Around sunrise today.”

  “Silenced because of what this witness knew?”

  “The woman was attempting to flee the city, so she must have feared for her life,” said Celia. “She was bludgeoned in the alleyway behind her lodging house. Just as she was making her escape.”

  “‘Bludgeoned’ does seem like the sort of attack a man would engage in.”

  “To be fair, women can be just as capable of brutal assaults, Jane,” she said. “I spotted Miss Shaw this morning speaking with another woman I could not identify. A woman who was very agitated.”

  “Are you suggesting their conversation is connected to this morning’s murder?”

  “Perhaps I am reading guilt where there is none.”

  They reached a high point along the road, where they could see and hear the commotion of the city yet feel distant and removed, and Jane came to a stop. Smoke belched from manufactory stacks. Ships, spied through the fog that veiled the hills, crowded the harbor. Bricklayers were hard at work on the street below. The endless industry of San Francisco, which never seemed to rest. As restless as the thoughts churning in Celia’s brain.

  “I should also tell you about a note I received last evening, Jane. An unsigned note that read leave us alone.” She looked over at her friend. “Frankly, I do not know what to make of it.”

  “A warning message sounds dangerous, Celia.”

  “Addie would agree.”

  “But who could be the author?” asked Jane. “I mean, are any of the suspects aware of your involvement in the investigation?”

  “I would say that Miss Shaw is suspicious. I presume Mr. Blanchard is as well, after my visit to his insect collection,” Celia replied. “Mina is aware, of course, but she’d never leave me a warning note.”

  “She did have that key, though, Celia,” said Jane skeptically.

  “I’m of the opinion that it was stashed in Mina’s pocket by the actual perpetrator,” she said. “After the person unexpectedly encountered her out in the alley.”

  “I can see that.” Jane grabbed her bonnet as a gust of wind whirled along the street. “If we’re focusing on Rebecca Shaw and Elliot Blanchard, how did either of them get ahold of that key?”

  “I proposed to Mr. Greaves that Miss Shaw had managed to pilfer it from her father’s room,” she said. “But it could also be possible that someone who works at the Institute gave it to one of them.” An idea that had just sprung to mind.

  “If I had to make a guess, Celia, I’d suggest that redheaded fellow,” said Jane. “A shifty character, if you ask me.”

  A man embroiled in Mr. Griffin’s world, according to Mr. Greaves. Very shifty.

  “I wish I was acquainted with Mr. Ross, the proprietor of the Hygienic Institute,” said Celia. “Or understood if the layout of the building would permit Miss Shaw to have snuck upstairs to grab her father’s key without being observed.”

  Jane sighed. “Celia, I know what you’re going to say . . .”

  “You do not have to go with me, Jane.”

  “And miss out on the excitement?” she asked. “If that redheaded fellow spots us, though, he’ll get us tossed out.”

  “Then let us hope Mr. Platt is not at the Institute tomorrow,” she replied. And winked.

  Chapter 14

  “Here, miss,” said Nick, handing Mary Ann Newcomb a glass of cool water he’d scavenged from the captain’s office without him noticing.

  “Thank you.” She gulped the water as though Nick had rescued her from the desert, not simply brought her over from the Hygienic Institute. Finished, she set down the empty glass and turned to Nick with a guilty look on her face. “I suppose I should’ve told you this morning when I was here that Althea and I were friends, Detective. Have been for months, ever since her first stay at the Institute last year.”

  “Yes, you should have, Miss Newcomb,” he replied. “You said she was scared and might’ve wanted your help. With leaving town?”

  “She came into the kitchen yesterday around lunch to say goodbye. I could tell something was bothering her, but she wouldn’t explain. All she said was she wouldn’t be visiting the Institute ever again, but I wasn’t to worry. That she was heading to Crescent City to live with the only family she had. Except now she won’t be,” she added gloomily. “I would’ve helped her if she’d asked me to. She must’ve finally realized she knew who the intruder was and got scared. Awfully scared.”

  “Did Mrs. Wynn have any enemies?” he asked. Mary Ann Newcomb was proving to be a frustrating witness—full of information but lacking in the details that would make a difference to his case. “As her friend, I expect she’d confided in you.”

  “She hadn’t an enemy in the world, as kind as she was,” she insisted. “But then, I suppose some folks aren’t always what they seem, are they, Mr. Greaves?”

  What was that phrase Celia Davies had quoted? One may smile, and smile, and be a villain.

  “Perhaps Mrs. Wynn was one of those folks, after all, Miss Newcomb.” Nick considered the young woman seated across from him. “We discovered Mr. Shaw’s watch and fob chain on her.”

  “Are you positive?” she asked. “I mean . . . how could she have taken them from Mr. Shaw?”

  “The fellow had conveniently died.”

  She shook her head. “No. It can’t be like that. She wouldn’t
have had the time,” she said. “She was down in the kitchen with me for nearly the whole evening, aside from when she was at dinner with the others. She always stops in to chat when she’s with us.”

  “She came into the kitchen to talk to you Wednesday night?” he asked, not recollecting if Mullahey had learned that already. Regrettably, Taylor wasn’t here to consult his notes.

  “She did. Right about the time I returned to the kitchen after taking Mr. Shaw’s tray up to the small parlor,” she said. “She wanted to see what I was preparing before going to the dining room.”

  “What time was that again?” he asked.

  “Around six.” A frown darted across her face. “She was in a blue funk that evening—Mr. Ross had hoped partaking of the cold dunk baths would cure her of her melancholia—and she got into an argument with one of our male guests. I could hear their raised voices where I was in the kitchen. Mr. Ross must’ve heard them, too, because he rushed in to make peace. But everybody’s hackles had been raised, so Althea got up from the table and went to her room. She’d hardly touched her food and didn’t even get to enjoy the dessert I’d prepared. One of her favorites. Rice pudding.”

  “She might’ve gone straight to Mr. Shaw’s room to rob him at that time.” Although the small, middle-aged woman Nick had met seemed even less capable of subduing Shaw than Mina. “And not Mr. Platt.”

  “So I was wrong about him stealing Mr. Shaw’s watch,” she conceded. “But Althea couldn’t have either, because Mr. Shaw was still alive when she went upstairs then.”

  Mrs. Wynn had claimed to notice Shaw in the private parlor, finishing up his meal around six thirty. “How did the watch end up in her possession, do you think, Miss Newcomb?”