No Darkness as like Death Page 4

  “Six thirty?” asked Nick. “An awfully quick dinner, Mrs. Wynn.”

  “I . . .” She pursed her lips. “I did not care for my supper companions and cut short my meal.”

  “My sincerest apologies, Mrs. Wynn,” said Ross.

  “So when you later heard a door closing and, naturally curious, you . . .” Nick prompted.

  Mrs. Wynn picked up where she’d left off. “I stepped out into the hall, wondering what was going on. It was then I saw a shadowy figure exiting through the far door and smelled gas coming from Mr. Shaw’s room. I was too frightened to check on him. Perhaps I could’ve saved him if I had.” She pressed a hand to her mouth and let out a whimper. “I tried to summon Mr. Platt, but nobody answered the bell. After a few minutes, I rang for him again. When a response never came, I went downstairs to locate him. He went into Mr. Shaw’s room and found the poor fellow dead.”

  “I wish you’d mentioned this intruder to me earlier, Mrs. Wynn,” said Ross. The fellow was starting to visibly sweat.

  “Did you hear anything else, ma’am? An argument, for instance?” asked Nick.

  Mrs. Wynn screwed up her face, her brain chasing a memory. “Possibly, Detective,” she said. “What should we do? Should we all leave? How did someone sneak into this building and murder a fellow patient? Are those of us left even safe here?”

  The last question was followed by a reproachful glance at Ross.

  “I’d say any danger is over, ma’am,” answered Nick.

  Ross, relieved, smiled. “So you see, Mrs. Wynn? There’s no need to worry. We’ll get to the bottom of this.”

  “I hope so.” She turned on her heel and swept back into her room, slamming the door.

  “This is a disastrous situation, Detective. Mrs. Wynn is a frequent guest and is acquainted with all sorts of folks. If she speaks ill of the Institute, who’ll be willing to visit?” he asked. “And how can she claim that a stranger snuck into my establishment and possibly murdered one of my patients?”

  Because that was what happened? “Which room is Shaw’s?”

  “That one.” He pointed at a door that stood ajar at the end of the hall. Not far from the door to the stairs. A pair of men’s shoes sat just outside, waiting for a polish by whoever took care of such things at this place. “Those are Mr. Shaw’s shoes,” said Ross, observing the direction of Nick’s attention.

  “Mrs. Wynn looks to be correct that he’d gone to bed for the evening.”

  “He did tend to retire earlier than the others.” Ross started down the hall toward Shaw’s room. A brass plaque labeled Blue Suite hung on the door. “If there was an intruder, do you think it’s possible he was the one who turned on the gas jet?”

  “Maybe.”

  Shaw’s suite consisted of two rooms, the hallway door letting onto a small sitting room, the bedroom immediately off to their right. A cane and black silk plush hat waited near the door. A pamphlet about the water cure had been strategically left on the marble-top table in front of a sofa. The window shade had been pulled down for the night, and if the space had once smelled of coal gas, it didn’t anymore. The fixture was next to the door, and Nick turned the stopcock, which moved easily, gas releasing with a hiss.

  “When Mr. Platt notified you about Mr. Shaw, he didn’t mention that Mrs. Wynn had reported a trespasser?” asked Nick, tightly shutting the valve.

  “When I arrived here from my house—I don’t live far away—all he told me was that she was hysterical,” said Ross.

  He glanced toward the bedroom and shuddered. The door was ajar. A man’s bare forearm was visible through the gap, the rest of the fellow sprawled out of sight atop his bed.

  “Poor Mr. Shaw,” breathed Ross.

  Nick entered the bedroom. Shaw, dressed only in a nightshirt, sagged into the large four-poster bed’s mattress. His slippers were tucked beneath the bed where Shaw had left them. He was a robust fellow, his hair graying, which made the washed-out color of his face look all the more blue. Nick leaned over his body. There weren’t any obvious signs of trauma, no cut wounds, no bruises, no blood on the sheet underneath him.

  “What do you think, Detective?” asked Ross, standing in the doorway, his gaze fixed on some spot above Nick’s head. Queasy, maybe? “Death from gas asphyxiation?”

  “The coroner will make the determination, not me,” he said, straightening.

  Shaw had pulled back the sheets and laid down, his arms at his side. No indication, that Nick could see, that he’d been attacked and had attempted to fight back. A casual glance might make somebody think Shaw was simply asleep, his mouth slack-jawed, a snore due any minute. Peaceful-looking, almost. Aside from the unhealthy color of his skin.

  “Anything stolen from the room?” he asked.

  “I haven’t thought to check, Mr. Greaves,” said Ross, his attention apparently now occupied by the floral pattern of the paper on the walls. Looking at dead bodies, even ones without signs of trauma, could be pretty nauseating.

  “I’d guess that private entrance at the bottom of those stairs is normally locked,” said Nick.

  “Yes, and only I, Mr. Platt, and Mr. Shaw had a key.”

  As if on cue, the street cop bounded into the room. “I found a side door unlocked, Mr. Greaves. Not forced. Plus, look what I discovered outside the door. In the alley.”

  He held out the item he was carrying. A woman’s fringed blue shawl.

  An iridescent blue that altered its shade with its wearer’s every movement.

  • • •

  “What’s going on, sir?” asked Taylor, his notebook tucked under his arm. Did he keep it with him wherever he went? He had to have come straight from his lodgings—with his notebook. Dressed more nicely than usual, though, his shoes polished, a clean collar and new tie about his neck.

  “I didn’t mean to interrupt your evening, Taylor.”

  He blushed; his assistant was prone to blushing. “It’s okay, sir. I was back at home when I got the news.”

  “Well, to answer your question, a local politician is dead. Discovered after an intruder was noticed outside his room,” said Nick.

  He’d left Ross upstairs, busy calming his various patients. Keeping the bunch of them from stampeding downstairs and getting in Nick’s way. From the doorway of Ross’s office, Nick eyed the evening attendant. He’d taken up a position near his boss’s massive walnut desk and its neat stacks of paperwork.

  “No obvious wounds, though,” Nick added. “At least not that I noticed.”

  “So how’d he die?”

  “Heart failure? Or maybe coal gas exposure.” Nick shrugged. “Who was that politician who’d come into the station complaining about suspicious people stalking him?”

  “Mr. Shaw, sir. Ambrose Shaw.”

  “Well, we won’t be hearing from him again.”

  Taylor glanced up at the ceiling, at the floors overhead he couldn’t see. “He’s the dead man?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I need you to locate Mina Cascarino and quickly. Try Bauman’s, her lodgings, even her parents’ house on Vallejo. I’ll question the night attendant on my own.”

  Taylor’s forehead puckered. “Mina Cascarino? What’s she got to do with Mr. Shaw’s death?”

  Why was your shawl outside in the alley, Mina? “I’ll explain later, but I need you to hurry.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Taylor. The night attendant watched him leave.

  Nick closed the door behind his assistant. “Mr. Platt—that’s your name, right?—why not come over here and take a seat.” He turned one of the chairs in front of Ross’s desk to face the center of the room.

  Platt hesitated but sat down. He had stick-straight red hair cut very short, leaving him looking like a smallpox victim whose head had been shaved as part of the treatment and only now was his hair growing back. The man wasn’t sickly, though. He had a thick torso and a heavy jaw, making him appear just as robust up close as he had from across the room.

  Nick leaned a hip against the edge of t
he desk and folded his arms. “How long have you been employed at the Hygienic Institute, Mr. Platt?”

  “I’ve been here four years, Detective.”

  “And what do you do as night attendant?”

  “It’s my job to help any of our overnight patients, if they need something,” he replied. “If a serious problem develops, I’m to send for Mr. Ross.”

  He stared at Nick down the length of his broad nose, which had been broken once and poorly repaired. Overall, Platt was average and unremarkable-looking. Maybe better-looking before his nose had been rearranged. A face belonging to the sort of man Ross would trust to tend to the Institute in his absence. Not a fellow to mess with.

  “You have a room in the building, Mr. Platt?”

  “Not much. Just a place to wait between my rounds,” he said. “I have lodgings a few blocks away.”

  “The patients can summon you with some type of bell system, is my understanding,” said Nick.

  “Yes.”

  “Did anybody summon you tonight?”

  The edge of Platt’s right eye twitched. Not much movement, but Nick was used to closely watching the people he was interrogating. They’ll give it away, Nick. That’s what his Uncle Asa would tell him, back when his uncle was around to give advice to a green cop aiming to also become a detective. They’ll give it away with their hands or their feet, or their faces.

  “I didn’t hear the bell, because I was down in the parlor helping our cook clean up a mess some of our guests had caused.”

  “Is the cook still in the building?” Somebody else to question.

  “No, I told her I’d finish straightening up the parlor, so she left and missed all the fun.”

  Nick would get Taylor or one of the men to speak with her as soon as possible. “You insisted that Mr. Ross send for the police. Why didn’t you believe that Mr. Shaw had killed himself?”

  “A man like that, rich and smug?” asked Platt. “He’s the type of fellow who has a mighty positive opinion of himself. And is able to convince others to share that opinion, too. Not the sort who wants to end his life by turning on a gas jet.”

  But the sort who would have enemies. “Mrs. Wynn claims to have glimpsed an intruder around seven thirty. Did you notice any strangers in the building?”

  “Is that what she was going on about?” he asked. He shook his head. “I didn’t notice a stranger, Detective. But I’d been in here with Mr. Ross—I arrive around seven and we review who’s in residence overnight who might need special assistance—then went to help Mary Ann in the parlor.”

  “The alley door to the private entrance was found unlocked,” said Nick. “We’re presuming that’s how the trespasser got inside.”

  “I hadn’t made my rounds yet to inspect the outer doors,” he replied calmly. Not easy to ruffle. “It’s usually kept locked, though.”

  “What time again was it that you helped the cook clean the parlor?”

  “After I’d seen Mr. Ross out the front door,” he said. “Tonight, a couple of our male patients had stayed up to play cards. Mary Ann heard a crash in the parlor and came running to find me. Must’ve been . . .” He glanced at the clock ticking on the wall to Nick’s left. “Must’ve been five or ten minutes before seven thirty. They’d broken a crystal pitcher and a couple of glasses, which took a long time to straighten away. Mary Ann had stayed past when she usually left, so I told her I’d finish and was heading for my room when Mrs. Wynn barreled down the main staircase, shrieking about Mr. Shaw.”

  So far, his story was consistent with hers. “So you went to check on the fellow and found his door ajar . . .”

  “Unlocked, not ajar,” he corrected. “I smelled the coal gas, knocked, and called out to him. He didn’t answer, so I went inside and found him on his bed. It was clear he’d died, so I went to Mr. Ross’s place and alerted him.”

  Nick contemplated Platt, uncertain what to make of the man. “What’s your opinion of Mr. Ross and his operation here, Mr. Platt?”

  The night attendant paused about the amount of time required to breathe out and in before producing a response. “I think it’s all quackery.”

  Hmm. “Does Mr. Ross know that you doubt the usefulness of the Institute’s treatments?”

  “Do I look like I want to lose my job, Detective?” he asked. “He’s a decent enough man. Even if he doesn’t always pay my wages on time.”

  Nick raised his brows. “Financial problems at the Hygienic Institute?”

  “You didn’t hear it from me, Detective Greaves.”

  • • •

  “If you do not mind, Mrs. Cascarino, I will stay overnight,” said Celia, stretching to ease the ache in her back. Once she was alone, she intended to loosen the ties on her corset.

  Mrs. Cascarino glanced over at her daughter. “Her head . . . she get well?” she whispered.

  Celia smiled reassurance. “It may take some days. Do not worry.”

  Feet pounded along the hallway, and Angelo charged into the bedchamber. “A police officer is at the door, Mama.”

  “Nick?” asked Mina, her eyes fluttering open.

  Nick? “Do not try to get up, Mina. You need to rest,” said Celia.

  “Mr. Taylor is here,” said Angelo.

  “Why does a police officer come?” asked Mrs. Cascarino. “We do nothing wrong. We do not cause trouble.”

  “I will speak with the officer and discover what he wants.” Celia stood, apprehension clenching her stomach. Terrible. It’s terrible . . . She opened her medical bag and drew out one of the bottles. “Pour a few grains of this powdered ginger into a glass of water and see if Mina can swallow some. It might help settle her stomach. I shall return once I have finished speaking with the policeman.”

  Celia hurried from the bedchamber, Angelo speeding down the stairs ahead of her. Raised voices echoed up the staircase. Children chattering and crying. Mr. Cascarino shouting in both English and Italian.

  “What has she done?” shouted Mr. Cascarino, waving a finger in Mr. Taylor’s face. “Nothing! You no arrest her.”

  “Mr. Cascarino, I doubt that the police officer is here to arrest your daughter,” said Celia.

  “Mrs. Davies!” exclaimed Mr. Taylor. “I sure am glad to see you!”

  “You know this man?” Mina’s father asked Celia, his tone accusing.

  “Please, Mr. Cascarino, Mr. Taylor can be trusted. You need not stand so close to him,” she said. He backed away. “Mr. Taylor, what brings you here?”

  “I’m looking for Miss Mina, ma’am,” he said, glancing nervously at Mr. Cascarino. “Is she home? I couldn’t tell what this gentleman was saying.”

  “She is. Why?”

  Mr. Cascarino eyed him suspiciously. “He want to arrest her. That is what he want.” He looked over at Celia. “Tell him to leave. He listen to you, signora.”

  He might, more than Nicholas Greaves ever did. “I do not understand what is going on, Mr. Taylor.”

  “Neither do I, ma’am. Not exactly,” said Mr. Taylor. “But it’s got something to do with a dead man.”

  Chapter 4

  “Greaves. There you are.” Dr. Harris, bent over Shaw’s body, looked over when Nick entered the room. He must have rushed to get there, his hair sticking up on the crown of his head, his shirt clumsily tucked into his pants.

  “Sorry to have disturbed you so late,” said Nick.

  “Don’t worry about the hour, Greaves. Death rarely arrives at a convenient time, and I’m used to that,” said the coroner, tidying his shirttail. “What’s the story with our gentleman here?”

  “This is Mr. Ambrose Shaw, a banker and politician, lately a member of the Copperhead party,” said Nick. “In residence at this establishment to treat a heart condition and other illnesses of a personal nature.”

  “Mr. Shaw here looks to be the right age and physical condition for such problems,” he said. “So why am I here, if the fellow died in his sleep of heart failure?”

  “Suicide was initially suspe
cted,” said Nick. “The gas had been turned on, and Mr. Ross claims Shaw had been agitated recently.”

  “But you’re thinking foul play.”

  “Shaw came into the station recently to report that somebody had been stalking him,” said Nick. “Plus, one of the patients reports spotting an intruder outside Shaw’s room not long before his body was discovered.”

  A person who might’ve been Mina Cascarino, he should’ve added. Harris didn’t need to know her name, though, and Nick wasn’t ready to believe she could be involved. Despite the evidence of a shawl that he’d last seen draped over her shoulders.

  “An intruder or one of Mr. Shaw’s fellow patients?” asked Harris.

  “The patients have been accounted for. Plus, we think we’ve figured out how a trespasser got into the building. There’s a private entrance and Shaw was given a key, but we can’t find it anywhere.” The street cop who’d discovered Mina’s shawl had thoroughly searched the suite. “The intruder must’ve gotten ahold of Shaw’s key somehow.”

  “Ah,” murmured Harris. “What time was the intruder observed?”

  “About seven thirty. Maybe a little later.”

  “Not even an hour and a half ago . . .” Harris dragged his fingertips through his graying beard. “I would have guessed the fellow has been deceased longer.”

  “He didn’t die around seven thirty?” asked Nick.

  “I’m saying I’m not positive he’s only been dead for an hour and a half,” he replied. “But it’s possible.”

  “What about gas exposure?”

  “I’ll have to do an autopsy of course, inspect the air passages for inflammation and phlegm, but I believe it’s common for rigidity to set in during cases of coal-gas poisoning, which I don’t see here beyond the usual rigor mortis that is beginning to occur.” Harris crossed to the dressing table and peered inside the pitcher on top of it. “When was Mr. Shaw last seen alive?”