Crimson Snow (27 page)

“Can you read?” It was a blunt question, but Hilda wanted to know.

“ 'Course, miss! Mrs. Malloy, she wouldn't have no servant as couldn't read. She's taught me to do some figgerin', too.”

Hilda thought she might have known. Aunt Molly was the kind to practice what she preached.

She dressed in some of her new clothes (minus the corset) and went down to breakfast early. Riggs was just finishing setting the table. She smiled at him. “Good morning. Porridge this morning, please, and toast and coffee. And Riggs, would you tell Mrs. Hall that the coffee is excellent?”

“Yes, Miss Hilda. Thank you.” And he went away without a single disparaging look. Well!

The two Malloys came into the room together as Hilda was finishing her coffee. “Good morning, my dear. You're looking very pretty this morning.”

“Thank you. Is there not a saying about fine feathers?”

“Hah! I'm thinkin' you're a handsome bird, no matter about the feathers,” said Mr. Malloy, sitting down at the head of the table. “I'll try some of that coffee. Smells good.”

Hilda cleared her throat. “Aunt Molly, Uncle Dan, I must leave this morning. I thank you for all you have done for me, and I would like to stay, but there is no longer any danger to me. Mr. Barnes is dead, and I have much work to do. Also, I think my family will not like it if I stay here very long. They will be jealous. Mama will think I am leaving them already, even before I marry. So it is best that I go.”

Mr. Malloy started to protest, but Mrs. Malloy nodded her head. “Yes, that's sensible. I don't need to tell you you'd be more than welcome to stay here until the wedding, but you've responsibilities elsewhere. But child, come to me if you need me. For anything.”

She held out her arms and Hilda stepped into the embrace, surprised to feel tears starting.

“I'll drive you back, me girl. It's on me way to the store, and the weather's turned right nasty. Solid ice on the sidewalks, would be my guess.”

Mrs. Malloy said she would have Hilda's new clothes packed and sent to her, along with the clothes for Mrs. Chudzik, so she accepted the ride with gratitude. The heavens were producing every possible kind of disgusting weather. Snow, rain, and sleet fell together in a slushy mixture that made the going hard even for the horses, with their four legs. Hilda hated to think what she would have done on two.

But she asked her new uncle to set her down at the end of the back drive. “For I cannot be driven up in style. Here, I am still a servant, and it would not be proper. There would be jealousy.”

Uncle Dan argued with her, but gave in eventually. “Patrick's got his work cut out for him, I'll say that. You're as stubborn as Mrs. Malloy, and she's the most determined woman I've ever known.”

“Thank you,” said Hilda demurely. “I am glad I am like her.”

She left Uncle Dan roaring with laughter as she skated cautiously up the drive.

The servants were dispersed through the house when she arrived, getting ready for family breakfast, cleaning, scrubbing. Mrs. Sullivan, the only one in the kitchen, didn't see her come in, so she was able to slip up the back stairs and change into her uniform (and hide her ring) before anyone could comment on her appearance. Down in the basement again, she walked into the kitchen and cleared her throat. “Good morning, Mrs. Sullivan.”

“Glory be to God, but you startled me! And where did you blow in from?”

“I came to help. It must be very hard for you, with no butler. How is Mr. Williams feeling?”

“Doin' well. I went to see him yesterday afternoon. He's as weak as a new kitten, but he's not coughin' near so bad. He'll be comin' home in a week or so, they say, though of course he'll have to have nursin' for quite a while after that. And as for us, we're doin' well enough. That sister of yours is a good worker. But oh, there's been hullabaloos around here while you were gone!”

Hilda picked up a knife and began slicing bread for toast. “Tell me about it.” She knew the story from one angle, but it would be interesting to hear it from another.

The cook had little to add to what Hilda already knew, except for the reactions of the servants to the dramatic events. “Your sister was the only one who didn't have hysterics. She said you'd have the whole thing figgered out in a day or two. You doin' anything about it? Seein' as how it was you started the trouble in the first place?”

That was so patently unfair that Hilda had to defend herself. “I did not! It was Mr. Barnes who—”

“Yes, and if you'd kept your head instead of runnin' off for the police, we coulda kept the whole thing quiet, instead of it havin' it spread all over town that anybody who wants can get into Colonel George's safe! I shouldn't wonder if he doesn't have to get a new one now, and by rights it should come out of your wages!”

There was enough truth in that to make Hilda uncomfortable. She was not about to admit it in front of the cook, however. She stood and smoothed her apron. “If you do not need me to do anything in the kitchen, I have other work to do.” Head high, she marched out of the kitchen and up the stairs to the first floor.

Once there, she assumed a more humble demeanor. It was not entirely pretense. She was genuinely embarrassed about her role in the Barnes debacle, and she owed Colonel George an apology. He would almost certainly be working in his home office on such an inclement day. Taking a deep breath, she climbed the five steps and tapped on the open door before stepping in.

Colonel George looked up from his desk. He frowned when he saw Hilda. “What is it? I'm very busy.”

“I am sorry to bother you, sir. I came to apologize. I acted stupidly when I saw Mr. Barnes, and I have caused great trouble. I am very sorry.”

“Yes, well, no help for it, is there? I daresay you did what you thought was right at the time. Would have been better if you'd used your head, but what's done is done.”

His tone was dismissive, but Hilda wasn't quite finished with her speech. “If there is anything I can do, sir, to help recover the stolen documents—”

Colonel George barked a short laugh. “Precious little you can do there, girl. I'll just get in touch with Perkins and have him send me a copy.”

“Perkins, sir? Who is he?”

The colonel raised his eyebrows. “If it's any business of yours, Hilda, Perkins is the Pinkerton's man who's investigating—”

“Oh, sir! Excuse me, sir, but does he have a mustache?”

“What on earth does that have to do with anything? Yes, he does, as a matter of fact. Full handlebar, sort of sandy-colored.
Thank you
, Hilda.” He turned back to his desk.

This time she dared not ignore the dismissal. She curtseyed to his back and fled from the office, thoughts whirling in her head.

Think. She had to think. Where could she be alone and undisturbed to get her thoughts in order?

Mr. Williams's room. With the household in some disarray, it was unlikely anyone would bother to clean a room that wasn't in use. She ran lightly up the back stairs to the top floor and crossed the ballroom to Mr. Williams's bedroom.

There was no fire, of course, but there was a scuttle of coal standing ready. Hilda laid the fire quickly and skillfully and lit it, and soon a gentle warmth began to spread through the room. She sat down at Mr. Williams's desk, found pen, ink, and paper, and began to put her thoughts in order.

PERKINS

That was the heading, in bold capitals. She paused a moment, shaking her head. If only Colonel George read the paper more carefully, he would have seen that a man named Perkins was missing, and might have put two and two together. As it was, valuable time had been wasted.

She didn't intend to waste any more. Rapidly she began setting down details:

Red mustache.

Pinkerton's man, working for Col. G.

Spying at Mrs. Schmidt's.

She paused at that last entry. She had assumed, when she had heard that story, that Perkins was the murderer, looking for prey. She had assumed that he was the man in the overcoat seen at the head of the alley where Miss Jacobs had been killed, and that he was probably her killer.

But suppose she had been looking at this from the wrong end altogether? Perkins wasn't a policeman, but he was a detective. Pinkerton's men had a good reputation for honesty and integrity.

If he wasn't lurking as a killer outside Mrs. Schmidt's house that night, what was he doing?

There was only one answer to that, and Hilda wrote it down:

He suspected that Mrs. Schmidt operated a bawdy house.

Hilda shivered. She had been inside that house. Little Eileen O'Hara worked there. Did she live there? Was she—surely not! Twelve years old!

Miss Jacobs had lived there, too. Erik's teacher, whom he loved. The girl who had been so active in her church, who had loved to sing to the accompaniment of a mandolin, who was cheerful and friendly, but didn't go out much and didn't have much money.

Was it possible that such a girl had also been a prostitute?

Hilda remembered something Colonel George had said in passing, when Mr. Barrett had first asked her to help with the investigation. “There's some doubt about how good she was.” Something like that.

Hilda didn't want to believe it, but there was some further evidence. Miss Jacobs had been a close friend of Miss Lewis, and Miss Lewis, if rumor was to be believed, was or had been with child. And Kathleen, the maid at the boarding house, hadn't thought she had any particular men friends. It was more than possible, it began to seem likely, that the man responsible for Miss Lewis's baby was not a friend at all, but a—Hilda didn't know what to call him. Customer?

If there was a baby. If all of this weren't the merest speculation. Hilda wished she had just one solid fact, one thing she could say for certain that she knew. She held her head in her hands. A headache was coming on, she thought.

She reached in her pocket to see if she had a packet of the headache powder that sometimes helped. Her fingers met folded paper. Money! The money Mr. Barrett and Colonel George had given her for Mrs. Chudzik. She would have to take her the clothes and shoes soon, but they wouldn't be delivered by the Malloys' coachman today. The weather was—

She became very still, her thoughts backtracking. There
was
one thing she knew for certain. Nelka Chudzik was missing. And Nelka worked at the Oliver Hotel, and was there the day before Perkins disappeared.

It was slender, but it was fact. Hilda didn't know why Perkins had fled. She didn't know why he had failed to pay his bill, and then had sent the money. She didn't know why he had given a false name and address, though she knew that Pinkerton's men often did work in disguise. She didn't know what the blank message for him meant. But she meant to know those things as soon as she could.

Her headache forgotten, she ran downstairs and approached Colonel George once more.

“Sir, I am sorry to trouble you, but I must know how I can speak to Mr. Perkins. It is very important. I believe he might help to discover who killed Miss Jacobs.”

…state's sole evidence based on one mustache hair…

—South Bend
Tribune
   
May 26, 1904

 

 

 

28

S
HE HAD CAUGHT HIM in the middle of a complicated calculation. He put down his pen. “Hilda, I am very busy today. I don't have time for this sort of thing. How could Perkins possibly be connected with the Jacobs affair?”

“It would take a long time to explain, sir, but if you can tell me how I can find him and talk to him, I believe I might learn some important things.”

His expression changed. He sighed wearily. “Well, I hope you're right and you're really onto something. I saw Robert Barrett yesterday and he's not a well man. If you don't find out something soon… Well. The Perkins fellow gave me an address where a telegram would always reach him. I meant to wire him today anyway about those reports. Why don't you send that, and ask him whatever you want in the same wire? I know that address is around here somewhere.…”

He produced it eventually, after scrabbling around in several drawers, and Hilda took it with a murmur of thanks. She had never sent a telegram in her life. She didn't even know where the Western Union office was, but Anton would know. He was the one who was always dispatched with messages, unless Colonel George phoned the telegraph office himself. Hilda didn't know how to do that either, but she was on the scent now, and nothing would keep her from sending that wire.

She trudged upstairs for the third time in an hour. Really, there were a great many stairs. She would not miss
them
when she left this house.

She paused on the second floor and moved out onto the landing of the main part of the house. It was shadowy on this dark winter day, but some of the architectural details were visible. The graceful curve of the stair railing. The carving on window and door frames. The well-fitted louvered shutters, folded now into the recesses on either side of the many windows. The rich carpets on the floor. The elegant chandelier hanging from the ceiling, not lit now, but ready to cast its warm gas glow when evening came. The plants on their delicate stands.

It was beautiful, and familiar, and yes, Hilda admired it. But she knew just how much work it took to keep everything in shining, spotless order, the dusting and scrubbing and polishing that had to be done day in and day out by the five resident servants and the many dailies. Then there were the laundress, and the gardener, and the secretary who came in sometimes to help in the office, and the waiters and waitresses who came in for big parties.

This house had been the center of her life for seven years. Things were about to change. Perhaps she would never see the inside of this house again.