Marcia Muller, Bill Pronzini
The Dangerous Ladies Affair
For the Professor, H. C. Arbuckle III,
our #1 Texas fan
1
Sabina
The spokes of bicycle wheels twirled and gleamed in the sunlight as scores of riders, alone, in tandem, and in groups, sped along the network of tree-bordered paths in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. The bloomers of the women cyclists billowed out in the wind off the nearby Pacific Ocean — flowing fabrics tight at the waist, cinched in at the knee, and adorned with varicolored flowers, stripes, and checks. Some of the gentlemen wheelers, clad in knickerbockers and white or striped jackets, steered with one hand while the other clutched a straw boater or Alpine hat to his head to keep it from being stolen by the breeze. On this crisp spring day the park was alive with the colors and motion of the cycling mania that was sweeping not only the city but also, from all reports, the rest of the country.
The park, now nearly thirty years old, covered a thousand acres from the Panhandle on its eastern end to the Great Highway and the miles-long fence erected across the length of Ocean Beach as a barricade against wind-whipped sand. Scores of winding lanes, a wealth of trees and fragrant plantings, and numerous bridges spanning the Chain of Lakes and its streams and their tributaries made it a favorite of casual weekend cyclists as well as organized clubs. Among the most avid riders were members of the Golden Gate Ladies’ Bicycle Club; known as “scorchers,” they were swift and sure and ample competition for many of the men, save the daredevils who had preempted the title of “crackerjacks.”
Sabina Carpenter had been participating in these Sunday GGLBC excursions for several weeks now, weather permitting, at the encouragement of her new friend Amity Wellman. She found the outings exhilarating: the speed, the wind in her hair, the challenge to her muscles, the freedom of movement. Critical comments in the press from mostly male reporters that bicycle riding was harmful to women’s health, and implying that it was sexually stimulating to a dangerous degree, was stuff and nonsense. The idea of hundreds of predatory bloomer-clad women on wheels amorously descending upon crowds of timorous men amused her greatly.
She enjoyed cycling so much that she had attempted to interest her partner in Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services, in taking part in the sport and perhaps joining one of the wheelmen’s clubs. John had flatly refused. It was all well and good for ladies to go bicycle riding, he said, but he considered the men who did so to be “sissified.” Which was ridiculous, of course, but God knew John had his blind spots. Well, it was probably just as well. The thought of him with his large frame and thick freebooter’s beard outfitted in banded breeches, a striped jacket, and an Alpine hat, his long legs pumping furiously at the pedals of a bicycle, was somewhat ludicrous — not that she would ever have said so to him.
She had met Amity Wellman, who rode beside her this afternoon, at a woman suffrage group meeting some months ago. Amity was well known in the drive to add California as a Fourth Star to the suffragists’ banner, the other three states in which women had been granted the right to vote being Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah. She was head of the most active local organization, Voting Rights for Women, and would be a delegate to the California State Woman Suffrage Convention to be held in the city in November — the focal point of a statewide campaign for an amendment to the state constitution.
Not only was Sabina in sympathy with the cause, but she was herself an ardent suffragist. She had long considered herself to be a “New Woman,” the term used to describe the modern woman who broke with the traditional role of wife and mother by working outside the home — an attitude encouraged by her late husband, Stephen, during their relatively short time together. His sudden death by an outlaw’s hand outside Denver, her work as a “Pink Rose” for the Pinkerton Detective Agency, and her subsequent move to San Francisco to join forces with John had all deepened and broadened her sense of independence; as the widowed co-owner of a highly respectable business, she was free of many of the strictures imposed on single and married women alike. While she had always supported the suffrage movement, she had been kept too busy to take as active a role as she would have liked. The ever-increasing number of women throughout the city and state who had joined the struggle, and the emergence of outspoken leaders such as Amity Wellman, had convinced Sabina that she needed to give more of herself to the cause.
While Amity had the full backing of her wealthy husband, Burton Wellman, a noted buyer and seller of Spanish and other valuable antiques, she had been ridiculed and angrily denounced by the misogynist elements within the city’s population. As had many of her sisters, Sabina among them — in her case from hidebound clients, business associates, and casual acquaintances. Thank heaven John wasn’t one of them, else their professional association as well as their budding personal relationship would have suffered. Despite an occasional poorly considered remark, he genuinely respected and admired women, valued those with the drive to forge ahead in a world still heavily weighted against their success.
Riding beside her now, Amity slowed, raised a hand to indicate a rest stop, and veered off the path as they neared one of the many animal habitats that dotted the park, this one of bison, deer, and elk. Sabina followed suit. They laid their safety cycles on the grass and went to sit on a nearby stone bench. Sabina was a trifle winded, Amity not at all, for she had been riding regularly for many years. She was a few years older than Sabina’s thirty-two and in splendid physical condition — tall, willowy, long legged, and narrow hipped, with a wealth of taffy-colored hair that she wore in braided coils atop her head.
She had been unusually quiet today. There were dark smudges under her eyes, testimony to a lack of sleep, and her mouth was a taut line instead of stretched into its usual tip-tilted smile. This prompted Sabina to ask, “Amity, is something troubling you?”
“Yes, there is. I’ve been trying to decide if I should discuss it with you, ask for your professional advice. I know it’s an imposition—”
“Not at all. Is it serious?”
“It may be. I just don’t know.”
“Tell me about it.”
“I’ll do better than that — I’ll show you.”
From the pocket of her bloomers Amity extracted a folded envelope, which she handed to Sabina. It was of heavy vellum, as were the two sheets of stationery folded inside. The envelope bore nothing more than Amity’s name, so it had not come by post. The black-ink letters on both it and the enclosures had been printed by the same practiced hand, the words so perfectly aligned that they might have been formed with the aid of a ruler.
The first sheet contained half a dozen lines:
Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. You have trespassed upon the Lord’s word. Repent and beg His forgiveness, NOW, or you will suffer the full measure of His wrath.
And on the second sheet:
And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever. DO NOT FAIL TO TAKE HEED OR ELSE!
“When did you receive these?” Sabina asked, frowning.
“The ravening-wolves one two days ago, the other yesterday morning. There was another of the same sort four days ago that I tore up and threw away. Lord knows I’ve had my share of crank messages since I assumed the leadership role in Voting Rights for Women, and these may well be more of the same. But this last one... Perhaps I’m overreacting, but I can’t help feeling it and the others might constitute a serious threat.”