“Yes, I know. I’ve heard you speak.”
“Indeed.” He was tall and almost cadaverously spare, with a nose like a beak and a mane of hair so black it was surely dyed. In his long black frock coat, he resembled nothing so much as a giant crow with its wings folded. His voice was on the reedy side, though it deepened and became commanding when he was publicly espousing the Solidarity Party’s conservative platform. “What can I do for you, my good woman?”
Sabina disliked being referred to as “my good woman” by strangers, particularly insincere strangers who made a living by treating women as second-class citizens, if not chattel. She crossed the room to where he stood, fixing him with her no-nonsense look. He backed up a step in the face of it.
“I prefer that we speak in private, Mr. Dobbs.”
“Oh, ah... very well, if you insist.”
He moved aside to let her pass into his office, then closed the door. A stack of pamphlets occupied the only other chair besides his; he removed them and with obvious reluctance invited her to sit. At his desk again, he fussed with a scattering of papers and the quill pen. When he saw Sabina looking at the pen he said, “A gift from one of my associates, it once belonged to John Quincy Adams’ secretary,” and put it down again. He was quite ill at ease, which confirmed Amity’s impression that he was uncomfortable in the presence of women. Whether he actively hated members of her sex was debatable; certainly he preferred the company as well as the dominance of his own. The fact that she was a detective as well as a woman surely added to his discomfort, though to his credit he made no comment on the fact.
At length he made a “harrumphing” sound, as if to clear his throat, and then said, “I understand you are here on a matter regarding Mrs. Amity Wellman.”
“That’s correct.”
“I see no reason for it. That is, Mrs. Wellman and I have our differences, as I’m sure you know, but none of an, ah, troublesome nature...” He harrumphed again. “Just what are you investigating that brings you to me?”
“A series of anonymous threatening notes, for one thing.”
“Threatening notes? I don’t understand...”
“Accusing Mrs. Wellman of being a false prophet and warning her to change her ways or suffer dire consequences. The implied meaning of ‘change her ways’ being her vocal leadership of Voting Rights for Women.”
Dobbs harrumphed, then drew himself up and said in defensive tones, “Surely you don’t think I would write such notes?”
“Your strenuous opposition to woman’s suffrage is well known, Mr. Dobbs.”
“Yes, but my opposition is a matter of principle and, ah, political expediency. I hold no personal animosity toward Mrs. Wellman. Absolutely none.”
“Night before last,” Sabina said, “an attempt was made to shoot her at her home.”
Dobbs opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, much like a freshly caught fish. “Good heavens!”
“Fortunately, whoever fired the shot had poor aim.”
“But I’ve heard nothing of this until now. There was no such mention in the newspapers...”
“Mrs. Wellman chose not to report the incident. If you had nothing to do with the attempt on her life—”
“I did not. Certainly not.”
“—then I trust you’ll make no public comment about that or the written threats.”
“I assure you I won’t. I abhor such vulgarities. The Solidarity Party is a non-violent organization. We are—”
“Yes, I know. The Antis. Anti-progress, anti-reform, anti — women’s rights.”
“That is not true,” Dobbs protested. “The pejorative term ‘Anti’ is inaccurate. We are not against progress or reform unless it threatens the long and honorably established status quo by violating the laws of the land and the word of God as set down in the Good Book. Nor are we against the rights of women per se, only their unreasonable demands—”
“Our demands, Mr. Dobbs, and they’re not unreasonable. I’m a suffragist, too.”
“Ah, yes, well,” he said, paused, and then resumed, “It is the Solidarity Party’s firm belief that a woman’s place is in the home, as God intended, and not in jury boxes or executive offices or involved in the making of public policy.”
“In other words, to be nothing more than submissive housewives and child bearers.”
“I repeat, as God intended.” Another harrumph, after which he quoted oratorically and not at all aptly, “‘Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, and is himself the savior of his body. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.’ Ephesians, chapter five, verses twenty-two through twenty-four.”
Sabina said cynically, “Timothy, chapter two, verses eleven and twelve.”
“Eh?”
“‘Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.’”
“Oh, ah, yes. In silence. Yes.” Dobbs picked up the quill pen, dipped the nib into an open jar of India ink, found a piece of paper, and began to write on it. “Another appropriate quote, that, one I’d, ah, forgotten. I must include it in my repertoire. Timothy, chapter two, verses eleven and twelve, you said?”
Sabina got to her feet and went to the door. “I won’t remain in silence, Mr. Dobbs, nor will my sisters — not now and not in the future. You and your Antis can count on that.”
She went out without waiting for a response and just barely managed to restrain herself from slamming the door behind her.
10
Quincannon
Gunpowder Alley was no more appealing by daylight than it had been under the cloak of darkness. Heavy rain during the early-morning hours had slackened into another dreary drizzle, and the buildings encompassing the alley’s short length all had a huddled appearance, bleak and sodden under the wet gray sky.
The cul-de-sac was deserted when Quincannon, dry beneath a newly purchased umbrella, turned into it from Jessie Street. Boards had been nailed across the front entrance to the cigar store and a police seal applied to forestall potential looters. At the house next door, tattered curtains now covered the parlor window.
He stood looking at the window for a few seconds, his mind jostled by memory fragments — words spoken to him by Patrolman Maguire, others by Letitia Carver. Quickly, then, he climbed to the porch and rapped on the front door. Neither that series of knocks, nor two more, brought a response.
His resolve, sharpened now, prodded him into action. From his coat pocket he removed the set of lockpicks he had liberated from a burglar named Wandering Ned some years back, and set to work on the flimsy door lock. It yielded to his practiced ministrations in no time at all.
In the murky entryway inside he paused to listen. No sounds reached his ears save for the scurrying of a rodent in the wall and the random creaking of old, damp timbers. He called loudly, “Hello! Anyone here?” He didn’t expect an answer, and none came. The house had the look and feel of desertion.
He moved through an archway into the parlor. The room was cold, decidedly musty; no fire had burned in the grate last night, nor in a long while before that, he judged. The furniture was sparse and had the worn look of discards. One arm of the rocking chair near the curtain window was broken, bent outward at an angle. The lamp on the rickety table next to it was as cold as the air, and when he shook it, its fount proved to be empty.
Glowering fiercely now, Quincannon set off on a rapid search of the premises upstairs and down. There were scattered pieces of furniture in two other rooms, including a sagging iron bedstead sans mattress in what might have been the master bedroom; the remaining rooms were empty. All the floors bore coatings of dust unmarked except by mouse droppings. A few of the wall corners were ornamentally festooned with spiderwebs.