Sabina said nothing. She was still studying the words.
“What I don’t understand,” Amity said, “is why he bothered writing another note after already trying once to kill me. There doesn’t seem to be any sense in that.”
“No,” Sabina said musingly, “there doesn’t.”
Elizabeth reported no other incidents, no sign of trespassers or anyone lurking in the neighborhood. She and Kamiko had made sure the house and grounds were secure before going to bed last night. Neither Amity nor her bodyguard had been able to convince the Japanese girl to reveal whatever it was she was keeping to herself, though Amity was still of the opinion that if Kamiko’s secret had anything to do with the devilment she would surely have revealed it after the shooting on Sunday evening; Kamiko’s loyalty and adoration were above reproach.
The girl’s reticence was bothersome just the same. There didn’t seem to be any good reason for her continued silence, whether her secret pertained to the threats or not. Sabina resolved to have another private talk with her.
The three left the flat together, Sabina for Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services, and Amity and Elizabeth for the Parrot Street offices of Voting Rights for Women. As usual, John was not at the agency when Sabina arrived. Just as well this morning. The office stillness, marred only by the muted sounds of trolleys and equipage rattling by on Market Street below, allowed her to concentrate on the three threatening notes, which she spread out side by side on her desktop.
Now, with the arrival of the latest, she knew the answer to the question she’d asked herself on Tuesday morning. Why would a person deliver a series of warnings in advance of a murder attempt? He wouldn’t. No one, no matter how mentally unbalanced, would have reason to write another such note after having tried to kill his real or imagined enemy. As Amity had pointed out, it made no sense.
Clearly, therefore, the writer of the messages and the person who had fired the shot at Amity, or had hired it done, were not the same individual.
Two people with two different motives had begun deviling Amity simultaneously, the first with quotations perhaps meant only to harass and frighten, the second with the deadliest of intentions. One of those bizarre coincidences that now and then cropped up in investigative work, as they did in other walks of life. If Sabina was right in her deduction, and she was sure she was, it doubled the problem facing her.
She continued to examine the three sheets of vellum. The commonality among the messages was obvious: all three contained quotes from the New Testament. As had the first one Amity had received and destroyed, apparently.
Sabina took her copy of the King James Bible from the desk drawer. She had read and absorbed it as a child and again as an adult after Stephen’s death in an unsuccessful attempt to find solace in religion. Her recall being excellent, it didn’t take her long to locate each of the three passages. “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves” was from the book of Matthew. As was “Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul.” The book of Revelation was the source of “And the devil that conceived them was cast in the lake of fire and brimstone.”
So the note writer was not only familiar with the New Testament but a possible religious zealot as well. Nathaniel Dobbs? Yesterday he had accurately quoted a passage from Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians.
That didn’t necessarily make him the guilty party, of course. A great many people had the ability to quote passages from the Bible. Still, the references accusing Amity of being a false prophet doomed to death and damnation surely referred to her work on behalf of woman suffrage...
Sabina’s memory stirred. She leaned back in her chair, closing her eyes. It wasn’t long before a small, grim smile lifted the corners of her mouth. Quickly she rose, donned her hat, coat, and muffler, and left the office, locking the door again behind her.
The main room at Solidarity Party headquarters was even more cluttered today. What appeared to be twice as many signs and placards were now propped against walls and laid out in uneven rows on the floor, and pamphlets of various sizes were stacked on tables and chairs. There was even a smattering of oversized and somewhat fuzzy daguerrotypes attached to sticks and staves, of groups of men holding aloft signs and placards similar in design and content to the ones here.
Tubby little Josiah Pitman was in conversation with an equally tubby man decked out in a checkered sack coat, striped trousers, and plug hat. The stranger had the good manners to doff his hat when Sabina entered. Pitman merely glowered at her from where he stood behind his worktable. Across the room behind them, she could see that the door to Nathaniel Dobbs’ private sanctum was closed.
“Back again, are you,” Pitman said in waspish tones. “Mr. Dobbs is busy. He doesn’t wish to be disturbed.”
“Then I won’t disturb him.”
Sabina crossed to the nearest wall defaced by the Anti slogans. Behind her Pitman said, “Here now, don’t touch any of those.”
She ignored him. Several of the signs bore the same black-lettered statements as the two she’d glanced at yesterday: Woman Suffrage a Folly! and Keep the Fair Sex Out of Politics! Another read: Wise Men Oppose the Female Vote! Yet another seemed to have been inspired by her book of Timothy quote to Dobbs: Suffer Not a Woman to Vote — Female Silence Is Golden! She examined several in turn, all of which had been lettered in the same neat fashion.
The two men finished their low-toned conversation and the plug-hatted one departed. As soon as he was gone, Pitman said to Sabina, “I told you before, Mr. Dobbs does not wish to be disturbed. Kindly be on your way.”
Instead of answering, she picked up one of the Wise Men Oppose the Female Vote! signs and went ahead to his worktable with it upraised. “Is this your handiwork, Mr. Pitman?”
“And if it is?”
“The lettering is quite well done. Very distinctive. Especially the slight curve at the tail of the vertical stroke in the capital F.”
He preened a little at that. “I pride myself on my penmanship.”
“Perfectly straight lines, too. Ruler straight, in fact.”
“Indeed.”
“You compose correspondence in the same precise fashion, I imagine.”
“Correspondence?”
“Letters and such.”
The corners of his mouth turned down, tightened. Now he was guarded. “No,” he said. “No, I write my letters cursively. Printing them would take too much time.”
“But you do print short personal notes?”
“No. I’m not in the habit of writing notes, personal or otherwise.”
“What sort of stationery does the Solidarity Party use?”
“...Stationery?”
“Heavy white vellum, perhaps?”
“No. Cotton fiber. Besides, all of our stationery is embossed.”
“Why did you say ‘besides’?”
No answer came to him; he shook his head instead of replying.
“Is your personal stationery heavy white vellum?” Sabina asked.
“That, madam, is none of your business.”
“You’re religious, aren’t you.” It wasn’t a question.
“...What?”
“Religious. A devout, God-fearing man.”
“Well? What of it? A man who doesn’t fear God and His wrath is a fool.”
“Which means you’re familiar with the King James Bible. Much more familiar than Mr. Dobbs, I’ll warrant. The quote from Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians about wives submitting to their husbands that he is fond of reciting — you supplied him with it, I’ll warrant.”