“What if I did?” Nervousness had replaced wariness; tiny pustules of sweat dotted Pitman’s forehead now. “What are you getting at? What’s the idea of all these questions?”
“‘Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.’ You believe that, don’t you?”
“Of course I believe it. It’s the word of God—”
“‘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.’ That, also?”
Pitman didn’t respond. He produced a handkerchief and mopped his forehead with it.
“False prophets,” Sabina said. “That’s how you view women who seek and work for the right to vote. Women such as Amity Wellman.”
He shook his head again, a loose, wobbling denial.
“You wrote and delivered four threatening letters to her.”
“No! I did no such thing!”
“Threats of bodily harm are a felony, Mr. Pitman. Also a sin. God punishes persecutors the same as he punishes false prophets and other evildoers.”
“I am not an evildoer!”
The office door opened and the gangly black-clad figure of Nathaniel Dobbs stepped into the room. “Why are you shouting, Josiah?” he demanded. Then, seeing Sabina, “Oh, ah, Mrs. Carpenter. What is going on out here?”
“I’ve just accused your assistant of writing those threatening letters to Amity Wellman.”
Dobbs gawped at her for a few seconds, then came forward in a peculiar hopping gait with his arms flapping outward from his sides — movements that added to the fanciful illusion of a giant crow disguised as a man. “You, ah, you can’t be serious,” he said. His shocked disbelief wasn’t feigned; he’d known nothing of Pitman’s felonious activities.
“Oh, but I am. Quite serious.”
“You have proof of this?”
“Unassailable proof. His handwriting. The printing on the notes is identical to that on this sign” — she waggled it for emphasis — “and the others here that he lettered.”
Dobbs thrust his beak in Pitman’s direction. “Josiah? What have you to say?”
The tubby little man had nothing to say, other than an incoherent sputter. A trapped look had come into his eyes as if he might be about to do something foolish and cowardly — bolt and run or perhaps crawl under the worktable and curl into a fetal position. He did neither. Instead he sank bonelessly onto his chair, covered his face with his hands.
“Look at him, Mr. Dobbs,” Sabina said. “His guilt is written all over him.”
“Yes... oh, my Lord, yes. But why? What possessed him?”
Sabina was tempted to say that what possessed Pitman was the same sort of misanthropic beliefs that possessed Dobbs and others like him, carried to the degree of criminal persecution. But she said only, “He believes Mrs. Wellman is a false prophet leading women, all women, down the path to perdition. His misguided threats were biblical in origin and intent — warnings of God’s wrath as he perceives it from the New Testament.”
The Anti leader’s features showed anger now, not so much brought on by the nature of Pitman’s crime, Sabina thought, as by a trusted comrade’s betrayal and its potential damage to the Solidarity Party’s platform. “Unconscionable. Outrageous. Threatening letters, attempted murder—”
Pitman’s head jerked up. “No!” he said in horrified tones. “I wrote the notes, I admit it, but I made no effort to harm the woman, I never intended to harm her.”
“If you’re lying, Josiah—”
“I’m not! As God is my witness, I’m not! I adhere strenuously to His commandments, all His commandments, but the sixth above all. ‘Thou shalt not kill’!”
He wasn’t lying, of that Sabina was certain. Josiah Pitman hadn’t fired that pistol on Sunday evening. His motive in harassing Amity was bred of deluded religious and dogmatic fervor, nothing more. Whoever wanted her dead hated her for a different, personal reason.
Amity’s life was still in danger.
13
Sabina
Before leaving the Solidarity Party’s headquarters, Sabina claimed two signs and one placard hand-lettered by Josiah Pitman as proof of his guilt. Nathaniel Dobbs made no objection. In fact, he was cooperative to a fault — either because he was a more ethical man than she had given him credit for or more likely because he feared the possibility of backlash damage to his image and that of his organization. He insisted upon making both a personal and a written apology to Amity Wellman. He also assured Sabina that he would see to it Pitman “remained available,” as he put it, should Mrs. Wellman wish to press charges against him. Even if Dobbs failed to follow through on his promise, Sabina had no concerns that Pitman would attempt to flee the city or to hide somewhere within it. He was a craven individual, for one thing, and, for another, too steadfast in his beliefs. He would accept his punishment with the righteousness of a martyr.
From Ellis Street, Sabina went to the offices of Voting Rights for Women and tendered explanations to Amity and Elizabeth. Amity’s reaction, aside from relief that the mystery of the threatening letters had been solved, was typical of her. She, too, took the moral high road, and for less selfish reasons than Nathaniel Dobbs. She would not press charges against Josiah Pitman, nor would she make public use of his crime in their dispute over the legal and moral rights of women. The struggle would continue as it had and as it should, on the issues alone.
The fact that her would-be assassin remained unidentified worried her, of course, but to no greater degree than it had previously. Her faith in Sabina and in Elizabeth Petrie to keep her safe remained steadfast.
When Sabina arrived at the agency, John was once again absent and there was no indication that he had come in at all today. She hoped it was because he was hard at work on the Featherstone embezzlement case, the only open one on his docket, and not pursuing his bitter vow to make Pauline Dupree pay for flummoxing him in Gunpowder Alley and at the Gaiety Theater. His failure to prove murder and extortion against her was a blow to his pride and ego. There was no telling what he might decide to do, despite Sabina’s advice to do nothing at all and trust in the probability that one day the Dupree woman would be hoisted on her own petard. All too often he allowed his emotions to rule his judgment, rendering him deaf to rational appeals.
But John could take care of himself. Sabina had enough on her mind without adding him to her concerns.
There was no message from either Slewfoot or Madam Louella. If the dark-clothed figure who had fired upon Amity was a paid assassin, he was apparently not one of the usual Barbary Coast scruffs. But that didn’t rule out murder for hire, particularly since the attempt had failed. No paid assassin wanted it known that he had come a cropper; he would be extra careful to keep mum. And unless he was called off for some reason, he would try again — to save face and to collect his blood money.
If such a hireling existed, there was nothing Sabina could do to identify him except to rely on her informants. The only investigative avenues open to her at this point were ones she had already explored. Well, then, she thought, explore them again using different tactics.
Now that Nathaniel Dobbs and Josiah Pitman had been eliminated, the only two people she was aware of who had strong motives for wanting Amity dead were Fenton and Prudence Egan. Unless her friend had another personal enemy she was unwilling to admit to for some reason... No. She’d be a fool not to have revealed the existence of such a person at the same time she’d confessed her affair, and Amity was no fool.