“You still haven’t told me the price.”
“For you, dear lady, half of what I would charge anyone else. A mere twelve dollars.”
Another of Mr. Cleghorne’s literal steals. Sabina managed not to wince, nodding instead.
“Excellent! Shall I have it delivered?”
“Yes. To my home address, please.”
“You may expect it before the end of the day. And for you, dear Mrs. Carpenter, the delivery charge will be only one dollar.”
The Lady Bountiful Salon, one of several small businesses along that section of Larkin Street, appeared to cater to women of modest income and social standing — a perfect cover for a wealthy Pacific Heights wife’s trysting place. The salon was not crowded on this late Saturday morning, nor were its neighboring establishments, the weather being as uncertain as it was. Along one side of the building, an unpaved carriageway debouched into an untenanted cul-de-sac at the rear. Only two structures stood in these confines, an open and empty carriage shed and, behind and detached from the salon, a small cottage-like building with an unprepossessing façade. Obviously this was 2442, though neither door nor front wall bore the number.
Three steps led up to the door. Sabina climbed them, her body bent against the damp wind that swirled through the cul-de-sac, and rapped on the panel with her gloved hand. There was no answer. Three more raps produced the same lack of response. On impulse she tested the latch, expecting to find it locked.
It wasn’t. There was an audible click and the door moved inward slightly under her hand.
She hesitated, glancing behind her. The cul-de-sac remained deserted. Quickly she pushed the door open, stepped through.
The odor that assailed her was strong enough to make her catch her breath.
Only once before during her professional life had she smelled anything like it, but that was more than enough to ensure that it could never be forgotten. Her stomach recoiled; she closed her throat against the rise of her gorge. From inside her bag she pinched out a lace handkerchief and held it over her nose and mouth as she moved farther inside.
Gloom coated the interior, the only windows tightly curtained. After a few seconds while her eyes adjusted, Sabina made out a table with a lamp atop it. She went there, found matches, and lit the wick — steeling herself for what the light would reveal.
The remains of Prudence Egan lay twisted on her back before a brocade-covered settee, one of only a few pieces of commonplace furniture. Blood stained the breast of what looked to be the same blue tailor-made suit the woman had worn on Tuesday afternoon. At the end of one outflung arm lay a small-caliber pistol, the tip of her index finger bent inside the trigger guard. Sabina ventured close enough to determine that Mrs. Egan had been stabbed, not shot — a single slash that must have penetrated her heart. The bloody tear in the shirtwaist below the wound indicated an underhand, upward thrust. An overturned chair and items that had been dislodged from a table next to the settee testified to a struggle before the fatal blow was struck.
Dead for several days, likely since sometime Tuesday.
Sabina fought down the urge to flee from the noxious odor of decomposition, hurried through an open doorway into what appeared to be the pied-à-terre’s only other room, a bedroom. The bed was neatly made, the counterpane smooth and unwrinkled. A wardrobe contained a small amount of clothing — dresses, skirts, shirtwaists, undergarments, and in one drawer a man’s black sweater and cap. There was nothing else except for a nightstand and a catchall table, each bearing a small lamp with a fringed shade.
Sabina hesitated in the doorway, surveying the main room. Nothing caught her eye except for the dead woman and the pistol. As much as she wanted to leave, to breathe the cold, moist air outside, she went instead to where the pistol lay. She knelt, drew a deep breath, picked up the weapon. In doing so, she noticed a long, evidently recent gouge along the sides of both gate and barrel. She held the muzzle to her nose long enough to determine that it had not been fired, then replaced the pistol in the exact position in which it had been before, with Prudence Egan’s finger touching the trigger guard.
Sabina was about to rise when something nearby that glinted in the lamplight caught her eye. A small, sharp-pointed piece of metal perhaps three-quarters of an inch long — the tip of a knife or dagger blade, she judged, an old one from the look of the metal. Very old. It was age stained, but it bore no trace of blood. She wrapped it in her handkerchief, taking and holding a deep breath as she did so, then quickly stood, switched off the lamp she’d lit, and made her exit.
The cul-de-sac was as deserted as before. Sabina stood breathing in great gulps of cold air until her head cleared and her stomach stopped doing nip-ups. Then she carefully folded the handkerchief to protect the broken knife tip and returned it to her bag.
Now she faced a quandary. On the one hand, if she reported Prudence Egan’s death to the police she would not only face a lengthy and likely unpleasant interrogation, but the details of Amity’s affair and the attempt on her life would come to light also. Homer Keeps and his unscrupulous brethren would have a field day. Such publicity would do serious damage not only to Amity, her marriage, and her fight for woman suffrage, but to Sabina’s professional reputation as well; Keeps would see to that. It might not be possible to keep a scandal under wraps in any case, but it was worth the effort to try.
But on the other hand, she couldn’t simply do nothing. The longer the dead woman remained undiscovered, the worse the situation inside would become. Allowing that to happen would be callous, irresponsible, downright heartless, and she was none of those things.
She hit upon a solution on her way back downtown. It was not a completely satisfactory compromise but appropriate enough under the difficult circumstances and a tolerable salve to her conscience. At the agency she found a sheet of notepaper and an envelope that did not bear the Carpenter and Quincannon name. On the paper she wrote in a sloping backhand that was nothing like her normal handwriting:
Your missus has herself a secret hideaway behind beauty salon at 2440 Larkin Street.
She penned Fenton Egan’s name and the words Very Important on the envelope in the same disguised hand, sealed the note inside, and put it into her bag. At Slewfoot’s newsstand on the corner of Market and Third, she paid the vendor ten dollars to have one of his trusted couriers deliver the envelope to the Egan residence in Pacific Heights. Even if the importer was not at home, the message would soon enough reach and be read by him. Sabina had no doubt that he would take immediate action to verify its authenticity.
The Voting Rights for Women benefit was reasonably successful. Attendance wasn’t quite as large as had been hoped for — though the rain held off, the churning fog was as wet as drizzle — but those who braved the weather were enthusiastic and generous. Most were women, naturally, running the gamut from shabbily dressed clerks and laundresses and scullery maids to fur-clad matrons from the upper-class neighborhoods, but there were more than a few male supporters as well. Amity’s impassioned speech brought cheers and resounding applause. Donations to the cause, from nickels and dimes to more than one five-dollar gold piece, amounted to upward of one hundred dollars.
Nathaniel Dobbs and his sign-carrying Antis were also there, of course, but their number was surprisingly few. And every time Dobbs attempted to interrupt the proceedings with one of his opposition rants he was shouted down and roundly booed.