Fatal as a Fallen Woman (31 page)

"Let's have something to eat first," Ben suggested, as they walked back to the hotel. "Food aids thinking. Besides, little as you ate for breakfast, your stomach will be growling any moment now."

"That's not a very kind or gentlemanly thing to say."

"No, but it's true." He grinned at her, unrepentant, and for one giddy moment the rest of the world faded away.

A strident voice calling her name intruded on the idyll.

"Sheriff wants to talk to you!" Maryam bellowed from the front of the hotel. She seemed to take pleasure in the startled stares from passers by.

"He got back quickly," Ben said.

"He only planned to stay in Leadville overnight." Diana increased her pace.

She was puffing a little from too-tight corseting by the time she entered the hotel dining room. Most of their party were already there having a light luncheon.

The sheriff looked up from a steaming plate full of oysters and waved them over. Diana ignored the little gurgle of hunger the delicious smells in the dining room provoked. The yeasty aroma of freshly baked bread was the least of them.

"Well," she asked. "What did you find out?"

He eyed her, then glanced behind her at Ben. "Nothing to prove your theory. Didn't suppose I would."

"Did you talk to my former landlady?"

"Indeed I did. Interesting woman. I didn't realize you'd lived in a room above a tobacco shop, Mrs. Spaulding."

"What difference does that make?" Genuinely puzzled, Diana sat in the chair Ben pulled out for her.

"Ever hear of cigar girls?"

Diana's eyes widened and she felt heat climb into her face. "There was no brothel on the premises, not when I lived there."

"Perhaps her girls weren't old enough then."

"What girls?"

"Her daughters, Mrs. Spaulding. They're thirteen and fifteen now and the oldest has been a prostitute for at least two years."

"She had no daughters. She didn't even like children. Are you sure we're talking about the same person?" The woman Diana remembered had seemed old as the hills, but Diana was well aware that women who lived a hard life often looked decades older than they really were.

"Maybe she adopted the girls. It's been known to happen. Times are hard. Women do what they can to survive. In any case, there's no doubt she was your landlady. She remembered you, and your husband, and a very refined and polite brunette who came asking about you about a month before your husband was killed. Said the brunette wore heliotrope perfume, whatever that is."

"Pearl," Diana said.

"Sounds like it." Ben glanced at the sheriff. "I don't suppose she had a white poodle with her?"

Crymble shook his head, concentrating on polishing off the oysters. They were nothing but a tasty memory before he spoke again. "The brunette wanted to know if Mrs. Spaulding was increasing."

* * * *

 When the sheriff had gone Ben ordered plain steak and potatoes and Diana the same. They sat facing each other across a small table, pondering what to do next.

"There's no proof of anything and probably never will be," Diana concluded, "but it makes sense to me that my father had a hand in Evan's death. He'd have been furious when he found out he'd been tricked." She gave a strangled laugh. "I almost wish he'd just challenged Evan to a duel and shot him outright. Hiring someone to kill for him makes it worse somehow."

Ben's hand covered hers. "If that
is
what happened, there's nothing to be done about it now. And I can't see how it could have any connection to Torrence's murder. You're the only one who'd have wanted revenge for what happened to Evan, and you were still in New York City when your father died."

She sighed, staring at the wall behind his head without really seeing the blue and white striped wallpaper. "What if there is someone else? Another woman, perhaps? Someone who thought she was in love with him?" There had always been other women.

"Not Pearl?"

She smiled at that. "I can't imagine Pearl cared what happened to Evan. Not if she took money to spy on him."

He turned her hand over in his and traced the lines on her palm.  The contact made her shiver with pleasure but his words just as quickly pulled her thoughts away from feasting on sensual delights and back to the contemplation of the dilemma at hand.

"Even if someone did want revenge for Evan's murder," Ben mused, "how could she, or he, discover that your father was responsible? We only stumbled on the connection. We haven't found any solid proof that our conclusions are correct. It's all speculation."

"Charlie knew enough to allow us to put the pieces together once he told you," Diana reminded him. "Maybe he told someone else as much."

Ben considered that as their meal was placed before them. He cut a strip of the steak into smaller bits and ate two of them before he spoke. "Did Evan have any family?"

The question took her aback. "I don't think so. He never mentioned any."

Suddenly the meal tasted like cardboard. The pool of gravy on her potatoes looked even more unappetizing. How could she have been so self-centered? Of course he must have had family. Everyone had someone. And she'd made no effort at all to find them after he died.

Diana rose from the table, her meal forgotten. Evan had kept a great many things from her. Why not kith and kin?

"Where are you going?" Ben asked, catching her hand.

"The depot. The Western Union office. The quickest way to get answers about Evan's family is to send a telegram to the editor of the local newspaper and ask."

"You know the town?"

"I know where he was born. It's a little place called Whitehead, Illinois."

"Witted?" he echoed, pronouncing it as she had. "As in slow-witted?"

She smiled and spelled it. "
Whittud
is how the natives pronounce it."

"Ah, I see. We've towns like that back home. Folks put the accent on the first syllable in places like Madrid and Vienna. And Calais comes out Callus."

A chuckle escaped Diana, surprising her. She hadn't laughed enough lately.

"Eat first," Ben suggested. "The matter has waited this long. A quarter of an hour more won't make any difference."

A glance at her plate had Diana's appetite returning. As she dug into the meal, her resolve strengthened. Surely they would be able to clear up this one small mystery. She had begun to despair of ever solving the larger ones, but now her confidence returned. She would not give up. She would find Evan's family. And then, somehow, she would discover who had killed her father.  

* * * *

Diana and Ben spent the evening, as they'd promised, with the owner of the mercantile and his family.

"Your father's friends were very pleasant company," Ben said as they walked back to the hotel.

"But singularly unhelpful in solving his murder. They'd
liked
Will Torrence."

"No one is all good or all bad. You've said yourself that Torrence was a different man before money corrupted him."

Diana thought about that for a moment before she replied. "I think it's the hypocrisy that bothers me most. Father was so self-righteous when he disowned me for daring to marry an actor. Compared to William Torrence, Evan was a paragon of virtue."

Ben grimaced at her exaggeration and appeared to be about to make some remark when Jane stepped out of the hotel to intercept them. "Ed Leeves is here," she warned them. "He arrived on the 6 PM train from Denver."

When Diana walked into the hotel parlor, Leeves came to his feet in a rush, assuming a wide stance that put her in mind of the drawings of gunslingers on penny dreadfuls. Thankfully, there were no six guns slung from his hips. He was dressed much as he had been when they'd first met, in those boots with the two-inch heels and a suit and necktie that would have been right at home in the business district of Manhattan.

"Where is she?" he demanded.

"Who?"

"Don't play dumb with me, girl. I want your mother."

"I have no idea where she is." She felt Ben come up behind her and saw that the professor had taken up a position on the opposite side of the room, ready to step in to protect her if the need arose. She couldn't see any of the girls, but she had a feeling they were close at hand.

"Impossible," Leeves insisted. "I know you've talked to her."

"Yes. Once. In Denver. As far as I know, she's still there. And if she'd wanted to see you, Mr. Leeves, she'd have managed it on her own by now."

"Damned stubborn female," he muttered.

Diana wasn't certain if he referred to her or to her mother.

"Why is it so important that you find her?" She couldn't figure him out, and didn't dare trust the instinct that was telling her he meant her mother no harm. After all, it had been a note from Leeves that had lured Elmira out of the hotel just when William Torrence was being murdered.

"I've a better question," Ben said. "How did you know Diana had talked to her mother? She didn't tell anyone about Elmira's late night visit until after we were on the train coming here, and even then she only told me."

"And Jane," Diana said.

"I have my sources," Leeves said.

"What sources?"

"Me," Maryam said, stepping into the room in a flurry of pink ruffles. "He's got me."

"I thought you said you weren't a spy," Diana said.

"Not for William Torrence."

"How did you know about Elmira?" Ben asked.

"Jane told me. She told all of us when you first got here. Wanted to make sure we knew Elmira was still around. Told us to keep an eye out for her. So I sent Big Ed a telegram."

Sparing one fulminating glare for the traitor in their midst, Diana turned her attention back to Ed Leeves. "Do you really think Mother will come here? After all, Miranda is in Torrence."

Miranda is in Torrence.

Diana turned away from the others to stare out a window at the empty street. Was it possible? Would Elmira come to Torrence in order to confront Miranda? Diana didn't like her father's second wife, but Matt had convinced her beyond all doubt that Miranda was not responsible for William Torrence's death, and that
she
believed Elmira was. A meeting between the two women was
not
a good idea.

Ben was still arguing with Big Ed. "How could Elmira get here without someone seeing her? Recognizing her? There are only two trains a day. Their arrival draws what passes for a crowd in Torrence. Children. Old men. Prostitutes hoping for custom. Businessmen expecting something in the mail pouch."

"She rides, doesn't she?" Leeves shot back. "And there's a stagecoach. How difficult is it for a woman to hide her identity behind a veil? For that matter, she might dress up as a man." He gave a short bark of admiring laughter. "By God, she could pull it off."

"What do you want with my mother?" Diana demanded. There had been admiration in his voice just now but he still hadn't explained his interest to her satisfaction.

"Damned if I know," Leeves muttered. "But I can't just let her disappear like this. You tell her that, Diana." He seized her shoulders and put his face so close to hers that she could see that there were small flecks of color in what she'd thought were coal black eyes. "When she contacts you, tell her that."

He flew backwards before he could say another word. Ben had seized one arm, the professor the other. While Diana watched, too disconcerted by Leeves's vehemence to form a coherent sentence, they hauled him out of the room.

"You really have no idea where she is?" Maryam had arranged herself on the piano bench and was idly picking out a tune.

"No, I don't. She didn't want me to know. She'd finished with all of us, I think, especially Ed Leeves."

"He won't give up," Maryam predicted. "He doesn't like losing."

Diana was afraid Maryam might be right.

Leaving the other woman to her music, Diana headed for her room. She'd just started up the stairs when the proprietor of the hotel hailed her.

"Mrs. Spaulding. There you are. A letter came for you on the express from Denver." He handed it up to her with a little bow.

"Thank you, Mr. Perrin." Still on the third step, she stared at the envelope, curious but not alarmed. If Leeves had found out where they were, others could too.

There was no return address, but as she ran a finger under the flap, she considered the possibilities: Col. Arkins? Pearl? Charlie? Dorcas? None of them seemed likely. Ning might have tried to reach her this way, but he hadn't yet learned to write more than his own name. And if Horatio Foxe had followed her to Colorado, he'd have gotten on the train himself rather than send a letter from Denver.

Inside the envelope was a sheet of familiar cream-colored stationary. Diana's hand shook slightly as she unfolded it and she was suddenly very glad Mr. Perrin had waited to deliver her mail until Ed Leeves had been forcibly evicted from the hotel. 

The letter began "Dear Daughter."

* * * *

"Mr. Leeves and I have something to say to each other," Ben told the professor. "In private."

They'd released Big Ed as soon as they were out in the street. He showed no sign of wanting to return to the hotel. Tension radiated from him in palpable waves but he had himself under control.

Once he'd been left alone with the other man, Ben got a firm grip on his temper. If there was anything to be learned from Leeves, Ben intended to discover it
without
resorting to fisticuffs. Since he'd refrained from pommeling Hastings, he had no doubt he could manage to control himself with Leeves.

"You had no call to threaten Mrs. Spaulding," he said in a deceptively mild voice. "She doesn't know where her mother is."

"Damn it, what ails the woman?"

"Diana—"

"Not Mrs. Spaulding. Elmira." With a snort of disgust, Leeves started towards the saloon, kicking small rocks out of his way as he went.

Reluctant sympathy chipped away at Ben's fury. Leeves was as frustrated as Ben had been when he'd gotten Diana's telegram, and for similar reasons. Leeves had romantic feelings for Elmira Torrence. He'd expected her to turn to
him
for help, not go off on her own.