Murder on Black Friday (17 page)

“Well, not about Duncan, of course, but that...that we’re not really...that we can’t...that it’s not like that between us.” Holding his gaze, she said, quietly, “That it can’t be that way between us.”

He looked away, his jaw tight. The puppy made an odd little cooing sound, yawned, and settled back into his silken nest with a somnolent little grunt.

Will said, “I’m going to Shanghai when the term is over.”

She gaped at him.
Shanghai.
It had been one of his old haunts, notorious as a hotbed not just of gambling, but of every other sin imaginable.

Finally, she said, “Why?”

He stuck his hands in his trouser pockets and shrugged with a nonchalance that looked forced. “It’s what I do.”

“How long will you be gone?”

Frowning at the ground, he said, “It’s hard to say. The trip itself is much shorter than it was before the railroads merged. I’ll take the train to San Francisco and a steamer from there.”

“But how long...how long do you think you’ll be in Shanghai?”

He shrugged. “I might travel down the coast to Hong Kong. If I do, I’ll probably spend a while in Hangchow—I have friends there. And I’d like to take another stab at getting into Tibet. Of course, that’s a fairly grueling overland journey.”

“Six months?” she asked. “A year?”

He just shook his head, still not looking at her.

Are you ever coming back?
Not wanting to ask it, because she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer, Nell looked down and stroked the puppy, just to have an excuse not to look at him. Whether he was gone half a year, a year, or, God forbid, forever, she knew she would never stop missing him... wondering what kind of trouble he was getting into, if he was slipping back into his old ways...

He liked teaching, loved the research; he’d all but told her as much. Isaac Foster said he was brilliant at it, that it seemed like a perfect fit for him.

He came to sit beside her. For a while, neither of them spoke.

“You seem displeased,” he said.

She drew in a calming breath, let it out. “I want what’s best for you, Will, and I don’t think it’s best for you to go halfway ‘round the world to play cards and...” She shook her head.

He said, “It’s been a year since I’ve tasted opium.”

“I know that. I’m not really worried about that.”

“Not at all?”

“Not much. I just don’t see the point to going so far away. There are gaming hells aplenty right here in Boston, if that’s what you want. And you’d still have...”
Me.
“Gracie. And, and the medical school...Isaac, Max...”

He smiled. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little torn about the trip myself. Traveling like that...it’s a wretched life, really.”

“Then why do it?”

“Because being here...” He glanced at her, sighed. “In some ways, it’s even more wretched.”

As she was trying to compose a response to that, he said, “If you really think it would be best for me to stay, I could probably be persuaded.”

“How?” she asked. “Reason doesn’t seem to work.”

“A kiss might.”

She stared at him. The afternoon sun ignited his eyes, giving them a strangely golden radiance.

“Just one.” He said softly. “I won’t ask for a second. Ever. I promise. And I’ll remain in Boston, and we can go on as before.”

Her face was as hot as a pan of coals, but he didn’t tease her about it, as he normally would. He just looked at her, very quietly, waiting for her answer.

“I don’t—” She looked away and cleared her throat. “I don’t think that would be very wise.”

“Wisdom is overrated.”

“I’m a married woman, Will.”

“Are you honestly trying to tell me you owe fidelity to a man who once nearly killed you? You should have divorced him years ago.”

“My fidelity isn’t to Duncan, it’s to the Church. If I were to divorce him and remarry, I’d be excommunicated.”

“From the Catholic church.” Will closed a hand around her arm, leaning in close. “Not from God.”

This was the first time she’d heard him speak of God as more than an abstract, somewhat archaic concept.

“The Church...” she began. “You don’t understand. When I was at my lowest point, it helped me to remake myself into the person I wanted to be. It’s been my bulwark.”

“It’s been your crutch, Nell. Perhaps it’s time to set it aside.”

“You want me to turn my back on my faith?”

“I want what’s best for you, and what’s best is to divorce Duncan. Then, if you ever choose to remarry, and you
are
excommunicated, it will be the
Church
turning its back on you, not God.” In a low, earnest voice, Will said, “God would never forsake you. You must know that.”

Nell was stunned into silence not just by the content of this speech—Will Hewitt sounding almost like a believer—but by the passion with which he’d delivered it.

Looking down at his hand on her arm, he apparently realized how tightly he was gripping her, and released his hold. He stood, dragged his hands through his hair, and said, “I’ve distressed you. I didn’t mean to. I apologize.”

Will walked down the path to the house, pausing in the doorway with one hand on the jamb. He stood there with his back to her for a moment, then turned, and with a somber little smile, said, “You’re probably right about this kiss. I’m a selfish cur, or I never would have asked. Please forget I did.”

“Miss Sweeney and Dr. Hewitt to see Mrs. Wallace,” said Will as he handed his card to the young parlor maid who answered their knock at Sophie Wallace’s Pemberton Square townhouse the following morning. The maid invited them to wait in the imposing, marble-and-mahogany front hall while she went toward the back of the house fetch her mistress.

She retreated down a long, dimly lit corridor toward a man whom Nell took to be the butler, clean-shaven as he was, and dressed all in black, save for a gray silk cravat. As she was about to pass him, he halted her with a softspoken, “One moment, Colleen.” He took the card from her, withdrew a pair of spectacles from inside his coat, and read it.

Looking up, he removed the spectacles and regarded Nell and Will curiously for a moment, then strode toward them, Colleen close on his heels. “I say, have we met? I’m Frederick Wallace.”

F. Wallace — 3:30

He moved out and initiated divorce proceedings...made quite an ass of himself in the dining room of the Parker House night before last....

Freddie Wallace was middle-aged and of average build, with smallish eyes, a candlewax pallor, and wetly oiled hair somewhere in that dreary borderland between brown and gray. He had a slightly nasal voice pitched high, making him seem younger than his appearance would suggest.

Extending his hand, Will said, “I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure. William Hewitt.” With a nod toward Nell, he said, “And this is Miss Cornelia Sweeney. We’re looking into the circumstances surrounding the death of your late client, Mr. Philip Munro.”

Wallace’s eyebrows quirked, almost imperceptibly; otherwise his bland expression remained unchanged. “Terrible thing. Ghastly. He, er... I was under the impression Munro...put an end to himself.”

Choosing his words with obvious care, Will said, “The matter must be investigated before a final determination can be made. As I was the surgeon who performed the post-mortem on Mr. Munro, it falls to me to make the necessary inquiries.”

Wallace nodded slowly, his eyes, like beads of blue glass, trained on Will. “And your purpose in calling on my wife?”

Will hesitated, clearly at a loss as to how to answer that.
We understand she’d been banging the deceased
would be a bit indelicate.

Leaping in with the first thing that came to her, Nell said, “Actually, Mr. Wallace, it was you we’d wanted to speak to, but, well, it was our understanding that you no longer reside here. We came here in hopes of learning your current address.”

Will graced her with a near smile that meant she’d impressed him, then turned to Wallace with an expectant expression—as did the parlor maid, who’d been following the conversation with poorly concealed interest.

“Ah.” Wallace’s head bobbed slightly, as if he were a marionette whose puppet master had just a touch of palsy. “I, er, yes. I...well...I reside here now. Again. That is, I was away for a couple of weeks. Business, you know. But I’m back, so...” He twitched his shoulders, his lips pressed into a thin smile. “You need look no further.”

“Excellent,” Will said. “Then if you could indulge us for a few—“

“Unfortunately,” said Wallace as lifted a black bowler and a walking stick from a console table next to the door, “as I have an eleven o’clock meeting at the State House, this interview will have to take place at some more convenient time. If you’d care to make an appointment with my secretary—” he produced a card and handed it to Will “—I suspect I can accommodate you before the end of the week.”

“I’m afraid our inquiries can’t wait that long,” Will said. “If you could spare a few minutes right now—“

“Punctuality is a virtue that I have cultivated with some effort over the years, Dr. Hewitt. I’m sorry, but—“

“Are you always punctual?” Nell asked.

Wallace looked affronted, or perhaps merely surprised, by the question. “Yes. As a matter of fact, I am.”

“You were on time, then, for your three-thirty appointment with Philip Munro Friday afternoon?”

Wallace looked down, plucked a pair of gray kid gloves out of the derby, and donned the hat, adjusting it just so. “That appointment, as you are no doubt aware, never occurred. By the time I arrived, Mr. Munro had already—“

“We know,” Will said. “You were the one who found him on the front steps. According to his calendar, you were due at three-thirty, but his body was actually discovered ten minutes later, at three-forty.”

Wallace tucked the walking stick under his arm and pulled on one of the gloves, scowling. “If I were prepared for this conversation, perhaps I could have the information you seek at my fingertips, so once again, I urge you to contact my secretary and—”

“If you
had
been on time,” Will persisted, “I imagine you would have climbed the service stairs to Munro’s office, where you would have found him waiting for you. You would have...done whatever it was you’d gone there to do, and left as you came, through the back door. But suppose you’d then returned to your buggy, which you would have parked, say, in an alley off the kitchen yard, and driven ‘round to the front of the house—only to encounter Mr. Munro’s body on the front steps at about three-forty.”

“I’m not quite sure I know what your point is, Dr. Hewitt, and I’m not sure I want to.” Pulling on the other glove rather jerkily, Wallace said, “It’s a four minute walk to the State House. If I leave immediately, I might still be there on time. Miss Sweeney...Dr. Hewitt.” He bowed curtly to Nell and Will, then turned toward the front door, which the maid scurried to open for him.

Will said, “Do you recall the incident Thursday night at the Parker House, Mr. Wallace?”

Wallace glared at him from the open doorway, clearly at a loss for words.

“I’m asking whether you recall,” Will continued, “because, as I understand it—”

“I’d had a bit too much wine with dinner,” Wallace said tightly. “As I’m unused to strong drink, it went to my head. Surely, Dr. Hewitt, there have been times in your own life that you would prefer not to be forced to relive.”

“More than you can possibly imagine. I understand you accused Mr. Munro of...indiscretions with Mrs. Wallace.”

Colleen’s eyes widened as she held the door open; there would be no end of whispering and giggling in the servants’ quarters tonight.

“I was inebriated,” Wallace said. “And...laboring under a misapprehension. To say I regret the incident would be the height of understatement.”

Nell said, “By ‘misapprehension,’ do you mean—”

“This conversation is over. Good day.”

Nell and Will watched from the front stoop as Wallace half-walked, half-jogged south, toward Beacon Street and the State House. As soon as he was out of sight, they turned back and knocked on the front door.

Handing a second card to the befuddled Colleen, Will said, “Mrs. Wallace, if you please.”

*   *   *

“We’ve reconciled, Freddie and I.” Sophie Wallace raised her demitasse to her mouth, pursing her lightly rouged lips to blow on it as she eyed Will over the rim of the diminutive cup. Reclining on a fainting couch in her drawing room, her morning dress of green silk gauze rippling onto the floor, pale ringlets framing a pretty if timeworn face, she put Nell in mind of Cleopatra on her barge.

Unlike her husband, Sophie had been perfectly willing to speak to them. It didn’t hurt that Will had disingenuously asked her for “anything you might be able to tell us about your husband’s client who passed away Friday afternoon. Mr. Wallace was in a hurry to make a meeting, so we thought perhaps you might indulge us...?” It also didn’t hurt, Nell knew, that Will was a tall, darkly handsome, seductively charming Englishman.