Let the Dead Keep Their Secrets Read online

  One of the desk drawers was locked. She picked it open, studied the contents so she would know how to replace them, then lifted them out and placed them on the leather blotter. A bundle of letters bound with a clerk’s black ribbon, a narrow ledger, a sheaf of documents stuffed into a large brown envelope. Odds and ends that made no sense. A woman’s pearl ring, a gold stickpin, a pocket watch with an inscription she could not make out in the dim light. A folding clasp knife, a silver cigar cutter, an empty leather card case.

  She set the small objects aside and opened the ledger, paging through it as slowly as she dared. It seemed to be a record of gambling wins and losses identified by date, place, and initials. U and L obviously referred to the Union and Lotos, where Geoffrey and Ned Hayes had followed Aaron Sorensen and watched him attempting to cheat his fellow club members. But there were entries that Prudence could not connect to any of the gentlemen’s clubs she had ever read about in the social columns of the New York newspapers. One had the letter P next to it, as though Sorensen had begun to write another word, then stopped because it wasn’t necessary. Philadelphia? Ethel had been born and raised in Philadelphia; her father still resided there. Could he have taken Aaron to his club sometime?

  Empty pages were followed by another type of entry. This time the description lines listed items of furniture and artwork. Paintings, sculptures, handwoven Turkish rugs, bolts of French silk for the walls of a lady’s boudoir. Fainting couches, fauteuils, tables inlaid with ivory and ebony, Chinese vases, crystal chandeliers, and gold candelabra.

  Running down the length of each page were two columns of figures, the price Sorensen paid for each article and the total for which he sold it. There was such an enormous disparity between the two sums that Prudence felt certain she was looking at a list of his fraudulent sales, of the cons he had managed to put over on Americans willing to pay exorbitant amounts for imported European culture. She would have liked to have found a listing of Georgina Langston’s yellow silk upholstered Louis XV fauteuils, but she didn’t dare take the time to search for a specific item.

  All of the letters had been sent to the main New York City Post Office, and none of them bore return addresses. The handwriting on most of the envelopes was decidedly feminine, the contents unremarkably maudlin, until she came to the most recently dated note. This one she read through closely from beginning to close, then set it aside to copy. Though penned in a woman’s hand, it was formal, businesslike, and devoid of the protestations of undying love and longing she had expected to find. The writer mentioned a financial request Aaron had stipulated as a condition of their agreement. She assured him that she would soon be contacting her bank on his behalf. She hoped that would settle matters between them once and for all. Prudence thought it sounded as though one of his attempted conquests had gone wrong.

  The brown envelope held bank statements, bundles of canceled checks, records of transfers and sales of property. One marriage certificate. One death certificate. Neither had been filled out. She settled down to copy the letter she had read onto a piece of monogrammed stationery. Then a page of gambling debts, another of sales of forged antiquities.

  The long case clock in the foyer chimed four. How could the time have passed so quickly? She had been in the study long enough, had copied a dozen names and addresses from documents she didn’t dare take. On impulse Prudence slipped the gold stickpin and the pearl ring into her skirt pocket. If Sorensen realized they were gone, there was a good chance he’d believe a dismissed servant had taken them. She made sure the drawer looked exactly as it had when she first opened it, then closed and locked it again. A quick glance into the remaining drawers told her they contained nothing of interest.

  Four o’clock in the morning. The servants would be getting up soon; she had to leave.

  Poor Ethel.

  * * *

  “I don’t think I’ll ever want to face her again,” Prudence told Geoffrey later that morning. “Running out on her the way I did.”

  “I think you made a very wise decision,” he told her. “It sounds to me as though she was expecting her husband home momentarily. There’s no telling what unpleasantness you might have had to endure if he’d taken it into his head to blame you for any newfound independence Ethel might have been reaching for. He’s a thief, a swindler, and very possibly a murderer.”

  “He may also be a bigamist. The letter I copied suggests that he’s begun courting Ethel’s replacement. And there were communications from at least five or six other women in that bundle. That’s why he stays away for two weeks at a time and refuses to tell her where he’s going or how to reach him. Some of the entries in the ledger book pointed to recent sales.”

  “What about your Mrs. Langston’s fauteuils?”

  “I didn’t have time to search for them. My guess is that she may have bought some items from Sorensen, but the fauteuils could have come from a competitor in the forgery business. Maybe someone who gave her a better price.”

  “This stickpin has what looks like a date on the back,” Josiah said. “Is it too much to hope that whoever purchased it for our Don Juan bought it in New York?” He passed the small piece of men’s jewelry to Geoffrey.

  “Claire might know if Catherine gave it to him as a gift.”

  “Too easy. And I’m not sure the date works for that marriage,” Geoffrey commented. “Even with Josiah’s magnifying glass I can’t make it out. It’s too worn, as if someone fingered it over a number of years. Rubbed the edges smooth, so I can’t tell if I’m looking at a three or an eight. The ring should be easier to trace. It’s definitely a woman’s item, and it’s newer. The jeweler who created it might still be in business. It’ll take legwork to find him, but it’s not an impossible task.”

  Josiah went into the outer office to answer a knock on the door. They heard him speak to someone and then the rattle of the petty-cash box. One of Geoffrey’s small army of informants was being paid for something he’d found out.

  “Sorensen arrived home this morning, just a few hours after you’d left,” Josiah reported. “A hansom cab driver passed the information on to Danny Dennis. The cabby picked him up at the station about when the early train from Philadelphia pulls in. He was carrying one small bag and a leather case.”

  “He’s sure about the arrival time?”

  “He told Danny the man was hurrying, so he figured he’d just gotten off a train and was getting out of the station as fast as he could. The time was right for the Philadelphia train.”

  “He didn’t happen to leave a ticket stub in the cab, did he?” Prudence asked.

  “No, miss. I think that only happens in novels.”

  “One can always hope.”

  “What else could he tell us?” Geoffrey asked.

  “He didn’t ring the bell for the butler. Opened the front door with his own key. The cabby left a boy on the scene and told him to stay until somebody ordered him otherwise.”

  “Is Danny downstairs?”

  “Waiting at the curb. He thought you might need him and Mr. Washington this morning.”

  “Tell him to keep a boy outside the Sorensen house until further notice. Rotate them every few hours and make sure they change their caps and jackets so somebody doesn’t wonder why the same runner is hanging around with nothing better to do than walk up and down with his hands in his pockets.” Geoffrey got up from the desk and reached for his overcoat.

  “Where are you going?” Prudence looked a little the worse for wear after her sleepless night, but she wasn’t about to admit feeling tired.

  “I think it’s time to track down the midwife and the doctor you told us about. And I need to talk to Ned Hayes.”

  “I can have Danny take me to Dr. Worthington’s office. He may have the information we want. But Ethel isn’t due for another month, Geoffrey.” She didn’t understand why he suddenly seemed in such a hurry.

  “In the South, the daughters of tenant farmers who get caught use pennyroyal or slippery elm to abort themsel
ves,” Geoffrey said. He didn’t add that many of them died along with their unwanted infants. Nor did he comment on how he knew what desperate young women swallowed to induce a miscarriage.

  “Ethel wouldn’t be aware of it if someone slipped something extra into her drink,” Prudence said, following the deadly logic of what Geoffrey was suggesting. “She doses herself with an expectant mother’s concoction that probably has laudanum in it. It’s bound to be bitter. She wouldn’t notice another herbal taste, but a premature birth might very well kill her at the same time as the child.”

  “Her husband won’t profit unless Ethel’s father dies and leaves his fortune to his daughter free and clear,” protested Josiah.

  “What was Sorensen doing in Philadelphia?” Geoffrey asked.

  No one answered.

  CHAPTER 16

  Dr. Peter Worthington had been the MacKenzie family doctor for almost thirty years. He’d delivered Prudence, taken care of her mother during her slow decline and death from consumption, and been both close friend and physician to the late Judge MacKenzie.

  He’d never forgiven himself for recommending that Prudence take laudanum to help her cope with her father’s passing and then her fiancé’s death during the Great Blizzard. For so many females it was the only way to deal with deep sorrow and loss. But for the young woman he thought of as almost a daughter, the drug had induced a dependence that had all the earmarks of the addiction suffered by so many wounded veterans of the war.

  She had beaten the awful reliance on laudanum, but not without a terrible struggle and the knowledge that she would never be entirely free of it. So easy to slip into the dream state, where sharp edges blurred into comfortable roundness and the gift of sleep was long and deep.

  Now, as he looked at her across his desk, Worthington saw in her face both the determined strength of her father and the warmth of her beautiful mother. He smiled, and then he sighed. The last time Prudence MacKenzie had sat in that chair she’d been seeking proof that her father had been murdered. He remembered the relentless questioning, the challenge she issued that he could not meet. There had been no physical indications that Thomas MacKenzie had died of anything but a massive heart attack. Whatever suspicions he might have had about what brought on the attack, Peter Worthington had had no choice but to insist to the judge’s daughter that her father’s death was a natural one.

  “Her name is Mrs. Emerson, and as recently as a year ago, she was acting as a midwife,” Prudence said. “I hoped you might have heard of her.”

  “I’ve worked with midwives, of course. Every doctor has. But I don’t recall that name, and certainly nothing within the last year or two. Let me ask my nurse. She keeps a list of midwives and baby nurses that we sometimes recommend to patients. They have to have proven themselves or we won’t propose them.”

  “We don’t have a long list,” the nurse said, showing Prudence the register. “I mostly keep it in case the doctor is tied up with another patient and the mother needs someone with her if he doesn’t make it on time.”

  “I don’t think I’ve missed birthing one of my ladies more than a handful of times in all the years I’ve been practicing,” Dr. Worthington commented.

  “Better to be safe than sorry.” The nurse, who was also his sister and housekeeper, pursed her lips.

  “I can’t help you with the midwife, but I do know Dr. Norbert. Knew him, that is. He died about three months ago, of old age and irascibility. The man practiced medicine right up to the last few days he was on his feet, though I don’t know that I would have gone to him myself at that point with anything more serious than a hangnail.”

  “He was old? Perhaps past his prime?”

  “Ancient, my dear. Deaf as a post, thick spectacles, and tremors in both hands. But his patients were loyal to a fault. He’d been a marvelous diagnostician in his time, and that talent never deserted him. He claimed he could tell a woman was in the family way just by glancing at her eyes. I don’t know how he did it, but he was never wrong.”

  “Would he have known if a patient was in danger of not surviving her confinement? Say, a year ago.”

  “He wasn’t at his best, but he wouldn’t have misread the signs. His decline was precipitous. Very noticeably so.”

  “Suspiciously rapid?”

  “Prudence, not every death is a murder.” Peter Worthington’s eyes twinkled. “Unless you’re the one asking questions about it.”

  “Did he leave a widow? Perhaps a son who took over his practice?”

  “His wife died in childbirth. Forty years ago. It was her only pregnancy.”

  “How tragic.”

  “He had a nephew who came into the practice about the time Norbert’s tremors made it difficult for him to hold an instrument.” Dr. Worthington scribbled a name and address on a piece of paper. “Here. I’ll tell him you’re asking questions on my behalf.” He added a few lines, then signed his name.

  “That’s very considerate of you, Doctor.”

  “I think it best to get out of your way when you have that resolute look in your eye, Prudence.”

  He was immensely proud of her.

  * * *

  Young Dr. Norbert declared himself more than happy to accommodate Miss MacKenzie. The histories of deceased patients were kept separate from the files of the living, a nicety he was sure she appreciated. In this case it meant a bit of a wait while his nurse retrieved Catherine Sorensen’s information. Would Miss MacKenzie care for tea while they waited?

  “How long did you have the opportunity to practice with your uncle before his death?” Prudence asked politely.

  “Not nearly long enough. He was a truly gifted healer, though his medical education was initially sketchy. He said he learned more in the field hospitals of the war than from any lecture he ever attended.”

  “Some doctors specialize.”

  “He didn’t, though he gravitated toward the care and healing of women after my aunt’s death. He never recovered from losing her.”

  “Will you specialize, Dr. Norbert?”

  “I am moving in that direction, Miss MacKenzie, though I won’t abandon any of the patients I inherited from my uncle.” His face flushed, he changed position in his armchair, and straightened an already impeccably aligned cravat. “I am particularly interested in the treatment of hysteria, which I studied in England and Germany.”

  Before she could ask him to explain exactly what hysteria was, and how it could be treated, the nurse returned with a thin brown cardboard folder. The word Deceased had been written across it in thick strokes of black ink.

  “If you’ll just give me a moment to read through these notes,” Dr. Norbert said, opening the folder and skimming the first sheet of paper. “Uncle kept meticulous records.”

  From where she sat, Prudence could see even rows of fine copperplate handwriting filling page after page, gradually becoming shaky, spiky, and difficult to decipher.

  Norbert read rapidly until he reached the final pages. He copied a few words and then whole sentences, frowning over what he was writing. “I assume you want something more definitive than just a description of what my uncle wrote. I regret that I can’t let you have the entire dossier.”

  “Catherine Sorensen and her child are dead.”

  “They are. Most regrettably so. However, her widower is still with us, and I daresay he would not appreciate his late wife’s most private moments being shared. I’m only giving you what I am because Peter Worthington requested that I do so.”

  “And doctors feel free to talk to one another?”

  “Not as much as we probably should, but from time to time we do share interesting or baffling cases.” Norbert folded his hands across Catherine’s medical record. “I’ll summarize in layman’s terms what my uncle wrote.” He glanced occasionally at the notes he had jotted down for Prudence, but for the most part he spoke from memory.

  “Mrs. Sorensen was a healthy woman who had come through her pregnancy with few if any concerns. When
her husband mentioned that she complained of swollen ankles, bouts of indigestion, and severe fatigue, my uncle advised confinement to bed, a restricted diet, and a few drops of laudanum in the evening to allow her to fall asleep more easily. He expected her to deliver without complications and make a good recovery. The baby’s heartbeat was strong, and its position in the womb where it should be. He wasn’t anticipating any problems there, either.”

  “So what happened?” Prudence asked impatiently.

  “He writes that he doesn’t know and that he is quite perturbed at being shut out by Mr. Sorensen. It appears that mother and child died sometime during the night, after my uncle had left. The midwife remained behind, but only because the woman said it was late and she preferred spending the night to going out into the streets at that hour. There was no medical reason that required her continued presence. Mrs. Sorensen delivered a week earlier than expected, but the baby nurse had already been hired and was to arrive in a day or so. A telegram could have been sent to hasten her coming.”

  “Your uncle wasn’t called in the next day to examine the bodies?”

  “A photographer and the mortician had done their work before he was notified of the deaths. I think he was very angry, Miss MacKenzie. There are ink spatters throughout the last paragraph he wrote.”

  “This is a delicate question to ask, Dr. Norbert. Does your uncle say or intimate that there was anything unusual or suspicious about the Sorensen deaths?” She took one of the Hunter and MacKenzie, Investigative Law calling cards from her reticule and laid it on the desk.

  “Dr. Worthington said nothing in his note about an investigation into dubious circumstances.”

  “We are in the very early stage of our inquiry,” Prudence explained. “Questions have been raised, and we are attempting to answer them.”

  Dr. Norbert opened the file folder and read through the final two pages of notes again. “I detect anger, but not suspicion. He would never have signed the death certificates if he had any doubt about the cause of death. But he was furious at being excluded until after the bodies had been coffined. I gather he knew the lady’s family well and had been their physician for many years.”