Wait Until Midnight

THIRTY-FIVE

The neighborhood where Bess Whaley had sought to hide was not in the stews, but neither was it a comfortable place at this hour of the night. Adam instructed Ned to halt the carriage in the street some distance from the address he sought. He did not want to risk waking Whaley prematurely with the rattle of wheels and hooves.

"You understand what I want you to do?" he said to Ned, assisting Caroline down from the carriage.

"Aye, sir."

Adam looked at Caroline. "Are you sure you want to come with me?"

"We have been through this often enough, Adam. I am coming with you" She bent down to make certain the long skirts of her gown were hooked up and securely fastened.

He smiled slightly, admiration welling up inside him. Caroline's spirit drew him the way expensive perfume might draw another man. Which was not to say that she did not also possess a most unique and delightful fragrance, he thought, amused by his own bemusement.

Following the plan that he had hurriedly concocted en route to Bess Whaley's lodgings, he guided Caroline down a narrow walk into the alley that ran behind the building. He counted off the small gardens until they came to the one that guarded the rear door of Whaley's new address.

It was no trick at all to get inside the gate. He and Caroline went to stand in the deep shadows near the back door and waited.

A short time later the carriage clattered loudly in the street in front of the address. Ned had followed orders to the letter. A moment later Adam heard the distant thud that meant that Ned had knocked on the front door.

There was a long pause. Adam wondered if he had miscalculated.

Hurried footsteps sounded in the back hall. The kitchen door opened abruptly. There was enough moonlight to make out the figure of a woman garbed in a robe and slippers rushing out of the house into the garden.

"Bess Whaley, I presume?" Adam said, moving into her path.

Bess stifled a small screech and floundered to a halt. "Get away from me" Raw fear laced her words. "Get away, I say. Please don't hurt me. I'll never say a word"

"Calm yourself, Bess," Caroline said gently. "I am Mrs. Fordyce. You remember me, don't you?"

Bess swung — around. "Mrs. Fordyce? Is it really you, ma'am?"

"Yes. And this is my assistant, Mr. Grove. You remember him from the séance, don't you?"

"What are you two doing here?"

"We want to help you," Caroline said soothingly.

"I don't understand" Bess peered more closely at Adam. "When I heard the carriage in the street, I was sure it was either him or the police, and I didn't know which was worse, to tell you the truth. I've been so afraid that one or the other would find me"

Caroline took her hand and led her back toward the door. "We must talk. Let us go inside out of the cold."

Adam sat at the small, scarred kitchen table with a shaken Bess Whaley. Caroline had lit a lamp and immediately be-come very busy with the kettle and some mugs. He wondered if she realized what a rare sight she made, bustling around these humble surroundings in her elegant ball gown and dainty shoes. If so, she gave no sign. Rather, she seemed to have made herself right at home, as though offering a comforting cup of tea to the former housekeeper and assistant of a fraudulent medium was not the least out of the ordinary.

"You say you're trying to find the person who killed Mrs. Delmont and Mrs. Toller?" Bess's heavy features skewed into an expression of uneasy confusion.

"He is a very dangerous person, Bess," Adam said. "It will be better for everyone involved if he is found as soon as possible."

"But you don't understand," Bess said again for what must have been the fifth or sixth time. The words were fast becoming a litany.

"Then you must explain everything to us, Bess." Caroline put tea leaves into the pot. "It is important that you tell 1 us what you know of this matter."

"You can start by telling us why you ran away after Mrs. Toller was murdered," Adam said. "Did you see the killer? Are you afraid that he saw you?"

"No" Bess hesitated. "I didn't see him. Not exactly. I found Mrs. Toller's body very early the next morning when I arrived to start my chores. The séance room was in a shambles, but I knew straight off it was no housebreaker or thief who had killed her, because none of the valuables had gone missing."

"A very clever observation," Adam said.

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." Bess clutched the lapels of her wrapper. "When I found her, Mrs. Toller was still wearing the gown she'd worn to conduct the séance. The front door was unlocked"

"Was it, indeed?" Adam asked softly.

Bess looked at him with anguished eyes. "She'd been expecting him, you see."

At the stove, Caroline went very still. "Who was she expecting, Bess?"

"Her lover, of course" Bess shrugged. "She always sent me away on the nights when he was to come to her. He hadn't been around much in the past few weeks but she was expecting him that night, I'm sure of it."

"Who is he, Bess?" Adam asked. The warning look he got from Caroline told him that he had spoken too roughly.

Bess's eyes widened in renewed alarm. "I told you, I don't know, sir. I swear I don't. I never saw him. Not once. They were very secretive. She said he insisted on it."

"Here's your tea, Bess" Caroline glided over to the table, silk skirts swaying gently, and set the full mug in front of Bess. "I put some sugar and milk in it for you."

Distracted, Bess stopped clutching her wrapper and gripped the mug in both hands instead. She stared at the tea

as though she had never seen anything like it before in her life.

"Thank you, ma'am," Bess whispered.

Caroline put a mug in front of Adam and then sat down across from Bess. "Take your time, Bess. There is no need to rush. You say you don't know the identity of Mrs. Toller's lover?"

"No, ma'am." Bess took a tentative sip of tea. It seemed to steady her. "He insisted that she be alone when he came to call. He was very strict about it."

"How did Mrs. Toller know what nights he would call on her?" he asked Bess.

Bess appeared baffled. "I don't know, sir. She just knew." "He didn't send a message to the house alerting her?" Caroline asked.

Bess pressed her lips together very tightly and shook her head. "None that I ever saw."

"But you believe that he was there the night she died and that he was the one who murdered her?" Adam asked.

"All I know for certain is that he was supposed to visit that evening." Bess swallowed more tea. "She was angry with him. I expect they quarreled and he killed her."

Adam leaned forward slightly, watching Bess's face in the flaring lamplight. "How do you know that Mrs. Toller was angry with him?"

"I've worked for her for years. I got to know her ways quite well. Started out as her housekeeper and eventually took on the duties of her assistant. She felt she could trust me, you see."

"You helped her stage the tricks that made her séances look real," Adam stated.

Bess heaved a sigh. "It was a good position. I'm going to miss it. Not likely I'll find another that pays as well, and that's a fact"

Caroline eased her mug aside. "Do you know why Mrs. Toller was angry with her lover?"

Bess snorted. "For the oldest reason in the world." Caroline's brows rose. "She discovered that he was cheating on her?"

"Yes, ma'am." Bess drank more tea. "And with her competition, at that."

Adam set his mug down hard. "Elizabeth Delmont."

"Yes, sir." Bess shook her head sadly. "Made Mrs. Toller cry for days, it did. Then she went all cold and fiercelike. I knew she was planning something, but I reckoned she in-tended to confront her lover and tell him she wouldn't put up with his cheating. I swear it never occurred to me that she meant to do what she did."

Another link in the chain snapped into place. Adam watched Bess's face closely.

"Irene Toller murdered Elizabeth Delmont, didn't she?" he said.

"Yes, sir," Bess said. Her voice was barely above a whisper. She contemplated her unfinished tea. "I never let on that I knew. I didn't dare. I kept my mouth shut and did my work like nothing had ever happened."

"How did you reason it out?" Caroline asked.

"Mrs. Toller sent me away that night, too. At first I assumed that her lover would be paying her a visit. But when I arrived at the house the next morning, I realized that he hadn't been there."

"How did you know that?" Adam asked.

Bess raised one shoulder in a matter-of-fact manner. "A housekeeper sees things that others don't notice. Mrs. Toller

and her friend had been getting together on special evenings for a few months. They had their habits?

"Such as?" Caroline asked.

"Little things. She kept a bottle of his favorite brandy on hand. It was their custom to drink some before they got down to their more personal business. The glasses they used were always left out on the table in the parlor. But there were no glasses the morning after Mrs. Delmont was murdered"

"What else was different?" Adam asked.

"Mrs. Toller was in her dressing gown when I arrived that day but she was acting very strange. I thought perhaps she was suffering from an attack of nerves or the like. And her bed was made up. She never would have made her own bed. I don't think she slept at all that night. But the thing that chilled me to my bones was what I found in her wardrobe?

"What was it?" Caroline asked.

"It wasn't what was there, it was what was missing." Bess looked knowing. "Her new gown was gone. It was her favorite. Very expensive it was, too. He had paid for it. A dress like that just doesn't up and vanish?

Caroline tensed. "What happened to it?"

"I asked her that very question? Bess folded her hands on the table and bowed her head. "Mrs. Toller told me that it had been ruined the previous day when a passing carriage had splashed mud all over it. She told me that she had sent it off to a charity house. But I knew that wasn't the truth. She had never given so much as a penny to any charity as long as I had known her. She said they were all frauds."

"What do you think happened to the dress?" Caroline asked.

"She hid it in one of the secret compartments in the séance room," Bess said tightly. "I found it quite by accident when I was straightening up the chamber for the séance that you two attended. I couldn't understand what it was doing in the secret cupboard. Then I saw all the dried blood on the skirts. I knew right off what Mrs. Toller had done. I was scared to death, I can tell you"

"I don't blame you." Caroline shuddered.

"Yes, ma'am." Bess sighed. "Knew I'd likely have to look for another position."

"What did you do with the dress?" Adam asked.

"Put it straight back into the cupboard and pretended I never saw a thing." Bess shrugged. "Doubt if she had a chance to get rid of it before she was killed. It's probably still there unless the police found it."

They sat for a while, drinking the tea and watching one another in the light of the flaring lamp.

He studied the frightened woman. "You told us that you ran away the morning you found Mrs. Toller's body be-cause you feared both the killer and the police."

"Yes, sir," she said glumly. "I was terrified that the police would think I'd killed Mrs. Toller because we'd argued about my wages. The neighbors heard us. But I was also afraid that her lover might decide that I knew too much about their business and come after me"

Adam gripped the mug more tightly. "Business? Do you refer to the fraudulent investment schemes Mrs. Toller operated?"

"You know about those, do you?" Bess looked more miserable than ever. "Right you are, sir. That's why Mrs. Toller and I quarreled, you see. I figured out that something quite profitable was going on and that she was sharing the income with him. I told her that since I was assisting her, I deserved a portion of the profits. She warned me to keep lent. Threatened to let me go without a reference. I told

her that if she did, I'd expose her tricks. It was a very heated argument and I expect some of the neighbors heard the shouting."

"I have a few more questions for you, Bess," Adam said. "And then I am going to give you enough money to take the train to wherever you wish and stay there until we have found Mrs. Toller's killer and turned him over to the police."

For the first time Bess looked cautiously hopeful. "That's very kind of you, sir. What more do you want to know?"

"Do you have any notion of why Mrs. Toller's lover murdered her?"

Bess hesitated. "I've been thinking about that. I expect it was because he knew that she had murdered Mrs. Delmont and was afraid of what she might do next in her great rage. Perhaps he feared she might expose him and the in-vestment scheme. Like I told you, whoever he is, he's a very secretive sort."

"Would you please tell me exactly what you saw when you found Mrs. Toller's body?" Adam asked.

Bess gave that some close consideration. "There was a lot of blood. He'd bashed in her skull, you see. She was lying on her back. There was a pocket watch on the floor beside

her. The room was in a shambles. I remember thinking

that it was just like the way Mrs. Delmont's death had been described in the papers. That seemed odd because I knew that Mrs. Toller, not her lover, had killed Mrs. Delmont. Couldn't understand why he went to all that trouble to make it look the same."

"Was there anything else on or near the body that seemed unusual?" Adam asked. "Some type of mourning jewelry or a veil, for instance?"

Bess's brow furrowed. "No, sir. I didn't see anything like that."

"One last question, Bess," Adam said. "Were you the who sent the messages summoning Mrs. Fordyce and to Mrs. Toller's house the morning after the murder?" Bess looked quite blank. "No, sir. I didn't send any mess. I was too busy packing my things and trying to find place to hide."

Caroline got into the carriage and sat down across from

Adam. She was feeling decidedly odd, an unsettling mix of excitement and exhaustion, she concluded. She tried to pull her scattered thoughts into some semblance of order. "If Bess is correct, then it would seem that Mrs. Toller did ed kill Elizabeth Delmont in a jealous rage," she said. t it was not professional jealousy that drove her; rather, it the more traditional, personal sort. She had discovered that her lover had betrayed her with another woman" "Yes." Adam lounged moodily in the shadows. "Toller must have been the one who left the wedding veil, the shed watch and the mourning brooch at the scene of Delmont's death. The question is why?"

"Perhaps those items had some symbolic meaning for her. But in that case, who removed them?"

Adam looked at her from the shadows. "The lover who s also the business partner? He may well have planned a tryst with Delmont that same night. If so, he would have found the veil and the brooch with the body, just as I did.

' Perhaps he feared that if the police discovered them, they

would raise questions that he did not want answered." "Because those answers might have implicated him in

some fashion?"

"It is the only possibility that seems logical, at least at this moment."

Caroline couldn't help herself. She patted a small yawn. "What do you intend to do now?"

"I am going to take you home and then I am going to get some sleep. It has been a very long night"