Indigo Christmas (28 page)

“I did better than that,” said Patrick with satisfaction. “I brought it home with me.” He reached into his breast pocket, got out the billfold, and handed it to Hilda.

“Ooh! I did not think the police would let you have it.”

“They've decided it had nothin' to do with the fire, so there was no reason to hold onto it. I stopped by the jail and told Sean I had it and he'd get it back as soon as he's walkin' free again.”

Hilda was examining the billfold. “I can see why Sean wanted it. It is dirty and a little worn, but it is very good leather. It will last for a long time yet. And I think the police are wrong to say it is not important. It does not tie Sean to the fire, of course, but it might be a clue to someone else.” She took it to the gas fixture on the wall and squinted. “I think there have been initials on it, here, but they are nearly gone.”

“I couldn't make anything of them meself. Better wait until the mornin' light.”

Hilda sighed. “I suppose so. I wanted to know now.”

“I don't see why you're carryin' on about that billfold. It never belonged to the hired man, that's certain. No hired man ever carried a fine thing like that.”

“You are right about that. I do not know why the police were so stupid as to think it might have been Mr. Jenkins's. But someone carried it, Patrick. Someone lost it. oh!” She clapped a hand to her head. “I should have asked Mrs. Miller if her husband had lost a billfold.”

“Mrs. Miller? Husband? What're ye talkin' about?”

So she told him about her morning. “And I was so surprised to see her there that I forgot to ask about the billfold. And I could not ask about the mortgage.”

Patrick whistled. “Ye did well to remember anything at all. That's a turn-up for the books, Old Man Miller married. Well, in the mornin' when you can look proper, you can maybe see if the initials could be his. I don't know what his Christian name is.”

“Mrs. Miller called him Walter.”

“It'll probably turn out to be WM on the billfold, then. We'll know tomorrow. Meanwhile, I can tell you a bit about the mortgage. I asked Uncle Dan about it this afternoon.”

“Uncle Dan? Why would he know about Mr. Miller's mortgage?”

“Well, he doesn't, not to say know. But he keeps a weather eye on the finances around town, as ye might say. He has to. A merchant can't sell fancy goods when a town's havin' hard times, but folks as are doin' all right don't want plain goods. So he has to trim his sails, like. So I asked him whether he knew where Miller did his bankin'. I thought he might, seein' as Miller's been the subject of a good deal of conversation just lately. And he said he'd heard it was Farmer's Bank.”

“But did you not say, last week—”

“That Farmer's isn't doin' too good? That I did. It was the word around town. So I asked Uncle Dan about that, and he said it was true. They're callin' in loans left and right. Turns out that's why Black's Bicycle Works is closin'. And if Miller has a mortgage with them…”

Hilda was thinking hard. “But Mrs. Miller did not seem worried, today. She talked about rebuilding the barn soon—yes, and buying new furniture.”

Patrick shrugged. “Don't know. But it's another road that seems to go nowhere. By the by, how was the going out in the country? I'd've thought the snow would still be too deep for a carriage.”

“I borrowed Mrs. Clem's sleigh,” said Hilda. “Colonel George and Mrs. George are out of town, and Mrs. Clem was not going out today, so she was happy to lend it to me.”

“We're going to have to get one of our own. Business was much better at the store today. People makin' up for lost time, I guess, and realizin' Christmas is in just two weeks. And our window displays are new, and they're fine, Hilda. You ought to see! So maybe there'll be enough extra money that I can buy you a nice sleigh as a Christmas present. What kind would you like?”

“A Studebaker, of course! oh—you are teasing me again!”

He gave her a hug and a peck on the cheek. “I am that. I wouldn't get you anything but the best, darlin' girl. Now, is that beef stew I smell?”

Eileen announced supper just then, greatly to Hilda's relief. She hadn't had to confess about borrowing John Bolton along with the sleigh!

Saturday morning dawned clear and cold once more. Hilda was able to examine the billfold by the hard light of sunshine on snow, and decided that the initials could not possibly be WM. The first might have been M, or possibly H. The second was, she thought, T. But it could have been F or even R. Assuming she was reading them right-side up. She gave it up for the time being and concentrated on other aspects of the problem.

Did the difficulties at Farmer's Bank have anything to do with the fire? Hilda knew little about high finance, though she was learning. She could not imagine how it would be to anyone's benefit to burn down Mr. Miller's barn. He might have lost valuable stock. It was only by luck that the horses were away, and only because of the hired man's drunken idleness that the cows were still out to pasture when the fire started.

So.
Think, Hilda.
Mr. Miller could not have burned down the barn himself, but suppose he hired someone to do it, maybe. Why? He would get the insurance money, but he would have to use it to rebuild the barn. And the insurance would not pay for everything. And the fire cost him a hired man and a great deal of inconvenience. No, she could see no reason why he would burn it himself.

Could Jenkins have had a grudge against his employer? Even if so, what good would it do him to burn down the barn? It was doing Miller a bad deed, but it wasn't doing Jenkins any good. And in any case, Jenkins died in the fire. And he could not have set it himself and then fallen asleep in the far corner of the hayloft.

Someone who hated Miller. True, there was no such person, according to Mrs. Miller, but she might be wrong. Someone from Mr. Miller's past? But again, what point was there? No permanent harm was done to Miller or his farm.

Really, the only one who truly suffered was poor Jenkins. Could someone have hated him? He was an unreliable type, but apparently a hard enough worker. He might have made some enemies among the men at a tavern. But even if someone had wanted to kill him, why choose such an uncertain way? Jenkins might have wakened out of his drunken stupor and escaped. He might even have put out the fire, if he had seen it early enough. There were so many easier ways to kill a drunken man, easier and surer. Push him into a creek, or in front of a train. Hit him on the head. Put a bullet into his back.

Hilda shuddered. Thinking about murder methods was not pleasant, nor was it productive. The fact was, she could think of no possible reason for anyone to set that fire.

Maybe everyone was wrong. Maybe it was an accident after all.

Then why was someone planting false evidence against Sean O'Neill, if not to cover their own tracks?

Her head was beginning to ache, and she was making no progress at all towards a solution. She would stop for a little, and go up and see how Norah was doing.

Norah was much better. Her face was pink, she had (according to the nurse) eaten all her breakfast and asked for more, and she was nursing Fiona and crooning to her when Hilda came in.

“There's a little love of a colleen, then. Isn't she, Hilda?”

“She is beautiful,” said Hilda honestly. The baby had filled out wonderfully in a week's time, and she had her mother's eyelashes.

“That nurse won't let me give her all she wants. She says it's too hard on me. But I've plenty of milk now, and she cries when I take her away from the breast.”

Never having been a mother, Hilda had no useful advice to offer. “Have you talked to the doctor?”

“Haven't seen him since Thursday, have I? And then I was—not meself.”

“No,” said Hilda. “You were hysterical.”

“Well, you can call a spade a spade, can't you?”

“If not,” said Hilda in as near to John Bolton's accent as she could manage, “a bloody shovel.”

“Hilda!”

“I think,” said Hilda, settling herself beside the bed, “that is the first time I have ever sworn. In English,” she added.

“You're gettin' above yourself, me girl.”

The nurse bustled in to take the baby, who promptly began to howl. “There now, lovey,” said Nurse Pickerell, “I have a nice warm bottle for you.”

“She doesn't want a bottle,” said Norah. “She wants her mother.”

“And we can't allow that just yet, can we? We'll wait until Doctor tells us we can do that.”

“I think,” said Hilda before Norah could speak, “that you should call the doctor and ask him if Norah can nurse all she wants. It is plain that she is getting well, and mother's milk must be better for Fiona than cow's milk.”

“Well, really! Anyone would think the two of you knew something about nursing!”

“I know something,” said Norah in a dangerous tone, “about being a mother. And you don't.”

“Go and call, Nurse,” said Hilda quickly. “I will look after Fiona for a little.”

Miss Pickerell stalked out, and the minute she had gone Hilda handed the redfaced baby back to Norah. “Now,” she said, when the baby was contentedly back at the breast, “I want to talk to you, Norah. If you are feeling strong,” she added.

“I'm feelin' fine,” said Norah. “Nothin's gone wrong, has it?”

“No. Except I cannot make sense of anything. Norah, I think my mind has turned to—to something soft and woolly. I can find no answers.”

“Well, what's your questions?”

“I cannot understand why anyone would want to burn down Mr. Miller's barn.”

Norah thought about that while the baby suckled greedily. “Maybe nobody did.”

“No, it was not an accident. That is certain. Someone set that fire on purpose.”

“That isn't what I meant.” She shifted the baby's position a bit. “I mean, suppose whoever it was meant to start just a little fire, or something. Suppose things didn't work out the way they intended. Then it would make sense that nothin' made sense. If you see what I'm sayin'.”

Hilda did, after a little thought. “You mean—we are seeing what happened, not what someone meant to happen.”

“Yes. So of course you can't figger out a reason. There isn't a reason for what really happened.”

Hilda held her head in her hands. “Stop! You make it worse! If I cannot make sense of what happened, how can I make sense of what was supposed to happen? When I do not even know what that is?”

Norah shrugged, disturbing Fiona, who made a little grunt of protest. “There, darlin', I didn't mean to move you. You're a fine hungry girl, you are. No, but Hilda, it gives you a different place to start. Instead of tryin' to work from the fire, work from what somebody might have wanted from Mr. Miller and thought they could get by—by doin' somethin' besides what they did.”

The nurse came back in, starch and righteousness much in evidence, and Hilda was glad of it. Her head was hurting worse than ever. She didn't stay to listen to the nurse's arguments and instructions. Let the two of them work it out. She had other worries.

Norah had given her a new line of thought, but she didn't know how to follow it. How could one assess a situation, not as it was, but as it was meant to be? No, taking the inquiry from that end was hopeless. She had thought that, if she could work out why the fire was set, she would know who set it. Now she realized that motive was very elusive.

But what other approach was even possible? There was no way to find out who, on the basis of opportunity, could have done the deed. Over forty thousand people lived in South Bend, many more if one counted the inhabitants of the neighboring farms. Any one of them might, presumably, have done it.

Well, but unless it was set by a tramp, it must have been done by someone who knew Mr. Miller. And that, according to the new Mrs. Miller, was not a large group. He was shy. He stayed most of the time alone on his farm, working with his hired man, James Jenkins. He knew, at least slightly, the people he did business with. Those would be the merchants who sold him supplies and equipment, his banker, the men to whom he sold his corn and wheat and apples and milk and whatever else he raised.

Hilda made a list and then looked at it dispiritedly. She could find out who all these people were. She could go and ask them where they all were on that day in November, the day of the fire. And the honest ones probably would not remember, and the guilty one—and perhaps some of the others—would lie. There are many reasons for hiding what one was doing at a particular time, and most of them are not criminal.

It was no use. The police had probably already asked all those questions of all those people, and the police had uncovered nothing at all. Until she got a better idea, she would think about something else.

The party. That growing party. She could go to see Sven and ask about the toys he was making. Not until this afternoon, though. He worked on Saturday mornings, and Mama and the others worked all day on Saturday at their respective jobs. Even Erik would be working, in the stable at the central fire station. She could go and see him. He would know what progress had been made on the toys, and what Mama and the girls were making.