Time of Fog and Fire: A Molly Murphy Mystery (Molly Murphy Mysteries) (17 page)

Her fists, I noticed, were still clenched.

Señor Garcia still stood there unmoving. “You want me to go?” he said.

“That would be best,” Bella said. “Come back in the morning. Then we can talk.”

“Oh, yes,” he said, smiling broadly now. “Then we can talk. I have much to tell you—about the improvements on the ranch. We do much excavation for new building. Beautiful … but expensive.”

Bella opened the front door and he gave her an unctuous bow before he walked out into the night. He must have been wearing some kind of pomade or hair oil because a rather unpleasant sickly smell lingered in the hallway.

I realized that it must look as if I was eavesdropping. In truth I hadn’t wanted to cross the hall when Bella was engaged with other people. But now she turned around and saw me. She put a hand up and distractedly patted her hair.

“Such a surprise,” she said. “The man who bought our ranch. I never expected him to turn up in San Francisco. What a small world it is.” And she managed to give me a bright smile. “Come. The music will be starting.”

“If you don’t mind, I think I’ll go up to my room now,” I said. “I’m afraid I have a headache. All the gaiety has been a bit much for me.”

“Of course. I understand. Would you like Ellen to bring you hot milk?”

“Nothing, thank you. Please go back to your guests.”

“Yes,” she said. “I must go back to my guests. Of course.”

And she patted her hair again before she went back into the drawing room. I was intrigued as I went up the stairs. Clearly meeting Señor Garcia again had upset her, although he seemed pleased to see her.
An old romance?
I wondered. Had Señor Garcia pursued her when she lived in New Mexico? She had certainly seemed flustered. Perhaps I’d learn more when he returned tomorrow morning.

I let myself into my room. In the drawing room a piano started to play and then a soprano voice echoed out of the drawing room and filled the front hall with sound. It was a lovely voice but so powerful. Overwhelming when it wasn’t on a stage in a big theater. I wondered how long the performance would continue and hoped I’d be able to sleep. Gratefully I closed the door of my room behind me and leaned against it, feeling the comforting solidity of the wood against my bare back.

I sat on the bed for a while, then undressed and climbed into bed, pulling the covers up over me. Now that I was alone again the black despair threatened to overwhelm me once more. I would not give in to grief. I would do everything within my power to find out who wanted my husband dead. And I remembered the strange and unsettled feeling that had come over me halfway through the evening.

Think,
I told myself.
What did you see or hear this evening that was important, because something happened in that room.
I went through the encounters one by one. Mr. Douglas. The mayor and the unpleasant attorney. General Funston and the police chief, who clearly did not like each other. The nice young priest and the old professor with a bad cold. But none of them had said anything that was in any way relevant to me or to Daniel. I shut my eyes and tried to sleep. “Home,” I whispered. I wanted to go home. I didn’t belong here. Tomorrow I’d badger the police chief to have my husband’s coffin delivered to me and we’d be off.

My eyes shot open as I heard the smallest of clicks. I turned to the door but it was still closed with a strip of light shining under it unbroken by the shadow of a person who might have been standing outside. Then, as I looked around the room, I saw the French door to the balcony slowly inching open. The thought raced through my mind that I had locked that door earlier in the day. Before I had a chance to sit up I saw the shape of a man coming into my room. In the half darkness he was just a big shadow, moving cautiously. Then, to my amazement, he turned toward me and the light from the streetlamp below revealed a white beard, a tweed jacket. I sat up.

“Professor Flannery?” I demanded, shocked. I had not taken him for the sort of man who creeps into ladies’ boudoirs. But at least I was no longer terrified. “What on earth?”

He crossed the room with remarkable speed and agility and sat on the bed beside me. I noticed he was no longer wearing glasses.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I demanded. “Leave this room instantly. You should be ashamed.…”

I heard him chuckle.

“I’ll scream for help. You’ll be sorry. I’m not a delicate little lady, as you’ll soon find out.”

His hand came over my mouth. I tried to fight him off. “Molly,” he whispered in my ear. “Stop struggling. It’s me.”

As I looked up, confused, he ripped off the beard and put his finger to his lips. It was Daniel.

Eighteen

My heart leaped in my chest, pounding. I stared at him as if I were seeing a ghost. Only this ghost was living and breathing. I could feel his warm breath on my cheek. Then he took my face in his hands and kissed me. His lips were warm and demanding against mine. That more than anything reassured me that this was my husband, and that he was most certainly alive.

“But you’re dead,” I managed to gasp at last. Tears sprang into my eyes. “They told me you were dead.”

He nodded. “They think I am.” He wiped a tear away from my cheek with his fingertip. “Don’t cry. It’s all right. It’s all going to be all right.”

“I know,” I said, still crying. “I still can’t believe it.”

Daniel looked around the room. “Where is Liam? Did you leave him at home?”

“No, he’s upstairs with a nursemaid. He’s fine.” I stared at him hungrily, taking in every detail of that beloved face. “I’ve seen your grave. Who did they bury in your place then?”

“The poor fool who was standing with me on that cliff top,” he said. “He arranged to meet me out at Lands End. That’s an area of cliffs where the Bay meets the ocean.”

“I know,” I said. “I went out there today.”

A burst of applause came from downstairs. Daniel looked up, then back at me again. “Suddenly,” he continued, “these men appeared out of the darkness and pushed us over the edge. He plummeted straight down to his death. I was lucky. I sensed a movement behind me before they struck and was slightly forewarned when they pushed me. A bush was sticking out a few yards down the cliff where I fell. I grabbed onto it and managed to stop my fall. My feet found a narrow ledge and I clung there, hoping that the bush would conceal me from anyone looking from above.”

His eyes held mine and I nodded for him to go on.

“I could sense they were looking over to check that we were dead. Then I heard footsteps and voices going away. One of them was actually laughing. They were pleased with themselves.”

“What monsters,” I said. “What did you do?”

His eyes were sparkling in the light from the streetlamp. “As you can imagine I was battered and winded. I didn’t dare move for a while but eventually I made my way down to the bottom of the cliff. It wasn’t easy, I can tell you, and I thought I was done for several times when the rock crumbled and I slithered. My poor friend was quite dead, sprawled on the rocks. He had fallen headfirst and his face was a horrible mess. Then an idea came to me. We had both been wearing similar dark suits. Carefully I changed his identification for mine. Then I tossed my hat into the waves. Let them think that we had both perished.”

“What did you do then?”

“I picked my way around the shoreline until I could clamber up to the path. I realized, of course, that I couldn’t risk being seen again in the city. I heard the sound of a church bell tolling eleven o’clock. Then I saw the dome of a big church. I made for it and lucky for me a priest was crossing from the church to the rectory. I called to him and asked him for sanctuary. My guardian angel must have been watching over me twice that night because it turned out to be Father O’Brien. A more decent guy you couldn’t find anywhere. I told him my whole story.” He sighed. “Of course he wanted to know why someone had tried to kill me.”

“That’s what I want to know too,” I said. I was holding his hand. It was warm and real and I still couldn’t quite believe it. “Who were those men?”

“As to that, I couldn’t tell you,” he said. “Hired thugs, probably, but I have a good idea who might have sent them.”

“Who?”

“Someone high up in city government. Maybe the mayor or the city attorney. They were both in the room tonight. I have to say I rather enjoyed that.” He grinned, and I saw Daniel’s old cocky smile.

“But why did the mayor or the city attorney want you dead?” I asked. “The police chief said you were on the trail of some kind of land fraud. Was that just a cover?”

“Yes and no,” he said. He looked up as music started again below. “Good. They sound as if they’ll be occupied for some time yet. I’m not sure if we could be heard through this door.”

“That Tiny person seems to prowl around a lot,” I said.

“He does, doesn’t he? I wonder why?” He got up, went over to the door, and opened it cautiously. He then closed it again and came back to sit close beside me on the bed. “So far, so good.”

“How did you get up to my balcony?” I asked. “Surely you didn’t climb up the wall?”

He smiled. “I shot back up the stairs after we had supposedly left,” he said, “and let myself out onto your balcony. I would have hid in your wardrobe but there wasn’t much room and I was scared of giving myself away by sneezing.”

I laughed. It felt wonderful to laugh again. “You were telling me why somebody would want to kill you.”

He nodded, putting his lips close to my ear to talk in a low voice. “My first assignment from John Wilkie was indeed to chase up a man who had made a fortune selling land deeds. It was before your time in New York but it was a big scandal. His name was Douglas Hatcher and he was selling parcels of oil-rich land in Texas. The deeds guaranteed mineral rights. He showed prospective buyers the geological survey with oil beneath the whole area, and he promised that the oil companies would do the digging. And of course he reminded everyone that this would be the age of the automobile and everyone would need oil. They’d be rich beyond their wildest dreams. There were plenty of poor suckers back East who paid a thousand dollars each for acreage in Texas, only to find it was a desert wasteland with no hope of oil.”

“And he wasn’t caught?”

Daniel shook his head. “By the time the land was found to be without value he had vanished. Not a trace of him, until now.”

“Here?” I asked.

He nodded. “One of the investors was a little suspicious. He paid his share with marked fifty-dollar bills. A couple of those bills showed up at a San Francisco bank recently.”

“So this Hatcher man is in town? Did you find him?”

“Not yet,” Daniel said. “He may well have changed his name and appearance and come to San Francisco to make a new life for himself.”

“Do you have your suspicions?”

“It’s a big city,” he said, “but the guy is obviously rich and it seemed possible that he’d hobnob with Bella and her like. That’s why I agreed to stay with her. It might have been a mistake.”

“You don’t think she was in on any plot, do you?”

“No, but as you can see, she’s very thick with the city bigwigs. They could have asked her to keep tabs on me and notify them of my movements. I’m sure I was followed every time I went out.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “Why would the city bigwigs feel threatened by you? They weren’t part of this land swindle, were they?”

He shook his head. “Something quite different all together. When John Wilkie sent me to California he told me also to seek out a man called Dennison. It seemed that this Dennison had been sent by the federal government to San Francisco to gather evidence for corruption charges to be filed against the mayor and city attorney. But he had not been heard from in weeks. The men in Washington were worried that something had happened to him.”

“Corruption charges?” I asked. “Don’t most city governments have their share of corruption?”

“Yes, but not at the level it is going on here. They are raking in millions in bribes, paybacks, protection money … all the brothels and bars as well as the legitimate businesses. It’s been going on brazenly and there have been so many complaints that Washington decided to put a stop to it. Dennison was ready to file charges against the mayor and city attorney in federal court.”

“And then he vanished?”

“As you say, he vanished.”

“He was killed, do you think?”

“Not until later, when he met me on a cliff top.”

“Oh, he was the man you met that night?”

“He was. He had gone into hiding after threats against his life, and was waiting until the case came to court before he could reappear to nab the city fathers. He told me the preliminary court date was arranged for April 18 and he asked me to be there, just in case something happened to him and needed to be reported back to Washington.”

“How horrible,” I said. “Something did happen to him.”

Daniel gave a long sigh. “I feel guilty. I rather think that I was the bait. They followed me hoping I would lead them to him. And I did and they took care of both of us.”

“So what will you do now?” I asked. “If they are prepared to kill so ruthlessly I don’t want you trying to take over the case.”

“Someone has to,” he said, “but obviously I can’t in current circumstances. It’s far better that they think I am dead. I’ve been trying to retrieve the evidence that Dennison was going to present and take it back to Washington but the problem is that I can’t go rushing around the city in my current disguise.”

I had to smile at this. “Daniel, how did you come up with such a ridiculous alter ego?”

“Thanks to Father O’Brien. He is not only a good, reliable fellow, but as Bella told you, he is remarkably keen on amateur theatricals. He actually puts on plays for the parish children. He was able to raid their costumes and props, as well as the clothing in the poor box, and came up with this. We decided on an old Irishman as there would be little chance of bumping into anyone who might move in musical circles in Ireland. And people don’t get too close to an old man with a nasty cough, do they? The beard and hair covered most of my face. And the thick glasses disguised my eyes well.”