The Dangerous Ladies Affair

8 Sabina

The Solidarity Party’s headquarters was located in a somewhat shabby two-story brick building on Ellis Street. Nathaniel Dobbs, however, was not in residence this morning. The lone occupant of what a sign on the door labeled a suite — a misnomer if ever there was one, given the cramped, unkempt confines of the two rooms inside — was a tubby little man seated behind a long, cluttered worktable. He wore a green eyeshade and a pair of spectacles with lenses as thick as the bottoms of milk bottles. He seemed surprised to see a woman enter the premises, and wary and not a little scornful when he squinted at her business card. Sabina knew what he was going to say before he said it; she had heard the same tiresome twaddle dozens of times before.

“A woman detective? Of all things on God’s earth!”

“You disapprove of women with professional credentials?”

“I do; I most certainly do,” he said huffily. “A woman’s place—”

“—is anywhere she chooses it to be,” Sabina said with asperity. “What did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t say. Josiah Pitman, though I don’t see that it matters.”

“It doesn’t matter in the slightest. Nor do you or your outmoded opinions. When do you expect your employer?”

“Not until later today,” Pitman said through pinched lips. “He has important business elsewhere this morning.”

“No doubt. What time do you expect him?”

“Whenever he arrives. Why does a... a detective want to see him?”

“To have a private conversation.”

“Concerning?”

“‘Private’ means ‘private.’ But you may tell him that it concerns Amity Wellman.”

“Amity Wellman! That—”

“Don’t say it, Mr. Pitman. My response would not be at all ladylike.”

The look she gave him, long and smoldering, made Pitman flush and turn his head away. Satisfied, Sabina turned on her heel and left him to stew in his vinegary juices.

Her next stop, by means of an Embarcadero trolley to China Basin, was Egan and Bradford, Tea and Spice Importers. The address turned out to be a combination office and large warehouse, with a long wharf at its backside extending out into the channel. A four-masted schooner was tied up there at present, being loaded or unloaded by a cluster of noisy stevedores.

A large sign on the warehouse wall gave the company’s name in ornate, Oriental-style letters. A smaller sign at the entrance to the office repeated it and also served as an advertisement for Egan and Bradford’s specialties, “the finest exotic teas and spices from the Orient and the Far East.” Specific items were listed: Darjeeling and Nepalese black tea, Chinese White Hair Silver Needle tea; Sichuan pepper, Indonesian cinnamon, Moluccan nutmeg and cloves, and two spices that Sabina had never heard of, Indian garam masala and Japanese shichimi togarashi. “Exotic” was indeed the word for the importers’ wares.

The strong mingled scents of teas and spices tickled Sabina’s nostrils — a heady mixture that made her want to sneeze — when she entered an office presided over by two male clerks and a handsome young female receptionist with curled yellow hair and a thrusting bosom. The hair and the bosom, Sabina guessed, were the attributes that had gotten her her job; lack of mental acuity was evident in her eyes, her smile, and her somewhat nasal voice. One of Fenton Egan’s conquests, like as not.

Sabina’s luck here was no better than it had been at the Solidarity Party’s “suite.” The yellow-haired wench informed her that she was oh, so sorry, but Mr. Egan was not expected until early afternoon; would she like to speak to Mr. Bradford instead? Sabina briefly considered the suggestion, decided it would serve no good purpose, and declined. She also considered asking for an envelope and pen and ink, writing Amity Wellman’s name on the back of one of her business cards and sealing the card into the envelope with Mr. Fenton Egan, Private written on the front. She decided against this, too. It would be best not to give Amity’s former lover any advance warning of her profession or her purpose.

Sabina splurged on the price of a hansom cab for her visit to the Egan manse in Pacific Heights. If Prudence Egan happened not to be in residence, at least the trip would have been made in relative comfort, rather than on one of the hard seats in rattling trolleys. She wouldn’t even put the fare on the expense account; call it a donation to the cause.

The views of the bay and the Golden Gate were splendid from the Heights, which, combed with the best weather in the city, made it another desirable neighborhood for the city’s wealthy residents. The one drawback was that, unlike the fine homes atop Nob Hill and Telegraph Hill, those here were built more closely together along the steep hillside streets. Shouldered by neighbors on both sides and perched on the edge of a sharp drop to the street below, the Egan home had almost no landscaping to relieve its stark aspect. An architect with odd, scattered tastes had evidently designed it; it was a jumbled mixture of Italianate and Colonial Revival, with Gothic windows, exposed trusses, and a great deal of ornate scrollwork. The Egans probably considered it unique. To Sabina’s eye, it was something of a monstrosity.

She asked the cabbie to wait and went to the door. A uniformed maid responded to her ring. Yes, she said, Mrs. Egan was at home. Mr. Egan, too, by any chance? No, the mister was out, and whom should she tell Madam was calling? Sabina gave her name and handed over one of her cards, saying, “Inform Mrs. Egan that I’ve come on behalf of the leader of Voting Rights for Women.” This plainly meant nothing to the maid. She admitted Sabina and asked her to wait in the foyer.

It wasn’t a long wait. In fact, Prudence Egan appeared so swiftly through an archway that she might have been conjured up out of thin air. She was in her middle thirties, slender and regal in bearing, dressed in an expensive blue tailor-made suit with a jacket bodice. Dark red hair worn in the current upswept and rolled fashion topped a somewhat narrow but not unattractive face. Eyes the color of emeralds regarded Sabina with a blend of wariness, distaste, and controlled anger.

“Mrs. Egan?”

“Yes. Come with me into the parlor.”

She led the way through another archway, into a room decorated with floral wallpaper, overstuffed with rococo furnishings that included a massive sideboard, and scented with patchouli oil. She turned in the middle of the room to face Sabina. Instead of issuing an invitation to be seated, she stood with arms akimbo and studied her again with a critical eye.

At length she said, “You don’t look like a detective.”

“What does a detective look like?”

“Fat, rumpled individuals chewing on cigars.”

“In a word, men.”

“In a word, yes. Men of a certain vulgar type.”

Sabina had nothing to say to that.

“Well, Mrs. Carpenter? What do you want of me?”

“As I told your maid, I’ve come on behalf of—”

“Amity Wellman.” Prudence Egan wrapped the name in a coating of ice. “What about her?”

“She has been receiving anonymous threatening notes, three of them to date.”

“Has she? I’m not surprised, given her character. But what does that have to do with me?”

“Someone, presumably the same person who wrote the notes, tried to kill her Sunday night.”

A slight muscle twitch on one cheek was Prudence Egan’s only visible reaction. “‘Tried’ means the attempt failed, I assume,” she said after a brief pause.

“It did.”

“Was she injured?”

“No, fortunately.”

“Or unfortunately, depending on one’s point of view. I repeat, what does that have to do with me?”

Sabina said, “Mrs. Wellman was candid about her relationship with your husband.”

The woman’s long upper lip curled. “Including all the sordid details, no doubt.”

“She also told me of your encounter with her.”

“I expected as much, since you’ve come here. Do you think I am the one who tried to do away with her?”

“Are you?”

“No. But I don’t mind saying whoever did would have done the world a favor if he’d succeeded. Amity Wellman deserves to be shot.”

“Shot, Mrs. Egan?”

“Yes, shot. Is that how the attempt was made?”

Sabina nodded. “In her garden at about eight o’clock. Would you mind telling me where you were at that time?”

“I would. And so I won’t. I find your insinuations insulting.”

“I haven’t insinuated anything. I’m merely asking questions, trying to find out who is responsible for this reign of terror against my client.”

“Reign of terror. My God. You make it sound as if she is a victim of the Spanish Inquisition. She’s a whore, nothing more or less.”

“A mistake in judgment doesn’t make a woman a whore; it makes her human and entitled to understanding and forgiveness. Especially a woman who has done so much to further the cause of her sisters. Or don’t you believe in woman suffrage?”

“I believe she has made me suffer. No woman who blatantly tries to steal my husband’s affection is entitled to my forgiveness, ever.”

“She had no intention of trying to steal his affection, as you put it. She entered into the affair for the same reasons many women do, loneliness, temptation, and a lapse in judgment. She loves her husband as much as you love yours.”

“I doubt that.”

“Mr. Egan shares in the responsibility for the affair. Surely you don’t deny the fact.”

“Men are weak. You ought to know, looking as you do.”

“Weakness is a poor excuse for infidelity.”

“I will not discuss my husband’s fallibilities or my marriage with you. It is none of your business.”

“It is if it involves harassment and attempted homicide,” Sabina said. “Was Mr. Egan home Sunday night?”

“Now you’re insinuating that Fenton might be the would-be assassin, is that it?”

“Questions, Mrs. Egan, not insinuations. In search of the truth.”

“You won’t find it here,” Prudence Egan said coldly. “You haven’t spoken to him yet, I take it?”

“Not yet.”

“I suggest that you don’t. He takes even less kindly than I do to scandalous and irresponsible probing into our private lives.” Then, almost as an afterthought, “He has absolutely no reason to want to harm his former paramour.”

“Mrs. Wellman thinks differently.”

“I do not care what Mrs. Wellman thinks. Or what you think.” She drew herself up, thrusting her chin forward. Anger was the dominant emotion in her now, a dark red flame to match the color of her hair. “I’ll thank you to leave now. Immediately.”

Sabina couldn’t resist saying, “And never darken your door again, as they say in the melodramas.”

“Precisely. If you do, you and your client shall hear from our attorneys.”

She stalked to the archway, stood glaring imperiously as Sabina went past her, then followed her across the foyer and shut the door firmly behind her. The loud snap of the lock clicking into place struck her as deliberate, a gesture of both aggravation and finality.