The Dangerous Ladies Affair

9 Sabina

It was half past twelve when the cab deposited her on the corner of Market and Sansome. In view of the fact that Fenton Egan was not due at his office until early afternoon, which likely meant one-thirty or two, she treated herself to a much more satisfactory midday meal than yesterday’s, dining at a nearby brasserie on shrimp salad and broiled sand dabs with melted butter. According to cousin Callie, butter was a product of the devil — bad for one’s digestion and circulation as well as one’s waistline. The irony in this opinion was that Callie regularly consumed gooey cakes and pastries made with a great deal of both butter and sugar, a fact she blithely ignored.

Satisfactorily fortified, Sabina once more made her way to China Basin and Egan and Bradford, Tea and Spice Importers. After this morning’s session with Prudence Egan, she half-expected this visit to be another exercise in futility. But not only was she permitted an audience with Amity’s ex-lover after having her card sent in to him, but he came out to the reception area to greet her personally and then usher her into his private office.

Amity had said that he was superficially charming, and so he was. He had held Sabina’s hand a trifle longer than necessary, appraising her in a bold but not offensive fashion, smiling pleasantly all the while. It was plain that he found her appealing to the eye, an opinion she didn’t reciprocate. He was handsome enough, she supposed, but not in the least the type of man who attracted her. Tallish, lean, with penetrating gray eyes, a considerable amount of black hair that glistened sleekly with pomade, a neatly trimmed mustache, and a small, natty imperial. His gray wool suit was expensive and immaculate, his silk cravat fastened with a not quite ostentatious ruby stickpin matched by a ring on his left pinkie. Sabina noticed that, unlike his wife, he wore no wedding ring.

His office was paneled and furnished in Philippine mahogany, the chairs covered in brightly patterned fabric. A half-smoked green-and-brown-leafed panatela burned in a copper tray on his desk, its smoke aromatic but so strong as to overwhelm the more preferable scents of tea and spices from the attached warehouse. Sabina was not fond of cigars, even the extravagant dollar variety. The only tobacco she found pleasing was the mixtures made for pipes, though the Navy Cut that John preferred was just barely tolerable.

When they were both seated, Egan said, “Well, I must say, Mrs. Carpenter, you’re quite the most comely detective I have ever met.”

The look in his eyes added undue emphasis to the word “comely.” Sabina was used to men finding her attractive, but there were degrees of male admiration and his was clearly the sort heated by lustful thoughts. How an intelligent woman such as Amity could have been fooled enough to become involved with such a man was a puzzle. One minute in Fenton Egan’s company was sufficient for Sabina to dislike and distrust him.

He waited for her response, and when she gave none he said, “Well, then. Why have you come to me?”

“For the same reasons I visited your wife at your home earlier today.”

“Oh? And what would they be?”

“Your affair with Amity Wellman, to begin with.”

His reaction, or rather lack of one, disappointed her. A lifted eyebrow was the only change in his demeanor; his smile didn’t even flicker. “How, may I ask, did you come by that information?”

“Do you deny it?”

“I see no reason why I should. My wife knows about it. Is she the one who told you?”

“No.”

“Mrs. Wellman, then. Has she retained you for some purpose?”

“An attempt was made on her life last night.”

He showed no surprise at this, either. When he spoke, the mild concern in his voice had a false ring. “The devil you say. Unsuccessful, I trust?”

“Yes.”

“What happened?”

“Someone fired a shot at her in her garden.”

“Do you have any idea why? Or who the assailant was?”

“Not yet.”

Egan picked up his cigar, puffed on it in thoughtfully. “And you think, or rather Mrs. Wellman thinks, it might have been my wife or I. Or someone hired by her or me.”

“No accusations have been made, Mr. Egan.”

“Your visit to my home and your presence here indicate a degree of suspicion.”

“Not so. Investigators ask questions of many people for many different reasons.”

“My wife denied any involvement, of course.”

“Yes. Vehemently.”

“A very emotional woman, Prudence.”

“One might even say volatile when she perceives a threat to her marriage.”

“My unfortunate dalliance with Mrs. Wellman posed no such threat.”

“You wrote her a letter in which you professed to be in love with her and expressed the hope of making the relationship permanent.”

Egan raised an eyebrow. “Did she show you this alleged letter?”

“No. She destroyed it.”

“Of course that’s what she would claim.”

“So you deny having written it.”

“Categorically. She made up the story about a letter to throw suspicion on me. Did you or she tell my wife about it?”

“No.”

“I’m grateful for that, at least. The fact remains, Mrs. Carpenter, that I bear no grudge against Mrs. Wellman and have no earthly reason to harm her. Nor does Mrs. Egan.”

“Amity says you were quite upset when she ended the affair. That you threatened to tell her husband about it.”

“Nonsense,” Egan said. “Another fabrication — I made no such threat. I suppose she also told you I seduced her?”

“Didn’t you?”

“No indeed. In point of fact it was the other way around. I succumbed to her advances in a moment of weakness, for which I was properly chastised by myself as well as my wife.”

It would be futile, Sabina thought, to point out that she knew him to be a serial philanderer; he would only have denied it. She had dealt with self-serving liars so often during the course of her career that she’d become an expert on the breed. Fenton Egan was one of the accomplished variety, his voice earnest, his eyes looking straight into hers without wavering, but he fooled her not at all.

She said, “Then you weren’t upset nor the parting scene highly unpleasant when Mrs. Wellman ended the relationship.”

“Not at all. Is that what she claims?” Egan shook his head. “Actually, I was relieved. I was on the verge of ending the affair myself, as a matter of fact.”

“But you weren’t relieved that your wife found out and confronted her.”

“Well, naturally I would have preferred that Prudence never have known. I’m sorry that she found out — for her sake as well as my own.”

“How did she find out?”

“I don’t know. She wouldn’t tell me.”

Another lie? Sabina wasn’t sure.

Egan tapped ash off his cigar into the copper tray, then gave a liar’s sigh — the mock-sad variety. “I regret to say this, Mrs. Carpenter, but your client is a vindictive woman.”

“Deserving of an attempt on her life?”

“Certainly not. No one deserves to be subjected to violence, least of all a woman. I bear her none of the ill will she apparently bears me and my wife.”

“Do you mind telling me where you were the night before last?”

“Still not convinced, eh? No, I don’t mind. I was at home the entire evening.”

“And your wife? Was she there, too?”

“She was. Prudence and I spent the evening listening to the gramophone. A marvelous invention, don’t you agree?” When Sabina didn’t answer, Egan said, “I do hope you find out who is tormenting Mrs. Wellman. But it isn’t Prudence and it isn’t I.”

There was nothing more to be gotten from Fenton Egan. Sabina rose and, keeping the irony out of her voice, thanked him for his candor. He popped up out of his chair and escorted her to the door, his hand on her elbow. Standing close with his hand on the latch, he said in a casual, offhand way, “Curiosity prompts me to ask — have you been a detective long?”

“Several years.”

“You must have had many interesting experiences, the more so because of your sex. It would be quite fascinating to hear of them, I’m sure. Perhaps we could dine together one day.”

The colossal conceit of the man! I’d rather dine with a wharf rat. At least they don’t hide their slimy predatory ways behind a cultured façade and a rancid-butter smile.

She was tempted to put the thoughts into words, restrained herself, and said coolly, “I think not, Mr. Egan. Good day.” After which she removed his hand from her arm, using two fingers as she would have in disposing of a crawling insect, and let herself out of his lair.

Josiah Pitman and two other men were busily hand-lettering signs and placards with thin brushes dipped in black paint when Sabina entered the Solidarity Party’s alleged suite. The room was rife with their handiwork, propped all along one wall and stacked on tables and floor — preparations for their opposition attendance, no doubt, at Saturday evening’s Voting Rights for Women benefit in Union Square. One she glanced at, a cardboard sign stapled to a length of wood resembling a fence picket, bore the slogan: Woman Suffrage a Folly! Another urged: Keep the Fair Sex Out of Politics! The others would express the same regressive sentiments.

Both men looked up at her briefly, Dobbs’ tubby little assistant with lips pursed and eyes glittering behind his bottle-bottom spectacles when he recognized her; neither of them spoke. There was no need for her to ask if Nathaniel Dobbs was present. She could see him in the second of the two rooms, seated at a desk writing in a ledger with — of all implements — a quill pen with a feather several inches long.

As soon as Dobbs spied her he hopped to his feet and stepped around the desk to the open doorway. “Mrs. Carpenter, I presume?” he said stiffly. “I am Nathaniel Dobbs.”

“Yes, I know. I’ve heard you speak.”

“Indeed.” He was tall and almost cadaverously spare, with a nose like a beak and a mane of hair so black it was surely dyed. In his long black frock coat, he resembled nothing so much as a giant crow with its wings folded. His voice was on the reedy side, though it deepened and became commanding when he was publicly espousing the Solidarity Party’s conservative platform. “What can I do for you, my good woman?”

Sabina disliked being referred to as “my good woman” by strangers, particularly insincere strangers who made a living by treating women as second-class citizens, if not chattel. She crossed the room to where he stood, fixing him with her no-nonsense look. He backed up a step in the face of it.

“I prefer that we speak in private, Mr. Dobbs.”

“Oh, ah... very well, if you insist.”

He moved aside to let her pass into his office, then closed the door. A stack of pamphlets occupied the only other chair besides his; he removed them and with obvious reluctance invited her to sit. At his desk again, he fussed with a scattering of papers and the quill pen. When he saw Sabina looking at the pen he said, “A gift from one of my associates, it once belonged to John Quincy Adams’ secretary,” and put it down again. He was quite ill at ease, which confirmed Amity’s impression that he was uncomfortable in the presence of women. Whether he actively hated members of her sex was debatable; certainly he preferred the company as well as the dominance of his own. The fact that she was a detective as well as a woman surely added to his discomfort, though to his credit he made no comment on the fact.

At length he made a “harrumphing” sound, as if to clear his throat, and then said, “I understand you are here on a matter regarding Mrs. Amity Wellman.”

“That’s correct.”

“I see no reason for it. That is, Mrs. Wellman and I have our differences, as I’m sure you know, but none of an, ah, troublesome nature...” He harrumphed again. “Just what are you investigating that brings you to me?”

“A series of anonymous threatening notes, for one thing.”

“Threatening notes? I don’t understand...”

“Accusing Mrs. Wellman of being a false prophet and warning her to change her ways or suffer dire consequences. The implied meaning of ‘change her ways’ being her vocal leadership of Voting Rights for Women.”

Dobbs harrumphed, then drew himself up and said in defensive tones, “Surely you don’t think I would write such notes?”

“Your strenuous opposition to woman’s suffrage is well known, Mr. Dobbs.”

“Yes, but my opposition is a matter of principle and, ah, political expediency. I hold no personal animosity toward Mrs. Wellman. Absolutely none.”

“Night before last,” Sabina said, “an attempt was made to shoot her at her home.”

Dobbs opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, much like a freshly caught fish. “Good heavens!”

“Fortunately, whoever fired the shot had poor aim.”

“But I’ve heard nothing of this until now. There was no such mention in the newspapers...”

“Mrs. Wellman chose not to report the incident. If you had nothing to do with the attempt on her life—”

“I did not. Certainly not.”

“—then I trust you’ll make no public comment about that or the written threats.”

“I assure you I won’t. I abhor such vulgarities. The Solidarity Party is a non-violent organization. We are—”

“Yes, I know. The Antis. Anti-progress, anti-reform, anti — women’s rights.”

“That is not true,” Dobbs protested. “The pejorative term ‘Anti’ is inaccurate. We are not against progress or reform unless it threatens the long and honorably established status quo by violating the laws of the land and the word of God as set down in the Good Book. Nor are we against the rights of women per se, only their unreasonable demands—”

“Our demands, Mr. Dobbs, and they’re not unreasonable. I’m a suffragist, too.”

“Ah, yes, well,” he said, paused, and then resumed, “It is the Solidarity Party’s firm belief that a woman’s place is in the home, as God intended, and not in jury boxes or executive offices or involved in the making of public policy.”

“In other words, to be nothing more than submissive housewives and child bearers.”

“I repeat, as God intended.” Another harrumph, after which he quoted oratorically and not at all aptly, “‘Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, and is himself the savior of his body. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.’ Ephesians, chapter five, verses twenty-two through twenty-four.”

Sabina said cynically, “Timothy, chapter two, verses eleven and twelve.”

“Eh?”

“‘Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.’”

“Oh, ah, yes. In silence. Yes.” Dobbs picked up the quill pen, dipped the nib into an open jar of India ink, found a piece of paper, and began to write on it. “Another appropriate quote, that, one I’d, ah, forgotten. I must include it in my repertoire. Timothy, chapter two, verses eleven and twelve, you said?”

Sabina got to her feet and went to the door. “I won’t remain in silence, Mr. Dobbs, nor will my sisters — not now and not in the future. You and your Antis can count on that.”

She went out without waiting for a response and just barely managed to restrain herself from slamming the door behind her.