The Fall Of White City (Gilded Age Mysteries Book 1) (5 page)

“The price is that they have to hire you and let you write the story.”

Freddie’s eyes were dancing with excitement. “
Engie
, I could kiss you!” Still intoxicated with the vision of his story on the front page of the
Gazette,
he offered no further resistance to following where she led.

“It seems to me that we have to find some indirect way of learning what the police already know. The part that didn’t appear in the papers, I mean.”

“I suppose I could pick up the trail in the newsroom. The boys there always know far more than ever makes the printed page.”

“Excellent! Who will you talk to first?”

“I could start with Bill Mason. He’s a friend of mine, and he covered the murder right after it happened. But in order to get anything out of him, I know it’s going to mean buying him lunch and probably carrying it back to his desk for him, too!” Freddie found it hard to keep his voice from whining.

“Whatever it takes, Freddie, the effort will be well worth it if we can find anything that may be of use to us.” Evangeline was pacing again, her body matching the restless activity of her mind. “While you’re following up on that, I need to start making inquiries at Mast House. Maybe some of my students remember something. If I’m very lucky, one of girls there might even be able to point me in the direction of a suspicious character.”

“That is, if you don’t frighten her into a fainting fit first.” Freddie could imagine Evangeline cutting a swathe through Mast House like
Sherman
through
Atlanta
on his march to the sea.

Evangeline wheeled around to face him. “Don’t be ridiculous! This calls for tact. I am perfectly able to act with subtlety when I need to. If I weren’t capable of finesse, do you think I would have been able to lure you into my parlor? Yet there you sit, only minutes ago blissfully nibbling lemon gingerbread when two days ago you would just as blissfully have paid someone to do me in.”

Freddie allowed himself to smile at his own inconsistency. “All right, I concede the point. You’re the very mistress of manipulation. The queen of coquetry. Perhaps I find it easy to forget your subtlety since you so rarely practice it on me. Instead, I tend to be the recipient of blunt sarcasm.”

“
Mon pauvre petit
,
how you have suffered at my hands!” Her voice was dripping with mock sympathy.

“You see, you’re doing in again,” Freddie squeaked in outrage.

“Calm down, dear boy. You know I reserve bluntness for my friends. I am only courteous to people I care nothing about.”

“Using that particular yardstick of intimacy, I must be a tremendous favorite of yours.”

Evangeline smiled warmly at him, her eyes twinkling. “You know you are. Stop being dramatic! Can you think of anyone else I would have shared this plan with?”

Freddie could think of nothing clever to say. He was grasping at the emotional straw of being Evangeline’s favorite. When he shook himself out of this ephemeral dream, he realized that both her pacing and her talking had started again.

At that moment, the door, which had been left slightly open, seemed to move of its own accord—the hinges creaking slightly. Freddie looked for some explanation other than a supernatural manifestation and saw, near the floor, a mass of fur nudging the door open further. It was the resident god of the hearth, Evangeline’s cat.

At the sight of him the lady clapped her hands together in delight.
“
Ah, mon cher petit cœur. Viens ici.
”
At the sound of her voice, the cat rubbed his chin happily against the door, and then strolled across the room to repeat the same affectionate gesture against his mistress’ ankles. Evangeline laughed and picked up the monstrous beast, a huge orange tabby with a head as big as Freddie’s fist. She held the cat up so the two were nose to nose.
“
Ah, Monsieur Beauvoir, comment va-t-il? Comment va-t-il, mon vieux
?”

Freddie was nauseated by this lavish display of affection. “Look, I’m sure if he understands any language at all, it’s English. Is this a domestic conspiracy? First Delphine, and now you. I know that your people came from
Quebec
, but if you insist on practicing this blatant
francophilia
, maybe you all should have stayed there!”

Ignoring the comment, Evangeline seated herself and placed the cat on her lap. She whispered in its ear,
“
Je pense qu’il est jaloux, Monsieur Beau.
”
The cat meowed softly as if in agreement. By now he was purring and flexing his paws in a state of bliss.

Freddie was confronted by, not one, but two pair of unblinking eyes staring at him simultaneously. Evangeline continued, “My
francophilia
notwithstanding,
calme toi-même, mon ami
.
I will confine myself to English for the balance of the conversation. Will that appease you?”

Freddie nodded, somewhat mollified. “Anyway, I don’t understand what you see in that creature. You treat him better than you treat any man.”

Evangeline laughed at Freddie’s pique. “Because, unlike all the human members of the male sex with whom I have the misfortune to be acquainted, he doesn’t try to tell me what to do or what to think. He is a most sagacious fellow in his way. He doesn’t automatically assume that because nature fitted him with a slightly different anatomy from the female sex, she also fitted him with a superior brain.”

“
Hmmphhh
!” was Freddie’s eloquent reply. Monsieur Beau, apparently feeling himself vindicated by Evangeline’s comment, jumped to the floor and left the room.

The battle of the sexes was cut short when Delphine appeared again at the door. Her face held an unaccountable look of triumph. “
Ma chérie
,
there is another gentleman who has come to see you.” She moved aside to let the visitor pass. “It is Monsieur
Blackthorne
.”

Jonathan
Blackthorne
was, with the exception of Freddie, the most tenacious of Evangeline’s admirers. He was Delphine’s clear favorite in terms of a suitable match for her mistress since he was closer to Evangeline’s own age and came from a prominent
Lake
Arbor
family. Unlike Freddie, he had managed to succeed at a respectable career with the Merchant's Bank And Trust, one of the city’s largest financial institutions.

The man himself also stood in physical contrast to his rival. Both were tall, but there the similarity ended. Jonathan was dark-haired with a saturnine complexion. His eyes had always reminded Freddie of the lake after a January freeze. His features were coarse, but his manners refined enough to win him favor with the ladies. In this regard, Evangeline was no exception. She seemed pleased to see him and held out her hand in welcome.

“Jonathan, what a surprise!”

He strode across the room and bent to kiss her hand, holding it for several seconds before releasing it. “Why should you be surprised,
Engie
?” His voice was barely above a whisper. “You’re always in my thoughts. It was a small matter to convert thought to action.”

Evangeline laughed. “I compliment you on your magical powers. I had no idea you could make yourself materialize so easily.”

Freddie, who had managed to achieve invisibility during this exchange, cleared his throat in annoyance.
Blackthorne
turned slowly to acknowledge him. “Hello, Simpson, how are you?” The question carried no hint of warmth. “Shouldn’t you be in the city? It is a workday, after all.”

“I’m fine.” Freddie’s tone was equally surly. “I was invited to tea. But while we’re on the subject, I might hold you to a similar account of your presence here.”

Blackthorne
smiled slightly, whether in annoyance or in pleasure because he had flustered Freddie would have been hard to tell. He paused before replying since he was the sort of man who always chose his words carefully and always gave the impression of having suppressed more than half of what he was thinking. “I came up to spend the weekend with Mother and Father, but I wanted to stop in to say hello before going there. Do you object?”

“Why would I object?” Freddie affected a note of carelessness. Unfortunately, he had always been a poor liar.

Delphine, who had been leaning in the doorway, offered, “
Ma chérie
,
shall I fetch the young gentleman’s hat and coat? It’s getting dark and I’m sure his
maman
must be looking for him by now.”

Freddie folded his arms resolutely. “Not just yet, Delphine, if you please. I’ll be staying a while.”

Evangeline gave her housekeeper a pained look. “That will be all for now, thank you.”

Delphine rolled her eyes as if to say, “Well, I tried,” and exited the room.

Blackthorne
turned to fix his gaze on Evangeline. “My visit also had another object,
ma
belle
. I wanted to see if I might persuade you to accompany me to the Columbian Exposition before it closes at the end of the month.”

“Ah yes, the World’s Fair. The attendance count each day seems to be climbing. It looks as if everyone from the street sweepers to the mayor himself are all making one final attempt to experience the ninth wonder of the world before it disappears forever.”

Freddie chimed in. “Be as contemptuous as you like,
Engie
, but the World’s Fair has brought a lot of business to the city—put us on the map, so to speak. Visitors from all over the world now think of
Chicago
as a cultured metropolis.”

Evangeline motioned
Blackthorne
toward a chair and then stared irritably at Freddie. “You don’t find anything ironic in your last statement, do you?”

Freddie gave his best look of serious concentration—a gesture he always used to buy time when he was trying to think of something clever to say after having lost Evangeline’s line of reasoning.

Evangeline waited a suitable interval to allow him to redeem himself. Seeing the cause was hopeless, she continued, “I read somewhere that the Exposition took two years to construct at an expense of forty-six million dollars. Presumably, its purpose was to call attention to the refinement of this city. But don’t you see just how false that display of refinement is? The buildings are a facade. They’re made of some sort of papier-mâché substance, spray-painted white to look like marble. They stand for six months, and then everything is to be torn down because nothing was built to last.”

Evangeline paused in her diatribe long enough to pour
Blackthorne
a cup of tea. He seemed amused at the vehemence of her opinion, but took the proffered cup without comment.

“People love spectacle,
Engie
,” Freddie replied. “It’s just human nature.”

Evangeline smiled slightly, if somewhat bitterly. “In the meantime, children in this city go to work almost before they’re old enough to walk. If a man gets sick, he loses his job and there are fifty others ready to take his place at twenty cents an hour. And those who’ve profited by this arrangement, the factory owners, are the very men responsible for the Exposition. As what, I’d like to know? A monument to their hypocrisy? The money might have been better spent on wage increases.”

“You may be right. But the world’s as it is, and most of the fortunes that have been built in this city, your family’s as well as mine, have been won at the expense of someone else.”

“That doesn’t make exploitation right, or an appropriate model for emulation,” Evangeline shot back primly. “Besides, my father never owned a factory.”

Blackthorne
shifted uneasily in his chair as the conversation took a more heated turn. He seemed to think it wise to keep his opinion to himself and spent an unusual amount of time stirring the sugar in his teacup. The two combatants barely took any notice.

“And aren’t you indulging yourself in the belief that building a railroad is somehow exempt from commercial necessity and corruption?” Freddie retorted.

Evangeline was silent. She found herself in the morally tenuous position of having benefited from a set of conditions that she deplored. Now that she had already painted herself into a philosophical corner, she chose the most obvious method to free herself. She equivocated. “I believe that for a man engaged in industry, my father was relatively honest. I also believe that he was willing to settle for being comfortably well-off instead of continuing to accumulate wealth as his sole end in life, no matter who was hurt in the process.”