GUNSHY
A Baltimore Historical Mystery
By Louise Titchener
Prologue
Baltimore 1882
THE CAPITAL EXPRESS shuddered to a halt. "Why are we stopping?" Ben Magruder squinted out the window.
"Carrollton Viaduct," said Enoch Rubman. "Most likely a freight barring our way. Give it a few minutes and we'll be rolling again."
Ira Nutwell studied his cards. "You ought to know, being as you're the big railroad man. By the way, the whores in D.C. were right accommodating. How'd you know about that house?"
"Research. Nothing but the best for old soldiers." Enoch puffed on his cigar and smiled lazily.
A half an hour earlier the three men had finished an eight-course dinner inside the train's luxurious private car. Its curtains of plum velvet shielded the three of them from the fireflies flickering in the soft Maryland night. The glow shed by the car's batwing gas burners burnished their faces. Their eyes glistened with memories.
Nutwell stroked his luxurious auburn mustache. "You ever think about that cave, Enoch?"
"Never. That's the past."
"Past has a way of coming back at you."
"Not when you've got my future."
Nutwell guffawed. "Damn, but who would have thought it!" He punched Enoch's shoulder. "You such a big muckety-muck with the B and O.. You the worst hellraiser of the bunch! Now you're a family man."
"Two kiddies and another in the oven," Rubman agreed. He chewed his cigar with enjoyment. "The wife is just what she should be. Reads the Bible and thinks of nothing but good works." He winked at Magruder. The thin, balding man with the goatee winked back.
The train's iron wheels had been still for several minutes, but a loud clacking broke the silence. Magruder looked around frowning. "What the devil?"
The clacking became a thunderous roar.
"Christ!" Enoch leaped to his feet, knocking back his seat. The bottle of very old rye the men had been draining crashed to the floor amidst scattered cards. While his friends cursed, Enoch dashed to the rear window and tore aside a curtain. His insides liquefied. "Run for it. We're being telescoped!"
Nutwell and Magruder were out of their seats, Enoch well ahead of them. He knew about telescoped railroad cars. He'd seen the splintered wood and twisted metal, the burned and broken bodies. Escape! But he was too late. The runaway car he'd spied coming at them plunged through the rear of the private car like a brick through a cracker box. Ripping wood howled and tortured metal shrieked. The private car was upended and shoved overtop the one ahead. Seconds later it exploded into flames with the three men trapped inside.
Chapter 1
DEPUTY MARSHAL RACKLEY spit a brown wad onto the wood floor. "Time to see if you're as good as you're cracked up." His voice dripped doubt.
Oliver Redcastle folded his jacket over a chair stacked with ladies undergarments. He knocked a stack of corsets off another chair and positioned it at an angle to the window. He took the Remington-Beals Single Shot out of its deer hide case. It's curly maple stock, well-polished by years of use, glowed in the dim light.
He ran a finger down its barrel to check its convertible front site, then peered through the rear site. He manipulated its action to see if it was still smooth as cold satin. It was. He slid in a .32 rimfire cartridge. With an effort, because his knee had been paining him all day, he knelt in front of the open window and rested his bent elbow on the edge of the chair. Slowly, he leaned his weight on it and worked the rifle's butt into his shoulder.
Rackley and Lieutenant Krooth of the Eastern District had commandeered this third floor bedroom atop a corset shop opposite Hiram Flatt's tin emporium. Flatt was holed up with an eight-year-old girl he'd kidnapped hours earlier.
Since two other city children of a similar age had been kidnapped, molested, and murdered, the Baltimore police assumed Flatt intended the same fate for his present victim. This time, however, the tin man had made an error.
The other hapless children had been the offspring of immigrant cannery workers. The police had not exerted themselves. This child, Annie Bailey, was the pampered daughter of a prominent banker. Soon after she'd disappeared, lawmen scoured the city. Now, they'd cordoned off the cobblestone block on either side of Flatt's house. Around the barriers neighbors and curiosity seekers pressed against the officers grimly standing guard in the dusk.
"Light's mighty poor. Think you can get him, Redcastle?"
"Depends if he shows himself at the window before dark. If he stays out of sight, you may have to rush the house." Oliver passed a hand over his forehead. If Flatt didn't show himself, he might be harming the child. If, on the other hand, the tinsmith did poke his fool head out, Oliver would kill him. He'd hoped he wouldn't have to kill a man again.
Rackley tugged at his muttonchop whiskers, then took another cut of tobacco and thrust it into the corner of his mouth. He was beefy, with a ruddy complexion that suggested a quick temper. "Flatt's a cornered rat," he said between chews. "If we rush him, he'll kill the child. Lord knows what he's done to the poor kiddie already."
Oliver understood what it meant to be a father with a child at risk. He shifted some of his weight off his right elbow. Concentration was everything these situations. Let your mind wander and you'd lose your chance. Nevertheless, it was a chore to ignore Rackley spitting as his square-toed shoes paced a groove in the floor.
Rackley said, "I only made such fuss to get you here because my man, Gloger, is down sick. Gloger's the best shot in fifty miles."
"That so?"
"During the war he went sesesh. Shot blue coats out of the trees like ripe fruit."
Oliver wished Rackley would shut up. The reek coming off him suggested that his monthly bath was inadequate.
"How'd you get to be a marksman, Redcastle?"
"Shooting rattlesnakes for dinner."
"Ain't no rattlesnakes in Baltimore."
"I grew up in Kansas." His gaze flickered over the street below. Flatt appeared to be quite an accomplished tinsmith. His shop windows were stuffed with pans, kettles, buckets, squirrel cages, and the small tin horns used by garbage cart drivers and fish peddlers.
Some of the neighbors shouting jeers at Flatt's upper windows had doubtless patronized his business never guessing his sick obsession with children.
"If I get a clear shot at him," Oliver said, "do you want me to wing him?"
"Don't take chances. Do whatever need be to save the child. I promised her father she'd come home safe."
"It may already be too late."
Across the street an unseen hand shoved up a window. The grimy strip of burlap covering it was torn aside and the silhouette of a smallish man appeared. In front of him was the child. Flatt pressed a knife to Annie Bailey's throat and held her close to shield himself.
A cry went up from the crowd outside the cordon of police. As Oliver squinted down the Remington's long barrel, he heard it only as a muted roar, like the rush of waves on a distant shore.
It was that twilight period when solid shapes dissolve into shadow and dusk deceives the eye. But Oliver saw Flatt as if the man were bathed in radiance. The universe contained only himself, Flatt, and the child between them. Time slowed to the heavy tick of his pulse.
Crack.
Horrified screams wavered up from the crowd. The knife dropped away from little Annie Bailey's throat. Behind her, Flatt swayed and jerked. He sagged out of sight. A bullet hole divided his colorless eyebrows.
TWO HOURS later Oliver climbed off a horse-drawn streetcar. He adjusted the weight of the Remington slung over his shoulder in its case, and set off toward home. Limping down the brick sidewalk, he passed three boys playing leapfrog. Lilac, brick dust, and horse urine scented the warm night.
He'd recently inherited his aunt's red brick rowhouse. As a child he had visited her in summer and admired the handsome brass knocker on her paneled door and the white marble steps and fancy iron rail that led up to the entrance. Those features still pleased him. Yet, if it weren't for his daughter, he might have sold the place instead of moving to Baltimore to make it his home.
Inside, Mrs. Milawny eyed the Remington weighing down his shoulder. "And did everything go well, sir? It give me a turn when the police came asking after you."
Mrs. Milawny had been in Oliver's employ for less than a week. She was a pleasant, motherly woman with an aphorism for every occasion. A pouf of blinding white hair crowned her broad forehead. With her crinkled blue eyes and apple cheeks she looked a proper mate for Father Christmas. So far she and Chloe had been dealing well together. Which was a blessing since the child was still nervous of him.
"I used to be in law enforcement. The local police needed some help with a kidnap case."
"That's why you took that big gun with you tonight?" Her white eyebrows flew up. "You wouldn't be a Pinkerton man, would you?"
"I was that for many years. No more. You needn't fear I'll be dealing with crooks. I'm here in Baltimore to open a new sort of business."
"You don't say so. And what would that be, sir?"
"Don't know just yet. I've given myself a year to look around before I decide. Is Chloe asleep?"
The interest on the housekeeper's face shifted to concern. "She's having a hard time with the asthma tonight, poor little soul. We don't appreciate the air we breathe 'til it's hard to find. I sat with her until she fell asleep. It tore at my heart. She was asking about her mother."
Mrs. Milawny gave Oliver a look that invited explanation. Ignoring it, he locked away his Remington and ascended the staircase. A candle burned on a table in his daughter's room. The smell of camphor lay over the airless enclosure.
He opened the curtains at the window and pulled up the sash. A puff of summer air, like a balloon on a thread of moonlight, streamed through the opening. Quietly, he lowered himself into the chair next to Chloe's bed. Through her shroud of mosquito netting, he studied her small face.
She resembled her pretty mother. The same thick auburn curls and alabaster skin. Was there anything of himself in those babyish features? Was he truly her father? Or had Marietta made a fool of him all over again?
As the child struggled for air, each of her labored breaths fluttered in the room like the wings of a trapped bird. A whitish film lay like a scale on her lips.
He thought of an icewagon he'd seen earlier and wished he had a sliver of that ice to lay against her tongue. He wrung a sponge out in the bowl of camphor water on the bedside table. He lifted the gauze canopy and wiped off her forehead and cheeks. It seemed to help. She turned her head and breathed a bit more easily.
Mrs. Milawny's stout body appeared in the doorway. She shot a disapproving glance at the open window and said, "You're wanted, sir. There's a man downstairs says he's got a job for you. Something about an accident on the railroad."
MALPRACTICE by Louise Titchener
Prologue
Baltimore, 1882
BERTRAM WALKED UNCERTAINLY on the drizzle-slicked wharf. Apple cores, fish leavings, rotted wood and other garbage slopped against the hulls of bugeyes, clippers and skipjacks. Bertram couldn’t hear their hemp lines creaking against the mossy pilings as they strained upward with the incoming tide. But he could feel the vibrations beneath his feet.
There were other vibrations—the steady thud of carts rolling past loaded with dry goods, the rap of feet as Negro oystermen came off vessels carrying baskets of shellfish and racks of canvasback ducks.
He tried to stop one of the sailors. The man, a grizzled individual with a knit cap pulled low over his forehead, paused. For a second Bertram saw his reflection in the man’s eyes—a slight boy, expensively dressed in woolen knickers, stockings, a shirt and jacket.
The clothes were rumpled. He hadn’t succeeded in brushing away all the bits of straw from the farmer’s cart in which he’d sneaked a ride into town. He knew very well that he looked out of place. His outfit was not what a cabin boy might wear. But he’d had nothing more appropriate.
He wanted to explain all this to the man staring down at him with an expression that was half annoyed, half curious. Yet all he could do was point at the clipper with the tallest mast and then at himself. He took a square of paper from his pocket, unfolded it and handed it to the man. The block letters on the paper read, My name is Bertram. I am deaf. I would like to go away to sea as a cabin boy. Please help me.
The man shook his head and handed the paper back. “Readin’ ain’t one of my talents. Now get on home with you. It’s late and the docks at night ain’t no place for a boy like you.”
Bertram could read lips well enough to understand most of what the sailor had said. All afternoon he’d been rebuffed in this manner.
He shivered. The damp air had pierced his jacket long ago. His stomach rumbled, but he’d already eaten the last of the food he’d packed away in his pockets early that morning. What had seemed like a fine adventure then, now appeared futile. He had a few coins left, but he thought he should hoard them because they might be necessary to get back home. It was beginning to look as if that was exactly what he’d have to do.
What will Grandfather say, he wondered, and shivered again.
Tired, he looked around for someplace to get out of the drizzle. Perhaps if he could just rest and get dry he might accomplish his goal yet. Further along the dock, several bales of tobacco were piled up for loading. By pushing them about slightly, for they were very heavy, Bertram arranged a dry spot where he could wedge his body. With a sigh, he settled his bottom on the dock, wrapped his arms tight around his chest, closed his eyes and dreamed of his mother.
It was night when someone shook him awake. Bertram’s eyes were dazzled by the glare of a match held directly in front of his face.
“Whatcha’ doin’ there, kid?”
The match flared out and all Bertram could see was darkness. He could smell a man’s dirty woolen clothes, though, and his breath, foul with whiskey.
Another match flared and, once again, Bertram was blinded. “Answer me, I say.” The hand shook him so roughly Bertram’s head fell back against a tobacco bale.
“Help,” he stammered out, and reached for the paper which explained everything.
The man stared down at it, then lit another match so he could continue his examination. In its flare, Bertram was finally able to make out the man’s face. He didn’t care much for it. Nor did he like the slow, secret smile that began to widen its mouth.
“Deaf, eh? So, Bertie, you want to be a cabin boy? Well, you’ve come to the right place. Come along with me and I’ll fix you up right and tight.”
Chapter One
SMILING, OLIVER REDCASTLE watched his seven-year-old daughter feed his housekeeper’s nine-year-old nephew the last sugar cookie.
“Jimmy don’t deserve your Chloe’s kindness,” Mrs. Milawney declared. “The boy’s nothing but trouble!”
As the children burst into giggles, the doorbell jingled. Mrs. Milawney rolled her eyes. “Wouldn’t you know it! Someone’s wanting to come in, and me up to me elbows in flour and sassy young’uns!”
Oliver uncoiled his long frame from the kitchen stool where he’d been perched. “Don’t disturb yourself. I’ll see to it.”
Upstairs, he hurried down the hall to the front door. When he threw it open, he beheld an elderly gentleman with thick gray side-whiskers and a serious expression. He wore an embroidered vest and brown frockcoat under a matching greatcoat. “I’m looking for Mr. Oliver Redcastle.”
“I’m he. How may I help you?”
“Name is Oldhampton, Lester Oldhampton. Perhaps you recognize it?”
“I do indeed. You’re the owner of Oldhampton’s Brewery. I’ve enjoyed many a glass of your dark ale. I’m honored to meet you.”
“If I might come in and have a word with you? It’s a private matter.”
“Of course.” Oliver stood aside and watched his visitor walk through the doorway.
Once they were inside the small parlor on the left, he closed the pocket doors. Mr. Oldhampton had taken off his gloves and was removing his top hat. He refused the offer of a seat or any refreshment. Instead, he walked stiffly to the window, placed his hands behind his back and looked out on the street in silence, as if preparing himself for a long and painful speech. When he turned around, his expression was grim.
“Perhaps you remember my son, Simon Oldhampton. He served with you in the war.”
“Of course I remember him. He was a fine officer.”
“Simon told me you were a champion sharpshooter. Indeed, it’s because he often spoke so well of you and because I’d heard you’d left the Pinkertons to open a detecting agency here in Baltimore that you find me on your doorstep.”
“How is Simon? I still think of him from time to time.”
“My son has been dead for over ten years. He broke his neck taking a fence in a damned silly cross country horse race.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Simon Oldhampton was a gallant figure in Oliver’s memory—a handsome, laughing young man who had charged fearlessly into battle, riding his horse through a hale of minie balls and always emerging unscathed. Ironic that he would survive the war only to die in such a manner.
“It was a sorry business, very sorry,” his father said heavily. “Fortunately, he left a son, my grandson Bertram. I’m here because of Bertram. He’s missing and I’d like to hire you to find him for me.”
Oliver gestured at a brocade chair. As the old man sank into it, a finger of light picked its way through the lace curtain. It fell on Oldhampton’s face long enough to reveal eyes red from anxiety. Beneath his thick whiskers, his skin looked gray.
Oliver took a seat opposite. “How has this happened? Do you think your grandson was kidnapped?”
“No. Bertram ran away quite on his own.”
“How long has he been missing?”
“Only a few hours. He ran away this morning.”
“Then perhaps you’re premature in coming to see me. Runaway boys usually come back home after a day or so.”
“That’s what the police told me. They said they’d keep an eye out for him, but they haven’t the manpower to launch a real search until he’s been missing longer. That may do for other boys. Not Bertram. He is a special case, and I’m deeply worried.”
Oldhampton went on to explain that the twelve-year-old boy was a recent orphan. Three months earlier his mother had died from hospital fever after being operated on for a burst appendix. “I took him into my own home, of course, but I fear he wasn’t happy. He’s a moody child with an incapacity. He became deaf after a severe case of scarlet fever. Because of that, his mother educated him at home and never allowed him to play with other boys his own age. For lack of anything better to do, he spent all his time reading and picking up silly, romantic notions.”
“Her loss must have devastated him.”
“I suppose that’s why he took it into his head to run away.”
“Do you have any idea where he might have gone?”
“Yes, but only because he left this.” Oldhampton produced a note. It read, Dear Grandfather, I am very unhappy without Mama, so I have decided to go seek my fortune at sea as a cabin boy. Please don’t be angry. Bertram.
Oliver studied the printed message. He thought it was a naive note, even for a boy of twelve. He knew of boys that age, or even younger, who’d run away to sea and worked their way up to becoming captains, but none of them were deaf and had lived such a sheltered life as Bertram Oldhampton. A cosseted boy who couldn’t hear might run into danger hanging around the docks. “When did you find this note?”
“Not until late this afternoon. I’ve had a houseguest, a man named Frank Woolworth. You may have heard of the five-cent stores he’s established in Pennsylvania. He’s thinking about branching out in Baltimore. This morning Frank and I were looking at possible locations.”
“And you thought your grandson was safely at home?”
“Bertram had been invited to a picnic at a neighbor’s house. That’s where my housekeeper thought he was until she turned up this note in his room. When Woolworth and I returned for lunch, she brought it to me. I immediately made inquiries around the neighborhood. After that, I drove into town and looked for Bertram around the docks at the foot of Light Street. Nobody I spoke to remembered seeing a boy matching his description.”
“There are docks all along the waterfront. Perhaps he went to Fells Point.”
“Perhaps he did, but he must be found quickly. By the time the police are ready to make a serious effort, he may have run into terrible trouble. Will you help me?”
Mr. Oldhampton’s plea was interrupted by children’s laughter in the hallway. The pocket doors zipped open and Chloe came tumbling through, her blue eyes bright and her strawberry ringlets flying. “Papa, Papa, save me!” she cried.
Jimmy was on her heels. As he yanked a cloth doll from her hand, they both crashed to the floor. An instant later, Mrs. Milawney flew in, her white hair standing away from the bun atop her head in flyaway spikes and her skirts hiked up almost to her knees.
“You divil! I’ll warm your behind for this!” She stopped short, looking from Oliver to his guest. “My apologies, sir.” She seized Jimmy by the hair and Chloe by the hand.
“After today I won’t be surprised if you’re not allowed back into this house,” she hissed into her nephew’s ear. Quickly, she hoisted both children to their feet and dragged them out.
When the pocket doors closed behind her, Oliver looked back at his guest. The smile, as well as the apology on his lips, died when he saw Oldhampton’s crumpled face. A tear was sliding down his wrinkled cheek.
Dabbing at it furtively, then reaching for his handkerchief, Oldhampton said, “Find my grandson for me, Mr. Redcastle and I’ll pay you handsomely. Money is no object. I don’t know what I’ll do if I lose Bertram. He’s all I’ve got left.”
