Fallen Women Read online

  “And satisfy your curiosity.” She drank a bit of tea, then set down the cup and squeezed lemon into the brew. She couldn’t blame him for being nosy. Perhaps he’d savor the story to tell his friends at the station. No, that was not fair, Beret decided. Mick had shown no inclination to gossip. Besides, whatever she could tell him about Teddy might indeed help the investigation. She wondered if she could be objective, then dismissed the concern. She did not care.

  Mick sipped his brandy. “Yes, I suppose so. Do you want to talk about it?”

  “I never have. Even my aunt and uncle don’t know the story, only Lillie’s version of it. And what they’ve figured out themselves, of course.”

  Mick nodded but didn’t speak.

  “You’d be the first to hear my side, except for my lawyer and our guardian, Lillie’s and mine.” She lifted the teacup again, then thought better of it and picked up her brandy glass, inhaled the scent, and tasted it. “I married Edward after my parents died. They’d known him and didn’t care for him, actively disliked him, in fact. They’d warned me he was a fortune hunter, a wastrel. Perhaps if they’d been alive, I’d have seen the truth of it, but I was young and hadn’t many suitors. Teddy was charming and had an air of sophistication about him. He comforted me after my parents died, let me cry on his shoulder and showed much sympathy, because he hadn’t his parents, either, you see, and knew what it was like to be alone. And you saw for yourself, he is a handsome man.” Much too handsome for her, Beret thought. Why hadn’t she seen that? How often at the mission had she warned women about men who were too charming, too pretty, and yet she had been taken in by those very qualities every bit as much as they.

  Beret waited until Mick said, “Go on.”

  She found herself wondering if the detective understood why she’d been attracted to Teddy. She wanted him to. “Of course, I had the care of Lillie then. She was eleven when our parents died. I was overwhelmed by the loss and the responsibility of looking after her. That was another reason I married. I didn’t want to raise her by myself. And I was lonely, too. But mostly, I was in love.” She stared into the liquid in the glass, which shimmered in the overhead gaslights. It was still afternoon outside, but the room was darkened by heavy velvet curtains.

  “It was a lovely marriage. We went to the theater, the opera, to parties. On my own, I didn’t much care for such things, but Edward loved the gay life, and I wanted to please him. I had my work at the mission, too, and he didn’t mind that I was gone all day. That meant a great deal to me. Of course, later on, I thought perhaps he had been delighted that I was out of the way.” Beret considered that for a moment and wondered how she could have been so trusting, so naïve. How stupid she’d been! Had she been too besotted to see through their charade of a marriage?

  “Teddy lived the life of a gentleman. It didn’t bother me that he had no work. I had enough money for both of us—the three of us, of course, because with Lillie, we were a threesome. Teddy and I never had children of our own, so in our way, we both became Lillie’s parents.” Beret smiled at the memory as she picked up the spoon and stirred her tea but left the cup in its saucer.

  They had indeed had a lovely time. Beret remembered that first Christmas with Teddy, the three of them hanging the fragile glass ornaments on the tree, then lighting the candles. Teddy had stood by with a bucket of water in case the flames set the tree on fire, while Lillie and Beret opened their presents. There was a grown-up gown of velvet and lace and satin for Lillie, an ermine muff, a gold bracelet, and a pendant in the shape of a flower, covered with diamonds. It had belonged to Lillie and Beret’s mother. Beret received a sable jacket and matching muff—the ones she had worn in the carte de visite. And she presented her husband with a fur-collared coat and an ebony walking stick with a gold knob.

  Lillie hadn’t believed in Santa Claus for a long time, of course. Still, Teddy insisted she hang up her stocking by the fireplace, and after a dinner of roast goose and strawberry tarts, Beret and Lillie went to a midnight service at the cathedral. A groom drove them in a sleigh over snow-packed streets, sleigh bells ringing in the frigid air, the two young women covered with a fur blanket, their hands warm in their new muffs. Teddy said he had eaten too much goose and stayed behind. When the two returned, they heard the sound of bells in the parlor, and Teddy called, “Come quickly, Lillie. You’ve just missed the old gentleman.” And when Lillie and Beret entered the room, Teddy, his face radiant, pointed at Lillie’s stocking, bulging now, and a magnificent doll with real hair sitting beneath it.

  For a moment, it appeared that Lillie really did believe in Santa again. How Beret had loved her husband for bringing that joy into their lives. Lillie clutched the doll to her breast. Although Lillie was too old for toys, Theodora, as the doll was named, became her favorite possession and remained on a chair in her room as long as she lived in the house. It was there still, Beret recalled. She wondered what had become of the pendant. Lillie must have taken it with her, because it was not among the things she’d left behind in New York. But it had not been found at the House of Dreams, either. Perhaps it had been stolen along with the diamond earrings. Recalling the necklace now, Beret asked Mick, “Was there a diamond pendant in the shape of a daisy found in my sister’s room? It was our mother’s, and Lillie wore it a great deal. She must have taken it with her to Denver, because it wasn’t left behind in New York.”

  “No, nothing so fine. Her earrings were missing, but nobody said anything about a necklace.”

  “Perhaps she didn’t wear it after she turned out. But it should have been there, in a drawer or else hidden somewhere.”

  “We searched the room pretty good—twice. You were there the second time. Is it valuable?”

  “Rather. But it was the sentimental value that meant the most to us. Father gave it to Mother, and it was her favorite piece of jewelry. That was why I wanted Lillie to have it.”

  “Maybe she lost it.”

  “Perhaps.” Beret thought about that. Or perhaps someone stole it. Maybe the pendant belonged to some other woman of the streets now, a prostitute who would think of it as a trinket, a paste bauble, not knowing how valuable it was, not caring what it had meant to the Osmundsen family.

  “You were saying you had a good marriage, for a time anyway,” Mick prompted.

  “Oh yes, almost until the end, ten years. You see, I don’t think it lasted very long, what happened between them…” Beret’s voice trailed off. “Our guardian was generous, although not overly so. Father must have been concerned that I would marry Teddy or someone like him, so in his will, he specified that I would have charge of Lillie, but the estate would be administered by my godfather, a banker. Under normal circumstances, I suppose, my part of the estate would have gone to my husband, since by law, I couldn’t control it. I was grateful later that Father had made the provisions he did, because that’s the only reason Teddy didn’t go through the money. He had enormous debts I didn’t know about. To save face, I settled them after he left.”

  Mick finished his brandy and leaned back in his chair, waiting for Beret to continue.

  For a moment, she was distracted by a couple who had entered the dining room and was being seated at a far table. The man, wearing a coat with a velvet collar, carried a walking stick with a gold knob that was similar to the one Beret had given Teddy that first Christmas. The woman was fashionably dressed in a gown with a tight bodice and a bustle, and she sat awkwardly, twisting in her chair, her legs to one side, attempting to find a comfortable position. As she removed her gloves, she glanced around the room, caught Mick’s eye, and smiled. Mick nodded. Beret glanced at the detective with a questioning look, and he said, “A friend.”

  “You seem to know a great many people.”

  “As do you.”

  Beret wondered if he meant Teddy. She returned to her tea. As soon as she set down her cup, the waiter refilled it, then asked, “Would the lady and gentleman care for something to eat?”

  “Soup?” Mick ask
ed her.

  Beret shook her head, and Mick told the waiter to bring him another brandy. After the man left, Mick leaned forward and asked, “And what happened?”

  The question would have been rude in other circumstances, but Mick was a detective investigating a murder. Beret did not take offense. “I think you can guess.” She straightened the fingers of her gloves, which had been lying on the table, then folded the gloves together, not wanting to continue the conversation but knowing she had to. So at last, she sighed and said, “I don’t know when it started. Or how, but as I said, I don’t think it went on for long, less than a year, maybe only months, perhaps just weeks. Lillie adored Teddy. I suppose she had a crush on him. I never suspected anything, because she had such a busy social life, dozens of suitors. Several had asked Teddy for her hand, but Lillie was having too good a time to get married. Or at least, that’s what I thought.” She glanced at the woman across the room, who was engaged in conversation.

  “It was a Monday, the servants’ day off. I’d said I’d be at the mission all day, but I’d come home with a sick headache. That was when I caught them. They were together. In our bed. Can you imagine, Detective? In my very own bed, the one I had slept in ever since I was a girl.” Beret shook her head and tried to blink back tears, as she recalled the horror of opening the door and finding the two of them, naked, lying on a spread of cut velvet. Later, she’d told the housekeeper to burn the spread, but there was no way to burn away the memory.

  Beret took out a handkerchief then and dabbed at her eyes. “I am so sorry. This is not easy for me. Can you imagine how violated I felt, not only to catch them but to catch them in my bed? Perhaps you can’t. You deal with the refuse of life, as do I. Such an occurrence must seem unimportant when you compare it with what others we come into contact with have suffered—beatings, rapes, abandonment. But I had not expected such a thing in my perfect marriage. I was shocked, then hurt, then outraged.” She felt the emotions all over again and could not continue.

  Mick reached across the table and patted her hand, and Beret was touched by the unexpected intimacy. Beneath the tough exterior of a police officer, he seemed to be a nice man. The waiter set down Mick’s glass, and Mick asked Beret, “Would you like more brandy?”

  “Yes, I believe I would.”

  The officer nodded at the waiter and gave the order. Beret put away her handkerchief and smiled a little. “I have turned into a great embarrassment.”

  “Not at all. I do understand, you know.”

  “Thank you.”

  The waiter returned with the brandy, and Beret took a sip. “I behaved badly. I saw that later on, when it was too late. I blamed Lillie when I should have blamed Teddy. I should have known at the time that he had flattered her, seduced her, taken advantage of her. It’s the way men do things. How could she have resisted him? I couldn’t, you know. After all, I married him!” Beret shook her head at the truth of what she’d said. “You would think after working with so many poor women who’d been abused by their husbands or been forced to sacrifice their honor to their employers that I would have known the man was always at fault. But I’m afraid I reacted like a typical scorned woman. I blamed the other woman—my sister.” She almost gulped her brandy.

  “And now, do you think she was at fault, too?”

  “I don’t know.” It was a question she had asked herself over and over again in the past few days, ever since she had learned that Lillie had died in a house of prostitution. Had her sister indeed been the temptress? Had she, not Teddy, been the seducer? Beret shook her head to rid herself of the idea, although she was no longer sure.

  “You threw them out of the house then.” It was a statement, not a question.

  Beret nodded. “It was my house.” She thought a moment. “It was our house, Lillie’s and mine, our parents’ house, that is, but neither one of us thought about that. Lillie was so used to deferring to me that she didn’t realize she had as much right as I did to stay there.”

  “But she had money, didn’t she?”

  “That’s the terrible thing I did.” Beret glanced down at her hands, too ashamed to look the detective in the eye. “You see, I talked with our guardian. I confided what had happened, told him Lillie was at fault. He’s a priggish man, unctuous even, and he was always anxious to please me. I have thought he might even have hoped I’d marry him after Teddy was gone. Perhaps that’s why he was so anxious to do my bidding. I told him Lillie should be cut off until she saw the error of her ways and apologized, and that’s exactly what he did. He found some reason or other to justify it, a morals clause that was in the will as a matter of course. Lillie didn’t know she should protest. Uncle John—Judge Stanton, that is—would have told her what action to take, but I suppose Lillie never discussed it with him. It was abominable of me to have done what I did.”

  “But understandable,” Mick said.

  Beret looked at him, surprised again at the sympathetic words coming from a policeman. She sipped at the brandy. “It wasn’t quite as bad as you think. I didn’t mean for her to be cut off forever. I wanted to teach her a lesson. I thought she’d return, be contrite, beg me for forgiveness.”

  “Grovel, you mean.”

  Beret thought that over. Had she been so reprehensible? She nodded. “Yes, I suppose that’s it.” She looked into her cup at the tea. “I missed her so. I didn’t miss Teddy so much, but I missed Lillie. She was the one I’d loved most. I loved her, and I hated her at the same time. Can you understand that?”

  The question was rhetorical this time, but nonetheless, the detective answered, “Yes.”

  “Really?”

  Mick shrugged. “So the two of them came to Denver.”

  “That’s the odd thing. Lillie came by herself. Teddy stayed in New York, thinking I’d take him back. He sent me flowers and jewelry. All very expensive.” She gave a laugh. “I know, because the bills came to me.”

  “Did you consider taking him back?”

  The question was forward, but Beret saw no reason not to answer it. She had told him everything else. “Not once. My love for him died when I opened that bedroom door. My parents had been wrong about him; he was far worse than Father had imagined. Teddy was greedy and selfish, and he was ugly inside. He took pleasure in my humiliation. Do you know what he did when I discovered him in bed with my sister?” Beret thrust her chin forward, her eyes limpid, a look of utter desolation on her face. “He laughed.”

  “Miss Osmundsen…”

  “No. I’ll tell you all of it. He told me I was old, dried up, an embarrassment to him with my plain clothes and mugwump life. He said he and his friends laughed at me, that he’d married me only for the money. Of course, he took it all back later on when he realized he had nothing on which to live. But it was too late. I’d seen him for what he was. I had a very good lawyer. Teddy didn’t get a penny. Of course, Lillie…” Here Beret’s voice faltered. “As I said, I arranged for her to be cut off, too, and I suppose I’ll go to hell for it.”

  “Perhaps you’ve already been there,” Mick said so softly that Beret barely heard him.

  “No, but Lillie has.”

  Mick asked if she wanted more brandy, but she declined. They were silent for a long time, until Mick asked, “So they came out here?”

  “Lillie did. As I said, Teddy stayed in New York until he realized I wasn’t going to take him back. Then he disappeared. I had no idea he’d followed Lillie to Denver. I knew that she was with Aunt and Uncle, of course. My aunt wrote me when Lillie arrived. She knew the two of us had had a falling-out, and she told me we ought to make amends, that we were family and could not let a misunderstanding, no matter how serious, come between us. Family is very important to her, because my aunt and uncle have no one but Lillie and me—that is, me now. But after a while, she stopped mentioning Lillie in her letters, so I supposed she’d figured out what had happened. Or maybe Lillie told her, probably not all of it, but enough so that they knew. They hadn’t liked Teddy, either. I
’m sure they blamed him.”

  “But he came here eventually.”

  “Evidently.”

  “And do you think that was when she moved into Miss Hettie’s?”

  Beret shook her head. “I don’t know. Of course, Teddy knew where she was. He surely was the dark-complexioned man seen talking to Lillie. And it seems my sister gave Teddy money. He must have made her think she was responsible for my divorcing him. I hate him for that. But whether he introduced her to Miss Hettie, I don’t know. I’ll have to ask Miss Hettie.”

  “We’ll have to ask,” Mick corrected her.

  “Yes, of course.”

  “You won’t go there by yourself, will you?”

  Beret smiled for the first time since they had entered the restaurant. “Not this time of day, Officer McCauley.” The tea and brandy had warmed her, and she unbuttoned her jacket.

  “Do you think your husband, your former husband, killed your sister?”

  Beret considered that for a long time. “I’ve wondered that since the girl from Miss Hettie’s told us she’d seen Lillie with Teddy. I never would have thought he was capable of such a thing, although I would like him to be the one. Perhaps he is. It seems obvious, doesn’t it?”

  “Unless he was in a poker game.”

  Beret gave Mick a disdainful look. “Do you believe that?”

  “I’ll check it out.”

  “Yes, of course.” She ran her tongue over her teeth. “He has a temper, but at heart, he’s a weak man. I don’t think he has”—Beret considered her words carefully—“the gumption to kill anybody. And if Lillie was giving him money, why would he murder his meal ticket?”

  “Maybe she refused to support him anymore.”

  Beret nodded. “That could be.”

  “And maybe he discovered she was pregnant. Dr. Death … that is, the coroner, thinks she was four or five months along. Has your husband been here that long?”

  “That would have happened after she left New York, since she had been gone a year.” Beret thought back. “Teddy was in New York four months ago. I remember that because it was All Saints’ Eve, when so much mischief is done. He came by the house, asking me to change my mind. And I saw him in December, on the street near the mission. He was with a woman, a prostitute, it appeared, and he turned a corner thinking I wouldn’t see him, I suppose, but I did. I don’t know if he was in New York all that time. He could have come to Denver, then gone back East.”