Page 18 of Blackmailed (The Browns of Butcher’s Hill #2)

Phillip received a note from Timothy Sweitzinger to meet him at Red’s Tavern that evening.

They met there occasionally when they didn’t want anyone listening to their conversation or starting up a gab, as always happened at Bond’s Brewery where they both knew everyone.

He opened the door on the tavern and nodded at the massive redheaded man behind the bar.

He searched the crowd until he found Timothy, sitting with none other than the Pinkertons, Reed and Randolph.

Phillip made his way to the table. Timothy just stared at him and shook his head once.

He knew what his friend was trying to say.

He’d had no choice but to set up the meeting.

“Gentlemen,” Phillip said and sat down in the last chair. “Who’s buying?”

“This isn’t a game,” Lieutenant Randolph said.

“Never said it was,” Phillip said as he took the glass of ale from the barmaid.

“What can you tell us about Irene Littleman?”

There was no use acting as if he didn’t know that they knew about his visit to her although he was hard-pressed to imagine how they’d found out.

Maybe Irene had a snitch. “She runs a large organization that sells stolen goods. Her bolt-hole is the Water Tavern near the docks, where I’m guessing she receives goods from up and down the East Coast in addition to items from the city.

The three men guarding her when I spoke to her were not just paid muscle.

She was special to them, and they would lay down their life for her. They’d kill for her too.”

Randolph sneered. “What makes you an expert?”

Phillip stared at him. “You asked me what I could tell you. Go figure it out yourself.” He stood. “I’m done here.”

Reed stood too. “We’re not done talking.”

“I am.”

Reed turned to Randolph. “Go check on the horses.”

“What? You’re sending me to check on the horses?” Randolph said incredulously.

“And I expect you to follow a direct order.”

Randolph flounced toward the door and slammed it as he went out. Reed turned to Phillip. “Sit.”

Phillip sat down after a few intense moments staring at the captain.

“What else?” he said.

“She says she did not kill Colfax.”

“And you believed her?”

“I did.”

“What else?”

“She said Colfax not only received stolen goods, he did some thieving himself.”

Reed sat back in his chair. “So this wasn’t a man looking for a little side income, selling items he could deny that he knew had been stolen if he was caught. This guy was stealing goods himself or had a minion do it.”

Phillip nodded. “She referred to Colfax as ‘a lying, cheating swindler.’”

“How much of an ass do you have to be to have another criminal call you a swindler?” Timothy said.

Phillip worked two long days, covering half a shift for Josiah Steinman, whose wife had recently had a baby and was not recovering from her confinement as quickly as she had with their other six children.

The poor woman was probably worn out, but it wasn’t his place to say as so many families had five or even ten children.

Josiah was back on his regular shift, and Phillip was done working at the noon bell.

He finished the paperwork he needed to do and went home to change into his Sunday clothes.

He was meeting with Mrs. Everly that day, without Mr. Everly.

It had taken several conversations to convince Everly that she may not say anything about a longtime employee that needed to be said in relation to the thefts if her son was in the room, looming over her.

He intended to ask her about the Ladies’ Organization for the Benefit of Baltimore and her Thursday afternoons there.

He had no idea what her response would be, but he thought her gambling was at the root of the thefts.

Phillip knocked at the kitchen door of the Everly residence and opened it when he saw Mrs. Veto motion him inside.

“I’ve got hot soup on the stove, Mr. Brown. Are you hungry?” she said.

“I’m always hungry, ma’am. But I’ve got an appointment that I must keep first.”

“See me on your way out,” she said over her shoulder.

Jenkins marched toward him, hands in tight fists, belligerent in every physical regard. “This way, Brown.”

Phillip winked at Mrs. Veto and followed the butler up the servants’ stairs and into a small sitting room. A fire was burning in the fireplace, and Mrs. Everly was seated in a chair nearby, her hands clutching a handkerchief, her face ashen. Porter sat in the corner of the room, stitching.

“Mrs. Everly. I’m going to have to ask your maid to leave the room. She can sit right outside the door,” he said.

“It is hardly proper,” she said with a huff. “And what could Porter have to do with any of this? She is as blind to these thefts as I am.”

“I understand that, but when I’m trying to figure out a mystery like this, it’s best that I meet with victims one on one.”

“Victims? Yes! That is what I am, a victim,” she said as she nodded vigorously, some color coming into her cheeks. “Go on, Porter. Sit on the bench in the hallway. I will call out if you’re needed.”

Phillip waited until the maid was gone and the door closed.

He seated himself on an uncomfortable wooden chair across from her and wondered if it had been put there specifically in an effort to cut this interview short.

He didn’t doubt it, he thought as he pulled a pencil and tablet from his pocket.

“Can you tell me when you first started noticing items missing?” he asked.

“Yes. It was last fall.”

“Would you say October? November?”

“October, I believe.”

“Do you remember the first thing you noticed missing?” he asked.

Mrs. Everly sat quietly for a moment and then looked up at him.

“Yes. It was an Ott & Brewer vase I’d planned on donating to the fundraiser that the Baltimore Museum holds every year.

When I went to get it from where it had sat for twenty some years in the parlor, it was missing.

I assumed one of the maids had broken it when they were cleaning, but Jenkins said he spoke to the maids assigned to that room and neither would admit to it, although one of them told Porter she reported the missing item to Jenkins when she first noticed it gone. ”

“Is this a fundraiser the museum does every year?”

She nodded. “Yes. It is very popular, and so is the ball held at the auction’s conclusion. They decorate so beautifully, roses and lilies everywhere.”

“Roses and lilies? October is getting late for roses and lilies, isn’t it?”

Mrs. Everly glanced away. “Well. It could have been a little earlier, maybe at the end of August or early September. Unless, of course, they had the flowers shipped in from the south.” She smiled as if she’d covered herself so well that he would not notice the discrepancy.

Phillip prompted her from the list he’d received from her son.

She was able to identify every item and tell him where in the house it had been located.

Exactly. Which he thought was strange, even knowing she had lived in the house all her life.

The house was filled with knickknacks and vases and tea sets and crystal, all on display.

And some only recently missing were not on the list.

“Is there anyone you suspect?” he asked.

“Jenkins seems to think it is the two girls from Ireland. They were hired when it all started, but I don’t know.” She leaned forward. “I told Everly that if the staff had to resort to theft, then maybe he should give them a raise.”

Phillip was included in the meeting when Mr. Wiest and Mr. Everly and a few others reviewed the pay for the cannery employees once a year. Mr. Everly was usually in favor of lowering wages rather than raising him. He had a silent laugh at how his mother’s suggestion had gone over with her son.

“I don’t think the timing works for the two women Jenkins is referring to. It sounds as though things began disappearing in early September and they didn’t start here until,” Phillip flipped through his notes, “sometime in the middle of October.”

Mrs. Everly shrugged. “Well. You’ll have to look elsewhere, then.”

He nodded and shuffled his notebook closed. He looked up at Mrs. Everly and waited until she looked at him. “Can you tell me about your Thursday afternoons at the Ladies’ Organization for the Benefit of Baltimore City?”

He saw panic in the older woman’s eyes for the briefest moment. Fear, perhaps, too. She fussed with her handkerchief and pursed her lips. “Whatever are you talking about?”

“You spend your Thursday afternoons there regularly. I just wondered what all went on.”

“It’s a ladies’ organization! What do you think goes on?

We raise monies for charities and scholarships and drink our tea and socialize,” she said and looked down at her hands briefly.

“We play the occasional hand of cards. It gets us away from the pressures of our families and servants. We relax. Don’t you think women are entitled to some amusement? ”

Phillip held up his hands. “You’re welcome to your entertainments, Mrs. Everly. Although I imagine there are those who frown on a hand of whist or even poker.”

“You have no idea how judgmental people can be,” she said without a hint of the gross hypocrisy she espoused.

“Everyone is entitled to get away from their labors,” he said.

“Tell my son that! He thinks it is a waste of time. I’ve told him how much I enjoy it, but he just does not understand,” she said. “I make sure I’m home long before he comes home from the cannery, just to keep the peace!”

“You should not feel guilty about a little entertainment,” he said and stood. “I fear I’ve taken too much of your time, Mrs. Everly.”

“I wish Altimus would let the whole subject drop,” she sniffed. “My nerves are quite frayed.”

“If you ever need a listening ear, or help of any kind, please send for me. I’ll take my leave and send your maid to you,” he said.

All in all, Phillip thought it was a productive conversation. She was hiding a gambling problem from her son and not doing a good job of it, and now she could hardly say the thefts had stopped after Phillip had been brought in to speak to all the staff.