Killingly by Katharine Beutner

Author:Katharine Beutner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Soho Press

Some of it was even true.

Agnes put the letter in its envelope unsigned.

THE TELEGRAM ARRIVED AT six-thirty the morning after the story was printed. Higham was awake.

REV MELLISH NO LONGER ABLE TO RETAIN YOU STOP SUGGEST YOU RETURN TO BOSTON STOP SEND EXPENSE STATEMENT STOP PAYMENT WILL FOLLOW DIRECTLY STOP HAMMOND

Higham tipped the bellboy extravagantly. Hammond’s fury was satisfying, though it was a pity to be sent away before he’d had the chance to determine if Bertha was really dead. But months more of tracking the mysterious Joseph might not have led to any revelations and, after all, Higham was fairly certain that she’d died within days of her disappearance, if not the same day. They usually did.

He had a theory of the case. The French-Canadian had clearly gotten up Bertha’s skirts, but perhaps he’d found somebody else there first. Not Hammond, much though the fellow evidently wished it. Maybe Agnes Sullivan, though, for all her cold restraint. He knew a few Sapphic ladies in Boston—the town was proverbial for it—and Agnes could have fit right in with them. Do-gooders, public speakers, reform-minded women. In fact he knew a female doctor who reminded him of her: a medical lady monk of sorts with stern eyes and weathered cheeks, a campaigner for modern birth control. A worthy enough cause. Look at Florence Mellish and her troubles—there was a life that could have been made easier with Dr. Taylor’s little sponges and creams.

He packed up his case and sent it ahead to the station. He could catch the earlier boat train, but if he took the three-twenty he could make one more visit to the mill workers he had cultivated, to ensure their continued service as informants, and still be back in Boston in time for a good supper near the Square.

Before he left the hotel he telegraphed a message back to Hammond.

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