Murder, Murder, Murder in Gilded Central Park by Cecelia Tichi

Author:Cecelia Tichi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cecelia Tichi
Published: 2021-09-15T20:48:54+00:00

Chapter Twenty

THE MORNING DAWNED WITH sprinkles turning into heavy, cold rain. Calista tiptoed into my dressing room with a rumpled envelope on a silver tray.

We often bypassed the servant-to-mistress scripts in the etiquette books. I reached for the tray, but she tugged it back. “Ma’am…if I might explain…?”

“Of course,” I said, “but Noland expects to drive me downtown, and I need your help with my wardrobe. The tray,” I said, “what’s on the tray?”

Her apology began with our dog. “You see, ma’am, I played a little game with Velvet. ‘Chew-and-chase,’ I called it. Mr. Sands was not troubled, but Mrs. Thwaite was unhappy. She found this letter under one of Velvet’s little beds…it arrived three days ago, but somehow Velvet got hold of it and…and….” My maid wrung her hands.

“Don’t worry, Calista,” I said. . It’s sweet of you to play with Velvet. Give me a look at this…and do see about my daytime outfit, nothing fancy….”

I slit the flap with Papa’s Barlow knife and smoothed a typewritten letter postmarked New York City and signed by a stranger named Lillian Wald. The next moment became a back-and-forth between me and my maid, who was in the dressing room while I read the letter. “Calista, have you ever heard of Lillian Wald?”

“No, ma’am.”

“How about Florence Kelley?” I looked again at the letterhead. “Or the Henry Street Settlement?... How about the Consumers League of New York City?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“You’re sure? Consumers League sounds vaguely familiar….”

“I’m looking at your two-piece Mountain Dress, ma’am.”

I agreed to the skirt-and-jacket outfit with no-nonsense lines and rows of little horn buttons on the jacket.

“—and a hat, Calista. No feathers…too much rain.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Signed by a Lillian D. Wald, the letter invited me to a meeting—this very morning at eleven a.m.—of a newly-formed national organization: The Consumers League, to meet at the Henry Street Settlement, 265 Henry Street.

The “League” surfaced as a hazy memory until I saw the telltale clerical initials under the signature —af. Who else, but Annie Flowers? Each word in the letter was typed by the newly-hired secretary who had graduated from typewriting school and would probably take notes at this morning’s meeting, a gathering that I could not possibly attend, fortunately.

Relieved to be free of Annie Flowers, I was jarred when Calista bent down to retrieve a slip of paper on the floor by my writing desk.

She handed me a half-sheet in crabbed handwriting with a message to “Mrs. DeV.” I took it to the window, saw the rain coming down in sheets, and read,

—most important you attend Consumers League meeting because of what they did to the Uptown Land you call Central Park and ruined lives. Anger boils.

Yours truly,

Annie Flowers

Whose anger? And who were “they?” What “ruined lives” and what “Uptown Land?” I never heard the park called by such a name.

“May I help you any further, ma’am? Ma’am....?”

“Thank you, Calista. That will be all for now. I need a few minutes to think….”

By ten a.m., wearing the Mountain Dress with a felt hat,

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