The Cliff House Strangler Read online

  “I see that Rudolph Hardin’s been talking to the newspapers again,” Samuel said to Frederick. “This time, he’s accusing you of buying your victory in the last election.”

  Samuel was referring, of course, to my eldest brother’s major political opponent and archenemy. The two had started out as rivals in law school, and the hostility between them had increased exponentially over the years. Lately, it seemed as if Hardin’s primary goal was to usurp Frederick’s seat in the state senate.

  “The man is an imbecile!” Frederick snapped, growing red in the face. “Every time I open a paper, I find that he’s concocted yet another outrageous story about me. What I don’t understand is why reporters even listen to him. He’s nothing more than a duplicitous windbag.”

  “It sells copies,” Papa put in, warming to one of his favorite subjects. “That’s all these damn reporters care about, glorifying violence and blackening someone’s good name. All in the interest of increased circulation.”

  I gazed guardedly at Samuel, who, as a covert reporter himself, was squirming in his seat. Well, I thought, appreciating the irony of the situation, that’s what he gets for broaching such a volatile subject around Papa.

  Thankfully, dinner was announced before the discussion could grow any more heated, and we were shown into the dining room—a commodious space furnished with a carved Italian walnut table and chairs, a matching buffet and credenza. Some quite lovely murals of Parisian scenes had been painted on the walls. I admit I found this one of the more pleasing rooms in the otherwise-pretentious house.

  We had completed the soup and salad courses, and a platter of steamed oysters (Papa’s favorite) had been deposited on the table, when I decided it was time to introduce a more interesting subject than the latest society scandals and the best way to prepare wild duck.

  “I ran into your friend Senator Gaylord a few days ago, Frederick,” I said, passing the oysters to Samuel, who sat to my left.

  Frederick squinted at me suspiciously. “Oh? And where was that?”

  So, I thought, my brother had not yet learned of his mentor’s presence at Madame Karpova’s séance. This did not unduly surprise me. When I had failed to find his name in any of the newspapers covering Moss’s death, I realized that the Senator must have exerted considerable influence to retain his anonymity. Lieutenant Ahern and his wife had also escaped mention.

  Regrettably, Robert and I, along with Theodora Reade, Philippa and Nicholas Bramwell, and, of course, Madame Karpova and her family, had not been as fortunate. Our names had been bandied about in every newspaper, not only as devotees of the occult—an accusation that particularly incensed Robert—but also as murder suspects. This coverage had certainly not endeared the Scot to his employer. And since Robert could hardly take out his anger on Joseph Shepard, I had become the target of his considerable wrath.

  “Senator Gaylord and his wife were at the Cliff House séance Robert and I attended,” I told Frederick, ashamed to experience such childish delight in dropping this bombshell. “You know, where Darien Moss was murdered?” I pretended not to notice Frederick’s and Henrietta’s shocked reactions.

  “I don’t believe it!” Frederick exclaimed. “Senator Gaylord would never be taken in by such foolishness. Good Lord, Sarah, a séance? Never!”

  “I believe he and Mrs. Gaylord were hoping to communicate with their deceased daughter,” I told him, serenely spooning out a second helping of oysters. They really were quite excellent. Glancing at the chair to my left, I could sense Samuel fighting not to laugh.

  “It’s preposterous,” Henrietta proclaimed indignantly. “Out of sisterly affection, Frederick and I have put up with your increasingly wild flights of fancy, Sarah. But to malign the good name of one of San Francisco’s most beloved and self-sacrificing citizens is not to be tolerated!”

  To my right, Papa chuckled as he heaped his own plate with more oysters. “So, my girl, it seems you were in good company,” he said, ignoring Henrietta’s outraged sputters. “I don’t blame Percival Gaylord for not wanting word of this to get out.” He slapped the table, as if struck by a hilarious thought. “Just imagine if he were accused of governing the state based on the position of the stars”—by now, he was laughing so hard that he could scarcely speak—“or with the help of otherworldly beings.”

  Frederick, whose face had turned a blotchy red, was not amused. “I fail to see what is so amusing, Father. We are discussing a California state senator, a man who surely deserves our respect.”

  “Yes, son, you’re right, of course,” Papa admitted, wiping tears of laughter from his eyes. “It’s just that Gaylord is one of the most dreary and unimaginative men I know. The very idea of him attending a séance is—” Once again, he was overcome with mirth. “Well, you have to admit it’s damned ironic.”

  “Horace, please, your language,” Mama put in, then looked embarrassed for having corrected her husband in front of his children.

  “You are entirely correct, Mama Woolson,” said Henrietta, darting daggers at me. “This conversation is entirely unsuitable for the dinner table. I have gone to considerable effort to celebrate Papa Woolson’s birthday. I think it is best if we speak of happier matters.”

  “Oh, but I find the present conversation quite stimulating,” Papa said cheerfully. “And as you pointed out, Henrietta, it is my birthday.”

  Henrietta flushed. I could practically hear her teeth grinding as she forced her thin lips into a none-too-convincing smile. “If that is what you wish, Papa Woolson. Although I shudder to think of the ill effects such a conversation will have on our digestions.”

  Papa’s eyes twinkled at this concession, knowing what it had cost his daughter-in-law. “Thank you, Henrietta. Now, Sarah, tell us more about this séance. Who else was there besides Percival Gaylord and his wife?”

  “Let me see.” I mentally pictured the people seated around the table that fateful night. “Mrs. Philippa Bramwell came with her son Nicholas, and a Mrs. Theodora Reade was also there. Their names were in the paper, along with those of Madame Olga Karpova, her daughter, Yelena, and her brother, Dmitry Serkov. Oh, and Lieutenant Frank Ahern and his wife, Nora, also attended.”

  Papa coughed on some food he was chewing and stared at me in surprise. “Frank Ahern was at a séance? Well, now I really have seen the elephant! What in tarnation was he doing there?”

  “Mrs. Ahern’s mother died recently,” I replied. “I believe she was hoping to make contact with her.”

  Frederick made a disparaging sound, as if this was just the escape hatch he had been seeking. “That explains it, then. The unfortunate man was dragged to see this charlatan by a gullible wife. As was Senator Gaylord, I dare say.”

  Henrietta sniffed. “I regret having to say this, but Maurilla Gaylord has always been far too whimsical for her own good. Now she may have irreparably damaged her husband’s political future. The Cliff House is acquiring a most unseemly reputation. I can’t imagine what she was thinking, forcing that unfortunate man to escort her to such a place.”

  “I expect she is so anguished over the death of her little girl that politics did not enter her mind,” said Celia, herself the mother of two small children and expecting a third child in less than two months. Of late, she’d fairly glowed with happy expectation. “Regardless of my personal feelings about clairvoyants and communicating with the dead,” she went on, “I cannot help but pity the poor woman.”

  “As do we all,” said Mama, perhaps remembering the death of her first daughter, my elder sister, Kat, when the child was but five years old.

  “You say Mrs. Bramwell was there with her son,” Papa said, passing me a basket of freshly baked bread. “If I’m not mistaken, Nicholas Bramwell recently passed the California Bar examination and has obtained a position as associate attorney at Riley and Taft.” He referred, of course, to one of the more prominent law firms in the city.

  “He has political aspirations,” Samuel put in as the now-empty oyster plate was removed fr
om the table. “Or rather, his mother does. His older brother is being groomed to take over their father’s construction business, which leaves Nicholas free to pursue a seat in the senate.”

  Frederick regarded his younger brother. “And just how do you happen to know so much about Nicholas Bramwell?”

  “We belong to the same club,” Samuel replied, spearing a piece of roast chicken from the platter that had replaced the oysters. “I might add that Nicholas is very popular at the Bohemian Club, considering he’s been a member for less than a year. I’d say he possesses the intelligence and personality necessary to get himself elected to public office.”

  It was clear that Frederick did not find this a particularly heartening thought. In the years to come, Nicholas Bramwell might well become his political rival. As I held no false illusions about Frederick’s governing abilities, I found this prospect rather comforting. Frankly, it surprised me that California had thus far survived my brother’s first year in the state senate. Still, I saw no reason to press our luck by reelecting my brother to a second term.

  “It surprises me that no one at that séance saw or heard anything,” Papa said speculatively, getting back to Moss’s murder. “Seems to me it would be damn hard to kill a man with eleven other people in the room.”

  “It’s all rather horrible, isn’t it?” Celia put in with a little shudder. “Who could have wanted to see the poor man dead in the first place?”

  Papa gave a little chuckle, which was quickly dashed by a disapproving look from Mama. “I’m afraid, my dear, that Darien Moss was not a very nice man,” he said, very nearly parroting the words Nora Ahern had used to describe the reporter. “I’m sure he has made a great many enemies through that tell-all column of his.”

  “Perhaps,” said Charles, who, as a physician, tended to measure death in medical terms. “But to hate him enough to commit murder? It’s sad enough when a man his age passes away of natural causes. But to die like that. It seems so unnecessary—and tragic.

  Frederick was studying me, a questioning look on his broad face. “I would like to know what you were doing at that séance in the first place, Sarah. I’ve never known you to put much stock in the supernatural.”

  Samuel’s foot nudged mine beneath the table, but I required no reminder to keep his name out of this affair. So far, I was the only member of our family who was aware of his secret profession as a freelance journalist. A crime journalist at that! Papa, who held most newspaper men in extremely low esteem, would have had a conniption fit. As it was, he was growing ever more frustrated that Samuel had not yet taken his California Bar examination.

  “I, ah, was just curious,” I said rather unconvincingly. I kept my eyes fixed on my plate, hoping no one would notice this slight departure from the absolute truth. I had, after all, been interested in meeting Madame Karpova and witnessing one of her famous séances. On the other hand, it was doubtful I would have traveled all the way out to Land’s End—and in one of the worst storms of the year—had it not been for Samuel’s persistence. “I’d heard so much about Madame Karpova, I thought it might be fun to see her for myself.”

  “I knew it!” Frederick exclaimed, his voice accusing. “I warned you this would happen, Father, if you continued to be so permissive with Sarah. First, she had the gall to call herself an attorney, meddling in affairs no decent woman should even know about. Then she disgraced the entire family by opening her own law practice. And now she’s—she’s—”

  “She’s taken to speaking to the dead,” said Henrietta, finishing her husband’s sentence. Her stern, angular face was red to the very roots of her mousy brown hair, and her gray eyes flashed with anger. “Really, Papa Woolson, you must do something to stop your daughter’s irrational behavior. Now that Frederick is a senator, we have a social position to maintain. Sarah is making a laughingstock of us in front of Frederick’s colleagues—indeed, in front of all our friends. Can no one control her?” Abruptly, she stopped speaking and looked around the table, embarrassed to find every eye fastened on her in varying degrees of alarm and distress.

  Her face was flushed scarlet as she turned to me in a fury. “Just see where this conversation has led us, Sarah Woolson. As usual, you care nothing about your family, but only about your own irresponsible and selfish aims. I realize it is your birthday, Papa Woolson, but I must insist that we cease speaking of these dreadful matters before the evening is completely ruined.”

  Henrietta took a deep breath, attempting, I assumed, to calm her nerves after this outbreak. Gradually, her red face returned to its normal pasty color, and we went on to speak of mundane matters, which captured no one’s interest and caused the remainder of the evening to pass in what felt like an eternity of boredom.

  The following afternoon, as I attempted to catch up on some correspondence in the library, Mama entered the room carrying an armful of material.

  “Ah, there you are, my dear. I would appreciate your help deciding which fabric to choose for the new dining room drapes.”

  Spreading the material across the backs of several chairs, she sat down next to me as I wrote at the escritoire.

  Her request made me smile. “Shouldn’t you ask Celia, Mama? She’s the one with an eye for this sort of thing. You haven’t forgotten, have you, my attempt to remodel my bedroom several years ago? As I recall, you said the greens clashed so badly they made you seasick.”

  “Oh, dear, I remember now,” she said, laughing. “Yes, perhaps I had better ask Celia to assist me.” She started to get up, then spied an envelope lying atop some letters I had yet to answer. “I don’t mean to pry, Sarah, but is that a letter from that nice young man, Pierce Godfrey?”

  I groaned inwardly, certain that I was in for yet another lecture on matrimony. I had met Pierce Godfrey when I became involved in the Russian Hill murders several months ago, and Mama still had not recovered from my rejection of his offer of marriage. Shortly after his proposal, he had departed for Hong Kong, where he planned to open a new office for the shipping firm he owned with his brother Leonard.

  “It’s true that we still correspond, Mama, but nothing has changed between us. We continue to be nothing more than good friends.”

  “Ah, but that’s one of the most important aspects in a successful marriage, dear,” she said gently. “You’d be surprised at the number of couples who can barely tolerate being in the same room with each other, much less behave as if they’re friends.”

  “I know, Mama.” I reached out and squeezed her hand, realizing she only wished to see me happy. Remaining a spinster by choice was incomprehensible to her, consequently she couldn’t imagine such a life could bring contentment and satisfaction.

  “I’m exceedingly fond of Pierce,” I went on, remembering the suave, handsome, and, yes, I admit, exciting man who had very nearly swept me off my feet. “But our lives are so dissimilar, I don’t see how a union between us could survive. He’s always sailing off to one exotic place after another, while I’m forever burying my nose in law tomes.”

  Mama shook her head and sighed. “You truly are hopeless, Sarah. You have so much to offer a husband: beauty, intelligence, sensitivity, a sense of humor. Ah, well, perhaps if you meet the right man one day, you’ll change your mind.”

  “Perhaps,” I agreed. The prospect was exceedingly unlikely, but I loved my mother too much to take away all her hope of seeing me settled and raising a family. With time, I prayed she would be able to accept, if not understand, the path I had chosen.

  Leaning down, she kissed my cheek, then picked up the swaths of material she had spread out on the chairs. “I’d better find Celia, if I’m to place the order for these drapes tomorrow. I’d like to have them up in time for the holidays.”

  Monday morning an unusual September fog billowed in through the Golden Gate. The gray mist crossed the Embarcadero, then slithered up the hills in snakelike tendrils until it was finally dissipated by the sun.

  I departed for my Sutter Street office before the fog had gi
ven up its hold on the city, and the streets were damp and colder than usual. I did not feel the chill. All weekend I had been formulating plans on how best to serve the first genuine client to find her way into my office. The weeks of doubt and worry about my increasingly dire financial situation were, like the fog, beginning to dissolve, leaving me energized and eager to commence work for Mrs. Sechrest.

  Since Friday, I had spent hours sequestered in my father’s library, searching California law books for appellate opinions and legislation pertaining to marriage and divorce. The information I found confirmed what I already suspected: Obtaining a divorce from Mrs. Sechrest’s abusive husband would be relatively simple; gaining custody of her two young sons promised to be a great deal more difficult.

  My downstairs neighbor, Fanny Goodman, was just opening the front door to her millinery shop when I arrived at my place of business. As was her custom, she asked me inside for a cup of coffee before I commenced work. Over the past two months I’d made it a habit of accepting these invitations and always found Fanny’s company enjoyable and stimulating. This morning, however, I declined, pleading that I had only come by my office to pick up one or two necessary items before journeying to the Department of Records to conduct further research concerning the Sechrest case.

  “Good for you, dear,” she said, beaming when I told her of my new client. “I never doubted for one moment that you’d make a success of your practice. Mark my words, news will spread and soon you’ll have more clients than you know what to do with.”

  It was impossible not to be cheered by Fanny’s enthusiasm, although I knew it was overly optimistic. Yet how nice it felt to have such a steadfast ally.

  As it turned out, my plan to leave posthaste for the Department of Records was delayed by the arrival of two unexpected visitors. I had been in my office for only a few minutes when, to my considerable surprise, I found Madame Karpova and her daughter Yelena standing outside my door. Actually, if I had not instantly recognized Yelena, I’m not at all certain I would have known her mother. The last time I’d seen the medium, she’d been dressed entirely in black, and her hair had been hidden by a black turban.