The Miser of Cherry Hill Read online

  A Selection of Recent Titles by Scott Mackay

  THE MEEK

  ORBIS

  PHYTOSPHERE

  COLD COMFORT

  OLD SCORES

  THE ANGEL OF THE GLADE *

  THE MISER OF CHERRY HILL *

  * available from Severn House

  THE MISER OF CHERRY HILL

  A Dr Clyde Deacon Mystery

  Scott Mackay

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  This first world edition published 2011

  in Great Britain and in the USA by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  9–15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM1 1DF.

  Copyright © 2011 by Scott Mackay.

  All rights reserved.

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Mackay, Scott, 1957–

  The miser of Cherry Hill.

  1. Physicians – Fiction. 2. Murder – Investigation –

  Fiction. 3. United States – History – 1901–1909 – Fiction.

  4. Detective and mystery stories.

  I. Title

  813.5′4-dc22

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-074-6 (ePub)

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8038-3 (cased)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.

  To Michael Hofmann and Nancy Hutton

  Contents

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  PART ONE: A Flask for Bravery

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  PART TWO: An Invitation to the White House

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  PART THREE: The Bridge to Eternity

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THIRTY-NINE

  FORTY

  FORTY-ONE

  Acknowledgements

  I would like to thank my colleagues – friends – at the Southeast Toronto Family Health Team.

  Fairfield, New York, 1902

  PART ONE

  A Flask for Bravery

  ONE

  I was coming back from a house call one dull November morning when, turning up the surgery drive, who should I see but Sheriff Stanley Armstrong waiting for me on his horse. He was in uniform – drab blue serge with big brass buttons and a bobby cap. His large mustache drooped, and his red face, set, looked carved from granite.

  ‘Cecil Fray has gone and hung himself,’ he said.

  As the grim nature of the news took hold, I pulled my reins and brought Pythagoras to a stop. ‘In the smithy?’

  He nodded. ‘From the rafters.’

  ‘Is he still up there? Or did you cut him down?’

  ‘We were waiting for you. Ray’s standing guard outside. You got time to document it for the county?’

  I got myself to the ground. ‘Let me get my coroner’s forms.’

  On the way to the Fray Smithy, I glanced at my old friend. Though we were both naturally solemn about the business ahead, I couldn’t help noting dark half-moons below the sheriff’s eyes. ‘You look tired, Stanley.’

  He nodded. ‘I’ve got two new murders, Clyde, one in Burkville and the other in West Shelby. I’m hoping to get them all squared away before Christmas so I can spend some time with my family. I been puttin’ a whole heap of extra work in on them, and it’s tuckered me out.’

  I surveyed the sheriff with compassionate eyes. ‘You let me know if you need help. You can always deputize me any time you like.’

  ‘Much obliged, Clyde. If my case load gets any bigger, it just might come to that.’

  We reached the smithy a short while later, a building of double-brick construction with a large chimney. Brown paint peeled from the masonry, and the black roof was now white with a thin layer of snow. Conveniently for Stanley, the Fray Smithy was right next door to the Sheriff’s Office.

  Deputy Raymond Putsey stood guard outside, a rifle against his shoulder, a stubby cigar hanging from his lips. Putsey was a young man, twenty-five, tall, strong, broad-shouldered, with blond hair underneath his black derby. As he saw us, he threw his cigar down, squared his shoulders, and struck a military pose.

  ‘Howdy, doc,’ he called.

  ‘Morning, Ray.’

  ‘Any sign of Billy yet?’ asked Stanley.

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Any customers show up?’

  ‘Had to turn Lyle Fitch away, was bringing his mare in to be shod.’

  The sheriff motioned at the door. ‘The doctor needs to take a look.’

  The deputy moved out of the way, and we went inside.

  We entered first the smithy office, an untidy room with a desk, a couple of chairs, and a pot-belly stove that radiated scant heat. Disorganized papers covered the desk. On top of these was an empty whisky bottle toppled on its side, and a picture of Billy, Cecil Fray’s grown-up son, in a frame, also toppled.

  A door led from the office into the smithy proper. We went through this door and found the blacksmith hanging from his neck by the central rafter. A length of white sailor’s rope had been used. He wore denim overalls, a pair of unlaced work boots, and a red thermal undershirt, all covered with grime and dirt. A wooden chair had been kicked out from under him.

  I had a good look at his face. He was cyanosed, his complexion a bruise-tinted shade of blue. His tongue hung out, reminding me of the pig tongues Earl Hadley sold at his butcher’s shop on Tonawanda Road. Though the blacksmith’s eyelids drooped, his eyes bulged. He smelled of whisky. Around his neck, below the noose, I saw rope burns and a few small scrapes that looked like red exclamation points. His jaw had been broken by his abruptly interrupted fall.

  I turned to Stanley. ‘Did you know him much?’ I motioned out the window at the Sheriff’s Office. ‘You’re right next door.’

  Stanley shrugged. ‘I used to talk to him. We were downright friendly at one time. But when his wife died, he started keeping to himself. Took to the bottle.’ Stanley looked around the smithy. ‘And business ain’t been that grand lately. Been too drunk to manage, I suppose.’

  We lapsed into silence.

  At last, I said, ‘Let’s cut him down. I see a ladder over there.’

  Stanley got the ladder. I summoned Deputy Putsey to help.

  We soon had the blacks
mith on the ground and covered in a blue horse blanket, one with a big glue stain on it.

  ‘No point in the two of you staying,’ I told the sheriff and the deputy. ‘I know you’ve both got things to do.’

  The sheriff and the deputy thanked me and left me to my coroner’s work.

  I searched for a suicide note. I checked the papers on Fray’s desk. I investigated the two bedrooms and parlor upstairs. I spent about a half hour looking around for a note, but there was no goodbye letter to be found. I finally ended my search, went over to the Sheriff’s Office because there wasn’t a phone in the smithy, called Edmund Wilson, the undertaker, went back to the smithy, and was there when the undertaker arrived a short while later.

  ‘Any idea of the arrangements, doc?’ asked Wilson.

  I shook my head. ‘We’re still looking for his son.’ I motioned to Fray. ‘Did you know the man at all? I’m trying to figure out why he hanged himself. He didn’t leave a note.’

  Wilson, a short sallow man, slight and birdlike, maybe ten years older than me, gazed at the blanket-covered body. ‘I know he was awful shook up when we buried Hazel a few years back.’

  I thought of my own poor departed Emily. ‘It can be hard on a man when he loses his wife.’

  ‘After she died he took to the bottle.’

  ‘So the sheriff told me. A man has to seek solace any way he can at such times.’

  ‘Only problem is, he kept seeking solace, drinking and drinking. And so the business started going downhill. The sheriff tell you that?’

  ‘He mentioned it.’

  ‘Money became a problem.’

  I looked around the forge. ‘Not exactly a model of enterprise, is it?’

  ‘No. Fact is, he was drinking himself into a hole, doctor. People would come to get their horses shod and he’d be passed out drunk at his desk, with Billy nowhere around. I came here to get my own horses shod once and found Cecil in that condition. Had to take them to old man MacFadyen on Riverside Drive. Now I go there regular. Lot of people do likewise. Don’t see how Cecil managed to keep afloat, carrying on the way he did. You can’t make money like that.’

  ‘So money became a worry for him?’

  ‘A big one, from what I understand. Wilfred Hurren says so, at least.’

  ‘The assistant manager at the Exchange Bank?’

  Wilson nodded. ‘He’s a friend of mine. We do a lot of fishing together on Silver Lake.’

  ‘And he told you things were bad for Fray.’

  He nodded again. ‘According to Wilfred, Cecil had to take several loans just to keep going.’

  I jotted this in my notebook, then asked, ‘Any idea where the son might be?’

  ‘Billy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Probably out getting drunk somewhere. He’s a lot like his pa that way.’

  I thought about this. ‘I guess I’m going to have to put the word out, then. If you see Billy, tell him to get his britches over to the surgery as soon as he can.’

  TWO

  I was turning the lights off in the surgery that night when out the front window I heard a wagon come up my drive.

  My man, Munroe, twenty, tall, skinny, and red-haired, appeared at the parlor door. ‘A late call, doc?’

  I parted the sheers. For a moment I thought it might be Billy Fray, at last shown up. But it wasn’t. The wagon, drawn by two horses, appeared out of the gloom. I perceived Mr Ephraim Purcell, one of the town’s richest businessmen, sitting on the right, and his butler, Leach, handling the reins on the left. A woman knelt over a prostrate patient in the back.

  ‘It would appear so, George. Prepare the examining room.’

  Munroe hurried to the rear of the surgery to get things ready.

  I left the house by the side door and descended the steps to the drive. The air had a nip to it, and I could see my breath in the faint moonlight. Leach slowed the wagon to a stop beside me.

  ‘Evening, gentlemen,’ I said.

  ‘Evening, doctor,’ said Purcell. ‘Sorry to trouble you this late, but my stepdaughter’s got herself real sick. I don’t know what it is, but she has me worried. Seems like women’s troubles to me, but I’m not a doctor. She’s losing blood, and I would have to reckon it’s a lot more than she usually does when the month comes round. She’s pale. She’s fainted three times since we got her in the wagon. And she’s not making any sense when she talks.’

  I walked to the back of the wagon to make my initial assessment. The woman kneeling over the patient turned out to be Miss Flora Winters, the patient’s maid, a young woman in a servant’s uniform and cloak, a shawl over her head to protect it from the damp.

  ‘Evening, Miss Winters.’

  ‘Evening, doctor.’

  Mr Purcell got down from the box and came to the other side to have his own look. Miss Winters moved out of the way so we could both have a better view.

  Marigold Reynolds, Purcell’s stepdaughter, lay wrapped in blankets. She was a woman of twenty, had curly amber hair, green eyes, and freckles. I reached over the side and felt her forehead. I was relieved. She was afebrile. Any infectious process was not an immediate concern. But she did appear ill. And weak.

  She looked at me, but didn’t seem to recognize me. ‘It hurts.’

  Munroe came to the door. ‘Doc, the examining room is ready.’

  ‘Good, George. Please bring the stretcher.’ I turned to Purcell. ‘Any idea when it started?’

  ‘I’ve been asking her,’ said Purcell, ‘but she’s all confused.’ He pleaded quietly. ‘You got to save her, doc. Her poor dead mother would never forgive me if you didn’t.’

  ‘I’ll do my best, Mr Purcell. You can make yourself comfortable in my waiting room.’

  Munroe and I soon had Marigold inside on the examining room table. Purcell, Leach, and Miss Winters settled themselves in the waiting room.

  The patient was now shivering. In the glow of my recently installed electrical lights, I saw that she was indeed extremely pale. She looked at me a second time.

  At first, she seemed insensible. But then she recognized me. ‘Dr Deacon?’

  ‘Yes, child. What happened?’

  She stared at me, then looked away. ‘I just want to die. Please, let me die.’

  From the troubled expression on her face, I understood the nature of her malady was more than just physical.

  I peeled away the blankets and saw that the front of her white muslin nightdress was soaked through with blood. From the look of all this, I formed a fairly quick idea of what was going on. ‘Are you with child, Marigold? Or were you?’

  Her eyes widened. ‘I hate him. He’s the bane of my existence.’

  ‘It’s extremely important you tell me what you know of your condition, dear. If you’re pregnant – or if you were pregnant – you have to tell me.’

  She surveyed me for a few seconds, then turned away, her eyes filling with tears. ‘What does it matter? I’m a slave, that’s all I know.’

  As she remained singularly unhelpful, I proceeded to perform my examination without any useful medical history.

  I lifted my surgical scissors from the tray and snipped her nightdress from hem to collar. Blood smeared her thighs. A clumsy bandage of bleached burlap had been applied to the source of her malady. I peeled it away and got a strong whiff of wood alcohol. Looking more closely, I saw a fragment of willow bark. I sighed at this clue. I then took a speculum and did an internal exam.

  I grew gravely concerned about the extent of the internal damage, and also with the possibility of sepsis. I saw several small lacerations, and more fragments of willow bark. Overall, the injuries, various and many, had the telltale signs of an Oneida practitioner trying to dispense with the products of conception. Especially the willow bark, as it was well known to many Oneida practitioners that willow bark had strong analgesic properties.

  I went to the drawer, got a clean sheet, and spread it over my patient. I then placed a few more coals on the fire to keep her warm.
/>   Having now finished with my initial exam, I felt I would do better with an assistant, and so immediately thought of the local midwife, Olive Wade.

  I went into the waiting area, where Mr Purcell was sitting with the maid, Flora Winters. Leach had apparently gone to see to the horses. The businessman stared at me with solicitous eyes while Miss Winters gave me a timid glance.

  Purcell said, ‘Well, doc? Is there anything you can do for her?’ With a bluntness bordering on callous, he asked, ‘Or is she going to die?’

  ‘I don’t think she’s going to die, Mr Purcell. But I must send for Olive Wade to help me.’

  He nodded. ‘Do whatever you must, doc. Money’s no object.’

  I went to the corridor where I found Munroe standing by. ‘George, saddle Archimedes and fetch Miss Wade. I’m going to need her help.’

  ‘Yes, doctor.’

  I returned to the waiting room.

  Hoping for more medical details, I summoned Mr Purcell into my office.

  I sat behind my desk while he took the chair in front. His considerable bulk occupied the entire chair, arm to arm. He now had a cigar wedged in the corner of his thin lips and he puffed with worried preoccupation.

  I probed. ‘Can you tell me exactly how you discovered your stepdaughter in this condition, Mr Purcell?’

  He took his cigar from his mouth and, keeping it wedged between his fingers, cupped his hand over his eagle-head cane. ‘I was called from my fire by Flora. I went upstairs and found my stepdaughter ill. I saw a lot of blood and understood that we must bring her to the doctor. So I had Leach arrange for the wagon.’

  ‘And there were no visitors to the house tonight?’

  He seemed confused by my suggestion. ‘It’s a dreary November night, doctor, hardly clement weather for visiting.’

  ‘My initial examination would seem to indicate she’s the victim of an unprofessionally terminated pregnancy. I want to verify that before I treat her.’ More sternly, I repeated, ‘Were there any visitors to the house tonight?’

  His lips tightened. He leaned forward and gazed at me with all the unpleasantness of an artillery piece. ‘Now see here, doc. She might be a high-strung girl, but she’s not a stupid one. There were no visitors.’ With mounting displeasure, he said, ‘There were no procedures performed, no amateurs hired for the sake of discretion, and no pregnancies terminated. She would never stain the Purcell name that way.’