Chapter Thirty-One #2
“Mrs. Evans was in charge of the chambermaids. She was a widow with one brother named Walter, who lost his legs in the First World War. From what I can figure, Mrs. Evans became a sort of middleman between Mr. Carboni and the hotel staff, since he stayed there so often. She even facilitated some of the illegal activities that he committed there, though the facts are well buried. It seems odd to me, though. From her record, she was a straightforward, loyal employee of the hotel. I imagine she would have been reluctant to work closely with someone like Carboni, which indicated Carboni was holding something over her. So I dug a little deeper and discovered her brother, Walter, worked for him. Maybe she finagled that, I don’t know.
But he was disabled, which made him vulnerable.
Could be that’s what Carboni was holding over her.
“Carboni was well respected among the underworld characters, for what that’s worth.
Between the witness reports and Carboni’s reputation, he was the number one—and most obvious—suspect in Evans’s murder.
Trouble is, a man with that much power might never have gone to prison.
Not in those days. Not even if he held the smoking gun, I imagine.
Probably not today, either, come to think of it.
He was released from police questioning right away. ”
I sip my coffee, enthralled by his story and his obvious enjoyment of it.
“Carboni knew how to grease the right palms, he had the police in his pocket, and he had bankers and lawyers at his beck and call, which explains how he managed to come out so far ahead after the stock market crash. He sold shares and bought warehouses, all of it before the Crash. He had all the insider information he needed, and he knew how to use it.”
“This is fascinating.”
“It’s just good old-fashioned sleuthing, using newspapers and notes.
There’s a lot more I need to show you.” He turns a page in his binder, then points at a photo of a black leather journal, weathered by a hundred years.
“Then I found this. I can’t take artifacts from the archives, but I can make copies and take photographs.
“This is a really interesting part of the story, because this book has been a mystery for a while. I believe it could have belonged to Marco Carboni. Since then, I have investigated some of the contacts and information on here, and I’m, well, it’s not good for a researcher to say something this concrete, but I’m positive it’s his. ”
He hands me more pages, and I see lists and lists of names and numbers, written in a masculine hand. Most are crossed out, some are marked with X’s. None of them make sense to me.
“If you look into all of these, which I did, he’s liquidating assets ahead of the Crash.
All those buildings he purchased would probably have sold for a fortune in the future.
A very smart guy.” His finger moves to the next page.
“Now here… See anything interesting? A couple of names stick out for me. What do you think?”
I read more closely and stop at the bottom.
FILE GRIEVANCE: EVANS
DISCUSS WALLY: EVANS
SOLVE: EVANS
“Evans. Is that Mrs. Evans, the murdered woman? Oh! And Wally—that’s Walter, her brother. You said he worked for Carboni, right?”
“And? Two more. Keep going.”
I read the next line down. Courier skimming—DW? With Rosie? “Why was Rosie on Carboni’s radar? And who is DW?”
“I know exactly who he is,” Matthew says smugly. He reaches into his bag, then slides a newspaper article across the table toward me. “Read this.”
The headline from November 1929 reads: LOVERS ON THE RUN: DID PASSION LEAD TO MURDER?
“What’s this?”
“Go ahead. Read it. It’s about the murder of Geraldine Evans. Generally, it appears there were no real suspects, but they did haul Marco Carboni in at one point. Now go on. You read the rest.”
“The woman had a lot of enemies,” Carboni told this reporter, speaking of the victim, Geraldine Evans.
“I didn’t like her much, either, but not enough to kill her.
I can think of a half dozen people with more motive than me.
To start, take a look at her top chambermaid, Rosie Ryan.
She’s a sneaky little thing, and she’s been gunning for her boss’s job all along. ”
“He thinks Rosie killed Mrs. Evans?” I exclaim, shocked to see my great-grandmother’s name thrown around in this way.
Matthew frowns. “Carboni’s suggesting that Rosie killed her boss because she wanted her job… which is a weird angle. How she’d get a promotion out of that is beyond me. But that’s not the most important part. Keep reading.”
“If you ask around, several people have heard them arguing. Maybe Miss Ryan was in cahoots with her fiancé, Damien Walsh, who is nothing but a waiter and a thief.”
The suspect and her partner have fled, and police are asking for help in locating the couple’s whereabouts. Mr. Carboni has offered a generous financial reward as well.
“Her fiancé,” I whisper, astonished. “They were going to get married.”
I skim over the last two lines, because the murk has started to clear from my mind, and I feel a rush of discovery. If only I wasn’t secreted away here, I’d rush to Grandma’s place. Because I think Matthew just solved the mystery of her life.
I hold Matthew’s steady gaze. “What if Rosie and Damien were engaged, and she got pregnant? What if they fled the city together, whether they killed Mrs. Evans or not, and had a baby once they were free of the threat? But,” I say, thinking it through, “maybe something went wrong, or maybe they were still hiding from the mob after they left, and they knew they couldn’t keep their baby safe, so they took her to a church.
” I exhale. “My grandmother has never forgiven Rosie. But this might explain it all.”
He hesitates, looking unsure. “I have a gift for you, Bridget.”
I’m still in shock over Rosie and Damien, but now I’m taken aback at the thought of a gift. “I didn’t get you anything. I didn’t know we were celebrating.”
“Not celebrating, but I found something, and… I wasn’t sure when to give it to you, but now seems the perfect time. Especially since we’re talking about Rosie and Damien together.”
“You don’t need to win me over with a gift, you know. You already won.”
“I know that.”
I laugh at his straightforward response. “You know that? You are constantly surprising me, Professor. Mr. Shy, Mr. Confidence, Mr. I’ll-Take-the-Couch, Mr. Yeah-the-Bed-Would-Be-Comfier…”
I see that familiar note of alarm. “Bridget. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to suggest—”
“And I don’t mean to embarrass you,” I assure him. “So? Where’s my present?”
He reaches into his bag, still nervous, but eager, too. “It’s not just a present, really. It’s, well, this is pretty special.”
He hands me a little black box, small enough to fit in the palm of my hand. It’s not unlike a box from a jewellery store, and I’m a little alarmed. I really like Matthew, but we hardly know each other. For him to give me jewellery, well, it seems a little fast. And that is out of character for him.
I hold it up, questioning. “What—”
“I brought it from work. It belongs with you, rather than in storage.”
“From work?” I echo.
He watches my fingers on the box, waiting for my reaction. When I open it, a silver necklace shines up at me.
“This is lovely,” I say, holding it to the sunlight. A small, impeccably polished silver locket hangs from the chain. “Thank you.”
He chuckles. “It is, but I don’t get any credit for that. This necklace comes with a great story.”
I settle in with anticipation and take a sip of coffee. The necklace lies on the table between us.
“You have my attention.” I wink. “And don’t say that you know that already.”
“Okay, I won’t. But I do.” This time when he smiles, I notice one of his canine teeth is just the tiniest bit crooked. Why does that appeal so much to me?
“Go on.”
“A few years back, during major renovations on the hotel, they worked in the basement. You’d know about that from your records. What you probably don’t know, and I didn’t, either, is that during that time, they discovered a tunnel in the basement that they assumed was for smuggling.”
“Wait, what? My secret door? They already found the tunnel? Why isn’t it on the blueprints?”
“The authorities at the time obviously didn’t want the tunnel to be used for smuggling anymore, so they sealed it off.
That might explain it. We’ll have to look deeper into that.
But listen to this. When they were renovating, they discovered a skeleton and a spent bullet in that tunnel.
Forensics determined the deceased was a woman, but they’ve not been able to identify her.
They also found a gun, but based on the bullet, it wasn’t the gun that killed her. ”
“Oh no! It wasn’t Rosie, was it?”
“If it was Rosie, you wouldn’t be here.”
I roll my eyes at the obvious gaffe. “Of course. That’s embarrassing.”
“It’s all right. You have a lot on your mind, and I’m giving you more.”
He sips his coffee. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice that at some point, we’ve gone down another muffin.
“During the renovation process, they discovered more items, and the workers gave them to the archives. They were catalogued but never put on display. Basically forgotten.”
“Like the Ark of the Covenant,” I say.
“Pardon me?”
“Remember that? After Indiana Jones found the Ark, government men came and confiscated it, and they filed it away in a warehouse, where it was basically buried all over again.”
The lines around his eyes crease with the memory.
“I do remember that. Great movie. Bit larger archives than I’m used to, but yes.
Along the same lines.” He downs the rest of his coffee, eager to continue.
“Anyway, once I started finding records having to do with the Dominion and your long-lost relative, I found a note about this necklace, including information on where it had been found. I suppose normally, I might have turned to the next record, but then I saw this…” He picks up the locket and lays it flat on his palm. “What do you see there?”
Something is etched into the silver. I squint and angle his hand so it picks up the sunlight. “It looks like letters. Is that an R? Yes, and that’s—Oh, I see it now. RR & DW. What…” My jaw drops. “Rosie Ryan and Damien Walsh?”
“I believe so.”
I gawk at the letters on the little treasure, stunned. If this really is what we think it is—and Matthew’s eager expression is convincing—then this delicate chain once hung around my great-grandmother’s neck. It’s so hard to imagine, and yet I feel an immediate bond to it.
“But how did you get this out of the archives? I thought that wasn’t allowed.”
“This was a special case. The locket was never formally donated or classified as a significant historical artifact, so it was listed under ‘unclaimed personal items.’ So I contacted a curator, explained, and she approved its release. It was badly tarnished, so I got it cleaned up. I got a message that it was ready for me this morning, which is why I left so early. My apologies for that, by the way.” He gets to his feet and holds out his hand to help me stand.
“This is your great-grandmother’s necklace, Bridget. Now it belongs to you.”
Matthew fastens it around my neck, his fingers skimming over my skin.
I touch the little locket where it lies against my chest, at a loss.
I guess that’s when it really hits me, feeling the tickle of the thin chain, imagining how precious this necklace must have been to them both.
My mind brings back the faded black-and-white image of the young chambermaids, and tears slide down my cheeks.
“There,” he says softly.
He cups my shoulders in his hands and rotates me toward a mirror.
I wish I could envision Rosie Ryan staring back at me.
Did she have my nose? What colour were her eyes?
I have no idea, and it suddenly feels so personal that I never will.
The locket, to me, becomes a symbol of Rosie.
My history. I never want to take it off.
Behind me, in my reflection, Matthew’s eyes are sparkling.
This moment means so much for me, but as a historian, I realize how moved he must have been when he first made the connection.
“I’ve never been given such a meaningful gift,” I tell him honestly.
“It’s almost like Rosie left it there for you.”
I touch the locket, already connected to it. “Rosie didn’t kill Mrs. Evans.”
“I don’t think so, either, but we may never know the truth.
However, I’m pleased to announce that there is more to add to the story.
” He reaches for the binder and opens it to a page near the end.
“Since I reopened this file, the skeleton and remnants of clothing I mentioned earlier have been taken away for more analysis. They know it’s from the late 1920s, and you and I know, based on the construction of the hotel, that it has to be 1929 at the earliest. I will be sending them a message to update their files. ”
“So, who was it? Whose skeleton did they find in the basement of the Dominion Hotel? We know it wasn’t Rosie, and it wasn’t Mrs. Evans.”
“No one knows.”