Apart in April, a Historical Mystery Novel: The Calendar Mysteries, #5

By Juliet Kincaid

In Apart in April, Book 5 of Juliet Kincaid's Calendar Mystery Series, after a deep, personal loss, Minty Wilcox Price runs away from her also grieving husband Daniel. Yet this story of loss, love, and the healing powers of honest work is by no means grim. For unbeknownst to Daniel, his aunt has hired Minty on the sly as a detective to find out what really happened at the estate of the wealthy Lord Richard Nelson the night of April 13th, 1901, while he and his friend were away. (Or so he says.)

In the scene below, Minty, undercover as the spinster secretary/stenographer Miss Minerva Preston, accompanies her new employer as they visit David Hyde, the suspect in the case, in jail.

Just then the policeman LeClerc seemed to notice Minty still cooling her heels by the door for the first time because he said, "Who's that female over there? Is she with you, Nelson?"

"Indeed, she is. This is Miss Preston. She'll be taking notes when our lawyer interviews Mr. Hyde today."

"She can't go inside with you," LeClerc said.

"And why not?" Lord Nelson asked sharply.

"She might have a file up one of those big sleeves of hers, that's why. Or she might be carrying a gun under all of them skirts she's wearing. Females are sneaky that way. So, unless I examine her lower parts, she can't go in there."

"That's outrageous," Lord Nelson said. "You will do no such thing."

"I don't really like it either, sir," Minty said before she primly pinched her lips together. "But I will do it since it seems necessary." Carrying her handbag that held, among other items, her pick-locks, Price Agency badge, and two-shot Derringer under a false bottom, she scurried across the lobby. She set her bag on the desk next to the basket. "Feel free to inspect my handbag, Officer LeClerc, if you must, to make sure I'm not bringing in contraband of any sort."

LeClerc pulled the bag open, peeked in, rucked around inside it and closed it again. "Looks fine."

"And now for the rest of your inspection . . ." Grabbing hold of her left leg-o-mutton sleeve with her right hand, she pulled it tight against her upper arm. "See? Nothing hidden in there." She repeated the action on her right sleeve. "Besides, to get to a gun or file I might happen to have up my sleeve, I'd have to take my shirtwaist completely off because the cuffs are too tight for me to slip anything out of there." Minty glared at LeClerc. "I'm not about to do that in front of any gentleman, any gentleman at all since I am a business girl and never intend to marry."

Lord Nelson stifled a chuckle.

"As for my lower parts . . ." Minty lifted her skirt in the front as far as possible without revealing the front placket of her pantaloons with one hand and the back of her skirt with the other. Then she whirled around very fast and dropped her skirts as soon as she faced the policeman again. "Was that sufficient, sir?" she said.

LeClerc's eyes were wide. "Yes, ma'am," he said in a high-pitched voice.
 

As she goes about her investigation, Minty leaves letters to Daniel that contain clues (and sometimes false leads) about where she's gone. Will he figure out the clues and catch up with her in time to help her solve the case before a killer gets her, too? For the answer to that question, you must read Apart in April, Book 5 of Juliet Kincaid's Calendar Mysteries that tell the story of Minty Wilcox and Daniel Price from newly met to newlywed and beyond in Kansas City, a place that could get downright deadly a hundred years or so ago.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Juliet Kincaid
• Release date: Jul 19, 2022
• ISBN: 9780996160483

Juliet Kincaid

I’ve been hooked on fiction since grade school. And I’ve always preferred stories that supply adventure and escape. Humor and wit help, too. I try to write the same sort of stories and novels as the ones I like to read. In addition to the Calendar Mystery series, my published work includes the Cinderella, P. I. Fairy Tale Mysteries for grown-ups that feature Cinderella as a detective twenty years, three kids, and a few extra pounds after the ball. (Happy endings guaranteed.) My stories and novels are available as eBooks and trade paperbacks. I have also written and published Novel Basics, a concise yet complete guide to writing a novel. My daughter, Jessica Kincaid, the bead artist, and I live in a house filled with books, mostly detective fiction, just a few miles from where Minty Wilcox and Daniel Price have their adventures in the Calendar Historical Mystery stories and novels. You can contact me at juliet@julietkincaid. com, Juliet_Kincaid on Goodreads, JulietKincaid on Twitter, and JulietKincaidauthor2016 and juliet.kincaid on Facebook. To find out what work I currently have available, sign up for notifications at https://books2read.com/author/juliet-kincaid/subscribe/1/305166/

Book preview

APART IN APRIL

A Historical Mystery Novel

Book 5 of the Calendar Mystery series

––––––––

The Calendar Mystery stories and novels

tell the story of business girl Minty Wilcox and dashing detective Daniel Price from newly met to newlywed and beyond in old Kansas City, a place that could get downright deadly a hundred years or so ago.

––––––––

Juliet Kincaid

––––––––

AzureSky Press, LLC

AZP

Apart in April, Book 5 of the Calendar Mystery series, © 2021 by Juliet Willman Kincaid.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Juliet Kincaid

except for very brief quotations

embodied in reviews and critical articles.

––––––––

AzureSky Press, LLC

Overland Park, KS

Copyright © 2021

––––––––

Cover by Juliet Kincaid

The man and woman shown on the cover are the author’s grandparents, Miles and Juliet Perkins Smith.

––––––––

eBook ISBN: 9780996160483

Paperback ISBN: 9780996160490

––––––––

Apart in April is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, and persons, living or dead, and their animals is entirely coincidental.

Dedication

––––––––

To Jess

APART IN APRIL

Book 5 of the Calendar Mystery Series

PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS

––––––––

MINTY WILCOX PRICE’S FAMILY

Charles Girard, Minty’s uncle

Winifred Bradford Girard, Minty’s aunt by marriage

Victoria Wilcox Griffin, aka Vickie, Minty’s older sister

John Griffin, Vickie’s husband, Minty’s brother-in-law

Arminta Meneatha Wilcox Price,

aka Minty, Minnie Girard and Miss Minerva Preston

Deborah Risley, aka Dee, Minty’s cousin

Susannah Risley, aka Sue, Minty’s cousin, Dee Risley’s twin

Edward Wilcox, aka Eddie, Minty’s youngest brother

Laura Girard Wilcox, aka Mama, Minty’s mother

Priscilla Ann Wilcox, aka Peach, Minty’s younger sister.

DANIEL ALAN PRICE, JR.’S FAMILY

George Mathison, manager of Price Investigations/Security, Daniel’s uncle

Helen Price Mathison, Daniel’s aunt

Daniel Alan Price, Sr., Daniel’s father (deceased)

Ellazena Van Vecten Price, Daniel’s mother (deceased)

Daniel Alan Price, Jr.,

aka Dan, Danny, and Danny Flaherty, among other aliases

Zena Price, Minty and Daniel’s Irish setter

LORD NELSON’S HOUSEHOLD

NORTHVIEW MANOR

Emma Austen, chambermaid

Albert Crooksey, aka Bertie, groom and yard boy

Betty and Nathan’s grandson

Betty Crooksey, cook

Flint Crooksey, chauffeur and stable master,

Betty and Nathan’s son

Nathan Crooksey, groundskeeper

Sebastian Crooksey, hall boy and valet,

Betty and Nathan’s oldest grandson,

Thomas Crooksey, aka Tommy, assistant yard boy, Betty and Nathan’s youngest grandson

Carrie Dreiser, head chambermaid (deceased)

David Hyde, estate manager

Mrs. Margaret Irish, housekeeper

Daisy James, scullery maid

Richard Gordon Nelson, aka Lord Nelson

Ellen Wharton, chambermaid

ADDITIONAL CHARACTERS

Sherman Sylvester Barr, acting detective,

Josephville Police Department

*Annie Chambers, notorious Kansas City madam

Eleanor Elizabeth Shackleton McGillicuddy

aka Ellie McGill, Blanche Whitmore’s aunt

Jerry McGill, Ellie McGill’s oldest son

Blanche Whitmore’s cousin

*James A. Reed, Kansas City hotel owner and mayor

Lewis Shirey, a lawyer

Billy Storm, night watchman

New England Building, Kansas City, Missouri

Blanche Whitmore, Ellie McGill’s niece

Bob Young, stenographer and secretary

Price Investigations/Security

*Denotes actual historical person

Apart in April

Book 5 of the Calendar Historical Mystery Series

Mystery and romance in old K. C.,

a place that could get downright deadly

a hundred years or so ago

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Acknowledgements

Also by Juliet Kincaid

About the Author

Chapter One

––––––––

Mid-afternoon

Monday April 15, 1901

Quality Hill

Kansas City, Missouri

––––––––

Nothing really seems to matter now, Minty thought.

Somber in black from her small, plain hat to her high, buttoned shoes, she plodded down the avenue. She passed her own family’s home, a tall redbrick house with a mansard roof and dark green trim around the windows and the door. Mama and the maid would still be busy with the wash at that time on a Monday, the boarders at work, and Minty’s younger siblings in school, so she wouldn’t bother to stop there.

Not that any of that matters now . . .

Spring had always been her favorite season, at least until that year. She loved the surprises spring brought, the spears of crocuses standing straight up out of the hard earth one day and the next blooming in small, bright yellow and purple buckets. Golden daffodils . . . Crimson tulips . . . The tender green leaves on the shrubs . . . All of that seemed so garish now. Even the robin throbbing out a song nearby seemed an affront to her in her time of grief.

You must have done something wrong to let such a thing happen, Minty thought, especially in spring and on Easter day, the celebration of the Good Lord’s rebirth.

She tasted salty tears as she dragged herself step by slow step up the stairs to the vast, white Victorian house next door to where she’d lived for half her lifetime. The sign on the slope below the porch declared the place to hold Mrs. McGill’s Tearoom on the top line and Serving Breakfast, Lunch and Tea on the bottom. The stenciled letters on the glass of the front door, followed by 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays only, said much the same thing.

Soon after Mrs. Ellie McGill took possession of the Shackleton house the previous year as the rightful heir, she had the old place repainted white, but with dark blue trim around the windows and the front door. And then she gave the house new life by opening a tearoom on the premises.

As Minty entered, the bell overhead rang cheerfully, and a tall woman in a gray dress and a long ruffled white apron got up from the lady’s desk to Minty’s right and blocked the chalkboard on the wall that listed the day’s luncheon specialties. Not that Minty cared what they were serving.

Through an open doorway came the sounds of ladies’ talking, the titter of laughter, and the occasional clink of a spoon against the side of a porcelain cup.

Good afternoon, madam, the woman said. Her dull blondish hair was parted severely in the middle and scraped back from her bony face. Welcome to Mrs. McGill’s. Oh, it’s you, Mrs. Price, she hissed. She folded her gloved hands in front of herself and looked down her long nose at Minty. What are you doing here?

Just eight days before, Minty might have softened her words, but that sort of pretense didn’t seem to matter anymore. I’m meeting Mrs. Helen Mathison, Minty said. Not that it’s any of your business.

And why would you do that? the woman snapped.

Indeed, Minty’s husband’s aunt Helen Mathison hadn’t said why she wanted to meet Minty at McGill’s instead of at the Wilcox house next door. But Minty simply didn’t want to speak with Blanche Whitmore any more than she could help it, so she said, To have tea? Why else?

Oh, I meant I’m surprised to see you out and about so soon after . . . She twisted her head and looked at Minty from the corners of her eyes. So soon after you . . . , you know . . .

Oh, Minty said.

The bell over the door rang again, and someone stepped in. Minty couldn’t make out who it was because of the tears in her eyes, at least not until the woman said, Why, Miss Whitmore, how did you manage to get both feet in your mouth at the same time?

Minty wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

What? Miss Whitmore blinked her big, beautiful, cold eyes. What do you mean?

Well, said Helen Mathison, Daniel’s aunt, standing in the door. An elegant woman of middle years, she wore a pale lavender dress. On her black hair, streaked at the temples with silver, sat a smart hat dripping with lilac blooms made of silk. I could tell from my niece’s expression that you must have said something shockingly offensive. Now come along, dear Minty. I’m quite parched for tea.

Daniel’s aunt put her arm around Minty, kissed her on the cheek, and guided her toward the doorway past the lady’s desk.

But . . . But . . . , Miss Whitmore sputtered.

Mrs. Mathison and Minty stopped just inside the former parlor of the old Shackleton house, much transformed from the gloomy place it once had been. Sheer white curtains covered the windows instead of heavy, dark-red drapes, and pink flowers on lush green vines climbed trellises on the wallpaper around the room. A pastoral scene of cows in a tree-lined meadow had replaced the grim portraits of ancestral Shackletons over the mantelpiece. The large desk, the parlor set, and all the other furniture that filled the room until June of the previous year were also gone. Now ladies in their pretty spring frocks and beribboned, feathered hats with brims as wide as platters sat at tables for two or four.

Do forgive me for being late, Mrs. Mathison said. I had a little trouble putting my hands on something I wanted to show you. She held up a black leather shopping bag studded with jaunty red bows.

You’re not really late, Aunt Helen. I just got here, too.

Did you have any trouble getting here? Helen said. Perhaps I should have come by and picked you up in the carriage. I’m a bit concerned about asking you to walk here from your little place.

No, it’s fine, Minty said. It’s not that far. It’s a nice day, and the walk did me some good. Minty forced herself to give Daniel’s aunt a cheerful smile.

Behind them, Miss Whitmore said, Well, well, you do know that it’s after two. You’ve missed the lamb croquettes, the cheese pie, the chicken salad, the tomato bisque, and the cheese fondue we served for lunch today. If you had your heart set on any of those, you’ll be disappointed.

Now Miss Whitmore, Helen Mathison said. If you discourage all your aunt’s patrons like that, you must severely cut down on the tearoom’s trade. I’ll chat with your aunt about it soon.

If Minty had felt better, she might have cheered Mrs. Mathison’s warning to Blanche who interfered considerably with Minty and Daniel’s wedding the year before and now seemed intent on wounding Minty.

Don’t you dare, Blanche said. Not that Aunt Ellie would believe you.

I think she would, Helen said. But maybe I won’t. After all, without your aunt’s generosity, you would have no means at all to support yourself. I wouldn’t want your becoming homeless and starving in the streets and maybe doing something worse on my conscience.

What could be worse? Miss Whitmore said. Oh yes, that . . . Well, that wouldn’t happen to me.

Mrs. Mathison looped the shopping bag handles over her left arm and tugged off her gloves. Now if you please, Miss Whitmore, would you show us to a table? Or should we see ourselves in?

No, no, I’ll do it. Blanche grabbed two bundles of napkins wrapped around silverware from the basket on the lady’s desk and pushed past Minty and her aunt. This way, she said.

Blanche stopped at a table for two in the corner so abruptly Minty almost ran into her. A blooming narcissus in a small, white pot stood in the center of the table. Here. Blanche put the rolls of silverware on the tablecloth across from each other before she went toward the sideboard.

Once Minty and Helen Mathison sat down, Miss Whitmore returned with glasses filled with water. What else do you want to drink? she asked.

Helen said, Tea if you please. After the woman left them, Mrs. Mathison said, If she weren’t Ellie McGill’s niece and Ellie kindness incarnate, Blanche Whitmore would have been thrown out of here long ago.

That’s the truth.

Aunt Helen stood up from the table. Now, Minty dear, let’s go in the other room to see what Mrs. McGill is serving today.

I’m not hungry, Minty said even though she’d eaten little breakfast and no lunch at all. Just some tea would suffice.

That doesn’t sound like you, dear, Helen said. Not that you’re a glutton, but usually you have a hearty appetite. Are you feeling all right? You’re looking thin, my dear.

I’m not really thin. Minty looked down at her somber outfit and pushed her thumb down the waistband of her skirt. My skirts are still a little tight at the waist since . . .

Then to her great embarrassment to make a scene and spoil all the ladies’ tea, Minty broke into tears. She fumbled for her linen napkin and covered her face with it as she bent over the table and sobbed. I’m so sorry, carrying on like this in public. It’s just that I’ve been so sad since . . . I’m such a failure, she murmured in her napkin. Letting Daniel down that way. I must have done something wrong. Or maybe God is punishing me for being such an uppity female who doesn’t know her place.

Suddenly, Minty felt Helen’s hands on her shoulders. I would be sad, too, dear. In fact, when it happened to George and me, I was very sad.

Sniffing, Minty lowered the napkin and looked up into the woman’s dark eyes. You were? It happened to you?

Yes, it did, early in our marriage. But then Jay came along and everything was fine and it has been ever since. But dry your eyes, dear. We’ll go to the buffet. Surely, something Mrs. McGill has put out will tempt you. And later I have a proposal to make to you.

You do? What kind of proposal?

I’m saying nothing more about it until I’ve had some good hot tea and something to eat.

So Minty put the napkin down, stood, and followed Mrs. Mathison out of the cheerful parlor, across the front hall and into the former dining room of the old house.

True to Miss Whitmore’s warning, there was no cheese pie or chicken salad in sight. At the back of the table stood a chaffing dish, empty and freshly washed, the candles that had earlier heated the cheese fondue snuffed.

If Minty hadn’t felt so sad, the array of sausage rolls, cheese canapés, and dainty cucumber sandwiches might have piqued her appetite. For sweets there were lemon cakes, rolled wafers, and Boston cookies laden with walnuts, currants, and raisins. A pitcher of chocolate sauce stood next to a high, white cake with coconut icing.

Mrs. Mathison picked up a plate, handed it to Minty, and picked up another plate for herself.

But before she could start to fill it, a man behind them said, Make way, ladies. Here’s more of my mother’s cheese pie, still warm from the oven.

Minty turned to see a good-looking young man with black hair and bright blue eyes. He wore an apron over his white shirt and black trousers and held up a pie atop a potholder in both of his hands.

Hello, Jerry McGill, Helen Mathison said. Miss Whitmore said there was no more cheese pie.

He chuckled. In our tearoom at two in the afternoon on a Monday? You must be joking. After he settled the pies onto the table, he said, Help yourselves, ladies. When he turned, he said, Hello, Arminta. Unlike most people, Jerry, the eldest of Mrs. McGill’s many sons, called Minty by her proper given name because they’d gone to school together. I was so sorry to hear about your loss. That’s so hard.

Minty let out a tiny sob and bowed her head. A great deal of her pain came from everybody in town, including the obnoxious Blanche Whitmore, seeming to know that she miscarried twins, a little boy and girl, on Easter Sunday. Probably once the rector at church told the head of the women’s auxiliary what happened, the news spread like wildfire throughout the city, even jumping the wall between Catholics and Protestants. After a moment, she lifted her head and managed to say, Thank you so much, Jerry. I appreciate it.

There, there, my dear, Mrs. Mathison said, patting Minty’s shoulder. There, there.

Please tell Daniel I’m sorry, McGill said.

I will. Thank you. By then Minty’s nose had begun to drip. Oh no, I left my purse with my hanky in it back at the table.

A hand holding a napkin appeared in front of her as she hung her head. You can use this, McGill said. Now I’d best get back to the kitchen.

Thank you, Jerry, Mrs. Mathison said. Minty set her plate on the table and stood back to blow her nose while Mrs. Mathison filled her own plate with sausage rolls, canapés, sandwiches, and a hefty wedge of cheese pie. She served Minty one each of the savories and a small slice of the pie. She also plunked down a cookie on Minty’s plate.

I don’t think I have the appetite for any of this, Minty said.

Perhaps you will once you’ve heard what I have to say. My proposal has to do with a case.

A case?

Yes.

That sounds intriguing.

I thought it might, Helen said.

Back at their table to which Blanche Whitmore had delivered a pot of tea, cups and saucers in their absence, Mrs. Mathison soon emptied her plate while Minty sipped tea, moved the sausage roll and the cucumber sandwich around her plate, and poked at the slice of cheese pie with her fork.

Now, about my proposal. Helen Mathison reached for the shopping bag and pulled out a maroon, leather-bound book. Quickly, she leafed through it and stopped.

Here it is, she said. She turned the album around and tapped a photograph. This is a picture of George and me on our wedding day. She smiled. It seems so long ago now. Just look at the bustles the other girls are wearing.

Minty leaned forward and looked at the photograph of a young couple sitting on a loveseat. Even in youth, George Mathison wasn’t handsome because of his misshapen nose, but he looked spruce indeed in a dark three-piece suit and a wide tie. Next to him sat Helen. A white train ran from her pouf of a hat, over her shoulder, across the bodice of her dark dress trimmed with white lace, and puddled on the floor by her feet.

Two more couples stood behind the bridal couple.

There’s Daniel’s mother and father, Minty said, tapping the image of a couple standing behind the loveseat on the right. A lovely young girl in a heavily bustled, dark and light striped dress clung to the arm of a boyish young man. I recognize them from one of the photographs you gave Daniel and me last year.

That’s right. That’s Ellazena Price, the former Miss Van Vechten, and my brother, Daniel Alan Price, Sr., your husband’s father. Mrs. Mathison sighed a little. Indeed, our Daniel was so young, only four when his parents died, that he probably doesn’t remember them. Ellazena perished giving birth to a little girl who also died. And after that, my brother was so grief-stricken that he took his own life.

That is so sad, Minty said.

It is. I still miss my brother. He was such a promising young man when he died.

Both Minty and her aunt sat silent and lost in thought for a moment before Minty said, But I don’t recognize the other couple. She pointed to a young man with fair hair who grinned right into the camera with a dark-haired young woman at his side. In spite of his spectacles, the man was quite handsome. The woman was lovely, yet looked very young. Should I?

Well, no, you would never have met them, and I didn’t include any pictures of them among those I gave you last year. Daniel wouldn’t have really known them either. The gentleman is Lord Richard Nelson, an Englishman who came to this country when he was young to seek his fortune, his father having impoverished the family with gambling and chancy investments. Richard and I have kept in touch over the years, even after he moved from Chicago to Colorado and made a fortune grubstaking miners in Leadville. After he retired, he moved to Denver.

Oh yes, of course, Minty said. I do know who he is. He sent us a beautiful silver bowl as a wedding present. It had been the very last of the wedding gifts to arrive, just a few months earlier, shortly after New Year’s Day, 1901.

Minty leaned over and studied the photograph. Nelson himself looked older by perhaps fifteen or twenty years than the others shown in the photograph including his wife. How handsome he was. Was his hair blond?

Helen shook her head. He’s one of those people whose hair goes white by the time they’re thirty. At any rate, Lord Nelson has been a widower for almost thirty years now. His wife died young in childbirth. And the child did, too.

That’s sad, Minty said.

Yes, it is. But as I said, he’s kept in touch with me throughout the years. And indeed, I received a letter from him just this morning. Helen reached into the bag and pulled out an envelope. It seems that he is need of a detective, and he thought of Price Investigations right away. And I thought of you. Pawing through her bag, Helen said, Where did I put that letter? I know I put it in my bag. But in which pocket? There are so many.

But why me? Why not one of the Price Investigations operatives? Why not Daniel? Or your husband for that matter?

Lord Nelson feels the need to have a female operative for this case. And apparently that’s why he sent his letter to me and not to George who after all is the agency manager.

Amazed, Minty sat back in her chair. That’s unusual.

Indeed, it was, for ever since Minty went to work as a typist and stenographer at Price Investigations in January of 1899, she had wanted to be a detective with cases of her own to investigate. Indeed, she had worked as a detective from time to time, but sometimes on the sly, at least at first and always over George Mathison’s objections though Daniel had seemed quite happy to have her as a partner in investigations since shortly after they met.

But those opportunities stopped once Minty and Daniel got married, and Mr. Mathison wouldn’t let her work in the agency office even as a stenographer and typist. A woman’s place is in the home, he’d growled. And later on, he clearly demonstrated that he thought that a woman with child suffered some sort of debilitating disease, one marked by shame as a clear sign that a female who bore a child reminded all of the act that led to it and that wasn’t spoken of in polite society.

"It is most unusual, Mrs. Mathison said. I admit. Ah, here it is. She held up a folded sheet of cream-colored vellum. Here, she said. I’ll let you read Richard’s letter for yourself."

Minty took it, unfolded the sheet and began to read.

My Dear Helen,

I must apologize for writing this letter in my own terrible hand instead of having David write it for me in his admirable Palmer style. I hope you can make this out.

Minty lowered the letter. Who’s David?

Mr. David Hyde is Richard’s long-time business partner from when they ran the store in Colorado.

I see. Minty dropped her head and continued reading.

Recently and most unfortunately, a death occurred in my residence. A young woman in my employment was found dead in her bedroom and, I’m sorry to say ravished as well, at least according to our housekeeper. And now David has been wrongly accused of assault and murder by some of the other servants and jailed.

Oh my! Minty said before she resumed reading.

I am absolutely certain that David is incapable of either crime. But I cannot substantiate this. So, I would like for an operative from Price Investigations to come here and in the guise of a servant try to discover what really happened in my household and to our chambermaid while David and I were away for the evening.

I know that the son of my dear friends Ellazena and Daniel Price works at the Kansas City branch of Price Investigations. But for assorted reasons I’d rather not get into at this time, I think he won‘t do in this situation. But perhaps the agency staff includes a female who could pretend to be my secretary to look into this matter.

I eagerly look forward to your response,

Richard Gordon Nelson

The letter concluded with a telephone number.

Your husband would never hire a female for the job, would he? Minty said.

Helen Mathison shook her head. No, he wouldn’t. He considers us the weaker sex after all. Her nose wrinkled when she smiled. "So, I’ve decided not to tell