The Case Book of Emily Lawrence Read online

  “I am going to be a scientist when I am grown. My father says I am intelligent enough, but that I must work very hard because it is difficult for a woman to become a scholar.”

  “Don’t you want to find yourself a grand husband?”

  “If I do, he shall be a scientist, too. Perhaps I won’t. Mother says I am too young to make such decisions.”

  “How old are you, Miss Emily?”

  “Seven. I will be eight in May. Father says there is a war coming and we must be steadfast or something bad could happen to the family.”

  “Your father is very brave and I can see that you are much like him.” The man was silent for a very long time before he said, “I have a daughter your age. I wonder if I shall ever see her again.”

  * * * *

  That afternoon, Emily went to her sewing basket and found a small scrap of cream linen, blue and yellow and green silk floss, a needle and thimble. As she bound the scrap in yellow blanket stitch she planned the blue flowers she would embroider there.

  “What’s that supposed to be?” jeered Susan, who was by far the better needlewoman. “It’s too small to be much of anything.”

  “An apron for my doll,” Emily lied.

  “Why?” asked Anna. “You never play with your doll.”

  Emily shrugged and went on stitching. She had to hurry because she did not know when Mr. Richard would move out of the attic and on to another hiding place. She worked on it all afternoon and late into the evening. First thing in the morning she added a few more stitches until it was done to her satisfaction, then putting it in her apron pocket, she ran downstairs for the breakfast basket.

  “I thought you might like to pretend that your daughter made this for you. I’m sure she would have if she had had time.” Emily laid her work in front of Mr. Richard and then started setting out his breakfast.

  She glanced at the little square. Suddenly it looked incredibly shabby. There were so many errors in her stitches. Could, she snatch it back? Too late. The man blinked hard at the sight of the poor little square.

  “I… I…” she sputtered. “I did my best. You don’t have…”

  Mr. Richard took out his pocket watch and, opening the back, slipped the tiny piece of embroidered linen into it and snapped it shut.

  “Look, it just fits. Thank you, Miss Emily. You are very kind.” He blinked again.

  * * * *

  What woke her? Emily turned over in her bed. The town clock striking two? Or the noise on the stairs? This time she recognized two of the voices. They were discussing the need to hurry since the ship that would leave Boston with the morning tide.

  Mother hushed the men. “You will wake the girls.”

  Mr. Richard thanked Mother for the hospitality. “And thank that grand girl of yours as well. She made a difficult time almost pleasant.”

  Then as quickly as they had come they were gone and there was silence in the Lothrop house again.

  * * * *

  The next morning when Emily went to tidy up the now vacant room, she folded the sheets, and set them at the top of the stairs. She straightened the bureau scarf, piled up the literary magazines Father had lent Mr. Richard. Had he left anything that would tell her his true name?

  He had left nothing. All there was in the attic was what had been there before he arrived.

  Footsteps sounded on the stairs and she jumped.

  “Looking for something?” Father asked.

  He sat on the top step and patted the space beside him in invitation.

  “We’ve spent a lot of time together trying to find answers to mysteries,” he said.

  Emily nodded. Was he going to give her the answer to this one?

  “This time there may be no answer. When you are grown you may pass a man on the street who might be your friend. You will never know.”

  He paused and raised his eyes to the roof above, the way he did when he was thinking.

  “Sometimes, no matter how hard we look, there is no answer to be found. It can be difficult to live with that uncertainty. Some people make up stories that could be true. The strongest among us learn to live with the fact that we can’t always know the answer. Can you do that?”

  Emily nodded slowly, but she would never give up looking for Mr. Richard.

  Cambridge, October 3, 1871

  Dearest Anna,

  The strangest thing has happened. I was taking some books back to the library for Father when a young man came down the steps of Dr. Agassiz’s Museum and took them from me. He introduced himself as Charles Lawrence and asked me to marry him. I had never seen him before, though he tells me he sat behind me in a lecture in April.

  He says that when he graduates, we will move to Washington City and set up a detective agency, like the Pinkertons. I had to look up Allan Pinkerton. He saved President Lincoln’s life.

  Mr. Lawrence is a wealthy business man in Vermont who trades in groceries, and is somehow involved in providing marble for the new buildings in Washington.

  I must admit I do find him charming, if a bit strange.

  I haven’t mentioned him to Mother or Father, but I have told Mrs. Stevens next door. She thought I should stop keeping it a secret. So once I put this letter in the post, I will figure out a way to tell our parents.

  The last thing I want to do is marry someone I do not know and move to a strange city. And can you imagine? A detective agency! What is that anyway?

  You ask how I am getting along with Elliot Maxwell. I like him very well and we talk easily, but we are more friends than anything else. If this were meant to be a romance, something should have happened after two years. As I remember, our parents had very little say in either your choice of husband, or Susan’s. I think I might be just as happy if I never married.

  You have sent me none of your poems in several months. I hope you are still writing. Mr. Higginson says you have a great future as a poet.

  With love

  Emily

  EMILY’S FIRST CASE

  Cambridge, November 1871

  Emily had a nickel and The Crimson Café had ice cream. The long thin room with windows on Main and Holyoke Streets was bright and cheery, even on a dull day like this one. The clientele of Harvard students made it stimulating. The food was good and inexpensive. She wished she could afford to come here more often.

  She found a table at the back and sat down to enjoy the chocolate treat. Earning the nickel had been more fun than work. All she had to do was listen to Eric Stevens recite his French homework and correct him when necessary.

  A young man slammed a folder on the table and dropped down into the chair across from her.

  She looked up in surprise. “Good afternoon, Mr. Lawrence.”

  The waiter appeared at once.

  “I’ll have what she is having. It is nice weather for ice cream,” he said.

  She raised an eyebrow. The current cold and damp was a precursor to the winter that was just around the corner.

  “What’s in the folder?” she asked. He had set it squarely in front of her.

  “It’s a little something my father brought to show me.”

  “Your father?” But hadn’t he said they were estranged?

  “He is in Boston now, at the Copley House. He will be here for about a week. I’d like to introduce you to him. After all, we are to be married in June.”

  Emily had met this young man five weeks ago when he had proposed marriage to her on the steps of Dr. Agassiz’s museum.

  His hair was a few shades darker than her own not-quite-blond locks. It lay neatly as though he had combed it just before he stepped through the door. He was on the short side, only a few inches taller than she. He had broad shoulders and looked strong, though she couldn’t say why she thought this. Perhaps it was the grace and agility of his movements. His clothes looked expensive, b
ut they were well worn. More important to her than his looks was his intelligence.

  She knew he had badgered Professor Peirce into teaching a special class in measurements.

  She also knew that he would not graduate from Harvard. Dr. Eliot had loosened the requirement for a degree, but Charles had designed his own course of studies to lead him where he wanted, not where the establishment wished him to go.

  At first she had laughed about his proposal of marriage, but she had not mentioned it to her parents. After that she ran into him on the library steps, outside Amee Brothers Bookstore, on the porch of Memorial Hall, and half a dozen other places. Two weeks ago she had seen him sitting in the back pew at church. Perhaps he hoped she would introduce him to her parents. She was oddly cheered by his pursuit, but she wasn’t certain what to do next. Nor was she sure why she didn’t talk to her mother about it.

  Emily sighed and opened the file.

  “This is four bills of sale. What do you want me to do with them?”

  “Papa thinks one is a forgery.”

  Papa? She had never heard him refer to his father that way. He had told her that his father had cut his stipend when he discovered that Charles was not going to be awarded a degree. He would receive a superior education. Might they be on the verge of reconciliation?

  Charles moved around the table to sit beside her. “Benjamin and James Peirce were asked to testify in a case of forgery about four years ago. I saw Benjamin Peirce this morning and asked him to explain it to me. He told me to figure it out myself.”

  Emily laughed. “As would any good teacher. Perhaps if you do solve it, Professor Peirce will accept it as your final thesis.”

  Charles nodded. “I think I am going to need some help.”

  The lunch crowd was gone and the mid-afternoon crowd had yet to appear. Emily had chosen a good sized table. Charles set out the bills of sale side by side. Then he dug into his own dish of chocolate ice cream.

  Each bill was for milk. Three were for quantities around one hundred gallons and the forth was for 52 gallons. They were all written in the same hand, with a note at the bottom in a different hand, the printed name Josiah Morgan followed by an almost illegible signature.

  “The 52 gallon amount is an anomaly. Is that the one your father thinks is forged?” asked Emily.

  “I believe so. Usually he meets with Morgan and the man signs the bill when they have agreed on the amount and the price. This time Morgan’s assistant, Herbert Proctor, brought the already signed bill. The name printed above the signature on these three is in Morgan’s hand. On the odd one Proctor wrote the name above the signature.”

  The bell above the door tinkled. Emily tensed and turned to look out into Holyoke Street.

  “Are you ashamed to be sitting with me in a public place?” asked Charles.

  Was she? Why was she keeping his attentions a secret? She always felt a bit of a flutter when she first saw him, so why was she hiding it?

  “I haven’t mentioned you to my parents. At first I took your proposal lightly, but I am coming to believe you are quite serious.”

  “Perhaps it is time you allowed me to meet your parents.”

  “Why does your father want you to look into this?” asked Emily, sliding the bills of sale into a neat pile.

  “What difference does it make? It’s the method that counts, not the reason.” There was a gruffness in his voice she had not heard before.

  “Charles, I know this is important to you. If nothing else, it is a chance for you to show your father what you intend to do with your life, and perhaps win his respect. But what good is the science of it if you ignore the morality?”

  “It isn’t the why of it he has asked me to find. Only the truth.” He paused for a time. “The facts,” he corrected himself.

  Then, undeterred, Charles handed her an envelope. It was addressed to her father but it was not sealed. He nodded to her and she slid out the contents and began to read.

  “Papa thinks I have done everything properly and called on your father asking permission to see you. He knows I am serious, so he is requesting an interview with your father.”

  A quick flicker of embarrassment crossed Charles’s face. “We need to fix this.”

  “We?” asked Emily, offended. “If I remember correctly, you are the one who refused the conventions. My parents must know about you. How could they not? The Peirces and the Jameses have seen us together. And others as well, I am sure. Don’t you think one of them has passed the word that Professor Lothrop’s youngest daughter is meeting a young man? I would also like to point out that I am not meeting you, you are meeting me.”

  Charles gave a deep sigh. “You are right. I need to deliver this myself and speak to your father.”

  “Doesn’t a good detective use whatever is at hand to help find the answers? If that is so, give me the file and I will see what my father has to say about it. That will give me a reason to tell him about you.”

  Charles nodded and handed it to her.

  * * * *

  Emily turned onto Dana Street just behind her father. He smiled and waited for her as she approached.

  “Father, how do you prove a document is a forgery?”

  “Does this have anything to do with the young man you have been seen about town with?”

  Heat rose in her face, but she answered simply, “Yes.”

  “Well, I don’t know much about such things, but I imagine this is most important to your young man.”

  Emily stopped dead in her tracks and stared at him. “You know?”

  He chuckled and took her arm. They continued in silence.

  Emily’s mother met them at the door. She offered no objections when he led Emily up the stairs to his study. He pulled up a chair and patted the seat beside him. He dipped his pen in the inkwell and wrote his name at the top of a sheet of paper, Elbert Lothrop.

  Then he handed her the pen and indicated that she should do the same.

  His signature was barely legible, a flourish with the E and the L, and the rest of the letters mere wavy lines. Hers, on the other hand, was clearly written, with every letter pronounced and neat.

  They stared at the signatures for a while. At last he picked up the pen, dipped it in the ink, and wrote a second signature under the first. He handed her the pen and she did the same.

  “Why do you sign something?” he asked her.

  “To show that you have read the paper and agree with its contents. Each person’s signature is unique,” she replied.

  “But look how different the two signatures are. The loop at the top of your E in Emily is bigger on the first than the second, and the final stroke is at a slightly different angle. How can I know this is your signature if it is different each time you sign?”

  “Perhaps that is the key,” she said.

  The hall clock struck six.

  “Tell me what this has to do with your young man.”

  “His name is Charles Lawrence. He wants to marry me. I think he is serious. I met him early in September, though apparently he had been watching me for some time. I like him, but I don’t love him. I hardly know what to do.”

  “But from time to time he brings you puzzles that intrigue you?”

  “Yes. You found me cutting out newspaper articles to compare the type face, and looking at footprints in the mud in the back yard.”

  “Why did he choose you, out of all the spinsters in Cambridge?”

  Spinster? She was hardly old enough to be thought of as a spinster. There were many unmarried women in Cambridge, it was true, but most were ten years her senior. Did she want to be like them?

  “I don’t know. Perhaps because I am intelligent and like puzzles.”

  Her father picked up the paper with the four signatures on it, gazed at it for a bit, then said, “I would think that a forged signature wo
uld look as though it had been drawn rather than written. None of these are done with that kind of the deliberation.”

  He picked up the pen and copied ‘Emily Lothrop’ under her last line. He carefully made each stroke and loop, looking from her writing to his own. There could be no mistaking his work for hers.

  “Well, this is an intriguing puzzle. Why does he want you to solve it?”

  Emily opened the file she has set on the corner of the desk and showed him the bills of sale.

  “He doesn’t talk about his father much. Apparently he is well to do. He is the agent for all the local farmers and arranges transport of farm goods to cities. We probably eat some Lawrence vegetables from time to time.”

  Emily picked up one of the bills assumed to be genuine. “Apparently his father is a business man of some scruples. He fears that the quality of the 52 gallon order is not up to the usual standards of Morgan’s milk. Mr. Lawrence prides himself on the quality of his goods. If he sells shoddy or low-grade produce, he lets the buyers know. In this case he bought it as top quality. In fact he thinks he was cheated by Proctor.”

  * * * *

  Emily and her mother were putting away the dinner dishes that evening when Charles came calling. As Emily escorted Charles up the stairs to her father’s study, her palms were damp. Charles seemed quite calm. Was he only putting on a good show?

  For half an hour, she heard nothing from the top of the stairs. Until her father bellowed for her to join them, she hadn’t realized how anxious she had been. She took a deep breath, shook the tension out of her arms, and climbed the stairs.

  The study was the largest room in the house. One window looked onto Dana Street, where it would catch the early morning sun. A second looked north into the Stevens’s yard. Emily’s father sat with his back to this window so the light fell onto his large desk. The third faced onto their own back yard. The rays of the setting sun fell onto a bookstand holding an unabridged dictionary. Every wall was covered with books in glass-fronted cases. Father had cleared the clutter off his desk and onto a small table under the Dana Street window. Charles was sitting in one of the two chairs where visiting students sat. He looked cool and collected. A smile tickled the corners of his mouth. The three other chairs in the room held stacks of paper and books. Emily moved the papers and sat in the second student chair. The stool at her father’s elbow, where she usually sat, had been pushed out of the way.