Chapter 14

In Which Charity Does Not Feel Particularly Charitable

As our train chugged along through Indiana and across Ohio, the sunshine smiling down upon us, I couldn’t stop the butterflies from batting around in my stomach. Maybe it was the rattling of the railcar, but I was having a hard time sitting still for such a long journey. I slipped down low in my seat and began reading and rereading Jemma’s letters, my eyes lingering on her most recent one. I think she was giving me a cipher to figure out, but how?

“That’s Phil O’Dell for ya,” I mumbled to myself as I traced Jemma’s words on the page. “Phil O’Dell for ya.”

“What about Philadelphia?” asked Aunt Kitty, with a vague glance in my direction. She was busy reading an article in the newspaper I’d just finished.

“That’s it,” I said with a jump, waving Jemma’s letter in the air. “Philadelphia must be where the Maple Tree lives!”

Aunt Kitty fixed me with such a look, I knew right away to sit myself back down on my wooden bench and hush. Because the last thing a detective should do is make a complete spectacle of herself. I folded Jemma’s letters back into their envelopes and tucked them into my cigar box, but I could not stop my knees from bouncing as we rattled on down the tracks. Jemma’s cipher was so good, even Mr. Pinkerton would be impressed.

By the time we reached Philadelphia, I was like a jackrabbit sprung from a snare. Aunt Kitty could barely keep hold of me as we marched through the redbrick train depot and out the doors into the big city. The Maple Tree was out here somewhere, and I would find him.

“Miss Charity Englehart,” my aunt snapped, “what has gotten into you? You’ve never been to this city in your entire life, yet you’re walking around as if you know where you’re going.”

I stopped in my tracks and looked back at Aunt Kitty. She had headed off to the right when we alighted from the train depot, while I had turned to the left.

“I’m just excited to be here,” I whispered, dashing back over to her side and skipping to keep up with her fast walking. “I’ve never been anywhere but the farm and Chicago. This is the most exciting adventure of my life, Aunt Kitty!”

In her tight, clipped voice, she reminded me to call her Madam Imbert. But I thought I saw a smile start to sneak its way up to her eyes. I knew she could appreciate the thrill of adventure. She slowed her fast walking just a bit to let me catch up, and together we admired the redbrick buildings with their cheery white shutters and the bumpy cobblestone roads.

Compared to Chicago, with its muddy streets, muddy yards, and muddy sidewalks, Philadelphia looked tidy. I liked the way the horses’ hooves sounded as they trotted down the bright streets. After some time walking, she told me to take note of a special place called Independence Hall, where she said our Founding Fathers and Mothers let freedom ring throughout the land.

I liked the sound of that.

Just as Mr. Pinkerton promised, our buggy was waiting for us across the street, at a restaurant called Mitchell’s. After freshening up and taking a bite to eat, we were promptly whisked down the lane to Jenkintown. Our bags were sent up to a room above a tidy tavern, and right away Aunt Kitty and I stepped out for a promenade around town.

To the casual observer, we might have looked like two simple ladies taking in the fresh air. In reality, though, we were keen-eyed investigators, devouring everything in sight: the prim houses, the speeding buggies, the passing faces. With all my senses on high alert, I’d never felt more ready for danger.

And within a few short minutes, we found it. In the form of an angry child.

“I want it now!” wailed the young voice, putting up such a caterwauling, it was enough to make paint peel from the walls. “You’re a terrible witch if you don’t give it to me now, Mama!”

Aunt Kitty and I rushed to the scene, past a few busy shops and whitewashed fences, until we reached the wide public garden. We were eager to see what the commotion was all about.

“I will do no such thing,” answered the child’s mother. “It is my peppermint, and I will not share it. Now stop your carrying on, or everyone will think you’re a crybaby.”

“But I’m not a crybaby!”

And with that, tears flowed and lungs wailed, leaving those of us in the garden to form our own opinions about what did and did not constitute a crybaby. I tugged on Aunt Kitty’s arm to slip away before they took any notice of us standing there. But that’s the thing about keeping the company of detectives. They’re always poking around where any sensible person would flee.

Aunt Kitty stepped right over and introduced herself.

“There, there, darling child,” she cooed. “What’s the matter?”

Sniffling and wiping at her nose, the girl looked Aunt Kitty over from head to toe and back up again, then sized me up beside her. She did not look impressed.

“I want Mama’s candy!”

“Flora Maroney, I already told you,” snapped her mother peevishly, moving a round ball of sweets from one side of her cheek to the other. “You cannot have it!”

When I heard that name, my jaw came unhinged, hanging open like a broken dresser drawer. Maroney? Could this be our Mrs. Maroney, wife of the suspected robber of the Adams Express Company, Mr. Nathan Maroney?

If so, then the garden crybaby was a Maroney, too.

“May I introduce myself to your darling daughter, ma’am?” I began, turning my charm first on to Mrs. Maroney and then her irritable offspring. “My name is Charity Englehart, and I sure love to play games. Won’t you dry your eyes and come along? It would make me ever so happy.”

If only those Maroneys knew how happy! Now was my chance to show Aunt Kitty and Mr. Pinkerton how helpful I was to have along. My aunt kept her expression calm, but the look in her eyes let me know she heartily approved. And that made me bounce a bit in my boots over my quick thinking. I’d have this child eating out of my hand in no time.

I led little Flora down a stone path toward an open area to play, though her stomping made it clear she was still in the throes of a tantrum. We hadn’t walked a dozen paces before she decided to turn her anger on me, commenting about my boots, my bonnet, and finally the size of my ears.

I yanked my hat lower on my head and reached for a sack of sweets I’d tucked in the pocket of my checkered gown. Perhaps a bit of candy might sweeten that sour disposition.

“These boots belonged to my daddy,” I said, trying to keep my voice light. “I feel grateful to have them.”

“Well, your daddy must not have loved you much to stick you with those unsightly things. And that is the ugliest dress I’ve ever seen,” Flora said, her list of grievances against me growing by the minute. “My mama’s gowns are the latest fashions. She has a cage crinoline that makes her skirt flow out like an enormous bell. Your dress is dull and flat.”

I decided to hang on to my lemon drops for another time.

“You catch more bees with honey than with vinegar,” I advised her tightly, sharing one of Aunt Kitty’s bits of wisdom. Then I forced a grin and put my hand out for her to take.

“Bees make honey,” Flora corrected, stopping in her tracks and letting her scowl hit me full force. “You don’t catch bees with honey. Any numskull knows that. You could catch a bear with honey, but why in the world would I want to do such a thing?”

And with one swift motion, she kicked me in the shin and raced off down the path toward a cluster of bright yellow forsythia.

Detective work was proving to be more hazardous than it originally seemed.

After about two days’ time spent in the company of Flora Maroney, my shins ached from unexpected kicks, my arms were sore from vicious pinches, and my pride was wounded from insults to my general appearance and intellect. But I would never let on to Aunt Kitty. Besides, she was too busy prancing around Jenkintown arm in arm with Mrs. Maroney to take any notice.

“You’ve done well to befriend darling Flora Maroney,” Aunt Kitty told me one night up in our room as I lay on my mattress counting the latest welts from Flora’s pinches. “I’ve confided my tale of woe to her mother, though she has not shared a word about her husband, except to say that he’s delayed on business down in Montgomery, Alabama. But she listens closely to my false stories of a jailed husband and how I fend for myself. By taking young Flora away, you’re opening the door for her to confide in me.”

Aunt Kitty said we would stay another week in Jenkintown and see if Mr. Maroney planned to pay his wife and daughter a visit. And as I pulled the sleeves down on my nightshirt, covering up the marks Flora had given me that day, I tried to remind myself that detective work was much like life itself: every one of us had demons to face down.

Too bad mine happened to take the shape of a fifty-pound tyrant.

When we rose the next morning, Mrs. Maroney was waiting for us in the sitting room of the tavern. Flora was in the yard out front, so I took a deep breath and slipped out the door to keep the child occupied. This would let Aunt Kitty have some quiet time with Mrs. Maroney.

I plunked down on the porch steps and strained my ears, trying to hear their voices through the open windows. But Flora was busy tormenting the tavern’s mule, Lucky Pete. It made eavesdropping difficult.

“Mama’s going away to see Papa,” Flora announced once she’d finally succeeded in getting a rope around Lucky Pete’s neck. The poor mule let out such a sad braying, followed each time by a breathless hiccup, it reminded me of Whiskey back in Chemung County. It nearly broke my heart to think of my beloved old mule. But Lucky Pete’s wail did nothing to weaken Flora’s resolve. She yanked the rope tighter, then tried to drag that animal across the yard.

“I’ve chosen you to watch over me when Mama leaves town, so long as you give me three candies each day. And you don’t get any—that’s the bargain. Mama said you don’t need no candy, that it would just make your complexion look even worse. So give me your bag. Now!”

I was so dumbfounded by Flora’s words, I didn’t have enough sense to stop that child from taking my whole sack of lemon drops right out of my pocket.

Watch over her while her mama was gone?

Me?

And what was wrong with my complexion?

Flora tied Lucky Pete to a crab-apple tree, then bounded up the porch steps before I knew what hit me. I looked at the scrawny mule and felt Flora’s rope tighten around my neck, too.

“We would be pleased to care for dear Flora in your absence,” Aunt Kitty was telling Mrs. Maroney when I came back in from the yard. They beamed over at Flora, who was seated on a small stool by the fireplace now and looking angelic, her dark hair hanging in sweet ringlets. With my lemon drops stuffed in her cheeks, she didn’t have the opportunity to sass, so instead she just batted her lashes and nodded politely. “Don’t you worry about a thing,” Aunt Kitty continued. “Miss Charity will see to all Flora’s needs.”

Mrs. Maroney wasted no time hightailing it out of Jenkintown. But Aunt Kitty told me to watch and wait, that Mrs. Maroney was up to something. She had ventured off to Montgomery, Alabama, where her husband was sitting tight—and most likely the stolen money, too. Aunt Kitty felt certain that she was going to come back to Jenkintown with something important in her possession.

“And with you securing her daughter here with us, well, that was a brilliant move,” Aunt Kitty said, like we were playing a game of chess and I’d just taken the queen. I didn’t bother to tell her that it was Flora calling those shots.

By the time another week passed in the company of Flora Maroney, I had begun to question my desire to participate in Mr. Pinkerton’s detective work. I was even pining for Mrs. Wigginbottom’s sorry company—anything seemed better than facing another afternoon with our pint-size terror.

“Grab your hat, Charity! One of the operatives just telegraphed that Mrs. Maroney is to arrive today on the two o’clock train,” Aunt Kitty whispered at the end of lunch one afternoon as I sat writing a letter to Jemma. I’d just finished half a ham sandwich, the other half surrendered to Flora during one of her tantrums. So I sealed up the envelope and headed for the door. With Flora occupied with the cook’s children in the yard, Aunt Kitty and I were free to make our escape.

“We will stroll the street near the train depot and make it appear that we happen upon Mrs. Maroney by chance,” Aunt Kitty explained as we took off in a buggy for Philadelphia. The four white horses galloped at a good clip, and Aunt Kitty kept her voice low, so I did not worry that our driver could hear us. But still I leaned in close so I wouldn’t miss a single word.

“I suspect she will return from the South with her husband’s stolen money—either in her trunk, a bag, or somehow on her person,” she continued, her breath smelling of licorice. “I will be watching her every move from the moment she leaves the station, and I ask you to do the same this week as you tend to Flora. If we can catch her with the stolen money, we’ll have the evidence needed to solve the case!”