The Detective's Assistant

Chapter 2

In Which I Share My Woe with My Best Friend, Jemma

Chapter 3

In Which My Aunt Wants Nothing to Do with Me

I awoke in the morning with a crick in my neck. That's what sleeping curled up like a cat in a lumpy parlor chair will do for a body. The wooden armrests had seemed a comfortable place to lay my head last night. But as I got to my feet, I was as stiff as a hitching post. And sleeping in my dusty clothes hadn't helped much either. But Aunt Kitty said it would be best—she wanted to get an early start this morning, and that would save us time.

It's not that I expected Aunt Kitty to give up her bed in the back room last night. So I can't quite blame her for the lack of hospitality she supplied. And maybe the kitchen was closed in the evening when she gathered up food for my supper. That meager bowl of cabbage broth—so bare, I wouldn't even call it a soup—failed to satisfy my hearty appetite. I planned to make up for it at breakfast today, and I could already smell the heavenly aroma of coffee summoning me downstairs to the table.

"Let's get a move on, Aunt Kitty," I said, tapping on her door. Her sleeping quarters in the second room weren't much bigger than a closet, but I already knew where I'd fit my bed. I had peeked in yesterday, when she was off scrounging up my sad supper. And I figured I could tuck a mattress and pretty iron bed frame right next to the tall wardrobe. Then we could stay up nights talking and reading together like chums.

I knocked again, a little stronger this time. "There's probably a mountain of boiled eggs in the dining room with our names on them. And biscuits with jam, too."

I expected Aunt Kitty to still be snuggled under her covers tight like a caterpillar in a cocoon, but she was not. She suddenly pulled open her door and swept right out of the bedroom, her hair perfectly arranged and her dark blue skirts swishing as she passed.

"I am ready to go, Nell, but not to breakfast," she announced, giving one of the gloves on her hand a firm tug. "We will proceed over to Wabash Avenue, where there has recently been built the Home for the Friendless. I believe it might make a more appropriate environment for you than what I can provide. I will leave you there. It is that simple."

Simple? It was that simple for her to give me over to strangers?

Her words made me stagger backward a few steps. I knew better than to believe the sound of that place—Home for the Friendless. It might seem like a shelter from the storm, but it really was another asylum packed with a bunch of mangy orphans ready to filch my last possessions while I slept. There was no way I was letting my aunt abandon me there.

"Your place is plenty big—" I began. But she didn't want to hear a thing from me. She just pointed at my carpetbag on the floor near the door and marched off. So I grabbed the handle and followed after her down the staircase, squeezing past a few boarders heading up from the breakfast table and trailing a mouthwatering smell of bacon.

We reached the street and headed east toward Lake Michigan, where the sun had just climbed out from under its thick, purplish-pink covers. I hoped the folks over at the Home for the Friendless might still be under their covers, too. If they were, maybe they wouldn't hear our knocking. Or maybe my aunt had no plans to knock—maybe she was just going to sit me down on the front stoop to wait until some sorry caretaker opened the door and found me there.

"Aunt Kitty," I protested, clomping my brown boots behind her through the dusty August morning. "I'm trying to tell you that your place at the boardinghouse is fine enough for me. I don't take up too much space—"

"It is not about space, Nell. It is about what's right. And I do not think it's appropriate for a young girl like you to live in a boardinghouse."

"Then why don't you and me just move? Get a farm somewhere, or a house?"

She stopped her fast walking and turned to face me, her eyes flashing. I had to draw up short to keep from smacking right into her.

"Buy a house? With what money? I can't imagine Cornelius left you a vast inheritance. More like a few poker debts to settle. And I have my own life to lead. It cannot involve caring for a helpless girl."

I couldn't tell if she'd said helpless or hopeless. I told her I could find myself a job, earn a few coins to cover the cost of things. But she only let out a bitter chuckle and told me I was naive.

I didn't know what that word meant, but I suspected it was no compliment.

"Besides, you and me are all the family that's left, Aunt Kitty," I said, hitching my wool trousers up a bit. "We've got to stick together."

"We have to do no such thing, Nell. We hardly know each other. Am I supposed to alter my entire life in order to accommodate you? I think not. I apologize if the truth hurts, but let's face it: family is something you make; it is the people you choose to be with. Not the ones you're stuck with."

She might as well have elbowed me in the stomach, the way her words took my breath away. I watched her walk on down the street and turn south on what must have been Wabash Avenue, and so I made my feet follow along behind. But it was like I was moving through a haze, my senses having turned numb.

We went on that way, with her crisp footsteps tip-tapping down the wooden sidewalk and my boots shuffling along after her, until we reached another intersection. There was a great commotion up ahead that was causing people to gather in clumps and crane their necks for a glimpse. I heard a few shouts and hollers from the street, even the shrill protesting from a horse, but couldn't see what was happening.

I set my bag down and scrambled up a small hawthorn tree so as to get a better view of the scene. And I saw right away what was going on. Two colossal brutes were fighting in front of a stone building just ahead of us, blocking the route in either direction. And the crowd was growing thicker as the wrestling match heated up. I saw Aunt Kitty try to squeeze by on the right, but there was no getting through. Then she stepped to her left but was pinched in from that direction as well.

What I noticed next came as a jolt, and I had to rub my eyes to make sure I wasn't seeing things. A long-armed street thug was reaching his hands into every coat, bag, and pocket he could find as the folks in the crowd, distracted as they were by the two sparring hooligans, stood there unaware. He had his own bag, a deep thing of stained black fabric, into which he was tossing all his ill-gotten loot. And if I didn't act fast, this sly picker of pockets would be helping himself to my aunt's money at any second.

"Aunt Kitty!" I hollered, swinging out of the tree like a crazed squirrel and racing to her side. She turned just in time to see the tattered sleeve of the thief emerge from her bag, dirty hand clutching her coin purse. And as Aunt Kitty grabbed for his arm, the scoundrel pushed her down and tried to run off.

"Give that back," I snarled. And with one swift stomp of my foot, I crashed the heel of my big brown boot onto his toes. "Pickpocket afoot! Pickpocket afoot!"

The bandit let out a howl and began hopping on one leg, which allowed me to snatch Aunt Kitty's coin purse right from his hand. I quickly helped my aunt to her feet, and we pushed our way back from the crowd. Our timing couldn't have been better, because in those few moments when all eyes turned from the brawny brawlers to our yelping thief, the crowd suddenly realized they'd been had. Hands frantically slipped into pockets and bags and coats, only to discover wallets gone. And they pounced on the skinny pickpocket like a pack of wolves.

"Nell, how did you know what he was doing?" gasped Aunt Kitty as she leaned heavily on my arm. "Though I've injured my knee, you have spared me a great loss. All my savings were in that purse."

I shrugged my shoulders and stared down at my feet, my heel still tingling from the stomping I'd given that thief. My old boots had sure come in handy when I needed them.

Aunt Kitty gazed down on them, too, then lifted her eyes to meet mine. She studied my face for a moment or two, which made me feel a good deal uncomfortable for the fuss, and then she finally spoke.

"That was very brave, Nell. And I thank you."

I wasn't expecting a kind word from her, and suddenly my cheeks felt hot with embarrassment. So I quickly retrieved my bag and looked over to see what was happening to the pickpocket. He was sprawled pathetically on the wooden sidewalk now, propping himself up on one elbow and seeming to reflect on the scene before him. The brawling brutes had run off. And his black bag was ripped open and empty, the contents probably recovered by their owners.

As the crowd wandered off, the stone building ahead of us came into view. I saw a few scrawny boys leaning out the open upstairs windows, hooting and whistling at the fallen pickpocket on the street below. Some more of them—these appeared younger and somehow dirtier—were jeering from behind a black iron fence that surrounded the yard. A few appeared skinny enough to slip through the bars. I read the wooden sign beside the front door and felt my heart clench in my chest:

I couldn't move my gaze from the carved lettering. And I knew that Aunt Kitty, who was leaning on my shoulder beside me, was reading it, too.

I'd already done my time in one of these places, just after my daddy died. The Right Reverend had told me I should be grateful to live there, a girl with no relations left in the world. But that orphans' home inspired no inklings of thankfulness in my heart. In fact, I could say with stone-cold certainty that I was never going back to such a place. Too many children crammed into rooms, never enough food to go around. And at night cries of such sadness, I had to plug my fingers in my ears to keep from joining in.

The heavy front door pushed open, and I watched a girl as pale as milk step outside, blinking in the sunlight. She let out a hacking cough and pulled her thin coat tighter around her shoulders, despite the August heat. When she turned to me, I recognized the wretchedness on her face. I knew it so well, it made me shudder. She spat on the sidewalk between us, then stared back at me with hopeless eyes. She was a candle that had been snuffed out.

I felt the urge to run for the train station and climb onto the next locomotive headed for Chemung County. But I could not go back there, with nobody but a few chickens to keep me company. The echoing emptiness of that old house left a gloom on me, like a layer of dust. If I went back, I knew my bones would turn dry and crumble away.

But what else was I to do? The hollers of those skinny orphans at the fence, with their hateful, mocking laughter, pounded in my ears. If Aunt Kitty left me here, pressed in with hundreds of other unwanted souls, I could no longer complain of being alone. But I would be every bit as lonesome.

And each day my candle would burn down a little more, until it was nothing.

"Come along, Nell," Aunt Kitty finally said, gingerly turning herself around on her sore knee. "I will need your help getting back to the boardinghouse. And as for this Home for the Friendless, well, I believe we've had enough excitement for one day."

Chapter 4

In Which the Rent Is Inflated, and So Is My Sorry New Dress

I kept my chatting to a minimum for the rest of that day, lest I drove my aunt crazy with conversation until she marched me back to the orphan asylum. I think I tidied up our two rooms, not to mention changed and rechanged the pillow beneath her swollen knee at least six times before she finally suggested I go to sleep for the night. Even this morning, after rising again from my parlor chair, I decided not to join Aunt Kitty as she hobbled downstairs to breakfast. I was afraid my sizable appetite might scare her off.

"If your niece is to stay with you, Mrs. Warne, I will have to raise your rent to fifteen dollars," came a high-pitched voice from the other side of the door. I opened it only to discover the enormous landlady, Mrs. Leticia Wigginbottom, filling the doorway. Dabbing at the sweat on her forehead with a lace hankie, she pushed into the room and collapsed dramatically into a rocking chair near the empty fireplace. She continued to talk as if my aunt were standing in the middle of the room, not me.

"I know you say the girl won't be staying but a few days. But should you decide to leave with her and find other accommodations, it would be a tragic loss, Mrs. Warne. You're one of my best tenants—nothing coarse about you, so tidy. You give the place a bit of class."