Edison Effect, The: A Professor Bradshaw Mystery (The Edison Effect) Read online

  “I’ve seen the articles about the hunt for Daulton’s contraption,” the chief said. “And the ads.” He thumbed through the newspaper on his desk then flipped the paper around for Bradshaw and O’Brien to see. They were both familiar with the quarter-page advertisement:

  “Wanted: Information about the inventor assassin Oscar Daulton. $5,000 reward offered to those who provide information that leads to a patentable invention. See J. D. Maddock, the Globe Building.”

  The chief said, “You think someone killed Doyle over what he knew about the invention? Seems like a coincidence to me.”

  O’Brien said, “Our professor doesn’t trust coincidences, assumptions, or presumptions.”

  Chief Sullivan snorted. “I’d never close a case if I had to work like that. But I want the truth here, and speed. Vernon Doyle was a respected electrician working in an establishment women and children frequent. I want them to feel safe. I want them to be safe.”

  Bradshaw said, “The chief electrician examined the lighting system throughout the store and found it sound. I examined the wiring in and around the show window, and there is no doubt that Vernon Doyle’s death could not have been accidental. It was deliberate. Someone intentionally energized a wire in Doyle’s hands, but the shoppers of the Bon Marché are safe. You can assure the press of that.”

  “You may be right, but there will be many who say otherwise until Doyle’s killer is caught. O’Brien, Captain Tennant is in court today. Get back to the Bon, but report to Tennant first thing in the morning. And Professor, just so I can honestly say every single avenue is being explored, I’d appreciate you looking into the possibility of this being tied to Oscar Daulton. Usual terms, but the minute you decide there’s no connection, you let me know.”

  “Agreed.”

  ***

  When they were back on Third Avenue, the blustery morning stole hats and threatened umbrellas. Detective O’Brien jammed his Roosevelt hat low as Bradshaw clutched his own derby atop his head.

  O’Brien said, “Do you want to talk to the boy, the assistant window dresser who found the body?”

  “Yes, if you don’t mind, but the chief made it clear what my role was to be in this investigation.”

  “How do we know the boy isn’t a closet inventor or treasure hunter?”

  Bradshaw grinned. “We don’t. I have his address. Shall we meet up in an hour at the office of Edison’s representative?”

  “Present a unified front to the good attorney? Yes, indeed.”

  They discussed the case as they trekked to Pike Street. There they parted. O’Brien turned down to Second Avenue and the Bon Marché while Bradshaw headed up the newly regraded street to Sixth Avenue. The regrade had removed the steepest portions of Pike for several blocks, and most buildings had been preserved by jacking them up on stilts then constructing new stories beneath them. The row houses that were his destination now sat above businesses that had set up shop in the newly created spaces.

  At Sixth, Bradshaw waited for the streetcar to pass, then dodged horse droppings on the fresh brick pavement to hike the stairs up to a wooden walk running the length of the row. He knocked on the front door of the third house.

  The door was opened almost immediately by Mrs. Creasle, who replied to his request to see Billy, “Must you see him today? He’s had such a shock.” Mrs. Creasle was a slight woman of late middle age, with silvering fair hair, and a pretty but forgettable face. This feature had been passed on to a number of daughters who all came to the door at his arrival, one after the other, eyeing him curiously, and asking if he was the famous Professor Bradshaw they’d read about in the newspaper. He said he supposed he was.

  “I won’t keep Billy long,” he said to Mrs. Creasle.

  She sighed in resignation and led Bradshaw, not into the parlor as he expected, but to a room she called Billy’s “storeroom,” at the back of the house.

  It turned out not to be a room for storage, but a small room dedicated to the past and future of the department store, its walls covered in posters of Macy’s, Harrods, Woolworth’s, and Bloomingdale’s. On a round table backed by a dark curtain, miniature homemade mannequins in doll clothes were arranged like a store’s show-window display, complete with descriptive signs. Billy, a young man, small and pale like his siblings, stood beside the table, turning a handle that made the tabletop slowly spin.

  Mrs. Creasle departed after introducing Bradshaw to her son, but she left the door ajar and he suspected she was listening from the next room.

  “How does it work?” Bradshaw asked, hoping to put the boy at ease for he seemed nervous, keeping his attention on his display and glancing often toward the open door.

  “I, uh, built it like a giant butler’s assistant.” He rubbed his palms on his trousers. “Do you know the device? A large round tray that sits on ball bearings and spins around? I read a description of one in a newspaper. It’s for serving meals. The writer called it a ‘Lazy Susan.’ Mine is for turning window displays and spins the same way, only with a hand crank, and the full-size model will have an electric motor. On my next design, the mannequins will stand on inset bases that spin separately.”

  “Like the figures in a music box?” Bradshaw was dismayed to learn that O’Brien’s comment about the boy possibly being an inventor was true. He had no wish to discover another young man, who obviously had the potential for a successful future, to be guilty of murder.

  “Yes, like a music box, only motor-driven, not spring. I’ll be able to control them separately, and I’ll install a clock mechanism, so all the products are fully rotated in about five minutes. You can’t have it longer than that without losing a customer’s attention and risking them crossing the street to the competitor.”

  “I dare say such a display would keep shoppers entertained. Where’d you learn to do this?”

  “Oh, I picked it up here and there.” Billy shrugged, but a grin revealed his pleasure at the compliment. “I think the novelty of it would at first draw a crowd, but people soon get used to things, you know, and you must keep presenting new attractions.”

  He was a fidgety young man, unable to keep still, moving about his display with a tape measure. He met Bradshaw’s eye openly enough, though, when he spoke, and while eager to show off his display, he wasn’t so self-absorbed as to be unaware of Bradshaw’s reactions. Indeed, Billy seemed to adjust his presentation in response to Bradshaw’s comments. Billy Creasle was a born pleaser, a showman, with a feel for his audience.

  “Can you take a break for a minute? I need to ask you some questions about this morning.”

  Before sitting, Bradshaw quietly closed the door. Billy was eighteen, old enough that his mother could not demand a presence at his interview. With the door closed, Billy seemed to relax a bit, although he fidgeted with the tape, unspooling a short length, then reeling it back in. Up close, dark smudges were visible under his eyes, as if he needed sleep.

  “What time did you arrive at the store this morning?”

  “At six. I signed the register. We all do.”

  “Can you walk me through your morning, everything you can remember up until you found Mr. Doyle?”

  “I did what I usually do when I arrive, which is to see to all the window displays, replace any merchandise that was sold from them, and change out any merchandise that we no longer have in stock. I didn’t get to that window in the Men’s Department until half past seven, and it was then I found Mr. Doyle and called for Mr. Olafson.”

  “Did you see anyone unusual in the store this morning? Anyone unexpected?”

  “No, I can’t say I did.”

  “Did you see anyone near that window before you entered it?”

  “No, no I didn’t. I passed through the department a couple times this morning, collecting things I needed for displays. There wasn’t anyone on the sales floor near the window that I can remember. The stockroom w
as busy, and the clerks were at their counters doing inventory and cleaning fingerprints off the glass cases, but nobody was over by the window.”

  “Do you know anyone who didn’t like Mr. Doyle? Or who had been arguing with him?”

  “I didn’t work much with him. His shifts usually began just as mine were ending. He was a bit full of himself, but I don’t think anyone at the store had anything against him.”

  “Full of himself?”

  “He was always saying, ‘In the beginning, God said, “Let there be light,” then He created the electrician to distribute it.’”

  Bradshaw was familiar with the expression, except the standard version had God creating linemen, not electricians, to distribute light. Practical electrical work took intelligence, skill, and a certain amount of self-confidence that bordered on bravado, especially for the men who restored downed power lines after storms. It was an amusing quip coming from a swaggering lineman in climbing hooks who carried a fifty-pound crossarm up a pole with the ease of a mother carrying her child, but it could seem boastful from an electrician climbing a ladder in a department store to change out an incandescent lamp. Doyle’s job had been far more complicated and potentially dangerous than changing bulbs and trimming arc lamps, but the environment of the Bon Marché, with its ferns and finery, did not lend itself to such statements of bravado.

  “Do you know of anyone not employed at the Bon who had argued with Mr. Doyle?”

  “Funny you ask because I’d never heard anyone arguing with Mr. Doyle until yesterday. A man named Maddock, that attorney in town that represents Thomas Edison and has all those advertisements in the papers offering a reward for information about that lost invention. He was in the store last night, arguing with Doyle.”

  “What time?”

  “About nine, I’d say. No, more like half past. Mr. Doyle had just started his shift.”

  “You work long hours.”

  “They don’t make me. I love my job. I plan to be a manager one day of a place even bigger than the Bon. Why, do you know that at Marshall Field in Chicago—a store ten times the size of the Bon—their manager, Mr. Henry Gordon Selfridge, began as a stock boy in the wholesale house? If he can do it, so can I. I’m on salary at the Bon, not hourly. It was my idea so I could work as much as I wanted without costing them overtime.”

  “What did Mr. Doyle and Mr. Maddock argue about?”

  “I didn’t hear enough to follow. They kept their voices low, but I could tell they were angry. When Mr. Maddock left, he said to Mr. Doyle, ‘You know where to find me if you change your mind.’ Then Mr. Doyle muttered some unrepeatable words and I told him the Bon Marché didn’t condone such language, and he gave me a nasty look, but held his tongue. I get that a lot because of my age. No respect, even when I’m right.”

  “What time did you leave the store last evening?”

  “About midnight, maybe a little after.”

  “You started at six in morning? Eighteen hours, Billy? And back again at six today?”

  “Like I said, I enjoy my job. During the holidays, there’s a lot to do and it’s easier when the store isn’t packed with customers. I came home at noon yesterday for a few hours then went back.”

  “You say Mr. Doyle was liked well enough. Do you know if he had particular friends among his coworkers? Anyone whom you feel it would be helpful for me to speak with?”

  Billy blushed a bit, and spooled out a foot of tape. “I wouldn’t want Mrs. Doyle to learn this, Professor, but I’m fairly certain there was something between Mr. Doyle and Mrs. Adkins. She’s one of the store’s seamstresses.”

  “Anything you tell me in confidence won’t get back to Mrs. Doyle unless absolutely necessary.”

  “It’s not a matter of knowing but seeing, seeing them together, I mean. At the store, he’d corner her somewhere while she was working, hemming a skirt on a mannequin or something, and I could tell he was flirting with her, and she was mad about it. I don’t think she wanted anyone to know about them.”

  “Perhaps that’s all it was, he flirted and she rebuffed him.”

  “Except I saw them together at the Washington Hotel. They stayed in the same room President Roosevelt stayed in last May.”

  Bradshaw lifted his brow.

  “Silly to take a room like that and then not be able to tell your friends you slept in the president’s bed.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “I followed them. Followed him, actually.”

  “Because?”

  “Because I overheard him tell one of the runners to stop by his house and tell his wife he had to work late, only I knew he didn’t. When he left the store, I followed him to see what he was up to. I know it wasn’t a very nice thing to do, but neither was it nice for him to lie to his wife or tease Mrs. Adkins. I followed him to the Washington. Did you hear they might put a tunnel underneath the hotel? Right through Denny Hill, instead of taking the hill down. Makes more sense to me.”

  The leveling of Seattle’s streets was a sore subject with Bradshaw and one he didn’t care to discuss with Billy, but he did agree a tunnel made more sense than tearing down a hill.

  “You said you followed Doyle to the Washington?”

  “That I did, and I saw Mrs. Adkins there, too.”

  “Why are you so sure they were together?”

  “If they weren’t, it seems awful strange they both went into the President’s Suite.”

  “Did they see you?”

  He shook his head. “When you work at a department store, you learn how to follow people without being noticed.”

  The boy had the makings of a detective, but Bradshaw refrained from saying so. He didn’t want to encourage the boy’s spying on coworkers simply to satisfy his own curiosity.

  “It’s best you don’t share what you learned with anyone, other than the police if they ask.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t! I haven’t told anyone but you.”

  Bradshaw highly doubted that. Would a boy of eighteen withhold such gossip from his friends? And why go to all the bother of tailing Doyle if not to somehow make use of what he learned?

  “Describe for me, please, exactly how you found Mr. Doyle this morning.”

  “Like I said, I got to the Men’s window late. I knew I didn’t need to make any changes. I just needed to give it a quick look to see that all was as it should be.”

  “Were the window lights on when you entered?”

  “Mr. Andrews turns them on at seven and it was half past.”

  “What did you notice?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “As you approached the window, did anything seem wrong? Anything alarm you? Anything look out of place? Did you see, hear, or smell anything unexpected?”

  Billy studied the tape measure in his hands, turning the small crank to wind it in completely, all while his knees jiggled. “No, no, no, I just went to do my job. I saw Doyle lying there as soon as I stepped into the window. I shouted for help and Mr. Olafson came. He said Doyle was cold. That he was dead.” Billy chewed his lip, and the tape unspooled and rewound.

  Bradshaw didn’t like his three consecutive denials. No, no, no.

  “Professor, does that mean he’d been dead for a long while? Being cold? A very long while?”

  “Possibly.”

  “You don’t get cold right away when you die, do you? It takes time.”

  “It depends on the circumstances.” Bradshaw knew well that factors such as the cause of death played into how quickly a dead body would feel cold to the touch. Once the life force was gone, the body became an object like any other and its temperature leveled to the surrounding temperature. But he didn’t believe such facts would help this young man recover from the trauma of discovering a dead man.

  “In this case, I estimate Mr. Doyle died before seven.”

 
Billy’s head snapped up and his jiggling momentarily ceased. “How much before?”

  “I’m not yet sure.”

  The fidgeting began again. “I was afraid. Well, I was afraid that maybe if I’d gotten to the Men’s window sooner, I might have found him before he died.”

  Bradshaw watched young Billy’s face carefully as he said, “The coroner will determine the approximate time of death. He’s often able to pinpoint very closely in circumstances such as this. You should not blame yourself for doing your job and arriving at the window when you did.”

  Billy nodded, but he kept his eyes on the tape measure as he chewed his lip.

  Bradshaw did not say, for he did not know, if Vernon Doyle had been alive when Billy Creasle signed his timesheet at six that morning. Could the boy have saved Doyle if he’d arrived at the window sooner, preventing someone from throwing the switch that sent a lethal current through the electrician? Or had Billy been the one to throw the switch, returning at half past seven to pretend to find Doyle dead?

  The house was quiet as Bradshaw continued to study Billy. The ticking of a clock in the room, and the muted sounds of traffic outside, were slowly drowned by the return of a steady, heavy rain.

  “Billy, if you have something to tell me about Mr. Doyle’s death, it would be best to do so now. The truth will be learned.”

  Billy looked up, his eyes wide and pleading. “I have nothing more to tell, Professor. Honest. He was lying there in the window when I got there. That’s all I know.”

  Chapter Five

  The Globe Building on First and Madison housed offices, retail shops, and hotel rooms for single men. John Maddock, Attorney at Law, had secured a room on the fourth floor, and Professor Bradshaw found the door extensively stenciled with Maddock’s name and credentials, and the assertion that he was the “Seattle Representative of Thomas A. Edison, Specializing in Patent Purchasing, Pre-Patent Sales, Infringement Litigation, and the Sale of Genuine Edison Inventions and GE Products for Home and Office.”