“What about Junior?” Oscar asked.
“He didn’t beat that boy near as bad as the other two. But he’d say, Junior, which one of your brothers should wear your stripes today? And made him choose. If he hesitated, both boys got the belt. To remind them who was master of the house, and that disobedience has consequences. Oh, he loved teaching that lesson. So let me ask you, Detective Sergeant, what would you have done in my place?” She looked at Oscar with something like defiance in her gaze.
“I can answer that,” Anna said. “I would have helped Mrs. Campbell get away with her boys. Far away, where he’d never find her. Is that what you did?”
“Yes,” Mrs. Stone said, her voice breaking. “But it was all for naught, now. All for naught. And I promised her I’d get them away safe.”
“Away to where?” Anna asked.
From a notebook that sat on the table beside her, Mrs. Stone took a newspaper advertisement. She read it to them in a wavering voice but Anna had the sense that she could have recited it by heart:
Rhode Island. Comfortable cottage for sale. Nicely furnished, 8 rooms besides pantry &c. with chicken house, stable & small barn all in good order. One acre land. Fruit trees, vegetable garden, strawberry bed, pasture. Good pure water & excellent well. Sakonnet Harbor. $2,000. Inquiries J. Barnes, Main St. Little Compton.
There was a long moment’s silence while Mrs. Stone tried to gather her composure. She said, “Janine wrote to Mr. Barnes and I mailed the letter. He wrote back to this address and after a few letters back and forth they came to an agreement. She bought the place sight unseen and sent the money express. I said to her, Janine, you’re taking an awful chance, but she was desperate to get the boys away to a safe place.
“The plan was that we would all live in that house together. She gave her name as Jane Steinmauer, a widow woman coming with the boys and us, her parents-in-law. Henry has never got used to the name Stone anyway, and the boys are young enough to learn to answer to new ones. We’d be like any other family, keeping chickens and a garden. But poor Janine, she never got as far as Rhode Island.”
She stopped to get her handkerchief from her sleeve and wipe the tears from her cheeks.
“I went ahead with the boys. Janine came with us to the train station by omnibus and then I took the boys by cab to the steamer office. The plan was, she was supposed to come later in the day. It made me terrible nervous. I was so worried about that cottage, maybe it would turn out to be a hovel or maybe it didn’t exist at all, but in the end she was right. It was just the way it’s described here.”
She touched the newspaper cutting. “You should have seen the boys, they could hardly have been happier if you set them down in heaven itself. The harbor and the boats and the garden and the house with a nice big kitchen.” She pressed her mouth hard, as if she were telling herself to be quiet, she had spoken enough. But the question came out just the same: “Can I ask, did Campbell go to the police saying he’d been robbed?”
When Oscar said that no complaint had been filed, she nodded.
“Janine said he wouldn’t. That he couldn’t tell the police about the money because he didn’t come by it honest.”
Jack said, “Mrs. Stone, I’m confused. Campbell told us that he was missing just over twelve hundred dollars cash. Where was the money coming from to buy the house? From you?”
That almost got him a smile. “All we have is Henry’s pension, the bit I make mending and sewing, and this little house I was born in, termites and leaky roof and all.”
“Do you know how she paid for the Rhode Island house?” Oscar asked.
In fits and starts the story came together. Mrs. Campbell had indeed had something over a thousand dollars in cash, most of which she had passed to Mrs. Stone when she left with the boys for the cost of travel and provisions, and getting settled in the new house.
It was true that was the only cash, but it wasn’t the only money.
“That’s why she stayed behind when I left with the boys. Or at least, that’s what she said. Here, it’s easier to show you.”
Mrs. Stone took up a large sewing basket, set the lid aside, and began to unpack it. There was a tray of threads and a pincushion, shears, a roll of muslin, patches, a darning egg, knitting needles, a man’s shirt neatly folded, a chemise. When it seemed to be empty she turned it over and thumped the bottom with the heel of one hand. Two solid blows and a false bottom went clattering to the floor, followed by a black pocketbook.
With trembling hands she took out a thick roll of oversized bills. This she handed to Oscar, and he slid a binding string down and off so he could spread the roll flat on his lap.
“Bearer bonds,” he said. “Issued by the State of Massachusetts.”