“So no children at all,” Jack said.
“A son, from her first marriage. She was a widow when she married Mr. Winthrop. The boy lives with his grandparents in Boston.”
Her tone never wavered as she told the rest of it, which said to Jack that she was very much in control of her emotions. As would be necessary in the Winthrop household. “Over four years I believe there was one miscarriage, and I know there were three operations. All of them were performed by the same doctor. I don’t know why she didn’t go back to him,” Miss Imhoff said. “He might have been out of town or retired, I suppose. She didn’t tell me.”
“Did you go with her to those earlier appointments?” Jack asked.
“The doctor came to her. People came to her.”
“And why not this time, do you know?”
“She left it almost too late. I think she was tempted this time, to have the baby and keep it, but then she decided she wanted to go to Greece. I know that because the modiste was called in and they spent an afternoon discussing the wardrobe she’d need in Athens in the spring. The next day she sent for the doctor to put things right, that’s the way she referred to the operation. She was not happy to find out he wasn’t available.”
“She discussed this with you.”
“Oh, no. She discussed it with her mother while I was in the room. She was furious when it turned out that none of the doctors she sent for would agree to do the operation. They all said it was too dangerous, past a certain point. But she wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
Jack concentrated on taking notes. In his experience it was best to leave the witness feeling as unobserved as possible.
“In the end she did find a doctor,” she went on. “She was put out that he wouldn’t come to the house, but he had the better of her, and she knew it.”
“Do you know what he charged, what his fees were?” Oscar asked this crucial question in a casual tone, but she hesitated.
“If you don’t know, just say so.”
She said, “I saw her counting out the bills before we left. It was more than three hundred dollars, but I don’t know how much exactly.”
Oscar prompted her, gently. “So you went with Mrs. Winthrop to her appointment.”
“Only part of the way. The doctor was very specific in his instructions, and she didn’t want to chance scaring him off. She was supposed to come alone.”
Jack said, “That strikes me as odd, that she’d take such a chance. It could have been a trap of some kind.”
Miss Imhoff’s expression was almost amused. “She took a pistol with her. She grew up with guns, apparently. Her father taught her to shoot when she was a child.”
Not that it did her any good, Jack thought.
“Do you know how she found this doctor?”
It was a crucial question, and the answer was disappointing. “I assume she got his name from one of her friends. Rich women trade in information.”
Jack took down the essentials as she reconstructed the day for them:
At eight in the morning they left the house, in Mrs. Winthrop’s personal carriage, with just the driver, a family retainer who was more than seventy. On the way Mrs. Winthrop had talked to her about a gown she wanted to wear to dinner the following weekend.
“She thought she’d be able to attend a dinner?” Oscar sounded surprised.
“Well, yes,” the young woman said. “She was thinking this time would be like the last, and the time before that. It never occurred to her that it might go wrong.”
“And where did the carriage take you?”
She said, “This is a little odd to admit, but I don’t know the city very well, though I’ve been here since I was very little. We’re not allowed to wander. I can describe the place the carriage stopped, if that will help. There was an elevated train station across from a day market, and a large courthouse just behind that. Kitty-corner from the market there’s a little coffee shop. She gave me a dollar and told me to wait there, and then she walked away. Two hours later when she hadn’t come back yet I was getting worried. Then I realized that the carriage had left. For a minute I thought Mrs. Winthrop had gone to a lot of trouble to be rid of me, but then the carriage came around the corner. I’m guessing she asked Cullen to meet her on a different corner at a different time, but I never got the chance to ask her.”
“We’ll talk to the driver. Cullen, you say.”
She nodded, turned her face away to clear her throat.
Jack asked, “When you got into the carriage, what was your first impression? Do you think she was under the influence of some drug or other?”
“She stank of laudanum,” Miss Imhoff said. “So I think that’s a fair guess.” Her tone was clipped, almost cold.