Thursday, April 24, 2025

Mrs. O'Malley's Midnight Mystery, Chapter five, scene two

Welcome, I’m Mary Louisa Locke, the author of the USA Today best-selling Victorian San Francisco Mystery series and the Caelestis Science Fiction series. In this daily newsletter, I reflect on my life as an indie author trying to age gracefully. Occasionally, I will also publish some of my shorter fiction in this newsletter to read for free.

Daily Diary, Day 1695:

Brief check-in: Yesterday continued to follow the pattern that is working for me. Two walks before lunch, along with journal writing, writing the daily post, and started on the (definitely now novella) before lunch. After lunch, alternated between reading and writing, with a final word count of over 1000. Today, with noon zoom meeting and a phone meeting afterwards, I will be less likely to get in both walks or as much writing. And here are a few flowers to brighten your day.

Throughout the month of April, I am offering, for free, the seventh short story in my Victorian San Francisco mystery series, Mrs. O’Malley’s Midnight Mystery. These posts will come out every Tuesday and Thursday. This story, right on the border between being a short story and a novella, actually has chapters, so below is the fifth chapter, scene 2. (And if you are impatient, you can just go and buy either the ebook or audiobook for only $1.99.)

Mrs. O’Malley’s Midnight Mystery
by M. Louisa Locke
Copyright, 2020

Chapter Five:

Less than an hour later, about a quarter after midnight, Mrs. O’Malley was back sitting next to the kitchen window, finishing up on Bennie’s jacket, when she thought she heard the sound of footsteps from the street below. She had made Biddy go to bed as soon as they got back from their investigation of the bricks in Mrs. Greeley’s backyard, saying that there was no reason to discuss what they had found until they heard from Patrick about where the men had gone tonight. She hoped he might come by tonight, but he’d not promised he would.

She was still sitting in the moonlight, so she again leaned out the window to get a better view. If the men left early, she supposed it possible they were coming back early as well. What she saw was a man crossing the street towards her. The moonlight glittered on buttons and a star badge. Patrick? A few moments later, there was a soft knock on the door, and she heard Patrick McGee’s voice.

When she opened the door, he said quietly, “Can I come in for a moment? I want to tell you what happened. Or should you step out here?”

“Come right in, and you don’t worry about the boys. They can sleep through anything. Can I get you some tea?”

Patrick, who had politely taken off his derby and wiped his feet carefully on the mat on the landing, came in and indicated that a cup of tea would be very welcome.

She turned up the flame on the oil lamp and brought it over to place it on the table. Then she took down mugs, a tea tin, and the pot, and placed them on the table as well.

As she poured the hot water from the kettle into the pot and scooped in the loose tea leaves, she said, “Why don’t you pull that chair over next to mine at the window? I assume you would still like to keep an eye on what is going on across the street. They left nearly an hour earlier tonight. Did you miss them?”

“No, I almost did. My current assignment is out past Van Ness, but I was able to catch the last Sutter streetcar, so I was in place by eleven-thirty, which is when they showed up at Market and Beale.”

Swirling the tea around in the pot, Mrs. O’Malley said, “Did they go up to Clay?”

“No, they didn’t. At least not as their first stop. They crossed Market and turned left onto Pine. By the time I got to Pine, they were on the next block, standing in front of Franz Heller and Co., a company that imports and exports crockery. There are all sorts of stuff in their display windows––lamps, mirrors, vases.”

“Was the store open at this time of night?” She poured the tea into the mugs through a strainer.

“No, and there was definitely a closed sign on the front door. But I only saw this later, after they went into the building and I came closer. I couldn’t tell if someone let them in or if they had a key. After they disappeared inside, I found a doorway across the street to stand in and watched to see what happened next. I never saw any light through the front windows on the first floor, but a few minutes later, I thought I saw a flash of light in the second floor, like someone had opened and closed a door to a lighted room. That floor has curtains in the windows, so I don’t know if it is a residence or not. Could be offices or a storeroom.”

Mrs. O’Malley handed Patrick a mug and said, “Why would they be going there, at this time of night? The man with the derby…Mr. Smith…definitely had a bag with him again tonight…looked about the same in terms of having something in it. But I couldn’t tell if the other two had bags this time.”

“Oh, they had bags all right, and it looked to me like all three of the bags were full.”

“Full of bricks?” Mrs. O’Malley asked, wondering how this fit with what she had found across the street.

“Maybe, but why would they be taking bricks to this store? I got to thinking that, maybe if I had made them completely empty the bags they were carrying last night, I would have found something of value at the bottom of the bags. Something they had stolen and the bricks were just to cover this up in case they got stopped. If so, then this Franze Heller might be a fence and the bags tonight had some of the goods they’ve been stealing.”

She took a sip of tea and thought for a second and then said, “That makes some sort of sense, at least. But why are you here? Shouldn’t you have waited to see what they do when they come out.”

“The thing is, Mrs. O’Malley, all this is pure speculation, and unless I can find stolen goods in their possession, I can’t even bring them in for questioning. As for them being at Heller’s place, nothing says men can’t go visit a friend in the middle of night. Besides, if I’m right, they won’t have anything in their bags when they leave, just money in their pockets, which won’t be evidence of a crime.”

“What about if they go on to Clay Street after they leave this place on Pine? Couldn’t they have stopped there to pick up another person to help them do…whatever they’re doing?”

“That’s why I snagged Coles, who walks that beat, and asked him to keep an eye out for me, see where they go if they leave before I get back. You see, I had this thought. If the bricks are just a way for them to hide whatever they have been stealing, what if there is still something hidden in the bricks in the backyard that will prove that? I decided to chance leaving Coles there and came to look. Any chance I could borrow your lantern to take with me over to the lodging house?”

“Of course you can, but I had a similar thought, and Biddy and I already went over to the backyard as soon as the men left.”

“You did? What did you find?”

“Nothing like stolen goods. In fact, the bricks don’t look like they’ve been arranged so that they could hide anything. I guess jewelry or something else of value could be laying under some of them, but Biddy moved a bunch of them and didn’t find anything. Frankly, looked to me like the bricks were simply dumped out of the bags and left where they fell.”

Patrick said, “Oh, that’s too bad.” He shrugged. “Well, I guess I should still go and look and then get back to Heller’s store and see if the men are still in the building.”

“Before you do, there is something about the bricks themselves that I think you should know. If this Mr. Smith told you that they were from a demolished building, he’s lying. Or at least he’s lying about them having been sitting around outside a construction site.”

“What do you mean?” Patrick’s voice sharpened.

Mrs. O’Malley leaned over and picked up two bricks that were on the floor next to her feet and handed them to Patrick. “Look at these that I brought back over with us. My late husband was a skilled bricklayer, and he would have told you that these bricks were from the interior of a building and haven’t been out in any weather. In addition, given how they have been mortared together, and the bits of mortar on their tops, I think that they were probably part of several layers of brick that were used to construct a barrier between two floors.”

“Really? Why would someone make a brick ceiling?”

“They would if they were building a vault. My husband worked on constructing bank vaults a couple of times, tricky business. I gathered from him that for these jobs he had to reinforce the brick with iron ties, and I actually saw a couple of similar ties connected to a couple of the bricks in Mrs. Greeley’s backyard. My husband said that if you reinforced the brick walls and ceilings of a vault with iron, they could withstand even an earthquake and would slow down the spread of fire.”

“You’re saying that these bricks could be from a vault?”

“Yes, that’s what I think. Could it be possible that this man Heller had a vault built in his store to protect his goods, and these men are helping him dismantle it for some reason?”

Patrick let out an oath then apologized profusely.

Standing up and putting his tea cup on the table, he said, “Mrs. O’Malley, I don’t think it’s a vault of Heller’s that’s being dismantled. I think they are trying to get into a vault next door in the Sutter Bank of California. If you’re right, then those three men are in the process of breaking into that vault to rob the bank. I just hope I’m not too late to catch them in the act.”

To be continued…

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