The hammering at her kitchen door so startled Charlotte Wyngate that she lost her grip on the flowered teacup and spilled hot tea on the back of her hand. She was alone in the building and was expecting no one.
The proper entrance to Miss Wyngate's apartment was from the third floor of the school, next to the chemistry lab. But she had a private entrance that led from a locked door at street level to her kitchen.
Only her cleaning lady and Virginia Pomeroy had keys to the door at the bottom.
"Who's there?" she called out cautiously, setting the cup down and drying her hand on a dishtowel.
"Joey. Dr. Pomeroy sent me to fetch you."
She opened the door to the street urchin who fetched and carried for Dr. Pomeroy's Women's Clinic.
"Mr. Vickers been murdered just outside the clinic. She sent me for the cops then for you. You come right away."
"Did you go to the police?" she asked in her stern schoolteacher voice, trying to remember who Vickers was. She had an image of a tall elderly man with a long stringy gray beard.
Joey nodded and handed her the key Dr. Pomeroy had entrusted to him. They stood staring at each other for several heart beats, she the tall, lean, aging headmistress of The Cambridge School for Girls, and he, the ragged, self assured, ten year old boy inadequately dressed for the chilly winter evening.
FRead Dead Man's Treasure, March 1892
