Murder on St. Nicholas Avenue by Victoria Thompson Page B

did he realize he had made a neat stack of the desk’s contents, which he probably shouldn’t have done. Of course, he shouldn’t have even come here today, but since he had, he felt obligated to do as little damage as possible, so he rearranged the papers to look as much like they originally had as he could.
    When he was satisfied with his efforts, he opened the office door to find the remainder of Pollock’s servants standing anxiously in the hallway. A middle-aged woman in an apron, who was probably the cook, another maid, and a handsome youth of about sixteen gaped at him.
    â€œCan I help you?” he asked, recognizing the irony of asking if he could help servants.
    â€œOh, sir,” the older woman said, “we can’t stay here, not with people breaking in all hours of the night. You can’t ask us to do that!”
    â€œYou’re certainly free to leave if you want to,” he said.
    â€œBut what about references?” the maid asked. “Mrs. Decker said she’d write us references.”
    This was interesting. “When did Mrs. Decker say that?”
    â€œYesterday, when she was here.”
    Yes, this was very interesting. No wonder Elizabeth had been acting so oddly last night. He should have known she’d never let Maeve come here alone.
    â€œAnd our pay, sir,” the boy added. “She said we’d get our pay.”
    â€œAnd you shall. I’ll see that you have it all by tomorrow.” He couldn’t wait to see Elizabeth’s face when he told her. “In the meantime, let’s take a look around and see if we can figure out how the intruder got in last night.”
    *   *   *
    â€œD id you find anything?” Maeve asked Mr. Decker when they were back in the carriage and driving away.
    â€œI found a broken window in the basement.”
    â€œThat explains how the burglar got in, I guess.”
    â€œAnd I found this.” He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to her.
    She unfolded it and tried to read it, but it didn’t make much sense to her. “What is it?”
    â€œIt’s a proposal to build a railroad across Panama.”
    â€œWhere’s that?”
    â€œIt’s in Colombia.”
    â€œIs that in New York?”
    She thought he was trying not to smile at her ignorance. “No, it’s in South America. Well, really, Panama is in Central America. It’s on the narrow strip of land that connects North and South America.”
    â€œWhy would someone here want to build a railroad all the way down there?”
    â€œAccording to this explanation, the railroad would carry goods and passengers across this area of land where the distance between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans is the shortest. It would save time and money because the goods wouldn’t have to be shipped all the way around the tip of South America, the way they are now. They could just be unloaded from a ship on one side, carried across the land by train, then loaded onto a ship on the other side. The railroad would be enormously profitable.”
    â€œWhat’s this about a canal?” She pointed to a paragraph that talked about a canal across the Isthmus of Panama, whatever that was.
    â€œThe French have been trying to build a canal in that area for years.”
    She hated showing her ignorance again, but she said, “What’s a canal?”
    This time he didn’t smile. “It’s basically a huge trench that runs through the land from one ocean to the other so ships could just sail right through.”
    â€œThat sounds like a better idea. Then they wouldn’t have to load and unload the ships.”
    â€œExactly, but the company trying to build the canal went bankrupt because the land is all jungle, and their equipment kept rusting in the tropical climate and their workers kept dying from tropical diseases. According to this”—he pointed to the paper she