by Liz Freeland
Within moments of my knock at the flat on the second-floor landing, an attractive dark-skinned woman opened the door. Her hair was pulled back in an elaborate braid that curled into a crown at the top of her head. She also wore a fringe. Her dress was navy blue, simple but of good-quality linen, and set off by a red-and-purple patterned shawl. Next to her, in my own workaday shirtwaist and skirt, covered by a rather plain navy-blue coat, I felt a little dull.
“Is this Jackson Beasley’s residence?”
The housekeeper gave me a cool up-and-down. “Yes, it is.”
“Well, is Jackson—Mr. Beasley—in? I work with him at Van Hooten and McChesney. Worked, I should say.”
The gaze narrowed. “Louise?”
“Yes,” I said, surprised.
An internal struggle showed in her eyes. “He’s not here. He went out.”
“And you don’t know where?”
“No.”
“Then I’ll leave a message for him, if I may.”
Reaching for the clasp on my shoulder bag, I cast a longing glance past the housekeeper into the apartment. She didn’t take the hint and ask me in, so I dug around in my satchel until I located a scrap of paper and a pencil. Then, bracing the paper against the wall, I began writing.
“Wouldn’t it be easier to tell me the message?” the woman asked.
“I suppose so,” I said as I continued to write, “but I need to write down the places where he can reach me.”
“I’ll remember if you tell me.”
Too late. I’d written down my address and Aunt Irene’s, and even added Aunt Irene’s telephone number, just in case. Our building didn’t have a telephone, something Callie complained to Wally about incessantly. She’d been making noises about wanting to move somewhere “less prehistoric” at the end of the year. Now I worried my financial situation would be too precarious to afford a move.
“Here you are.” I handed the page of scrawled information to the woman, taking the opportunity as she glanced down at it to peer into the room again. From what I could see, Jackson’s apartment was amply furnished with pieces that were pretty, if clearly second-hand. Bookcases full to brimming looked tidy and orderly, lace antimacassars draped the backs of chairs and the brown velveteen sofa, and a large vase of chrysanthemums sat atop an embroidered runner down the compact dining table. The room looked almost feminine, and neat as a pin. No signs of mice up here, at least.
I glanced back. The housekeeper frowned at my open snooping.
“Lovely room,” I said. “You obviously keep it famously.”
Her lips compressed into a tight, impatient expression. She probably had things to do.
I turned to leave.
“He’s very upset about what happened yesterday,” she said, stopping me. “The fire, I mean.”
I was surprised she’d heard about it. “We all are.”
She edged into the hallway. “Is it true Mr. McChesney will close the business now? I mean, forever?”
Odd question for a housekeeper to ask. “I don’t know. I’m afraid so.”
Her face registered disappointment. And anxiety. Perhaps she was worried about Jackson not being able to afford her anymore.
“I’m sure Jackson will find a new job soon,” I said. “He’s practically been running Van Hooten and McChesney since he started working there.”
She nodded. “That’s what he’s always grumbling about. That, and how he gets no credit for most of that work.”
I supposed it was true. No one really acknowledged how Jackson had kept Van Hooten and McChesney going. No one there truly liked Jackson. Part of the reason for this was that no one could esteem Jackson as highly as he himself did. Evidently he even boasted about his work to the maid.
“Please tell him to leave me a message at any of those places, and as soon as possible.”
“All right,” she said, already retreating back into the apartment.
The woman could have taken a few lessons in door answering from Walter. My aunt’s butler had his quirks, but even at his iciest he managed to say please and thank you and address visitors courteously.
Distracted by the oddity of Jackson’s domestic, I was barely looking as I edged past a man at the building’s outer door. Then he spoke to me.
“Louise?”
I froze. That voice. It terrified me more than the mouse had. The corridor was dim, with only a sliver of light coming through the partially opened door. I looked up into the face of Ford Fitzsimmons, a writer I’d discovered last summer who had subsequently tried to kill me by arranging for me to be pushed off a platform into the path of the oncoming train. Unfortunately, I’d been unable to prove it, and Ford was still free to roam the city and follow me into dark hallways.
I reacted as I always did now when I was within any proximity of Ford. I braced myself against something sturdy. In this case it was the frame of the door I wanted to escape through. What was he doing here? Jackson had edited his book, but I’d never heard that the two of them socialized.
Had he been following me?
I hadn’t considered Ford as a possible culprit in the arson—frankly, I tried not to think about Ford at all. But he had a history of duplicity, attempted homicide, and general vileness. Maybe he’d been displeased about the way Van Hooten and McChesney had treated his book so far. But it hadn’t even been published, and thanks to Guy’s favoritism he’d received the largest advance of any new author we’d acquired during my tenure there.
I made myself look at him. His brown tweed coat was new and of better quality than the clothes he’d worn last summer. A plaid scarf was wound loosely about his neck. The hall was dark, but the scarf looked green. Or blue.
Just what the poodle lady had described the arsonist wearing.
“Why are you here?” I asked.
“I heard about the fire. Poor Guy. By God, it’s terrible.” The disturbance he felt showed in his blue, blue eyes. In fact, he was so shaken that he’d evidently run out of his house without his hat. He raked a hand through his thick wheat-blond hair. “What will happen to my book?”
So that was the crux of his panic.
It was a legitimate question, even if it took a selfish bastard to ask it after his colleague had died. I doubted Mr. McChesney had yet to take serious stock of what was to be done with the books in production. He was still in shock.
I tried to recall what little I knew of the progress of Ford’s manuscript. Jackson and Ford had worked on a revision of it, I knew. “Have you given Jackson your second draft yet?”
“Weeks ago,” he said.
“Then perhaps he’s finished editing it.”
“Wonderful—but where is it? Did it go up in flames? That’s what I want to know.”
I tried to keep my expression neutral—not an easy feat when I was sending up prayers to the Gods of Fire for Ford’s manuscript to have been reduced to ash.
“Didn’t you make a copy?” I asked unnecessarily. His feverish panic told the tale.
“I retyped the damn thing and handed it to Jackson with my own hands. Why the hell would I have needed a damned copy?”
In case of a damned fire.
He looked into my face and growled, “Oh, what am I asking you for? You’re just the secretary. It’s Jackson I need to talk to.”
“He’s not home.”
The whole time we’d been standing there, Ford’s body, though paused to talk to me, had seemed to be merely in suspended animation, still pointing in the direction of the stairs. Now he slumped a little and faced me. “Where is he?”
“Out, was all his housekeeper told me,” I said.
A notion sparked in his eyes. “Do you think the housekeeper would let me hunt for my book? Maybe Jackson took it home to work on it and it escaped the fire.”
“I doubt it. She didn’t even let me through the front door.”
He smirked. “I can be persuasive with ladies.”
At one time that smile of his had charmed me. Now everything about
the man gave me skin crawlies. Attempted homicide will do that to a budding relationship.
“How did you get Jackson’s address?” I asked him.
“I asked McChesney. He’s in the directory.”
I drew back. “You went to Mr. McChesney’s house?”
“This is my livelihood at stake, Louise. My life. Years of work.”
He was right. My sympathy for all the authors affected by the fire resurged—except for Ford. In his case, I was definitely rooting for the fire. I also wondered if this could all be an act, a carefully planned smokescreen of frenzy to hide his culpability. I glanced again at the scarf. I wouldn’t put it past Ford. I wouldn’t put anything past him . . . except what motive would he have to set fire to his own publisher? The panic he showed argued against it.
“If I see Jackson, I’ll tell him you’re looking for him,” I said.
“Sure you will.”
I smiled. “Always a pleasure, Mr. Fitzsimmons.”
He growled something to me as I pushed out the door.
I left the house, quickening my pace as I retraced my path toward Broadway. The denizens of San Juan Hill didn’t make me nervous, but turning my back on Ford Fitzsimmons did. The man, a man I’d once dreamed of making my protégé and possibly something even more personal, was a viper.
Instead of heading downtown, I kept going toward Central Park West, where Mr. McChesney lived. I was curious to find out exactly what Ford had said to him.
CHAPTER 5
“Oh, Louise, it’s you.” Mr. McChesney’s bloodshot eyes stared at me through the sliver of the door he’d cracked open.
“May I come in for a moment?”
Rather than assenting verbally, he opened the door the rest of the way and retreated into the entrance hall.
I followed. “Where’s Mrs. Carey?”
Mrs. Carey had been working for Mr. McChesney forever—or at least as long as Aunt Irene could remember. As an infrequent visitor here, I’d only encountered the woman a few times, but she was unforgettable. She looked as if God had formed her the way children shape snowmen, by stacking spheres on top of one another. She had a perfectly round torso and on that her round head seemed to be plopped directly on her shoulders. Two dark eyes animated her face, and her gray hair was twisted into the crowning orb on the top of her head. But for all her roundness, she wasn’t soft. More like a dragon guarding the gates. Why hadn’t she answered the door?
“Oh, I . . .” He gestured in a wave that mimicked sending her away. “I couldn’t stand her fussing.”
Why she might have fussed was obvious. Mr. McChesney needed tending to. He was dressed in what appeared to be yesterday’s wrinkled clothes, and though it was afternoon, he hadn’t shaved and was still padding about in slippers. His sallow skin made me wonder if he’d slept at all since the fire, or eaten.
“Aren’t you feeling well?” I asked.
“I’m sick—sick in my bones, sick at heart. I’m an old man, and now I have no business. And yet, I’m lucky. To think of poor Guy!”
His body shook in a dry heave of grief. I unpinned my hat, unlooped my bag from over my shoulder, and opened the entry closet door to place them on the shelf there. A cap and scarf already lay there—a gray-and-blue plaid scarf. I thought again of the poodle lady’s description of the suspected arsonist. A plaid scarf wasn’t much of a clue. Ford had worn one, and here was another. Probably half the men in Manhattan owned plaid scarves and brown coats.
I closed the closet and turned my attention back to Mr. McChesney. Of course the tragedy had hit him hard. I felt a pang of guilt for having forgotten him. Only the fluke of having run into Ford had brought me here. “Let me make you something,” I said.
“Oh, I don’t know . . .”
“Tea, at least.” I went to the kitchen. While waiting for a kettle of water to boil, I checked Mrs. Carey’s larder. That economical woman didn’t keep much extra on hand, but I found some bread and a bit of cheese. I cut these up and also sliced an apple from a bowl on the counter. By the time the tea had steeped, I’d put together an appetizing snack. But when I took it to Mr. McChesney in his sitting room, he held the teacup as if the only point of it was to warm his hands.
I sat opposite him. The only light emanated from a standing lamp topped with an amber shade. The dark green drapes, drawn tightly, looked almost black in the dimness, and the heavy mahogany furniture didn’t brighten things up any. Mr. McChesney didn’t speak. The silence became uncomfortable.
“I ran into Ford at Jackson’s,” I said.
“So he did go there. Poor fellow. I knew Jackson would have bad news for him.”
“You did?”
“That manuscript was given to Timothy to copy edit.” He frowned at me. “Didn’t you know? I’m surprised. You always seem to have a keen eye on everything that goes on at the office.” He put his cup down. “Went on, I should say.”
“That must’ve slipped past me.” Much had slipped past me in recent weeks, when the police exam had been my focus. A pointless distraction, I feared now.
“I’m sure Jackson told me he was done with it.” Mr. McChesney sniffed. “Of course, it should have been Guy’s project, since Guy had discovered the book.”
Actually, I had discovered it and passed it on to Guy, to my everlasting regret. But how was I to know the author would attempt to have me flattened by a train?
“I never thought much of the book myself,” he continued. “Too newfangled. But I’m sorry for the boy now. Sorry for all the authors. And poor Guy.” He shook his head.
“Did Ford seem happy with the way his book was treated by Van Hooten and McChesney?” I asked.
“He certainly wasn’t happy to have his manuscript reduced to a cinder.”
“I meant before the fire. He didn’t have a grudge against the firm, did he?”
His face crumpled in thought. “Jackson told me he was displeased with the change in the book’s title. But even the most fanatical author wouldn’t consider killing an editor over a title change.” He frowned at me. “Have a bit of this apple, Louise. You must be hungry.”
I wasn’t, but perhaps if I munched a little, Mr. McChesney would be inclined to eat something himself. The fruit was crunchy and sweet, with just the right amount of tartness—a perfect fall apple. “Have you seen the police today?” I asked.
“No.” The power of suggestion failed. He drummed his fingers on his knees, completely indifferent to the food.
“I wonder if they’ve discovered anything new,” I said.
“What does it matter if they have or haven’t? Guy’s dead, and my future’s ruined. And the future of so many, like that poor man Fitzsimmons.”
“Don’t waste your tears on him.”
He might not have heard me. His gaze was focused inward. “If only my life had been different, things might not look so hopeless now. If, for instance, I had married.” He glanced at me. “Did your aunt ever mention that I proposed to her?”
Only about a hundred times.
“Not that I would want to live off your aunt’s money, mind you. But perhaps if I’d married I wouldn’t feel so . . . discouraged.” He frowned at me. “It’s a terrible thing to end up alone, Louise, and not to have a soul to share the buffeting life can deal you.”
I’d felt enough buffets already to understand what he meant. Yet I couldn’t see marriage as a mere life raft to clamber onto merely to ride out life’s storms, and I was certain Aunt Irene wouldn’t feel flattered to be anyone’s raft, either. “You aren’t alone. You have friends, Mr. McChesney. My aunt is concerned for you—so are we all.”
His lips attempted a smile. “I must seem selfish to you, and a terrible mope. How is your inquiry getting on?”
“That’s why I’m here, to ask you about Ford.”
“To ask if I think he burned the business down? Heavens no. I would hate to blame an author.”
“So would I—if he didn’t do it.” I took a sip of tea. “Today I went to Jackson’s house
to ask him about Guy’s dealings with Leonard Cain. Do you know anything about that?”
“Cain.” He drew the name out, giving it the sinister sound it deserved. “Now there’s a villain.”
“You know him?”
“I’ve encountered him once or twice—an unpleasant fellow—but I don’t know him.”
“So he was only a friend of Guy’s?”
“I’m not even certain they were friends. I wouldn’t like to think so, at least.”
“Cain came to the office on more than one occasion to see Guy. I left them talking together Wednesday night.”
“I wonder what about?” Frowning, he reached for a piece of bread and bit into it. Success.
“I’ve heard some of Cain’s business is unsavory.”
He chewed this over some more before declaring, “By thunder, you may be right.” His eyes narrowed as he swallowed. “Leonard Cain. A very bad man. He might have killed Guy, certainly.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “For money? All young men rack up debts these days. Guy certainly could have. And Edith Van Hooten, fond as I am of her, is not the kind of lady who would bail out her son without strong words and remonstrances. Perhaps for that reason, he might have put off paying Cain what he owed him. If there was anything Guy hated, it was being lectured.”
He preferred to be menaced by gangsters rather than be given a stern talking-to by his mother?
“If Cain were found guilty, it would be a good thing all around,” he continued. “Shady characters like that shouldn’t be allowed to do business in this city.”
From what I’d heard and read, men like Leonard Cain had personified business in the city for the last fifty years or so. Though the current Republican mayor and other progressive reformers had Tammany Hall on the ropes, the forces that had backed the Democratic machine at the corrupt epicenter of the city were still alive and kicking. Graft and bribery hadn’t disappeared. Businessmen like Cain thrived because politicians, policemen, and functionaries and bureaucrats of all stripes could be bought.
A ringing in the hallway caused us both to jump. Mr. McChesney straightened, his posture rigid.