The Lady Burns Bright

by Warren Court

  There were men in coveralls up on scaffolding across the street in front of a beautiful building that stood out significantly from the drab office buildings on either side. It was ornate and had a gold-winged horse above a large marquee. The sign said The Pegasus Theatre. It was surrounded by lightbulbs, hundreds of them. “Must light up like the noon-day sun,” Armour thought.

  “Say, Mister,” Armour said to a well-dressed businessman who had a paper tucked under his arm.

  “Yeah?”

  “I want to head down to the harbour commissioner’s office. What’s the best way?”

  “Going down to see the Kraut sub?”

  “Come again?”

  “The German U-boat they got tied up down there.”

  Armour raised his eyebrows in interest. “I had no idea,” he said.

  “Sure—it’s a war trophy. Only going to be here until the end of the Exhibition, then the Americans are going to tow her out to Lake Erie for target practice.”

  “Now I definitely want to go,” Armour said.

  “Streetcar will take you right down there.”

  “Thanks. Much obliged.”

  The number six streetcar was a noisy, jerky thing that was packed with people. The ride cost Armour five cents. He checked his money; he had five dollars and some change. Based on the price of a newspaper and a streetcar ride, he was flush. Where had it come from, though? Petty cash that Olive kept in a lock box in her desk? Or the money he earned from solving cases?

  The squat, tombstone-shaped commissioner’s building was right at the water’s edge. The Toronto Islands were a half mile away. He could see wooden masts of sailing vessels tucked into a dock at the eastern end of the island. There was a crowd at the water’s edge in front of the commissioner’s building. A man was on a ladder with a large camera pointing down at something. The throng of people obscured the target of the cameraman’s apparatus.

  Armour approached and saw a glimpse of something large and dull grey. He gently but steadfastly pushed his way through the throng until there were only a group of boys in front of him.

  Before him lay a long and deadly-looking submarine. Its conning tower rose as high as the crowd, and there were rusty ladders bolted to it front and aft. There was a lethal-looking deck gun, painted black with grey hazing lines across it. The U-boat rose and sank slowly in the wake of a large motor cruiser coming through the channel. The occupants of the cruiser lined the front deck to look at the war trophy.

  A man came up through the main hatch on the conning tower and stepped out onto its bridge. He wore the uniform of the Royal Canadian Naval Reserve with insignia showing that his rank was lieutenant grade. The man saw Armour looking at him intently.

  “Wouldn’t get me down in one of these things for too long,” he said. The men behind Armour laughed.

  “Can we go on her?” one of the boys said.

  “Afraid not, sonny. It’s deadly down there. You might get hurt.”

  “Aw, come on.”

  “Besides, it stinks to high heaven.”

  “Of what?” another boy asked.

  “Sauerkraut—what else?” the officer said, to much laughter. He was clearly enjoying his celebrity.

  “Is it true she’s going to be shot up for target practice?” Armour asked.

  “By the Yanks. Yes, that’s the plan,” the lieutenant said. “I just wish our boys were going to get a crack at her. God knows we deserve it after what these bastards did.”

  Armour nodded and slipped back through the crowd. He paused before rounding the commissioner’s building to the front door. There was a buzz coming from up above, and he saw a graceful-looking biplane overhead. It was dragging a sign that read Canadian National Exhibition 1920. Wonderful.

  Chapter 3

  The young elevator conductor, decked out in a bellhop-style uniform, closed the exterior accordion doors with a sharp retort, and then pulled the inner door of the elevator shut. The cream-coloured uniform contrasted with his dark skin.

  “Floor, sir?” the operator said to Armour.

  “Umm, top floor, I guess.”

  “Number six coming right up, sir,” the boy said, and pushed the button marked six. It glowed warmly. He avoided Armour’s eyes and instead looked up at the floor indicator as it moved from left to right.

  It had been a good guess on Armour’s part that the harbour commissioner’s office was on the top floor. The lobby had been filled with people coming out of the elevators and the stairwell exits, leaving work for the day. He hoped that there would still be someone around in charge he could talk to.

  The ride was slow; finally, the car stopped at the sixth floor. The boy got both doors open and then tipped his hat.

  “Sixth floor, sir.”

  Armour reached into his pocket and came up with a dime and handed it to him.

  “Why, thank you, sir, but that’s not required,” the boy said.

  “No, you keep it. Say, how old are you?”

  “Fifteen, sir,” the boy said.

  “And you work here all day?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What about school?”

  “It’s summertime, sir.”

  “Do you go to school in the fall?”

  “No, sir.”

  “That seems strange. Young lad like you should be in school.”

  Several men approached the elevator. “Hey, boy. Hold that car,” one of them said, and the attendant looked nervously at his approaching customers and then back at Armour.

  “I’ll let you go.”

  “Thank you again, sir.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  Armour stepped out into a hallway that was like the inside of an expensive yacht. The walls were panels of polished mahogany, and the floors were gleaming birch. Armour saw Harbour Commissioner written in gold paint on a door at the end of the hallway. There were large black and white photos on either side of the hall, and Armour studied them as he got closer to the door. The last one showed a large man surrounded by a gang of thinner men in suits. Across every one of them was a sash that said Toronto Order of the Orange. They were marching in a parade down a city street. Crowds lined the sidewalks and behind the group of men Armour could make out a brass band.

  Armour stuck his head through the door and knocked on the frame. A middle-aged woman was filing something away when Armour walked in. Another woman, not much older than Olive, was behind a desk pecking at a small typewriter. Armour recognized it as a stenography machine. A pad with the scribblings of shorthand was next to it; the younger woman barely looked up.

  “Help you?” the woman doing the filing said.

  “I’d like to see the harbour commissioner.”

  “You mean acting commissioner?” the woman said.

  “Sure,” Armour said.

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  “No, not exactly.”

  The woman slammed the filing cabinet drawer closed. “This office is not open to the public. What’s it regarding?”

  “A missing person. He used to work here.”

  “What are you, some sort of crank?” the woman said.

  “Come again?”

  “Are you a cop? You don’t look like a cop. You’re a reporter. Listen, you—the acting commissioner is very busy. He doesn’t have time for more speculative and insulting stories.” The woman’s voice rose and the door next to the filing cabinets opened.

  A strange sound came from beyond it, almost like a seal. Armour and the filing lady both looked toward where it had come from. The typist ignored it.

  Armour went to the door. The filing lady said, “Excuse me. You can’t go in there.”

  But in there Armour went, if only to see if there was in fact a seal in that office.

  There wasn’t. There was a middle-aged man in shirtsleeves and suspenders trying to drag an enormous desk into a kitty-corner position in the office. He looked up as Armour came in.

  “Oh, perfect. Give me a hand, will you?”
<
br />   The receptionist hurried in after Armour. “I’m sorry, Mr. Chambers. He just barged in. He has no appointment.”

  “That’s all right, Miss Stilson. I need him.”

  Armour took a corner of the desk, and together he and Chambers lifted it just off the ground and rotated it ninety degrees. They let it down with a clump. Miss Stilson was still there.

  “That’ll be all, Miss Stilson. Least I can do is hear him out.”

  “Armour Black,” Armour introduced himself; the two men shook.

  “Lady looks after me,” Chambers said. “I don’t know what I’d do without her. I know my predecessor adored her. Anyway, what can I do for you?”

  “I’m a private investigator.” Chambers’ face went from sorrow to scorn in an instant. “I see. Look, as I said to the police and to the press and to the other private dicks and amateur sleuths who have poked their noses in, I have no information on the whereabouts of Mr. Holt or the circumstances surrounding his disappearance. His body has not been found. It’s a very tragic thing.”

  Armour clued in now as to why Roscoe had given him that funny look when he’d said Foley had worked for the harbour commissioner. So there were two missing persons?

  Chambers said, “Who hired you? Mrs. Holt? I figured she’d do something like that. Listen, Mr. Black. This office cannot indulge in speculation and scandal. The official report is good enough for us. He took his boat out at night—a damn fool thing to do. Must have fallen overboard. End of story.”

  “The harbour commissioner fell off his boat and drowned?” Armour said, trying not to sound cute.

  “He was never that good around boats. But he didn’t have to be; he was a fine administrator. That’s all this position requires.”

  “Are you good with boats?” Armour could tell by the way the man had said “not good around boats” that he knew something of them.

  “I’ve competed since I was a young lad. I used to crew the large fishing boats down east. They wanted me for the Bluenose. They’re going to race her against the Americans, but I’m too old for that. I still compete in the Toronto to Kingston race every year. They put it on hold during the war, but it’s back on again.”

  The windows in Chambers’ office were open and a gentle breeze was rattling the Venetian blinds. There was an array of paperweights on Chambers’ desk; the papers under them fluttered in the wind. One paperweight caught his eye: it was a baseball covered in bronze. There was a dent in it. Chambers saw Armour looking at it.

  “That was Mr. Holt’s. He said it’s one the Bambino hit out of the park. He bought it off a kid for a buck. Going to be worth something one day if Ruth keeps it up.”

  “Babe Ruth?”

  “Yeah. He was playing other side of the island here, at Hanlan’s Point Stadium. See that dent? The Babe got a hold of this one, all right. His first-ever home run is out there in the channel somewhere. They might find it someday.”

  Armour raised his eyebrows. There was the toot of a ship’s horn down in the channel. “Lots of work being done on the harbour?” he said.

  “We’re expanding it,” Chambers said.

  Armour edged closer to the window, ignoring Chambers’ exasperation with the intrusion. He could see an enormous dredger with a square structure on it that looked like a Mississippi paddleboat. A tendril of smoke was curling up from an exhaust stack. A large steam shovel was mounted to the front of the barge, and it was slowly extracting a bucket full of wet goop. Another barge with a pile of exhumed dirt on it waited patiently nearby. Tugs were crossing the harbour, shepherding along more barges to help with the dredging.

  Armour said, “Front Street won’t be front for much longer.”

  “The city is going to have a boulevard along the lakeshore.” He cleared his throat. “Look, Mr. Black, I have enjoyed our little chat, but I must get back to work. Please tell Mrs. Holt—"

  “Kevin Foley,” Armour said.

  Chambers swallowed hard. “What about him?” he said.

  “I’ve been hired to find him, not Holt.”

  “Mrs. Holt hired you to find Foley?”

  “No. Never met her.”

  “I have nothing to say about that person. He worked here for a short while, but he was my . . . predecessor’s man, not mine.”

  The way he hesitated on “predecessor,” Armour knew there was more to it.

  “You didn’t like him?”

  “No, I did not. I don’t know why Mr. Holt hired him. They were at each other’s throats. He was impudent, that one. After Mr. Holt disappeared, he quit. Saved me the trouble of firing him.”

  “The picture in the hall, of the men marching in a parade—is that Mr. Holt in the front?”

  “It is.”

  “He was a member of the Orangemen?”

  “Yes. As am I. Why? Let me guess—you’re Catholic?”

  “No, just curious.”

  “That’s another reason Foley and Holt did not get along. That and his wife’s…” Chambers stopped himself. “Never mind. It’s a grand organization, the Order. If you’re of the right stuff, I suggest you join.”

  “Thank you for your time,” Armour said.

  When Armour stepped off the streetcar near his office, the scene was quite different than it had been earlier on. The sidewalks were still crowded with people, but instead of businessmen on their own or in groups, all hurrying somewhere, the throngs of people were now mostly couples, men taking their ladies out for the evening. They seemed to be converging one location, the Pegasus Theatre.

  The front of the theatre was ablaze with yellow light cast by its hundreds of bulbs. Below them, also in lights, was spelled the name of the show: The Adorable Saucettes Musical Review. A line formed to the right of the entrance.

  Armour crossed the street and joined the end of the line. There were posters arrayed in front of the theatre, and Armour inspected them as he inched forward. His jaw dropped open at a poster featuring a woman, a flapper, with a gay look on her face, perched on a swing above a crowd of men holding their hats up to her.

  “Well, I’ll be,” he said.

  Armour could smell a trove of gastronomic delights emanating from the refreshment stand inside the theatre. His stomach rumbled; he realized he had not eaten the entire day. Just like he had no recollection of where the five dollars and change in his pocket had come from, he had no idea when, where or what he’d eaten last.

  Armour picked up a roast beef sandwich and a bottle of soda pop on his way to his seat. It was in the balcony, the cheapest option, and he tucked himself up under the rafters. The crowd started to pile in. The theatre seats went almost straight up to a dizzying height above the stage. Elegant iron gaslight holders lined the walls, and a boy with a burning stick of incense came in now, turned on the gas and lit them all.

  Armour felt a sudden a chilling premonition come over him but could not define it; it was just a feeling of doom that he had. Maybe he was claustrophobic; it was quite tight up there.

  The house lights went down and a spotlight was thrown on the stage. Hoots and hollers started up from the crowd as the review came out: two dozen flappers, the lights glittering off their sequenced costumes, which shook in time to their gyrations.

  There was a brass band in a pit to the left of the stage. They were a little slow and off key to start, but improved quickly, inspired by the energy emanating from the dancers on stage. Four muscled men in Egyptian headdresses and tight pants, their upper torsos bare and glistening, marched out. On their shoulders, supported by two poles, was a golden throne on which sat the star of the show, the one Armour had seen in the poster. She leapt off it with practised grace and elegance.

  Armour’s jaw almost hit the beer-soaked wooden floor of the upper balcony. It was Melanie, all right.

  “Melanie!” he called out, as but it was drowned out by the cheering. “Melanie!” he shouted again. Two drunken idiots a couple of seats over took up the chant, mocking him: “Melanie, Melanie!” He shot them a look and they settl
ed down.

  Then the music quietened and there were shouts and hisses for the crowd to be quiet. She started to sing. It was a cute musical number, evoking Egyptian pyramids and sphinxes, and the girls behind her danced and shook in time to the melody. The crowd loved it, especially when she sang a provocative line and raised her leg up on the back of one of the men as he crouched down before her.

  Armour gulped his soda pop. His mind was racing. She’s here. Melanie is here. Could this world he was in get any more confusing? Still, he took some comfort from the fact there was one face he recognized. But would she recognize him?

  Chapter 4

  It was pitch black and raining hard when the show let out. The crowd for the late show was noticeably thinner than the one for the earlier performance. They huddled next to the building holding their coats above their heads.

  Armour pulled his bowler down tight around his ears, ducked down the alley next to the theatre and took shelter in a doorway, where he managed to doze off.

  The slam of a car door woke him with a start. The rain had stopped and the music was still blaring in the dance hall. Armour recognized the muffled tune as the last song of the show. He checked his pocket watch; it was nearly midnight.

  The door slam that had woken him came from a shiny black car stopped at the other end of the alley. Light spilled out of the theatre’s side door to as men emerged from the car and disappeared inside.

  Armour got up and swiped the rain off his jacket. The alley was slick with water and he heard something fast and small scurry in front of him. It made his skin crawl.

  The door the men had gone through did not close properly; a sliver of light showed. Armour couldn’t see anything through the crack. All he could hear was applause as the late show wrapped up. He looked back at the car. It was a Cadillac, a real beauty. Elegant and mean-looking at the same time. Armour knew it was one of the fastest cars on the road. He pulled on the side door to the theatre and went in.