by Kirby Larson
The tone of his voice caused Audie to press herself more firmly to the back of the armoire. She turned her head to the side, half afraid to look, but more afraid not to.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are.”
Audie heard the man stumble against the assorted wreckage of the storeroom. He must have barked his shin on something for he issued the most creative string of oaths.
It flashed through Audie’s mind that he might be preoccupied enough for her to make a run for it. But something held her back.
And that was a good thing. Because the creator of the heavier footfalls had now rounded the corner himself. Audie stifled a gasp to see a man of such brawn and burliness. Her heart began to beat double-time. There would be no escape from such a brute.
Instead of lurching toward the armoire, ripping off the door, and dragging Audie out to some unimaginable end, the brute followed the bellman into the storeroom. Audie heard a scream of surprise and then the undeniable sounds of a scuffle.
It was over in an instant. Audie opened her eyes and peeked out in time to see the brute toss the bellman over his shoulder as if he were a baby. The bellman moaned quietly. “I didn’t do anything,” he sniveled.
“Tell zat to zee polizia,” said the brute. And with that, they were gone.
Audie was a girl as full of spunk and courage as the next, but it was several minutes before her legs stopped trembling and she could climb down out of the armoire.
“Do you know what that was all about, Min?” she asked.
Min shook herself in reply before meowing at her friend.
“I know. Time is running out.” Audie took one last deep breath to steady herself. “Like Cook says, talk doesn’t fry eggs. Let’s go.”
Sans hat and coat, Audie shivered as she ran out into the first day of the new year. Min bounded ahead, away from the White House.
“Min, where are you going? Come back!” Having recently escaped capture by both the bellman and the brute, Audie was not ready to face the next phase of her adventure alone.
Ignoring Audie’s pleas, Min dashed out of the kitchen courtyard, and, with a twitch of her tail, was smartly around the corner and gone.
Audie started to follow but froze as she caught sight of a familiar profile. Cypher! She wiggled behind a shrub and held her breath. The last thing she wanted was to be discovered by anyone in cahoots with the Commodore.
Oddly, instead of entering the courtyard and continuing on through the kitchen, Cypher disappeared around the far corner of the White House. Pretty brazen of him to be traipsing around the national grounds like that. Audie could only hope that his brazenness would be rewarded with a long spell in the clink.
Once Cypher had vanished from view, it seemed the more sensible course of action to head in the opposite direction. Audie batted her way out from behind the shrub, pulling off dead twigs and leaves as she ran toward the Ellipse. Her heart lifted when she saw the flag flying proudly above the White House. Surely if any ill had befallen President Taft, the flag would be flying at half-staff.
“Paper! Getcher paper!” A clear voice pealed through the cold morning air like a church bell. It carried a note of familiarity that made Audie turn.
“Juice!” She flew to her friend.
“Are you trying to catch pneumonia?” He shrugged out of his coat and threw it over her shoulders. “It’s winter, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“Is the President all right?”
“Right as rain.” Juice showed her the front-page headlines. “Ready to host the New Year’s Day reception.”
Audie secured Juice’s coat around her. “That’s all the news there is about him?”
Juice turned to sell a paper to a man with whiskers so full and curly that he resembled a lion. Then he turned back to Audie. “What more would there be?” he asked.
“His niece is missing,” she said.
“Go on with you.”
Audie grabbed his arm. “More than missing. Kidnapped.” Light-headed, she wobbled against her friend.
“Whoa, there.” Juice steadied her. “You’re not going to faint again, are you?”
A nice faint might be just the ticket. Take leave of her senses and responsibilities for a precious interval and let others handle things. Events had taken a turn that was beyond her capability, of that she was convinced. Being trapped in a storeroom was one thing; a kidnapping was quite another. Such situations were best left to professionals.
Audie could envision explaining everything to the police, or the Secret Service men. Before two words had left her mouth, they would arrest her for being an accomplice. Or worse! She should have stayed back at Miss Maisie’s. Why had she thought she could make a difference in the world? She was only an orphan. A well-read one, perhaps, but a powerless orphan all the same. Audie grappled mightily with the consequences of having spent so much time with her nose in a book. Clearly, that habit had left her ill equipped to deal with the realities of life.
Audie inhaled deeply. She was practical enough to concede that point. But she’d come too far to give up now. She was many things, most of them flawed, but she was not a quitter. Things were far from splendid, so this episode in her life was far from over.
“And I know who took her.” Audie shivered. No wonder Mrs. Finch had asked the deliveryman to leave the turtle bucket. It was big enough to hold someone Audie’s size. Someone like Dorothy.
Juice peered at her. “You don’t look too good. Maybe you best come with me. Daddy Dub can make you some tea.” He reached for her arm.
“No! No tea.” She shook him off.
The look he gave her was pure bewilderment.
“I drank something odd last night. A sleeping potion. Not on purpose. The people who took Dorothy drugged me. Or at least one of them did.” She should have known Mrs. Finch wasn’t English by the way she held those needles. No Englishwoman would knit in the Continental style. And her accent wasn’t even that convincing.
Juice’s brow wrinkled. He studied Audie for a full minute, as if weighing something. Making a decision. After the minute passed, he gave a sharp nod, then put his finger to his lips. “Best tone it down a bit,” he said, indicating all the people milling around. “If what you say is true—”
“It’s true!” Audie stamped her foot.
“Okay. Okay.” Juice held up his hands. “What we need is a plan. Hard to hatch one out here in the freezing cold. With all these ears listening in.”
Audie sniffled. He did have a point there. “Oh, all right. But we have to be quick about it. There’s not much time!”
They ran to the White House stables and found Daddy Dub. He was going through an old chest in one of the empty stalls. He eased himself onto a stool, and asked Audie to tell him everything that had happened. She thought she might explode with impatience. Who knew where Dorothy had been taken? Each tick of the minute hand worked to their disadvantage.
Audie explained her concerns about the press of time, but Daddy Dub shushed her. “Good thinking takes good time.” He patted his bony thighs. “Start at the beginning and don’t leave one thing out.”
Audie did as asked, only stopping when Daddy Dub or Juice asked a question. She confessed that she had misled them about the relationship between her and the Commodore. “He’s not my uncle,” she admitted. “He chose me to help him with a mission. I didn’t know it was going to be anything like this.” She covered her face with her hands.
“Is that everything?” Daddy Dub asked.
She nodded. She decided against mentioning the brute and the bellman because she didn’t know what role they played in the kidnapping. And she was half afraid that mentioning the brute might dissuade Juice and his grandfather from coming to her aid.
“I think I know who I should talk to.” Daddy Dub stood up, pulling a blanket out of the old chest. “First I’ve got to cover Murphy up,” he said. “Sounded like he was catching cold.” When he shook out the blanket, a cascade of silken rosettes spilled onto the straw
-covered floor.
Audie reached her hand up to touch her head. It had seemed like forever ago that Beatrice had fixed her hair. With the stimulating events of the past several hours, hair accessories had been the last thing on her mind. She unpinned the Commodore’s rosette and compared it to one from the chest. “These look so much alike.” She turned over the other rosette, running her fingers along the intricate folds, studying the stitching. Stamped on the back were the initials: CC.
Daddy Dub also compared the two rosettes. “See how these folds are as sharp and tiny as can be?” He pointed to the frilled edge. “That’s the trademark of Crutchfield Creations. Used to be the only man President Roosevelt would buy his livery fol-de-rols from. That Mr. Crutchfield was a mighty rich man. Mighty rich. Yes, sir.”
“Miss Maisie said he was the richest man in Swayzee. Maybe in Indiana,” Audie added.
“I expect that’s so.” The old man nodded. “Near about everyone who was anyone ordered from Crutchfield. Horse people, that is.”
Audie’s left ear began to tingle. Though she was only eleven and not overly concerned with monetary matters, it didn’t take financial know-how to reach the conclusion that, with the coming of the automobile, perhaps the Commodore was not so rich. At least, not any longer. And if he was not so rich because of the automobile, he was probably none too happy with President Taft.
“And he blames it on the President,” she said aloud, sliding her rosette into her pocket.
“What?” Juice asked.
“Likely so.” Daddy Dub quickly tracked Audie’s train of thought. He picked up a rucksack, and filled it with an odd assortment of items.
Audie pressed her hand to her pounding heart. “Oh, poor Dorothy.” It was difficult to fathom, but it was now apparent that the Commodore had thought to exact his revenge on the President by kidnapping his niece.
“Get me my coat and hat, there, will you, Juice?” Daddy Dub handed Audie the rucksack. The action reminded her that she had left her own rucksack behind at the White House. “Dorothy’s going to be fine.” He winked at Audie. “She’s got us on her side, doesn’t she?”
Audie wasn’t certain that a newsboy, an orphan, and a fragile old man made much of a rescue team, but Daddy Dub exuded such confidence that she couldn’t disagree with him. “Yes, she does.”
“Don’t you fret.” Daddy Dub put out the lantern with a hiss. “That Commodore’s going to be real sorry he tangled with us.”
The Commodore sulked in the overstuffed club chair. The girl had put up such a fuss when they removed her from the bucket, a fuss that resulted in a black spot on his white suit coat. A permanent stain, no doubt.
And it was all Elva’s fault.
“None of this was according to plan,” he reminded her for the umpteenth time.
Elva gritted her teeth before answering. “As I told you before, when opportunity knocks, we must answer.” She lavished a piece of toast with creamy golden butter, and then took a dainty bite. “Besides, this is much more sophisticated than what you had in mind. And far less complicated.” She dabbed her mouth with a linen napkin.
Less complicated! Less complicated! He had laid out a blueprint for stashing Annie in the old storeroom at the White House—Stanley’d been well paid to recover her and send her back to Swayzee—borrowing Dorothy for a few hours before returning her to the bosom of her family, and adding a goodly sum of American dollars to his pocket all within twenty-four hours.
Now, they’d been stuck with Dorothy since the prior afternoon, and the ransom note hadn’t been delivered. Hadn’t been sent! But the Commodore knew he would only suffer further if he vexed Elva. “Less complicated, perhaps, but not as well thought out.”
“What’s to think out? We deliver the note and get our money.” She finished chewing. “Easy as pie, Stinky.”
The Commodore exhaled sharply. “I’ve asked you not to call me that.”
Elva smirked. “Easy as pie. Millard.”
He smoothed out his moustache. “So how are we going to deliver the note, Elva?” He had her there. These things took planning. Calculations! And flair. It had been a sheer stroke of genius on his part to come up with such a novel way to deliver a ransom note: words carved on the inside of one of the turtle shells used to make the President’s Terrapin Soup.
The Commodore now allowed himself to bask in the scene he’d long envisioned: The soup-filled shell being carried up on a silver serving tray, which would be placed in front of the President by a black-jacketed waiter wearing white gloves. While he was engaged in chitchat with his tablemates, sip by sip, the President would dip ever closer to the chilling message: Now Dorothy’s in the soup. Wait for instructions. The Commodore was warmed by a wave of self-satisfaction at such clever phrasing.
Elva clinked her teacup against the saucer, bumping the Commodore out of his pleasant daydream and into the present painful reality of having to abandon that splendid scheme. It really had been remarkable. Grand. But all gone to ashes because of Elva’s impulses. And now Annie had deserted him in his hour of need. Ungrateful girl.
“What are we to do about delivering the note?”
Elva polished off the rest of her toast, licking the crumbs from her fingers. “We will attend the New Year’s reception today and you will slip the note to the President while you shake his hand.”
Every New Year’s Day since George Washington’s time, the sitting president had opened the White House to greet as many members of the public who were willing to wait in a very long line on a cold winter day. It was said that, in 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt shook over ten thousand hands; it was thought that Taft would shake perhaps half that number at his first New Year’s Day reception. Sadly, President Taft was what the common folk called “unpopular.” As has been mentioned previously, there is no accounting for taste.
The Commodore stared at her. “That is your plan?” Elva was going to be the death of him. Why had he ever thought involving her in this caper would be a good idea? “I can hardly hand the President a ransom note! We’ll be snatched into jail quicker than you can crack an egg.” He rubbed his temple. “Good heavens, Elva. What are you thinking?”
Her skirts rustled as she sat upright. “Stink—I mean, Millard. Don’t get yourself so agitated. When you get agitated, you prevent yourself from seeing possibilities. Of course, I didn’t mean we’d hand the note over, right there in front of everyone.” She caressed the fat curl that dangled over her right ear, batting her eyes all the while. “You’ll pin it to his chest.”
The Commodore felt all the blood vessels in his head constrict. She was going to give him a stroke. A stroke! “I’ll pin it to his chest?” The words were as distasteful in his mouth as cod liver oil.
“Oh, Millard, my dear. You are such a card.” Elva stood, shaking her skirt as she did so. “Allow me to demonstrate.” She slid the ransom note from the breakfast table, and folded it into a tight square. Then she pressed the pin on the backing of a rosette through the paper, and affixed both rosette and note to the Commodore’s vest. “Like so.”
“The Secret Service will be on me like ticks!” The Commodore patted his sweating forehead. “You’ve lost your senses, Elva. You truly have.”
“Dear St—Millard.” She smiled. “The President will be delighted to receive a gift from a loyal constituent.” She pulled a letter from her bodice, unfolded it, and waved it in front him. “This is from Teddy, vouching that he knows you and sending his best wishes to Taft.”
“President Roosevelt wrote a letter like that for me?” The pleasure from such knowledge boosted the Commodore’s spirits considerably.
Elva rolled her eyes. “No. He did not write this. I did. And forged his signature.” She returned the letter to her bodice for safekeeping. “Honestly, sometimes you are utterly innocent.”
“Well, I’ve never done anything like this before,” the Commodore grumbled. His lower lip protruded in a pitiful pout.
Elva rustled across the room, removin
g her hat from the dresser top. “That’s all the more reason to trust me, isn’t it?” She secured the outlandish chapeau to her pomaded hair with a diamond-tipped hat pin. She gave the hat a pat, then motioned for the Commodore to assist her with her coat. “We’d best be going. The doors close at two o’clock and we don’t want to be left standing in the cold.”
“Shouldn’t we check on …” The Commodore looked over his shoulder, as if someone might be listening in on their conversation. “You know.” He slipped Elva’s black velveteen coat over her shoulders.
She arched an eyebrow. “She’s not going anywhere. And besides, Stanley took her a breakfast tray. She’ll be fine until we return.” Elva buttoned her coat, humming “Frère Jacques” to herself. Stanley should have Annie in hand by now, on his way to the SS Parisian. Soon, soon, all those lovely francs would be deposited in her bank account and she would be on a journey herself, far, far away from Millard and Stanley and orphans of every kind.
The Commodore buttoned up his own overcoat, and placed his derby carefully atop his white locks. “You know more about these things than I do.” He offered his arm and Elva Finch took it. Together, they strolled out of the room. They squeezed into the elevator with an astonishingly large man accompanied by the tiniest of young women. The Commodore tipped his hat to the young lady.
She nodded. “Jó napot kívánok! Good day,” she said. The Commodore thought her slight accent charming. But her companion was a trifle intimidating.
He was relieved to exit the elevator and pass through the lobby to stand under the Ardmore Hotel’s grand awning, where he and Elva awaited the arrival of the robin’s egg blue touring car.
As they stood on the sidewalk, the partners in crime were unaware of a well-nourished chocolate-striped feline watching them while hidden behind one of the hotel’s immense flower urns. The two humans were so engrossed in conversation that they also did not notice the cat, eye level with their stylish kid-leather shoes—Elva Finch’s a soft dove gray and the Commodore’s spit-polished black—inch closer and closer, as if to pounce. But she did not pounce. She sniffed, taking in the faint aroma of horse and hay, faint because the aroma was not fresh. It spoke of scents from years past. There wasn’t much time to take in such smells because shortly a long, lean automobile pulled up to the curb and the pair disappeared inside and were gone. Fortunately, the cat’s sense of smell was acute and her vocabulary of aromas was large. It hadn’t taken long to identify what she’d smelled. She knew where she needed to go, what she needed to do.