Living Spectres: a Chesterton Holte, Gentleman Haunt Mystery

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  “I wouldn’t do that, in any case.” Poppy picked up her cup of coffee and took a sip that almost burned her tongue. “Hot.” She set it down.

  “Give it a little while to cool,” Mister Pearse recommended.

  “I will,” said Poppy, and for the first time, noticed a spangling light drifting among the elephant ears and philodendrons. “How long had Holte been with them?” she asked herself. “Mister Pearse,” she said, returning to their discussion, “Have you made any plans to go to Europe yourself, or will you leave the case to your investigator?”

  “That will depend on what Mister Blessing discovers. I will not entirely rule out going there myself, but if Mister Blessing deems it unnecessary, then I will remain here and deputize Mister Blessing to act to return GAD to his family. I would rather not draw attention to his activities by my presence.” He paused, looking up at the increasing rain. “No matter what my wife may think, I am not unaware of the danger my son may be in, and I am cognizant of the various outcomes that might result from this latest undertaking. I hope that GAD will have learned his lesson by the time he returns. He cannot save the world, and it is well past time that he should give up grand romantic notions.”

  “Is that what you think he’s done?—taken on an ill-considered knight-errantry? Truly?” Poppy asked, watching Mister Pearse closely for any nuance of expression he might reveal.

  “Naturally that is how I see it. Anything else would be unthinkable. I’ll grant that GAD is an enterprising young man, but his efforts in the name of hopeless causes shows that he has little grasp on the realities of the world. He has not yet realized that life is not an adventure, nor is it a crusade. It is a great pity that he was ever encouraged to do so. Your Uncle Maximilian has much to answer for.” On that final note, he picked up his cup of heavily creamed coffee and drank, making it a sign that the interview was over.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  HOLTE WAITED UNTIL POPPY WAS HALF-WAY BACK TO THE CLARION TO MAKE himself known. “Not the easiest of consultations, was it?” he asked as Poppy pulled up at a stop sign.

  “No, it wasn’t.” She pulled her arm in and rolled up the window, glowering at the rain that spattered the windshield, undaunted by the wiper-blades, saying as she did, “I’d forgotten what an insufferable man Sherman Pearse can be.”

  “Perhaps he wasn’t so difficult to you when you were younger.” It was an obvious suggestion to Holte, but it raised Poppy’s hackles; he decided to clarify his point. “You were a student when last you saw him, weren’t you? A young woman not yet embarked on your career. You were still in your aunt’s care, and dependent upon her. Not nearly so dangerous as you are now, a self-sufficient professional. He probably felt uneasy.”

  “Ha,” said Poppy, “and ha.”

  “Men who are that authoritative usually are so because they are frightened,” Holte persisted. “It took me a long time to realize that, but I grasp it now.”

  Poppy honked her horn at a messenger on a bicycle, saying as she did, “Do we have to talk about this now?”

  “You seem to want to,” Holte replied. “It’s better you say it to me than blow up at Gafney, or take it out on Lowenthal.”

  “Because they’re afraid of me?” Poppy asked incredulously.

  “Not as much as Mister Pearse was. He’s so frightened that the prospect of admitting it is making him—”

  “Don’t you go defending him,” she told Holte, all her aggravation of the past hour welling up inside her. “He’s infuriating. I had to bite my tongue every time he spoke to me. I almost expected him to pat my head—or Missus Pearse’s. And the way he talked about Uncle Max, I wanted to wring his neck.”

  “Yes,” said Holte. “And who is this Uncle Max? You haven’t mentioned him.”

  “Uncle Max was my paternal grandparents’ second child. Regis was the oldest. Then Max, Esther, and Josephine, and finally my father. Sherman Pearse was right about one thing: Max liked GAD. He liked me too, and my father.” She tapped her horn as a man in a military overcoat started into the street. “He should watch where he’s going.”

  “And you should watch out for the pot-hole,” Holte said, nodding in the direction of a broad puddle in the middle of her lane.

  “Thanks,” she said through clenched teeth; she drove another block, then said, “Pardon my brusqueness. I don’t mean to bark at you, but—”

  “But you want to release some of your pent-up exacerbation. I’d want to do the same thing, in your shoes. If I weren’t noncorporeal, I might have taken a punch at him, on your behalf.” He became slightly more visible. “I meant what I told you: Pearse is the sort of man who is terrified when he can’t be in charge. Having his son missing, and being unable to face what might have happened to his heir, is making him worse.”

  She laughed sardonically. “If you were in my shoes, he wouldn’t have treated you the way he did me. You’re male in a man’s job, and that would be acceptable to Sherman Pearse, as much as anything ever is.”

  “He would not have seen me as a colleague; only like one of the hired help, and would have expected deference on my part; I knew officers in the Army when I was still spying, cut from much the same cloth,” Holte said at his most conciliating. “And although Mister Pearse thinks of spies as men and only men, I have known six women who served as spies, much the same as I did. One was a waitress in a restaurant in Arnhem; I was her contact for a while. She had more courage than almost any other person, man or woman, in our network, and more pure nerve.”

  Poppy’s chuckle was sad. “You’re right—Mister Pearse would never believe that: a woman and only a waitress.”

  “I don’t doubt that,” Holte said. “The trouble is, he believes that the world accepts his standards and therefore he has no reason to examine what he thinks, which saves him from having to realize that he’s afraid. If he were not in such a high position, that would be awkward or foolish. But between his wealth and social placement, he probably isn’t even aware that how he conducts himself can offend others, and if he did have some inkling of it, it would not be likely that it would matter to him.”

  “Don’t give him the benefit of the doubt. I’m in no mood for it, although you’re probably right.” She braked suddenly as a small, bedraggled mongrel ran into the road, yapping at a horse- drawn wagon laden with crates of poultry. “Ye gods!” she cried out, accompanied by a counterpoint of horns from other autos and trucks.

  “Hold steady,” Holte said quietly. “Let the rest of them panic. If you notice, the pace has been slowing down. There’s some other obstruction up ahead.”

  “Is that what you did as a spy? Held steady?” Poppy asked even as she took his advice. “And yes, I see that there’s some kind of tangle a little farther along.”

  “I held steady whenever possible. If you’ll spare me a moment, I’ll see what the cause is.” He slid out through the passenger door and swooped around the confusion, and returned to the Hudson. “This will break up shortly. There is a road-crew up ahead trying to get the water standing on the road to drain away. An old Ford is stuck in the puddle that’s not draining.” He gave the appearance of settling back down on the passenger side of the seat. “You may want to turn off on the next street and make your way back to the Clarion by an alternate route. Clearing what’s ahead could still take some time.”

  “Thanks,” she said curtly, and rolled down her window to signal for a right-hand turn. At the first break in the traffic, she veered away from the increasing snarl, jockeying into position next to the curb and rounding the corner. “What does this seem like to you? You’re noncorporeal, as you keep reminding me, so all these physical intrusions must strike you as inconvenient at the least. Or do you miss them? Perhaps some of both?” She went slowly down to the next intersection and signaled to turn left.

  “Occasionally, I do miss corporeality; for the most part, I’ve become accustomed to being a ghost,” he said. “But corporeality is the reality of the world of the living, and I ought to be willing
to accommodate it.” He fell silent, then asked, “Have you decided how you’re going to tell Loring about Overstreet? Or are you going to avoid the whole thing?”

  Poppy found herself chuckling. “I think I might suggest that he contact Hank, and ask him if there is any way that the Belle Helene could have made it through the hurricane. He and Hank were talking at the party last Friday, and Hank loves to hold forth about sailing. And I think Loring might want to talk to Quentin Hadley about the yacht. Or I might.”

  “That should help deal with the situation,” said Holte. “But there is a very strong chance that Quentin Hadley went down with the ship.”

  “Have you encountered his ghost, or is that a guess?”

  “No, I haven’t found him in the dimension of ghosts, but I didn’t know to look for him until I spoke to Overstreet. I still don’t know it for certain, but it does seem likely; worth following up, in any case.”

  “You could be right,” Poppy said.

  “I could find out, if you’d like?” He watched her for a moment. “Would you be willing to call Hadley and Grimes to find out if Quentin Hadley is in the office? If he is, that should make it clear that he hasn’t drowned at sea, and that would answer a few questions without fuss.”

  Poppy laughed uneasily. “Why didn’t I think of that? On what excuse?”

  “Some kind of follow-up. Why not say it’s about the federal investigation on the counterfeit antiquities? Customs is still trying to get information out of Hadley and Grimes, aren’t they? And you’re covering that story. The courts in Pennsylvania are not working to clear the way, and that means there’s something going on under the surface. If you approach them as someone sympathetic to their situation, they might be more forthcoming than not. Encourage them to set the record straight.” He mused on the possibilities while Poppy jockeyed around a furniture van double-parked in front of a warehouse.

  “I suppose that would work.” She honked the horn as a man with a hand-truck stepped into the street without bothering to look for traffic. “Are they all half-asleep this morning?” she asked the leaking sky, then spoke to Holte. “Sorry. I’m still riled up at Mister Pearse. I shouldn’t take it out on hapless drivers. And is it still morning?”

  “A few minutes past noon,” he told her, since he was trying to be scrupulous about time; his loss of time in the world of the living bothered him, and he was attempting to pay attention to it.

  “So some of them are hungry for lunch, and are in a hurry to eat.” She glanced in the rear- view mirror. “There’s an impatient fellow in a Cord back there, trying to weave in and out of lanes to get down the street faster.” She moved into the left-hand lane and rolled down her window again to signal for her turn; the Cord came abreast of her Hudson, and the man at the wheel began to gesture in Poppy’s direction, as if to shoo her out of the way. “I’m turning left,” she yelled back at him, and moved her arm to signal more forcefully.

  The man in the Cord grew more irate and swung into the intersection to move around her and cut her off. Poppy honked her horn again and jammed on her brakes; the Cord hurried off, sending a plume of water back on Poppy’s Hudson and soaking her left arm. “Ye gods!” she burst out.

  “Gods had nothing to do with it,” said Holte.

  Poppy slowed down as she rolled her window up, and took a second to inspect the damage to her coat-sleeve. “I hope something can be done to fix this; I’ve only had it four months.”

  Holte said something under his nonexistent breath that was probably a curse, and he raised himself up through the roof of the car so that he could watch the progress of the Cord. When he saw the Cord turn right two blocks down, he sank back onto the passenger’s side of the bench. “He’s going toward Independence Hall.”

  “I hope the police stop him before he does something really stupid.” She gripped the steering wheel, her knuckles white with exertion.

  “Would you like me to follow him and get the number on his plate?” Holte offered.

  Poppy considered this for half a block, but finally said, “No, don’t bother. It’s not worth the trouble it would cause.” She clutched down to first gear as she prepared to make another left turn. “I want to get back to the paper and write my story. Then, I hope, Aunt Esther and I can indulge in a late lunch.”

  “Why not have that now?” Holte suggested.

  Poppy shook her head. “I’m too edgy. I’ll enjoy it more if I turn in the story first, and then Aunt Esther and I can talk about her appointment with Lowenthal. With luck, I’ll have my story in Lowenthal’s hands by then, and that will help me feel less harried.” She shifted into second gear as she rounded the turn, and drove past the old Presbyterian Hospital, a relic of the Civil War, now scheduled for demolition. Three more blocks to the Clarion, she told herself. Don’t get rattled.

  “There’s a policeman directing traffic up ahead,” Holte observed. “Best to slow down until you’ve passed him.”

  “Well, that’s reassuring,” Poppy remarked, and rolled down the window to signal for another left turn. When Poppy drove into what she had come to think of as her parking alley, she located a place next to the Inkwell, the tavern where reporters and pressmen went for coffee and sandwiches; it had an openly secret rear bar where beer and whiskey were available to those in the know. As soon as she had banked her wheels, she said to Holte, who was now only a kind of pale smudge next to her, “Why so quiet?”

  He became a bit more defined. “I have been thinking about Overstreet. He’s confused about being dead, and how he got that way, but I want to find out as much as I can about his time with Nelson and Quentin Hadley. Overstreet might not know how he was killed, but he had some time on the Belle Helene, and he might be able to remember what they talked about after they left Montreal.”

  “Does that mean you’re going back to the dimension of ghosts to talk to him? Or will you be looking for one of the Hadleys?” Poppy asked, feeling a bit slighted by this very sensible plan; she gave herself a scolding for her hurt feelings. “When do you plan to leave?” That sounded more civilized, she decided.

  “Not at once,” said Holte. “I want to find out what you learn from Hadley and Grimes first, so I have a place to start.”

  Poppy peered out at the steady rain, sighed, and opened the door. “I should have brought my umbrella,” she said to Holte. “It’s under my desk. I didn’t think I’d need it.”

  “Well, get your things and keep under the eaves if you can,” Holte recommended, flowing out through the front windshield. “At least there’s a sidewalk. Not all alleys have them. Not that that helped you earlier.”

  Poppy had set off at a brisk walk, her brief-case swinging from her left hand, her purse clutched in her right. “I know that,” she assured him, wincing as she stepped into a two-inch- deep pool next to a down-spout.

  “Only a little more than forty feet to go,” he said. “Don’t move too quickly, you’ll just splash more water.”

  “I hope I’m not completely drenched,” she said, picking up the pace a bit more, and paying as little attention as she possibly could to the water sloshing in her right shoe. She was almost trotting by the time she got to the front of the Addison Newspaper Corporation building; she forced herself to slow down as she went up the rain-slicked marble stairs to the massive revolving front door. She stepped into the moving wedge as soon as she could, and sighed as she made the half-circle into the lobby. She touched her hair and found it wet, as she knew it would be. “It’s all of a piece,” she whispered.

  “Rain isn’t personal,” Holte reminded her from a few inches ahead of her. “It isn’t there to make you uncomfortable.”

  “No, it’s not,” she murmured as she made for the stairs.

  “And it is breaking up. You should only have clouds in another hour or so.” He rose up the stairs a couple of steps ahead of her.

  “Are you certain of that?” she muttered.

  “As certain as a ghost can be,” he said, and changed the subject. “Are you
going to call Loring before you get to work on your piece about the Pearses?” Holte drifted along beside her.

  “I’ll give it a try, if you’ll stop being so reasonable,” she said under her breath, taking care not to let her wet shoes slip on the steps; if she should trip, she knew her male colleagues would not let her hear the end of it. “But I’ll check with Hadley and Grimes first; that way, I’ll have information on two stories for Lowenthal.”

  “A very good idea,” said Holte, sounding encouraging. “That should help you with Loring as well.”

  Poppy did not bother to answer Holte; she was already thinking about how to present what he had told her to both her editor and Inspector Loring. It would require a great deal of diplomacy with each of them, and Poppy had to acknowledge that just now, she was not in a very diplomatic frame of mind.

  “I’ll be back shortly,” said Holte, starting to rise above her.

  “Where are you going?” she asked in a whisper.

  “I’ll tell you when I get back,” he promised, and vanished through the ceiling.

  By the time she reached her desk, Poppy was already half-way out of her wet coat. She hung it over the back of her chair, put her brief-case on her desk next to the Remington, and her purse into the locking drawer on her left. She removed her notebook from her brief-case, then returned it to its place next to her chair. After opening her notebook and setting it next to her phone, she lifted the receiver from its cradle and, once again changing her mind, gave Inspector Loring’s number to the switchboard operator who said, “One moment please,” before connecting her to Loring’s phone.

  The voice of the man who answered was not familiar, and when Poppy asked for Loring, the man at the other end said, “He’s out.”

  “When is he expected back?” Poppy asked, trying to keep her exasperation in check.

  “Don’t know. Two, three hours maybe. Is this urgent? I could connect you with another of our inspectors.”

  “Would you be good enough to leave him a note asking him to call Miss Thornton at his earliest convenience?” She used her most professional tone. “I’ll be available after three.”