Living Spectres: a Chesterton Holte, Gentleman Haunt Mystery

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  “Is this urgent?” The answerer sounded skeptical as he repeated his earlier question.

  “I have information that might be useful to him, about an on-going investigation.”

  There was a short pause and then the man said, “What’s your number, Miss?”

  “He has it,” she snapped, hoping that the man would do as she asked. “Thank you,” she added, and heard him hang up. To calm herself again, she put together her bond, carbon paper, and onion-skin sandwich and rolled it into her typewriter. She centered the carriage and typed in:

  PARENTS QUESTION FATE OF MISSING HEIR and then sat still, trying to decide how best to begin her report on the interview with the Pearses, keeping Sherman Pearse’s requirements in mind. She recited the requisite needs for the opening paragraph of a story: who, what, when, where, why, and if needed, how. With these rules in mind, she began to type.

  Mister and Missus Sherman Pearse have authorized an English investigator, working from London, to undertake a search for their oldest son, Gameal A. D. Pearse, 18, who has been missing in Europe since late July. This decision comes after several weeks have passed since their last communication from him, which was sent from Vienna, Austria. The Pearses as yet do not believe that this silence is the result of foul play, but wish to locate their heir, if only to put their family and friends at ease in regard to the safety and location of their son. There is some indication that Gameal Pearse might have been providing some sort of assistance to a group of Armenian refugees, although this has not yet been confirmed. Gameal Pearse was scheduled to begin his university studies over a week ago, which has added to his parents’ concern. They are hoping that the work of Mister Blessing, the English investigator, can set their minds at ease and dispel some of the rumors about Gameal Pearse’s present circumstances, and request that anyone having contact of any kind with young Mister Pearse while in Europe inform Inspector J.B. Loring of the Philadelphia Police Department of the nature of that contact, where and when it occurred, and any other relevant information in that regard. Mister Sherman Pearse is anxious to resolve this mystery as soon as is possible, and to that end, the Pearses request that their privacy be respected during this difficult time.

  When there is reliable news, the Pearses have pledged to this reporter to release it to the public. Until such time as more is known, the Pearses decline to be interviewed by anyone except those in official positions working directly on the case, on the advice of their attorneys and those officers of the law actively involved. They, and the United States Department of State, thank you for your cooperation.

  Poppy read this through, then nodded once to herself. There was no specific mention of Merrinelle Butterworth, which ought to satisfy Mister Pearse’s stricture. The tone of the piece was not sensationalistic, but direct enough to keep Lowenthal happy. She pulled the papers out of the typewriter platen and put them down beside her notebook. Time to call Hadley and Grimes, she decided, and once again signaled the operator to make the call.

  “Hadley and Grimes, Certified Public Accountants,” said the carefully cultured voice of the receptionist. “To whom may I connect you?”

  “Mister Quentin Hadley,” said Poppy.

  There was a minuscule pause, and then the receptionist said, “Mister Quentin Hadley is not available today.”

  Bingo! Poppy told herself. “Then I’ll speak with Mister Tinsdale, Mister Hadley’s assistant. I’m with the Philadelphia Clarion, and I have some questions I would like to ask him, regarding his employer’s present whereabouts.” She had met Tinsdale when she had gone to interview Quentin Hadley shortly after Madison Moncrief’s murder; she remembered a fastidious man with a single-minded alliance with his employer. “I realize that he may be out at lunch, but I hope to have a word with him in regard to the state of the federal inquiries regarding Mister Hadley’s positi—”

  “I’ll connect you,” said the receptionist.

  Two rings later, the phone was answered. “Mister Quentin Hadley’s office, his assistant, Clifford Tinsdale, speaking.” His voice was crisp and cool, as if Tinsdale were addressing an unwelcome caller. “If you are calling about a canceled appointment, please ask the operator to direct your inquiry to Mister Bloom.”

  “Good afternoon, Mister Tinsdale. This is P. M. Thornton of the Clarion. We met last spring, a few days after Mister Moncrief’s untimely death? I was wondering if I might have a word with Mister Hadley?”

  Tinsdale’s tone got frostier. “I’m afraid that Mister Quentin Hadley is not in the office today, Miss Thornton. He isn’t expected in.”

  “When would I be able to reach him?” Poppy said, hoping to goad Tinsdale into revealing what, if anything, he knew about Quentin Hadley’s current whereabouts.

  “Mister Hadley is away from the office for…another week, we believe.”

  Poppy could tell that Tinsdale was on the brink of hanging up on her. “Can you tell me where I might reach him? You see, we’re doing a series of articles on the state of the federal investigation of counterfeit antiques and Customs fraud. I was hoping that Mister Hadley could help us to clarify the issues involved. The Justice Department has not been very forthcoming on details, and we would like to present an unbiased picture of how matters stand.”

  To Poppy’s surprise, Tinsdale took the bait. “Mister Hadley is on vacation; he is expected to be in Jamaica tomorrow or the next day, and has pledged to wire us of his safe arrival, and to inform us of when he and his cousin will be going on to Cuba. It was part of his arrangement with us that he would keep in regular contact with us. He and his cousin have been sailing together for the last ten days, and they wire every time they make port.”

  “Then you have some notion of where he might be now,” Poppy said, to keep Tinsdale talking.

  After a slight hesitation, Tinsdale said, “They began their trip leaving out of Mystic, Mister Hadley’s cousin Nelson having sailed up from Cuba with a companion who left when Mister Quentin Hadley came aboard. They went up into the Maritime Provinces to pick up another person, then went down the coast, bound for the family’s vacation home in Cuba. They included a stop-over in Jamaica—just a day or two, and then back north and the vacation house near Santiago de Cuba—as part of their itinerary, which is where they should have been yesterday, but hadn’t counted on encountering a hurricane. They have probably sought a safe harbor to wait out the storm.” He paused, then plunged on, “It may take a day or two longer for him to get through to us this time, because of the hurricane. But we’re expecting to receive news of him in the next two or three days, at most.”

  “Oh, yes, the hurricane; it is dangerous to sail when such a storm is raging,” said Poppy, as if that had only now occurred to her. “Would you be good enough to call me back when you hear from him? I’d like to set up an appointment with him when he returns.”

  “I’ll let him know when I respond to his wire. And I’ll keep you informed.” Tinsdale paused. “Well, good-bye, Miss Thornton.”

  “And to you, Mister Tinsdale,” Poppy replied, a grin dawning; perhaps, she thought, this day would not turn out too badly, after all. She picked up her phone again and asked the operator to connect her to Rudy Beech in Florida, offering the number Neva Plowright had reluctantly supplied, and waiting while she heard the rings on the far end of the line. After nine loud clangs, Poppy was about to hang up when someone answered.

  “Hello?”

  Poppy was so startled that she nearly dropped the receiver. “Hello? Is this Rudy Beech?”

  “Who are you and what do you want? Make it snappy. I’m busy doing cleanup. We’ve had a hurricane.”

  This was not a promising beginning, but Poppy took a deep breath and began to speak. “I’m P. M. Thornton with the Clarion in Philadelphia calling to speak with Rudy Beech in regards to his missing half-sister, Loui—”

  “Louise Moncrief,” he cut in. “Don’t you people understand what I don’t know means? I haven’t seen her, I haven’t heard from her in over a year. If you ha
ve any questions, talk to Titus van Boew, he’s her lawyer. Don’t say I sent you.” And with that, he hung up.

  Poppy sat still for several seconds, then hung up, thinking, if this is Neva Plowright’s idea of family closeness, they must have had a difficult time as children. Then another thought struck her: who else had phoned Rudy? His reference to another caller or callers troubled her as she went through her notes again. “Well, I don’t think he’ll tell me if I phoned again, at least not this week,” she murmured, putting her attention on her story. She closed her notebook and decided it was time to get a cup of coffee.

  TWENTY-SIX

  AUNT ESTHER EMERGED FROM LOWENTHAL’S OFFICE HALF AN HOUR AFTER SHE entered it, her countenance composed and her step firm as ever. She was dressed much the same way as she would if she had been going to speak to the National Geographic Society: her suit was conservatively fashionable—a jacket of tan wool over a simple, pale-mauve, pin-tucked silk blouse, with a pleated skirt the color of milk-chocolate that was hemmed the standard four inches above her ankle; she had a narrow-brimmed hat of tan felt perched on her neatly rolled hair—in addition, she had her small portfolio in her hand, her raincoat over her arm, and her purse slung over her shoulder. Threading her way through the maze of desks, she approached Poppy’s, where Poppy was just finishing typing up her notes for Lowenthal’s perusal, with only a short sentence on her contact with Rudy Beech. “I’m not interrupting, am I?” she asked as Poppy looked up from her work.

  “Not at all, Aunt Esther; I’m glad to see you,” said Poppy, smiling without hesitation. “How did it go?”

  “I hope you’ll tell me that over lunch. I haven’t decided. He’s not easy to read, your Mister Lowenthal.” Esther shrugged philosophically. “I hope my presentation was enough to convince him that my information is worthwhile.” She covered her mouth with her hand, concealing a yawn. “I must admit that after our…interview, I guess I’d call it, I’m famished; I feel as if I’ve hiked five miles.”

  “Not unexpected,” said Poppy, slipping her two single-spaced pages of notes into a manila file folder. “Lowenthal’s got a schedule to keep, and that means all of us must keep working full steam.”

  “What are you working on?” Esther inquired, her eyes brightening. “Anything exciting?”

  “Not really, not for you and me. I had an interview this morning with the Pearses. Most of what I’ve done is boil it down to basic information presented as emotionlessly as possible. Mister Pearse demanded it.”

  “I’ll wager Isadora didn’t,” said Esther. “Not given the way she’s been behaving.”

  “She went along with him, reluctantly, I thought,” said Poppy, taking her purse from the drawer and removing her brief-case from its place under her desk. “He’s pretty imposing.”

  “He’s an arrogant martinet,” said Esther tranquilly. “I never understood why she married him. Her family is almost as rich as his, so money wasn’t the reason.”

  “His position is pretty impressive, and his brother is in the state legislature, which must count for something,” said Poppy, putting away her notes and retrieving her purse. “I made a couple of phone calls while you were with Lowenthal, and I need to be back here by three, in case there’s more I have to do on the story I filed shortly before you arrived. It’s pretty brief, and Mister Pearse insisted on seeing it before it goes to press. Lowenthal has sent my copy over to the Pearses by messenger, just in case. They’ll provide a photograph for the paper.”

  “I don’t imagine that the Pearse’s demand sits well with Lowenthal,” said Esther. “Most reporters don’t do peer-group reviews, do they?”

  “Not the way you do for the National Geographic, or for academic publications, but we do have to be sure of our sources, and check the accuracy of any quotes we have, and our basic sources need to be vetted by another source,” said Poppy, reaching for her coat on the back of her chair. “I don’t know what it is that Mister Pearse is expecting; I wouldn’t be surprised if he asked for changes just to make sure we all know that he’s calling the shots. I kept the story brief and to the point, as he wanted me to, but that doesn’t mean that he and I will see eye-to-eye.”

  “I wouldn’t hold my breath,” her aunt advised.

  “No; I don’t plan to. I’m tending to think that he won’t give blanket approval. Sherman Pearse, as you say, needs to be in charge, or he has for as long as I’ve known him.” She paused, thinking of what Holte had told her in the Hudson, then shook it off. “I’ve been told that he used to harry his staff relentlessly. HOB was turning out just like his father, and GAD his opposite, but I guess you know that.”

  Esther looked around the room, and finally saw the clock. “One-forty. We ought to get underway.”

  “Do you have any place you’d like to go for lunch?” Poppy asked, securing the cover on her typewriter as a last duty before departing.

  “I haven’t been to Cooper’s Grill in the last three years. I know it’s ten miles from here, but I’d like to see how it’s faring, with Prohibition and all. It must be the very devil for all those hoteliers and tavern-keepers who depend on regular patrons who do business over drinks.” She started to make her way through the city-room desks, knowing that Poppy was behind her. “This is quite a busy place for early afternoon,” she remarked over the clatter of typewriters.

  “First deadline is at one-thirty, the second at three-thirty, when everything has to be in.”

  “When does the paper go to press?” Esther asked as she reached the door.

  “Regional edition goes to press at two-twenty, the trucks leave at three; Metropolitan goes to press at three-thirty, so that papers can be on the street no later than five. Most of the time, we get it out promptly.” Poppy recited this as if she no longer paid much attention to the schedule; it had become automatic. “There’s a bit more slack in the sports pages, but that’s because afternoon games and such don’t always finish on time.”

  “Doesn’t the Clarion bring out extra editions?” Esther asked as they started down the stairs. “I know I’ve seen them on the streets from time to time.”

  “Yes, it does, but not very often, and not necessarily for sports. I think the last time there was a sports extra was in 1921, after the Dempsey versus Charpentier fight. I’d started at the Clarion only two months before, and I couldn’t believe how much excitement there was for a boxing match. Everyone was talking about the contest. It wasn’t just the championship that excited the public as much as it was the one-point-seven million they took in at the gate at the fight itself that attracted attention.”

  “That’s an impressive haul, if you ask me,” said Esther, moving out of the way of a young man in a dark-blue suit who was in a hurry. “Do they all smoke, or is it my imagination?”

  “It often seems like it,” said Poppy.

  Esther nodded. “One-point-seven million. What a lot of money to watch two men hit one another in the face.”

  “It garnered a lot of press. We brought the extra edition out at six-thirty p.m., but then, the fight didn’t begin until three in the afternoon, and we had reporters standing by to monitor the wire. We had to chase the paper that day,” said Poppy, speeding up to avoid another reporter in a hurry. “As to the smoke, most reporters do, and never more than when coming up on deadline. Some days the city room is foggy with it.”

  “I trust you won’t take up the habit,” said Aunt Esther, then added, “I used to smoke occasionally, but I believe I have lost the taste for it. I have certainly gotten weary of the odor of cigarettes. Pipes aren’t quite so bad, but they too can end up smelling like charred rags. Cigars are the worst.” Once they were out of the Addison Newspaper Corporation building, Esther suggested that they hail a cab. “It will save you having to find a parking place when you return,” she said at her most practical, “and I will get home without adding to your delay. I know you can afford the cab fare. This isn’t just for our mutual convenience—I wouldn’t want to give Lowenthal any reason to have do
ubts about me, or you. He knows we’ll talk, since we live under the same roof, but I don’t want him to think either of us will take advantage of our relationship.”

  Poppy nodded, and stepped to the curb, her hand lifted, her hair blowing in the wind; she was pleased that her new crop was not as disorderly as her former style had been, and that it had dried while she worked at her desk. “I’ll be happy to pay for the cab Aunt Esther.”

  “There’s no reason for you to do that. If you want to, fine, but I’ll pay for my cab, going home.” She came up to the curb, clutching her portfolio against the gusting wind.

  “If you’d like it that way,” said Poppy, buttoning the collar on her coat. “Hang on to your hat Aunt Esther.”

  She pressed it down more firmly. “I will. At least it’s only wind,” she remarked and sighed. “There’s more rain on the way.”

  “That seems likely,” Poppy said, remembering what Holte had said, and went toward one of the new Checkers cabs that pulled up in response to her summons. She opened the back door and held it for Esther, then climbed in beside her. “Cooper’s Grill, on We—”

  “I know where it is,” the driver said in a thick Irish brogue, his arm out to warn approaching traffic that he was moving back into the stream. “Nine-and-a-half miles from here.”

  “That’s right,” said Esther, settling onto the upholstered rear seat. “Be careful of mud- puddles, please.”

  The driver began to whistle under his breath; it sounded a little like “The Minstrel Boy,” but it was not loud enough to be certain.

  During their taxi-ride, neither Poppy nor Esther spoke about anything but their coming engagements for the rest of the week; both of them were aware that a great many jarveys were not above selling overheard gossip to the Tattler and the Bugle. Poppy had the uneasy sensation that Aunt Esther was keeping something from her, but supposed that it had to do with her interview with Lowenthal, and so was able to keep from pestering her about it, knowing she would hear about it soon enough. When they were about five blocks from Cooper’s Grill, Esther said, “Miss Roth is taking a week off in mid-October. Her nephew is getting married, and she’s going to help her sister get ready for the occasion. She may leave a little early if her family needs her for more than they agreed upon. I’ve authorized her two weeks’ leave, if she needs them.”