Living Spectres: a Chesterton Holte, Gentleman Haunt Mystery

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  “Not yet,” she said. “But with all the damage the storm did, he might not be able to telegraph the office yet. Transmitting cables might be down, or telegraph offices wrecked.”

  “I’ll call the Coast Guard and find out what they know; they’ll have the most current information,” said Loring with growing exuberance. “There might be something worthwhile in all this. About time.”

  “I hope so.” Feeling oddly guilty for not telling him that the Belle Helene might have sunk, Poppy went on, “If I find out anything more about Stacy, you’ll be the first to hear about it.” She wondered what Holte might be able to turn up in the dimension of ghosts, where she guessed he had gone.

  “Thanks. If I learn anything, I’ll pass it on,” Loring assured her.

  This was a good time to hang up, she thought, but instead she asked, “Have you any news on the Pearse case?”

  “Not yet,” he said, echoing her earlier response. “I gather that Blessing has agreed to go to Vienna and see what he can find.”

  “That’s good, isn’t it?” She started doodling on her desk-blotter with her pencil. “It gets things moving, doesn’t it?”

  “It’s better than nothing,” he said. “Blessing seems like the kind of man who can be trusted; I’m not sure I can say the same about the Austrians.”

  “Why?”

  “They have trouble enough without bothering about the Armenian refugees or one missing American college student. Think of what’s going on in Germany—the inflation there can’t be good for Austria.” He cleared his throat.

  “Have you said anything to the Pearses about this? Not the inflation, the difficulty of dealing with the Austrians.”

  “No; they’re apt to make a formal complaint about it if I say anything,” he said, still quietly. “All we need is diplomatic red tape fouling the works.”

  “You mean that they’d interfere on that level?” Poppy increased her doodling.

  “That’s exactly what I mean, and it’s the one thing we can’t afford. It’s hard enough to get the Austrian police to do anything about GAD now; add pressure and it will be doubly so.” He swallowed audibly. “That’s off the record, of course.”

  “I thought so,” she said, a bit distractedly; she found it disconcerting to have Holte missing when there had been potential news about Stacy as well as developments on the Pearse case. Her doodles grew still more extensive.

  As if he had read her thoughts, he asked, “Anything useful from your invisible friend?”

  Poppy dropped her pencil. “You know there isn’t, since there is no such person,” she said, more brusquely than she had intended. “Sorry. I’m still a little flummoxed about Stacy.”

  “I can see why,” said Loring, and faltered. “If you don’t want to get dragged into this part of the investigation, just tell me and I’ll make sure you aren’t kept informed.”

  Poppy reacted at once. “Oh, no. I want to know everything, even though I might not like it. I don’t want to have it left to my imagination.” She winced at the recollection of the nightmares that had followed her ordeal for more than a month after it had happened.

  Loring’s voice brightened. “Atta girl. I’ll let you know what I find out from the Coast Guard, okay? And you can let me know if you learn anything more about your cousin.” He was quiet for a second or two, then said, “Sorry. Have to go. I’ll talk to you tomorrow or Friday.” He took an audible breath. “If anything else turns up—”

  “I will keep you informed,” she said, and to her own perplexity, added, “Good luck.” She located her dropped pencil with her toe and began to roll it out from under her desk to where she could bend down and reach it.

  “Thanks. You, too,” he said, and hung up.

  After retrieving the pencil, Poppy sat still for more than a minute, staring at the far wall with her eyes focused some distance beyond it, her mind very nearly blank. When Gafney, three desks away, began coughing, Poppy recalled where she was and called herself to order, then got out bond, carbon paper, and onion-skin, aligned them and rolled them into the platen of her typewriter, although she had no idea what she was going to write. As she began to make a summary of her appointments and interviews of the last ten days, she could not shake off the nagging question, “Where is Chesterton Holte?”

  It would have startled Poppy to discover that Holte was not in the dimension of ghosts, but riding in a first-class train carriage on its way through the tempestuous night en route from Brussels to Vienna; he had caught up with N.Cubed Blessing as the detective had left his taxi at the train station in Brussels, bound for the ticket booth and platforms beyond; that was at sunset. Now he was going over the information that Blessing had received from the Pearses’ London solicitor that morning, reading over his old co-ordinator’s shoulder.

  “How much credence do you give this?” Blessing asked, holding up the sheaf of papers.

  “I’d say that it’s largely factually correct, but that means that a great deal has been left out,” said Holte. “Sherman Pearse is a punctilious man, but he does not usually take well to displays of emotion, which is why this dossier reads like a summary of school progress. That, and the solicitor isn’t apt to include emotional content.”

  “Mister Pearse is paying for airborne delivery of his records to Vienna, but that might only mean that he is impatient,” Blessing remarked as he rewound his muffler around his neck, for the railway car was growing chilly, first class or not.

  “It’s more than that: his wife thinks GAD has been kidnapped, and the longer there is no word from him, the more Mister Pearse may have to accept that as a possibility, and the outcry that goes with it. I believe that Pearse is hoping for a swift resolution to the case, so that the publicity around it is minimal.” Holte adjusted himself along the luggage rack, although this was more for Blessing’s benefit than his own.

  “Then he isn’t indifferent to his son,” said Blessing, looking reassured. “I was beginning to think that Mister Pearse was relieved to have his son among the missing.”

  “Well, GAD is the heir; Pearse and his wife lost their oldest son about four or five years ago. On the other hand, GAD is not the apple of his father’s eye, although he is worried about the lad’s being missing.” Holte was now lying horizontally in the luggage rack above Blessing’s seat rather than hanging in the air in front of it.

  “Do they have any other children?” Blessing asked.

  “I haven’t seen them, but Poppy says there are four girls and one boy—the boy is quite young—beyond GAD.”

  Blessing nodded emphatically. “So the missing heir is important to him.”

  “And especially to his mother; she’s almost frantic.” Holte floated down to the open place beside Blessing and did his best to sit on it without sinking into the seat.

  “Is that a problem?” Blessing glanced toward the window as a cluster of lights appeared in the distance ahead.

  “Mister Pearse has a strong dislike of the spotlight, as most of his class do, and Missus Pearse has been telling everyone she knows of her fears for her son; it is only a matter of time until there is a public outcry. Mister Pearse has forbidden the Philadelphia police to open an official file on this case, for fear it will end up in the Inquirer or the New York Times. In addition, a young lady who is not an acceptable daughter-in-law to the Pearses has spoken to a…disreputable newspaper about GAD’s disappearance, so there already is a degree of public awareness that GAD has vanished, however questionable the publication may be. The young lady herself comes from New Money and has a flamboyant nature, living in high alt, as my mother used to say. The other thing that Mister Pearse dreads almost as much as public attention, is the Federal Bureau of Investigation; he believes that they are too eager for attention, and that that could complicate the return of—”

  “I understand,” said Blessing. “And I agree with Pearse to a point. Too much of a hue and cry can interfere with a proper investigation, as you have reason to know.”

  Holte
lowered his head. “Lamentably.” He did not like to be reminded of his near- exposure as a spy while on his first mission in Holland, when a passing remark to a schoolboy ended up in the evening news. “I can sympathize with Pearse without having to like him. And good thing, too.” He would have liked to have made a greater show of his disapproval of Sherman Pearse, but was frustrated by his lack of corporeality.

  Blessing neatened the papers he held. “I’m going to take a little while to think this over, so that I can be prepared when I arrive in Vienna.”

  “You won’t get there until late Thursday, assuming there are no delays, and you make your connection in Strasbourg,” Holte reminded him.

  “I’ll need a fair amount of time to sort out the variables in this case, and riding in a train is a fine place to ruminate,” Blessing said at his most reserved. “Tell your latest…hauntee that you have spoken with me, if that will be useful to your mission.”

  Holte paused, then went ahead and asked, “In all that information, what, if any of it, is about the Living Spectres?”

  “Not very much: according to the Viennese sources, the group is led by the Armenian Orthodox Priest, Ahram Avaikian, numbers roughly two hundred adults and fifty or so children. They are sworn pacifists, are seeking a place to settle permanently, and most of them are as near to destitute as it is possible to be. Nothing new there.”

  “No, it doesn’t sound like it,” said Holte. He shook off the sudden gloom that had settled upon him. “Well, I guess I’ll be off, then. I’ll try to seek you out again in a day or so.”

  “Bring me news of any developments you can; you’re much faster than the post.” Blessing took out his pipe and tobacco pouch.

  “I will, and thank you.” Holte prepared to rise out of the train and proceed at ghost-speed to Philadelphia.

  “Just one thing,” Blessing said, halting Holte’s departure.

  “What is it?”

  “If you find GAD Pearse in the dimension of ghosts, try to discover where he’s buried and what happened to him, would you? So I can inform his family. It’s the least I can do.” Blessing reached into his inner jacket pocket and drew out a lighter. “I’d offer you some, but I know you would not enjoy it.”

  “I’ll let you know if I learn anything about GAD.” Holte did not respond to the jibe about the pipe.

  “Tally-ho,” said Blessing, as Holte faded from sight and left the train; it was the same thing N.Cubed used to say to his spies as he sent them out on assignment, Holte recalled, as he hastened westward.

  He arrived at Esther’s house shortly before six, and found Poppy and Esther in the sitting room with drinks in their hand and a platter of finger-food on the table between them; Holte took care to avoid the overhead two-bulb fixture, but was not so lucky with one of the sconce-bulbs which flickered as he moved along the wall. He saw Poppy turn toward the fixture, an expression of near-welcome on her tired features.

  “Not another bulb going,” Esther complained. She set down her balloon-glass of twenty- year-old brandy and got up from the settee to go tap the offending bulb; it stayed strong. “Must be the wind, though if it is, you’d think more than one light would blink, wouldn’t you?” She glared at the sconce.

  “It could be a fuse,” Poppy suggested.

  Esther shrugged. “We’ll find out soon enough, if the lights all go out,” she said, and came back to her place on the settee. “They say we’ll have more rain tomorrow, if you believe the Weather Service.”

  “So I’ve heard,” Poppy said, and had another sip of cognac. “I’m going to buy a proper raincoat this coming Saturday. I can’t continue to ruin my cashmere coats. The one I wore today is a dead loss, and I only have two others. I don’t even know if it’s worth donating my wet one to St. Clement’s charity-box.”

  “Someone could make a child’s coat from it, I’d think,” said Esther.

  Holte found a comfortable place near the ceiling in the southwest corner of the room and settled down to watch and listen.

  “Why not go out tomorrow? I’d wager that Lowenthal would give you an extra half-hour for lunch if you told him what you wanted to do. He can’t want you to go about dripping while you work, can he.” Esther picked up a bacon-wrapped broiled scallop and used the toothpick transfixing it to dunk it into the fig-and-olive tapenade. “I don’t know how Missus Sassoro comes up with these treats, but I have to say I’m always delighted when she does.” She bit the scallop with its portion of bacon neatly in half.

  “It’s her heritage coming out,” Poppy said, not quite seriously.

  “Possibly, but whatever accounts for it, I’m very pleased with the results,” said Esther chewing, and took the rest of the scallop with the same precision.

  Poppy tasted her cognac again, and stared at the ceiling, looking for the faint but familiar smudge that identified Holte; she did not spot him at first, and when she did, she gave a little smile. “I don’t know what was so exhausting about today, but it has knocked the stuffing out of me.” She wanted to rub her eyes, but feared that it would smear her mascara.

  “A good meal and a hot toddy this evening should set you to rights, come morning,” Esther said with her usual energetic encouragement. “The rain makes life a little enervating, but a good raincoat will help that. The sooner you get one, the sooner you won’t feel the damp so much. There’s nothing to be gained from delay, not with winter coming. You might look for a pair of galoshes, as well. You don’t want to go around in wet shoes all the time, do you? I’ve noticed that you’ve had wet shoes.”

  This pragmatic advice took Poppy’s attention away from her search for Holte, and she said, “I suppose you’re right, but I do hate shopping in the rain. It’s so dreary.”

  “Dreary or not, the sooner done, the soonest mended…or fixed,” Esther said, more bracingly than before.

  “I’ll see what I can arrange,” Poppy said, succumbing to her aunt’s energetic support. “It’ll depend on how the news goes whether Lowenthal will spare me the time.”

  Satisfied that she had set Poppy on the right track, Esther abandoned her affectionate ballyragging. “Have a scallop or two before I eat them all; I won’t have any appetite for dinner, and that would annoy Missus Sassoro,” she recommended.

  Obediently, Poppy selected one of the scallops nearest to her on the platter, and poked it into the tapenade. She took a bite and was pleased to agree with her aunt: it was delicious. “I’ll have another shortly.”

  “See that you do,” said Esther, taking a more generous swig of her brandy. “This is just the thing on a dank night like this one.”

  “Yes,” said Poppy, and helped herself to a second scallop. “You mentioned winter: do you think we’ll have an early one?” As she spoke, she wondered if Holte could offer any advice on the weather, or if, by being noncorporeal, he had no need to pay attention to it.

  “Galliard says it will be a hard one, though not very early—something to do with the pyracantha berries.” She selected another scallop. “How’s the winter coat growing in on that dratted cat of yours?”

  “He has a lot of fur at the best of times, so it’s hard to tell,” Poppy said around the scallop she was consuming.

  “Miss Roth tells me that he sheds a lot,” Esther said. “Not a complaint, mind you, but an observation.”

  “She told me that she’d like to take the carpet-sweeper to him, so she wouldn’t have to do the floors every other day. I said she could, if she could catch him.” Poppy picked up a tea-napkin and wiped the grease from her fingers.

  “I have to confess that I didn’t expect to like him, but he’s appealing, in an aloof sort of way.” Esther finished her brandy and added a bit more to her glass. “I’m going to be in this evening, the last time this week, so I want to make the most of the peace and quiet.”

  “It’s your house Aunt Esther,” said Poppy. “You may do as you like in it.”

  “That’s not Jo’s opinion,” Esther said with a sharp laugh.

  “We
ll, no, it wouldn’t be. She is wedded to her notion of correctness, and at this point, there’s no changing her. I surmise that you and she have had words recently? Beyond her morning call. How did you come to speak to her twice in one day,” Poppy said, putting her hand over the top of her glass in response to Esther’s proffer of the bottle of cognac.

  Esther nodded. “I made the mistake of calling her this afternoon when I got back from lunching with you. I intended to learn more about the post card, but she accused me of snooping—which I was—and decided to rake me over the coals in regard to everything she could think of. Hearing about it all from her, you’d believe that I deliberately snubbed everyone in our social set, and that I had cast a shadow over all the family because of it. Since Isme Greenloch declined to attend our party, the rumors have been buzzing among the upper crust, most of whom are cautious about including me among their guests unless I have an acceptable escort with me, in any case.”

  “But you’re busy the rest of the week, in spite of that,” said Poppy.

  “Two evenings are reciprocal invitations for our party, Isme Greenloch’s being the most significant, because she decided not to come to ours. She’s attempting to make amends for the slight. And Moira Sauers has asked me to speak to the Women’s Political Society about the coming election. There’s a small honorarium, which I shall donate right back to the group. We may have the vote now, but there is much more to be done.”

  “What will you be speaking about?” Poppy inquired.

  “Oh, the usual: women’s place is not wholly in the home, that there is no error in getting an education to do more than teach grammar school, run the local library, or nurse the sick and injured. Marriage isn’t the only honorable career for females. Eugenia Perkins will probably take me to task for advocating a turn away from womanliness, meaning marriage and motherhood. She usually does. I know better than to fight with her, there’s no point to it. At least she supports the vote for women, which is more than many others do. Yet I hope some of the younger women attending will at least think about what I say, and get enough backbone to stand up to the family pressures.” She sighed. “It’s not easy, as you know as well as I, but in the long run, it’s worth the struggle.”