First Blush: A Meegs Miscellany (A Harry Reese Mystery)
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Herr Kleinhempel had heard those words many times before and the outcome was nearly always the same. So it would be again. He was, after all, still feeling contrite for having wrongly suspected his wife. And certainly the affection she’d lavished that afternoon was deserving of some form of… commemoration.
Archie and Mrs. Biddle both left the room $2,700 the richer. But it was Timothy Dexter who came out on top. Herr Kleinhempel’s check for $8,000 amounted to a 60% return on the bracelet. What’s more, he succeeded in pocketing what he dubbed the “comely deed” without spending a dollar of Confederate currency.
8
On her way out of the reading room, Mrs. Biddle came upon Mélisande observing the scene from the shadows.
“The baby!” she reminded the girl.
“It’s OK. Your lover is there, he waits for you.”
Back in their cabin, they found Tomasz dressed in a flowery kimono with Eugenia in his lap, humming a lullaby.
“Lady Eleanor, at last…”
“M. Szczęsny, I’m sorry. I was detained. And now it’s so very late. But I expect we will be seeing a good deal of one another. Lord Dexter has offered me a position in his court.”
“A position in his court?”
“Yes, I’m to be his theosopher.”
“You’re coming to Byblos?”
“Yes, I am.”
“That is wonderful!”
“Well, we shall see about that. But perhaps now we should all get some sleep?”
“Yes, yes, of course.”
Mélisande reached under the bed and brought out his clothing in a heap. Tomasz took it up and made a short bow. Then, as he toddled happily off to his cabin, Mrs. Biddle dashed for the bathroom—the three cognacs had waited long enough.
The next morning, Mélisande asked about this “Byblos.”
“It’s a few hours from New York. I’ve never been there, but don’t expect much.”
“Why don’t we stay in New York?” the girl asked.
“Because there is something I must see to in Byblos. If you come and help me, I will give you enough to come back to New York later.”
“How long?”
“A month, maybe more, maybe less.”
“How much will you give me?”
“Five hundred dollars. Agreed?”
“OK. But I will see a little of New York before we go to… Byblos?”
“Yes, but we will be taking a morning train tomorrow. There’s one more thing. We must travel separately. I can’t be seen with the baby. When we get to Byblos, you and she will stay elsewhere. I’ll come whenever I can. Now I have something to give you.” She removed a fifty-dollar bill from her bag and held it out to Mélisande. The girl grabbed it, but Mrs. Biddle had not yet released her end. “It’s not a gift. You are to use this only in an emergency.”
“Emergency?”
“Dans les circonstances critiques.” Only when the girl nodded did Mrs. Biddle release her end of the banknote. “The most important thing to remember is that you can trust no one, including my associates.”
“Associates?”
“The people I’m traveling with, Cobb and Dexter.”
“What about the Polish boy?”
“What about him? You haven’t gone soft on him, have you?”
“Bah! No, I have not gone soft on him. But he does not seem dangerous.”
“Well, he may be a danger of a different sort. Don’t tell him you’re going to Byblos.”
“I’ll tell him I’m going home to Pittsbourg.”
“Yes, tell him you’re going home to Pittsbourg,” Mrs. Biddle smiled.
It was almost noon when the Kronprinz Wilhelm finally docked at the Lloyd line’s Hoboken pier. Lord Dexter and his party were at the front of the queue, but this time the aristocrats were forced to give way. First off the boat would be the two New York police detectives who’d boarded with the pilot off Sandy Hook. Accompanying them was the man sometimes known as Dowling—though five weeks before, when taken into custody by the same two detectives, he had been using the name Leyland. As he passed his daughter, he stopped and addressed her, sotto voce.
“You may consider your share a christening gift for my granddaughter. But you may be sure,” he went on, turning now to encompass Archie Cobb, “both of you may be sure, I’ll be looking you up in your new home.”
Mrs. Biddle looked over him to the policemen. “Please take that tiresome old man away.” Then she looked over her shoulder at Cobb.
“I never said a word about the child,” Archie quickly assured her.
The tension was broken when a grateful Oskar came forward and offered to escort Lady Eleanor off the boat. To Tomasz, still laboring under the misapprehension that the assistant purser was a hired assassin, his approach bore all the hallmarks of an assault. The misguided Pole flung himself at Oskar, but with such a complete lack of precision that he soon found himself sailing over the rail of the gangplank. As his jacket billowed in the wind, a well-thumbed page of writing paper slipped from an inside pocket and was sent skyward by a sudden updraft. Unhappily, the gust did nothing to delay Tomasz’s rendezvous with the malodorous brine below.
Once he’d fished out his secretary and lied his way through Customs, Lord Dexter took his ill-equipped entourage on a shopping spree. Archie would need a wardrobe befitting the Viscount of Abernethy, Lady Eleanor the garb of a theosopher—and Tomasz something that didn’t smell of Hoboken bilge water. But the first order of business was to replace the bracelet for his daughter that he’d sold to Herr Kleinhempel.
Mrs. Biddle suggested a visit to Tiffany’s, and there helped him choose a replacement which compensated for its comparative lack of craftsmanship with more, and larger, diamonds. At $6,000 it came dearer than the original, but with the profit from the latter’s sale and the avoidance of duty, Lord Dexter calculated that he was still ahead $3,200.
Herr Kleinhempel wasn’t so lucky avoiding the duty that afternoon, there being a discrepancy between the customs form he’d carefully filled out the evening before and the contents of his wife’s jewelry box. They’d spent a trying hour extricating themselves and were only now arriving at their Manhattan hotel.
While her husband paid the driver, Frau Kleinhempel descended from the cab with the help of the doorman. Just as she reached the sidewalk, a page of stationery carried by a strong breeze wafted against her face. It bore a familiar scent. She took it in her hand and read…. Mein Gott! It was the compromising letter with the piquant penultimate paragraph!
The next moment, her husband was coming toward her. “What’s that, my dear?”
In one deft movement, the lavender-scented lady crumpled the page into her fist and swooned. The doorman caught her and brought her to a bench.
“Quick,” he told Herr Kleinhempel, “go inside and fetch a doctor.”
As soon as her husband was safely away, Frau Kleinhempel opened a wary eye and began eating the piquant letter. The doorman, of course, noticed nothing, and for three weeks he and his wife dined off of his discretion.
Meanwhile, Tomasz, still damp from his dunking and bearing a scent quite unlike lavender, had been sent to settle with Tiffany’s cashier while the others of his party retired to a cozy café just down the street. He counted out sixty of the apricot-toned banknotes Lord Dexter had given him and then waited for the cashier to hand him the receipt. Later that afternoon, after satisfying Tiffany & Co. with a check drawn on a New York bank, his playful employer bailed him out at the Jefferson Market Police Court.
Lady Eleanor begged off dinner that evening. She was exhausted, she told the others, and would have something brought to her. At seven o’clock, she left her room on the fifth floor of the Plaza Hotel and stole down to that of Mélisande one floor below. She came bearing gifts.
“Where have you been?” the girl asked. “I haven’t seen any of New York.”
“You’ve plenty of time. I’ve brought you some things.”
Mrs. Biddle set the packages on
the bed and one by one Mélisande opened them and donned their contents. When she had finished, she looked the part of a sophisticated American girl, though undoubtedly one of moderate means. Mrs. Biddle’s generosity only went so far.
“Go down to the lobby,” she instructed while adding a silver brooch to the ensemble. “A Miss Springer will meet you there. Miriam Springer. I told her you are the daughter of a French artist.”
“Who is Miss Springer?”
“A friend of mine. She will show you New York.” Mrs. Biddle took out another fifty dollars and handed it to Mélisande.
“Is this from my five hundred dollars?” the girl asked.
“No. This is for tonight.”
“How could I spend fifty dollars in one night?”
“You’ve never been to New York. Remember, don’t let Miss Springer out of your sight. And do not take up with any men. They aren’t all like those boys you met in Étaples. Now go, and be back by dawn. We catch an early train.”
Mélisande gave her a peck on the cheek and went off. She was very pleased, and sincerely grateful. But as she waited for the elevator, she took off the simple silver brooch and replaced it with the colorful cloisonné one the lady in cabin 12 had provided her.
That night, and for many more to follow, Eugenia slumbered to the drip… drip… drip… of American plumbing.
~~~ ~~~ ~~~
The End
~~~ ~~~ ~~~
Thus ends the first novella. I do so hope you’ve enjoyed it, and that it’s whetted your appetite for the second course of this sumptuous verbal feast. You see, it just so happens that the second novella, Peddlers All, is on sale and awaiting your pleasure. In it, you will find my gripping account of how I come to be telling this most extraordinary saga.
Peddlers All, on sale at Amazon
Those curious as to how Mélisande spent her evening in New York may wish to read “An Outing on Manhattan,” the second tale in Mélisande’s own book, The Fly Maiden’s Book of Virtues, which is available to the most devoted of readers at the ByblosForetold.com web site.
Glossary
cold deck : a crooked deck of cards
expectorial : involving spittle
fly : street-wise; hip
gadoue : French slang for a low prostitute
genetrix : a woman who has given birth
queer : counterfeit
Byblos Foretold: The Great Novaplex
What is a novaplex? Put simply, it is a revolutionary literary form which transcends the limits of the novel and challenges the conventions of the marketplace. More specifically, Byblos Foretold is the complex chronicle of an extraordinary troupe of Americans—native and émigré, rich and poor, ruthless and artful, and even, occasionally, sympathetic.
But most of all, this is a work in progress. To follow developments, you need only stop by ByblosForetold.com
– M.E. Meegs