Fair Play’s a Jewel (Harry Reese Mysteries Book 5)

by Robert Bruce Stewart

  This pretty much sums up my experience in the case of May Goodwin. My arrival came after the deceptions had been devised and half the characters, including Emmie, had donned misleading aliases. And though there were no men playing women dressed as men, there was no shortage of ambiguity.

  When we boarded the train the next morning, I was confident I had a firm grip on my little eel. But the complacency was short-lived. At the station I’d picked up a little pamphlet on the Maine coast, just to have something to read. It was written in the belabored prose common to boosterish literature and I was giving serious thought to tossing it out for the edification of the yokels of New Hampshire. Then I came upon a troubling discussion of eels assembling along the Maine coast to spawn….

  We arrived in the early part of a warm afternoon. Emmie was still maintaining she was headed to the Kotzschmar residence and I’d made no allusion to the fact I knew otherwise.

  A porter came and put our bags on a truck.

  “Where shall I have yours sent, Emmie?”

  “Have them sent?” Now the eel squirmed! She couldn’t very well give me the name of the hotel where I knew she had reservations. “I’m not sure of the exact address. I’m meeting Dot at a café nearby. I’ll have to send for the bags later.” Then she disappeared into a wash room.

  “Send these to the Sea Cliff Hotel, Cape Elizabeth.”

  “All of ’em?”

  “Yes, all of them.”

  “The lady said she’d send for hers.”

  “She did, but I’m the one who will be dispensing your tip.”

  “Seems to me, what you’re asking for goes beyond a tip.”

  “Then call it a bribe.”

  “Make it four bits and I’ll call it whatever you want.”

  I gave him his silver and asked where I could find the freight handler. He pointed to a little building off to the side.

  I rapped at the window and a man wearing the requisite green shade came over. “I sent a crate through to the Sea Cliff Hotel yesterday from Boston. The name’s Harry Reese. Can you tell me if it’s arrived yet?”

  “Was that the case of hock marked ‘Fragile, rare antiquities’ or the claret marked ‘Fragile, scientific instruments’?”

  “Ahh, the latter.”

  “Sent it over this morning.”

  I returned to the depot proper just as Emmie was emerging.

  “Shall I walk you to your rendezvous?” I asked.

  “No, thank you. Hadn’t you better proceed on to your investigation?”

  “Yes, I suppose so. Will I see you during your stay?”

  “Tomorrow evening I’ll come out to your hotel and we can have dinner.”

  I gave her a peck and went off toward the car to Cape Elizabeth. But only far enough to be out of her sight. Then I trailed her as she headed in the opposite direction. We went about six blocks as the crow flies, but it came out closer to twenty since Emmie was doing the navigating. Three times she asked for directions and each time necessitated a reversal of course.

  At long last, she entered a building on Exchange Street. The sign above read “Thomas B. Mosher, Publisher.” Hoping to remain inconspicuous, I entered an establishment just opposite that sold typewriters. One was in use as I entered.

  The typist, a small young woman, seemed not to have noticed my entrance. I silently stationed myself before the large front window and watched Mosher’s door. Then, without a pause in her typing, my companion broke the ice.

  “No charge for the view.”

  “Oh, I was just…”

  “Spying on someone?”

  “Well, my, ah…”

  “Your wife?”

  “Yes. You see…”

  “No need to explain. But I’m afraid you’ll need to buy something.”

  “Can’t I just browse?”

  “It would be more in keeping with your pretense were you to buy something.” She got up and went behind a counter. “I’d recommend the Royal Deluxe. That’s my favorite. The usual price is $75. But I could go as low as sixty.”

  “How about some smaller item? Say, an inexpensive ribbon.”

  “Hmm. Well, the Standard ribbon is just seventy-five cents. But I’d recommend the Elite, only a dollar and you get an extra five yards of ribbon. Quite a value. It’s said Melville wrote Moby-Dick using just one Elite ribbon.”

  I tossed her a silver dollar and she tossed me a ribbon. Then she got back to her typing.

  “Would you mind waving your arm above your head?” she asked.

  “Waving my arm?”

  “Yes. You see, I usually type to a metronome. Could you wave your arm like a metronome?”

  I gave it a try.

  “A little faster…. Faster still…. Oh, that’s perfect, Mister—?”

  “Ah, Reese.”

  “That’s perfect, Mr. A’Reese.”

  She went back to the typing for a bit, but then stopped.

  “I think it might be better if we change places.”

  “Change places?”

  “Yes. We move the typewriter over so my back is to the window and you’re several feet in front of me. That way we would be facing each other, and you could see out the window without drawing so much attention.”

  She was right. Standing before a plate-glass window waving an arm above your head might go unnoticed in some burgs, but on Exchange Street, Portland, it was a sight worth seeing.

  We rearranged ourselves and she went back to her typing and I to my metronoming.

  “Which establishment is it your wife has gone into?”

  “Thomas B. Mosher, Publisher.”

  “Ah, the pirate publisher of Portland.”

  “Pirate publisher?”

  “Oh, yes. Quite infamous, in certain circles….”

  “Do pirates have a need for publishers?”

  “Do… pirates… have… a need… for publishers…. Oh, dear.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I’m afraid I incorporated your question into my column.”

  “Does it not fit with the theme of it?”

  “No, not really. The first part is all about the spawning habits of the American eel.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “Joking? Certainly not. In Maine, one doesn’t joke about fisheries, Mr. A’Reese. Why would you think it amusing?”

  “Well, I often think of my wife as somewhat eel-like. You know—slippery. Then I find out she’s surreptitiously planned a trip to Portland and, a little later, that eels come here to spawn.”

  “You think your wife has come to Portland to spawn?”

  “Only in the broadest sense of the word. Certainly to spawn some intrigue.”

  “Well, if it’s any relief to you, the American eel is catadromous. They leave fresh water for the open sea when they wish to reproduce. No one is exactly sure where the spawning grounds are. My column is an attempt to inspire an image of the ensuing orgy.”

  “Orgy?”

  “Well, what other word could one use? Thousands, perhaps millions, of young eels, just barely of a mature age, head out to sea, unchaperoned, and then…. Well, they go at it. In one big… to-do. Probably for days at a time. Think of the writhing mass of flesh, the unbridled lust. It brings to mind the orgies of classical Rome, does it not?”

  “Yes, I can see the resemblance. And they go out to sea for the revel to avoid the moral censure of their elders?”

  “I’m not sure of that. Eels of any age are unlikely to be particularly scrupulous about morality. In my column, I conjecture that they adopted this catadromous behavior after the arrival of the Puritans in the early seventeenth century.”

  “Sound reasoning. Cotton Mather and company would have shown them the door if they let loose with any of that unbridled lust inland.”

  “They’d’ve raised Ned, all right. But our problem now is how to manage the shift to the new topic introduced by you: Do pirates have a need for publishers?”

  “Sounds like a formidable task.”


  “Fortunately, my columns are thought pieces and my readers expect a certain thematic latitude. We just need to find some commonality.”

  “I’d go with unbridled lust. Pirates were never keen on bridling in general, and lust least of all. Suppose this literary-minded pirate compares his sacking of Kingston to the sight of spawning eels? No shortage of writhing bodies when you sack a port town with a thriving red-light district.”

  “Excellent, Mr. A’Reese. I think I can take it from there.” She was typing furiously now. “Don’t forget the metronome. Change arms if you’d like. Any sign of your wife?”

  “No, she must still be in there. What sort of things does this Mosher publish?”

  “He does special editions of choice works, all hand-made. Some without the permission of their authors.”

  “They don’t sue him?”

  “The way our law is written, a copyright only need be honored if the work is published in the United States. So he is free to produce editions of works published elsewhere, provided they lack an American edition.”

  “I see. Free of legal constraint. But those who resent it call him a pirate?”

  “Precisely. Please don’t slow down now, Mr. A’Reese. Just another paragraph.” The typing paused. “Can you think of a euphemistic term for ‘nipple’?”

  “Nipple?”

  “Yes, it’s a family newspaper.”

  “Oh. How about ‘papilla’? That’s the Latin. Fits in with the Roman orgy analogy earlier.”

  “A little obscure, but properly exotic-sounding.” She’d resumed typing. “Did you study Latin in school, Mr. A’Reese?”

  “Just enough to get by.”

  “So you could recite the first part of Caesar’s Gallic Wars, a smattering of the Aeneid, and a complete catalogue of the female anatomy?”

  “That about sums it up. I take it you’re a scholar?”

  “No, just a poor, ignorant Yankee girl.” She began reading as she typed. “Ergo, the answer to the question, Do pirates have a need for publishers?, is a resounding yes.” She pulled her last page from the typewriter and was reading it over. “You may put down your arm now, Mr. A’Reese.”

  “Oh, yes. Thank you. How’d it turn out?”

  “Wonderfully. But I’ve no time to read it to you now. When Flo returns, please tell her I needed to make my deadline.”

  “Flo?”

  “Yes. She’s the girl who works here. Wanted to go meet her beau. I told her I’d watch the shop for her. But as I say, I need to run. She won’t be long. Good-bye.” With that she flew out the door.

  There was still no sign of Emmie, but a few minutes later Flo returned.

  “Where’s Nan?” she asked.

  “Nan? Oh, she had to run off to meet a deadline. Asked me to keep an eye on things.”

  “She did, did she? Last time I trust her. Did you want to buy anything?”

  “Already made a purchase. The Elite ribbon.” I waved the box at her.

  She went behind the counter and checked the cash drawer.

  “There’s no sign of a sale here.”

  “Isn’t there? I paid Nan for it. A silver dollar.”

  “There’s no silver dollar here.”

  “How curious. Well, why don’t I return it and contact Nan about my dollar?” I walked over and handed her the little box of ribbon.

  “This box has been torn.”

  “Not by me. It came that way.”

  “I’ll have to insist you pay for it. That will be seventy-five cents.”

  “Seventy-five? For the Elite ribbon?”

  “There is no Elite ribbon.”

  “Honestly? Well, I suppose you know your trade. But I find it difficult to believe Melville pounded out Moby-Dick without the extra five yards of ribbon.”

  I didn’t like the look she was giving me, so I paid her and left.

  3

  I crossed the street and peered into the pirate publisher’s window. The place had the look of a small bookshop, so I slipped in and quietly browsed the shelves. It didn’t take long for me to realize that Mosher’s taste in literature was not my own. His stock teemed with verse so rarefied I shuddered at each exposure. The last shudder was supplemented by a low groan, loud enough to draw the attention of an officious young woman working at a desk near the back. She rose and approached me.

  “May I help you?”

  “Oh, just looking for some light reading. I don’t suppose you have The Girl Proposition?”

  “The Girl Proposition?”

  “The latest volume of Fables in Slang. I believe this one concentrates on he-and-she fables.”

  “I haven’t the least idea what you’re talking about. But if you’re interested in fables, I can heartily recommend this translation of Andrew Lang’s.”

  She selected a small, delicate-looking booklet from the shelf and handed it to me. I fumbled in my attempt to treat it with care and it fell to the floor. She took it hard.

  From her anguished look you’d have thought her only child had gone overboard in a rough sea. When I started for it, she raised a hand to stop me and picked it up herself—then gave me a stern look as she pointedly flexed the cover along the crease created by the fall.

  “Perfect,” I said. “What’s the damage?”

  “I should think that’s obvious.”

  “Ah, how much for the book?”

  “Twenty-five cents,” she said, then led me to her desk and sat down. Apparently there was a lot of paperwork involved in buying a Mosher edition, even if it was of the two-bit, paper-bound sort.

  “I wonder, did a Miss Meegs come in this morning?”

  “Miss Meegs is in now with Mr. Mosher.” She pointed over her shoulder at a door toward the rear. “Are you an associate of Miss Meegs?”

  “Yes, that’s right. She asked me to meet her here. Is Mr. Leverton in with them as well?”

  “I know of no Mr. Leverton. But you may be seated and wait for Miss Meegs if you wish.” She gave me my change and motioned me to a chair just outside the door to Mosher’s sanctum.

  I sat down with my book—Aucassin & Nicolete, it was called—and pretended to be reading. The door had been left ajar, presumably for ventilation, and I could hear Emmie clearly. She was reading one of her stories, speaking the two parts of the dialogue in distinct voices. I came in on the middle of the tale, but recognized it immediately.

  “‘…Priests came and performed rites, some involving sacrifices. But no good came of it. No one could help the snail woman of Trieste. And she was ostracized on account of her great affliction.’

  ‘Snail woman, did you say?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, didn’t I mention that?’

  ‘Well, you mentioned her incurable affliction.’

  ‘No, my dear, you misunderstand. Though she has the body of a snail, she has the soul, and spirit, of a woman. No different from you and me.’

  ‘But surely that must pain her, longing for human love, yet unable….’

  ‘Oh, she has many loving friends. And if you mean romantic coupling, she has no need for it.’

  ‘Yes, many women take that attitude, but usually only after their hopes have been dashed.’

  ‘My dear, her hopes have not been dashed. When I say she has no need for romantic coupling, I’m speaking quite literally. Like many mollusks, she is hermaphroditic. She has dozens of children, but no need for a husband.’

  ‘Oh, I see. I suppose there are advantages to that arrangement. Provided one likes children.’

  ‘Yes, that is a bit of a problem,’ she agreed. ‘It’s easy enough to fend off the advances of a husband, but which of us doesn’t find herself irresistible?’”

  It went on for a good bit more, but that should be enough to give you a feeling for Emmie’s prose. When she finished, there was a pause. Then a fellow I assumed to be Mosher complimented her on her originality.

  “However did you get the idea for it?”

  “It was a matter of necessity,” she told hi
m. “You see, I was launching a literary magazine and the only illustrations I could come up with were some miscellaneous old woodblocks, one of which depicted a giant snail dressed as a woman and strolling on a beach. I thought at first of making her the snail woman of Asbury Park, but ‘The Snail Woman of Trieste’ seemed more natural.”

  “I see, the charm of the Old World…”

  “Yes, that, and since few of my readers were likely to have been to Trieste, there remained the possibility it was all quite true.”

  “To the romantic-minded…”

  “Or open-minded,” Emmie said. “And that brings me to the reason I’ve come to see you today. I’ve recently begun work on my magnum opus. A saga that lays bare the moral infirmities of the cultural elites living in a small American city via amusing anecdotes of their elaborate machinations. I’m sure you’re familiar with Lord Timothy Dexter?”

  “The original New England crank.”

  “And author of that celebrated work, A Pickle for the Knowing Ones.”

  “A gallimaufry of incoherence, celebrated for its offensive grammar, atrocious spelling, and having no punctuation at all.”

  “Yes, truly inspired,” Emmie pronounced.

  “Dexter was an uneducated egotist, who by good luck alone turned a profit on his foolish investments.”

  “Oh, yes, in all ways exemplary of the American success story.”

  “God help us. I hope you aren’t attempting a work similar to Pickle?” he asked incredulously.

  “Oh, no, certainly not. I wouldn’t dare aim so high. But one of my central characters is a Lord Dexter up-to-date, a like-minded reincarnation. I suspected you were a fellow devotee of Lord Timothy’s.”

  “Me? Whatever gave you that idea?” he asked.

  “Oh…, I just thought… being a fellow New Englander…, and a lover of rare books…,” Emmie struggled. Her bald attempt to insinuate herself into Mosher’s good graces had floundered. Now she had no choice but to tack into the wind. “In fact, it’s better that your attitude toward Lord Dexter be of a critical nature, as my books will not be kind to him.”