“Did you come here for any reason beside spying on your wife, Mr. A’Reese?”
“You know, my name isn’t A’Reese. Just Reese.”
“Well, that’s comforting. Whyever did you say it was?”
“I think I must have stammered when first telling you. After that, I was weighing whether I preferred it.”
“It was the orthography I wondered about. Was it ‘A’ apostrophe Reese, as with O’Rourke? Or Ah Reese, like some name from the Orient.”
“I was picturing it with the apostrophe.”
“I suppose that is better—the other would look like a permanent stutter. But you didn’t answer my question. Why are you here in Portland?”
She’d caught me off guard. What with the Leverton-Klopheimer affair, her own depiction of licentious eels and literary pirates, Emmie’s stories of confidence men and snail women, and then the attempt on Mosher’s life—the arson case had completely slipped my memory.
“I’m an insurance investigator…. Here to look into the fire at a hotel on Cape Elizabeth.”
“Oh, yes. The torching of the Ocean View Hotel.”
“You suspect arson?”
“Oh, even our local constable was able to deduce that.”
“I understand it had just been completed.”
“Yes. They were just waiting for the furniture.”
“Any suspects?”
“No one, really. Some have tried to blame a beachcomber who has a shanty nearby. Apparently, he objected to having neighbors. But I think that was just so as to have some suspect.”
“Policemen have a habit of losing their discrimination the longer a case goes unsolved. By the way, I met Flo. Back at the shop.”
“Did you? Nice girl, don’t you think?”
“She didn’t speak as highly of you. Seems she suspects you of selling the stock and keeping the proceeds.”
“My heavens. How did she get that idea?”
“I believe it may have something to do with your sale of the Elite ribbon. You remember? The one with the five extra yards, that Melville used for Moby-Dick. And then there was the fact my silver dollar hadn’t made it to the cash drawer.”
“I suppose she demanded you return the ribbon?”
“No, insisted I buy it again. But this time for just seventy-five cents.”
“I apologize for my behavior, Mr. Reese. I will repay your dollar as soon as possible. But I’m afraid I’ve spent it already.” She looked down at a small box of groceries her feet were resting on. “It was desperation that drove me to it.”
“Desperation? You don’t make much on the columns?”
“Well, it’s hyperbole to call it desperation. The truth would lie somewhere between desperation and crass opportunism. My newspaper work, alas, pays little. The Cape Elizabeth Sentinel is a weekly with a modest circulation. But as I say, I will certainly pay you back.”
“Perhaps you could come by the Sea Cliff later and pay me back in trade.”
“Mr. Reese!”
“What?”
“What a presumption! I am not ‘in the trade,’ as you call it.”
“No, no—certainly not! I meant your trade as a journalist. I’ll be needing information of various types, things you might know from your work.”
“Oh, yes. Of course, you may count on me. I’ll stop by tomorrow morning. I usually go by to see if any important personages have checked in.”
“Do they get many important personages?”
“No, not often. But there are two literary figures there right now. The British authors Michael Field and Fiona Macleod. Both poets, and I believe each has an association with Thomas Mosher.”
“The pirate publisher? But these two aren’t pirates?”
“Not to my knowledge. Oh, this is my stop. Until tomorrow, Mr. Reese….”
I helped her off with the groceries and then a little later disembarked at the Sea Cliff—a large frame building, not fancy, but comfortable-looking, with a wide porch that wrapped all the way around. There was a crowd of people milling about the front desk, so I wandered out on the porch and began a circumnavigation. As it claimed, the hotel was situated atop a cliff and the view of the ocean was suitably striking. Even from the porch, I could hear the waves breaking on the beach below. I passed around the shady side and there encountered a big fellow with his feet up on the rail blocking my way. His hat had slid down his face and he seemed oblivious to my presence. As I negotiated a path through tables and chairs that had been pushed to the back, a waiter approached him.
“What’ll it be, Uncle Otis?”
“Blue pig,” the big fellow shrilled.
I’d been in a fair number of hotels in my time, and more dining establishments than you could count. But this blue pig was new to me. I went on my way and back to the lobby. The clerk was now free and I gave him my name.
“Yes, Mr. Reese. Your room’s all ready.”
“I’m going to need three rooms. Preferably, two adjacent.”
“Oh, I don’t think that will be possible. We’re booked full.”
I slipped five dollars under the register. He pretended not to notice so I followed it up with a ten-spot. They disappeared into a hip pocket.
“What luck, we’ve just had a cancellation. Two rooms with a connecting bath.”
“Put Mr. Merrill in the single you had for me. Richard Merrill. He’ll be arriving shortly. I’ll take one of the connecting rooms, and the other is for Miss Meegs.”
He raised his eyebrows, but I raised mine higher still.
“What is Miss Meegs’ first name?”
“Not sure, but if there is one, it begins with an ‘M’.”
He raised his eyebrows again, but this time ceded the field without a fight. It struck me as strange a hotel that advertised “fresh linen daily” would employ a fellow with such narrow views.
“Your luggage arrived earlier. I’ll have it moved to your new room.”
“How about the crate I had delivered? The scientific instruments?”
“Oh, just a moment, I’ll get Mr. Branscombe.”
He went into an office and came back with another fellow who introduced himself as Sam Branscombe, the hotel’s proprietor. He looked about forty-five, tall, with a moustache and the broad, phony smile you expect of a first-class hotelier.
“Please, Mr. Reese, won’t you step into my office?” He ushered me in and gestured toward a seat. “The ‘scientific instruments’ have been unpacked and placed in the cellar. You need simply tell the waiter when you want a… ah….”
“Bottle?”
“Yes. There will be no charge, beyond a small fee for the service. In addition to the two bottles.”
“In addition to what two bottles?”
“Well, it’s normal policy for the management to conserve two bottles of every case for its own uses. In lieu of a storage fee.” He looked at me as if he were waiting for me to thank him. When I didn’t, he moved on. “Mr. Ketchum told me you’d be working with him in the matter of the fire at the Ocean View. I do hope that can be resolved quickly and the rebuilding can commence.”
“You’re anxious to have a competing hotel open up?”
“Oh, I see. I don’t suppose you know yet, but I’m one of the investors in the Ocean View. There’s a shortage of rooms in the summer here, plenty of guests to go around. And it’ll be appealing to a somewhat more, eh…, discerning clientele.”
“And so you’ll keep this place open to snag the trade of the hoi polloi?”
“…to appeal to the more economically-minded traveler.” Then he rose and rang a bell to summon the man from the desk. “Well, I hope you have a pleasant stay with us. Ralph will have someone show you up to your room.”
We shook hands and the clerk led me out.
“I can show myself up,” I told him. “Is Ed Ketchum about the place?”
“Not at the moment. But he asked me to tell you he’d meet you here at four o’clock. It’s just quarter to now.”
“Thanks. You can tell him I’ll be in my room.” Just then Uncle Otis’s nephew came through with what looked like a strong iced tea on a tray. “And send up a blue pig.”
“Blue pig?”
“Yes. You do serve blue pigs, don’t you?”
“Well….” He looked back at Branscombe’s office. “Yes, of course.”
5
I was in washing my face when the waiter arrived and introduced me to my first blue pig. It was served over ice in a tall glass, with a slice of lemon floating on top. But it wasn’t tea. By my estimate, it held three shots of rye. I felt relieved. For a dry state, Maine wasn’t noticeably arid.
A little later, a somewhat haggard-looking Ed came to the door.
“Am I glad to see you, Harry.”
“Coming up short on arsonists?”
“Arsonists? Oh, I haven’t gotten too far with that, either.”
“What do you mean, ‘either’?”
“It’s Annie. I’ve lost her, Harry.”
“Yeah? Well, if I were you, I wouldn’t go looking for her. She was never right for you, Ed.”
“Harry, how can you say that? We’ve been married three years—we have two babies at home.”
“Hire a nurse and count your blessings.”
“She hasn’t actually left me yet. I was speaking figuratively. She’s here with me—I just mean I’ve lost her affection.”
I was with Ed when he met this Annie and there was little doubt that any affection she afforded him was mere lubricant. She was in a bad situation and he could get her out of it.
“Harry, you understand women better than I do.”
“True, but then every boy over the age of seven understands women better than you.”
“I asked them to send you specifically so you’d help with Annie.”
“Not to help with the arson?”
“That too, of course. Please, Harry.”
“All right, Ed. Meanwhile, maybe you can take me around to the scene of the fire.”
“Sure, Harry. It’s just a half mile from here.”
We left the hotel and walked south along the same road the street car traveled, passing through what would be called a “bucolic landscape” on a five-cent postcard: pastures and thickets, with a smattering of quaint cottages scattered about. At a sign announcing the Cape Cottage Casino and Theatre, the car tracks turned toward the shore and in to the resort.
A little further along we came to the scene of the fire. The Ocean View had been sited on a promontory with an even grander view than that of the Sea Cliff. But the only trace that remained of the hotel itself was a giant cellar hole filled with half-burnt timbers, and the acrid aroma of a recent fire. Ed directed me to a particular spot.
“Smell,” he instructed.
“Kerosene?”
“Yes, and almost a week after the fire. He must have used gallons of it.”
“Any idea who ‘he’ is?”
“The local constable seems out of his depth. I think he may have focused on a West Indian named Chambers. He lives in a shack, down at the base of the cliff. Apparently, he wasn’t keen on them building in what he considered his territory. But there’s nothing linking him to the fire.”
“Branscombe, back at the Sea Cliff, told me he was an investor in this. Do you know who else was?”
“It was being built by a corporation. I have a list of the investors back in my room. What did you make of Branscombe? Investing in a hotel just down the road from his own?”
“I guess he figured someone would be competing with him and he might as well have a finger in that pie, too. Besides, if he were going to torch one, it would make more sense to set fire to the older. Is he the sole owner of the Sea Cliff?”
“Yes, I looked into that.”
“What’s that going on down the road?” I nodded toward what looked like a building site.
“Another new hotel. They broke ground just a little after this one.” Then he became thoughtful, looking over the pile of charred wood that filled the cellar. “Say, Harry. There’s quite a lot of salvage here.”
“Salvage? About all it would be good for is another fire.”
“Yes, exactly my thinking.” His words trailed off as if he were talking to himself.
We started back toward the road, but he was still lost in his thoughts and missed noticing a shelf of bedrock that ran across the lot. He tripped. Then looked back accusingly, the way a drunk confronts the door jamb that’s accosted him.
Ed stood six foot seven, and even under normal circumstances had an ungainly way of going about. Having lost his balance, he swayed one way and then another, then, to keep from falling, charged forward into a little bramble. I helped him up.
“Must be an outcropping peeking through the soil,” he explained.
I handed him his hat and after a good deal of entreating agreed to have dinner with him and his wife.
“Thanks, Harry. By the way, I made an appointment with the contractor who was building the hotel, a fellow named Noyes. We’re to meet with him tomorrow morning. I thought he might have seen someone lurking about.”
We went up to his room and he retrieved the list of the corporation’s stockholders. Beside each name he’d made a notation. In addition to Branscombe, there was a ship owner, a banker, two lawyers, and a publisher—Thomas B. Mosher.
On reaching my room, I heard what sounded like the muffled giggling of a girl. At my touch, the door swung open and revealed what I took to be a man crouched over a woman he’d pinned to the bed. There was a horrified inhalation of breath as they both hopped up. Only then did I see it was two women. One dressed as a man, and the other a girl of no more than eighteen, beet red and frantically buttoning her shirtwaist.
“Hello, there,” the trousered one said. “Who might you be?”
“I believe this is my room.”
“Still, you might have knocked first.”
She was an English woman, no older than thirty, fair, and with her blonde hair bobbed short. She wore a man’s suit, complete with vest and colorful tie. But if her costume was intended to hide her femininity, it was inadequate to the task.
She turned to the still-blushing girl. “I must go, my conveniency. Later, I’ll come by your crib and we’ll swap lareovers.”
She picked up a derby from the floor and tapped it on her head. When she was gone the girl began pleading in a thick brogue.
“Please, forgive me, sir. I just come to put out the towels. Then she was upon me and started tickling.”
“I suppose playful guests count among the dangers for hotel chambermaids.”
“Oh, not here, sir.” She went to put towels in the bath and raised her voice to compensate. “Did you understand what she was saying as she left?”
“Sounded like some odd cant. Not my area of expertise, I’m afraid.”
“You think she’s a gypsy?” she asked.
“Didn’t look particularly gypsy-like.”
“Perhaps she’s a changeling!” She’d emerged from the bath, having taken the time to straighten her collar and tame her mane. “Stolen from her home by the gypsies.”
“Could be, I suppose. But I’d guess some other tribe.”
“Mrs. Field’s her name. ‘Delia,’ Mr. Field calls her. They each have their own bedroom.” She blushed again. “Oh, I hadn’t ought to have said that.”
“Well, I’ll forget you did.”
“Thank you, sir. If there’s anything else, just buzz the desk.”
She went off and a few minutes later Emmie arrived via the connecting bath.
“Do you have my luggage, Harry?”
“All in here. I didn’t know how far you wanted to take this charade.”
“Oh, quite some distance. And it’s not mere charade.” She picked up her two heaviest bags and began dragging them to her room. I picked up the small one she’d left behind and followed. She stopped, gave me one of her disgusted looks, and then left them all for me to carry in.
“Mosh
er arrive without getting killed?” I asked.
“Yes, he’s up in his room.”
“So, what’s your plan?”
“To expose his molester, of course. I have my methodology all mapped out. But I won’t require any assistance from you. How is your arson investigation proceeding?”
“Oh, as well as can be expected. I did learn one bit of information that may interest you. Mosher is a shareholder in the corporation that was building the torched hotel.”
“I don’t see anything odd in that. People like that invest in things.”
“Yes, I suppose so. Ed Ketchum is here. Wants us to have dinner with him and his wife. You remember Annie?”
She turned on me sharply. “You didn’t tell him I was here?”
“No, I hadn’t mentioned it yet.”
“I’m here as M.E. Meegs, not Emily Reese.” She held up her naked ring finger to bring home the point. “As far as you’re concerned, your wife is back in Brooklyn.”
“Is she? Maybe I should drop her a line, let her know I arrived safely.”
“I doubt she cares much one way or the other.”
“Already taken up with some paramour?”
“I think that’s a given.”
“Any candidates?”
“Three come immediately to mind. There’s the extraordinarily handsome and charming widower one floor below, Mr. Comerford.”
“I don’t believe I’ve met him.”
“I’m not surprised. No doubt she’s made it a point to keep you from meeting him.”
“Hmm, that does sound like her. And candidate number two?”
“Danny, the grocer’s boy.”
“Danny? He can’t be over sixteen.”
“Inexperienced, perhaps. But of boundless energy and always eager to please. And often makes his deliveries on languorous afternoons….”
“I never realized the helpmate spent much time in languor.”
“That shows how little you know her.”
“I’ll need to keep a closer watch on the old girl.”
“You mean spy on her? Track her every move? Surely that would merely drive her into the arms of your most formidable rival.”
“Candidate number three? What’s he like?”
Fair Play’s a Jewel (Harry Reese Mysteries Book 5) Page 4