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

by Robert Bruce Stewart

  “Something like that.”

  “But why would anyone paying to build it want to burn it down?” he asked.

  “Can’t say. Why would anyone else burn it down?”

  “I’ve no idea.”

  “What about the beachcomber?”

  “Him? Oh, I wouldn’t take what he said seriously.”

  “Had he made threats?” I asked.

  “I wouldn’t call them threats. Silly, really. He told a couple of my men he’d put a curse on the place. But he was just pulling their legs.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “Well, for one thing, he wouldn’t have the money to buy the kerosene. And if he did have the money, he wouldn’t spend it on kerosene.”

  “Maybe there was a competitor who didn’t want it built?”

  “These days, all the hotels are full for the summer. Burning one wouldn’t make much difference. Though the Ocean View would have stood out from the others.”

  “Would have?” I asked.

  “Will, of course.”

  “What about the other hotel being built just down the road?”

  “I know the people building there. I’m sure they’d have nothing to do with it.”

  “Can you name them?” I asked. He gave me three names and I jotted them down. “Do you know a fellow named Jack Taber?”

  “The actor? He did some small jobs for me on his off days a while back.”

  “But not lately?”

  “Well, some things were stolen from the site about the same time. Might not have had anything to do with him. But…”

  “But they stopped going missing afterward?”

  “Yes,” he said. “What’s he have to do with this?”

  “Can’t say. Did he harbor any resentment about your letting him go?”

  “Of course. You see, he was dropped by the theatre company.”

  “What about May Goodwin?” I asked.

  “The girl who died at the hotel last night?”

  “Yes. How’d you find out about it?”

  “The milkman told my housekeeper. I’d see her about. Until a few weeks ago she was also with the theatre company. But why bring her up?”

  “Last night I overheard a conversation between Miss Goodwin and this Taber. He said you told him her lover was behind something.”

  “What lover?”

  “That’s what I was hoping you could tell me.”

  “I barely knew her. And certainly wasn’t privy to her amours.”

  “But do you remember a conversation with Taber? Perhaps about the fire?”

  “No, for the simple reason it never took place. Either he lied, or you misunderstood.” He turned the conversation back to the girl. “What do they think she died of?”

  “She may have been poisoned.”

  “Poisoned?” He posed the question in a surprised tone, but only after his lips, ever so briefly, turned up at the corners.

  I thanked Noyes, and Ed and I started back to the hotel. When we reached the front of the house, Ed told me he’d thought of something he’d forgotten to mention. He went off and a minute later returned.

  “What was that about?” I asked.

  “Oh. I just wanted to let him know I’d be taking those timbers from the site.” Then he abruptly changed the subject. “Do you think he was lying about not having had that conversation with Taber?”

  “More than likely.”

  When we reached the shore road, he told me he needed to catch a car into Portland in order to find a chemist.

  “What do you need with a chemist?” I asked.

  “Technical stuff, Harry. You wouldn’t understand.”

  He hopped on a car and I continued on my way, pondering why he was being so uncharacteristically secretive. Still pondering, I passed the hotel and then turned down the familiar path to the beach. Rounding a thicket near the old cottage, I collided with Emmie.

  “I’m trying to stay out of sight,” she told me.

  “Any particular reason?”

  Before she would answer, she led me behind an evergreen back near the road.

  “I’m keeping watch on Mr. Mosher. He’s just gone for a swim.”

  “Any arrows whizzing by?” I asked.

  “No, but someone tried to drown him.”

  “Who?”

  “He’d waded out until the water was up to his neck, and then suddenly was swept under. When he returned to shore, he told me it felt as if someone pulled him down by his ankles. A moment later, I saw a man surface, about 20 yards off. He took a deep breath and went back underwater. I watched as he swam off around the point and then lost sight of him.”

  “It’s called an undertow,” I told her.

  “What’s called an undertow?”

  “As a wave recedes from the shore, it creates an outward current beneath the waves coming shoreward. A strong undertow feels exactly like someone tugging at your ankles.”

  “You know your problem, Harry? You think that in all cases, the simplest explanation is the likeliest. It’s the Achilles’ heel of your cherished rationality. Well, in this case, I happen to know you’re wrong.”

  I was about to ask her how she knew, when she put a finger to her lips and pointed toward Mosher coming up the path. He turned into a pasture, presumably as a shortcut to the hotel. Emmie and I followed on a parallel course along the road, darting from tree to tree, thicket to thicket—one of the latter being a brier of wild roses and raspberries. Disentangling ourselves was a bit of a challenge, Emmie having to loosen her shirtwaist to avoid damaging it. When we emerged, Mosher was nowhere to be seen.

  Emmie was still buttoning up when Fiona Macleod and her chow came upon us from the direction of the hotel. I almost didn’t recognize her fully dressed. Her hair was now done up neatly and topped with a stylish hat. She was by no means a beauty, and her face too heavy to call handsome. But she had a playful smile and used it to advantage.

  “Miss Meegs, what a lovely surprise. At least I hope it wasn’t I who surprised you?”

  “Oh, no. Not at all. I was just showing Mr. Reese some raspberries. My waist got caught…. This is Harry Reese, my secretary.”

  “Your secretary? Do tell, Mr. Reese, how did you find the raspberries?”

  “Not as sweet as I remembered. But I think you and I crossed paths earlier this morning.”

  “Did we?”

  “Yes, in the Fields’ suite.”

  “Oh, that unpleasant episode.”

  “Well, the death of a young woman could never be called pleasant.”

  “I wouldn’t say categorically,” Miss Macleod replied. “Perhaps you’ll join me for lunch? I’m having a hamper prepared.”

  “I’d love to,” Emmie responded.

  “And Mr. Reese, of course.”

  “Oh, he has far too much to do this afternoon.”

  “No I don’t.”

  “What about that correspondence?”

  “I’d just mailed it off when you pulled me into the bushes.”

  “And don’t forget you need to go into Portland… to have my parasol repaired.”

  “Why bother? A little sun would do you good.”

  “Then it’s settled,” Miss Macleod declared. “We’ll meet at one on the veranda. Now I must chase after the bloody dog. Whim!”

  She went off and we proceeded toward the hotel.

  “The death of what young woman?” Emmie asked.

  “Her name was May Goodwin.”

  “The woman you were eavesdropping on last night?”

  “Seems so, yes. She was found dead this morning in the Fields’ sitting room. I was there when the constable interviewed them.”

  “Are you sure the man you met was Michael Field, the poet?”

  “He seems to think he is. How is it you missed hearing about the girl’s poisoning? The whole hotel turned out for it.”

  “Mr. Mosher likes to get an early start. We must have walked five miles before he even went in for his swim. Did you say pois
oning?”

  “That was a conjecture on the part of the doctor,” I told her. “He’s doing an autopsy this afternoon.”

  “Why was it she was found in the Fields’ sitting room?”

  “She’d come to speak with them about some play they’re doing. Then complained of feeling ill and fell asleep on the couch. No one realized she was dead until morning.”

  “And Miss Macleod was there as a friend of the Fields’?”

  “The man himself had already exited. But she didn’t seem to be on very friendly terms with his wife. She came in to retrieve her dog. He’d gotten shut up with Mrs. Field and Annie. You see, Mrs. Field was showing Annie her china.”

  “Her china?”

  “Yes, and she was pretty frisky about it. Annie came out looking as if she’d just put in an evening’s work back in Glens Falls.”

  “And what were you doing there?”

  “Well, Annie seems to be a devotee of this Field fellow. When she saw a corpse being brought down and heard it had come from his suite, she ran up to make sure he was unscathed. Ed naturally followed.”

  “And you?”

  “Just observing. Mrs. Field invited me in for coffee and doughnuts while the local constable made his inquiries. Then my collaborator, Nan Tway, showed up.”

  “Your collaborator?”

  By then we had reached the lobby of the hotel, so I answered her question by purchasing a copy of the Cape Elizabeth Sentinel from the newsstand and showing her the column.

  “Unfortunately, my efforts have gone unattributed, but the transition to the literary pirates was my idea.”

  We went up to my room and Emmie sat down. She’d been reading intently since I’d handed her the paper, and now I was reading over her shoulder.

  “Papilla?” she asked.

  “It’s a family newspaper. The sack of Kingston was my idea, but the atmosphere is all Miss Tway. Not to mention the eel orgy.”

  When she finished, she sat holding the newspaper and looking bewildered. I relished the moment. Emmie inhabits a world so completely detached from reality she’s come to imagine she has a monopoly on the dispensing of bewilderment. But the cumulative effect of the poisoning of May Goodwin in a noted poet’s sitting room, his wife’s spirited exchange of wares with Annie, Nan’s lurid depiction of the eel orgy, and, finally, the buccaneers’ sacking of Kingston had left her unaccustomedly dumbstruck.

  She was in the bath recovering when there was a knock at her door.

  “I’ll get it.”

  “Wait, Harry. You needn’t bother.” She stood up in the tub and tried to stop me as I passed.

  “No bother.”

  I went in and closed the bathroom door, then greeted her visitor. He was a lad of about thirteen, dripping wet, but otherwise bore a striking resemblance to Danny, the grocer’s boy.

  “Who’re you?” he asked.

  “Miss Meegs’ valet.”

  “Oh. I came to get my buzzard.”

  “Buzzard?”

  “The silver dollar she promised me.”

  “For…?”

  “She knows what for.”

  “Yes, but I keep her accounts.”

  “Dunking her old man, that’s what for.”

  I handed him the dollar. “I’ll just put it down as services rendered.”

  “An’ tell her if she wants those other services rendered, there won’t be no charge.”

  “Which other services?”

  “She knows.” He gave me a wink and went off tossing his coin.

  A second later, Emmie opened the door from the bath.

  “Who was that?” she asked innocently.

  “Your husband’s assassin.”

  “Oh. I can explain, Harry.”

  “No need, Emmie. I can guess. You were afraid Mosher’s tormentor might have given up. So you hired that boy to do some tormenting.”

  “I wouldn’t call it tormenting…. I only wished to keep Mr. Mosher on his toes, prepared for the very real danger that lies ahead.”

  It’s one of the inviolate rules of nature: Emmie always has an explanation. If George Washington’s father had found her with a hatchet in her hand, and the corpse of his favorite cherry tree lying at her feet, she would have explained how she had sacrificed the tree in order to save the plantation from an incurable blight. Then quickly burned the evidence.

  9

  We found Miss Macleod waiting in the yard.

  “The hamper is just over there, Mr. Reese, if you don’t mind carrying it.”

  I picked up a large basket more suitable for a pack horse and we went on our way.

  Emmie had cautioned me not to embarrass myself by intruding into a conversation that would likely be over my head. But she, too, seemed out of her depth.

  “I was wondering what you think of the Irish poets, Miss Macleod. I imagine you’ve met Mr. Yeats?”

  “Yeats? Don’t get on with him, really. If it’s Irish songs you’re wanting, you’ll do no better than Donny O’Kane.”

  “I’m afraid I’ve never heard of Donny O’Kane. Are these lyrical poems of his done in Gaelic? I’ve been attempting some of Douglas Hyde’s works, but am having a hard time in the original Irish.”

  “Oh, if it’s original Irish you want, it’s Big Jim Kieffer you ought to see.”

  “Big Jim?” Emmie asked.

  “It’s ironical—he’s pint-sized,” the poetess told her. “Let’s go off here. There’s a lovely beach down below.”

  The path she indicated skirted round the scene of the fire, then took us down a jagged cliff. It was another cove, similar to the one I’d visited the evening before—a horseshoe-shaped beach of coarse sand with cliffs above and demarcated by rocky points at either end. It was empty but for a little shanty at the far end nestled above the high-tide mark.

  We put down a blanket on a stone ledge and spread out the simple fare Miss Macleod had procured—bread, sausage, cheese, and several bottles of English ale.

  “Isn’t this lovely, to taste the sun. Reminds me of trips to Brighton.”

  “Do you live in London?” Emmie asked her.

  “Did. Seems long ago now. Nothing beats a childhood in the city. Good and bad. How long you two been together now?”

  “Together? Mr. Reese has been in my employ for a year.”

  “Oh, come, love. You don’t think I see through that? No secretary would put up with the way you treat him, or be so insolent toward you. He’s yours, like it or not. And I guess you must like it enough. Or you wouldn’t be wearing this….”

  She reached her hand down the back of Emmie’s neck and pulled out the string that held her wedding band.

  “I saw the shadow of the ring on your finger last night,” she told Emmie. “And figured maybe you left someone, or he left you. But when you came out of the bushes, I saw you tuck that in. He has you on a string, he does.”

  She laughed and Emmie blushed. Emmie has a distaste for sentimental scenes, but never more so than when she’s been exposed as being herself sentimental. Our companion seemed to realize this, and so tried to comfort her.

  “Now, now, love. You confess your real name and I’ll do the same.”

  “Fiona Macleod is a pen name?”

  “If it is, it isn’t mine….” She laughed again.

  “I’m Emily Reese, Emmie to my friends. This is my husband, Harry.”

  “Glad to meet you, Harry. Have a bivvy,” she said, handing me a bottle.

  Curiously, her accent had changed. When we’d left the hotel, she spoke as you expect an Englishwoman to speak, assuming your expectation is based on the same stage shows as mine. But now, it was something like an Anglicized version of what you might hear in a New York tenement.

  “And you…?” Emmie asked her.

  “Elsa Naggle, Naggie for short. What a relief.”

  “Relief?”

  “Not having to speak like some proper Scottish poet, not that I have any idea about that.”

  “What about Donny O’K
ane, and Big Jim Kieffer?” Emmie asked.

  “Donny was a decent tenor, back in the day. Played the music halls. Big Jim used to frequent the Three Swans, the pub down our way. Whenever he had a few shots in him, he’d remember the wife that’d left him. Then you’d hear the original Irish. Gordelpus, how he went on.”

  “But how did you come to be playing the part of Fiona Macleod?”

  “It’s a strange story. I was coming over on the boat to Boston, to visit some friends. And on board, I met this gentleman, Mr. Michael Field. After we’d become acquainted, he took me into his confidence and told me Fiona Macleod was supposed to be coming over to meet her American publisher, your Mr. Mosher, but she’d fallen ill. So he was supposed to meet him for her. But he said he preferred not to. He had his reasons, he said. He asked me if I’d do it, by pretending to be her. He was sure he could teach me to do it. And if I’d lay on to be her, he’d pay for my visit here in Maine. But now the game’s up.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, I’m supposed to meet Mr. Mosher this evening, and tomorrow give a reading. And for why? Because I represent the Celtic Revival, Mr. Field tells me. I’m not even sure what that is.”

  “That’s why you asked me to look over those page proofs last night?” Emmie asked.

  “Yes, love. I had no idea what the woman was trying to say. What was it? Deirdre and Her Sons of Us-ins?”

  “Deirdrê and the Sons of Usna,” Emmie corrected. “I must admit, I never suspected.”

  “That’s because I kept ordering wine. It was all I could do just to talk like a poet for four hours. I was afraid you’d realize what I’d done and tell Mr. Mosher. But I have managed to memorize part of one of the poems:

  “Poor little songs, children of sorrow, go.

  A wind may take you up, and blow you far.

  My heart will go with you, too, wherever you go.

  “It’s all sort of dreary like that. I don’t remember what it’s called. But I have ’til tomorrow. What worries me now is seeing Mr. Mosher. What if he mentions something Fiona told him in a letter?”

  “Yes, that could be embarrassing,” Emmie agreed. “But I think we’re in luck. You see, in addition to my relationship as an author, I’m also acting as a private investigator for Mr. Mosher.”