“A harlot? Yes—she has a place in town. She is, however, young and quite attractive. So perhaps Mr. Bed would make an exception in her case?”
“I don’t suppose there’s any reason to think he’s dogmatic on the point.”
When we arrived at the hotel I asked Nan to keep watch from the porch while I went up to change, just in case Emmie should come looking for me. By the time I came down it was almost six and Nan gave some unsubtle hints about supping together there at the hotel. I suspected her motivation stemmed partly from the opportunity to cadge a free meal, so I proposed that we go into town to observe Marie Louise for the evening and have supper on the way. Thus ensuring I’d be nowhere near when Emmie arrived back.
We took a car in and Nan brought me to a homey little place where she ate as if wanting to fatten up for a coming fast.
“Do I seem a glutton to you, Mr. Reese?”
“No, just hungry. And please call me Harry.”
“Well, Harry, I’m sure it won’t surprise you to learn I don’t get many invitations to dine out.”
“What about Constable Peabbles? He never asks you out?”
“No, and I doubt I’d go if he did. I see enough of him.”
“Familiarity breeds contempt?”
“I suppose that’s part of it. But mainly it’s difficult for a woman to look fondly on the prospect of becoming Mrs. Peabbles.”
“I see what you mean.”
“Though I wouldn’t mind at all getting my hands on Peabbles’ thirty-five dollars a month.” She spoke of the constable’s modest salary as if it were that of a choice sinecure with the Raj.
“And Peabbles seems an agreeable sort,” I added.
“Yes. But agreeable enough for my terms?”
“Your terms?”
“I’ve already made a list,” she said without smiling. “But perhaps we should finish here and head over to Miss Guilfault’s. She has a dressmaking studio on Congress Street.”
I paid and we then made our way to the studio. It was on the third floor of an office building: “Marie Louise Guilfault, Dressmaker, Seamstress, and Tailor. Open all hours.”
“An all-night dressmaker?”
“Yes, she endeavors to be accommodating. And is, in fact, quite a reputable dressmaker. Not that I could afford her. Shall we observe from above? All the offices up there will be closed.”
We went up to the floor above and I pulled a bench over to the top of the stairs. From it we could just glimpse Marie Louise’s door.
“So it was Mrs. Field who brought you the notebook?” Nan asked.
“Yes, said she found it in the couch May Goodwin died on.”
“When? After I’d been on it?”
“Yes, after we’d left.”
“She’s lying,” Nan said emphatically.
“That wouldn’t be surprising. But how can you be sure?”
“I made a very thorough search of that couch.”
“You made a search of the couch?”
“Yes. After I found the twenty-three dollars.”
“What twenty-three dollars?” I asked.
“When I was seated there, I reached back to adjust the cushion and felt some folded pieces of paper, bank notes. When I saw what I had, I of course made sure there was nothing else hidden there.”
“But how could you have when we were right there with you?”
“Well, you remember when Mrs. Field took Mrs. Ketchum in to see her… china collection? I could have doffed my clothes and danced naked and no one would have noticed.”
“I suppose we were somewhat riveted. Then Mrs. Field probably took them from May’s person that morning, before reporting her death.”
“She likes to play close to the fire.”
“No doubt that’s why she’s about to lose her husband.”
“Lose him?” she asked.
“Yes. He seems pretty chummy with… Miss Macleod. It’s the eternal triangle. That explains why the two women despise each other so.”
“Yes, I suppose. But it doesn’t explain Mrs. Field’s behavior toward Mrs. Ketchum.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t place too much importance on that. I caught her in a similar situation with a chambermaid.”
“You did? It does make one wonder….”
A well-dressed, middle-aged fellow came up to Marie Louise’s, knocked discreetly, and was admitted.
“Oh, my. That was Mr. Linquest. An alderman. And president of the I.O.G.T. lodge.”
“I.O.G.T. lodge?”
“International Order of Good Templars, a temperance organization,” she told me.
“I guess tempering one craving is naturally bound to arouse another. Speaking of temperance, I saw your Deputy Sheriff Gaylord the other evening. Smashing confiscated bottles of liquor for the entertainment of theatre-goers.”
“Yes, I’ve heard about that. A regular monthly show. Of course, that’s all it is. He’s doing well by himself at last.”
“Why ‘at last’?” I asked.
“Mr. Gaylord has, or rather had, a knack for failure. He inherited a small steamer from his father, then lost it in a freak storm the very next year. After that he tried his hand at real estate. That was back in ’92, at the top of a boom. Lost everything in the ensuing depression. Then he tried his luck as a shopkeeper, a dispensary I think it was. Lasted six months. The only thing left was politics, so he became a ward heeler and got his current plum after the last election.”
“I suppose that’s the one advantage of a corrupt system. It provides employment for those with no skills beyond toadyism.”
“That certainly is a charitable way of looking at it.”
Throughout the night, we took turns keeping watch while the other dozed. Marie Louise had three more visitors, three more men Nan recognized. She felt certain that none of the three, nor the alderman who preceded them, were likely candidates for the insatiable Mr. Bed. We left sometime after six.
“Perhaps Mrs. Field had more success,” I said as we boarded a car.
“Success in finding the correct Marie Louise?”
“No, she was approaching it from the other end. She thought she would dissuade Branscombe from pursuing Marie Louise by seducing him herself.”
“What exactly did she have in mind?”
“She would lead him to a secret hideaway, and when he reached the point where he was ‘about to get the goods,’ as she put it, I was to enter and confront him.”
“Of course, you were with me watching Miss Guilfault’s.”
“My associate Ed Ketchum was in on it too. I’m sure he came through—provided he wasn’t distracted.”
“I think I’d like to go out to the hotel with you, to see the outcome.”
“Why not? Mrs. Field welcomes an audience.”
“Do you mind if we stop at my place first? Shan’t take long.”
We left the car and went down a side street to what she called her cottage. Hovel would be closer to the mark.
“If you don’t mind splitting some wood, I can make coffee,” she told me. Then pointed me to an ax as she went off to cleanse herself.
I was chopping away in the little side yard when an old fellow came along and leaned against the front fence.
“Who’re you?” he asked.
“A friend of Miss Tway’s, Harry Reese.”
“Never heard of you. Where’d you learn to split wood?”
I smiled, but he kept at it. I was half a second from felling him with the ax when something tickled the small of my back. A cow had come through the side gate. I pushed her back, latched the gate, and went back to my splitting. A minute later, the cow was back to nuzzling me. I pushed her back and again latched the gate, then watched to see how she worked the trick: she pushed her head against the gate-post, leaning it in an inch or two until the gate popped open. Once more I pushed her back out and latched the gate, then took a large stone and stuck it close against the gate-post.
“You hadn’t ought’a done that,” the geezer
opined. “Here she comes.”
I looked over in the direction he indicated and saw an old woman emerge from the neighboring cottage with a frying pan. She looked dismayed.
“I warned him,” the fellow informed her.
“Who are you to interfere here! You put that right back, mister.”
Under her watchful eye, I removed the stone.
“You best be gone before my son gets home,” she told me, then went back inside.
“Mrs. Peabbles?” I asked the old fellow.
“That’s right. That cow’s her way of keeping Nan and her boy together.”
I picked up the wood I’d split and followed the cow into the kitchen. I was about to start a fire in the stove when Nan appeared.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Reese, but I just remembered I’m out of coffee. Perhaps we could have some at the hotel? I see you’ve met Clarence.”
“Clarence? Shouldn’t it be Clarice?”
“Peabbles named her a while back. He wasn’t completely clear on the facts at the time.”
“What child is?”
“Yes…. Of course, he was fifteen at the time.”
We walked to the hotel and I told her about my exchange with Mrs. Peabbles. She explained how the old woman had been working tirelessly to get her to marry her son since their adolescence.
“Each morning, she sends the cow over and then sends Peabbles to fetch it. Hoping to force us to interact.”
“So she felt I was undermining her program.”
“Well, goodness knows what she assumed, seeing me return home with a man in the wee hours.”
“I hadn’t thought of that. By the way, did you know ahead of time there wasn’t any coffee?”
“Oh, there really was coffee. But it needs to last me the month. I was sure you wouldn’t mind.”
It was still before eight when we arrived at the hotel, and seemed too early to wake Delia. At Nan’s suggestion we breakfasted on the porch. Just to make conversation, I told her about Emmie’s sharing her bath with Delia.
“I wonder if there’s anything more behind Mrs. Field’s behavior than her obvious taste for the outrageous?” she asked.
“How do you mean?”
“Well, if she wanted to conduct some purposeful deception, what better way to divert suspicion from herself than by appearing the impish scamp, erupting in some new mischief at every turn?”
“You may be right,” I agreed. “There was a page missing from the notebook, as if it had been carefully torn out. When I asked her about it, she became defensive.”
“So you think May Goodwin had something on Mrs. Field? I can’t say I’m surprised… and I may even have a guess….”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s too tentative a notion to share,” she said. “But perhaps we should see if the lady’s risen?”
We went upstairs and knocked at the Fields’ door. There was no answer, but Bridget called out to us from down the hall.
“No one there, I’m afraid.”
She was standing outside Emmie’s room. We walked down and joined her as she carried in the clean linen.
“And look here, another bed not slept in…. And yours, Mr. Reese…. Looks like no one slept in their rooms last night.”
“No one?” I asked.
“The Ketchums’ bed is still untouched, too. Look, there’s Mr. Field passing now.”
We all peered out the door and saw a rumpled Field go off to his room. Then Annie came down the hall. She had an odd look about her and seemed oblivious to our presence.
But a moment later when Ed came by, he stopped and joined us. “Sorry I missed the ambush, Harry. How’d it go?”
“I’m afraid I missed it, too.”
“Oh? Well, I hope Mrs. Field came out all right.”
“I wouldn’t worry much about her,” I told him.
“No, I suppose you’re right. Well, I need to get some sleep….”
Bridget looked out after him. “And that’s all he’ll be gettin’, poor man.”
“What do you mean?” Nan asked.
Thereupon Bridget divulged the staff’s penchant for speculating on their patrons’ sex lives by means of their linen.
“What do you make of the current evidence?” I asked. “I mean, when neither my nor my wife’s sheets have been used.”
“Well, normally, I would assume you went for a late-night swim, and fell asleep in each other’s arms….”
“Completely exhausted by their frenzied lovemaking….” Nan added.
“Much like your eels?” I asked.
“Not quite so indiscriminate,” she clarified.
It was then that a bedraggled Delia passed the door. I felt sure this wasn’t the ideal time to bid her good morning, but Nan forced the matter by issuing her own greeting. The lady turned, and when her eyes met mine she gave me a look I’d not seen her exhibit before. I knew then that there was a limit to her composure.
“Where the bloody hell did you run off to?” she asked, and not unreasonably.
Her face was pocked with insect bites, and, from where her jacket had been torn away, a trickle of blood ran down her arm. But any urge I felt to offer succor was squelched when she called me a hen-hearted dunghill. There followed a remarkable mélange of unfamiliar epithets, then she once more inquired into my whereabouts the previous evening.
“Well, you see… Nan and I…”
That was as far as I’d gotten when I was saved further embarrassment by a fortuitous rocking of the earth. The quake rattled windows and sent a wide variety of objects crashing to the floor, one being Miss Tway.
16
“What in god’s name was that?” Nan asked from the floor.
As Bridget helped her up, I ran downstairs to find a crowd on the porch looking off to the south. I joined a number of others scurrying across the pasture and we soon came to the path that led to the beach where Mosher liked to bathe. A portion of the cliff seemed to be missing.
Providentially, no one appeared to have been injured. But the cause of the blast was a decided mystery. One fellow suggested a natural rock slide, but that was immediately refuted by the fact that earth had been strewn in all directions. While walking about looking for clues I tripped over a wire, then followed it away from the cliff to where it disappeared into a dense cluster of beach rose. It was from behind this that a familiar voice called out.
“What took you so long, Harry?”
“I wasn’t aware we’d planned a rendezvous, Emmie.”
“You’ll need to give me your clothes.”
“Why would I need to give you my clothes?”
“So Mr. Mosher can get home.”
The fellow himself popped up and greeted me. “It would be greatly appreciated, Mr. Reese.”
“Give him your clothes, Harry. You can put on his bathing suit. And hurry.”
Arguing with Emmie is always futile, and there was a slim chance her scheme had some sort of reasoning behind it. At least what passes for reasoning in a mind like hers.
Though Mosher’s bathing costume was ridiculously over-sized, there’s no question he got the short end of the stick. I’d spent a long night in my suit, and the back of my shirt was still damp from Clarence’s wet nose. The only way he could hitch up the pants was to leave them unbuttoned. Emmie fastened them with a hat pin and suggested he hold my jacket over his lap. Then she instructed him to go directly home and not to leave there until she called on him. A few minutes later, a street car came along. I flagged it down and Mosher boarded.
Emmie took me back behind the bushes where she’d been hiding.
“What’s going on, Emmie?”
“That was a deliberate attempt on Mr. Mosher’s life. Look.”
She picked up a small plunger of the type used to detonate explosives.
“I don’t suppose you had anything to do with this, Emmie.”
“Me? Where would I acquire a device like this?”
“Can’t say. But I imagine it will help you
ingratiate yourself with Mosher if you can convince him someone tried to kill him. Then you can claim to have saved him from the peril you put him in.”
“It would be beneath me to respond to such a scurrilous accusation.”
“I suppose that will save you from lying about it,” I said. “What if I told you Bridget admitted to me you’d asked her for a red towel yesterday morning?”
“I hope you’re proud of yourself, browbeating a confession from a poor immigrant girl.”
It was then that Constable Peabbles arrived, following the wire just as I had. I took the plunger from Emmie and handed it to him.
“We were out for a walk, just came across it,” I told him.
Before he could respond, another fellow approached carrying a shotgun. I recognized him as the tobacco-spewing theatre critic I’d met the evening of my arrival.
“What’s going on, Jim?” Peabbles asked him.
“Sheriff’s office just called the house. Deputy Gaylord asked me to stand watch. Said there was a report of looting.”
“Looting? Of what?”
“That cottage.” He nodded toward the decrepit cottage beside the now-truncated path to the beach.
He went off and Peabbles turned back to us. “Out for a walk?” He was looking over my dripping bathing suit.
“Swim and a walk.”
“I don’t suppose you saw anyone about?”
“Well, we were some ways off when we heard the explosion,” I told him.
Whether he believed me, I can’t say. But he took the plunger and went off toward the cottage.
“I take it, Emmie, your plan now is to pretend that Mosher has been killed?”
“Yes, you’re to go to the hotel and say you’re sure you saw ‘Richard Merrill’ ascending the steps just as they exploded. That will give his tormentor a false sense of accomplishment.”
“Assuming, of course, he exists,” I said.
“Oh, we can be sure of that. And now we have a workable clue. How many places can one buy dynamite and a detonator?”
“More than you might guess. And how do you know it involved dynamite?”
“Doesn’t it always?” she asked innocently.
“Why wouldn’t I have mentioned seeing Merrill to Peabbles just now?”
“Oh.” She thought but a moment. “If he asks, just say you were still disoriented from the blast. You did look disoriented.”
Fair Play’s a Jewel (Harry Reese Mysteries Book 5) Page 13