If it had just been a matter of the Sachses’ theft, I would have guessed it was done by someone inside the house. Lacy may have been a complete fool and still been right about that. But then what was the connection to the other thefts? Simple coincidence? That seemed unlikely. If the others, Easterly’s and Merrill’s, had the look of inside jobs, I might find myself suspecting Chappelle, too.
When I realized I was lost, I stopped a fellow and asked if he knew Phelps Place. He told me it was down in Georgetown. A second fellow overheard us and came over to correct him.
“No, no. LeDroit Park. Other direction entirely.”
“That’s Pomeroy Street,” a third fellow told the second.
Then a fourth man stopped and seemingly put the matter to rest.
“Young man, I work in the District Assessor’s Office, and I can say with certainty that there is no Phelps Place.”
Meanwhile, the second fellow had come to blows with the third. Apparently, this was a town where feelings toward street nomenclature ran high. Their scuffle had attracted a small crowd of spectators, including a street cleaner. It was he who informed me that Phelps Place was just a hundred yards to the west of where we were standing.
This was typical of the time. Like Brooklyn, or Buffalo, or any of a dozen other cities, Washington was in a building boom. Streets were laid out, countryside subdivided, and houses—grand or modest—were going up everywhere. In this part of Washington, they were at the grand end of the spectrum. Not Fifth Avenue grand—more like the comfortable grand you find on certain blocks in Brooklyn.
As yet, Phelps Place held only a few houses and they were just getting around to laying the curbing. To the west you could see the remnants of the what-had-been—sparsely spaced wood-frame houses, an old orchard, then further on, forest. Mrs. Spinks’ home was easily spotted with a half dozen carriages parked in front. My knock was answered by an English butler.
I’m not normally one to give a lot of thought to furnishings, but no one entering Mrs. Spinks’ house could avoid the topic. It was about three steps beyond opulent, just this side of outlandish. The entry hall was made up like a room in an Ottoman palace. There were brass lamps hanging down from the ceiling, Oriental tapestries draping the walls, and the chairs all held tasseled cushions. Every piece of furniture incorporated some complex inlay, and in place of a mantel, there was an elaborate brass hood above the fireplace. And this was just the entrance hall.
From there, I was led into a large room that likely was intended as a dining room. On entering, one needed to adjust to a decidedly Western sensibility. There were two life-size portraits, one obviously of Mrs. Spinks and the other, I presumed, of her late husband, which flanked a large stone fireplace that might have been looted from one of Charlemagne’s castles. There was no table, and just a smattering of chairs around the fringes of the room. At the far end, drinks were being dispensed at a short bar. Above, a huge chandelier hung from an elaborately painted ceiling. And a matrix of carved woodwork surrounded the windows and doors.
But the most incongruous feature was the large framed slate that dominated one wall. There was a young woman standing on a stool before it and she was writing out a list of words and names: New Orleans (3rd), Woodtrice, Prince Blazes, Judge Steadman, Swordsman, Banish, and Helen Paxton. I assumed this must be some parlor game the elite of Washington partake in. There were about a dozen others in the room, mostly men but a few women too. Mrs. Spinks was speaking with some gentlemen and seemed not to notice our entrance. Eventually, the butler cleared his throat and announced me.
“Oh, Mr. Reese, there you are. I was worried you wouldn’t come.”
The room, and the whole house, had the subdued lighting which best suited Mrs. Spinks. She looked ten or fifteen years younger than when I’d met her in Easterly’s office. She introduced me to the others in the group: a congressman, whose name I missed, a Dr. Gillette, and a young Englishman named Cox. Then she drifted off with the congressman.
“What do you think of Washington?” I asked Cox. “I don’t suppose it compares well to London.”
“Oh, it has its attractions. And you become used to the privations. But now I’ve been assigned to the embassy in Bangkok. I’m not altogether sure what to expect there.”
“Mrs. Spinks’ billiard room might give you a taste,” the doctor interjected. He seemed the odd man out—on the short side, maybe thirty-five, with thick eyeglasses and a hesitant manner—while everyone else in the room was of the imposing, confident type you expect to find running the affairs of a country. “Are you a sportsman, Mr. Reese?” he asked.
“Not avidly.” I noticed that all eyes were on the large slate. The young woman had written numbers beside each listing. Odds. Suddenly, all was clear. What she had compiled was a list of the entries for the third race at New Orleans. Mrs. Spinks was running a poolroom.
There was nothing terribly shocking in this. There were poolrooms catering to every social class. All one needed was a telegraph line that carried the race results, and a pool of willing dupes. And both were readily available. At that very moment, in cities all over the country, suckers would be assembled in poolrooms betting on the races in New Orleans. Few of them had ever been to New Orleans, or had any clear notion that the track actually existed, but that didn’t matter. They might as well be betting on a camel race in Timbuktu. Give them colorful names and convincing odds, and they’d put their last dollar on Sultan’s Delight in the fourth at six to one. Once the race had concluded, everyone relaxed again, and Mrs. Spinks returned with an older fellow on her arm.
“Mr. Reese, here is Senator Merrill.” As we shook hands, she whispered in my ear, “I found him asleep in another room. You have to speak clearly. He’s getting on.” Then she added in a normal voice, “Senator Merrill is chairman of the Commerce Committee.”
“Commerce?” he asked. “No, dear, I feel certain it’s Transportation.”
“Oh, yes. I’m sure you’re right,” she conceded before excusing herself.
Merrill looked to be close to eighty. He was a tall, reasonably fit man, and outside of the loss of hearing, he seemed lively enough. It was easy to imagine him as a handsome fellow a few years back. But age had taken its toll and his face wore an expression like that of a baby fighting a losing battle to stay awake—the eyelids fixed at half-mast. The conversation was slow going, on account of his hearing, and in order to preserve the modicum of narrative flow my chronicle has had up to now, I’ll summarize. On the night of the burglary, the senator and his wife had gone to the White House for dinner. The jewelry was kept in a wooden box in a drawer of his wife’s dressing table in her second-story room. When they arrived home, the drawer was open and the jewelry gone. A window pane had been broken, which is presumably how the thief gained entry. The maid and the cook were in their rooms on the third floor and heard nothing.
“And it was your wife’s finest jewelry that was taken?” I asked. Several times.
“Oh, yes. Yes it was. All the good stuff.”
Soon after, he was led off by a representative of an express company and I found myself chatting with Cox. During the lull between the last race at New Orleans and the first coming from California, he recommended we visit the billiard room to test the doctor’s idea that it would prepare him for his trip to Siam. But I could have used something to prepare me for the trip to the billiard room. We went back out to the entry hall and then into a large parlor. Here a group of women seated in outsized chairs was having tea. They were surrounded by potted palms and lamps with tasseled silk shades. On the floor, the pelts of a leopard and a polar bear had been laid to rest. The immense head of a moose was mounted above the mantel. And further up, from sconces near the ceiling, a pair of owls was preparing to swoop down on some prey they may have spotted among the garlands of dried foliage that were draped about freely. We nodded to the inhabitants and then passed along a hallway to our destination. The billiard room’s walls were covered with delicately painted landscapes involvi
ng cranes and peacocks and flowers. And above the mantel was an odd-looking suit of armor and a set of swords. But Cox said it was all wrong for Siam. “Japonais,” he pronounced.
“What do you make of this place?” I asked him.
“You mean, what’s it all about? I think that’s rather obvious.”
“Our hostess is running a high-class betting parlor?”
“No, no. Not at all. That’s just the bait.”
“Bait for what?” I asked.
“Look at the guest list. Suppose you wanted to keep abreast of all the goings-on in town, and then nudge them in advantageous directions. The easiest way is to charm the powerful. There’s nothing more to it. I’ve no doubt Mrs. Spinks runs a respectable establishment.”
“No doubt at all?”
He smiled. “You mean the gambling? She doesn’t make a penny off of it. That’s the chief attraction. No crooked odds at Mrs. Spinks’.”
“That’s the second way she distinguishes her place from the average poolroom.”
“And the first?” he asked.
“She has a pool table.”
I had taken a liking to Cox, and not simply because he laughed at my jokes. But the camaraderie lasted only until our final game. I was setting up a shot when my stick just touched the cue ball. And I mean just touched. Barely perceptible. But he insisted it counted as a shot. I had to plumb the depths of my composure to keep from wrapping my stick around his neck.
When I left him, I missed a turn and ended up in the kitchen. A maid led me back via a different route, passing through the telegraph station in the butler’s pantry and then into the former dining room where the races were posted. The crowd had enlarged some and it took a little maneuvering to make my way to the front of the house. Mrs. Spinks was near the door and I told her I needed to be on my way.
“We’re open every afternoon,” she said. “You must come again.”
“Yes, I certainly hope to. By the way, you haven’t been the victim of a burglary, have you?”
“Oh, no. Not here.”
I don’t suppose I was surprised to have learned that Mrs. Spinks was in the same business as Easterly. Her Mrs. Malaprop act was as overdone as her decorating. What I couldn’t figure out was why she had taken such an interest in my investigation back at Easterly’s office.
6
It was after five and I was late for my rendezvous with the fellow from the Syracuse Herald. I wasn’t entirely sure why I was meeting him at all—I couldn’t even remember his name. And as near as I could recollect, he hadn’t been particularly friendly with me in school. Still, I couldn’t see what harm could come of it.
I found him, as arranged, in the barroom of the Cochran Hotel. He was with some other members of the vast Washington press corps: the Des Moines Leader, the Pittsburg Daily News, and the Chicago Evening Post. They were a convivial bunch and before I’d even sat down, the Daily News had ordered me a drink.
“Harry here is looking for a master jewel thief,” the Herald scoffed.
“That so?” the Evening Post inquired. “You know any master jewel thieves, Joe?”
“No,” the Leader replied. “In this town, all we have is common horse thieves.”
They shared a much larger laugh than the joke deserved and I began to suspect the boys hadn’t spent the day at their typewriters.
“Any luck with Merrill?” the Herald asked.
“That wasn’t him at the barber’s, but I met up with him at Mrs. Spinks’ salon later.”
“You were invited to one of her doings?” the Daily News asked. “Aren’t you the swell.”
“I met her at a fellow named Easterly’s office. He was one of the victims of the master jewel thief.”
“Easterly a victim? Your master thief better have checked for his wallet before he left the house.”
“Who does Easterly work for, exactly?” I asked.
“Whoever paid him last,” the Leader said. “Right now, the railroads.”
“There’s a move to regulate freight rates,” the Herald explained. “The railroads are content to keep things just the way they are. Of course, the farmers feel different, and they have a lot of votes in the Senate.”
“Like Senator Merrill of Indiana?” I asked.
“Yeah, he’s one of the linchpins. Chairman of the Transportation Committee.”
“So if the railroads can convince him to vote against it, they’re safe?”
“Oh, old Merrill can’t vote against it,” the Evening Post explained. “Not if he ever wants to go back home to Indiana. But he can pigeonhole it.”
“A committee chairman is like a ward boss,” the Herald added. “He rules his fiefdom with an iron fist. He chooses what they vote on, when they vote on it, and what amendments get through. He can stretch out the debate for a year, until no one remembers what it’s about. Or he can amend the bill until it’s so different from how it began that the people who were for it are now against it. He’ll kill it, but not by voting against it. And only after the railroads have paid.”
“You paint a dark portrait of the senator,” I told them.
“Oh, Merrill’s one of the better,” the Daily News said. “We’ve got the Honorable Clark of Montana back in the Senate. You remember him?”
“The Copper King?”
“That’s right. He’s been buying his way into the Senate for ages now. Only, a couple years back he got a little too obvious about it. The Senate took the high ground. Refused to seat him. So, he went back to Montana for a short rest. Then the same state legislature he’d bribed a few months before took another vote, and guess who won?”
“Clark?”
“Sure, but now it was all on the up and up, so they let him take his seat.”
After the third or fourth round, I glanced at the time and realized I’d need to hurry back to the hotel to change for dinner. In the brief time before I’d returned my watch to my vest pocket, all four of my companions had slapped me on the back and taken their leave. Then the barman presented me with the bill. The size of it removed any doubt: the boys had spent their afternoon anticipating my arrival.
Back at the Normandie, Emmie had already begun the most elaborate dressing ritual she’d ever performed. The chambermaid she’d roped into helping her was allowed to leave and I was pressed into service. Under normal circumstances, Emmie isn’t one of those women who need an age to prepare themselves for public viewing. Give her an hour and she’d be ready to grab a quick meal at a lunch counter.
“How did your inquiries go?” she asked. “Did you learn anything noteworthy?”
“No, not really. But what was it that fellow said? ‘Laws are like sausages—it’s best not to see how they are made’?”
“Something like that.”
“Well, it might be best if we ask Mary to strike sausage from the breakfast menu when we get back.”
When she had finished, she asked me for a verdict. This step in the process has always struck me as peculiar, because Emmie is so disparaging of my taste in women. If I comment that Miss Applegate was looking particularly well last evening, she’ll explain that what I mistake for beauty is mere subterfuge and vulgar contrivance. Unfortunately, the chief difference between Miss Applegate and Emmie is that the former has mastered the arts of subterfuge and contrivance. With Emmie, effort is rarely rewarded. She looks her best as the Lord made her and the more she fumbles with it the more she veers from her objective.
“Well?” She was still waiting for my verdict.
Any man in that position is naturally reluctant to open his mouth. Like Paris, whatever his judgment he has about a two-thirds chance of making the wrong choice, and when he does, all hell will break loose. In this case, I was saved by a timely knock on the door.
It was a woman, not yet thirty, about Emmie’s size, with bright red hair and freckles. She wore a simple suit and a hat just large enough to be worthy of the name. A green ribbon, like a schoolgirl might wear, streamed down from the hat. She was English, bu
t she spoke so excitedly I understood barely a word. Then Emmie came over and introduced me to the Countess von Schnurrenberger.
“I am sorry, my dear,” she said. “I wanted to stop you before you came down. I have a much better idea than dining at the Shoreham. That place is no fun at all. And the food’s nothing to speak of.”
“Of course,” Emmie told her. “Whatever you recommend.”
“There is a place I have always wanted to go to, but it’s so difficult for me to get out and do as I’d like. Have you heard of Mr. Harvey’s Oyster Saloon?”
“No. But it sounds delightful,” Emmie said without much enthusiasm.
“I’ve been there,” I told her. “On a previous visit. It’s a cut above the average oyster saloon.”
“Is it?” she asked. “I hope not too far above.”
The only thing the least bit aristocratic about the countess was the way she dismissed me, telling me I could wait in the barroom downstairs and that she and Emmie would be down presently. Until then, her manner had reminded me of a shop girl. She had the same ease with conversation, making constant use of her wide mouth and bright blue eyes to express what words couldn’t convey quickly enough. Though she was not outstandingly attractive, it seemed unlikely she’d ever had trouble being noticed. Emmie was right—it was difficult to reconcile the image this young woman presented with that of Madame B____, master jewel thief, or, for that matter, of a German countess.
It was about half an hour before they finally came down. The time had been spent re-dressing Emmie and now she, too, was in casual attire. They were chattering away like sisters. Sinister portents. For now, just an amorphous grey cloud on the horizon. But I had a well-founded fear it would take on a darker and more substantial shape in time.
The three of us wedged ourselves into a cab and were whisked down to Pennsylvania Avenue. Harvey’s was a huge place that mainly catered to tourists and those who wanted to say they’d been to an oyster saloon without having to rub shoulders with the clientele of an actual oyster saloon. A moment after we’d been seated the countess rose and walked out of the restaurant. Emmie and I looked at each other, then followed.
Kalorama Shakedown (A Harry Reese Mystery) Page 5