Mrs. Roberto - Or the Widowy Worries of the Moosepath League

by Van Reid

  “The play?” asked the elderly man.

  “The card.”

  “It occurred to us during the play that she might be in danger,” continued Eagleton.

  “The woman placed a card in the fellow’s pocket as a signal of distress,” explained Ephram.

  “Did she?”

  “Why, yes! We saw it!”

  “I thought you hadn’t seen it. You said it was mysterious.”

  “To him, it might have been. We didn’t stay for the third act.”

  Mr. Siegfried looked pleasantly confused.

  Ephram tried again. “There was a woman outside the theater who looked a bit like Miss Ethel Tucker—”

  “I hadn’t heard of her yet,” said Mr. Siegfried.

  “She gave us the idea,” said Eagleton.

  “The woman outside the theater?”

  “No, sir. Miss Ethel Tucker. The woman outside the theater said she knew where Mrs. Roberto was.”

  “She gave you the card?” asked the elderly man

  “The woman outside the theater?” said Eagleton.

  “No, Miss Ethel Tucker,” said Mr. Siegfried.

  “No, Mrs. Roberto gave it to Thump,” said Ephram. “Or some agent in her employ. Miss Ethel Tucker had a card, but she gave it to her erstwhile fiancé.”

  The elderly fellow continued to be amazed, saying, “I hadn’t heard of him either.”

  Ephram looked extremely serious and said, “A noble fellow, I promise you, sir.”

  “I am glad to hear it.”

  “He works secretly for the police,” said Eagleton. Having not seen the end of the play, he was still thinking of it in the present tense.

  Throughout this discourse, Mr. Siegfried nodded and betokened the most profound interest. Mr. Mullett hardly moved, though his eyes darted from speaker to speaker, and his frown, if anything, deepened. At the mention of the police, Sparky looked highly consternated.

  “Are you with the police, then?” wondered Mr. Siegfried, with a puzzled glance at the burly Leander Spark.

  “Not at all,” said Eagleton. “Our evidence is intuitive, except for the woman who said she knew where Mrs. Roberto was.”

  “But she didn’t, I take it, since you are still searching for her. Mrs. Roberto, I think I mean.”

  “We don’t know whether she knew or not. There was a large group of men who attempted to knock down her door.”

  “Good gracious!”

  “Our thoughts exactly, Mr. Siegfried,” said Ephram.

  “We thought they were after the woman,” said Eagleton.

  “Mrs. Roberto?”

  “No, the one who looked a bit like Miss Ethel Tucker.”

  “Who gave her card to her former fiancé. Miss Ethel Tucker, I mean.

  “My word, Mr. Siegfried!” declared Eagleton. “You understand so well!”

  “I’m not sure that I do. Was the large group of men indeed after the woman who looked a bit like Miss Ethel Tucker?”

  “We were assured by the young boys who led us over the roof that they were not.”

  “Young boys? But they knocked down the door.”

  “The large group of men did, yes indeed!” said Ephram. “It was a good thing we went out the window.”

  Mr. Siegfried was no closer to understanding a word of what the three men were talking about, but he seemed to be enjoying it more every minute.

  Eagleton heightened Mr. Siegfried’s confusion—as well as his pleasure—by saying, “Thump bears a strong likeness to the father of one of the boys.”

  “Does he?”

  “I should say he does!” announced Sparky. They had forgotten that the strapping fellow was standing there. “I thought it was Thaddeus himself! Or his ghost!”

  “Is that a clue?” wondered the elderly man. He looked about till he found a chair and sat down. “The resemblance to the boy’s father, I mean.”

  “And my cousin!” added Sparky.

  “I don’t believe so,” said Ephram, answering the elderly man’s question.

  “Well, he is!" said Sparky, thinking that Ephram had been responding to his addendum. In a quieter tone he said, “Unless it’s true Thaddeus’s mother jumped the fence.” He suddenly looked abashed that he had presented this theory concerning a family member and fell silent.

  Wide-eyed, Eagleton said to Mr. Siegfried, “Thump saved his wife’s uncle from being crushed by a piano.”

  “Your wife’s uncle?” said the old man to Thump.

  Thump looked perplexed.

  “The uncle to the wife of the fellow whom Thump resembles,” explained Eagleton.

  “Mr. Spark’s cousin,” said Ephram.

  “Well, I thought he was,” said Sparky glumly to himself. There was a brief and general silence.

  It did seem the moment to recapitulate, and Mr. Siegfried said, “So you are not looking for the woman who looked like Miss Ethel Tucker.”

  “Not at all,” said Eagleton.

  “We found her, actually,” said Ephram, “but she was affiliated with the men who broke down her door.”

  “And you are not looking for Miss Ethel Tucker herself.”

  “We are quite sure we know where to find her,” assured Eagleton. “At least, of an evening.”

  “You are looking for—”

  “Mrs. Roberto,” said Thump. “Mrs. Dorothea Roberto.”

  “And she is—?”

  “A balloonist,” said Eagleton.

  “A balloonist?” said Mr. Siegfried.

  “An ascensionist,” added Ephram.

  “Really?”

  “A parachutist,” said Thump.

  There was another brief silence.

  Eagleton said, “She parachutes from an ascended balloon.”

  “I can understand why you would be sorry to lose her,” said the older man. “Mr. Mullett?”

  “I didn’t understand a single word,” growled the man.

  “I must say,” agreed Mr. Siegfried, “I haven’t quite placed this Mrs. Roberto, or understand exactly about the card, or Miss Ethel Tucker, or the woman who looks a bit like Miss Ethel Tucker, Miss Ethel Tucker’s former fiancé who works secretly with the police, the men who broke down the door, the boys who took you over the roof, the boy’s father whom Mr. Thump so resembles, or the uncle of someone who was saved by Mr. Thump from being crushed by a piano. I would ask you to begin at the beginning, but I have the vague apprehension that you already have. Perhaps you could recommence by explaining the connection between this Mrs. Roberto, for whom you are searching, and ourselves, who are your humble servants and will do for you whatever is in our power—and—or—legal.”

  Mr. Siegfried had proved, for an elderly man, to have astonishing powers of thought and retention, and the members of the club were themselves swimming with this itemization. They considered one another for several moments before Thump took the fore and said, “We hoped you might be able to furnish us with Mrs. Roberto’s address, sir.”

  “And you thought I would know her address because—?”

  “All her books were from your publishing house, sir.”

  “But if you have seen all her books, then you must have been to her address.”

  “Not her address, but the address where she keeps her parachuting equipment.”

  “Someone tied up the landlord and broke the locks,” added Ephram.

  Mr. Siegfried raised his hand and silence fell upon the room. “What were these books?” he inquired.

  “There were a good many,” said Eagleton. “And several authors.”

  “Nine,” said Eagleton. “Nine authors. All with your imprint.”

  “Mrs. Alvina Plesock Dentin,” began Ephram.

  “Oh?” Mr. Siegfried clearly recognized the name.

  “Mrs. Penelope Laurel Charmaine,” said Ephram.

  “Oh?” said Mr. Siegfried. He frowned thoughtfully.

  “Mrs. Rudolpha Limington Harold,” said Eagleton.

  Mr. Siegfried sat up in a way that indicated re
al surprise.

  “And there was a Miss,” said Ephram. “Miss Marion Elfaid Platte.”

  Mr. Siegfried folded his arms. “Were there any male authors?” he asked.

  “There was the one,” said Ephram.

  “Mr. Wilmington Edward Northstrophe?” queried the elderly man

  “Good heavens!” said Eagleton.

  “How did you know?” said Ephram hopefully.

  “A lucky speculation.”

  The Moosepathians were impressed. “I suspect you do yourself an injustice, sir,” said Eagleton.

  Mr. Siegfried waved away this praise with a thin hand. “The obstacle, you understand,” he said mildly, “is that even if we were to have this Mrs. Roberto’s address it would not seem proper to give it out to even such well-meaning gentlemen as yourselves.”

  “Yes,” said Eagleton slowly.

  “Of course,” said Ephram. They hadn’t thought, and this embarrassed them a little.

  “Hmmm,” said Thump. It was a quandary—an ethical conundrum.

  They had reached an impasse.

  “I am sorry,” said the elderly publisher.

  Eagleton held up his hand. “Please, it is our difficulty,” he assured the man. “And our impropriety for asking you in the first instance.”

  “Thank you,” said Mr. Siegfried. “Perhaps if the police were involved.”

  “Goodness!” said Sparky, almost in a shout. “Don’t do that!”

  Mr. Siegfried looked from Sparky to the three Moosepathians as if he were trying to add something up. “Perhaps, if I had your cards, I could let you know, should I hear anything, that I am at liberty to pass along.”

  “Why, yes, of course,” said the three men, in unison, and they handed the man the requested articles.

  He looked at the one card after another, then said, “The Moosepath League.” He rather liked the sound of it.

  “At your service, Mr. Siegfried,” said Ephram.

  They all shook hands once again, and even Mr. Mullett was drawn into the exercise, however involuntarily. Sparky stood back from this conviviality and was the first out the door.

  “What do you think, Mr. Mullett?” asked Mr. Siegfried when their callers were gone.

  “It never pays to answer the door on a Saturday,” said the frowning man.

  “But what do you think of our friends, the Moosepath League?”

  “Crazy as bedbugs!”

  “Hmmm. I don’t know.” Mr. Siegfried went to the desk opposite Mr. Mullett’s, found a piece of paper, a pen, and a bottle of ink, and began to write. “I want you to take this for me, Mr. Mullett,” he said as he put the final flourish to his work. He held the paper up and waved it in the air so that the ink would dry.

  “Never get anything done,” said Mr. Mullett. He glowered at the piece of paper before rising from his chair and retrieving his coat.

  32. Dollars to Doughnuts

  Arriving streetside by the narrow stairs, Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump were conscious that the day had darkened. Eagleton pondered the clouds. It was not at all what he had expected, or, rather, what yesterday’s Portland Daily Advertiser had predicted. He wondered what the paper had said this morning; he always felt peculiar when he was out of its reach.

  “We are little better off than when we began,” lamented Ephram.

  “Mr. Siegfried was a very nice gentleman,” said Eagleton.

  “He was, wasn’t he,” said Ephram. The thought cheered him somewhat.

  “Mr. Mullett did seem concerned about the day of the week,” said Thump.

  “I couldn’t help but notice,” agreed Eagleton.

  “I would not be sorry to have our chairman’s ear at this moment,” said Ephram, and all three of them nodded solemnly. “And Mr. Moss’s.”

  “I’d stand across the street, were I you,” said Leander Spark. It was odd how he could all but disappear behind the fog of their concentration.

  “Oh?” said Eagleton.

  The husky fellow pointed. “Behind one of those carriages.”

  “Would you?”

  For reply, Sparky walked into the street, hardly troubling to look for traffic. An oncoming horse and wagon pulled up suddenly and he patted the animal’s nose as he passed by. The Moosepathians looked inquiringly at the driver, who gave them a growl and waved them on. Hanging on to their hats (or their missing hats), they hurried after their guide; the street seemed uncommonly wide and filled with horses and rigs, and their path described a good deal of weaving and bobbing before they accomplished what Sparky had managed in a straight line. The brawny fellow waited for them behind a carriage, and it was a moment before they saw him beckoning. Eagleton still held his hand on top of his head. Sparky peered at him.

  “Here we are!” said Ephram breathlessly.

  Sparky peered through the carriage windows at the entrance to W. Siegfried and Son across the way. “I don’t bout, these days,” he said, applying a rough sleeve to the near piece of glass.

  “Don’t you?” said Ephram.

  Sparky thumbed his nose with his left hand and jabbed softly at Ephram with his right. “I don’t fight anymore, you see.”

  “That’s very good,” said Eagleton.

  “I lost my wind.” A well-dressed man paused on the sidewalk to regard them with suspicion. Sparky grinned savagely at the fellow, and the well-dressed man flinched and hurried on his way. Other passersby cast glances at the four men. Sparky said, “My legs don’t hold up. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that the legs aren’t the first to go.”

  “I certainly won’t,” said Ephram. He and his friends vaguely understood what the man was imparting to them but not why. “Thump mediated a boxing match last July,” Ephram informed their guide.

  “Did he?” Sparky seemed surprised. “Well, I don’t bout these days. But I do take on collections for certain parties to whom money is owed. And I’ve learned something about people who owe money.”

  “Oh?” said Ephram.

  “Aye. And that’s that none of their friends or relatives ever know where they’ve gone to.”

  “That is troublesome,” said Ephram. “What could have happened to them?”

  “That’s just it, you see,” said Sparky with a wink and a toothy grin. “They haven’t a notion where he is, but they’ll quickly lead you to him.”

  “They will?” said Eagleton.

  Sparky nodded and flashed his grin again. “When you’re a collector, you see some interesting sights.” He reached into a pocket and produced what looked like a small piece of fur.

  The members of the club looked at one another, hoping that one among them had grasped what Sparky was attempting to explain, or that collectively they might somehow decipher his words. “How do they lead you to the person if they don’t know where he is?” wondered Ephram.

  “You just wait outside their place for a bit and, dollars to doughnuts, some friend or family of the fellow who owes money will hurry off to tell him that someone’s been looking for him.” Sparky then pointed at his own breast, and they considered his buttons for a moment.

  “Extraordinary!” said Eagleton. “And without knowing where they were!”

  “You wait, now,” said Sparky with a wink. He was rubbing the piece of fur with his thumb. “Something was up with that old dodger.”

  “Old dodger?” said Ephram.

  “Those names you were giving him,” said the brawny man. “He was more surprised with each one.”

  “Mr. Siegfried, do you mean?” said Eagleton.

  “And then he guessed that man’s name.”

  “Mr. Wilmington Edward Northstrophe?”

  “But he didn’t say that he didn’t know where these people were,” said Thump. “It was simply improper for him to tell us.”

  “It’s the same thing, ain’t it.” Sparky let out a chuckle that was almost a growl. “Oh, he’s a canny one, he is. If I’m wrong, I’ll go back up there and he’ll talk before I’m through.”

  “I beg your pardon!”
said Ephram.

  “This Mrs. Roberto,” said Sparky. “Does her old man owe you money?

  “Good heavens!” said Eagleton.

  “She’s a handsome piece of work, I warrant,” said Sparky with a wink

  “Mr. Spark!” said Ephram, and Thump was straightening to his not considerable height with growing indignation.

  Sparky had spotted his quarry. “Look here!” he said.

  There was a hollow thock as Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump attempted to look through the carriage window at the same time. Rubbing their noggins, they watched a morose figure pause outside the publisher’s front door. The man glowered at the street, at the traffic and the darkening sky, put his hat on his head, adjusted his spectacles, and marched up the hill.

  “That was Mr. Mullett,” said Ephram.

  “Aye,” said Sparky.

  “He did seem concerned about the day of the week,” said Thump again.

  “Come with me,” said Sparky, with a finger aside of his nose to indicate the need for clandestine movement.

  “Oh?” said Ephram, but Sparky was already stalking up the sidewalk, across the street from Mr. Mullett. And so they followed Sparky in what they considered to be attitudes of absolute secrecy—crouching and skulking. It did not occur to them that they appeared to be hiding behind tree and bush when there was no cover, or that they were gathering all sorts of stares from people who passed them on the sidewalk.

  Ahead of them, on the other side of the street, Mr. Mullett paused to consider something in a storefront window. Sparky stopped, and Ephram, watching Mr. Mullet with wide eyes, ran into their guide’s broad back. Eagleton and Thump, too, added something to this small collision, which caused Sparky to look back with amazement at their tense and furtive postures.

  “Look careless, will you!” he said.

  “Careless?” said Ephram.

  “I lost my hat,” said Eagleton looking around him.

  “You didn’t have a hat,” muttered Sparky.

  “Yes, of course,” said Eagleton. He had been touching the top of his head. “Right you are!”

  Realizing that Mr. Mullett had continued on his way, Sparky let out a low sound and hurried after. The opposing pedestrian traffic parted for the former prizefighter like water before the bow of a sailing vessel, and the Moosepathians fared on in his wake. There was a certain simian quality to Sparky—his broad, broken nose and wide smile with the space between his upper front teeth, his long arms and bristle-covered knuckles; his eyes were small, peering brightly above round cheeks.