Gin and Panic

by Maia Chance

  Winslow Bradford must have known something about those stolen diamonds—hence his deathbed remorse—but he must also have believed his friend Rudy was behind the smuggling. That’s why he never told anyone the truth—to protect his friend.

  Coral went on, “Rudy told me he had a bastard son in Carvington, a wimpish college guy, and that he meant to leave everything to this wimp when he died. Bingo, I thought. Wimpy, brainy types are sitting ducks for girls like me. They’ve got no experience. We got married at City Hall in Manhattan—”

  “Married,” I muttered. “Of course.” Hadn’t Miss Murden said Coral and Theo were bickering like an old married couple at the séance?

  “—and kept it hush-hush. I told him I had to let his dad down easy and everything, to give me some time.”

  The Rolls-Royce was turning, and we went through the gates of Montgomery Hall and started up the drive.

  Coral said, “Anyway, I returned to America as Rudy’s bit of cake. Mwinyi came, too, of course, and so did our scrumptious diamonds, sealed up in that rhinoceros trophy. We thought we’d just keep them in there. Save them for a rainy day, you know, or at least until after we figured out how to sell them.”

  “You must have panicked when Berta and I found the diamonds,” I said. “And when we lost them.”

  “I was simply out of my mind, sweetie, but I had to keep my cool, didn’t I? I just made sure Theo pushed for their return. I understand they’re in the cove now. Maybe I’ll make Theo get in there with a diver’s helmet and fish them out.” She laughed.

  “Theo is your puppet,” I said.

  “Yeah.” Coral smiled. “I guess he is.”

  “You made Theo hire Ralph Oliver to tail us.”

  “That’s right. I heard you arguing with some fellow on the telephone and after you left, had the operator reconnect me. I figured if I stirred your man troubles into the mix, it would make things that much stickier for you. Now I realize I should’ve bumped you off first thing.”

  “Does Theo know you killed his father?”

  “I think he’s getting suspicious. It’s been tough for me to be sweet to him this past week—my nerves are like electrical wires. And he’s always had his suspicions about Mwinyi—hasn’t he, my darling? So I’m gonna have to get rid of Theo sooner than I thought. But—first things first.”

  Mwinyi had turned off the drive and was bumping across the wet grassy field, toward the line of bare trees.

  For the first time, real fear zinged through me. That blank, bunny rabbit kind of fear. The fear of prey.

  No. I would not allow these frosty-hearted villains to do away with Berta and me. Yet … they held the guns.

  We were in the soup again, and it was coming to a boil. How to get out? Think, Lola, think!

  We rumbled closer to the trees. Closer.

  Think.

  Well, everyone has a fatal flaw. I’d begin there. All right. Coral was vain, heartless, and cruel. But she had done everything, not for lust or pride or revenge, but out of basic greed.

  Greed.

  I slid my fingers inside my coat pocket and felt for my coin purse. Coral, frowning out the windshield, didn’t notice.

  Mwinyi rolled into the trees, parked, and switched off the ignition. Leaving the key in the panel, he got out and circled around to open Coral’s door.

  Droplets from branches overhead splatted on the motorcar’s roof. A tendril of exhaust drifted, phantomlike, away into the misty tree trunks.

  “Get out,” Coral said, nudging me with her gun barrel.

  I got out. That big dark muddy hole was right there, yawning wide, smelling of worms and rot. There was the pile of excavated dirt, on which leaned a mud-caked shovel. Theo must have forgotten it.

  Coral and Mwinyi stood side by side, both guns aimed at my noggin.

  “There’s been quite a lot of talk about the Montgomery treasure,” I said, struggling to speak calmly. “I wonder if Theo’s been digging for treasure all this while.”

  “Don’t be stupid. He’s digging for his vile old artifacts.”

  “Everyone knows the treasure is money,” I said, “but no one knows what kind. But I heard that pirates used to stop along this coast, and—I have this on good authority—the treasure is gold bullion. Thousands’—perhaps millions’—worth of gold bullion.”

  “Shut up and get down in that hole,” Coral said to me. “Hop to it.”

  “Not really my idea of a good time, but all right,” I said. I leaned over the hole a little, and discreetly dropped in the curl of firecracker paper. It fluttered to the bottom and—hallelujah—landed gold-side up. “Goodness! What’s that?”

  “What’re you yakking about?” Coral said.

  “Down in the hole—why—is it—? What a coincidence! Could it possibly be … gold?”

  Coral and Mwinyi locked eyes.

  “Gold?” Coral’s tongue darted out to wet her lips. “Where?” She and Mwinyi, still with guns cocked, stepped over and bent to peer into the hole.

  “It is gold,” Coral breathed. “Mwinyi! Gold!”

  Meanwhile, I had slipped over to the dirt pile, hefted the shovel—

  Coral was halfway down into the hole, mud smeared across the back of her creamy wool coat, when I whacked the back of her head with the shovel. She crumpled into the pit. Mwinyi swung around to face me, gun poised, just as I wound up again. Clang. I got him in the side of the head. He fell on top of Coral.

  I dropped the shovel, ran to the motorcar, and switched on the ignition. “Don’t worry, Berta!” I babbled. “We’re on our way to the hospital!”

  Mwinyi was climbing out of the hole, still with that bally gun at the ready, as I zigzagged away into the trees. As I careened onto the drive, a blue police car roared into view. I parked, got out, put up my hands, and, breathing hard, I waited.

  * * *

  The journey back to Manhattan that night was a blur. Ralph drove my motorcar, and I sat with Cedric on my lap in the passenger seat. Berta slept in the backseat the entire way, white gauze looped around her head like a tiara. The doctor had sewn two stitches just at the hairline, and she had taken aspirins washed down (not per the doctor’s orders) with gin.

  I’ll back up. There were the Carvington police herding Coral and Mwinyi into a paddy wagon, my ambulance ride with Berta to the hospital, and police questionings at the station. It turned out that Nat from Flintock’s Groceries had telephoned the police after seeing Berta and me being stuffed at gunpoint into the late Rudy Montgomery’s Rolls-Royce. Then Ralph, who had been searching frantically for us, had showed up with Cedric at the police station. There was the hasty packing of Berta’s and my suitcases at the Old Whaler’s Inn and settling our bill with Knobby Wrists.

  I was fine. Nervy, exhausted, but also elated at having cracked the case. My only regret was not having figured things out sooner. Perhaps Glenn Monroe would be alive still.

  * * *

  “I heard that sigh,” Ralph said, glancing over at me in the passenger seat. “You did your best, kid, and you did one heck of a job. It’ll be in all the papers tomorrow. Brace yourself.”

  “I am bracing myself,” I said, “but not for that. We must still face Lem Fitzpatrick about those diamonds.” Jimmy the Ant had vanished—Berta had mumbled something about Canada—and Theo knew the diamonds were in the bottom of his cove. The diamonds weren’t Theo’s, of course, but the little cockroach would keep them since we had no way of tracking down their original owner in Africa. “Lem is going to be sore with Jimmy for stealing the diamonds from his safe, but he’s also going to be sore at us for thwarting his two thugs—I don’t even know if they’ve gotten out of the Carvington jail yet.” They had been found wandering the estate early that morning and arrested for trespassing. “On the other hand, we did mail the photographs he requested, so perhaps he’ll decide we’re square.” I rubbed my forehead. “It’s all a mess. And I really don’t wish to be in a mess with a top-brass gangster.”

  “We’ll think of something,
” Ralph said. “Don’t worry about it.”

  I didn’t miss the flex of his jaw.

  We motored on and on along the dark, twisty coastal road. Just two days ago, the drive up, with the squeaking windshield wipers, gusts of rain, and the slip of the Duesy’s balding tires, had felt dismal and precarious. Now, those very same things—even the balding tires—seemed to carry a whiff of adventure. I could take care of myself. I knew that I could. And I could, in my own secret ways, also take care of Ralph. But this was something else, this sense that if Ralph and I were side by side, not only were the grimmest circumstances tolerable, but the big wide world would offer up all its freshness and potential. Maybe that feeling was love. Maybe it was hope. Maybe it was friendship. Maybe it was all of the above.

  “What about the Montgomery treasure?” Ralph asked presently.

  “I’m not sure.” I stroked Cedric’s neck fuzz. He was out stone cold. “Perhaps it’s only a legend—the stories are certainly vague enough. But … I wonder. Did you ever notice Coral’s jewelry, all those white beads?”

  “Sure. Necklaces and bracelets and earrings. Somehow didn’t seem flashy enough for that kind of girl.”

  “That was wampum. Shell beads. I remember it from a history book I read in high school. The Indians used wampum as a sort of currency, and then when the English colonists arrived, they used it for currency, too. It was money, you see. And guess what wampum is made of?”

  “Oyster shells?”

  “Bingo. And there are oysters galore buried underwater in Sewant Cove.” I shrugged. “Or maybe it’s pirate’s bullion or deeds to tracts of royally owned land in Maine or, who knows, a sack of wooden nickels. In a way, it’s nice to know there are some things we can’t figure out. As long as those things aren’t harming anyone, I mean.”

  “Yeah.” Ralph kept his eyes on the road. “A little mystery and magic never hurt anyone.”

  30

  I woke to ringing. Dratted ringing. Ugh. I rolled over on the sofa and snuggled up to Cedric’s fluff on my pillow.

  More ringing.

  I struggled upright and staggered through my apartment to the telephone.

  “Ngh?” I mumbled, my eyes still glued shut.

  “Lola? Lola, are you drunk? It is eight o’clock in the morning! Do not tell me that you have been out all night in one of those illegal liquor establishments!”

  “Hello, Mother.” Oh, golly. No. Mother had returned from Paris. “How was the journey? Refreshing?”

  “Of course not, Lola. You know I cannot abide those staterooms. They make one feel as though one were in prison, I don’t care how many gold tassels they sew to the cushions. But Lillian’s wedding gown is complete—we brought it back with us, and I hope she quits the cream cakes or she won’t fit into it; the wedding is still six months away, long enough for her to simply explode—and her trousseau is being sewn this very instant by a fleet of Paris’s finest seamstresses, although I was disappointed to learn that half of them were actually from Spain. I thought I was paying for French seamstresses. Now, then. You have addressed and mailed the invitations?”

  “Of course.” I regarded the box of invitations and dust bunnies at my feet.

  “And the caterer. Did you select and reserve the services of a caterer?”

  “Yes.”

  “Which one?”

  “Oh. Um, it’ll be a surprise. When I see you.”

  “I don’t know why you insist upon surprises and intrigue and hugger-muggery, Lola, I really don’t, although I strongly suspect it has to do with the oceans of rubbishy fiction you have been devouring since your adolescence. Very well. Come to see me at home at seven o’clock this evening. We’ll have dinner—I’ll tell Marguerite to make clear broth and a vegetable terrine, since Lillian and, most likely, you, could benefit from a light repast.”

  “Sounds positively scrumdiddly, Mother. Good-bye.” I slung the receiver in its cradle.

  Oh dear. Time to snap to it.

  Sometime in the past twelve hours, a mad plan had taken root in my mind. It was a long shot, riddled with problems and, perhaps, a touch of risk.

  I ran it by Berta, who was preparing to go out.

  “It is indeed mad,” she said, buttoning her coat. “Although I cannot think of any alternatives. We must attempt it. Now, I am off to the printer’s to have new business cards done up. I will ask them to change our motto to ‘No job too tricky,’ if you approve.”

  “Sure.”

  “And then I am going to market for more bacon and eggs. When I return, we must get to work. Mrs. Snyder has compiled a list of fourteen potential clients whom we must ring back without delay.” Berta stooped to gather up the mail that the postman had jammed through the slot earlier. “Please sort this. We must become more systematic.”

  She left, and I perused the mail while drinking coffee at the kitchen table. Bills, mostly, but also a letter from Eustace, Lord Sudley.

  Funny. I hadn’t seen him since the day of the séance, when he’d left the Old Whaler’s Inn in a snit. I had swung from suspecting he had poisoned me, to thinking he was Coral’s accomplice, to not knowing what to think of him.

  I tore open the envelope. There was a plump bank check, and a handwritten note.

  Dear Lola,

  It has taken me a day of reflection to come to the conclusion that I treated you in a rather beastly fashion. When you turned down my proposal of marriage, you see, my pride was wounded to the quick. That is the Achilles’ heel of men, I daresay: pride as soft as tallow. I wish you to know that I really believed myself to be in love with you, although now I see that I may have been simply too caught up in the glamour of it all—American gumshoes, murder, and all that—to really see straight. I do believe you are a queen among women, and I will always think of you with a bit of a sigh. However, today at my hotel I happened to meet a most fascinating American heiress who is also embarking for Liverpool tomorrow, and I think she will help me to forget you.

  I fancy I also owe you an explanation about my motives for having enlisted your help in retrieving my rhinoceros trophy—which is already stowed safely in a crate of straw in the ship’s hold. The trouble is, I am an absolutely beastly shot. Oh, I went on hunting trips with Rudy and Winslow, but that was because I enjoyed the camaraderie and the great starry skies of the outback. But it was a rare occasion when I hit anything. Now it has come to pass that I’ve been nominated for the very select Mount Olympus Club in London. This is a gentlemen’s club that holds, arguably, more social status than any other of its kind in, perhaps, the world. Far be it from me to turn the nomination down. Unfortunately, one requirement for admission is to present to the selection committee a hunting trophy of great merit, a trophy that one has killed oneself. You can probably guess that the one and only meritorious animal I ever killed was that rhinoceros, and that was by sheer luck. And as I am a gentleman and therefore a man of honor, I could never pass off as my own a trophy that someone else bagged. There, then, is the reason I so urgently required the rhinoceros trophy, and I thank you and Mrs. Lundgren for retrieving it for me and, of course, for bringing poor old Rudy’s murderer to justice.

  Sincerely,

  Eustace, Lord Sudley

  Well, what do you know?

  At one o’clock, Berta and I clambered out of a taxicab in front of Ambrose’s Confectionery-Caterer on Forty-fourth Street. Ralph was waiting for us on the sidewalk, fedora dipped, hands in overcoat pockets, shoulders lifted against the wind.

  Cedric bobbed up and down on Ralph’s shins, and Ralph bent to give him a scratch. “Ready to go in?”

  Berta nodded.

  Honestly, I was a bit frazzled, and it wasn’t only because of the Mad Plan. I had managed to get all Lillian’s wedding invitations mailed off, but there was a chance that one of our séance invitations had been mailed by mistake to Society Matron Catherine Von Trappen.

  “Ready,” I said.

  Ambrose’s put Delguzzo’s to shame. The tables were daintier, the upholste
ry more marshmallowy, the chandeliers more migraine-inducing, and the ladies-of-leisure clientele wore fashions so new, they hadn’t yet been pictured in Vogue.

  Berta led the way toward the back. I followed with Cedric in my arms, and Ralph was just behind me.

  Every last lady-of-leisure watched Ralph as he went. Every last pair of lady lungs ceased to breathe.

  And then it was my turn to stop breathing, because we had arrived at Lem Fitzpatrick’s table. He hunched at the tiny table alone, smoking moodily, making his expensive suit look cheap.

  “Well, if it isn’t dollface and her circus troupe,” he said.

  Berta, Ralph, and I sat.

  “So,” Lem said, blowing smoke, “you said on the telephone you had a business proposition for me?”

  “That is correct,” Berta said. She had made the telephone call earlier, somehow managing to get Lem on the line after calling all three branches of Ambrose’s. “You tell him, Mrs. Woodby,” she whispered.

  I took a big breath. I explained how Jimmy the Ant had brought us the diamonds and fled for parts unknown—

  “It was a gesture of love,” Berta said.

  “Uh-huh,” Lem said.

  —and how, as the result of a motorcar chase with Lem’s own henchpersons, the diamonds were underwater. “It’s a shallow cove,” I said, “but it would be difficult, if not impossible, to retrieve those diamonds in a discreet fashion, particularly since the owner of the cove, Theo Wainwright, has surely launched his own retrieval effort. Which is why we have come to you with an alternative proposition.”

  Lem flicked ash into a sugar bowl. “A booby prize, huh?”

  I plowed forward. “My sister, Mr. Fitzpatrick, is to be married this spring in what is being spoken of as the society event of the season. My parents—Mr. and Mrs. Virgil DuFey of Park Avenue—are spending an appalling sum on the nuptials, and they naturally require a caterer. A caterer of great distinction and style that is able to roll out wave after wave of savories and dainties for a party of five hundred or so. A caterer who not only stands to earn a great deal from the proceeds, but who stands to rise to the very tippy-top of New York City’s society caterer gold-star list.” On my lap, hidden beneath the table, I crossed my fingers.