Shamus in a Skirt

by M. Ruth Myers

  We did the scene a few more times. Mostly I didn’t hear any whirling. I clicked the stopwatch and jotted nonsense on my clipboard. I was pretty sure Ione had spotted Veronica Page by now, though she didn’t let on.

  “That line of navigation is particularly problematic.” I waved toward a wall some distance beyond the actress.

  Ione fiddled with some settings on the Pathé, then turned and started the camera running again. Veronica, who was reading the morning paper with a cup of coffee in one hand, didn’t look up. Archie Clarke surged out of his seat like an enraged bull.

  “Hey! Gimme that!” He grabbed for the camera.

  Ione stepped back (still filming, I suspected) and swung a trousered leg around to block him. Veronica raised her head to see what was causing the ruckus.

  “Don’t you dare lay so much as a pinkie on my camera.” Ione drew herself up and gave a fine appearance of glaring down at the chubby producer even though she was only an eyebrow taller. “Do you have any idea how much equipment like this costs?”

  “Do I—?” Clarke sputtered. “Do you know who I am?”

  “I don’t care who you are, pal, keep your pudgy fingers away from this camera or you’ll be hunting a dentist.”

  Clarke turned red enough to keel over. His younger companion hovered uselessly behind him. With a majestic flounce, Ione went back to filming.

  Before the Hollywood bigwig could react to this added indignity, I took his arm and urged him away.

  “She’s awfully volatile,” I whispered. “Gave another man who got in her way a huge black eye. But she’s terribly good and we’ll be finished here in a jiffy — just as soon as we have enough footage to analyze breakfast service.”

  “It’s, uh, some sort of efficiency study for the hotel,” the younger man said.

  Clarke shook off my arm. Spewing angrily to his companion, he stomped back to his table. Veronica Page held a napkin to her mouth to cover laughter.

  * * *

  Ione and I took our little show to the kitchen. She pretended to film. I scribbled. The chef shot us uneasy looks. His assistant mugged. Just to provoke Miss G, I had Ione poke her camera into the housekeeping office. We emerged from the back hall into the lobby as Tucker and a pleasant looking man in a tweed jacket disappeared into Tucker’s office.

  “If you can spare the film, I’d like you to stand by this door and move it along to show everything you could see with your eye,” I said in a low voice.

  “The gangster checking to see if the coast is clear before he makes a run for it.”

  “Yes, like that. Then you can stop and we’ll go across to the lounge. I want you to do the same thing over there.”

  I had no idea how long it would take to get the sort of film she was using developed. I didn’t know if it would show anything I couldn’t see with my own two eyes. What I was fairly sure of, based on my rambles through the hotel, was that one far end of the lounge was the only point in the lobby invisible to someone entering Tucker’s office.

  “Since we’re right here, is it too early for a drink?” Ione asked when she’d finished the second part of her assignment.

  “Not if we have Bloody Marys.”

  “Why don’t you find a table and rest your tootsies,” I said. “I want to powder my nose.”

  Mostly I wanted to see whether anyone was limping this morning, though I had no idea whether my wild shot last night had hit my assailant.

  My fingers touched the scarf at my throat. Only a small cut; not stitches or broken bones, I reminded myself.

  In contrast to the surprisingly busy dining room I’d encountered earlier, the lobby area now seemed emptier than usual. Veronica Page sat in the conversation area. She was juggling a book on her lap more than reading it. She checked a platinum wrist watch and glanced toward the lobby entrance. As she did, she spotted me.

  “Tell your friend I could fill that dining room with people who’d pay ten bucks a head to see the performance she put on with Archie Clarke.”

  “Oh dear. One of the waiters said he’s some sort of movie producer. Is he? We didn’t know.”

  She shrugged.

  “Don’t worry about it. So you’re doing some sort of efficiency study?”

  “Yes, and we’ll try not to bother—”

  “You’ve got a job to do.”

  Her eyes went to the door again. She returned to her book. Interview over.

  Continuing past her I reached the hall outside the dining room. A neatly groomed woman in a navy dress hovered there, peering into the lobby.

  She wasn’t quite gussied up enough to be a guest, but I hadn’t seen her around before. I wondered who she was.

  No one appeared to be limping. Ione and I had our perked up tomato juice and chatted about inconsequential things. We sauntered out of the lounge, with Ione capturing — or at least pretending to — a final sweep of the lobby before heading back to pack up her camera. In the midst of it the lobby door opened on such a commotion that every eye in the place turned toward a party of four.

  Striding ahead of the others, determination in every movement, came a black-haired woman in a plain hat and dowdy dress. A woman, a boy of about nine and a sturdy older woman who looked like a servant trailed in her wake.

  “If I never wear a wig again it will be too soon!”

  Aware every eye was on her, the woman in the lead stripped off her hairpiece and sent it sailing across the lobby. She leaned on the counter and sent the desk clerk a smile that lighted the whole place.

  “Ring Archie Clarke’s room and tell him his lost lamb has arrived.”

  EIGHTEEN

  The lobby exploded. Veronica sprang to her feet. Loren Avery appeared from nowhere muttering a fervent “Thank God!” With a cry of joy, someone shot past me. It was the plainly clothed woman who’d been peering out from the hall.

  “Oh, this will be a much better study in luggage conveyance,” said Ione innocently. Filming. Her subject appeared to be the items being carried in by Smith and another bellman, but I knew it was the newcomer, who without a doubt was Mitzi Cassingham.

  To describe the actress as blonde was an understatement. Her newly freed hair was a cloud of spun sugar around an oval face. She spread her arms wide for the woman in the navy dress who hurtled into them.

  “Oh, Miss! I’ve been so afraid for you!”

  “I know you have, Till, and I’m sorry I put you through it. I had no idea I’d get stuck. Is your room okay? Are you okay?”

  Something caught my eye on the balcony. Bartoz. Surveying the activity.

  “You’ll be doing a lot of shopping for me these next few days,” Mitzi was telling her maid. “I barely have a change of clothes. For now, can you unpack my suitcase? And draw me a lovely, lovely bath.”

  As the maid hurried off, Veronica stepped close to drape an arm around Mitzi’s shoulder.

  “Late because you couldn’t tear yourself away from cavorting with all those Greek sailors? That’s how I heard it.”

  “Something like that.” Mitzi laughed and nudged her with an elbow. “Good to see you, kid.”

  “Likewise.”

  Mitzi shook Loren’s hand and apologized for delaying things. He said he was glad she was safe.

  Ione lowered her camera.

  “Have we gotten everything on your list?” she asked for any listeners.

  I clicked the stopwatch off, then flipped some pages on my clipboard. I nodded. The elevator disgorged a stern looking Archie Clarke.

  “Why don’t you pack up? I want to make a few notes here while things are still fresh in my mind,” I said.

  Bartoz had vanished, but Lena Shields had appeared. She sat on one arm of the couch vacated by Veronica. Her gaze, however, wasn’t on Mitzi. Hard to tell whether it was on the trio that had arrived with Mitzi or on the luggage behind them.

  Mitzi’s maid had shepherded Smith up with her single suitcase. What remained belonged to the threesome who’d come in with Mitzi. Three ordinary suitcases. Another
one, child sized. And four very sturdy unfinished wooden crates. Two were nearly the height of the front desk. The others looked about as high as where my garter belt clipped to my stockings. Their width varied, but none of the crates was more than ten inches deep.

  The owners of the luggage moved without animation, as if dazed or exhausted or both. The younger of the women was signing the register. She gripped the little boy with a ferocity that warned against trying to separate them.

  Eulahbelle and the two male dancers ran up to join the throng around Mitzi. Archie Clarke was booming away. To my surprise, I saw Count Szarenski and his bunch making their way toward the new arrivals.

  Their destination, however, wasn’t the actress. As those with him halted a few paces back, the aloof Szarenski spoke to the woman clutching the little boy. She turned from the desk. Stopping in front of her, the count clicked his heels together, took her hand, and bowed low to kiss it.

  As dazed as she seemed, the woman gave a small bow in return. They exchanged a few words in French, or maybe Polish, with him doing most of the talking. She took a lace-trimmed hanky from her pocket and dabbed at her eyes. One of the Szarenski women stepped forward and murmured something and bussed her on both cheeks. Meanwhile, the count leaned low on his cane to speak to the little boy.

  Had he used a cane before? When they excluded me from the elevator?

  I looked up to find Bartoz’s single eye looking at me.

  * * *

  “Matt’s going to be too excited to sleep.”

  “As long as he’s too excited to renege on our deal.”

  Ione and I were on our way to the parking lot, but my mind was still on the scene in the lobby. The quieter one. The woman must be the young widow Tucker had told me about the day he hired me, the one whose husband had died fighting with the French resistance. Apparently he’d been well enough known, or his widow was, for a count from another country to pay respects.

  “Can he have that film ready to watch tomorrow?” I asked Ione.

  “Oh, I doubt it. This morning he said something about it having to go to Cincinnati.”

  “Cincinnati!”

  She looked at me shrewdly.

  “I’ll tell him you need to see it pronto for whatever you’re working on.”

  “Thanks, Ione.”

  “Which I now speculate has to do with those crated up paintings.”

  So that was what the crates contained. I’d supposed they held clothes. Since Ione moved in the sort of circles to know about such things, I decided she was probably right. I smiled noncommittally.

  When we’d said our good-byes, as I started back in, I noticed the scowling Szarenski girl. She sat on the hood of a car parked under a spindly tree that was managing to hold its own in a far corner of the parking lot. As she caught sight of me, her expression grew almost civil. Then a voice spoke behind me and I realized she’d been looking over my shoulder.

  It was Bartoz, and the words that passed between them were incomprehensible. Moving toward her, he spoke again, this time with a jerk of the head. I didn’t need a translator to tell me it meant, roughly, ‘Get inside and don’t wander off again.’

  The girl slid reluctantly from the car. For half a second I felt sorry for her. If her father was a count, the kid had probably had the run of a big yard with plenty of trees and things to do. Now she was stuck in a strange place with adults afraid to let her out of their sight.

  I walked back to the hotel to find out what the jewelry appraiser had discovered. And how long Count Szarenski had been using a cane.

  NINETEEN

  The appraiser, a man named Daniel Drew, was just completing his work when Tucker opened the door a crack in response to my knock. He gestured me wordlessly into his office. One look at his face told me the news wasn’t good.

  “He’s written it all up. See for yourself.”

  Sinking into his chair, the hotel owner pushed two sheets of paper across his desk. I’d managed to skim just a few lines before he summarized.

  “Half the things in there are phony.”

  I looked up. Tucker’s round face, which seemed designed for buoyant optimism, was drawn with despair.

  Drew, in the midst of tucking an eye loupe into his pocket, glanced up.

  “No more than a third of them,” he said gently. If that.”

  “Either way, we’re still ruined—”

  I held up my hand. Something was wrong. But possibly not what my client thought.

  “First of all, has everyone with things in the safe been here for the past ten days?”

  Tucker took the list back and hunched over it.

  “Well, no....”

  “Tell me, Mr. Drew, would it be unusual for a safe in a hotel like this one to have this many, uh, reproductions? In nice cases like the real thing?” I was on thin ice, but I didn’t see how so many pieces could have been switched in such a short space of time.

  Tucker squirmed. He most likely hadn’t told the appraiser why he needed his services, or why with such immediacy. I figured Drew was smart enough to have guessed.

  “Probably not.” Drew hesitated, couching his words in caution. “I’ve never been asked to inspect the entire contents of a safe before, other than for private estates. I can assure you it’s not uncommon for people who own expensive jewelry to have a very good copy made and seldom, if ever, wear the original. That would be particularly true when they traveled.

  “And of course since the Crash, more than a few have sold a piece here or there to make ends meet, so to speak.” His mouth gave a wry twist. “As to nice velvet cases, they’re not that expensive. Cheap paste jewelry to use on stage is one thing, but a quality copy involves workmanship — not to mention the gold in the setting. You don’t want something like that scuffing around.”

  I’d retrieved the list while he talked. A question mark by an entry on the second page caught my eye. Reading the name beside it, I did a double take.

  “Why this question mark?” I pointed.

  “Ah, yes.” He didn’t need to look. “I flatter myself that I have a very good eye, but that piece, a very old ruby necklace, I couldn’t be entirely certain about the three main stones. There’s a man in town who’s a master copier, and so skilled at spotting such work that he often knows where it was made. Sometimes even by whom. I’ve suggested Mr. Tucker ask his opinion on this one.”

  When the dispirited Tucker walked him out a few minutes later, I finally had a good look at the list. Twenty-four jewelry cases, six of them containing fakes and one requiring a second appraisal.

  One of the fakes, as well as the one with a question mark by it, belonged to the women with Count Szarenski. Another belonged to Lena Shields. Three belonged to a name I didn’t recognize; one to a likewise unknown guest. And there amidst the others snuggled Lily Clarke’s four jewelry cases. Every sparkle inside them was genuine, beckoning a would-be thief like a virgin in a burlesque show.

  Tucker returned and slumped in his chair.

  “Insurance would cover two of those pieces, maybe three,” he said after a minute. “But like I told you in the beginning, once word got out, we’d be ruined. And with so many phony, if something’s happened to them while they were in our safe—”

  “Slow down.”

  “If we had to make good on all of them.... The thing is, four months ago, when it was time to re-up the insurance, I reduced the amount. Frances... there were a lot of medical bills.”

  He looked at me in appeal. He didn’t want her to know.

  “You’ll still get paid,” he added quickly. “Everybody who works for us will. Don’t worry none there.”

  “I wasn’t.”

  “Now you gotta find out who’s behind this. Those other things you suggested — a guard or alarm — it’s too late for those, but if somebody’s stealing, maybe we could still get things back, track them down.”

  “Joshua, I’m not going to tell you not to worry, but maybe you should worry less. Mr. Drew just told you owners
themselves often get copies made.”

  His bullheaded insistence on secrecy whittled down chances I could do what he wanted, or even prevent further losses, but I had to try. He was my client. So long as it wasn’t illegal, I did what a client wanted. Besides, somewhere along the line I’d started to like the little guy in his loud suits.

  “Did Drew give you the name of that jeweler who’s an expert on copies?” I asked.

  “Lagarde.” He took a slip of paper from his pocket. “Philip Lagarde. Has a place on First Street.”

  He handed me the note so I could write down the particulars.

  “Let me have a talk with him. See what I can learn about how long it takes to make something like that.”

  When I got within a block of the address, however, I knew I wouldn’t be chatting with anyone there in the next few hours. Parked in front were two police cruisers and an unmarked car that belonged to the homicide boys.

  TWENTY

  The location of Lagarde Jewelry, more than its bright blue awning, told me it catered to the carriage trade. It was in easy walking distance of the Hotel Miami and Rike’s Department Store. Four years of working at the latter place before I set up shop as a gumshoe meant I had an ace or two up my sleeve.

  I found a parking place, steering clear of the new meters on Main and Ludlow that had caused such a tizzy. Then I went into Rike’s and caught up with Abner Simms, head of security. He immediately whisked me to lunch.

  “Sure you won’t come back to work for me?” Ab raised bristling brows and gave a tiny smile. “No getting punched in the nose, no sitting in the cold playing Peeping Tom, fancy sandwiches whenever you wanted them.”

  We were in one of the store’s several restaurants. This one’s offerings included pecan chicken salad on raisin bread. It was overly fussy for Ab’s taste. Nevertheless, he rotated through them all for his daily lunch, chewing and keeping an eye peeled for trouble or staff laxness.

  “I usually do the nose punching,” I assured him. “I miss the sandwiches though. I should remember to come here more often.”