Shamus in a Skirt

by M. Ruth Myers

  I’d already eliminated the recently fired bartender, the only employee with grudge enough against the Tuckers to try and steal from them. He’d been laid up with food poisoning. True, he could have hired someone to break into the safe, but getting in would require expertise. In addition to skill, a safecracker would need knowledge of the hotel’s layout and schedules. The idea of a partner was too farfetched to entice me.

  That left the second most likely candidate, Len Welles, his breezy replacement. A paperclip held Len’s application to a couple of reference letters.

  Birch Lodge was the name he’d listed as his last employer. A note in the margin said ‘went out of business.’ That matched what he’d said when he’d flirted with me in the bar. It was also a dandy way to prevent anyone from checking. Still, at least I could check to see if the place had existed.

  It was somewhere in Michigan. I dialed the operator and gave her the name of the town and asked for the number. There was some back and forth between her and another operator about what exchange it was on, but eventually they came up with one. When I called, however, the number rang and rang.

  While waiting for inspiration to strike, I noticed my manicure had begun to look shopworn. I got out a bottle of polish remover and took off the color. I walked upstairs to the Ladies and washed my hands. Then I did some filing. The kind with an emery board. Then I gave my nails two coats of polish. By the time I’d finished, I’d also had an idea.

  Fitting the unsharpened pencil I kept for such purposes into the bottom hole of the telephone dial, I swept the dial around in a circle.

  “Op-uh-ray-tuh.”

  I asked for the post office in the burg where Birch Lodge was located. Another minute or two and it was ringing.

  “Post Office,” answered a cheerful woman. At any rate she sounded jolly.

  “I’m calling from Ohio,” I said. “Are you the postmistress?”

  She laughed merrily.

  “No, dear, that’s my husband. He came in early and took off early to get in an hour of fishing. Could I help you?”

  “Sure,” I said. “At least I hope so. Birch Lodge. When did it go out of business?”

  “Dear me. It would be four or five months ago now. Right at the start of the season. The owners were sure they could turn things around, what with times getting better. But the bank had extended their loan too many times already, I guess. Were you needing to reach someone there?”

  “No, no. A man who’s applied for a job said he used to work there. My boss asked me to check.”

  “It wouldn’t be that nice young Len, would it? Len Welles?”

  “Why, yes it would.”

  “Lovely young fellow. And now that I think, he was from Ohio, wasn’t he? I’m sure he left a forwarding address if you’d like me to look—”

  “No, that’s fine.” Every minute of chat was adding to my telephone bill. “You’ve been very helpful. I hope your husband, uh, catches big fish.”

  She laughed as if I’d said something funny.

  Maybe I had.

  Three hours and numerous phone calls later, I’d eliminated the desk clerks, the bellboys, the doorman and half the dining room staff as likely suspects. No one owed large sums of money. Except for a single fine for running a stop sign, none had gotten themselves in trouble. Former employers and landlords sang their praises.

  I needed a drink.

  TWENTY-THREE

  What I actually wanted was to walk into Finn’s and have Wee Willie give me a hard time. Instead I returned to The Canterbury. As much as Tucker fought the idea, it was time to take a look at his guests. A few of them had been around when his safe troubles started. Besides, if I went to Finn’s, I’d only run the risk of Connelly’s bringing his ladylove in.

  Frances was leaving the desk with a sheaf of papers in hand when I entered the lobby. She veered to join me.

  “Maybe you’re not as smart as I thought if you’re sticking around.” Her smile was lopsided. “Joshua told me about the appraiser.”

  “There’s more.”

  I told her about Lagarde’s death as we ambled along. She absorbed it with the stoicism of one grown numb to bad news. But when I mentioned Polly’s daughter, she gasped. Her eyes filled with tears.

  “That child had a baby?”

  “Yes.”

  Hugging the papers against her, she shook her head. Her lips were pressed together.

  “Where... what will become of her? The baby.”

  “They took her to an orphanage.”

  The intensity of her response startled me. I opened my purse.

  “Polly’s friend thought you might want to take them this picture of Polly, for when the girl’s older. Maybe take a toy or something for her. Here’s the address.”

  Frances nodded wordlessly. I told her I was going to start taking a look at hotel guests.

  “We trust your judgment,” she said absently, and went on her way.

  We’d ended up at the little conversation area of chairs and couches. A foursome waited by the elevator.

  “Forget bath salts. I need horse liniment,” one moaned.

  Mitzi, her white-blonde tresses hidden under a turban-style hat, rested her back against the wall as if she might at any moment slide down it.

  One of the others muttered a comment and all of them laughed. The dancers, it appeared, had just returned from rehearsing.

  Cheered by the thought my afternoon might not have been so bad in comparison, I went into the lounge and folded my arms on the bar. Since it seemed a waste not to have something fancier than what I could mix for myself, I once again asked for a martini.

  “Put hers on my bill.” Loren Avery had come up behind me. “Please. It’s the least I can do,” he said as I started to protest.

  “For what?”

  “Being such a good sport when Mother was playing cupid. And whiskey for me, Len. Make it a double. Join me?” He indicated a table. Sinking into a chair, he closed his eyes briefly and threw his head back.

  “Rough day?”

  “I’ve had better.” The choreographer gave a wry smile. “Worse too, probably. I knew I’d have my work cut out trying to get an actress who’s never done so much as a shuffle step to pass as a dancer. What I didn’t expect was for her to have two left feet and no ear for rhythm. How about your day?”

  I wasn’t used to anyone asking.

  “Okay. I, um, got lots of measurements organized.”

  Len left the bar to set our drinks before us.

  “Economy of motion, that’s what your work boils down to, doesn’t it?” Loren mused when he’d sipped some whiskey. “You see it in good dancers, too.” Something caught his attention. “Nick! Come join us.”

  The man reputed to move from one rich woman to another strolled over with hands in his pockets. He was handsome, all right, and had that air of mockery which some of my gender found attractive.

  “Back from the salt mines, are you?” Nick sat down and snapped his fingers to summon Len. Apparently good looks eliminated the need for manners.

  “Have you met Miss Sullivan?” Loren asked.

  Although he hadn’t, the other man nodded. His eyes flicked over me without interest. Nice to know my fortune was safe.

  “Did someone tell me you were here visiting your grandma?” I asked brightly.

  “Great-aunt.” He turned toward Loren.

  “What’s her name?” I persisted. “Maybe I know her.”

  He didn’t like it, but he couldn’t ignore me without seeming rude.

  “Clara Drake,” he said smoothly. Taking out a gold lighter chased with his initial, he lighted up and blew smoke in my direction.

  “Drake... Drake....” I tapped my chin. “What was her husband’s name?”

  “Carlton. Owned part of a railroad.”

  I listened with half an ear while the two men talked. What little I’d seen of Nick Perry, beginning with the scrap with Lena, had made me dislike him. It didn’t make him a crook. Still, he was th
e one who’d lured Loren Avery and the Hollywood set to Dayton. He conveniently had a relative here and just happened to be visiting her at the same time.

  Suddenly Loren muttered under his breath.

  “There’s Archie. No doubt wanting a glowing report on the day’s activities and ready to snap my head off if I don’t give one. Excuse me a minute.”

  He pushed back from the table.

  “Gee, he’s a friendly fellow,” I said.

  “Just swell.” Nick snapped his fingers to summon another drink.

  The lounge was scantily populated. The three men here for meetings with Boss Kett stood at the bar sipping what looked like whiskey. I’d watched others order, then carry their glasses to tables.

  Nick picked up his lighter again.

  “So. You’re doing some sort of work for the hotel, are you? Toddling around with your little ruler.”

  “Yes, time-motion analysis. You’d be amazed how much it can help a business trim expenses.”

  “Do tell.” His lighter snapped. He exhaled in my direction, watching to see if I’d turn my head. “Smart women bore me.”

  “Oh, don’t worry when they’re brainier than you,” I said earnestly. “I’m sure they’re perfectly happy if you’re a good dancer and hold their wrap for them and things like that.”

  The man across from me stared, his face darkening. He snatched the cigarette from his mouth to respond.

  “There you are, sir.” Len set the requested drink in front of him and whisked away empties. “Another for you, miss?” The bartender’s eye held a glint of mischief as it connected with mine.

  “No, thanks. I’ve got to run. I’m meeting some friends.”

  As I rose to leave someone sideswiped me from behind. It was Lena. Oblivious to me, she shook a note on hotel paper under Nick’s nose.

  “You can’t seriously expect me to traipse along to this – this music recital with the two of you tomorrow!”

  “You don’t want Great Auntie to be disappointed, do you?”

  “You could have made some excuse, surely! It’s bad enough we have to spend extra time in this dump. Now we have to spend all afternoon—”

  “I’m no happier about the delay than you are. It’s not my doing. Would you rather sit around and make conversation with the narrow-minded old witch? This is only for a couple of hours.”

  They’d lowered their voices, but thanks to the half wall separating lounge from lobby, I could hear without dawdling much as I made my exit.

  “Sigmund Romberg!” snapped Lena. “I hate every sticky-sweet song he ever wrote!”

  She stormed out behind me.

  * * *

  I wanted a good, dark glass of stout and the sound of familiar voices around me. I headed to Finn’s. It had been my place a long time before it was Connelly’s, and I was going to sit and enjoy myself no matter what.

  Wee Willie had already finished his pint and headed home to his wife and kids by the time I arrived. Some of the regulars at the long bar along one side of the room greeted me as I passed. Rose was working the taps while Finn hauled a crate of something in from the back. As I slid onto a stool, she bustled over.

  “I’ll bring your pint, love. Go on over there. Something must have gone terrible wrong in Chicago. Poor lamb didn’t say two words when he came in. He looks like his heart’s fit to break.”

  A bob of her head indicated Connelly at a table alone. His shoulders were slumped.

  I hadn’t had the best of days either, but nobody seemed to care. Except maybe Loren Avery, who’d at least had manners to ask. I opened my mouth to tell Rose as much.

  “Where’s Seamus?” I asked instead.

  “Hasn’t been in. Him or Billy either.”

  I looked at Connelly again. His dark brown head with its glints of red was bowed in misery. I swallowed. Connelly deserved to be happy. If a chance at that had been snatched away, the least I could do was give him some sympathy.

  The sound of a chair scraping back brought him out of his reverie.

  “Mind some company?”

  A long moment passed before his head shook once.

  “Don’t know that you’ll find any in me.” He tossed back the last of his Guinness.

  Rose was sliding mine in front of me, and setting down a replacement for Connelly’s, before I’d even settled in my seat.

  “Doesn’t look like your trip went that well,” I observed after we’d sipped in silence.

  He propped his elbows on the table and grunted.

  “Worst couple of days I’ve had this side of the ocean. We’d agreed a price. Talked long distance. The fellow swore he’d sell to no other. Then when I got there, the s.o.b had. Some swell who works for the mayor had come along and offered more money.”

  Something was way off track here.

  “You talked like you were going there to meet a girl,” I said carefully.

  He frowned.

  “Why would I care about meeting a girl? In Chicago or anyplace else?” Leaning across his folded arms he spoke with an excitement he expected me to share. “I’d found pipes, Maggie. A year and more of looking, and finally I got word of somebody selling a set of pipes! Blackwood... ivory fittings. Fine, fine work, too. I’d heard a set by the same maker played in Boston.” He raked a hand through his hair. “Ah, Maggie, I could practically feel them on my knee!”

  I’d have laughed if he hadn’t looked so miserable.

  “I’m sorry, Connelly.”

  I knew he meant uilleann pipes, not Scottish. They were scarce as hen’s teeth. I thought of my dad’s set, how he’d held them, how he’d lost himself in the music. A wave of caring swept me for the man across the table. I could make him so happy just by driving across town. Just by facing Maeve Murphy. Only I couldn’t.

  I pushed back, desperate to flee my own feelings. And memories. And myself. Connelly’s gaze suddenly sharpened.

  “What happened to your neck?”

  Somewhere along the way, the scarf intended to hide the evidence of last night’s attack had slipped. I tugged it up.

  “Tree branch hit me.” Before he could question further, I got to my feet. “Have things to do, but I’m glad you’re back safe.”

  I touched his shoulder in passing. His hand came up to cover mine, welding us not with the dangerous current any contact usually sparked, but with something deeper I couldn’t explain. I felt a curious urge to caress the back of his head.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  “Last night when I asked, you said the only thing in the safe besides jewelry was passports.”

  “That’s right.” Tucker eyed me alertly.

  It was after dinner. I’d gone up to their apartment.

  “You’ve thought of something,” said Frances.

  “Maybe.”

  Something was bothering me. The man who’d disappeared. The envelope. How did that fit everything else that had happened? What was I missing?

  I turned to her husband.

  “The day you saw the empty box in the safe. You told me no one had wanted anything from the safe except for Count Szarenski getting his passport.”

  “Right.”

  “Does he do that often?”

  “Every morning. Well, except Sunday. Takes it out and a couple hours later puts it back in.”

  “The envelope that was left behind when that man disappeared, was it big enough to hold a passport?”

  “Maybe.” The hotel owner looked uncertain. “Bigger than what you’d need for a letter, at least. But the address he gave – it was in Indiana.”

  “And it was phony.”

  “Right.”

  Frances cocked her head with interest. I got up to pace.

  “What do you need a passport for? Besides getting in and out of a country?”

  “Cashing checks. Anything official, where you’d need to prove who you were.” Tucker tugged at his earlobe. “Renting an apartment, maybe. Buying something big, like a house or... I don’t know. A business? Shares in one?”
>
  He looked to Frances for further ideas.

  “Opening a credit account at a store? So his wife could buy clothes?”

  My prowling had brought me close to the window where Frances had stood when the two of us waited for updates on the discovery of Polly’s body. I could just make out the river in the distance. Why would the count need his passport every morning? That was a lot of checks to cash or things to buy.

  “Does Szarenski take anyone with him when he goes out?”

  “His man. That Bartoz fellow.”

  “Does Bartoz get his passport too?”

  “No. Just the count.”

  “Same time every morning?”

  “More or less. Ten-thirty, eleven. Kind of a pain, to tell you the truth, ‘cause we’re busy with people checking out. You getting an idea?”

  I had a couple.

  Nick Perry had turned up just as the Hollywood crowd with their jewelry started arriving. The count had made his appearance around the time the missing man vanished. Which branch of the path should I follow?

  * * *

  At my request, the night clerk called to wake me at midnight. The bar closed then. Night owl guests would head for their rooms. The place would be settling down, meaning I’d have a chance to talk to the other two scrubwomen. Under guise of evaluating how the night crew performed their functions, of course.

  I didn’t learn much.

  The two women who’d worked with Polly were post-middle age, their knees already failing. They were both built like feed sacks. They came in at midnight and left at four-thirty in the morning.

  They started on the top floor and worked their way down. They cleaned woodwork; polished every inch of the considerable brass affixed to the elevator, which was locked and inoperable from half-past midnight to six; got down on their hands and knees to buff the wood peeking out at the edges of the carpeting covering the winding front staircase. Anything which was noiseless and didn’t require full lighting, they did at night. They spoke to each other in whispers.

  The women also cleaned the back stairs used by staff. “If you tried it daytime, you’d get nothing done but move out of their way,” one explained. When they finished the second floor, two continued down the back stairs into the cavernous kitchen where their brushes and pails full of hot water freed its floor of that day’s spills. The third woman saw to the lobby where she dusted and waxed the front desk. Last of all, she scrubbed the floor in the lounge.