Crossings (A Harry Reese Mystery Book 2)

by Robert Bruce Stewart

“Oh, I don’t know him well enough to ask him that. Of course, the women talk,” he said. But then he left it at that.

  “What do they say?”

  “You know women.”

  That brought a big round of laughter. The times in my life when I was the envy of my male comrades were few indeed and I was enjoying my status as the local Don Juan.

  “Does your wife have a theory?” I asked the Marquisees’ former neighbor.

  “Well, I don’t want to speak ill of the dead, of course. But she says Mrs. Marquisee would visit the race track. And perhaps she didn’t always win.”

  “But the track just opened,” another fellow observed.

  “I’m just telling the man what my wife said.”

  Before things became unfriendly, the bartender brought the conversation back to a more mutually congenial subject: me. It was decided that if I were to choose to live more conventionally, I should bring the surplus girl around and they would hold an auction. One of the fellows made up a sort of contract to that effect and we gave it to the bartender for safekeeping.

  I then took a car over to Ridgewood, where Marquisee’s daughter lived. I found the Rentons’ home on St. Nicholas Avenue. It was a new house, but modest, perhaps a gift from her father. A girl answered my knock and told me Mr. Marquisee hadn’t arrived home yet. As I turned to leave, an older fellow was heading up the steps. It turned out to be Marquisee. I introduced myself and explained I was looking into Huber’s death. He didn’t ask me in.

  “I don’t know anything about Huber’s death.”

  “But you did know him?”

  “Of course. I’ve dealt with his father for years. All I can tell you is he seemed like a nice boy. I sent some business his way. No complaints.”

  “You mean fire policies?”

  “That’s right. People buy a new house, and one of the first things they want to do is to make sure they don’t lose it.”

  “What about life insurance?”

  “I imagine some bought that, too. I wouldn’t know.”

  “How about on yourself?”

  “Me? What for?”

  “Well, for your wife if something were to happen to you.”

  “I own twenty-odd houses I rent out, and a building on Broadway. That’s my insurance.”

  “So you never saw William Huber about a life insurance policy?”

  “No, who said I did?”

  “No one. I just saw a name similar to yours. There wouldn’t have been a policy on Mrs. Marquisee for some reason?”

  “What for? And what would it have meant if there was? That she killed herself for insurance money?”

  “No, no. Of course not. But there is the coincidence of your wife’s death not long after Huber’s. And both dying by their own hand.”

  “This is just nonsense. I don’t have time for this.” He went inside and closed the door.

  I headed for home. Elizabeth was the first of my harem to return. She didn’t look quite as bedraggled as on the previous day.

  “I went prepared for battle,” she told me. “Three petticoats and Emmie’s parasol. It has a lovely sharp point. Today, I gave as well as I received. In fact, I may have blinded one fellow.”

  “What exactly is the task you perform?”

  “It’s rather opaque. I wait for a man to give me a sign, and when he does I bet the money I’d been given previously in the way he indicates. Emmie tried to explain it. It involves mathematics of some kind. But the essence is that Mr. Larabee is getting the better of some bookmaker who is too clever for his own good.”

  “And he shares his gains with you?”

  “Well, I certainly wasn’t doing it for love. But I’m afraid I’ve retired from the work. I hope Emmie won’t be cross.”

  “Why would she be cross?”

  “She’s taken a proprietary interest in my rehabilitation. Though I can’t imagine why she assumes I want rehabilitating.”

  “Toiling among touts at the race track seems an unusual path to redemption.”

  “I’ve concluded that Emmie’s nature is a result of her trying to conform a thirst for the exotic with a righteous zeal. It leads her to see her silliest notions as moral imperatives.”

  While she was bathing, Emmie came in looking in a very similar condition. One of her shoes was broken and the sleeve of her jacket was soiled.

  “What happened to you?” I inquired.

  “Oh, it’s always such a pushing match over at the bridge.”

  “It looks like you lost your bout. Where were you all day?”

  “I told you, Harry, shopping for curtain fabric.” She then emptied a bag of small squares of fabric. “Take your pick.”

  I’d seen the bag at lunch, so she must have really gone shopping in the morning. Where she had been in the afternoon was anyone’s guess.

  “I should tell you, Emmie, I’m back on the case. But Keegan made clear that we need to keep things quiet. No public displays. And no contriving your own schemes.”

  “All right, Harry.”

  We spent a quiet evening at home. I knew Emmie was up to something, but I wasn’t sure what. The next morning we all breakfasted together.

  “Elizabeth is going to come with me to look at furniture today,” Emmie said.

  “Just don’t drain the bank account,” I said.

  “Oh, there’s little chance of that.”

  She didn’t even mention the case, which merely confirmed she wouldn’t be spending the day furniture shopping. I went directly over to Newcome’s. Ratigan had a little stack of slips in front of him and read them off.

  “Mrs. Osborne was at her parents’ in Cincinnati. She left yesterday and will arrive here around three. Her brother’s with her.” Then he looked up. “Did you know her brother worked at Sovereign, too?”

  “No. Maybe Osborne got him the job. What’s his name?”

  “Eugene Donigan.”

  “Why were they both at their parents’?”

  “According to the maid, their mother was ill.”

  “Can we check that?” I asked.

  “Sure. You think he sent his wife out of town?”

  “Well, if the thing was blowing up, he might have wanted to shield her.”

  He made a note and moved on to the next page. “Mrs. Barclay and her sister seem to be planning an extended stay in Europe. Edward Howell was born pretty well set.”

  “Wealthy?”

  “Not by John D standards. But he came from old money.”

  “Why’s he working at Haight & Jensen then?”

  “I was using the past tense. The family lost most of it over the years. It’s not clear how.” He went to the next page. “Still nothing on Anna Farrell. All we can say for sure is that she isn’t dead or in a hospital. But people can just disappear and still be in New York.” Then the next page. “Nothing new on her husband.” Another. “Some interesting stuff from Barclay’s past. He was a writer for a green goods operation about ten years ago, before he worked his way up in bucket shops. He seems more like the type to have been involved in a scheme like this than one of its victims.”

  Then a girl came into the office. She handed Ratigan a sheet of paper and left. He read it and looked up with a smile.

  “Here you go. A list of Osborne’s effects.”

  He handed it to me. It listed and described every item found on Osborne when he was brought in. The only interesting item was a page torn from a notebook in his pocket. The operative had made a copy of it, indicating some parts were illegible due to the soaking in the river. There were what looked like two addresses. The first belonged to the Marquisees. It just had the number, then “Troutman, ED.” The second was a three-digit number beginning with 4, then “1st A.” A notation indicated the second two digits were illegible. At the bottom of the page were the words “Rush (Green).”

  “400-something First Avenue?” I asked.

  “That’s my bet. That would run from around 25th Street to about 30th Street. If I were going from there
to the Eastern District, I’d take the 23rd Street ferry.”

  “What about the ‘Rush Green’?” I asked.

  “No idea, except maybe he felt the need to do what he had to do quickly.”

  “So he was on his way to the Marquisees’. To do what?”

  “Can’t say. But I did have a fellow look into them.” He pulled another sheet out from the stack. “Marquisee does well, builds houses mostly for working men. Not much on Mrs. Marquisee. Some rumor in the neighborhood they’d been having loud quarrels. Our man walked up to the bridge she jumped off. He says that canal is a kind of cesspool. Then he wrote a question, ‘Why here? Paris green would do the job.’”

  “He’s right about the canal. And the bridge isn’t ten feet above the water. The only reason I could come up with is that she didn’t want her husband to find her. Not that that really explains it. I heard a rumor she visited the track, but that was third- or fourth-hand gossip.”

  “I’ll check on it. That might account for their bickering. Any idea what’s on First Avenue?” he asked.

  “No, but maybe another policyholder,” I suggested. “I guess we need something else to go on before it would be worth looking there.”

  “Yeah, that would be a lot of people. Anything else for the present?”

  “Well, remember I told you about seeing some index cards under the blotter in Osborne’s office?”

  “I do, but forget it. Most of our clients are corporations. Having one of our operatives caught trying to pilfer something in a major insurer would be very bad for business.”

  “Just thought I’d ask.”

  I went down to the Bureau, where there was a phone message from Tibbitts. I tried him, but he was out. I didn’t want to go out without finding out what he had, so I spent the rest of the morning trying to come up with viable explanations for all that had happened so far. The insurance scheme still seemed the best one. I even managed to work in Mrs. Marquisee’s suicide. Perhaps she had debts and they came to her with the scheme of writing a policy in her husband’s name. Only they told her they’d be filing a false claim. It would be fraud, but nothing more. Then when she heard about Huber’s suicide, she realized she had put her husband in danger and thought she’d put an end to it by killing herself. Now there would be no motivation for killing her husband. Just after noon, Tibbitts came into the office.

  “I was downtown, so I thought I’d drop by. I may have something that interests you. But let’s go eat.”

  He led me back to the Black Hole of Thames Street.

  “We found this on Osborne.” He handed me the torn page from a notebook that was among Osborne’s effects. He had come to the same conclusions Ratigan and I had.

  “You know about Mrs. Marquisee?” I asked.

  “I do now. I called the Hamburg Avenue station over there and the fellow recognized the address. You already knew about her?”

  “From the newspaper. I thought there might be a connection, but couldn’t find anything until this showed up. What do you make of the other address?”

  “I was thinking about that last night. If Osborne died because something aggravated his heart problem, I figure it has to be drink. He wasn’t the type to be hitting the pipe, or anything like that. So this morning I walked that stretch of First Avenue and stopped in the saloons. I described Osborne and said he might have been meeting someone else there Tuesday afternoon. I found the place.”

  “That was a lot of saloons to visit,” I said. “Did you get a description of whoever Osborne was meeting there?”

  “A vague one. He said an older fellow. But another guy was working with him at the time and this other is the one who served them. That guy should be coming in about now. When we finish, we can go see what he has to say.”

  This place was just below 26th Street. We went up to the bar and spoke with the fellow who seemed to be the proprietor. Then he called over the other fellow. He confirmed he had seen Osborne, even describing the color of his suit.

  “What about the other man?” Tibbitts asked.

  “He was older. Wore a funny hat.”

  “Funny how?” Tibbitts asked.

  “It was like this gentleman’s,” he said, pointing to my derby. “But too tall. When he took it off, his grey hair kind of shot every which way.”

  “How tall?”

  “Oh, five foot four, or five, maybe. Kind of heavy.”

  “What time was this?” I asked.

  “About half past three, maybe four.”

  “How long did they stay?”

  “Not long. One round.”

  We thanked him and left.

  “Sound like anyone you know?” Tibbitts asked.

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “Can’t be many people look like that.”

  I left him and went back to the Bureau. There was a message from Emmie saying she’d be late again that evening. I had, of course, recognized the description the bartender gave us. It was Demming. There was only one problem with that: I’d seen Demming out at Aqueduct that afternoon. He was nowhere near First Avenue. I left the Bureau and went back up to the saloon on First Avenue. The man who gave us the detailed description wasn’t there. The other fellow told me he’d left for the day. He seemed to work a very short shift.

  13

  I arrived home at seven and at about half past, Elizabeth came in.

  “You know, Harry, your wife is quite insane. If I’m to suffer any more of her rehabilitation, I’m very likely to end up in the hospital, or in jail.”

  She then went to bathe and I returned to the newspaper. It was well after eight when Emmie came in. She was dressed in the outfit she wore to clean, and looked as if she’d been doing exactly that.

  “Another rough day shopping, dear?” I asked.

  “Yes, but I got what I wanted,” she smiled. Then she went in to bathe as Elizabeth emerged.

  “I don’t suppose you could divulge the nature of today’s adventure?” I asked.

  “I’ve been sworn to secrecy. Besides, I must fly.”

  “Important appointment?”

  “Yes, with Edward Howell. Good-bye, Harry.”

  When Emmie came out, we finally ate the meal Dorothy had left two hours before. It was a testament to Dorothy’s cooking that it tasted no worse cold than warm. Or, perhaps more correctly, it was no better warm than cold. After we had eaten, Emmie presented me with two large index cards.

  “From Osborne’s desk?” I asked.

  “Yes, Harry. But I’ll say no more on the subject just now.”

  “I don’t want to preach, Emmie. But you had agreed you wouldn’t initiate any schemes.”

  “But I didn’t, Harry. Going through Osborne’s desk was your scheme. I merely completed the task. You really should be thanking me.”

  I reluctantly conceded her point. She had given me two five-by-seven-inch policy cards. These were designed to make it easy to look up information without having to pull the original policy documents. On the back of each card, someone would note when each payment had been made. The first was for a fellow named Richard Warner, whose policy had been written on March 5th. He was a machinist, and lived on First Avenue in Manhattan. It was for $2,000 and the agent’s name was Horrigan. The second card was for Jacob Marquisee, and dated March 1st. It was for $8,000 and the agent’s name was Gunther.

  “This ties in with what I learned this morning, Emmie.” I then told her about the piece of paper in Osborne’s pocket.

  “So, Osborne went to Warner’s home and then was going to Marquisee’s,” Emmie said. “To do what, warn them?”

  “I don’t know. I need to see if I can get ahold of someone at Newcome’s.”

  I telephoned the agency and spoke with a night supervisor. He said he’d go up to Warner’s himself and then phone me back.

  “Did you notice anything else about the cards, Harry?”

  I picked them up again. Looking closely, I could see the agent’s name had been changed on each of them.

  �
��So you did see the policy in Huber’s office,” Emmie said. “Who do you think removed the files? The girl there said a young lady picked them up.”

  “Well, Osborne could have sent someone from Sovereign to do it. She would have had no idea what it was about. But then there would be one more person who might slip up. Where was Elizabeth on Monday?”

  “On Monday?”

  “Well, on Tuesday the girl at Huber’s office told you a young lady had picked them up the previous day.”

  “I was with Elizabeth from lunch on. Why do you think it was Elizabeth?”

  “Because I think my introduction to Elizabeth was a set-up.” Then I told her about Tibbitts’s little charade of that afternoon.

  “So Sergeant Tibbitts is part of the ring?”

  “I don’t know his connection, but he’s definitely trying to hide something. And he’s the one who told me about Elizabeth. If Tibbitts told her to pick up those files, she couldn’t afford to refuse. And at the time she was boarding just a few blocks from Huber’s office.”

  “Yes, I suppose you’re right,” she admitted. “But why did you go back to that saloon this afternoon?”

  “I was suspicious from the moment Tibbitts mentioned it. There are dozens of saloons on that stretch of First Avenue. Then when we arrived there, the fellow who gave us the description didn’t look like a bartender. And he was too ready to talk.”

  “Mr. Dooley seems to talk quite a lot.”

  “Mr. Dooley is a fraud.”

  “Well, he’s very popular. Every newspaper seems to carry Mr. Dooley.”

  “I can’t believe you’re defending that travesty, Emmie. He spends all day philosophizing. No one goes into a saloon to listen to a bartender philosophize. It’s the bartender’s lot in life to listen to the harangues of his customers. That’s what he’s paid for. And that idiotic patois he’s made to speak—I’ve been in a thousand Irish bars in a hundred towns and not once have I heard an Irish bartender carry on in that gibberish.”

  “Perhaps it’s the philosophizing itself that attracts, and not its delivery.”

  “Philosophy be damned.”

  “I never know what will upset you, Harry.”

  “It’s simply a matter of principle, Emmie.”