Putting my hand on his arm, I whispered, “You’re very good to me, Ernie.”
He eyed me doubtfully. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I smiled up at him. “In fact, I really appreciate the way you try to protect me and take care of me.” I couldn’t help adding, “Even thought I don’t really need your help all that much.”
Naturally, he rolled his eyes.
I tried not to take offense. “Really, Ernie, I do appreciate you.”
“That’s nice.”
“In fact, I’ve been thinking lately that it might be fun if we were to get better acquainted.”
Don’t ask me where that bold statement came from, because I honestly don’t know. Ernie, however, did.
“That’s the booze talking, Mercy. You’re not going to take advantage of me in your present condition.”
I blinked at him. “Take advantage of you?”
“Dammit, Mercy, move over to your side of the car! You’re drunk, and I may not be a fine Boston gent, but I know better than to ravish an innocent young woman in your condition.”
Crushed, I scooted over to my side of the car, tears sliding down my cheeks, feeling like a total fool. Buttercup crawled back onto my lap as if her feelings, too, were hurt.
In a softer voice, Ernie said, “Here,” and handed me a clean handkerchief. God alone knows where he got it. “Don’t cry, Mercy. I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
“You think I’m a hussy,” I whispered, mopping tears.
“Oh, God.” Ernie’s head hit the steering wheel again.
“You do, don’t you?”
Without looking up, he said, “Mercedes Louise Allcutt, you couldn’t be a hussy if you tried. In fact, I think you just did try, and it didn’t work.”
How depressing.
We sat in the machine for about ten minutes or so, Ernie with his head on the steering wheel and me trying to control my emotions. Buttercup just sat on my lap and looked from one to the other of us in turn, as if she didn’t understand human beings, never had and, what’s more, didn’t want to. I couldn’t say as I blamed her.
After I’d calmed down, Ernie turned to peer at me once more. “You all right?”
I nodded.
“You look okay.”
“Do I look as though I’ve been crying?”
He squinted at me. “Naw.”
“Good.”
“You ready to go home now?”
“I guess.” My spirits were by that time hovering somewhere under the automobile, clinging to any pipes that might be there.
“Do you want to stop for coffee or anything on the way home?” he asked politely.
“No, thank you.” I, on the other hand, was much too formal, probably to make up for having behaved like an idiot earlier.
“Right. I’ll drive you home then.”
“Thank you.”
“But I’m going to walk you to the door and take a look inside. Just to make sure everything’s Jake in there.”
I didn’t feel the least inclination to laugh at his use of the word Jake this time.
Chapter Twelve
Unfortunately for me, not to mention Lulu and Caroline, Ernie had been correct in his prediction that I’d find my home looted when I returned to it.
Not only that, but I discovered Lulu and Caroline sound asleep, Lulu in an armchair and Caroline on the sofa. Gentle snores permeated the air, along with a fragrance that wasn’t altogether pleasant.
Peggy, naturally, was long gone.
Glancing around with grim satisfaction, Ernie said, “Looks like I got you out of here right on time. The ever-noble Miss Wickstrom probably put a Mickey Finn in the lemonade right after we left.”
Gazing at my friends with regret and a good deal of guilt, I didn’t react to Ernie’s sarcasm, but only said, “What’s a Mickey Finn?”
“Probably chloral hydrate. The Wickstrom dame could have put a few drops in a glass of lemonade, and it would be nighty-night for Lulu and Caroline.”
I put Buttercup down, sank onto another chair and covered my face with my hands. “Oh, Ernie, what a fool I was! I had no idea.”
“Don’t take it so hard, kiddo. You’re not the first young woman who’s been duped by a doxie.”
I looked at him through my fingers. “Do you honestly think she’s a doxie?” Could I be so mistaken in my judgment of the girl?
Ernie waved his hand at the sleeping women in my living room, giving me my answer without having to use words. Yes. I had been so mistaken in my judgment. Again. I didn’t want to think about it.
“So what should I do now? Call the police?”
Ernie flopped himself on the stool in front of my armchair. “I guess you might as well call the coppers. I doubt they’ll find the Wickstrom dame.”
“Why not?”
He shrugged. “L.A.’s a big place, and Miss Wickstrom clearly knows plenty of folks in the underworld who can assist her. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if her Mr. Autumn had a hand in this day’s work.”
Covering my face again, I murmured, “Oh, my God.”
Ernie patted me on the shoulder and stood. “But before we go off half-cocked, we’d better look around and see if she actually took anything or if she just played a trick on you and your friends.”
“Some trick,” I muttered, feeling bitter and abused.
“Right.”
However, Ernie was correct again. Conquering self-pity and guilt, I rose from my chair and made a cursory glance around the living room. I noticed Peggy hadn’t bothered to clean up after her so-called trick. I reached for the lemonade pitcher, but Ernie caught my arm and stopped me.
“Hold on there, Mercy. Don’t touch anything. The coppers might not be good for much, but they can check for fingerprints.”
Holy cow, I’d forgotten all about fingerprints. Perhaps the ardent Prohibitionists were right in their stance against alcohol if it had fuzzed my brain to this extent. I know I’m innocent of the world and too naïve for my own good and all that, but even I knew about fingerprints.
“Right,” I said. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Just take a look around.”
So I did, with Ernie accompanying me. Things were missing, all right, although Peggy and her Mr. Autumn evidently knew nothing about expensive rugs, because the Caucasian rug in my room was still on the floor. My handbag had been rifled and all my money was gone. There hadn’t been much in it in the first place, since I kept most of my cash in a safe behind a picture in the office. All my jewelry was gone, including Aunt Agatha’s opal ring. I never wore the ring, because wearing opals is supposed to be bad luck for anyone not born in the month of October—which is silly superstition, but I couldn’t help myself. Anyhow, the ring was gone, and so were a couple of other bits of jewelry. Fortunately for me, I didn’t have much of the stuff, and what little I did own that was worth anything was in a safe deposit box at the bank. I might be rich and ignorant, but I wasn’t totally stupid.
I suppose it need not be said that Peggy’s room was as empty as if she’d never lived in it.
“I expect she took it on the lam with that Autumn character. That’s probably why they didn’t take more of your things. They had to stuff his machine full of her property.”
“She didn’t have much,” I told him. “I thought I was being kind to her.”
“You were being kind to her.”
“I think you told me once that no good deed goes unpunished,” I said in a voice that was droopier than any I’d ever heard come from my own personal mouth.
“Yeah, I probably did. But I didn’t mean this.”
What worried me more than my own losses were those of Lulu and Caroline. I prayed hard as I went through their rooms, feeling wretched as I did so, since I didn’t like intruding on my tenants’ privacy. Not that it mattered. I couldn’t tell if anything was missing or not.
“I guess we’ll have to wait until they wake up, and then they’ll have to tell me if anything’s been taken.”
Ernie, who had been noting missing items on his little pocket notebook, nodded. “Yeah. In fact, we’d probably better see what we can do to get them conscious again. Chloral hydrate can be tricky stuff.”
I stopped in my tracks and stared at him, appalled. “Oh, my goodness! Do you mean to tell me they might be dead?” I raced toward the staircase, but again Ernie caught me up.
“Stop panicking, Mercy. They aren’t dead. I already checked.”
Shutting my eyes and breathing a heavy sigh of relief, I said, “Thank God. Thank God.” Then, thinking he deserved at least this, I said, “Thank you, Ernie.”
“No problem, kiddo.”
So far it looked as though Peggy had taken things that were easily portable: a jade Chinese goddess, my aunt’s ring and my other jewelry, a porcelain shepherdess that used to reside on a table in the upstairs hallway because I didn’t know what else to do with it and thought it was sappy, the living-room radio, a couple of other ornamental pieces that weren’t worth much, and some other items of the like. By the time Ernie and I had made our way back to the living room, he’d covered two pages in his notebook.
“She must have used a big sack,” I muttered, disgusted with Peggy Wickstrom and, mainly, myself.
“Looks like it. Or she had help.”
“Johnny Autumn,” I said bitterly.
“Probably.”
We stood together, gazing at the two sleeping beauties decorating my front room for a minute or two until Ernie asked, “Do you know how to make coffee?”
“Coffee?” I gazed up at him. “No. Why?” Suddenly it seemed pathetic that I was so helpless I didn’t even know how to make coffee.
“We’ll need coffee. So I’ll make the coffee while you call the cops. That okay by you?”
I didn’t want to call the cops. I felt like an utter fool, and confessing the fact to anyone other than Ernie nearly gave me hives. Yet I knew I had to face the music. This was my fault; I had to rectify it. And the police needed to be informed that Peggy Wickstrom looked very much as though, young as she was, she was a low-down, dirty crook.
“I’ll call.” My voice was small. “Thank you for making the coffee.”
“You’re welcome. Don’t be scared, Mercy. The cops are used to this sort of thing.”
Maybe they were, but I wasn’t.
Nevertheless, I made the call. The officer who answered the telephone at the police station didn’t sound sarcastic or nasty when I told him I’d been burgled when I was out of the house, which I appreciated. When I told him two of my tenants appeared to have been drugged with chloral hydrate, he made a disgusted noise in his throat and asked if I knew who’d done the drugging.
With my heart in my throat, hating for some reason to name the obvious suspect, I said, “Another tenant of mine. A young woman named Peggy—Margaret is her real first name—Wickstrom.” Because I couldn’t help myself, I then blurted out, “But she’s only eighteen years old!”
The fellow on the other end of the wire said, “Don’t matter how old they are. If they’re rotten, they’re rotten.”
“I guess so. I do know that she associates with a fellow named Johnny Autumn, and I understand he’s a bad apple.”
The policeman snorted. “You can say that again.”
I didn’t bother.
“I’ll send a car right out.”
“Thank you.”
“Ma’am?” he said before I’d put the receiver back on the candlestick.
“Yes?”
“You might want to check references before you rent out rooms to tenants in the future.”
“Yes. Thank you.”
By the time I got off the ‘phone, the aroma of coffee was filling the air of my formerly wonderful new home on Bunker Hill. Well, the home was still wonderful. I was an arrant nincompoop, but that wasn’t the house’s fault.
I was pretty dejected when I walked into the kitchen where Ernie was busily gathering cups and saucers onto a tray. He glanced at me. “Don’t look so downhearted, kiddo. We all make mistakes.”
It was nice of him to say so, although his words didn’t hearten me much. “Maybe. But this mistake hurt my friends, and I’m responsible for it.”
To my utter surprise, Ernie set down a cup, came over to me, and wrapped me in a warm embrace. “It’s all right, kiddo. Everything will turn out okay. At least you don’t have to evict the girl. She’s already evicted herself.”
“I suppose so,” I said into his shirt front—he’d hung his suit coat on the rack in the entryway. “Thanks for helping me, Ernie. You’re a nice man.”
“In spite of myself.” I could feel him chuckle.
“No. You’re a nice man. Period.”
“Don’t tell anyone. It’d ruin my reputation.”
I was disappointed when he let me go.
“Well, we’d better try to wake up your sleeping tenants. Maybe they’ll be able to help the police when they arrive.”
“Good idea.” What I wanted was for Ernie to hold me some more. I needed comfort. It looked like I’d have to use Buttercup for that, though.
Ernie carried the tray into the living room and set it down on a chair-side table, since the table in front of the sofa still contained the lemonade tray, pitcher, etc. Every time I glanced at that blasted pitcher, I wanted to break it. Guess I’d have to wait until the police checked it for fingerprints; “dusting” is what I think the term is for lifting fingerprints from objects. The notion made me feel marginally more cheerful: I’d get to watch a procedure I’d only read about before this. Too bad I’d be seeing it in my own house and for such an onerous reason.
As Ernie and I shook Lulu and Caroline and tried to awaken them, Buttercup announced the arrival of the police. I left Ernie to continue the awakening task and went to the door. Two uniformed policemen I hadn’t met before stood on the front porch. One of them was gazing around the neighborhood as if he approved—well, it was a lovely neighborhood—while the other one, looking very serious, stared at the door, which I opened.
“Good afternoon,” I said, although it was anything but that.
“Are you Miss Allcutt?” asked the serious copper, holding out his shield, which said he was Sergeant Vincent Croft.
“Yes. Please, come in. My friends are in the living room, and another friend is trying to revive them.”
“The desk sergeant said you suspect they’ve been given chloral. Is that so?” asked Sergeant Croft.
“Yes.”
“And you say this Wickstrom woman is an associate of Johnny Autumn’s?”
“She called him her boyfriend.”
“Huh. And you think she and Autumn did this together?”
“That’s what Ernie thinks.”
“Ernie?” said the other copper, whose name was Officer Lawrence T. Williamson. His name barely fit on his shield. “Ernie who?”
“Mr. Ernest Templeton. He’s my employer.”
“Ernie’s here?” said Sgt. Croft. He didn’t sound particularly pleased. “Why’s he here if he’s your boss? You two have something going on or something?”
As odd as it sounds, it needed only that tone in Sergeant Croft’s voice to bring my Bostonian upbringing back to me with a vengeance. I straightened my shoulders, gave Sergeant Croft my frostiest glare, and said, “Mr. Templeton and I are friends, Sergeant, which should be of no concern to you. He’s also my employer, and he’s teaching me how to drive my Roadster. That’s the reason he came to my home today. After the lesson, we drove back here to find two of my tenants drugged and the third one gone. It looks to me as if she stole quite a few things on her way out. That’s the reason you’re here. You’re not here to ask personal questions. Do we have that clear, or will I need to telephone Detective Philip Bigelow?”
Both men stepped back a pace. I can do Boston very well when I get angry enough, and Sergeant Croft’s snide question had done the trick.
“I didn’t mean anything, Miss Allcutt,” said Sergeant Croft hastily. “I just w
ondered, was all.”
“Well, you can jolly well wonder about the job you’re supposed to be doing and forget the personal questions.” Then I snapped out an order. “Follow me. I trust you have the materials necessary to obtain fingerprints from the pitcher and the glasses.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Williamson in a placating sort of voice.
I led them into the living room. Ernie had succeeded in getting Caroline to sit upright on the sofa. She pressed a hand to her forehead and appeared dazed as Ernie held a cup of coffee to her lips. He glanced at us as we entered the room and frowned.
“Were you two the only cops on duty?” he growled at Croft.
“Yeah. We were,” said Croft in a snotty voice.
I bridled. “If you can’t be courteous to my guests, Sergeant Croft, you may leave my home this instant. You aren’t here to quarrel with Mr. Templeton. You’re here to solve a crime. If you don’t have your priorities straight about that, you might as well go away, and I shall procure help from someone else.”
“Bigelow,” whispered Williamson. He looked nervous.
“Detective Bigelow is a good friend,” I said, fibbing only a little. “I’m sure he’d like to know that some of his officers are impudent rascals.”
“We aren’t under Bigelow,” said Croft in an irritated voice. “Let’s get down to business. Exactly what happened here?”
So I related the story to him, although I left out the part about me partaking of the doctored lemonade. Ernie didn’t tell on me, for which I was grateful.
“You think that as soon as you left for your driving lesson, the Wickstrom girl drugged the lemonade?”
“That’s my hypothesis,” I said coldly, although it was Ernie’s hypothesis, really.
“Huh,” grunted Croft. He turned to his partner. “Got your kit, Will?”
“Yes, sir. I’ll dust for prints.” Glancing at me shyly—I guess Boston had made quite an impression on the young man—he said, “You say the Wickstrom girl is the one who handled the pitcher?”
Angels of Mercy Page 14