Xolotl Strikes!

by William Stafford

  Pretty soon, the hall was in greater uproar than at the discovery of the young man’s body, which had now been unceremoniously covered with a sheet. Again, Johnson appealed for quiet. “Very well,” he conceded, “you may all stay in the museum until such a time as the storm blows over. Please, feel free to wander the halls and inspect the exhibits. Then you shall see where your donations go and, perhaps, be sufficiently moved to reach into your pockets and pocketbooks once more.”

  The man was an insufferable shyster. A mooch or a leech or whatever the common parlance is in this city.

  People shuffled to the exit as the curtain was cranked and closed over the scene. I wondered where Cuthbert had got to and supposed I had better seek him out. I also supposed someone would have summoned the police by now, but I kept thinking of that young man and was finding it difficult to resist the urge to investigate or ‘stick my nib in’ as Cuthbert might say.

  I got to my feet and instantly found my arm linked by that of the red-head.

  “I should be obliged if you’d take a tour of this little old place with me, Mr Mortlake - or may I call you Hector?”

  “No, madam, you may not,” I bristled but still she did not take the hint. She must have caught my eyes returning to the closed curtain. “I am certain the Municipal Police have been alerted,” she said. “Nothing for us to worry about.”

  She steered me toward the exit, where people were splitting up to explore the various rooms and salons of the museum to while away this period of enforced leisure.

  “Madam, I should be obliged if you would unhand me at once,” I glared at her but my indignation only served to increase her amusement. Then she saw that I was altogether serious and her expression changed. “Please,” she adopted an imploring look, “There’s something I want you to see.”

  I may have fallen for that line several times before but I was damned if some brash and forward woman was going to con me into some dark recess. I jutted my chin, stiff and resolute.

  A tear sprang in a green eye and plummeted down the creamy cliff face of her cheek.

  “Oh, very well,” I said brusquely. “A quick turn of the stuffed animals or something and then, madam, we part ways forever.”

  She brightened immediately but the grip on my arm tightened. “Oh, not the natural history, Mr Mortlake, I beseech you. Please, let us see the Transportation Exposition. There is something there I think will interest and intrigue you.”

  “Very well,” I consented. “But then I must really find my man.”

  “Sure,” she said, although I detected something in her expression that suggested the contrary.

  * * *

  The Transportation Exposition was a recent addition to the museum’s displays and as yet there was very little to be seen. What with the current developments in the ways we get ourselves from place to place, much of the subject is in the realms of current affairs, but there were some pretty models of sailing ships, some early bicycles and an impressive array of sketches from the pen of da Vinci himself. But my pretty captor hurried past all of these, pulling my sleeve and the rest of me with it in her wake.

  At the far end of the hall we came to a section devoted to flight. Hot air balloons were depicted in etchings. There were scale models of various unlikely contraptions, and kites of every shape and colour. Above all of this, suspended by cables from the ceiling, casting a shadow like a gigantic bird of prey, was the front half of a flying machine: the cabin, and the nose with its propeller.

  It was beneath this that my red-headed kidnapper came to a standstill. She looked up, intimating that I should do the same.

  “What do you think?” she asked in a voice, breathy with suppressed emotion.

  “I think that if we were meant to fly we should have been born with feathers.”

  “Oh, man-made flight is coming, Mr Mortlake,” she assured me and unnerved me at the same time. “I don’t mean dirigibles and gliders and all that baloney. I mean machines, heavier-than-air machines, carrying passengers in their dozens from continent to continent, from capital city to capital city. Why, in a few years, flying will be as commonplace and ordinary as hopping on a trolleybus.”

  There was passion in her words and a curious light on her face, in direct contrast to my scepticism. While she gazed adoringly at the metal carcass over our heads, I glanced around at the supporting information.

  “The Silver Moth...” I read. In the back of my mind a faint bell rang. I had heard of this contraption before. “Recovered from the Peruvian jungle, what you see here is all that remains of the inaugural flight. Unfortunately, the body of its pilot, the inventor and aviatrix Miss B. Pepper was never found.”

  I looked away from the sign and saw that the red-head was watching me. Her face was wet from crying but her expression was one of hope.

  “You have some connection, then, with this machine?”

  “You could say that,” she sniffed.

  “Madam, I just did.” I noticed then some resemblance between the woman in front of me and the long-lost adventurer in an accompanying lithograph. “This is your sister then? Your mother?”

  “No,” the red-head stepped closer and lowered her voice, “Mr Mortlake, I am she. I am Belle Pepper.”

  I borrowed an expression from Cuthbert.

  “Well, I’ll be blowed!” I said.

  Chapter Three

  “You mustn’t tell anyone!” Miss Pepper searched my face for signs of reassurance. “No one must know that I have returned.”

  “Insurance scam, is it?”

  “You might say that,” she gave a bitter laugh. “But not in the way you think. If certain people discover that I am still alive, they will kill me.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Mr Mortlake, my disappearance was no accident.”

  “You mean... ?”

  “Yes! Sabotage!”

  Oh. I’d been entertaining ideas of fleeing an arranged marriage or something of that romantic nature.

  “My Moth could have been the answer. Had my trip been completed, I could have gone into mass production. Affordable private flying machines to rival the horseless carriage. I could have been richer than Rockefeller. But, you must understand, it is not the money that motivates me.”

  “No, of course not; that would be vulgar.”

  She laughed. “Oh, Mr Mortlake, you are quite the tonic. Someone wanted me to fail and I hope you will assist me in their unmasking.”

  “I, madam? I am but a purveyor of fanciful fiction.”

  “Oh, come off it, Mr Mortlake. I’ve read your stuff. I recognise a grain of truth when I see one.”

  Oh, dear. I could see that her experiences, regrettable though they may be, had unhinged her totally. I tried to edge away.

  “Madam, I am sorry for your troubles, truly I am. But now, I believe the rain is abating and I must seek out my valet.”

  “He can help! We might need a bit of muscle!”

  “You misunderstand. Neither I nor my valet shall be assisting you. It is really not our sphere. Rest assured, I shall not breathe a word of your return to civilisation and I wish you every success in your ventures.”

  I nodded, put my top hat on and touched its brim. The message could not have been clearer, I thought.

  I marched away, imagining the sound of her sobs was merely the last of the rain against the windowpanes. How ungallant I felt! How unchivalrous and unkind!

  But it was the right decision. I did not want to be involved in any further exploits. I merely wanted to continue my book tour unhindered and undisturbed.

  And yet...

  By the time I reached the exit, my conscience had browbeaten me into submission. With a heave of my shoulders I turned around to inform her that I had changed my mind and that I would do my utmost to assist her in her plight.


  Alas, for the second time in her life, Belle Pepper had disappeared.

  * * *

  Contrary to my assertion that the rain was easing off, the downpour appeared to be redoubling its efforts and the thunder and lightning seemed to be warring for domination of the skies.

  What was that about whatsisname, Xolotl? The bringer of lightning, by Jove! He was certainly making quite the display, as though he had work to catch up on after centuries of lying dormant.

  Nonsense.

  In the vestibule, people were gazing out at the storm. We were to all extents and purposes trapped in the museum for the foreseeable. Only the most foolhardy would venture out into such a storm where there was a real risk of being washed away or burnt to a frazzle by one of Xolotl’s bolts.

  I cast my gaze around, hoping to espy Cuthbert. Yet another tug came to my sleeve - I really should get handles affixed to the bally things! - and I was faced, not by a back-from-the-dead aviatrix but by a fellow in a raincoat and bowler hat. Both of which, I noticed, were bone dry. This fellow had a moustache like a scrubbing brush and a brusque manner to which I could not warm.

  “Mr Mort Lake,” he announced.

  “I am he,” I said. “Although it’s Mortlake, one word.”

  The man consulted a notebook. “Oh, really?” He made an amendment with a stub of a pencil. “So your first name is not Mortimer?”

  “Oh, no! Heaven forfend!”

  “Mine is,” bristled the man and his moustache. “Inspector Mortimer Mahoney.”

  I could not suppress a glance at the doors of the Transportation Exposition. I am sure this Inspector Mahoney clocked it, but he didn’t note it in his book.

  “I’d like you to accompany me, sir,” he intoned.

  I cast about for a piano so I could bring levity to the interview with a bit of a quip.

  “I’ll be damned if I shall step out anywhere in this downpour! Police station or no!”

  “I agree, sir, that the precinct is inaccessible at this present moment. Come with me instead to a room where we may discourse in private.”

  I saw then that a couple of thugs in the uniform of the city’s police department, all rough serge and navy blue, were behind him. I was instantly persuaded.

  “And what is to be the subject of our discourse?” I asked as I was led away.

  Mahoney did not reply. I remembered he’d said something about privacy so I had to wait until the door to the room he brought me to was closed and blocked by his two heavies.

  The room was a storage space, with shelves bearing cracked old pots and assorted artefacts awaiting cataloguing or restoration or what-have-you.

  Mahoney pulled out a stool and invited me to sit. I was glad of the chance to take the weight off. He faced me across a table that was dusty with clay powder.

  My mind was racing though I maintained a cool exterior. What was this all about? My new acquaintance, the missing inventrice? Surely, all her talk of a conspiracy to quash her machine had been nothing but the paranoid ramblings of a hysterical woman?

  “Cuthbert Collins,” said Mahoney, flatly. “Is he your man?”

  My stomach flipped. Had we been discovered, Cuthbert and I? Were we to be exposed to public shame and censure?

  “He works for me,” I acknowledged. “He is my valet. What of him?”

  My heart was beating a tattoo against my ribs. My throat was dry but I held the inspector’s gaze unflinchingly.

  “We have reason to believe he is connected with the death of Robert Hawkins.”

  “Who?” I had never heard the name. Certainly, Cuthbert had never mentioned it.

  “The guy in the box,” said the inspector. “You remember that, don’t you?”

  “I certainly do. A most puzzling business.”

  I was beginning to relax and then I recalled that he’d said my Cuthbert was under suspicion. Of murder!

  “We have many questions, Mr Mortlake. I’d be grateful if you could answer as many of them as possible.”

  “Well, so do I. Such as, where is Cuthbert now?”

  “He is under guard. But you are here to answer questions, not ask them.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “Mr Mortlake, please.” Mahoney clasped his hands together on the table top. “Nobody’s going nowhere until this weather lets up. Leave us use the time to have a nice little chat and clear up this matter in an amicable fashion.”

  “Amicable fashion! You’re accusing my valet of murder!”

  “I have done nothing of the sort. Really, I am just trying to get to the bottom of it. Now, you’re sure you’ve never heard the name Robert Hawkins before?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “You do not wish to reconsider your answer?”

  “I most certainly do not.”

  “What about Bobby?”

  “Who?”

  “Robert Hawkins also went by that moniker.”

  “Monica?”

  “No. Bobby!”

  My mind was spinning like a - like a propeller! Mahoney must have seen the penny drop.

  “Oh,” I said. “Bobby.”

  “Now we’re getting some place. Tell us about Bobby.”

  * * *

  Cuthbert, lying in my arms, had insisted on cataloguing his former loves. I had told him he need not bother on my account; I did not wish my ire and jealousy to be aroused. I believe he halved the number of his conquests, at the very least, to spare my feelings. And for my part, I had little to tell. There were a few dormitory fumblings while I was at school and a couple of flings at university, but I had never been what one might deem prolific. Cuthbert on the other hand - and sometimes both hands - had put himself about quite a bit. I understand it is different for the lower classes who may not be literate and unable to pass their time with a good novel.

  “They’re all behind me now,” Cuthbert had assured me, pecking me on the cheek. “But there was one...”

  And so he told me about Bobby. They had worked together, washing pots and pans in a slop house in Harlem for a few months. I told you my Cuthbert had put himself about! The establishment went by the name of Helen’s Kitchen, which I assume is some sort of joke.

  “It was ever so hard, sir,” Cuthbert reflected. “The working conditions, I mean. I’d been taken on under false pretences. I thought I was going to be apprenticed to the cook so I could learn, but all I was was a skivvy. And so was Bobby. He was from England too, sir. Devonshire, I think, but we sort of bonded together over a sink of suds. We used to hold hands under the greasy water, so no one would see. At night, we’d sleep under the kitchen tables, huddling together for warmth - once those ovens went out, New York is a chilly place, sir. And we’d look out for each other, sir. Like brothers, we was. And I loved him. If he was getting hassle, sir, from the diners as he went around collecting their dirty plates and whatnot, I would step in and frighten them off. Or I’d spit in their puddings - or worse, sir! I wasn’t having nobody treating my Bobby like he was dirt, sir. You can appreciate that, can’t you?”

  I may have grunted to indicate I understood the nobility of the sentiment, but I was turning bright green with jealousy.

  “We was saving up, sir. For our passage back to Blighty. Then I lined up work for the pair of us on a cruise liner heading for Southampton and I thought we’d be free of the place at last. Bobby’s health was failing, sir. He was never as robust as me and I thought he was going to catch the pneumonia or something.

  “Then one morning I wakes up and he’s not there, sir. He’s gone. Well, the kitchen is coming to life with everyone getting ready for the breakfast crowd and nobody’s seen hide nor hair of him. My Bobby had disappeared. And so had our savings. Oh, it broke my heart, sir, to think that Bobby had betrayed me and run off on his own.

 
“And then Helen calls me to her office and says Bobby has left her employ and I says where is he then? And she says you don’t understand, she was being all euphe-whatsit. He’s dead, she says, and he’d been removed from the kitchen pretty sharpish on account of it being unhygienic to have dead bodies in a professional kitchen, and I says what about the money? And she says what money? And she stares me down with her one good eye - she wore an eye patch, like a pirate, sir. And she says any money that may or may not have been found on Bobby would go towards paying for the disposal expenses. That’s how she put it, sir. Disposal expenses. Not funeral or burial or nothing like that. Disposal. Then she has the gall to suggest I need to work twice as hard to make up the difference! Well, that was the last straw, sir. I left that place right there and then and I stowed away on the cruise liner that I was supposed to be working on. And the purser took me in, sir - but that’s another story.”

  I told him there was no need to go into all that.

  But what of this could I relay to Inspector Mahoney? Very little. I could see how it would play out. The stolen savings would constitute a motive for murder - that’s how these people think.

  “I believe they worked together,” I distilled the story down to its essence. “Then they parted and Cuthbert returned to England.”

  “And they were not in contact since that time?”

  “Inspector, my valet believed his former colleague to be deceased.”

  “Told you that, did he?”

  “Yes!”

  “When was this?”

  “When he told me?”

  “Yes!”

  “Well, it must have been at his job interview, mustn’t it? I am very particular about who I engage.”

  “Oh, really.”

  “Yes, really.”

  “Then why is your man Collins denying all knowledge? He says he’s never met the guy before in his life.”

  Damn it! I feared I had dropped Cuthbert further into the mire.

  “I must speak to him at once,” I struck the table.

  “That isn’t possible.”