Valentine's Madness: A 1920s Historical Mystery Anthology

by Beth Byers

  He was gone for at least twenty minutes this time, and Violet was biting her fingernails. Eventually the boy came out from the undergrowth and pressed into her side. They hid, side-by-side, holding hands and worrying over their loved ones.

  Jack returned, frowning, and said, “I saw her. She’s tied up to the side of the shack near the trees.”

  Jack took the picnic basket, pulling a pocket knife out, and dug through the rest of the contents. They didn’t have much more than food, a bottle of champagne, a flask, napkins, and a blanket to sit on.

  “His mother’s hands are tied,” Jack explained. “There’s only one fellow who’s keeping an eye on her, and he’s not doing much. It’s possible to approach carefully. I am going to get you as close as possible, cause a distraction, you dart over, cut her free, and then run back this way. We’ll gather here, make our way through the jungle to the auto, and hide them in the back while we motor to town.”

  Everything about this was ineffably risky. Violet bit her lip and nodded. Jack took the flask, the blanket, and pulled his lighter out of his pocket before he spoke to the boy for a few minutes, leaving him the basket. Violet considered and then took the champagne bottle just in case.

  They tore the blanket into strips and then Jack cut them into even smaller pieces. He gathered up dried leaves from the jungle—there weren’t many, but hopefully it would be enough to start a fire if that’s what he needed to do. They were absolutely winging it.

  Jack showed Violet how to crawl through the jungle, though it wasn’t easy in a dress, and they eased their way through the undergrowth. They came to a trail to the shack that was so overgrown, it might have been something only animals used.

  They bypassed it entirely. Violet carefully followed Jack, her bottom lip between her teeth. They moved so slowly that in a race against a tortoise, they’d be the clear losers.

  Jack and Violet crouched at the bottom of the incline and worked around the clearing until they’d reached the back of the shack. Jack placed the knife in her hand.

  “Count to five hundred,” he whispered. He started her, so she could keep the rhythm with him. “Then ease forward, cut her free, and go as fast as you can back to the boy.”

  In one hand, she clutched the champagne bottle, in the other hand, she had the small knife. She pictured in her mind her recent attacker, gathering up all of the anger she’d felt after her injuries to give her courage.

  “Four hundred and ninety-seven, four hundred and ninety-eight, four hundred and ninety-nine.” Violet breathed. She edged forward, gaze darting. The men were still rearranging crates and nailing them closed while the boy’s mother sat dejectedly to the side. Her arm looked as though it were broken or dislocated, her face was bruised, eyes swollen from crying, but any attempts she had made to escape had been thwarted.

  By a blessing of fate, the woman was leaning against a tree, and Violet was able to sneak forward in the bushes, lay down on her stomach, and get close to whisper, “Shhhh.”

  The woman leaped, but she didn’t scream, and when Violet started sawing at the rope around her wrists, the woman didn’t move or make a sound. When her wrists were free, Violet pressed her shoulders. No one had moved yet, no one had succumbed to Jack’s distraction. Violet wouldn’t leave until he was heading back her way, and she wouldn’t let the woman disappear and cause whatever Jack was doing to be ruined.

  The woman looked over her shoulder again and again, but every time, Vi shook her head and placed her finger over her lips. Violet’s tension was rising to a breaking point until there was an explosion. They both cried out in shock, but no one was paying them attention when a full crate of rum and blankets seemed to be hit by an artillery shell.

  Violet took the woman’s hand and yanked her into the jungle. They really should have had her placed closer to where they were working, but their idiocy was this woman’s chance. Violet whirled to run towards where they’d left the boy, but as she did, she found herself facing a large man with a dark mustache and an angry expression. The woman squeaked with so much terror, Violet guessed that this man was the one who had hurt her.

  He came at them, and without a thought, Violet swung the champagne bottle at him as though she were batting at cricket, and he crumpled.

  “By Jove!” Jack whispered. “I saw him coming for you and knew I wouldn’t be here in time.” Jack was tying the man up with the blanket strips before Violet could even recognize what she’d done.

  She’d just—just—by Jove was right! She’d used a bottle of expensive champagne as a weapon. The thunk of the bottle hitting the man echoed on her head. Jack said something to her, but…but…she’d just dropped a man with champagne.

  “I feel certain,” Violet whispered, “when Victor promised me exciting flavors in Cuba that he did not mean this.”

  The boy’s mother hissed a word, and Jack looked at her, nodding and replying in swift Spanish. Violet didn’t bother trying to follow what they were saying, she was too obsessed with the way the man was utterly still. She had done that.

  Chapter Three

  They moved up the side of the ravine so quickly, Violet regretted whining about her side hurting before when they were strolling to the waterfall. That was nothing! Now, however, Violet had learned a new definition of a stitch in her side.

  When they reached the top, the boy gasped and darted for his mother, but Jack ordered them to be quiet.

  “What do you think?” Violet gasped. She needed to rest, but they couldn’t possibly stop.

  The woman spoke again and Jack nodded. He asked a question, something about water, and the woman replied swiftly. His head tilted, and they let the boy’s mother lead. Violet didn’t think this was the way they’d come before, but she hoped they were moving closer to the auto. She very much wanted to throw herself onto the seat in the vehicle and catch her breath. Several times, they stopped, but it seemed they’d gotten away with their escape so far.

  When they stumbled into a clearing again, Violet paused. The waterfall and pool were laid out in front of them.

  The boy’s mother spoke over the sound of rushing water to Jack, who nodded and then stripped off his suit. Violet’s gaze followed him while her mind screamed at her to be watching for bad guys instead of the slope of Jack’s shoulders.

  “What’s going on?” Violet demanded, forcing herself to speak.

  “There’s a place to hide back there.” Jack said, gesturing to the waterfall. “The boy and his mother are going to hide in there, and we are going to pretend that we’re swimming.”

  “For how long?”

  “Carmen thinks they’ll see the auto and investigate. If they only find us, they’ll look elsewhere for her. At least she hopes. She seems fairly confident that they won’t hurt us since injuring tourists will cause too much attention from the police. Will you get your swimming costume?”

  Violet pulled off her dress far more openly than she was comfortable with and set it to the side by the picnic basket. She’d have been shaking in her boots with concern if they weren’t worried for their lives. Even still she was shaking as she got into the water. Jack had already stripped down to his swimming suit and was carrying both the woman, who was too hurt to swim, and her son to the hiding place. After they were secured, Jack broke up their food on a rock nearby as though they’d already eaten, and then slipped into the water with her.

  “That man who we tied up…” Violet started, but Jack shook his head.

  “There’s no promise here, Vi, but he was pretty hurt.”

  She had no idea how to reply to that idea and could only hope that he was right. It took far too long for them to hear people coming up the trail, and Violet was almost a mass of nerves by then. Jack shouted with laughter and tucked Violet into his chest. From the side of the trail, it would seem as though they were being quite intimate. She pressed her forehead against him. She could feel her body shaking, and Jack started talking in the middle of a sentence.

  “—believed it. It was ama
zing. Donnie—” He paused as he looked up. “Hello there. Habla usted Inglés?”

  Violet slowly slid her body behind Jack as though she were shy instead of trying to hide her face in case the man she hit with the champagne appeared, and then peeked over Jack’s shoulder.

  There were two men speaking to each other and then one of them stepped forward. “Hello friend,” he said, a bit like a snake. Or perhaps, Violet only saw him that way since she knew these men had taken a woman from her son and was, therefore, projecting the snake on them. “We are looking for my sister. We think she is lost. She and her boy, they came on an adventure earlier today. She was to be back by lunch. Have you seen anyone?”

  “Oh my,” Violet said, not having to pretend to be horrified.

  “By Jove, old boy! We’ve only seen birds and a couple of lizards. Do you need help finding her? We could go get our friends, get a bit of a search party, maybe—”

  “No!”

  “Oh well, my,” Jack said in a jolly idiot’s voice. Violet’s nails dug into Jack’s shoulder when she realized he was channeling their lazy friend Denny.

  “She probably went to visit our sister for a gossip and ah—lost track of time. You know how women are.”

  Violet huffed and rolled her eyes, but the two men laughed. Their gaze darted around the clearing as if checking to see if Vi and Jack were lying, but why would they be? They were clearly foreigners. They watched the men leave.

  “Now where were we?” Jack asked.

  Violet gasped when she found herself pulled around and then kissed soundly. Jack murmured into her hair, “We have to keep pretending in case they’re watching, Vi. They have to be convinced that we had nothing to do with this.”

  His lips were right against her ear and his tone was so low, she doubted that someone a few feet away would have heard.

  “Stop it!” Vi squealed with a high-pitched giggle. “That tickles.”

  Jack turned her face up to his and pressed gentle kisses on her forehead and eyes across her cheeks. If someone was watching, they’d see Jack taking advantage of Valentine’s Day to romance his girl. Violet could only hope that no one was watching and that they were safe. She wished she could drop into the moment, but it wasn’t possible.

  They played in the water for a half hour with Violet tensing every time Jack wasn’t deliberately distracting her. Violet nibbled her lip when Jack pulled himself out of the water and called to her.

  “Come on, Violet darling, we’d better get moving or your brother will track us down.”

  Violet pulled herself from the water, taking the towel Jack handed her. Her jersey knit swimming costume wouldn’t dry easily, so she wrapped the towel around her body, tucked her dress into the bag, and put on her shoes.

  “I fear it’ll take me a while to dry enough,” Violet said. She wanted to check the area where Carmen and her son were hiding, but Violet didn’t want to give them away until Jack talked them out of the hiding place.

  “Dry while you can, love,” Jack said merrily and a little too loud. “I’ll make sure we didn’t forget anything.”

  Jack walked the clearing around the swimming hole. Violet saw him speak, but she couldn’t hear him over the waterfall.

  Carmen and her boy appeared damp and cold, and Jack dove back into the water, to carry them across the pool. When they were across, he gathered their things.

  “Vi, you go first. Sing in English while you go so anyone nearby will hear us coming.” Jack spoke to the woman and her son in Spanish. “They’re going to pace us in the jungle,” he told Vi, “in case we run into anyone again.”

  The walk down to the auto was slow, and Violet felt as though they were being hunted by a tiger the entire way. It took a while to get to the auto and when they reached it, they found no one in sight. It was only a few feet from where the vehicle was parked to the jungle trail. Jack started the auto while Violet arranged their things in the back. They were making a bit of a show of it, and in the process, Violet opened the back door while dropping her dress over her nearly dry swimsuit. The pressure of what to do and how to do it was getting to her, and her fingers were shaking as she smoothed her dress.

  “We’d better get going,” Jack said. He got behind the wheel of the auto after seating Violet, and then they backed towards the jungle exit. A moment later Carmen and her son darted from the jungle, got into the auto and laid down on the bench.

  Jack was driving before the door was even shut, and they were speeding towards the house that Violet’s family had taken. Jack and Carmen spoke for a few minutes while they drove

  “She has someone she can talk to about what she saw,” Jack told Violet. “It was a smuggling operation. The first shipment that left before we got there was drugs. She saw who was in charge, and they are quite powerful.”

  “Oh no,” Violet muttered. It was so much worse than she was hoping. “Is there anywhere she can go?”

  Jack shook his head. “There’s a way to get her and boy out of the country. She has family in the Bahamas. She just needs to get on the boat.”

  “Denny is friends with that American who has a yacht.”

  “He is indeed.” Jack glanced back at the boy and his mother and said, “We’ll go straight there.” Then he ordered in Spanish, “Hide!”

  Violet had to force herself not to turn. She hated that she understood that one word. She faked a laugh as a large truck from the rum company passed them going the other way. Jack waved at the driver as he normally did and then drove towards where the American docked the boat.

  When they reached the yacht, Jack got out to talk to the American, a Mr. Hunt, while Violet waited in the auto with the mother and her son. The woman was crying into her son’s hair, but silently. The boy, on the other hand, was staring blankly at the back of the seat in front of him. Violet wanted to hand him a toy or promise him that everything would be okay, but until they were safely out of the country, Violet didn’t think they were okay.

  Jack appeared a few minutes later. The sun was starting to set and twilight was making every shadow seem as a hideaway of monsters.

  “He’ll do it. One of the hands is even a medic. They can leave with the tide. Until then Carmen and the boy can hide in the cabin.”

  They were out of the auto before Violet could even say goodbye, and they were hidden under the deck in less than a minute. A moment later, Jack was back behind the wheel of the auto.

  “Our being here puts them in danger,” Jack told Violet. “We have to leave before they do.”

  She glanced at him in a daze and asked, “Did that really happen?”

  He wove his fingers through hers as he took her back to the house. “I’m afraid so.”

  “Will they be all right?”

  He nodded at her. “I told Hunt to set Carmen up well. She’ll get a good start, and she has family there. She’ll be okay. The danger is over.”

  “Is it?” Vi asked.

  Jack swore it was, but Violet had a hard time believing it until one of the yacht’s boys showed up at the house and said that Carmen and the boy had gotten away. He’d seen to it that a written tip had been given to the local police. They could do with it what they wanted, but Carmen and her son would be safe.

  “Tell me that happened again?” Victor demanded. Violet didn’t answer. She crossed to Denny’s large box of chocolate, took several from him, the cocktail that Victor had made while Vi had been changing, and returned to the most comfortable chair she could locate.

  Jack explained their day while Violet closed her eyes, listened to the waves, and indulged in chocolate. Valentine’s Day was supposed to be roses and chocolate, dancing and kissing.

  Somewhere between the sunset and the moon disappeared from the sky, Jack took the seat next to her and twined their fingers together.

  “Are you all right?”

  Violet nodded and then let him tuck her hair behind her ear.

  “That’s all I need.”

  A gentle smile crossed her face, and she
gazed down at their entwined fingers. It was, in fact, all she needed as well.

  THE END

  Hello my friends! I hope you enjoyed this little snippet of Violet’s trip to Cuba. If you did, you might enjoy our next short story collection April Fool’s Madness. It’ll be out at the end of March. Until then, check out the rest of the Violet Carlyle Mysteries, found here.

  You may also find Beth’s new series, Poison Ink Mysteries by clicking here.

  July 1936

  When Georgette Dorothy Marsh’s dividends fall along with the banks, she decides to write a book. Her only hope is to bring her account out of overdraft and possibly buy some hens. The problem is that she has so little imagination she uses her neighbors for inspiration.

  She little expects anyone to realize what she’s done. So when Chronicles of Harper’s Bend becomes a bestseller, her neighbors are questing to find out just who this “Joe Johns” is and punish him.

  Things escalate beyond what anyone would imagine when one of her prominent characters turns up dead. It seems that the fictional end Georgette had written for the character spurred a real-life murder. Now to find the killer before it is discovered who the author is and she becomes the next victim.

  Mercy or Murder

  By Pamela Welsh

  An Abigail Dutcher Mystery

  Chapter One

  7 February 1923

  Life never goes according to plan.

  Abigail startled to wakefulness to the shrill sound of a siren. Disoriented, she sprang from her bed ready to run for her life. Below, the London Fire Brigade rumbled by. In her foggy state, she mistook it for an air raid warning like those during her time in France.

  Bright morning sunlight streamed in through the window of her small St. James townhouse. Abigail sagged back onto her bed in relief until she saw the hands of the clock on her nightstand reflecting the time; half past seven. She should be at the office by eight a.m. She could not be late again. Her maid, Margaret, should have woken her. Then she remembered she’d given Margaret the day off to spend with an old friend. Well, dang it.