by Vicki Delany
“I want to find out what we’re dealing with first,” I said.
“What do you think we’re dealing with, Gemma?”
We came to the end of Baker Street and turned north to take the road that runs beside the small harbor. West London sits on the eastern shore of Cape Cod, with the Atlantic Ocean to the east and Nantucket Sound to the southwest, not far from the better-known town of Chatham. Restaurants overlooking the water spread out onto spacious patios, lined with pots of brilliant flowers and protected by colorful umbrellas. Lineups waiting for tables stretched down the sidewalk. The boardwalk on the far side of the road was crowded with people licking ice cream while they strolled and watched boats bobbing in the calm waters of the harbor and fisherman trying their luck from the pier. More tourists took pictures of the West London lighthouse, painted white with three thick red bands, built in 1821.
As we passed the Fish Market, which at this time of day displayed little more than crushed ice, I said, “I’m acting on the assumption that the woman, we will call her ‘The Small Woman’ for lack of a name, is aware of its value. Otherwise why attempt to hide it? She must be intending to come back for it at a later time.”
“Isn’t she taking a heck of a risk? Suppose someone wanted to buy it.”
I suppressed a shudder. “And suppose I hadn’t been there, and Ruby sold it for a dollar ninety-five? The need to hide the magazine must have been so vital, she was prepared to take that chance.”
“But why there? Why the book rack of the Emporium?”
“Where would you hide a tree?” I asked.
“In a forest?”
“Precisely.”
“You know the exact location of every tree in your forest, Gemma. If The Small Woman doesn’t know you, she wouldn’t know that. She must have thought it would be safely hidden. I wonder when she planned to come back and get it.”
We left the row of restaurants and shops and headed up the gentle hill of Blue Water Place toward my house. The houses here are a mixture of old and new, most of them expensive but not ostentatious. Many of the houses serve as B and Bs, and they all have some mixture of immaculately maintained lawns, precisely cropped hedges, tall old pines or wide Japanese red maples, lush flowers, and coats of fresh paint on doors and window frames. It was late spring, and the peonies were in bloom, perfuming the air and a providing delight to the eye.
My tote bag contained nothing but an old magazine, but in my imagination, it weighed six hundred twenty-eight thousand and forty-six dollars’ worth of solid gold. I’d caught Jayne more than once looking over her shoulder and peering into alleys. I had to fight down the urge to do so myself.
“We have to go to the police, Gemma.”
“Not yet,” I said.
“Something funny’s going on here. You can’t deny that. The magazine might be stolen.”
“It well might,” I said. “If it is, we’ll take it to the authorities. If it wasn’t stolen, the rightful owner, whoever that might be, must have a reason not to go to the police if she’s in trouble.”
“I don’t agree, Gemma. This isn’t any of our business.”
“The Small Woman made it my business,” I said. For reasons I did not confess to Jayne, I maintained a healthy distrust of the West London police. I’d find out what I needed to know and call upon them when I had sufficient facts. Not before.
We reached my house. I opened the front gate in the freshly painted white picket fence, and we walked around the house to the back entrance. Our yard is small, but the garden was a riot of spring color. I’m not much of a gardener, but one of Uncle Arthur’s lady friends (he seems to have a lot of lady friends) loves puttering about in our yard, and I’m very happy to let her. The house is a perfect saltbox, meaning two stories in the front and one in the back with a steeply sloping roof. It was built in 1756 from traditional Cape gray wooden siding with a red roof and a red brick chimney. Through renovation, a small second-floor balcony was added that affords a view over the neighboring roofs to the ocean. When Uncle Arthur is home, we often begin our mornings there together with a pot of tea, toast and marmalade, and the international papers online. The house is enormous, with five bedrooms, six bathrooms, a formal dining room, a thoroughly modern kitchen, and a den as well as an upstairs study. It’s obviously far too big for the two of us, never mind for Uncle Arthur when he lived here alone. But as well as being a wandering soul, he’s a spontaneous one, and when he saw the house with its uninterrupted view overlooking the harbor and out to sea, he loved it and bought it on the spot. Some of the bedrooms don’t have any furniture, and we never use the dining room. When I arrived, Uncle Arthur moved into the rooms on the second level, giving us both some much-needed privacy when he’s at home.
Fortunately, he did not seem to be at home at the moment. His prized blue 1977 Triumph Spitfire 1500 was not in its place—my red Mazda Miata was the only car in the parking area at the back of the house. Another one of Uncle Arthur’s passions in life is grand opera. He is hard of hearing. Sometimes those two things don’t go well together, and the music of Carmen or La Traviata can often be heard in the farthest reaches of the house. But now, all was quiet. Just in case he’d put the Triumph in the garage, once I’d unlocked the door, I put my fingers to my lips, slipped off my shoes, and gestured for Jayne to do the same.
We needn’t have bothered trying to be quiet. Violet greeted us with a single joyous bark. I told her to shush.
Because he traveled so much throughout his life, Uncle Arthur had never had a pet. Neither had I, as my mother was highly allergic to animals, and once I’d grown up and moved away from my parents’ home, the idea never occurred to me. A few years after I arrived in West London, Arthur came home one day with a happy smile and a cocker spaniel puppy. I’d looked at the man, and then I’d looked at the animal. “What is that?”
“This is a dog. She’s coming to live with us.”
“Why?”
“My friend Janet’s dog had puppies, and I promised to give one of them a good home. You’ll enjoy the company when I’m away.”
“I don’t need company.”
“Perhaps not, but you’ll love Violet.”
The dog was light brown with big floppy ears, giant paws, and enormous liquid-brown eyes. She gazed adoringly up at me, and in that instant she wiggled her way, stubby tail wagging and tongue drooling, into my heart. I crouched down, and she crawled into my arms.
“Why’s her name Violet?” I asked.
“Violet Hunter.”
“The Adventure of the Copper Beeches.”
“Good girl. You know your Holmes.”
Two years later, the dog was bigger, and she’d finally stopped chewing my shoes, but she was still an important part of my life.
We tiptoed across the black-and-white tiled mudroom, through the kitchen, and along the wide-planked wooden floor of the hallway toward the front of the house to what was once a TV room and is now my den.
The den is my favorite room in the house, the place I sit on cold winter nights in front of a blazing fire, curled up in a soft wingback chair with a good book while the dog snoozes on the rug and chases rabbits in her dreams. The room is decorated purely for relaxation, with comfortable furniture and a wall of floor-to-ceiling built-in bookshelves. A rarely used modern entertainment center is fitted into another wall next to a collection of DVDs (also rarely used now that I have an iPad), Bose speakers, and music-streaming equipment. When not being used, the iPad is kept in a reproduction Chippendale secretary desk Uncle Arthur picked up cheap at an estate sale. Most of the art was nothing special, just colorful paintings that had caught my eye. A modern watercolor showing people with umbrellas dashing though the rain at Trafalgar Square provided me with a touch of nostalgia on the rare occasion I found myself missing home.
The focus of the room hung next to the wood-burning fireplace: a large oil painting of a gorgeous woman with blazing black eyes, thick black hair adorned with black feathers, and pure alabaster-white
shoulders trimmed with a touch of red lace. The lady, so the family story goes, was Uncle Arthur’s one true love, a soprano on the cusp of great fame, cruelly struck down in her prime by tuberculosis. That Uncle Arthur, who loved nothing more than to talk about his salad days, had never said a single word to me about her made me believe the stories were true.
Taking great care, I removed the portrait of the diva from the wall.
Jayne let out a low whistle. “Wow! Just like in the movies.”
A safe was set into the solid, eighteenth-century brick wall. I spun the dial and pulled open the steel door. As expected, it contained nothing but our passports and a few legal papers. Uncle Arthur and I don’t have anything that needs that degree of protection. Before putting the magazine inside, I took it out of the tote bag and laid it on a table. I quickly snapped several pictures with my phone. First of the binding, and then of the magazine cover. I didn’t take it out of its plastic protection. A closer examination needed to be done in the right environment. “This might all be for naught,” I said. “It could be a reproduction, or have most of the pages torn out. If the Holmes story isn’t there, the cover will still be worth something, but not a great deal.”
I put it in the safe after taking one last long look and shut the door. I spun the dial and replaced the painting.
“Next stop, the hotel. But I have one thing to do first.” I punched numbers into my phone.
“Morris,” snapped the reply.
“Donald, it’s Gemma.”
“Good afternoon, Gemma. Did you find the magazine I’m looking for?” If anyone else said that, I’d suspect they knew what was in my possession, but Donald could always be counted on to get directly to the point.
“I was thinking about it earlier. You said a copy of the Strand Magazine’s on the market. What issue?”
“It’s all very hush-hush, Gemma. Just whispers, you understand. Something about an estate being liquidated and the magazine possibly among the effects. One of my contacts said ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’ is in it.”
Jayne pulled out her own phone to check for messages and punched in her password. I grabbed it out of her hand. “Goodness,” I said, typing as I talked. “That might be worth . . . a hundred dollars.”
“Depending on condition,” he said.
“I’ll keep you posted.” I hung up.
“What’s worth a hundred dollars?” Jayne asked.
“Probably not even that much. Earlier today, Donald came in asking me to let him know if I heard about a copy of the Strand Magazine that’s for sale. According to the web page I checked, those are worth a hundred bucks or so. Makes me wonder why, if Donald wanted one, he didn’t just go to an online retailer and buy it.”
“You think he knows that’s not the one that’s in town? A bluff to find out if you know anything?”
“I don’t know what he knows. Of course, even the Strand could have something in it that increases the price dramatically. A Conan Doyle signature, maybe some notes he made on the page.”
“Why would the one you have”—Jayne nodded at the safe—“be worth so much more than this Strand magazine if it printed original Holmes stories as well?”
“Rarity for one thing. There are plenty of Strands floating around, but the Beeton’s is exceedingly rare. There are many Holmes stories, but Study in Scarlet was the first time Sherlock Holmes appeared in print. Collecting doesn’t have to make sense, Jayne. The only value objects have is what people are willing to pay to own them.”
“Like my cousin’s collection of Beanie Babies. The one her mom thought would pay her way through college. Last seen they were being passed over at garage sales.”
“Because, I imagine, the market for them collapsed. Whatever a Beanie Baby might be, I do not care enough to ask.”
“I still think you should contact the police, Gemma.”
“All in good time. I want to have it evaluated first. Then I can tell the authorities precisely what it’s worth. I can’t chance them picking it up in their fat fingers and getting donut crumbs and powdered sugar all over it.”
I headed for the back door and swiped my car keys off the hook as I passed. Jayne trotted along behind. “You don’t have to come,” I said.
“As if I’d miss this. Are we bringing Violet?”
“She’d love a ride in the car, but there’s no room for the both of you.” I spoke to the dog. “Guard the house, Violet. We’ll be right back.”
She’s wasn’t too happy at that and whined plaintively as I shut and locked the mudroom door.
Jayne and I hopped into the Miata. The trip would only take about ten minutes, so although the evening air was clear and fresh and full of the scent of the sea, I didn’t bother putting the top down. The streets were busy with meandering tourist traffic and locals heading home after work. My across-the-street neighbor, Mr. Gibbons, waved his pruning shears at me as we drove past, and I tooted the horn lightly.
“What’s your plan?” Jayne asked.
“Plan?”
“What are you going to say if we find this woman at the hotel? Are you going to casually let it drop that you have her half-a-million-dollar magazine?”
“I’ll say she left something in my shop. We can judge by her reaction if she’s aware of the value.”
“Going to the trouble of hiding the magazine rather than tossing it onto the seat of her car or her bedside table tells me she’s perfectly aware of what it’s worth. How are you going to explain tracking her down?”
“Explain? Unlikely she’ll ask, but if she does, I’ll tell the truth.”
“Perhaps you should let me handle that part. I can say I saw her with the magazine, but thought it was store stock at the time. Then we found out it wasn’t.”
“Okay,” I said. Although I didn’t know what was wrong with telling the truth.
The West London Hotel is situated on the edge of town, in an area of gas stations and fast-food restaurants. They advertise sea views, but I suspect that in order to get a glimpse of the ocean, you have to climb onto the roof with a pair of binoculars and lean very far out. It probably helps if you take a ladder. A tall ladder.
We pulled into the almost-full parking lot.
“I’ll do the talking,” Jayne said.
“Why?”
“Because you sometimes say inappropriate things.”
“Me? I only ever tell the truth.”
“My point exactly.”
I parked at the front doors, beside the fifteen-minute sign, and we got out of the Miata. I grabbed my red leather bag, scarcely big enough for a mobile phone, keys, and a change purse, and tossed the strap of the bag over my head so it fell across my chest. I was still pondering Jayne’s cryptic statement as we went into the hotel and got hit by the overpowering scent of chlorine and cleaning products. Jayne took her place behind a family—Mum, Dad, two whining toddlers, and a screaming baby—while I looked around. The lobby was decorated in twentieth-century industrial. The carpet was badly worn, the two armchairs tattered and stained, and cracks were appearing in the ceiling. But the place was clean, without a speck of dust on anything. A separate alcove was set up for breakfast, the lights switched off. I flicked idly through the brochures neatly stacked in a display rack. The usual touristy things.
“You’re on the second floor. Elevator’s to your right,” the clerk said. The unhappy family accepted their room keys and dragged enough luggage to see them through an expedition to the South Pole. Jayne stepped up to the desk with a smile, and I joined her. I also smiled. A stack of postcards, the same as the one that led us here, were on the counter.
“Hi,” Jayne said. “We’re not checking in, but we’re looking for a possible guest of yours and hope you can help us.”
The clerk—overweight, with overdyed hair and overplucked eyebrows—said, “I’ll try.”
“I own a store in West London, and earlier today a woman left her bag behind. A shopping bag, I mean, not her purse. It had one of these postcards in it.” J
ayne tapped the stack on the counter. “So we thought she might be staying here. She’s short and . . . uh . . .”
“Five foot two, seven-and-a-half stone—I mean, a hundred and five pounds—in her midsixties. She has gray hair, which she wears tied into a bun, a pointed chin, and a large nose that bends slightly to her left. When last seen, she was dressed inappropriately for the weather in black trousers and a black fleece jumper.”
“That’s a sweater,” Jayne translated.
I ignored the interruption. “The laces on her trainers were ragged and untied and the shoes had the remnants of dried mud on them.”
“Gee,” the clerk said, “I’m surprised you didn’t notice her teeth.”
“She didn’t smile,” I said. “Her lips were thin, and I believe the look of disapproval on her face was more habitual than aimed specifically at her surroundings. But I could be wrong about that.”
“Unlikely,” Jayne muttered.
“I might have seen her,” the clerk said. “A woman like that’s staying here. I think she’s on her own. She checked in a few hours ago and then went out.”
“Did she return?” I asked.
The clerk’s eyes flicked to the door to one side of the reception desk, which doubtless led to an office. Obviously, The Small Woman had returned, and the clerk was unsure if she should tell us so.
“We only want to give her back her shopping,” Jayne said.
“You can leave it with me.”
“I’d rather not do that,” I said.
“Leave me your number then, and I’ll have her call you.”
I longed for the days when hotels kept guest keys hung on a rack behind the desk. I had no doubt, if that was the case, I could get the clerk to glance toward the appropriate number. I couldn’t see how I could unobtrusively climb over the desk and have a look at the computer. “Why don’t you phone the room and tell her we’re here?”