by Fedora Amis
The pudgy dame draped a Turkish towel around Jemmy’s shoulders. “Here’s the problem, dearie.” She helped Jemmy unhook her corset enough to slide the laces in the back around to Jemmy’s front.
“I don’t have spare laces, so you’ll need to make repairs on the ones you have.” She deftly undid the bows and loosened all the lacings. “There now. Try threading the torn ends through the eyelets. Then tie a good knot, and hope it will hold until you can replace the laces. Meantime, I’ll see what I can do with this seam.”
The woman put on her glasses and sat on a stool with her sewing basket on her lap. “Ah. You’re in luck. The material held. A few stitches, and the garment will be right as rain on a train.”
In moments, she had finished the blouse and was ready to return it to Jemmy—after one small adjustment. As the little woman loosened Jemmy’s newly knotted laces, she said, “I’ll not ask you to pull in your breath. You’d do well to let your middle be a bit broader. Avoid embarrassment in public. Much healthier, too. I know a gal about your age fractured a rib. The broken end stabbed right through her lung. Two days later the poor child died—died from over-tight laces.”
As the little woman helped Jemmy into her blouse, she said, “There now. The blouse is a little snug, but the material is strong. I think it will hold even with a slack corset.”
To show her gratitude Jemmy tipped the lady a dime, even though a nickel would have been enough. “Wait, dearie.” The woman pinned a sprig of yellow button mums to Jemmy’s lapel. “Just the thing to pretty up your jacket—and keep folks eyes away from the waist, which is a bit crowded in appearance.”
Jemmy walked out of the lounge and stopped dead in her tracks. Who should be walking toward the grand lobby but Handsome Harry Benson? All thoughts of Loker-Legree and her second lunch forgotten, she followed Harry, unnoticed, in the crowd of people moving to and fro.
He stopped under the glowing globes of a light stand and lit a cigarette. From time to time he looked at his pocket watch. Jemmy retrieved a discarded newspaper from a wire waste paper basket and hid behind it. A nasty interruption halted her alternate reading and peering over her paper at Handsome Harry.
“Just so. If it isn’t my old classmate Jemima McBustle. Perhaps I should call you ‘Ann O’Nimity.’ What are you doing here at Union Station?”
“Pervia, I hardly recognized you under your veil.”
At Mary Institute, Pervia Benigas was one of the most snobbish rich girls—not one of Jemmy’s favorites.
Jemmy always thought the girl was jealous of Jemmy’s looks, because Pervia was not overly attractive. She was too tall—at least five feet, ten inches—and much too haughty, with her close-set eyes and prissy bow mouth. Jemmy thought Pervia should stick a policeman’s whistle between those lips. Her long arms would look perfect directing traffic at the corner of Washington Avenue and Sixth Street.
“Are you off for another of your great adventures as a newspaperwoman?” She said the word great as though she wanted to scrape the word off her tongue with a trowel.
A clever lie flew from Jemmy’s mouth. “No. I’ve been sent to meet the train. My Aunt Tilly was supposed to be here earlier this afternoon, but she failed to arrive. She’s returning from New York. Perhaps she missed her connection. I thought I’d wait for the next train.”
“I’ve always had such fun telling people I know the famous Ann O’Nimity, though I must admit, I can never keep a straight face when I say the name. With such a wealth of wonderful pseudonyms, why did you choose that one?”
Jemmy stiffened. “My editor thought it artful and attention getting.”
“Just so. I suppose it is that. It certainly makes for a few minutes of fun at the dinner table.”
Jemmy tried not to sound snide. “I do hope you are leaving St. Louis. Please tell me the particulars. I’ll write it up for the society page.”
“No, not today. I have important business to attend before I could possibly leave town.”
“Perhaps you should be seeing to it, then.”
“Just so. I hope your aunt comes in on the next train.”
“If she doesn’t appear today, perhaps she’ll arrive tomorrow.”
“Goodbye, Miss Ann O’Nimity. Pleased to see you again.”
“Likewise, I’m sure. Goodbye, Miss Beni-gassss.”
Pervia buttoned the frog closures on her fur cloak and sallied out the main entrance.
Jemmy wondered why Pervia was at the station. Did she see someone off? Had she come to meet someone who didn’t show? Perhaps she made up that excuse on the spot like I did? Heavens in a handbag! I didn’t even think to ask her why she was in Union Station.
Still annoyed by her lack of reporter intuition, Jemmy moved behind a light standard so as to better hide from Handsome Harry.
At half past three, he took slow steps toward the main entrance with a scowl on his face. Jemmy followed him out into the snow and up Market Street. Apparently, the mystery lady had failed to appear. When he boarded an eastbound streetcar, Jemmy returned to the station.
Back at the Terminal Restaurant, she found herself locked out. A sign announced the restaurant would re-open at five p.m. Loker-Legree was nowhere in sight.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
November 22, 1898
Some journalist I am. I never even found out Tom’s real name. After the shameful way I’ve treated him, he’ll probably never speak to me again.
Her thoughts bounced back and forth between regret over one Loker-Legree and curiosity about the other. I wonder why Harry’s mystery woman didn’t appear—and who she is.
In their dressing room at the Palace Theatre, Handsome Harry and the other Tom Loker will both curse the cruelty of women.
A few minutes before four o’clock in the afternoon, Jemmy stepped off the Chouteau trolley and waded toward St. Ange. Still wrapped in thought, she heard a familiar voice. A man called out, “Jemima McBustle, come with us. We’re going sledding.”
The voice came from one of Jemmy’s rejected beaus, Peter Ploog. Jemmy rounded on him with choice words on her lips. “Peter Ploog, I’m a serious newspaperwoman. I have no time for childish—”
Just then another voice chimed in, “Don’t be a luddy-dud, Jemmy. We’re going to the big mound.” That musical lilt belonged to none other than Sassy Patterson.
Soon a chorus of shouts came from the sleigh. “We have sleds and dishpans. It will be great fun.”
“Come on, Jemmy, before we lose the light.”
“We’ll have a jolly time.”
“Get in the sleigh, Jemima. Stop dawdling.”
“Don’t make me kidnap you.”
Some eight or nine people of Jemmy’s acquaintance hollered from the sleigh, urging her to join them.
That very day Sassy had named Peter Ploog as one of her suitors. I may not have a better time to observe just how deep Peter’s devotion might go. Peter is a rounder and a cad, but is he capable of murdering Quisenberry Sproat?
A tall fellow in a tweed overcoat whisked Sassy and another girl out of the sleigh. He unceremoniously plunked the girl—Jemmy’s sister Randy—atop the pile of people in the back seat. His stratagem became clear when he boosted Jemmy up to sit next to Peter Ploog, the driver. He then lifted Sassy aboard as he slid under her. How very neatly he managed to have me sit beside Peter and to fill his own lap with Sassy.
Jemmy was not surprised at how deftly he managed to please himself at Peter’s expense. The man in tweed was her clever cousin, Duncan McBustle.
At that moment, Sassy looked more beautiful than ever in a cranberry wool cape lined with arctic fox. The hood framed her pretty face, while the cold brought out the roses in her cheeks.
Peter’s face turned redder than Sassy’s roses, somewhere in the vicinity of red-hot poker points. He muttered under his breath, “If he keeps up such shenanigans, I may have to kill your cousin. Would the family miss him?”
“Indeed they would. My Auntie Dee and Uncle Erwin would never rest unti
l they put a rope ’round your neck. At very least, they would make sure you stayed tucked up in the Jefferson City penitentiary until you died of old age.”
“Would you come to visit?”
“No.”
“Would Sassy?”
“I doubt she’d have time. So many parties . . . so many male acquaintances.”
He sighed. “I bet you’d testify against me at my trial.”
“Naturally. Duncan is family.”
“Guess I’ll have to find another way.”
Peter smacked his reins on the rumps of two well-matched bays, and the sleigh lurched forward in a jangle of bells. The group in back tittered and chatted away in festive tones, but Peter said not another word on the way to the big mound. He glanced at Duncan and Sassy every time one of them giggled. The motion put Jemmy in mind of a turnstile at the fair.
Every time his head jerked toward Duncan and Sassy, Peter’s jaw muscles twitched with the effort of keeping his mouth shut. His lips drew a fine pink line across his face as he urged the horses into their fastest trot.
Jemmy felt sorry for him. That surprised her. She’d once had a crush on him, but that was before she’d seen him in his true element—drunk in his unmentionables.
From that time on, she’d expected to feel nothing but contempt for him. She’d shown him only a nose in the air and the back of her hat ever since. She’d caught him nearly naked in scandalous circumstances at a shady establishment. And yet, Ploog pretended to be the perfect suitor for Mrs. McBustle’s daughter. Flirting with me at Sunday school, no less!
Peter Ploog presented a false face to the world. Perhaps he did have a homicidal as well as an unsavory nature. At that moment, he glowered at Duncan with a murderous eye.
The big mound was one of the few left standing. Even so, locals called St. Louis “Mound City” from time to time. The area along the Mississippi had once been home to dozens of heaps of earth piled up by prosperous American aboriginals two thousand years earlier. Most had been leveled to make way for warehouses and street beds. No one had ever discovered why the Indians built them or what the hills signified, but they made for dandy sledding.
Jemmy set herself to take special notice of the trip. An article called “Sledding on the Big Mound” might take a little tarnish off her reputation at the Illuminator. Of course, nothing was likely to endear her to Editor-in-Chief Suetonius Hamm.
Many considered the best sledding place in St. Louis to be the big hill in Forest Park. It had one drawback, though. Too vigorous a ride could shoot a sled out onto a frozen pond—or into its icy water.
Jemmy preferred the Big Mound. One side had a gentle slope for easy climbing. Several parties had already worn a ladder in the snow while dragging their sleds. The top was the ideal place to launch out in a dishpan or on a sled with a pleasant companion.
Peter had to tie the horses to a fence and so was last up the hill. Ploog’s party trudged up the track behind Duncan, who pulled a sled with one hand and Sassy with the other. When Jemmy reached the top, all she could see of the pair was the back of a tweed coat behind bits of red cloak as they flew down the hill.
Jemmy had no time to enjoy the vista. Peter slapped down his sled and hustled her on it. Before she’d found her balance, he leaped on board, and they were careening down the hillside.
They didn’t get far. Jemmy tried to gain her balance by grabbing whatever her fingers could find. Her hand fell upon one end of the steering bar. As she pulled hard to right herself, the sled veered sharply to the left, heeled over, tumbled the pair, and they went rolling down the hillside.
At the bottom of the mound, Jemmy and Peter dusted globs of snow from their clothes. From the top of the hill, a chorus of laughs, whistles, and applause mocked the mishap. When Peter raised his hand—probably to make an obscene gesture, Jemmy grabbed it and vigorously dusted gouts of snow from his sleeve.
On the way back up the snow ladder, Peter hissed, “Why on earth did you make us crash?”
“Why on earth didn’t you give me time to get settled on the sled? I was half on and half off.”
“So now it’s my fault, I suppose.”
“That’s what you suppose, and that’s what I suppose.”
“It made me look stupid.”
“You made you look stupid.”
“I’d like to take you over my knee and spank you for making us crash.”
“Then you would really look stupid.”
“How so?”
“Cousin Duncan would put you over his knee. I think he’d quite enjoy defending my honor. And you know he’s capable of manhandling you.”
“Are you calling me less of a man than Duncan?”
“What I’m saying is that he is taller, heavier, and has the training of a soldier. How do you think you would fare?”
“I guess I’ll leave the spanking for another day. But I’ll thank you to stay off my sled.”
“Although I’d rather go down the hill in a tin bucket, I think we’d best stick together for at least a run or two.”
“Why are you saying something so pea-brained?”
“You heard them jeer and clap when we fell. If we don’t at least pretend to take the spill as part of the fun, they’ll tease us until even the very old and very decrepit cows come home.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“And this time, don’t push off until I tell you I’m ready.”
Peter and Jemmy’s arrival at the top met with more clapping and whistling. Jemmy dropped a curtsy and Peter followed her lead by making a sweeping bow with his cap. That put an end to the jibes. Peter made a great show of locating a swath of fresh snow. He helped Jemmy onto the sled with all the decorum and ceremony his first attempt lacked.
As they breezed down the hill, Jemmy thought this giddy slide would be exhilarating fun—if someone other than Peter Ploog were sitting snug against her shoulders. Oh, well, even a murder suspect can be useful as a back warmer.
After a second successful run and climb to the top, Peter called over his shoulder to Jemmy. “Find a different sled.” He sprinted to Sassy’s side. She was, for the moment, unattended.
Duncan was retying a frayed knot on one side of his sled’s steering bar. Good thing his back was turned. He didn’t notice Peter stealing Sassy away and lifting her onto his sled. The pair glided lightly over the edge.
With a quizzical look on his face, Duncan said, “Ploog better watch himself. Shooting dice with the devil can be hard on the pocketbook and the knees.”
Jemmy hoped her response struck Duncan as playful. “I had no idea my cousin was a devil. What will Auntie Dee and Uncle Erwin say when I tell them their son is Satan himself?”
“I’m not the devil, cuz. Devils wear red—or didn’t you know?” He nodded toward Peter and Sassy, who were lingering at the bottom.
“So, Sassy’s the devil. I wonder where she keeps those devil dice.”
Duncan burst out laughing. “I’m sure you’ll figure out where all ladies keep their devil dice when you’re married—if not sooner.”
Jemmy didn’t quite know what to make of that.
Duncan held out his hand. “Come on, cuz. Fly down the hill with me.”
As they zoomed down the hill, Jemmy noticed they weren’t taking a straight line. Duncan veered the sled to the left. He engineered a direct path toward Peter and Sassy.
“Stop steering toward them. Duncan . . . Duncan! You’re going to run them over. Stop!”
At what seemed the last possible moment, Duncan pulled the sled rope hard to the right. They missed Peter but managed to cover his shoes with snow.
“Sorry, Old Dewdrop. Didn’t mean to freeze your feet.” Duncan’s lopsided grin denied his words of apology.
“Tell lies often, Old Dewdrop?” Peter sounded more disgusted than angry at the insult.
“Why, Dewdrop, you surely aren’t accusing me of trying to run you down.”
“Of course not. If you deliberately tried to assault me with your
sled, you’d have to answer to the police. But I suppose a man of your character is used to answering to the authorities.”
Duncan’s grin mutated into a scowl. Jemmy half expected him to hit Peter and start a bout of fisticuffs then and there. But the grin returned. “At least I’m fully dressed on such occasions. Too bad you can’t say the same.”
Peter frowned and took a step forward. Duncan braced himself. The pair looked for all the world as if they were about to exchange blows. But then Peter ducked down to grab a handful of snow. He flung it in Duncan’s face.
Duncan grabbed a fistful of snow while simultaneously grabbing Peter’s arm. Duncan spun the smaller man around and crammed his handful of snow down Peter’s collar.
Duncan raised his foot as if to give Ploog a swift kick in the keister. He must have thought better of it. His next move was to pick Ploog up under the armpits, swing him in a circle, and plop him down in a snowdrift.
When Peter saw himself stuffed into a pile of ammunition, he did the only logical thing—lobbed a snowball at the enemy. He missed Duncan. He hit Jemmy.
Duncan grabbed Jemmy and ducked behind a pile of snow. Duncan and Peter began hurling snowballs at each other. At first, each waited for the other to pop a head up over their snow forts.
Not a single one hit the target. Efforts on both sides were too little, too late. Both sides lobbed snowballs without hitting their targets until Jemmy caught Peter unawares. She splatted him a good one right in the face.
He yelled, “I’ll get you for that.”
Duncan tugged at Jemmy’s skirt. “Get down, Jemmy. Make snowballs as fast as you can.” The snowball fight was leading up to its big climax.
Big climax was right. By now, the whole Ploog sledding party—including several people they didn’t even know—had chosen up sides. The players massed hundreds of snowballs. Both armies poised in readiness.
Duncan waved his white handkerchief.
Ploog called out, “Surrendering without a fight?”
“Joke while you can, Old Dewdrop.”
“Why did you run up the white flag?”
“Protocol. Generals are supposed to meet beforehand to define the rules of engagement. Come out to the center to parlay.”