The Hotspur Affair: A Richard & Morgana MacKenzie Mystery

by Jack Flanagan

  The general expectation was that Chester Holland would attend college festivities alone since he had been a bit of a recluse after his divorce. The break-up was extremely difficult for the poor guy. The divorce has been finalized for over a year, and he still can’t resist talking about it.

  My turn to be his Dear Abby happened one night, several months ago. After his attending an evening alumni fundraiser, Chester bumped into me at the Eagle’s Nest Pub. In fact, he cornered me at the bar and then spilled his heart out to me.

  Ignoring my protests to the contrary, Chester revealed some of the grittier and personal details of his failed marriage to Helen. He told me about their hopes and dreams as newlyweds and of their varied bedroom activities, all of which I didn’t really need or want to hear. With each round of Scotch—there were several—he continued to ramble on about his troubled life.

  “Richard,” he said, polishing off his second Scotch, “Helen and I had been married for more than ten years. I thought that she was happy. I loved her. I still do. She said many times that she loved me too. I treated her right. I never cheated on her. Everything I did, I did for her. Why would she do this to me? We had a nice house. I’m not very overweight, and I still have my hair. I don’t smoke . . . Richard, I don’t understand.”

  Indeed, Chester makes a good impression. In my humble opinion, he’s a reasonably handsome African-American man in his late forties who still possesses some of the athletic physique of his college football days. The fellow has a winning and friendly personality and can get along with just about everyone. He’s a scholar, having earned two doctorates—one in economics, the other in philosophy. The man, by gosh, is a president of a college. And, as far as I knew, he runs the school well. Objectively speaking, there is nothing about Chester to dislike.

  “Richard, I will never find someone like Helen again. No one would love me like she . . . did.”

  “Well, I hope not,” I dimwittedly joked.

  Chester didn’t react.

  “You need someone better.”

  He just cast his eyes down at his empty glass and eventually sighed. “I think I need another round.”

  The bartender promptly fulfilled his request.

  Chester limply picked up his glass and tilted the rim to me. “L’chaim, ” he said before he took a big sip.

  It is not my place to tell people what they ought to do—Morgana shut down that avenue of discourse many years ago. Nor am I ever inclined to get involved in People’s personal lives, especially concerning matters of the heart. But Chester needed some bucking-up. So, I put my reluctance aside and gave whatever solace to him that I could.

  “You’re a great catch, Chester,” I firmly declared. “You are very successful and have much to offer to any woman . . . And you are very loyal.”

  “That I am, Richard. I am loyal. Very, very, very loyal. ”

  “Helen was a fool if she didn’t realize it.”

  Foolish or not, Helen, of course, didn’t see it our way. Chester offered his wife many things, except one—money. Helen dumped Chester for a very wealthy insurance broker over in Manchester named Hubert Alanbeck. They had met at a farmer’s market in Bennington while Chester was away at a conference for New England college presidents.

  When I finished my third and last drink for the night, I grabbed Chester’s shoulder and gave him a manly shake of encouragement. “You’re a good guy. Trust me. You’ll get through this with flying colors.” And with an encouraging smile, I left at the bar—absent-mindedly leaving Chester with my tab.

  So, it had been Chester’s custom, ever since the divorce, to come to school functions by himself. But on this night, he was with someone—someone whom I hadn’t seen before. There on his arm was an eye-catching brunette whose hourglass figure had no problem filling out her burgundy, deep v-neck, ruched waist cocktail dress.

  “I see, Richard, that you have noticed one of our guests of honor,” said Morgana, pulling on my sports jacket’s sleeve.

  “Huh? Oh, the woman whose abundant charms are about to fall out of her dress?”

  “Yes.”

  “What is she about?”

  “Well, for one thing, you’re staring at her with your mouth open.”

  “I am not. And anyway, you have often said to me when we walk by Harry’s Appliances’ shop window, ‘There’s no harm in looking.’”

  “I was comparative shopping for a new vacuum cleaner. Are you planning to turn me in for a newer model?”

  “No way. I had too much trouble breaking you in.”

  “You know, there was a time when you used to look at me that way.”

  “I still do, but I don’t let you see me do it.”

  “Really?” Morgana’s disbelief was apparent.

  “Yes, really,” I calmly replied.

  “Why don’t you want me to see you?”

  “Because you don’t take it as a compliment. When you see me looking at you, in ‘that way,’ you start in. ‘You don’t like what I’m wearing,’ or ‘What are you looking at?’ or ‘You think I’m fat?’ or worse, ‘Stop, it’s degrading.’ It kills the magic of the moment.”

  “I do not do that.”

  “You do . . . all the time, except in those situations when you want me to look at you in ‘that way,’ when you have control, like last night in the bedroom.”

  “No, I don’t,” protested Morgana, more out of reflex than conviction.

  “Anyway, I’m a little intrigued by this woman who appears to be hitting it off so well with Chester . . . and, it seems, he with her.”

  I watched Chester’s new friend laugh, smile, and periodically take a firm hold of Chester’s arm, and I wished him all the luck. He needed a woman in his life. She seemed to be quite affectionate, and she was very easy on the eyes. No doubt, she was his intellectual equal; he wouldn’t have it any other way.

  But there was something in this woman’s manner that was disquieting. Her interest in Chester appeared, to me, a bit over the top. My mother had a saying about such women: “They’ll gently hold your hand while they steal your wallet.”

  “I had the honor meeting Dr. Vera Krauss earlier today,” remarked Morgana.

  “Who?”

  “The woman in red, you’re ogling.”

  “Oh . . .” I said, still being distracted.

  “Besides her having a mesmerizing wardrobe,” said Morgana, “Krauss is a scholar, an author, quite wealthy—a daughter of some German or Hungarian industrialist, and I hear, she is single. She’s definitely an . . . interesting woman.” The sarcastic bite in Morgana’s words told me that Chester’s date bothered her too. “Dr. Krauss is the leader of the team of experts who are to examine the ‘Stoner Papers.’”

  “She certainly seems to be a ‘take-charge kind of person.’”

  “It’s funny. I see the three other members from the team here, but I don’t see Fuerst around . . .”

  “Hum,” I mumbled as my imagination had its way spinning fictional scenarios.

  “Richard, are you still eyeing Krauss?”

  “What can I say? The woman makes an impression.”

  “Do you know who else can make an impression—” said Morgana as she poked me again.

  “Do you have to do that?”

  She responded with a slight directional nod of her head. “Richard, look. Is that Albert Runner with his wife coming through the door?”

  It was.

  Old Albert Runner was on the college’s board of trustees and, coincidentally, Uncle Raymond’s childhood friend and lawyer. I have known Old Albert for as long as I can remember. As the story goes, he, his older brother, Robert, and my uncle were thick as thieves back in their day. Sadly, Robert was killed in a freak accident involving a turnip truck on NY Route 22 on the night before my uncle and Robert’s high school graduation.

  Albert was so devastated by his older brother’s untimely death that he almost gave up on life. In fact, upon his graduation the following year, he was seriously thinking abou
t refusing a partial scholarship to Columbia. His alternative plan was to stay home and become a door-to-door salesman, like his father.

  Needless to say, Albert didn’t do that. My uncle counseled him to accept the scholarship and go to law school. Albert always thanked my Uncle Raymond for helping him through that dark time after Robert’s death. “Your Uncle Raymond,” he told me many times, “kept me on the strait and narrow. I would have never become a lawyer if it weren’t for Raymond.” The sincerity of Albert’s claim had convinced me that it was true.

  “The Runners are going toward Chester.”

  “Albert seems to have caught Chester’s ear,” I quipped.

  “I wonder what the guys are chatting about?” Morgana mused aloud. “They all look too serious.”

  Holland and Krauss then turned and started walking in our direction with Al Runner and his wife Terry in tow. “Well, we may soon find out,” I said, feeling naked without a drink in hand. “The four of them are coming our way.”

  As the group approached, my attention was still on Dr. Krauss. From what my aging abilities could decipher, she was an ebullient forty-something who could have easily given the impression that she was some years younger—that is, at least from a distance. But from seven feet away, a miscalculation became apparent. For all her Teutonic meticulousness and artful efforts with cosmetics, the library gallery’s harsh lighting, unfortunately, foiled them. Standing beneath the fluorescent lights, Krauss looked like an aging chorus girl from a Berlin cabaret. Yet, from Chester’s perspective, I am sure that didn’t matter.

  “Richard,” said Chester with exuberance.

  “Chester, good to see you . . .” And so it went.

  It was soon after the customary introductions and pleasantries that the conversation turned a bit serious. “Richard,” Chester said quietly, almost apologetically, “I am so glad that you showed up tonight. I really appreciate it—especially after losing your uncle recently. He was an interesting man.”

  “Did you know Uncle Raymond?”

  “No, I am sorry to say that I never had that honor. But I have learned some things about him of late.” Chester took a half step closer to me and asked in a low voice, “Richard, may Albert and I have a private word with you.”

  “Sure, Chester, anytime,” I flippantly replied as I looked over his shoulder and noticed that the line at the bar station had dissipated. And I was thirsty. I thought that it would be an excellent time to make a break from the social obligations of small talk and to fetch Morgana a white wine spritzer and a Scotch for myself.

  “We would like to speak to you now, Richard, if you don’t mind.”

  His somber tone and his abruptness instantly sent my mind off my refreshment quest. “Yeah, sure, Chester,” tripped off my lips as embarrassing ego-centric concerns invaded my mind—Would this cost me money or time? Will the bar still be open when I get back? Is Chester going to ask me for any “man to man” advice? Will there be any good hors d’oeuvres left when our conversation is over? Does he want payment of my share of our old bar bill?

  Excusing ourselves from the pleasure of our wives and Dr. Krauss’ company, Chester guided Al and me to a small lecture hall next to the gallery. Coincidently, it was the same room where I first laid eyes on Morgana so many years ago. I could still picture her standing in the doorway as if it were yesterday.

  We entered the room as Chester flicked on the lights.

  “So what’s up?” I asked, wondering when I could leave.

  “I need your help.”

  “Well, if there is anything that I can do.”

  “I’ll be blunt. I have . . . No, the college has a problem. And it involves you . . . and your Uncle Raymond.”

  “How’s that?”

  “A glitch has suddenly come up about the Die Verlorenen Stein Papiere that we are about to unseal.”

  “Huh, the what?” It took a second for me to make the connection. “Oh, the Stoner Papers. The reason for this evening’s hullabaloo.”

  “The Stoner Papers?” Chester paused and then chuckle. “Ah, yes, that silly moniker from the 60s. It seems to have had a resurrection of late . . . an amusing play on words. But in any case, the papers are to be unsealed in three days . . . Well, that was the idea until a few hours ago.”

  “I still don’t understand. What does Uncle Raymond, or I, for that matter, have to do with—”

  “The papers were your uncle’s. He donated them to the college.”

  “They were Uncle Raymond’s?”

  “Either that, or he is, or was, the sole representative of the individual who actually did own them.”

  “Uncle Raymond?”

  “Your Uncle Raymond,” interrupted Al with certainty.

  From behind his thick lens glasses, Runner’s eyes began to tear up.“When Joan Sinclair called me about your uncle’s passing, I felt awful. I almost couldn’t believe it. He was . . . a dear friend. After the call, I remembered a connection between Raymond and the Die Verlorenen Steinmetz Papiere. I should have remembered sooner when I read in the newspaper about the documents being unsealed and analyzed. I should have put two and two together then. My brain just doesn’t work as well as it did.”

  “Albert, please, don’t beat yourself up about it,” said Chester. “The important thing is that you did tell us. Of course, it would have been better if we knew months ago. But the fault is really with me. I don’t know how this technicality slipped by us.”

  “Excuse me, what are the two of you talking about? How am I involved in this?”

  Albert wiped a tear from his right eye and pushed his glasses back up to the bridge of his nose before he spoke. “Back in the mid-50s, your Uncle Raymond had entrusted to the college a collection of documents that he thought might be of a particular historical significance.”

  “The Adamus Bremensis document?” I said as I tried to piece together a context.

  “Yes,” anxiously confirmed Chester. “The Adamus Bremensis is the one item in the collection that we know about.”

  “How would my uncle get such a thing? Are you sure that you have it correct? . . . My Uncle Raymond?”

  Albert’s tired, ancient eyes looked into mine, “The collection was your uncle’s. I was there. I was the one who drew up the legal papers for the transfer of the documents and accompanying $500,000 to the college. The money was the tricky part, as I remember. Dear Lord, it was so long ago.”

  That last tidbit of information about the money hit me like a blow to the solar plexus. Everything around me became fuzzy, unreal. The blood gushed down from my head to my feet. In a flash, my lungs consumed all of their available oxygen. I could hardly breathe.

  “Huh! He did . . . what?” I gasped and followed that with several quick breaths.

  “Your uncle gave the documents to the college along with $500,000. And he did this, anonymously. He did not want his donation to be publicly known. There were a few exceptions . . . ah, conditions. To the anonymous was one stipulation in the agreement. It would be upon his death that you were to be informed of this.”

  “He gave the college $500,000? He never had $500,000. Where did he get $500,000 back in the 1950s? He never had that much money. If he did, my mother would have surely known about it. And, furthermore, she would have told me.”

  “Be that the case, or not,” calmly continued Albert, “there was $500,000 donated by your uncle to the school at the time when the collection of documents was turned over.” Albert slowly shook his head. “I wish that I remembered all this months ago. I feel that I made a bungle of it all and, to make matters worse, that I let your uncle down . . . But it was so long ago.”

  The sense of failure could easily be seen on poor Runner’s face as he gently shook his head from side to side in self-loathing.

  “Ah, but most importantly, you did remember, Albert,” said Chester, again offering comfort to the old lawyer. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You rescued the college from a very embarrassing, and, I might add, a very thorny le
gal predicament.”

  Albert looked at Chester and then at me. “Your Uncle Raymond was a good man and more involved in the world than many people had supposed.”

  “So it seems,” I said, as I quietly promised myself not to be surprised by anything else my uncle may have done or said.

  “And you heard Richard say, Albert,” added Chester in further comforting my uncle’s friend, “that he would gladly help in any way he could. So, everything is okay. Everything can go as planned.”

  “Excuse me,” I said as diplomatically as I could. “but about his whole, eh, . . . situation . . . Well, I still don’t know what this is all about, or how I can help you or the school.”

  “You, Richard,” explained Albert, “are to be the first to open up the box and to give the final word whether all or some of the documents are to be released at this juncture in time.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you,” continued Albert. “Your Uncle Raymond arranged to have this privilege for himself, but, sadly, since he is no longer with us, he can’t do that.”

  “Well, that goes without saying,” I replied, anxiously yearning for a Scotch.

  “But he had the foresight to plan for his alternate, and you, Richard, are that person.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes.”

  “We can’t open and release the documents without you,” chimed in Chester.

  “Me?” This document thing was sounding more and more like a massive pain in the neck and laden with all sorts of responsibilities. “When did Uncle Raymond plan for me to be his eh, replacement? He had been ill for almost a year. He may not have had his full faculties when he made this arrangement for me to be—”

  “The arrangement for you to take his place if he were, er . . . deceased, was part of his original agreement with the college, back in the 1950s.”

  “Back in the 1950s? I was—”