by Kirby Larson
He shifted his bundle to his other shoulder. “Papers! Get your papers!” A handful more sold and he could fetch himself some lunch, a fact that made his belly groan all the louder. The flapjacks Daddy Dub had prepared at dawn were ancient history.
Juice spotted a likely gentleman, decked out in white from head to toe, exiting Garfinkle’s Department Store. “Paper, sir?”
“Why, yes, young man.” The gentleman flung his white cape over his shoulder, then tossed Juice a dime. “Keep the change.”
An eight-cent tip! Juice grinned. The dime fairly glowed in his pocket. Perhaps there was more where this came from.
Juice tipped his cap at the young woman who had also exited the store and was now walking toward the big tipper. “Good day, miss.”
The girl cast a quick glance at her companion before returning Juice’s smile. “Good day to you, too,” she said.
“I don’t suppose you could direct us to a café nearby?” The old gent tugged a pocket watch from the vest encircling his ample waist. “For a quick lunch.”
“I know just the place.” Juice shifted his papers to his other shoulder and pointed. “Up there, a few blocks. The Acorn.” His stomach grumbled again at the thought of sustenance. “I can show you the way, if you like.”
The girl’s face lit up at that suggestion, but her father or uncle or whoever shook his head. “Our car is coming, there.”
Juice turned to eyeball the tastiest-looking automobile he’d ever seen. Robin’s egg blue. He whistled. “That’s some ride,” he said. American Motor Company, touring car. He studied automobiles like Daddy Dub studied horses. What he wouldn’t give to ride one block in that machine.
The driver, tall and fit, eased out from behind the steering wheel, opening the passenger doors first for the old gent and then for the girl. Juice could not take his eye off the vehicle as it glided away from the curb.
Then he shook his head. He must be hungrier than he realized. Like to be seeing things. He shook again. It couldn’t be so, but he swore he saw a striped tail, poking out behind the wicker trunk strapped at the rear of the vehicle. Looked to be keeping time like a metronome. After a third shake of his head, Juice saw nothing but the tail end of that fine automobile disappearing down the street. Clearly, time for a lunch break.
He patted his jingling pocket, and made his way to the Center Market, where he knew a man who made the juiciest roast beef sandwiches in town.
Mmm, mmm, mmm.
The prior resident of the White House, Theodore Roosevelt, had been a nature lover. And there was more to that love than the oft-told story of the bear whose life Teddy had supposedly saved. A hunter, yes, but TR appreciated all of God’s creatures, great and small, and especially the feathered small. This avid birder once compiled a list of the species, numbering fifty-six, he’d observed on the White House grounds. That list included a pair of saw-whet owls that spent several weeks by the south portico one June.
The current president was more unimaginative in his appreciation of the animal world, an appreciation that focused on, and was limited to, Pauline, the White House cow.
One who did share Roosevelt’s esteem of the winged world was at the moment patrolling the estate at Pennsylvania Avenue, though on four feet rather than the presidential pair. At a rustling in a nearby shrub, the feline froze, crouched, and stared intently through the shrub’s bare twigs. So still and camouflaged was she that a passerby might not notice her.
As a matter of fact, such a passerby—the man sneaking around the corner of the nearby building—only narrowly missed stepping on the creature’s switching tail. By sheer luck, his foot touched the slushy ground just beyond it, averting disaster for both cat and man. Cat, because the injury would’ve hampered the hunt. Man, because the cat’s howl of pain might have alerted others to his presence, a situation he desperately desired to avoid.
Thus the man, who carried the scent of the desert about him, pussyfooted onward to his destination, pausing only briefly at the sound of a twiggy tussle. Intent on his mission, he did not see the cat slink off under a stand of Katherine crab apple trees, bearing the lifeless body of a snowbird in her mouth. With quiet crunching, the cat consumed her supper, adding the tiny feathers to a slowly growing pile at the base of her favorite tree. Since taking up residence in Washington, D.C., the cat had reduced the President’s Park avian population by several dozen. Nature, though beautiful, is not always kind.
Seeing neither cat nor danger, the man continued on his way, knocking discreetly—shave and a haircut, two bits—at a door near the rear of the great house. This was all done per instructions received from a member of the Secret Service. You may well wonder how it was that a man from the desert established contact with an officer of the presidential police force. There are many secrets in the White House. Some that may never be divulged. Here, we may share one bit of information: Several months prior, the man from the desert, carrying a letter of commendation from the Shah of Persia, had applied for a position on the White House police force. Narrower minds could not look past the color of the man’s skin. But one officer took note of his demeanor and his record and gave the man a card printed with his telephone number. Direct line. We may say no more about that—matters of national security, etcetera. Regardless, after rapping out the secret knock, the man from the desert was quickly admitted, and as quickly disappeared inside.
After a bit more than a quarter of an hour, as quietly and stealthily as he had entered, the man exited the building. Once again, he passed the cat, ignorant of her presence. She, clever cat, noted his. She watched him glance nervously over his shoulder, then break into a loping pace across the grounds and off in the general direction of F Street, where, it may be noted, sat a hotel named Ardmore.
The cat was in no hurry to follow. With the uncanny intuition belonging to all of her kind, she had already surmised the man’s destination. Meal completed, she began to tidy herself up, intent on making herself presentable for company.
When she was completely satisfied with her efforts, the cat padded diagonally across the snow-blanketed lawn on four creamy-white paws to pay a call on a friend lodging at the Ardmore Hotel.
It wasn’t that the bed was uncomfortable. Besides, Audie was accustomed to a lack of nocturnal comfort: The mattresses at Miss Maisie’s were more lumps than filling. It wasn’t that Audie’s sixth-floor room was too cool or too warm. Nor was it too noisy. The Commodore could be snoring away across the hall—no doubt he was—but Audie was not troubled by one rumble. It was quiet enough to successfully eavesdrop on Cypher’s low-toned telephone conversations, had he, too, been on the sixth floor. As was proper for a chauffeur, though, he had been assigned to a room on the servants’ floor. Everything about the Ardmore Hotel was exactly as advertised: “meeting the modern traveler’s comforts with old-fashioned care.”
One such comfort was a watchful eye over Audie at night. At the hotel’s insistence, the Commodore had hired a petite French maid, her apron as crisp as a potato chip, who was now asleep on a cot in Audie’s sitting room. Audie hadn’t yet learned the maid’s name; their only conversation had been the maid’s whispered, “Bonne nuit, ma chérie.”
The hotel was so quiet, Audie could hear the maid talking in her sleep. If only Audie had been more diligent in reading that Conversational French book, she might now be able to decipher what the maid was murmuring. Whatever it was, it sounded ever so cheerful. French was such a musical tongue!
Audie had every reason to be cheerful herself: ensconced in this luxurious hotel. A double bed all to herself. The promise of room service breakfast, wheeled in on a silver cart. Two brand-new look-alike dresses in the armoire across the room, in a style which made Audie feel like a model on the cover of The Ladies’ Home Journal. A pair of black Mary Janes, with the strap buttoning at the middle of her foot—“the smartest style,” according to the salesclerk at Behrends’—were lined up in the bottom of the armoire, next to her new boots and right under the cheviot-wool coa
t with the stylish trim. Most girls would be supremely content with such comfort, food, and fashion.
But Audie was not most girls. She had padded over to the hotel room door to double check. Yes, each lock was locked. And the security chain was firmly drawn. She had left the window ajar for some fresh air, but it was the sixth floor after all: perfectly safe. Perhaps it had been unwise to have that second ice cream sundae after supper. Audie couldn’t imagine what else might be keeping her from slumber.
Had the maid been awake and had she been fluent in English, she would have suggested that it was not the wisest course of action for a girl with Audie’s imagination to read from Detective P. Gardella’s book, Fair Criminals, Foul Minds, directly before retiring for the night. But the maid was merrily conversing in her sleep, so gave no such suggestion. And the very book in question was resting once again on Audie’s knees.
She flipped past the chapters on bunco men and swindlers, having already read those. Twice. She found herself immersed in the chapter entitled “Friend or Foe?” These words jumped off the page in the lamplight’s glow: People of respectability and inexperience, who have no knowledge of the criminal classes, usually imagine that every criminal is a hardened villain, incapable of even the ordinary feelings of family affection, and that of necessity the professional crook, thief, or burglar is uneducated and ignorant. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Do you see that well-dressed, respectable-looking man glancing over the editorial page of the Sun? You would be surprised to know that he is a professional burglar and that he has a loving wife and a family of children who little know the “business” which takes him away for many days and nights at a time … As a matter of fact, some of the brightest brains and keenest minds belong to professional criminals. They live by their wits and must need keep those wits sharp and active.
Audie looked up from the page, pondering the author’s admonition. It was true: If she had been asked to describe a criminal, she would’ve described someone rough and sly and slovenly. Thanks to Detective Gardella’s guidance, Audie now realized that such an appearance would cause a stir in a crowd of respectable folk. And respectable folk were exactly the kind targeted by the criminal element.
She leaned against the down-filled bed pillow, and cast herself back to this afternoon, and their entrance into the hotel lobby. Audie recalled seeing a distinguished-looking gent reading the Washington Post in one of the club chairs under a poster advertising Circus Kardos, near the reception desk. Could he be someone leading a double life? A cat burglar perhaps? And what about the flash of red, jaunty in that young mother’s extraordinary chapeau? Would a modern matriarch wear such an attention-attracting feather? Could that have been a signal to an accomplice in some complex and mercenary scheme?
Detective Gardella’s book had opened Audie’s eyes to the fact that danger lurked everywhere. Well, everywhere but back home in Swayzee, where the most untoward event of recent history had occurred when the ancient Mrs. Horst Van Beeker picked a generous bouquet of her neighbor’s prize tulips. Mrs. Van Beeker had imagined herself a young girl again, back in the Netherlands, selected to present flowers to Grand Duchess Sophie for May Day. The neighbor had shrieked and carried on, but after Mr. Van Beeker paid for the damages, that was the end of that.
A scrabbling at the windowsill redirected Audie’s attention. How Min had managed to find her, here at the Ardmore, was one of the eight wonders of the world. Audie smiled. And climbing up to this very window from the street six floors below constituted the ninth wonder. One for each of Min’s charmed lives.
“Hey, puss,” Audie whispered, kicking back the bedcovers and opening the nightstand drawer. “What do you think of this for a bedtime snack?” She held out a bit of buttered biscuit, a sliver of ham, and a chunk of cheese, spirited off the supper table and into Audie’s pocket.
Min delicately sniffed the offering, but declined to partake.
“What—not good enough for you?” Audie rolled to the edge of the mattress to set the banquet on the floor. “Or not hungry?” She suspected the latter but refused to think about the creature that might have given its life to sate Min’s appetite.
“What’s it like out there?” The day had been a hustle-bustle of moving lodgings, shopping for new clothes, and so forth. Audie had yet to see much of the nation’s capital. “Is it beautiful?”
Min answered with a flick of her elegant tail. A cat finds scarce beauty in concrete and marble and monuments.
Audie slid over in the bed, patting the coverlet. “Come sit with me.”
Min considered the invitation. After a respectable pause—so as not to appear overeager—she leapt, landing smack-dab on the book Audie had been reading. It slid to the floor with a thunk.
“Are you all right, mademoiselle?” a sleepy voice called from the next room.
“Yes! Oui!” Audie picked the book up and returned it to her lap. “Min, you have to be more careful,” she whispered.
Min considered that warning while she cleaned between her back toes.
“Bees and bonnets, you lost my place.” The book was now flipped open to an illustration of a man’s hand. Audie glanced at the caption beneath. The ordinary criminal’s hand has a peculiarly rough shape, with the thumb being very plump and short. The small finger is turned inward, and bluntness is the hand’s chief characteristic.
Her breath caught in her throat. She reread the words. Why, this described Cypher’s hand to a tee! She slapped the book shut, throwing her arms around Min’s neck. She pressed close to one furry ear and murmured, “Thank you, dear friend.” She should have tumbled to this much sooner. What upstanding citizen would call himself Cypher, anyway? The word itself implied secrets.
She must warn the Commodore. But this was delicate business. It was he who had hired Cypher, entrusting him with his current duties. Audie did not know their shared history. Had she been aware that Cypher had entered the Commodore’s employ mere hours before their appearance at Miss Maisie’s, she might have been less hesitant to share her misgivings. Without that knowledge, our heroine perceived that the Commodore might not be receptive to one mere piece of evidence of Cypher’s criminality.
Audie hopped out of bed, quietly opening the desk drawer to remove a sheet of hotel stationery and a pencil. She settled herself on the desk chair, licked the end of the pencil, and began a list, starting with the description of the common criminal’s hand. Reflecting back on their journey, she wrote down every action that had niggled at her at the time, but that she had discounted. All those late-night murmured phone calls. The Western Union incident. The fuss over her reading the newspaper the previous morning.
Audie stopped writing mid-word as a notion struck her. Every time she had asked the Commodore about the mission they were undertaking, Cypher had been present. Ears tuned in to their every word. What if the Commodore had been hesitant all this time to reveal his plan because he shared her reservations?
He had hired the man; he must be at a loss in his predicament. And ever watchful because of it. How could she have been so oblivious? There was no other conclusion that Audie could draw than the fact that the Commodore was not trying to keep information from her but from Cypher.
All the more reason to show the Commodore her list.
“Here you are, miss.” The smartly uniformed elevator operator, smiling brightly, safely delivered Audie to the lobby. She smiled back, stepping out onto the marble floor, her new gray kid boots with red buttons tip-tapping in a most dignified way. These new boots had ample room for her toes—and her two gold coins.
The Commodore was in conference with a bellman as she approached. She hurried over, standing off to one side, not wanting to intrude on the conversation, but close enough to hear the Commodore grumble, “But you agreed to twenty-five.” The bellman caught sight of Audie, shook his head, and said, in a voice loud enough for Audie to hear, “Shall I call you a cab, sir?”
“Cab?” The Commodore sounded confused, then he, too, noticed
Audie. “Good morning, my dear.” The Commodore’s face lit up in a smile. “Did you sleep well?”
“Yes, thank you.” Audie straightened her hat. “Are we eating breakfast here?” She looked around the lobby. “Where’s Cypher?” Maybe this was her chance to speak to the Commodore. She felt in her coat pocket for the list she’d made the night before.
The Commodore waved his hand. “Gave him the day off.” He turned to the bellman. “You may call me a taxi now.”
“There’s something I need to tell you.” Audie slid the list out of her pocket as the bellman stepped out into the slush to whistle down a cab.
“Not now, Annie. My mind’s awhirl.” The Commodore checked his pocket watch. “You have a nice breakfast in your room. We’ll talk later.”
A cab pulled up and the bellman held the door open. “But this is important.” Audie squeezed around the Commodore and slid into the cab.
“Where to?” the cabbie asked.
“What?” The Commodore tugged at his cravat. “Nowhere.”
“You don’t need a cab?”
“Yes. I need a cab.” The Commodore motioned energetically. “Come out, my dear. I have a business meeting.”
Audie pressed herself against the far side of the door. “I won’t get out. Not until you listen to me.”
