Living Spectres: a Chesterton Holte, Gentleman Haunt Mystery

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  “Good afternoon, Poppy; it’s been a while, hasn’t it, since we sat down together,” said Denton for his mother as well as himself, and managed what he thought was a mischievous smile. “This is a social call, but I’m afraid I have been bedeviling your aunt. She’s on to all my tricks, I’ve discovered—too clever for me.” This attempt at flattering jocularity failed dismally.

  “I don’t see anything amusing or commendable in taking me to task about my unfortunate son, but of course, you know what will please you better than I.” Josephine’s hauteur was at its most daunting, and only an aggressive prosecutor like Denton could ignore its implications. Just to make sure her disdain was obvious, she picked up her glass of sherry and took another defiant sip.

  “That’s against the law, you know,” Denton pointed out, determined to provoke her. “I could have you arrested.”

  “It’s a foolish law, and everyone knows it, including those bumpkins in Congress, who drink as much as anyone. Brigadier General Smedley Butler may be a brave Marine, but he has no notion of how things are done in Philadelphia: arresting people for having a convivial drink at home! Absurd! Why Bill Kendrick should have taken it into his head to hire the man to stamp out the use of alcohol, I cannot imagine. He’s usually more sensible than that, but someone must have put the notion into his head; if I knew who that person was, I should most assuredly express my disapprobation to him. Bill Kendrick certainly didn’t come by it through Gifford Pinchot.” Having successfully yet obliquely reminded Denton that she was personally acquainted with the mayor and the governor, Aunt Jo reached down to replace the sherry-glass on the piano bench, then snapped her fingers; Duchess shambled out from where she had been napping next to the piano.

  Primrose North took another cookie from the platter on the table beside her chair and bit into it, smiling as the cookie came apart in a buttery crumple. “This is very good shortbread; my congratulations to your cook,” she remarked to no one in particular. “I’m very fond of shortbread. And strawberries.”

  “I’ll tell my cook you liked it,” said Josephine at her frostiest, smiling wanly as Duchess thrust her nose into her mistress’ palm and licked it.

  Feeling very much at loose ends, Poppy made an attempt to enliven the atmosphere in the room. “Missus Flowers will be bringing in coffee shortly; it will keep the afternoon warm. There will be spreads and crackers as well. She asked me to tell you.” She paused, then added, “No doubt there will also be another bottle of sherry.”

  “That’s good of her,” said Josephine. “Yes; I do hope she brings the sherry as well as coffee; my bottle is nearly empty, and well she knows it.” She glared at Denton, challenging him to do something about it.

  “I am going to pretend I did not hear that,” said Denton firmly.

  “Oh, don’t be such a hypocrite, Denton,” Josephine admonished him. “You have hot toddies at Christmas, don’t you?” She made this an accusation. “You drank Champagne at the July 4th Croquet Games, like everyone else, and you knew it cost a fortune. Eight dollars a bottle! Outrageous.”

  Josephine’s indignation stirred Primrose North to speak up. “Yes. It was eight dollars a bottle, and Jonathan Butterworth could not stop boasting about it, though Olympia did her best to cease his gasconade. A parvenu, that man, trying to bribe his way into our set. It is unfortunate that Olympia married beneath her. No good will come of it.” Since both her son and her hostess had presumed that Primrose North was not paying any attention to their cumbersome discussion, both stared at her.

  Josephine recovered first. “Very true, Missus North,” she declared in her most formidable tones. “The man may be excessively rich, but he owns a store. What can he expect? That we’ll ignore it?” Having taken care of the lamentable Jonathan Butterworth, she now turned again to Denton. “Why did your people have to arrest Marcel Bonhomme? You know how many of us relied upon him. He was dependable and his prices were reasonable, and he was discreet; he conducted his business like a gentleman. Why couldn’t you leave well enough alone? Stanley Miller is a feckless man, and he charges twice what Marcel did.” Having spoken in defense of the man who had been the bootlegger for most of Philadelphia’s upper crust since the Volstead Act had gone into effect, Josephine glared triumphantly at Denton North, and reached for the bell next to the music stand on her piano.

  Poppy decided it was time to intervene. “Please don’t bother to ring, Aunt Jo; Missus Boudon and Missus Flowers are working on the second tray right now, and should bring it in shortly. If you interrupt them, it will only slow them down.” She waited to hear what her aunt would say.

  “We’ll see about that,” Josephine responded.

  Poppy went over to her aunt and said to her, very quietly, “Do you want the Norths to go? I can think of something to encourage them, if you like.”

  “Arranging for more sherry?” Denton needled, and wiped his mouth with the embroidered napkin Missus Flowers had provided.

  “Of course not,” Aunt Jo replied at her most imperious, then changed to what Poppy thought of as her society manners. “But so long as you’re here, Poppy, make yourself useful and warm up everyone’s tea.”

  “If that would help,” said Poppy, and went to the sideboard to fetch the teapot, then dutifully refilled Primrose’s and Denton’s cups, noticing that the tea was not steaming any longer. As she put the teapot back on the tray on the sideboard, she heard Holte murmur, “She’s in rare form, isn’t she?”

  “Alas,” Poppy agreed, and joined in the general silence that lasted half a minute; it ended when Denton set his cup aside and sat up straighter in his upholstered chair. Here we go, thought Poppy, and went to stand near the door; she could feel the tension in the room increasing and wanted to be ready to intervene if things turned nasty.

  “Missus Dritchner, I’m sorry to have to belabor the point, but it is my duty to pursue this matter, no matter how bothersome you may find it,” Denton said with a sigh of ill-usage, “I can understand your desire to guard Stacy…Eustace, but you have to see that this case requires your coopera—”

  “You would say that, of course,” Josephine exclaimed, and took a sip of her cool tea. “This is quite dreadful,” she remarked in an undervoice, and picked up the glass of sherry, taking it in hand and drinking it down.

  “Missus Dritchner,” Denton began again, “we are hoping to arrest Miles Overstreet within the month, and once that happens, it may not be possible for us to offer Eustace any kind of…negotiation that would spare him from prison. I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but you must understand that there is good evidence that he has broken the law.” He waited in the renewed stillness that followed his remarks. When he realized that Josephine would say nothing more, he went on, “We’re fairly certain that Overstreet killed Percy Knott.”

  “He didn’t,” Holte whispered to Poppy.

  “So you’ve told me,” Poppy murmured, and raised her voice. “Aunt Jo, would you mind if I join you? I don’t want to intrude, so you must tell me if you prefer I leave,” she fibbed. “I’m a bit worn out from packing, and some tea or coffee would be most welcome. It’s been an exhausting day. As you know, I skipped lunch, and I’m peckish, and since I am at something of an impasse, I’d like to join you. Hawkins is out at the butcher’s shop, and I would love a cup of tea and a snack, and I’d welcome a chance to speak with Denton,” she said mendaciously.

  Aunt Jo beamed benignly. “How thoughtless of me. Of course, Poppea. Draw up a chair, and one of the tables. No doubt Missus Flowers will have provided a cup for you when she brings in the second tray.”

  “I imagine so,” said Poppy, and pulled up one of the chairs from along the wall and set it next to another of the occasional tables that had been placed about the room. As she sat down, she addressed Denton with the intention of drawing his remarks away from Aunt Jo. “I’m curious: what do you think of the trial going on in Chicago?”

  Reluctantly Denton abandoned his hectoring of Josephine and said, “Leopold and Loeb
? I think Darrow is taking a tremendous risk—in his situation, I would have thrown those young men on the mercy of the court rather than hoping that psychiatrists and alienists could save them. Not that they deserve it.”

  Poppy heard this without surprise; Denton was a prosecutor and would be expected to take such a stance. “I would have liked to cover the trial, but Lowenthal sent Martin Harris. He’s the lead man for trials at the Clarion.”

  “I know the man,” said Denton, not very cordially.

  Josephine interrupted. “Of course you do. But why are we even talking about such a lurid case? Killing a little boy on a whim. Appalling.”

  Denton would not relent. “It’s going to set a precedent, no matter how the trial turns out. Darrow knows it, and so does most of Chicago. I’d be willing to wager that every lawyer in the country is following it.”

  “And most of the reporters,” Poppy said, doing her best to keep Denton’s attention on that case rather than on Stacy.

  In less formidable company, Denton might have used stronger language, but as it was, he chose his words as if he were appearing before a judge, and not Josephine Dritchner. “Poppy’s right. The trial is more of a freak show than a court proceeding, and it can only get worse, no matter what the final outcome may be. Everyone—everyone!—has some kind of sentiment about it. The press is having a field day, and that is not making the proceedings any easier. Public opinion is running high, and the press is fueling it. More than that, reporters like Clarence Darrow, and he uses that to his advantage.”

  “Well, wouldn’t you, in his position?” Poppy inquired. “Aren’t attorneys required to represent their clients zealously within the limits of the law?”

  “Touché,” whispered Holte from the air on her right.

  “There are those of us who believe he is pushing those limits too far,” Denton informed her, his back as stiff as his face was set.

  “What would you have done differently, if you were in Darrow’s shoes?” Poppy was genuinely interested, and prepared to go on interrogating him. “You’re a prosecutor, I know, but I am curious to find out how you, as an attorney, would have prepared a case for the defense that would differ from what Darrow is doing.”

  Denton cleared his throat, and said, “I wouldn’t do what Darrow has done,” he began.

  But Poppy’s question was destined to go unanswered, for before Denton could summon up a sufficiently impressive response, there was a knock on the music room door, and Missus Flowers asked to be admitted, whereupon the conversation turned to the safer topics of finger food and whether tea or coffee was the preferred drink to serve with it.

  THREE

  HAWKINS HAD BEEN ON ALERT FOR THE LAST HOUR, HOVERING NEAR THE FRONT door in order to be the first to greet Galahad and Cecily when they arrived. It was nearing two-thirty, and everyone in the house was on the qui vive. Missus Flowers had put a bouquet of hot-house carnations with fern fronds in the Gold Bedroom on the antique dresser, and closed the window, which had been open for six hours to air out the room. In the kitchen, Missus Boudon had interrupted her readying for the evening’s dinner to remove two sheets of oatmeal cookies—Galahad’s favorite—and set them to cool on the baker’s rack next to the pantry door. Josephine, who had retired to her room immediately after lunch for a fortifying nap, was now seated at her vanity table, putting the last touches on her appearance, and fretting that Poppea was still at the Clarion, finishing her story on the process of extradition as it applied to Miles Overstreet, and would be unable to join them until an hour before they were scheduled to dine. She checked her reflection one last time, making sure there was no lip rouge on her teeth and that every strand of hair was right, then rose and signaled to Duchess to follow her downstairs; she was wholly unaware of Chesterton Holte hovering, invisible, near the ceiling, who slipped through the door after she closed it.

  Downstairs, Eliza, the extra help, was just finishing using the new Electrolux to vacuum the carpet in the sitting room; the noise of the machine had driven Maestro from the place, and he now lurked outside the music room, muttering to himself.

  Josephine had made her way down to the entry hall and was inspecting the condition of the telephone table and the state of the hall closet in order to assure herself that all was in order. She had not seen her oldest son for four years, and although he wrote to her weekly, it was not the same, she told herself, as seeing him face to face, to say nothing of his wife. She fingered the frame of the portrait of her mother, in glorious Gibson Girl array, that hung on the wall between the stairs and the kitchen hallway, trying to imagine what Millicent Thornton would have said about the way the world had changed since she had breathed her last shortly after the Great War had erupted in Europe; she could think of nothing that sounded right. The bang of the knocker, followed by the shrilling doorbell, shocked her out of her reverie, and she hastened to join Hawkins, rehearsing in her mind the greeting she had planned for Galahad and his new wife, whom Josephine had only met once, and that briefly.

  Hawkins opened the door and stood back to allow the arrivals to enter; his face revealed nothing but polite satisfaction, but Josephine nearly stopped in her tracks as she caught sight of the tall, pleasant-faced man and the auburn-haired beauty beside him.

  “Galahad!” his mother exclaimed, “what have you done?”

  He bent to kiss her cheek, and then fingered his chin. “You mean the beard?” It was a neat, thin line along the sides of his jaw that joined in the middle and expanded upward into a Van Dyke; his chestnut hair had a sprinkling of white it in, as if there were drops of water left over from his morning shave.

  “Of course I mean the beard,” Josephine said reprovingly. “No one wears them any more, not in our circle.”

  Galahad gave his mother a second hug. “Don’t be such a stick, Mother; yachtsmen wear them often. Rob Jennings”—by which he meant his business partner—“has worn one for years.” He took a step back. “I think it’s quite appropriate, now that I’m accustomed to it. Cecily talked me into it. And,” he joked, “it’s grown on me.” His laughter was contagious; he shot his wife a covert glance of relief.

  “Hank, you’re impossible,” the lovely Cecily reproved him, chuckling. She came up to Josephine and kissed her cheek as her husband had done; Josephine caught the faint scent of Chanel Number 5, the new fragrance that was attracting so much attention. “It’s so kind of you to arrange this party for Hank. He’s been sulky as a bear this last month, thinking that he’s getting old. Forty-seven isn’t old; by such a standard, I must be ancient,” Josephine informed Galahad. “You’re in the prime of life. And if you are certain that you must have a beard, who am I to say nay?” She took Galahad by the arm and drew him toward the sitting room. “Hawkins will bring your bags. I’ve had the Gold Room readied for you. You’ll want to have a short lie- down before evening, I know. But for now, let’s have a cozy chat. It’s been a long time, Galahad, and I want you to tell me everything.” She glanced back at Hawkins. “When you’re done there, bring the sherry and the bourbon to the sitting room if you would, please.” With a careless wave, she included Cecily in her original invitation. “Mind the spaniel,” she added as Duchess toddled up to Galahad to sniff him, and utter a soft bark.

  If this welcome perplexed Cecily, she gave no sign of it as she flashed another smile at her mother-in-law. “Would you happen to have some cognac? I think it goes well in the afternoon.”

  “Bring the cognac, too,” Josephine ordered Hawkins, as he stepped out onto the porch to retrieve the suitcases sitting there.

  “Directly, Missus Dritchner,” Hawkins said as he started to maneuver the cases into his arms.

  Once inside the sitting room, they chose their places—Josephine in the recently acquired maharani’s chair, Galahad and Cecily on the settee. Josephine took a moment to assess Cecily’s appearance, and approved of the unpressed-pleated skirt in lustrous green silk and the ecru blouse over it, both of which complimented her auburn hair and green eyes, alth
ough Josephine was a bit critical of the pearls in her necklace; they were not quite white enough, but she allowed that Cecily made a fine appearance and that the pearls were mere quibbling. She resumed her role as hostess, and asked, “How was your drive here? You must have made good time to arrive before three.”

  Galahad knew his mother well enough to understand what her short silence and measuring look had been about, but he indulged her by giving her the answer she sought. “We left Portland yesterday well before noon and traveled to New London where we spent the night. The roads are pretty well-kept up, so we’d been able to rattle along at thirty-five miles an hour for a significant part of the time, a great improvement on four years ago, when we rarely got above twenty-five miles an hour and had to pull over for all horse-drawn vehicles. We had a very fine dinner at The Black Sheep—we’ve liked it on prior occasions—and returned to our hotel at nine. We rose early, had a light breakfast, and were on the road again by eight. And here we are. Four hundred twenty-nine miles from our home.”

  “But Galahad, this is your home,” Josephine said reproachfully.

  Galahad made a quick recovery. “So it is, Mother, it is the home of the Thorntons and the Dritchners and always will be. But Cecily and I have our own home, as well, as an off-shoot of this one.”

  Josephine beamed at him, his possible lapse forgiven. “Yes. Here you are, home again. I wish you didn’t live so far away, Galahad. It’s been too long since you’ve—”

  “I know, Mother,” he said, hoping to forestall one of her outbursts. “I agree. It’s time and more since we’ve been able to enjoy one another’s company. If you want me to apologize, I will. You know how demanding my work has been these last few years; that’s not an adequate excuse, but it’s the best one I have. Designing yachts has become a very demanding business, and I won’t ask your forgiveness for our success.”

  Josephine offered Galahad a tenuous smile. “You needn’t. Your letters were sufficient, under the circumstances.” She turned to Cecily. “How do you bear it, his long hours and days away?”