Haunting Investigation

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

“I’d rather get myself into the Senate,” said Poppy.

  Stacy laughed. “If anyone could do it, it would be you, Coz,” he said, jockeying the Duesenberg through the turn, narrowly missing a massive delivery vehicle pulled by a hitch of four straw-colored Suffolk Punches. As he slowed to turn into the next street, he said, “I’m going to be away for a couple of months. One of our clients has a new venture in the rubber trade, and he wants International Business Associates to handle the on-site negotiations. It is a service we provide, but it’s not my cup of tea; one of the reasons I’m worried about Warren is that he usually handles those sorts of things. I do somewhat better with the antiquarians and customs folk. If Warren doesn’t turn up, I’ll have to do the job for him. Mother won’t like me being gone for any length of time, and she’ll be worried because she won’t know where I am; I hope I can rely on you to keep her from becoming overwhelmed on my behalf. She’ll need you to steady her.”

  “Thanks for the warning,” said Poppy, not completely sincerely. “What kind of negotiations are we talking about?”

  “Just what I told you, Coz: the rubber trade. And that’s all you need to know.” He squeezed the Duesenberg through a century-old arch and onto a cobbled street fronted on both sides by warehouses. “Warren was scheduled to take the Orient Express to Belgrade at the end of next week; I’ll have to wire Hiram Buel if I can’t find Warren before Friday.”

  “Hiram Buel?” Poppy asked.

  “Our representative in Brussels. He’s our primary man in western Europe. He handles the contracts, but once in a while, he has to work on a project for us.” He made another turn into another cobbled street; this one was almost dark, the westering sun blocked by more warehouses.

  “So where are you taking us?” Poppy asked, not wanting to let him get off on one of his disparaging tirades.

  “There’s a warehouse about ten minutes from here where there’s supposed to be a shipment of antiques that Warren Derrington brought into the country not quite legally.” He coughed gently. “I want to be certain they’re there, so I can send the documents to the Justice Department. I’ve had enough egg on my face. I’m tired of being the one taking the heat on this. I don’t mind shaving the law very closely, but we’ve gone well beyond that now. And, frankly, I want a witness, in case anything unexpected should happen to the shipment in question.” He passed the Harding building and changed lanes to turn toward the wharves. “You’re the best witness I could think of.”

  Poppy was alerted by this remark; she had been puzzled at Stacy’s frankness, and now she began to suspect that he was not offering her his candor without an agenda: he needed someone to support his story when he approached the Justice Department, someone who could back up his statements. “So have you found out anything about Warren Derrington?”

  “In a manner of speaking,” he said, reverting to his habitual allusive responses.

  All her journalistic instincts awakened, she sat up a little more erectly, and resisted the urge to pull her notebook from her purse. “Where is he? Has he left the country?”

  “I think so.” He turned right into another alley, and lifted his right arm to shield his eyes from the afternoon sun. “Mother said you’re going to the Fairchilds this evening?”

  “I am.” She felt steadied by this simple commitment. “Mildred’s expecting.”

  “How nice for her,” said Stacy, using the horn to encourage a heavily laden flat-bedded truck to move aside. “Can you believe the traffic?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t get down to this part of the city very often,” she said, looking around with curiosity. “Which warehouse are we going to?”

  “The Mayes Brothers, the old one. Warren and I have an arrangement with them — did I mention that? We have access to the basements; they’re not using them any more, and they’re glad to get a bit of rent for the place.”

  “You didn’t say much about your involvement in the arrangement.” She could see the waterfront cranes now, their structures rising above the warehouses. The air smelled of salt and tar, and gulls screeched overhead. “Do you actually know where the warehouse is?” She was beginning to think that he was deliberately finding the most indirect route to their destination, probably in the hope that she would not be able to lead others to the location.

  “I have the address. We should be there shortly.” He began to hum Whispering, his manner becoming far calmer than he had seemed when he picked her up. “We’ll go in the side door. I have the key for that one.” He resumed his humming, and Poppy decided that she had no reason to interrupt him.

  After another seven minutes, and three repeats of Stacy’s hummed version of I’ll See You in My Dreams, he drove the Duesenberg into an alley with the dubious name of King Charles Lane — which suggested it was named before the Declaration of Independence — guiding it between the high walls of two large, blank-sided, brick buildings, finally drawing up to a stout fence with a small gate that opened from the warehouse loading stage onto the alley; the Duesenberg was the only auto from one end of the alley to the other, and no trucks or vans were in evidence. “You should have room enough to get out of the car without banging the door on the wall. I’ll unlock the gate.” He smiled as if he knew he ought to. “This shouldn’t take long.”

  Poppy quieted the qualms that had been building within her, and let herself out of the Duesenberg, taking care not to scratch the car door on the bricks of the next warehouse. After a few seconds’ hesitation, she left her briefcase in the auto — after all, Stacy had said this would not take long. She closed the door and came around the front of the Duesenberg, admiring it in spite of her uneasiness.

  There was an audible click as Stacy got the gate open; he stood aside so that Poppy could step into the parking area near the loading dock. “The door is on the left, up the half-flight of stairs.”

  “I see it,” she said, mildly surprised that there was no one around at three-thirty in the afternoon.

  “Relax, Coz. We’re not intruding on anything. Nothing’s being loaded in or out today, or tomorrow,” Stacy said behind her. “No one’s here but us.”

  She was about to turn around when a sharp odor claimed her attention just as the chloroform-laden handkerchief was clapped over her face; she struggled against it, but in less than a minute she sank into unconsciousness.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  FOR MOST OF THE AFTERNOON, CHESTERTON HOLTE HAD DRIFTED AROUND THE various places Poppy had visited recently. He had spent almost an hour at the Clarion, listening to Cornelius Lowenthal address five different reporters on their current progress on various assignments. Holte had half-expected to see Poppy back at her desk before leaving to go home to change for her evening with the Fairchilds, but as the day waned and she did not appear, Holte faded away from the Addison Newspaper Corporation building, en route to the Dritchner house, hoping to have a word with Poppy before she left for Mildred Fairchild’s dinner. He searched through most of the house, watching Josephine idling her way through some Scarlatti while Duchess slept on the footstool next to the piano; in the library Maestro hissed at him, but made no attempt to impede Holte’s investigation. In the kitchen, Missus Flowers was having a cup of tea with Missus Boudon, the two of them discussing the high price of poultry this spring, and shaking their heads over Derrington being missing. Hawkins was in the sitting room, helping himself to a tot of brandy while listening to the radio.

  But Poppy was nowhere to be found, and there was no indication that she had been and gone. She was not expected at the Fairchild’s for another two hours. Holte was becoming restless; he remembered that she was planning to accompany Stacy to a warehouse, but that was supposed to be a brief excursion. On impulse, he went off to the Moncrief house, on the chance that Stacy had stopped by there on his way to return Poppy to Josephine’s home; he only found Louise Moncrief sitting in the drawing room, with travel pamphlets for a number of cities in South America; she was reading the one for the Peruvian city of Iquitos. By now, Holte was do
ing the ghostly equivalent of pacing by shifting back and forth from floor to ceiling in the parlor, then rising out of the house entirely and setting his senses to Poppy herself, as if trying to tune into a radio station. Gradually he began to be aware of the one presence that was Poppy out of the hum and static of the city. He took hold of that signal and went toward it, taking care to stay on it in the increasing confusion of the dying afternoon; he was trying to discern what had happened to her that she should be so remote.

  “Ye gods.” Poppy came to herself in a small, dark, dank room with a steel door in the far wall, and a dirty, clerestory window behind her; she craned her neck, trying to see beyond the frill of weeds that blocked the view from it, but gave up when the muscles in her neck began to ache. She turned her attention the room. There were six large crates in the room, one of them open, its protective packaging spread about on the floor. She was in a small, elegant, wooden chair, apparently covered in gold leaf and inset with polished semi-precious stones; her wrists and ankles were tied with stout cotton rope, the knots under the arms of the chair and on its back legs. She was aware of being thirsty; her thoughts were jumbled, her recollections of the afternoon in disorder. She looked around the room with growing dismay. There was no source of light in the room, so soon she would be in complete darkness. For the next several minutes, she concentrated on locating the crates in the room, as well as the distance to the door; when she was confident that she had a good picture of the room fixed in her mind, she took a short time to summon up her energy. Most of the chloroform was wearing off, and she realized just how isolated she was. As she reviewed her situation, she had to admit she could not be certain that she was in the Mayes Brothers old warehouse; for all she knew, Stacy, or an accomplice of his, might have taken her to another building altogether. While all of this was disheartening, she rallied herself, telling herself that if she could free herself from the chair, and the door was locked, she might be able to squeeze out the window. Keeping her intention to escape uppermost in her mind, she went to work with her teeth, trying to loosen the ropes that held her in the chair. Although the rope was fairly soft, the knots were strong and their position under the arm of the chair made pulling at them exhausting, and after the greater part of an hour, when the room had fallen into twilight, Poppy felt herself begin to lose strength. She stifled a sob, and reminded herself sternly that she needed to get herself out of her bonds on her own. “I’ll take a break,” she said aloud, as much to reassure herself as to hear a human voice. She sat back in the sturdy chair and did her best to trust that someone was coming.

  As the room darkened, she forced herself to remain focused on freeing herself from the chair. Her jaw was hurting from her efforts, but she resumed her biting and pulling, wanting to bring the knots near enough to be able to wrench them open. She imagined that her dentist would be displeased at all she was doing, but she reminded herself that an occasional bridge was better than dying. That stark realization enveloped her, and again she went still. “No one knows you’re here but Stacy.” She listened to herself, and decided she was right: Stacy would not return. “If he tells anyone where you are, it won’t be until he’s safe, or, if someone’s killed him, he won’t tell anyone at all.” This last realization shocked her; she wanted to sob, to rail at her predicament, but instead delivered a stern scold: “Poppea Millicent Thornton, you are not the kind of ninny who just resigns herself to die — you’re a crime reporter. You have a crime to report. You have to do your best to get out of here.” With those bracing words, she once again took hold of the ropes with her teeth and did her best to work them around the arm of the chair and her wrist. She could feel her skin go raw as the rope finally slipped a little; briefly she considered working on her left arm rather than her right to save herself from further damage to her wrist. But that would only delay working the knots loose, so she steeled herself to continue tugging.

  After another twenty minutes, the knot eased slightly, making it easier for her to gain more play in the rope. Taking this for encouragement, she redoubled her efforts, and in almost three-quarters of an hour, she had succeeded in dragging the main knot to the inside of the chair-arm, and had felt the first give in its tension as she tugged at it again; the first stubborn twist in the knot gave, and the end of the rope flopped along the chair-leg. Her head was aching and her wrist was bleeding, but for the first time since she came to, she began to hope that she would be able to escape from this improvised dungeon. She did her best to get her hand to work enough to bring the bulk of the knot nearer; this time it took little more than twenty minutes to pull the rope-end through two interlocking loops, but gradually the ropes gave to her steady manipulations. The bonds on her right wrist were almost released; she wriggled her arm, trying to develop enough play that she could pull her hand free. Her concentration was so intent on her bonds that she did not notice a shift in the small amount of light coming in from the window.

  “What the devil?” Chesterton Holte’s voice came from the window as he went through it into the room. “Poppy. Are you all right?” He slid down from the ceiling and hurried up to her, anxiety in every semi-visible line of his noncorporeal form.

  “I will be soon,” she said, stretching her fingers to restore feeling to them, although this made the pain in the back of her bleeding wrist worse; she bit back the sudden impulse to lick the blood away, but she restrained herself; she did not want to disgust Holte even as she told herself such scruples, under these circumstances, were absurd. “It’s good to see you, whether you’re really here or not.”

  “Oh, I’m really here, as really as I ever am,” said Holte. “I’d like to know what you’re doing here.”

  Poppy was pulling the ropes from around her wrist, and then bending over to loosen the bonds on her right ankle. “It wasn’t my idea,” she said brusquely. “I don’t even know where here is.” If she had been able to touch him, she would have burst into tears, but since she could not, she maintained her composure. She sighed, and pulled another knot loose, and wiggled her foot before she worked on the next cluster of knots.

  “You’re on a side-street in the old section of the wharf district. Not a very busy place since the Great War ended, and in decline before then. I didn’t see any sign on its outer wall.” Holte approached within a few inches of her, studying the knots she was loosening now that she had a free hand. “I wish I could help you.”

  “So do I,” she said with feeling, then, more practically, she asked, “Is this the Mayes Brothers old warehouse?” She tried not to hold her breath as she waited for his answer.

  “I think it could be,” said Holte, startled that she knew. “How long have you been here, and how did you get here?”

  Poppy resisted the urge to scream, and told him, “I think we arrived here about three-forty-five, but I’m not sure. We — Stacy and I — pulled in a bit more than half an hour after he picked me up at the Clarion, and the last thing I remember is a handkerchief clapped over my face with something nasty-smelling on it; that was before we entered the building, so I’m not sure this is the one he drove me to. I can’t tell you what time it was when I woke up either, except that it was about sundown. I wish I’d worn my watch, but I didn’t think I’d need it.”

  “Do you know how long you were unconscious?” Holte asked.

  Poppy shook her head. “I came to myself a while ago; the sun was still up, but not for very long; I’ve been trying to get out of these knots ever since.”

  “Stacy tied you up?”

  Poppy took a moment to consider her answer. “I assume so. I didn’t actually see it, but I have a few memories of when it was happening, and his was the only voice I heard. I didn’t know he was so adept at making knots.”

  “I think he underestimated your perseverance. You didn’t let the knots stop you.” Holte nodded his approval. “It looks like you’re doing a good job of getting loose. You’ll be free in another ten minutes. Then the next step is the door.”

  For the first ti
me since his arrival, Poppy felt her confidence fail her. “It’s steel, and I think it’s locked.”

  “Stacy told you that?”

  “I don’t think so, not directly,” she said, having a hazy impression of a number of things Stacy had said as he was tying her to the chair. “I wasn’t very conscious. But I believe he was boasting about how well he had planned all this.” She frowned and shook her head. “I have to admit, he was very clever. If you hadn’t found me, I don’t know when I might have been … discovered.”

  “People must be looking for you,” he said, wanting to comfort her.

  “But how will they know to look here?” She intensified her efforts with the knots.

  Holte accepted that she had good reason to worry about that. “Is there a night watchman in this place? I might find some way to catch his attention if there is one,” he said, still hoping to inject a note of encouragement into their conversation.

  “According to my cousin, there isn’t a day watchman here, so I doubt there’s one for the night. Since it was Stacy who told me this, I don’t know if we should believe him. I have my doubts about everything he told me.” She made a mull of laughing, but Holte gave her credit for her effort.

  “Small wonder,” he said.

  She freed her left leg and went to work on her left arm. “He could have killed me and left me here; I guess I should be grateful,” she remarked, and made a complete botch of a smile. “I don’t suppose you can think of some way to help me with this.”

  “Noncorporeal,” he apologized. “I wish I could.”

  “Never mind,” she said, pulling several feet of rope through the first loop in the knots under the arm of the chair. A note of misgiving crept into her voice. “I’m assuming there’s some way to unlock the door from this side.”

  “I’ll see what I can find out,” Holte said, and slid through the door, peering at the substantial lock affixed to the cleat holding the steel brace. The key was in it, and slightly turned so that it could not easily be jarred out, making it impossible to maneuver the lock to an open position. Holte swore comprehensively, then took a rapid turn around the warehouse, finding no one to alert to Poppy’s plight, and went back into the storeroom. Little as he did not want to discourage her, he shook his head. “Sorry. The lock is … jammed. I can’t turn it. And there’s no sign of anyone other than you being here.”