Kalorama Shakedown (A Harry Reese Mystery)

by Robert Bruce Stewart

  “Eventful.” I gave her the details of my adventures. All except those involving Mrs. Merrill’s missives. I thought they’d make a nice Christmas present.

  “Is any of that true?”

  “It’s all true, Emmie.” I handed her the soaking socks as verification. Then showed her the dent O’Conner’s head put in my nightstick.

  “Ours was dull in comparison.”

  “Did you encounter the new dog? He looked a good deal more alert than the one we met earlier.”

  “He seemed to find Elizabeth comforting and quieted almost immediately.”

  “Odd. And you found the jewelry without incident?”

  “It took some searching, but that part went fine.”

  “Which part didn’t go fine?”

  “The get-away. It almost seemed as if a policeman had been lying in wait for us.”

  “But you outran him?”

  “Yes. Well, I did anyway.”

  “But not Elizabeth?”

  “There’s some reason to believe she may be in custody. The last I heard from her, she was screaming curses at me.”

  “This sort of thing has undermined friendships before. The question is, would she rat on you?”

  “Oh, willingly. But I’m hoping she interprets the countess’s threat broadly enough to encompass me.”

  “Well, I suppose we’ll know when a cop comes knocking at the door.”

  Then we turned out the light and attempted to go to sleep. Unfortunately, my ill-chosen last words kept Emmie restless. And she did what she could to make sure I shared in her discomfort. At about eight o’clock the next morning, there was a loud rap at the door. Emmie bolted up.

  “Who is it?” I called.

  “Detective Sergeant Lacy. There’s been a new development, Mr. Reese.”

  “Just give us a moment.”

  “What will we do, Harry?” Emmie whispered.

  “Come clean, Emmie.”

  “You don’t mean that?”

  “Just a thought. I’ll take him downstairs. He probably just wants to tell me about the break-in at the Sachses’.”

  “Do you think they reported it?”

  “Or the cop saw it.” I got dressed and answered the door. “Perhaps I can give you breakfast downstairs, Sergeant.”

  “If you like, Mr. Reese.” He was peering around me, watching Emmie as she tried to squirm out of view. “A little late-night dictation?” he added when I’d closed the door.

  I winked and we went to the dining room.

  “There’s been another burglary at General Sachs’ house.”

  “Really? What was taken?”

  “Not much, some little things. One was a brooch. A copy of the one stolen last go-round.”

  “Miss Sachs showed me that copy just yesterday morning.”

  “Did she? But that isn’t all. The general was home at the time.”

  “And he confronted the thief?”

  “That isn’t clear. You see, he’s dead.”

  “Killed?”

  “No, heart failure, the doctor thinks. He treated the general for heart trouble. But he suggested the excitement of the burglary may have brought on the attack.”

  “Was Miss Sachs home as well?”

  “No. They both had been to a ball at the German Embassy.”

  “Yes, I was there too.”

  “You were?”

  “Yes, a friend of my wife, er, Miss McGinnis, is employed there. I suppose this means you’re back on the case.”

  “Oh, yes. And it means your theory about insurance fraud is probably in error. I mean, if this valuable brooch hadn’t been stolen, why bother making a copy?”

  “That’s a good question. So what’s your theory?”

  “I’ve men out looking for Richard Cole.”

  “You think he came back?”

  “Yes, but with an accomplice. Who I have in custody.”

  “Has this accomplice talked?”

  “No, she insists she had nothing to do with it. But she was caught in dark overalls with her face all blackened. Says she was at a costume party. The same costume party, in fact. And that she’s employed by the Germans.”

  “You begin to interest me, Sergeant.”

  “Good. I thought that you might want to accompany me back to the Sachses’. I asked the doctor to meet me there.”

  “He wasn’t there earlier?”

  “He’d come and gone by the time I’d gotten there.”

  We finished eating and I went back upstairs for my hat and coat.

  “What did he say, Harry?”

  “The general’s dead.”

  “Dead?”

  “Yes, heart failure, or something like that. Did you see him?”

  “Don’t you think I’d have mentioned it if we had? We didn’t see anyone. Just the dog.”

  “And the cop.”

  “We were well outside of the house then.”

  “Did he see you leaving it?”

  “I wouldn’t have thought so, but perhaps.”

  “Where’s your loot, Emmie?”

  “I hid it.” She went to a bureau and retrieved her bundle. “Did they report it?”

  “Just the fake. Which one is it?”

  “You can’t tell from the stones?” she asked. “Well, the real one weighs more. Are you giving them back?”

  I stuck the faux Boucheron in my pocket.

  “Just this one. I plan on finding it there. Maybe I can convince Miss Sachs there was no burglary. Then we can see about getting Elizabeth released.”

  “So she hasn’t mentioned me?”

  “Apparently not, but we’d better get her out before her mood sours.”

  “Should I contact the countess?”

  “Yes, let her know what’s happened, but both of you stay away from Elizabeth. No sense provoking her.”

  “All right, Harry.”

  Lacy and I took a cab over to the Sachses’ house.

  “How exactly did your people apprehend the culprit?”

  “Interestingly, the precinct house received a telephone message alerting them to some suspicious characters in the neighborhood. When our man arrives on the scene, he sees two men dressed in black. When he calls to them, they run. He catches the one and he turns out to be a woman. Just then, he hears a lady yelling for the police. It was Miss Sachs. She’d just come home and discovered the burglary.”

  “How had they gotten in?”

  “The parlor window was open, but it must have been unlocked. It hadn’t been forced.”

  A maid let us in and led us to Alice Sachs in the parlor. We could hear the dog barking off in the distance.

  “I was sorry to hear of your loss, Miss Sachs.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Reese.”

  “Did you see anything of the burglars last night?”

  “No, but the window down here was open when I came in.”

  “How did you know it was a burglary?”

  “After seeing the open window, I went upstairs to see if anything had been taken and saw that the brooch was missing.”

  “The copy you showed me yesterday?”

  “Yes. And two or three other things of little value.”

  “Where was your father found?” I asked.

  “In his room, beside his bed.”

  “So there was nothing to indicate he’d confronted the thieves?”

  “No, the things were taken from my room.”

  “He left the ball before you did?”

  “Yes, long before. He suffers from pyrosis. Sometime around ten o’clock, he said it was bothering him and he’d go on home alone.”

  “Might we go up to the room and look around?”

  She took us up to her bedroom and showed us where the items had been—in a lingerie drawer. I walked around the room, looking at window sills, under furniture. And there, under a couch, I found the missing brooch.

  “Here it is.”

  I held it up and she leaped across the room and grabbed it from my h
and—clearly disappointed when she saw it was the fake.

  “I wonder, Miss Sachs, is it possible there was no burglary? Perhaps one of the servants had been airing out the parlor and just neglected to close the window.”

  “I don’t think that’s likely.”

  “By the way, did I mention I’d exchanged wires with M. Pomerleau yesterday?”

  She turned a kind of magenta color. Then, gradually, she recovered.

  “Perhaps, Mr. Reese is right, Sergeant. I may have just jumped to the wrong conclusion. Having been broken into once has given me a sense of vulnerability.”

  It was pretty easy to get Lacy to come around to this conclusion as well. The waters had been muddied again and if there was a chance the mighty would be inconvenienced, he wanted to play it safe. A moment later, Dr. Gillette joined us and muddied the waters still further.

  “Good morning, Doctor,” I said.

  He just gave me a little nod and then turned to Lacy.

  “Sergeant, I’ve found a wound on the head.”

  “A wound?”

  “Yes, I believe the general was struck, and it was then he suffered heart failure.”

  “Could he have struck his head as a result of the heart failure?” I asked.

  “He was found face down, and the wound is on the crown. But an autopsy would make that clearer.”

  “May we go see the body?”

  “Why, yes.” He led us to another room, where the general had been placed on his bed. Then he gently turned the head. The wound wasn’t obvious, except that the hair on the back of the head was matted. I touched it, and felt the stickiness of semi-congealed blood. There was a small stain on the pillow.

  “Was it you who attended him last evening?”

  “Yes, but when I arrived, he’d been moved to the bed.”

  “By whom?”

  “By myself and the police officer,” Miss Sachs volunteered. “At first, I thought he was just ill. It wasn’t until we’d put him on the bed that the officer said he was sure he was dead.”

  “He was face down when you found him?” I asked.

  “Yes, but I didn’t notice he’d been hit.”

  “The thieves must have come in here, found the general unexpectedly and knocked him unconscious,” the doctor interjected. “Probably not realizing they induced his death.”

  “Yes, a reasonable explanation,” I agreed. “But for the fact we just determined there was no burglary.”

  He looked over at Miss Sachs.

  “Yes, that seems to be the case, Doctor,” she told him.

  “Well, then perhaps I was mistaken,” he said. He was starting to sweat again. “Somehow he must have hit his head falling, and then rolled over.”

  “If you gentlemen don’t mind,” Miss Sachs said, “I’d like to go lie down. The doctor can show you out.”

  “Of course, Miss,” Lacy told her.

  Then he and I looked for blood stains, trying to see what might have caused the general’s wound. We saw nothing.

  “Perhaps the maid wiped it off something?” the doctor said.

  “The maid? What would she be doing in here?” Lacy asked.

  “It was just a thought.”

  Then we looked about the room for anything that the general might have been hit with. Again nothing. The three of us went downstairs.

  “I’ll have the house searched. And outside,” Lacy said. “The van from the morgue is already on its way, Doctor. If you could show them where the body is?”

  “The morgue?”

  “Yes, they’ll want to do an autopsy in the morning.”

  “I suppose I could have the body taken to my practice and perform an autopsy this afternoon.”

  “No, that won’t do, Doctor. Not in a capital case. Let the coroner earn his pay.”

  “Capital? You mean murder?”

  “Yes. You see, if there was no burglary, we must find another explanation for the open window, and the general being hit on the head. And I have a theory. Richard Cole came here with the sole purpose of killing his former employer.”

  “I see.”

  “Here they are now.”

  While the doctor took the men from the morgue upstairs, Lacy and I went out.

  “What do you think of this theory, Mr. Reese?”

  “I think this Richard Cole certainly is a malleable suspect. But I imagine someone must have hit him on the head. When do you think they’ll perform the autopsy?”

  “I’ve already put in a call. I hope first thing in the morning. Shall I keep you informed?”

  “Yes, please. But in the meantime, would it be possible to talk to the woman apprehended here last night?”

  “Yes, I suppose so.”

  20

  We took a car down to police headquarters and Lacy led me to the women’s area of the jail. It being a Sunday morning, the holding cell was crowded with the previous night’s haul. When Elizabeth spotted me, she jumped up and came to us.

  “Get me out of here, Harry.”

  “You know her?” Lacy asked.

  “Yes. Do you remember I mentioned Miss McGinnis had a friend at the German Embassy?”

  “She’s employed at the German Embassy?”

  “Yes, by the Countess von Schnurrenberger und Kesselheim,” Elizabeth elaborated. “Just as I told you this morning.”

  “‘Schnurrenberger und Kesselheim’? Sounds like a vaudeville act. I assumed that was all nonsense.”

  “You will find out what sort of nonsense it is, you yap. Wait until the count hears of this.”

  “The count?” Lacy looked at me.

  “Yes,” I said. “Apparently a man with a temper, and an expert swordsman besides. How are you at sword play, Sergeant Lacy?”

  The sergeant apologized for the error, but it wasn’t enough to improve Elizabeth’s mood. The ride to the embassy was a long one.

  “Where’s Emmie?”

  “Lying low,” I said.

  “She was going to leave me there?”

  “I think she was afraid she might have to join you. General Sachs died last night.”

  “Who is General Sachs?”

  “The owner of the establishment you were ransacking.”

  “I didn’t do any ransacking. I waited downstairs. What did this general die of?”

  “Heart failure, possibly induced by a blow to the head.”

  “Emmie hit the man on the head?”

  “She insists she never saw him.”

  “Yes, I’m sure she does.”

  “Was it the cop on the beat who spotted you?”

  “I saw him rounding the corner and alerted Emmie. We both got out of the house and ran in the opposite direction. That was a mistake. If we hadn’t been running so wildly, I wouldn’t have hit that lamppost, and I don’t think he would have seen us. I stood there dazed for a moment, and Emmie, the little….”

  “Didn’t you tell him who you were?”

  “Of course. But dressed as I was he was naturally suspicious. Although he might have let me go then and there if some fool hadn’t started yelling for the police.”

  “Victims of crimes often become unreasonable in that way. What happened then?”

  “He used his handcuffs to attach me to the lamppost.” She stopped to sneeze. “It was raining then, did I mention that?”

  “No, but I had direct knowledge of it.”

  “Well, he went off and didn’t return for some time. By then there were dozens of cops about. They took me to their precinct.”

  “Which precinct?”

  “Third, I think.”

  “You didn’t happen to catch that first cop’s name?”

  “Yes, it was McDonald.”

  “You’re kidding. Was he wearing a helmet?”

  “What? Of course he was wearing a helmet.” Then she heated up again. “It was that damned countess behind this, you know.”

  “Yes, but to her credit, I think she was intending to aid my investigation.”

  “To her cre
dit? She blackmails me into helping your bedlamite wife burglarize a man’s home—at the risk of my life—and you say, to her credit?”

  “I only meant it’s a mitigating factor. But there’s no denying her methodology was somewhat ruthless.”

  “Oh, she’s completely ruthless. And quite as insane as your Emmie.”

  “I find that difficult to imagine.”

  “Yes, so did I. At first. Do you know what she said to me the other day? I was complaining that the count’s flirtations were becoming increasingly lubricious. But instead of addressing the issue, she asked if I thought it would be at all suspicious if he were to die choking on a chicken bone.”

  “I suppose you would find it so now.”

  “Yes, but only if I were fool enough to remain here to witness it. I’m leaving Tuesday for a new position.”

  “So I’ve heard, but none of the details.”

  “That suits me fine. I’m sorry, Harry, but as long as you’re mixed up with those two, you can’t be trusted.”

  “The countess says she already knows.”

  “She says she does, but I suspect it’s a bluff.”

  When we arrived at the embassy we were told that the countess was in her apartment. Elizabeth went in for an audience, and I followed. We found the Gräfin lounging on a couch and reading out loud, apparently to Emmie. But the latter, sitting with her legs folded beneath her on a large armchair, seemed to be engrossed in a book she was reading. She hid it in the cushions when she saw us.

  The picture of relaxed comfort they provided contrasted rather starkly with Elizabeth’s current state and she seemed not unaware of the fact.

  “You two were going to leave me to die in prison!”

  “Harry thought it best if he handled it,” Emmie told her.

  “And you see, here you are,” the countess added.

  “Yes, in spite of you.”

  “You are far too excitable, Miss Strout. I don’t think I’ll require your services any longer.”

  “You are dismissing me?”

  “Yes, as of tomorrow. But you may remain in your quarters until the end of the week.”

  Elizabeth then lost what little composure she had left. When her verbal fusillade finally concluded—from simple exhaustion rather than any lack of ammunition—Emmie helped her to her room.