Kalorama Shakedown (A Harry Reese Mystery)

by Robert Bruce Stewart

  “That’s a good question.”

  We were having our coffee when I noticed a tall, blond fellow coming towards us. It was Detective Sergeant Tibbitts, of the New York Police Department. I had worked with him on a case the previous spring. Emmie—who’d met him just once—greeted him as an old friend and invited him to sit down.

  “Are you in town on business, Sergeant?” Emmie asked.

  “Yeah. In a way, your husband called me down here.”

  “In what way?” I asked.

  “Your wire to the jeweler, Pomerleau.”

  “You’re investigating counterfeit jewelry?”

  “Nope, still homicide. He was murdered.”

  “Yesterday?”

  “A month ago.”

  “Then who answered my wire?”

  “His son. After talking to me.”

  “What’s the connection with this brooch?”

  “Pomerleau was hired to copy a Boucheron brooch back in late September. There’s no written record, only the son’s account. The father did a lot of this duplicating of jewelry, but never told his son the details. He had the original Boucheron to work from, and spent two or three weeks on the job. When he was done, he sent the copy to the buyer. Then, a week or two after that, when the father was out, a man showed up and asked for the return of the Boucheron brooch. The son didn’t even realize his father still had the original. Apparently he was supposed to sell it, but the owner now wanted it back. When his father returned to the shop, he got into an argument with this man. Seems Pomerleau hadn’t been paid for making the copy. He was supposed to take it out of what was received for the original. So if the sale was off, he wanted the cash. Eventually, the old man let the visitor have the original after signing some receipt and assuring him he would be paid the five hundred dollars owed him.

  “Then a week or so later, the old man reads something in the paper that makes him mad enough to burst a valve. He mentions the amount five hundred dollars again, so the son assumes there’s some connection to the Boucheron brooch. About two weeks later—this is Saturday, November 16th—the old man tells his son a client is coming by and the son should go off for the afternoon. This happened fairly frequently. When he came back, his father was dead. As soon as the police doctor sees the body, he says Pomerleau was poisoned. The coroner identified it as aconite. There were still traces of it in a coffee cup.”

  “What did that first visitor look like?”

  “About thirty, maybe older. Oily dark hair and eyeglasses.”

  “Did anyone see the second person who came by?”

  “Oh, sure. There were five witnesses who saw someone go into or come out of the shop. Three saw a woman go in, but the descriptions didn’t match each other. One saw a fat man enter, one saw a thin man leave.”

  “Then how did you link the murder to the Boucheron brooch?”

  “The old man kept a little ledger book for the discreet work. I have it. The son and I went through it and found one page had been torn out. He saw notations about all the recent work he’d seen his father doing, but nothing on the Boucheron brooch. I checked the others, and nothing panned out. Most of them were women who needed some ready money. They want to sell the family gems, but keep it from the husband. So they have a copy made and the husband never notices. Nothing illegal, but you can see why they want it done quietly.

  “Then your wire comes asking about the Boucheron brooch. The son calls me and asks what to do.”

  “I don’t suppose you’ve gone by Sachs’ home yet?”

  “No, I just got into town. I figured I’d let you give me the lay of the land.”

  “General Sachs died last night.”

  “Of what?”

  “Probably heart failure. But there was a wound to the head. There’ll be an autopsy in the morning.”

  “Did he have these brooches?”

  “Yes, or at least his daughter had them.”

  “Had them?”

  “Well, right now, I have the original and she has the copy.”

  “How is it you have the original?”

  Answering that question took most of an hour, and that was with leaving out the countess, Mrs. Spinks, and the outings to Oz. I did, however, include the portion where Elizabeth was nabbed by the police. Not because it had any real bearing on the matter, but I knew it would be of personal interest to Sergeant Tibbitts. He had twice encountered Elizabeth during his investigations and had exploited her compromised position by using her as his pigeon. It was her work as police informer that first brought her to my attention, and it was only later that I learned she’d been to school with Emmie. It’s astounding what a small world it really is.

  Then I gave him the two letters from Mrs. Merrill’s collection, the one from Alice Sachs asking an unknown friend for help in getting back her brooch, and the other from Pomerleau to an unnamed doctor, asking for payment of five hundred dollars. I didn’t conjecture about who the doctor was. I figured Tibbitts would be meeting Gillette soon enough and could come to his own conclusions.

  Once we had each other informed, Sergeant Tibbitts seemed anxious to visit Miss Sachs. It was after ten, on a Sunday evening, and most people would think it an inappropriate time to make house calls. But policemen have strange ideas about etiquette.

  The three of us walked up to 19th Street. We agreed to let him ask the questions, and he agreed not to mention the burglaries. It took some pounding on the door to elicit a response, but eventually it was answered. By Dr. Gillette, in shirtsleeves. He started out acting pretty abrupt and not at all friendly. But once he learned who Tibbitts was, he became amenable. He led us to the parlor and said he’d call Miss Sachs. Tibbitts gave me a look that made it obvious he recognized the doctor as the first visitor to Pomerleau’s shop. When he returned, Tibbitts asked him what he knew about the brooch. I didn’t expect him to say much, but I was wrong.

  “The general got it into his head he could replace the brooch with a copy without his daughter, Alice—Miss Sachs—noticing the change. He then planned to sell the original.”

  “To raise money to speculate on a tract of land?” I asked.

  “Yes. But Alice noticed immediately. She was very upset and confided in me. I confronted the general on the matter and he told me he had sent the brooch to New York to be copied and then sold. He agreed it was a mistake. I was going to New York a few days later, so I offered to return the copy and get back the original. He produced the case the jeweler, a M. Pomerleau, had sent the copy in and I took it and the copy.”

  Just then, Alice came in and handed Gillette his jacket. I introduced Tibbitts and we all sat down again.

  “Go on, Doctor,” Tibbitts said.

  “I took a train to New York, visited the jeweler in his shop, and asked him to make the trade. He refused. He pointed out the copy had no value to him, as he couldn’t very well go out and market a copy of another man’s work. It had taken him three weeks, he said, and he expected five hundred dollars as payment before he would release the original. I pointed out he was in a difficult position, but agreed he was due the payment. He had me sign a receipt and a promissory note before he would hand over the original. But he refused to accept the return of the copy.

  “When I returned to Washington, I gave Miss Sachs the brooch.”

  “Both brooches?” I asked.

  “Yes. But then the original was stolen, as you know.”

  “Yes,” I agreed. “I know all about that.”

  “Did you hear from Pomerleau after that?” Tibbitts asked him.

  “No. But as it happens, Sergeant,” the doctor continued, “the investment the general had made has paid off. And M. Pomerleau will receive his money shortly.”

  “His estate will receive it,” Tibbitts corrected.

  “What do you mean? Has he passed away?”

  “He was poisoned.”

  The doctor and Alice exchanged looks. He was startled by the news, but she held steady.

  “Poisoned?” the doctor as
ked. “When?”

  “About three weeks after you saw him.”

  “But what does that have to do with Miss Sachs?”

  Tibbitts pulled the book out. It was maybe seven inches tall, with a black leather cover. “Did you see this book, Doctor?”

  “Yes, I believe so. He had me sign twice, once that I had received the original, and once that he would receive payment.”

  “Both on the same page?”

  “Yes, they were just brief notations.”

  “That page is missing now.”

  “I can’t explain that.”

  Tibbitts then asked them where they both were on November 16th, the day Pomerleau was poisoned. After some thought, they told us they had spent the day together, going for a drive.

  “We had dinner at old Hancock’s, on Pennsylvania Avenue,” Alice added.

  Tibbitts asked to see the room where the general had died. The doctor led us upstairs without much enthusiasm. Then he and I explained to Tibbitts how the general had been found and what had happened subsequently. As we were coming back downstairs, Emmie suddenly appeared, and the three of us left the house.

  “Do you think they were telling the truth, Sergeant?” Emmie asked.

  “Sometimes it’s not even worth guessing,” he said. “There’re good liars and then there’re bad liars.”

  “Which were they?”

  “Both bad. He’s the nervous type, and she’s the stone. He sweats even when he’s mostly telling the truth. And she’s so careful not to let on she’s hiding something that it’s obvious she is hiding something. But it might not have anything to do with Pomerleau. Maybe she’s just embarrassed by what was going on upstairs before we came.”

  “Why didn’t you mention that letter from Pomerleau? Doesn’t it seem likely he was the doctor it was addressed to?”

  “Sure he was,” he told her. “But I didn’t see any point in showing my cards.”

  “What about the day of the murder?” Emmie asked. “I think they were telling the truth about that.”

  “Maybe. But it would be easy enough to catch an early train, visit Pomerleau, and be back in time for a late supper. And did you notice what the doctor asked, when I said Pomerleau had been poisoned?”

  “He asked when,” Emmie said. “What’s odd about that?”

  “He’s a doctor. I expected him to ask what poison was used. What difference did it make when?”

  When we reached the Normandie, I asked Tibbitts where he was staying.

  “A place called the Fredonia. What kind of name is that?”

  “It has a familiar ring to it,” I said. “What’s it like?”

  “Cheap. They always put us in dives so we’ll hurry home.”

  We agreed to meet in the morning and then he went off.

  22

  I was in bed reading the countess’s book when Emmie finished her ablutions. It was by a fellow named Vatsyayana, and just seeing it made her blush. She said nothing, but got in beside me. We read intently, and silently, until sometime after four, both falling asleep with the light on.

  I woke up exhausted. Then Emmie nearly ruined breakfast by bringing the conversation around to poisons.

  “How would the police in New York know there was aconite in the coffee cup?” she asked.

  “There must be some test a chemist can do. They have tests for anything you can think of.”

  “What sort of chemist?”

  “I imagine any chemist would either know the tests or have a manual of some sort. Why, are you planning on poisoning someone?”

  “Me? I can’t imagine what reason I’d have to poison anyone. How’s the coffee taste to you?”

  “Bitter.”

  I left her at the table and went off to the Fredonia to pick up Tibbitts. It wasn’t a dive, but certainly a couple pegs down from the Normandie. We boarded the Fourteenth Street car and took it all the way to the B&O depot.

  “I should prepare you for Sergeant Lacy,” I said.

  “How so?”

  “He’s the detective here who was investigating the burglaries, and now the death of the general. He thinks he’s Sherlock Holmes.”

  “Oh, one of those. Well, if he gets the job done.”

  “From what I can tell, Sergeant Lacy’s preferred method of getting the job done is to find the nearest suspect without the pull to make trouble for him—preferably a colored man—and lock him up.”

  Then I told him about Richard Cole, and how Lacy suspected he had killed the general in revenge.

  “Let’s see what the old man died of before we worry about who killed him,” Tibbitts said.

  We found the morgue just across from the depot and I introduced the two detectives.

  “Sergeant Tibbitts is investigating the death of a jeweler in New York. The man who made the copy of the Boucheron brooch.”

  “And you think there’s a link to the general’s death?”

  “Who knows?” Tibbitts shrugged.

  “I hardly think it’s possible,” Lacy smiled.

  We went in and Lacy introduced us to Assistant Coroner Glazebrook. A stenographer and an orderly were there as well, and a moment later Dr. Gillette joined us. I half suspected he would. But it was Glazebrook who ran the show. First he examined the head wound. The skull had a slight facture. He noted the quantity and consistency of the blood gathered at the site, but sounded unsure about something. Next, he scanned the body for other wounds and found nothing. Then he opened him up. I’d seen a man eviscerated once, and didn’t feel in need of a reprise. Hearing was quite enough. I found a spider crawling along a wall and focused on him.

  I wasn’t sure what Tibbitts and Lacy were doing, but Dr. Gillette stood around like a fellow waiting for his wife to give birth. He folded his arms one way, then a few seconds later he folded them the other way. I preferred watching my spider. He had a pretty ambitious web going on. At first I thought he’d made an error in stringing one of his guy wires, but then I could see he was right after all. I suppose for a spider civil engineering is just part of the standard curriculum. After half an hour, the web looked pretty complete. I’d say his one mistake was in making it too conspicuous. When the charwoman came in that evening, she was sure to take a broom to it. In the meantime, Glazebrook announced that the general appeared to have died of myocardial infarction, otherwise known as heart failure.

  “But brought on by the blow to the head,” Lacy said.

  “Yes, perhaps,” Glazebrook told him.

  “What about poison?” Tibbitts asked.

  “Poison?”

  “As a possibility,” Tibbitts said.

  “Yes, certainly. It’s possible. There would likely be some evidence in the digestive system,” Glazebrook said. Then he went looking.

  “There’s an inflammation to the lower esophagus, and the stomach wall,” he narrated for the stenographer.

  “Pyrosis,” Dr. Gillette said. “I treated him for that also.”

  “Yes, it could just be that,” Glazebrook said. “Was there any vomited matter?”

  “A small amount,” Gillette said. “Consistent with myocardial infarction.”

  “Was it saved?”

  “No, I’m afraid I didn’t think it significant. At the time, there seemed nothing suspicious about the death.”

  Glazebrook turned to Tibbitts. “Was there a particular toxin you had in mind?”

  “Aconite, but I’ll take whatever you’re selling.”

  “Was his heart condition treated with aconite, Doctor?” Glazebrook asked.

  “Aconite? Yes. A very small dosage,” Gillette told him. He had his watch out. “I’m sorry, gentlemen, but I have an appointment. If there’s anything else, I’ll be at my office this afternoon.”

  He left us and Glazebrook looked over at Lacy.

  “Did anyone see the man during the hours before death?”

  “He was attending an embassy ball, but left early complaining of pyrosis,” the sergeant told him. “He was found dead about three
hours after that.”

  “I would say poisoning is a possibility,” Glazebrook said. “But it would take me some time to run the tests. I should have an answer by noon.”

  Lacy said he would see us then and hurried off.

  “Where are you off to now, Sergeant?” I asked Tibbitts.

  “Back to the Sachses’, doing what I should have done last night.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Looking for aconite. Gillette said he’d prescribed it for Sachs, so there must be some about the place. Care to come along?”

  “I’m headed in that direction, but I have to attend to my own business.”

  “I thought you had the missing jewelry?”

  “Yes—now I need to arrange for selling it back.”

  We caught a car heading west.

  “What do you think was making Gillette so nervous?” I asked.

  “Who knows? It could just be he recognized the old boy was poisoned and is worried he’ll be blamed for giving him the wrong dose.”

  We got off the car and went our separate ways. Mine led me to Julius Chappelle. I was shown into his office, where he was putting some books into a crate.

  “I didn’t realize you were leaving so soon,” I said.

  “Nor did I, but my plans have been accelerated by events.”

  “Any events I know about?”

  “Which events do you know about?”

  “General Sachs’ death, for one.”

  “No, that’s of little concern to me. Likewise the other events of Saturday evening. I take it you’ve solved your insurance case?”

  “Well, in a sense. That’s one of the things I wanted to talk to you about. You’ve spoken with the people we mentioned earlier?”

  “I did. And I’m sure they would now be amenable to entering into negotiations with you.”

  “You mean, now that the French government’s purchase has gone through?”

  “Very good, Mr. Reese. And you’ve only been in town a week. Yes, I mean precisely that.”

  “One thing that puzzles me is: why couldn’t these reputable people come up with a more legitimate way of raising money?”

  “Because they’d bled those vessels dry. People like that are often short of ready cash, even as they accumulate more wealth. That’s why they’re so badly burned when the crash comes.”