The Odd Job

by Charlotte MacLeod

  She supposed it would be only civil to give Uncle Jem a ring and let him know that she was in town for an as yet undetermined but preferably short period of time. Jeremy Kelling and his sorely tried henchman, Egbert, lived just over on Pinckney Street; they might like to come to dinner tomorrow night unless Jem had something livelier on the docket. He probably hadn’t. J. Lemuel Kelling was no longer the bon vivant he’d been during those halcyon years before a cruel bureaucracy tore down Scollay Square and rebuilt it as Government Center, though he still liked to think he was.

  Before making any plans for herself, however, it occurred to Sarah that she ought to find out whether a funeral service for Dolores Tawne had been announced. Charles hadn’t left a message on the answering machine, as he probably would have if he’d found anything in the paper while Sarah was out to lunch. She’d better pick up a later edition on her way home. If all else failed, she’d have to get hold of Vieuxchamp at the museum; surely he would know by then, if anybody did.

  By the time she’d battled her way back down Boylston Street to the Little Building, Sarah was glad to get inside. She never minded being blown around on the cliffs overhanging the ocean at Ireson’s Landing, but feeling somebody’s discarded hamburger wrapper trying to wrap itself around one’s ankle was a far different and wholly revolting situation. After checking her nether limbs to make sure she wasn’t bringing other people’s trash into the building, Sarah walked over to the reception desk.

  “I’m back for a while. I don’t suppose anybody’s been asking for us?”

  “You just missed him,” the man in charge told her. “Or her, or it. Who can tell? Anyway, a messenger. This must be for you.”

  “ ‘Biterman Det. Agy.’ Close enough, I suppose. Could be someone’s idea of a joke. You didn’t tip the messenger, I hope?”

  “Are you kidding? They always add it to the tab anyway. You’re not planning to stay on after five, by chance?”

  “Oh, no,” Sarah assured him. “I’ll be well away before then, I don’t like the look of that sky. Thank you for taking the package.”

  Chapter 6

  BROWN MANILA ENVELOPES DELIVERED by anonymous messengers of indeterminate sex were no surprise at the Bittersohn Detective Agency. Neither were misspellings of Max’s family name. This could be anything from an oddment that Brooks had been trying to track down through some unchancy source for some reason that only he could have thought of to a small stolen object that an anonymous somebody had found too hot to handle.

  Thus far, nobody had sent the agency a letter bomb; but it was not outside the bounds of possibility that somebody, some day, might. Sarah was not one to panic but she did experience a moment’s discomfiture. Should she open the envelope? Should she not? Should she take it to the rest room and dunk it in a basin of water? Should she just leave it on the desk with a note of gentle warning? Should she mention it to Max if by some miracle the line got repaired and he phoned again tonight? Should she drop the envelope quietly in the wastebasket and pretend it had never arrived? Should she just lay the thing on the windowsill out of the way and get on with what she’d come to do?

  Slightly ashamed of her pussyfooting, Sarah pushed the envelope to the far corner of the desk, opened her job book, and picked up her pen. She was having a hard time to concentrate but plugged on anyway; she’d just about got her mind nicely set on her task when the phone rang. It was Charles, wanting her to know that he’d found nothing, about Mrs. Tawne in the morning paper and wondering if he ought to squander the price of a later edition. Sarah told him not to bother, she’d pick up one on her way home. She asked whether Mariposa had called, learned that she hadn’t, and suggested that Charles polish the silver as a nice surprise for Mariposa to find when she got back from Puerto Rico. This was almost certainly not what Charles wanted to hear, but it was the best Sarah could think of at the moment. She broke the connection and picked up her pen again.

  It wasn’t working. The scallops might have been a mistake, though Sarah couldn’t think why they should have been. She wasn’t feeling sickish or sleepy or anything in particular, there was just this odd creepiness up and down her spine. Maybe it had something to do with the impending storm, more likely it was just being up here all by herself. Unless it was the ghost of Dolores Tawne trying to nag Sarah about something that hadn’t been done properly before she’d passed through the veil. Too bad Theonia wasn’t here to take the message, revenant spirits were more in her department. Sarah locked away the job book in a drawer that was labeled “Bird Sightings,” started to put on her raincoat, then hesitated.

  Oh, all right! Why make something out of nothing? She picked up the still unopened envelope and gave it a gingerly prod. Whatever was inside weighed next to nothing, all she could feel was something like a knitting needle with a bump on the tip. She ripped open the envelope and burst out laughing.

  Not long ago, an old friend of the family named Lydia Ouspenska had shown up at a funeral wearing a circa 1900 walking ensemble with a hobble skirt, a redingote with lapels down to her knees, and a huge cartwheel hat worn very much to one side and skewered in place with a formidable hatpin. Lydia had looked absolutely stunning. Sarah could never have worn such an outfit but Theonia had lusted after it, most particularly the hat. A talented and ingenious needlewoman like her was easily able to concoct one out of a child’s hula hoop, a yard or two of black velvet, a few more yards of white satin, and some feathers from the Wilkins’s white peacocks that Theonia had scrounged from Dolores Tawne in return for a two-pound box of homemade peanut brittle, to which Dolores had been much addicted. The hat was a smashing success, the only problem was how to keep it on.

  Women before World War I had had hair, lots of hair. The beauty who could actually sit on the end of her mane was entitled to brag about it, and generally did. The one who could claim no such crowning glory might eke out her scanty tresses with pads made from her own combings and referred to for good and sufficient reason as rats. Others might sport a switch or postiche made from hair that was human but not their own. For women who couldn’t afford to be stylish, a fine head of hair might become a salable commodity, as witness Jo March’s great sacrifice in Little Women and the young wife in “The Gift of the Magi,” who sold her beautiful hair to buy the chain for the gold watch that her husband had pawned to buy fancy combs for his wife’s beautiful hair.

  Logistically, hatpins meant to anchor so formidable a freight of frippery to coiffures of such luxuriance had to be up to the job, to be instruments of strength and endurance as well as of fashion. The end meant to show would be ornamental: a gilded butterfly, a Chinese intricacy carved out of red cinnabar, a multi-colored glass marble, a cone or sphere set all around with imitation sapphires or rubies, pretty trinkets of no great value lending their own small touch of charm to milady’s toilette.

  The business end of the hatpin, on the other hand, would have been six or eight inches of tempered steel wire, stiff as a ramrod and sharpened to a point that was able to penetrate whatever elaborate concoction a milliner might dream up. It could glide through stiff fabric, through switch and rat, through whatever came in its way, emerge on the opposite side without inflicting painful wounds on a lady’s scalp, if she was careful, and send her out literally dressed to kill should the need arise. In an emergency, a few inches of needle-sharp steel vigorously applied could be an effective way to dash the hopes of a too-ardent male. Anxious mothers and saucy vaudeville performers alike were particular in reminding skittish young misses that girls who went strolling without their hatpins ran the risk of losing more than just their hats.

  Theonia Kelling had a fine head of hair all her own and had never, so far as Sarah knew, been forced to resort to cold steel when it came to cooling down a man with a plan. All she needed a hatpin for was to keep her hat on. Naturally Theonia didn’t want just any old toad-stabber after all the time and trouble she’d spent creating her antique hat. The previous week, she and Lydia Ouspenska had spent most of an afternoon scour
ing Boston’s many antique shops and come away empty-handed.

  There had been hatpins, but none that would suit Theonia’s purpose. Most of the big ones had been cut down; neither husbands nor policemen liked the idea of a dangerous weapon kicking around the boudoir. The few hatpins that were long enough had failed to come up to specifications otherwise. Once-jeweled ornaments had lost their stones, gilt gewgaws that had twinkled like stars a century ago were by now dull and unsightly, not worth restoring.

  Evidently Lydia had found a hatpin that she thought would do, and had got somebody or other to drop it off as a surprise for when Theonia returned. That would account for the bungled address; Lydia could barely speak English, much less spell it. Sarah slid the pin out of the envelope to get a better look at the head.

  Theonia was going to be disappointed. The head had been nothing special to begin with, just a small knob covered with tiny black beads, perhaps intended to anchor a widow’s long mourning veil. Too many of the beads were gone, the steel retained its sharp point but showed some rust and discoloration along the shank. Sarah got the impression that it might have been used to unclog a bottle of ketchup.

  Whatever had Lydia been thinking of? There must be other hatpins less ugly than this and in no worse shape. Perhaps she’d seen this one lying somewhere and taken it as a good omen. “Find a pin and pick it up and all the day you’ll have good luck” was a charm in which many people still believed; a pin this size ought to convey a whole week’s worth of good fortune.

  But Sarah didn’t think it would. Lydia took superstition seriously, she must know that luck wasn’t transferable. Furthermore, luck or no luck, Lydia would hardly have sent this ugly thing along without at least scouring the wire with a steel-wool pad and doing something about the head, if only to dip it in gold paint and pretend it was a nugget. Why hadn’t she bothered?

  Because, obviously, it was not Lydia Ouspenska who’d sent the hatpin. Sarah tried to think who else might have heard about the hatpin hunt and either tried to help Theonia out or tried to be funny. There must have been some of Great-Aunt Matilda’s hatpins among the welter of stuff that Cousin Dolph had inherited from Great-Uncle Frederick, but everything that wasn’t nailed down had been auctioned off some time ago on behalf of the Senior Citizens’ Recycling Center.

  Aunt Appollonia in Cambridge was a likelier prospect. Her house was almost as big as Dolph’s and even more cluttered. She’d have been only too delighted to hunt out a hatpin for dear Cousin Theonia; it was unthinkable that she wouldn’t have one somewhere. It was even more unthinkable, however, that Appie would remember what she was supposed to be looking for, much less send it all the way here by special messenger at ruinous expense while the ghost of Uncle Samuel growled in her ear, “Waste not, want not.”

  Three of Appie’s grandchildren, Jesse’s dreadful brothers Woodson, James, and sweet little Frank, would no doubt love to stage a hatpin hunt for reasons of their own. At this time, however, they were safely penned up in an expensive boarding school that combined the better features of an institution of learning with those of a high-class reformatory. They wouldn’t be let out until Thanksgiving, the thanks, no doubt, being given by their beleaguered teachers. With sincere regret, Sarah crossed the boys off and racked her brain for likelier suspects.

  It was a waste of time. She wasn’t getting anywhere, the sky was even more ominous, the wind beginning to howl around the windows. Or was that the wind? No, it wasn’t. The noise was coming not from outside but from the supposedly empty office next door. Some workman must be in there using an electric drill.

  But why? Brooks had told Sarah before he went away that renovations were not scheduled to begin for another month. Even if the schedule had been moved up, three o’clock in the afternoon seemed an odd time to begin work. Almost of its own accord, her hand reached out to the, telephone and punched the number for the reception desk.

  “Hello, this is Sarah Bittersohn. I’m sorry to bother you, but it was my understanding that there wouldn’t be any work going on next door. It’s been quiet all day, but now there’s somebody in there using an electric drill. It almost sounds as if they’re trying to drill through to our office.”

  The receptionist was interested. “How long have you been hearing this noise, Mrs. Bittersohn?”

  “Just these past few minutes. I thought at first it was the wind, but it’s the wrong kind of noise. Do you suppose some workman may have got in there by mistake?”

  “I don’t see how, he’d have to be pretty dumb. Nobody told me about any work on your floor. I’d better check with maintenance. In the meantime, stay where you are and lock your own door.”

  “It’s already locked, thank goodness. I hope I’m not making something out of nothing.”

  “Don’t you worry about that, Mrs. Bittersohn. Just sit tight, we’ll send somebody to check it out.”

  The receptionist rang off, there was nothing for Sarah to do but wait and hope she wouldn’t have occasion to use that hatpin. She wasn’t really worried; anybody trying to bore a way through the connecting wall would run into a bigger job than he’d bargained for. The agency’s steel filing cabinets were stacked five feet high the whole length of the wall and every drawer was padded at the back with old telephone directories.

  The phone books had been Brooks’s idea. He’d learned sometime or other that outdated directories had been used to line railroad cars in certain potentially explosive countries, as insulation against guerrilla attacks. Brooks had never exactly envisioned a shootout from next door but, being a Kelling, he’d thought it wouldn’t hurt to get some practical use out of bulky tomes that, at the time, not even trash collectors had wanted to lug away.

  It was impossible to concentrate on anything but the noise next door. The drilling went on, where was that security guard? Startled as she’d been by the sudden noise, she felt even jumpier when it stopped. After a brief silence, she heard a knock on the door and a male voice calling, not loudly, “Anybody in here?”

  Sarah didn’t recognize the voice, she hesitated a moment, then reached for the phone and called reception again, speaking as softly as she could.

  “Hello, Sarah Bittersohn again. The noise just stopped and there’s somebody at the door asking if anybody’s here. I haven’t answered and I don’t think I’m going to until I’m positive it’s somebody I know.”

  “I can’t say I blame you, Mrs. Bittersohn. The trouble is, I can’t leave the desk. I did check with maintenance and they say nobody’s supposed to be working on your floor until the plans for renovation have been finalized, which won’t be for another couple of weeks. They said they’d send one of the crew up in a while, but—”

  “All right, I understand. What I’m going to do is not answer the door until I’ve sent for our man Charles to escort me home. You know him, he’s been in and out of the building at various times. He’s fairly tall, dresses well, and has curly blond hair. Just to make sure of his identity, he’ll be carrying a group photograph in which he appears along with myself, my husband, Mr. and Mrs. Brooks, and our new trainee, Jesse Kelling. He’ll show you the photograph and ask to be accompanied upstairs by some member of the building’s staff. I shan’t open the door until the two of them arrive together. I’m not an hysterical woman, if that’s what you’re thinking, but I’m not taking any unnecessary chances.”

  “How long do you suppose it’ll take your man to get here?”

  “Ten or fifteen minutes, if he’s at home now. He’d only have to cross the Common from Tulip Street. I’ll call him as soon as you and I hang up.”

  “What if he isn’t there?”

  “Then I’ll call the police.”

  She wouldn’t have to. Charles was on the qui vive and only too eager to dash to the rescue. He’d bring not only the photograph but also the Kelling umbrella, a relic of another era with a formidable steel shaft and a heavy blackthorn handle. Sarah’s father had carried it, and his father before him, and his father’s father. After Walter Ke
lling’s death, the ancestral bumbershoot had come down to his favorite cousin, Alexander, who’d also inherited Walter’s unfinished history of the Kelling family, his collection of pressed mushrooms, and a pair of ornate gold cuff links inherited from the great-uncle for whom Walter had been named, which he’d never worn because they were too pretentious. Alexander had never worn them either, for the same reason. Sarah still had the cuff links but didn’t suppose Davy would ever want to break with precedent. More or less as an afterthought, Walter had also bequeathed to Alexander the guardianship of his young daughter, Sarah; but that was hardly germane to the issue at hand.

  There had been times in its long history when the Kelling umbrella had proven its worth as a weapon. Charles was right to bring it now, it might serve again in a pinch, although that hideous old hatpin would be handier and perhaps even more effective.

  Sarah wished she could forget the hatpin, she was developing what Jesse would call an attitude about the thing. It must mean something to somebody, though; she shouldn’t have ripped the envelope so carelessly. Not that it mattered, the fingerprints would be hers and some anonymous messenger’s. Maybe scads of unknowns’. How could she know where the ugly thing had come from and how many hands it had gone through before it wound up here?

  Nevertheless, Sarah tucked the pin back into the torn envelope, closed the envelope inside one of the zip-top plastic bags that Brooks kept in various sizes for sometimes unfathomable reasons, and stuffed the tout ensemble into a tote bag that Theonia had left hanging on one of the pegs. Perhaps it was foolish, but she didn’t like the idea of having such a potential weapon in her handbag.