by Amy Stewart
“Francis would marry me off to the first man who had fifty dollars in his pocket, just to be done with it,” she said. “But I think I should have my tour on the stage first, and be quite sure I’ve met all of my admirers before I marry one of them.”
I found myself suddenly unable to breathe.
“What’s the matter?” Fleurette said as I sputtered and loosened my collar.
“This is the first I’ve heard of the tour, and the admirers, and the marriage to follow.”
“I’ve been making all sorts of plans. You haven’t been at home to hear about them.”
Oh, the sting this girl could inflict! “Would you like me to stay at home and await your every notion, or would you rather I go and earn your music academy tuition? Either way, it all seems to be for you.”
“Did you catch your man?”
“No.”
“I wonder if it isn’t too dangerous to have you chasing criminals around the city. Could you imagine what Mother would have thought? Quel choc!”
I yawned and pulled off my boots. “You shouldn’t worry about that.”
“Oh, I think I am worried,” Fleurette said. “When you were at the jail, at least we knew what you were doing.”
“Oh? What was that?” I dropped down to my bed and pulled off my damp and sticky stockings.
“Norma said you were just serving tea to the ladies and reading them stories.”
“Norma’s never been to see me at the jail, so she doesn’t know anything about it.”
“Norma doesn’t have to see a thing to know about it.”
“I can handle myself.” I put a pillow behind my head and stretched my legs out.
She gathered up her things and went out of the room with them. I closed my eyes, but she was back just a few minutes later.
“Aren’t you coming?” She tugged at my sleeve. “Norma wants you to eat something first.”
I groaned and kicked away the blanket I’d become entangled in. She took up my hat and coat and held them out. “Hurry. Helen’s father is driving us.”
It was strange to hear Fleurette sound so authoritative. Usually I was the one ordering her out of bed and cajoling her with food.
“I’m coming,” I said. “I’ll be there.”
I changed into a clean dress and packed a few things in an overnight bag. My hair was beyond hope but I managed to sweep it back and put a hat over it.
Norma was in the kitchen making beef and butter sandwiches. Fleurette had put on the Victrola and flung open the front door in anticipation of the Stewarts’ arrival. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d hung bunting in the foyer. Even the smallest occasions were getting more theatrical by the day around our house.
I dropped into a kitchen chair and Norma put a sandwich on a plate for me. She turned back to the sink and said, “I don’t suppose you’ve found him yet.”
I ate the sandwich and watched her shoulders work up and down as she wrapped two more in paper and tied a string around them. Norma always stood straight as a fence post and kept her chin at a very particular angle. I had a dim memory of a dancing teacher tapping a ruler under Norma’s chin one time when we were girls and telling her that she would never miss a thing if she would only keep her head up.
“No. I’m making inquiries.”
“There’s been nothing much in the papers, which I take to mean that Sheriff Heath is going in circles.” She turned around and held her bundle of sandwiches out to me in a strangely solemn manner, as if she wanted me to put my hands on them and make a vow. She raised one eyebrow and looked down at me with all the gravity she could muster. “You’re certain to have made more progress than he has.”
“I couldn’t say.” I was weak from overexcitement and still foggy from those few stolen minutes of sleep.
She sat down across from me. “Well, you must have been at some sort of business since yesterday morning.”
I picked at a slice of roast that slipped away from the bread. “There’s a man in New York I want to question, and the parents of a girl who was badly treated at the sanitarium. After that, I don’t know what I’ll do but stand on a street corner and hope he walks by.”
Norma sat back and folded her arms across her chest. “I suppose that’s all the sheriff is doing at this point.”
“What do the papers say?”
“The Hackensack Republican is calling for his immediate dismissal.”
“That’s no different from any other day. What’s been said about the case?”
“Only that everyone at the hospital has been questioned, and no one remembers him getting away.”
“Except for me, because I’m the one who allowed it.”
“No.” Norma got busy sweeping the crumbs off the table. She couldn’t sit still when she was working her way up to a declaration. “No, I won’t let this be your fault. You’re the only one bringing an air of respectability to the place. You and Mr. Morris.”
Norma thought very highly of Deputy Morris, whom she regarded as an old-fashioned man who didn’t entertain nonsense. He happened to agree with her that messenger pigeons were a superior form of communication in times of crisis—or, at least, he allowed her to believe that he agreed—and was always willing to take a pigeon home to Paterson and keep it for a day or two before sending it back to her with a cryptic, military-style report. He had a book of telegraph codes for police officers and loaned a second copy to her so that they could exchange notes in three-letter codes. “A thorough search should be made” was PVT, and “Prepare to go on a minute’s notice” was JPM. Fleurette got hold of it and was soon slipping in warnings of a false mustache (MYP) and a female opium smoker (KBW), confusing matters between Norma and Deputy Morris for weeks until they found the culprit. (“She is guilty,” JUM.)
From the other room, Fleurette shrieked and Helen joined in. It was time for a night of amateur theater, whether we wanted one or not. I gave Norma the address at the Mandarin, where I expected to stay the next few nights.
“Take the sandwiches,” Norma said, pushing them toward me.
“They have sandwiches in New York.” Fleurette was calling for us.
“Unfamiliar food disagrees with a body,” she said. “It will put you off your work.”
There was no refusing Norma. I took them and went to look for Helen’s father, who turned out to be a man of about my age. He was standing in our foyer all alone, having been abandoned by the two girls.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Stewart,” I said when I found him examining a murky oil painting of my great-grandmother above our hall table. “You must think that no one in this house has any manners.”
“Helen is the eldest of five children. I’m used to being forgotten.” He had a round, freckled face fringed in hair a shade brighter than the pumpkin that was to be the subject of tonight’s performance.
“I’m sure they never forget their father,” I said. “Are they all redheads?”
“Every one of them.”
“Then you might be in trouble after all. Won’t Mrs. Stewart join us tonight?”
“I wish she could. We lost her in childbirth last year. The baby, too.”
I couldn’t help but gasp. “I had no idea. I’m so—”
“Sorry?” He gave me a defeated little smile. “Everyone is sorry. You needn’t say it. Helen is so glad to have your sister for a singing partner. This school was the first thing I’ve been able to interest her in since her mother died.”
I didn’t know what to say, but he kept up the conversation for the both of us. “Since Fleurette has faced a similar tragedy, I believe it gave them something in common.”
Our cold and austere Austrian mother, who had almost been too old to pass convincingly as Fleurette’s mother, had to have been a world apart from the Scottish girl Mr. Stewart had wed. But I saw no point in disagreeing. I only wondered how it was that I knew so little about Fleurette’s new friend.
We arrived at the theater an hour before the performance so the girls co
uld get ready. The lobby was crowded with the other families who had done the same thing. Mr. Stewart seemed to know many of them and went around congratulating them on their child’s stage debut and introducing the two of us. Norma and I were so rarely out in a social capacity that we both found it uncomfortable to manage the simple introductions and exchanges of pleasantries they required. At last a punch bowl was unveiled in the corner of the room and we pulled ourselves away, feigning a monstrous thirst.
“Are we doomed to become patrons of the theater?” Norma said with exhaustion in her voice.
“Some people like the theater,” I said.
“Oh, I don’t mind the theater.”
“But you never want to go.”
“I don’t mind it on principle.”
We were accosted by members of her pigeon club, all of whom had accepted Fleurette’s invitation and appeared quite eager to enjoy a play about a farmer and his secret formula for growing enormous pumpkins. One of the men proposed that they write a play about messenger pigeons and train actual pigeons to perform roles in the production. They chatted gaily about this idea until the lights went down. Norma and I settled down near the front with Mr. Stewart.
“Have you heard them rehearsing their lines?” he asked before the curtain came up on the stage.
I shook my head. “We’ve been terribly busy at the jail. I’ve hardly been home.”
“They don’t have you out looking for that maniac, do they?”
A woman seated in front of us turned and gave me a pointed look. I dropped my voice to a whisper. “I’m sure they’ll have him in custody soon. Don’t let it worry you.”
“Worried? Oh, no, I only wondered—I mean—it seems like an awfully dangerous job for you, being around all those criminals. I don’t know how they keep a lady safe in a place like that.”
A single light illuminated the stage, and from the orchestra pit came the first few notes of piano music. “I manage.”
The play was boisterous and silly, but well-suited for the dozens of children who expected to have their turn on stage. The farmer was played by a fourteen-year-old boy who was tall enough to be a man but too skinny, which meant that his shirt and trousers had to be stuffed with wool to make him look more substantial. He was convincing in his costume, and the children who played the part of the ever-expanding pumpkin did so with the kind of bravura rarely seen in a cucurbit. In the end, the farmer met his punishment for stealing the secret pumpkin-enlarging potion and redeemed himself by sharing the recipe with his fellow farmers so that they could all grow the most enormous pumpkins and bring fame to the dying and forgotten town. An ensemble musical number at the end celebrated their pumpkin-fueled rebirth.
The girls sang beautifully and had a better command over their lines than anyone else in the production. Fleurette delivered her part with the full-throated confidence of someone who was entirely at ease on the stage. She took full command of the space she had been given and filled it with her lively spirit.
Although Fleurette had always been attracted to the theater, I had assumed that she was mostly interested in theatrics and would not have the temperament to put in long hours at rehearsal and to memorize her lines. As the curtain dropped and we stood to applaud, I wondered if I’d underestimated her.
“Your mother must’ve had quite a time with her,” Mr. Stewart said.
“We’ve all had quite a time with her. I don’t know what we’re going to do now that she’s almost grown.”
“Helen wants to go to Broadway. I’m looking into finishing schools.”
When the curtain dropped and rose again, the little band of performers were showered with cheers and whistles and orange paper petals that the ushers had sold us during intermission. A crowd of admirers rushed to the stage, and we soon lost sight of Fleurette and Helen.
We made our way to the lobby to wait, along with all the other families, for the performers to emerge from the stage door. The ceilings, painted in turquoise and gold, gleamed high above us, and from each corner a griffin or a joker grinned down on us. The cries of parents congratulating their children rang out and met in the air to create the kind of gentle roar that made it impossible to say a thing without shouting. I thought I saw Fleurette’s dark hair bob above the crowd and disappear again. Norma and I stood in the corner and waited with Mr. Stewart.
“Have you heard anything about the Christmas production?” he shouted over the rumble of the crowd.
Norma groaned. “Is there to be a Christmas show?”
“Of course,” he said cheerfully. “But don’t worry. It’s nothing but carols and candles. No auditions and no special costumes.”
“Then Mrs. Hansen has some sense after all,” she muttered.
It was too warm and close in the lobby, so I stepped outside. There I saw Fleurette leaning against a black auto, chatting with a man whose back was turned to me. Helen stood smiling nearby but said nothing. I squinted at the man’s broad back and shoulders. He was half in shadow, so I couldn’t tell if his hair was blond or light brown. I guessed that he was young, from the cut of his collar and Fleurette’s lively laughter at whatever he was saying.
Mr. Stewart had followed me out. I jumped when I heard him behind me. “I never know whether to break it up or just stand nearby and glare at the young man.”
“You’ve more experience,” I said, “but I’m inclined to do something more than glare.” The boy leaned down to say something to Fleurette and she stood on her toes to hear. I was suddenly very aware of the revolver in my handbag.
“Helen gets all kinds of attention from boys at school,” Mr. Stewart said. “But I understand that Fleurette was . . . privately schooled. So the boys are only just now finding her.”
It had been my mother’s decision to school Fleurette at home rather than subject the family to a schoolteacher’s scrutiny. It wasn’t until Fleurette was much older that she even remarked upon the fact that other children went to school. Mother just sniffed and said that the schools in Bergen County were not to her liking.
I wasn’t accustomed to having to answer questions about it. I tried to summon up an answer for Mr. Stewart, but before I could, the boy disappeared down the street. Helen and Fleurette spotted us and came running, nearly knocking us over when they reached us. There was a damp sheen on both of them from the exertion and excitement, and, I feared, from their encounter with that young man. Ringlets of hair were plastered to their necks and their faces were flushed in an identical high blush. They were still shouting as if they’d forgotten they’d left the stage.
“How was I?” Helen asked her father, twirling around in front of him. “Did you see Fleurette step on my toes during our duet?”
“I did not,” Fleurette protested. “You put your toes right under my feet. Keep them where they belong and they won’t get stepped on.”
She leaned against me and put an arm around my waist, looking up at me with the eagerness and longing of a girl seeking praise for what she already knew she’d done so well. Her dark eyes glittered behind the inky smudges around her lashes.
I was trying not to ask, but I couldn’t help it. “Who was the boy?”
“Which one? The farmer?”
“Just now. Over there.”
“Oh!” She squealed and turned to fling an arm around Helen. “Just an admirer of ours.”
“We have too many to keep track of,” Helen said, which her father answered with a weary half-smile.
“He said he’d bring his autograph book next time,” Fleurette said.
“Doesn’t he have a name?” I asked, but Fleurette just shrugged and the girls went back to chattering about the production. We granted them as many words of praise as their wild temperaments could handle, and I dared a swipe at Fleurette’s painted lips with my handkerchief. She ducked and grinned at me, buoyant and beautiful.
13
NORMA AND FLEURETTE went home with Helen and Mr. Stewart. I walked by myself to the station and settled onto the train to
New York with the weary resignation of a working man riding through the dark and chilly night to some distant factory, except that my factory was populated not by steam boilers and punch presses, but by flophouses and reluctant witnesses. The train raced across half-frozen marshes fringed in cattails that might have been pink by day, but stood black and solemn under the moonlight.
The following morning found me back in the Mandarin’s dining room, where Geraldine and Ruth were finishing their coffee. Carrie had just rushed off to write a story about a parade.
“She hates parades,” Ruth said, sliding a rack of toast across the table to me. “She’s waiting for you to catch your man so she can put it on the front page.”
“If there’s to be a story, she can have it first,” I said, and drained a cup of coffee.
“Haven’t you learned anything yet?” Geraldine asked.
“I know von Matthesius owed someone money. It doesn’t surprise me, as criminals are often on the run from their creditors. I know he gave sham treatments to his patients and abused them.”
“That’s the serious charge, I suppose,” Ruth said.
“Oh, it’s worse than that. He drugged a rich man’s daughter and married her against her will.”
“So he’s a predator and a con man, too,” Geraldine said.
“And arrogant, if he thought he’d get away with a scheme like that,” I said. “There’s a man to go see on the East Side this morning, and I’m going to try to speak to the girl he married, if I can find her.”
“Ask Carrie about that business,” Ruth said. “Newspapers have all kinds of ways of tracking people down.”
Geraldine looked at the clock and stood up. “We’re off to the office, and you have to go kicking down doors and poking through alleyways. I’m not sure I envy you, but I might.”
This time I was much better equipped to be out on the streets, with a warmer pair of boots and a heavier wool coat and gloves. The doorman at the hotel put me in a cab. I didn’t give the address of the Warren, thinking the driver would refuse to take me there. In fact, he didn’t even want to let me off on Bowery as I requested, but I insisted that I was doing charity work and had gone there unaccompanied before.
