Always a Cold Deck (A Harry Reese Mystery Book 1)

by Robert Bruce Stewart

  “Croteau is a French Canadian name,” she said knowingly.

  “Is it?”

  “Yes, there were Croteaus in Massachusetts. And you said the opium came from Canada.”

  “And the saloon is on the canal, providing convenient storage for bodies,” I smiled.

  “I don’t think it’s at all silly to think someone involved with smuggling Chinamen would also be a smuggler of opium. And your tale of a secret smugglers’ den in the grain elevator, and of Sicilians knifing to death the only one knowing about it, is no less fantastic than mine.”

  There was something to her argument, but I didn’t say so.

  “We should go down there tonight,” she said.

  “Tonight? Where exactly is Canal Street? You’ve got so many canals here.”

  “There’s a map in the city directory.”

  She went back to the Elevator office for the directory. While she was gone, I took the opportunity to slip into Elwell’s private office and unlatch the door to the corridor.

  When she returned, she spread the map on the desk. Croteau’s was listed as a concert saloon on Canal Street, which the map showed was just beyond the Erie.

  “Isn’t that area what they call the Hooks?” I asked.

  “The Hooks?”

  “Yes, don’t you keep track of your own crime-ridden slums?”

  “Well, I knew the area below the canal was considered a rough sort of neighborhood. The Hooks, is it?”

  I could see that supplying her with the colorful name of the place made her want to visit it all the more. I tried to dampen her enthusiasm. “Yes, and they play with knives there.”

  “We must pay a visit to Croteau’s saloon tonight.”

  “You seem to forget, we’re going to the theater to see cousin Carlotta.”

  “Mr. Reese, I apologize for giving you a fallen woman as a cousin. But what’s the point of pretending this invention of mine is on the stage?”

  “Oh, Carlotta’s real enough. And Cissie Lightner is her stage name. I didn’t know she was in town, but you’re the one who brought her up.”

  “How could I bring up someone I had never heard of?”

  “I meant to ask you about that. I’ll tell you what, we’ll go see dear Carlotta’s show tonight, but we can dine beforehand at Croteau’s. With a name like that, I imagine they have an extensive wine cellar. That way we can be out of the Hooks before dark.”

  Then the door opened behind us.

  “Oh, it’s you, Emmie. And Mr. Reese.”

  Aunt Nell had caught us in the act of searching her husband’s office. There were a number of plausible explanations we could have provided. Unfortunately, none of these presented themselves to Emmie.

  “Mr. Reese was in need of a dentist, and I thought perhaps I could find the name of the one who attended Uncle Charles. But I couldn’t.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Mr. Reese. It’s Dr. Freed, on Washington Street. Just a few blocks from here. Are you in pain?”

  “No, it’s nothing really. Just a little crack or something in the back there.” I pointed toward the back of my jaw. Aunt Nell seemed to accept this as justification for our rifling through her husband’s records. Or at least she pretended to. Emmie locked up the office and we all went into the Elevator Company’s.

  “I came to ask you to lunch, Emmie. You’re welcome to come too, Mr. Reese.”

  “I can’t, Aunt Nell, I have an engagement with a classmate of mine. In fact, I should be running along.”

  “How about you, Mr. Reese? Can you stand to eat?”

  “Oh, I’m always up for a meal.”

  “I meant, will your tooth allow it?”

  “Oh, that. Well it comes and goes, and it seems to have gone for the present.”

  9

  I was glad that I’d be able to speak with Aunt Nell alone. But once again I found myself in that precarious situation of accompanying a lady to luncheon at a place of her choosing, at the end of which I would have to graciously insist on paying. Once again, we walked toward the Iroquois. But this time there was no reprieve. The Iroquois it was. There was nothing to be done now but enjoy the meal and hope Aunt Nell wasn’t feeling ravenous.

  After we were seated, she asked me about my work and I told her that I was in town trying to track down Robert Mason, the same partial truth I’d told Charlie earlier.

  “So it was just a coincidence that you ran into Emmie?”

  “Yes, we were both surprised.”

  “How do you hope to find Mr. Mason after all this time?”

  “I have several leads, but frankly it’s more difficult than I expected.”

  “Do you know where he went when he left Buffalo?”

  “No, no one seems to. I don’t suppose your husband ever conjectured about it?”

  “If he did, he wouldn’t have told me. Of course, you know about Miss Parker.”

  “Yes, but she wasn’t particularly forthcoming.”

  “Well, for a woman like that, discretion is essential.” Aunt Nell spoke of her husband’s mistress as if she were someone in a novel. “Tell me about your cousin. Is she really in the theater?”

  “Oh, yes. Well, vaudeville. She and a partner do the standard song-and-dance routine.”

  “Is she talented?”

  “Not really. She can dance reasonably well, but her voice is really rather annoying. Fortunately, a squeaky voice can be an asset if you’re trying to keep the crowd laughing.”

  Aunt Nell smiled. “I was on the stage once.”

  “Really? Here in Buffalo?”

  “No, not in Buffalo. Little towns. I’m kidding you, really. It wasn’t the stage. It was one of those traveling shows where they amuse the farmers and then sell them patent medicine.” She paused to see how I would react. “I had a pony act.”

  It was my turn to smile. “Are you part Kickapoo?”

  “No, this was before the Kickapoos. We sold Doctor Glossheim’s Authentic German Cure. I had this elaborate costume, which I thought was the height of fashion. I didn’t really have to do much of anything. The pony did a number of tricks and then I took the bows. It was certainly a great deal more fun than living on the farm.”

  “You grew up on a farm?”

  “Yes, a New England hill farm. I loved it—until I was about thirteen or so. Then you start to wonder about the places you’ve learned about in school. Or you go to the fair and see how other people dress, and the things they can buy. At sixteen, a girl can see her future. You either are going down to the mills, like Emmie’s mother, or you’re going to marry into another hill farm.”

  “Or you join a medicine show?”

  “Yes,” she laughed. “Or you join a medicine show. This one had come into town and of course we all went to the free shows. I befriended the pony and the medicine man asked me if I wanted to join the act that evening. I was a pretty girl, and I knew how to take care of the pony. That’s all the job required. So when they left town, I did too.”

  “How long were you with them?”

  “Just over a year. By then I had had enough of being a young girl with a crew of misfits and grafters. We were on the outskirts of Buffalo. One morning I took the pony and just started walking. I don’t know what I had in mind. I was arrested for stealing the pony and Charles Elwell was the prosecutor. It’s really a fantastic tale. Charles became my savior—he even bought me the pony. We were married soon after.”

  “Very romantic.”

  “Oh, yes. Emmie loves the story.”

  “Do you miss your husband, Mrs. Elwell?”

  “What an odd question, Mr. Reese. I suppose I do, but not as I would have ten years ago. Why do you ask that?”

  I wasn’t sure myself. I had wanted to change the subject, but I wished I had done it more adroitly. “I’m sorry, I guess I was caught up in the sentiment.”

  “Charles and I were no longer very close, for whatever reason. He was always a selfish man, but became ever more so.”

  “Do you have any doub
ts as to what happened to him?”

  “You mean, do I think he staged his disappearance?”

  “Yes, I guess that’s what I mean.”

  “No. Not that he wouldn’t have if he could have derived some advantage from it. I just don’t see how he could have. He often went out on the boat by himself. And there’s nothing surprising about storms coming up quickly on the lake. Are you thinking that he might be wherever Robert Mason is?”

  “Yes, or that he might know where Mason is.”

  “That I doubt. They were not friends and I don’t think they would have confided in each other.”

  “How well do you know Jack Whitner?”

  “We just met a few weeks ago. He knew Charles some years ago.”

  “But do you recall if your husband ever mentioned the name?”

  “Not that I remember. Do you doubt his story?”

  “No, just curious.”

  “Well, he knows things about Charles that would be difficult for anyone but a friend to find out. And I think Charlie had met him when he was away at school.”

  “I have one last question. What happened to the pony?”

  “Oh, we had Freddie for years. Charlie rode him as a boy.”

  We had finished lunch and dear Aunt Nell had eaten like the proverbial bird. Not even two dollars, with the tip. I waited with her for a street car and she told me to be sure to visit them again before I left town. I said I would.

  I realized I hadn’t agreed on a meeting place with Emmie so I walked up to her office to leave her a note. The door was unlocked, and there she was with her nose in Thackeray’s fat book. She was surprised to see me, but showed no shame for having deceived us.

  “Well, I guess you do prefer that book to my company.”

  “Oh, I thought you understood. I just wanted to give you the opportunity to question Aunt Nell. She couldn’t be as frank if I were there.”

  Emmie was never at a loss for an explanation.

  “About her pony act?”

  “About Uncle Charles.”

  “You know, Miss McGinnis, I am acquainted with that book, and you’re beginning to remind me of the heroine.”

  “You seem to forget, Mr. Reese, this is a novel without a hero. But I hope you aren’t referring to poor Emmy Sedley, the soft.”

  “I was thinking of the not-at-all-soft Becky Sharp.”

  “I’m surprised, Mr. Reese. Have you read much of Thackeray?”

  “Oh, I never said I read the book. You may have heard, last year Mrs. Fiske produced the play Becky Sharp.”

  “Yes, I read about that. So you gained your knowledge of the book from the play?”

  “Well, not directly. It was impossible to get tickets to Mrs. Fiske’s show on the night we chose for our foray. But there was another show running nearby which we’d heard good things about. I believe it was called Around New York in Eighty Minutes.”

  “So you saw this timeless classic of literary drama instead?”

  “Yes. But, you see, this timeless classic included a burlesque of Mrs. Fiske’s show. So, I have the nub of Thackeray’s effort.”

  “My, Mr. Reese, you are a true gentleman of culture,” she smiled.

  Our literary romp brought something else to mind: Ratigan’s list of profiteers. One or two of the names had sounded familiar, and now I felt I knew why. I had left the list back at my room, but I did remember one name.

  “There’s an Osborne in the book, isn’t there?” I asked.

  “Yes, George Osborne, the cad poor Emmy marries.”

  “One of the aliases used by those profiting from the stock scheme was G. Osborne.”

  “Couldn’t that just be a coincidence?”

  “Yes, but there’s someone who has nicknamed Sadie Parker Becky, and I think it’s Mason.”

  This left her a little puzzled, so I told her all about visiting Sadie, and that Sadie had been Mason’s mistress before being her uncle’s. And that the last postcards addressed to Becky were from Montreal.

  “And since the book is Mr. Mason’s, you assume these postcards are coming from him. That’s excellent, Mr. Reese.”

  Frankly, I found it somewhat less convincing coming from Emmie, but she had guessed my train of thought.

  “I don’t suppose we’ll find him by looking for Robert Mason, late of Buffalo, in the Montreal city directory,” she said. “He must be using another alias, and it seems more than likely that it’s a name from the same book.”

  “The desk clerk thought they were signed with some abbreviation, maybe for James or Jonathan.”

  “Or perhaps Jos? Jos Sedley.”

  I’m not sure why, but the more enthusiastic she became, the more I found myself doubting my own theory.

  “How would we find a Jos, or Joseph, Sedley in Montreal?” she asked.

  “Well, apparently he’s constantly traveling, so the best bet would be to check the hotels.”

  “How do we do that?”

  “We don’t. But I know someone who could, and he’s staying here in town,” I said. “By the way, Miss McGinnis. Are you planning to go home and dress for the evening?”

  “I hadn’t decided. Why?”

  “Well, it’s only that the ladies I’ve seen in concert saloons tend to dress more… I’m not sure how to phrase it… showy, perhaps.”

  “Do you mean gaudy?”

  “Let’s say showy tending toward gaudy.”

  “Very well. I’ll go home and find something appropriate. Perhaps Aunt Nell’s outfit from her medicine show days would do.”

  “Oh, yes,” I agreed. “I’ll look into renting a pony.”

  We settled on a time and place to meet that evening and I assured her I would see to it that the hotels of Montreal were combed thoroughly. I went back to the Iroquois to hunt down Keegan. He was out, so I left a message saying I’d been informed that Mason had recently been in Montreal traveling as Jos or Joseph Sedley, and asking if he could have the hotels there checked.

  In the meantime, I could look further into Elwell’s disappearance. Detective Donahy had given me the names of the tug captain who found the boat and the man whom Elwell had paid to help stage his accident.

  The tug company had an office on one of the slips off the Erie Basin, which was on the lakefront. The captain I was looking for was out towing barges but would be docking later that afternoon in Black Rock, a small port at the northern end of the city. So I went in search of Elwell’s co-conspirator. He worked for a business located along the Erie Canal just a short ways from the tug office.

  The W. E. Carroll Company seemed to consist primarily of piles of sand and lime. There were also a couple of small buildings, one of which held the office where I found William Carroll. He was barely distinguishable from the men working in the yard, being likewise covered in dust. I told him I was checking on Elwell’s story and wanted to speak with Steuben, the man Elwell had made his arrangements with.

  “He’s long gone. I let him go when he came in with that story. I can’t have my people running schemes like that on my time, and on my property.”

  “What exactly had they planned?”

  “According to Steuben, this fellow Elwell approached him at our site on the Canadian shore. We have some lime kilns there, and we also load sand from the dunes. There’s a fairly long pier and I imagine that’s what attracted Elwell. Steuben said Elwell offered him three hundred dollars if he would get Elwell from the pier to the railroad station at Sherkston. Then Steuben was supposed to take Elwell’s yacht out onto the lake and sink it. According to Steuben, Elwell was skipping town, but wanted people to think he had drowned in the lake.”

  “Does the story seem plausible to you?”

  “Well, it was plausible that Steuben would become involved in something like that. He did his work, but was always a little too clever. I never liked him. But the rest of it never made a lot of sense to me. First off, why would Elwell involve someone he barely knew? Why not just sink the boat himself, row a dinghy to shore, an
d walk to the train station? There’s a lot of empty shoreline over there where no one would see a thing. And the train station’s just a couple miles inland. And another thing—what made Elwell think Steuben could sail his yacht out onto the lake?”

  “But if the story wasn’t true, why tell it? He must have known you’d be likely to fire him.”

  “Yeah, that’s a good question. My guess is he thought he could come across some reward from someone. But I can’t say I spent much time thinking about it.”

  “The police seem to have believed Steuben’s story.”

  “Did they? Well, maybe there was something more to it I didn’t know about.”

  I thanked Carroll and before leaving asked for directions to the yacht club. The Buffalo Yacht Club was located at the foot of an old fort which was called The Front. I found a fellow mending a sail and asked about Elwell. He pointed out a Mr. Benson and said he was a friend of Elwell’s. Benson was lackadaisically polishing parts of his boat and sipping beer. I introduced myself and jumped right into it.

  “Was Charles Elwell a good sailor?”

  “Oh, yes. Almost as good a sailor as I am,” he said with a wink.

  “Then was it a mistake for him to go out on an evening like the one he did? With a chance of a storm?”

  “If you never went out when there was a chance of a storm, you wouldn’t get out much. Maybe it was the one day he had free. I’ll bet several boats were out that evening.”

  “But no others were lost.”

  “No, but that doesn’t mean much. Maybe he was out farther on the lake, or maybe there was a local swell. There’s no way of knowing.”

  “But weren’t you surprised a good sailor was lost like that? While his boat was still afloat?”

  “The boat was probably heeling and a wave caught him while he was hiked out. Or maybe he had to stand up to untangle a line or something. Or maybe the mast hit him on the head when it cracked in half. And if you get knocked off a boat in a storm, it’s damned hard to get back on without someone to throw you a line.”

  “Couldn’t he have swum to shore?”

  “If you’re two miles out in a storm, swimming to shore would be a minor miracle. Was I surprised it happened to Charles Elwell? Sure. But it just proves it could happen to anyone.”