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

by Robert Bruce Stewart

  “Is that where the tug found the boat, two miles out?”

  “No, it was out on the river, the Niagara. But that’s just where the current took it. You see, all of Lake Erie empties into the Niagara, then goes over the falls.”

  “So it isn’t odd there’s no sign of the body?”

  “The body probably went over the falls and has been washing up on the shores of Lake Ontario in bits and pieces.”

  Mr. Benson wasn’t particularly sentimental about his old friend. I thanked him and left him to his work. I didn’t see any point in looking up the tug captain now, so I decided to walk the towpath back. If Benson was correct, it was possible Elwell was just lost in a storm. But it didn’t explain why Steuben had come forward with his obviously tall tale. Or why the police had put any faith in it.

  The only explanation I could think of was that Elwell had paid Steuben—not to help him make his escape, but just to tell the story. Then Elwell did just what Carroll suggested: rowed to shore in a dinghy and walked to the train himself. He knew everyone would suspect he had faked the accident. Steuben’s story was meant to satisfy their suspicions. He wanted it to look like he had indeed planned to sneak off, but by pure chance got caught in a storm and drowned. The story wouldn’t hold up if someone looked too closely, but no one in Buffalo wanted to look closely. If he were dead Aunt Nell and Sadie would get their insurance money, Boss Conners would get his loan repaid, and the police could ensure everyone’s happiness just by doing nothing.

  I wound my way back to the Iroquois. Keegan had left me a note saying he had initiated inquiries but wouldn’t be hearing back before the next afternoon. Then it occurred to me to check back at the Tifft to see if Sadie had received any more missives. My friend the clerk was there, but he couldn’t place me until I handed over another silver dollar. That dollar was the price of finding out that no, there hadn’t been any cards that day. But I got him to agree to make a copy of any that did come addressed to Becky.

  It was after five o’clock now and I was meeting Emmie at seven. I went up to the office to make sure she had left. Then I slipped into Elwell’s private office through the door I’d unlocked earlier.

  I began looking through the financial records beginning where I had left off that morning. It took an hour to plow through them and I found nothing. There were also copies of the invoices his office had sent out, and the receipt books, but I didn’t see any point in looking there. Finally, I found the check registers, which dated back twenty-odd years. I began with the most recent and worked backwards. Most of these were for payment on the invoices I’d already looked through. But there were also a number made out to cash, and sometimes for significant amounts. While I was in the book for 1897, I realized there was one amount that kept appearing: $123.56. These entries were spaced about a month apart and all were made out to cash. I continued the search back, and then looked again at the more recent years to see if I had overlooked any entries for the same amount. They began in early 1893 and ended in August 1897.

  Based on the odd amount and regularity, I guessed these might be mortgage payments. Almost five years worth. If they were on his own home, they most likely would have come from a personal account. And there wouldn’t be any reason to make them payable to cash. The only reason to make them out to cash was to hide the payee from others in the office. If it was a loan at, say, 6 percent, the principal would have been close to $25,000—the cost of a small commercial building, or a very sizable home. A lot larger than his place in Buffalo. The loan appeared to have been paid off not long after the profits from the stock scheme would have been realized. This cinched it for me. Elwell had set himself up in some other city, almost definitely under another name. Some of the other checks to cash were probably deposits to a bank in that city. But what city?

  10

  I didn’t have time to go back to the hotel and change, but I figured a soiled collar and a well-dusted suit would fit right in at Croteau’s saloon. Emmie was waiting for me at the Liberty Pole on the corner of Main and Exchange. She had certainly found something showy to wear. And it wasn’t merely tending toward gaudy, it was most of the way there.

  It was a short walk to the Hooks and Croteau’s, but there was a marked change in the neighborhood. Most of the buildings were old two- or three-story tenements, along with a few small stores and a very healthy number of saloons. The tenements appeared to be mostly occupied by Italians, or Sicilians, as I’d been told. The men loitered about and their children were playing in the side streets. The saloons along Canal Street were peopled by itinerant men who worked on the canal and the steamboats.

  The only way we found Croteau’s was by the street address Emmie had jotted down. Nothing identified it from the outside. The concert saloons still around New York were of the seedier variety, but few were as seedy as Croteau’s. As we entered all eyes turned to Emmie. I knew she had to have been a little unnerved, but she wasn’t going to let it be noticed. I sat us at a table and then ordered wine. It came out of a large, unlabeled bottle but tasted no worse than the average patent medicine, and had a similar proportion of alcohol—not less than 30 percent. There was a small stage and a piano, neither of which was currently occupied, but no room for a band.

  “Shouldn’t you speak to Mr. Croteau?” she asked.

  “Me? This was your idea, remember.”

  “Don’t be childish, Mr. Reese.”

  I got up and made inquiries at the bar—and ten seconds later returned to make my report.

  “I was told Mr. Croteau is unfortunately unavailable, but if I care to make myself comfortable, there is some expectation that he will make an appearance later this evening. I also inquired about this evening’s fare and was told that while they are regretfully out of the quail and filet of sole, they can offer us a delightful stew of mystery sausage and beans, and fish that was fried up sometime in the not too distant past.”

  “What did he honestly say?”

  “Oh, that was the gist of it, but he conveyed it in a series of subtle intonations. Or grunts, more precisely.”

  “How awful do you think the food is?”

  “Awful enough that you’d be thankful you live in plumbing’s modern era. Come on, let’s go get a real meal somewhere.”

  “I agreed to see your cousin’s show, Mr. Reese. You might at least humor me by remaining here until then. Croteau could show up at any moment.”

  “What about dinner?”

  “There’ll be food at the theater.”

  Just about then a piano player got going. He sang along with himself. Not well, perhaps, but one could understand the lyrics of each song and that struck me as rather novel for a concert saloon. These were the usual tunes one would hear in any parlor, but the artiste had taken certain liberties with the lyrics. In his version of the old standard, She Loved Not Wisely, But Too Well, “she” also did it quite often. Understandably, Emmie found the performance diverting. It took all my skills at persuasion to induce her to leave at the appointed time. In fact, I had to threaten to leave her there alone.

  We arrived at Shea’s Garden Theater just in time to catch the end of the opening act: The Randalles, a family of contortionists. Carlotta and her partner, Tim Madden, were next. It wasn’t a choice place on the bill, but Carlotta held that it was better to be the second spot at a first-class theater than to be a headliner in the small time. And she would know, having done plenty of both. Their sketch, “A Wife’s Stratagem,” was appreciably better than when I had seen it a month earlier in Brooklyn. I’ll leave it at that. Carlotta sang just two songs, but that was enough. Her voice is difficult to describe. It’s as if she doesn’t want to be pinned down to particular pitch. And while that works well enough for a comic song, anything more is a trial. Friends and acquaintances soon learn to avoid topics that might necessitate a prolonged conversation.

  Next up was Julian Rose, who was in a sort of Shylock outfit, with a long beard and forelocks. He told very funny stories in an exaggerated Yiddish acc
ent. He had a great bit about a Jewish wedding and an Irishman who unsettles the affair with fisticuffs. It included the memorable line, “Ah, he was no fighter—me and my two brothers and a cousin nearly licked him.”

  The first half ended with Belle Davis and Her Pickaninnies. She was a negress singer who surrounded herself with a troupe of little boys and girls who danced and sang as well. One little girl had a particularly fine voice and nearly brought down the house. Belle ended the act with a song informing her unseen paramour that he needn’t visit if he didn’t have money to spend on her.

  During the intermission, we managed to procure a dinner of peanuts, popcorn, and warm lemonade. The second half opened with Sager Midgley and Gertie Carlisle. They were dressed up as children and did a sketch of a young boy trying to impress a young girl, while she continually cut him down to size. I had no trouble seeing Emmie at age ten in the part. They were quite good and so were the lines.

  Then came Percy Fullerton, a magician who was introduced as a local boy. This prompted a great cry of civic pride. He did the requisite rabbit out of a hat and a number of rope and card tricks. I doubt if Percy was ever called to New York, but he might have made a few dollars playing the Odd Fellows’ Hall.

  The Morton Family was next, Sam and Kitty and daughter Clara. They were the headliners and did very well in New York. It was a variety act of skits with lots of singing and dancing. Clara had a bit where she danced while playing the piano. The key to their success seemed to be the frenetic pace of the whole thing. I felt exhausted just from watching.

  The show ended with the Musical Johnstons, two brothers playing the xylophone. But by the time they went on, I was leading Emmie backstage to find Carlotta. We eventually found her in the alley smoking with some of the others. I made introductions and Emmie was almost effusive in her praise. It seemed a little out of character.

  Carlotta invited us to an after-show get-together being held at the Vendome Hotel, where many of the performers were staying. I readily agreed, but Emmie drew me aside.

  “I thought we’d be going back to Croteau’s after the show,” she whispered.

  “Then you were under a misapprehension. There is absolutely no way we’re going back there at this time of night. When we were there last, the patrons were relatively few and on their best behavior. At this hour, their numbers will be far greater and they’ll be far drunker. Just getting there would be dangerous. You may not have noticed, but that neighborhood is a little rough and the people who tend to congregate in rough neighborhoods at this time of the evening are not the type who make friends freely.”

  “Are you too frightened to go, Mr. Reese?”

  “Most emphatically yes, Miss McGinnis. And another thing. If we keep walking into that saloon together, the other inhabitants will not assume we’re trying to solve the mystery of your uncle’s disappearance. Their first thought will be that I am a panderer.”

  “Which would make me a—”

  “Let us use the term chippie.”

  “Chippie? I’m not familiar with that term.”

  “Well….”

  “Oh, I get the meaning. I just hadn’t heard it previously. Chippie. I rather like it. If I were a chippie, I would insist on being referred to as such.”

  Her seriousness left me nonplussed. But I quickly recovered. “You are a young lady of discernment, Miss McGinnis.”

  By now the procession had begun toward the Vendome, just a few blocks up Pearl Street. Emmie was still miffed at me for having nixed her plans, so I tried to amuse her along the way by pointing out several chippies—none as well costumed as her. It didn’t work.

  “I suppose I should be heading home, Mr. Reese. I told my mother I’d accompany her on a boat excursion in the morning.”

  “I’ll walk you to the car.” I’d seen Emmie in a bad mood, and it seemed like a good idea to help her on her way.

  We cut over to Main Street to a stop at Lafayette Square. As we waited, a porter stepped out of the Tifft House, just a couple doors up the street, and whistled for a cab. As soon as one stopped, a woman came out carrying a small bag and got in. It was Sadie. The cab turned around and headed down Main Street in a big hurry.

  “I wonder where she’s off to? Did you recognize her, Miss McGinnis?”

  “No, who was it?”

  “Sadie Parker, your uncle’s paramour.”

  “Why don’t we ask at her hotel?”

  “Aren’t you anxious to get home?”

  “No, not honestly. I was just annoyed at you for refusing to go back to Croteau’s.”

  My friend wasn’t manning the Tifft’s desk, so I suggested Emmie make inquiries posing as Miss Parker’s niece. She was dressed more like one of Sadie’s associates from the parlor house, but I didn’t think she could play that part convincingly.

  She went over and spoke with the clerk for a minute or two. Then I followed her discreetly out of the hotel.

  “She’s gone to Rochester. The clerk believes she’s gone to meet my father.”

  “Your father?”

  “My fictional father. You see, as you suggested, I introduced myself as her niece and asked if Miss Parker was in. He said, ‘She’s gone off to Rochester. She received a postcard from her brother and has gone to meet him.’ I thought I had to claim her brother as my father, since I was her niece, after all. So I said, ‘Yes, I just came to tell her papa was in Rochester.’ Though I suppose she could have more than one brother. Or I might have been her sister’s child.”

  “Oh, I think your way made it more credible. No sense cluttering up the imaginary family.”

  “Does this mean Mason must be in Rochester?”

  “Perhaps. Listen, go back inside and ask him as tactfully as possible if he happened to see the contents of the postcard.”

  She did so, and a few minutes later returned.

  “He wasn’t quite as talkative when I put the question to him directly, so I used my charm. It sounds like the card didn’t really mention Rochester. It came in the late mail and when Miss Parker came in just after eleven o’clock he handed it to her. She read it, then immediately asked when the last train to Rochester left. He told her it was the mail train that left Exchange Street at 11:20. She told him to call a cab and then ran upstairs. A few minutes later she came down with her bag and got into the cab. Does it mean anything?”

  “Well,” I said, looking at my watch, “it means I won’t be following her tonight. Besides, the late mail goes all the way to New York. She mentioned Rochester, but she might have been intentionally misleading. Look, here’s your car.”

  “If it’s all the same to you, Mr. Reese, I would like to accept your cousin’s invitation.”

  We walked over and found the vaudevillians in the Vendome’s taproom. Carlotta introduced us to some of the others from the show. Gertie Carlisle was there, but unrecognizable. On the stage, she plays a schoolgirl, with a silly wig of long braids and a rag doll outfit that hides her figure. In the flesh—I’m speaking metaphorically, of course—she was stunningly beautiful. Only in vaudeville would a young actress go to great lengths to hide her looks to help make the laughs come easier. When we were introduced, Gertie asked Emmie if she was on the stage. There were several similar queries in the course of the evening. I wasn’t altogether sure if these were prompted by Emmie’s innate good looks, or her arresting attire. But I could make a pretty good guess.

  Tim Madden, Carlotta’s rather unctuous partner, was there as well. I’d never really liked the fellow, though he was always pleasant enough. What their relationship was off the stage was a bit of a mystery—even to themselves, I think. Uncharacteristically, Madden offered to buy a round and went up to the bar to order. There I saw him speak to another fellow, who then turned and left through a side entrance. It was Jack Whitner.

  “Do you know Jack Whitner?” I asked when he returned.

  “Jack Whitner?”

  “That fellow you were talking with at the bar.”

  “Oh, I never saw him
before. He just asked if we were in the show.”

  Before long the Morton family showed up. From the attention he received, it was clear Sam Morton was the dean of the company. He was a genuinely funny fellow. Carlotta introduced me in a way she always found amusing.

  “Sam, this is my cousin Harry. He’s a Pinkerton, though he always denies it.” Carlotta was having great fun. “Harry, Sam and his friends are forming a sort of vaudeville union. But please be a dear and don’t crack any heads tonight.”

  This was Carlotta’s little joke. I’d met her on the street a year or so earlier in the company of a Pinkerton man I was working on a case with. Since then she referred to me as a Pinkerton whenever she thought it might be embarrassing. Now, the problem with having someone accuse you of being a private detective for an agency that prides itself on discretion is that there is no way to credibly deny it. I would probably never see these people again, so offered only a mild correction.

  “No, not Pinkerton, dear—I’m an insurance investigator. And we only rarely crack heads.” I can’t say it helped, but at least the conversation moved on to other subjects.

  Then Emmie drew me aside.

  “You really are a Pinkerton man, aren’t you? That explains why you’re looking for Robert Mason.”

  “No. I was never a Pinkerton man. And if Carlotta makes the same assertion again, I will feel at liberty to bring up her abbreviated college education.”

  “I’d rather you didn’t do that, Mr. Reese.”

  “Then please don’t mention the damn Pinkertons again.”

  I could tell my vehemence surprised her, but sometimes a man has to stand up for himself. Or at least allow himself to feel that he has. Carlotta came over and asked how we had met. I jumped right in.

  “I knew her brother Tom at school. At least until the unfortunate accident.”

  “What unfortunate accident?” Carlotta asked.