My Darling Detective

by Howard Norman

  “Put on your coat, Miss English,” Detective Levy says. “Gee, how original of you, hiding under the bed like that.”

  “Who says I was hiding?” Mara English says. “When you get to know me better, you’ll see I always sleep under the bed.”

  Detective Levy delivers Mara English to the police station and then returns to the Devonshire Hotel and to Leah Diamond in their room. The gang is all there, and a celebration is going on. “Hey, what’s all this? My invitation must’ve got lost in the mail or something.”

  “No, darling,” Leah says. “I wanted you to be the first to know. But Trixie Beaumont, sitting on the end of the bed there, went to the doctor’s with me, and then she blabbed her mouth.”

  “Wanted me to be the first to know what?” Detective Levy says.

  “Darling, I need a big smackeroo.” After the sound of Leah and Detective Levy having a loud kiss, she says, “I’m with child!”

  The closing music came on, and Martha said, “How about that? Maybe me and Leah Diamond will deliver on the same day.” She turned off the radio.

  “That’s a very strange thing for you to say,” I said.

  “Not at all. From the first episode, I felt some connection to Leah Diamond. It’s hard to explain. I’m a detective. I work on facts and intuition. With Leah, my whole intuition’s been electrified from the first. And now look, we’re both with child. I love that way of putting it. With child. It’s like we’re already doing everything together, me and little what’s-her-name.”

  “So you’ve decided it’s a girl?”

  “Well, your mother read it in the cards, so to speak.”

  “When did you tell my mother?”

  “A week ago at Arts and Crafts.”

  “Was she pleased?”

  “Very pleased. But my feeling is, she’s still quite angry with you, Jacob. Still hurt you hadn’t visited all those months. But believe me, she’s over the moon about the baby. She can receive telephone calls, you know. Call your mother up. You’ll hear she’s over the moon.”

  Housewarming

  Some days, life felt pretty well organized. My studies were going all right. Martha and I had friends. Detective Levy Detects, much to Martha’s delight, had been renewed for another year on radio, of course in reruns. We had enough money to live on. We could stretch our budget now and then. But other days felt . . . I’m hardly a poet, so how to say it? Like when an orchestra is warming up. All of the disparate sounds—oboe, violin, bassoon, French horn, tympani—you can’t imagine how it will all turn into something beautiful.

  One night in late August, when Martha was asleep and rain fell steadily past the windows, I sat at the kitchen table in her apartment and made a list: 1. Martha is pregnant. 2. My mother is still in the rest hospital. 3. The cold-case investigation trying to locate my real father Robert Emil is in progress—what happens if he’s found, what next there? 4. Library science midprogram exams are in a couple months. 5. I haven’t yet read all of the letters from Rigolet to Nora during the war—why so hesitant? 6. Figure some of this out!

  Martha and I agreed we should wait to be married until after our child was born. “I don’t care at all about convention,” she said. “My parents are gone. I don’t have siblings. My aunts and uncles and cousins, distant as they’ve been, will be happy for me. They’ll want to visit eventually. Nora’s over the moon. So let’s just wait. You’ll have your degree and there will be a lot to celebrate. Usually in detectiving, when too much makes good sense, that’s when we dig deeper. But this all makes sense without having to dig deeper. I think we’re making the right decision, Jacob, don’t you?”

  “Absolutely yes,” I said.

  Martha packed up her apartment and moved into my family house. With help from fellow students in the library science program, and a few policemen and policewomen, this took just two days. Sitting for our first dinner together in the house, Martha looked around and said, “Maybe we can take some of the photographs down. But otherwise, how nice.”

  On September 15, we had a kind of housewarming party. Morty Shaloom, from John W. Doull, and his wife, Maxine, stayed for hours. Michael Duvelle, Marcella Sylphide, and Deborah Chase, all students in the library science program, brought bottles of wine and some records for the turntable. The owner of the Wired Monk, Jennifer Holt, her husband, a wonderful watercolorist named Paul Amundson, the waitresses Bev Elliot and Trudy Page, and the waiter Thomas Finch all showed up. Jinx Faltenbourg and Margaret Plumly from the Halifax Free Library arrived early and stayed late. It was quite a feast, really. There was baked salmon with sesame seeds and dill, several rice salads, curried lamb stew (prepared by Margaret), baguettes, green salads, fruit salads, and Jennifer brought four cakes from the Wired Monk. Mrs. Hamelin and Mrs. Brevittmore brought champagne. (“Not a drop for you, Martha!”) Since our first impromptu movie date, the four of us tended to meet weekly, for a movie, dinner, or just for coffee or tea at the Wired Monk. Mrs. Hamelin and Mrs. Brevittmore loved that café.

  Detective Tides and Detective Hodgdon dropped by. They went with Martha into the small study, where, she told me later, they caught up on the Robert Emil cold case. Then Tides spent the better part of an hour studying the photographs that still lined the living room and dining room walls, though Martha had removed all of the ones from the bedroom and hallways. Holding a glass of wine, he said, “I remember a few years back, the Chronicle-Herald printed the wrong photograph in connection with a murder, took place on Lower Water Street. Remember that, Martha?”

  “How could I forget?” Martha said. “They accidentally—ha!—accidentally put a photograph of the wrong guy on the front page of the Sunday edition. The photograph was of a trade representative of some sort, who was in Hong Kong at the time.”

  “The wife of the actual deceased was incensed,” Tides said. “The wife of the trade representative was incensed. Everybody was incensed.”

  “What brought that case to mind suddenly?” Martha said.

  “Looking at all these photographs,” Tides said. “I was just thinking how nice they are. This one and that one, the lovebirds here, the lovebirds there. Or the close-up there, of that fellow holding a royal flush during a poker game, look how smug and happy he looks, as if it’s the first royal flush in history. But if you were to write the words ‘wanted for homicide’—no offense meant, I’m just talking out loud here. If you printed that under the photograph, you’d assess the guy in a different way. I mean, you could have a photograph of a kid taking communion, but if the caption read ‘Threw rocks from the bridge at a school bus window,’ well, everything changes, doesn’t it? The kid automatically looks guilty.”

  “So glad you can leave work behind when you come to a party,” Martha said, laughing, which made Tides blush and laugh too.

  But, really, everyone seemed to be having a good time.

  Except for Mrs. Hamelin and Mrs. Brevittmore, all the guests left by 11:30. When Martha finally closed the front door, Mrs. Hamelin said, “Shall we get started on the walls, then?” Mrs. Brevittmore nodded in agreement, and they both began to take photographs down in the living room. Neither Martha nor I protested.

  And Mrs. Hamelin and Mrs. Brevittmore set about things with such good cheer. The photographs had become oppressive, and I’d deal with Nora asking about them when the time came. In less than an hour, all the photographs had been taken down from the living room and dining room walls, placed in cardboard boxes, the boxes put in the attic. Afterward we sat at the kitchen table. Mrs. Brevittmore produced a bottle of sherry from her handbag and poured a small glass for herself, a glass for Mrs. Hamelin, and one for me. Mrs. Hamelin raised her glass and said, “Now you can start to put your own memories on the walls.” Mrs. Brevittmore said, “Not that it’s any of your business, Esther.” We clinked glasses, Martha using her water glass, and sat and talked until nearly two o’clock in the morning. We made plans to see The Spy Who Loved Me, a James Bond movie starring Roger Moore. As she put on her coat to leave, Mrs. Ham
elin said, “We’ve brought you a modest little housewarming gift.” Mrs. Brevittmore, already wearing her coat, opened our front hall closet and took out a package. “I didn’t even see you put that in there,” Martha said. “And here I’m supposed to be a detective.” Mrs. Brevittmore handed Martha the package.

  “Now, remember,” Mrs. Hamelin said, “you neither of you have to be a connoisseur to enjoy the subject matter at least.”

  The housewarming gift was a photograph depicting what appeared to be a grimy Victorian alley lit by gaslight, where three men, dressed in black suits with badges on their lapels, looked down at a figure wearing a wedding dress caked in mud. The figure’s face was covered by a white handkerchief—two of the three men had handkerchiefs visible in their breast pockets. The dress and handkerchief almost glowed in the gauzy light.

  We all stood studying the photograph, which was in a simple wooden frame. “This photograph is titled Through a Detective’s Eyes,” Mrs. Hamelin said. “There’s a story to it, Martha, that we thought would please you, and whose ironies and paradoxes would not only balance out the grim subject matter but also speak to the daily unpredictability of your chosen profession, which, by the way, Mrs. Brevittmore and I admire, and are more than a little mesmerized by, we admit. We read Agatha Christie aloud to each other.”

  “Never not by the fireplace,” Mrs. Brevittmore said.

  “Let’s sit down again, please, and you can tell us about the picture,” Martha said. She rubbed her hands together like an excited child. “This really tops off the housewarming, if you ask me.”

  We sat in the living room on the sofa and chairs and Mrs. Brevittmore started right in.

  “Well, then, you can tell from the title that the men standing in the fog are all in detective work. The photograph was taken by Albert Mayer-Price in 1919. You may remember, Jacob, in my library, the photograph Misanthrope Reading Newspaper?”

  “Yes, of course I remember it.”

  “That too was taken by Albert Mayer-Price. You see, Price was one of the first to contrive photographic set pieces. Like a scene on a theatrical stage or in early cinema.”

  “Oh, you mean this isn’t an actual dead woman?” Martha said. Suddenly everyone laughed, because Martha had sounded so disappointed. “Do you mean the detectives and the woman are like actors?”

  “Precisely,” Mrs. Hamelin said. “Albert Mayer-Price hired people, or asked friends or acquaintances to pose. And that is what you see here.”

  “But that is hardly the whole story, is it?” Mrs. Brevittmore said.

  “Not in the least,” Mrs. Hamelin said. “You see, this photograph refers, if you will, to an actual incident. Quite ghastly, really. What happened was this. A young man named Brennan Map married a young woman named Ellen Lassitor. Both were twenty-eight and had all of a bowl of soup between them. They knew they could only manage a justice-of-the-peace wedding. But Ellen had always dreamed of wearing a real wedding dress. So Brennan stole one for her. Oh, yes, it’s starkest poverty and desperate romance all jammed up, isn’t it? It’s all tabloid fodder. Not to mention the very worst way for newlyweds to begin a life together. But he’d do anything for her, and she’d let him. This Brennan broke into a wedding shop near Savile Row, slipped a dress right off a mannequin, for goodness’ sake.”

  “Maybe practicing for his wedding night,” Mrs. Brevittmore said.

  “Anyway,” Mrs. Hamelin said, “the mannequin’s a detail you don’t forget.”

  “I won’t forget it,” Martha said.

  “Now, it’s at this point that Brennan makes his fatal choice,” Mrs. Hamelin went on. “Already he’s broken into and entered the wedding shop, but you could imagine a judge being lenient if, say, he’d returned the dress, just boxed it up and sent it through the post, none’s the harm. Yet the night proved more complicated. You see, Brennan looks around the shop and sees all manner of shoes and—how to say it without blushing—let’s just call it nightwear.”

  “Silk stuff that would make a doubter bend in prayer, so to speak,” Mrs. Brevittmore said.

  “No doubt kept nearly under lock and key, given the era,” Mrs. Hamelin said. “And so our Brennan fairly ransacks the place, loading up with nightgowns and such. Oh, my. But now he’s filled a number of boxes, so how does he carry it all? It’s a good fifty blocks to his shabby rooming house. So what does our genius do? He puts on the wedding dress. Lord as my witness, he puts on the wedding dress.

  “A young man with his pedigree knows how to navigate exclusively by alleys to his destination. So he starts down the alleys, and when he’s twenty or so blocks from home, fate steps from the shadows. Three pub crawlers stop him and probably say, ‘Oy, oy, what’s this, then?’—​thinking to have their way with the fleeing bride. ‘Just having some good fun,’ as they later told the police. There was a four-column newspaper article on the murder. They all three eventually confessed.”

  Martha was astonished by this story, sad and gruesome as it was. “Well, I’m glad this photograph’s not a wedding gift,” she said. “For obvious reasons.”

  Much laughter.

  “No, that hardly would’ve been appropriate,” Mrs. Hamelin said. More laughter. “We’ll be on our way now.”

  When Mrs. Brevittmore and Mrs. Hamelin left, Martha said, “Tomorrow, let’s caulk all these nail holes, Jake. Then let’s agree on the color for some new paint.”

  My Life in Library Science

  Late in the afternoon of October 15, 1978, weeks into my third semester, I had a consultation with Dr. Margolin. I was hoping to be recommended for a yearlong paid internship after graduation.

  “I see in your application that your first choice is the Halifax Free Library,” Dr. Margolin said. “This potentially could be a problem, seeing as you may wish to be more independent of your mother’s . . . legacy.”

  “By legacy, you mean her mentally falling from grace? Because if you don’t mean that, what could you mean? Because, as the chief librarian all those years, she had an impeccable reputation, so I’d be very pleased to be the opposite of independent of that.”

  “Sorry. Point well taken. I will write a letter recommending you for your first choice. Let me know how it works out.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome, Jacob. I studied your academic record this morning and must commend you for all sorts of improvements. You’re not at the top of your class, yet your last two essays were more than competent. Your greatest strength at this point, as I see it, is your ability to write with such a personal tone. I would almost say poetic. Well, not quite. This can hardly be a surprise, seeing as you were actually born in a library. I’d say you have quite the personal connection to libraries.”

  I didn’t detect any irony in what she said, so left it alone.

  In the Waiting Room

  Martha and I were sitting in Dr. Carol Horn’s waiting room, at her office at 201 Argyle Street, paging through magazines. Martha was there to have a routine examination. She looked up from her magazine and said, “I should tell you, darling, that Detective Tides has been tracing Robert Emil’s pension, and guess what? Over the years his pension checks have been sent to no less than twenty-three addresses. All in Halifax. The man’s been living like a ball in a pinball machine as far as addresses go.”

  “Not ‘like father, like son,’ because I’ve had only two addresses, counting my shabby apartment on Bennet Street for a short time. Boy oh boy, do I have a lot of catching up to do with my father.”

  “Lame attempt to be funny.”

  “I’d rather die than skip out on you, Martha. You know that.”

  “I couldn’t imagine anything stupider, considering you’re committed to marrying a detective. I’d track you down and not kiss you for a month, let alone anything in bed. I’d hide the bed.”

  “What’s the most recent address for him? Isn’t that where Tides and Hodgdon would go and break down the door?”

  Martha reached into her handbag and took out a piece of p
aper on which were listed all twenty-three of the addresses at which Robert Emil had received pension checks, followed by the dates of residency at each place. “Last known address was Fifty-five Plover, apartment six.”

  “Can he be living on just his pension?”

  “Have you been on Mars? Lots of people do.”

  “Twenty-three places . . . ”

  Martha decided to list them off, almost to believe it herself. “Some of the pension checks were never cashed—that’s something. It means he knew the risk of being traced. Maybe it means that, maybe it doesn’t. Anyway, there’s One-fifteen Acadia Street, there’s Five Fawson, there’s Twenty-six Harvey Street, there’s One-eighteen Lucknow, there’s Sixteen Brenton Street, there’s Twenty-eight Sackville, there’s Sixty Bell Road, there’s . . . ” But then Martha’s name was called by the nurse assistant, who told me Dr. Horn would summon me when the examination was finished, and we’d talk things over.

  On the walk home, Martha said, “Dr. Horn said she’s got a beautiful crib that her granddaughter used, and would like us to have it. She said to come by her house tomorrow after four, if possible, and pick it up. She’s only two blocks from the house, Jake. We could carry it right on down the street.”

  “Everything sounds fine,” I said, “with the baby.”

  “Do you want to know, boy or girl?” Martha said. “The doctor knows, but I didn’t want to ask until I asked if you did.”

  “I’m of fifteen different minds about it. But fourteen say I want to know.”

  “I’m calling right now, then.”

  Martha walked into a pharmacy and went to the phone booth in the back. I was looking at her through the glass door as she dialed. After saying a few words, she was clearly put on hold. Then she closed her eyes and listened. Then she had a very wide grin. She said something and hung up, slid open the door, and said, “My mother’s name was Elizabeth, yours is Nora. How about Nora Elizabeth Crauchet Rigolet?”