by Fedora Amis
“Not go. Have more better Engrrish if go.”
“What do you think of the fair? You must have seen a great many. How does this one measure up?”
“Some bad. Some good.”
“What parts were bad?”
“Monster cake walk bum.”
“Why was it . . . ?” Jemmy couldn’t bring herself to say “bum”—not in front of Hal.
“Cake walk no good dance. Good dance have two do same turn same time. Cakewalk man and woman not same turn. I show.” Kyoto threw out her chest, stuck out her chin, and rolled back one shoulder. While holding the brim of an imaginary hat, she made high kicks right and left, then a high hop into a spin that ended in a jaunty stroll.
“Partner not dance same. See.” Kyoto tucked her chin to her chest, pulled her shoulders in, and made the same movements. But this time, she kept her gestures tiny and refined. Instead of kicking three feet high, her feet rose just three inches.
Jemmy couldn’t squelch her laughter over the comical show. “Well, ladies have been taught not to show their ankles, much less their legs.”
“Bad dance. Bad singer, too. Kyoto not rrike.”
“What do you like about the fair?”
“Most pretty. Fairy magic. And the rradies. Such fine dresses. Must have much dorrar.”
“Yes, the ladies are wearing their most expensive finery.”
“Kyoto work hard. Get fine Engrrish gown.”
“Wouldn’t you rather wear a kimono? The one you threw on the ground has beautiful embroidery.”
Kyoto kicked at the sky-blue silk. “Kimono much bad. Must take tiny step. Engrrish gown free feet. Take big step. Much good. Much free.”
Jemmy thought an American gown was about as free as a straitjacket, and she had personal knowledge of both. Of course, Kyoto weighed no more than a medium-sized wet dog. Surely she didn’t wear a corset, so perhaps she did feel free.
“The Chinese garments I’ve seen look free—like pajamas.”
“Chinese cheap. No buy American. Kyoto not cheap. Kyoto star. Kyoto buy American gown.”
“Yes, I can see why you’re a star acrobat. You entertain and amaze.”
“I show good trick. Kyoto put tairr on own head. You watch.” Kyoto tucked her head down and stood on her forearms. She curled her body backwards in a big letter C. Her ballet shoes touched her hair. She slipped her legs forward still more until her behind rested on her head.
Hal took a picture. Jemmy applauded. “That’s the most astounding feat of flexibility I’ve ever seen.”
Kyoto’s feet found the floor. She gracefully finished a somersault to end up in a bow. “Kyoto thank.”
Kyoto posed for one final picture, then bowed again. “You put Kyoto picture in paper. Make boss damn happy. ’Scuse bad word, prrease.”
As Kyoto shrugged into her kimono and left with one more bow, Jemmy handed her article on the Jewish fair to Hal. “Take this to Hamm. He can run it with a picture of President Lesser.”
“The pictures of Kyoto would be more interesting.”
“I’ll write a separate feature for Kyoto. Hamm can use her story later.”
“If I go back to the Illuminator, what will you do?”
“I’m going to see someone about a story I’ve been working on.”
“Then I have to go with you.”
“I don’t need you to watch over me. I’m paying a visit on an old classmate.”
Hal perked up. “Are you going to see Miss Patterson?”
“Stop drooling. You’ll ruin your photography plates. I’m not visiting Sassy Patterson. I’m paying a call on concert pianist Pervia Benigas. What she lacks in beauty, she makes up for in moodiness and talent.”
“I’m supposed to go with you. Do I have to keep reminding you that I’m your bodyguard?”
“You’d be in the way. Honestly, how could Pervia and I have a private, personal conversation with you twiddling your thumbs in the hall?”
“Well then, if you promise not to get into trouble, I guess I should go back to the paper.”
“If you don’t go back now, you may miss the deadline.”
Jemmy hadn’t exactly lied to Hal. She did plan to visit Pervia Benigas—but not right away. A short streetcar ride whisked her to the hotel home of Mabel Dewoskin, the evil witch of elixirs.
To avoid the greasy desk clerk, Jemmy traipsed back to the alley behind the seedy establishment. What she saw there made her duck behind a trash barrel. Fortunately, the man turned the other way as he hoofed it toward the street.
Although she caught only a glimpse of his face, Jemmy knew for certain the man was John Folck of the big hands and feet. He even wore the same highly polished brown spectator shoes that seemed out of place on his loose-jointed frame. Sassy’s shoe-clerk beau tucked a bottle of something in his pocket as he raced off.
Jemmy wondered whether Folck had been to see Mabel. The item he stuck in his pocket was the right size to be Mabel’s cordial. Perhaps he bought paregoric for himself, or for Sassy. She filed the scene in the back of her memory.
The kitchen door opened to her touch. She eased into the dimly lit room with the intention of surprising Mabel. Instead, Mabel surprised her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Friday Afternoon, November 25, 1898
Jemmy tripped over an obstacle and had to fight to keep her balance. She would have sprawled on the kitchen floor if her hands hadn’t found the top of the iron stove. Luckily the fire had burned out long ago.
When she looked down at the blockage on the floor, she froze.
Wearing a Snow Queen boot, very like her own, was a leg. The leg probably belonged to Mabel Dewoskin, though the fancy new boots and royal-blue wool skirt didn’t seem at all Mabel-like.
The rest of a woman’s body lay hidden under the stove. Cautiously, Jemmy pulled the cord on the electric light and bent down under the place where Mabel cooked her tonics. Shadows obscured the place between the curved feet of the huge iron stove. She still couldn’t see the woman’s face.
There was only one way to know for certain. Bad ear roaring with the blood pulsing through her temples, Jemmy grabbed the leg to pull the woman out from under the stove. One good tug did the trick. A key ring with a dozen or more keys rattled free of the woman’s clenched fingers.
Jemmy recognized the mortal remains of Mabel’s scraggly, gray, corn-shuck doll face—now mottled with purple.
Oddly enough, Mabel dressed better in death than she had in life. Her pale-mauve silk blouse and wool suit cut in the latest fashion bespoke an honest business woman. Her scraggly, gray hair had been tamed into a sedate bun. She looked as though she knew she was about to die and wanted to leave this world looking her best.
Not until after she’d studied the body for several minutes did Jemmy remember one crucial fact—police didn’t like people to meddle in crime scenes. Still, Jemmy wasn’t sorry she’d dragged Mabel’s corpse into the light.
Around the woman’s neck a noose of thin wire cut into Mabel’s flesh. Purple bruising bloomed around the wire. Apparently she’d been strangled. Clotting blood on her neck where she’d clawed at the wire revealed the violence of her death. One fingernail hung, torn and bloody, as testament to her desperate fight to breathe.
An overwhelming outhouse odor struck Jemmy’s nostrils. Heaping humiliation on horror, Mabel had shat herself. Jemmy sat looking at the body for five minutes, then ten. Thoughts raced through her head so fast, she couldn’t catch one to examine it.
Should she find a policeman? If I tell the authorities, I’ll have to stay here until they say I can leave. What would happen to my plan to see Pervia Benigas and find out what she knows?
Should she sneak out? What if someone sees me? I could be accused of killing this woman.
Something rough and wet tickled her fingers. All on its own, her hand must have been stroking Mabel’s ugly cat. She jerked back in shock and disgust to discover it licking her hand. The calico jumped away and hid under the stove. Then
Jemmy’s heart went out to the poor homely beast.
At least the cat had brought her back to reality and set her brain to functioning.
One thing became clear. She couldn’t stay in the kitchen staring at Mabel Dewoskin’s corpse. Any minute someone might walk in to find her standing over a dead woman. How am I going to explain to Mother what her eldest daughter was doing in the kitchen of a paregoric maker—a dead paregoric maker?
At length, Jemmy calmed her fluttering nerves enough to do what she had to do. She used Mabel’s keys to unlock a cabinet door. She read the labels aloud, “Aconite, Adder venom, Arsenic. Belladonna. Poisons. The cabinet is filled with poisons.”
She relocked the cabinet and dropped the keys before she marched out to the lobby. “I believe you have a telephone. Please summon the police. Mabel Dewoskin has been murdered.”
The greasy-haired clerk raced back to the kitchen, then reappeared in the lobby.
His face paled, and his chest heaved. He collapsed in a chair with a whomp that sent dust particles floating in the air. He put his head in his hands while he moaned, “Bad for business, bad for business.”
She had to make the telephone call herself. As she stood on tiptoe to speak into the wooden box, she became aware of movement under her skirt. An involuntary shriek sent her feet upward, but there was nothing to jump upon.
What emerged from her skirt was not a mouse, but Mabel’s cat. It raced behind a big vase filled with umbrellas. She apologized for the outburst. “Your cat scared me.”
“It ain’t my cat.”
“The hotel cat, I mean.”
“The hotel has no cat.”
“Was it Mabel’s cat then?”
“Unlikely. We have a ‘no pet’ policy.” He bestirred himself from his chair, grabbed the cat, and flung it out the front door. “I don’t need no cat to take care of. My own responsibilities are quite enough for what I’m paid.”
Before long a clanging police wagon arrived with several men, including the coroner. Dr. Wangermeier glared at Jemmy. He didn’t so much as speak her name or make any sign he knew her—just walked straight back to the kitchen.
The desk clerk and several policemen accompanied him. One stayed in the lobby and took out his notebook to interview her. She recognized him from the Bertillon system lecture at police headquarters. He was the same young lieutenant who’d shown her the weapons case.
His first question was, “Did you kill Mabel Dewoskin?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Friday Afternoon, November 25, 1898
“Me? Kill Mabel Dewoskin? You have no right to accuse me!” Jemmy dug her nails into her palms to keep from screaming at the thought.
“Please don’t be insulted. I’m not accusing, merely asking. It’s a question I have to put to you.” Lt. Sorley O’Rourke thumbed the pages of his notebook and poised his pencil.
“You don’t really think I murdered her, do you? Would I have called the police? Would I still be hanging around this hotel to answer your outrageous questions?”
“I apologize, Miss McBustle. By thunder, the last thing I want to do is upset you. We can postpone our talk if you’d like.”
Jemmy sighed. “Go on. Ask your questions. I have no desire to stay here one minute more than I have to.”
He jotted answers to question after question. “When did you arrive?”
“About one o’clock.”
“How did you enter the kitchen?”
“I came in through the alley.”
“Why didn’t you use the main entrance?”
“The last time I was here, the desk clerk wanted a bribe. I was trying to avoid him.”
“What brought you to this hotel today?”
“I wanted to talk to Mabel Dewoskin.”
“What about?”
“I wanted to get the names of her cordial clients.”
“For what purpose?”
“I am a journalist. I was working on a news story.”
“I understand the lady makes elixirs. Making cordials is not illegal—or proper news either. Why did you want the names?”
“I thought knowing Mabel’s customers might help me find the killer of Quisenberry Sproat.”
“What connection does Mabel Dewoskin have with Sproat?”
“I believe he was a customer, or that he bought paregoric for his mother. I saw one of Mabel’s bottles at his home. That’s why I came here in the first place.” Jemmy conveniently forgot Mabel’s letter demanding that Sproat pay up.
“Were you a friend of Sproat?”
“No. I never met him.”
“Then why were you at his home?”
“I saw him die. I went backstage with the coroner. Frank James took us. When the police arrested Mr. James, I didn’t think he could have killed Sproat. So, I started an investigation of my own.”
“Why don’t you believe Frank James is guilty?”
“For one thing, the timing was wrong. Sproat died early in the play. Frank James takes tickets out front. Sproat was backstage. I don’t see how the two men could have been anywhere near each other. Besides, Mr. James was completely polite and helpful—just a man doing his job.”
“You could be describing a cold-blooded killer.”
“My feminine intuition tells me otherwise.”
“By thunder, meddling in police affairs could be dangerous.”
“Not to mention frustrating. I seem to be going around in circles.”
“Can you shed any light on Sproat’s death?”
“No. I don’t believe I’ve discovered anything important.”
“Not even by reading Frank James’s letter?”
“The letter is in the vault at Boatmen’s Bank—unread.”
The lieutenant shut his notebook. “I hope you’re being truthful. Police don’t take kindly to amateur sleuths. By thunder, you could be placing yourself in a killer’s gun sights.” He rose to leave—after writing down her address.
“I might have one more bit of information.”
“What’s that?”
“The name of the person I saw leaving down the alley behind the hotel just before I found Mabel’s body.”
The lieutenant re-opened his book. “I’m waiting.”
“I saw John Folck leave. Folck is a shoe salesman at Barr’s Department Store.”
“What is your acquaintance with Folck?”
“I interviewed him for a story on winter shoes.” Jemmy started to add that Folck was a friend of a friend named Sassy Patterson, but reconsidered.
“What did this Folck person do in the alley?”
“Put something—I couldn’t tell what—in his pocket and walked toward the street.”
“Did he appear sneaky?”
“No—just in a hurry.”
“Is there anything else you recall?”
Jemmy considered a few seconds before she spoke. “No. I believe that’s everything. Are we finished?”
“I have just one more question. Would you do me the honor of accompanying me to the confetti battle tomorrow evening at the Hebrew fair?”
Jemmy blinked twice. “Are you asking to escort me on behalf of the police?”
The lieutenant grinned. “Not at all. I’m asking on behalf of yours truly, Sorley O’Rourke.”
“Isn’t it illegal for you to consort with suspects in a murder case?”
“Illegal? No, I don’t think so. Besides, I don’t consider you a suspect. You’re a witness.”
“Perhaps it’s not illegal, but isn’t it immoral for police to consort with witnesses in a murder case?”
“Last Sunday I let you get away without even knowing my name. By thunder, I’ve been kicking myself ever since. So, may I call for you at eight?”
“I am already engaged for the Confetti War.”
Jemmy had to look at O’Rourke with new eyes. He’d turned into a prospective suitor. The lieutenant was quite good looking, in a black Irish sort of way. He was tall, at least five feet ten inches tall, and w
ell-muscled. Glossy, black curls crowned his head. Jemmy looked at them in envy. She could have such curls only by sleeping on rag curlers.
He smelled of horses and leather. Jemmy found the scent manly and agreeable.
O’Rourke had one feature even more striking than his hair. His steely-gray eyes probably caused people to confess when he grilled them. They carried the menace of lead shot.
Then, too, something she couldn’t quite identify bespoke intimidation. Lieutenant O’Rourke scared her. Jemmy decided to keep him at arm’s length, the way she would carry a slops bucket on the verge of overflowing.
Jemmy couldn’t leave for the Benigas home until after three. At the trolley stop, she jotted notes until something tickled her leg. Movement under her skirt made her jump back. Mabel’s scruffy cat sneezed. It stood on the board sidewalk with its long, white eyebrows quivering.
Jemmy flicked an arm towards the creature. “Shoo. Scat. Go away.”
The cat seemed to think the words were an invitation. It trotted under Jemmy’s skirt. Jemmy hopped back.
The cat blinked its eyes and trotted toward Jemmy’s skirt again. “Oh, no, you don’t.” Jemmy scooped up the cat and slipped the animal into her satchel. “Don’t you make a mess in my handbag.”
At the Benigas home, the maid answered her knock and invited her in from the cold. “Miss Pervia and her mother have already left for her concert in Cincinnati. Would you like to speak to Mr. Benigas?”
“When did Pervia leave?”
“I don’t recall, but I do know her train was scheduled to depart at 4:02.”
“Thank you. Perhaps I can still catch her.”
As Jemmy raced to the nearest trolley stop, she calculated the minutes. Yes, she should be able to get to Union Station by four. She could tell Pervia that the big bare knuckles fight would be held at Uhrig’s Cave at midnight. Why would Pervia want to know if she had already planned to be out of town? Well, she’d ask Pervia if she had time.
Jemmy ran the last block down Market Street to Union Station. Breathless, she searched the departures board. She raced to track eleven as the last customers boarded the eastbound 4:02. Pervia was not among them.
