A Charm of Powerful Trouble (A Harry Reese Mystery Book 4) Read online

  “Ernie fell easily for an attractive woman, and she no doubt found it a simple matter to string him along. They were seen out together by at least one witness. But she told Ernie her name was Isabel Twinem.

  “This is where something went wrong. The real Mrs. Twinem had become suspicious of her husband’s frequent trips to New York. She hired private detectives who confirmed he did meet a woman in New York. Then she somehow learned the details of the plan he’d hatched with Mrs. Rhodes. To find out how exactly, we need to make another call on the spirit world….”

  I banged the gong twice, and just as the door began to open set off another flash. Mike Scanlan emerged from the smoky haze.

  26

  Or, more accurately, stumbled from the smoky haze. The flash had gone off just in front of him and it was some time before he regained his sight. During the interim, he serenaded the company with a succession of oaths catalogued during what must have been a colorful life. When at long last he exhausted his repertoire, I suggested he sit down.

  “We were just considering the question of how Mrs. Twinem learned of her husband’s plan for her, Mike.”

  He took out a handkerchief, dunked it in a carafe of water, and gave his face a thorough cleaning.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You don’t? And yet you followed Ernie Joy to Park Row the night Twinem was killed.”

  He shrugged, then smirked at me.

  “You’re not taking a murder charge very seriously, Mike.”

  “Murder? You’re just fishing.”

  He was right, of course. But I did get a nibble from Mrs. Twinem.

  “It’s true!” she shouted. “He shot Cyrus. Then he blackmailed me into keeping it a secret.”

  By now, Emmie had her notebook out and was taking everything down.

  “If he shot your husband, what did he have to blackmail you with?” Tibbitts asked.

  “He threatened to expose Cyrus’s infidelity. It’s all true about the Rhodes woman and him. It would have ruined Cyrus’s chances of getting his manuscript published. And that meant so much to him.”

  The story was ridiculous, and the delivery lacked anything approaching sincerity. Still, you did have to admire her for thinking on her feet. Even if all it achieved was to set Scanlan on his own hind legs.

  “Why, you scheming little….” Tibbitts pushed him back down in his seat and he adopted a more cooperative attitude. “I was following her husband—what she hired us to do. I found out all about the Rhodes woman and filed my report. That was supposed to be the end of it.”

  “But you had found out something more?” I asked.

  “To identify the woman, I had to follow her. So one afternoon, after she left Twinem, I trailed her over to another little rendezvous. This time with that vaudeville clown, Ernie Joy. And she seems just as cozy with him. Then I find out she’s married to this college professor….”

  “And you smelled money?”

  He shrugged. “I lost my job a few days later. I figured I’d learn what I could and offer my services.”

  “You’d refrain from telling her husband about her infidelities for a fee?”

  “Something like that,” he said. “But then I found out things went a lot deeper. I was looking for something in writing, something she couldn’t deny. I got hold of a note she’d left for Twinem at his hotel. It was sort of vague, but I guessed what they had in mind.”

  “To do away with his wife?”

  “Yeah. But there was more to it than that. The Rhodes woman had told Ernie Joy she was Isabel Twinem.”

  “And that put you in a quandary. If you turn them in to the police for conspiracy to murder, there’s no chance for blackmail. So why didn’t you just blackmail the two of them to keep quiet about their plot?”

  “I thought about it. But I found out Twinem didn’t have much of his own—it was all in a trust in his wife’s name.”

  “So you went after the big money and approached Mrs. Twinem?”

  “Yeah. I told her I had something much more interesting on her husband. And that I had enough evidence she could take it to the cops. She liked that a lot.”

  “How much did she pay you?”

  “Plenty. But it was nothing to her.”

  “So you gave her the note you’d intercepted?”

  “Yeah. She said she’d take care of it and I was to forget all about it.”

  “But you didn’t forget about it.”

  “She didn’t do anything with it. Not that I saw, anyways. So I started to wonder what she was up to.”

  “Where was she staying then?”

  “At her mother’s, in New Jersey. But she was coming into town every day. Then, on the last Saturday in August, she joins her husband at the Victoria Hotel. I followed her around, but didn’t see anything of interest until the next Tuesday afternoon, the day after Labor Day. She went around to Proctor’s, on 23rd Street, and waited at the stage door. When Ernie Joy came out, I heard her tell him she was a friend of Isabel’s.”

  “But she was Isabel Twinem.”

  “Yeah, but the Rhodes woman had told him that was her name.”

  “What else did Mrs. Twinem tell him?”

  “There’d been a change of plans. He should register at the Cosmopolitan that evening, just before his show, as Cyrus Twinem and wife. He thought that was a queer idea, but she told him there was a reason for it. Then they walked off too far for me to hear.”

  “But you heard enough to think it worthwhile to keep an eye out at the Cosmopolitan Hotel that evening?”

  “Sure. I found a comfortable place to watch the front and camped out. About ten of eight, Ernie Joy shows up. He goes in and ten minutes later comes out.”

  “That’s when he took the room as Twinem.”

  “Sure. Then a little before nine, Twinem shows up.”

  “Did he have anything with him? Something like a bundle of papers?”

  “Not that I saw. But she did.”

  “She?”

  “His wife. She came about 9:45.”

  “Was she carrying anything besides the bundle?”

  “Not that I saw.”

  “Then Ernie came back to the Cosmopolitan. When was that?”

  “Ten. I didn’t recognize him at first—he was wearing some ridiculous outfit.”

  “A red and yellow plaid jacket. He left the theatre after his act without changing.”

  “That’s right. He went in and two minutes later I hear the shot. Thirty seconds after that, he’s running out from the alley.”

  “He’d come down the fire escape. And you followed?”

  “Sure. He was in on it somehow.”

  “Why’d you give up the chase?”

  “I knew who he was, and where to find him.”

  “And turning him in to the cops would have eliminated any chance of blackmailing him?”

  He shrugged again.

  “So you didn’t know exactly what went on that night upstairs in the Cosmopolitan?”

  “I knew enough to know she’d arranged for her husband to be shot. And probably pulled the trigger.”

  “But it’s all circumstantial. You couldn’t prove it.”

  “I could prove enough to make it unpleasant for her. I wasn’t trying to get her hanged for it.”

  “I suppose the only one who could have told us more was Ernie Joy.”

  “I can tell you more,” Mrs. Rhodes said quietly. “I thought the police would have enough sense to accuse her, but evidently they’re too incompetent.”

  “Let’s say preoccupied,” I said. “You admit you and Twinem plotted to kill his wife?”

  “Yes, there’s no use lying about that now. I left an anonymous note for his wife, saying her husband would be meeting a woman that evening, and that she should go to the Cosmopolitan Hotel and ask for Mustardseed. Meanwhile, Ernie Joy was supposed to check into the Cosmopolitan under that name, and then bring the key to the Victoria and leave it in the name of Mrs. Twi
nem.”

  “But Ernie thought he was meeting you?”

  “Yes, but he knew me as Isabel Twinem. Cy would then ask at the desk of the Victoria for messages at 8:30 and take the one for his wife, the one with the key in it.”

  “How was the shooting to have taken place?”

  “Once his wife arrived, Cy would hold her in the room under some pretext, or at gunpoint, if necessary.”

  “Then Ernie Joy would show up, thinking he was meeting you. Was it part of the plan that he be dressed in his outfit from the act?”

  “Yes, I’d sat through one of his performances and saw it. I told him we’d be pressed for time, that he should come without changing.”

  “He wasn’t suspicious of that?”

  “Not suspicious. I believe he thought it was some sort of fetish of mine.”

  “But it was to make him more conspicuous?”

  “Yes.”

  “When Ernie arrived, Twinem would let him into the room and shoot his wife?”

  “Yes. Of course Ernie would run off, like a scared rabbit. Then when the police arrived, Cy would tell them he’d surprised his wife with another man. The man pulled a gun and in the struggle she was shot. Then the man ran off….”

  “And since he was wearing such a colorful outfit, there’d likely be witnesses who saw him running off.”

  “Yes. We didn’t intend for anything to happen to him. Honestly.”

  “I’m sure. So you had it all worked out. But somehow Mrs. Twinem got wind of it. By intercepting another note?”

  “No. After that first one was lost, we never put anything in writing. She must have listened to a conversation we had out on a ferry.”

  “So then she met with Ernie, telling him she had a message from you. That he was to register as Twinem, not Mustardseed. She also must have given him a sample of Cyrus Twinem’s signature so he could imitate it. That would fit in with her story that she and her husband were at the Cosmopolitan simply to meet a man about his manuscript.”

  “Apparently. And she knew Cy had the gun hidden somewhere. She must have gotten to it first.”

  “Was it your plan to get Ernie to take the gun?”

  “It never occurred to us he’d be that much of a fool. Cy was simply to say he dropped it on leaving.”

  “That’s where Isabel Twinem made her big mistake,” I said.

  “What mistake?” the woman herself asked.

  “To make your own use of the plan formulated by your husband and his lover, you only needed to change three things. First, have Ernie register at the Cosmopolitan as Twinem and wife. That was a simple matter of telling him it was the wish of the woman he hoped to bed. Second, make it appear that your husband was a party to the trip to the Cosmopolitan. That you did by getting his manuscript from the safe at the Victoria. Then you made sure the clerk there saw you leaving with it, and the clerk at the Cosmopolitan saw it when you arrived. And third, you needed to gain control of the gun. I imagine that was the most difficult.”

  “Not so very. When I entered, I could see he was holding the gun in the pocket of his jacket. He told me to sit down, but I showed him what he thought was his precious manuscript. He reached for it, but I tossed it onto the fire escape. I knew he would go after it. As he was climbing out the window, I grabbed the gun from his pocket. He turned around and I shot him.”

  “But it wasn’t the manuscript you had?”

  “No, just blank pages tied up in the same ribbon. After I’d shot him I flung it out into the alley. But what was the mistake you spoke of?”

  “After the shooting, you thought it a clever idea to plant the gun on Joy.”

  “I slipped it into his pocket without him even noticing. He was in such a panic. ‘Run!’ I told him, and he ran.”

  “Yes, but it would have been better for you if he’d been left out of the story. It was your linking him to it, and then the Chinese fellow who shot him, that made it obvious you were lying. If Ernie hadn’t had the gun, he never would have been shot. And it’s unlikely he would ever have mentioned what had happened at the Cosmopolitan that night. Mike was right. You were all too clever by half.”

  Tibbitts called out to his men in the hall. Two fellows came in and gathered up Scanlan, Mrs. Rhodes, and Mrs. Twinem. Then he walked over and seized Emmie’s notebook.

  “What are you doing!” she protested.

  “Thanks. I forgot mine,” he told her.

  She insisted I stop him, and not having finished Molly’s narrative, I would have been happy to do so. But he left with his prisoners before I had a chance.

  “What a show!” Mme. Salami pronounced. “D’you think you could do that on a regular basis?”

  “Absolutely!” Ainslie assured her. “I can have the thing cast by tomorrow afternoon.”

  While they discussed logistics, I led Emmie toward the 34th Street ferry terminal.

  “Where are we going?”

  “We’ve been invited to a Chinese festival out at Bowery Bay.”

  “That’s what all Xiang-Mei’s baking was for?”

  “Yes. Apparently moon cakes are an essential part of the holiday,” I told her. “Sorry about turning in your classmate, Emmie.”

  “Lena? Oh, I despised her. She was the worst sort of snob. Remember I showed you that page devoted to the Ancient Order of Hibernians in my yearbook?”

  “The parody, where the girls gave themselves comical Irish names.”

  “She was part of that crowd. And it was no parody, with those requisite caricatures of inbred Irishmen. It was just another assertion of superiority.” Then her mood lightened. “Will they send her to Sing-Sing? I hope so.”

  “Unlikely, I’m afraid. But maybe a few rough months on Blackwell’s Island.”

  “Well, I suppose that will have to do,” she said. “But I feel bad about Mrs. Twinem.”

  “Emmie, she shot her husband.”

  “Not without good cause. If she were given a true jury of her peers—twelve women—she’d never be convicted.”

  Then she pulled a wallet out of her bag.

  “Whose is that?”

  “Ainslie’s. I took it from him while we were in the closet together.”

  “Things must have gotten intimate.”

  “That was your doing,” she reminded me. “Look, he had seventy dollars.” She deftly slipped it into her own wallet. “And a pawn ticket.”

  “That will be for Aunt Nell’s bracelet.”

  “He pawned her bracelet?”

  “Yes, to free her from the memory of the husband who’d given it to her.”

  “What a snake.”

  “Reptilian, certainly. And not as bright as I might have thought.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “He seems unaware that Charlie is his son. Do you think Nell will tell him?”

  “Oh, yes. In time.”

  It was past eleven when we got to Bowery Bay. There was a full moon, and out on the bay colored lanterns hanging from moored boats reflected across the water.

  Lou was doing a brisk business in crickets, the ladies netting him five dollars each. And the farmers had tables of food laid out, most prominently the moon cakes prepared by Xiang-Mei—the only Chinese woman present.

  About midnight the fireworks started. The show went on for a good hour or two. Then Bowery Bay reverted to its usual nocturnal tranquility.

  27

  We rose pretty late the next morning and were greeted first thing by the parrot, which now had the capacity to vex in three languages.

  A little later Xiang-Mei emerged from the kitchen bearing warmed-over dumplings and unsold moon cakes.

  “Crickets more liked than my cakes!” she announced with mock chagrin.

  Then Nell and Ainslie appeared, followed soon after by the happy couple, whose patois had degenerated into a cloyingly precious amalgam of patter and petting.

  “Mon petit chouCHOU,” Carlotta squealed as she nestled Thibaut in between her “tétons.”

  “M
a féesante!” he mumbled back.

  “Does it have to go on while we’re eating?” Ainslie asked.

  Nell, though looking a little nauseated herself, shushed him.

  Then the parrot chimed in, “Ne mords pas si fort, Har-ree!”

  “Oh! Silly bird! You forget your Chinese!”

  There was a good bit more of the same, but the taste I’ve given you should provide sufficient explanation for why we so readily abandoned our guests. I handed Emmie her jacket and we discreetly made our way out of the apartment. Outside, we encountered Mrs. Harwood, one of our neighbors. She was pacing back and forth in front of the building trying to soothe her baby.

  “I don’t understand,” she told us. “All of a sudden she’s become troublesome. Doctor says it’s too early for teething.”

  “Did it begin about a fortnight ago?” Emmie asked.

  “Yes, and all at once.”

  “I suspect it’s ephemeral and will have run its course by next week.”

  “Oh, I hope you’re right.”

  It was a cool, overcast day, so we hopped on a car to Coney Island and took a quiet walk along the shore.

  Emmie was being uncharacteristically introspective.

  “Well, you got just what you wanted, Emmie. A real murder.”

  “Yes, but I was sure I had solved it as well. Of course, it was hardly fair. You keeping Mike Scanlan a secret until the very end like that.”

  “Whereas you tell me everything?”

  “Everything you need to know, certainly.”

  “Well, cheer up. If it hadn’t been for your setting the whole thing up, three happy couples would never have gotten together. Carlotta would never have met Thibaut, Lou would never have been thrown into Xiang-Mei’s clutches, and Aunt Nell would never have been reunited with Ainslie.”

  “Yes, but it’s hardly the same, is it? I mean it’s just not nearly as exhilarating as solving a murder.”

  “Well, if they follow the course of most marriages, there’s a good chance one of the three will end in a homicide.”

  “What a horrible thing to say, Harry.”

  “I’m offering nine to two it’s Ainslie who’s first to go.”