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

  “We didn’t see them that well. They rushed off when they realized we were looking their way.” Then she added, “Tonawanda is just across the river from Canada, Harry.”

  “Yes, and the Steinway factory is just a half mile from the farm. If they’re smuggling Chinamen, it would be a convenient way of getting them into New York.”

  “What should we do now?”

  “I’m not sure. I guess head up the river and intercept them.”

  Back at the apartment, I took out a map and determined the mid-point on the Hudson between New York and Albany.

  “If we wait in Poughkeepsie, the tow should pass early tomorrow morning,” I told Aunt Nell. “All we have to do is take a train up there and hire a boat.”

  “That sounds simple enough.”

  And, of course, it did sound simple. But sounding simple and being simple are two entirely different things. That maxim was handily brought home over the course of the next few days, when a series of seemingly reasonable decisions led to a series of unanticipated, even bizarre, results. And all in the absence of Emmie.

  We caught a two o’clock train and were in Poughkeepsie by four. After checking into a nearby hotel, we went down to the riverfront and discovered the first kink in our plan. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to hire a boat in Poughkeepsie, but it’s a lot harder than you might imagine. To get a boat of any size, you need to make arrangements well in advance.

  “Couldn’t we just row a boat out in the river and wait?” Aunt Nell asked.

  “The river’s pretty wide here, and that’s a serious current.”

  “All we need to do is take up position, then when we see the tow, drift down to it.”

  She said we, but of course I’d be the one at the oars. We found a fellow willing to rent us a dinghy, and then went back to the hotel for dinner.

  7

  It probably won’t come as much of a surprise that choosing a hotel based solely on its proximity to a working waterfront necessitates a willingness to accept certain shortfalls in other areas. Still, the degree to which the Troy House exploited this willingness seemed excessive. Small rooms don’t bother me, and I can live with an occasional lukewarm bath. But I do expect the food on my plate to at least be identifiable. When we had both given up on our meal of shoe leather and vegetable mush, I found a newspaper with a tide chart and suggested we take a bottle of wine up to Aunt Nell’s room to refine our plan. In retrospect, it might have been better to forgo the libation.

  “If it takes the tow two days to go from New York to Albany,” I told her, “it should reach Poughkeepsie on the morning of the second day. So to be safe, we need to get out on the river fairly early, say about six. And we’ll need to bring our bags—we have to be ready to board the canal boat if given the chance. Now all I need to do is calculate what the tide and current will be.”

  While I was doing this, sitting on Aunt Nell’s bed with the map spread out beside me, she was looking herself over in the mirror.

  “Harry, do you think I’m a good-looking woman?”

  “What’s that?”

  “I asked if you thought I was good-looking.”

  “Why, yes. You’re a very handsome woman, Aunt Nell.”

  “Would you mind calling me plain Nell? Aunt Nell sounds so matronly.”

  “No, not at all.”

  Then she went back to the mirror and I went back to the calculating. The wine did much to help us forget the unpleasant meal and the bottle was soon drained.

  “We’re in luck,” I announced. “The tide will be going out.”

  “Are there tides on a river?”

  “Oh, yes. Rivers like the Hudson. It’s a tidal estuary. Between low tide and high tide, the current goes upstream.”

  “How is it upstream then?”

  “Well, I suppose you could say upstream’s become downstream, and downstream’s become upstream.”

  “What about the fish?”

  “Which fish?”

  “There must be fish in the river. How do they know where they’re going with the water going one way and then another?”

  “I don’t think they’re too concerned about where exactly they’re going.”

  I’d already come to the conclusion that Emmie had inherited her reasoning abilities from her mother’s side and I took this as confirmation.

  “What I want to know, Harry, is: do you find me attractive?”

  She had come over, shoved the map onto the floor, and sat beside me on the bed. Now she was looking me in the eye and waiting for an answer. I just sort of stammered for a minute or so. Partly because she was my wife’s aunt, and partly because we were alone in her hotel room sitting on the bed together. But primarily because I did find her attractive. Very attractive. On the train up, Ben Franklin’s advice about the advantages of taking an older woman as a lover had come to mind. And as I remembered it, he made some pretty persuasive arguments. I’m not sure why I’m confiding this to you—it has nothing to do with the mystery per se. But I suppose it might offer some help in interpreting Aunt Nell’s actions a few days later.

  I still hadn’t answered her, but I must have been blushing.

  “Did I embarrass you, Harry?”

  “Well….”

  “That’s all right. I’ll take it as a compliment.”

  I arranged to have an early breakfast sent up, said good night, and went off to take a cold bath.

  At five, I gave a soft knock on the door that connected our rooms. Though only partially dressed, she let me in and then invited the waiter in when he came with our breakfast. He gave me a wink, apparently assuming impropriety. Aunt Nell caught sight of this and came over and embraced me as he was leaving.

  “It’s so nice to be suspected of something, isn’t it, Harry?”

  Frankly, I couldn’t see the advantage over having gotten away with something and not being suspected. But I imagine I’ll always be a babe in the woods where these things are concerned.

  We checked out and were out on the river according to schedule. My calculations had been correct—there was a fairly swift current going downstream. All we needed to do was drift down until we sighted the steamboat Captain Shandy, then board the tow behind it. There were tugs and other boats traveling about, but the river was a half mile wide so it was a simple matter to stay out of their way. While I maneuvered the boat into the center of the river, Aunt Nell scanned the horizon with the field glasses I’d thought to bring.

  “What about salmon?” she asked.

  “What particularly about them?”

  “Well, to them it matters whether they’re going upstream or not. Say the tide’s coming in and downstream becomes upstream. Why don’t they swim back into the ocean?”

  I puzzled over that for a bit, but finally came up with an answer that seemed to satisfy her. “Oh, strictly speaking they aren’t swimming upstream. They’re swimming uphill. Upstream may become downstream, but uphill is still uphill.”

  We’d been on the water for more than two hours, and even though we were mainly just drifting, maintaining station was taking a toll on my arms. I was looking back, most of the time, and had noticed a canoe maneuvering in much the same way. I was about to mention it when Aunt Nell announced she saw a paddle wheeler approaching.

  “Is there a tow behind it?”

  “What’s a tow look like?”

  “A bunch of barges and canal boats tied together.”

  “I see something like that, but it looks very far behind it.”

  Ten minutes later, we were within a hundred yards of the steamboat.

  “It’s the Captain Toby Shandy!” she announced.

  I turned around and could see the tow 500 feet behind the steamboat. The trick was going to be to stay out of the wake of the paddle wheeler, but close enough to get to the tow when we got even with it. I began rowing in earnest, and as I did, I noticed the canoe doing likewise. It was coming closer. I asked Aunt Nell to look it over with the glasses.

  “The t
wo Chinamen!”

  “What two Chinamen?”

  “Remember, I told you I’d seen them when we left the canal boat at the refinery. They must have followed us.”

  She handed me the glasses. It sounded a little fantastic to think these fellows had followed us from Brooklyn. But you just don’t see a lot of Chinamen in canoes out in the middle of the Hudson.

  “Highbinders, no doubt,” she said. “They can be very violent. The Bradys have an awful time with them.”

  “Why would highbinders be after us?”

  “Well, Mr. Yuan had inserted himself in a tong war. The tongs are ruthless. At least according to the Bradys.”

  The steamboat had passed us and it was time to approach the tow. I eased us in position and it seemed a simple matter now. Then I noticed the Celestials coming up fast on our inside, as if to keep us away from the tow.

  It was then that they made a crucial error, misjudging the wake of the Captain Shandy. They started to tip. One of them leaned hard to compensate, but his timing was off. A moment later they capsized.

  “We need to help them, Harry.”

  “I thought they were ruthless highbinders,” I reminded her.

  “Ruthless or not, we can’t just watch them drown.”

  “The canoe will float—all they need to do is hang onto it.”

  “They don’t even see it.”

  She was right. They were in the sort of panic people go into just before they go down for the third time. I turned about and we pulled the two of them aboard. They collapsed, panting, giving the impression their ruthlessness was in abeyance.

  By this time the tow had passed. I tried to catch up to it, but the tide was now headed against us and my arms were like jelly.

  “Look, Harry! The Sophie Arnould.”

  “Do you see Emmie?”

  “Not on deck. There’s a boy there. But no one else. What do we do now, Harry?”

  “Look for a promising place to drift ashore, unless we can convince our friends to take a turn at the oars.”

  There wasn’t much chance of that. For the remainder of the voyage Aunt Nell and the senior of the Chinese fellows interrogated each other. She would ask him a question in very slow, deliberate English, then he would respond in a rush of Chinese. Things hadn’t progressed beyond that when I spotted a dock on the west bank. There we abandoned the dinghy—I made a mental note to avoid the Poughkeepsie waterfront for the foreseeable future—and approached one of the houses nearby. We learned we were somewhere below Milton and above Marlborough, two towns I’d never heard of. We headed north on foot with the two Chinamen following about a hundred feet behind us.

  “Should we turn them in to the police?” Aunt Nell asked.

  “For capsizing a canoe?”

  “They must be following us for a reason, Harry.”

  “That may well be. But can you imagine me going up to some country police chief and explaining about how my wife came to be on a canal boat with a Chinese fugitive aboard, all because of a shooting at Jimmy Yuan’s faux Chinatown?”

  “The Bradys never have a problem convincing the authorities. But I do see your point. What will we do now?”

  “What we should have done in the first place. Go to Albany and the entrance to the canal. Sooner or later the Sophie Arnould has to pass through there. And it will be a lot easier to catch her negotiating a lock.”

  By the time we reached Milton we’d lost sight of the Chinamen. After buying tickets for the two o’clock train to Albany, we had lunch at the small hotel.

  “I wonder why Lou Ling would seek refuge on the canal boat?” I asked rhetorically.

  “Well, remember Emmie told me that Captain Stanton smuggled Chinamen in her boat.”

  “But is she taking this fellow back to Canada? Seems a lot to go through for an accidental shooting. And how is it that Emmie knew this captain smuggled Chinamen?”

  “She didn’t say, but seemed very sure of it.”

  “Kind of ironic.”

  “How is it ironic?”

  “Canals hold an odd attraction for Emmie. You remember what I told you about her theory in regard to her late uncle and your husband?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, after that we were in Glens Falls and a body turned up in a canal there. Then Emmie solved a case over in England that involved a body in a canal.”

  “Emmie was in England?”

  “Only by reputation—the solving of the mystery occurred via correspondence. Then, later that spring, I had an insurance case that included a woman being poisoned and thrown into a canal.”

  “How odd.”

  “Yes. And now Emmie’s come to expect a body in a canal as her due. When we were in Washington last December, she almost dispatched a fellow who was drowning in a lock.”

  “What had he done to her?”

  “Well, his chief offense was that he wasn’t dead enough. But then they exchanged words. Unfriendly words.”

  “I’m beginning to realize I don’t know Emmie very well at all.”

  “Does anyone?”

  “I would have imagined you did.”

  “I would have imagined so, too.”

  We headed over to the depot and joined a small throng waiting for the train. I saw no sign of the Chinamen, but made sure we were the last to board. Just as it started moving, I saw them come out of some bushes at the far end of the train and climb aboard. When we’d sat down, I told Aunt Nell.

  “Oh, highbinders are tenacious, Harry.”

  “Are they?”

  “Yes. We’ll have to shake them in Albany somehow.”

  “It might be they aren’t following us, but are just trying to reach the same objective.”

  “To take their revenge on Lou Ling?”

  “Revenge for what exactly?”

  “Interfering with the tong’s tourist trade.”

  “I think they’d take that up with Jimmy Yuan.”

  “Or perhaps they’re after Emmie.”

  “Emmie? Why would a tong spend any time thinking about Emmie?”

  “The Oriental mind is very devious, Harry.”

  “Not unlike her own.”

  “Aren’t you at all concerned for her?”

  “Probably more than she is, but it doesn’t pay to worry too much about Emmie.”

  “You’ve really become blasé about the poor girl, Harry.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t call it blasé.”

  “I would. You’re never the least bit jealous. And now she’s being held hostage on a canal boat, chased by ruthless highbinders, and you act as if she just stepped out for a walk in the park.”

  “Held hostage?”

  “Well, whenever the Bradys come across a white woman, she’s almost always being held hostage.”

  “I see. You don’t think you might be able to interest your cook in something a little nearer reality? Maybe Dickens would afford an easy transition.”

  “Don’t try to change the subject. We’re talking about your attitude toward Emmie.”

  “Well, I’ll make an effort to exhibit more concern.”

  “Genuine concern, Harry.”

  I told her I would, but judging from her expression I think she doubted my sincerity.

  We reached Albany a little after four and checked into the Ten Eyck Hotel. Then we set forth to find the entrance to the canal. Of course everyone knows the Erie Canal begins at the Hudson in Albany. But not many people know exactly where. Even in Albany.

  Eventually we located the entrance about a mile north of the city proper. There was a little point that projected into the river and we found our way to the tip. Here one could see both the river traffic and the approach to the canal.

  “We’ll need to come out even earlier tomorrow morning,” I said. “We should get back to the hotel for dinner.”

  We’d just been served when I noticed two men being seated nearby. One was the White Rat who’d advocated dispatching me back at Erbe’s casino. He was in his late forties, with dar
k hair and a lean physique. His face was an ordinary one, but he made lively use of his mouth and eyes. I described him to Aunt Nell, whose back was to them, and she suggested we listen in. Most of the conversation was spent griping about life on the road, cheating agents, lazy stagehands, and actresses who guarded their virtue too assiduously. But as dessert arrived, their talk turned to something more interesting.

  “I need you to take over my turn tomorrow night, Fred,” the rodent said.

  “What’s up?”

  “I know where the woman behind Ernie’s killing is. I’m going up there right after the matinee.”

  “Up where?”

  Just then a woman at the next table did a convincing imitation of a hyena and neither of us heard the reply. We sat through the rest of their meal, but they returned to more mundane subjects. Then they left the room.

  “Who could they mean but Emmie?” Aunt Nell asked. “She arranged the shooting.”

  Not wanting to exhibit any lack of proper concern, I conceded it was a possibility.

  8

  By four-thirty the next morning, we’d made our way to the little peninsula we’d scouted out the day before. It was nothing more than a vacant lot with a wide assortment of weeds poking through the gravelly soil. But off near the point, I spotted a pile of rubble from a collapsed shed. I fashioned a little bench out of some miscellaneous boards and we sat down and took turns scanning the river with the field glasses. The sun hadn’t risen, but it was light enough to make out all the tugs and barges.

  It was a cool, damp morning and Aunt Nell had nestled pretty close beside me. I heard her teeth chatter, so I gave her my jacket and put my arm around her. Then she laid her head on my shoulder and moved in even closer.

  When a fellow finds himself like that, with an attractive woman pressed up beside him, her hand warming itself on his thigh…. Well, by then I wasn’t feeling any chill, and I sensed that things were about to take on a life of their own.

  I hopped up and built a little fire, hoping to obviate any pretext for intimacy. But as soon as I’d gotten it going, she coaxed me back on the bench and we were right back where we started.

  I hopped up again, stoked the fire, and, before temptation made its presence felt, suggested I go see if I could procure some breakfast, as we’d gone out before the hotel kitchen had opened.